“The Lunatic in My Head...” Affixing a prefix, nixing a word! “Landing in Blanding? Not so outstanding?” Domestic “pound-paring” vs. “pound-packing” “Kissin’ in the Kitchen?” “Intersectimbibility” of Board Games and Booze!; Halloween Treaters invite Vampires that bite!; Weighing-in on the musical scale; Heavenly Puzzley Delights Above... Worldly Delights Below;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“The Lunatic in My Head...”

Name an adjective-and-noun description (in six and three letters) of a kindly dude, benevolent beau or compassionate popinjay. 

Anagram these combined nine letters to spell two words related to a current event. What are these four words and this current event?

Appetizer Menu

A Flavorful Foursome Of Appetizers:

Affixing a prefix, nixing a word!; “Landing in Blanding? Not so outstanding?”; Domestic “pound-paring” vs. “pound-packing”; “Kissin’ in the Kitchen?”

Affixing a prefix, nixing a word!

1. Name a two-word movie franchise. 

Replace three consecutive interior letters with a 3-letter geometrical prefix. 

The result is a one-word movie franchise. 

What are these franchises and prefix?

“Landing in Blanding? Not so outstanding?”

2. Think of a famous singer – first and last names. Switch the first letters in the names.

Take second and third syllables of this result to, perhaps, describe in two words the town of Blanding in Utah.

Who is this singer?

What is the description?

Domestic “pound-paring” vs. “pound-packing”

3. Take an architectural feature of some houses that, over time, might help you and other residents lose weight.

Move the second letter back eight places earlier in the “circular alphabet stream” (see accompanying graphic). 

Drop the first and third letters. Mix the result to get something that may add some pounds.

What is this “possibly slimming” architectural feature?

What may “pack-on” a few pounds?

“Kissin’ in the Kitchen?”

4.  Name a storage container often found in the kitchen in two words (of two and one syllables). Ignore the second word. Replace first letter of the first word with a copy

of its second syllable’s first letter. Place a hyphen between those syllables.

The result is a sometimes-sign of deep emotional bonding.

Hint: Capitalize the first word of the storage container, but don’t “decapitate” it. Instead, do the opposite – “depedicate” it! The result will be a one-letter-shorter brand name of the container.

What are this storage container and sign of deep emotional bonding?

Extra Credit: Fill in the six missing letters in the Saturday Evening Post magazine cover caption, and explain its significance.

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Do-Re-Mi Hors d’Oeuvre:

Weighing-in on the musical scale

Imagine an infinite stream of notes on the musical scale:

DO RE MI FA SOL LA TI DO RE MI FA SOL LA TI DO RE etc. ...

Choose a connected trio (which will contain either six or seven letters).

Transpose the first two letters. 

The last three letters of the result spell something you might hear spoken in a church.

Identify two adjacent letters. If you would delete them the result would be a singing voice or family of musical instruments with a particular pitch you might hear at a church service.

But do not delete them. Instead, transpose two adjacent interior letters, then delete the letter that follows them. The result is the surname of a well-known judge who might be present (and perhaps even officiating) when the “something you might hear spoken in a church” is spoken. The last three letters of that surname spell the surname of a second well-known judge who may be present and perhaps officiating.

What three consecutive notes on the scale did you choose?

What is the singing voice or family of musical instruments?

Who are the well-known judges?

“Bored? Games!” Slice:

“Intersectimbibility” of Board Games and Booze!

Name a relatively modern board game adapted from a similar-sounding but two-letter-shorter ancient board game.

Six consecutive letters in the name are an
anagram of a word sometimes heard during drinking.

The remaining letters are an anagram of a “hoppy uppercase adult beverage.”

The first and final two letters of the game are an anagram of an antonym of “guzzle” that drinkers of that beverage would likely not employ.

Six other consecutive letters in the name of the game spell what sounds like an adjective describing some snacks that might complement this adult beverage.

Seven consecutive letters in the board game word, if you replace the last one with the letter preceding it in the alphabet, spell a synonym of “thirsty.” 

What are this board game, three anagrams, adjective and “thirsty” synonym?

Riffing Off Shortz And Gordon Slices:

Heavenly Puzzley Delights Above... Worldly Delights Below

Will Shortz’s March 29th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Challenge puzzle, created by Peter Gordon of Great Neck, New York, reads:

Name some tools used by shoemakers. After this word place part of a shoe. The result will be the subject of a famous painting. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Gordon Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a place that is the first noun in the name of a 5-word famous painting – a noun for place associated with a contrarian lass named Mary.
If you replace the “a” in “Mary” with an “o” the result is “Mory.” 

To this place do the same: replace the “a” with an “o”... but also the replace the “a” with an “o”!  The result is a name (2-syllables, 6 letters).

Now name a type of moss used in this place to increase moisture retention and promotes healthy root growth. This result sounds like a 1-syllable alternative (4 letters) to a 2-syllable name (5 letters).

This 2-syllable-5-letter name and 2-syllable-6-letter name form the full name of a puzzle-maker.

Who is it?...

But wait! You may not yet have sussed out the name of the painting! That’s also part of the answer!

The fourth word begins with a three-letter crop that is a “hominiphone” of a military officer. This fourth word also begins with where this crop is rooted, in five letters.

The fifth word begins with a four-letter store that may often offer a selection of local and seasonal farm produce, such as the three-letter crop.

So...

Who is this puzzle-maker? What is the type of moss?

What is the name of the painting?

What are the crop and where it is rooted?

What is the store?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are creations by Nodd, author of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

Name a material used to make footwear, in two words. 

Rearrange the first word to name a place depicted in a famous painting of the Spanish Renaissance. 

What are the material and the painting?

ENTREE #3

Name a famous American painter, first and last names. 

Move the last letter of the last name four
places later in the alphabet. 

Rearrange to spell two shoe parts and a word that rhymes with “shoe.” 

Who is the painter and what are the shoe parts and rhyming word?

ENTREE #4

The second half of a compound word for something used with footwear is a word for something of which there are two in a famous Picasso painting. 

What is used with footwear, what is depicted in the painting, and what painting is it?

ENTREE #5

Take the second word in the title of a famous Expressionist painting and change the last letter to an E. 

Rearrange to get a word for something undesirable that shoes do. 

What is the painting, and what do shoes do?

ENTREE #6

Insert a space in the last name of a famous American painter to get a phrase for what a certain type of shoe is designed to do. 

Who is the painter and what is the phrase? 

ENTREE #7

A famous Renaissance painter’s last name is also the name of a high-end shoe brand. 

The title of one of his most famous paintings can be arranged to spell a shoe part, a proprietary shoe technology, and a word that
typically appears in business memoranda. 

His first name, with the last two letters changed to a U.S. state postal abbreviation, is a kind of shoe. 

Who is the painter, and what are the painting, shoe part, shoe technology, memorandum word, and kind of shoe?

ENTREE #8

Your mission is to name each title in the octet of visual artistry described below:

A. Name a painting with a title that contains two desirable playing cards – in games like poker, canasta, bridge and gin rummy, for example.

B. Name a painting with a title that contains
two body parts which might be adorned by pricey “apparel” (in the broad sense of the word), but contain only the singular form of that apparel.

C. Take the last 8 letters of the title of a painting. If you delete the 4th and 6th letters, then transpose the 5th and 7th letters, the result spells the name of a river which is the color of the final word in the painting’s title, according to the title of a waltz composed in the 19th Century.

D. The first 5 letters in the title of a painting spell the name of a trick-taking card game. 

The last 7 letters in the title spell a type of endplay strategy – employed in contract bridge, for example – in which an opponent’s apparent trump trick goes away... (well, we can pray, anyway) 

E. Replace the first word in the 2-word title of a painting from an article to a pronoun. 

The result sounds like a dessert. 

F. The title of a painting contains the name of a planet and a word that rhymes with one of its “neighboring planets.”

G. The final three letters of a painting sound like a one-letter-longer pejorative noun that some insensitive  viewers of the painting might use to describe any of the people who appear
in the painting.

H. The title of a painting begins with a palindrome and ends with a palindrome. Neither palindrome is an English word. 

But the first palindrome is a word a Japanese and Hausa language word, and the second palindrome is a word in French, Latin and Turkish language word.

Dessert Menu

Blood-Pump(k)in’ Dessert:

Halloween Treaters invite Vampires that bite!

Take a word associated with blood. 

A pair of interior adjacent letters in the word spell a spelled-out letter (like “ef” or “ex,” for example). 

Replace this pair with a letter that is NOT spelled-out  (like “g” or “y,” for example). Then transpose this new letter with the letter to the right of it. 

Move another interior letter two places later in
the word.

The result is a word associated with Halloween.

What are these two words?

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 Thursday.

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.