Sunday, October 22, 2023

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 22, 2023): The Cat's Away...

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 22, 2023): The Cat's Away...

I'm unable to post the puzzle this week, but I didn't want to leave you without a place to post comments on the puzzle. Somebody help me out by posting a copy here. Then feel free to add your hints as long as they don't give away the answer.
Q: Name a country. The first syllable spells something that people do. The rest of the name is an anagram of where some people do that. What country is it?
A: SINGAPORE --> SING, OPERA

154 comments:

  1. Name a country. The first syllable spells something that people do. The rest of the name is an anagram of where some people do that. What country is it?

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    1. This challenge is fairly easy. I will be out of town for the next 10 days and unable to post... See you all in 10 days...

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  2. Not me. I'll leave this for skydiveboy.

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    1. Why bother now that everyone has already solved it?

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  3. I wash my hands of this puzzle.

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  4. That was quick and easy.
    The house 5 houses up the street from me that was shot early Thursday morning: six shots, was shot 17 minutes after midnight this morning: 30 shots. It is getting like a war zone here.

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    1. Wow. I guess 45 is right about the crime-ridden West Coast. Seriously, stay safe.

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    2. Very frightening, sdb. Indeed, stay safe...hide in your house? (Although even that might not be good enough these days?)

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    3. Violin Teddy,
      I appreciate your comments on the shooting, but I love the excitement. I was outside before any of the cops got there. I just got back from taking an up close look at the house and it is all shot up.

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    4. On the subject of shooting a place up, did you notice the story about the rock climber and his plot to shoot up the Smith Rock event?

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    5. No, I had not heard about that, but just googled it and will check it out. Not very sporting of him, shooting at skydivers is much more challenging.

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    6. LOL. Except if they are doing canopy RW I guess.

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  5. If what I have is the intended answer, then the syllabic separation is off.
    SDB, please be safe.

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    1. You are correct and correct.

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    2. I imagine it's too late to lobby the producers of The Simpsons to make tonight's opening-credits chalkboard gag ALL SYLLABLES BEGIN WITH A CONSONANT SOUND.

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    3. Follow that rule, and you get an "answer" that seems all too far-fetched. More on Thursday.

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  6. If you look at where the activity is done within the country itself, you will see why it has a fruity nickname.

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  7. Got it! While looking through a list of countries, I came across San Marino. There has to be a puzzle there, a la Dan Marino.

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    1. See my revealer comment last week.

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    2. Ahh, yes. Sorry I missed that. Maybe we should submit it and see if Will remembers it from almost 30 years ago. Shhhh.... It'll be our secret. ;-)

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    3. Surprisingly, there's a San Marino connection to this week's puzzle!

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  8. The puzzle is easy, once you think of the correct country. A clue that does not give it away appears to be the greater challenge.

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    1. Agreed. Tough to clue, though a friend of mine wrote a book about “where some people do that.”

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    2. I could say that people have done this activity in Arkansas, California, and New York, as well as elsewhere.

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    3. SINGAPORE, OPERA

      The USPS abbreviations for AR, CA, and NY can be rearranged to spell Canary, as in sing like a canary.

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  9. While most of us do this, some are better at it than others.

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  10. Rearrange the letters of the country, and get the name of another country and a word that was a code name for a significant act in that country’s politics.

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    1. That's a good one. I had to look up the code name to figure it out; hadn't heard of it before.

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    2. Rearrange the letters of the country, and get the name of another country and the English translation of a word that was a code name for a significant act in that country’s politics.

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    3. Strictly speaking, Jan, yes.

