Sunday Puzzle is a weekly party, featuring puzzles suitable for group puzzle-solving. Everyone is welcome, and you don't need to be a puzzle genius to take part.
What you'll find tonight:
* a new 45-clue JulieCrostic;
* a new logic puzzle;
* a new mystery puzzle;
* several slightly off musical interludes; and
* the answers to two of last week's unsolved puzzles.
All that, plus the weekly "Where's Vagina?" challenge. Each week the word vagina appears somewhere in one of the clues or one of the answers to the week's puzzles. Where is the vanishing act vagina hiding this week?
So come on down, introduce yourself if you'd like, take a look at the puzzles, and have some Sunday night fun.
Here's a nice short Mystery Puzzle to start things off:
XCIKOC
As usual with these mystery puzzles, I'm not going to tell you what kind of puzzle this is. But I will give you a hint to it's solution:
HINT: Elizabeth Akers Allen wrote a famous poem which begins:
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
That's 13 more words than you need to solve this puzzle.
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Musical Interlude # 1
Hey, I've got an idea: why don't I put on a little good music in the background while you folks work on today's puzzles? Here's a classic song I'm sure most of you will recognize and enjoy:
On occasions that people reading this behave cautiously, having a sense of tininess --
On occasions that the visual organs of people reading this contain Bartletts --
My intention is to sample every one of them.
My location is atop a backyard recreational device which belongs to you.
Hey, on occasions that unspeaking folks behave violently
Plus you're unable to tie up people you like
Similar to an icebox atop disturbed liquid
Self-deprecation is my intention.
(5, 6, 5, 4
5, 6, 6, 5)
Oh. Some of you are looking a little puzzled. Sorry; I'm not that good at singing, and I guess my rendition was a little off...
But just by one letter per line.
For those of you who don't know what's going on, this is a One-Off puzzle. What I do in these is change one letter in each line (either adding a letter, subtracting a letter, or substituting a letter), and then I paraphrase the altered line (without using any of the words which appear in the original version of the line).
If you need help identifying the song so that you can sing along, I've provided in parentheses the numbers of words in each line. (NOTE: I count contractions such as can't or I've as one word.)
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Answers to unsolved puzzles, part 1:
Last week's mystery puzzle was:
Very last abbreviated ancient city home often precedes this news agency = a spymaster for Romney's type of enterprise. (7, 10)
As I strongly hinted last week, this is a cryptic crossword clue. The answer is a two word phrase; its first word has 7 letters and its second word has 10 letters.
Here's how the clue breaks down: Romney's type of enterprise is the straightforward definition of the answer, and Very last abbreviated ancient city home often precedes this news agency = a spymaster.
very => V
last, abbreviated => ULT (an abbreviation of ultimate)
ancient city => UR
home often precedes this => EC (as in home ec)
news agency => AP ITAL (AP, a new agency, in italics)
= a spymaster => IS M (reference to Ian Fleming's M)
Put 'em all together, you get: vulture capitalism.
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Musical Interlude # 2:
Cold season lacks precipitation
contained by twelfth month which is intense as well as clammy.
No one participates in improvised music session with me.
Looking first at the woman with whom I was married before I died, then at roads at a lower level
Atop burial cloth made from boogers which just now descended soundlessly,
My identity is one dress;
My action is crashing into Cuba
...
Additionally, one dress is impervious to unpleasant sensation;
Moreover, Cuba is always wet
(3, 6, 3, 8, 6, 4, 4
...
6, 5)
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Answers to unsolved puzzles, part 2:
Last week's Crypto-Gremlin went unsolved. That's too bad, as it related to the JulieCrostic answer ("Alpha Girl Volume One"). Here's the cipher again, along with step-by-step help in solving it.
Yikes ikllsong yisos pk eicham hkes bgnusecbns bgulkor ukbbcasoekzzr bhskesnc pk lishgugos eikes ehkondghung eis dsukzs lglmzkecgoc fcoeg ukom wskecotr ugoneshng? Xsoeshk eis yghzam tgdc Dkzlik Tchzg, wkoam dgzzgy Xmaceis Usrshng fgok ishk vmsnem eg nmhfcfs wkoam hsnbms ishk zceezs jhgeishc dhgus eis fktcoklgbkzrlns.
1. When trying to solve Crypto-Gremlins a good starting step is to look for 3-letter words, since there is a good chance one of them will be THE.
The 3-letter word EIS appears 3 times in the text. So let's try E=T, I=H, S=E.
2. The first word of the message, YIKES, now looks like this: .h.te. So it is probably what or that -- and it can't be that, since T is already taken. Try Y=W, K=A.
3-a. A couple of things jump out. Let's start with ZCEEZS, which now reads ..tt.e. The way the word ends means that Z is almost certainly L -- and since Z appears at the start of the word as well, the word itself must be little. Plug in Z=L, C=I.
3-b. The other thing which jumps out is the pattern of the first 4 words of the message: YIKES IKLLSONG YISOS PK now reads What ha..e... whe.e .a. While it's theoretically possible that L could be M for hammers or T for hatters, the high probability is that the message starts out: "What happens when a ..." Plug in L=P, O=N, N=S.
4. UKBBCASOEKZZR now looks like .a..i.entall. . It's instantly obvious that R must be Y, and almost as quickly obvious that the whole word must be accidentally. Plug in B=C, A=D, R=Y.
