How close are you to the answer? Are you hot or cold?Q: Take the name of a watercraft that contains an odd number of letters. Remove the middle letter and rearrange the remaining ones to name a body of water. What words are these?
Edit: Similar to a puzzle from Jan 21, 2018. You might see a gondola (basket) below a hot air ballon or gondola (lift) at a cold ski resort. But most often you'll see them in the Venice Lagoon.
A: GONDOLA --> LAGOON
Congrats, Clark! Nice puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThe body of water also anagrams into a phrase that Oscar Wilde might have wanted.
Thanks. Dr. K
DeleteGreat point re Wilde. Also related to something a certain athlete might want...
DeleteCute puzzle. I also came up with a more obscure, presumably unintended, answer.
ReplyDeleteStill having the submission problem this week...errors on both Chrome and Firebox browsers.
I have it and it's not CANOE and OCEAN
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTake care in this arena.
Deleteuh...
DeleteReminder to self: Never post until you've solved it.
DeleteLancek, yes. I did the same thing a time or two.
DeleteYes, Last week I thought PEGGY CASS would morph into PEG-A- CSS...live and learn
DeletePEGASUS
DeleteYeah, Ron, canoe and ocean was the first thing that occurred to me, although of course, not eligible since no middle letter was removed. I had figured that that pair was a well-known-all-along anagram.
DeleteI had not yet solved the puzzle when I responded to ron’s post with “Nor is it STEAMER and STREAM or GALLEON and LAGOON.” Moments later I thought of GONDOLA and was able to beat Blaine to the buzzer by self-censoring. Kudos to Word Woman and Splainit for throwing subtle flags without invoking TMI. As savvy Blainesvillians, they realize how that can actually compound the problem before the TMI is taken down.
DeleteI did had to stifle a giggle...
Delete80, 91 --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteRemove the middle three letters from the watercraft, and rearrange. You can get two arrangements, one to be attained and one to be avoided.
ReplyDeleteParticularly elegant, because the craft fits so nicely with the body of water.
ReplyDeleteRIP, Sérgio Mendes. I remember his cover of "The Fool on the Hill". Turning to DuckDuckGo now to see what else he did.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you mention that particular song. I remember when I first heard it: the night John Lennon was shot. I was scanning the radio dial listening for any news and I kept getting a staticky version of that song. No doubt some station was playing it as a tribute to John Lennon. Now you mention it as a tribute to Sergio Mendes.
DeleteP.S. I believe Sergio Mendes did a great rendition of "Stone Flower" by Antonio Carlos Jobim.
DeleteThanks for the tip on "Stone Flower". I was unable to find a Mendes version, but I'm listening to a Santana version now.
DeleteI mentioned "The Fool on the Hill" because I was thinking about another Beatles song, "Something", which would translate to "algo" in Portuguese (and Spanish). Algo anagrams to "Lago", which is a body of water.
And it occurred to me that gondoliers might have to "duck" when going under bridges. I was able to find a clip of one actually tilting his gondola to its side to get through.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=610843627535198
Now that I think about it, "algo" is also "mas que nada", isn't it?
DeleteI think I have the more obscure answer, but it works.
ReplyDeleteCute puzzle, Clark. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteThanks WW
DeleteHow does everyone know that Clark's real name is Michael Schwartz, from Florence OR? That is only fifty miles away from me.
DeleteOK. I have the intended answer now. I guess I was trying to black it out.
ReplyDeleteMade me think of a couple of old movies.
ReplyDeleteMy references were: "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954) and "The Blue Lagoon" (1980)
Deletethis is a repeat in more than one way. Still fun to rediscover, thank you, Clark! --Margaret G.
ReplyDeleteOh my, you're right!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteGot it. Now to come up with a clue that is not TMI...
ReplyDeleteRearrange the watercraft into a three word phrase that an old man might say.
DeleteThere is a distant connection to a recent puzzle.
ReplyDeleteRemove two state postal abbreviations from the name of the watercraft. The result may be a bit of a mess.
ReplyDeleteI was considering a clue that involved that mess. You came up with something better than I did!
DeleteJust as summer is drawing to a close, a long-ago vacation comes to mind.
ReplyDelete# and re#
ReplyDeleteSeriously, is that a clue? I'm intrigued.