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  11. Interesting that the winner's surname is "Flood" and he's currently living in Texas. "Texas Flood" was the name of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan's debut album, released in 1983(also a track on the album).
    pjbAlsoKnows,AlthoughManyMusiciansMetTheirUntimelyDeathInAPlaneCrash,VaughanRemainsToThisDay(AsFarAsWeKnow)TheOnlyOneToDieInAHelicopterCrash

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    1. I did not know that. Weird, wild stuff.
      (Sorry, I got a Johnny Carson rerun on TV here right now and I just couldn't resist.)
      pjbHadn'tEvenHeardOfMr.GentryBefore,AndThusStandsCorrected,OfCourse

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    2. Seriously, I've learned over the years that so many musicians have died in plane crashes(Buddy Holly, Jim Croce, John Denver, many members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc.), and the only one I'd ever, ever heard of dying in a helicopter crash was Stevie Ray Vaughan. Of course, that's not to say he's been the only one to die this way. I just had never heard of any other musicians also meeting their end like that. Until now. Thanks, jan.
      pjbMayAsWellLookUp"CelebsWhoDiedInHelicopterCrashes"JustToMakeSureAllBasesAreCovered

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    3. SINGAPORE, SING OPERA
      Possible cryptic clue for SINGAPORE:
      Perform opera, maybe country(9)
      SING+OPERA anagram
      pjbMayHaveSeenThisPuzzleIdeaSomewhereElseBefore,ButHe'sNotExactlySure

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  12. I, for once, like to jam in an acai palm

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  13. Different dictionaries show country’s name syllabized differently. Makes me wonder how the natives pronounce it.

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  14. It seems like I was accurate about 700-800 correct answers last week. This week, there should be between 1327 and 1361 correct answers.

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    1. Thought about that she said "just under 800" or something to that effect. Good call.

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    2. And I doubt Ayesha will get that specific next week. It would violate the prime directive.

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    3. The gap between the consecutive prime numbers 1327 and 1361 is bigger than any prime gap before it. It is a "senior gap", an anagram of Singapore. Also, a range of positive integers could be called a "posi-range", an anagram of Singapore.

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  15. Costa Rica is not the country -- but it's relevant!

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  16. What about some people who cam from er rooms?

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  17. That anagram of the rest of the name? Just keep the consonants where they are and just rotate the vowels!

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  18. Sometimes a simple vowel movement makes all the difference.

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  19. Extra fiber and lots of water can help too.

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  20. Is it debatable where the first syllable ends and the second begins? In my mind it is. Sounds natural both ways.

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    1. I have no syllable quibble on this one. I also think that the first syllable in last week's answer should be "Jack." Shows what I know.

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  21. I wonder if I could have gotten this at Rick's Café Americain?

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  22. For some reason, I also associate this with tv wrestling.

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  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. It brings to mind taking a shower. I also wonder if SDB has his tux handy?

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  24. Interesting that Blaine's cat went away, leaving a mouse on his keyboard. The answer country has an association with a cat.

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  26. This puzzle makes me think of dancing with a girl with long, raven-black hair.

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  27. Say the word for this well known animal out loud and phonetically it will describe where someone might consider going in order to enjoy ice cream and entertainment. Can you name it?

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  28. There's a nice unintentional clue in the wording of the puzzle itself!

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    1. I look forward to hearing your explanation. I don't see the unintentional clue.

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    2. The phrase "Some People" is also the name of a song!

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  29. I like a simple solve. While I solved this puzzle fairly quickly, before I did, I came across a funny variation on the puzzle, Grenada.

    What do people do? Grin
    Where might they do this? ADA (American Dental Association)

    I crack myself up.

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  30. It looks like the House of Representatives just created another Emmer-gency.

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  31. Replies
    1. Wow. I guess when you are the lord of the flies, you have to expect your supporters to drop like them.

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    2. Well remember the Lord of the Flies's chute may have had a problem causing him to drop dead just like trousers held up by broken suspenders.

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    3. The art of the deal. I guess he took notes.

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  32. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  33. Think of a well known country and add an M at the end. Say the results out loud. It will now sound how a person with a speech impediment might while trying to describe the degree of difficulty to obtain a specific illegal substance.

