Summertime Summertime Sum Sum Summertime comes June 21 at 6:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight time. Get ready for picnics, beaches, ballgames, bicycling, boating, barbecue cookouts, simmering, shimmering summer songs…
For those of you who may have been on an African safari this week and are still wondering where the lions are, here is a summertime playlist we have just added to Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! jukebox.
The playlist includes the obligatory Beach Boys tune, three co-written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin (R.I.P.) sung by the Drifters, Herman’s Hermits and Carole King; two by the Temptations, two by War, and others by the Jamies, Bruce Cockburn, Mungo Jerry, Sheryl Crow, Chad & Jeremy, Seals & Crofts, Sly & the Family Stone, and the Friends of Distinction.
Enjoy them while you're enjoying munching on this week’s puzzles:
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“The Bronxy Zoo”
Part 1. Name an event that for as far back as anyone can remember has occurred twice a year. Insert an “e” within the event and split the result in two to form a zoological oxymoron.
Part 2. Name an event that for as far back as anyone can remember has occurred twice a year. Insert a “u” within the event and replace two adjacent letters (that are also adjacent in the alphabet) with two other letters (that are also adjacent in the alphabet). Split the result to form a multiple-word title of a work of non-fiction.
Four-Fork Four-Course Slice:
Questionable “Quizine”
A couple enters a new high-scale restaurant that has received mixed reviews in the media. The maître d’ greets them and asks them a question, to which they respond, “No, but we plan to eat here anyway.” A second couple enters the restaurant and is asked the same question, to which they respond, “Yes, but we plan to eat here anyway.” What is the question?
Easy As Pie Slice:Seizin’ the Season
A sweet season so sunny and pleasin’
Plus a seasoning found in the sea sand
Yields a feat causing aching and wheezin’
In some tumblers a tad too-well-seasoned.
A ground seasoning known to cause sneezin’
Plus a place where they make lots of money
Yields a flavor refreshin’ and pleasin’
Or a Patty from “Peanuts” who’s funny.
What is the feat? What is the flavor?
Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!
Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)
Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We plan to serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you like our “mystic puzzleria” please tell your friends about us. Thank you.
Add the antonym of half of the feat to a color and get a flavor related to "target" flavor.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on last week's Geographical Slice, I kept trying to make Homer (Alaska), Cicero (Chicago suburb) and Euclid (Cleveland suburb) work with something in Maine.
Difficult finding an obscure clue for both of your Specialty of the House Slices.
ReplyDeleteQuestionable quizine: Might they serve Indian food? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI wanted to give you a witty response yesterday, but naan came to me.
DeleteA good pun jabs me right in my funny bone, David.
DeleteThe author has the same last name as a sitcom character whose first name is related to the event. Any Bee Gees on this thing?
ReplyDelete"Easy As Pie Slice" sure is just that. I feel like I am speaking from the kiddie table, but since I live close to new York, I don't have to fall all over myself to get the two answers.
ReplyDeleteWord Woman,
DeleteVery interesting. My first choice for the name of this entrée was “Indian Quizine,” but I was just too “Chicken Tikka Masala” to pull that potentially politically incorrect trigger.
David,
Your feat-generated “related flavor” is clever. I like it.
Alas, if there were only Virgil, Maine!
Good work on the SOTHS. Not such an easy puzzle, maybe?
Paul,
A wonderful character in a great sitcom. This thespian, recently deceased, also appeared in an acclaimed comedic movie with fantastic sight gags, puns, etc.
Thanks for the Wall Box blast from the past. I didn’t realize they went as far back as the 1950s. Here is an AuntBeeGees’ deep cut, salvaged from an old Puzzleria! wall box.
Bob K.,
Thanks for checking in. We always appreciate your input. Your final clause also includes a clue for Part 1 of this week’s SOTHS, “The Bronxy Zoo.”
LegoBeeGeePeeCee
Easy as Pie: hair color and seasoned pie. Easier than pie, pi, and pizza pie (hitting your eye). Clever though, Lego.
Delete"new York" York Peppermint Patties; "fall over myself" somersault.
DeleteI don't know about how difficult the SOTHS was. People I asked were much more likely to think the puzzle was easier on Saturday than on Friday or Sunday.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input regarding the difficulty of this week’s Specialty Of The House Slice. When the answer hits you relatively quickly (as was the case with you for this two-part puzzle, I gather) it is difficult to judge how difficuly a puzzle is. But it is at least as difficult for the puzzle creator. BTW, I think Dr. Shortz has been striking a good balance between difficult and easy NPR puzzles in recent months. That is a goal with which I am still struggling.
Puzzleria! patrons,
Busing some leftover crusts from last week’s Puzzleria!:
Paul,
I was too dense and preoccupied last week to grok the elegance of your alternative answer to our Geographical Slice. You commented:
"May" has something in common with "Augusta" and "Juneau".
(And) "furious" has something in common with "Augusta", "Juneau", "South Euclid", "Schaumburg", "pursuit", "curious", "humour", lots of British words, "laughing aloud", ... there seems to be a surplus of these ... enough to fill a museum, perhaps.
I, Lego, failed to note that South Euclid (Cleveland suburb) and Schaumburg (Chicago suburb) jibed with my hint. I also failed to see that the “something in common” all those words have is a “double-u…” “Exwyzearian!” That is truly what you (and everyone else who commented last week) is when it comes to creative puzzle solving.
