The day the musing died; "May we borrow your DeLorean, Lumpy?"; Who am I?; "Where is that masked man?"; Ignorance is commercial bliss but box office hit-or-miss

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{4 +} 5!  SERVED

Welcome. You have entered the Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! calZone, also known as IHOPP: International House Of Puzzle Pies.

You are in for a “reel” treat this week – a solid-gold-medal-worthy, Serling-silver-screen-themed serving of puzzazz from our gourmet puzzle chef, skydiveboy, also known as Mark Scott from Seattle (not pictured free-falling here).

So, pack your canopies and (sky)dive into these three appetizing canapés, loosen your mental ripcord and drift into our entrée, then touchdown with dessert.

Appetizer Menu

Cinenigma Appetizer Prepared For You By Mark Scott:

Who am I?

 I bet you go to the movies. Or at least you have in the past.

You know me the second you see my face, but you probably don’t know my name. I suspect I have been in more films than any movie star you can name, but you still don’t know mine. You like me and I tend to make you feel good when you see me.

You say you need a hint? Okay, perhaps you will also recognize a few of my contemporaries such as: George, Jackie, Telly, Tanner and Slats. So, who am I?

Oxen And Morons In The Headlines Appetizer:

The day the musing died

A headline that might have appeared in this past week’s newspapers might have looked something like this (but with letters in place of where the blanks are, of course):

__ __ __ __ __ __    __ __ __ __ __    __ __ __ __ __ __ __

  

This headline is a simple sentence with a proper noun, verb and gerund. Taken on its face, without context, the sentence is oxymoronic, incongruous, an internal verbal contradiction...

(A verbal contradiction, that is, that is opposed to the headlines appearing in the two newspaper headlines pictured with this puzzle, which together illustrate an external verbal contradiction.)

The sentence’s first word is a piece of equipment often associated with tennis balls. 

The second word, which begins and ends with the same letter, is often associated with organs. 

The third word is the first word of an event often associated with Ernest Hemingway. (The third word also appears in titles of songs written by Van Halen, Jackson Browne and a guy who died “the day the music died.”)

What is this headline?

Silver Snaps At The Rustler Appetizer:

“Where is that masked man?”

Consider the four parts (comprising five words) in these two phrases:

Animal ^ snarl; No car ^ loans

Combine the four parts with four different words so that, when you rearrange the combined letters of each “part+word” sum, two proper nouns (five and six letters long) that were the crux of a news story this past week can be spelled out.

Hint: The word combined with “animal” definitely pertains to the 6-letter, but not the 5-letter, news story proper noun.

The word combined with “snarl” pertains to both the 6-letter and 5-letter news nouns.

The word combined with “no car” may peripherally pertain the 6-letter news noun, but not to the 5-letter news noun.

Depending on one’s perspective, the word combined with “loans” may pertain to both, either or neither of the news nouns.

What are these two news story proper nouns and the four combining words?

MENU

Boffo Biblical Brand Slice:

Ignorance is commercial bliss but box office hit-or-miss

In a classic and effective television commercial hawking a sporty brand name product, viewers are informed that a certain person, although otherwise generally knowledgeable, is ignorant of something in particular.

In a boffo box office hit movie released about a decade earlier, a character portrayed by a cast member with the same first name as the generally knowledgeable person in the commercial is not ignorant (in the biblical sense) of a character portrayed by a cast member whose first name – if you double its third letter and replace its first vowel with a different one – is the same as the something of which the commercial person is ignorant.

Hint: The something of which the commercial person is ignorant is the surname of a musician with the same first name as the generally knowledgeable commercial person. This musician also appears in the classic commercial, and is the source of the commercial viewer’s knowledge of the generally knowledgeable person’s particular ignorance. 

Hint: The airport security official questioned Dan (D.B.) Cooper as he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight #305 in Portland bound for Seattle, “That is just paperwork in that briefcase; you are carrying no explosives, correct?” 
In response, the eventual __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __             __  __  __  __  __  __,    __  __  __  __.  
The nineteen letters in those three words (of  9, 6 and 4 letters) can be rearranged to form the surnames of the three people in this puzzle who have identical first names. 

Name the brand name product, the person and the musician in the commercial. Name the title of the movie and its two cast members.

Dessert Menu

Lip (The Cup) Smacking Dessert:

“May we borrow your DeLorean, Lumpy?”

Were Andy Hardy or Theodore and Wally Cleaver to meander into the future via time machine and behold the two photos pictured here, they might well marvel:

__ __ __ __ __   __ __ __ __ __ __   __ __ __ __ !

The first word in this exclamation is associated with inflation caused by trauma or ego. The second word is a somewhat uncommon variant spelling of shorthand brand-name auto slang, the type of entry not usually found in dictionaries, so it is difficult to verify. The variant smacks of golf (but not of Golf!). The third word is plural and, if given added punctuation, is a description of Cypress Avenue, Raglan Road and The Bright Side of the Road.