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  34. Most of Justice Clarence Thomas' RV loan forgiven, report ...
    AP News
    https://apnews.com › article
    4 hours ago — All or most of a $267000 loan obtained by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to buy a RV appears to have been forgiven, according to a ...

    I clearly remember Barbara Walters interviewing this crook decades ago when he first lied his way to a seat on the Supreme's Court. I wondered then, as I do now, how this creep could afford this luxury. This is similar to how I felt when she first followed and interviewed Trump and I realized she was being conned big time. Sorry, but must leave now as the porcelain Goddess Ralph is calling big time for me to pay tribute.

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    1. Yessireee. If that ain't enough to bring on the old technicolor yawn, nothing is.

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  35. Fears of up to 16 dead as police hunt gunman in Lewiston, Maine

    Where are the Uvalde, Texas police?

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    1. People have always gotten pissed off. People everywhere get pissed off. They just haven't always and everywhere had assault rifles handy.

      Remember, though, that although headline-grabbing, mass shootings account for a tiny fraction of gun deaths. Most involve handguns, and most are suicides.

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    2. It should be reassuring. News and social media highlights mass shootings, which are rare and don't kill all that many people annually. Isolated single homicides get reported only locally, if at all, and suicides hardly ever, yet these account for the vast majority of U.S. gun deaths. People associate the high reported number of gun deaths with the widely-reported mass shootings, and get the wrong idea about how to solve the problem. Eliminating assault rifles might affect the number of mass shootings, but wouldn't have much if any impact on the huge number of overall gun deaths.

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    3. Well yea," it if bleeds it leads," but still if your grandaughter is shot at a bowling alley- it will be a big deal for you. I agree with what Chris Rock says on this issue.

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    4. Sure, but she is far more likely to be shot by her boyfriend/husband/self than by a mass shooter.

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    5. My Billion dollar question is: "what makes people snap and go off on these rampages against apparent strangers??"

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    6. Geez, seeing the news about (insert name of City here) today... It's getting way too common!!

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    7. I'm just glad they lowered all the flags to half mast.

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    8. Now that we have a new House Speaker I hope Congress will appropriate funds in order to increase more flag production before it is too late.

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    9. The Maine shooter has been identified as an Army Reserve sergeant with over 20 years of service. I'm sure the NRA considers him a good guy with a gun.

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    10. Fox news still says he was a gun instructor. That has been updated: He has not been a gun instructor.

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    11. FOX does not report fake news!

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    13. The other news stations now say he was an instructor...they did not use gun but I forget the term for artillary.

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  36. I lived in Australia for a year in the 90's. They had one such incident and a few since, but somehow they seemed to get a handle on things. Such measures Probably would not fly here.

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  37. In my city, Philadelphia, a bus driver was shot along Germantown Avenue and pronounced dead at 10:36 a.m. It's a route I use regularly. Shot from the driver's side, by the way. There was another shooting in West Philadelphia. That's a murder count north of 350. A three-year low.

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  38. This is a site that tracks the number of mass shootings in the U.S. There have been something like 569 mass shootings since 2006.
    Anyway here t'is: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2022/08/18/mass-killings-database-us-events-since-2006/9705311002/

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    1. So, 2,967 deaths in 569 mass shootings since 2006. That compares to 521,995 gun deaths total in that time. Mass shootings are basically a rounding error.

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    2. Jan, I doubt that the parents, spouses, and children of these 569 think of them as, “Rounding errors.” They were loved ones, brutally taken from their families.

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    3. Of course, and so were the other half million victims that we never hear about. All I'm saying is that putting all the emphasis on mass shootings distracts everyone from the much bigger problem.

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  39. SINGAPORE; SING OPERA

    "Cute. Done." Short and sweet like a SINGAPORE Sling.

