Sunday, December 15, 2013

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 8, 2013): This City is Going Places

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Dec 8, 2013): This City is Going Places:
Q: Name a U.S. city in nine letters. Shift the third letter six places later in the alphabet. Then shift the last letter seven places later in the alphabet. The result will be a family name featured in the title of a famous work of fiction. What is the city, and what is the family name?
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinski"

Edit: My hints were relations (as in "The Brothers...") and woman as in "I've got a Gal in..."
A: KALAMAZOO --> KARAMAZOV

144 comments:

  1. Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

    You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It really was oval of them. At least she was an adult. Had she been younger, I suppose she would have been an Oval Teen.

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    2. ron and Blaine,
      “Lewinskis”: The story of young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s infatuation with slaloming on the Catskills slopes before he discovered hoops*
      “Lewinskys”: The behind-the-scenes story of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar;s role in “Airplane!”
      SDB,
      What you did there in your post is what we in the world of hoops* call “creating your own shot,” like LA/KA-J did with his skyhook.
      * an allusion to last week’s puzzle… Lew sure could hula at luaus!
      Lego…

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    3. My wife refers to the neighbor's kid, who graduated high school this year, as the last girl in America named Monica.

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. The answer to this week's challenge is another re-run of the answer to a "relatively recent" previous challenge.

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    Replies
    1. You might say that the two puzzles are close relatives of one another.

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    2. KALAMAZOO, Michigan becomes KARAMAZOV,
      the family from Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov."

      Will used this same city as the answer to the challenge of August 5, 2012. See:

      http://www.npr.org/2012/08/12/158632539/in-the-end-there-will-be-chemistry

      I presume that CJI's brand is the GIBSON Kalamazoo Electric Guitar and NOT Phil J's KAZOO! and that it is Chuck's GIBSON that has appreciated in value, not his kazoo.

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  4. Remove four consecutive letters from the city name. The result, in order, will name something that some of you may have.

    (Sorry, I thought that the first version of my clue gave away too much.)

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    Replies
    1. Phil J.
      That guy who painted melting clocks got an A in art and took the opportunity to tweak his moniker, thereby creating quite a buzz that surrounded him the rest of his life. So he had that goin’ for him…
      Lego…

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    2. Isn't there a musical about his life?

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    3. Hello Dali? Haha Now that's a keeper!

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    4. BTW, PhilJ, I have 3. One for me and for each of my 2 grandsons. Some things tend to run in families

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    5. Not at all, being a Beatles fan I got it and thought it was clever.

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  5. Thank you, ron, for confirming my suspicion that this is another re-run.

    Could it be that Will is finding it increasingly difficult to juggle his duties at the Times, his commitment to NPR, all that table tennis, and his visits to crossword tournaments around the country, etc.?

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    Replies
    1. Bob, I remember seeing the show at the Ice House in Pasadena 30 years ago.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Musical clue: Paul McCartney.

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    1. Ruth,
      Nice enigmatic clue. Along similar labyrinthine lines, an entrepreneurial clue: Jeff Bezos (if I catch the drift of your Post).
      Lego…

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    2. Dunno, Lego. Every time I hear or read "Bezos," I cant help but break into singing "Besa Me Mucho," which I'm sure Sir Paul didn't record.

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    3. A fitting clue for the anniversary of John Lennon's death, though he had nothing to do with this.

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    4. Quando para mucho mi amore de felice ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uTOpOTqVn0

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    5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdRdqp4N3Jw

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    6. Oh wow, you're right. JL's birthday and my second favorite song from Abbey Road.

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    7. Sadly, it's not John's birthday but the day he died.

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    8. And to think I almost made a lame "sayonara" joke yesterday.

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    9. Ruth,
      And, regarding your “Besa Me Mucho” comment, don’t forget “Eso Beso,” Paul Anka’s 1962 hit (and crossword puzzle answer), and Jeezo-Beezo!, the late college football coach Jim Wacker’s favorite exclamation. I don’t think Sir Paul recorded Eso Beso, either, although his taste in musical styles is reasonably broad. I do think it was Little Richard who recorded Jeezo-Beezo, the B-Side to Tutti-Frutti.
      Jeezo-BeezoLambda

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    10. My cursory research indicates that the flip-side of Tutti-Frutti is I'm Just A Lonely Guy.

