Translating Sedaris into Enigmalish; And the winner is… Geena Davis! Stop and spell the dozen roses; Uprooting ascenders makes a level playing field (or, to rip-off Blaine, “Best S’porting Actress”)

P! SLICES: OVER (pe)³ – (e⁴ + p³) SERVED

Welcome back to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!... our December 2^nd edition. Thanks to all for holding down the fort in my absence.

I am still trying to recover all my Puzzleria! data from my Seagate 320-GB external hard drive. Thankfully, the prolific and proficient PlannedChaos, in addition to helping me in my quest to track down my lost files, has kindly stepped up to contribute 19 puzzles (a baker’s half-dozen plus a dozen) to this week’s edition. 

You are sure to enjoy his Platter of Seven  Hors d’Oeuvres and his twelve Ripping Off Shortz Enigmatic Slices.

 

I myself have managed to cobble together a only few Ripping Off Shortz puzzles – the Appetizer and the Dessert.

But here is an informal bonus visual puzzle: One of the images of hors d’oeuve platters pictured in this introduction is geometrically incorrect... and therefore numerically incorrect. 

Which image is it?

 But that is merely a warm-up. 

So, now you ought to be primed to boot up your own bits of unencrypting wits and drive hard toward recovering the answers to this week’s puzzles.

And, as always, enjoy.

Hors d’Oeuvre Menu

Platter Of Seven Hors d’Oeuvres:

Translating Sedaris into Enigmalish

(Author’s note: the following seven puzzles are not endorsed by David Sedaris. Any similarities to the works of Mr. Sedaris are entirely intentional.)

1. When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Think of a movie director, first and last names, whose last name can be split into two ordinary English words. Change the second of these words into its antonym and remove the first word, and the result when read aloud will sound like the first and last names of a well-known standup and comedic actor. With apologies to Jerry Seinfeld, who are these people?

2. Holidays on Ice

Name a romantic movie that features a location in its title. This movie stars an actress whose first and last names can be rearranged into the name of another location. What is the movie, who is the actress, and what is the other location?

3–4: Me Search Pretty One Day

3. Name a highly populated city. Move the city’s first two letters to the end to name an internet search engine. What is the city, and what is the search engine?

4. Write down the name of a medical procedure performed on females. Then write down the name of an internet search engine. The medical procedure ends with two particular letters, and the search engine begins with the same two letters in reverse order. Remove three of these four letters and read back the result to name a type of fabric often worn by women. What are these words?

5–7: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

5. Think of a compound word that names a category of clothing. The last syllable has two vowels. Replace one of these vowels with a different vowel, and move the other vowel to the end to name a more specific category of clothing that exists within the first category. What are these types of clothing?

6. Think of a brand name for a type of food in two words. Remove the space and two letters that are consecutive in the alphabet to get one word that is a brand name for a type of garment.

7. Think of a type of exercise equipment in three words. Exchange two letters in the third word to name a type of garment.

Appetizer Menu

Ripping Off Shortz And Reiss (And Hook) Appetizer:

Uprooting ascenders makes a level playing field (or, to rip-off Blaine, “Best S’porting Actress”)

 

Will Shortz’s National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle for Nov. 27, created by Mike Reiss (by way of Henry Hook), reads:

Take the first name of a famous actress. Drop a letter. Rearrange what’s left, and you’ll get a word used in a particular sport. This actress’s last name, without any changes, is another word used in the same sport. What actress is it?

LegoLambda’s Ripping Off Shortz (and Reiss and Hook) Slice reads:

Take the first name of a famous actress. Lowercase the first letter and uppercase the fourth letter. Eradicate the four letters in the name that now look very much the same. Rearrange the remaining letters to form a new word that, when paired with the actress’s last name, results in a two-word term for a particular piece of game equipment.

Now rearrange the letters of the first name of an actress who is a former model to get a word for where a game player sometimes places the aforementioned particular piece of game equipment (but not during the game). The former model’s last name is a word for what a game player sometimes does to the particular piece of game equipment during the course of a game.

What actresses are these?

What is the piece of game equipment? Where does a player place it, and what does a player do to it?

MENU 

Ripping Off Shortz Enigmatic Slices:

Stop and spell the dozen roses

PlannedChaos’ Ripping Off Shortz (and Reiss and Hook) Slices read:

1. Think of a popular musician, first and last names. Rearrange the first name into three words, and put two of these words after her last name. The result describes where the devout leave their vehicles on a Sunday morning.

2. The last name of a famous actress is a term used in a particular sport. Using her first name, drop a letter and rearrange to name a unit of measurement appropriate for where the sport is played. (A different letter can be dropped, and the result rearranged, to name a different unit of measurement.)

3.Take the first name of a famous actress. Move the last letter in front to get a type of pastry. Her last name describes the citizens of a country that another pastry is named after.

4. Actress, first and last names in five and four letters respectively. Rearrange the letters in her first name, and rearrange the letters in her last name, to describe an audiophile.

5. Drop two letters from the first name of a famous comedienne. Rearrange what's left, and together with her last name describes a landlord.

6. First and last names of a famous actress and model. Remove two letters from the first name, and what's left describes dust jackets.

7. First and last names of a famous actress. Drop one letter from the first name, and what’s left describes a chow line.

8. Think of a British-American actress, first and last names. Reverse the order of the first four letters in her first name to get American slang for a Brit’s marijuana cigarette.

9. First and last names of an actress recently in the news. Her name phonetically describes what you might need to do for a tired ocean worker.

10. Take the first and last names of a famous musician. Remove two letters from the first name, and you'll get a two word phrase that might describe the tools of the laborer in #9 after their use.

11. Actress (best known for a particular movie role), first and last names. Change one letter in the first name to an ‘r’ and rearrange. Then move the last name to the front to describe a popular piece of entertainment that may have peaked, if a recent tweet is to be believed.

12. Popular musician. First name: change last two letters to a Y. This word, and the musician’s last name, both describe a legal system that gives a successful outcome.

Dessert Menu

Ripping Off Shortz (And Hook) And Reiss Dessert:

And the winner is… Geena Davis!

The last name of an actress is a word for a person participates in a particular sport. Add a ‘d’ to her first name and rearrange the result to get two words that express what a match in this sport between this actress and Geena Davis would soon come to.

The last name of an award-winning actress is a word for a person who makes equipment for that particular sport. Remove a ‘u’ from her first name and rearrange the result to get two words this actress might exclaim after playing a match in this sport with Geena Davis.

Who are these two actresses?

What does the match (played by the first actress) soon come to? What does the second actress exclaim after her match?

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.

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