Friday, February 5, 2021

Gas, ice, pass, mice & bass; Transporting mail across state lines; “Big Game” name-hunting; Degrees of growing greenery; Fairies, refrains, houses & histrionics

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 3(7!) SERVED



Schpuzzle of the Week:

Gas, ice, pass, mice & bass

Name a type of gas, a type of pass and a type of bass. 

Rearrange the combined letters of these three words to name a brand poured over ice and a three-word description of mice. 

What are this brand and description?

Hint: The description contains a critter.


Appetizer Menu


Ecofiendish Appetizer:

Fairies, refrains, houses & histrionics

Same old... oops... brand new refrain

📺1. Part of the refrain of a well-known television theme song consists of three words. The first word is a number. 

If you increase the number by one, the three words have all but the first letter in common, yet none of those three words rhyme with each other. 

What are the words?

“Where in the house is it!”

🏡2. Name something you have in your house in seven letters. Remove the middle letter and the result will be the place where you might put it.

Double fairies wheel

📗3. Name a title character in a fairy tale, made more popular in movies. 

Remove the last letter, and move the fourth letter two places earlier in the alphabet, and the result will be the other titular character. 

Who are the characters and what is the title?

“What’s the past tense of Keanu?”

🎥4. The last name of what well-known actor is the past tense of a synonym of the actor’s first name?


MENU


Shades of Green Slice:

Degrees of growing greenery


Add a letter to something that grows to get something else that grows. 

Move the letters of this second thing four places earlier in the circular alphabet (so D would become A, C would be come Z, etc.).
You'll get a third thing that grows. 

All three of these growing things are, to some degree, green. 

What are they?


Riffing Off Shortz And Niederman Slices:

Transporting mail across state lines


Will Shortz’s January 31st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Derrick Niederman, of Charleston, South Carolina, reads:

Starting in Montana, you can drive into South Dakota and then into Iowa. Those three states have the postal abbreviations MT, SD, and IA — whose letters can be rearranged to spell AMIDST. The challenge is to do this with four connected states to make an eight-letter word. That is, start in a certain state, drive to another, then another, and then another. Take the postal abbreviations of the four states you visit, mix the letters up, and use them to spell a common eight-letter word. Derrick and Will know of only one answer. Can you do this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Niederman Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Remove all consecutive pairs of letters that are U.S. state postal abbreviations from the name of a puzzle-maker. 

Rearrange the remaining octet of letters to form a four-letter abbreviation of a two-syllable verb and a four-letter word. 

This abbreviation and word coud be an instruction to a typesetter who is setting the word “modern” lest it be mistaken for the word “modem.”

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the instruction?

ENTREE #2

You are taking a road trip in your 1954 Volkswagen Beetle. 

You start in a certain state, drive to another, then another, and then another, all east of the Mississippi River. 

Take the postal abbreviations of the four states you visit, mix the letters up, and use them to spell words for two things you might hear in a church.

What might you hear?

What are the four states?

Hint: Each of the four states has a number of syllables that is different from the other three. The difference between the syllables in the highest-syllable word and the lowest-syllable word is three.

ENTREE #3

In 1960, you are taking a road trip from Chicago to Santa Monica via Route 66. Are you cruising in a Corvette convertable, like Tod and Buz did in the “Route 66” TV series

No!  You are instead behind the wheel of  your Achimkoy (“Flower of the morning”), a five-seat sedan manufactured at the Sungri Motor Plant.

Along the route you pass thought eight states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. 

Take the postal abbreviations of four consecutive states you drive through, mix the letters up, and use them to spell two 4-letter words:

1. The brand of cigarette you puff on during the trip (which was perhaps the same brand Tod and Buz smoked), and

2. The possessive form of the name of the ruler of the country that manufactured the Achimkoy. For example, the possessive form of the name of the ruler of the country that manufactured the Corvette in “Route 66” would be “Eisenhower’s (America)” or “Kennedy’s (America).”

What are these two 4-letter words?

What are the four states you drive through?

ENTREE #4

Three wise men are cruising through part of New England in their new Land Rover. Their destination is Bethlehem. They start in a certain state, drive to another, and then another, all in New England. 

When they reach the New York State border, however (which they must cross in order to reach their destination), the men abandon their Land Rover. 