      Correct me if I'm wrong.

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    11. Paul,
      Thank you for your post. No correction is necessary because you are correct, sir. But perhaps a clarification is in order:
      It is true that “(I’m) Just a Lonely Guy” is the ENGLISH translation of the Scattish-language “Jeezo-beezo.” Scattish is commonly spoken (and sung) largely by jazz singers, Alvy Singers, some rock-n-roll and doo-wop singers, and certain certified public accountants. It is seldom written down, except on some Ella Fitzgerald and Little Richard B-Sides and on this particular blog post.
      In Scattish, Jeez = just, o = a, bee = lonely and zo = guy. Specialty Records insisted that the English title be used to avoid printing Scattish-language titles on both sides of Richard’s 45-rpm disk. Tutti-Frutti, which in Italian means “all fruits,” in Scattish means something entirely different, and something entirely unprintable on a family-friendly blog like Blaine’s. This unprintability is the main reason Specialty acquiesced to using Tutti-Frutti on its A-Side label instead of the risky English alternative. Suffice to say that the Tutti Frutti lyric “A wop bom a loo mop a lomp bam boom” is a Scattish phrase that translates loosely into English as “May I bring my fishing pole into this restroom stall?” (Indeed, many English words have Scattish roots. Interestingly enough, our word “bamboo” is spelled nearly identically with its Scattish cognate.)
      And so, Paul you are technically correct. “I’m Just a Lonely Guy” may well be the title printed on the label. But Jeezo-Beezo shall be ever etched on my heart (ouch!).
      Jeez-o-zo,
      Lego…

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    12. WW, I stand corrected and ashamed. Of course December 8th is the day John was assassinated; his birthday is in October (9th?). I know this. I knew this when I made the erroneous blog entry. How could I?

      Delete
    13. Ruth, it's ok. No shaming intended, just to remember a marvelous musician and the sadness he was killed so early in his journey.



      Delete
  7. My current list of cities is pretty limited. OK for some uses, but not this. Can some kind person give me the URL of where I can find a useful list?

    Chuck

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks, Ron. Looks like it might be a useful site for many purposes.

    Chuck

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  9. As usual, the puzzle was easy, figuring out Blaine's hint is tough. But I can think of an uncharacteristically non-family-friendly way it could clue the previous puzzle with this puzzle's answer.

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  10. This puzzle has a timely connection with the recent beer name puzzle.

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  11. I think the answer is as simple as A-B-C-D.

    Chuck

    P.S. I don’t think Will is deliberately recycling puzzles. I don’t think he’s geeked out with the latest database software. More of a memory and paper record-keeping kind of guy. And I think he sometimes just forgets that a new puzzle is the same as – or very similar to – a previous puzzle. But credit where credit’s due. He’s been doing this once a week for a gazillion years. Under the circumstances I think he does a pretty good job of keeping the puzzles original.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chuck,
      I agree Will deserves credit. Cranking out fresh weekly puzzles seems a daunting challenge and, as Bob K. noted earlier, this is not his only gig or interest. Will creates some puzzles himself, I think, and receives (solicits? purchases?) puzzles from professional puzzlemeisters occasionally. But I doubt he has a staff of puzzle-writers at his disposal, as Leno, Letterman etc. have joke-writing staffs.
      I don’t know, of course, but I imagine he must get scores of puzzles submitted by amateurs (see my late post last week). I think I read that he is flooded with NYT crossword puzzle submissions, and can publish only a small percentage. It’s probably the same with the NPR puzzle: Every week he’s inundated by haystacks of submissions followed by the time-consuming task of sifting though the worthless straws in search of golden needles, which may not even exist.
      To refract the metaphor a bit, we in Blainesville clamor for Will to bestow weekly gifts of gold upon us. We complain when all we get is frankincense or myrrh. Is it possible there is just very little gold left to mine? I’m trying to better appreciate the gifts Will -- and Blaine too, by the way -- give us not just once a year but once a week. They are, it seems to me, wise men.
      Lego…

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    2. Or, at the very least, wise guys ;-).

