Lightfish, calamari, ichtion! Reporters posting, chestnuts roasting; You have a bone to pick; “Nothin’ goin’ on here”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Welcome to our April 27th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!
Our featured puzzle this week comes from ViolinTeddy, a regular contributor to and astute commenter on our Puzzleria! web site. (She is known especially for her tactful yet necessary “ViolinTedditing” whenever LegoLambda commits an error in [m]any of his puzzles!)
ViolinTeddy’s crafty puzzle this week combines osteopathy and geography or, if your will, “bones and zones.” You will find it under our Appetizer Menu titled “You have a bone to pick.”

Also on our menus this week are:
ONE Slothful Slice;
ONE “Roasting Chestnuts? Open Fire!” Dessert; and
SIX Fishy, Filmy Riffing-Off-Shortz Slices.

Think Good, It’s Fish Friday. Float your boat and begin baiting, bagging and de-boning our nine “befuddlefish” this week.
And, have fun at sunset pan-frying the mystifying fillets over the campfire.   

Appetizer Menu

My Bony Lies Over The Ocean In “Osteoralia” Appetizer:
You have a bone to pick

Name a country and a bone in the human body. (The bone itself sounds a little like the name, or partial name, of a country.) 
Rearrange the combined letters of the country and bone to form the name of another country.
What are these two countries and one bone? 

MENU

Slug Sloth Slouch Slice: 
“Nothin’ goin’ on here”

Name a not-very-common word for “a period or state of inactivity or stagnation.” 
Move the last three letters of this word to the beginning and replace a letter that appears thrice in the term with an “e.” 
The result is a more common word that also might be defined as “a period or state of inactivity.”
What are these two six-letter words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Ezekiel Slices:
Lightfish, calamari, ichtion! 

Will Shortz’s April 22nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, composed by Dan Ezekiel of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:
Take the name of a famous film director. Drop the first letter of this person’s first name and you’ll name a fish. Read the last name backward and you’ll  name another fish. What film director is it?
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz and Ezekiel Slices read:
ONE:
Write the name of a famous film director. Below the name, rewrite the last five letters of  the director’s surname backward, substituting a “d” for an “n.” To the right of this, write the first, third, fourth, second, ninth, tenth and eighth letters of his full name, in that order. These 12 letters, given appropriate spacing, name a major world city. 
What is the city? Who is the director?
TWO: 
Take the name of a famous film director. Drop the last two letters of this person’s first name and you’ll name a garment. 
Replace the first letter of the person’s surname with an “e.” Spell the last three letters of this result  forward followed by the first three letters of spelled backward to form another garment. What film director is it? What are the two garments?
Hint: the garments are worn on the same part of the body.
THREE:
Take the name of a famous film director. 
Drop the first letter of this person’s first name and rearrange the remaining letters and you’ll spell a structure used for storage.  
Drop the last letter of this person’s last name and replace the second letter with the fifth letter, and you’ll name where you are likely to find the structure. 
What film director is it? What is this structure and where are you likely to find it?  
FOUR:
Take the name of a famous film director. Interchange two letters in this person’s first name and you’ll name a body part. Remove the first two letters and the final letter from the surname to name another body part.
What film director is it? What are the body parts?

FIVE:
Take the name of a famous film director. Rearrange the letters of this person’s last name and you’ll name the movie genre of one of the most successful movies this director directed. 
Who is this film director? What are the movie genre and, for extra credit, the movie?
SIX:
Take the name of a famous film director. Drop the first letter of this person’s first name and you’ll name a country. 
A piece of athletic equipment appears at the end of this director’s last name. Replace it with a letter that rhymes with the piece of athletic equipment  and you’ll  name another country. 
Who is this film director? What are the two countries?

