Space Filler
by Charlie Graham
Answer: 🏝️
This is a “paint the town” puzzle consisting of a list of clues.
Each of the clues consist of 2 components:
- A town or city in Massachusetts
- A word or phrase that is directly related to specifically one color (either before or after the phrase)
As an example, “Do something about parcels of land” refers to “Acton Acres” which would refer to the city “Acton” and “Green Acres”.
The clues are sorted first by color word. Also, if you group by each color, all of the cities and color words are both in alphabetical order.
To solve the puzzle, you need to identify all of the city/towns and color names, identify which color (all were either “blue”, “yellow”, “brown” or “green”) is most commonly associated with the word or phrase and then color (i.e. fill in) those cities on a Massachusetts City map.
Clue | City | Color Word | Color |
---|---|---|---|
Do something about parcels of land (5 5) | Acton | Acres | Green |
A Jens Roth Film (6 6) | Berlin | Angels | Blue |
Missile created from an easter entree that spent too long in a wood fire (10 5) | Ashburnham | Arrow | Green |
The gut or midsection of an Alabama rival (6 5) | Auburn | Belly | Yellow |
Type of French hat worn by retired CIA assassin played by Mickey Rourke (5 5) | Ashby | Beret | Green |
Caulfield's nose showed this after his fight with Stradlater (6 5) | Holden | Blood | Blue |
Attach a blocked artery to someone (7 5 4) | Grafton | Brick Road | Yellow |
Bravo follower who heats up a lot of water to 100°c (8 7) | Boylston | Charlie | Brown |
2000 pounds of a fermentable dairy product is a relative of a key ingredient in another fermentable product (9 6) | Hopkinton | Cheese | Blue |
A crustacean that sounds like a star Chicago Cubs pitcher (9 4) | Leicester | Crab | Blue |
Annual holiday to celebrate the people who mow your lawn and trim your plants (7 3) | Gardner | Day | Green |
Culinary dish: hearty breakfast topped with a browned crust, using breadcrumbs, grated cheese, and butter (6 4 3 3) | Groton | Eggs And Ham | Green |
A large series of books that can answer pretty much any question about the 42nd president (7 12) | Clinton | Encyclopedia | Brown |
The excitement or frenzy from covering up a factory in dirt (8 5) | Millbury | Fever | Yellow |
Outerwear created in the Bronx (12 7) | Northborough | Jackets | Yellow |
Leno and Cutler as spokespeople for a brand of cigarettes (11 4) | Marlborough | Jays | Blue |
Battling Jack cooks the top half of the uniform of a right-winger and Golden Knight until it bubbles? (4 8 6) | West Boylston | Jersey | Yellow |
Portable light that weighs a new measurement which is definitely less than 2000 pounds (9 7) | Littleton | Lantern | Green |
Formal rules for handling tricks and contracts created by a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal (11 4) | Northbridge | Laws | Blue |
Show your naked rear end to someone while wearing a button-down dress shirt (6 4) | Oxford | Moon | Blue |
The front end (containing machine guns) of the most successful British bomber in World War II (9 4) | Lancaster | Nose | Brown |
How The Big Maple would introduce himself if he became a Manhattan cop (6 4) | Paxton | Nypd | Blue |
This West Wing and Parks and Recreation actor is definitely going to celebrate (6 5) | Lowell | Party | Green |
A lasting cessation of war from the marriage between a crescent shaped figure and an American Sports broadcaster (9 5) | Lunenburg | Peace | Green |
Paw impression left by an American gopher after it went to Mexico? (12 5) | Southborough | Blue | |
A contained space with walls that is home to a Temple (7 4) | Shirley | Room | Green |
Protective piece of silver (8 6) | Sterling | Shield | Blue |
Arm coverings in the style of the main actor in The Meteor Man (8 7) | Townsend | Sleeves | Green |
Batman actor temporarily takes a rock (11 5) | Westborough | Stone | Yellow |
A submersible named after a fermented condiment with all references to Middle Earth removed (9 9) | Worcester | Submarine | Yellow |
Captain Iijima's donkey-like first digit (12 5) | Tyngsborough | Thumb | Green |
Taste or liking of a famous bank robber with a law named after him (6 5) | Sutton | Tooth | Blue |
You can get your bachelors here to be a mortician for mole-like mammals (10 10) | Shrewsbury | University | Brown |
Heavy spending casino player after winning a lot of hands (5 5) | Upton | Whale | Blue |
You then need the aha to “paint the towns” and color the cities (or fill their spaces, a la the title) on a Massachusetts city map with the
appropriate color. Once you color onto a map, you’ll see it looks like 🏝️, the
desert island emoji, which is the
answer:
The flavortext and title subtly nudge you to fill in the towns on a map with the appropriate colors. Early test-solvers kept using Google Map markers on the centers of the cities. If you did not love that answer, keep in mind it was actually pretty hard to find a way to clue people without giving away any of the ahas!