“Double double, boil not bubble” What’s missing from this picture? Sportsweariness; “Countrapital”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED 

Welcome to our February 23rd edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!
Lotsa puzzles this week. 
Why so? 
Well, every Friday we serve up a fistful of “riff-offs” (or “rip-offs)” of  the featured puzzle that Puzzlemaster Will Shortz presents at the end of his “The Puzzle” segment on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday broadcast. 
This past Sunday, February 18, the puzzlemaster featured a puzzle a bloke named Joseph Young composed and sent Will’s way...
As a result, our MENU this week features TWO fistfuls of – that is, TEN ⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓ – “Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices.” 
Plagiarizing one’s own puzzle is a breeze – like stealing candy from a baby dozing in his crib after an evening of grueling trick-or-treating. Easy pickin’s for me! 
Thus, our post-Valentine’s Day “stickler ’n‘ sweet” puzzle bag is filled to the brim.
Also on our menus are:
ONE ⇓ Energy-Sapped Appetizer
ONE ⇓ Hard-Boiled Non-Bubbly Slice;
ONE ⇓ “Something’s Mysteriously Missing” Dessert.

TGIF: Think Good, It’s Friday. 
TFIG: Thanks For Intelligent Guests...
...Guests who, as Will Shortz says, have a lot of fun on Puzzleria!  

Appetizer Menu

Something Sported, Something Worn Appetizer:
Sportsweariness

Think of an adjective that means sluggish or all worn out, either physically or mentally. Remove three consecutive letters that spell something that is worn.  Add “nothing at all” to the beginning of this result to form an adjective that describes competitive performers who cannot afford to be sluggish.

Hint: The adjective that means sluggish has more familiar anatomical and physiological meanings. The adjective that describes competitive performers who cannot afford to be sluggish is often capitalized.
What are these two adjectives?

MENU

Draining The Cauldron Slice:
“Double double, boil not bubble”

Take the last name of a pretty well-known “hard-boiled” politician who is not at all known for having a “bubbly” personality. 


Double its third and its fourth letters. 
Move the final letter in the name so that it is between the doubled third letters. 
The result is the name of the capital of the state the politician once represented. 
Who is this politician?

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:
“Countrapital”

Will Shortz’s February 18th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Joseph Young, reads:
Take the start of the name of a country and the end of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get the last name of a character in a very popular movie. It’s a character everyone knows. Who is it?
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz and Young Slices read:

ONE:
Take the end of the name of a country and the start of that country’s capital. Leave a space between the parts and you’ll get the title of a very popular movie that was also well received by the critics and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It’s a movie many people know. What is it?

TWO:
Take the end of the name of a country and the start of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get the name of a 5-letter verse form with more lines than a haiku but fewer lines than a triolet. It’s a verse form hardly anyone knows. What is it?

THREE:
Take the end of the name of a country and the start of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get a 6-letter capitalized synonym for a “genius.” What is it?

FOUR:
Take the end of the name of a country and the end of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get the name of another country. What country is it?

FIVE:
Take the end of the name of a country and the end of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get the name of an edible chip. What is it?

SIX:
Take the start of the name of a country and the start of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get the name of a company with a trademark logo that features a future mystery writer. What is this company?

SEVEN:
Take the start of the name of a country and the end of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you'll get the first name of an International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee.
Take the end of the name of a country and the start of that country’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you'll get the first name that a billionaire entepreneur/philanthropist goes by.
The tennis hall-of-famer and billionaire are married to each other. What are their names?

EIGHT:
Take the end of the name of a U.S. state and the start of that state’s capital. Put the parts together, one after the other, and you’ll get a synonym for a person you wouldn’t expect to see in a concert hall. That synonym rhymes with a woodwind that you would expect to see in a concert hall. What synonym is this?  

NINE:
The start of the name of a U.S. state and the start of that state’s capital are the first and middle names of a person who furthered the cause of astronomical research and knowledge in the Nineteenth Century. Who is this person?

TEN:
Take the start of the name of a country and the start of that country’s capital, forming the first names of two movie title characters portrayed, respectively, by actresses named Pam and Renee. 
Who are these characters and actresses?

Dessert Menu

Offal Pity Illusion Dessert:
What’s missing from this picture?

The incomplete image pictured here (blue apostrophe’ and red “lympics”), if completed, might have been (but was not) an official publicity illustration for an event that occurred during the 20th Century. 
But the image could just as well be used also as a illustration for a future event that is likely to occur during the 21st Century.