Dessert Menu

News Is Stranger Than Fiction Dessert:
Reporters posting, chestnuts roasting

Give the full name of a journalist and author from the past, as it appeared in bylines and on dust jackets. 
Replace with a well-known mantra three consecutive letters in the author’s name that can be rearranged to spell “nut.” 
Replace with a dotted letter three consecutive letters in the author’s name that can be rearranged to spell “hot.”
Remove one space and one mark of punctuation. 
The result is the name of a fictional character.
Who are this journalist and this fictional character?

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.

A pie in the face, a pie in the ear; Name us and tell why we’re famous; All countries great and small; Twisting gospel truth into fiction; Toe-tapping and thunder-clapping at the castle

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED
Welcome to our April 20th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!
Our featured puzzle this week comes from Mathew Huffman, a very good friend of Puzzleria! who is also a creative and clever puzzle crafter. His puzzle, titled “Name us and tell why we’re famous,” appears under our Appetizer Menu; it involves mystery and history, names and fame.

Also on our menus this week are:
ONE Palace Thunderclapping Slice;
ONE “Parabiblical” Dessert;
ONE “Pie (but not in the sky)” Dessert; and
FIVE Wild World Kingdom Riffing-Off-Shortz Slices.

Think, Have Gleefulness, It’s Friday. 
Find Intellectual Grist Here Today!    

Appetizer Menu

Pre-Y2KAppetizer:
Name us and tell why we’re famous?

Take the last name of a famous person from the 20th century in six letters. 
This name contains a general word for why this person is famous. Remove this word, and the remaining letters sound like the last name of a predecessor known for the same reason.  
Who are the people and why are they famous?

MENU

The King Of Iamb Slice: 
Toe-tapping and thunder-clapping at the castle

The king decreed, “Each liege for supper sings... Our castle’s filled with frowners!”
Yea, when the minstrel crooned ’twas like the court downed uppers, flushed their downers.
Such sweet “deluteful” lightning-up precipitated thundrous clapping...
“What signs and wonders!” whooped the king, his joyful royal toes a-tapping.

The quatrain above (in iambic octameter) contains six words of interest, or rather, three word-pairs of interest. 
What are these three word-pairs? What makes them interesting?
Hint: You can totally ignore one of the quatrain’s four lines in solving this puzzle. 

Riffing Off Shortz And Hochbaum Slices:
All countries great and small

Will Shortz’s April 15th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, composed by Alan Hochbaum of Atlanta, reads:
The letters of SWITZERLAND can be rearranged to spell LIZARD and NEWTS — LIZARD being the singular name of an animal, and NEWTS a plural. Name another country with this same property. That is, name another country whose letters can be rearranged to spell two animals — one singular and one plural. It's a major country. What country is it?
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz and Hochbaum Slices read:
ONE:
The letters of SWITZERLAND can be rearranged to spell LIZARD and NEWTS. Name another country whose letters can be rearranged to spell another country and a surname of a writer who is responsible for the name of an NFL franchise.  What country is it? What are the other country and the writer’s surname?
TWO: 
The letters of PALESTINE can be rearranged to spell TEAL and SNIPE. Name another country whose letters can be rearranged to spell three creatures — a 5-letter tree-dweller, a 3-letter insect and a 2-letter plodder. 
The same country’s letters can be rearranged to spell three creatures — a 4-letter hybrid, a 4-letter potential insect and the same 2-letter plodder mentioned earlier in this puzzle. What country is it?
THREE:
The letters of ARMENIA can be rearranged to spell the creatures MARE and ANI. 
Find another name on the world map, one that contains two pairs of triple letters (as in “Aegean Sea,” for example, which has three a’s and three e’s). Remove two of those six letters. 
The remaining letters can be rearranged to spell what begins at the 4:26 mark of the album version of a hit song by Rod Stewart, in two words. 
What country is it?
What begins at the 4:26 mark of the album version of a hit song by Rod Stewart? 
FOUR:
Take the first four letters a well-known world capital. Rearrange the letters of a country to form two words: a 5-letter noun and a 3-letter plural noun. Place the 5-letter noun after the first four letters of the world capital to form a compound word that often precedes the plural noun to form a 2-word phrase for what body builders work to accomplish. 
What are the world capital and the country?
What do body builders work to accomplish?
FIVE:
Think of the title of a buddy cop action movie that includes, besides its cast of typecast characters, a typographic character in its title. Replace the typographic character with the word it usually represents, resulting in a 3-word movie title.
Name a 5-letter country whose letters can be rearranged to spell the first word in this movie title. Combine the 4 letters of a second country with the 3 letters in the first word of a third 2-word country. Rearrange those seven letters to form the second and third words of the movie.
What is this movie title? What are the three countries?

