Friday, October 19, 2018

A cranberry Saucerful of Secrets; Femail comprising seven letters; Remarkably clever rodents; Finnegan wakes under Finian’s Rainbow; A procession of fruits

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 7!/3 SERVED  

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Remarkably clever rodents 

Name an 8-letter expression for an insanely clever off-the-cuff remark (the kind of quip most of us would think of only as we are driving home from a party or social gathering of witty wordsmiths). 
When you reverse the order of the 8 letters and pronounce the result phonetically it sounds like something certain rodents might do. 
What is this 8-letter expression?


Appetizer Menu


Trials From The Crypt Appetizer:
A cranberry Saucerful of Secrets

Note: We are serving up an Appetizer of Cryptic proportions this week – another ingenious Cryptic Crossword Puzzle baked up by Patrick J. Berry (screen name: “cranberry”).
This is the sixth cryptic crossword Patrick has composed for our blog. We are very grateful to Patrick for sharing them with us.  
Here are Patrick’s instructions for solving:
The number in parentheses at the end of each clue tells how many letters are in the answer. Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers.
For example, (6) indicates a six-letter answer like “jalopy,” (7, 5) indicates a seven-and-five-letter answer like “station wagon,” and (5-5) indicates a five-and-five-letter hyphenated answer like “Rolls-Royce.”
(For 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. The Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!)


ACROSS
1. Priest, er, uh, “transformed” insecure nun (6,8)
9. Dance beat with energy (5)
10. Insignia with eagle-star combination? (5,4)
11. Fruit, round variety (6)
12. Game Irishman played with niece (8)
14. Pole position (4)
16. Go looking for new land (10)
18. On the radio, usual attempt to have a discussion (10)
19. Where some things may be held in perpetuity? (4)
21. What soldiers wear in our country, the usual, provided going in (8) 
22. Majority taking over, ends in chaos (6)
25. Inflammation, disorder of intestine – not nervous at first, keeping doctor close (9)
26. Virgin has heart full of innocence, primarily (5)
27. Genre using alien – nice fit, concise (7,7)




DOWN

1. Flicks computer on – is it off? (6,8)
2. State of confusion for 9? (5)
3. One hug may be sufficient (6)
4. Long time after short season? (4)
5. Frenchman has to see apartment (4-1-5)
6. It’s real strange, rare in some cases (8)
7. Acting close in public (9)
8. Using Internet, is able to become genius? (6,8)
13. Crime that I mistook for numbers racket? (10)
15. Agreeing half my life in Nashville’s over? (9)
17. Extremely risque author’s cleverness (8)
20. Top customer is invited up for drink (6)
23. Excuse for captain of industry to support bailout (5)
24. Starting to get into algebra so far? (2,2)

Legendary Listenable Leprechauny Appetizer:
Finnegan wakes under Finian’s Rainbow

Legend has it that tricky leprechauns guard something of value at rainbow’s end. 
Experience tells us that Irish folks greet those they meet – or anyone within earshot – early each day by chirping, in a lilting brogue, a particular expression. 
Find three letters that appear in the same order and form two prefixes. These three letters in the same order also appear in the first half of a six-letter word. 
Each of the prefixes and the six-letter word have separate meanings and etymologies.
But all three apply to three concepts alluded to in the text in green italics above.
What are these two prefixes and the six letter word?   


MENU


Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Femail comprising seven letters

Will Shortz’s October 14th  NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Take the 7-letter last name of a famous woman. Drop the letter “e”. Add an “i” and an “f”. You can rearrange the result to get a word that famously describes this woman. 
Who’s the woman, and what’s the word?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ENTREE #1: 
Take the 7-letter last name of a famous woman. 
Drop the two letters of the masculine pronoun “he” from this name. 
Add three letters: an “f” (the first letter in “female”); a “c” (the first letter in the name “Canary”); and an “i” (the first letter in “Iowa,” the state where she purchased the “Canary”). 
You can rearrange the result to get a word famously associated with this woman. (This word also denotes what the “Canary” is.) Who’s the woman, and what’s the word?

