Folklore Creature, Feat & Feature... “One creature great and two small” Analgesic, Anesthetic, “Algiacide?” Feathered phoenix? Growling griffin? Self-defining geology; Pyrotechnics galore and s’mores; Beachcombed seashells & bombshells in the breech

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Feathered phoenix? Growling griffin?

Place a body of water in front of the surname of a literary character. 

The first seven letters of this eleven-letter result spell a kind of bird. 

The last five letters spell a body part. 

The second, third, fourth, sixth and tenth
letters spell a second bird, one associated with a Greek mythological character... but not in a good way. 

Name these two characters, two birds, and body part.

Valued Gifted Appetizer:

Folklore Creature, Feat & Feature...

Note: The six puzzles in this our featured Appetizer this week come courtesy of a very valued and greatly gifted Puzzleria! contributor.

Double-Duty Adjective

1. 👿Take the name of a well-known creature from folklore and an adjective often used for that creature. There are nine letters total in those two words. 

The second letter in the name of the creature and the last letter of the adjective are the same. Change one of those letters to an “h”. Arrange the resulting letters to name a unit of distance to which the adjective could also apply. What are the three words? 

Features physical and “filmy”

2. ✋👣 Take a term for a body part. Take a general term for a vacation destination. 

Combine those two terms to name a locale of many a physical feat as well as the setting of a cinematic fete and feature. What is the cinematic fete? 

Minnesota Delaware Hawaii Houston

3. ⅭⅭⅭⅩⅬⅥ Delaware Hawaii Minnesota is
346. 

So is Houston, Texas. 

Explain it. 

Describing “the nondescript”

4. 🏈🏀🏒 Take nothing that looks like something that’s certainly not nothing in college sports at the moment. 

Add the postal abbreviation of a U.S. State at the beginning and the postal abbreviation of a different U.S. State at the end. 

The result is a word that can describe “the nondescript.” What is it? 

Capistrano Degrees of Difficulty

5. 🐦Take something that’s impossible to
swallow. 

Insert an element symbolically to get something that’s hard to swallow. 

What are they? 

“‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy!’’

6. 👂🙉👂In puzzling, there’s “phonetically,” “sounds like,” and even “sounds somewhat like.” 

Then there’s a word for a lyric heard but neither sung nor spoken. Take that word. Remove a letter. The remainder, if spoken aloud, sounds like when a certain person may go or where a certain person called by that same term aims to go as efficiently as possible. What is that common term for such persons?

🌙🌕Bonus Appetizer #6 Riff by Lego (Joe Young):

As this week’s Appetizers author so eloquently put it in his #6 puzzle above, examples of “a lyric heard but neither sung nor spoken” occur in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” (“‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy!”) and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” (“There’s a bathroom on the right!”).

But why do my ears (my ears, in particular) perk up when I hear a 1973 hit-single Southern Gothic murder ballad written by a guy whose wife recorded it?

What is this song title? 

At what exact point in the song do my ears experience this up-perk? 

MENU

Earth Studies Hors d’Oeuvre:

Self-defining geology

Name a two-syllable singular noun for any one of many geological masses on the earth’s surface. 

Rearrange the first three plus last two letters of this noun to get a word that describes these masses. 

Rearrange three consecutive interior letters to get a what these masses are made up of. 

What are these three words?

Heriotic Slice:

“One creature great, two small”

Remove a vowel from a large creature. 

Move the resultant space two places to the right. 

The final result is a small creature preceded by what sounds like another small creature. What are these three creatures?

Bonus Independence Day Slice:

Pyrotechnics galore and s’mores

“After we witnessed the _________ display that painted, Pollock-like, the midnight-blue canvas above us, we sat around a bonfire, armed with graham crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows that we impaled onto extended ____ _____ before caramelizing them as near the flames as we dared.”

Spoonerize the syllables of the compound word in the first blank to produce the two words in the second and third blanks.

What words belong in the three blanks?

Riffing Off Shortz And Kalish Slices:

Beachcombed seashells & bombshells in the breech

Will Shortz’s June 30th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Evan Kalish of Bayside, New York, reads:

Name a state capital. Remove its first two letters, and you can rearrange the rest to name something in two words that you might find while beachcombing in that state. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Kalish Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take an adjective and noun, each five letters, that describe a man who during the Korean War commanded the most powerful assemblage of air power ever employed at sea. 

