Friday, February 9, 2018

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.

23 comments:

  1. What's the richest country in the world? I don't know, but I have a guess. And I hope a city qualifies as "relatively populous" if it's 51st in its state. I think, if I persevere, I may be able to grind out the long and short vowels, and then, if I can find an IPA in the fridge, I'll be happy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LIM(BURG)ER(BR)ICK

      WA(SCHWA)TER

      EL MONTE, CA / DANTE ALIGHIERI / HELL

      NEVUS > VENUS
      CURRY ME > MERCURY
      PIER JUT > JUPITER
      US A RUN > URANUS
      ARMS > MARS
      LOT UP > PLUTO
      TURNS A > SATURN
      TEEN PUN > NEPTUNE

      Flay, beg, fleabag, big fly, flow, bog, flu bug

      I think Ireland is the richest country because its capital is always Dublin (old joke). I don't think the capital of Iran is a schwa; I think it's an "I"; but the Shah was once the leader, and now it's the I-atollah. The capital is Tehran.
      Wasn't Aleppo one of the Marx Brothers?

      Delete
    2. Yes, Paul, I am almost positive Aleppo was a Marx Brother... as was Dumbo, Jumbo, Gumbo, Gaucho, Sumo, Oucho!, Garbo, Brando and Ocho Cinco de Mayo.
      Mucho Gracias.

      LegoAdds"AndDon'tForgetZippo!"

      Delete
  2. I, too, got an answer for the slice (i.e. the city) but I didn't even bother worrying where it ranked for population in its state...I had looked through SO many cities, I was just glad when finally the hunch I'd had about the "place" written about turned out to be correct.

    I also managed to figure out the first RIp (and I believe the answer for the Appetizer, but it seems kinda obvious, so perhaps I'm wrong.)

    But that's where things ended. Am stuck on Riffs 2 and 3 and the Dessert.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Friday everyone! And Happy Valentine's Day this coming Wednesday(when hopefully we'll all have answers for this week's puzzles)! I figured out the Appetizer right away, and the Dessert took a little longer, but I solved it too! All others will, of course, require hints. Latest new phrase I learned doing the Guardian Prize Puzzle tonight: "brothel creepers". They're a kind of shoes, in case no one here knew that. I had to look it up myself. Just thought I'd throw that little tidbit in there for fun. You never know what new words and phrases you can learn from cryptic crosswords sometimes! Wonder if brothels actually had something to do with that name? Probably a really juicy story there, but I don't think any of us really want to hear the sordid details. It is a family website after all!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just got the Menu puzzle! Now all I need are the Riff-Offs!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Via google: There is some speculation as to where these shoes inherited this nickname of ‘Brothel Creepers’ from but rumour has it that after their return from the war a number of soldiers in the capital wanted to experience some fun after years away fighting and found themselves in the dim neon lit back streets of Soho to enjoy its labyrinth of seedy adult entertainment. This is a wonderful story and if it’s true adds a wonderfully decedent grit to the shoes 60 plus year history.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hints:
    ROSS:
    ONE:
    Blog fee.
    TWO:
    Rhymes with "Shah" (I think...)
    THREE:
    Both ingestibles are liquids. Actually, drinking one of them, while possible, would be disgusting. Both are associated with the sink.
    FDITD:
    The verse form is associated with greenness. So is its first half.

    Leargo...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AH, I putzed around a bit, but finally worked out the Dessert, at last. Never would have without the hint, though, that is for sure. Thank you!

      Have an answer now for Riff 2, but it's just a guess, based on the hint.

      Riff 3 is still a mystery.

      Delete
    2. OOh, all of a sudden, I think I caught onto the Phonetic thing to spell for Riff 3, plus the not-so-great-to-drink liquid connected to the sink, but I'm still puzzling on working backwards to the original ingestible liquid.

      Delete
    3. VT,
      My not-so-great-to-drink liquid is a compound word, but it Duz not begin with a D (as one might well expect), but with a latter letter that is the same distance from the middle of the alphabet as D.

      LegoPostingEreTheDawn

      Delete
    4. Thanks, Lego, but I didn't even need this latest Riff 3 hint [or even the one down below]!! Yon truth had occurred to me sometime in the wee hours of this morning, as I was falling asleep! Had just never heard 'it' called that before.

      Since I also solved the Dessert last night, I think I am all done for this week. Off to the Olympics!

      Delete
    5. Everybody have fun tonight; everybody Pyeonchang tonight!
      [Ya gotta love Al Roker.]