ENTREE #2:
Take the 7-letter last name of a reasonably famous woman. Replace a consonant with two other consonants to produce an alternative spelling that does not affect the pronunciation.  
You can rearrange the result to get a word that somewhat describes this woman (although she is famously known more as an anagram of “reigns” or “avid”). Who’s the woman, and what’s the word?

ENTREE #3:
Take the 6-letter last name of a reasonably famous male entertainer. You can rearrange the letters to get a noun that pertains to this entertainer. Who is he, and what is the noun?

ENTREE #4:
An man who was pals with a president with whom he shared a birth name was a pioneer in bringing something, in five letters, to soldiers via a three-letter organization. You can rearrange those eight letters to get a noun that describes this man. 
What is the noun, what did the man bring to soldiers, what is the organization, and what is the man’s name?

ENTREE #5:
Take the 3-letter short-form first name and 4-letter last name of a not-so-famous WWII bomber pilot and Royal Canadian Air Force officer associated with NORAD. 
Rearrange these letters to get a word that appears to the right of the hyphen in this officer’s title. 
Who is this officer and what is his title?

ENTREE #6:
Take the first and last names of a woman, in nine letters, whose father directed three movies that won best-actress-in-a-leading-role Oscars, and whose husband directed a movie enshrined in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” 
There is a double-n” in the woman’s name; drop one of them. You can rearrange the result to get a word that describes this woman’s nationality. 
Who is the woman, and what is the word?


Dessert Menu

Be Fruitful And Do Long Division Dessert:
A procession of fruits

Name a 9-letter verb for what food producers might do to fruits. 
Rearrange the middle three letters to form a word describing the fruits after this process is done. 
Rearrange the remaining six letters to form a word for what the food producers might have done to the fruits during the process. 
What are these three words?

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.

39 comments:

  1. Are Stratton and Nilsson living under aliases? Laverne and Shirley, perhaps?

    Now that I've harvested the low-hanging fruit, I trust Lego will forgive me if I eliminate some of the branches which I do not expect to be productive, and focus entirely on PJB's cryptic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've got the South and East edges, and the whole Southeast corner so far.

      Delete
    2. You are forgiven, Paul. Focusing on Patrick's Cryptic Crossword is fruitful and fun. Sounds like you are making geographical headway.

      LegoWhoproclaims"BeYeFruitfulAndDoSomeDeferential(Sic)Calculus"

      Delete
    3. Cryptic grid is filled
      Many entries are doubtful
      Some certainly wrong
      For example this last one
      But I did the best I could.

      Delete
    4. Greetings to all in Puzzlerialand! I hope all who enjoy cryptic crosswords are doing mine. It's tricky, but if I could get the hang of it, anybody can! Did some grocery shopping and grabbed supper before listening to Ask Me Another and solving two other particularly tricky crosswords, the Prize Crossword and the Private Eye Crossword. Late last night I checked Puzzleria! and outside of my own, I have only been able to solve Entree #1 fully, and I have a few elements of #2 and #4, but I don't have them fully solved. Lego, HINTS PLEASE! I'm tired of doing anything else puzzle-related right now, but I will be checking back from time to time as always. Tough ones this week, folks! Don't forget those hints, Lego!

      Delete
    5. BTW nice work on my puzzle, Paul! I just hope you know how to EXPLAIN the answers as well. You will have to show your work, you know!

      Delete
  2. Checking in, I was surprised to stumble right away on THE word for the Schpuzzle, so that was a happy beginning to this week's efforts. Sadly, the speed did not continue.

    Entrees 1, 2 and 3 were impossible, and although I THOUGHT I knew the longer final word for #2, I could get nowhere finding a female whose name I could turn into that word. A long list of male entertainers yielded nothing for #3. Every time I also thought I might be ON to the solution for #1, I failed.

    I spent ages on Entree #6, finding lists of the directors that HAD to be the only possibilities, checking on daughters, and NEVER could I find a nine-letter daughter's complete name with two n's, for any of these directors. Am past the screaming point!

    However, I did solve #4. And just now, the Dessert.