DeleteYes
DeleteAltouhg I've been there and done that, I get a sinking feeling about the answer.
ReplyDeleteAlso about my spelling.
ReplyDeleteSome dear friends had an iguana named for the watercraft. There's nothing intrinsically iguana-ish about the watercraft.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTake the first 2 letters off the body of water. You might not want to see the rest coming at you.
ReplyDeleteSports clue: counterfactual Maradona.
ReplyDelete(a GOAL NOD instead of the Hand of God?)
DeleteStill working on it, so I guess it's a good puzzle, CaP!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jan
DeleteWill Shortz has repeated puzzles twice in a row!
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle and the Alec Guinness, Guinness ale puzzle on May 26 were both repeats. Earlier, they appeared consecutively. The gondola, lagoon puzzle was on January 21, 2018, and the Alec Guinness, Guinness ale puzzle was on January 28, 2018.
DeleteTry the same process to obtain: a musical instrument and a kind of candy,
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI think I've got it as well as an obscure alternative that almost meets the puzzle's criteria but doesn't require rearrangement of the letters once you've removed the middle letter.
DeleteAlso, strictly speaking, the obscure alternative is not a kind of candy but another form of sweet treat.
DeleteI may have been unclear (or nuclear): the musical instrument and kind of candy are two separate unrelated answers. You may have more?!
DeleteI won’t reveal anything until 12 PDT today at the earliest or probably later (we’re traveling and actually out of the country), but I will tell you that the primary answer I eventually arrived at was of a standard musical instrument and the brand name of a candy. The other answer, the obscure one, came first, and I was unfamiliar with the musical instrument but knew the sweet treat.
Deleteorgan -g —> Arno
DeleteThere is also an obscure musical instrument called a “gaita,” which is a type of bagpipe in the Iberian Peninsula. Remove the “i” in the middle, and without rearranging you get an Armenian pastry (which I’ve had) called “gata.” While it’s not “a kind of candy” or in need of rearrangement after removal of the middle letter, it was the best I could come up with at first.
This is giving me deja vu
ReplyDeleteSorry about the TMI in my previous clue. Here's another one (I hope without the TMI): What Rocky had in common with Adrian.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle reminds me of park my family frequented when I was young
ReplyDeleteI think the puzzle was presented in a more elegant way the first time, and it also came from a listener in Oregon.
ReplyDeleteDid you know... that on a gold (or silver, or bronze) medal from last month's Olympic Games in Paris, there's a six-sided piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower, removed during its 20th century renovation, because France is called “L’Hexagone” due to its shape? I didn't. Anyway, I think Clark a pseudonym deserves a medal for this puzzle, even if Will did use a very similar one a few years back.
ReplyDeleteThat's inSeine!
DeleteAlone Again (Naturally)
ReplyDeleteHm, Scarlett, is that a musical clue?
ReplyDeleteI was going to give this one: Bob Dylan, Desire.
Not really a musical clue. More of a thought chain, working backwards.
Delete1891
ReplyDeleteI think we're on the same track, Jan.
DeleteMusical clue: Allison
ReplyDeleteIs a snowman a body of water?
ReplyDeleteSure. Of course, so are we, mostly.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteMy profound apologies, Blaine.
ReplyDeleteAnd (Wow!), you are amazingly vigilant and, as I recall my parents putting it, "Johnny-on-the-spot!"
LegoMeaCulpableMeaCulpableMeaMaximaCulpable
'Tis an excellent poser from Clark...
ReplyDeleteFor a spell I was lost in the dark
Till the flint in my crown spawned a spark...
So I now know 'tis not Noah's Ark!
— LegoFlintstonian
I like it Lego
DeleteThank you, Clark. And congratulations!
DeleteLegoWhoDescribesClarkAsBeingMoreBrainpowerfulThanALocomotiveMoreQuickWittedThanASpeedingMotoristTalkingHimselfOutOfATicketAndAbleTo"MindLeap"Life'sMysteriesWithHisFeetOnTheGround...FirmlyPlantedAndBearingFruitTruthJustice&Etc.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThere are many examples of this kind of body of water. There are only a handful of bodies of water where you'll find this kind of watercraft (I've been on four of them). Not a lot of overlap.
ReplyDeleteWell, that is true, but.
