Is #11 a spoon, or ism’t it? Broadway flop? No, Broadway flip! A horse (or other) of no different color; A, E, I, O, U et Y aussi; Reductio ad Capitolium etc. Beatles? Boo! Chipmunks? Cheers!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED


A Second Schpuzzle Of the Week:
Beatles? Boo! Chipmunks? Cheers!

Change one vowel in the name of a place associated with “rock” and what might be called a “British sound.” 
Rearrange the result to spell two rodents. 
What are this place?
What are the two rodents?



Schpuzzle Of The Week (For A Day):
Broadway flop? No, Broadway flip!

Invert one letter in the last name of a Broadway performer. 
Move the inverted letter to the end to form the title of a Broadway show. 
What is the show?

Appetizer Menu

State Capitals & State Capitols Appetizer:
Reductio ad Capitolium etc.

Note: We at Puzzleria! are pleased to launch a new feature this week titled  “State Capitals & State Capitols.” It is the brainchild of Ken Pratt, whom you might know better by his screen name, geofan. Welcome, Ken, and thank you for sharing your creativity with us!

Reductio ad Capitolium
1. Think of a state capital. Rearrange its letters to give a second state capital, the postal abbreviation for this second capital’s state, and a Greek letter. 
In this string of letters, exchange the vowel in the postal abbreviation with two adjacent letters in its state capital. 
The result will spell a third state capital followed by five “leftover” letters. 
Keeping these leftover letters in position, change the first one to the letter one place later in the alphabet, then change the fourth one to the letter two places later in the alphabet. 
Remove the third leftover letter, leaving the postal abbreviation of the third state capital’s state and the postal abbreviation for the original state capital’s state.
What are these three capitals, states and postal abbreviations. What is the final lone letter you removed?

Look what I found
2. Think of a U.S. state.
Change one member of a doubled letter to the immediately preceding letter in the alphabet.
Rearrange the result to name fossils found in a number of state capitols.
What are these fossils? 


Getting there
3. How do Juneau, AK; Dover, DE; Jefferson City, MO; and Pierre, SD stand apart from all other state capitals? 

How Is This Capitol Different from (Most) All Other Capitols? 
4. What distinguishes the state capitols of NY, LA, VA, ND, HI and AK from those of the majority of US states?
Bonus: Are there any other such “nonconformers’’? 

MENU

Matchmaking Slice:
Is #11 a spoon, or ism’t it?

Compose terse captions for the 18 images pictured here. Use only one or two words. 
Then match the eighteen pictures properly into nine pairs.

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:
A, E, I, O, U et Y aussi

Will Shortz’s May 26th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Joseph Young of St. Cloud, Minnesota, reads: 
This week’s challenge is not so hard. Take a common English word in 3 letters. Translate it into French – also 3 letters. (The French word is one everyone knows.) And between them these two words consist of 6 different vowels and no consonants. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Take a common English noun in 8 letters. (It is “proper” common noun, one of those uppercase words you see on a calendar.) Translate it into French, in 5 letters. 
Rearrange these 13 letters to form 3 words that complete the following brief synopsis of a 1957 movie: “12 Angry Men ___ ____ ______.” Complete the sentence with a past-tense verb, a noun that functions as a modifier, and a plural noun. 
What is this 8-letter proper common noun and its 5-letter translation?
ENTREE #2:
Take a common English word for a creature in 3 letters. 
Translate it into French – a word that is longer than 3 letters. 
Rearrange these letters to form the English word for a large marine fish in 3 letters, and the English word for a high-pitched sound uttered by a larger land creature. 
What four words are these?
ENTREE #3: 
Take a common color, in English. Translate it into German. The combined letters of  these two words consist of 83 percent consonants. What words are these?
ENTREE #4:
Take a common English noun in 4 letters. You can see it in the sky. 
Translate it into Spanish –  a word of 8 letters. 
Rearrange these letters to form an adjective form of the noun and a flower shaped like the noun, both in English. 
What are these four words? 
ENTREE #5:
A traveler on a meadow road might pass by a large grove of trees. 
Name a 4-letter word for this large grove of trees. 
Translate it into Spanish. 
Rearrange the combined letters in the word and its translation to form the term “meadow road.” 
What are this 4-letter word and translation? 

Dessert Menu

Purebred? Cockateal? Salmon? Dessert:
A horse (or other) of no different color

A number of consecutive letters at the end of the name a creature spell a common color of the creature. 
What is this creature?


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.

Of cabbages and broccoli crowns; Religious fanaticism run a-monk? Quartet of Quirky QWERTY Queries; Sheep outleapers comfort sleepers; Landlocked in a Banana Republic job

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Sheep outleapers comfort sleepers

Name something comforting that one appreciates while counting leaping sheep, in two words. 
Switching the order of the words and saying the result aloud sounds like creatures that leap higher than sheep. 
What creatures are these?

Appetizer Menu

Conundrums You Just Can’t Beat Appetizer:
Quartet of Quirky QWERTY Queries


Note: This week’s first three Conundrums are open-ended “creative challenges.” Your answers may differ from Mathew’s “intended answers.”


🥁1. The word “ERASER” is comprised of the pairs of letters ER, AS, and ER, which appear next to each other on the QWERTY computer keyboard. 
What is the longest common English word or phrase that can be constructed this way? 
I allow letters to be in reverse order (e.g. “TR” is allowed), to break across lines (PA, LZ, MQ), and for spaces/punctuation to appear anywhere. 
For words longer than six letters, I have only found one common eight letter word.
🥁2. Same as the conditions in Conundrum #1, but using the alphabet rather than QWERTY.
🥁3. Think of a well-known author whose last name satisfies the conditions in Conundrum #1. 
🥁4. Name two things lumberjacks do. Each is a three-letter word.  
Hint: Look “QWERTilY,” then clockwise (assuming the clock has a triangular face).

MENU

Chapter And Verse Slice:
Religious fanaticism run a-monk?

Take the title of a religious leader followed by a first name from scripture that the leader might have. 
Remove one letter and divide the result in two to form synonyms meaning “fanatically enthusiastic.” 
What are these synonyms?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Landlocked in a Banana Republic job 

Will Shortz’s May 19th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads: 
Name a profession in 13 letters that is associated with a particular 5-letter country. The letters of that country appear in left-to-right order, although not consecutively, in that profession’s name. What is it?
Hint: The profession is a single word.

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Name a one-word profession in 13 letters, beginning with “o” and ending with “r”, that is not particularly associated with a particular 5-letter country. 
The letters of that country, however, do appear, albeit not in order, in the first seven letters of that profession’s name. (The two of those seven letters that are not in the country are an adjacent “e” and “a”.)
What is the profession?
Vital hint: The profession is not particularly associated with the 5-letter country because only 0.35 percent of the country borders the sea. The country is, for all intents and purposes, landlocked.
ENTREE #2:
Give the familiar name, in 11 letters, of the leader of a 5-letter country. The letters of that country appear in left-to-right order, although not consecutively, in that leader’s name. 
Who is this leader?
ENTREE #3: 
Name a one-word “job requirement” in 13 letters for the leader of nation that is associated with a second, 5-letter, nation. 
The letters of that 5-letter nation all appear somewhere in the job requirement – and the first and last letters of that 5-letter nation are the same as the first and last letters of of this “job requirement.” What is it?
Hint: The leader’s nation can be called by two different names, both containing two words.
ENTREE #4:
Name a one-word profession in 13 letters of a woman named Bernadette who advocates for the rights of abused women in her 5-letter country. 
The letters of that country appear in left-to-right order, the first four consecutively, in that profession’s name. 
What is the profession?

ENTREE #5:
Name a one-word profession in 10 letters that is not particularly associated with a particular 5-letter country, although there are millions of members of that profession in the country. The final eight letters of the profession all appear in the name of the country. 
What profession is it?
ENTREE #6:
Name a country with an even number of letters. Move one of those letters three places later in the country’s name. 
Divide the result in half to form a non-human body part and a human body part. 
What is this country?

Dessert Menu 

King Of Cabbages Dessert:
Of cabbages and broccoli crowns

Take a 2-word term for a head of cabbage or a broccoli crown. 
Reverse the words and the result will sound like a figurative hyphenated description of a solar panel installer or recycling coordinator. 
What are this two word term and hyphenated description?


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.

Oy Veyance, oil those wheels! Shooting a star; Peppy intro, original lyrics, bouncy ending; Victor’s verbal pat on the back; Urban redevelopment

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Shooting a star

Take six consecutive letters of a somewhat well known movie director’s last name followed by the last three letters of the director’s first name. 
Change the second letter of this result to a different vowel to form the name of a movie star. 
What is the name of this movie star?
What is the name of this movie director?

Appetizer Menu

Cryptic Crossword Appetizer
Peppy intro, original lyrics, bouncy ending

Below is another ingenious Patrick J. Berry Cryptic Crossword Puzzle for you to solve. Patrick, also known by his screen name “cranberry,” has now created and contributed eight great cryptic crosswords to Puzzleria! Each of Patrick’s intricate puzzles is wordplayful work of art. Links to all seven of his previous cryptic crossword puzzles can be opened here:
SEVEN; SIX; FIVE; FOUR; THREE; TWO; ONE
Regarding the Across and Down clues and their format:
The number in parentheses at the end of each clue tells how many letters are in the answer. Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers.
For example, (6) indicates a six-letter answer like “jalopy,” (7, 5) indicates a seven-and-five-letter answer like “station wagon,” and (5-5) indicates a five-and-five-letter hyphenated answer like “Rolls-Royce.”
(For further insight about how to decipher these numbered cryptic clues, see Patrick’s “Cryptic Crossword Tutorial” in this link to his November 17, 2017 cryptic crossword. The Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!)

ACROSS

4. Most familiar with top gunman going in recalled murder trial(8)
8. City girl going past post office(6)
9. Worthless weapon turned on a British politician(8)
10. Disease producing scab?(8)
11. (along with 1 DOWN and 20 ACROSS) Approve of Mick Jagger on Facebook, according to song by 23?(4,1,7,5)
12. Burnout, lazy and free(8)
14. Stop by to welcome old guy starting on the way down?(8)
16. Where recruits train for official debut in combat possibly, with pay at first(4,4)
19. Angry, getting rough with sex to make one sore(8)
20. See 11 Across
23. Manufactured boy band using original lyrics from famous songwriter?(3,5)
24. Last season, with pitcher making comeback(8)
25. Sick feeling experienced primarily in sauna, perhaps?(6)
26. Drink always put in sack by closing time(8)

DOWN

1. See 11 Across
2. Doctor can perform the operation, it’s agreed(9)
3. Song by 23, song 23 almost finished with bouncy ending(3,4,3)
4. Song by 23, being a dull tune, rewritten to have peppier intro(7,2,2,4)
5. Crazy to have a practical joke go the other way(4)
6. Half the ice cream for all?(5)
7. Swell working with the doctor(7)
13. Using skill to move up in study group? It’s forbidden!(10)
15. Woman possessing sultry disposition, though it’s not much(6,3)
17. Power failure right in the middle causing great anger(7)
18. Kept getting a little restless and wandered(7)
21. Uncle’s girl, pretty and full of energy(5)
22. Second wager, second race(4)

MENU

Municipal Slice:
Urban redevelopment

Rearrange the letters of a major U.S. city three separate times to form: 
1. a body part and what it helps you do; 
2. something you see in a museum and what kind of museum it is; and 
3. a two-word direction in a lamb chop recipe. 
What is this city?

Riffing Off Shortz And Chapus Slices:
Oy Veyance, oil those wheels!

Will Shortz’s May 12th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by David Chapus of Rush, New York, reads:
Think of a 6-letter conveyance on wheels. Drop the first letter. Add a new letter at the end. The result will be another 6-letter conveyance on wheels. What conveyances are these? 
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Chapus Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Think of the name of a 6-letter British sports car manufactured by a company whose name is a fruit that figures in a work of literature whose title happens to be a Honda model. 
Move the first letter to the end. The result will be the name of another 6-letter British sports car. 
What sports cars are these?
ENTREE #2:
Think of a 6-letter breed of bird dog. 
Drop the first letter. 
Add a new letter at the end. 
The result will be baby bird of prey. 
What critters are these? 
ENTREE #3: 
Think of a 6-letter critter. Add a letter to the beginning. 
Divide the result in two. 
The final result will be a 2-word term for a particular “aquatic claw” or “marine antenna.” 
What critter and term for “claw” or “antenna” are these? 
ENTREE #4:
Name a feathered critter. Add a letter to name a more general term for feathered critters. 
What critter and term are these?
ENTREE #5:
Think of a color. Drop the first letter. Add a new letter at the end. The result will be an adjective of a color that is quite a contrast to the first color. What colors are these?
ENTREE #6:
Think of a profession. Drop the first letter. Add to the end tools used by auto racing pit crews. The result will be laborers in another profession. A laborer in this other profession wields a tool that rhymes with the tools used by pit crews. What profession and members of another profession are these?

Dessert Menu 

Number Two Graphite Pencil Dessert:
Victor’s verbal pat on the back

After completing a mental challenge successfully, Victor utters a self-congratulatory word under his breath.
A letter appears twice in the name of the challenge; remove one of them and rearrange the result to spell the self-congratulatory word. 
What is this word?

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.

St. Nims Edna? Pope is toot? Zep? A tale of three titletowns; Bring these fuzzy puzzles into high resolution; What did Quixote don, crypto-lodge-ically? Mincemeat, Cardigans and the Buddha;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
What did Quixote don, crypto-lodge-ically?

A number of consecutive letters at the beginning of the name of a fictional character spell something the character might wear. 
Interchange two consecutive letters of the character’s last name to spell something that might get lodged in what the character might wear.
Who is this character, and what might the character wear? 
What might get lodged in what the character might wear, and where might it come from?

Appetizer Menu

Unbeatable TV Conundrums Appetizer:
Bring these fuzzy puzzles into high resolution

📺1. Think of a television actress, first and last names, whose first name starts with an S and ends with an H and whose last name contains SH. Take her last name, add another SH, and rearrange to name a type of drug.
📺2. Think of a modern device for watching movies and television. Reverse the order of its letters and shift one letter one place to the right on a computer keyboard to get a shorthand phrase for a kind of news article.
📺3. Think of a TV personality known for collecting and repairing cars, first and last names. Remove the middle two letters of the last name, add a P and rearrange to name a type of car in need of repair.
📺4. Name an iconic symbol of a contemporary television show in three words, in which the third word can be constructed by dropping the first letter of the second word and placing the remainder of the second word inside the first word.
📺5. Think of something that people might do on a trashy daytime talk show. Drop a vowel and reverse the first two letters to name the inciting emotion.
📺6. Think of the first name of an actress in a current TV sitcom. Remove a vowel to name a piece of furniture that might be used while watching the sitcom.

MENU

Damn Easy Slice:
Mincemeat, Cardigans and the Buddha

Give answers to the following clues:
1. Tree that sounds like a sleek or silky coat
2. Letters in an ancient alphabet that don’t sound so ancient
3. Home of saunas, and home of sweaters... Cardigans, for example
4.  A discourse of the Buddha
5. Mincemeat pie ingredient that is also for the birds (but not for the blackbirds that may be baked in the pie!)
6. Parisian name
7. Smarts
What do your answers suggest?
Why might the hint below help you solve the puzzle?
Hint: This puzzle is damn easy! 

Riffing Off Shortz And Burg Slices:
A tale of three titletowns

Will Shortz’s May 5th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Erik Burg of San Francisco, reads: 
Name a popular movie of 2018. Add an R. You can rearrange the result to get three different titles for people. What are they?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Burg Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Name a dramatic biographical movie of 2018.
You can rearrange the letters in the movie to form a one-word soap brand and, in two words, where someone might use it. 
What are this brand and two-word location?

ENTREE #2:
Name a limited-theater-release and video-on-demand movie of  early 2018.  
Add an R and S. You can rearrange the result to get a two-word term for the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War or the Iraq War. What are this movie and two-word term?
ENTREE #3: 
Name a cult comedy movie of 1992. Add an R. 
You can rearrange the result to get three different titles for people. 
What are they?
Hint: Two of the titles, if you double a letter in one of them, will be first names of two family members who live in a house with a flower shop, carpenter’s shop, and a dentist’s office in its basement. 
ENTREE #4:
Name a cult comedy movie that spawned a sequel in 2018. 
You can rearrange the letters in the movie’s title to get a two-word shorthand term for proponents of a landmark Supreme Court ruling. 
What is this shorthand term?
Hint: A person whose name appears in the ruling (but not in this “shorthand term”) prosecuted Jack Ruby. 

Dessert Menu

Dnar By Dnac Dessert:
St. Nims Edna? Pope is toot? Zep?

Spell each word in the brand name of a candy backward.
Do not change the order of the words. 
The result, read aloud, sounds like another candy brand. 
What are these candy brands?


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.