Dessert Menu

Biblical “Pair-able” Dessert:
Twisting gospel truth into fiction

Name the subject of a biblical parable, in two words. 
Reverse the order of the words. Replacing the new first word with a synonym and saying the result aloud will sound like a fictional chararacter associated with a board game.
What is the subject of the parable? 
Who is the character associated with a board game?

Tragicomic Dessert:
A pie in the face, a pie in the ear

Name a comedy pioneer recently in the news, first and last names.
Flip the first letter of the first name upside-down.
Capitalize and duplicate the fifth letter of the first name.
Move the third and fourth letters of the first name to the end of the last name so as to replace the final letter in the last name.
The result will appear to be the name of a modern-day pioneer in a different field of entertainment.
Who are these two pioneers?

NOTE: Those of you who have solved the very curious and rare property in last week’s Two Week Creative Challenge Appetizer are welcome to explain your solutions below in our comments section. This will give others an opportunity to compose similar curious and rare questions of their own.
The five questions, again, were:

What helps undo eskimos’ overcoats?
Why outlaw antigun statutes? 
Who prepares ingestibles, sushi, miso? 
When do fittest hearts expire?
Who overtaxed America’s hierarchy?
Also, those of you who create similar questions my post them here anytime you wish. Thank you.

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.

I've a question about 5 questions; Studebakersfield, Califarmia? Bayou Mystique; Ah,esitation leads to Am,er,icablending; e Moe Gee!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Welcome to our April 13th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!
Note: This week’s “I’ve a Question About 5 Questions” Appetizer is a modified “two-week creative challenge” similar to the sort Will Shortz periodically presents on The Puzzle during NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday program. It is, in my opinion, the best puzzle I have ever composed... so I want to give you fortnight to savor it. I have been working on it for more than a year.

Here is how it will work: I will not reveal the answer to this Appetizer until Wednesday, April 25th. In the meantime, however, I challenge you to discern what “very unusual and curious property” is possessed by the five questions I have presented. 
But, better yet, after you have figured that property out, I encourage you to create your own questions that share the same property and post them in our comments section. You can post these “unusually curious” questions at any time – beginning immediately and running through April 25 when you and I will reveal the curious and unusual property in your answer-comments and in my official answers for the record.
Answers to all other puzzles on this week’s Puzzleria! will be revealed this coming Wednesday, April 18:
ONE  Imogen of Cymbeline Appetizer;
ONE  Agricartural Slice;
ONE  Balmy Bayou Breeze Dessert; and
SEVEN Um, Er, Uh, Ahem, Riffing Off Shortz Slices.

That’s it. T.G.I.F. ...Think Good, It’s Friday. 
Because, T.P.I.F. ... Tackling Puzzleria! Is Fun! 
So, have a blast with our two-week creative challenge...
and with all our puzzles.      

Appetizer Menu

Two-Week Creative Challenge Appetizer:
 I’ve a question about 5 questions


The questions in red below share a very curious and rare property. If you can discover that curious property you will be able to answers the questions correctly. What very rare and curious property do the five questions share that most questions (like the one you are now reading) do not?

