Two rungs don’t make a “flight”; Hear no awful, see no awful; Garden-variety victory gardens; Star-studded celestial stage; What’s for lunch or munchin’?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/20 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Star-studded celestial stage 

Rearrange the combined letters of two signs of the zodiac to spell three things you might see and/or hear on a performance stage. 
What are these three things?
Hint: All three things are related, in some way, to music. And all three are plural words.
Note: When n = 12, (n)(n-1)/2 = 66. 
That’s not so daunting!

Appetizer Menu

Save Me A Conundrumstick! Appetizer:
What’s for lunch or munchin’?

🥁1. Take the last name of a well-known scientist. Drop the last letter, then reverse the first three letters and place at the end. When spoken aloud the result will sound like a health food but spelled very differently.
🥁2. Think of a two word phrase used in a drink order. Remove the space to get a slang word of approval.
🥁3. Think of a type of mailing address in two words. Advance the last letter one place forward in the alphabet to name a kind of sandwich.
🥁4. Name a drink in three letters. Duplicate this word, one after the other, with a space in between. Add a P to the front of the first word to name a particular type of the first drink.

MENU

Sippy Cup Slice:
Garden-variety victory gardens

The alliterative four-word nickname of a competitive event includes a word for favorites people pick from their gardens. 
An alcoholic beverage sipped at the event rhymes with similar but different garden-variety favorites that people pick.
At the competitive event itself, however (which, incidentally, is not held at Madison Square Garden), people pick favorites not found in a garden.
What is the beverage? 
What are the two favorites people pick from gardens?
What non-garden favorites are picked at the event?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Two rungs don’t make a “flight”

