Do you like puzzles?
Do you like a little light socializing on a Saturday evening?
Do you like pictures of adorable kitties?
Sorry, no kitty pictures tonight. :(
But we do have puzzles and socializing on tap.
Sunday Puzzle Warm-up is a companion to the regular Sunday Puzzle series. Every Sunday evening we have a puzzle party featuring puzzles suitable for group solving. If you haven't attended one of these parties yet, here's your invitation!
And on Saturday evenings (i.e. tonight) we have a warm-up party. The aim is to introduce people to the kind of puzzles featured in the weekly Sunday Puzzle party and to provide introductory-level puzzles for folks to practice on. You'll find tonight's warm-up puzzle right below the orange squiggle...
Here you go -- the clues for tonight's puzzle.
(If you're not familiar with how these puzzles work, don't panic! An explanation, and an example of a solved puzzle, are provided directly below tonight's puzzle.)
1. in a certain spot
2. according to Mark Twain, the only creature which cannot be enslaved
3. actors in a show
4. east, west, or left
5. Mad publisher
6. champion
7. feel pain
8. arrive at
9. in the direction of
10. deteriorate
11. ripped
12. weasel relative which many people enjoy watching
13. medical title
14. cane
15. path
16. like a lot
17. old-fashioned you
18. corrosive substance
19. writer/illustrator of classic Robin Hood book
20. answer
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
For those of you unfamiliar with this kind of puzzle, what you do is solve the clues and write the answers in rows. In tonight's puzzle there are 4 answers per row.
Each word in a row contains all the letters of the previous word, plus one new letter. Write the added letters in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. The vertical columns created by the added letters will spell out a word or phrase. (In the case of the series of these puzzles appearing during my blueberry-season absence, the verticals spell out titles of noteworthy current comic books.)
As an example of how it works, here are the clues and answers to last week's puzzle:
THE CLUES TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
1. travel over water
2. locks up
3. the 10th row of seats in an auditorium, perhaps
4. turnkeys
5. in order to avoid
6. forerunners of the guitar
7. tubular instruments
8. epsom salts are a type of this; gypsum is another
9. smooth-talking
10. flashy jewelry
11. malicious supernatural being
12. meanspiritedly
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
GRID FOR LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
1. ---- [ ] 2. ----- [ ] 3. ------ [ ] 4. -------
5. ---- [ ] 6. ----- [ ] 7. ------ [ ] 8. -------
9. ---- [ ] 10. ----- [ ] 11. ------ [ ] 12. -------
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
sail J jails E aisle J R jailers
lest U lutes F flutes A sulfate
glib N bling O goblin Y ignobly
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Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party /
SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE / Puzzle Party / SUNDAY PUZZLE /
The verticals read JUN EFO RAY -- which, properly spaced, spell out June Foray, who celebrated her 95th birthday recently.
June Foray has one of the most familiar voices in the history of television, radio and film. She's been heard in thousands of animated cartoons, including the classic Rocky & Bullwinkle (in which she voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale and hundreds of supporting players), Dudley Do-Right (Nell Fenwick), Tweety & Sylvester (Granny), Smurfs (Jokey Smurf, Mother Nature), Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (Aunt May), George of the Jungle (Ursula) and hundreds of other cartoons ranging from the best of Warner Brothers to the most of Jay Ward.