Joseph Young's Puzzleria!: January 2015

Friday, January 30, 2015

Button heads; Teatime Proustries; What is the number of the twelfth... man?

Welcome!

This is Puzzleria XXXIX!

(Otherwise known as “The Big Puzzle Blog Game.”)

Yes, this is our XXXIX^th kick-off of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!, that super deep-dish-pizza-pan full of puzzle slices served up piping-hot and fresh every week…

Warning: The words “Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!” or “Puzzleria!” or its lego/legotype cannot appear in ads at all unless it is an officially sponsored event, or otherwise an advertisement, event or promotion that will, without charging us any fee whatsoever, shamelessly plug “Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!” or “Puzzleria!” or its lego/legotype. It is permissible to make written reference only to “The Big Puzzle Blog Game,” “Super Puzzle Slices,” “The Big Puzzle Game,” and “Super Friday.”

As for that other “Big Game” that many fans will be stalking this Sunday (Shhh! It’s called Super Bowl XLIX), all we know is this: Ex-Lax is not an official sponsor of Super Bowl XLIX (although it would would be fantastic if it were!)...

Cris Collinsworth: New England is overplaying in their nickel package, Al, by stacking their coverage and flooding the strong side of the field with their weak safety and weak-side linebacker. That should make it easier for the Seahawks to go to the weak side.
Al Michaels: Good point Cris. And speaking of making it easier to go...
Michele Tafoya: Sorry to interrupt, Cris and Al, but while you two were jabbering up there in the booth, down here on the field Seahawks’ tailback Marshawn Lynch just broke off a Super Bowl-record-tying 75-yard rushing touchdown from scrimmage, one of the most amazing runs we have... er, well I anyway, have seen all year.
Al: Thanks Michele, for that report from down in the trenches. And, speaking of runs...

...Nor is Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! the official puzzle blog of Super Bowl XLIX. We want to state that clearly and on the record.

But we also have heard that one of the big players in The Big Game is New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. He is six-and-a-half feet tall and weighs 265 pounds. His legs are brawny and his arms are lanky, with each arm extending about two inches shy of a yardstick. Some say he may be the best tight end ever.

But our question is: “What is more responsible for Gronk’s success? Is it his natural athletic ability? Is it his large physical frame?

In other words: Is he just…

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ,

__ __ is his success instead just a function of his…

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ ?

Fill in the blanks with the re-arranged letters of the NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS.

Now try re-arranging the letters of SEATTLE SEAHAWKS… oh wait, we’ve already done that, two weeks ago.

Which reminds me, I am resolving to ease up a bit on puzzles that involve re-arranging letters, or anagramming. On Blaine’s blog this past week, commenter Lorenzo made an interesting comment about how refreshing he found puzzles that do not “involve tedious lists, anagrams and google searches.” It was also an astute comment.

And so, no unscrambling of letters is required in this week’s menu of puzzles below:

Menu

The Big Game Slice:
What is the number of the twelfth... man?

Name the twelfth number in the following sequence:

4, 9, 55, 60, 70, 80, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, ___

Explain your answer.

Hint: There is a small connection between this puzzle and the Big Game.

Specialty Of The Teahouse Slice:
Teatime Proustries

Think of a word that is a girl’s name and also the name of a delicacy that may be served at teatime. The name can also mean something that evokes a memory.

Embedded in the word are consecutive letters that spell out a proofreading symbol used in editing manuscripts or news copy. Perform the procedure indicated by the consecutive letters on those letters themselves. The result is a word we ought to remember, apparently.

What are the two words and the editing mark?

Political Slice:

Button heads

Change one of the letters on the first word of a U.S. campaign button. In the midst of the second word add a block of three letters and split that result in two. The resulting three words name a topic discussed during one of the debates leading up to the election.

What are the words on the button and the issue?

While been preparing this edition of Puzzleria! Thursday PM/Friday AM, I have been enjoying, from the corner of my eye, Turner Classic Movies’ tribute to Rod Taylor, who died January 7: The Time Machine; The Birds; Sunday in New York; Young Cassidy; The Glass Bottom Boat. (Two of those five movies featured robots! And I am not even counting robotic actors.)