Will Shortz’s April 12th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
The challenge is to create the shortest possible word ladder connecting LARGE to SMALL, changing one letter at a time, making a common, uncapitalized word each step of the way. Here’s the tricky part: Plurals and verbs formed by adding -s are not allowed.
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ENTREE #1
Each Sunday, the puzzlemaster Will Shortz entraps us (like rats in a maze!) with his amazingly clever National Public Radio puzzles. 
This challenge is to create the shortest possible word ladder connecting WILL to MAZE, changing one letter at a time, making a common, uncapitalized word each step of the way. There’s no tricky part.
Note: I believe there are four different correct “ladders” that will allow you to climb from WILL to MAZE. On each ladder there are only three “rungs” between the WILL and MAZE rungs.  
ENTREE #2
The puzzlemaster Will Shortz stumps us every Sunday with his National Public Radio puzzles. 
This challenge is to create the shortest possible word ladder connecting SHORTZ to STUMPS, changing one letter at a time, making a common, uncapitalized word (except for “Shortz,” of course) each step of the way. Again, there’s no tricky part.
Note: The shortest “ladder” I can construct that will allow me to climb from SHORTZ to STUMPS has eight rungs – with SHORTZ on the bottom, STUMPS on the top, and six rungs in between. 
ENTREE #3
The challenge is to create the shortest possible word ladder connecting RUNGS to ELOPE, changing one letter at a time, making a common, uncapitalized word each step of the way. Again, there’s no tricky part.
Note: The shortest “ladder” I can construct that will allow me to climb up the elopement ladder from RUNGS to ELOPE has thirteen rungs – with RUNGS on the bottom, ELOPE on the top, and eleven rungs in between.
ENTREE #4
Each Sunday on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday program, host Lulu Garcia-Navarro introduces “The Puzzle” segment with puzzlemaster Will Shortz. 
This challenge is to create the shortest possible word ladder connecting LULU to HOST, changing one letter at a time. There’s no tricky part: Plurals and verbs formed by adding -s are indeed allowed.
Here are clues to the ladder:
1. NPR Weekend Edition Sunday host: LULU
2. “Disney on demand”: ____
3. The kind of hoop that Alvin coveted for Christmas: ____
4. Word likely preceding “cómo estás?” (“How are ya?”) in Guadalajara: ____
5. Otters’ den: ____
6. Lulu Garcia-Navarro’s role on NPR’s “The Puzzle” segment: HOST 
ENTREE #5
Here are clues for another ladder:
1. Last name of a U.S. president: _____
2. A multinational corporation: _____
3. First name of a novelist who acknowledged Christ’s “warts”: _____
4. A pair of sweaty “swooshy” 
footwear: _____
5. Something that a “football” gives the president control over: _____
6. Blimp-shaped green gourds: _____
7. Brand-name soft drinks: _____
8. Staple of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show monologue (at the expense of the president in Clue #1) during the mid 1970s: _____  
ENTREE #6
This challenge is to complete the following word ladder connecting two 4-letter words, changing one letter at a time, making a common, uncapitalized word each step of the way. The words are used in an idiom meaning “from beginning to end, completely, everything.” There’s no tricky part... plurals and verbs formed by adding -s are indeed allowed.
Here are clues to the ladder:
1. “There’s a Girl in My ____”:
2. Pittances: ____
3. Dipsomaniacs: ____
4. The plural counterpart of “tittle” in Matthew 5: ____
5. What Jay’s jaw does: ____
6. Anthony McAuliffe’s terse response to a German surrender ultimatum: ____
ENTREE #7
This challenge is to complete the following word ladder connecting two 4-letter words, changing one letter at a time, making a common word each step of the way. The words are used in an idiom meaning either “nighttime” or “daytime,” depending on which word appears first in the idiom. (The order of clues given below indicates the idiom meaning nighttime.) There’s no tricky part... plurals and verbs formed by adding -s are indeed allowed.
Here are clues to the ladder:
1.The darker part of twilight: ____
2. Dodge a bullet, for example: ____
3. Jim’s rafting companion: ____
4. Wilson who holds the single-season record for “ribbies”: ____
5. “Listen up!”: ____
6. Adjective for the “Star” of Churchill Downs in 1953: ____
7. Sew the holey hell outta socks: ____
8. Orlando’s back-ups: ____
ENTREE #8
Here are clues for an eighth ladder:
Note: The answer to Clue #3 is not a single word but rather an abbreviation followed by a word. 
1. Last name of a U.S. president: _____
2. First name that means “lion-like” _____
3. A word-ending paired with “di-,” “pan-” or “cycl-” prefixes: _____
4. Aid to surgeons who like to pump the volume up to “11”: _____ 
5. To walk with a heavy step: _____
6. Last name of a U.S. president: _____ 
ENTREE #9
Here are clues for a ninth ladder:
1. Last name of a U.S. president: _____
2. Hobo: _____
3. London streetcars: _____
4. Plural word with no “i” in it: _____ 
5. Six-, four- and two-year stints, respectively, in the Senate, White House and House: _____
6. Belonging to Mr. Melville or Mr. Munster: _____
7. Word, spoken by Ed, preceding “Johnny!”: _____ 
8. Root beer brand introduced at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia: _____
9. Keeps under wraps: _____
10. What one does to “one’s time” while waiting: _____
11. Last name of a U.S. vice president:_____

Dessert Menu

Live? Memorex? Bandstand? Dessert:
Hear no awful, see no awful 

In 1967 a soul singer performed and recorded something that many people heard. 
In 1968 that same singer appeared on something else that many people saw. 
These things both contain the same three words in the same order. Each has an apostrophe, but in a different place. 
What are these three words?
Hint: What the people heard in 1967 was likely very satisfying... at least for the listener.

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.

Periodical on the boardroom table; Industrial de-evolution; Plano, Texas! Gherkinsburg, Delaware! International Explorers browse the World Wide...; “mispelled,” not misspelled, is “misspelled”;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/20 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
“mispelled,” not misspelled, is “misspelled”

Name a composer of music. 
Change one-third of the letters in the composer’s first name to form a word related to DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid, the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms). 
The composer’s last name is a verb which, if not applied to itself, might sound like an informal shorter term for a branch of science that is also related to DNA. 
Who is this composer?

Appetizer Menu

Adventuresome Appetizer:
International Explorers browse the World Wide...


