NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 26, 2012): Famous Classical Composer: Q: Take the name of a popular children's character in nine letters. Several of its letters appear more than once in the name. Remove every duplication of a letter, so every letter that remains appears just once. This new set of letters can be rearranged to name a famous classical composer. Who is it?Wouldn't you like a hint?
Edit: "Wouldn't" sounds a little like "wooden"...
A: Pinocchio --> Chopin
Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via Google or Bing) 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.
ReplyDeleteYou 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.
I don't like to brag, but...my wife read the puzzle question before I arrived home from work tonight. She had her nose buried in "Classical Composers for Dummies" as I waltzed in the door and solved the puzzle in just 45 seconds. We need tougher challenges, Will!
ReplyDeleteKnock, knock.
DeleteAs posted at the end of last week's blog:
ReplyDeleteskydiveboy Sat Aug 25, 09:20:00 PM PDT
New puzzle is up and dumb, as usual, trust me.
I posted on last week's blog on Sun Aug 26, at 01:50:00 AM PDT, referencing a problem NPR is having on their website. Skydiveboy, Natasha, and I have been unable to submit our answers on NPR's site.
ReplyDeleteI have asked if anyone out there has been able to successfully post their submission.
Anyway I posted on last week's blog on Sun Aug 26, at 01:50:00 AM PDT:
Oh well, while we're waiting for NPR to fix their website,...
Musical Clue: Barry Manilow
Well my musical hint is Little Drummer Boy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the number of times Woody Allen keeps popping up as a hint is increasing by the week.
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DeleteOr it can name a pharmaceutical brand.
DeleteThis is the TOUGHEST puzzle ever!
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't post my answer either. Must be some dummies running that website.
I think the answer lies within the clue itself.
ReplyDeleteThere won't be very many submissions for the week if they take much longer to fix their web site so we can send in our answers.
ReplyDeleteBlaine knows the answer. And no, I wasn’t able to submit the answer either, just as others here have complained of.
ReplyDeleteChuck
Record time for the Ruthster on this one - 25 seconds tops? Good, now I can put it behind me and get back to studying.
ReplyDeleteAn even better clue: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
ReplyDeleteChuck
It's funny! I have given the name of this children's character to my boss!
ReplyDeleteHonest Abe!
DeleteLet me guess: you call your boss Charlotte.
DeleteBoy, the submission form is still not fixed. This'll cut deeply into their submissions this week.
ReplyDeleteStraightforward - no Liszt required.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Liszt what sank the Titanic?
DeleteActually, although Liszt was blamed initially in the press, eyewitnesses have testified that he was Offenbach at the time of the collision with the Berg. The ship's Barber, who was drinking heavily in the lounge that night, has served to Ravel the facts by suggesting that it was Beethoven at the helm, but most historians dismiss this as Bartok. It is well known that Ludwig was Haydn in the Bach of the boat with Kate Winslet. I have it on good information that the man who was actually gripping the Handel in the wheelhouse that night was Rimsky-Course-is-off.
DeleteWow! that is hilarious! Some people just have too much time on their hands!
Delete...and they all took a deep bow.
DeleteIf you use karma, you can solve this puzzle. I just did.
ReplyDeleteMy karma ran over my dogma.
DeleteI'm wandering about England for a month or so, and didn't get the puzzle until about 6 am local. Solved it at 6:01 local (but only because Rumplestiltskin wouldn't leave me alone, and because the letters RUMPLESIKN magically morph into SPIN MR LUKE, clearly a reference to contemporary British composer Luke Bedford. Unhappily, Rumple... contains more than nine letters, even in Britain, where they count funny,) If I weren't a Gemini, and therefore subject to fits of madness, I'd have been quicker.
ReplyDeleteAnd like so many, I wonder if the puzzle can get any easier. Those who believe that the level of recent challenges would surely lead to higher submission levels must be questioning the NPR on line guys, who haven't yet been let in on the secret. Or perhaps they too are members of the Phantom Empire.
And yes, SDB, I know I missed the "T" in RUMPLESTILTSKIN, but it's already nightfall over here, and the Old Lamp Lighter just came by to ignite the wicks. So I was thinking in the dark, always a challenge.
ReplyDeleteMrScience, please no explanation required. I had much the same problem myself. As you might understand, I at first came up with Toto, from the Lizard of Zoo, but when I did the math it became clear I was short just a few letters, and then, much to my surprise, I also found that T & O are too few letters to come up with TORELLI.
ReplyDeleteI smell the key to an easy answer--it's all in black and white.
ReplyDeleteI SMELL--with my nose, which is a prominent feature of PINOCCHIO
Deletethe KEYS, which are BLACK AND WHITE on a piano, for which CHOPIN composed many works
As it relates to last week's puzzle, the letters of CHOPIN are all contained in CHAMPION
At 3 p.m. Central time, the submit answer page is still not working. So I thought I'd send an error report so they could fix it. Except the error report page, very similar to the puzzle answer page, is broken, too.
ReplyDeleteSo I sent them a fax about it. Expect results in five, maybe seven minutes.
---Rob
There's an interesting connection between this week's and last week's Puzzle Challenge, but I won't say what it is, for if I did, it would remove what little mystery remains to these challenges.
ReplyDeleteI just emailed Will about the problem. He wrote me right back. He was already aware of the problem and hopes NPR fixes it soon. How exciting is that!!
