Whistleblowers, exhibitionists, weirdos, lunatics... Hallelujah! Blocks of letters, moved and mixed; “No, not Poetry... Pottery!” The universal language of “lob”? Granted, the desert is hot... but it’s a dry heat

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle Of TheWeek:
“No, not Poetry... Pottery!”

Divide the name of a bookstore section into two parts. Change one letter to form an informal name for a second bookstore section. 
The formal one-word name of this second bookstore section begins with an A.
Divide the name of a third bookstore section into two parts. Add one letter to form an informal name for a fourth bookstore section. 
The formal one-word name of this second bookstore section begins with a B.
What are these four bookstore sections?
What are the informal two-word names for the second and fourth bookstor sections?

Appetizer Menu

Cryptic Crossword Appetizer:
Whistleblowers, exhibitionists, weirdos, lunatics... Hallelujah!

Attention, fans of cryptic crosswords:
Patrick J. Berry (screen name, “cranberry”) is presenting to us his sweet sixteenth monument to his cryptic creativity in this edition of Puzzleria! 
Here are the links to Patrick’s fifteen previous cryptic crosswords on Puzzleria!
ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE 
SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN
TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN

If you are new to cryptic crossword puzzles, have no fear. Patrick has compiled a few basic cryptic crossword puzzle instructions to help you “climb the clues,” reach the summit and stand victorious!
Here are his instructions:
Regarding the Across and Down clues and their format...
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) simply indicates a six-letter answer like “jalopy,” (5,3) indicates a five-and-three-letter answer like “cargo van,” and (5-5) indicates a five-and-five-letter hyphenated answer like “Rolls-Royce.”
(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. 
The Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!)
And now, here are Patrick’s clues to his latest ultra-clever cryptic creation:

ACROSS
1. Strange why a loser has it on TV nowadays(7,4)
9. Nothing in freezer, oddly(4)
10. Christmas song is popular, containing one Latin part of speech(6,5) 
11. What a dog might do on a tree?(4)
14. Smart to leave chicken in pot for Sunday(7)
16. He sings, having shot one creature(6)
17. I’m inclined over the phone to find girl(6)
18. Catholics’ Easter gathering–it’s safe to go(3, 5, 2, 5)
19. New “total lunatic”?(6)
21. More from whistleblower? Sick!(6)
22. Prepared to go in to study(7)
23. Instant decapitation, OK?(4)
26. Dickens character has to be into alternative dance(6,5)
27. Old American journalist(4)
28. Couple of lawmakers involved in income tax reform? Hallelujah!(11)

DOWN
2. Go be dropping off son(4)
3. Survive bad upbringing(4)
4. Ultimate exhibitionist with great, curvy butt(6)
5. Not hard to capture mountain the lad was climbing–there he is!(5, 2, 3, 5)
6. Individual having turned up nothing via computer?(6)
7. Grows up gaming, primarily–is seen playing with this?(4,7)
8. Turn crank to get old, funny music(4,3,4)
12. Artsy step routine, rechoreographed(11)
13. Take issue, provided, say, I had to be treated degradingly(11)
14. Crazy weirdo carrying wife’s head?!(7)
15. Lost desire? Indeed, halfheartedly(7)
20. Force of habit as king has raised spirit(6)
21. Racehorse taking off in the wrong direction?(3,3)
24. Hit 70s cop show(4)
25. Alone, keeping head down in the city(4)

MENU

“Where’d My Car Go?” Slice:
Blocks of letters, moved and mixed

Take five consecutive letters from the first half of the alphabet and three consecutive letters from the second half of the alphabet. 

Rearrange these eight letters to form means of cargo transport, in one word. 
What is it?


Riffing Off Shortz and Talvacchio Slices:
Granted, the desert is hot... but it’s a dry heat

Will Shortz’s July 26th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Dominick Talvacchio of Chicago, Illinois, reads:
Think of a common two-word phrase for something you experience in a desert. Rearrange the letters to get a single word for something you should do in the desert as a result.
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz and Talvacchio Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Rearrange the combined letters of: 
1. the surname of a physicist named Georg who, with the help of Alessandro and Andre-Marie, “laid down the (electrical) law”;
2. the surname of the original “Renaissance Man”; and
3. an alcoholic mixed drink consisting of spirits and fruit juice, flavored syrup or cream.
If you have the right surnames and mixed drink, the result of your rearrangement will form the first and last names of a puzzle-maker.
Who is this puzzle-maker?
Hint: One brand name of the alcoholic mixed drink bears the surname of the original “Renaissance Man.”
ENTREE #2:
Think of things, in one word containing 11 letters, that you may encounter in a desert. 
Rearrange these letters to get a pair of four-letter words and a three-letter initialism that are each related to “connecting.” 
What things may be encountered in the desert?
What are the two words and the initialism?  
ENTREE #3:
Name what, in one plural word of six letters, you may encounter in a desert. 
Rearrange the letters to get a single word for a kind of cactus you might encounter in the desert. 