Think of a famous explorer of the past. Using Scrabble tiles, or similar letter pieces, spell the one-word title of the book he wrote describing his most famous adventure. 
Then switch the positions of the second and third letters with each other. 
Now rotate the tiles in the second and last positions 90 degrees in order to discover the last name of another famous explorer of the past who is also known for exploring the same continent.
Can you name these two well known explorers?

MENU

Subscription Slice:
Periodical on the boardroom table

Name a synonym of “saw” that also spells the title of a magazine. 
Adding three letters to the end of the title spells the name of a business whose employees are likely to read the magazine. 
Rearrange the letters you added to name a city, for short, that is home to many of these businesses.
What are this magazine title, business and city? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Campbell Slices:
Plano, Texas! Gherkinsburg, Delaware!

Will Shortz’s April 5th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Bruce Campbell of Kansas City, Missouri, reads:
Think of a well-known U.S. city. Its population is over a quarter of a million. Phonetically, the first syllable of the city’s name plus the first syllable of the name of its state will sound like a well-known brand name. What is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Campbell Slices read:
ENTREE #1
Think of a U.S. town immortalized in the title of a song by a great American composer. 
The first syllable of the town’s name, plus the first syllable of the name of the northernmost city in the continental U.S. with a population of more than 50,000, will form well-known brand name... as well as the last name of a puzzle-maker. 
Who is this puzzle-maker?
Hint: The first name of the founder of the immortalized U.S. town is Job. This town is situated in one of the 13 original colonies.
ENTREE #2
Think of a well-known U.S. coastal-state city. Its population is over a quarter of a million. 
Phonetically, the first syllable of the city’s name plus the first two syllables of the name of its state will sound like a city in another coastal state. 
The city in this second coastal state is one of five in existence that dubs itself as the “Horse Capital of the World.” 
What are these two coastal-state cities?
ENTREE #3
Think of a well-known U.S. city. Its population is over a quarter of a million. The first syllable of the city’s name plus the first syllable of the name of its state will spell a body part that can be “cerebral.”
What is the state? What is the body part?
Hint: The first two syllables of the city’s name are non-English word for “body.”
ENTREE #4
Think of a capital city somewhere in the world. Its population is counted in millions. 
Add a “g” to the end of the first syllable of the city’s name. If you say this new syllable, followed by the first syllable of the capital’s country, it will sound like an 87-year-old character that some in the motion picture business have dubbed “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” 
What is the capital city? Who is “the Eighth Wonder of the World?”
ENTREE #5
Think of a Midwestern U.S. city associated with aviation. Its population is about a seventh of a million. 
Phonetically, the first syllable of the city’s name plus the first syllable of the name of its state will sound like the title of a well-known Harry Belafonte song. 
What are this city and song?
ENTREE #6
Think of a well-known Pacific Northwest U.S. city. Its population is over 150,000. 
Phonetically, the first syllable of the city’s name plus the first syllable of the name of its state will sound like a coin-or-credit-card-operated business that caters only to Pacificas, Siennas, Odysseys, Sedonas, VW buses, etc. 
What are this city and business?
ENTREE #7
Think of a well-known city in the Middle East. Its population is about four million. Phonetically, the first syllable of the city’s name plus the first syllable of the name of its country will sound like the first two words in song titles by Peter Frampton, The Beatles and Culture Club. 
What is the city? What are the three song titles?

Dessert Menu

“Demisery” Dessert:
Industrial de-evolution 

By the mid-20th-century a once-booming industry in a U.S. state, and in neighboring states, had virtually ended. 
One reason for this can be found by adding one letter to the name of the state and dividing the result in two. What is the state and what contributed to this industry’s demise? 


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.

Political, professional & performing animals; “The unbearable lightness of Beijing” Keeping the hotel-owner happy; Pair of producers past and present; Women’s Wear Dai... Doubly Described

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/20 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Producers past and present

A producer produced something in the distant past.
A producer today is producing something else with the same name as what the person in the past produced. 
Both producers’ names begin with the same two letters in the same order.
Their third letters are adjacent in the alphabet, as are their fourth letters. 
Who are these two producers?
What did and do they produce?

