“Beachcombing... to a theater near you!”; “Stream of the U-Hose”; “Transport, Pets, Petrochemicals” “Pols & lops & other slop” Living in the “Digital Era”; An Idlewild Hue?; Parson-to-person counseling; Flowing, Growing, Glowing Indigo & Goldenrod; Trainer, train & pioneer; Coffee, Tea and Symphony!; “Meditation, Hail Mary’s may fail you no matter what may ail you)!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Flowing, Growing, Glowing Goldenrod & Indigo

Earth’s attraction allows mighty rivers to flow,

A confluence inspiring bright flowers to grow...

One murmurs, one’s mute, still both glisten and glow

’Neath God’s rainbow of goldenrod, red, indigo...

In the quatrain above, “Glisten” & “glow” are synonyms with different letter-counts.

Name two other synonyms in the quatrain that have different letter-counts. 

Appetizer Menu

A Half-Dozen “Eggs-ercizing-Your-Cranium” Appetizers:

“Beachcombing... to a theater near you!”; “Stream of the U-Hose”; “Transport, Pets, Petrochemicals” “Pols & lops & other slop” Living in the “Digital Era”; An Idlewild Hue?

Living in the “Digital Era”

1.🤞Combine a synonym for “era” (3 letters) with a synonym for “digit” (6 letters). Rearrange the combination to find the last name of a 1970s One-Hit Wonder. He had several records out but only one was a monster hit. Name the two synonyms, the artist and the hit song.

An Idlewild Hue?

2. 🎜🎝A well-known song is associated with a governmental organization, a destination and a
color. Name all three: the organization, the destination and the color. The destination is not an island.

“Beachcombing... to a theater near you!”

3.📺Name a kind of play. Then name a memorable TV character (in 6 letters) from last century. 

What relationship do they have?

“Stream of the U-Hose”

4. 🎥The same major character appears in various movies – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Guarding Tess (1994), and Contact (1997) for example. The movies have no relation to one another and the character isn’t a public figure or celebrity. Who is it?

“Transport? Pets? "Petrochemicals?”

5. 🚙🦮🐈🐄🐘 Think of a common means of transport. Append the name of some common four-legged animals. Rearrange all
and discover a large, popular company (9 letters). Name the transport, the animals, and the company.

“Pols & lops & other slop”

6. 🜡State the last name of a well-known political figure. 

Rearrange to discover a well-known brand name. 

Rearrange again to
discover the name of a well-known captain. What are these names?

MENU

Spiritual Direction Hors d’Oeuvre:

Parson-to-person counseling...

(and a parable!) 

Members of a congregation often visit their parson at her office desk and ask that she respond to their spiritual questions. 

But, just as Jesus did, the parson would always begin with a parable:

A hiker on a forest path spotted serpents coiled in the shade. He grabbed a stick and began to poke one. This “slitherer” retreated beneath the brush, but the hiker persisted, poking even harder yet. Cornered and ornery, the snake lashed out, nearly biting the hand that harrowed him! The hiker dropped the stick and skedaddled, leaving him to ponder the revelation: “Tranquility often depends on leaving well enough alone.”

Take the combined letters of synonyms of “serpents” and “poke.” Rearrange them to spell each one of two duos of non-consecutive words that appear in the first sentence in this puzzle. 

What are these two synonyms and four “fruits of anagrammation?”

 Hawk-Tracker Slice:

Trainer, train & pioneer

Anagram the letters of one who trains hawks and a lone train locomotive to name a health-
reform pioneer. 

Name this trainer, train locomotive and pioneer.

Note: The lone train locomotive is sometimes called a “_ _ _ _  train locomotive.”) 

Riffing Off Shortz And Pokras Entrees:

Coffee, Tea and Symphony!

Will Shortz’s September 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Ned Pokras of Brattleboro, Vermont, reads:

Take the last name of a well-known figure in music (11 letters). Drop the 9th and 10th letters. Say the result out loud. Phonetically, it will sound like two hot beverages, one after the other. Who is the figure in music, and what are the beverages?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz and Pokras puzzles read:

ENTREE #1:

Jake is alarmed to discover a snake slithering among the tomato vines in his vegetable garden. So, he tiptoes through the tulip-red tomatoes and uses his bamboo cane, as a _____ ____.

Rearrange those nine missing letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker.

(Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created and contributed by our good friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” riff-package is featured regularly on Puzzleria!)  

ENTREE #2

Name a well-known figure in rock music with alliterative first and last names. (7 and 6 letters). 

The last name, minus the final letter, is a word for something used to make some beverages.

Letters 1-4 and 6 of the first name can be arranged to spell a word for something you do when making another kind of beverage. 

Who is this figure and what are the two words?

ENTREE #3

Take the last name of a (fairly) well-known Italian classical composer (8 letters). 

