Hanging arts and (from air)crafts; Saget, Gates and Bilbo Baggins; “Fighting fire with fire... hoses?” Bird is the word, but what are the numbers?” Our house, is a very, very, very “big house”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Hanging arts and (from air)crafts

Name some things you might see hanging from walls, in a double-digit number of letters. 

Add an “o” and rearrange the letters to name what some stunt pilots who hung from their planes did. 

What things hang from walls? 

What did stunt pilots do?

Appetizer Menu

“Terifflelific” Appetizer:

“Bird is the word, but what are the numbers?”

Bird is the Word

🐦Take a word for a bird. Divide it into two parts, each a letter.

Take this same word for a bird. 

Again divide it into two parts to get two other letters.

What “bird word” is this?

What are the four letters?

Name the Numbers

⚾Start with a letter associated with a number. 

Change this letter to the one three places further down in the alphabet and get another
letter associated with a number. 

The two numbers differ by 44. 

What are the letters, numbers, and their association?

Hint: Henry Aaron, who broke the all-time major league home run record in 1974, wore
uniform #44, a number that seems like it might be associated with the man whose record he broke, but is in fact not associated with it. 

The number on the uniform worn by the man whose record Aaron broke is #3, which is also the number of places down the alphabet (in this puzzle) that the first “letter associated with a number” was moved in order to get the second “letter associated with a number.”

MENU

Back On The Chain Gang Slice:

Our House is a very, very, very “big house”

...with two guards in the yard,

The rocks we break are hard,

This prison life ain’t easy to get thru...

(And now I’m feelin’ queasy with the flu!)

Place a conjunction between a synonym of
“prison” and a synonym of “bandit.” 

The letters in the first half of the resulting phrase are identical to, and in the same order as, the letters in the second half. 

What are these two synonyms?

Riffing Off Shortz And Collins Slices:

Saget, Gates and Bilbo Baggins

Will Shortz’s June 19th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Peter Collins of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:

Think of two famous people — one from business and one from entertainment — whose last names are anagrams of each other. Now take their first names, drop the last letter of each of them, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get the full first name of a famous fictional character. Who are these people?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Collins Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker. 

Rearrange the combined letters of the first and last names of this puzzle-maker to spell a two-word caption for the image shown here.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the caption?

ENTREE #2

Think of two fruits. Remove the last letter from one fruit. 

Remove that same letter from the second fruit along with letters that can be rearranged to spell a third edible – one that can be wild, rolled or, in the plural, felt.

Take the remaining letters, in order, and put them together without rearranging, and you’ll get a famous fictional character that is known by a single name. 

What are these fruits, the edible, and the one-named fictional character?

Hint: The name of the famous fictional character is also the name (not of the dog star, which is named “Sirius”) of a “wanderer” similar to Sirius. And, the term “dog star” does indeed also apply to the fictional character.

ENTREE #3

Think of two famous hall-of-famers — one enshrined in Cooperstown, the other in Newport. 

The surname of the “Cooperstowner” is an anagram of the final four letters of the “Newporter’s” first name. 

Now take the first three letters of the Cooperstowner’s first name and first two letters of the Newporter’s first name, and put the result together, without rearranging; you’ll get the name of a famous fictional character. 

Who are these hall-of-famers and fictional
character?

Hint: The last three letters of the Newporter’s last name spell a personal pronoun often used in referring to someone with the Cooperstowner’s first name, whether it is capitalized (as is the case with one particular female member of the World Golf Hall of Fame) or written in lowercase.

ENTREE #4

Think of two somewhat famous actors, female and male, who have both been nominated for Oscars. 

Imagine the man’s name to the left of the woman’s on a theater marquee. 

On the far right, therefore, is the woman’s surname,
which is the “plural form” of the man’s first name. Turn off the electrical current to these names on the extremities, leaving the marquee somewhat darker.

Ten letters remain. Cut the current to three consecutive ones that can be rearranged to form a synonym of “glee.” 

The marquee now displays the name of a very famous fictional character. 

Who are these actors and fictional character?

ENTREE #5

The first name of a famous athete and surname of a famous entertainer are the same.