Explain how you would complete the image. During what year in the 20th Century would the event have taken place? During what year in the 21st Century is the event likely to take place?

Hint: Your completed image should include five colors, not including the white background.


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.

Sitcoms on Satcoms and silver screen stars; Henry Cabinet Lodge? Amazing Grace Anatomy; Charles Charles bo-barles, bo-na-na fanna fo-farles, fee fi fo-farles...

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Welcome to our February 16th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!
Our featured puzzle this week is another excellent wordplayful Appetizer contributed by our friend Patrick J. Berry (screen name: cranberry) of Jasper, Alabama. It involves a singer, sitcoms, movies, married couples, and a talk show host. ’Tis a veritable “Roll Tide” stickler about role players.  
Also on our menus this week are a QUARTET ⇩⇩⇩⇩ of “Let’s play doctor” Riffing-Off-Shortz-Slices;
ONE ⇩ “Let’s play the name game” Slice; and
ONE ⇩ “Cabinet fever” Dessert.

So, TGIF: Think Good, It’s Friday. 
And, TPFI: Thank Patrick For Inventiveness. 
As puzzlemaster Will Shortz once said, you can have a lot of fun 😊 on the Puzzleria! blog.

Appetizer Menu

Casting Connubial Couples Appetizer:
Sitcoms on Satcoms and silver screen stars

The two lead characters in a 2010 movie share their first names with two lead characters in a popular long-running current TV sitcom. Both pairs of actors portray married couples. 
Drop a letter from the sitcom-wife-character’s last name, then rearrange the letters in her full name to get the full name of a female singer who gained popularity in the 1980s. The husband in the movie admits to his wife that this singer is the object of his sexual fantasies. 
The movie and the sitcom both have two-word titles, and both stars (★★)  in the movie also had lead roles in their own sitcoms. The female movie actor helped create and has occasionally made cameo appearances on a sitcom starring an actress who was also a castmate of the male movie actor in his sitcom. 
One more thing: Change one letter in the movie title, and you’ll get the name of the talk show franchise originated by a host who would later switch networks. 
Shortly before he retired (but subsequently came back looking much different, and appearing in a different format), the movie actress surprised him by doing something to ensure that “this would be the last time (she would) have to really dress up for a talk show.” 
★ What are the titles of the movie and the sitcom? 
★ What are the characters’ full names in both the movie and sitcom? 
★ Who is the singer? 
★ Who is the actress who has worked with both movie leads, and what shows are these? 
★ What talk show was it, who was its host, and how did the actress in the movie surprise him? 

MENU 

Name Game Slice:
Charles Charles bo-barles, bo-na-na fanna fo-farles, fee fi fo-farles...

Think of five people with the first names Charles, Hayden, Mia, Ryan and Samuel. If you have the right five you ought to be able to tell what they all share in common. 
What is it?
Hint: All these people are sufficiently well-known to have Wikipedia pages.  
“Brian” could be substituted for “Charles,” if you like.


Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Amazing Grace Anatomy 

Will Shortz’s February 11th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Name part of the human body in six letters. Add an R and rearrange the result to name a part of the body in seven letters. What is it?
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ONE:
Delete the final letter of a seven-letter word for a part of the human body. Reverse the order the fourth, fifth and sixth letters to form a three-letter synonym of the word formed by the first three letters. What is this body part?
TWO:
Name part of the human body in seven letters. Subtract an R and rearrange the remaining letters to form names for two creatures  with very similar shapes. What body part is this? What creatures are these?
THREE:
💃 Name part of the human body in seven letters. 
💃 Subtract one of the consonants that appears twice in the word and rearrange the result to name a part of the body in six letters. 
💃 Remove the final three letters from the seven-letter body part to name a four-letter body part. 
💃 Finally, remove from the seven-letter body part four letters that can be rearanged to form a synonym for “story.” Rearrange the remaining three letters to form a body part.
What are the seven-letter body part, the six-letter body part, the four-letter body part and the three-letter body part?
FOUR:
(Note: Do not attempt to solve this puzzle before or during dining... or while ingesting food of any sort!)
Name part of the human body in six letters. Add an R and rearrange the result to name a part of the body in seven letters. 
The first four letters in each of these body parts can be rearranged to form the same vulgar four-letter term that is associated with one of the body parts. 
What is this vulgar term and what are the two body parts?

