Welcome to Sunday Puzzle, featuring puzzles seasoned with politics, artistic and literary references, cultural references, and the odd bit of humor.
It's Independence Day weekend, and you know what that means: watermelon, patriotic speeches, patriotic music, and fireworks. The gremlins probably didn't include any watermelon in tonight's diary (they're not inclined to share food) but I think they were going to try to include the other things.
On tap tonight: a new JulieCrostic, a new Crypto-Gremlin, and a repost of last week's Crypto-Gremlin (which, despite being very easy, went unsolved).
First, though, the DKU notes on last week's puzzle.
The answer to last week's puzzle was Stand With Wendy, to commemorate the anniversary of Wendy Davis' 11-hour filibuster last year of Texas' abysmal abortion law. Stand with Wendy is also the slogan Davis is using in her campaign for governor.
Greta van Susteren and other on the right have tried to paint "Stand With Wendy" as a dig at Davis' opponent Gregg Abbott (who uses a wheelchair). But as Media Matters points out, that's contrary to the facts:
Fox News host Greta Van Susteren suggested that "Stand With Wendy" -- a campaign slogan affiliated with state senator Wendy Davis' (D-TX) gubernatorial campaign in Texas -- was "code" language being used to ridicule her disabled opponent, Greg Abbott (R-TX). Van Susteren all but ignored the origins of the slogan, which was popularized after Davis' now-famous filibuster in the Texas legislature weeks before her opponent entered the race.
On the January 27 edition of Fox News' On The Record, Van Susteren invited gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott to talk about the race against Davis. During the segment Van Susteren expressed concern that "websites associated with" the Davis campaign were employing language about standing with Wendy in order to mock Abbott, who has used a wheelchair since he was partially paralyzed by a falling tree many years ago...
"Stand with Wendy" existed before Abbott announced his candidacy on July 14, 2013. The slogan became popular in June 2013 after Davis engaged in a filibuster against a bill that would place draconian restrictionson women's health clinics in Texas -- an effort that received national news coverage. NPR noted that standing was central to the Davis' 11 hour filibuster due to "quirky" rules prohibiting the leaning on a desk or the use of a chair during the filibuster...
If you'd like to donate to the Davis campaign, here's
a link to her ActBlue page.
More DKU notes on last week's puzzles, and this week's puzzles, right below the orange whatsit...
Here are quick notes on some of last week's puzzle clues.
1. publisher of Archie comics
The answer was
SPIRE.
No, Spire isn't the regular publisher of Archie; they're a company which published Christian propaganda comics in the 1970s and obtained permission from Archie Comics to use the Archie characters in comics they created. In their version, Betty was a dedicated evangelist who constantly tried to share her faith in Jesus with her friends.
7. Anthony or Morgan
I was sure the answer to this would be
Stark. As everyone knows,
Morgan Stark is the evil cousin of Anthony "Tony" Stark (aka Iron Man).
But the gremlins were being sneaky: the actual answer was PIERS, referring to prolific fantasy novelist Piers Anthony and to tv host Piers Morgan.
14. pulp vigilante
While not as well-known as The Shadow and Doc Savage,
The Spider was a very popular pulp character in the '30 and '40s and his adventures have appeared regularly in reprints (from a variety of publishers) since the '60s. They are currently being reprinted (in double-novel volumes) by Sanctum Books.
19. well-known Jonathan
The answer was ALTER:
Jonathan Alter is an American journalist, best-selling author and television producer who was a columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine from 1983 until 2011, and has written three New York Times best-selling books about American presidents. He is a contributing correspondent to NBC News, where since 1996 he has appeared on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC. Alter was one of the first magazine or newspaper reporters to appear on MSNBC. When the shows were on the air, he could often be heard on Imus in the Morning and The Al Franken Show on Air America Radio.
All right, on to tonight's puzzles. First up, the
JulieCrostic. If you're familiar with
JulieCrostics, jump right in! Or, if you're new to Sunday Puzzle, you can find a complete explanation of how
JulieCrostics work (and an example of a solved puzzle) in
last night's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up.
As usual it's wise to beware of mischief from the Sunday Puzzle gremlins, who love to alter the capitalization, punctuation, and occasionally even the word spacing of clues -- and who bundle the clues into tidy little groups of 3 regardless of how many answers there actually are in the rows.
1. alarm
2. what a 29 does, over time
3. Harold Antonia
4. war: hold a line well
5. refers to
6. annoyances
7. complications
8. writer of minority report
9. invents
10. crystal bond equation
11. garnished with tomatoes, olives, and onions
12. choice
13. what McCain wanted to do in 2007
14. thin boiled meals
15. spend a lot
16. MacNelly's trip
17. city in Oz
18. annoyance
19. electric fencing material
20. kind of window
21. Wagner Busiek
22. dump garbage
23. slapped George Bush
24. tedious tasks
25. kind of basket
26. enfold
27. I see after this; do you?
28. comes through safely
29. prickly alligator
30. / / /
31. less plentiful
32. unneutered male cats
33. obedient respectful cats
Next, here's a brand-new
Crypto-Gremlin.
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 Crypto-Gremlins 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.)
The bolded text is a quotation; the unbolded text identifies the author.
Stop and ktutei Cthnagr likap jigy mdorcd and Krbhcdggd arwip, vtad jryewi brat figgy. Vtad jryewi fcrmimep bdudcr lizd vtad ar and oerrcd orcy mi urad.
~ Srnby Edjtgd
And lastly, here's a re-post of the unsolved
Crypto-Gremlin from last week. As with tonight's puzzle, bolded text is a quote and the unbolded text gives the source.
Ca’ts bring esnl irdo hygns nyo Domrxzapger Mgdnl dogzzl ingevio ksdr wgel tsdo bsnyodg nygel nozzaeuo Csxgtg es mgevr nozzaeuo usrdr cshea psdmsdgno iaenodoinio loir. Nygn’is esnl trpyo yskr cg mzgnksdtr.
~ Codapca Codapcisel
(This really is very easy to solve, so if you have trouble solving this week's new puzzle you might enjoy starting with this one first.)