The first three letters of the athlete’s surname sound the same first four letters of the entertainer’s first name

The remaining three letters of the athlete’s surname spell a common first name. That first name can be formed by rearranging the first three letters in the first name of one who partnered with the entertainer in a 1980’s-singing duo.    

Who are this athlete and entertainer?

Who was the entertainer’s singing partner?

ENTREE #6

Think of two reasonably famous people whose surnames are anagrams of each other. One is a baseball Hall-of-Famer. The other is an actor who has been in the cast of a 62-year-old soap opera for the past two decades.  

Now take their first names, drop the last letter of each of them, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get the full first name of a somewhat memorable villainous fictional character created by Ian Fleming. 

Who are these two people and one fictional character?

ENTREE #7

Place a six-letter synonym of “corpulent” to the left of a six-letter word for a small metallic case that has space you might place a memento.

The first three and last two letters of this 12-letter string, in order, spell a synonym of “swift.” Remove them to reveal the name of a fictional character.

Who is this fictional character?

What are the synonyms of “corpulent” and “swift”?

What is the word for a small metallic case that has space you might place a memento?

ENTREE #8

Think of three famous people: a comedic actress, a Grammy-winning soul singer and a politician who fell prey to one of the first “negative” TV political ads, one that apparently proved to be effective.

The actress and singer have the same surname. Place it before the first part of the politician’s compound surname to name a two-word term for an alloy originally developed to imitate platinum. 

Place it before the second part of the politician’s surname to name a compound word describing a frothy, turbulent form of rafting or canoeing. The first part of the politician’s surname appears in the title of a sitcom in which the actress was featured.

The first two letters of the actress’s first name placed after the first two letters of either the singer’s or politician’s first name spell the name of a fictional bovine creature.

Who are these three famous people?

What are the alloy and the compound word describing a frothy, turbulent form of rafting?

What is the name of the fictional bovine creature?

In what sitcom was the actress featured? 

Note: Mark Scott (also known as “skydiveboy”) inspired Entrees #9 and #10 by suggesting that their solutions might make good fodder for “raising riff-offs” of this week’s NPR puzzle. We thank Mark, whose “Skydiversions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria! 

ENTREE #9

Name two Oscar-nominated actors with the same first name (one of them won one). Their surnames both end with the same four letters, which can be rearranged to spell a word for “the human body’s largest organ.” Remove those eight “ending letters” and place the remaining parts of their surnames side-by-side in alphabetical order.

The result spells a new surname, one shared by two actors named William and Dennis, and by one artist named Edward.

Who are these Oscar-winning actors?

Who are the other two actors and the artist?

What is the human body’s largest organ?

ENTREE #10

An actor and pop singer who were popular during the 1950s and 1960s have the same surname. The actor’s first name was the same as that of a politican during that era. The name of the politician’s first lady was the same as that of the singer.

The politician was involved in two notable scandals, the first involving a family pet. The surname shared by the singer and actor, followed by the kind of creature that family pet was, sound like the first two syllables in a synonym of “scandal.”

Who are the singer and actor?

Who are the first lady and politician?

What is the synonym of “scandal?”

Hint: The name of the pet is the plural form of the surname of one of the singer’s pop record chart rivals.

Note: The following NPR riff-off was composed and contributed by Greg VanMechelen (screen name, Ecoarchitet), whose Econfusions puzzle feature appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #11

Think of two famous people — one from business and entertainment, one from politics.

If you remove the last letter from the first person’s surname, their surnames are anagrams of each other.

Now take the first two letters of each of their first names, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get what they might have been called at home. 

Take the first three letters of each of their first names, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get a British brand of recycled plastic outdoor furniture and play products. 

Take the first four letters of each of their first names, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get the name of a convenience store best known on an animated TV show.

Note: You may have to swap the order of the first names. 

Who are these people?

Dessert Menu

“Naming Of Parts” Dessert:

Fighting fire with fire... hoses?

Divide a compound word for a weapon into its two parts. 

Replace the last letter of second part with three new letters to form protection from the weapon, in two words. 

What is the  weapon?

What is the protection from the weapon?

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.

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