Can You Solve These Puzzles with Me and A.J.?

26:11And, you know, that would do a lot. Well, you might be right. I mean, I watched how John, my stepson, trained this dog, and it really taught him a lot about, the whole aspect of training the dog is very complicated and disciplined. And also, dogs for a million and a half years evolved with hominids, basically various human species. And we kind of like evolved together. One of my favorite cartoons, I don't remember who wrote it, but it was a picture of a wolf by a fire, a caveman fire. and he's like, well, I'm going to get closer and get a little meat. What could go wrong? Cut to the next panel.

26:53It's one of those poodles in Japan that have been shaved into cubes. Have you ever seen those? And they are just the weirdest looking. Their fur is in cubes. And it is just no dignity for these dogs whatsoever. Because that's just like a cosmetic thing as opposed to like, let's say you have a cute dog, like a French poodle. That's evolved to be a cute dog for some reason. Like what was a French poodle evolved for? Oh, and this is our cockatoo. Lulu, can you talk? Look at that. Lulu, hi, Lulu. Say hello to AJ. Can you say hi, AJ? He gets a little shy. He gets a little shy. She doesn't like to be on a podcast.

27:43She knows she's on camera. Yeah. So she doesn't know what, she's a little tongue tied, literally. That is funny. Look at you. You got a little menagerie there. I know. That is, that is the new James Altucher. I did not see coming. The Dr. Doolittle phase. So tell me, okay, wait, one more puzzle and then it's on to constitutions. Excellent. Oh yeah. Let me, I got some good ones for you. Okay. How about this? This is a puzzle we came up with where it's based on a character named, Guy who enthusiastically describes movies he has not seen based on the title. So that's the whole puzzle. So for instance, if this guy says, oh man, there's this movie coming out, or this movie that I heard about, it's got Jerry Seinfeld's zany neighbor, and he clones himself.

28:34Kramer versus Kramer. Exactly. You miss the dark ending where I say the clones have a fight to the death, mixed martial arts battle. But yes, you got it. All right, I'll give you another couple. What about, oh man, I hear there's this great movie about the Las Vegas football team and their search for Noah's boat from the Bible, which has gone missing. So I wouldn't know the Las Vegas football. I mean, maybe I would. I don't think Las Vegas has a football team, do they? They do. It moved. It moved from Oakland. Oh, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Exactly. All right, one more, one more.

29:12A hard one. How about, oh really? Okay. How about this one? This is about, the premise of this movie, it's really cool. The 33rd president of the United States comes in third in a horse race. So 33rd resident, who was right after FDR, took over from FDR and then immediately entered a horse race and he came in third. Okay, don't say anything. And also dropped the atomic bomb. So that's someone describing that movie. Right. Okay, let me see. The 33rd president enters a horse race. I think you know it. Okay, hold on. Who dropped the atomic bomb? Did you see Oppenheimer? Yeah, yeah, no, I know Truman.

30:03Okay, so Truman, right. And if you come in third in a horse race, you're not winning. You are not placing. you are. I don't know, actually. You're not placing your, what is it? When place. Oh, I don't even know. The Truman, Jim Carrey. Oh, the Truman Show. Yeah. Okay. The Truman Show. You gave me so many hints. That one I would not have gotten. I got the Truman part instantly, but I would not have gotten. I thought you were a gambler. That's interesting. You just never did horse gambling. No, I never did horse gambling at all. Never played the ponies. All right. So yeah, I love doing these and I just feel, You know, I've made the pitch before on your show.

30:44Like puzzles are not trivial. They're like good for you. They're good for teaching you how to think. They're good for waking your brain up. So that is the pitch. It's like just five minutes. Someone wrote in like a review. It's like, you know, a caffeine hit of joy. And I love that description. Well, every morning, do you have a puzzle routine you do every day? Like a lot of people do, like I do Wordle every day from the New York Times. I do. I am actually not a whittler. I do the New York Times crossword puzzle. I do spelling bee, which annoys me. Yeah. I hate that I am addicted to it, but I can't stop.

31:23And I also try the connections. I do connections. Connections is hard. Yeah, it is. It can be hard, especially if you don't know your NHL hockey teams. Yeah, here's why I don't like connections or crossword puzzles. is because I feel like you need some cultural IQ to solve a lot of these. I will say, though, the best crossword puzzles are not about what is the capital of Bulgaria, although you happen to know what's the capital of Armenia. You're good with your capitals. The best crossword puzzles, in my opinion, are the ones which are all about wordplay and like a little trick. It's almost like a magic trick, like a misdirect.

32:10So if you ask Will Shorts, the editor in the New York Times crosswords, what's his favorite clue ever? The one that was A.J. Jacobs. That should be his favorite. That was a real crossword puzzle. That was. I was in the cross one down. It was the highlight of my life. but the yeah he said something like this turns into another story and the answer is spiral staircase so it's all about that's beautiful so yeah I mean it's not my favorite I think it's good but but that type is the one I like I like that because you could appreciate the artistry to create that clue and that answer but if it's just like what's the capital of Bulgaria that's boring to me like okay either i know it or i don't and if you don't know it then you got to figure out everything around it but what if you don't know those and book and connections there's some skill to it too because you got to make sure they try to trick you a word could be in two categories so you have to kind of figure the whole thing out before you start guessing but i like wordle because the anagram aspect so uh it's just uh you know you just have to it's just like yes you have to have a decent vocabulary, but none of the words are that fancy.

33:29It's only five letters. And so you have to use a lot of like logical thinking to figure it out. That's true. I will say, I mean, English in one sense is a terrible language because the pronunciation and spelling is so nuts. There are basically 44 sounds in the English language. So like, because there's more than just the letters, there's also shh and things like that. So there are 44 sounds, but there are over 1 ,000 ways to spell those 44 sounds, which is insane and terrible and worse than most other languages. So, you know, just like the O-U-G-H can be pronounced through, tough, cough, like a hundred different ways.

34:18Well, it's funny you say that. I was just thinking of the sound, you know, the F sound. So that could be O-U-G-H, or it could be the letter F, or it could be P-H. Oh, yeah. Well, have you ever seen the famous rebus? It's G-H-O-T-I. And you say, what is that? And it is, have you seen that? It's fish. I've seen the word, but I don't know what it means. G-H is from fish. I mean, from tough. So you get, and then the O is from women. So you get the I. And then the T-I is from like, you know, nation. So you get the SH. So fish. So it's a terrible language in some ways. But the one upside is it is great for puzzles.

35:03So thank God for the crazy, crazy spelling. Right. Like if we were just a Latin language, then everybody just has to like break it down to Latin and figure it all out. Right. Right. Esperanto is the least fun language for puzzles ever. I mean, I often wish that we had, in some ways, Esperanto as the world language. I think in some ways it would be a better world, but it would suck for the puzzlers. When you were a kid, did you try to learn Esperanto? I feel like every kid has made an attempt to learn Esperanto. I did learn, yeah, basically like 10 words. What about you? Yeah, like 10 words. It was for a half a millisecond I tried to learn it.

35:42I actually started a book all about language, and maybe I'll go back to it. But there's been some fascinating attempts at like an ideal utopian language. One of them I liked, I think it was in the 1940s, was to get rid of nouns. Because nouns are very pigeonholing and bad for, for instance, if you say like, you know, that person's, Russell Crowe is an asshole. That's not really true. He can be an asshole. He acts in an assholic way in certain situations. Right. But you're saying he's not actually one. He's not literally one. Well, that's true too. Or even just a jerk. But it's, the idea is you don't want to label someone with a noun because once they become that label, then they live up to it.

36:40Well, so what you're really saying is don't have adjectives. So, and if you think about it, like that's what you're saying, right? Because in that case, asshole or jerk was an adjective. No, no, he is an asshole. You can say, you can say he was acting in an assaholic way, which I guess is more of an adverb. Or yes, you want to mostly change it to verbs, so not adjectives, not nouns. It was a very verb-based language. So what you are doing right now is what you focus on as opposed to painting someone with that brush. I also like, though, then tones become a lot more important. So some languages do have a lot of tones in them, like Hebrew being one of them.

37:25So where the way you say something changes the meaning. Right, exactly. Yeah, Chinese I know, which I know very little about. Yeah, and different African languages with the clicks. But that's interesting. I love linguistics, which I think plays part in why I love the word puzzle so much. Can I tell you my favorite fact that I still remember from my... Of course. All right. And I don't know, you might want to bleep this out. But anyway, some languages, not a lot, some have what are called infixes. Infixes are like suffixes and prefixes, but they're in the middle of the word. Suffix at the end, prefix.

38:07And it changes the meaning of the word. So, like, it might be something that pluralizes the word, but it's in the middle. English has one infix, and only one, and that infix is? Wait, wait, hold on. Let me try to, I don't think I could guess it, but I don't know. Well, I did give you a hint when I said you might need to bleep it. All right, tell me. Because it's an intensifier, meaning it makes it more intense. Oh, the word fuck. Yeah, in-fucking-credible, un-fucking-believable. Yeah. All-a-fucking-bama. That is literally our only, So there are all these quirks of the English language that we just take for granted.

38:55That is fascinating. So why didn't you finish that book? I don't know. Oh, you know why? Because my publisher was like, that's too intelligent. No one wants to read that. Yeah, it's like a linguistics book. Exactly. So maybe I'll figure out a way to do it.

39:17such a fun interview with aj and now keep the podcast on because we're releasing two never before heard episodes of the puzzler there's seven minutes each try to solve the puzzles in aj's new podcast episodes here they are

39:59Thank you. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

40:16Hello, puzzlers. Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the miracle grow for your puzzle garden.

40:29I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I am here with our guest for the entire week, the amazing Ken Jennings, host of the Omnibus podcast, Jeopardy! legend, and author of the newish book, A Hundred Places to See After You Die, which explores depictions of the afterlife in literature and pop culture. Welcome, Ken. Thank you for having me, AJ. Ken and I, I'm proud to say, have known each other a long time. I interviewed you when you were on your first Jeopardy! streak, and I had just written a book where I read the encyclopedia. You, at the time, asked me what I remembered from the encyclopedia. And I am very excited that it stuck with you, the main fact that I have taken away.

41:17I still think and talk about this. Opossums have 13 nipples. You read millions of words. A few other things did. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, opossum is a funny word. I like the word opossum. And, you know, nipple was also hard to forget. And 13, it had all of the elements. It's got everything. Got everything. Well, one of my favorite books, you've written several books. One of my favorite books he wrote is called Maphead, and it is about your obsession with maps. And I still remember some of your favorite places from that book, like Hibbert's Gore, Maine. Do you remember Hibbert's Gore, Maine?

42:01Population one. Oh yeah, it's only one person, right? And as a result, the census data for Hibbert's Gore, Maine actually tells you everything about that person because they publish averages. So you can find out what her income is, what her age is. She's been docked by the Census Bureau. That is unfortunate. She needs to get at least one other person so she can average it out. Well, in honor of Maphead, this puzzle is about geography. And it is called Putting the Pan in Panama. So every answer is going to contain the name of a country as well as a word consisting of the first three letters of that country.

42:40So, or three or four letters in some cases. So for instance, if the clue is, I got a massage and a seaweed wrap in Madrid, the solution might be, I went to a spa in Spain. There you go. I wish I could count that, but that was the sample one. So, but these next ones are fully for accreditation. Well, I hope I all have the capital in them because I studied those for Jeopardy back in the day. Oh, nice. And you still think you've got all of the capitals in there? Probably. I mean, I'm a pretty big map nerd. Like when I say I studied, I mean like I was six years old, like reading the Atlas for fun.

43:21So hopefully it stuck with me. The post-1990s stuff, all the post-Soviet stuff, maybe I don't know because I was a teenager. All right. We'll see. We will see. I think there is a couple of capitals. The first one is, I bought some lingerie for my wife at Copacabana Beach. Copacabana, as Barry Manilow taught us, is in Rio, I think. That would be Brazil. So it's bra and Brazil. There it is. He doesn't have any trouble. I kind of figured. All right, what about this one? This one is a little pop culture. I passed the legal exam in a Rihanna's country of birth. I passed the legal exam. He's nodding his head.

44:04See, I'm used to this on Jeopardy. You're already parsing when you're talking. So as you're talking about the law, I'm like, what are three-letter words related to the law? LSAT is not going to start any countries, but BAR, those are the first three letters in Barbados where Rihanna's from. Oh, my God. Exactly. Well, should I just read the first three words of the clue, and then you can answer? I don't know if I'm—I don't usually request more difficulty. But yeah, I mean, if you want to stop before the country does and see if I can read your mind. Oh, OK. All right. That'll be interesting. I replenished my vital energy in...

