State-inspired Statements; Ailments, aliments and achoos! Loaves & fishes & sweetoothsome dishes; “Sacré bleu! J'en ai marre!” Superheros, zoos, & singin’ “The Sucre (Bolivian) Blues”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Sacré bleu! J’en ai marre!”

Name a non-English expression that will likely make you feel uncomfortable and agitated. 

Adding a long vowel sound to the end sounds
like something that will likely make you feel comfortable... but still agitated. 

What are this uncomfortable expression and comforting agitator?

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Tactical Topological Appetizer:

Superheros, zoos, & singin’ “The Sucre (Bolivian) Blues” 

1.🍉🍋🍎🍑 Think of a well known province in six letters that is most remembered for its WWII involvement. 

Replace one of its vowels with a consonant to name a well known mythical superhero. 

Or you could replace a different consonant with another consonant and rearrange to name a popular fruit. 

What are the province, superhero and fruit?

2.🕆 Imagine you are in a cemetery witnessing a graveside service. 

Now imagine you also hear some of those assembled there talking, praying and perhaps singing. 

Why might this experience bring to your mind Sucre, Bolivia?

3. 🐅🐎🐘 Think of a world capital city in one word. 

Remove one of the internal letters and rearrange to get a common zoo animal that is not indigenous to that country. 

What are this capital city and zoo animal?

4.🗺Think of a well known world capital city. 

Now rearrange the letters to describe an arrangement that some say applies to this city. 

What are this city and the arrangement that may apply to it?

MENU

“Let’s Play Pepper!” Slice:

Ailments, aliments & achoos!

The first three letters of a department store chain, if you interchange two of them, spell an acronym of an ailment that is associated with a verb that is associated with “pepper.” 

The remaining letters spell what sounds like
the noun in an idiom that contains that verb. 

What are this store chain and idiom?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:

State-inspired Statements

Will Shortz’s August 7th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:

This is the start of a two-week creative challenge. The object is to write a sentence using only the letters of any particular U.S. state. You can pick the state and repeat letters as often as necessary. For example:

NEW YORK: No one knew we were ornery.

WASHINGTON: Sighting a ghost tonight was astonishing.

Entries will be judged on originality, sense, naturalness of syntax, humor, and overall elegance.

Puzzleria!s first Riffing Off Shortz’s Slice reads:

ENTREE #1 

This a one-week creative challenge. The object is to write a sentence using only the letters of any one of the suggested literary figures below:

SYLVIA PLATH

DYLAN THOMAS

WILLIAM BLAKE

EZRA POUND

EMILY DICKENSON

SHAKESPEARE

W.H. AUDEN (or,  AUDEN, WYSTAN HUGH, if that is what you want to do)

JANE AUSTEN

JORGE LUIS BORGES

LEO TOLSTOY

GEORGE ORWELL

ALICE WALKER

WALKER PERCY

JAMES JOYCE

EMILY BRONTE

WILLIAM FAULKNER

EUDORA WELTY

JOHN STEINBECK

MARK TWAIN 

TONI MORRISON

Of course, if you want to play the maverick, you can instead pen a sentence using a literary figure of your own choosing.

And so, you can pick any literary figure you wish and repeat letters as often as necessary. For example, the first and last names of one Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author can be used to create the sentence:

“ ‘Tis Joe’s intention to inject the hokiest, jokiest content into this site!” 

And the name of an author who was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres can be used to create the sentence:

“Lego’s (or Joe’s) blog is bogus bilge... or lousier!”

Each of those two sentences uses one of the names listed above. See the answer to Entree #2, below, to see two answers to the two sentences LegoLambda came up with.

ENTREE #2:

Who is the author whose name contains all the letters, and only those letters, in:

“ ‘Tis Joe’s intention to inject the hokiest, jokiest content into this site!”?

Who is the author whose name contains all the letters, and only those letters, in:

“Lego’s (or Joe’s) blog is bogus bilge... or lousier!”?

ENTREE #3

Answer as many of the nine clues below as you can. Using only the letters that appear in each of your nine clue answers, you can spell a name of something. (Letters may be used more than once.) These nine “somethings” share some connection in common. The letter-count of each word in each clue answer appears in parentheses after the clue. (The number in the second set of parentheses indictates the number of total letters in the name of the “something.”) 

1. Two services that are offered at a Hollywood spa, and to whom? (6 5 5)(6)

2. Human baby cradlers (5 4)(4)

Hint: The 4-letter word in “(5 4)” is the last word of a novel title that seems to allude to a stationary non-orbiting Venus.

