Valentine ear candy; Papa Razzi’s delivers; Hearts and Mayflowers; An eponymy appliance; Rue the date; “I’ll take Paul Lynde to block!” Prime-ordinal soup; Beastie altar boys; Duelin’ with the devil; Third time’s a charm, quatrieme fois est viral; Oh say, can you ceaselessly headbang?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} pi³ SERVED

Welcome to our February 12^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

Like Cupid with his bow and Eros, we shall be shooting a quiverful of high quality quizzicals your way this week. The sharpest arrow in our quiver is an amazing challenge created by patjberry, a creative and prolific puzzle maker and Puzzlerian! His puzzle, which appears directly beneath our main MENU heading, is titled “Classic Rock Slice: Valentine ear candy.” Thank you, Patrick, for once more hitting the bull’s eye of beautiful, bountiful bafflement… and for being generous in sharing the upshot with us.

Other darts we hope will hit the target this week are a brand-name morsel; a gated estate appetizer; a household wordplay dessert; and seven (count ‘em, seven!) “piggyback” puzzles ripping off Will Shortz’s fine “first-second-third” Sunday puzzle.

So, pull a pencil and paper (and a box of chocolates) from your quiver, draw back your bow, and have a fun and fine ol’ “Valentime” taking aim at our puzzles.

Morsel Menu

Corporate Morsel:

Hearts and Mayflowers

Name an American corporation and brand founded more than a century ago. Spell it backward and divide it into two equal parts.

The first part is a slang term associated with a particular St. Valentine’s Day. The second part is a food often associated with Thanksgiving Day.

What are this brand, slang term and food?

Appetizer Menu

Gated Estate Appetizer:

Papa Razzi’s delivers

Now that I live in a mansion on a gated estate, I own three dogs – a Chihuahua, Pekingese and Toy Fox Terrier. When I lived in a one-room flat, I owned a Great Dane, Irish Wolfhound and Leonberger. I guess that means I possess a haphazard pet-size sense. But I do have a canny (or should that be “uncanny”)  housekeeping sense. Whenever I notice my dogs beginning to shed, I leash them up, don my Lugano Diamonds Sunshades, and venture outdoors. I try to shed the paparazzi if I sense their presence, but if they do manage to snap an “unselfie” of me, I zap a phased hertz pulsation in the vicinity of their cameras’ digital image sensors with my taser gun.

 

Embedded in the paragraph above are three strings if 16 consecutive letters. Each string contains the same sixteen letters. Thus you can rearrange the letters in any one of those strings to form a product (singular form) that certain businesses will be delivering plenty of this weekend.

What is this product? Fill in the blanks:

__ __ __ __ __ - __ __ __ __ __ __

__ __ __ __ __

MENU

Classic Rock Slice:

Valentine ear candy

Take a compound word that begins with a “D” that you might see on one of those little Valentine candies with messages on them. It was the first word in a mid-1970’s debut album title by a mixed-gender rock group.

Another group released a mid-1970’s self-titled debut album with a compound word as its final word. The singular form of that word also might appear on one of those little Valentine candies. The name of this group begins with the name of its lead singer (like Dion and the Belmonts, for example).

The first part of that second compound word is the name of the first group. The second part of the singular form of the compound word is a word spoken by many people who partook in a 1970’s-era fad, including the solo performer of a hit novelty song recorded in 1975.

Four letters in the final word of the second group’s name can be rearranged to spell the title of a mid-1970’s rock ballad by a third group known for its hard rock songs as well as for its members’ unusual appearance. The group’s name is one you would definitely see on one of those little Valentine candies. The lead singer of the ballad, whose stage surname rhymes with the name of the group, doesn’t seem to be playing his instrument during the song.

Remove the last letter from the ballad’s title and place the remaining letters to the right of the subject of a 1974 novelty song about another 1970’s-era fad. A decade later, this third rock group would do something akin to this fad – something that altered their appearance but not as radically as partaking in the actual fad would have.

Switch the first letter of the ballad’s truncated title with the first four letters of the 1974 novelty song’s subject word to form the two-word title of a late-1970’s hit song by a popular solo artist. The title is a famous location from literature, although the characters usually found there are never referenced in the song.

