Four creatures & a Beer Summit!” “It’s mathemultiplimatics time(s)!” The Night Of the Jackalanttern; “The Renaming of the ‘Shrewd’”; Portraits and house paintings; “Wooden shoe whittle a bit?”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Portraits and house paintings

Name a ten-letter word that describes a noun that is an anagram of its first four letters.

This ten-letter word also describes a portrait of a person (who is not the Mona Lisa) painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and a “house painting” by Paul Klee. Replace two vowels in the word with different vowels and add a space to form two major world cities.

 What are this ten-letter word and two world cities?

Appetizer Menu

Note: This week’s Appetizer was composed by a valued Puzzleria! contributor and “occasional correspondent,” and inspired by and assembled from bits and pieces encountered here and there. Our thanks.

Bits & Pieces Appetizer:

Four creatures & a Beer Summit! 

Turning Minerals into Menaces

1. 🐻🦁Take the name of a soft primordial metal. Add to it the name of a human body part to make a compound word. Then take the name of a hard gemstone. Add to it the name of another body part to make another compound word. 

The two compound words are the names of creatures that most people would not likely want to meet in the wild by surprise. 

What are these creatures?

“Creature Chopping”

2. 🪓Take a legendary “Old World” surname/title in nine letters. It contains a legendary creature. 

Draw a handy chopper and hack the creature into three parts. 

Take the first half and last third of the creature, add the first letter of the surname, and arrange all those letters to identify a word much in the news currently and which will likely be prominent in the news in the coming months. 

What are the surname, creature, and word? 

Transported from Century to Century

3.💮🎕Take the one-word title of a first-half-of-the 20th-Century-foot-mode-of-transport song named for a flowering plant. 

Change the second letter of the title to a letter that sounds like one of the creatures mentioned in the song. Change a vowel in the title to another vowel. The result is an increasingly popular 21st Century mode of transport. 

What is that mode of transport?

What is the song named for a flowering plant? 

“Summit Beer Beer Summit?”

4. 🍻Take the name of a well known legendary locale which does not appear on conventional maps but which is described in literature and on screen and which was once claimed by a U.S. President to be the site of a secret base. 

Remove two consonants, the first and second initials of the “presidential pal participant” in the “Beer Summit.” 

The remaining letters, in order from left to right, spell a probably tasty beverage, though its etymology might sound vaguely distasteful.

What are the locale and the beverage?

MENU

Operational Hors d’Oeuvre:

“It’s mathemultiplimatics time(s)!”

Six times forty-three equals 258. But six times forty-three also equals 258 when you apply to it a mathematical operation other than multiplication. 

What is that operation, and how does six times forty-three equal 258 when it is applied?

Scrunchy Slice:

“The Renaming of the ‘Shrewd’”

Take a synonym of “more shrewd” or “more in the know.” 

Scrunch two letters together to form one new letter. Replace the next letter with the only letter in the alphabet that rhymes with it. 

The result is the surname of a fictional character that this synonym describes. 

What is this synonym? 

Who is the character? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Chaikin Slices:

The Night Of the Jackalanttern

Will Shortz’s October 8th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Californian Andrew Chaikin of San Francisco, reads:

Think of a mammal, an insect, and a bird, in that order — six, three, and four letters, respectively. Say them out loud and you’ll
name something often seen around this time of year. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Chaikin Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Think of three words for three birds, in three, four and six letters. Rearrange their combined letters and you’ll name a puzzle-maker. What are these three words?

Who is the puzzle-maker?

Hint: The six-letter word is a French word for a bird. In English, it means  a false or unfounded report or story, or a groundless rumor or belief.  But if you replace the last letter of this French word with a “y”, the result is an English word for a bird.

Note: Our Entree #2 riff-off was created and contributed by Ecoarchitect whose “Econfusions” is featured regularly on Puzzleria!

Entree #3 is the brainchild of Rudolfo, whose “Puzzles Rudolfo” also appears on Puzzleria!

Entree #4 was authored by Plantsmith whose “Garden of Puzzley Delights” is also a Puzzlerian mainstay.

ENTREE #2

Think of a mammal, an insect, and a bird, in that order, in  six, three, and four letters, respectively. Say them aloud and you’ll name three kinds of balls often seen around this time of year during a series of sparkling ballpark-diamond events culminating in The Fall Classic. 

What are this mammal, insect and bird?

ENTREE #3

Think of a mammal, an insect, and a bird, in that order, in  six, three, and four letters, respectively. 

