Welcome to the “Life of P!” (Thanks, ViolinTeddy, for conjuring that nifty slogan.)
And welcome also to our September 9th
edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! (known also as P!, for short)
This week we
feature another fine puzzle from the high-flying and mystifying mind of
PlannedChaos.
It appears under our main MENU and is titled “Radio Freequency Europe Slice: Scherzo modulation.”
Thank you, PC.
A smorgasbord
of eight additional mini-puzzles Ripping Off Shortz are served up on a slice titled “Scrunched Kernosabes of corn” and on a bonus slice titled “Put some stone on those bones!” That’s nine servings for the price of two!
Choose also from our menus’ synapse-smacking Hors d’oeuvres, Morsels, Appetizers and Desserts.
So, come explore the Life of P!, where our goal is never to repeat any digits… or puzzles!
Please enjoy.
Hors d’Oeuvre
Menu
Enigmatic
Cinematic Hors d’Oeuvre:
Track and field of dreams
Dreams are
often compared with cinema. Some people experience their “dreamy nocturnal
movies” as slow-motion or even 3-D sequences, for instance. Others may dream in
blah black-and-white or in living “Technicolor.”
Name a technique
sometimes employed by cinematographers, in nine letters. In their wildest dreams, track and field coaches might experience “nocturnal movies” that
would seem to employ this technique.
A homophone of
that technique – a two-word phrase containing eight letters – names what track and field coaches sometimes do during practices.
What is the cinematic technique? What do coaches do during practices?
What is the cinematic technique? What do coaches do during practices?
Morsel
Menu
Fall Season
Roundup (Or Rounddown) Morsel:
Sitcom heart
replacement
Note: In the
following “alphanumeric puzzle,” each letter of the alphabet is assigned a number
from 1 to 26 thusly:
A=1, B=2,
C=3,... Z=26 (see chart below).
Take the last
name of a female character on a popular television situation comedy. Take the
alphanumeric sum of three consecutive letters at the heart of her surname,
divide by 3, and round up or down to the nearer whole number. In other words,
find the rounded-off average of the three numbers.
Replace the three letters with the letter that has the alphanumeric value of that average.
The result is
the name of the sitcom.
Who is this
female character? What is the sitcom?
(Just an
observation: I was taught to “round up” (or “round down” or “round off”) to the
nearest whole number. I never questioned it, but now I realize that we
round not to the nearest but to the nearer whole number…
Rounding to the
nearest whole number, of course, might apply were we to adopt some type of
multi-dimensional number system in which the counting of numbers is not linear
but hyper-spatial within a context of higher orders of infinity.)
Appetizer
Menu
Easy As
Pecan Pie Appetizer:
“Things you
rob? Poach? Eat? Open? Read?”
Safes. Ribs.
Windows. Knuckles. Whips. Mysteries. Smiles. Books. Eggs. Codes. …
These ten nouns
are all “Things you _____.” To complete this puzzle you must first find the
verb that belongs in the blank.
Name an
eleventh possible “thing you_____,” according to a common idiom. In this idiom
the “thing,” also a noun, is preceded by and modified by an adjective.
Remove the
first letter from the adjective along with the space between the two words.
Spell this series of letters backward. The result, after capitalizing the initial letter, is the model of a popular vehicle.
What verb
belongs in the blank? What is the model name?
Hint: They
likely sell scores of these vehicles in the host city of a particular NFL team.
MENU
Radio Freequency Europe Slice:
Scherzo
modulation
Think of the
last name of a European composer. Shift the first letter one place forward in
the alphabet and read the result aloud to name a popular radio program.
Who is the
composer and what is the program?
Squishin’
And Rippin’ Off Shortz, Thereby Undraping Statues Slice:
Put some
stone on those bones!
Name a bone of
the human skeleton in eight letters. Drop the last letter, and squish together
two pairs of adjacent letters, to name a well-known European sculpture in five
letters.
What is the
bone? What is the name of the sculpture?
Ripping Off
Shortz And Baird Slices:
Scrunched
Kernosabes of corn
Will’s Shortz’s
National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle broadcast September 4th
was created by Norm Baird. It reads:
If you squish
the small letters “r” and “n” too closely together, they look like an “m.”
Think of a common five-letter word with the consecutive letters “r” and “n”
that becomes its own opposite if you change them to an “m.”
Puzzleria!’s first
Ripping Off Shortz And Baird Slice reads:
If you scrunch
(not squish!) the small letters “v” and “v” too closely together, they
look like a “w.” Think of an often misspelled seven-letter word that means “shrewder”
or “more canny.” If you change this misspelling’s two consecutive “v’s” to one “w”
it becomes a word in the title of a 19th century classic American
novel.
What are the
misspelled word and the novel word?
Puzzleria!’s second
(two-part) Ripping Off Shortz And Baird Slice reads:
If you scrunch
the small letters “l” and “n” too closely together, they look like an “h”…
A: Think of a
four-letter Maine town with the consecutive letters “l” and “n” that becomes an
interjection of triumph or derision if you change them to an “h.”
What are this
town and interjection?
Hint: The town
was once named New Milford.
B: Think of a
six-letter surname of a man of Hungarian letters (literary, not alphabetical)
with the consecutive letters “l” and “n” (alphabetical, not literary) that
becomes a biblical word meaning dowry if you change them to an “h.”
What is this surname?
What is this word?
What is this surname?What is this word?
Hint: The
biblical word, according to Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon (KJV) means “a price paid
for a wife to her parents.”
Puzzleria!’s third
(five-part) Ripping Off Shortz And Baird Slice reads:
If you scrunch
the small letters “c” and “l” too closely together, they look like a “d”…
A: Think of a
common five-letter word with the consecutive letters “c” and “l” for the sound
a certain critter makes. If you change them to a “d” the result is a different
critter from the same taxonomic class.
B: Think of a
common six-letter word with the consecutive letters “c” and “l” for a woman’s
strapless handbag. Change them to a “d” to form a word describing a woman’s night out on the town with a friend during which she will occasionally need to open her “six-letter word.”
C: Think of a
common eight-letter word with the consecutive letters “c” and “l” for a
gigantic grooming device God apparently uses, judging from periodic appearances
of a night-sky satellite in its old and new phases. Change the “c” and “l” to a
“d” to name two other sights seen in the night sky.
D: Think of a
common nine-letter word with the consecutive letters “c” and “l” for a word
associated with a certain fruit. Change the “c” and “l” to a “d” to name the
job of a longshoreman.
E: Think of a
not-so-common seven-letter word with the consecutive letters “c” and “l” for a
dubious digit possessed by certain hoofed animals. Change the “c” and “l”
to a “d” to spell out a two-syllable homophone for what “the ladies” sing – to
the accompaniment of hoof beats – at the Camptown Racetrack.
What are these
five pairs of words?
Dessert
Menu:
Hit The Road
Dessert:
Cereal
assessin’ ‘n’ censorin’
The image shown
here suggests a quite recent news story.
What is the
story, and what is the brand name of the cereal shown in the image?
Hint: Wood I
hear a “gadgetree” if one fell in the orchard?
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.
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.