The title of this artist’s debut solo album, which was released in 1971, suggests what one might say to a confectioner who sold the aforementioned Valentine candies bearing messages such as, say, “I loathe you” or “You make me sick” instead of sweet messages such as “Be mine” or “Miss you.”

 

Name all these 1970’s rock artists and all their song or album titles.

Hint: The last six letters of the 1974 novelty song’s subject are the same as the last six letters of the word spoken in the 1975 novelty song.

Hint: In the 1974 novelty song the name of a woman is mentioned several times. The first three letters of that name are the last three letters of the rock ballad’s title.  

Ripping Off Herman And Shortz Slices:

Prime-ordinal soup

This week’s NPR Sunday puzzle from Will Shortz was submitted by Jon Herman. It reads:

If PAJAMA represents first and REBUKE represents second, what nine-letter word can represent third?

(You can find the answer here.)

I have created seven “piggyback” puzzles that “rip-off” (or “riff-off”) this NPR challenge: 

# ONE:

If FECUND represents first and SURD represents second, what six-letter word can represent third?

The other six puzzles:

# TWO

Beastie altar boys

If PRIEST represents first and BEAST represents second, what six-letter word must represent third?

# THREE

“I’ll take Paul Lynde to block!”

A baby girl is born on December 31^st, born shy by just seconds of not qualifying as an income tax deduction. Her parents name her Ginger. 

As an adult, her gig as a football photojournalist requires Ginger to master a basic principle of photographic composition – one in which photographers break down any image into horizontal and vertical thirds. So, whenever Ginger focused on the subjects of her photos, she saw them not as helmeted “gladiators” but as X’s and O’s on a diagram with an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid superimposed. Her goal was to frame the focus of her composition into the “center square,” as if it were Paul Lynde!

Explain how words of the same color in the paragraphs above are related. Can you identify another two-word piece of text that could be printed in red letters? 

(Hint: the other two-word piece is adjacent to already existing red text.)

# FOUR

Third time’s a charm, quatrieme fois est viral

If JALOPY represents first, REBUKE represents second, and CIRCUS represents third, what six-letter word can represent fourth?

There are a few handfuls of possible correct answers to that question, but we are seeking only words that begin with an “N.” There are two possibilities. One is an adjective, the other is an adverb.

# FIVE

Duelin’ with the devil

Place the three phrases below in the correct order – first, second and third:

1. Although he is not human, the devil errs, and idler revs are his workshop.

2. Luigi departed the all-you-can-eat-and-drink Italian buffet, wove as he drove, got stopped by a cop, took a breathalyzer test, and blew only zero because of his new orzo belly.

3. If you get locked in a blog duel with competing puzzle blogs, the worst thing you can do is go be dull, for the next sound you may hear is that of an old bugle playing “Taps.”

Hint: “Babel” and “Nimrod” are random bible words.

Hint: There is a pair of compatible and matching anagramatic clues in each of the three sentences and in the above hint.

# SIX

Rue the date

If February is first but not ninth, rank the following words as first, second and third:

Bionic, empty, eczema

Hint: Are you there? Ranking the three words is easier if you are there, if you are present, if you are hanging around. And, if you close your anemic eye.

# SEVEN

Oh say, can you ceaselessly headbang?

“A rock anthem can inflame youths.”

Rank the colored words in the statement above – first, second and third.

Dessert Menu

Household Wordplay Dessert:

An eponymy appliance

Name an appliance found in many households. Take a verb for an undesirable thing the appliance might do during its operation. Divide the verb in two and place the first half at the beginning of the appliance and the second half at the end of the appliance.

The first five letters of this result, reading from left to right, spell a unit of measurement associated with the operation of the appliance. The last five letters reading from left to right spell an internal part of the appliance.

Replace one letter with a different letter in the surname of the pioneering eponymous inventor (after whom the unit of measurement is named) to form a word that might be used to advertise a particular capability of the appliance.

Hint: If you assign each letter of the alphabetic a numerical value from 1 to 26 (A = 1, B = 2, C = 3,… Z = 26), the sum of the letter and its replacement is 27.

What is this appliance? 
What is the unit of measurement associated with the appliance?
What is the internal part of the appliance? 
What is the “undesirable thing the appliance might do?” 
What is the word possibly used to advertise the appliance?
Who is the pioneering eponymous inventor?  

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.