Welcome to Sunday Puzzle Warm-Up, a weekly series for people who enjoy light mental exercise spiced with politics, humor, and odd bits of trivia.
The theme of the warm-up puzzles in recent weeks has been good quotes. Last week's quote was from a letter written by Jan Schakowsky, Lloyd Doggett, and David Price encouraging president Obama to continue using diplomacy in working toward a strong and verifiable agreement with Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program.
The quote, and additional details about the letter, can be found in tonight's diary. Meanwhile, here's another good quote:
Not asking intel ny ktbyztksums akyph ktetlntrch ioyynsums igulkptry dclbft etyect fsig ilrpsnnsums hyg’kt ktetlntrch ioyynsums igulkptry dclbft etyect.
Of course, you'll need to decode it first if you want to read it.
Be warned though: it's not a regular cryptogram. It's a Crypto-Gremlin (a kind of cryptogram which can't be solved by computer code-cracking programs which run through all the possible letter substitutions, but can be solved through the use of your wits).
If you're not familiar with how Crypto-Gremlins work you can find an explanation here. (And you can find a handy tool to help you with letter substitutions here.)
Tonight's diary also includes:
- a step-by-step demonstration of how to solve last week's Crypto-Gremlin,
- a new JulieCrostic (which reveals the source of tonight's quote)
- a full explanation of how JulieCrostics work, for the benefit of any newcomers
I: Sunday Puzzle Workshop: how to solve last week's Crypto-Gremlin
Crypto-Gremlins may look complicated at first, but they're actually pretty easy to solve once you get the hang of them. Here's a step-by-step walk-through of how to solve last week's puzzle.
The coded text for last week quote was:
Crazy razzys haze wipens vegacauza. Crs zciwszo wits cee htsica, dimly crs zigcstmicanszi wits cee lats.
Start by writing down the end-letters (Y, S, E, A, O, and I). These stand for the vowels
a, e, i, o, u and
y, although we don't yet know which stands for which.
Next look for 3-letter words. Aha! CRS appears twice and has the pattern consonant-consonant-vowel. Good chance, then, that it stands for the.
Plugging in C=t, R=h, and S=e, it's immediately apparent that CEE stands for too, giving us E=o.
It's also easy to deduce that the letter which stands for y must be O (since Y can't stand for itself, and A, O and I appear too often in word interiors to be likely candidates for y).
A has to stand for either i or u (since it can't stand for a). With a little thought it's not hard to figure out that CRAZY RAZZYS must stand for this issue. That means A=i, Y=u, and therefore (by process of elimination) I=a.
At this point it's easy to see that VEGACAUZA stands for politics. Plugging in those letter substitutions makes it easy to see that ZIGCSTMICANSZI stands for alternatives, and plugging in those letter substitutions makes it easy to see that the complete text is:
This issue is above politics. The stakes are too great, and the alternatives are too dire.
That's from a letter written by three members of Congress urging president Obama to continue using diplomacy in working with Iran. The reason I spotlighted this last week is that FCNL and other groups were encouraging people to call their legislators in support of the letter and in support of the diplomatic approach to Iran.
Here's the full text of the letter:
Dear Mr. President:
As negotiations over Iran's nuclear program continue, we urge you to stay on course, building on the recently announced political framework and continuing to work toward a strong and verifiable agreement between the P5+1 countries and Iran that will prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. We commend you and your negotiating team, as well as our coalition partners, for the significant progress made thus far.
This issue is above politics. The stakes are too great, and the alternatives are too dire. We must exhaust every avenue toward a verifiable, enforceable, diplomatic solution in order to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. If the United States were to abandon negotiations or cause their collapse, not only would we fail to peacefully prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, we would make that outcome more likely. The multilateral sanctions regime that brought Iran to the table would likely collapse, and the Iranian regime would likely decide to accelerate its nuclear program, unrestricted and unmonitored. Such developments could lead us to war.
War itself will not make us safe. A U.S. or Israeli military strike may set back Iranian nuclear development by two or three years at best - a significantly shorter timespan than that covered by a P5+1 negotiated agreement. We must pursue diplomatic means to their fullest and allow the negotiations to run their course – especially now that the parties have announced a strong framework – and continue working to craft a robust and verifiable Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action by June 30.
We must allow our negotiating team the space and time necessary to build on the progress made in the political framework and turn it into a long-term, verifiable agreement. If we do not succeed, Congress will remain at-the-ready to act and present you with additional options to ensure that Iran is prevented from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Thank you for your resolve in preventing a nuclear-armed Iran. We look forward to continuing our shared work on this important matter.
Sincerely,
Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL)
Representative Lloyd Doggett (TX)
Representative David Price (NC)
II: tonight's JulieCrostic
Tonight's puzzle has 6 rows, with 3 answers per row. When you've solved the puzzle the verticals will identify the source of tonight's quotation.
If you're familiar with how JulieCrostics work, you can jump right in; if you're new and don't yet know how JulieCrostics work, you can find complete instructions in the bottom part of the diary.
(Also if you're new, a request: please don't post any answers or other spoilers in comment subject lines. Instead, please put any guesses at possible answers into the comment itself. Thanks!)
Okay, I think that covers the basics. Here are the clues. Have fun, and I'll see you in comments!
1. with 7, might follow a year
2. silver
3. serious human-caused problem
4. with 7, the reduction or elimination of nuclear weapons
5. is 3 a hoax?
6. what there is in team?
7. with 7, it's a large size
8. Marvel hero, informally
9. Rachel Carson helped get this banned
10. popular spot
11. Chinese strategy game
12. obtained
13. magazine created by Lydia Sargent and Michael Albert
14. where people are kiwis
15. Japanese school of Chinese origin
16. with 7, famous fictional football player
17. infectious disease
18. long-time pseudonymous New Republic contributor
III: instructions for solving JulieCrostics
In JulieCrostics you are given a set of clues, such as these:
To solve the puzzle, figure out the answers to the clues and enter them into a grid of rows and columns, like so:
All the rows in the grid will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of answers). All the answers in a column will be the same length (i.e. have the same number of letters). And the words in each column are one letter longer than the words in the column to its left. That's because each word in a row has all the letters of the word before it plus one new letter.
For instance, if the clues for a row were
1. say what's not so
2. resting
3. concede
then the answers might be LIE, IDLE (= LIE + D), and YIELD (= IDLE + Y)
Write the added letter in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. For the row in the example you'd write:
1. LIE D 2. IDLE Y 3. YIELD
When you have solved all the clues and written down all the added letters, the added letters will form columns that spell out a message of some sort. It might be a person's name, it might be the title of a book, it might be a familiar phrase, or it might be a series of related words. Your challenge is to solve all the clues, fill in the vertical columns, and figure out what the vertical columns mean.
In the example given, the verticals read DAIL YKOS. With proper spacing and capitalization that spells out Daily Kos!