It's Sunday evening puzzle party time again!
On tap tonight: a brand-new JulieCrostic, a brand-new Crypto-Gremlin -- and the still unsolved Spoonerism puzzle from two weeks ago.
The theme for this month's puzzles has been books you haven't read.
Last week's JulieCrostic featured two books by John Grisham (Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer and Theodore Boone: The Abduction).
The Spoonerism puzzle also spotlighted a book I bet you haven't read (by an author I bet you have). Since that puzzle is still unsolved, I'll reveal that author's name tonight.
But first, tonight's JulieCrostic. This one also spotlights a book I'll bet you haven't read yet. But you should! It's by an author many of you will be familiar with (either from his books or from the movie adaptations of these) and it's a delightful book. (And, at slightly over 100 pages, it's one you can read and enjoy quickly and still have time to catch up on the latest Daily Kos diaries.) Here are your clues; happy puzzling!
NOTE: for anyone who is unfamiliar with JulieCrostics and how they work, you can find a complete explanation in last night's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up.
1. spreads and smooths concrete
2. woodwinds
3. unable to hold anything more
4. fritz, for example
5. where controversial carey concert took place
6. "This clue is like Hitler!"
7. buffy's mister
8. lions and tigers...
9. cartilage
10. kind of rider
11. water holder
12. may follow follow
13. kind of instrument
14. American supporters?
15. chris brown, ike turner, sean connery and mel gibson
16. one who believes jesus was not the same as god (but was raised up by god)
17. fantasy realm
18. hoffman, 25 years ago
19. worries
20. cesar chavez or alice paul
21. most blond
22. speaks like beck
23. turns away
24. moves
25. main top was square head
26. famous male bitch
27. descriptive of a rush
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Next puzzle! This is a Crypto-Gremlin -- a special kind of cryptogram which cannot be solved by the online programs that run through every possible letter substitution, but which can be solved by creative reasoning. If you're not familiar with Crypto-Gremlins you can find a complete explanation of how they work at the bottom of last night's warm-up diary.
"Is ash kewl oubia-oueba-nlma-noeml-gbhfgolbcu?" ol nucwlie.
"gsgsfhmch?" We phlcclil.
"We fudlis molds jebcms," cueiu Rbsjlccsbl Cmlph.
Helpful Hints:
1. Go to the American Cryptogram Association site and copy the text of the Crypto-Gremlin into the box of the handy letter-substitution tool they provide.
2. A good starting point in solving Crypto-Gremlins is to make a list of all the final letters of the encrypted words. This gives you a list of the vowels.
3. Another good starting point is to look over the encrypted text to see if there are any 3-letter words. If there's a word with the pattern consonant-consonant-vowel there's a good chance it's THE; if there's a word with the pattern vowel-vowel-vowel it's almost certainly YOU.
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Lastly, here is the Spoonerism puzzle which went unsolved last week and the week before.
What I've done is taken familiar phrases, Spoonerized them, and then written out paraphrases of what the new Spoonerized phrases say.
Seven of the Spoonerized answers are 2-word phrases; the remaining answer is a 5-word phrase. I've included the number of words in the answer in parentheses at the end of each clue. The first number given is the number of words in the original phrase; second number is the number of words in the Spoonerized phrase. (And as a small bit of additional help, the original for 3-a is hyphenated word.)
As you can see, the clues are grouped into three sets. The answers in each set are related. Furthermore, all three sets are related.
When you correctly solve all the sets, you should come up with a phrase. It's the title of a book by an author I'm pretty sure you'll all be familiar with, but I suspect most of you have never read (or, likely, heard of) this book before.
Since this puzzle has gone unsolved for two weeks, I'll give you an additional bit of help by telling you that the author is Kurt Vonnegut.
1-a. poem about a bread roll (2; 2)
1-b. avoid Leo (1; 2)
2-a: Tea Party strength (1; 2)
2-b: manure scattered around (1; 2)
2-c: inscriber of an ancient alphabet letter (1; 2)
BONUS! Here's an alternative clue for 2-c: Barry Windsor-Smith, Robert Rankin, or ISIS Productions
3-a: put away automobile (1; 2)
3-b: find proof that the actor playing Klinger is deliberately delaying things (5; 5)
3-c: illegally walked away with The Tonight Show host (2; 2)
Helpful hint: JoeXM has
a couple of comments in last week's diary which you might want to look at.
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All right, that's it for this week! Have fun, and I hope to see you in comments.