I’d rather hang with Clark, not Lex! “Do ya feel the Bern, Ol’ Chap?” Molson dreams by the campfire; Curing, cracking and recreating; Number-hunting, can you dig-it?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Do ya feel the Bern, Ol’ Chap?”

What distinguishes the words “chap,” “gusts,” “roc” and “Bern” from almost all other words in the English lexicon?

Note: “Bern” is the capital city, of Switzerland. 

The “roc” is a large, legendary bird that was reputedly able to lift and carry off an elephant!

Hint: The only other words from the English lexicon that might be included in this list, according to Merriam-Webster, are “hap,” and “Ro.” However, these are merely “subsets” of  “chap” and “roc,” respectively.

Appetizer Menu

Delightful Appetizers:

Curing, cracking and recreating

Note: We debut on Puzzleria! this week a new puzzle feature titled “Garden of Puzzley Delights by Plantsmith.” A clever puzzlesmith named Michael Bertoglio, who divides his time between east and west coasts, is the guy behind that screen name... and the planter of this delightfully puzzling Garden. Welcome Mike, and thanks!

⏰1. Name a four-word cure. Rearrange the combined letters to get a 15-letter two-word phrase. The phrase can describe either:

a. 🕰 a bank clock blinking alternately “12:00” and, if it’s a pleasant day, “83°,” or 

b. 🛏 what an over-sleeping, late-rising exhibitionist may be involved in. 

🍽2. “Crack open” a Middle Eastern city with a population of greater than 200,000. Lightly scramble the contents, then unscramble them to whip up: 

a.🕿  a homophone of a personal pronoun, 

b. ⛅ a Supreme being, and 

c. ♿ a time of senescence.

What is this city?

🍌3. Think of a fruit. Replace its last two letters with a common four-letter suffix to get something you do for fun. What is this fruit?

Hint: The common four-letter suffix is an anagram of a common preposition.

MENU

One To Three, Four To Eight Slice:

Number-hunting, can you dig-it?

Can you find five digits from the numbers one through three inclusive? 

What are these five digits?

Can you find at least nine digits from the numbers four through eight inclusive?  

What are these nine-plus digits?

Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Slices:

I’d rather hang with Clark, not Lex!

Will Shortz’s October 18th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Michael Schwartz of Florence, Oregon, reads:

Name a world capital. Change one letter in it to DY. The result will be two words, one after the other. The first word names somebody you like to be around. The second word names somebody you don’t like to be around. What city is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Add an E to the name of a puzzle-maker (first and last names). 

Rearrange the result to name skin products that the Bianca Rosa and SheaMoisture

companies manufacture in three words of 5, 5 and 6 letters. 

The words begin with W, H and C.

Who is this puzzle-maker? 

What are the skin products?

Hint: The first word and an anagram of the third word are both associated with Halloween.

ENTREE #2

Name a world capital. Change the fourth letter to an “n” and move the fifth letter to the end. The result will be two words, one after the other. 

The first word is an exclamation of anger. The second word names what kind of word that exclamation is. 

What is this capital? 

What is the exclamation and the kind of word it is?

ENTREE #3

Name a world capital. The first two-thirds of the name spell a kind of popular toy. 

Take the remaining letters and mix them up with the nickname of a teen idol (with “The

____”) to spell the name of one such popular toy.

What is this world capital? What are the toy and the name of the toy?

ENTREE #4

Name a world capital. Rearrange the first four letters to spell a place where you may find convicted criminals. 

The remaining letters, sans rearranging, spell a place where you may find pious priests.  

What world capital is this? 

Where may you find convicted criminals?

Where may you find pious priests?

ENTREE #5

Name the capital of a territory in an empire on which the sun never sets. Remove the first letter and spell the remaining letters backward.

The result spells an answer to the question: “What was the capital city of Peru in 1534?”

What is the capital of the territory in the “ever-sunny” empire? 

What is the answer to the question?

Hint: the name of the territory is often followed by a homophone of a famous puzzle-maker’s surname.

ENTREE #6

1. Name a world capital. Switch the order of its last two letters to spell critters. 

2. Name a world capital. Remove its middle two letters, leaving a critter. The letters that remain are the chemical symbol of an element that in its metallic form is sometimes mistaken for lead.

3. Name a world capital. Remove its middle two letters, leaving a critter. The letters that remain are a U.S. Postal Code abbreviation of a state with a capital that is also the name of something edible.

What are the capitals and critters in questions 1, 2 and 3?

Dessert Menu

Hypnotic Dessert:

Molson dreams by the campfire

Your tent is pitched near Whirlpool Lake in Manitoba. You sit by a campfire under the stars nursing a Molson and nibbling an oblong slice of meat. Fleetwood Mac’s “Hypnotized”  swirls from the boombox speakers. 

As you tilt your head back to take a sip from the Molson bottle, the corner of your eye glimpses a guitar-pick-shaped glow flashing across the midnight sky, from horizon to horizon in less than a second.

Rearrange the combined letters in the two-word slice of meat, a word for Fleetwood Mac’s “Hypnotized,” and a word for the flashing guitar-pick-shaped glow. 

Your result should be a four-word modern-day phrase associated with covid-19 – a phrase seldom heard during that less-dangerous, mystically hypnotic 1970s time on Lake Manitoba’s shores.

What are the slice of meat, word for “Hypnotized” and word for the flashing glow?

What is the contemporary phrase?

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.