DeleteI live close to this body of water, but it is errantly named as if it were another body of water.
ReplyDeleteR.I.P. James Earl Jones. 92 years old.
ReplyDelete93
DeleteAnother great unmistakeable voice silenced. Ed McMahon, Mel Blanc, Paul Harvey, Casey Kasem, now James Earl Jones. If Bill St. James is next to go, I won't be able to go on either.
DeletepjbSays[RIP]To[JEJ](Sigh.)
Yes, 93.
DeleteAnd just a week after we lost James Darren. Sad month so far :(
DeleteWell, I saw the debate. Kamala Harris is brilliant! She has the perfect confluence of continuity, transformation and integrity. I was impressed. Trump reminded me of Lonsome Rhoads (Andy Griffith) at the end of A Face In The Crowd. Worse, he predicted World War III if we elect Kamala Harris!
ReplyDeleteSpin-off puzzle: Name a watercraft that sounds rather old-fashioned (though a version of the technology is sometimes used today). Remove the middle letter and rearrange to get something that can make music sound old-fashioned.
ReplyDeleteWith Hurricane Francine on her way, the watercraft might be useful where I am.
ReplyDeleteGot it. The body of water is related to a different but gorgeous body of water from my childhood in New York City.
ReplyDeleteI was just by the Harlem Meer last week. Lots of construction.
DeleteHey Neighbor! I was born in The Bronx, lived in Manhattan and Queens and graduated from CCNY!
DeleteI thought it was extremely unfair for NPR to focus almost exclusively on Joe Biden's debate performance and pretty much ignore Trumps failure to answer questions, but instead lie like a rug. Now I feel NPR is behaving unfairly again after last night's debate. They are treating it in most of their reporting as almost 50/50, which it, clearly to anyone who watched it, wasn't. Media have the power to protect and save a democracy; they also, by refusing to implement their power, risk us losing our democracy. I fear greatly for our future. Shame on NPR for not doing their job!
ReplyDeleteGONDOLA, LAGOON
ReplyDelete"Cute puzzle, Clark. Congrats!" Yup, it's cute.
"# and re#" refers to Blaine reusing his clue from the last time we had this puzzle in January 2018. Hash(tag) and rehash(tag)ing, eh?
GONDOLA (-D) → LAGOON
ReplyDeleteGONDOLA -D —> LAGOON)
ReplyDeleteHint: ”The body of water also anagrams into a phrase that Oscar Wilde might have wanted.”
LAGOON —> NO GAOL
gondola and lagoon
ReplyDeleteGONDOLA – D >>>LAGOON
ReplyDeleteThe connection to a recent puzzle was to the July 28th The Wizard of Oz puzzle. At the end of the movie, The Wizard flies away in a balloon’s Gondola.
Cryptic Crossword time again on Puzzleria! We are proud to feature the 36th "Brain-Cryptickling Cluemasterful" crossword puzzle courtesy of our friend Patrick J. Berry (screen name: "cranberry") on this week's edition of Puzzleria!
ReplyDeleteHere is a sneak peek at Patrick's first clue:
"1. ACROSS: Cryptic, I gather—latest puzzle, right? (8 letters)"
You can begin tackling Patrick's clever cryptology this afternoon, when we upload Puzzleria!
Also on this week's menu:
* a Schpuzzle of the Week titled "Swift, Sadat and Dewey,"
* a "One Thing Leads To Another" Hors d’Oeuvre titled "Body part... and a body of water,"
* an Applied Math Slice titled “An arithmetic operation”
* a Down On The Farm Dessert titled “E Eye E Eye... Oh?” and
* 16 riffs (created by Nodd, Ecoarchitect and Plantsmith) of this week's Riffing Off Shortz And Schwartz" NPR Puzzle (created by our friend Clark) titled "...Glides his gondola o’er a lagoon."
So, come, be "Crypticized!
LegoPurveyorOfOthers'Creativity
My Sun Sep 08, 10:39:00 PM PDT comment (which Blaine quite properly deleted) read:
DeleteIn the Oregon city of Florence
Our friend “Clark,” under ____ of the ____,
On the Siuslaw (not the Saint Lawrence)
Glides his ____ ____ a ____.