    Oh, I don't even understand the Leprechaun Appetizer. Do you mean there are two exactly the same-spelled prefixes (it says "same order") that mean different things? Or do you mean there is a ONE-letter prefix, and a TWO-letter prefix?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ViolinTeddy,
      I shall work on some hints today, and post them later. No hints for Patrick's wonderful Cryptic Crossword, alas. The hints are embedded in his clues, which is the nature of these types of puzzles. I do encourage you (and all Puzzlerians!) to give it a go though. Paul did, and he triumphed.
      You make an excellent point about the wording of the Leprechaun Appetizer. I really struggled with the wording while writing it, and it ended up kind of confusing. I did mean to say, as you said it, that there are two exactly the same-spelled prefixes, of three-letters. And, that those three letters in that same order are also the first three letters of the 6-letter word (although in that 6-letter word they do not really function as a prefix, I don't believe).
      Congrats on the Schpuzzle solve! I thought that one was pretty tricky.

      Lego(AlsoKnownAsMisterPrefixItMan)

      Delete
    2. Would it be equivalent to say it's a 3-letter prefix with two different meanings, or am I out on a limb? I'd like to know before I start sawing it off.

      Delete
    3. For the record, I did not claim to have "triumphed" in the matter of the cryptic crossword; I only stated that I had filled every square with something. However, having reviewed my answers, writing out my explanations, I find only a handful that I can not justify, at least partially. I'll show my work Wednesday afternoon, as I commonly do.

      Delete
    4. Paul,
      Filling every square with something is nothing to be sneezed at...choo! I'll betchoo got a lot of the squares correctly filled-in.
      As for your prefix question, actually that is exactly the wording I should have used. So, saw away! (But please don't sneeze if you're using a power saw.)

      LegoNotesThatJacobHeSawEsau.EsauHeSawsE'sOffHisNameSoNowHisNameIsSimply"Sau"!(And"Sau"WasTheFormerNameOf"Pau")

      Delete
  3. Early hints:
    SOTW:
    Remarkably, what the something certain rodents might do is not destructive, but constructive!
    LLLA:
    I believe we've all already heard this Canadian-made ditty.
    ROSS:
    #1:
    "Magnificent Melie?"
    #2:
    Had a role in a major motion picture; still, she is doubtless more Grammy-worthy than Oscar-worthy.
    #3:
    The male entertainer probably should have recorded this song (with lyrics, though), but did not.
    #4: The man was pals with presidents galor (and, with likely, Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor!).
    #5: Does this pilot have a sister named Penny? Ask Ike or Ulysses.
    #6:
    The husband/director's movie featured a cameo by Sonny & Cher, kind of.
    BFADLD:
    "I think I'll relocate to the Valley of the Sun. Sure, You've got the 3-digit temps there, but it's a ___ ____."

    LegoWhoIsAcranBerryCrypticCrosswerdFanAndAlsoAnAdderlyFan:BothCannonballAndBallhawkHerb

    ReplyDelete
  4. Got the Schpuzzle, the Dessert, and the aforementioned Entree #1. Nothing else(again, not counting my own puzzle). Got any other hints, Lego? BTW I found a lot of lesser-known actresses with double-n's in Groundhog Day, but nothing worked as an anagram.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think we're looking for the director's wife rather than an actress in the movie, but I still can't get an appropriate anagram or any information on her father. Maybe it's some other movie.

      Delete
    2. For the double-n surname, think "handprints in the star-studded cement" circa 1973-2001. Paul is correct, think director's wife (and director's daughter). The B&W image pictured is a still of one of her father's films (that's Booth & Burt). Both father and hubby are deceased; daughter/wife is still alive and well. (She had been an actor in her own right!)

      LegoWhoDoesn'tThink"OurManFlint"WonAnyOscarsHowever...

      Delete
  5. legolambdaOctober 21, 2018 at 12:08 AM
    More Hints"
    LLLA:
    1. First name of an early Bond Nemesis
    2. A Q-tip may be considered an implement of this type of hygiene
    3. A Young Pocahontas
    ROSS
    2. I have no doubt that music aficionados can solve this!
    3. Baby-boomer who is a neo-trad country legend
    4. Hope you already know the name of the man who was pals with a president. What he brought, in five letters, to soldiers begins with an M. The three-letter organization begins with a U. The noun that describes this man begins with an H.
    5. ENLARGE your notion of military ranks to be a GLEANER of a solution. Remember, this guy might be Penny's brother, or Nathan's father, or one of "Night Train's" biggest fans (had he played for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers or Hamilton Tiger-Cats!)