The men, you see, do not want to set foot in New York, so they hop a turbojet and fly over New York (which is not normally considered “flyover country”) to complete their trip.

The postal codes of the first two New England states, plus the first two letters of the third New England state, plus the postal code of the “destination state,” in order, spell the name of a somewhat well-known county at the opposite end of the country.

What are these four states?

What is the county?

ENTREE #5

Take the state postal codes of a corny state, a spicy New England state, a birthplace-of-Cash-and-Rich state and a Great Lakes state, in order. 

Add to the end a basic cable channel (minus its punctuation). The result is a fruit that sounds like it might impart immortality to its consumers.

Now take (again, in order) the state postal codes of a “hoopsy” New England state, a Midwestern state and the third and fourth states mentioned above. The result is a type of sweet and smallish orange.

What are the names of these two fruits?

ENTREE #6

The two nouns in the title of song co-written by Emmylou Harris and Bill Danoff as a tribite to Gram Parsons are also cities in two states.

Take the postal codes of these two states, in order, to spell a four-letter word.

A duo of country singers had a hit with a song written by the BeeGees. Take the singular form of one noun in the song title. Take a synonym for “whitewater” that you might see in the other noun in the title.

Place the synonym for “whitewater” after a slang term for a thousand bucks to form the name of a city. 

Place the singular form of the plural noun after the same slang term to name another city.

Take the postal codes of the two states where those cities are located, in order, to spell a second four-letter word.

The two four-letter words “generated” by these two song titles form an energy-producing excavation, the kind you are likely to find in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

What is this excavation?

What are the two song titles?

What are the two cities that begin with the slang term for a thousand bucks

ENTREE #7

Imagine you are living in the mid-1960s, after JFK died but before RFK died.

Take the postal abbreviations of three non-bordering states in “flyover country,” in order from north to south, to spell a word for a Muslim pulpit or the steps an imam ascends to speak from it.

Hint: Place an “i” somewhere within the word for a Muslim pulpit to form something found in a hotel room that keeps things cool.


Dessert Menu


Pass The Guacamole & Roll The Credits Dessert

“Big Game” name-hunting

On February 7th in Tampa, Florida, Grammy-winner “The Weeknd” will play a halftime role that begins with “Super Bowl...” and ends with what sounds much like a role in a best picture Oscar winner – specifically, the first and last names of the character in this role. 

What is the name of this character?

Hint: It would have been fitting had Wrigley Field hosted Super Bowl IV, and also fitting had the home of the Minnesota Wild hosted Super Bowl XL.


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. 

30 comments:

  1. I am reading my Schpuzzle. It borders on the unfair. Sorry about that. I shall provide earlier-than-usual hints for it. Promise.

    LegoWhoAddsThatDoesNotMeanYouCannotSolveTheSchpuzzleSansHints(BecauseYouAreAllVeryBright)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the Schpuzzle, the image of Mr. Favre is not a red herring. It is actually helpful.
      The image of the Texaco gas pump is more red-herringish.
      And the image of the bass player is a blatant red-herring! My "bass" rhymes with "gas" and "pass," not "lace".

      LegoWhoAddsThatTheBrandPouredOverIceIsASoftDrink

      Delete
    2. I think this is the first time in the yrs since I've been involved here, that I've seen you post the first comment of the week, Lego! I'm glad you did, because I was finding the Schpuzzle impossible.,...simply too many possibilities. NOT that I've figured it out yet, but at least, I HOPE that two of the three words have been better pinned down (they still could be wrong, but at least, I'm now not trying 'string' or 'double' for the bass!

      Delete
  2. IN case you are up and about and checking in on these comments, I am on Entree #4 (having solved all the Appetizers for a change, plus Entrees 2 and 3 (stuck on #1 and the Slice), but I am wondering if there might be a goof on one of the state Postal codes? I immediately came up with the 'well known county', but the obvious state path requires that one state's first two letters BE its postal code, when they aren't (in fact, those two letters are the postal code of a different state far away)....guidance please?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are correct about the flaw I perpetrated in Entree #4, VT. I will go back and reword it. Thanks for your excellent-as-usual "ViolinTedditing!"
      In my post Thursday on Blaine's blog, I noted that I made the exact same postal code goof in my first attempt to solve the NPR puzzle. My wrong solution was ACRIMONY.