Taylor’s wisecracking puckish rogue persona in many of his movies reminded me a bit of Mel Gibson. (Both had Australian connections; Taylor was a native Aussie.) But something about Taylor’s style reminded me even more of Spencer Tracy.

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 serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! Thank you.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Thinking globally, acting syllabally; Sizing things up; Trudging towards tragedy

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzle-ria!
Let us begin this week with a...

Quick Timely Bonus Slice:
The ol’ “Hook and Bladder” play

Think of a two-word synonym of “portly political conventioneer.” Rearrange its letters to form a word that was coined within the past week.

Too easy? Give this one a bite:

Quickish Untimely Interjecting Zesty Zingers Executiveward Slice:
Taft: Fat

In a 1911 address delivered annually to members of Congress, President William Howard Taft delineated his views on enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. (He would soon thereafter be successful in using the statute to “trust-bust” John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly and would nearly succeed in breaking up J.P. Morgan’s U.S. Steel.)

Among those in the congressional gallery was Senator Moe TerVeaux Te’Raddison Wilson, son of a Baptist minister and hotel chain empire heiress.

As the president decried “the evils of the trusts” that represented big oil, big tobacco, big energy, big moneybags (and perhaps even Big Macs), Senator Moe Wilson began to uncomfortably fidget on his digits, which were ensconced between his plush gallery seat and his own pants seat. But when President Taft began speaking of the hospitality industry’s motel monopoly (see trust-busting at the 2:06 mark) along with its “fat cats who devour all competition in their pathway,” the senator could no longer hold his tongue or his seat.

Pointing his forefinger directly at the POTUS he shouted out, not “You lie! You lie!” but rather the following exclamatory and provocative phrase:

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ , __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ !

Hints:

The phrase contains a one-letter interjection and a verb ending with a King Jamesy biblical flourish. (Senator Wilson suspected this biblical allusion would prove to be an effective taunt, for the prez was once quoted as questioning the divinity of Jesus.)
The letters of the phrase can be rearranged to spell out the kind of address President Taft was delivering.

Puzzleria! this week welcomes back gourmet French puzzle chef Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme (also known as “skydiveboy”) He has cooked up and is serving the delicious “Where On Earth Slice” on this week’s menu.

The most recent puzzle proffered by Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme was the deliciously wonderful puzzle slice titled “52-Card Poker Pick-up” in the November 28 Puzzleria!

Dive in!

Easy As Pieces Of Pancakes Slice:

Trudging toward tragedy

The first thing’s a charm, wards off evil completely.

Change two vowels to two others and the charm becomes lunch.

And “emoter” in front and the brunch is more meaty.

Cockney’s flat in the midst ought be flattened, expunged.

’Tis a tragedy spun from a charm, bittersweetly.

Or, a bit less circuitously…

The third thing in the “charm” (you) ought move to the front,

And be switched then to which appears first in the “hunt.”

Seek not pot-boiling witches, though, bearing the brunt…

’Tis a tragedy not to be mixed, to be blunt.

What is the charm? What is the tragedy?

Where On Earth Slice:
Thinking globally, acting syllabally

The final two syllables of the republic of Afghanistan followed by the first syllable of the republic of Bulgaria form the populous Turkish city of Istanbul. (Besides Afghanistan, the republics of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan will also work.)

Name two other world republics in which the last two syllables of one followed by the first syllable of the other form another large city, one with a population of more than half a million.

Note: This puzzle was created by Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme (a.k.a. skydiveboy), with a bit of collaboration provided by LegoLambda.

Big And Small Of It Slice:

Sizing things up

Name a word that means very, very small. Move the first part of the word to the end of the word, leaving a space, to form two words. The result names something that is very, very large.

What are these three words?

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.)

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your puzzle-loving and challenge-welcoming friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! Thank you.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Los Angeles Kinks?; Hero Warship; MegaHomoPhones!

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Before we open our puzzle-slice menu, let us tie up a loose end or two.

Those of you who solved last week’s “This equality, unmercifully, is quite strained” puzzle slice, are aware that the “reverse variable,” 21, that we used in the equation:

A + B + C – √-1 + X + H = 21!

stands for HAHA, as in HaHa Clinton-Dix, who wears number 21 as a starting safety for the Green Bay Packers.