    LegoWhoOnceHadACupOfCoffeeWithTheSaskatchewanRoughriders!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I got everything short of the military one and anything associated with the leprechaun one. I have zero confidence in my solving either(particularly the latter). Prove me wrong, Lego.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even More Hints:
      LLLA:
      I thought for sure my "Young Pocahontas" hint would have spilled the beans for solving this one, at least for the "top-of-the-morning" third of the puzzle. The other two parts deal with gold 'n' ears.
      ROSS:
      ENTREE #5:
      The officer was a Lieutenant-_______ in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Rearrange the 7 letters in the blanked out word to get his first and last names.

      LegoWondersHowNeilYoungWasFamiliarWithElizabethWarrenAllThoseManyYearsAgoWhenHeWrote"Pocahontas"

      Delete
    2. "Bond nemesis" and Q-tip put me on the right track, and I quickly thought of a 6-letter word pertaining to morning, but, being unfamiliar with Neil's song, I had to Google my word in conjunction with Pocahontas. Up popped a sequence of Disney heroines.

      Delete
  7. I don't like shots any better than Allan Sherman did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But, Paul, are you not pretty much impervious to shots if you are a Sherman? Tanks.
      (Mr. Sherman mentions "Leonard Skinner" in his lyrics. Did he attend school with the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd?)

      LegoWhoWantsNoSissy"LongHairs"InHisSoulSoReadsToHimselfSomethingCalledUlysses

      Delete
    2. I finally got all the Entrees, but I'll be damned if I can ever figure out the rules of the leprechaun puzzle. Screw it. Too, too difficult. Can't get 'em all sometimes. I pass.

      Delete
    3. No, maybe I have that one after all.

      Delete
  8. Puzzlerians!:
    I have been working on riff-offs of Will Shortz's current NPR challenge, and have posted below a two-puzzle sampling of the kind of stuff I've cooked up:
    TWO SNEAK PEEKS OF AUGUST 26 SHORTZ RIFF-OFFS:
    In Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices this week, the solver is challenged to fill in each entree’s 3x3 grid with six words – 3 across and 3 down (don't worry about diagonal words) – and then arrange those nine letters to form either a two-word phrase or single word.
    Clues, in no particular order, will be provided for the six 3-letter words. A seventh clue will be given for the 9-letter word or two-word phrase formed from all letters in the grid:
    SAMPLE ENTREE #1
    1. Hoppy beer order, for short
    2. Bear lair
    3. Play "monkey see, monkey do"
    4. lead-in to Juan or Jose
    5. Ducked down, or tucked away
    6. Eats almost all the hash
    7. Migrane headaches, for example (2 words)

    SAMPLE ENTREE #2
    1. Ms. Pelosi or Mr. Ryan (abbr.)
    2. Kind of code
    3. to Lessen cargo weights of incoming oil tankers in Areas offshore gulf coasts, thereby lowering the risk of spills, these Patrolling procedures are in place (abbr.)
    4. Most common dementia cause, for short
    5. Israeli weapon named after the Gal who invented it
    6. Golden prefix
    7. A place to go for none of the best words... but all of the best puzzles!


    LegoPostedThisPostOnBlainesvilleAlsoJustNow

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A few auxiliary clues in no particular order:

      Nonsense!
      Control flies
      Part of a pack
      How I feel in the company of angels? (2 words)
      Without, without repetition
      Tantalizing aroma (2 words)

      Delete
  9. As usual, to be expected, another superb cryptic from pjb. All I can say is that his clues have become more devious than ever before, and I'm glad that Paul managed to fill in the grid! I would hope that pjb would submit to the Guardian.He's in their league -- and English cryptics are far above US crosswords.
    Lego -- I don't know modern
    entertainers, so I tend to miss out on many of your puzzles.

    But I can certainly nail pjb!

    xxxooo D.E.

