Hello, Puzzlers! Please enjoy the latest edition of Friday Farrago with A.J. and Greg!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Hello, Buzzlers, and welcome to the Buzzler Podcast the Liquefy setting on your puzzle Blender. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I'm here as always with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Plisco.
Welcome Greg, Thank you, Aj.
Can I tell a quick blender story everyone loves.
I once wrote a piece of music scored for singers and.
Kitchen utensils brilliance, And the takeaway from that is that if the blender is one of the instruments, it doesn't matter what setting you put it on. It's louder than everything. Okay, it's just important rule.
If lyriify great, you know, frves, whatever the settings are, it's just loud.
So you gotta like put it in another room.
If this is exactly all right?
Exactly that is again as you can use right exactly all those scoring musicals with kitchen utensils.
With kitchen appliances.
Yes, well today Greg, as you probably know, it's the fifth day of the puzzle week, which means it's Friday for Rago, your weekly mishmash of puzzle goodness.
Yes, it's like where we take all the puzzles and we throw them in the blender and we are liquified, and here we.
Are beautiful, good, excellent, bringing it together. Let's start with segment one seems like an appropriate segment to start with, and today we're going to start with listener mail and the puzzles they inspire so good. Andrea Schomberg is our chief email opener. Andrea, what do you have for us today?
Well, on a recent episode, we had a puzzle where you had to find a link between three things, and one of the clues was nuggets, omelet, and boot, and the link was that these are all words that come after Denver, Denver, nuggets, Denver omelet, and Denver boot. So you and Greg wondered aloud about why the Denver boot is called the Denver boot, right, and.
The Denver boot being that clamp you put on your car's wheel when you don't pay your parking tickets.
Well, you don't put it on, They put it on. Oh yeah, that's it.
The parking ticket people come and right boot your car so you can't drive it.
Good point.
Yeah, you got to pay to get it off.
I mean maybe you put it on yourself if you have some sort of you know, that's what you like.
But well punish yourself, right, Oh, I didn't pay my speeding tickets putting the boot on.
All right, So that is the Denver boot. And this email, what did it say?
Well, we had a listener email us. This is from Sam Eagle who looked it up for us and wrote that the device was invented in nineteen forty by Frank morug who was a violinist with the Denver the Denver Symphony, and was first used by the Denver Police in nineteen fifty five. So that is why it's called the Denver boot.
So there you go.
Thanky lean times, lean times with the Denver Symphony and players needed extra work, so Frank said, screws violin stuff. I'm going to invent car punishment tools.
That's and weirdly, hey, what about this? The guy who invented the crossword was also in a symphony. I think that. Yeah, I think he was a violinist. He was with a violinist with somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Arthur Wynn of Yea or the Winn of the New York Sun. Right, that's interesting. That's a violinist. All right.
All right, Well this inspired a puzzle because I will take let me take you on a little mental journey, so you can join me in the ride of how I arrived at this puzzle? Are you ready?
Okay?
So the Denver boot made me think so of things named after Denver, John Denver. So I went and looked up John Denver. Turns out his birth name was Henry John Deutschendorf Junior. You knew that, you think, I remember?
That's familiar now you say it.
If you had done the other way, said who was Henry Deutschendorf, Henry John Deutschendorf, I might have said it was John Denver.
I had no idea.
I thought his birth name was John.
Denver me too. There you go already, I'm learning he chose to change it to John Denver. And for those who don't remember, John Denver a great singer, he starred in the movie O God, O God Part two as well. Wikipedia describes him that says John Denver sang about his joy in nature and disdain for city life. So my next thought is why did he name himself after a city that he so disdains? If he doesn't like, if he did like cities, name himself after something more bucolic. So should he not be John Aspen? He should be something a little.
More right, right, John Vale exactly, John Beaver Creek, John exactly.
That would be good. All right, Well that's appropriate because this is a state and city themed puzzle.
Okay.
So I'm thinking John Denver should be John Aspen. I'm thinking what other people are named for cities? And I thought, well, what if Whitney Houston, We're called Whitney fort.
Worth, right, Texas.
So that led to a puzzle called city Switchers. And these are all people whose last names are US cities. But I've changed the city to another city in the same state, like Whitney Houston. I'm like Whitney Fort Worth for Whitney Houston, and you have to guess the real one. Are you ready?
Oh?
Got it? Okay? Yes?
What if a certain actor changed his name to Joaquin Scottsdale.
I want to know if he changed his name in the first place, that's Joaquin Phoenix.
Of course, there you go, different city in Arizona.
What about Johnny Chattanooga?