ReplyDeleteWhat email address are you using for Will? Friday I emailed a puzzle suggestion and never have received a computer generated reply yet.
DeleteI guess we now know whom to contact in order to pull some strings at NPR.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteOh Blaine, you're so sneaky!
DeleteIt's less sneaky if you point it out. :)
DeleteI just did some sleuthing on the internet and found Will's address. I was surprised to receive an immediate reply.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis puzzle is too easy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is appropriate that it appeared just before the political conventions.
Ken #2
I'd take some time to solve this puzzle, but I've been told to go to Nineveh.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP convention is being hit by a Herma(n)cane!!
ReplyDeleteTried to upload my answer at the NPR site this morning (Monday, 9:30 EDT)...it's still not working.
ReplyDeleteNPR's submission site is still nonfunctioning. Will we have to revert to postcards?
ReplyDelete"Wouldn't I like a hint?" To tell the truth I don't need one!
ReplyDeleteI just called the NPR Listener Care line about the “Contact Us” page not working. The lady I spoke with said NPR was aware of the problem and had two companies working on resolving it. No idea when that might happen.
ReplyDeleteChuck
Just successfully submitted an answer. Honest.
ReplyDeleteIt's working again. I submitted mine as well.
ReplyDeleteLMP
The Bridge on the River Kwai².
ReplyDeleteWe need a hint please.
ReplyDelete-Dan
Everyone knows that, Dan.
DeleteNPR answer submission site is BACK, no lie!!!
ReplyDeleteI will not harp on the connection between the children's character and an image on the tombstone of the composer.
ReplyDeleteOnce, I had to sign a song sung by this character to a deaf audience. I felt so disconnected and spastic trying to describe the character's new situation versus the old one.
ReplyDeleteJust a Clue, or for real in Wicker Park?
DeleteI smell a rat
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just post the answer?
DeleteThank you, with your clue the answer just popped in my head
DeleteMusical clue: Freak Flag
ReplyDeleteThe Sand of time is running out on this one!
ReplyDeleteI just figured it out, I think. i gave a little whistle.
ReplyDeleteWell I think I'm finally caught up. Where does the time go? Puzzles for 8/22 and 8/29 are now posted.
ReplyDeleteCome this way if you want to play
Pinocchio --> Chopin
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday I said, “Blaine knows the answer.” Knows --> nose --> Pinocchio
I also said, “An even better clue: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” One of the play’s central characters, Brick, frequently complains about mendacity. Pinocchio’s main flaw is lying.
Chuck
Wasn't it Big Daddy who complained about mendacity?
DeleteYes, it was Big Daddy.
DeleteCHOPIN from PINOCCHIO
ReplyDeleteHints:
"New puzzle is up and dumb, as usual, trust me."
And you don't think Pinocchio was dumb or lacking in trustworthiness?
"Well my musical hint is Little Drummer Boy.”
Chopin always composed for the piano which is a percussion instrument as is the drum.
“Also, the number of times Woody Allen keeps popping up as a hint is increasing by the week."
Pinocchio was also a woody. (No! I didn't mean that.) And his nose was increasing in length.
"There won't be very many submissions for the week if they take much longer to fix their web site so we can send in our answers."
Pinocchio's nose got "much longer."
Daniel Jo (posted)
We need a hint please.
-Dan
To which I replied:
"Everyone knows that, Dan."
I wonder if he even nose that my reply was a hint.
I posted on Sun Aug 26, at 02:04:00 AM PDT:
ReplyDelete.
.
.
Musical Clue: Barry Manilow
One of Barry Manilow's early hits after "Mandy" was "Could It Be Magic", the melody of which was based on Chopin's Prelude in C Minor.
Blaine, if I had posted "Could It Be Magic, by Barry Manilow" as my Musical Clue, would you have allowed that?
I remember the last time Pinocchio was discussed here. That's why people keep returning to Blainesville.
ReplyDeleteUse karma was meant to be UZ and KARMA which anagrams to MAZURKA, a frequent type of composition of Chopin.
ReplyDelete> I will not harp on the connection between the children's > character and an image on the tombstone of the composer.
ReplyDeleteChopin's tomb features Euterpe weeping over a broken lyre. Sounds like "liar", looks like a harp.
My reply to Jim'boss hint, i.e. "Honest Abe," was only fitting and proper!
ReplyDeleteNitwit that I am, I was over on Youtube, watching Val Kilmer play the piano, thinking about referencing the sermon on the mount (Matt 6:21 coming a little too close to giving away LMP's observation or the # of letters in the composer's name), and doing the Tony Bennett thing.
ReplyDeleteDoes the new puzzle usually take this long to post? I usually get to listen or check this site the next day.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle seems to post around Sunday midnight ET (Saturday 9pm PT). This is too early to expect the puzzle to be up.
DeleteI was on the right planet but the wrong day. thought today was Sunday. That's what happens when you are furloughed on a Friday and think that that is Saturday
DeleteNew puzzle: 5+1
ReplyDelete‘Twas a curious day, an Autumn afternoon that no one suspected would come to anything. Well, out of the blue comes this ghastly creature who provokes the guards at the castle gate by exposing his backside and releasing something quite horrible. When the desert despot catches wind of this, he leaps into action. He and several of his attendants rush to the castle entrance waving their arms frantically and making silly faces. The creature, looking for something a bit more contentious, shrugs and leaves. Very curious, indeed.
ReplyDeleteDid Blaine make like a tree and leave?
ReplyDelete