Bilingual bugle call; Statesided Journey; Pigskin veggie boys; Making model cars in shop class; The United Shapes of America; Nine pyrotechnic page-turners; (TH)inking outside the pushed envelope; Reading a postal pattern; The Mailer’s Tale... of Two Cities

P! SLICES: OVER e⁶ + pi⁴ SERVED

Welcome to our July 1^st edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

We feature another fine puzzle this week from patjberry. It involves a singer, a song, and a soldier who lingered in his bunk too long! Patrick’s puzzle is titled “Snoozy Sleepyhead Soldier Slice: Bilingual bugle call.”

It appears directly beneath this week’s main MENU.  Our gratitude, patjberry.

Also on this week’s menus are:

5 “Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz” puzzles (all involving – fittingly for Independence Day weekend – our 50 United States of America);

1 Hors d’Oeuvre featuring Elvis at a Fourth of July clambake;

1 Morsel suitable for both carnivores and herbivores; and

1 Appetizer involving high school classes and high-performance cars (“high-performance,” perhaps).

Note: This week’s Dessert ought to appeal especially to very young Puzzlerians!, and our “Riffing Off Shortz Morsel: United Shapes of America” should be solvable by teens and tweens.

So, start working on grilling up some puzzleburgers, slap them onto buns slathered and stacked with the works, ruminate while oohing and aahing at the befuddling fireworks… but then, get to work!

And, as always, enjoy:

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Elvis’ Clambake Hors d’Oeuvre:

Nine pyrotechnic page-turners

Fourth of July’s Sestet

A July drab bit run-of-the-pepper-mill clambake: 

Scads of shish kebab bitten, then grape/berry-jam cake.

Meanwhile beachside, Dad helped them make castles, his brood…

One kid napped in Mom’s arms as, on sand, lovers wooed.

Speakers boom a lone Diesel song, disco beat churning,

Then the “legend from Tupelo” lit a hunk burning.

Sunset looms, bats their sonar chirps echo-ward send,

July’s sestet (plus couplet) has come to its end.

Nine titles from literature are hidden within the text of the above sestet-plus-couplet. Can you find all nine?

Ripping Off Shortz And Collins Hors d’Oeuvre:

The Mailer’s Tale... of Two Cities

Will Shortz’s June 26^th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Peter Collins of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:

Think of two well-known American cities, each five letters long. The first two letters of the first city are the state postal abbreviation of the second city. And the first two letters of the second city are the state postal abbreviation of the first city. What two cities are these? 

Puzzleria!’s “Ripping Off Shortz And Collins Hors d’Oeuvre” reads:

Think of two cities with populations greater than half-a-million. The first city is one letter shorter than the second one, and has a population roughly one-third of the second.

The first two letters of the first city are the state postal abbreviation of the Second City. 

What two cities are these?

Morsel Menu

Giving It The Ol’ College Trio Morsel:

Pigskin veggie boys

Slice up a vegetable into three sections:

The rightmost section is the first name of an All-American college football player and College Football Hall of Fame coach. He also coached in the NFL.

The middle section is the first name of a College Football Hall of Fame coach who led his team to multiple national collegiate championships.

The leftmost section consists of three consecutive interior letters in the surname of a member of both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame as a player.

Take the remaining letters of the player’s surname and spell them in reverse order to form a common abbreviation for a general term encompassing sporting activities such as football. 

All three men had great success and are closely associated with one particular university – two as players and one as a coach. All three played professional football and were born in “traditional Big Ten” states.

What is this vegetable? Who are the three men, and with which university are they closely associated?

Riffing Off Shortz Morsel:

The United Shapes of America

Identify the shapes pictured below, #1 through # 8.

Appetizer Menu

Ripping Off Shortz Appetizer:

Reading a postal pattern

It has been said that American football – as compared to international futbol (also known as “soccer”) – is a violent sport. But which position player on a football team is least likely to, as they say, “go postal.”

Hint: The answer is not “Defensive End.”

High (On Glue) School Appetizer:

Making model cars in shop class

Name the make and model of an automobile you still see occasionally on the roads. 

Replace a vowel in the model’s name with a different vowel.

The result is a subject usually taught in high school.

What is this automobile make and model? What is the high school subject?

MENU

Snoozy Sleepyhead Soldier Slice:

Bilingual bugle call

Think of a well-known bilingual singer. Now think of a military rank. The singer’s name contains every letter of this rank, rearranged. Remove the letters in the rank from the singer’s name, leaving letters that can be rearranged to spell a two-word phrase that a soldier of a lower rank might say to explain why he still may be in his bunk long after reveille.

In order to rouse the sleeping-in soldier, the officer outranking him might need to yell out the title of one of the bilingual singer’s hit songs. The first two letters of this song’s title spell the initials of the singer’s name. The letters of the final word in the title can be found in the singer’s last name, rearranged.

Who is the singer, and what is the title of the hit song? What is the military rank, and what does the soldier say to explain why he is still in bed after reveille?

Riffing Off Shortz Slice:

(TH)inking outside the pushed envelope

The following list of 12 state postal abbreviations is only 75 percent complete. The states they represent share something in common that is related to state postal abbreviations:

AL, __, CT, GA, IA, KY, __, MD, MO, NM, __, PA, RI, __, WV, WI

Can you complete the list of 16 total abbreviations by adding the four other postal abbreviations that share the same quality in common?

Hint: Two similar lists – both that would likely be easier to solve – contain 20 state postal abbreviations and 34 state postal abbreviations.

Dessert Menu

 

Ripping Off Shortz Easy As Pie-ce Of Name-calling Dessert:

Statesided Journey

Can you name what each of the four shapes pictured in the diagram at the left is called?

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.