This man’s nickname is the five-letter noun. A word describing the air power is the five-letter adjective.

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

Who is this puzzle-maker?

Who is the Korean War man? What is the two-word adjective describing him?

Note: Entree #2 is the brainchild of our friend who is the author of this week’s “Baker’s-Half-Dozen Appetizer: Folklore creature, Feat & Feature.”

ENTREE #2

Take two capitals in the United States in alphabetical order. 

Add the postal abbreviation of a U.S. state. 

The result is the name of a national capital. 

What is the national capital?  

Note: Entree #3 is the brainchild of our friend Tortitude, whose “Tortie’s Slow But Sure Puzzles appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #3

Name an inland U.S. state capital within a coastal state. Remove its first two letters. 

You can rearrange the remaining letters to spell a beach city on the opposite coast.

What is the capital? 

What is the beach city?

Note: Entrees #4 through #9 are the brainchildren of our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #4

Name a state capital. You can rearrange its letters to name something beachgoers are often trying to get. 

What is the capital, and what are the beachgoers trying to get?

ENTREE #5

Name a state capital. 

Remove its last two letters, and you can rearrange the rest to name something most people are likely to have at the beach. 

What is the capital, and what are people likely to have at the beach?

ENTREE #6

Name a state capital. 

Change its first vowel to a different vowel and rearrange the letters to name someone you might see while at the beach. 

What is the capital, and whom might you see at the beach?

ENTREE #7

Name a state capital. 

Rearrange six of its letters to name a European city that is well-known for its beaches. 

The first three of those six letters name something some people do at the beach.  

What are the capital and the European city? 

What do some people do at the beach?

ENTREE #8

Name a state capital and remove its last letter. 

Rearrange the rest of its letters to get a word that may describe piers and similar structures
you might see at a beach. 

What are the capital and the descriptive word?

ENTREE #9

Name a state capital. 

Rearrange its letters to name something people typically take with them for a day at the beach. 

Rearrange again to describe many of the people you are likely to see at the beach. 

What is the capital? 

What do people typically take with them? 

What word describes many of the people you are likely to see?

ENTREE #10

Name something, in five letters, that you might see fishers using on a beach, followed by a three-letter synonym of that something. Replace the vowel in the three-letter synonym with a vowel that appears only once in what the fishers on the beach use.

Rearrange these eight letters to spell the surname of someone you might see on the beach... at least according to a guy whose surname is something you see on the beach that might be good (and filled with refreshment!) if it is not broken, but bad if it is broken.

What is it that fishers use, and its synonym?

Whom might you see on the beach, according to that guy with the surname, and just who is that guy, anyway!?

Hint: The five-letter something fishers use is also the name of a well-known river.

Dessert Menu

Kill The Pain Scratch The Itch Dessert:

Analgesic? Anesthetic? “Algiacide?”

Rearrange the letters in a synonym of “pain killers” to spell a synonym of “itch” and an apostrophized word preceding “Pills” in a brand-name pain-killer. 

What are these two synonyms and apostrophized word?

Hint: The letters in the synonym of “itch” appear consecutively, but not in order, within the synonym of “pain killers.”

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 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.

Firecrackerjack Cryptology! Edibles become “otheribles” Gray Copper, oxymoronic oxidation? Who is this late perHabsburg? Baby-talking past the graveyard? An average and alright guy;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Edibles become “otheribles”

Bananas, beans, beets, eggs, figs, jams and oats are seven edibles. 

Add 17 letters, at least one letter to each of the seven words, to form seven new words classified under another plural noun ending in “-bles.” What are these seven new words and the other plural noun ending in “-bles?”

Hint: The four nouns in the sentence, “A tundra is an ice age plain,” contain the 17 letters to be added. (The nouns are the words that contain three-or-more letters.)

Appetizer Menu

“Patrickotic” Appetizer:

Firecrackerjack Cryptology

What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July 2024 than to summon forth a Cryptic Crossword Puzzle created by Patrick J. Berry (aka “cranberry”). It is Patrick’s 35th cryptic crossword to appear on Puzzleria! 