In my January 10, 5:32PM comment last week, I included the spatial puzzle:

________

FENCE

It was a clue to our “This equality, unmercifully, is quite strained” puzzle, and a take-off on and homage to Word Woman’s spatial puzzle:

J
_________

TITANIC or ANDREA DORIA.

The answer to Word Woman’s spatial puzzle was “hook line and sinker.” (The Titanic and Andrea Doria were sunken ships.) In my puzzle the fence is sunken. And there is a name for a sunken fence.

The National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle purveyed by puzzlemaster Will Shortz this past week spawned a plethora of “piggyback puzzles” by commenters on the Blainesville blog. Will’s puzzle read:

Think of a U.S. city whose name has nine letters. Remove three letters from the start of the name and three letters from the end. Only two will remain. How is this possible and what city is it?
The answer is Fort Worth.

My piggyback puzzle, which I posted on both Blaine’s blog and Puzzleria! read:
Remove six letters from the name of a large seven-letter U.S. city, leaving a little less than three. Remove five letters from the same city, leaving a little more than three. Remove four letters from the same city, leaving less than two but more than one. What is the city.

The answer is Phoenix, as Puzzlerian! ron noted in a comment last week.
Phoenix - phonix = e = 2.7183...
Phoenix - hoenx = pi = 3.1416...
Phoenix - oenx = phi = 1.6180...

If you live in ancient Rome, of course, you can remove the first five letters of Phoenix and leave nine.

“Any” questions? All puzzles should lead to such an “epiPhoenix!”

Hope you can “epiphanize” (that is, achieve those “Aha!” moments) with the following puzzle slices:

Greatest American Hero Slice:

Hero Warship

Name a past American hero whose surname sounds like a misnomer when spoken. When he was about age 70, a movie was released with a title that sounded like it might have been this hero’s biography. But it wasn’t, even though a big-name actor starred in the title role.

Three years earlier another movie had been released co-starring this same big-name actor and an actress whose character’s surname was spelled (and pronounced) identically with the American hero’s surname. But, again alas, the movie was not a bio-pic of the American hero.

Who are these thespians and hero, and what are the two movies?

Double-Header Sports Slice:

MegaHomoPhones!

Take a surname closely associated with a professional sports team. Remove the surname’s final three letters and replace its second letter with a homophone of those three letters. Take a five-letter industry associated with the home state of the team. Remove a letter, rearrange the remaining four and add them to the end of the original surname to form another surname closely associated with the team.

What are these two surnames and the name of the team?

Hint: The letters of the team can be rearranged to form a phrase describing what the team’s fans might witness as they wend their way to the stadium past tailgaters partying in the parking lot. It takes the form:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Take the city name and nickname of a professional sports team. Put the first three letters of each name side-by-side to form a homophone of the first name of a title character in a movie starring a winning Super Bowl quarterback.

The remaining letters of the city’s name can be rearranged to form the surname of a sports figure who figures into (or, rather, stars in) two of ESPN’s top three “25 Biggest Sports Blunders.”

The remaining letters of the nickname spell out a word that can follow either the first name or surname of a singer who fronted a 1960s pop-rock group with a somewhat patriotic name. This first name + word and surname + word form two Midwestern team nicknames.

What is this team?

Hint: The letters of the team can be rearranged to form a rude and uncomplimentary phrase describing its members, in the form:
_ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Rock-Jock Slice:

Los Angeles Kinks?

The name of a “classic-era” pop-rock group coincidentally includes the nickname of a professional sports franchise that was formed in the same year as was the group. A nickname of a different team in the same league, formed in the same year, might have been a better fit for the rock group’s name, however.

What is the name of this group? What name might have been a better fit?

Hint: The team nickname the group used alliterates with the second word in the group’s name. The “better fit” nickname would have alliterated with the first word in the group’s name. Both sports franchises, with their original nicknames, still exist and are based in their region of origin.)

Hint: The “different team in the same league, formed in the same year, (that) might have been a better fit for the rock group’s name” has a timely connection with the franchise defeated by the Super Bowl winning quarterback’s team referred to in the Double-Header Sports Slice, above.

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!