    ReplyDelete
  10. High praise indeed, DE! Thanks, and I'm glad you enjoy "nailing" me...er, I mean my work, of course! Pity one doesn't know what the other looks like in this forum. I'm rather handsome for 48, bearded, and bespectacled, but I wish I knew how you look, DE, or for that matter if you're around my age. We Puzzlerians need to get together someday, you know, and have some sort of gathering to really meet face-to-face and discuss things, puzzle-related and otherwise. And maybe we can discuss with Lego about how I'd much rather this week's Sunday Puzzle were a one-off kind of puzzle, because I don't know if I could handle a whole bunch of them this next Friday! This past Sunday morning I got lucky on that 3x3 thing, and I may not want to deal with it again(sorry, Lego, but I just caught your sneak preview of them a few posts above, and I'd probably be jumping the gun by asking for hints NOW!). But I do hope somehow we'll all see each other around, but as for my work being Guardian-level and submitting my ideas to them, I will say I have contributed to their crossword blog where they put out a word or phrase for others to clue cryptically, and occasionally I get a mention a couple of weeks later. I say you have to take baby steps with this sort of thing, and I think for now it's good to at the very least have my foot in the door before actually sending in a full puzzle. I did attempt to send in a sample of my work to Big Dave's Crossword Blog on their Rookie Corner page, but I never heard back from them. So we'll see eventually, but not right now. I have had a lot of practice though, and I'm still learning as I go. Thanks again for your great compliment! Any positive feedback is certainly most appreciated!

    ReplyDelete
  11. In order of entry:
    SCIENCEFICTION (anagram of NICEFITCONCISE, indicated by alien)
    ALBERTEINSTEIN (anagram of INTERNETISABLE)
    ALIBI (BAIL "out"=ALIB with I(ndustry) as a foundation)
    NAIVE (NA(I)VE)
    COGNAC (CAN GO + C, inverted)
    MORASS (M(O(ve)R)ASS)
    ASOF (algebr(A SO F)ar)
    ETUI (perpETUIty)
    GREATSEAL (EAGLE-STAR anagram signaled by combination?)
    SAGE (S is short for "short"; AGE is a long time; thyme i another matter entirely)
    MOTIONPICTURES ("off" indicating COMPUTERONISIT anagram)
    UNIFORMS ("the usual"= FORM; "our country is US; and IN is included, "going"(backwards))
    ORANGE (O is round and RANGE is variety)
    ARITHMETIC ("mistook" indicates anagram of CRIMETHATI - I might have said "game" instead of "racket")
    ENTERITIS ("disorder of" INESTINE minus N(Nervous at first) plus R(doctoR close(pronounced "cloze")))
    ENOUGH (ONE HUG anagram)
    PATIENCE (Irishman PAT + "played with"(i.e., anagrammed) NIECE; I knew PATIENCE was another name for Solitaire, but had forgotten)
    TANGO (Not really sure about this one, but TAN (as in "TAN one's hide") plus GO (as in "get up and GO") seems to justify it
    RETRIALS (Some cases are indeed retrials -- anagram of ITSREAL with R(short for rare) inside?)
    POST (Double definition?)
    SYMBIOTIC (Rethinking this one; virtually certain about the last 3 intersections, but maybe POST wasn't right, and the M is uncertain as well; but upside-down MY seems like it "could" work, and I like BIO for "life", but where do "half" and Nashville fit in????)
    COMMENTARY (COMMEN isn't a word, so "on the radio" must signal "sounds like"(?) -- TRY(for "attempt") "having"(surrounding) A = TARY seems to work -- I'm feeling better about this one)
    RESOURCE (I'm thinking RE for "extremely risque" and cleverness is sometimes called "resourcefulness", but admittedly I'm grasping at straws here)
    PIEDATERRE (Frenchman and 4-1-5 had me thinking pret-a-something; when that didn't work out, I went here with the letters I thought I had (P,E,A,&R) and up popped a term meaning "apartment", ...wait a minute, it just now hit me -- SEE as in "she's been SEEin' that Amos boy Seth." That settles it.
    MOTHERSUPERIOR (Well, I was sure of the M, E, S, &R, and now I'm sure about the P, so what else could it be? I guess a MOTHER is a transformed Father, but then I'm lost ... unless it's about insecure people who try to act superior. Could be, I don't know, and I know a lot of things because I've got a really big brain, but I don't know, a lot of people are saying it, but who knows?)
    OVERNIGHT (Using the Crossword-Dictionary tool again, it's all I could find to fit --OK, "public" = OVERT and "close" = NIGH, but how do I get from acting to overnight)
    GREENLIGHT (Same as OVERNIGHT, really, except ... never mind, I got it! "Go"=GREEN LIGHT; "new"=GREEN; "land"=LIGHT(both used as verbs)
    TANKA (I've already posted my excuse for this one)

    Stratton and Nilsson are Ingers, and Estefan and Estephan are Stevens, sort of, and Bob and Jerry are Leslies; but don't call Leslie Shirley. Seriously. (Laverne's only there to make it more confusing.)
    Oh, and the whole idea of living under an alias is an allusion to a Laura Branigan song.
    TRUST and EXPECT are ways to avoid saying HOPE, and eliminating unproductive branches is PRUNING. I used to think a PRUNE and a DRIED PLUM were the exact same thing, but I'm not so sure anymore. I wish that were the worst of my dilemmas.

    ...


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... MAD AD LIB > B(u)ILD A DAM [Leave it to Lego to think up a puzzle like this!]

      AURIC (Goldfinger); AURAL; AURORA (aka Sleeping Beauty)

      (Amelia) EARHART > AIRCRAFT

      (Gloria) ESTEFAN > ESTEPHAN > ???????? (singer, diva) CORRECTION: (Gwen) STEFANI > STEPHANI > THESPIAN {Some of my hinting still sort of works, however}

      HUMOROUS Bob (Leslie Townes) HOPE, the KING of USO HUMOR

      Lieutenant-GENERAL REG LANE

      AMERICAN actress ERICA MANN, daughter of Daniel Mann (Come Back, Little Sheba, et. al.) and second wife of Harold Ramis, director of Groundhog Day (Anne Plotkin Ramis had me thrown off for a bit)

      DEHYDRATE > DRY, HEATED


      A wonderful week
      Extremely clever puzzles
      Kept me coming back
      If I solved Riff Three
      I forgot to write it down

      Delete

    2. [parody of "Aura Lee"] {Allan Sherman}
      Every time you take vaccine,
      Take it orally.
      As you know the other way
      Is more painfully.

      Delete
    3. Very impressive, Paul, especially on Patrick's Cryptic Crossword Puzzle. Thanks for the kudos. I am glad you keep coming back.

      Lego:BusyAsABeaverBuildingADamnMessOfPuzzlesForFourPointFiveYears

      Delete
    4. BTW Paul, it was TONGA, not TANKA. Not much of an anagram for TANGO, but there it is.
      Schpuzzle
      MAD AD-LIB, BUILD A DAM
      Appetizer Part 1
      MOTHERSUPERIOR
      O O N A I E V A
      TANGO GREATSEAL
      I G U E D R R B
      ORANGE PATIENCE
      N H A T A I R
      POST GREENLIGHT
      I Y R I R S H E
      COMMENTARY ETUI
      T B S H E C N
      UNIFORMS MORASS
      R O U E A G L T
      ENTERITIS NAIVE
      S I C I O A B I
      SCIENCEFICTION
      For cryptic clue explanations, see Lego's official answers(or better yet, check Paul's answers above).
      Part 2
      AUR+ORA=AURORA
      Menu
      Entrees
      1. (Amelia)EARHART, AIRCRAFT
      2. (Gwen)STEFANI, THESPIAN(anagram of "Stephani")
      3. (George)STRAIT, ARTIST
      4. (Bob Hope, born with the first name Leslie just like Gerald Ford)MIRTH, USO, HUMORIST
      5. (Lieutenant-)GENERAL REG LANE(Reginald John Lane)
      6. ERICA MANN(married to late director Harold Ramis, her father was director Daniel Mann), AMERICAN
      Dessert
      DEHYDRATE, DRY, HEATED
      Happy upcoming Halloween to all!
      Apt anagram(?)for HALLOWEEN NIGHT: A HOWL IN THE GLEN.-pjb


      Delete
    5. Why does it do that? I thought I typed out the answer grid just right for my cryptic puzzle! Oh well.

      Delete
  12. I have few answers, because I've simply been too ill to even READ the continuing hints, let alone have the ability to try to figure them out. Sorry....

    SCHPUZZLE: REPARTEE => EAT WRAPPER

    ENTREE #1: PROLIFIC???

    ENTREE #2: COMPOSER ??

    ENTREE #4: BOB HOPE (born LESLIE, and friends with Gerald Ford, also born Leslie); HUMOR and USO => HUMOROUS

    DESSERT: DEHYDRATE => DRY; DEHATE => HEATED

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hope you feel better soon, VT.

      LegoWhoTrustsThatViolinTeddy'sGoodHeathSoonReturnsAndSheShallOnceAgainBeFitAsAFiddle

      Delete
  13. This week's answers for the record, Part 1:

    Schpuzzle Of The Week:
    Remarkably clever rodents
    Name an 8-letter expression for an insanely clever off-the-cuff remark (the kind most of us think of only as we are driving home from the party or social gathering). When you reverse the order of the 8 letters and pronounce the result phonetically it sounds like something certain rodents might do. What is this 8-letter expression?
    Answer:
    Mad ad lib (bil da dam, which sounds like "build a dam," as beavers do)

    Appetizer Menu

    Trials From The Crypt Appetizer:
    A cranberry Saucerful of Secrets
    ANSWERS:
    (THE FILLED-IN GRID APPEARS AT THE END OF THIS WEEK'S BLOG, BELOW THE DESSERT.)
    ACROSS
    1. Priest, er, uh, “transformed” insecure nun (6,8)
    Mother Superior
    PRIESTERUH anagram inside MOOR (in "secure")
    9. Dance beat with energy (5)
    Tango
    TAN (beat) +GO (energy)
    10. Insignia with eagle-star combination? (5,4)
    Great Seal
    EAGLESTAR anagram
    11. Fruit, round variety (6)
    Orange
    O+RANGE
    12. Game Irishman played with niece (8)
    Patience
    PAT (Irishman)+NIECE anagram
    14. Pole position (4)
    Post
    double definitions
    16. Go looking for new land (10)
    Green light
    (...looking for) GREEN (new) +LIGHT (land, as a verb)
    18. On the radio, usual attempt to have a discussion (10)
    Commentary
    sounds like COMMON+TRY containing A
    19. Where some things may be held in perpetuity? (4)
    Etui
    hidden inside perpETUIty
    21. What soldiers wear in our country, the usual, provided going in (8)
    Uniforms
    US containing NORM containing IF
    22. Majority taking over, ends in chaos (6)
    Morass
    MASS containing O(ve)R
    25. Inflammation, disorder of intestine – not nervous at first, keeping doctor close (9)
    Enteritis
    INTESTINE anagram with N replaced by R
    26. Virgin has heart full of innocence, primarily (5)
    Naive
    NAVE containing I
    27. Genre using alien – nice fit, concise (7,7)
    Science fiction
    NICEFITCONCISE anagram

    DOWN
    1. Flicks computer on – is it off? (6,8)
    Motion pictures
    COMPUTERONISIT anagram
    2. State of confusion for 9? (5)
    Tonga
    anagram of TANGO, 9 Across
    3. One hug may be sufficient (6)
    Enough
    ONEHUG anagram
    4. Long time after short season? (4)
    Sage
    S+AGE
    5. Frenchman has to see apartment (4-1-5)
    Pied-a-terre
    PIERRE containing DATE
    6. It's real strange, rare in some cases (8)
    Retrials
    R inside ITSREAL anagram
    7. Acting close in public (9)
    Overnight
    NIGH inside OVERT
    8. Using Internet, is able to become genius? (6,8)
    Albert Einstein
    INTERNETISABLE anagram
    13. Crime that I mistook for numbers racket? (10)
    Arithmetic
    CRIMETHATI anagram
    15. Agreeing half my life in Nashville's over? (9)
    Symbiotic
    M+BIO inside CITY'S reversed
    17. Extremely risque author's cleverness (8)
    Resource
    R(isqu)E+SOURCE
    20. Top customer is invited up for drink (6)
    Cognac
    C+ (CAN GO reversed)
    23. Excuse for captain of industry to support bailout (5)
    Alibi
    I after BAIL anagram
    24. Starting to get into algebra so far? (2,2)
    As of
    hidden inside algebrASOFar

    Lego...

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  14. This week's answers for the record, Part 2:

    Legendary Listenable Leprechauny Appetizer:
    Finnegan wakes under Finian’s Rainbow
    Legend has it that a tricky leprechauns guard something of value at rainbow’s end. Irish folks greet those they meet – or anyone within earshot – early each day with a particular expression.
    Find three letters that appear in the same order and form two prefixes and one beginning half of a six-letter word.
    Each of the prefixes and the six-letter word have separate meanings and etymologies. But all three apply to three concepts alluded to in the two sentences in italics above.
    Find three letters that appear in the same order and form two prefixes and one beginning half of a six-letter word.
    Each of the prefixes and the six-letter word have separate meanings and etymologies. But all three apply to three concepts alluded to in the two sentences in italics above.
    What are these two prefixes and the six letter word.
    Answer:
    AUR
    1. "something of value" = a pot o' gold at the end of each rainbow: "aur-" is a prefix meaning "gold."
    2. "anyone within earshot" = within range of hearing: "aur-" is a prefix pertaining to the "ear" and "hearing." (see etymology 1 and etymology 2)
    3. "a particular expression" = "Top o' the mornin' ": aurora
    "Aurora" is the Roman goddess of dawn

    MENU

    Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
    Femail comprising seven letters
    Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
    ENTREE #1:
    Take the 7-letter last name of a famous woman.
    Drop the two letters of the masculine pronoun “he” from this name.
    Add three letters: an “f” (the first letter in “female”); a “c” (the first letter in the name “Canary”); and an “i” (the first letter in “Iowa,” the state where she purchased the “Canary”).
    You can rearrange the result to get a word famously associated with this woman. (This word also denotes what the “Canary” is.) Who’s the woman, and what’s the word?
    Answer:
    Amelia EARHART; AIRCRAFT
    ENTREE #2:
    Take the 7-letter last name of a famous woman. Replace a consonant with two other consonants to produce an alternative spelling that does not affect the pronunciation. You can rearrange the result to get a word that somewhat describes this woman (although she is famously known more as an anagram of “reigns” or “avid”). Who’s the woman, and what’s the word?
    Answer:
    Gwen Stefani (Stephani); Thespian
    ENTREE #3:
    Take the 6-letter last name of a resonably famous male entertainer. You can rearrange the letters to get a noun that pertains to this entertainer. Who is he, and what is the noun?
    Answer:
    George Strait, artist

    Lego...

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  15. This week's answers for the record, Part 3:
    Riffing Off Shortz Slices: (continued)
    ENTREE #4:
    An man who was pals with a president with whom he shared a birth name was a pioneer in bringing something, in five letters, to soldiers via a three-letter organization. You can rearrange those eight letters to get a noun that describes this man. What is the noun, what did the man bring to soldiers, what is the organization, and what is the man’s name?
    Answer:
    Humorist; Mirth, USO; Bob Hope (born Leslie Hope), a pal of Gerald Ford (born Leslie King)
    Humorist; USO, mirth, Bob Hope
    ENTREE #5:
    Take the 3-letter short-form first name and 4-letter last name of a not-so-famous WWII bomber pilot and Royal Canadian Air Force officer associated with NORAD. Rearrange these letters to get a word that appears to the right of the hyphen in this officer’s title. Who is this officer and what is his title?
    Answer:
    Reg Lane, Lieutenant-General in the Royal Canadian Air Force
    ENTREE #6:
    Take the first and last names of a woman, in nine letters, whose father directed three movies that won best-actress-in-a-leading-role Oscars, and whose husband directed a movie enshrined in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Drop one of the two letters “n”. You can rearrange the result to get a word that describes this woman’s nationality. Who is the woman, and what is the word?
    Answer:
    Erica Mann; American

    Dessert Menu

    Be Fruitful And Do Long Division Dessert:
    A procession of fruits
    Name a 9-letter verb for what food producers might do to fruits. Rearrange the middle three letters to form a word describing the fruits after this process is done. Rearrange the remaining six letters to form a word for what the food producers might have done to the fruits during the process. What are these three words?
    Answer:
    dehydrate; dry, heated

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete