Where is Cher, When You Really Need Her?
Happy March, puzzlers!
Here in California, March is coming in like a lion. Here, where a half-inch of rain will stop traffic, well, let's just say, we are at at least an inch.
And, oh yeah. There is something else going on right now. A wee bash where limo drivers make their rent for the year.
But we puzzlers are having a party, too.
The first Sunday of every month is our potluck. That means everyone is a puzzlemaster. Create or find a puzzle of any type and kosmail it to me, or post it in the comments, and I'll post it on our puzzle potluck table!
Below the orange puzzle piece, we have a Juliecrostic from Villanova Rhodes (Yay!), and one from me, too. Always prolific Nova has sent a crypto-gremlin. Even the gremlins came through with a one-off puzzle!
Grab a plate and help yourself!
Today, I was forwarded this article by Clancy Sigal about the history of the Oscars. I did not know that the Motion Picture Academy was created as a union-buster by the Koch brother of the day Louis B. Mayer.
The Academy’s history is bloody, battered and bestrewn with labor struggles, corrupt practices, bribery, extortion, Mafia-style hit jobs and failed last-ditch efforts by its executives to break the fledgling actors, writers and other guilds.
Who knew? I just thought it was the one day a year I was guaranteed to see George Clooney in a tux. Will I be watching? Oh yeah. Clooney. Tux.
Villanova Rhodes' "Julie for the Occasion" puzzle:
1. Likeable Oscar role
2. Baloo's necessities
3. Broadway Danny Rose
4. Film critic's bum steer (or HR?)
5. Penn actor for Obama
6. Sullivan's traveler
7. Rude description of '67 best actress role
8. Pickford first winning Pickford's first
9. One for famous kitty lover and Gentleman's Agreement nominee
10. Half of Hanks Best Actor nomination vehicle
11. 2007 winner of “10 degrees hotter” award; sadly, no Oscar
12. Oscar winner Dennis to Seven's Taylor
13. If it worked, Haley wouldn't have bothered to attend 2000 Oscars
14. Elmer in Daffy's house - or is it the other way around?
15. Possessive for animated Elliott
16. Perennial front-row Oscar candidate
Here's mine.
1 gull
2 certain hair stylists
3 legally disciplined
4 indicated
5 New Zealand from Spain
6 labelled
7 regards
8
9 cancelled
10 grumped
11 rewards
12 easy outs
13 part of a Romney hashtag
14 a beach in Mokuleia, Oahu
15 immigration reform to teabaggers
16 allowance
17 what Usain Bolt did
18 Hillary Clinton
19 old, with Johnson
20 classic locomotives
21 Koch brothers' enemies
Here's a potluck contribution from me: a new Crypto-Gremlin. This is a quote from a book I recently read, but I've omitted the source -- so as a small bonus puzzle you can try to identify the source once you've decoded the quote.
Interlude omby soludim Pl qeu'st am, Cl'ffm qoeudt sot iyhktqsz sm omg qesiy revt ulqt. Sotz'vt qyst weuay imbsl weuay sotz jtmg. Zmy'vt nvmhehfz gmuatvlude gotvt Pl'jm dmlude glsot soliz. Pl amu'st vteffz rumg jzitfbe.
NOTE: Crypto-gremlins are a special kind of cryptogram -- ones which can't be solved by online programs which run through and test out every possible letter substitution, but which can be solved by reasoning and creative thinking. If you're not familiar with this kind of puzzle you can find a detailed explanation of how they work
here. (And you can find a handy tool to help you with letter substitutions
here.)
And here's a potluck contribution from the Sunday Puzzle gremlins, who insisted on contributing one of their own after they saw mine. Their title for this puzzle is "Equal Time".
What they've done is taken familiar phrases and altered one letter in each. Then they wrote paraphrases of the altered phrases, avoiding the use of any word which appeared in either the original or altered phrase.
The number in parentheses following each entry is the number of words in the altered phrase. Where the number of words in the altered phrase differs from the number of words in the original phrase, the second number is the number of words in the original.)
As an aid in solving, the entries are listed in alphabetical order of the original phrases. (I asked the gremlins if they knew the alphabet well enough to get that right, and they assured me they did. Let's hope they're less error-prone than I am!)
1. lad with personal medical attendant (5)
2. Ford truck contains collie (5)
3. married bitch (3)
4. believer in government by the people who lives in a cloud of profanity (3)
5. canine-equine footwear (4)
6. mutt moist all morning (3; 4)
7. behave altruistically (2)
8. avoided judgment (3)
9. plant on which kibble grows (2; 3)
10. compete in the manner of Grant Stevens with King Ho (5)
11. electrified point (2)
12. Kay who lives with lad, lady, and Einstein (3)