Rearrange the fifteen letters in the three words to spell out three other words – of two, six and seven letters – that appeared in a prominent news story this past week. One of these other words is an abbreviation.

What are these three news story words and the three-word exclamation blurted by Andy, or by Wally and the Beav?

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 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 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 Puzzleria! Thank you.

Replacing diVotican stateside; Little white wimples; Sleight of foot-in-mouth; Greek mytheology; Newsprintersection

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{4 +} 5!  SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! – our September 18, 2015 edition. That’s 9/18/15.

9 goes into 18 once, with a remainder of 4.

9 goes into 15 once, with a remainder of 3.

Please explain.

We have a quintet of puzzles on our menu this week: three appetizers, one entrée, and one dessert. Let’s begin with our trio of trending newsmaker appetizers:

Appetizer Menu

Letters In Common Appetizer:

Little white wimples

This past week, a newsmaker was invited to appear at an institution. The home state of the newsmaker and home state of the institution begin with the same letter.

Consider the first name of the institution and the first name of the newsmaker, which each have three consecutive letters in common. Remove those six common letters from the two first names and rearrange the remaining letters to form a two-word phrase for a fib.

Consider the second name of the institution and the surname of the newsmaker, which each have three consecutive letters in common. Remove those six common letters from the two second names and rearrange the remaining letters to form a two-word phrase for a vowed woman’s enthusiasm.

Who is this Timely newsmaker. What is the institution?

Golf Scramble Appetizer:

Replacing diVotican stateside

The three-sentence ersatz-news paragraph, printed below, contains multi-word anagrams of just three of several catchphrases that have recently been speculated about in the wake of an announcement reported recently in popular media stories and entertainment news.

In the first sentence, three consecutive words anagram into a two-word catchphrase, with its first word apostrophized.

In the second sentence, four consecutive words anagram into a four-word catchphrase, with three of its words in Spanish.

In the third sentence, first a string of five consecutive words, and then a string of four consecutive words, each anagram into the same six-word catchphrase, with its first word apostrophized.

When Pope Francis comes to America the bishops will host a golf scramble – a mitered tourney, so to speak – in his honor. We predict that secular news accounts of this tournament will report that a Francis fan on the Tenth Green thrust her infant into the pope’s face, asking him to kiss it, not realizing, perhaps, that few fluids are as offensive as that baby saliva! Later, on the “nineteenth hole,” after Pope Francis bought a round of fluted Prosecco champagne for the house and the bishops imbibed a bit, a bubbly tickle won out upon the prelates’ palates and, before long, some of them experienced a frontal lobe winy blackout, but fortunately all recovered.

What are the three catchphrases, and who might speak them?

Similar First-name Appetizer:

Newsprintersection

Three newsmakers appeared in two different sections of newspapers this past week. All three share the same surname.

(A) = A newsmaker appearing in the entertainment section

(F) = the First newsmaker appearing in another section

(S) = the Second newsmaker appearing in the same other section

The first name of (A) shares five of its letters (three of them in identical positions) with the first name of (F).

The first name of (A) shares six of its letters (one of them in an identical position) with the first name of (S).

To the end of the first name of (S), add a U.S. state postal abbreviation which is also a common prefix. The result is what a person – whose spouse once held the same title as (A) – was once hired to do to (A).

What are the names of (A), (F) and (S)?

MENU

Mt. Holympus Slice:

Greek mytheology

Remove the first three letters from a word for a mythological figure, thereby forming a Greek word. Church-goers worldwide – especially those “of a certain age” – use this Greek word to refer to one god that they do not at all consider mythological.

 What are these two words – the mythological figure and the Greek word?

Hint: Wilhelm Richard Wagner and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, respectively and notably, composed music involving these words.

Hint: Spell the first three letters of the mythological figure backward to form the beginning of a Latin word for a purification ritual performed subsequent to the reciting the Greek word.

Hint: An actor’s first and last name (written without a space between them) share eight of its nine letters with the mythological figure, with the first four and the eighth letters in the same positions. One of this actor’s best portrayals was as a lead singer of a group with a song included in the soundtrack of a movie that also featured the Wagner’s music associated with the mythological figure.

Dessert Menu

Celebrity Dick Hollister And Paula Prentiss Dessert:

Sleight of foot-in-mouth

A controversy arose last week after a newsmaker voiced a superficial slight against another newsmaker, an instance of legerdepied-dans-la-bouche. The slight was published in a magazine profile. Both newsmakers are business-world entrepreneurs with political aspirations.

