Crockett and Spock and Matt Dillon, Kris Kringle, H. Truman! Wood, Sullivan & Miller, oddly even; Ecstatic Essex Artistry; Unhealthy habits & hamburgers? Capitals become main courses; ROTterdam13 a pair of rhymes

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Wood, Sullivan & Miller, oddly even

Write down the first names of well-known people surnamed Wood, Sullivan and Miller. 

The odd-numbered letters of the result are even. 

The even-numbered letters are odd. 

What are these first names? 

Explain how their odd-numbered letters are even and how their even-numbered letters are odd.

Appetizer Menu

Quizzical Quintet Appetizer:

Crockett and Spock and Matt Dillon, Kris Kringle, H. Truman!

Note: The following “quizzical quintet” was created and contributed by a gifted “puzzlesmith” and friend of Puzzleria!

Creatures Connected...

1. 🐢🐬Davy Crockett. Matt Dillon. Kris Kringle. Spock. Harry S. Truman.

All are icons in one way or another. Some are fictional, others are historical.

There is an additional connection among them; and an alternative identity of one of them contains consecutive letters which name a creature that plays a big part in the connecting point for them. 

What connects them? What is the creature? 

Roamin’ deities?

2. 🏃🏃Think of something often shown between the names of two Roman deities. 

Those deities are generally known for having opposing reputations. 

What is  that “something?”

HINT: The name of that “something” often shown between the names of two Roman deities is an anagram of the name of a human body part.

Synonymous Civvies?

3. 👚🕴A puzzle contributor to “The Remarkable Times” submitted: “Take the names of two clothing items that are synonyms. 

Put them in reverse alphabetical order. (For example, “Caps, Hats” would be written as “Hats, Caps” because “H” comes after “C”
alphabetically.)

The result is a two-word description of places where the items can be found.” 

An alert reader of “The Times” and Puzzleria! noticed that if a series of consecutive internal letters in the two words of that solution is removed, the remaining letters can be arranged to name an object often depicted along with the “something” that is the Appetizer #2 solution. What is it?

“Verbing” an adjective 

4. 💃What word is an adjective meaning “intricate” or “elegant” but is also a verb meaning “to explain or develop in great detail?” (This adjective and verb are spelled the same but their last syllables are pronounced differently.) 

“It was a dark and stormy night...”

5. 🌩⛈Drafting on a dark and stormy night, a puzzle contributor was interrupted by an event. 

The event contains six letters and is seemingly not uncommon in various forms and instances, especially in dark and stormy times. 

If a consonant is inserted midway in the word for that event, the result is a word for a common reaction if that event is of much duration. 

What are the two words? 

MENU

Louvre Hors d’Oeuvre:

Ecstatic Essex Artistry

Name a work of art that consists of a pair of letters, spelled out. For example, the letters S and X, when spelled out, are  “ess” and “ex,” which spell “Essex.”

(Best-ever first-sentence lyric: “Sin City, please don’t take my lover’s heart or mine will break.”

Worst-ever lyrical rhyme: “train” and “goin’.”)

Gas & Petrol Slice:

Unhealthy habits & hamburgers?

Write down, side-by-side, an unhealthy habit and a not-so-healthy meal, each in two words. 

The first four letters of the two middle words are identical. 

The first and fourth words are associated with a one-word anagram of a two-word phrase describing what gasoline and petroleum do. 

What are this habit and meal?

What is the one-word anagram of a two-word phrase describing what gasoline and petroleum do?

Riffing Off Shortz And Scheinberg Entrees:

Capitals become main courses

Will Shortz’s September 15th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Rawson Scheinberg of Northville, Michigan, reads:

Name a U.S. state capital. Then name a world capital. Say these names one after the over and phonetically you’ll get an expensive dinner entree. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Scheinberg Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Name a pair of  popular five-letter games – one involving chance, the other involving skill – and a six-letter first name shared by two young men (surnamed Eliott and Harper) who excel at one of these games. Rearrange these 16 combined letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

What are the five-letter games and six-letter first name? 

Who is this puzzle-maker?

Who are the young men who excel at one of the games?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are terrific prime-timely riffs created by our friend Nodd. 

ENTREE #2

Name a U.S. state capital. Then take a geographical name that can refer to a town in England, a group of islands in the Atlantic, or a mountain range in New England. The result is a menu item often ordered at lunch. What is it?

ENTREE #3

Name a U.S. state capital. 

Then name a world capital. 

The names identify two varieties of the same fruit. 

What are they?

ENTREE #4

Name three state capitals located in the eastern, western, and northern areas of the U.S. 

The eastern capital, followed by an anagram of five consecutive interior letters of the western capital, followed by the first three letters of the northern capital, name a popular dessert. What is the dessert, and what are three state capitals?

ENTREE #5

Name a European capital. 

Add to it the last three letters of an eastern U.S. state capital, plus one additional vowel. 

The letters, in order, name a dinner entree featured in certain ethnic restaurants. 

What is the entree, and what are the two capital cities?

ENTREE #6

Take the name of a country. 

Switch the first and third letters. 

Then replace the fourth letter with the vowel that precedes it in the alphabet. 

The letters, in order, name a dessert item. 

What is the country and what is the dessert item?

ENTREE #7

Take the name of a world capital. 

Copy the next-to-last letter and insert the copy between the first two letters. 

Then replace the last letter with the letter that precedes it by two places in the alphabet. 

The result names a food that is typically eaten in the U.S. at certain times of the year. 

What are the capital and the food?

ENTREE #8

Name a U.S.  state capital. Then name an ancient Mesopotamian world capital on the Persian Gulf. Say these names one after the over and phonetically you’ll get an inexpensive dinner entree. 

What is it?

ENTREE #9

Name the largest city in a U.S state and the largest city in a European country. 

Remove a synonym of “wrath” from the U.S. city. 

Replace the final three letters of the European city with one letter that has an alphanumeric
value that is ten less than the sum of those three letters. 

Place the two results next to one another to spell a fish dish.

What are these two large cities (one of which is a capital city)? What is the fish dish?

Hint: Both the state and country begin and end with the same two letters – all four of them the same letter.

ENTREE #10

When Cockneys say this American novelist’s three-syllable first and last name – and if they stress the second syllable instead of the first and third – it sounds as if they are describing someone’s beautiful teeth: “‘ey Mate! That novelist’s teeth sure ___ ______!”

When speakers who drop the vowel sounds from short prepositions (pronouncing “to”, for example, as a schwa rather tan a long-u) say the title of a work by this  novelist aloud, the first three syllables of the result sound like a liquor made chiefly from the fermented sap of the blue agave.

Who is this novelist, and the title of one of this novelist’s works.

Dessert Menu

Istanbul & Prague Dessert:

ROTterdam13 a pair of rhymes

Take rhymes of another word for an Istanbulite and of another word for Praguers. 

You can ROT13 either of these rhyming words to get the other one. 

What are these other words and their rhymes?

Every Thursday 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.