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    3. Touche, WW. And who knows wise guys better than bloggers on this site?
      Lego…

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    4. Chuck,
      Looks like you found Ron's suggestion helpful, as did I.
      However: Balckfoot, and Texarcana?
      Even so, a gift that keeps on giving?

      Delete
  12. This is definitelya semi-repeat, in that the answer is similar, but not identical, to a previous puzzle. My musical hint is any number of popular musicians known to have played a brand of instrument founded in this city. Note: this is a brand, not a type of instrument.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I still own mine. It keeps appreciating in value :)

      Chuck

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  13. Broncos clinched a playoff spot today. They beat the Titans today: 51 to 28.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F09cEk_PYfs

      Part 2 of 8; ukulele(aka saxophone) appears at 0:51

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  14. I’m a big Salinger devotee (J.D., not Pierre so much) so I worked backwards on this one. Caulfield? It’s nine letters long. Alas Caolfielw is a city not in the U.S. but in Mytholoslavia. (It is situated about 70 kilometers inland from that country’s Adriatic port cities of Sjlbvdnzv and Grzny.) Okay then, how about Salinger’s Glass family? That broke down too. Too short by four. I’m shattered. Good luck solving this one my khaveyrim.
    Lego…

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Is that the Glass family that had the menagerie?

      Everybody's got somethin' to hide, 'cept for me and my monkey.

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    2. Why is it no one has, as of yet, answered the question of whether the Glass Menagerie was half full or half empty?

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    3. If you haven't got a glass of nog,
      A half a glass'll do;
      If you haven't got a half a glass ...

      Well, you know.

      In case I forget, and/or things get goofy here:

      Merry Christmas, skydiveboy, and hopes for ever happier new years!

      Delete
    4. Thanks, and I return the sentiments. Now it's time to Philip my Glass and propose a toast that we not leave our glasses half empty. Waist not; drink more.

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    5. I hear that Sea World features a Squid Menagerie.
      Paul, regarding your words, “In case … things get goofy here.” Too late.
      But not too late to echo your Yuletide sentiments, although perhaps too early.
      Lego…

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  15. WW, to answer your query from last week (I was away from all computers for a few days) The statements I love you, i'm sorry, etc. are part of the Ho'opono (sp?) which is an affirmation started by a therapist from Hawaii and was taught to me and fellow performers from a Hawaiian member of our company. Anyhow refers to Niihau, the forbidden island that I want to visit.

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    Replies
    1. R e a l l y glad you explained that one, RoRo! Hope you get to Niihau.

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    2. Hoʻoponopono, but who's counting? I'm just hoping you're not tee'd off @ me for trampling in with that aloha business.

      BTW, if either of you ladies has not yet listened to Nick Lowe's performance on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! ...
      I corazonally recommend it.

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    3. Thanks, Paul. I enjoyed Nick Lowe. He was prescient about the guy stranded on an airplane over the weekend.

      Delete
  16. I wrote a quick program to solve this, are there rules against posting links to my code? Doesn't spit out the right answer, simply prints all potentials.

    I also found that my hometown of Philadelphia has some bearing on this week's answer.

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  17. There is a musical connection to the answer city and a city that can be spelled using all of the letters of part of a recent answer, each letter repeated the same number of times.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks for putting up the displaced alphabets, Blaine, very helpful in confirming the answer. Why do I keep getting Barnum and Bailey in my head when I think of this family?!

    Yes, WW, Oct. 9th was my favorite Beatle's birthday. Libra, always fair, and a Dragon! Paul is a Gemini Horse, both vain and self-centered signs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What do you make of a Leo Snake?

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    2. I really don't know, but I bet it tastes like chicken.

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    3. Hey!!!! I'm not through with it yet!

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  19. Sorry so late y'all. Ahs jes over here a'playin possum. Have a Merry Christmas season as you deck the halls. :-)
    Po ol good ol zeke.

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    Replies
    1. zeke, it looks like great minds think alike, and so do ours.

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    2. David
      By the time my mediocre mind negates your prowess it will all come out in the wash.

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    3. Hey Zeke: s8tt10@gmail.com, let's meet at Young's some time.

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    4. Sounds good, bromigo. How about when the weather breaks? I'll send my email.