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  40. Our friend Rudolfo is back with an intriguingly Appetizing challenge that involves six-letter words that contain "doubled triplets" – that is, words like "murmur," "booboo," "cancan" and "pompom" (which he has dubbed "XYZ+XYZ words"). You can access this challenge on this week's Puzzleria! which we will upload tonight around Midnight PDT, or perhaps even sooner (it is still Daylight Time, until Sunday, November 5th).
    Also on this week's menus:
    * a special Halloween-themed Schpuzzle of the Week titled "Confection-collection selection" that gives the thumbs-up to Almond Joy, Milky Way, Baby Ruth, KitKat and Salted Nut Roll... but the thumbs-down to Laffy Taffy, Butterfinger, PayDay, Snickers and Oh Henry!
    * an Hors d’Oeuvre titled "Surnames and simians" that involves an actress and a fictional simian,
    * a Scary Character Slice that asks the burning question: What do Cyndi Lauper, Paul McCartney, George Clooney and Lady Gaga all likely own?
    * a Blankety-Blank-Blank Dessert titled "Aspirations and Ambitions" that requires you to find a trio of missing words, and
    * a dozen riff-offs of this week's NPR Puzzle, titled "Arias sung in the Singapore area," including one composed by our friend Ecoarchitect, whose "Econfusions" is featured regularly on Puzzleria!
    Drop by, why don'tcha, for some "doubled-triplet tricks" and some selected confectionary treats!

    LegoWhoNotesThatHallowe'enIsTheSeasonOfScarySkeletonBonesBonfiresAndBonbons

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  41. SINGAPORE (SING, OPERA)

    > Not me. I'll leave this for skydiveboy.

    I hate opera (and I considerately try not to sing when others are around). SDB has often posted about opera (as has Natasha, but if I named both of them, it might have been TMI).

    > Surprisingly, there's a San Marino connection to this week's puzzle!

    The heads of state of San Marino are known as the Captains Regent. One of the Captains Regent in the early 1990s and mid-2000s was Cesare Gasperoni. Besides being the surname of several notable Sammarinese (great demonym!), "Gasperoni" is also an anagram of "Singapore".

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  42. SINGAPORE

    The intended answer must be that people SING, and some do so at the OPERA.

    That is not the correct syllabication, though. That would be sin|ga|pore.

    I hinted that, if you follow the proper syllabication and the way the puzzle is worded, you get an answer something along the lines of: “People SIN when they are in the middle of A GROPE.” As I said, though, “that seems all too far-fetched.” :)

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    1. Interesting -- I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "Sin·​ga·​pore".

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    3. Agreed, it does sound more like "sing-apore" when said out loud. "Syllables" reflect hyphenation in writing, though. Point stands.

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    4. Not where I come from. Syllables are sounds, round these parts. (Primarily -- I guess by extension, the spelling thereof.)

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    5. Well it's pronounced "Xin-jia-po" in Mandarin ... where "X" represents "Sh" ... as in "Xi Jinping", "Mr. She". But the name "Singapore" is not Chinese ...

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    6. The syllables are Sin-ga-pore, anyway:

      howmanysyllables.com
      syllablecount.com
      syllablewords.net

      And, and, and….

      (See also jsulbyrne's reply to the comment I posted on Sunday.)

      SuperZee said different dictionaries had it differently, although I didn't find any that showed the syllabication as Sing-a-pore. Dictionary.com came closest in that it showed the phonetic respelling as "sing-guh-…" or "sing-uh-…." Phonetic respelling is still not the same as the syllables in writing.

      Then again, SuperZee also hinted it would be of interest how the locals handle this, in their native language. I guess that contributes to the issue—the fact that this word (proper name) did not originate in English.

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    7. Thanks for your input, Rudolfo. I didn't see it until after I posted my latest reply. Interesting observation.

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    8. That is really interesting -- the name derives from Sanskrit!

      The OED has SING-uh-por for US English and sing-uh-POR for British. Merriam-Webster has ˈsiŋ-ə-ˌpȯr.

      But I will try to remember to hyphenate it between the 'n' and the 'g' in the future!

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  43. Singapore -> sing, opera

    I wrote:
    89. Singapore anagrams into "prison age." Alcatraz is 89 years old.