What helps undo eskimos’ overcoats?
Why outlaw antigun statutes? 
Who prepares ingestibles, sushi, miso? 
When do fittest hearts expire? 
Who overtaxed America’s hierarchy?
Hint: 
Sentences with this curious and unusual property are not confined to just questions. Here is a declarative statement that shares, in a somewhat similar manner, the same unusual property:
Lovers overshadow haters.
Note: Remember, after you have discovered what makes these five questions and one statement very unusual, compose your own sentences that have the same property, then post them in our comments section. Thank you.

Keyboarding Appetizer:
e Moe Gee!

Here is a crude homemade emoji that you can reproduce on a standard keyboard: 
:-) [[|]]

Translate the emoji above into a  word that has been lately much in the news.

MENU

Old MacDonald Had A Ford Slice:
Studebakersfield, Califarmia?

A California farmer drives around his plantation surveying the fruits of his labors, which can be expressed in a two-word plural term. Remove the first letter of each word and replace an “s” with an “r”. The result is the brand name of the vehicle the farmer drives. 
What is the two-word term for the fruits of his labors? What is the name of his vehicle?


Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Ah,esitation leads to Am,er,icablending

Will Shortz’s April 8th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Name part of the human body. Insert a speech hesitation, and you’ll name a country. What is it?


Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ONE:
Name part of the human body. Change the first letter and insert a speech filler sound, and you’ll name a country. What is it? 
TWO: 
Name a kind of bean. Insert a homophone of a speech filler sound, and you’ll name a country. What is it?

THREE:
Name the profession, in a short and informal form, of Robert Levinson, Melvin Purvis or Mark Felt. Insert a speech filler sound and remove a punctuation mark, and you’ll name an any citizen of a certain country. What is it? 
FOUR:
Name brand name vehicles with either two or four wheels that come into contact with the road during operation. Insert a homophone of a speech filler sound, and you’ll name a country. What is it?
FIVE:
Give a collective plural name for Sarah, Kezia, Malik, Auma, Abo, Yusuf, Sasha and Sayid. Remove the first letter and insert a speech filler sound, and you’ll name a country. What is it? 
SIX:
Name an 8-letter brand-name beverage. Insert the rearranged letters of a 5-letter musical instrument in the first half of the name, and you’ll name a country. 
In the second half of the name, insert the rearranged letters of a 4-letter word that, along with wax paper, combine to  make a makeshift “musical instrument” (but before rearranging, change the first letter of the 4-letter word to an “i”). Again, you’ll name a country.
What are these two countries? what is the beverage? 
SEVEN:
A. Name a kind of pet, in four letters. Insert one letter, and you’ll name a country. What is it? 
B. Name part of the human body. Insert an abbreviation for a medical professional, in 2 letters, so that they flank the second letter of the body part, and you’ll name a country. What is it? 
C. Name a country. Insert the rearranged letters of a 4-letter body part, and you’ll name another country. What is it? 
D. Name a 3-letter androgynous name. Insert the rearranged letters of a 3-letter boy’s name, and you’ll name a country. What is it? 
E. Name a 3-letter oath that is also a vow. 
Insert a speech filler sound, and you’ll name a U.S. state. What is it?
F. Name a synonym of  balderdash, baloney, beans, blarney, blather, bosh, bull, bunk, bunkum, claptrap, drivel, folderol, folly, foolishness, fudge, hogwash, hokeypokey, hokum, hooey, humbug, humbuggery, jazz, malarkey, moonshine, nonsense, piffle, poppycock, rot, rubbish, senselessness, silliness, stupidity, tommyrot, trash, trumpery and twaddle. 


Rearrange the letters and place a speech filler sound at the end, and you’ll name a country. 

What is it?

Dessert Menu

Up A Lazy River Dessert:
Bayou Mystique



The poetic quartet below (written in anapestic tetrameter) contains six  hidden  words: the 3-word title of a reasonably well known popular song, and the three words that precede that title in the song’s lyrics. 
Can you find these six words?
A parade of trees – loblolly, baobab, yew –
Whisper past as we drift in our bayou canoe.
Brush the Red River sunset like rouge on a cheek
Breezes kiss – bayou’s balmy caressing mystique.   

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.