Moon, June, croon tune… spoon; Hyd-rogain dye ox hide; What’s on the menu at “classy” Penn Avenue? Mixing up a baker’s dozen;

P! SLICES: OVER (65 + 432) SERVED

Welcome to our May 5^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 

On Tuesday, May 9, 2017 we will be celebrating this blog’s third anniversary. Yes, Puzzleria! Puzzleria! that toddlin’tangletown is exiting its “terrible twos” and stumblin’ bumblin’ tumblin’ into its “thrilling and thriving threes.”

On our menus this week:

We’re serving up our second installment of puzzles that rip-off and riff-off Will Shortz’s NPR two-week creative challenge:

Three of these rip-offs require you to decipher three of my potential entries to Will’s challenge that I did not submit.

Nine other rip-offs ask you to spoonerize answers to clues to form song titles;

One final rip-off requires that you work backward and spoonerize a song title to form the answer to a clue.

And, in honor of our three-year milestone, we are serving up Three other puzzles:

1. An Hors d’Oeuvre that involves oxymorons, but that is not solvable by morons;

2. An Appetizer that may, or may not, involve a moron; and finally,

3. A Dessert with answer that may involve two morons…

But, as the Spaniards and Italians might say, “Inside every moron lies a heart of gold...” 

Gold? isn’t that the metal for gifts given on third anniversaries?

 Please enjoy celebrating Puzzleria’s! golden third anniversary with us by enjoying our puzzles. 

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Paradoxymoronic Hors d’Oeuvre:

Hyd-rogain dye ox hide

Name a phrase that might describe someone who doesn’t put on airs. Replace two consecutive letters in the phrase with two different letters to form an oxymoronic phrase.

What are these two phrases?

 

Hint: Each of the four letters in the two pairs of consecutive letters can be assigned a numerical value. The sum of the values of the “no airs” phrase’s two consecutive letters is roughly (597.28...) greater than the sum of the values of the “oxymoronic” phrase’s two consecutive letters.

Appetizer Menu

President’s Residence Appetizer:

What’s on the menu at “classy” Penn Avenue?

Name a three-word activity associated with Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The second and third words sometimes appear together on a menu. 

Add an “n” to the end of the first of the three words to form a synonym of an adjective that many Americans might associate with that menu item.

What is this activity? 

What are the adjective and its synonym?       

MENU 

Ripping Off Shortz Slices:

Moon, June, croon tune… spoon!

Will Shortz’s April 23^rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

It’s the second week of a two-week creative challenge. … The object is to mashup the titles of past No. 1 hits on the Billboard 100 pop chart to tell a story. For example: “I Shot the Sheriff” “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” “The Morning After” “I’ll Be There” Leaving On A Jet Plane.”

Wikipedia has a list of the Billboard 100 No. 1 singles from the Hot 100 era, 1958 to present, which you can use. Your story can include up to seven song titles. …

Puzzleria’s Riffing/Ripping Off Shortz Slice reads:

# ONE:

To set up this rip-off puzzle, allow me to post the three “two-week creative challenge” entries I submitted to Will Shortz:

1. “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” “Wannabe” “With Arms Wide Open,” “Beautiful Girls,” “Moves Like Jagger”… “With a Little Luck,” “Could've Been.”

2. “I’ll Be Missing You,” “Man in the Mirror.” “Who’s That Girl?” “It Wasn't Me.” “Still,” “It’s Gonna Be Me!”… “Kind of a Drag.”

3. “Royals,” “Down” “Angel” “Dark Horse,” “9 to 5.”  “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Kansas City!”

The answers to this “# ONE rip-off puzzle,” however, involve three of the efforts I did not submit to NPR.

The first answer was my fourth choice; the second answer also did not make my cut; and the third was unsubmittable because it simply did not follow Will’s rules.

Below, for each of my three non-entries, I provide a brief description of the story that is told by its “mashed-up” title. I follow this description with a parenthetical list of artists who performed the hit singles and the number of words in each title. Punctuation for the story is also provided.

ONE: A kibitzer admires the six cards his buddy has been dealt, encourages him to behave in a manner that would contradict his nickname, and expresses desire to get into the game himself.

(Phil Collins, 2 words), (Britney Spears, 1) (Rihanna, 1), (Steve Miller Band, 2)… (Bee Gees, 4), (Lady Gaga, 2). (The Beatles, 6).

TWO: A young woman makes a plea for assistance after trying the classified newspaper sections and bargain stores (and even resorting to “tossing coins in the fountain”) in a futile quest to obtain “a girl’s best friend.”