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  44. SINGAPORE (—> SING + OPERA)

    Comment: “…a friend of mine wrote a book about ‘where some people do that’.” —> That was the late Dr. Jack Sacher, former Professor of Music, who wrote Opera: A Listener’s Guide.

    Hint: “Rearrange the letters of the country, and get the name of another country and a word that was a code name for a significant act in that country’s politics.” —> SINGAPORE —> SPAIN + OGRE

    Operación Ogro (English translation, Operation OGRE) resulted in the assassination in 1973 of Spanish (and Francoist) Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco by the Basque separatist group ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna; English translation, Basque Homeland and Liberty).

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  45. I wrote, “If you look at where the activity is done within the country itself, you will see why it has a fruity nickname.” The Esplanade in Singapore has a bulbous concert hall known by locals as “The Durian.”

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  46. I said Costa Rica is relevant... because 'Costa' anagrams to 'Tosca'.
    Hm, in retrospect that isn't very good :)

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    1. Tosca was the first opera I ever saw at the Met. So I like it.

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  47. My clue was "Alexandre Le Grand" (1830–1898) the inventor of Bénédictine liqueur, an ingredient in the Singapore sling.

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  48. My clue mentioned Rick's Café Americain which was the bar in Casablanca. The "gin joint " A Singapore Sling is made with gin, and other ingredients. I seem to remember the Singapore Sling as a tv wrestling move, also. Or a wrestler?

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  49. My clue was “This puzzle makes me think of dancing with a girl with long, raven-black hair,” a reference to the Tom Waits lyric “Oh how we danced with the Rose of Tralee / Her long hair black as a raven,” from the titular song on his album Rain Dogs, the first track of which is “Singapore”. I knew I wanted to make the Tom Waits reference, but his lyrics are so unusual that I had to make it extra oblique to avoid making it too googlable :)

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  50. Jan: I was feeling leftout when you did not include me with SDB in your tux post. Thanks for the reason and update. I do not attend operas anymore. I have a dear friend who was a diva with the Met in NYC. She lives in Berkeley and commuted! Have a great day!

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  51. Singapore; Opera. Hint -- "I wash my hands of this puzzle." (Soap Opera)

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  52. I really didn't have an artful clue for this one. But I was trying to inCLUEd a reference to my Prime Meridian" puzzle clue, which referenced Joseph Conrad's novelization of the bombing attempt on the Greenwich Observatory, "The Secret Agent."

    Three of Conrad's novels, the Shadow-Line, End of the Tether, and his first, Almayers Folly, are stories of determinism and chauvinistic Orientalism focused.in large part on the maritime trade centered in Dutch colonial West Indies and Singapore as a hub of that commerce. (Think prewar Mata Hari, then forming her persona). As a teen in the 1960s I came across a beautiful Random House volume called Conrad, Tales of Land and Sea. All the works referenced above were included (except Almayers Folly/)

    Modern day Singapore, under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew and others, is worthy of admiration as what was called in the ''90s "little tigers" for it's financial success Those of a certain age may remember there was a case in that country where a youth was accused of graffiti on buildings and certain luxury cars, and was sentenced to "caning" in the 1990s. About the time the Gingrich Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Bill, a lot of right wing media types and state legislatures (and probably Fox) were editorializing cool, let's pass a "caning" penalty law in the US or our particular state.

    It didn't happen. In curiosity from this puzzle, and the horrors of Hamas
    I studied up on the medical reprecussions of rattan caning. The
    "milder" results can include paralysis, permanent nerve damage, and rupture of internal organs. Then I read some ghastly number like 2,000 prisoners were caned in Singapore prisons last year. I've seen the results of a blogger who was caned 50 or 100 strokes in Saudi Arabia. It was not pretty. Singapore, you're better than this. Please abolish caning.