Embedded homophonically, more or less, in the fake sports article below are the names of both newsmakers and the name of a joint venture one was involved in and the name of a company the other was involved in. These four names may be heard if the paragraph is read aloud – one in the first paragraph, two in the second paragraph, and one in the third paragraph. 

 

DATELINE: CHICAGO, Ill., Monday Night, October 7, 2002:

The Monsters of the Midway are hosting the green-and-gold-helmeted Cheeseheads from Green Bay… But not at Soldier Field, which as being renovated. And not at the deserving-a-Best-Visual-Effects-Oscar leafy arena known as brick-ivy-walled Wrigley Field. No, this clash is being played at Urbana-Champaign’s Memorial Stadium.

In the 13-month wake of 9/11, Alison Krause and Union Station strum plausible, applause-worthy renditions of the “Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America.” The Packers are garbed in their normal visitors’ uniforms, but some marketing consultant has convinced the Bears to don old rump pads, throwback jerseys and leather helmets!

On the Bears’ first offensive series, quarterback Jim Miller is sacked. “Boom!” booms the voice of color commentator John Madden. “Who let Packer defensive end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila have a free shot at Miller?” The booming continues, and the Pack beat the Bears 34-21.

What are these four names?

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 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 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 Puzzleria! Thank you.

Gnusleaks and the three big mammas; "We'll leave the light on for you... for four years or so"; Bridging the aviation-equinox gap; SERBian crisis?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{4 +} 5!  SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! – our second September edition.

Before we enjoy our puzzles this week, I have some good news to share. A month ago my brother, Michael Peter, gave me a belated birthday gift – a month-old female stray barn cat destined for the Humane Society. Mike, a friend of the farmer, said he knew a home for the kitten.

About 17 years ago Mike gave a birthday gift to my mother, an abandoned newborn kitten he rescued while deer hunting. As my mother’s heath declined I adopted that tabby cat, Noosie (Nuisance), who died exactly one year ago.

I have not decided on a name for my new barn kitten yet – which is unusual because “naming stuff” has always kind of been in my wheelhouse. My “working title” has been “Smitten” (white “mittens” on her feet; I am “smitten” with this kitten), but I have also considered Schwa, Comma, Tweet, Spats, Oopsilon, Bailiwick, Bunctious, (Miss) Cheevous, Rebus, Baffle…

Obviously I am open to suggestions.

As has been our recent wont, we shall now offer a few fresh appetizers we’ve cooked up from trending-news:

Appetizer Menu

Tricycle Appetizer:

Gnusileaks and the Three Big Mammas!

Beginning around midsummer, news media became captivated by a big cat named Cecil, a lion that did not survive. This past week, some of the news media pounced upon another big cat – or at least a certain part of another big cat.

 

What is this other big cat and its certain part? If a certain writer/journalist with the names Lyman and Frank before his surname were scripting this summer’s news cycle, what would be the next big mammal in the news?

Initial Letter Appetizer:

SERBian Crisis?

Among the handful of essential words appearing in a prominent news story this past week were four that begin with an S, an E an R and a B. 

Three of these words appeared in titles of “classic rock” songs recorded by bands with names beginning with the letters H, E and R.

The “R” news word appears in a song title by the band that begins with “H”; the “B” word appears in a song (and album) title by the band that begins with “E”: and the “E” news word appears in a song title by the band that begins with “R”.

The first two syllables of the three-syllable “S” news word sound like a smart phone feature that, when spelled backward, is a part of the eye. 

What are the seven words that correspond with these seven initials?

Hint: The second letters in the four news-story words and the three band names are all vowels. 

Thanks for sampling our appetizers. Now that your appetite is properly honed, use it to slice through our puzzle slice entrée and Light Dessert Menu trifle like a hot knife through pounds of cheesy pizza:

MENU

There’s Room At The Inn Slice:

“We’ll leave the light on for you… for four years or so”

Name some things hosts often provide to their guests, in three syllables. Remove all but the first two and last two letters. Reverse the order of the last two letters to form a four-letter word naming something motels and hotels traditionally provide their guests.

The letters that were removed form a two-syllable word for “guests” who settle in for a stay at an institutional “host” that is in some ways similar to a hotel, except that the “extended stay” the institution offers lasts usually not just a night or two but four or five years, and sometimes even more.

What are the things that hosts provide their guests? What is it that hotels and motels provide their guests? Who are the “guests” who take extended stays with institutional hosts?

Light Dessert Menu

All The Words Fit To Print Dessert:

Bridging the Aviation-Equinox gap

Consider the following list of words:

Priory, Jingoist, Initiate, Grievous, Shortwave, Evening, Aviation, __________, Equinox, Exaggerate, Praxis, Juxtaposition…

Fill in the blank with a word that fits there in that position. We have a four-syllable word in mind, but there surely are others that would also fit.

