Firecrackerjack Cryptology! Edibles become “otheribles” Gray Copper, oxymoronic oxidation? Who is this late perHabsburg? Baby-talking past the graveyard? An average and alright guy;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Edibles become “otheribles”

Bananas, beans, beets, eggs, figs, jams and oats are seven edibles. 

Add 17 letters, at least one letter to each of the seven words, to form seven new words classified under another plural noun ending in “-bles.” What are these seven new words and the other plural noun ending in “-bles?”

Hint: The four nouns in the sentence, “A tundra is an ice age plain,” contain the 17 letters to be added. (The nouns are the words that contain three-or-more letters.)

Appetizer Menu

“Patrickotic” Appetizer:

Firecrackerjack Cryptology

What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July 2024 than to summon forth a Cryptic Crossword Puzzle created by Patrick J. Berry (aka “cranberry”). It is Patrick’s 35th cryptic crossword to appear on Puzzleria! 

So, get ready for some puzzling pyrotechnics and fireworkmanlike befuddlement! 

As is Patrick’s wont, this puzzle contains a bit of a musical theme. Lyrics and melodies are in his wheelhouse. He is an aficionado and an expert when it comes to popular music. Indeed, he and his family members have teamed up to win many music trivia contests in Alabama.

In this puzzle, the placement Patrick’s music-related entries in the puzzle grid possesses a particularly satisfying symmetry. 

If you have missed, or wish to revisit, any of Patrick’s previous 34 cryptic crosswords on Puzzleria!, here are their links:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34      

For those who may be new to cryptic crossword puzzles, Patrick has compiled the following list of basic cryptic crossword puzzle instructions:

Regarding the Across and Down clues and their format:

The number, or numbers, that appear in parentheses at the end of each clue indicate how many letters are in the answer.

Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers. For example, (12) simply indicates a twelve-letter word like “Independence,” (3,5) indicates a three-letter and five-letter answer like “Old Glory,” and (4-8) indicates a four-letter and eight-letter hyphenated answer like “Star-Spangled.”

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.

That Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!

So, celebrate the Fourth by solving Patrick’s latest cryptic creation, then cap off the day by sitting back on a lawn chair at your city-park-by-the-lake as you “ooh and ahh” the fireworks.  

ACROSS

7. Place for a traveler to stay, not home for a whole month(7)

8. Amateur video shot, and ultimately ignored(7)

10. Darkness(before, clear)(6)

11. Eccentric doctor gets servant to remove
top to be examined(8)

12. Song by 14 about downhearted deejay, primarily(4)

13. Substitute actor, nervous, turn’s due—a little desperate by end of play(10)

14. Singer/songwriter on the radio, risky first performance in series(5,6)

19. Sanitation engineer—trash “manager”, carrying sack?(10)

22. Some fixation over song by 14?(4)

23. One in bar, taken aback by fellow’s charm(8)

24. Recalled appropriate line to use(6)

25. Harry Potter’s creator keeping Hedwig in loop?(7)

26. Fights boy in study group(7)

DOWN 

1. Continue to make a fuss(5,2)

2. Spies capturing a top military figure somewhere in Southeast Asia(8)

3. Analyze short letter about part of the Bahamas(6)

4. Heartless, vindictive old lady in song(one by Schubert)(3,5)

5. Teacher wasn’t lazy?(6)

6. Feet for celebrities?(7)

9. Trouble getting last word in, see(11)

15. Cat raised to keep people company(8)

16. Popular cryptic setter returns(8)

17. Edited show? Bull! Nonsense!(7)

18. Former lover was a model—nude!(7)

20. Newlywed has left guy(6)

21. Unable to move, having much gas?(6)

MENU

Names In The News Hors d’Oeuvre:

An average and alright guy

Take the first syllables of two first names in the news. 

Put them in alphabetical order, then spoonerize them, to form what sounds like a two-word term for an ordinary and average and alright guy. What are these names and the two-word term?

DyNasty Slice:

Who is this late perHabsburg? 

The birth of a nation occurred on July 4, 1776. This historical date can be written as 7/4/1776, or perhaps as 07/04/1776. 

The possible date of the burial of a Habsburg (one with a with a palindromic name), when
written in that form, resembles a somewhat rickety ten-picket fence. 

What is this date?

Who is the Habsburg? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Kozma Slices:

Gray Copper, oxymoronic oxidation?

Will Shortz’s June 23rd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Laura Kozma of South River, New Jersey, reads:

Name a famous film actor of the past (4,6). Swap the second and third letters of the first name to name a color. Change the third letter of the last name to get another color. What actor is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Kozma Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name:

* a vehicle occupied by animals (3 letters), 

* a suffix that is a “plural noun combining form” that means “animals,” (3 letters) and

* a verb for what animals like bears, big cats, wolves, crocodiles, alligators, hippos, elephants and wild boars (but not tortoises!) can easily do to a person (4 letters).

Rearrange these letters to spell the name of an excellent puzzle-maker.

Who is it?

What are the vehicle, suffix and verb?

Note: Entree #2 was created by our friend Laura Kozma (aka “Tortitude”), whose “Tortie’s Slow But Sure Puzzles” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #2

Think of a puzzle-maker. The puzzle-maker’s first name is the title of a famous song written for a movie with the same title of the song. That song later had lyrics written for it by a famous lyricist. That lyricist also wrote English lyrics for a song composed by a Hungarian composer that was used in a movie 12 years later. The English title of that song was also the title of that movie.  

The Hungarian composer’s last name at birth is the last name of the puzzle-maker.

Who is the puzzle-maker? Who is the famous lyricist? Who is the composer, and what song did he write?

Note: Entree #3 was created by our friend Plantsmith, whose “Garden of Puzzley Delights” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #3

Take a famous actor, 4,6 letters. 

Switch letters 2 and 3 in first name to get a color. 

Replace first three letters of last name with the 4th, 5th and 6th letters of a synonym of “heartfelt.” The result is a second color.

Who is this actor?

What are the two colors?

Hint: The first three letters of the actor’s surname and the first three letters of the synonym of “heartfelt” are identical.

Note: Entrees #4-through-#9 were created by our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #4

Name a famous actor of the past who starred in a number of TV and film roles. Their last
name is the name of a color. 

The third and fourth letters of their first name can be replaced by the letters two places before them in the alphabet to get another color. 

Who is the actor and what is the color?

Hint: The color is deeper than pink but softer than red. It can be made up of 63% red, 9% green, and 25% blue.

ENTREE #5

Name a famous TV and film actor of the past. 

Remove a letter from their last name to name a color. The actor starred in a TV show, the second word of which is another color. Who is the actor and what is the show?

ENTREE #6

Name a famous film and TV actor. 

Remove two letters from their first name to name a color. 

Change two letters of their last name and rearrange to get another color. 

Who is the actor and what is the color?

ENTREE #7

Name a famous film actor. Remove one letter from their first name to name a color. 

The actor starred in a well-known film, the first word of which is another color. 

Who is the actor and what is the film?

ENTREE #8

Name a famous film actor of the past. 

Their last name is the name of a color. 

The last name of their sibling, a former actor, is another color. 

Name the actor and their sibling.

ENTREE #9

Name a famous film actor of the past. Their last name is a color. 

Their first and last names together are something that can cause a change in color. 

Who is the actor?

ENTREE #10

Name a living singer who is an inductee of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the Christian Music Hall of Fame, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. 

Add a letter to his
first name somewhere and remove a letter somewhere from his surname. 

The result is a caption for the image pictured here.

Who is this singer?

What is the caption?

ENTREE #11

Name an American guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist who became popular in the late 1950s (4,4). Change the first letter in each name to spell two four-letter colors that appear in the artwork pictured here.

What guitarist is it? What are the two colors?

Hint: The guitarist’s instrumental single top-20 hit was one of the earliest songs in rock music to utilize distortion and tremolo.

ENTREE #12

Take the first names of a pair of comedic performers who worked as a team. Remove the first letter of one and the last letter of the other to spell two colors. 

Who are these performers?

What are the colors

ENTREE #13

Name a past two-man comedy team. The older man was known by his one-syllable first name; the younger man was sometimes known by his two-syllable nickname.

Replace the middle letter in the older man’s name with a different vowel. Do nothing to the nickname. The result is two articles of clothing worn above the shoulders.

Who are the men in this comedy team.

What are the articles of clothing?

ENTREE #14

Take the five-letter first name of a sitcom title character and the three-letter first name of the actress who portrayed her. Change the fourth letter in the character’s name to spell a color. Change the first letter of the actress’s first name to spell a word that precedes the word “green” to indicate a shade of green.

Who are this character and actress?

What are the color and shade of green?

Note: Entree #15 was created by our friend Ecoarchitect, whose “Econfusions” appears regularly on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #15

Name a well-known comic strip character of the past (3,5). Add a letter to the 3-letter word. Change the middle letter in the 5-letter word, then swap it with the second letter. 

The result will be two colors, though not
primarily known as colors (just as copper is a metal more than a color). 

Who is the character and what are the colors?  

Dessert Menu

LMN8 Dessert:

Baby-talking past the graveyard?

Eliminate from underground graveyards the letters of a “baby-talk” synonym of something else that is eliminated. 

The result is things you’ll find in these graveyards. 

What are these graveyards and the things you’ll find there?

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.