      Delete
  20. Oh, brother--a gal I know told me that was easy.

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  21. I think everyone needs a new puzzle. How are the following numbers arranged? 0,2,3,6,7,1,9,4,5,8

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    Replies
    1. They are in reverse alphabetical order.

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    2. Bravo. Not that difficult...

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    3. Good, because I was beginning to think you might be lysdexic.

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    4. Bravo, ron, for posting the puzzle. I don't know how Blaine and our fellow bloggers feel about posting puzzles here but I am all for it. After all, challenging, clever and elegant puzzles are what floats our blog.
      Bravo, WW and skydive boy, were those replies prompt! And in SDB’s case, a lightning-quick solve. It takes me ten minutes just to prove I’m not a robot. (Ironic, isn’t it that Al Gore cannot participate in Blaine’s and other blogs. And he invented the Internet!)
      WW, it is not so that ron’s number sequence was arranged from right to left alphabetically? Alas, we live in a left-to-right nation, which means America will eventually be taken over by the political progeny of Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz.
      Okay, SDB and others, try this sequence:
      3,9,1,0,2,10,7,4,8
      Lego…

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    5. LL, I was being sassy. Will ponder your puzzle (no sass)..

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    6. (working on fracking for tomorrow)...when you put a comment in < > it does not post--ha!

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    7. If it were:

      3,9,1,10,7,0,2,4,8

      (legolambda's puzzle with 10,7 changing places with 0,2), you could insert the missing 5 and 6 as:

      3,9,1,5,10,7,0,2,4,8,6

      I guess this is a new puzzle.

      Delete
    8. To WW, SDB, David and anyone else who spent (is spending) time solving my number sequence puzzle: Mea maxima culpa!
      I didn’t realize I had excluded the 5 until I read David’s post about them being missing. I meant to exclude the 6 because I thought that would make it too easy to solve.
      That might have been okay, but then I read the rest of David’s post more carefully and noticed that I had goofed big time by putting (0,2) in front of (10,7). In effect, David corrected my sequence, posting it as I should have posted it, then added the 5 and 6 in their correct places. He solved my flawed puzzle. His “new puzzle” is the puzzle I meant to post. Pretty darn impressive! My hat is off to David. He deserves my congratulations. He and the rest of you deserve my apologies. It was very irresponsible of me.
      Lego…

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    9. Okay, I got it now. Backwards spelling of the words for 0 - 10 put in alphabetical order.

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    10. LL (C?)

      What are we going to do with you?

      IIIIVXXX lashes with a wet noodle. ;-)

      Word Slar Emun Namor Woman

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    11. SDB, That’s it. You’re a pretty good solver of non-bogus puzzles. Regarding your “CIA BIGDH,” if it is a puzzle I need a hint.
      WW, Yeah, C as in Chump of the Century. IIIIVXXX (XIXXX?) lashes with a wet lasagna noodle might actually raise some well-deserved welts…chmerz. I was baffled by Slar Emun Namor, so I googled it. Two results, including some Indonesian document. I feel enigmatized by my cyberfreinds. But I also feel grateful not to be stigmatized by them.
      Lego…

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    12. Lego:
      Not a puzzle, but an attempted answer to your incomplete puzzle. I simply gave each number a corresponding value according to its location in the alphabet, with 0 being a space. It seemed to be working at first, but the last two letters didn't make sense, but I posted anyway. When you first posted your puzzle, I assumed it was in some way similar to the former bandit puzzle, but was not getting anywhere fast, so I looked elsewhere. Thank God for alcohol. As I posted once before, I think, I ordered a bowl of alphabet soup in a bistro once and considered myself a man of letters. And then when I complained to the waiter that there was a fly in my soup, he correctly pointed out that in fact it said, ant.

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    13. No worries, Lego. (Are you always so hard on yourself?) Think backwards, think to previous puzzles, and then well, well, well...think about fracking (posted part 1 of 2).

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    14. The Merry Rose,

      You were wrong to think my numbers were arranged "left to right." As Lego & SDB indicated, they were, in fact, to be read RIGHT to LEFT.

      If two wrongs don't make a right, try three! And three lefts will make a right!