      LegoWhoNeedsARefresherCourseIn"PostalCodes101"

      Delete
  3. Happy First Friday of February to all!
    We haven't got any snow around here lately, but I've heard there's been a lot of it up north recently. Bet there's been quite a bit in your neck of the woods, eh Lego? Minnesota always seems to be covered in snow. I know I've seen what New York's looked like on TV, that's for sure. The most Alabama ever gets are "flurries"(except for April of '93, as I remember). Hope everyone's staying warm, wherever you are. Personally I don't take much stock in whatever the groundhog does anyway.
    Same old, same old here. "Ask Me Another", a 30-minute version of "Says You"(the hour-long version is tomorrow night), the Private Eye Crossword, and of course, supper for two. This week's Prize Puzzle on the Guardian website is one of those where it's also a jigsaw puzzle, and the clues are in alphabetical order. I never bother with those. Strictly the interactive 15×15 puzzles for me.
    Now for this week's P! offerings. Here's what I've solved so far:
    All the Conundrums
    All the Entrees(except the printing terms in #1)
    The Dessert
    I certainly hope there will be earlier-than-usual hints, especially for the Schpuzzle. Also, good to see ViolinTeddy's pointed out the error in Entree #4. If she wasn't going to, I certainly was! And good thing she didn't reveal which postal codes were mixed up, because I was worried just mentioning those two codes might be TMI. As for the county name itself, I'm actually surprised it even came to mind. I might have only ever heard of it just the one other time. Really, I'm just surprised I did way better with the postal code puzzles than I initially thought I would.
    As always, in closing, I wish you all good luck and good solving, please stay safe(and keep warm, it bears repeating), and above all wherever you go if you go, don't forget to wear a mask!
    pjbSayingSoFarOnlyStarsHaveFallenOnAlabamaThisWinter

    ReplyDelete
  4. My two grands in NYC - 8 and six are having a ball in the snow. Over a foot i think. Here near ATL i am still scraping ice in the AM. 27 degrees this AM. There is a weather phenomena new to me here i think they call the wedge? something to do with the Adirondaks.
    Are you making Brunswick stew for the super bowl.? Or red-velvet cake.?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bundle up Lego. - 30 in Minnesota?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Bundle-Up-and-keep-warm Tuesday Hints:

    Schpuzzle of the Week:
    The brand poured over ice is an "uncola," but not the Uncola.
    The kind of bass could also describe a zebra.
    The kind of pass is a synonym of "brash."
    The three-word description of mice consists of a building, a wise critter and a general term for food eaten by cattle, horses, or sheep.

    Ecofiendish Appetizer:
    1. Surname of a "Newton" associated with TV
    2. The letter you remove is a "b"
    3. I will ask ecoarchitect to provide a hint for #3 if he so desires.
    4. The actor received six consecutive Emmy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

    Shades of Green Slice:
    One of the green growing things is spherical. Another one might be manicured.

    Riffing Off Shortz And Niederman Slices:
    ENTREE #1
    The four-letter word is the surname of of a composer named Jerome.
    ENTREE #2
    The two things you might hear in a church are a homophone of a possessive pronoun and an anagram of a moniker, an average or the King of the Jungle's "crown."
    ENTREE #3
    1. "The brand of cigarette..." & The Gang
    2. "Ms. Novak's"
    ENTREE #4
    Sheriff Joe's bailiwick
    ENTREE #5
    Anagram of the fruit = "Niles or Frasier" + "fork part"
    Anagram of the type of oblate orange = "what you do to holey socks!" + "Sinclair's 'Street' "
    ENTREE #6
    The excavation is where Loretta Lynn's father toiled.
    ENTREE #7
    If you are solving this puzzle anytime after Neil Armstrong moon-walked, you could take the postal abbreviations of these three states in “flyover country” and rearrange them to spell a Hitchcock movie title.
    Imagine you are living in the mid-1960s, after JFK died but before RFK died.

    Pass The Guacamole & Roll The Credits Dessert:
    Regarding the hint:
    "It would have been fitting had Wrigley Field hosted Super Bowl IV, and if the home of the Minnesota Wild had hosted Super Bowl XL."
    Wrigley Field has outfield walls of ivy, and the home of the Minnesota Wild is the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

    LegoObservesNotaBeneThatTheCornhuskerStateHadAChangeOfPostalCode

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Got the Schpuzzle(finally)and Entree #1(I think). Still need help with the Shades of Green Slice.

      Delete
    2. Shades of Green Slice Hint:
      The spherical green thing is quite small. The "second green thing" has a distintive shape... indeed it is the first part of a hyphenated adjective in the form "___-shaped" (which is sometimes used to describe a body type). This second thing is green, according to the Internet, but I always thought of it as being kind of yellow.
      Riffing Off Shortz et cetera:
      In Entree #1, the first 7 letters of the puzzle-maker's surname are the same as the first 7 letters in the surname of an "Animal House" character who was a member of the Omega fraternity and R.O.T.C.

      LegoWhoNotesThatIfYouGetBeanedByADrivenGolfBallItIsWiseToBeWearingACombatHelmet!

      Delete
    3. I always enjoy reading hints of puzzles I already solved, however for Entree #2, I'm pretty sure you didn't mean a POSSESSIVE pronoun...rather, a personal pronoun that can be used as either a direct or indirect object.

      Delete
    4. I know the puzzlemaker, I'm just a little iffy with the typesetting terminology. Composer Jerome I got, but I'm still unsure about the abbreviation.

      Delete
    5. Otherwise, I've got the Shades of Green Slice.
      pjbRemindedOfKermitSinging"It'sNotEasy..."...OrIsIt?

      Delete
    6. The four-letter abbreviation consists of the first four letters of an 8-letter word. The last four letters of that word form a word that follows "at.." in a command a drill sergeant might mouth after having his troops stand at attention.

      LegoWhoIsAllAboutFacingTheHintGivingMusic

      Delete
  7. Replies
    1. Not sure if Schweppes is an uncola, Plantsmith, but it is definitely a sparkling water, tonic water and club soda.

      LegoWhoIsCertainThatSchweppesHas"Schweppwervescence!"

      Delete
  8. NOBLE FORWARD STRIPED > SPRITE BARN OWL FODDER
    FOUR HOUR TOUR
    GARBAGE in the GARAGE
    BEAUTY & BEAST
    RIP TORN
    PEA > PEAR > LAWN
    DERRICK NIEDERMAN > RCKNIERN > INCR. KERN (?)
    ME NH MA NY > HYMN AMEN
    IL MO KS OK > KOOL KIM'S
    MARICOPA
    NE CT AR IN E / MA ND AR IN
    COAL MINE {Boulder (CO) to Birmingham (AL), Islands in the Stream, Grand Rapids MI, Grand Island NE}
    MI NB AR
    ?????????

    ReplyDelete
  9. 2/10/21 36 degrees AM

    Schpuzzle:
    Gas- acetylene, pass- forward- bass -srriped = Sprite and ???? owl feed

    Unbeatable Eco fiendish Appetisers
    1. Four- hour- tour from Gilligans Island
    2. garbage--garage
    3.???
    4,?

    Symbol Of Serenity Slice:
    Pea- pear- lawn-( after four back in alpha string.)


    ENTREE #1 Derrick Niederman - rck/nierh-- Kern
    ENTREE #2 hymn, prayer, NY,NH,ME, RI

    ENTREE #3 Kool and Kims, Il,Mo,Ok Ks
    ENTREE #4 Ma/ri/co/pa-- country


    ENTREE #5 ne/ct/ar/in/e, Ar, Wi, Ma Ancienter, Ma/nd/ar/ni Mandarin
    ENTREE #6 Song “Boulder to Birmingham - co,al coal
    Islands in the stream--brook -Grand Rapids- Mi --Grand island NE--mine.
    ENTREE #7
    Minbar--minibar
    Dessert ???

    ReplyDelete
  10. SCHPUZZLE: NOBLE & FORWARD & STRIPED => SPRITE & BARN OWL FODDER.
    [I had ‘FORWARD' and ‘STRIPED' prior to the hint, but thought the gas was ‘NATURAL', and had been trying to make the brand be ‘PEPSI', due to the letters in STRIPED.]

    APPETIZERS:

    1. THREE HOUR TOUR => FOUR HOUR TOUR

    2. GARBAGE => GARAGE

    3. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

    4. RIP TORN

    SLICE: PEA & R => PEAR => LAWN

    ENTREES:

    1. (DE)R(RI)CK NIE(DE)R(MA)N => RCK NIERN => KERN & CRIN?

    2. ME, NH, MA, NY => HYMN & AMEN

    3. IL, MO, KS, OK => KOOL & KIM’S

    4. MA/RI/CO/PA. [Connecticut’s code being CT, not CO, as already discussed.]

    5. NE & CT & AR & IN & E => NECTARINE; MA & ND & AR & IN => MANDARIN

    6. CO /AL; GRAND RAPIDS, MI; GRAND ISLAND, NE => MI/NE => COAL MINE; "BOULDER TO BIRMINHAM” & "ISLANDS IN THE STREAM"

    7. MI /NB /AR. =>. MINBAR & MINIBAR [Hitchcock movie: MINEAR. => MARNIE]

    DESSERT: FREE SOLO? SOLO SINGER? [I don’t actually understand this puzzle at all!]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Half a dessert for you this week. I went without. Not even a sprinkle.

      Delete
  11. Schpuzzle
    NOBLE, STRIPED, FORWARD=SPRITE, BARN OWL FODDER
    Appetizer Menu
    Ecofiendish Appetizers
    1. FOUR-HOUR TOUR(instead of "Gilligan's Island"'s THREE-HOUR TOUR)
    2. GARBAGE, GARAGE
    3. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
    4. RIP TORN
    Menu
    Shades of Green Slice
    PEA, PEAR, LAWN
    Entrees
    1. DERRICK NIEDERMAN-DE(Delaware), RI(Rhode Island), DE again, MA(Massachusetts)=INCR. KERN(increase kerning)
    2. ME(Maine), NH(New Hampshire), MA again, NY(New York)=
    HYMN, AMEN
    3. IL(Illinois), MO(Missouri), KS(Kansas), OK(Oklahoma)=KOOL, KIM'S
    4. MARICOPA, a county in south-central Arizona; MA yet again, RI again, CO(Colorado, not Connecticut, which is CT), PA(Pennsylvania)
    5. NECTARINE(Nebraska, Connecticut, Arkansas, Indiana+E), MANDARIN(Massachusetts, North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana)
    6. COAL MINE(Colorado, Alabama, Michigan, Nebraska), GRAND RAPIDS(MI), GRAND ISLAND(NE), "BOULDER TO BIRMINGHAM"(CO, AL), "ISLANDS IN THE STREAM"
    7. MINBAR; Michigan, Nebraska(prior to the code being changed to NE so as not to confuse it with New Brunswick in Canada), Arkansas; MINIBAR, MARNIE(with the new code NE)
    Dessert
    The Weeknd was the Super Bowl LV(55)singer. ALVY SINGER was Woody Allen's character in 1977's "Annie Hall", which won Best Picture at the 50th annual Academy Awards that year.
    I can't decide which was weirder in this year's Super Bowl ads: Will Ferrell's unexplained hatred for Norway or the need for four Maya Rudolphs in the Klarna ad. McConaughey's being "flat" seems to make more sense by comparison, but that's just me.-pjb

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yea-- why Norway.? And Springsteen got a DUI making the Add?
      If i had to pick a winner? I don't know.

      Delete
    2. But i do think the Weeknd is very talented. And i have been enjoying his music for some time. He says he is a performance artist.

      Delete
  12. Got all the Entrées rather quickly, but again did not have the time to devote days to the harder nuts to crack.

    But I promise to be back in the near future full steam ahead.


    Schpuzzle:

    Eco-Appetizers:
    #1:
    #2:
    #3:
    #4:

    Shades of Green Slice:

    Entrées
    #1: DERRICK NIEDERMAN – DE, RI, DE, MA => RCKNIERN => INCR., KERN
    #2: ME, NH, NY, PA=> AMEN, HYMN
    #3: KOOL, KIM'S => IL MO KS OK
    #4: MA, RI, COnnecticut, PA => MARICOPA
    #5: NE CT AR IN E => NECTARINE; MA ND AR IN => MANDARIN
    #6: BOULDER, BIRMINGHAM, GRAND RAPIDS, GRAND ISLAND => COAL MINE
    #7: MI, NB, AR => MINBAR + I => MINIBAR [NB is correctly NE]

    Dessert:

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We will be featuring four fantastic Worldplay puzzles created by geofan on this Friday's Puzzleria!

      LegoWhoIsATruegeofanFan

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

    Schpuzzle of the Week:
    Gas, ice, pass, mice & bass
    Name a type of gas, type of pass and type of bass.
    Rearrange the combined letters of these three words to name a brand poured over ice and a three-word description of mice.
    What are this brand and description?
    Hint: The description contains a critter.
    Answer:
    Sprite (soft drink brand), Barn owl fodder;
    NOBEL gas+FORWARD pass +STRIPED bass =SPRITE+BARN+OWL+FODDER

    Appetizer Menu

    Ecofiendish Appetizer:
    Fairies, refrains, houses & histrionics

    Same old... oops... brand new refrain
    1. Part of the refrain of a well-known television theme song consists of three words. The first word is a number.
    If you increase the number by one, the three words have all but the first letter in common, yet none of those three words rhyme with each other.
    What are the words?
    Answer:
    "Four hour tour" ("...three hour tour" was the refrain from the theme song from "Gilligan's Island," in which Recently Departed and now Affiliated With Nature Dawn Wells starred)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jhb5NnADM&t=8s

    “Where in the house is it!”
    2. Name something you have in your house in seven letters. Remove the middle letter and the result will be the place where you might put it.
    Answer:
    Garbage; Garage

    Double fairies wheel
    3. Name a title character in a fairy tale, made more popular in movies. Remove the last letter, and move the 4th letter two places earlier in the alphabet, and the result will be the other titular character. Who are the characters and what is the title?
    Answer:
    Beauty and the Beast

    “What’s the past tense of Keanu?”
    4. The last name of what well-known actor is the past tense of a synonym of the actor’s first name?
    Answer:
    Rip Torn (R.I.P. 2019)

    MENU

    Shades of Green Slice:
    Degrees of growing greenery

    Add a letter to something that grows to get something else that grows.
    Move the letters of this second thing four places earlier in the circular alphabet (so D would become A, C would be come Z, etc.). You'll get a third thing that grows.
    All three of these growing things are, to some degree, green.
    What are they?
    Answer:
    Pea; Pear, Lawn

    Lego...

    ReplyDelete
  14. This week's official answers for the record, part 2:

    Riffing Off Shortz And Niederman Slices:
    Carrying mail across state lines
    ENTREE #1
    Remove all consecutive pairs of letters that are U.S. state postal abbreviations from the name of a puzzle-maker.
    Rearrange the remaining octet of letters to form a four-letter abbreviation of a two-syllable verb and a four-letter word. This abbreviation and word coud be an instruction to a typesetter who is setting the word “modern” lest it be mistaken for the word “modem.”
    Who is this puzzle-maker?
    What is the instruction?
    Answer:
    Derrick Niederman; "Incr. Kern"
    ENTREE #2
    You are taking a road trip in your 1954 Volkswagen Beetle. You start in a certain state, drive to another, then another, and then another, all east of the Mississippi River. Take the postal abbreviations of the four states you visit, mix the letters up, and use them to spell words for two things you might hear in a church.
    What might you hear?
    What are the four states?
    Hint: Each of the four states has a number of syllables that is different from the other three. The difference between the syllables in the highest-syllable word and the lowest-syllable word is three.
    Answer:
    Hymn, "Amen"; Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York (ME+NH+MA+NY)
    ENTREE #3
    In 1960, you are taking a road trip from Chicago to Santa Monica via Route 66. Are you cruising in a Corvette convertable, like Tod and Buz did in the “Route 66” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw1tiNGQ4wI TV series? No! You are instead behind the wheel of your Achimkoy (“Flower of the morning”), a five-seat sedan manufactured at the Sungri Motor Plant.
    Along the route you pass thought eight states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Take the postal abbreviations of four consecutive states you drive through, mix the letters up, and use them to spell two 4-letter words:
    1. The brand of cigarette you puff on during the trip ( which was perhaps the same brand Tod and Buz smoked), and
    2. The possessive form of the name of the ruler of the country that manufactured the Achimkoy. (For example, the possessive form of the name of the ruler of the country that manufactured the Corvette in “Route 66” would be “Eisenhower’s America” or “Kennedy’s America.”)
    What are these two 4-letter words?
    What are the four states you drive through?
    Answer:
    Kool, Kim's (The Sungri Motor Plant was in Tokchon, North Korea. Kim Il-Sung, grandfather of present North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il, was the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994.)
    Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma (IL+MO+KS+OK)=KOOL+KIM'S
    ENTREE #4
    Three wise men are cruising through part of New England in their new Land Rover. Their destination is Bethlehem. They start in a certain state, drive to another, and then another, all in New England.
    When they reach the New York State border, however (which they must cross in order to reach their destination), the men abandon their Land Rover. The men, you see, do not want to set foot in New York, so they hop a turbojet and fly over New York (which is NOT normally considered “flyover country”) to complete their trip.
    The postal codes of the three New England states plus the postal code of the “destination state,” in order, spell the name of a somewhat well-known county at the opposite end of the country.
    What are these four states?
    What is the county?
    Answer:
    Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania; (MA+RI+CO+PA) Maricopa County in Arizona, where Joe Arpaio was sheriff)

    Lego...

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  15. This week's official answers for the record, part 3:
    Riffing Off Shortz And Niederman Slices (continued):
    ENTREE #5
    Take the state postal codes of a corny state, a spicy New England state, a birthplace-of-Cash-and-Rich state and a Great Lakes state, in order. Add to the end a basic cable channel (minus its punctuation). The result is a fruit that sounds like it might impart immortality to its consumers.
    Now take (again, in order) the state postal codes of a “hoopy” New England state, a Midwestern state and the third and fourth states mentioned above. The result is a type of oblate orange that is somewhat sweet and small.
    What are the names of these two fruits?
    Answer:
    Nectarine; Mandarin (orange)
    Nebraska, Connecticut, Arkansas, Indiana, E! (NE+CT+AR+IN+E);
    Massachusetts, North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana (MA+ND+AR+IN);
    ENTREE #6
    The two nouns in the title of song co-written by Emmylou Harris and Bill Danoff as a tribite to Gram Parsons are also cities in two states.
    Take the postal codes of these two nouns, in order, to spell a four-letter word.
    A duo of country singers had a hit with a song written by the BeeGees. Take the singular form of one noun in the song title and a synonym for “whitewater” that you might see in the other noun in the title.
    Place the synonym for “whitewater” after a slang term for a thousand bucks to form the name of a city.
    Place the singular form of the plural noun after the same slang term to name another city.
    Take the postal codes of the two states where those cities are located, in order, to spell a second four-letter word.
    The two four-letter words “generated” by these two song titles form an energy-producing excavation, the kind you are likely to find in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
    What is this excavation?
    What are the two song titles?
    What are the two cities that begin with the slang term for a thousand bucks
    Answer:
    Coal mine
    CO+AL, MI+NE (Colorado+Alabama) (Michigan+Nebraska)
    "Boulder to Birmingham (Boulder, Colorado; Birmingham, Alabama) ; "Islands in the Stream
    Grand Rapids, Michigan; Grand Island, Nebraska
    ENTREE #7
    Imagine you are living in the mid-1960s, after JFK died but before RFK died.
    Take the postal abbreviations of three states in “flyover country” in order from north to south to spell a word for a Muslim pulpit or the steps an imam ascends to speak from it.
    Hint: Place an “i”somewhere within the word for a Muslim pulpit to form something found in a hotel room that keeps things cool.
    Answer:
    Minbar; Michigan; Nebraska, Arkansas (MI+NB+AR)
    Hint: A minibar keeps things cool in a hotel room.

    Dessert Menu

    Pass The Guacamole & Roll The Credits Dessert
    “Big Game” name-hunting
    On February 7th in Tampa, Florida, Grammy-winner “The Weeknd” will play a halftime role that begins with “Super Bowl...” and ends with what sounds much like a role in a best picture Oscar winner – specifically, the first and last names of the character in this role.
    What is the name of this character?
    Hint: It would have been fitting had Wrigley Field hosted Super Bowl IV, and if the home of the Minnesota Wild had hosted Super Bowl XL.
    Answer:
    Alvy Singer (from "Annie Hall") which sounds much like ("Super Bowl) LV singer"
    Hint: It would have been fitting if Wrigley Field, with its walls of "ivy" would have hosted Super Bowl IV, and if the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul (XL) would have hosted Super Bowl XL.)

    Lego!

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