Welcome to Sunday Puzzle, a weekly series for people who enjoy mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, odd bits of trivia, and the occasional furry animal.
Sunday puzzle regulars might be wondering why the title of tonight’s diary reads “a little late”. Isn’t this the time Sunday Puzzle usually posts?
Well, I hope so. If all goes well the diary should post at the usual time. The phrase a little late does not refer to posting time; it’s a hint to the solution to tonight’s puzzle.
Tonight you get a double puzzle. As usual there’s a JulieCrostic; but after you’ve solved that puzzle you get a bonus puzzle of figuring out what the verticals mean. Have fun!
I’m away this weekend so won’t be able to take part in tonight’s puzzle party, but I’ll get home tomorrow about noon and will check in then to see how y’all did (and to provide help if any help is needed or to fix errors in the diary if any errors crept in).
If you're familiar with what JulieCrostics are and how they work, jump right in. If you're not familiar with JulieCrostics here are some...
NOTES FOR NEWCOMERS: JulieCrostics are a special kind of acrostic puzzle named in honor of Julie Waters (who started the Sunday Puzzle series here back in 2007). If you're not familiar with how JulieCrostics work you can find a detailed explanation at the bottom of last week's Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up. The clues in the Saturday night warm-up puzzles are generally pretty straightforward. But if you're new you should be warned that we have mischievous gremlins who like to tamper with the Sunday night puzzle clues. In particular you should keep in mind: * you can't trust the clue capitalization; * you can't trust the clue punctuation;* sometimes you can't even trust the word spacing.
Because of this, some of the clues may be hard to crack, and you may not understand at first how a particular answer fits the clue it's an answer to. But the answers actually do make sense, once you look at them the right way. If you have any trouble understanding how an answer fits the clue, please leave a comment and I or one of the other puzzlers will try to provide an explanation.
The gremlins also like bundling the clues into tidy little groups of 3, regardless of how many answers there actually are per row. If the number of clues doesn't divide evenly by 3, they add a space-filler clue or two at the end to fill out the final bundle. If you see a clue at the end such as nothing to see, that could well be such a clue.
Also:
A small request: please put a SUBJECT LINE at the top of your comment to indicate what your comment is about. (To do this, simply write what would have been a subject line in DK-4 at the top of your comment and put it in bold). For instance, if your comment contains your guesses at the answers to clues 4, 5 and 6, your subject line might read 4-5-6 answers. Or, if you think you’ve figured out what the verticals say, your subject line might read verticals! Putting subject lines on comments will make it easier for folks who are looking for help with a particular part of the puzzle to find helpful comments and will help folks who are still trying to crack a clue for themselves to avoid seeing an answer before they're ready to see it. Thanks!Here are the clues for tonight’s puzzle:
1. Cummings, for instance 2. legally prevent 3. tyrant
4. LA rue 5. stole 6. gray sperm
7. goddamn euphemism! 8. private letters 9. cargo
10. happy 11. secret OR 12. she's good!
13. accomplish perfectly 14. Chavez who did not become a secretary 15. Los Angeles' Nick?
16. astounds 17. English neighbor 18. presidential beers?
19. husks 20. inside the straight 21. remove a stain?