44:40Vital energy? Vital energy in the Andes. In the Andes. Well, that makes it a little easier. Oh, I was spelling chi with a Q and I didn't have it. So it's chi in Chile. There you go. Yes. I might have the more anglicized spelling. So bad on me. That's my bad. Well, it could have been China also. There's two CHI countries. That's true. That's true. Yes. So replenished my chi. Chi is the eastern energy in Chile. All right. A couple more. You're doing as expected. Pretty good. All right. Here is a capital. We got a capital. I snapped my ulna in Yerevan. I snapped my ulna in Yerevan. Oh, ulna. Yeah.

45:25Yerevan's the capital of Armenia. And the ulna is a bone in your, what, your upper arm. Arm in Armenia. Arm in Armenia. Exactly. All right. Or wait, lower arm, right? I said upper, but maybe it's lower. It is. I was going to correct you, but I then thought. You're allowed to correct me? Well, it was going to be an Easter egg for the listeners. There's nothing people like more than finding a podcast host or guest in a mistake. It will make their whole day. They're yelling at the car radio right now. Well, we'll insert some mistakes just for their pleasure. All right. Final one. I did some planet gazing in the Bikini Atoll.

46:04The planet gazing in the Bikini Atoll. Planet gazing? Now, I did mention, I hope, it's either three or four letters. It's not always three. Oh, I see. Mars is four letters. You didn't mention that. So the Bikini Atoll must be in the Marshall Islands, which I didn't know. I learned something today, AJ. Oh, my God. this is huge. This is huge. All right. Well, I feel I've done my job then. Opossums have 13 nipples and the Bikini Atoll is in the Marshall Islands. Well, Ken, you did not do so bad as expected. You did great. If we had cash prizes, we would give you one. Wait, there aren't cash prizes?

46:44You get our esteem. This is like the first year they let pro basketball guys in the Olympics. and they're like, what? I'm not getting a check for this? It's true. You are the equivalent of a pro basketball player. So where can people find more Ken Jennings content if they want, which they should? Our 100 Places to See After You Die is just kind of a fun faux travel guide to different versions of the afterlife, all the way from the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, all the way up through TVs, the good place, theme park rides, comic books, video games, and it's on sale wherever books are sold. Independent bookstores, evil e-retailers.

47:26It's everywhere, AJ. It's a great book. I loved it, and I learned a ton, including Hell with one L, not Hell with two L. The Norse Hell. They couldn't afford the second L. That's how threadbare Viking culture was. They had to save those Ls. All right. Well, before we wrap up, as always, there's an extra credit puzzle for those at home. Actually, I'll give them two. I got E. coli from some undercooked sourbraten. And how about this one? I got into a bit of a sticky wicket at the Bob Marley Museum. So puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast. And I'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.

48:30Hello, puzzlers! Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the emotional running to the airport scene in your puzzle romantic comedy.

48:44I'm your host AJ Jacobs and I am here with our guest the great Baratunde Thurston writer and host of many many things including how to citizen the podcast right here on iHeart. Welcome Baratunde. Hello AJ thank you so much for having me I'm looking forward to not embarrassing myself. Yes, we will keep the embarrassment to a minimum. It's usually me who embarrasses myself. Okay. But I actually don't know. I've read a lot about you, but I don't know. Are you a puzzle fan at all? Crosswords, jigsaw, word puzzles, anything like that? Nothing consistently. I've had bouts, phases of puzzledom. COVID was a big puzzle phase, of course, as we were all held hostage by ourselves in our homes.

49:35I still have a puzzle on our dining table. We've been working on it, my wife and I, for six months. And we actually have guests coming over this weekend. And we need to finish it because other people need to sit at the table. So this is going to help me get in a puzzle frame of mind so that I can finish the puzzle in my life, which is soon to get in the way of me living my life. We are here to help. Prime my puzzle pump. Yeah. Yeah. I thought when you said you had friends coming over, you were going to put them to work. We actually did that. We had a friend come over after drinks and the three of us worked together and made more progress in an hour than, you know, Elizabeth and I had made in many, many, many weeks.

50:17Well, we're going to give you a puzzle. It's not a jigsaw puzzle. Okay. This puzzle is called Your Moment of Zen. And it's partly in honor of your former job at The Daily Show. Great. But mostly it's in honor of your wonderful podcast, How to Citizen. Because like the word citizen, all the answers to these clues contain the word zen. So if, for instance, I said a baker's one of these has 13, the solution might be dozen. Dozen. Dozen. Exactly. Dozen. Bakers dozen. Got it. Yes. All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right. Clue number one. These might be made by Ricola.

51:08Oh, ah, okay. So first of all, I'm sorry, I have a story for everything, apparently. But I used to sing that song. I was addicted to Ricola as a high school student. Not in like a substance abuse way, just in like I really appreciated non-sore throats. And so my friends knew and they would even see me coming and they would sing the song. Ricola, Ricola. When it changes the key, that's the key. So you are referring to lozenges. Exactly. And first of all, I love that because I was very nervous when I wrote this. I'm like, is he too young to know those cheesy commercials? But no. Not only do you know them.

51:49I'm in the sweet spot. Yeah. It was your trademark. That's fantastic. I sang them. I'm born in 77. I've been around. Ricola is a part of my youth. Fantastic. All right, so this actress has a name derived from the Bantu word meaning to give thanks. Actress singer, some say, although my son says she's more of an actress. Okay, so the Bantu word, give thanks, doesn't help me much. I'm just going to always share my thought process here. Love that. Actress, N-Z-E-N being in the name. And I give thanks that she exists, I would say Zendaya. uh exactly yes yeah we are all thankful for zendaya go dune goes in there appropriate name yes uh well done all right you were okay okay all right this disney movie uh-oh according to internet conspiracy theories was to bury all mention of the cryogenic preservation of walt disney by flooding google with a different word what i know that is a crazy clue my kids i was i had a different clue and my kids are like yeah no do this one so okay um so i'm audio and i'm trying to relate to the word so we got disney so i'm thinking cartoons and disney obsessive movies um and cryo ice so are we talking frozen frozen exactly you got it what's the conspiracy i'd love to know more about this the theory is or the rumor is he was cryogenically frozen so he's gonna come out in a in a couple decades and start producing more movies you know what so so here's the thing about that theory if ever there were a time for Walt Disney to come back and save his company, it would be right now.

53:48All right, just two more. This writer, this novelist, had a mini spat with Oprah Winfrey. A novelist who had a mini spat with Oprah Winfrey. Who would have a spat with Oprah? First of all, I probably don't like this person. If you got beef with Oprah. she yes there he's a bit controversial but super talented it was over a book he wrote that she chose for her show and the book was called the corrections and he then said some disparaging things about the oprah winfrey audience so she disinvited it's my this is my She disinvited this person from the show, but still read his book because it was, you know, separate the artist from the art.

54:46He is a National Book Award winning guy. And his first name is Jonathan. Thank you. That did it because I've just heard Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Franzen. And it rolls off the tongue. So thank you for that assist. You got it. You get full credit. But yeah, it's hard to find people with names with a Zen in it. Yeah. All right. Last one is the part one of the clue is this was a 2022 Alyssa Milano movie that got 13 % on Rotten Tomatoes. Or it's a word meaning bold and shameless. Hmm. Alyssa Milano 2022 low ranked movie. Not helping. Yes. I figured that would not be helpful. That was just sort of like, you know, to throw a little pop culture in there.

55:40Yeah, no, I appreciate it. A synonym for bold, shameless. Oh, okay. Okay. Brazen. Brazen. Yes. You got it. You got five out of five. Perfect score. Oh, this is ironic. I can't think of the word that, uh, synonym.

56:02or in this case xenonym nice oh my god oh i wish we had a cash prize for like brilliant wordplay but we don't i am thoroughly warmed up this is fun this has been fun well thank you so you did Great. Where can people find more Baratunde content? People can go to this place called a website. I have one that I've had since 1999. Wow. You were early. I was very early. Baratunde.com is the owned and operated hub of my universe. You can also find me on digital sharecropper sites such as Instagram or whatever else owned by someone else. but mine is baratunde.com, so you can plug that. Well, thank you.

56:54I never heard that phrase, but it's brilliant. Digital sharecropper. Before we wrap up, as always, one extra credit for you puzzlers at home. This word, it contains zen, and the clue is it is a proceder of mast. Proceder of mast. All right, puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast, and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.