A "Riffing Off Shortz and Schwartz" riff on this afternoon's Upload of Puzzleria! will read, in part:
...Identify the word in the blank in the quatrain below:
In the Oregon city of Florence
Our friend “Clark,” under light of the ____,
On the Siuslaw (not the Saint Lawrence!)
Glides his gondola o’er a lagoon.
Note: “Clark” is also known as Michael Schwartz, author of this week’s NPR puzzle challenge.
LegoADeservedlyChastisedBlaine'sBlogAdministeree!
GONDOLA---->LAGOON
ReplyDelete("Watercraft with odd number of letters": Gondola)
("Remove middle letter, (d,) rearrange remaining letters
to name a body of water"---Lagoon)
GONDOLA, LAGOON (as on January 21, 2018)
ReplyDelete> Did you know... that on a gold (or silver, or bronze) medal. . .
On a gold anagrams to GONDOLA
> 1891
Asteroid 1891 GONDOLA was discovered on September 11, 1969, by Paul Wild.
> There are many examples of this kind of body of water.
Most are in the middle of atolls.
> There are only a handful of bodies of water where you'll find this kind of watercraft (I've been on four of them).
Venice, Central Park Lake in NYC, the Charles River in Boston/Cambridge, and Providence River in RI (I was there for their weird WaterFire thing a couple of weeks ago).
> Not a lot of overlap.
Just Venice, I think.
I thought your 1891 reference was about the year the characters in The Blue Lagoon first stranded on that island after their ship sank.
DeleteThen I thought maybe it was about the Secret Lagoon, Iceland's oldest swimming pool, known for its warm water from natural hot springs. They built it in 1891.
GONDOLA, LAGOON
ReplyDeleteThe body of water is related to a different but gorgeous body of water from my childhood in New York City.
I'm about the same age as Brooke Shields, who grew up in NYC with me, is a gorgeous body of water," and starred in Blue Lagoon as a pre-teen.
Brooke Shields was young in Blue Lagoon but not that young. She was 14 years old.
DeleteI wrote, “Remove the middle three letters from the watercraft, and rearrange. You can get two arrangements, one to be attained and one to be avoided.” That’s GOAL and GAOL.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMy musical clue was “Allison,” referring to Mose Allison. MOSE is the acronym of the system of mobile flood gates under the Venice Lagoon that can be raised to protect the city during periods of “acqua alta” high tides.
gondola, lagoon
ReplyDeleteMusical clue, "Bob Dylan, Desire." Because his song on that album, "Mozambique", names a country with a district called "Gondola".
ReplyDeleteGood one!
DeleteMy clue was Alone Again (Naturally). That was a 1971 hit for Gilbert O'Sullivan. His name is a play on Gilbert and Sullivan, the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W.S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan. "The Gondoliers" is one of several comic operas on which they collaborated. It was their last great success.
ReplyDeleteIts 554 performances ended in 1891. That's why I thought Jan and I were on the same track but I see in his explanation above, that was not the case.
Yes, it's gondola — lagoon, of course.
ReplyDeleteI said in my comment, "a long-ago vacation comes to mind."
I actually visited Venice at one point, many, many moons ago. That included a ride in a gondola. And it wasn't lost on me that Venice is located on a lagoon. :)
The same process to obtain: a musical instrument and a kind of candy. Well, my answers were:
ReplyDeleteUB[O]AT => TUBA
GUN[B]OAT => NOUGAT
Ah, I see. I misread you to mean the musical instrument led to the candy (see above). In the immortal words of my former students, “My bad.”
DeleteI think it was my bad wording and/or punctuation.
DeleteIsn't "u(-)boat" technically 2 words?
DeleteMy "sinking feeling" was meant to suggest a sinking location, i.e. Venice.
ReplyDeletegondola --> lagoon
ReplyDeleteNice puzzle, Clark! Last Sunday I said, “Take the first 2 letters off the body of water. You might not want to see the rest coming at you.” A goon coming at you? I would think not.
My spin-off puzzle: Name a watercraft that sounds rather old-fashioned (though a version of the technology is sometimes used today). Remove the middle letter and rearrange to get something that can make music sound old-fashioned.
ReplyDeleteThe answer was STEAMSHIP (which sounds old-fashioned, though technically nuclear-powered ships are also steamships), and if you drop the middle letter and rearrange, you get TAPE HISS, which makes music sound old-fashioned.
