"Daisy, give me your puzzle answer, do"; Names in the news, and all that jazz; Where am I?; "Lego needs an editor!"; A rough and well-rounded equivalence

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

Welcome to this October 2 edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! After subjecting Puzzlerians! to two too many. or more, tangled thickets of labyrinthine syntax in my* puzzles last week, we shall strive to ratchet down and dial back the “convolution” in this week’s puzzles.

*Last week’s excellent “Who am I” movie puzzle by skydiveboy (Mark Scott of Seattle), however, was stated non-convolutedly and clearly, yet cleverly.

My friend Mary concurs with the sentiments – penned by some constructively tactful yet honest Puzzlerians! in last week’s comments – that my puzzles tend to be worded a wee bit bewilderingly. Mary says that reading my puzzles is “like taking a leisurely stroll through a field of quicksilver...” oops, she said instead, “quicksand” (which actually seems to be kind of a slow-paced process).

There appear to be five puzzles in this week’s trio of Puzzleria! menus, but there are actually only four “new” puzzles. The second slice under the MENU – Recycled Slice: “Lego needs an editor!” – is a “repurposed” and edited puzzle that appeared in a previous edition of Puzzleria!

But fear not. We still will be serving up four original enigmatic creations – two appetizers, a dessert and a somewhat tough puzzle slice involving a mathematical equation. Enjoy… as you try to sidestep our (alas) ineluctable quizzical quicksand.

Appetizer Menu

The Wanderer Appetizer:

Where am I?

Name a lately newsworthy place (call it “A”), in four letters. Form a new word by rotating the place name’s first letter 180 degrees Celsius (which is 356 degrees Fahrenheit, but don’t rotate it that far because then it will pretty much stay the same letter!). The result is a plural word (“B”) very closely associated with the place name.  The two words do not rhyme, however.

Name a possible inhabitant of the place, an inhabitant in its abbreviated form (“C”). Write this abbreviation backward and insert in in the middle of the plural word. The result is a plural word (“D”), the singular form of which is lately becoming increasingly closely associated with the place name.

“A” and “D” have been paired in news stories this past week. “C” was much in the news in the early 1980s. “B”, it seems, is always in the news, alas.

Where is this place, and what is its name. What is the thing lately increasingly associated with this place?

Cool Copacetic Hot Licks Cat Appetizer:

Names in the news, and all that jazz

Take the one-syllable first name of a bandleader/jazz singer who was born on Christmas day. Take a two-syllable word he likely heard shouted out often when he performed. Take a two-syllable word with one vowel (that is only sometimes a vowel) to name something with which this performer was blessed.

Rearrange the letters in these three words to form the surnames of two people who often appeared together in the same news story this past week.

Who are these two people and who is the bandleader/jazz singer?

MENU

Digitaliteral Slice:

A rough and well-rounded equivalence

An equation has three lowercase Roman alphabet letters (a, b, c, … z) on one side of the equal sign and three Arabic numeral digits (1, 2, 3 …8, 9, 0) on the other side. No letter or digit is used more than once. None of the letters are variables.

The equation also includes a punctuation mark and a

mathematical symbol, one on each side of the equation. This symbol and mark are identical in form but dissimilar in function.

Definition: The “ordinal value” of a letter is its position in the alphabet: a =1, b = 2, c = 3 …i = 9, j = 0.

There is a one-to-one correspondence between letters and digits. Each letter is related to exactly one digit in the following manner:

1.) One of the letters has the ordinal value of one of the digits

2.) Another one of the letters, if rotated 180 degrees, has the ordinal value of a digit that has been rounded to the nearest one-hundredth.

3.) The remaining letter would have the ordinal value of the remaining digit if that digit had been rounded to the nearest whole number (although it has not been so rounded).

The equation is true, although it is an approximation. What is this equation?

Hint: The letters on one side of the equation spell out either a common noun or a somewhat common prefix.

Recycled Slice:

“Lego needs an editor!”

Take the first names of and actress and actor who starred in a boffo box office hit movie released about 35 years ago. Pronounce these two names aloud –changing the short vowel sound of the actor’s name to a different short vowel sound – to name an influential blues and rock and roll musician.

Who are the actress, actor and musician. What is the movie?

Hint: The musician made a classic commercial about 25 years ago which featured a person who has the same first name as the actress and musician.

Dessert Menu

Bicycled Dessert:

“Daisy, give me your puzzle answer, do”

Write down a movie title released in 2015. Directly below it, letter-beneath-letter, write a movie title released in 2016, ignoring the final two letters of the 2016 movie and the numeral at the end. Make sure you position the two movie titles so that each above-and-below pair of letters lines up vertically in order and in tandem – resulting in a total of ten upper-and-lower letter-tandems.

In five of those letter-tandems the two letters are the same. Ignore those. From left to right, the five remaining tandems – reading from top to bottom – spell out:

1.) A common exclamation

2.) A possible inhabitant, in its abbreviated form, of the newsworthy place that is the answer to this week’s The Wanderer Appetizer: Where am I? (see “C” above)

3.) A southern state’s postal abbreviation

4.) Letters preceding “109”

5.) Letters associated with “34”

What are these two movies?

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.