Name a six-letter synonym of that kind of cactus. Replace the first two letters of that synonym to name a creature you may encounter in the desert.
What are these four six-letter words?
ENTREE #4:
Name a kind of critter, in one word of nine letters, that you might encounter in a desert. 
Rearrange the first four letters and the final five letters to get a two-part hyphenated word (beginning with D and R) that describes a particular “bundle” marketed to college students returning to campus after summer break. 
That “bundle” includes a bedloft, micro-fridge, electronic safe, futon and television.
What are this critter, and description of the “bundle”?
Hint: A two-word characteristic feature of the critter can be formed by rearranging the seven letters that fill the two blanks in the following sentence (A three-letter word belongs in the first blank, forming a compound word starting with “car-”):
 The car___ at the drive-in brought the guy in the 1957 T-Bird a ____ so he could place his order.
ENTREE #5:
Think of phrase (consisting of a 6-letter adjective beginning with “s,” an 8-letter adjective (that can also be regarded as a noun) beginning with “C” and a 3-letter noun beginning with “f.” 
The phrase, one might argue, describes Martin Luther or John Wesley or, before he left the Ku Klux Klan, Hugo Black.  
Rearrange the combined 17 letters of these words to form, in two words, something you see on a dessert.
What is this phrase? 
What is seen on a dessert?

Dessert Menu

Tabletop Dessert:
The universal language of “lob”?

English is used by table tennis players worldwide. 
Divide one kind of English, in one word, into two parts to name a toy and what such toys do.
What is the toy?
What do such toys do?
Editor’s note: I served-up this puzzle to Will Shortz (see image above) as a possible NPR Sunday puzzle. 
He returned it with a backhand smash(ing my hopes)... Point Will-(taken).


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.

What belongs, what falls short? “What’s in your lunchbox?” Unaware of one’s underwear? Colorful Megapixel Joy! Sociothermodynamics?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle Of TheWeek:
What belongs, what falls short?

A saber not sword,
A note not a chord,
A bellow not howl.
Neither fish, though, nor fowl...
Yet both Fillmore and Ford.
In the limerick above, what distinguishes the five words that “belong” from the five that do not “belong”?
Hint: Here are a number of other “belong/fall-short” pairs (and one triplet):
yellow not red, west but not east, quail but not duck, fin but not feather, empty not full, chip but not putt, mortal not fatal, muzak not music, Twain but not Mark, Joyce but not Kilmer or James, Wells but not Poe, Jeff but not Mutt, prude but not pride, not but not but

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversion Appetizer:
Sociothermodynamics?

Think of a well-known American sex sociologist who is a frequent National Public Radio celeb expert, first and last names, who might be considered hot. 
The two names describe a substance that is considered hot.  
Who is this sex sociologist?
Hint: One of the names has a letter inserted in order to make it easier for us to pronounce as in its language of origin.

MENU

High Definition Television Slice:
Colorful Megapixel Joy!

How is the following promotional plug for high-definition television related to the numbers 1 through 5?
“Megapixel TV: Colorful HD Joy!”
Hint: 26, 13, 8, 6, 5

Riffing Off Shortz and Matthews Slices:
Unaware of one’s underwear?