      Delete
    15. After I solved it I thought about posting that WW's answer was wrong, but before I solved it I had also thought about posting that they were upright. This would also have been wrong, as they were upleft.

      Delete
    16. Nor Ron,
      I was just being sassy about "how the following numbers are arranged" in space. I was thinking of Arabic where the commas go the other direction so one knows they have been arranged right to left.

      Interpreting the meanings and arranging them are, to me, different. And the comma direction provides a clue to number arrangement. But, I don't wish to quibble, sir, as, indeed, it is a merry time here in Colorado (56 degrees at the moment!).

      Word (YssaS) Woman

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    17. WW,

      Sometimes it is "interpreting the meaning behind the arrangement" that is called for. No need to respond to this. We all respect your wit, cleverness, knowledge and intelligence here. Please keep on doing what you do. A big fan.

      ron

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    18. Thank you, ron.

      Alluvially,
      Word Woman

      Delete
  22. If one fails to solve this week's puzzle, what kind of charges will be brought against us by the authorities? And what will be the price we have to pay for our transgressions?

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  23. Banishment to the Island of Misfit Toys, infidel.

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  24. Musical clue: Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny.

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  25. Although as has been pointed out, this week's puzzle is closely related to a past puzzle, I find it fiendishly clever of Blaine to have the closely related past puzzle and its answer never showing up if you go back to the Blaine's Puzzle Blog main page and then keep selecting the "Older Posts" link at the bottom. You just go right past the week in which the closely related puzzle and its answer appeared!

    Anyone remember when I once gave the hint "Mmmmm, I love onions!"?

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  26. KALAMAZOO & KARAMAZOV

    My Hint:

    "This puzzle has a timely connection with the recent beer name puzzle."

    Miller beer has the slogan, "It's Miller Time." Glenn Miller had "a gal in Kalamazoo."

    I at first thought I would need to wade through lists to solve this one, but I solved it while still in bed just by thinking of cities with nine letters. I focused on vowels at first, but then gave up on that and got the answer, so I enjoyed this puzzle somewhat.

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  27. KALAMAZOO >>> KARAMAZOV

    Blaine mentioned "that woman" in his clue. I went with "That Girl," Marlo Thomas. Thomas was a tie to Nathan Thomas, a doctor in Kalamazoo County, who helped over 1000 slaves in the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad, in turn, tied back to another Dostoyevsky work, Notes from Underground.

    That was fun and, hopefully, timely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Apparently, WW, you've explored an erudite deposit or two in your time.

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    2. Yes, Paul, but I started at the shallower Marlo Thomas and worked my way deeper. Marlo and Mary TM were the only adult women in situation comedies that intrigued me. Though I never figured out how they could afford all those clothes on their salaries.



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  28. KALAMAZOO > KARAMAZOV

    > Musical clue: Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny.

    I was suprised to learn that Margaret Wise Brown (who, sadly, died the year I was born) co-wrote the lyrics to KALAMAZOO to Timbuktu.

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    Replies
    1. My son still considers Goodnight Moon his favorite book. A quarter of a century into his life. . .

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    2. I have no faith at all in any supernatural power, but I find it curious how often we all find time to post at exactly 12:00 PST / 1:00 MST / 3:00 EST every Thursday. Looking at my schedule from yesterday, I see no break in the parade of patients, and yet...

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  29. My Clue: "near giveaway"; Will used this same city as the answer to the challenge of August 5, 2012. See:

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  30. The only significant word in my comment was "juggle", a reference to the Flying Karamazov Brothers (which was immediately picked up by lorenzo and skydiveboy.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually when I first read your post I did not make the connection as I read it quickly. Later, when I came up with a hint (similar to yours) I recalled your post, but not that you had used "juggle" and posted my hint. When I re-read your post, I realized I was stepping on your toes and deleted my hint. I should have been more careful before I posted. And I thought I was clever with my hint. ha ha on me.

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  31. In the cartoon Pogo, Walt Kelly wrote the following, to the tune of Deck the Halls:

    Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
    Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
    Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
    Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

    Using the unique letters from the recent answer luau (LUA), 4 times each, and rearranging, you get Walla Walla (if you use UU to be W). I did say I was cheating.