Gondola, lagoon. My clue on Sunday was, "What Rocky and Adrian had in common." In Rocky I, Rocky explains to Paul (Burt Young): "I got gaps, she got gaps. We got gaps." "Gap" in Latin is lacuna, ultimately from lacus meaning lake, from which we get the word lagoon, essentially a "gap."
ReplyDeleteMy college had a Lake Lagunita, which we always made fun of, since I believe it translates to Lake Lake.
DeleteHuh, interesting etymology.
DeleteAlso, Ben, "Lagunita" is a kind of double-diminutive, since "lacuna" is already the diminutive of "lacus", so a lagunita is a little little lake.
I would have guessed that the derivation went in the other direction: from a gap, to a hole in the ground, to a hole in the ground filled with water. Just goes to show, the use of 'logic' to try to figure these things out is very limited!
Ben, that is a good one, but my favorite is: The La Brea Tar Pits which translates to The The Tar Tar Pits.
DeleteHuh, by coincidence my grad school had a Lake Lagunita. According to the covers of the school's publications, this lake was always full of beautiful sailboats. When I finally spent days driving across the country and arrived there ... Lake Lagunita had no water in it. But it did have a 1956 Buick abandoned in the center of it.
DeleteBuick used to add those decorative holes to both sides of the front end; either 6 or 8, depending on which model. I suspect this might cause water to enter and cause them to sink. Just a thought.
DeleteInteresting comments all. Actually, my very first clue was a TMI reference to Gilligan's Island. You know, the "lagoon." For something really tangential, I read recently that each of the seven characters (the Skipper, the Howells, etc.) stood for one of the seven deadly sins! I remember when it first dawned on me that Guy Williams and Mark Goddard from Lost In Space were supposed to be John F. Kennedy (Williams) and Bobby (Goddard).
DeleteSkydiveboy and Musinglink connected a distant and a recent memory for me: A VW Bug would never have suffered that Buick's fate. A National Lampoon review of the 1960s included a parody of the famous floating Beetle ad, with the tag line, "If Teddy Kennedy drove a VW, he'd be President now." And just last week, I did a cryptic crossword that used "Complaint about listing only JFK and RFK as
Deletefamous?" to clue NOTED.
GONDOLA, LAGOON.
ReplyDeleteI had clued, "Rearrange the watercraft into a three word phrase that an old man might say." GO ON LAD!
You really do seem to have a problem taking a hint. You just posted it again, and I believe you are the only one here who does.
ReplyDeleteIn the interest of simplicity, since the experts tell us the elections are decided by the "swing states," and this means the other states are irrelevant, I propose we limit national elections to the "swing states," and the rest of us take a break and watch Oprah. Doesn't that make scents?
ReplyDeleteIf pollsters were as accurate as they claim, we wouldn't need elections at all, just let the polls decide.
DeleteWhy not the popular vote?
DeleteWhat an interesting idea! I wish I had thought of it.
DeleteNot smart enough, I guess.
DeleteGONDOLA and LAGOON
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised no one mentioned "Gilligan's Island". They were always at the lagoon, or at least mentioning the lagoon.
pjbAlsoKnowsMelBlancAs"CharlieDog"OnceMispronounced[GONDOLA]InAWarnerBros.Cartoon
Musinglink did... so it went bye bye.
DeleteYes, that's right. So I re-clued a quote from Rocky about "gaps." See above.
DeleteIt's GON-do-la, not gon-DO-la.
ReplyDeletepjb'sLateFatherDidMuchWorseWithTheWords[ENVELOPE]And[TOBOGGAN]!
Like KA-ma-la?
DeleteThis word was listed in the 1978 Book of Lists as being a word, among others, that is always mispronounced. Another was culinary.
ReplyDeleteThis week's challenge comes from listener Rawson Scheinberg, of Northville, Mich. Name a U.S. state capital. Then name a world capital. Say these names one after the over and phonetically you'll get an expensive dinner entree. What is it?
ReplyDeleteThat may have been my fastest solve ever. Now, I'll be biding my time, waiting for Blaine.
ReplyDeleteNot really a puzzle is it?
DeleteSimple puzzle. Bring on the 1000 piece puzzles, please.
ReplyDelete