    Conrad was also the author of Lord Jim, about a flawed Western sailor responsible for the negligent deaths of hundreds of Moslem pilgrims. Remember the butterfly collector in Lord Jim? I always thought the story was about empathy and altruism being the necessary evolution to an integrated personality. When asked about his personal philosophy and politics, Conrad compared his views with those of H. G. Wells. He said "Wells is a Socialist who hates humanity but thinks he can perfect it. I'm a Romantic who loves humanity, but in my mind I know humanity will never change."

    I didn't even mention my other favorite Orientalist colonialist, Somerset Maugham. But giving more credit to William Wyler than Maugham himself, to my mind, "The Letter" is one of Hollywood's greatest films, and great escapism for a Halloween weekend in a world with too many real horrors.

    Bette Davis and Gale Sondergaard embody the scary beautiful.

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  53. "... an association with a cat": "Singa Pore" means "Lion City". Singa is a variant of Sanskrit "Simha" = "Lion". The Lion King is named "Simba", which is Swahili for "Lion". "Simha" and "Simba" are variants of the same word, right? Interweb says no, it's just a coincidence ...?!

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  54. Singapore --> sing + opera

    Last Sunday I said, “I am reminded of a medicinal plant.” I was thinking of Ginseng. Well...close enough for rock and roll :)

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  55. Earlier this week I posted: "That anagram of the rest of the name? Just keep the consonants where they are and just rotate the vowels!"
    (You might want to select all the text below and cut, and then paste into a text editor with a fixed-pitch font.)
    SINGAPORE
    ____^_^_^
    ____O_E_A
    ____
    ____OPERA

    "

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  56. Replies
    1. I am not without a sense of sadness for that shooter. My original concern was why this person snapped. But as things developed, his suicide was probably best for everyone. Such a sad and horrible ordeal all the way around.

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  57. My neighborhood again experienced a large number of gunshots at 9:44pm last evening. At first I was unsure if it was the first few shots actually were shots. As their frequency continued and increased I knew they were. This time they were about 3 blocks distant which was why they were a bit muffled. I called 911 and this time the operator was very informative and said they were receiving numerous reports which were giving a good indication where they were coming from. It was obviously gang related.

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  58. I hate to introduce a trivial point here, because the epidemic of gun violence has swept America, hung her out on the clothesline and beaten the hell out of her, but, R.I.P. Matthew Perry from Friends.

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  59. There is an odd coincidence between the death of Matthew Perry and the death of Rodney King. Both of them released autobiographies before their deaths, (R.K.'s in April, 2012, and M.P.'s November of 2022). Both drowned.

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    1. Many people have expired whilst soaking in their hot tubs, but not by drowning. I have serious doubts that this actor who I am not familiar with drowned in the hot tub. I suspect there may be a bit of a cover up here. I recall several decades ago when it was reported in the news about a couple who were discovered rather dead in their hot tub. It turned out they most likely died from warming frog syndrome. In other words they became too overcome by the heat to extract themselves. Anyway I recall the story because it offered me the opportunity to quip, "The family that soaks together, croaks together."

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  60. Someone tweeted that Mike Pence should be forced to carry his Presidential campaign to term.

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  61. This week's challenge: This week's challenge comes from listen Jim Bricker of Wayland, Mass., and it's a little different from the usual. The time 6:29 on a digital clock, ignoring the colon, also reads 6:29 upside down. How many times in a day can a digital clock, ignoring the colon, read the same right side up as upside down? We are not accepting military time.

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  62. Replies
    1. To my eyes, a 2 upside down looks more like a 5. The 6 and 9 I can see. I'm not sure of anything right now. I'm going back to bed and sleep on it.

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    2. I understand "upside down" to mean "rotate by 180 degrees," not "look at it in the mirror" (such as the glass surface of the range reflecting the clock above it). You are right, only when you rotate does this upside-down premise work.

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  64. Would the digit 1 count, or would it be disallowed since in the digital display, it's the RIGHT SIDE two segments that are active when displaying a 1?

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