Will Shortz’s July 19th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by James Matthews, of Little Rock, Arkansas, reads:
Think of a six-letter word for something you might wear. Insert an “O” in the exact middle, and you’ll get a phrase meaning “Not aware.” What is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz and Matthews Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
The combined letters of the first and last names of a puzzle-maker can be rearranged to form the titles of three movies, released in 1954, 1975 and 2007.
Who is this puzzle-maker? 
What are the three movie titles?
Hint: Place a musical note inside the puzzle-maker’s first name to form an informal name for certain nightwear.
Extra credit challenge:
The combined letters of the titles of three movies pictured in the image that accompanies this Entree can be rearranged to form the name of a second puzzle-maker. Who is it?
ENTREE #2:
Think of a nine-letter word that means “something to the contrary.” 
Remove the sixth letter and place an “N” between the first and second letters and you’ll get a phrase meaning “becoming more successful or popular.”
What are this word and phrase?  
ENTREE #3:
Think of a two-word name for a piece of furniture, followed by a two-word phrase a host might say to a guest in the presence of this furniture. Remove the second word of the furniture’s name and add an “E” between the two words of the host’s phrase, and you’ll get a three-word phrase one might use to advise or encourage a friend to keep calm and proceed with caution, carefully or slowly. 
What is the piece of furniture?
What are the two-word and three-word phrases?
ENTREE #4:
Take the final word in a Broadway musical song sung by Barbra Streisand on the album of that musical. Think of a three-word phrase totaling 14 letters that follows this word in a different song. 
Change the ninth letter of this phrase to an “O” and add an “L” at the end, and you’ll get three different words, in order: 
1. a 5-letter adjective describing conspicuous symptoms such as drowsiness, pinpoint pupils, itching, nausea, vomiting, constipation and skin infections. This adjective may also describe unconcealed paraphernalia such as syringes, spoons, bottle caps, aluminum foil, needles, cotton balls, lighters, belts or rubber tubing;
2. a six-letter noun related to those symptoms, and
3. a 4-letter noun for a container used in conjunction with needles and cotton balls.
What is the 14-letter, three-word phrase?
What are the three new words you get? 
ENTREE #5:
Think of an eight-letter phrase meaning “buried in debt.” 
Double the sixth letter and remove the fourth letter and you’ll get a word meaning “buried.” 
What are this phrase and word?
ENTREE #6:
Think of a ten-letter, four-word phrase that means “engaging in malicious or nefarious behavior.” 
Insert an “S” between the sixth and seventh letters. The first five letters of this result spell the first name of a famous American writer. 
The final six letters of this result spell the last name of a famous American radio and television commentator.
What is this phrase?
Who are the writer and the television commentator?
ENTREE #7:
A basket of plums, a gift from a visiting potentate, sat on a table in the king’s parlor. The king took a bite out of one plum. It tasted too tangy and tart, nearly acidic. Could it be poisonous?
The king summoned his loyal royal food-taster and instructed him to taste the whole basketful. The loyal royal subject sampled the plum the king had taken a taste of, then took the basket in hand and, one-by-one,  ___ ___ ____. 
He promptly reported back to the king that the plum the king had chomped on was by far the _________. 
The words in those first three blanks are 3, 3 and 4 letters long. The word in the fourth blank is 9 letters long. Remove an “H” from near the middle of the three-word phrase and you’ll get the nine-letter word.
What are this phrase and word? 

Dessert Menu

The Verbing-Of-Nouns Dessert:
“What’s in your lunchbox?”

Use a verb and noun to name what an old Apple or Brownie does. 
Transform the noun into the verb by changing its first letter to an S and interchanging its fourth and fifth letters. 
What are this verb and noun?

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.

This is a job for INTERPOL! Booting the Bard outta the business; Army ants, Navy Seals & Marine biologists; “Is there a Boast Western inn Fort Bragg?” Bowl over Beethtoven!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED

Schpuzzle Of TheWeek:
This is a job for INTERPOL!

Write down an international event in two words.  
Arrange the letters, in order, in three lines, from top to bottom, with varying numbers of letters. 
This arrangement of the letters represents a two-word term for organized crime activity that is kept on the down low.
What is this international event? 

Appetizer Menu

Worldplay Appetizer:
Army ants, Navy Seals & Marine biologists

Military transformation I
⚔1. Think of a weapon. 
Take the first letter and move it to the end of the word to form a new word for figuratively more powerful weapons. What are these two weapons?
Military transformation II 
👩2. Think of a term for a massive defeat. Drop the first letter to obtain a possible term of mockery for such a defeat. Substitute a different letter for the first letter of this result to obtain the term for a specific female. What are these three terms?
Hint: In the first and last term, the fourth and fifth letters from the end of each word are silent. In the second term, they are sounded as a different letter. 
Military transformation III
🎖3.  Think of a general term for a military asset. Remove an interior letter to obtain a term for an alloy of lead and tin that is likely included in many other modern military assets. What are the asset and the alloy?
Zoological nomenclature I
🐱🐶4.  Think of a general term for a specific animal. Drop the two initial letters. The remaining letters give the general term for an adult male of this species. Add to this result two different letters to obtain the general term for an adult female of this species. What are the general terms for a member of this species and for adult males and females of this species? 
Bonus: What is the scientific name of this species?

MENU

Sublime Slice:
Booting the Bard outta the business

Name an American business that other businesses are likely to patronize. Remove from this business the letters of two consecutive words in Shakespeare’s Sonnet VI. 
The result is an attention-getting interjection that may lure customers into the business by subliminally suggesting something like, “Hey buddy, we’ve got an exclusive deal, just for you. But we can’t give this deal to just anybody.” 
What are this business and interjection?


Riffing Off Shortz and Fogarty Slices:
Bowl over Beethtoven!

Will Shortz’s July 12th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Neville Fogarty, of Newport News, Virginia, reads:
Think of a two-word direction or command. Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get a common name for one receiving that direction or command. What is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz and Fogarty Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
The first name of a puzzle-maker is the last name of a group of singing brothers from New Orleans.
The last name of a puzzle-maker is the last name of two singing brothers from Berkeley... but only if you replace a vowel in the brothers’ last name to a vowel that appears seven times in the brothers’ 3-word band name.
Who is this puzzle-maker?
ENTREE #2:
Think of a two-word encouragement given to a lethargic pooch with a hangdog demeanor. 
Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get a word for the pooch that is receiving that encouragement.
What is the two-word encouragement?
What is the word for the pooch? 
ENTREE #3:
A well-known truth-stretcher boasts: “I guarantee I will not be moving out of my present residence a half-year from now.” 
Think of a two-word honest response to this boast that one of the person’s many lackeys may say to themselves but would never dare say aloud... lest they be told to pack up and leave their boss’s present residence posthaste!
But let’s pretend a brave soul speaks the honest response aloud. Take the first letter of the first word in the response plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get the first name of the one receiving that response. 
What is this honest response? 
Who would receive it (albeit not too happily)? 
ENTREE #4:
Think of a two-word direction or command that a guy from Ohio may have given his sibling during some field tests they were conducting.
(The direction/command might have been prompted by a problematic leftward veering of what it was they were field-testing.) 
Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get the last name of the one receiving that direction or command. 
What is this last name?
Hint: The first word is a verb, but it is more commonly used as a noun for a part of what the siblings were field-testing.
ENTREE #5:
A teen gal and guy have the house to themselves and are making out on her parents’ living room sofa. The boy makes goo-goo eyes, necks, kisses lips, caresses cheek and, eventually, because he has maneuvered so ____ to one of the two appendages with which she has been blessed, _______ ___. 
Consider the seven-letter and three-letter words at the very end of the previous sentence. Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get the four-letter word sandwiched between “so” and “to” that occurs earlier in the sentence.
What are these 7-letter, 3-letter and 4-letter words?
ENTREE #6:
Think of a two-word phrase for what a blackjack dealer does about 7.7% of the time.
Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, to form a new word. 
Make a new two-word phrase (using the original first word and the new second word) for what a blackjack dealer does a tad more than 23% of the time.
What are these two phrases?
ENTREE #7:
Legendary Swiss marksman and assassin William Tell (who inspired John Wilkes Booth) was once commanded by a Hapsburg bailiff named Gessler to  “_____ an _____ poised on his son’s head at a distance of 120 paces... using a bazooka!” 
Tell objected, exclaiming “___’__ happen! Allow me to use my crossbow instead.”
The first word in Gessler’s command is a five-letter euphemism for a common vulgar four-letter word. You know the second word. Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get a what sounds like the five-letter contraction with which Tell’s objection begins. 
What are the first three words of Gessler’s command? What does Tell exclaim?
ENTREE #8:
Name what a barber does, in two words. Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll get an essential piece of barber shop equipment.
A blow dryer is an essential piece of a beauty salon equipment. Name what it blows out of the dryer, in two words. Take the first letter of the first word plus the entire second word, in order, and you’ll name what gets blown by what blows out of the dryer. 
What does a barber do? What is the essential piece of barber shop equipment?
What blows out of the beauty salon’s blow dryer? What gets blown?

Dessert Menu

Lodge-in-your-craw Dessert:
“Is there a Boast Western inn Fort Bragg?”

Name a lodging chain, (Blank) Hotels.
 This chain, if preceded by the word “I”, sounds like a boast a real estate developer might make. 
One such developer lives near a city that can be formed by replacing the second letter of the “Blank” word in the hotel chain with an “a”, and then inserting the original second letter into the fifth position. 
What are this lodging chain and this boast? 
Who is the developer?

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.