Say them out loud and it will sound as if you are repeating the name of the mammal.

What are these three creatures?

ENTREE #4

Place two animals – a fish and bird, in three and four letters – one after the other to name what sounds like something you might do during the cold and flu season.

What are this fish and bird?

What might you do during the cold and flu season?

Extra Credit: Now, insert into this cold-and-flu-season practice a Yiddish interjection used especially to express exasperation or dismay. The result is a spout on a building in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure that “vomits” rainwater from its mouth. What is this spout?

ENTREE #5

Think of three words: 

* a bird (6 letters); 

* the color of Eastern Phoebes, Townsend’s Solitaires Mourning Doves and Canada Geese (4 letters); 

* and a formation in which Canada Geese oft fly (3 letters). 

Say them aloud and you’ll name something
often seen around this time of year. 

What are this bird, color and formation?

What is often seen around this time of year?

ENTREE #6

Think of a six-letter insect and the five-letter nickname of one particular living human mammal (with “The...”), in that order. 

The result is the title of a 35-year-old “Halloweenish” horror movie that is scheduled to spawn a sequel a year from now.

What are this insect and nickname?

What is the  “Halloweenish” horror movie title? 

ENTREE #7

Name an insect to which Hotspur refers twice in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” – once as a three-letter common term and and once as an seven-letter archaic term. 

Rearrange the letters of the plural form of the
three-letter term. 

Place a character in “Othello” after the result to spell a world capital city. 

What are these terms for the same insect?

What is the capital city?

ENTREE #8

Place the name of a game animal in front of an invasive bird species that poses a threat to biodiversity, both in four letters. 

Add to the end of this result the first and last letters of a word for “a medical doctor who treats non-human animals,” forming a 10-letter string.

Take the last eight letters and place a hyphen in the middle to spell the name of a traditional annual more-than-century-old rivalry game.

If you instead remove the middle-six letters from the 10-letter string, the result is a collective noun for a group of game birds.

What are the game animal and invasive bird species?

What is the medical doctor who treats non-human animals?

What is the traditional rivalry game?

ENTREE #9

Take the surname of the writer who is known for “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me!” followed by the writer known for “There is no there there” to spell someone often seen around this time of year. 

Who are these two writers and timely someone?

Hint: A writer whose surname is a homophone the second writer’s surname is known as “the Stephen King of children’s literature.”

ENTREE #10

Place next to one another two fruits with similar shapes but with different colors, in three words, four syllables and 12 letters. 

The second and third syllables spell a
mammal.

Invert the 11th letter. The 6th, 10th, inverted 11th and the 10th letters spell a third fruit with a shape similar to the two other fruits but, again, with a color that is different.

 What are the three fruits with similar shapes?

What is the mammal?

ENTREE #11

Name a mammal, a heathful food for that mammal, and a beverage – in six, three and three letters. 

Say these three words aloud and you’ll name a fictional character whose “everyman sidekick” and squire uses this mammal as his mode of transport. 

What are this mammal, food and beverage?

Who are this character and his sidekick?

ENTREE #12

Name a black-and-white 1950’s science fiction monster film, in four letters followed by a punctuation mark. 

Place after it a word for a taste sensation that has a rich flavor characteristic of cheese, cooked meat, mushrooms, soy, and ripe tomatoes. Remove that word’s middle letter.

Remove the film’s punctuation mark, which resembles an inverted version of the last letter in the word for the taste sensation. Replace this last letter with the only letter in the alphabet that rhymes with it.

The result is a black-and-white 1930’s action-adventure horror film starring Boris Karloff.

What are these two horror films?

What is the word for the taste sensation?

ENTREE #13

Take the first third of a six-letter cheeky rodent. Place a space after this, followed by a three-letter insect and a four-letter bird. Place a very short word between the words for the insect and the bird. The result is something someone may have said to Ben Franklin one June afternoon in 1752. 

What are this mammal, insect and bird?

What may someone have said to Ben Franklin?

Dessert Menu

Pinocchio Dessert:

“Wooden shoe whittle a bit?”

Anagram the letters of a two-word title character from a popular work of fiction to get a two-word synonym of “wooden shavings” that might have been a byproduct of the book’s creation. What is this synonym of “wooden shavings?” 

Who is the title character?       

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.

Are pears, oft pared, oft paired? Sins?... No, signs of omission! “Citified” television personalities; 12th Night and hour... and number! “Koalamazoo?” “Kalanmazoo?” “Patrick’s thirty-second Cryptic Crossword is no thirty-second solve!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Are pears, oft pared, oft paired?