Uh, what's not Johnny Depp? It's Shaannie, It's not Johnny Memphis, Johnny Knoxville. I know it was the guy from the what is that shows? From Jackass? I wanted to say the jerk. He's like, not, it's not the jerk. It's a different thing with the jackass, right right, Johnny Knoxville, okay, good.
What about Samuel Oxford Samuel Oxford.
Oh, great actor played Nick Fury.
Samuel L. Jackson Exactly.
I was gonna say, Samuel L. Oxford. I thought I'd make it. Yeah, you're the puny puzzle. What about this one? It's a little reaching bank is Rick Peoria, Rick Peoria?
Rick Peoria.
Is in which state?
Which is in Iowa? Right? No? Peoria Peoria is in Illinois.
Sorry, exactly, Rick Springfield, Rex Springfield.
Es ser Jesse's girl, and Ricky said Jack and Diane is that Rick? No, that's no, that's that's a different guy. That's John Cougar Mellencamp.
I think that might have been John Cougar and then without the Mellencamp.
Right, so confusing.
By the way I looked it up, there are at least thirty five Springfields in the US, so it's not just Illinois, but this one, the famous one, is in Illinois. All right now, I'm gonna do switch it up a little for you, okay. And these are all celebrities whose first names are cities. Okay, so I'm gonna do the first name. I'm gonna switch it up to a different city in the same state, and you have to tell me who the real person is. What if I told you Miami Bloom. Who is Miami Bloom?
Miami Bloom is Orlando Bloom, Alando Bloom, Leopold Bloom. No, it's got to be a city in Florida, Orlando Bloom.
There it is the actor Orlando Bloom in Florida. How about Norfolk Ocazio Cortes.
Norfolk or Cazio Cortes.
Well, that's, of course the great New York representative Alexandra Ocazio Cortes, And it's Norfolk, Virginia and Alexandria Virginia. Alexandria Cazio Cortez right right there, are got it?
Got it?
Yeah, they're not a huge number of Occasio Corteses who are well.
Or a huge number of Alexandria's.
Really there you go? Yeah, that was hard. All right, I'll give you a few more. What about Lubbock Butler, Lubbock Butler.
Lubbock is in Texas, Lubbock Butler and Tyler Butler, No, Austin Butler.
Austin Butler, Elvis.
Very good, very good.
I was on tour of the show that played every small town in Texas. So you take Texas and I think Nagadoches, Tyler, Waco, Orange.
I'm like, I forget all the big cities. I think Christy, Galveston.
Choosing between all of those a lot of ye, I thought of interesting. All right, let me give you a couple of Butler. Yes, how about a Bloomington Bucy.
Oh, very good, Bloomington, Indiana.
That would be Gary Busey, Gary buse Gary.
I only know Gary, Indiana because I just watched the Oklahoma No music Man, music.
Man, music Man, Right, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana.
Gary Indiana. Butever yep? Good?
All right, Well I'll give i'll Land with a couple of more challenging ones. Perhaps how about Oakland breathed. Oakland breathed.
Oh, very interesting.
Oakland breathed is the right next to Oakland is the town called Berkeley. Berkeley breathod the artist of bloom County County breathed.
Uh and yeah, I guess they're not a huge number of Breathods. But no Land with another one? Omaha, Stephens, Omaha Stephens, Oh Braska, Yeah, exactly, Lincoln Stephens, Lincoln Stephens, exactly.
It was Lincoln Stephens.
I ask you, Oh, I found a person that you don't know. There's a bit super exciting. This is like this is a red letter.
There are more people I don't know than I do know.
He was a muckbreaker, a nineteenth century mucker. I believe.
Cool. What other Nebraska city could also be a first name? That just seemed the immediate one to choose.
Right, that's the capital. And I was surprised there. I couldn't find a lot of famous Lincoln's. I think it's a great name. So and he was a great man. So there you go. All right, well, there you go. That's city switchers. So thank you to the Denver boot and thank you to people who name their kids after cities.
And thank you again to Sam Yeagle or Yagle, who I appreciate them for sending that.
In absolutely all right, I think we're right for segment two, which is bonus clues from this week's puddles, clues that were too hot to handle or just once we didn't get to. And this week we had the great comedian John Fugelsang and Greg, you gave him a puzzle all the wrong seasons, so tell remind me of that.
Right.
So we did this game with John that was all about spices and seasonings, and we took names of shows like Russian Doll and changed one of them to a spice who became Russian Dill, right, or the Oregon Trail became the Oregano Trail. But when I was when we were first working on this, I actually thought I was going to just use movies or books whose titles had spices in them and clue them in a different way.