So, get ready for some puzzling pyrotechnics and fireworkmanlike befuddlement! 

As is Patrick’s wont, this puzzle contains a bit of a musical theme. Lyrics and melodies are in his wheelhouse. He is an aficionado and an expert when it comes to popular music. Indeed, he and his family members have teamed up to win many music trivia contests in Alabama.

In this puzzle, the placement Patrick’s music-related entries in the puzzle grid possesses a particularly satisfying symmetry. 

If you have missed, or wish to revisit, any of Patrick’s previous 34 cryptic crosswords on Puzzleria!, here are their links:

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      

For those who may be new to 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, (12) simply indicates a twelve-letter word like “Independence,” (3,5) indicates a three-letter and five-letter answer like “Old Glory,” and (4-8) indicates a four-letter and eight-letter hyphenated answer like “Star-Spangled.”

For further insight about how to decipher these numbered cryptic clues, see Patrick’s “Cryptic Crossword Tutorial” in this link to his November 17, 2017 cryptic crossword.

That Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!

So, celebrate the Fourth by solving Patrick’s latest cryptic creation, then cap off the day by sitting back on a lawn chair at your city-park-by-the-lake as you “ooh and ahh” the fireworks.  

ACROSS

7. Place for a traveler to stay, not home for a whole month(7)

8. Amateur video shot, and ultimately ignored(7)

10. Darkness(before, clear)(6)

11. Eccentric doctor gets servant to remove
top to be examined(8)

12. Song by 14 about downhearted deejay, primarily(4)

13. Substitute actor, nervous, turn’s due—a little desperate by end of play(10)

14. Singer/songwriter on the radio, risky first performance in series(5,6)

19. Sanitation engineer—trash “manager”, carrying sack?(10)

22. Some fixation over song by 14?(4)

23. One in bar, taken aback by fellow’s charm(8)

24. Recalled appropriate line to use(6)

25. Harry Potter’s creator keeping Hedwig in loop?(7)

26. Fights boy in study group(7)

DOWN 

1. Continue to make a fuss(5,2)

2. Spies capturing a top military figure somewhere in Southeast Asia(8)

3. Analyze short letter about part of the Bahamas(6)

4. Heartless, vindictive old lady in song(one by Schubert)(3,5)

5. Teacher wasn’t lazy?(6)

6. Feet for celebrities?(7)

9. Trouble getting last word in, see(11)

15. Cat raised to keep people company(8)

16. Popular cryptic setter returns(8)

17. Edited show? Bull! Nonsense!(7)

18. Former lover was a model—nude!(7)

20. Newlywed has left guy(6)

21. Unable to move, having much gas?(6)

MENU

Names In The News Hors d’Oeuvre:

An average and alright guy

Take the first syllables of two first names in the news. 

Put them in alphabetical order, then spoonerize them, to form what sounds like a two-word term for an ordinary and average and alright guy. What are these names and the two-word term?

DyNasty Slice:

Who is this late perHabsburg? 

The birth of a nation occurred on July 4, 1776. This historical date can be written as 7/4/1776, or perhaps as 07/04/1776. 

The possible date of the burial of a Habsburg (one with a with a palindromic name), when
written in that form, resembles a somewhat rickety ten-picket fence. 

What is this date?

Who is the Habsburg? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Kozma Slices:

Gray Copper, oxymoronic oxidation?

Will Shortz’s June 23rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Laura Kozma of South River, New Jersey, reads:

Name a famous film actor of the past (4,6). Swap the second and third letters of the first name to name a color. Change the third letter of the last name to get another color. What actor is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Kozma Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name:

* a vehicle occupied by animals (3 letters), 

* a suffix that is a “plural noun combining form” that means “animals,” (3 letters) and

* a verb for what animals like bears, big cats, wolves, crocodiles, alligators, hippos, elephants and wild boars (but not tortoises!) can easily do to a person (4 letters).

Rearrange these letters to spell the name of an excellent puzzle-maker.

Who is it?

What are the vehicle, suffix and verb?