Dessert Menu

Quemoy And Diplomatsu Dessert:
Henry Cabinet Lodge?

Name a member of a United States president’s cabinet who served sometime during the 20th century. Add a letter within the first name to form the name of a country. 
Replace the first letter of the last name with two different letters to form the name of a different country. 
Who is this cabinet member?
Hint: The late cabinet member’s name is still occasionally in the news.

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.

Short work, long play, less stress; Cheeses of Nazareth, chapter and verse; Winter Wanderlove; Litericity;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Welcome to our February 9th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 
Our puzzles this week include a TRIO of somewhat far-fetched Riffing-Off-Shortz ⇩⇩⇩Slices;
ONE “Box-of-Chocolate’s Thunder” ⇩Appetizer;
ONE “Tale-of-one-city” ⇩Slice; and
ONE  “looking-ahead-to-Lent” ⇩Dessert.

So, TGIF: Think Good, It’s Friday... and, thankfully, it’s not yet Fat Tuesday or Ash Wednesday.  So, have a lot of fun nibbling on these puzzle slices along with Mardi Gras/St. Valentine’s Eve chocolates while you still can... before February 14th’s sackcloth and ashes kick in.   

Appetizer Menu

Lovetron Appetizer:
Winter Wanderlove



If one turns a blind eye can one savor
The red nevus birthmarked on my knee?
Would removing it curry me favor? 
Does a pier jut out into the sea?
Can DiMaggio score us a run?
Grown-ups groan at a valiant teen pun?
Etch two _____-shaped tattoos on my arms... 
Love, it leaves a lot up to one’s charms.

The verse above is an octet in anapestic trimeter. It has an ababccdd rhyme scheme. One word is missing, the first part of a hyphenated pair.
Fill in the blank. Explain your answer.

MENU

Author! Author? Slice:
Litericity


Name a relatively populous U.S. city, in two words. The second word of the city rhymes with the first name of a famous author and the first word of the city rhymes with a place the author is famous for writing about. 
What is this city?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Short work, long play, less stress 

Will Shortz’s February 4th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
In English, a short “u” sound is usually spelled with a “u,” as in “fun” and “luck.” Occasionally it’s spelled with an “o,” as in “come” and “love.” Can you name two everyday one-syllable words in which a short “u” sound is spelled with an “a”?
Puzzleria!’s far-fetched (and not as good as “Paulzzeria!’s”) Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ONE:
In the disjointed English verse below, there are ten missing syllables. Eight are one-syllable words. Two make up a two-syllable compound word.  
The sounds of all five vowels (a, e, i, o and u) are represented, each in their short and long forms. 
All long-vowel-sound syllables begin with the same blend of two consonants. All short-vowel-sound syllables begin with the same consonant and end with the same consonant.
For example, the long-vowel syllables might be: SHAY, SHE, SHY, SHOW and SHOE, and the short-vowel syllables might be PAT, PET, PIT, POT and PUTT. 
But, alas for you, those are not the ten syllables you need to find.
Hint: The two consonants in the blend that begins the five long-vowel syllables as well as the two consonants that begin and end the five short-vowel syllables all appear in the first half of the alphabet. 
“Bobby ____, I ___, cook me some cajun, real hot.”
In a _______ motel room your bed is a cot.
Slang for “home run” is “tater,” “___ ___” or “moon shot.”
Old Man River doth ____. But a ___? It doth not!
I do not want the ___ ___ so give me a shot.
Fill in these nine blanks.
TWO:
Back during the James Earl Carter Administration, some Americans thought Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the _____ of Iran, while other Americans thought that I was. All those Americans were mistaken, although the “other Americans” were closer to being correct than the “some Americans.”
What word belongs in the blank?


THREE:

Name something seen in the kitchen that can be ingested. 
Spell out the name of a symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet and insert it into the interior of the ingestible. The result sounds like something seen in the kitchen that can be ingested, but probably shouldn’t be. 
The second thing is often written as two words.
What are these two things seen in the kitchen?

Dessert Menu

Forty Days In The Dessert:
Cheeses of Nazareth, chapter and verse

Place the names of  two kinds of cheese side-by-side without a space. 
Remove from these cheeses a synonym for town. Additionally, remove from the cheeses just the first and third letters in that synonym for town. The remaining letters spell a form of verse. What are these cheeses and what is the form of verse?

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.