5. And now the whole thing decodes as fast as you can type in substitutions. EICHAM HKES becomes third rate; BGULKOR becomes company; etc.
Here's the complete translation:
What happens when a third rate cosmetics company accidentally creates a pheromone that transforms the female population into man-eating monsters? Enter the world of Alpha Girl, and follow Judith Meyers on her quest to survive and rescue her little brother from the vaginapocalypse.
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Musical Interlude # 3:
Black gelatin dessert, with which I've been on good terms for a long time
My traveling to this location is so we can pin things up together once more.
The reason for doing this: something that can be seen, which is making quiet bird sounds,
Departed from the thing's small buildings during the time of my nap
Moreover, I mentally perceived this sight as diagonal.
Accidentally drop what's left
Inside heap which makes no noise
(5, 7, 5, 7, 9, 2, 5)
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Logic Puzzle:
I think I may be in the wrong line of work, Barbara Gordon thought to herself. She had gotten into the Cluemaster's hideout easily enough, but getting out was going to be a lot harder.
There was only one door and it was locked -- and rigged to explode if force were used to open it. On the door was a computer screen and a keypad, and the only safe way to open the door was read the puzzle presented on the screen and press the correct answer key.
The puzzle seemed straightforward enough. You were presented with one or more words, each missing a letter. You had to guess what the missing letter was. For instance, If the screen showed
?anic
?uppy
then all you needed to do was type P and the door would open.
But if the screen showed
?anic
?atter
then the correct answer might be either M or P and if you guessed wrong the door would stay locked.
Increasing the chance of getting out alive: (a) only common English words would be considered, no proper names and nothing too obscure or exotic; (b) if you guessed wrong, a new set of words would come up 15 seconds later and you could try again.
Decreasing the change of getting out alive (a) each time you guessed wrong you received an electric shock of increasing intensity; (b) a timer was counting down, and at the end of 15 minutes the room would explode; (c) each letter could only be the correct answer once, whether you guessed correctly or not, and when all 26 letters had been used the machine would stop offering puzzles since there would be no possible solution.
The first screen showed:
?OLD
?RIED
Barbara pressed the C key and received a shock.
The second screen showed
?ORD
?ART
Barbara typed W and got a stronger shock
The third screen showed simply
?ANCER
Barbara guessed L and got an even stronger shock.
The fourth screen showed
?RESS
?ROP
?RIED
Barbara touched the P key and received a really strong shock. She didn't think she'd be able to survive the next one...
To be continued in the JulieCrostic!
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Musical Interlude # 4:
Is your intention visiting the magical creature of a Portland suburb?
Seasonings plus poetry.
Find a prevaricator at that location and tell them what you recall of my personality
That female used to fit perfectly on my hand.
(6, 5, 7, 8)
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And now, what you've been waiting for: tonight's JulieCrostic.
If you're not familiar with JulieCrostics, you can find complete instructions on how they work, as well as introductory puzzles and examples of solved puzzles, in Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up.
But be warned:
1. Sunday Puzzle clues tend to be a bit more devious than Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up clues.
2. For the Warm-Up diaries I usually tell you how many rows there are and how many answers there are per row; for these, you need to figure that out for yourselves. (I group the clues into tidy bundles of 3 for these diaries; but that doesn't mean there are 3 answers per row, it simply means that I like bunching clues in groups of 3.)
3. I can't afford capital letters for the Sunday Puzzle clues, so you'll need to provide your own capitalization.
1. [continued from logic puzzle]
The next screen came up. What it showed was
?RANK
What should Barbara do?
2. new or green
3. equivalence
4. brand of milk products
5. playing field for a sport
6. places of incarceration
7. hex wing
8. hot blues-rock group and commercial charlie
9. provokes
10. might be candy
11. achieve
12. medium specialty
13. an explosive place to find major crimes
14. hair products
15. corrupts
16. undesirable type of work
17. horse in well-known tv series 1949 - 1957
18. basie rugen
19. parker
20. access
21. guard
22. bo x
23. person recently canonized
24. strings
25. kind of paper
26. limbaugh, hannity and beck
27. could be 24 -- but this is somethings that's never been done before!
28. cut
29. cover
30. large meal laid out on a table
31. anchorage
32. figure of speech
33. when this is in motion it's beautiful to watch
34. well-qualified (but, sadly, rejected) jewish african-american justice department nominee, to her friends
35. ill-qualifed (but, happily, rejected) political candidate
36. presidential birthplace
37. mo. van eyck
38. don bosch
39. excursions
40. libertine
41. damage
42. honeydew assistant
43. not up
44. grass unit
45. moved slowly
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Don't go away yet! Here's one more song (sung by the same people as the previous musical interludes) to finish the diary off with.
Musical Interlude # 5
Galahad says nothing;
Galahad is a saint.
The autumn months lack storms;
The autumn months are marked by lots of full sunshine.
Plump person who has had sex,
Parent, assist your offspring!
Put your arms around the baby
Nutritious bean is easy to chew, plus has bland flavor
Divine calm surrounds you as you use broom.
Divine calm surrounds you as you use broom.
1-a: 2
1-b: 2
2-a: 3
2-b: 3
3-a: 3
3-b: 3
4-a: 2
4-b: 4
5: 4
6: 4
4-b: