Easy money or hard cash? Perplexing googolplex complexity; “I’m a darn fuel for a really fine ride!” Babes in Toddyland; Music of our sphere, and other Gotchas!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
“I’m a darn fuel for a really fine ride!”

The first two syllables in the title of a well-known novel sound like the ride used by one of its main characters. 
The third syllable sounds like fuel for this ride. Further fuel is formed by removing the first letter from the name of the ride. 
What is the title of this novel?
What is the ride used by one of the main characters? 
What are the two fuels for this ride?

Appetizer Menu

Typewritten Dinnertime Appetizer:
Music of our sphere, and other Gotchas!

Is NJ unique?
❓1. The central business district of Trenton, NJ is unique among all state capitals. How?
Bonus:  What changed in 1969/70 to make Trenton lose its uniqueness in a broader sense?

My typewriter’s broke
❓2. The names of which two state capitals can be typed using the smallest number of typewriter keys? How many?
Which state capital requires the largest number of typewriter keys to type its name? How many?

Gotcha!
❓3. What is a one-word descriptor that applies to all of these locations?
Newfoundland
Oregon
Nevada
Boise
Newark, Newark, and Newark (NJ, DE, and OH)
Lancaster, PA
Sequim, WA
Pierre, SD
Houston St (NYC)
the 101 and the 405 (southern CA)
Schiphol (Amsterdam airport)

What’s for dinner?
❓4. A Mid-Atlantic state has a signature dish that can be written as one or two words. If written as one word, what unusual property does this word have, that is shared by only a few other English words?

Looking out the window
❓5. An automobile trip in December 1970 from Washington, DC to the Rockville, MD chapter of the Izaak Walton League led to the writing of an iconic American song, which today is arguably more popular outside the USA than domestically. What is the song? What is the connection to this trip?

Geographical music
❓6. Replace a country’s first or last letter to name two musical instruments. Both instruments are associated with an island nation. The original country’s initial letter and both replacement letters appear in the name of the island nation. What are the musical instruments and the island nation?

MENU

Googolplex Paradox Slice:
Perplexing googolplex complexity

Everyone knows the value of “googol” is less than “infinity.” 
The value of “googolplex,” however, is greater than that of “infinity.” 
Explain how this can be?

Riffing Off Shortz And Baggish Slices:
Easy money or hard cash?

Will Shortz’s July 21st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Steve Baggish of Arlington, Massachusets, reads: 
Think of a common two-word phrase, in nine letters, naming something that makes it easy to get money. Rearrange its letters to spell another common two-word phrase naming something that makes it hard to get money. What phrases are these?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices and Baggish Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Warning to Puzzlerian!s: The puzzle below may induce feelings of deja vu.
Think of a common two-word term, in nine letters, naming something that makes it easy to get money... but only if you have a hammer. 
Rearrange its letters to spell two adjectives that describe the pants pictured in this image. 
What are these adjectives, and what is this two-word term?
ENTREE #2:
Take the combined letters from a continent, a chemical element on the periodic table, and an entree on a breakfast menu. 
Rearrange these 22 letters to spell a common three-word phrase naming something that makes it easy to get money.
What are this three-word phrase and this continent, element and breakfast entree?

ENTREE #3:
Think of a six-letter adjective a presidential nominee used to describe his vision for America. The nominee added that this vision included “caring about troubled children,” with programs and initiatives that would presumably require the government to find money to fund them.  
Rearrange the letters of the six-letter adjective to spell a colorful two-word phrase indicating “lack of funds” which is what many in Congress feared might ensue if the nominee’s vision was realized. What are this adjective and phrase? 
ENTREE #4:
Think of a certain two-word object, in 12 letters, naming something that makes it easy to get money (and which might open doors for you). 
Rearrange its letters to spell a two-word phrase naming what people in the market for a $25,000-range midsize sedan might do after their purchase.  
What is the two-word object? What might people in the market for a $25,000-range midsize sedan do post-purchase? 
ENTREE #5:
Think of a five-letter noun for people who are very wealthy, as opposed to the people who are very poor. Think of a seven-letter adjective describing the size of the bank accounts of such wealthy people, relative to money possessed by those less financially fortunate. 
Rearrange the combined letters of these two words to spell the first and last name of a puzzle-maker.
What are the two words? 
Who is the puzzle-maker?

Dessert Menu

Babies Bibbing Booze From Bottles:
Babes in Toddyland

Name the sound a certain vehicle makes, if you ask a toddler. 
“Pour out” some bad booze from within. What remains is a sound a contented baby may make. 
What sounds are these?

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.

Hot fun under summertime sun; “Nemo’s Omen” (A “palindromen”); Performing a “species change” operation; Vienna, “Austrology” Seeking Greek mountaintop shade

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED



Schpuzzle Of The Week:
“Nemo’s Omen” (A “palindromen”)

Your mission in this schpuzzle is to provide a summary of the epic limerical poem below, titled “Nemo’s Omen.” This summary will be in the form of a 66-word, 273-letter palindromic paragraph – a paragraph, that is, whose letters read the same both forward and backward.
To help you do this, clues for each of the words appear below the text of the poem. 
A Punctuation Key is also provided so you will know how the paragraph ought to be punctuated.

NEMO’S OMEN

I once knew a salt, Nemo by name
Who once captained a sloop named “Ol’ Flame,”
   When wrecked  ships were sea-floored
   Nemo winched them aboard...
Reclamation was his claim to fame.

So I called upon Nemo and urged
Him to salvage my sub, long submerged.
   Nemo charged quite a cost
   To retrieve my sub lost.
(I wish now that I hadn’t so splurged.)

Nemo sailed seven seas very vast.
Would he find my lost sub or sail past?
   Then, without a forewarning,
   Up came the rain storming
And down went “Flame’s” worn, rotten mast.

Since his “stalwart tub’s” straits were now dire
Beneath Nemo I lit a small fire
   When I asked him to row.
   To such work he said “No!”
And thus doused my attempts to inspire.

‘Twas a shame that “Ol’ Flame” couldn’t sail.
She was hot, I thought, on my sub’s trail.
   I told Nemo to trawl,
   So he let his nets fall
But his “fishing” was foredoomed to fail.

As we spanned some deep spots in the sea
We espied a “pool spot” floating free.
   From the deck we could spot some
   Torn mesh, “Nemal” flotsam,
Nemo’s dragnets reduced to debris.

Did I say, “Nemo, mend your damn net!”?
No, I couldn’t so scold him quite yet,
   For Ol’ Flame lightning drew
   And she kindled anew,
Into flames she burst, busted and wet.

Nemo boarded life rafts with his crew.
From his vessel aflame red sparks flew.
   From the blazes rafts fled.
   Nemo’s vessels bled red...
Would he row ‘til  his face became blu’?

I suggested that Nemo retire,
But at present he still is for hire.
   With one raft to his name
   Nemo trawls now for Flame,
Self-employed so he’ll not himself fire.

God damned Flame’s far-foreworn rotten mast
Which, although it was worst, still forecast
   As it fell forward down
  That Ol’ Flame would fall, drown...
For Flame’s first downfall forewarned her last.

God had blest Flame’s mast, bulb-lit back then,
But when flaming, fulfilled its omen.
   For when lightning struck Flame
   She was true to her name...
Sacrificially Nemal, Amen.

CLUES
(the numbers in parentheses indicate the letter counts of the answers)
1. Serve drinks at a bar? (4) 
2. Nautilus captain’s (5)
3. Having no awe (10) 
4. Always - a pronoun - disintegrate (4-2-5) 
5. Sylvania product - illuminated (4-3)
6. Most abysmal (5) 
7. Greatly - a non-word homophone of “to give notice” (3-8) 
8. Word describing something in Denmark (6) 
9. Spar (4) 
10. Truncated form of a “ancient” synonym (2) 
11. Moth magnet? (5) 
12. “Possessive” Verne character (5) 
13.  Toy with a tip and sometimes a string (3)
14. Word in the title of a “Pet Sounds” track (5)
15. Plural form of what Aristotle contemplated in a Rembrandt work (5)
16.  A feature story in its premier issue told how Camille and Bill survived their son’s tragic death (1)
17. Word in a Paton novel title (4)
18. Anagram of a faucet maker (4)
19. Doughty and stouthearted (8)
20. Belonging to a big bathroom fixture (4)
21. Anagram of a synonym of either “choose” or “gut” (3)
22. Word preceding “demon,” “bump” or “merchant” (5)
23. Snoozes (4)
24. “Up to the time that,” for short (3)
25. Letter with a three-letter homophone (1)
26. What one ought not do during bell-tolling (3)
27. A lineup of pretty maids or “murderers” (3)
28. Atop (2)
29. Any Emergency Medical Technician, if necessary (7)
30. Uh-uh (2)
31. Boring alternative to “Bang on the drum all day” (4)
32. Jib, for example (4)
33. Word for a particular tagger (2)
34. Bridge (4)
35. Like Jack Handy’s thoughts (4)
36. It seems that leopards are just stuck with these (5)
37.  “There ___ for the grace of God...” (3)
38. Use a fish-catching apparatus (5)
39. Word that connects “A Day” with “the Races” or “A Night” with “the Opera” (2)
40. “____ Enchanted Evening” (4)
41. “Nothing but ___,” like a “swish” (3)
42. Letter associated with the mother of Pearl (1)
43. Like Tootles, Nibs and Curly (4)
44. Hero (3)
45. Similar to snooker, but with fewer balls (4)
46. Dick and Jane’s dog (4)
47. Homophone of a synonym of “total” (4)
48. Adjectival form of Clue # 18’s answer (5)
49. Sea debris (7)
50. An assessment of income truer than the gross, (3)
51. Recently late thespian Rip (4)
52. Sculler (5)
53. Word that rhymes with “glove” (2)
54. Oodles (5)
55. Quarrel (3)
56. “Today I Learned,” in Internet slanguage shorthand (3)
57. Type of ray or brand of eCig (3)
58. Last word in a Beatles’ hit (2)
59. ___ a deer, a misspelled deer... (2)
60. Change a flat? (6)
61. An empty one makes the loudest sound, according to Plato (6)
62. Word preceding “herring” or “Lobster” (3)
63. Word in a Olive Higgins Prouty novel title (3)
64. Word in an Edna Ferber novel title (2)
65. Synonym of a homophone of the answer to Clue # 64 (4)
66. Word preceding “neutrality” (3)

Punctuation Key: 
(Note: Hyphenated words count as one word)
Place a period (.) after words #9, #15, #29, #40, #44 and #63.
Place a comma (,) after words #3, #4 , # 5, #6, #7, #11, #14, #16, #28, #36, #51 and #64.
Place a question mark (?) after words #31, #46, #54 and #58.
Place a exclamation mark (!) after words #33, #49, #60 and #66.
Place a colon (:) after word #26.
Place an ellipsis (...) after word #23.
Enclose words #55 through #63 in parentheses ( ).

The palindromic paragraph will thus appear in a form similar to the template shown immediately below:
____  ___’_  __________,  ____-__-_____,  ____-___,  _____,  ___-_______,  ______  ____.   “__’  _____,”  ____’_  ___  _____,  _____. “_  ____  ____,  ________  ___’_  ___  _____  ____...  ‘___  _  ___:  ‘___  __  _______.   __  ____?   ____  __!   ____  ____  _____,  ___  _____  __  ____.   ___  _  ____  ___.   ____  ____?   ____  _____  _______!   ___  ____,  _____  __  _____? ( ___ ‘___  ___’  __?   __  ______!   ______  ___  ___.)   __,  ____  ___!’ ”   

Appetizer Menu

Heat-Beating, Conundrum-Beating Appetizers:
Hot fun under summertime sun

🥁1. Think of a one-word response a parent might give a child, in seven letters. Drop two letters and rearrange to name a heat-beating summertime activity.
🥁2. Name a kitchen appliance in nine letters. Drop four letters and rearrange to name a gardening appliance.
🥁3. Think of a phrase in six letters that a baby might say. Shift each letter six places later in the alphabet to name a Hawaiian garment suitable for summertime wear in the lower-48 mainland states.
🥁4. Think of a two word phrase for a symptom of illness. Change the last two letters to a T to get a summertime meteorological phrase.
🥁5. Think of a treatment for sunburn (and other summertime scourges) in eight letters whose name is a concatenation of four US state postal codes.

MENU

A Bird Of Two Different Colors Slice:
Seeking Greek mountaintop shade

1. Add a letter to a word of exclamation and rearrange the letters of the result to form a common implement.
2. Add a letter to this implement and rearrange the letters to form a Greek mountain dweller who fell in love with a true narcissist.
3. Add a letter to this mountain dweller and rearrange the letters to form a color.
4. Add a letter to this color and rearrange the letters to form a synonym of “color” and a bird of mythical proportions.
Now take the four letters you added at each step, in order, to form a second color. The plumage of the bird of mythical proportions displays this second color as well as the first color (the one formed by adding a letter to the Greek mountain dweller and rearranging).
What are these two colors?

Riffing Off Shortz And Berlin Slices:
Vienna, “Austrology”

Will Shortz’s July 14th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Eric Berlin, reads: 
Take an 11-letter word with two D’s in it. If you drop both D’s, you’ll get a world capital followed by a sign of the zodiac. What’s the 11-letter word?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Berlin Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Change one letter in the name of a nation to form a sign of the zodiac. What is this sign?
ENTREE #2:
Take a world capital followed by a sign of the zodiac. Remove the first two letters of this result to name an important and versatile scientist from the past. 
Who are this scientist, capital and zodiac sign?
ENTREE #3:
Print a U.S. state in capital letters. Rotate a letter in the state 90 degrees to form a new word. 
Replace this word with a synonym. The result, when you place an Italian Isle in front of it, is a sign of the zodiac. 
What are this state, isle and sign.  
ENTREE #4:
Place a nation in Africa and a nation’s capital in South America side-by-side. Remove seven total letters from the ends, leaving a sign of the zodiac. Rearrange the removed letters to form a continent and a year within the five-year reign of pope whose first name was a different sign of the zodiac.
What are this nation and nation’s capital, the sign of the zodiac, the continent and the year in the reign of the zodiac-named pope?  
ENTREE #5:
Remove the fourth, sixth and eighth letters from a world capital, keeping them in order to spell a three-letter article of clothing. 
Reinsert in the fourth letter’s position a new letter that is used to indicate a common size of a part of the 3-letter article of clothing you spelled. 
The result is a sign of the zodiac.
What are the world capital, the three-letter article of clothing, and the sign of the zodiac?
ENTREE #6: 
Take a 14-letter adjective that, when paired with an 11-letter plural noun, forms possible grounds for divorce. Drop from this adjective the letters of a natural resource found in the ground. If you rearrange the remaining letters you can form a world capital and a Texas university... or you can instead rearrange them to form the name of a puzzle-maker. 
What is the 14-letter adjective? 
What are the capital and university?
Who is the puzzle-maker? 

Dessert Menu

Colorful Creatures Dessert:
Performing a “species change” operation

One letter occurs four times in the combined letters in the names of a color and a creature. Replace each with the letter four places later in the alphabet to form two new words that are both names for a second creature. 
What color and creatures are these?

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.

“Which way to the sandbar?” Twain’s dialogue is not wan! “Harrumph!” and other triumphs of “Surprising! stumpery” Seeking a science of some substance; Swedes, Somalis, Vietnamese and other natives

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
“Which way to the sandbar?”

“Phil fills his beer glass to the brim, but Prudence consumes alcohol in moderation, and thus preserves sobriety.” 
Remove two identical letters from an nine-letter synonym of a verb in the above sentence to spell certain alcoholic beverages served at the beach. 
Remove two different identical letters from the same nine-letter synonym to spell other things seen at the beach, in two words.
What are these beverages and other things?

Appetizer Menu

River, Phoenix, Scrootched, Appetizer:
“Harrumph!” and other triumphs of “Surprising! stumpery”

Harrumph!
❓1. Several verb forms (scrounged, screeched) and plural nouns (strengths, straights) are among the longest one-syllable words in English, at 9 letters. But there is a longer, fairly frequently used word that in the usual American English pronunciation has only one syllable. What is this word?
Hint: There are two spelling variants: 10 or 11 letters.

Surprise!
❓2. What unexpected geographic fact characterizes the state of California?
Hint: It is not that California has the largest population, or that the highest and lowest elevations in the 48 contiguous states are located there.

Discharged
❓3. Think of two state capitals that share a number of letters. Take the fourth letter of each and insert it after the second letter. Then insert a copy of the second letter where this fourth letter had been. Next, delete the unit of charge contained in each resulting set of letters. 
Now combine the remaining letters from the two sets and rearrange three ways to give an article or pronoun and the Olympic abbreviations for three countries. What are these state capitals and countries?
Split to avoid confusion
❓4. Think of a state capital. Add a letter before the final letter and split this result into the two-word name of a county seat in the same state as the capital. What are the state capital and county seat?

A river runs through it (Part 1)
❓5. Of the 50 US states, just over half share a characteristic with one or more rivers that run through or border them. What is this characteristic?

A river runs through it (Part 2)
❓6. Less than half of these states (in Part 1) fulfill an even narrower criterion. What is the “tighter” criterion in these states?

MENU

Adjectival Slice
Twain’s dialogue is not wan!

Some readers use a five-letter adjective to characterize some dialogue in a particular novel. 
Remove two letters from the author’s last name. 
The letters that remain, in order, will form a six-letter synonym of this adjective. 
What are this adjective, novelist and synonym?

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:
Swedes, Somalis, Vietnamese and other natives

Will Shortz’s July 7th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, an earlier draft created by Joseph Young of St. Cloud, Minnesota, who runs the blog Puzzleria!, reads: 
When you remove the final letter from Germany, Sweden or Somalia what remains is a word for someone born there. What country, if you remove its final letter, forms a word for someone born there – but only after you rearrange its remaining letters?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Give the name for a person born in a particular U.S. state. Rearrange the letters of this name to form a two-part name for a person living in a neighboring state. The first part of this name is the neighboring state itself; the second part of this two-part name is a three-letter abbreviation for an inhabitant of that state, or any state for that matter.
What is the name for the person born in the U.S. state? What is the two-part name for a person living in a neighboring state?
ENTREE #2:
Give the name for a person born in a particular U.S. state. Rearrange the letters of this name to form a two-word caption for the silhouetted image pictured here.
What is the caption? What is the name for a person born in this U.S. state?
ENTREE #3:
Give the name for a person born on a particular island that is a part of a European country. Rearrange the letters of this native person’s name to form the name of a beverage associated with the ancient “history” of the country. 
What is the beverage? What is the name for a person born on the island?
ENTREE #4:
Give an informal two-word name for a person born in a particular U.S. state. Rearrange the letters of this name to form a material from which a particular article of apparel is often manufactured. 
The second word in the two-word name for the person born in the state is a part of this article of apparel. 
What is the two-word name for the person? 
What is the material from which the article of apparel is manufactured?
ENTREE #5:
Give the name for a person born in a particular U.S. state. Rearrange the letters of this name to form a two-word caption for the image pictured here. 
What is the caption? What is the name for a person born in this U.S. state?
ENTREE #6: 
Give the name for a person born in a particular U.S. state. Rearrange the letters of this name to form a description of the state of the municipalities in the state during winter months. The description consists of  a plural noun beginning with C, a preposition beginning with I, and a noun beginning with S. 
What is the name for a person born in this U.S. state? What is the three-word description?

Dessert Menu

Nerd-Alert Dessert:
Seeking a science of some substance

Of all the sciences, which sounds like it is more substantial than any of the others?

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.