The answer is not (W)Al Green; Spoonin' with the buffoons; Singing drugstore cowboys (and cowgals?); Warblers, not Woofers; Eddie Cantor lives! A desperate cry for hell;

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

Welcome to our April 29^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! This edition marks the end of our second year of original nutty and knotty puzzletry. Next Friday we shall begin our third year of Puzzleria!

We’re serving up six piping-fresh puzzles this week, including three of the “Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz” variety – an Hors d’Oeuvre, Appetizer and Slice. 

Also on our menus this week are a “novel” Morsel, a “doggonerel” Slice, and a mix ‘n’ match Dessert.

So, Think Good, It’s Friday TGIF). And, as always, enjoy:

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Ripping Off Shortz Hors d’Oeuvre:

The answer is not (W)Al Green

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

Name a famous singer – first and last names. The last four letters of the first name spelled backward plus the first four letters of the last name spelled forward – read together, in order – name a section of products in a drugstore. What is it?

Here is our Puzzlerian! Ripping Off Shortz Hors d’Oeuvre:

Name a famous singer – first and last names. Take all but the second letter of the first name and spell the result backward. Place this in front of the first four letters of the last name spelled forward. Read the result in order to name a section of products in a drugstore.

What is this section? Who is the singer?

Morsel Menu

Minkskin Morsel:

Eddie Cantor lives!

Background and plot outline for a novel:

1941, Minsk, Belorussia: The German Army occupies the city. The Nazis round up thousands of Jewish refugees, executing the majority and imprisoning the rest in a ghetto erected on the outskirts of Minsk.

Within the ghetto, a Jewish resistance movement arises with help from the Communist underground. As the Holocaust and World War II wear on, the resistance succeeds in enabling approximately 10,000 Jews to escape from the ghetto to surrounding forests.

Embedded deep within the underground resistance network is a sub-network of yeshivas in which rabbis and seminarians resurrect the ancient tradition and spirit of “cabala” (which in Hebrew means “reception” in the sense of “hospitality” ). These underground cabals surreptitiously host Jewish refugees, providing them asylum until a safe pathway to freedom becomes possible.

The working title of the novel is “Cabals Via Yeshivas.”

Rearrange the 17 letters in that title to form the names of two Singers – one fictional, the other real. Both Singers, but especially the real one, have an ethnic connection to the subject of the novel and to the two longer words in its title.

Who are these two Singers?

Appetizer Menu

Riffing Off Shortz Appetizer:

Warblers, not Woofers  

Click this link (and look under “Next Week’s”) to read Will Shortz’s NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle from this past week. Now solve the riff-off puzzle below:

Name a section of products in a drugstore, a three-syllable plural word. Bisect the word. Add a letter to the beginning of the first half to name a well-known musical.

Take a synonym of “warble,” delete one of its double-letters and replace its vowel with a different vowel. Place this result after the second half of the plural three-syllable drugstore word to form a synonym of “musician.”

What is this drugstore product section? What are the musical and the synonyms of warble and musician?

 

MENU

Sons Of Unspayed Doggerel Slice:

A desperate cry for hell

Hell fires are stoked by fossil fuel that filth enriches.

The lecher, thief and liar are sons of sinful itches.

If heretics in hell have fun though, I’m a shoo-in…

So donate to my cause, effect my hellish ruin.

Each line in the quatrain above contains a number of words that contain a total of exactly 17 letters. Those letters can be rearranged to form a 17-letter four-word phrase that has been quoted in recent news stories.

What is the phrase?

Hint: In three of the quatrain’s lines, the “number of words” is three. In a fourth line, the “number of words” is four.

Ripping Off Shortz Slice:

Singing drugstore cowboys (and cowgals?)

Click this link (and look under “Next Week’s”) to read Will Shortz’s NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle from this past week. Now solve the rip-off puzzle below:

Name a famous female singer from the past – first and last names. Add a letter somewhere in the last name to form the last name of a male singer. Delete a letter from the first name, leaving a last name shared by a pair of hall of fame singers.

 

Name one of the male singer’s band mates (another male) from a hall of fame band. The last four letters of this band mate’s first name, spelled backward, form a noun that applies to the female singer at the beginning of the puzzle. 

The first, fourth and final letters of the male band mate’s last name are the same as the first, fourth and final letters of another male singer with the same first name. Both singers once played in bands with “avian” names. The first four letters in the second male singer’s last name are the first name of a female hall of fame singer from the past. The four-letter noun that applied to the other past female singer has sometimes also been applied to this singer (albeit in a somewhat looser sense).

 

Who are, in order: The past singer, the male singer, the two hall of fame singers with the same last name, the male singer’s band mate, the male singer who shares that band mate’s first name, and the second past singer?

What is the noun that has been applied to both past singers? What are the two bands with “avian” names?

Dessert Menu

Campagne For Dessert:

Spoonin’ with the buffoons

Each of the ten images pictured below is labeled with a number from 1 to 10 in its upper-left-hand corner. 

Write a two-word caption for each image, then arrange the ten images into five appropriate pairs: 
(For convenience, you can use the 1-to-10 labeling in your answer.)

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 <b>Wednesdays</b> 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.