(The Beatles, 1 word)! (The Honey Cone, 2), (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz, 2), (Terence Trent D’Arby, 2). (U2, 8), (Christina Aguilera, 4)… (Rihanna, 1)!

THREE: If, during a certain time in mid-afternoon or “wee hours of the morning,” you happen to view the inverted reflection of a clock face, it will appear pretty much the same.

(Gary U.S. Bonds, 3) (Diana Ross, 1) (Michael Jackson, 4 words, but ignore the first word) (Barry Manilow, 5 words, but ignore the last three words) (Gary U.S. Bonds, 3).”

# TWO:

The ten clues below might be hard nuts to crack. So, instead of using a nutcracker, try using a “spoon.” Yes, each answer is formed by “spoonerizing” two words from the title on the list of the Billboard 100 No. 1 singles from the Hot 100 era, 1958 to present.

Most of the song titles contain only two words, but a few may contain more than two.

For titles with more than two words, spoonerize only the two main words in the title:

For example, Bob’s Dylan’s “Most of the Time” song title from his “Oh Mercy” album could be spoonerized as “toast of the mime,” which might be clued by the illustration at the right.

If one of the two words to be spoonerized does not begin with a consonant (or consonant blend), simply transfer the initial consonant sound from one word to the other.

For example, the band Yes’s “Leave it” song from their “90125” album could be spoonerized as “Eve Lit,” which might be clued as “The Book of Genesis.”

The two numbers in parentheses after each clue indicate the number of words in the clue answer followed the number of words in the song title.

1.

Constable who monitors the alcoholic content of lemonade-with-beer mixed drinks (2-word clue answer, 2-word song title)

2.

“After you _____ an apple with a knife you will likely ____ whether a worm is within.” (2-word clue answer, 2-word song title, with the words connected by an ampersand)

3.

The caption for the image pictured at the right, below. (3, 2)  

4.

What the night watchman for a Bloomington, Minnesota tourist attraction needs

(2, 2)

5.

What determines what you must pay a newspaper for a display in its classified section (2, 2)

6.

Trash receptacle where disillusioned Barry Manilow fans can throw 45s, 8-tracks and cassettes of his first Billboard chart-topper (3, 3)

7.

“At the Reno Casino, _____ (the dealer in a Tom Fogerty song) cut the deck as the patrons placed their ____.” (2, 4)

8.

“Before he ______ ___, the first-time dater had to ______ up the courage to do so.” (3, 2)

9.

(The answer to this ninth clue, after you spoonerize it to form the song title, will be pronounced slightly different from the song title. The first word will not be the first word in the title (which is the first name the song’s title character) but will instead be a body part of that character that pertains to the song’s subject.)

The nickname of a former NBA basketball player who is the father of a future NBA Hall of Famer. The father’s nickname is also the generic name of a candy that helped a U.S. president kick his smoking habit. (2, 2)

10.

(For this tenth and final part to this puzzle, don’t spoonerize the clue-answer to find the song title; instead spoonerize the song title to find the clue-answer.)

   

The caption for any of four black & white images (that appear throughout this week’s blog), the first word of which is possessive. (2, 2)

Hint: The name of  the song’s artist is a single word that can be followed by “diabetes” or “delinquent.” 

Dessert Menu

Take Out Dessert

Mixing up a baker’s dozen

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un commissioned a production company to film a pilot for a North Korea sitcom titled “Mick’s Sick Tearoom,” a “Cheers” rip-off/wannabe. 

Kim insisted his cousin Kim Caste-roo be hired as casting director. Kim’s cousin cast an Eskimo actor as the sitcom’s star character Mick Tea-soor who prepares and serves the menu’s only two choices: hard-tack tacos or moist cake washed down, of course, with oolong tea.

Kim Jong-un’s history of bizarre crimes took a more bizarre turn, however, when his cousin “voluntarily” cast him in a sitcom skit (or “cameo,”as Kim preferred to call it) playing himself as a patron at Mick’s.

Improvising, the Korean leader ordered both menu items. Alas, a cook’s timer malfunctioned. Mick served Kim not moist cake but “soot-rim” cake and a taco smokier than normal. Kim took a bite of the irksome taco and went ballistic. In other words, he took “I scream, you scream…” to a whole new level of hysteria…

And he didn’t even order dessert!    

The text above contains thirteen related strings of either two or three consecutive words. The letters in each of these word-strings can be rearranged to form a single descriptive phrase (consisting of an adjective and noun) that has been in the news this past week.

What is this newsworthy phrase?

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.