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  32. Kalamazoo, Karamazov

    Last Sunday I said, “I think the answer is a simple as A-B-C-D.” As in the song title and lyric, “A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.” You can see/hear Glenn Miller’s version at

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TurG8WeEQk4

    Chuck

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  33. My clues this week:
    1. “I hear that Sea World features a Squid Menagerie.”
    Squid = calamari; menagerie = zoo; “calamari-zoo” echoes Kalamazoo.
    2. I complimented Ruth on her “nice enigmatic clue,” Paul McCartney. I thought she was refering to what is generally considered his best solo effort, “Maybe I’m Amazed.” AMAZed echoes kalAMAZoo. My entrepreneurial clue was Jeff Bezos, founder of AMAZOn.com., which also echoes kalAMAZOo.
    3. I responded to Phil J.’s Ka(lama)zoo clue with a similar but more tortured clue in the same vein: “That guy who painted melting clocks (DALI) got an A in art and took the opportunity to tweak his moniker (dalAi, as in Dalai LAMA), thereby creating quite a buzz (KA-ZOO) that surrounded him the rest of his life. So he had that goin’ for him…” Salvador Dali becomes the Dalai Lama. Thus KA-LAMA-ZOO. “So he had that goin’ for him” paraphrases the final line in Bill Murray’s anecdote about “the Lama” in the movie Caddyshack.
    4. My very obscure clue about trying to solve Will’s puzzle using J.D. Salinger’s Glass family “ broke down” and I was “shattered“ just like wine glasses, by custom, at some Jewish weddings. After which wedding guest shout “Mazel Tov!” Yiddish for Good luck, And which faintly echoes the ending of “Karamazov.” Thus “Good luck” solving this one my khaveyrim (Yiddish for “friends”).
    Lego…

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  34. Playing (Pogo) possum.
    Deck the halls...Kalamazoo.
    Po ol good ol zeke...Pogo.
    It will all come out in the (walla walla) wash.
    Banished to the Island for misfit DosTOYSevsky.

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  35. Maybe I'm stating the obvious. I noted the gentleman that submitted the puzzle was from Michigan. I found a list of nine letter city names, then went with ones from Michigan.
    My real question is, when is the best time to submit the answer? As soon as one solves it, or on Thursday morning?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you're gonna pay attention like that, where's the challenge? My wife's grandmother used to sniff at Olympic figure skaters: "They practice."

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    2. Good question! Perhaps you should ask Nancy Reagan's astrologer for the answer. And while you're at it, please find out for me when and where the next Witness Protection Program Convention will be held.

      Delete
    3. I started with a list of all US cities, carved out a list of 9-letter cities, and got tired and gave up long before I got to Kalamazoo. Maybe there was some trick I wasn't getting? Is "Ft. Worth" 9 letters long if you spell out "Fort"and ignore the space? So, I quit thinking about it, and the answer came to me while I was taking a shower, as it often does. My question: does it come down through the shower head, or up from the drain?

      If brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough.

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    4. "Nature's Answer Shampoo" always works for me, Jan.

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    5. Aha!, so, you are cheating!

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    6. I think it's the temple rubbing. It's just not the same at church ;-).

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    7. Come on, jan! Even I know the answer to that, although I don't watch TV, let alone "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall. The answer is always behind the curtain!

      Delete
    8. A one-word post, lego? Is something wrong? ;-)

      Delete
    9. WW,
      Nothing at all’s wrong. I’m feelin’ fine. God’s in his or her heaven, all’s right with the world…
      Hello. My name is LegoLambda and I am a verboholic. In words drown I! Help! Throw me a Lifebuoy, a LifeSaver. No, not a stinkin’ bar of soap (which would float were it Ivory) or a toroidal candy/breath mint (or is that an unholy holeless wannabe like “Certs… two, two, two mints in one?”).
      I need a lifeline, Regis. I am an unwitting (that is, a witless) victim of verbosity and verbobesity. Most people have no trouble wrapping up their posts after using a modicum of words, even only two or three or a handful. But not I. I have an addiction to my own diction. I am compelled to wordify, to indulge in bulging blog posts.
      But I am heretofore turning over a new leaf of slimming Romaine lettuce. Let us all witness, please, that this very post is one step of twelve in the right direction. Though admittedly wordy, it is shorter than my median blog-post word count, roughly 378 calori… er, words.
      (Standard bogus conditional apology: I am sorry if I offended anyone involved in {“your addiction here“}-Anonymous support groups, which indeed perform the work of angels., rebuilding self-respect and relationships, saving lives and souls.)
      Leaner Meaner LeganonLambda…

      Delete
    10. Glad you are a-ok. You will understand if I say aa!, LL or ll? The capitalizing here on BB is a wee bit ponderous. If I try to write jan or ron, for example, predictive text fixes the text to Jan or Ron so I generally just leave it. Is this important to folks?