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 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 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 Puzzleria! Thank you.

The 34.9 Percent Solution; Shuffling off to Kerfuffalo; Pharaoh, fact and fiction; Calaboosegow!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{4 +} 5!  SERVED

Welcome to our September 4^th Labor Day Weekend edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! We have devised four “laborinthine” puzzle slices for your holiday enjoyment – two appetizers and two entrées. 

(No dessert this week. You need time off to recover from skydiveboy’s delightfully rich hatful of Tangerine-Argentine compote from last week!)

So, we’ll start you out with a pair of fresh trending-news appetizers:

Appetizer Menu

Omission Trip Appetizer:

Calaboosegow!

A newsmaker made headlines recently for what might be termed a “sin of omission.” The newsmaker contends that such omission in this matter is in fact virtuous, and that to act otherwise would indeed be a “sin of commission.” The newsmaker might further contend that “committing” this “sin” of omission is a result of the newsmaker being _______.

The word that belongs in that blank is the newsmaker’s surname with its first and final letters reversed and the penultimate letter changed to a different vowel.

The newsmaker is being imprisoned by the legal system at present. That punishment may be soon curtailed, however, for – as the newsmaker presumably knows from the Book of Acts 5:19 – there is a possibility of “the righteous” being sprung overnight from the hoosegow by an “agent of righteousness.” The first three letters of the familiar form of the likely name of that angelic agent, spelled backward, form the newsmaker’s Christian name.   

Who is this newsmaker?

Atta Graham Appetizer:

Shuffling off to Kerfuffalo

The following apparent sports story is actually a cleverly disguised current-events news story. Hidden within the text are four strings of consecutive words. Each of these strings can be anagrammed into two words that form the gist of the news story:

Icky Foods, star scatback for the Kerfuffalo Bulls, had bad wheels.

“I’d call my knee ‘in pain,’” Foods lamented before the Bulls’ Super Bowl clash with the Washington Russets, a rematch of Super Bowl XXVI  (before both teams changed their nicknames). “For the past month I’ve been on the DL, my ankle in ice. But now I’m ready to shuffle.”

Drawing inspiration from and buoyed by the Kerfuffalo Cowbelles – who performed their patented Milky Dance Line routine on the sidelines during time-outs – the Bulls took a 14-0 halftime lead, but the Russets peeled back into the game and even went ahead 19-14 with one minute remaining.

With four seconds left, the Bulls had the ball on the Russets’ three yard line, fourth and goal. Quarterback Kim Jelly called Icky’s number on straight dive play behind the Bulls’ behemoth left guard Dan Blocker. The lumbering lineman led Icky into the end zone as the clock registered all zeroes, prompting Icky to celebrate by… well, you know.

Hint: The distribution and lengths of the four strings of consecutive anagrammable words are as follows:

2^nd Paragraph: two 5-word strings

3^rd Paragraph: one 3-word string

4^th Paragraph: one 3-word string

Hint: There is a connection between this appetizer and this week’s Great American Heroine Slice.    

Hope you appreciated our appetizers. Wait just a minute while we bus your tables. Your entrées should be on the way presently… Ah, here they be:

MENU

Sure Looks Like Sherlock Slice:

The 34.9 Percent Solution

Something is somewhat unusual – perhaps even quite unusual – about the following sentence:

Eventually lifelike machines became conceivable, and fastidious albeit also slovenly software inventors created an automaton.

What makes the sentence unusual?

Hint: Finding the solution involves the process of deduction.

Great American Heroine Slice:

Pharaoh, fact and fiction

A great American heroine was born in the mid-Nineteenth Century. She was an explorer, adventurer, educator and writer, and achieved heights achieved by few others of her generation. This woman’s monogram spells a word associated with a certain pharaoh.

Changing the third letter of this heroine’s surname from a “c” to an “a” forms a word associated (mainly literally, but also figuratively) with several of her lifetime achievements.

Now write the surname (with the “c” restored and “a” removed) of this groundbreaker who achieved such lofty goals. Follow that with a word that is an approximate rhyme of her middle name, followed by the fourth, first and second (or third) letters of her first name. Remove any spaces.

 

The result is an adjective – coined a year after the heroine was born – based on a character from an English novel published six years before she was born. (This adjective appears as an uppercase word in both the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Tenth Edition and the OED – the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language.)

Who is this heroine? Who is the fictional character? Who is the pharaoh? What is the eponymous adjective?

Hint: There is a connection between this puzzle slice and this week’s Atta Graham Appetizer.

Note: We would like to thank Word Woman – another great American heroine – for introducing us to this past great American heroine.

Along with automotive engineer/inventor Henry Leland from last week’s Jung + Leland = Jungleland puzzle, this heroine deserves to be more limelit.

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 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 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 Puzzleria! Thank you.