Three consecutive letters are the second word in a two-word term for an illicit drinking establishment. The rest of the letters anagram to a past soft drink brand. 

Who is the composer and what are the two-word term and brand?

ENTREE #4

Take the last names of two well-known figures in folk-rock and popular music with the same first names (5 and 4 letters). 

Replace one letter with the letter that is two places earlier in the alphabet. Then rearrange all nine letters to name two brand-name beverages. (One is a kind of coffee, the other a kind of chocolate drink.) 

Who are the figures and what are the beverages?

ENTREE #5

Take the first and last names of a well-known English classical composer (6 and 5 letters). The last name anagrams to a kind of
beverage. 

Change the last letter of the first name to an S, rearrange, and add an apostrophe to name a beverage brand. Who is the composer and what are the beverage and the brand?  

ENTREE #6

Name two well-known figures in popular music, one male (3 and 5 letters) and one female (4 and 7 letters). 

The male’s first name, followed by the female’s last name, is a beverage. The female’s first name is historically paired with a word for another beverage. 

Who are the figures and what are the beverages?

ENTREE #7

Name a country singer-songwriter of the past (3 and 6 letters). 

Rearrange to spell an adjective describing some beverages and something often used to flavor beverages. 

Who is the singer-songwriter, and what are the adjective and the flavoring?

ENTREE #8

Take the surnames of a cartoonist and an actor. The result sounds like a hot beverage. 

Who are this cartoonist and actor? 

What is the beverage?

Hint: The cartoonist and actor share the same first name.

Dessert Menu

Nothing Transcends Dental Medication Dessert:

“Meditation, Hail Mary’s may fail you no matter what may ail you)!”

Whenever I get a toothache that just won’t quit, first I pray. But then,  _   _ _ _ _    _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _  and call my dentist.

(Alas, performing the words in the blanks will only aggravate the pain and suffering! Calling
the dentist, of course, is the prudent course of action.) 

Rearrange those fourteen missing letters to spell three words associated with prayer (which may not be such a bad idea after all).

What are the missing words in the blanks?

What are the three words associated with prayer?

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.

Turfy Roof? Furry Foot?... No, ‘Tis Patrick’s Number Forty-Four!; Sesame Seedy Streetlife; Price stickers? Rice whiskey? Ice bags?; From Train Track To Kart Trak; Movie & Mount Both Begin With A “B”; “Let us not let anger rear its ugly head”;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Movie & Mount Both Begin With A “B”

Delete the superfluous “part-of-speech” article that is the first word in a six-word movie title, leaving five words. (See the illustration in the white dinner plate, above.)

Rearrange the combined letters in these five remaining words to spell the three-word caption for the image at the right:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ :  _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _ _

What are this movie title and caption?

Appetizzical Cryptical Quizzical Cryptic Crossword Puzzling Appetizer:

Turfy Roof? Furry Foot?... 

No, ‘Tis Patrick’s Number Forty-Four!

Well, I guess we’ve all heard of “turf toe...”

But what on God’s Green Earth are “Turfy
Roof” and “Furry Foot”?

Well, they’re both examples of “wordplay” (both are anagrams of “Forty-Four”). 

It is wordplay of the sort you have come to know, love and enjoy thanks to Patrick J. Berry’s voluminous oeuvre of Cryptic Crosswordese on Puzzleria!

And so...

Welcome to the 44th Cryptic Crossword Puzzle, courtesy of Patrick, that we are privileged and proud and pleased-as-punch to present on Puzzleria!

If you have missed out on any of Patrick’s previous crosswords that we have featured on Puzzleria!, feel free to access the numbered links of this “clickable” cluster of his cryptic crossword creativity, below.

Open any number of them, then sit back and bask in Patrick’s Paradise of Puzzlement!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43      

For those of you who may be new to solving cryptic crossword puzzles, Patrick has compiled the following list of basic cryptic crossword puzzle instructions:

Regarding the Across and Down clues and their format:

The number, or numbers, that appear in parentheses at the end of each clue indicate how many letters are in the answer. 

Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers. 

For example, (6) simply indicates a 6-letter
word like “ENIGMA.” 

(7, 4) indicates a 7-letter and 4-letter answer like “GORDIAN KNOT,” 

and (5-6) indicates a five-and-six-letter hyphenated answer like “BRAIN-TEASER.”

For further insight about how to decipher these numbered cryptic clues, see Patrick’s “Cryptic Crossword Tutorial” in this link to his November 2017 cryptic crossword. 

That Tutorial appears below the filled-in answer-grid in that edition of Puzzleria!

And, so, sans further adieu... here is a Patented-Cryptic-Patrick Masterpiece for you to do:

ACROSS

1. Imperfectly prepared meal to fall apart quickly reaching home base?(9,2,3)

9. Guard heading off to find gate(5)

10. Director’s shoutin’ gets in the way(9)

11. Work, then, traveling by truck(8)

12. Old lady takes shortcut looking for avenue(6)

14. City gossip has no real development(3,7)

16. Weather check on the radio(4)

18. Times puzzle on Sunday has the answer(4)

19. Dancing motion rare for actress in “West
Side Story”?(4,6)

21. Bar not in order(6)

22. Electric guitar sound—a few notes (one repeated), with tip of pick?(8)

25. Talk music—rock? Sure!(9)

26. Writer’s mature persona(5)

27. Be bad TV? Hell yes, terrible show! (5,2,3,4)

DOWN

1. Dickie Goodman’s accomplishments makin’
the Guinness book?(5-2,7)

2. John’s taking Latin in college(5)

3. Manual pointer? Shut up!(8)

4. Doctor is hesitant? Just the reverse!(10)

5. Wrong turn? Run!(4)

6. Both sides having stake in French city(6)

7. Pass some time trapped in lift(9)

8. Average article on music supported by fine artist(6,8)

13. Fight, say, with new frontman about primary musical direction(10)

15. Traveled by ship, not a sweet trip(4,2,3)

17. I get mood adjustment from pleasant experience(4,4)

20. Ness taking on gangster(6)

23. “Surprise Answer” puzzle?(5)

24. Jaw broken by right hook(4)

MENU

“Sunny Day!” Hors d’Oeuvre:

Sesame Seedy Streetlife

An adjective and noun describe how Sesame Street denizens might describe one fellow Muppet.

Anagram the combined dozen letters of those
two words to spell certain fixtures situated on sidewalks.

What is the name of this fellow Muppet?

How might his fellow Muppets describe him?

What are the fixtures situated on sidewalks?

“Spirited” Slice:

Price stickers? Rice whiskey? Ice bags?

Name something, in three and five letters, that you are sure to see on a liquor store shelf.
Anagram those eight letters to spell, as you continue to survey the shelf’s contents, something else you may see.

What are this first thing you see and second thing you may see?

Hint: The “something else you may see” is possibly a part of the “something you are sure to see.”

Appetizers

Riffing Off Shortz And Taubenslag Slices:

From Train Track To Kart Trak

Will Shortz’s October 11th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Nancy Taubenslag of Scarsdale, New York, reads:

Name a company that’s known for transportation. Move the first two letters to the end. Reverse everything. Insert the name of an international tourist destination. And you'll get the name of a game that involves transportation. What things are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Taubenslag Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take two first names:

1. One shared by a NFL QB and a British musician that Eric Clapton famously called “the best guitarist in the world”;

2. A second one shared by a fictional Bellamy butler and a duckwalking Scottish guitarist... 

 and...

3. A surname shared by:

• Prolific Irish poet/novelist Katharine; 

• British theatre writer/critic Kenneth; and

• Irish tenor and Paralympic athlete Ronan.

Anagram those combined 15 letters to spell the first and last names of a puzzlemaker.

Who is it, and what are the three other names?

(Note: Entrees #2 through # 7 are creations courtesy of our good friend Nodd. His “Nodd ready for prime time” is a staple of Puzzlerian Puzzling.)

ENTREE #2

Name a car company.

Replace its last letter with the last two letters of a past Chevy model. Add, preceded by a space, a past Plymouth model. You’ll name a car racing video game. What are the company, the models, and the game? 

ENTREE #3

Name a car brand. 

Change a vowel to the next vowel in the alphabet. Change a G to a W.
Rearrange to name a video game involving futuristic vehicle racing. 

What are the brand and the game?

ENTREE #4

Name a former Pontiac model and a current Nissan model, in that order. In the Nissan model name, change an A to a U and add two letters to the end. You’ll name a video game involving car racing. What are the models and the game?

ENTREE #5

Name a railroad company. 

Replace the first letter with an anagram of a four-letter board and video tactical combat game. 

Insert a T somewhere, preceded by a space. You’ll name a video and board game that involves transportation. What are the company and the two games?

ENTREE #6

Name two airlines in reverse alphabetical order. Replace the first two letters of the first one with a P. You’ll get the first and last words
of a video game involving transportation. What are the airlines and the game? 

ENTREE #7

Name a car tire brand and a government agency involving transportation, in that order. Change the first letter of the agency to a U and move the letter that follows it to the end of the tire brand. You’ll name a car racing video game. What are the brand, agency, and game?

Dessert Menu

Period Piece Dessert:

“Let us not let anger rear its ugly head”

Rearrange the letters in a nine-letter verb to spell a two-word term that applies to either of two historical periods: (1933-1941) and (1954-2014). What are this verb and two-word term?                                       

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!