Name a pair of often-paired foods. 

Change the first letter of one to a letter that doesn’t change that food’s pronunciation. 

Switch the initial letters of the result to spell a pair of synonyms. 

What are these foods and synonyms?

Hint: Most people would say that the often-paired foods are not “junk food.”

Appetizer Menu

Promethean Appetizer:

“Patrick’s thirty-second Cryptic Crossword is no thirty-second solve!”

Patrick J. Berry’s 32nd Cryptic Crossword Puzzle on Puzzleria! poses a particularly Promethean challenge. 

Astute Puzzlerian!s will notice a certain similarity in a handful of Patrick’s 26 clues. This similarity is not a coincidence. Suffice it to say that, in my humble opinion, this is one of Patrick’s most amazing cryptic crosswords yet... and that’s saying something!

If you have missed any of Patrick’s previous 31 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

For those of you 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, (6) simply indicates a six-letter word like “puzzle,” (7,9) indicates a seven-letter and nine-letter answer like “cryptic crossword,” and (6-6) indicates a six-letter and six-letter hyphenated answer like “thirty-second.”

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!

Now, sit back on your sofa with a TV Dinner, turn on the tube and enjoy Patrick’s Cryptic Crossword #32: 

ACROSS

7. Starts once more to get booster shot?(7)

8. Favorite music fad from the 70s(3,4)

10. A soldier in trouble, being slow(6)

11. Significant 70s rock groups—one of them wasting energy, time?(8)

12. Drop drink and run(4)

13. I got rare, uh, “moves” in video game(6,4)

14. “Housewife” looking for stuff about what this puzzle doesn’t have?(6,5)

19. For example, her recording gets a little erotic, it’s clear(10)

22. Stone—some gem, maybe?(4)

23. Old dog, unmarried now, dating again?(3,5)

24. Wait for bits—no nonsense—in comic role(6)

25. “Housewife”, not perfect, gets very loud(7)

26. Start now, love(7)

DOWN

1. Worried, as trouble started(7)

2. “Housewife” could be liar? Go on!(8)

3. “Housewife” starts to toss recipes in air(6)

4. Sophisticated young lady, as it happens(8)

5. Depression, constantly missing husband(6)

6. Off-screen? Yes, getting set(7)

9. “Housewife” brings it up without hesitation:
“The chicken or the egg?”(4,7)

15. Walk with a purpose, initially, when in bar(8)

16. “Housewife”—the gal managed to get wild, defying the odds(8)

17. Some argumentative couple in hurry—hard to get away? Hard!(7)

18. Challenge writer’s vision(7)

20. Warn of it getting worse in New York(6)

21. “Housewife”—ultimately, man in drag?(6)

MENU

Sound & Fury “Signifying Nothing” Hors d’Oeuvre:

Sins? (No, signs!) of omission

Take a word for punctuation that points to an omission in the text. The word itself provides a partially omitted visual example of this punctuation mark. 

What is this word? 

What is the partially omitted example it provides?

Hint: A world capital, an island nation, and a synonym of shenanigans each provide a visual example of this punctuation that is not partially omitted.

Vidiot Box Slice:

“Citified” television personalities

Remove a letter and a space from the name of a TV personality to name a fictional TV show city. 

The surname of a related TV personality is a
non-fictional TV show city that is associated
with that fictional TV show. 

Who are these personalities? 

What are the fictional TV show city and non-fictional TV show city associated with it?

Riffing Off Shortz And Humphreys Slices:

“Koalamazoo?” “Kalanmazoo?”

Will Shortz’s October 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Jim Humphreys of Northampton, Massachusetts, reads: 

Name a well-known U.S. city in four syllables.
The first two syllables, with a letter inserted, will name an animal — one that might be found in the place named by the last syllable. 

What city is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Humphreys Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Take the aspect of music that comprises accent, meter, and tempo; a musical composition suggesting improvisation; and the first name of one of “The Three B’s.”

Rearrange the combined letters to spell the name of a puzzle-maker and his hometown.

Who is this puzzle-maker?What are the aspect of music, the musical composition, and the first name of one of “The Three B’s?”

Note: Entree #2 was composed by  a valued Puzzleria! contributor and “occasional correspondent.” Our thanks.

ENTREE #2

Think of a person whose surname sounds like a musical instrument and whose first name is an anagram of a body part. 

One football season during the 20th Century, this person led the nation in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, and points scored. One word in the name of the institution for which he played in college spells the name of a place where an animal might be found. This animal is associated with the person’s post-college career.  