Finally, back on June 12 (which some call the Remmus Ecitslos) I served up this bonus “Easy and Pie” eight-slicer. Here are the answers:
1. To which state might one make forays? AlAbAmA (forays = four A’s)
2. What state has oddly wide feet? nEw jErsEy (size Triple-E)
3. What state has even wider feet? tEnnEssEE
4. What state, if you poke out its second eye, is the “Show Me the Money State”? mIssOUr_ (IOUI - I = IOU)
5. Which two states have the best bond ratings? AlAskA and ArkAnsAs (triple-A)
6. What state may be overrun by Dalmations? wIscOnsIn (IOI = 101 ~ Disney’s animated “101 Dalmations.”
7. What state is visually challenged? mIssIssIppI (four I’s = “four-eyes”)
lEgO lAmbdA from Manhattan (nEw yOrk and kAnsAs)
Lego, I do appreciate your coming up with interesting puzzles every week. I'm curious about how you develop these puzzles. When I piggybacked your antonym puzzle a couple weeks back, it was because I was looking at a list of antonyms for those with two common last letters (or some simple variation). How did you even think to make Plus/Minus into a puzzle?
ReplyDeleteDavid,
DeleteThank you. I appreciate your comments on our blog.
The PLUS-MINUS-LMN(O)P puzzle hit me when I noticed that two relatively short antonyms shared almost half their letters (four of nine) at their ends (-US -US) and they weren’t common suffixes like generOUS and parsimoniOUS which wouldn’t be as interesting, I don’t think. But that in itself was not enough to make a good puzzle. But then I noticed the near alphabetical string formed by the antonyms’ remaining letters PL and MIN = LMN(I)P. That was unusual enough to make an interesting puzzle.
Your “piggyback” puzzles in response to this puzzle were just wonderful. Your NEAR-FAR-FEN (wet place) was similar to mine in that the words were short, true antonyms, it had a near alphabetical string and, better yet, formed a word (fen). (And it inspired my piggyback response, BROTHER-SISTER-BISTROS (wet places) but no alphabetical string.
Your HIRE-FIRE-HiFi puzzle (which stumped me, even with your excellent WiFi clue) was also very good, and your BEFORE-AFTER-OFFBEAT puzzle was better than my original PLUS-MINUS one.
The seed of the puzzle, the “even thinking of making” some linguistic or alphabetical quirk into a puzzle comes from first, just recognizing the quirk (the -US ending in the PLUS-MINUS example), then also noticing that the remaining letters were a bit quirky also… just as you did when you noticed that the BEFO- and AFT- of BEFORE-AFTER could be rearranged to spell “offbeat.”
As you read, blog, surf, do crosswords, hear (or mis-hear) spoken words, even shop or scan a restaurant menu, certain letter patterns, syllable juxtapositions, strings of letters, and sounds pop out at you. Last week’s “celebrity-celerity-celery” puzzle, for example, began as just three words that shared lots of letters. It became a puzzle when I realized that they all could also all share the word “fast” (“Fast lane,” synonym for fastness, food for fasters).
Number and logic puzzles are a whole ’nother ballgame, at least for me. I find them tougher to make entertaining and interesting. But I am working at it. I know a lot of mathy types who enjoy puzzling challenges too.
Thanks again for your interest, David.
LegoBistro
Questionable Quizine: My Indian clue obviously referred to American Indians as in "Do you have reservations?"
ReplyDeleteEasy As Pie: Summer Salt (Somersault) and Peppermint (Salt and pepper colored hair and seasonings)
This week's answers:
ReplyDeleteSpecialty of the House Slice:
“The Bronxy Zoo”
Part 1. Name an event that for as far back as anyone can remember has occurred twice a year. Insert an “e” within the event and split the result in two to form a zoological oxymoron.
Part 2. Name an event that for as far back as anyone can remember has occurred twice a year. Insert a “u” within the event and replace two adjacent letters (that are also adjacent in the alphabet) with two other letters (that are also adjacent in the alphabet). Split the result to form a multiple-word title of a work of non-fiction.
Answers:
Part 1: Equinox; Equine Ox
(If we celebrated a vernal and autumnal “bovinox,” our puzzle would have instructed the solver to “split the result in two to form a zoological tautology or redundancy.)
Part 2: Solstice; “Soul on Ice,” by Eldridge Cleaver. (Many years ago, I owned a black cat named Eldritch.)
Four-Fork Four-Course Slice:
Questionable “Quizine”
A couple enters a new high-scale restaurant that has received mixed reviews in the media. The maître d’ greets them and asks them a question, to which they respond, “No, but we plan to eat here anyway.” A second couple enters the restaurant and is asked the same question, to which they respond, “Yes, but we plan to eat here anyway.” What is the question?
Answer: “Do you have reservations?”
Easy As Pie Slice:
Seizin’ the Season
A sweet season so sunny and pleasin’
Plus a seasoning found in the sea sand
Yields a feat causing aching and wheezin’
In some tumblers a tad too-well-seasoned.
A ground seasoning known to cause sneezin’
Plus a place where they make lots of money
Yields a flavor refreshin’ and pleasin’
Or a Patty from “Peanuts” who’s funny.
What is the feat? What is the flavor?
Answers:
Somersault (or its variation “summersault”) is the feat.
Peppermint is the flavor.
Lego…
Above I piggied for the EAPS "Add the antonym of half of the feat to a color and get a flavor related to "target" flavor.' That answer is wintergreen. I actually use the somersault spelling, so I should have written "antonym". Also, Lego did not point out that his duo was -sault and pepper-, although that may have been obvious.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when I mentioned the SOTHS was easiest to solve on Saturday, that is because that was the actual solstice day.
On tomorrow’s (June 27) Puzzleria! I will reveal how many correct entries NPR received for this week’s “institutional” puzzle.
ReplyDeleteLegoVoila!