      Good luck on your word quest, Lego/lego. May a fourth be with you. ;-)

      WoRd WoMaN

      Delete
    11. WW,
      Capital, schmapital. Who Cares? Except maybe e.e. cummings. Here’s a limerick I wrote more than 40 years ago (in an issue of my college newspaper that was published entirely in lower case):
      a lament of some newsprint typesetters,
      “shortcummings have capital letters!”
      e.e. did erase
      by lowering his case
      thus becumming a man of short letters.
      lego…

      Delete
    12. l l :
      rather thought e e voking.

      Delete
  36. Any explanation of Blaine's clue?

    ReplyDelete
  37. For those of you who had never heard of the OSAGE ORANGE tree, watch CBS program "Elementary," the episode titled "Internal Audit," where this tree is featured, and which aired 12/12/13. See:

    http://www.cbs.com/shows/elementary/video/3wObFzWE_0Y9EpsOt_8k1vVcAK1_SjNy/elementary-internal-audit/



    ReplyDelete
  38. I posted on Thu Dec 12, at 04:12:00 AM PST:

    Although as has been pointed out, this week's puzzle is closely related to a past puzzle, I find it fiendishly clever of Blaine to have the closely related past puzzle and its answer never showing up if you go back to the Blaine's Puzzle Blog main page and then keep selecting the "Older Posts" link at the bottom. You just go right past the week in which the closely related puzzle and its answer appeared!

    Anyone remember when I once gave the hint "Mmmmm, I love onions!"?

    I believe it takes 7 clicks of "Older Posts" before "NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 5, 2012)" shows up. With that, no subject or title of that week's puzzle, only the note "The Cat is Away:" and an explanation that Blaine is away that week and a request to "Please play nicely and don't give the puzzle answer away."

    The actual NPR Sunday Puzzle for Aug 5, 2012 was "Take the name of a well-known U.S. city with four syllables. The first and last syllables together name a musical instrument, and the two interior syllables name a religious official. What city is it?" And the answer was Kalamazoo, MI; kazoo & lama.

    If you go to that thread, you'll see that I left there the following post:

    Thu Aug 09, 02:28:00 PM PDT

    I posted on Sun Aug 05, at 01:25:00 AM PDT:

    Mmmmm, I love onions!

    The song "I Love Onions", by Susan Christie, has a kazoo playing during part of the chorus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Love is a many-layered thing. . .and sometimes makes you cry (or takes you to Bermuda)?

      Delete
    2. Oh, yes, a berm where you'da expect to find love triangles.

      Delete
  39. So what's with this (fairly recent) addition to the puzzle segment, "Do you have a question for Will Shortz?" It's not enough that he is Crossword Editor for the Times and Puzzle Master for NPR? Now he is becoming a celebrity -- maybe the next step is to become an actor? Oh, wait, he has already done that, made a guest appearance on "How I Met Your Mother"!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So what would you ask Will?

      Think I will try submitting my answer later in the week. Maybe that's the golden ticket.

      Delete
  40. New puzzle is up: Name an island in which some of the letters appear more than once. Drop exactly two instances of each repeated letter. The remaining letters can be rearranged to name something to eat. What is it?

    ReplyDelete
  41. The answer came to me almost immediately, which is fortunate since lists of islands are thousands of entries long. There is a connection with last week's puzzle.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Reminds me of something that could go with a scene in "To Kill A Mockingbird."

    ReplyDelete

For NPR puzzle posts, don't post the answer or any hints that could lead to the answer before the deadline (usually Thursday at 3pm ET). If you know the answer, submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't assist with solving. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the deadline. Thank you.