Appetizer Menu

Just Try Beating These Conundrums Appetizer:
Political, performing & professional animals

🥁1. Think of an animal associated with a political stance. Reverse its letters and the result when spoken aloud will sound like a French 101 word that has no letters in common. Next, think of an animal associated with an opposing political stance. Drop the last letter and reverse what remains to get an acronym for a type of media service.
🥁2. Name a professional medical title in three letters, all consonants. Distribute three of the same vowel amongst these letters to name an animal.

🥁3. Name something you might see at a carnival, in two words, four and four letters. The two words share three letters which can form either the name of a carnival performance or a performing animal, and the two unique letters can form where a performer might have to go if they work without a net.
🥁4. Think of a word for “eats quickly” in five letters. Shift each letter six places later in the alphabet to name a hairstyle.

MENU

Don’t Worry Be Happy Slice:
Keeping the hotel-owner happy 

Name something homeowners are not happy to see. It’s a two-syllable compound word. Split the word and then spoonerize its two parts. 
The result is what hotel-owner President Donald Trump might be happy to see as the role of Congressman Devin Nunes.
What are homeowners not happy to see?
What might Donald Trump be happy to see as Devin Nunes’s role?



Riffing Off Shortz And Nardo Slices:
“The unbearable lightness of Beijing”

Will Shortz’s March 29th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Raymond Nardo of Mineola, New York, reads:
Here’s an April Foolish puzzle. Think of a world capital. Drop the third and fourth letters, and keeping the remaining letters in order you’ll name a state. What state is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Nardo Slices read:
ENTREE #1
Remove the first letter from a region in France to form the surname of a conductor and violinist associated with Philadelphia. 
Rearrange the letters in this surname to form the first name of a puzzle-maker. The letters in a pair of conjunctions that are often separated by a forward/slash can be rearranged  to form the puzzle-maker’s surname.
Who is this puzzle-maker?
What are the region in France and the surname of conductor and violinist associated with Philadelphia?
What are the two conjunctions?
Hint: The puzzle-maker’s screen name followed by his surname forms the first name of a “Renaissance Man” who actually lived up to the title.
ENTREE #2
Think of a world capital. Delete the third and fourth letters, keep the remaining letters in order and add two spaces. 
As a result you’ll have three words that follow the word “blind...” in a common idiomatic phrase. 
What is the world capital?
What is the idiomatic phrase?
ENTREE #3
Think of a noun that might be used as a category heading for lever, pulley, screw or wedge, for four examples. 
Drop the third and fourth letters and, keeping the remaining letters in order, you’ll name a state. 
What state is it?
ENTREE #4
Think of a word John Donne used in a poem about islands and tolling bells. 
Drop three consecutive interior letters and, keeping the remaining letters in order, you’ll name a state. 
What state is it?
ENTREE #5 
Name a word for blasphemy or desecration, for example, or for any transgression against religion. 
Drop four letters, and keeping the remaining letters in order you’ll name a state. 
The four letters you drop can be arranged to form the first name of people surnamed Hubbell and Sagan. 
What state is it?
What is the word for blasphemy or desecration?
ENTREE #6
Think of a synonym of “bewilder.” 
Drop three consecutive letters that can be rearranged to form a word for someone celebrated in May, and keeping the remaining letters in order you’ll name a state. 
What state is it?
ENTREE #7
Think of a sonnet by John Milton whose eight-word title is also the first line of the sonnet. But the sonnet is also popularly known by a three-word title that does not appear in the sonnet at all (although the second word does make an appearance). 
The third of those three title words is a nine-letter noun to which Milton alludes (but does not mention) in the sonnet. 
Drop four consecutive letters from the interior of this third word and, keeping the remaining letters in order, you’ll name a state. 
What state is it?

Dessert Menu

Fashion Plate Dessert:
Women’s Wear Dai... Doubly Described 


Name something usually worn by women, in six letters. 
Two shorter words, that are spelled the same except for their final letter, often function as adjectives that describe this thing. 
What are these three words?
Note: One of the adjectives is a “less common spelling” of a one-letter-shorter adjective, according to Merriam-Webster.
Hint: An anagram of what is usually worn by women is an antonym of a word for pages of a book with numbers that are evenly divisible by two.

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.