3. The _____ is a hybrid fruit with a very juicy ____ (5 4)(5)

4. What Chi Chi Rodriguez would conventionally do with what what brandished after sinking a birdie, what weapon he pretended what be brandished to be, and then what he signed autographs with as he wended his way through the appreciative gallery  (4 4 3)(7) 

5. Delicious sweet liqueur (5 5 3)(7)

6. Convent residents in the process of
converting to Islam, and what they study daily in preparation (4 5)(6)

7. “ ‘Motorized-horse’ whisperer” on the battlefield (4 3-7)(7)

8. An integer preceded by an adjective that
describes it (6 5)(5)

9. Popcorn, Red Vines or Raisinettes (7 5)(5), or John Wilkes Booth (7 6)(5)

ENTREE #4

Answer as many of the nine clues below as you can. Using only the letters that appear in each of your nine clue answers, you can spell a surname of somebody.  (Letters may be used more than once.) These nine “somebodies” share some connection in common. The letter-count of each word in each answer appears in parentheses after the clue. (The number in the second set of parentheses indictates the number of total letters in the surname of the “somebody.”) 

1. What the Large Hadron Collider in Europe can do quite well (5 5)(6)

2. a Greek letter, and a word meaning to share of distribute that sounds like a two-word 
antonym of that Greek letter (4 5)(5)

3.  A fruit (and its leaves) with medicinal properties and the Hawaiian medicine man who might prescribe it (5 6)(9)

4a. Pigpen stench (3 5)(9)

or,

4b. Greenhouse ambience (4 4 5)(9)

5. Lady, Paul, and James, all music-makers (4 4 4)(5)

6. Something that you can color with, and what you might color with a dark red one (6 4)(12)

7. “During summer vacations as a teen, I would ____ at a ___ where I had to ____ grocery items all day!” (4, 3, 4)(12)

8. Those who cheer on their team (but who, if you insert a hyphen, perhaps also “jeer on” the opposing team) (8)(7)

9a.  Another redundant way of saying “cranky
curmudgeon” (4 6)(7)

or...

9b. What “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” or “Can't Buy Me Love” (sung in unison by Lennon and his mates) each is an example of, and the first name of Marx (6 7)(7)

ENTREE #5

Put the four different letters of a seven-letter state in alphabetical order. 

Switch the order of the first two letters to spell something soothing. What are the state and the soothing thing?

ENTREE #6

Rearrange the five different letters of an eight-letter state to spell a word for an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and
sarcasm.

What are this state and mocking, irreverent attitude?

ENTREE #7

Rearrange the eight different letters of an ten-letter state to spell two words for things you might see while scuba-swimming in shallow
waters.

What are this state and these things seen in the shallows?

ENTREE #8

Add an “e” to the six different letters of a nine-letter state to spell two words for things you might see in that state, especially in wintertime.

ENTREE #9

Rearrange the six different letters of an eight-letter state to spell a two-word phrase that describes a  Tucker, Avanti, Reo, Rambler Packard, Pontiac, DeSoto, Studebaker, Edsel,
Duesenberg, DeLorean, Oldsmobile or Mercury.

What are this state and phrase?

ENTREE #10

Rearrange the seven different letters of a state to spell a two-word description of either of the pets pictured here.

What are this state and description?

ENTREE #11

Rearrange the five different letters of a state to spell a name of a professional team from “the state across the lake.”

What are this team name and state?

ENTREE #12

Rearrange the four different letters of state to spell a word for where a Northern Mockingbird hangs out.

The Northern Mockingbird supposedly also
hangs out in a state that (after doubling its first letter) is an anagram of two-word phrase that means to “observe Mack, ‘the King of Comedy’ ”

What are this word, phrase and state?

ENTREE #13

Take a U.S. state. Its middle two letters, if the second one is doubled, spell a natural food. The first and fifth letters of the state approximate the shape of this food. The first
three letters of the state are an anagram of a plural form of the food.

What are this state, natural food and plural form of the food?

ENTREE #14

Arrange the four different letters of a seven-letter state into alphabetical order to spell a two-word, four-letter phrase that describes the “edge” enjoyed by a tennis player who has just scored a point when the score had been “deuce.”

What are this state and phrase?

Dessert Menu

Recipe Book Dessert:

Loaves & fishes & sweetoothsome dishes

Slice a fruit in two. 

Move the first part to the end, then cut a consonant out of it. 

The result is a dessert. 

What are this fruit and dessert?

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.