And the first example.
I came up with was the nineteen sixties horror film in which Mia Farrow plays a spice gardener whose child is the devil's spawn, right, which is of course Rosemary's baby because she, in fact she was not a spice gardener.
But that's the fun spicy twist. The spicy twist in that clue is is that.
But the challenge of making that puzzle that way is that that's pretty much it for well known things where someone's name is the same as you know, a spice.
Now I did, there are some homophone options.
So the second one I came up was with was this based a lot based upon Madeline Langle's novel This Ava di Verne film follows a young girl as she journeys across a field of spice to save her father from an evil force, and that, of course is a wrinkle in time. Time a lot of t I m but even that line of puzzle creation, which was homophone for spices and herbs, was kind of a dead end after time. Of course, there's not that many left there. Suppose there's basil, dazzle basil you could.
Do something with, but you know what the famous movie has dazzle in the title. I don't know.
So that a little behind the scenes in the puzzle lab, we have these sort of experiments that went wrong, and those are that was the beginning of the experiment that went wrong, and then it went right and we had a great time with John doing the other version.
I love that that isn't because yeah, sometimes or not sometimes a lot of times you'll start a puzzle and you have this great concept and then you're like, oh, there is only one movie with herb or spice in the title, And you know, why aren't there more movies named after exactly what is wrong with Hollywood.
There's probably ready.
There is a movie called by the way, see see, yeah, it's a very it's the Toshi Uh what's his name to she Cohen?
Anyway, cool, all right, and see and yeah, I'm sure if we dug deep we could find a movie with Ginger in it and so on.
Oh yeah, that's right, Ginger snaps.
Sorry, now I'm thinking.
Of seeing there, you know, the further peaper we go, the less sort.
Of crowd friendly something, because.
Exactly except for our anime fans like Andrea. All right, well that was I enjoyed that. And by the way, can I tell a very quick I didn't have chance to tell John the story when he was on, but now I'll just relay it quickly. I'd have known John for many, many years, like more than twenty five years, because we met in an odd way. I was working in Entertainment Weekly and I was a reporter and Columbia Pictures announced that they were making a movie called Strip Tease. Do you remember that one?
With me?
More? Maybe not? It got like seventeen percent on Rotten Tomatoes, so not very many.
I assume she played a stripper.
I believe she might have been like an undercover cop as a stripper.
I had to become a stripper.
That sounds like anything we would have been seeing in the movies back then.
Yeah right, it.
Was something like that. It was crime and stripping and that was so. Anyway, the studio announced they were holding open auditions like cattle Call for the role of the strip club bouncer. So my editors at Entertainment Weekly magazine thought it'd be funny to send me to the audition, very good to and then I'd write an article about And the joke, of course, is if you can't see I'm not exactly bouncer material, you know, I'm I'm slender is a polite word for it.
You're also a nice guy like you. I can't.
I don't see you outside a bar, like outside a strip club, like beating people up or threatening them.
I get kinds before you go in.
Let me.
I've got this great story.
Right, Well, let me tell you a puzzle. I could only let you in. I'll only let you in if you get your bubble YEA there you go. That would be now I would I take that job. So anyway, I go there and they are all these guys who don't look like me. They look like refrigerators. There is one other guy who doesn't look like that, and that is John fugel Sang who was working at VH one if you remember that channel, of course, and they had sent him to interview these wanna be bouncers. And so he comes up to me with a microphone and he's like, excuse me, sir, what's going on here? And I'm undercover, pretending to be a wanta be actor and he's interviewing me, and I you know, what I wanted to say was I'm one of you, the same thing you are. Yeah, but I had to pretend to be this deluded guy who wanted to be a bouncer anymore movie. And that is how I first met John Fugelsan. So there you have it. Thank you, John. Well, that's it. That was Friday Farrago. Hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for listening. Go check us out on Instagram at Hello Puzzler, where we post new puzzles all the time, and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska.
You're Chief Puzzle officer, and I've got some extra credit answers from our previous episode, AJ and I played a game we called Hippo Hip, where every answer was a part of the human body and the name of an animal that starts with that body part.
His clue for the extra credit.
Was the colored part of the eye on a red coated dog. That, of course is the Irish setter Iris.
It's a tricky one. It's two words for the animal. It's got a slightly different pronunciation, but you figured it out, I'm sure, and.
You'll be back tomorrow to figure out more of our puzzling puzzle.
Thanks for playing along with the team here at The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Averrigan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Sad Strophick t huh, just kidding, rearrange the letters. It's distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.
See you there,