Digital Desperation; The Breakfast Club; Don’t Badger Me With Phonetic Puzzles!; Put Letter In Its Place; Ars Gratia Artis(ts); Poetry Corner, With Anna Graham; Constellatory Obscurity; Nutritious Nostrum?... Yum!; Justice site, joint, goose egg; Bargain-basement real estate; Loading Letters Onto a 22-Car Quatrain; Loading Letters Onto a 22-Car Quatrain;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Loading Letters Onto a 22-Car Quatrain

The Heavenward Paddler

“I am paddling toward heaven,

Earth beneath me, Farewell...

Lord I pray, ‘___ or ______

This ________’_  ____!’”

“Load” 22 letters of the alphabet into the four
blanks of the “partially unloaded” quatrain above.

Hint #1: The combined 9 missing letters in the third line can be rearranged to spell the homeland of a couple (4 letters) and a body feature possessed by neither (five letters).

Hint #2: In the fourth line, replace the apostrophe with a blank space, then remove the existing blank space to its right, forming two words of 8 and 5 letters. These words provide hints, both to the “heavenward paddler’s” identity and to the predicament that paddler is in.

Appetizer Menu

Nodd Gives Us Puzzles That Get Our Nod Appetizer:

Digital Desperation; The Breakfast Club; Don’t Badger Me With Phonetic Puzzles!; Put Letter In Its Place; Ars Gratia Artis(ts);
Poetry Corner, With Anna Graham

DIGITAL DESPERATION

1. 🎓English professor Anna Graham submitted this worrying note with her “Poetry Corner” featured this week. See if you can find a dozen related words she concealed in the text. Spacing and punctuation don’t count.

As a teacher, I fear artificial intelligence will revolutionize roles of humans in educating our
young people. I can’t condone students using AI to do homework, and it worries me to the point that I find myself and those I work with reevaluating if our schools should continue to use computers in teaching at all. If I’ve gained anything from the advent of AI, it’s a kind of sixth sense for when AI has been used to do assignments, even by students who are capable of doing the work on their own. I think the benefits of using computers outweigh the disadvantages, so I’ve given in, expecting some AI-cheating but hoping it won’t occur too often. I do feel eventually it will get to the point where homework will become meaningless.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

2.  🎭Actors and singers Dennis, Warren, Judith, Halle, Chuck, James, Kevin, and Jon got together for breakfast. 

What did they have to eat and drink? (Use your ears as well as your eyes.)

DON’T BADGER ME WITH PHONETIC PUZZLES!

3. ⛷🎿Which Wisconsin town’s name sounds (kinda) like something that could spoil your ski trip?

PUT LETTER IN ITS PLACE

4. ✈Add one letter (not necessarily the same one) to each of the words described below to get a new word. The added letter may come at the beginning or end of the word, or somewhere in the interior. The new words are related to one another in a way that will become apparent once you have found the words.

1. Kind of residential property, briefly

2. Winnow

3. One enamored

4. Looking intently

5. Pallid

6. Hot or cold drink

7. Courageous person

8. On fire

9. List of participants

10. Candy shape

11. Pre-industrial agricultural laborer

12. Abnormal bodily growth

13. Go left

14. Move slowly

15. Affectionate sound

What are the beginning words and the new words?

ARS GRATIA ARTIS(TS)

5. 🖌 Which artist’s name suggests he or she…

1. Might have been involved in law
enforcement?

2. Might have been mistaken for a pteranodon?

POETRY CORNER, WITH ANNA GRAHAM

6. 📖Fill in the four blanks with four words that are anagrams of one another.

(Setting: an outdoor amphitheater)

________ line the sylvan glade.

The actress, ________ of the stage,

Through several ________ plies her trade,

Her playful ________ do engage,

Admirers of every age. 

MENU

Heavenly Hors d’Oeuvre:

Constellatory Obscurity

Name a celestial body and the shadow it casts. Remove the space between these words.

The ten-letter result:

~ begins with a body part,

~ ends with something worn on the body, and 

~ contains consecutive interior letters that spell a second body part.

What are this celestial body and its shadow?

What are the two body parts and what is worn on the body?

Hudson Shores Realty Slice:

Bargain-basement real estate

On their online website, the Hudson Shores Realty Company in Dobb’s Ferry, New York routinely posted listings of properties with greatly reduced trade-in sales evaluations. 

During the end-of-the-year holiday season,
these real estate bargains were listed under the heading “Santa’s Presents”.

Identify three pairs of adjacent words in the first two paragraphs of this “Realty Slice” in which three different creatures are lurking.

Riffing Off Shortz And Francis Slices:

Justice site, joint, goose egg

Will Shortz May 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Jim Francis of Kirkland, Washington, reads:

Think of a famous female singer (8,4). The first syllable of her first name, the second syllable of her first name backward, and last name forward again are all verbs associated with human desire. Who is this singer?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Francis Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the combined letters in the name of a puzzle-maker and  state where he lives. Rearrange them to spell:

~ a word preceded by “short,”

~ a word followed by “roll,” and

~ a word followed by “puzzle.”

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What are the three words?

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are bonus riffs created by Nodd, author of this week’s “Nodd ready for prime time” feature, whch appears earlier in this edition of Puzzleria!)

ENTREE #2

Think of a famous female singer (5,5). One letter appears in both names; change it to an H in the last name. Rearrange the first name to get a slang adjective. Rearrange the (modified) last name to get a noun. 

The adjective and noun together could describe John Lennon’s feelings for Cynthia Powell and Yoko Ono. 

Who is the singer and what are the adjective and noun?

ENTREE #3 

Think of a famous female singer (7,6). Remove the first letter of her first name. Rearrange the remaining 12 letters to spell a verb associated with human desire (5 letters) and another verb describing what a suitor must sometimes do to win the object of his desire (7 letters). 

Who is the singer and what are the two verbs?

ENTREE #4

Think of a famous female singer (6,5). Remove a two-letter Midwestern state abbreviation. 

Rearrange the rest of the letters to spell a verb associated with unfulfilled human desire (4 letters) and another verb associated with fulfilled human desire (5 letters).

Who is the singer and what are the two verbs?

ENTREE #5

Think of a famous female singer. (4,4) Remove one instance of a letter that appears three times. Rearrange the rest of the letters to
spell a pair of synonyms that describe how people feel when newly in love (4,3). 

Who is the singer and what are the two synonyms?

ENTREE #6

Think of a famous female singer who was active from the 1960s to 1990 (5,5). Rearrange all 10 letters to spell a verb describing what people do when they feel an
instant connection (5 letters) and a noun describing what couples may sometimes experience when they have been together too long (5 letters). 

Who is the singer and what are the two verbs?

ENTREE #7

Think of a famous female singer (4,4) and duplicate the third letter of her first name. Rearrange the letters to spell a verb and a
noun describing what people may do at a club to attract attention from those they are attracted to (5, 4). 

Who is the singer and what are the verb and noun?

ENTREE #8

Think of a famous female singer with a total of 12 letters in her first name and surname. 

Letters 1 2 7 3 & 4 spell the non-English word for a body part associated with the word spelled by letters 11 12 13 & 14 (which is also word often shouted out during certain sporting competitions).

Letters 1 2 3 4 & 5 spell a playing surface. A piece of equipment spelled by 6 7 5 may be suspended above it, or be stretched across it. Letters 11 10 9 9 7 & 8 spell a verb oft witnessed on the playing surface, one that keeps balls airborne.

What are this singer, body part, shouted-out word, playing surface, piece of equipment, and the verb that keeps balls airborne?

Dessert Menu

“Pain” is a French Comfort FooDessert:

Nutritious Nostrum?... Yum! 

I picked berries... got pricked by a thorn,

Made a painful shout... mournful, forlorn.

“Are there comfort foods everyone eats?...

Like some stew stuffed with veggies and meats!”

Although the quatrain above is not a recipe
containing directions, its text is not entirely devoid of them. 

There is one per each line... each is slightly disguised.

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.