Who is the person?  

In what place might the animal be found?  

What is the animal?

ENTREE #3

Name a U.S. city in four syllables that is in the title of a nearly-century old song. Rearrange the combined letters of this city to spell two animals and the name of a human animal. The human animal is associated with non-human animals, including those two. 

What city is it?

Who is the human?

What are the animals?

ENTREE #4

Name a well-known southern U.S. city in two words. Delete the last letter of the first word, resulting in the first and final words in a four-word song by a group in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

The two-word name of the group consists of two cities — one in New York State, the other a state capital. One of the cities is also the name of an animal.

What are the southern city and the rock group?

What is the song title?

What are the New York city and the state capital?

ENTREE #5

Name a well-known southern U.S. city in four syllables. Remove consecutive interior letters that spell the first name of a sitcom character. 

The remaining letters, after you remove the gap left by the removed letters, spell the first word of a comedy troupe. The surname of the sitcom character and second word of the comedy troupe begin with the same two letters.

What city is it?

Who is the sitcom character?

What is the comedy troupe?

ENTREE #6

Name two well-known U.S. cities — one in a Rocky Mountain state, the other an Appalachian Mountain state. 

The first city and the first syllable of the second city spell the name of a poet whose poems sometimes feature animals.

What cities are these?

Who is the poet?

Hint: Animals the poet wrote about include a cow, pig, duck, llama, fly and octopus.

ENTREE #7 

Name a well-known U.S. city in three syllables. Place duplicates of the last two letters at the end of the city. (For example, “Amarillo” would become “Amarillolo,” and “Honolulu” would become “Honolululu.”)

The first four letters of the result spell the name of an American disco band. The remaining letters, after you insert two hyphens, spell a synonym of the noun “disco.”

What city is it?

What is the name of the disco band?

What is the synonym of “disco”?

ENTREE #8

Name a not-so-well-known southern Californian city in two syllables. Changing a vowel in the city to a different vowel results in
the surname of a gifted album cover artist who was one-half of a rock duo who helped pioneer the “California Sound” and vocal surf music.

Delete the penultimate letter of the city. Move the last letter into the fourth position and place a space after it. The result is two synonyms of “scurried.”

What city is it?

What is the rock duo?

What are the synonyms of “scurried?”

ENTREE #9

Name a well-known U.S. West Coast city in four syllables and two words. 

The first two syllables, with a letter inserted, will name an animal — one that might be found in a brook at the foot of the place named by the last
syllable. 

What city is this?

What is the animal?

Hint #1: Change the eighth letter of the city to a different consonant to name a woman who portrayed Rosina, Violetta and Elisabetta. 

Hint #2: Delete the first letter and second word of the city, leaving the surname of a harmonious pair of brothers. 

ENTREE #10

Name a well-known U.S. capital city. Move the penultimate letter into the third position and rotate the last letter 180 degrees around its vertical (“y”) axis. The result is a kind of ear.

What is this city?

What is this kind of ear?

ENTREE #11

Name a well-known U.S. city, in two words, that is an oxymoronic term consisting of an adjective and noun. 

Spoonerize these words by interchanging their initial consonant sounds. Keep the vowel sounds the same as they were. Reverse the order of those spoonerized words. The result sounds like an edible item consisting of an adjective and noun. 

What is this city?

What is the edible item consisting of an adjective and noun?

Hint: The U.S. city is in a state with a smaller city whose name consists of seven consecutive letters that appear twice in the puzzle text.

ENTREE #12

Name a well-known U.S. city, in three syllables, in both Minnesota and New York State. 

Take the last three letters. Move them to the beginning, followed by a space. Change the third letter to an “h” and place it between the first two letters. 

The two-word result is an all-female folky vocal trio from New Jersey. 

What’s this city that’s in two states? 

What’s the folky vocal trio?

Dessert Menu

Sequential Dessert:

12th Night and hour... and number!

Name the twelfth number in the following sequence:

1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 9, 5, 1, 1, 10, __, __

Note: You might notice that we are not asking you to name the eleventh number in the sequence. 

That is because there are arguably as many as
four possible “correct-answer” numbers for that eleventh number – all plausible, but none definitive. 

Because of this ambiguity, you need not concern yourself with what those four “candidates” for the eleventh number might be... unless you want to, of course.

Hint: You may be bullish-green on a part of the accompanying image, but it may be a bit of a bearish-red herring, one that is also cardinal-red.

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.