      Delete
  7. Well, I got Riff #1, but that's all so far. #2 may be tougher than I thought, and it's more difficult to decipher the IPA for #3 than I thought. Need more help. Anything else, Lego?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hints:
    ROSS TWO riffs on "what was a" controversial answer to Will's "short-u-sound-formed-by-an-a" puzzle from last week. Our friends ron, ecoarchitect, Word Woman, Margaret G., skydiveboy and others had a lively discussion about pronunciation. A consonant-consonant-consonant-consonant-vowel word cropped up often.
    ROSS THREE:
    If "diter" was a word this riff would have been easier to solve.

    LegoWhoLovesTheWord"Twas"YearRound

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think I got 'em! See ya Valentine's Day!

    ReplyDelete
  10. APPETIZER: HEART-SHAPED (what else would the word be, with it being Valentine's Day , and 'nevus' = RED)

    MENU SLICE: EL MONTE => HELL and DANTE

    RIFF OFFS:

    1. FLAY, BE, FLEABAG. BIG FLY. FLOW. BOG? FLU BUG.

    2. SCHWA ?? [I don't understand the meaning of entire puzzle, though...why would anyone think that YOU, Lego, are a SCHWA?]

    3. WATER & SCHWA => WASHWATER

    DESSERT: LIMBURGER and BRICK => LIM [BURG]ER [BR]ICK => LIMERICK

    ReplyDelete
  11. Appetizer
    The word in the blank is HEART. It is an anagram of EARTH. The poem contains anagrams of all the planets, including PLUTO, which has recently been downgraded to a dwarf planet:
    TURNS A=SATURN
    NEVUS=VENUS
    CURRY ME=MERCURY
    PIER JUT=JUPITER
    US A RUN=URANUS
    HEART=EARTH
    ARMS=MARS
    TEEN PUN=NEPTUNE
    LOT UP=PLUTO
    Menu
    EL MONTE(California), HELL, DANTE(Alighieri, writer of "Dante's Inferno")
    Riff-Offs
    1. FLAY, BEG; FLEABAG; BIG FLY; FLOW, BOG; FLU BUG
    2. SCHWA(?)
    3. SCHWA inside WATER sounds like WASHWATER
    Dessert
    LIMBURGER and BRICK minus BURG and BR=LIMERICK
    Roses are red/Violets are blue/The man from Nantucket/Might come to see you.-pjb

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice Nantucket-man verse, cranberry.

      LegoWhoseDoggerel'sWorse/ThanCranberry'sMasterfulVerse/TheManFromNantucket/AlasKickedTheBucket/AndTheyDroveHimAwayInA______

      Delete
  12. This week's answers for the record, Part 1:

    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. A word is missing, the first part of a hyphenated pair.
    Fill in the blank. Explain your answer.
    Answer: "heart-shaped" (Consecutive letters in each line can be rearranged to spell the planets, including Earth (and Pluto).
    If one TURNS A blind eye can one savor (SATURN)
    The red NEVUS birthmarked on my knee? (VENUS
    Would removing it CURRY ME favor? (MERCURY)
    Does a PIER JUT out into the sea? (JUPITER)
    Can DiMaggio score US A RUN? (URANUS)
    Grown-ups groan at a valiant TEEN PUN? (NEPTUNE)
    Etch two HEART-shaped tattoos on my ARMS... (EARTH, MARS)
    Love, it leaves a LOT UP to one's charms. (PLUTO)

    MENU

    Author! Author! Slice:
    Litericity
    Name a relatively populous U.S. city, in two words. The second word 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?
    Answer:
    El Monte; (Hell; Dante, who wrote "Dante's Inferno")

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  13. This week's answers for the record, Part 2:

    Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
    Short work, long play, stressless
    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 syllables might be: SHAY, SHE, SHY, SHOW and SHOE, and PAT, PET, PIT, POT and PUTT. But they are not. They are ten different syllables.
    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.
    Answer:
    Bobby Flay, I beg, cook me some cajun real hot.”
    In a fleabag motel room your bed is a cot.
    Slang for “home run” is “tater,” “big fly” or “moon shot.”
    Old Man River doth flow, but a bog it doth not.
    I do not want the flu bug so give me a shot.
    TWO:
    Back during the Carter Administration, some Americans thought that 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?
    Answer:
    Schwa
    Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the “Shah” of Iran, not the “Schwa” of Iran!
    “I” was not the “Schwa” of Iran, either. It is usually pronounced as a short “i” in Iran’s unstressed first syllable. But, because short-vowel unstressed syllables are often Schwa sounds, it is not unreasonable for one to infer that I was/is indeed the “Schwa of Iran.”
    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?
    Answer:
    Water; Washwater (Wa + schwa + ter)


    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 the form of verse?
    Answer:
    Limburger, brick; limerick
    limburger + brick = limburgerbrick - (burg + b + r) = limerick

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete