Hanging arts and (from air)crafts; Saget, Gates and Bilbo Baggins; “Fighting fire with fire... hoses?” Bird is the word, but what are the numbers?” Our house, is a very, very, very “big house”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Hanging arts and (from air)crafts

Name some things you might see hanging from walls, in a double-digit number of letters. 

Add an “o” and rearrange the letters to name what some stunt pilots who hung from their planes did. 

What things hang from walls? 

What did stunt pilots do?

Appetizer Menu

“Terifflelific” Appetizer:

“Bird is the word, but what are the numbers?”

Bird is the Word

🐦Take a word for a bird. Divide it into two parts, each a letter.

Take this same word for a bird. 

Again divide it into two parts to get two other letters.

What “bird word” is this?

What are the four letters?

Name the Numbers

⚾Start with a letter associated with a number. 

Change this letter to the one three places further down in the alphabet and get another
letter associated with a number. 

The two numbers differ by 44. 

What are the letters, numbers, and their association?

Hint: Henry Aaron, who broke the all-time major league home run record in 1974, wore
uniform #44, a number that seems like it might be associated with the man whose record he broke, but is in fact not associated with it. 

The number on the uniform worn by the man whose record Aaron broke is #3, which is also the number of places down the alphabet (in this puzzle) that the first “letter associated with a number” was moved in order to get the second “letter associated with a number.”

MENU

Back On The Chain Gang Slice:

Our House is a very, very, very “big house”

...with two guards in the yard,

The rocks we break are hard,

This prison life ain’t easy to get thru...

(And now I’m feelin’ queasy with the flu!)

Place a conjunction between a synonym of
“prison” and a synonym of “bandit.” 

The letters in the first half of the resulting phrase are identical to, and in the same order as, the letters in the second half. 

What are these two synonyms?

Riffing Off Shortz And Collins Slices:

Saget, Gates and Bilbo Baggins

Will Shortz’s June 19th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Peter Collins of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:

Think of two famous people — one from business and one from entertainment — whose last names are anagrams of each other. Now take their first names, drop the last letter of each of them, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get the full first name of a famous fictional character. Who are these people?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Collins Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker. 

Rearrange the combined letters of the first and last names of this puzzle-maker to spell a two-word caption for the image shown here.

Who is this puzzle-maker?

What is the caption?

ENTREE #2

Think of two fruits. Remove the last letter from one fruit. 

Remove that same letter from the second fruit along with letters that can be rearranged to spell a third edible – one that can be wild, rolled or, in the plural, felt.

Take the remaining letters, in order, and put them together without rearranging, and you’ll get a famous fictional character that is known by a single name. 

What are these fruits, the edible, and the one-named fictional character?

Hint: The name of the famous fictional character is also the name (not of the dog star, which is named “Sirius”) of a “wanderer” similar to Sirius. And, the term “dog star” does indeed also apply to the fictional character.

ENTREE #3

Think of two famous hall-of-famers — one enshrined in Cooperstown, the other in Newport. 

The surname of the “Cooperstowner” is an anagram of the final four letters of the “Newporter’s” first name. 

Now take the first three letters of the Cooperstowner’s first name and first two letters of the Newporter’s first name, and put the result together, without rearranging; you’ll get the name of a famous fictional character. 

Who are these hall-of-famers and fictional
character?

Hint: The last three letters of the Newporter’s last name spell a personal pronoun often used in referring to someone with the Cooperstowner’s first name, whether it is capitalized (as is the case with one particular female member of the World Golf Hall of Fame) or written in lowercase.

ENTREE #4

Think of two somewhat famous actors, female and male, who have both been nominated for Oscars. 

Imagine the man’s name to the left of the woman’s on a theater marquee. 

On the far right, therefore, is the woman’s surname,
which is the “plural form” of the man’s first name. Turn off the electrical current to these names on the extremities, leaving the marquee somewhat darker.

Ten letters remain. Cut the current to three consecutive ones that can be rearranged to form a synonym of “glee.” 

The marquee now displays the name of a very famous fictional character. 

Who are these actors and fictional character?

ENTREE #5

The first name of a famous athete and surname of a famous entertainer are the same.

The first three letters of the athlete’s surname sound the same first four letters of the entertainer’s first name

The remaining three letters of the athlete’s surname spell a common first name. That first name can be formed by rearranging the first three letters in the first name of one who partnered with the entertainer in a 1980’s-singing duo.    

Who are this athlete and entertainer?

Who was the entertainer’s singing partner?

ENTREE #6

Think of two reasonably famous people whose surnames are anagrams of each other. One is a baseball Hall-of-Famer. The other is an actor who has been in the cast of a 62-year-old soap opera for the past two decades.  

Now take their first names, drop the last letter of each of them, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get the full first name of a somewhat memorable villainous fictional character created by Ian Fleming. 

Who are these two people and one fictional character?

ENTREE #7

Place a six-letter synonym of “corpulent” to the left of a six-letter word for a small metallic case that has space you might place a memento.

The first three and last two letters of this 12-letter string, in order, spell a synonym of “swift.” Remove them to reveal the name of a fictional character.

Who is this fictional character?

What are the synonyms of “corpulent” and “swift”?

What is the word for a small metallic case that has space you might place a memento?

ENTREE #8

Think of three famous people: a comedic actress, a Grammy-winning soul singer and a politician who fell prey to one of the first “negative” TV political ads, one that apparently proved to be effective.

The actress and singer have the same surname. Place it before the first part of the politician’s compound surname to name a two-word term for an alloy originally developed to imitate platinum. 

Place it before the second part of the politician’s surname to name a compound word describing a frothy, turbulent form of rafting or canoeing. The first part of the politician’s surname appears in the title of a sitcom in which the actress was featured.

The first two letters of the actress’s first name placed after the first two letters of either the singer’s or politician’s first name spell the name of a fictional bovine creature.

Who are these three famous people?

What are the alloy and the compound word describing a frothy, turbulent form of rafting?

What is the name of the fictional bovine creature?

In what sitcom was the actress featured? 

Note: Mark Scott (also known as “skydiveboy”) inspired Entrees #9 and #10 by suggesting that their solutions might make good fodder for “raising riff-offs” of this week’s NPR puzzle. We thank Mark, whose “Skydiversions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria! 

ENTREE #9

Name two Oscar-nominated actors with the same first name (one of them won one). Their surnames both end with the same four letters, which can be rearranged to spell a word for “the human body’s largest organ.” Remove those eight “ending letters” and place the remaining parts of their surnames side-by-side in alphabetical order.

The result spells a new surname, one shared by two actors named William and Dennis, and by one artist named Edward.

Who are these Oscar-winning actors?

Who are the other two actors and the artist?

What is the human body’s largest organ?

ENTREE #10

An actor and pop singer who were popular during the 1950s and 1960s have the same surname. The actor’s first name was the same as that of a politican during that era. The name of the politician’s first lady was the same as that of the singer.

The politician was involved in two notable scandals, the first involving a family pet. The surname shared by the singer and actor, followed by the kind of creature that family pet was, sound like the first two syllables in a synonym of “scandal.”

Who are the singer and actor?

Who are the first lady and politician?

What is the synonym of “scandal?”

Hint: The name of the pet is the plural form of the surname of one of the singer’s pop record chart rivals.

Note: The following NPR riff-off was composed and contributed by Greg VanMechelen (screen name, Ecoarchitet), whose Econfusions puzzle feature appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #11

Think of two famous people — one from business and entertainment, one from politics.

If you remove the last letter from the first person’s surname, their surnames are anagrams of each other.

Now take the first two letters of each of their first names, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get what they might have been called at home. 

Take the first three letters of each of their first names, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get a British brand of recycled plastic outdoor furniture and play products. 

Take the first four letters of each of their first names, and put the result together, without rearranging, and you’ll get the name of a convenience store best known on an animated TV show.

Note: You may have to swap the order of the first names. 

Who are these people?

Dessert Menu

“Naming Of Parts” Dessert:

Fighting fire with fire... hoses?

Divide a compound word for a weapon into its two parts. 

Replace the last letter of second part with three new letters to form protection from the weapon, in two words. 

What is the  weapon?

What is the protection from the weapon?

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.

Gumshoe, reptile, food & drink; Mixing vocals, drums and guitar; Get into “shape”! This puzzle requires stamina & “paish”-ence; “Tumbling downhill on a level playing field” “Ich bin ein ‘Limburger’” (Berghlind Airlift)

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Mixing vocals, drums and guitar...

Take: 

the first name of a Kinks singer, the first name of a Dave Matthews Band guitarist, and the last name of a Three Dog Night drummer. 

Rearrange the combined letters to spell the name of a another rock group. 

Who are the singer, guitarist and drummer? 

What is this rock group?

 Appetizer Menu

Dumbstruck By Conundrums Appetizer:

Gumshoe, reptile, food & drink

“Claustromania!”

1. 🍹Think of how you might get through a crowd, an eight-letter word. 

Remove the next-to-last letter and rearrange the rest to name a popular brand of beverage you might find in a supermarket. 

How did you get through the crowd? 

What are the brand and beverage?

Bug, grub, gambling, troubador

2. 🐦Name a kind of infection in ten letters. 

The first part of the name spells a popular food. The last part of the name spells the first name of a well-known singer. 

No rearranging
of letters is necessary. 

What kind of infection is it? 

What’s the food? 

Who’s the singer?

Repetitive-letter reptile 

3. 🐢🐍🦎There’s a reptile found in North America whose common, one-word name has two relatively unusual properties. 

First, two different letters are used more than
two times each. 

Second, all letters are odd-numbered (i.e., A = 1 odd, B = 2 even, C = 3 odd, etc.). 

What’s the reptile?

Gaming and gumshoe

4. 🂡 🂷 🃚 🂱 🂤  Think of a job that’s familiar in popular gambling cities. Then think of a common kind of employer there that might need this job filled. 

Put the two together – the job and the employer. Rearrange all the letters and you’ll name a famous fictional detective. Who is it?

MENU

“Reverberating Slice”:

“Tumbling downhill on a level playing field”

“Teams usually ___ their games when enough of their players run ____ around the playing field after they _____”

The words in those blanks – a verb, adverb and verb – spell the name of an artist. 

Who is it?

Hint: The number of letters in the second blank is one greater than the number of letters in the first blank; the number of letters in the third blank is one greater than the number of letters in the second blank.

Riffing Off Shortz And Regan Slices:

“Ich bin ein ‘Limburger’” (Berghlind Airlift)

Will Shortz’s October 11th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Theodore
Regan of Scituate, Massachusetts, reads:

Take the last name of a famous 20th-century American. The 5th, 6th, 7th, and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd letters, in that order, name a European capital. Who is the person, and what capital is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Regan Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the first and last names and hometown of a 21st-century puzzle-maker. 

Rearrage these 21 combined letters to name three wetland creatures (one amphibian and two avian waders) and two words associated with playing cards.

Who are this puzzle-maker and hometown?

What are the three wetland creatures and word associated with playing cards?

ENTREE #2

Take two European capitals, each containing six letters. Move the fourth letter of one capital one place earlier in the alphabet (so B becomes A, C becomes B, etc.).

The first four letters of the other capital plus the first four letters of the altered capital spell the title of a famous 16th-century work of art.

What are these European capitals? 

What is the title of the work of art?

ENTREE #3

Take two European capitals, each containing six letters.

The 4th, 5th and 1st letters of the southernmost capital, the 3rd letter of the northernmost, the 2nd letter of the southernmost, and the 2nd and 1st letters of the northernmost, in order, spell the last name – not of “an Italian poet from the 13th century,” but of a French poet from the 19th-century.

What capitals are these?

Who are the two poets?

ENTREE #4

Take a six-letter European capital. Its 4th, 5th, 3rd, 1st, 2nd and 3rd letters, in order, spell a word that encompasses this capital, all other capitals and, indeed, everything in the universe, both observed and postulated.

What is this capital?

What is the word for everything in the universe?

Hint: The word for everything in the universe, minus its last letter, is the first name of a character on a early 1950s dramedy and of a character in a 1990s sitcom.

ENTREE #5

Name a European capital, in six letters.

The 4th, 5th, 6th, and 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters, in that order, phonetically, sound like a seven-letter mythical creature mentioned in the Bible.  

What are this capital and creature?

Note: The following five NPR Puzzle riffs were created and contributed by Greg VanMechelen, whose “Econfusions” feature appears regularly on Puzzleria! We thank Greg (also known as “Ecoarchitect”).

ENTREE #6

Name something you often see in a European
capital city. The 4th, 5th, 1st, and 2nd letters, in that order, name a European capital city. 

What is the thing and what capital is it?

ENTREE #7

Name something people in a government might create. The 4th, 6th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
letters, in that order, name a European capital city. 

What is the thing and what capital is it?

ENTREE #8

Name a drug. The 3rd, 4th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd letters, in that order, name an African capital city. 

What is the drug and what capital is it?

ENTREE #9

Name a country. The 3rd, 4th, 1st and 2nd letters, in that order, name a South American capital city. 

What is the thing and what capital is it? 

ENTREE #10

Name things most large companies have. 

The 4th, 5th, 1st and 2nd letters, in that order, name a European capital city. 

What are those things and what capital is it?

Dessert Menu

“Put The Heart Before The Course” Dessert:

Get into “shape!” This puzzle requires stamina & “paish”-ence

Take a five-letter verb associated with “shape.” 

Put the last sound of this word at the start and the first sound at the end. 

The result sounds like a four-letter synonym of shape. 

What are this word and synonym?

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.

“Four-letter words;” Inventors, musicals, novels and more! Hankerin’ for heaven-bound trains; Shirts vs. skins street roundball! ALBAnia? BRUT, Lebanon? mONAco?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Inventors, musicals, novels and more!

Each clue below has just one answer. 

One word in the clue will lead you to that answer. (Solve one of the eight, and you’ll likely solve ‘em all!) 

1. Her novel was deemed filmable, six times!

2. Literary contemporary of Arrowsmith’s author

3. President who withstood a governor’s
challenge

4. Inventor with an outstanding curriculum vitae

5. Stalwart composer of musicals

6. Reagan appointee with wisdom

7. Grim Reaper tale teller

8. Thoreau was once her schoolmaster

Appetizer Menu

“One-Letter-Later” Appetizer:

“Four-letter words”

What happens if you change each letter of a word to the next letter in the alphabet? 

Usually the result is nothing interesting ... for example, the word WORD itself would become XPSE. 

Yet in a few cases you do get another word ... a famous example is that STEEDS becomes TUFFET. 

So, here is our challenge:  

Find a pair of four-letter words that have this same relationship. The first word is a measure of electrical circuits; the second word is a measure of liquids.

MENU

Sinfully Sinless Slice:

Hankerin’ for heaven-bound trains

Take a word for a person who hankers for heaven, and who may even believe she or he is surely heaven-bound.

Anagram the first four letters to name those who Jesus said might have difficulty attaining heaven. 

Anagram the remaining letters twice:

1. once, to spell a word associated with sin,
and 

2. a second time to spell a word associated with sinlessness. 

What are these four words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Bass Slices:

ALBAnia? BRUT, Lebanon? mONAco?  

Will Shortz’s June 5th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Ben Bass of Chicago, Illinois, reads:

The name of what country contains a deodorant and an air freshener in consecutive letters?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Bass Slices
read:

ENTREE #1

Take the first and last names and hometown of a puzzle-maker. Delete the two spaces between these three words.

The first name contains a mid-alphabet letter, spelled-out. Replace this spelled-out letter with  a mantra. Replace the fifth letter in the hometown with a “k”. Divide the result into a six-letter sock brand, a six letter razor brand and a board game. 

Who are this puzzle-maker and what is the hometown?

What are the two brands and the board game?

ENTREE #2

The name of a country begins with a noun that pertains to either Robert or Paul regarding their paricipation together in two Best-Picture-Oscar-nominated films (one which won). 

The remaining letters in the country are the first three letters in the name of a high-flying son of a Greek craftsman. 

The remaining letters in that name are the first three letters of a large Eurasian country.

What is this country?

What is the noun the pertaining to Robert or Paul? What are the name of the high-flying Greek and the Eurasian country? 

ENTREE #3

The name of what country begins with the first name of the wife and first cousin, “relativitibly,” of a well-known physicist.

The remaining letters are an anagram of a northwestern U.S. desert where female drivers have driven their vehicles faster than 500 mph!

What are this country, first name and desert?

ENTREE #4

Remove a word for a form of precipitation that is embedded within the name of a country. The remaining letters in order spell the 3-letter short form of a musical instrument associated with an island. A coastal city on that island experiences such precipitation, on average, about 270 days of the year. 

What are this country, precipitation, musical instrument and coastal city?

ENTREE #5

Change the third letter of a 10-letter island nation to a duplicate of either its second, sixth or ninth letter. 

Move this duplicate letter to the beginning. 

Move the 4th, 5th and 6th letters of this result to the front,  forming a 6-letter food. 

Spell the remaining four letters in reverse to spell a verb. Place it to the left of the food.

The result is what purveyors of “string” or “brick” do.

What is this nation? What do purveyors of “string” or “brick” do?  

ENTREE #6

Rearrange the first four letters of a Polynesian island to spell an inhabitant or the language of a country in Southeast Asia.

Rearrange the last five letters of this island to spell to spell a country that occupies the western part of a Carribean island.

What are the Polynesian island, the Southeast Asian inhabitant or language, and the Carribean country?

ENTREE #7

The name of what country begins with an anagram of the first word in a J.D. Salinger novella... and ends with the name of a Shakespearean king, spelled in reverse? 

ENTREE #8

Remove the first letter from the name of an African nation to spell the ancient name of a
peninsular kingdom. 

What are this African nation and peninsular kingdom?

ENTREE #9

The first four letters of the name of an nation plus just the second, third and fourth letters of that same nation spell a two-word beverage.

The remaining letters can be anagrammed to spell a container for that beverage.

What are this nation, beverage and container?

ENTREE #10

Name a 10-letter island chain that “connects” two island nations in the Carribean. (The chain is a part of one of these nations.) Delete the first two letters and the last letter, leaving seven letters.

Remove the 1st, 3rd and 4th letters of this result, leaving a 4-letter number. Then put the three letters back where they were.

Now delete the 5th letter, then move the two letters that follow that deleted 5th letter so that they are between the 2nd and 3rd letters. 

The result is a word for group consisting of a certain number of things; that number is the 4-letter number you discovered above.

What is this island chain?

What is the group that consists of a certain number of things, and what is that number?

ENTREE #11

The first half of the name of an Indian city contains a deodorant brand. 

The second half (if you move its letters 14 places ahead in the alphabet – so A becomes O, B becomes P, etc.) spells an American entertainment and media production company formed in 2001 by, among others, Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Hulk.

What are this city, deodorant brand and production company?

Hint: The deodorant brand is sometimes “the word.”

Dessert Menu

Pick-Up Game Dessert:

Shirts vs. skins street roundball!

Something a handful of athletes may schedule sounds like two consumables that resemble one another.

What may a handful of athletes schedule?

What are these consumables?

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.