Note: Entree #2 was created by our friend Laura Kozma (aka “Tortitude”), whose “Tortie’s Slow But Sure Puzzles” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

Think of a puzzle-maker. The puzzle-maker’s first name is the title of a famous song written for a movie with the same title of the song. That song later had lyrics written for it by a famous lyricist. That lyricist also wrote English lyrics for a song composed by a Hungarian composer that was used in a movie 12 years later. The English title of that song was also the title of that movie.  

The Hungarian composer’s last name at birth is the last name of the puzzle-maker.

Who is the puzzle-maker? Who is the famous lyricist? Who is the composer, and what song did he write?

Note: Entree #3 was created by our friend Plantsmith, whose “Garden of Puzzley Delights” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #3

Take a famous actor, 4,6 letters. 

Switch letters 2 and 3 in first name to get a color. 

Replace first three letters of last name with the 4th, 5th and 6th letters of a synonym of “heartfelt.” The result is a second color.

Who is this actor?

What are the two colors?

Hint: The first three letters of the actor’s surname and the first three letters of the synonym of “heartfelt” are identical.

Note: Entrees #4-through-#9 were created by our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #4

Name a famous actor of the past who starred in a number of TV and film roles. Their last
name is the name of a color. 

The third and fourth letters of their first name can be replaced by the letters two places before them in the alphabet to get another color. 

Who is the actor and what is the color?

Hint: The color is deeper than pink but softer than red. It can be made up of 63% red, 9% green, and 25% blue.

ENTREE #5

Name a famous TV and film actor of the past. 

Remove a letter from their last name to name a color. The actor starred in a TV show, the second word of which is another color. Who is the actor and what is the show?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous film and TV actor. 

Remove two letters from their first name to name a color. 

Change two letters of their last name and rearrange to get another color. 

Who is the actor and what is the color?

ENTREE #7

Name a famous film actor. Remove one letter from their first name to name a color. 

The actor starred in a well-known film, the first word of which is another color. 

Who is the actor and what is the film?

ENTREE #8

Name a famous film actor of the past. 

Their last name is the name of a color. 

The last name of their sibling, a former actor, is another color. 

Name the actor and their sibling.

ENTREE #9

Name a famous film actor of the past. Their last name is a color. 

Their first and last names together are something that can cause a change in color. 

Who is the actor?

ENTREE #10

Name a living singer who is an inductee of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the Christian Music Hall of Fame, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. 

Add a letter to his
first name somewhere and remove a letter somewhere from his surname. 

The result is a caption for the image pictured here.

Who is this singer?

What is the caption?

ENTREE #11

Name an American guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist who became popular in the late 1950s (4,4). Change the first letter in each name to spell two four-letter colors that appear in the artwork pictured here.

What guitarist is it? What are the two colors?

Hint: The guitarist’s instrumental single top-20 hit was one of the earliest songs in rock music to utilize distortion and tremolo.

ENTREE #12

Take the first names of a pair of comedic performers who worked as a team. Remove the first letter of one and the last letter of the other to spell two colors. 

Who are these performers?

What are the colors

ENTREE #13

Name a past two-man comedy team. The older man was known by his one-syllable first name; the younger man was sometimes known by his two-syllable nickname.

Replace the middle letter in the older man’s name with a different vowel. Do nothing to the nickname. The result is two articles of clothing worn above the shoulders.

Who are the men in this comedy team.

What are the articles of clothing?

ENTREE #14

Take the five-letter first name of a sitcom title character and the three-letter first name of the actress who portrayed her. Change the fourth letter in the character’s name to spell a color. Change the first letter of the actress’s first name to spell a word that precedes the word “green” to indicate a shade of green.

Who are this character and actress?

What are the color and shade of green?

Note: Entree #15 was created by our friend Ecoarchitect, whose “Econfusions” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #15

Name a well-known comic strip character of the past (3,5). Add a letter to the 3-letter word. Change the middle letter in the 5-letter word, then swap it with the second letter. 

The result will be two colors, though not
primarily known as colors (just as copper is a metal more than a color). 

Who is the character and what are the colors?  

Dessert Menu

LMN8 Dessert:

Baby-talking past the graveyard?

Eliminate from underground graveyards the letters of a “baby-talk” synonym of something else that is eliminated. 

The result is things you’ll find in these graveyards. 

What are these graveyards and the things you’ll find there?

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.