“Restore the military drafts, man!” Stars cosmic and cosmetic; Character development; Salameandering Solutionward; Stiff-armed statuette of liberty and justice for all; Third Floor: Swiss army knives, navy slacks, marine vinyl…

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{6 +} pi² SERVED

Welcome to our April 22^nd edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

At the end of last week’s comments section I mentioned yesterday’s death of the musician Prince, and provided links to a few of his performances and covers of his songs. One of my links was to “When Doves Cry,” not my favorite Prince song, but the one I find the most innovative and unique. A handful of other songs I put in this innovative/unique category are these by Eno/Cale, Bruce Cockburn, Lindsey Buckingham, Incredible Casuals, Talking Heads, and, of course, Queen.

Wolf Blitzer on CNN Thursday made a “serendipitous slip” when he praised Prince by saying, “…All of us , of course, remember (Prince’s) ‘Purple Haze.’” (Blitzer misspoke by saying “Haze,” instead of “Rain”! Ironically and presciently, I linked to Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” in Wednesday’s comments because of the whole 4/20 marajuana-day observance thing.) 

The slip Blitzer made was serendipitous because Seattle-born Jimi Hendrix and Minneapolis-born Prince were both guitar virtuosi, and were obviously kindred spirits to boot. Jimi alas made it only to age 27, 30 years shy of Prince’s 57. Had Hendrix lived longer he  may have been as prolific as his fellow virtuoso.

As a Wisconsinite transplanted to Minnesota, I take pride in most all of our homestate artists – including Dylan, Prince, Replacements, Semisonic, Gear Daddies, Jayhawks, Cultivators, Trip Shakespeare, Hang Ups, etc.

Speaking of “hang-ups” and being “tripped up and shaken up,” we’re serving up eight fresh puzzles this week, including:

Three characteristically derivative “Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz” Slices;

One Heisman-worthy Hors d’Oeuvre;

One stellar Morsel;

One Appetizer that ought not be attempted by “rank” amateurs;

One dodgy draftsman military Slice; and

One timely yet crusty Dessert.

So go ahead, puzzle and party like it’s the 303^rd prime:

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Double Reverse Hors d’Oeuvre:

Stiff-armed statuette of liberty and justice for all

Take the first and last names of a person in news of the nation this past week. If you say them aloud in reverse order – putting the surname to the left of the first name – it will sound as if you are pronouncing the surname of a Heisman Trophy winner.

Who is the newsmaker? Who is the Heisman winner?

Morsel Menu

Galactose-Packed Morsel:

Stars cosmic and cosmetic

Two stars from the entertainment industry have the same first name. Their eight-letter surnames are also identical except for their middle four letters. (Their midsections do share one letter in common but it is not in the same position.)  

The middle four letters of the still-living entertainer’s surname spell out a man’s name. If you spell the middle four letters of the deceased entertainer’s surname backward the first three spell out a title with which his/her close associate is sometimes addressed.

Fans of the living star associate her/him with a particular star in the sky, but for cosmetic rather than cosmic reasons. Fans of the deceased star associate him with that same cosmic star, because of something he/she once composed.

Who are these two stars? What is the cosmic star?

Hint: There is a tenuous connection between the living star’s surname and the national news story in this week’s Dessert.   

 

       

Appetizer Menu

Rank And File Appetizer:

Third Floor: Swiss army knives, navy slacks, marine vinyl…  

Name the founder of an eponymous upscale department store of the past. Remove the final letter of his first name and switch the two names. The result is a military rank, in two words.

The surname of one person who achieved this rank is the middle name of a founder of another department store of the past. Another person (whose surname was the same as the first name of the upscale department store founder) achieved a status equivalent to this two-word rank, but which was called instead “general of the army.”

 

What is this rank? Who are the two department store founders, the person who achieved the rank, and the person who became “general of the army”?

Hint: The first name of the person (“whose surname was the same as the first name of the upscale department store founder”) is the first name of the two entertainment industry stars in the Morsel puzzle above.

 

MENU

Complex Military Industrial Slice:

“Restore the military drafts, man!”

Name three military terms:

1. A large organized military group (5 letters)

2. Soldiers, or groups of soldiers (6 letters)

3. An military acronym regarding aircraft; 

or, a term for the area on a military air base where soldiers board transport aircraft (6 letters) (This term is more properly called an “apron.” But it is seldom called that in practice, perhaps because “apron” does not sound as “military” as the term we are seeking.)

Rearrange these 17 letters to form the names of two tools that that a military draftsman might use in designing, say, an air base, barracks or bridge.

What are these three terms and two tools?

Hint: All three military terms can be found in the final two paragraphs of this Los Angeles Times news story.

Ripping Off Shortz And Sandy Slices:

Character development

Will Shortz’s NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle this past week reads:

Here is a tricky challenge from Sandy Weisz of Chicago. Take the name of a famous musical. Write it in uppercase letters and lowercase letters as you usually would. Now turn one of the characters upside-down and move it to another place in the title. The result will be the last name of a well-known stage performer. What is the musical, and who is the performer?

Here is our trio of Puzzlerian! rip-offs/riff-offs:

ONE: Here is a tricky challenge from Lego Lambda of Sargasso: 

Take the name of a comedic movie, nine characters long. Change all uppercase characters to lowercase and move the first three characters to the very end.

Now invert one of the six characters that were not moved and rearrange those six characters. Add a space to this nine-character result to form a two-word phrase that describes “The Lonely Goatherd,” “Edelweiss,” or “Do-Re-Mi.”

Now re-rearrange those six characters at the left and re-position the space to form a two-word phrase that describes Mork and ALF. 

What is the movie? What are the two descriptive two-word phrases?

TWO: Here is a tricky challenge from Lego Lambda of Sapsago: 

Take the four-word title of a past operatic PBS series. Remove the title’s preposition and article. Turn two of the seven letters in the remaining two words upside-down.  Change all letters to lowercase and rearrange the result, forming something with a value of nearly 480 million. 

Now take a two-word description (consisting of an adjective and noun) of a performer featured the debut telecast of the past PBS series. Write all nine letters of the two words in lowercase and rearrange them. Turn two of the letters upside-down. The result has a value of more than 87 billion. 

What was this PBS series? Who was the featured performer? What is the descriptive two-word synonym?

THREE: Here is a tricky challenge from Lego Lambda of Lumbago: 

Take the four-word title of a black comedy movie released just before a Bush became president. Remove two punctuation marks and turn two characters upside-down. Form two lowercase characters by dividing one of the inverted characters in half with a horizontal “severing.” Change all but one of the uppercase characters into lowercase characters.

Rearrange these 17 characters to form four words – of 1, 6, 6 and 4 letters – that describe a character that portrayed a performance artist in one episode of a 1980s-90s sitcom. The third word is the sitcom’s title. The fourth word is the type of performance artist portrayed. The two six-letter words begin with the same letter but are not alliterative; the first of the two is an pejorative adjective.

What is this four-word description? What is the movie title?

Dessert Menu

AnagrahamCracker Dessert Crust:

Salameandering Solutionward

Write a caption – in two words of four and five letters – that could apply to any one of the three images pictured here.

Rearrange those nine letters to form the surnames of two people that appeared in the same national news story this past week.

What is the caption? 

Who are the two people? 

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 Wednesdays 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.