Speaker 1: Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the Elusive flavor
Speaker 1: note in your puzzle tasting flight. I am your host,
Speaker 1: A J. Jacobs, and today's guest is the great Jeremy Hobson, journalist, podcaster,
Speaker 1: host of The Middle with Jeremy Hobson, found on NPR
Speaker 1: and on podcasts. Welcome Jeremy, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It's so great to be here.
Speaker 1: We love having you. Congratulations on your first episode. You
Speaker 1: nailed it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now though, you have to face Greg Pliska, our chief
Speaker 1: puzzle officer, So I'm going to bring him up and
Speaker 1: let him administer.
Speaker 3: Sounds like you've dragged the ogre out of the basement
Speaker 3: to drag him up here, n chain him and let
Speaker 3: him loose, you know, before we before we get into this,
Speaker 3: just Jeremy, you're the expert about the middle of America.
Speaker 3: Is Colorado a Midwestern state?
Speaker 2: No? Definitely?
Speaker 3: Not all right, so we're gonna cut that from the
Speaker 3: last episode.
Speaker 2: We just pretend no, definitely, No, No, I think I
Speaker 2: said middle, yes, middle middle. Colorado is definitely in the
Speaker 2: middle of the country. Colorado does not mean that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean it's part of the Midwest, which is different Rockies.
Speaker 1: Well, I think I said middle America.
Speaker 3: I believe that was weird.
Speaker 2: But by the way, by for the definition of my show,
Speaker 2: I think of middle as everything from like Richmond, Virginia
Speaker 2: to Sacramento, California. That all counts as middle.
Speaker 1: Interesting. I also, why not why wouldn't like Mexico and
Speaker 1: El Salvador be middle America because it's middle the other West?
Speaker 2: Yes, right, that's true if we're thinking of the America's Yes. Yes.
Speaker 3: My good friend, the recently departed singer Jim Salestrom, used
Speaker 3: to say he came from Central America, Nebraska, right, that
Speaker 3: was It's gonna flip that joke the other way. Well,
Speaker 3: this puzzle, Jeremy, is all about the middle, but not
Speaker 3: the middle of America or the middle in politics. It's
Speaker 3: about the middle of words, okay. In fact, what we're
Speaker 3: going to do is is take a four letter word,
Speaker 3: insert a letter right in the middle, and get a
Speaker 3: five letter word.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So, for example, if I said the host of Wheel
Speaker 3: of Fortune owns a lot of legware, that would be
Speaker 3: cluing blank blank, So the host of it would be
Speaker 3: somebody's something. It would be Pat's pants exactly, Pats Jacks
Speaker 3: pants so Pats, I.
Speaker 2: Was thinking of say jack and I was like, it's
Speaker 2: say Jackson. No, that can't be right.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's a that's a five letter word. So we
Speaker 3: stick a jay inside the sack. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: All right, Very good, very well done. It's always going
Speaker 3: to be the four letter word followed by the five
Speaker 3: letter word when we play this. Okay, all right, So
Speaker 3: here's your first one. If the author of Huckleberry Finn
Speaker 3: had an identical brother, he would be the blank of blank,
Speaker 3: the twin of Twain. Yes, very good, Mark Twain. And
Speaker 3: of course Huckleberry Finn is another good Middle of America store.
Speaker 2: At right, what a great story.
Speaker 3: Right down the Mississippi. All right, well done. Here's another one.
Speaker 3: Afternoon socials held in Dallas are better known as blank
Speaker 3: in blank. Hmm.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm thinking that it's got a Texas has to
Speaker 2: be one of those. Okay, so teas in.
Speaker 3: Texas, Te's in Texas exactly. I like the way you
Speaker 3: work that out going backwards. You know you got the
Speaker 3: five letter word.
Speaker 2: Well, and I thought to myself, is there some word
Speaker 2: for an afternoon social in Dallas that I don't know about?
Speaker 3: Is it a hoe down where do they come? Okay,
Speaker 3: a very specific regionalism, right that they have only in Dallas.
Speaker 3: Now it's a general teas in Texas. Okay, all right?
Speaker 3: Moving Uh, this one I think kind of moves outside
Speaker 3: the middle. Actually it goes to that the edge where
Speaker 3: I live over here in New York City in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: on the way home from work, I like to blank
Speaker 3: on the blank of my brownstone to chat with the neighbors.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking that one of the words is stoop, Yes,
Speaker 2: to stop on the stoop.
Speaker 3: Stop on the stoop of my brownstone exactly. And I
Speaker 3: don't know. I mean, I think that's the only thing.
Speaker 3: When we say stoop, we mean that front steps of
Speaker 3: a brownstone. That's not a port.
Speaker 2: Unless you're saying, like, how could you stoop to that level?
Speaker 3: Totally? Look here on the puzzle, will stoop to whatever
Speaker 3: level we can as as we can, right, I mean
Speaker 3: the clue for Kansas, Yeah, on the last episode should
Speaker 3: have been butts plus butt cans an ass. I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know why we didn't go there.
Speaker 1: We are a high brow show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, speaking of not high brow, here's another one.
Speaker 3: Sasha Baron Cohen is planning a cruise, featuring his most
Speaker 3: beloved character. So you can get on a blank with blank.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, sorry, I was okay, So I was thinking
Speaker 2: Borat and then I was thinking Bora, Bora, but that's
Speaker 2: not what we're doing here. So a boat with Borat.
Speaker 3: I love that, though. I see you've got to come
Speaker 3: back and do the edges. We'll cut off the edges of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta write the next puzzle. You got to
Speaker 1: join our writing exactly.
Speaker 3: All right, let's see two more. Okay, Prince saying about
Speaker 3: speaking of the Midwest, the middle of the country, Prince
Speaker 3: Great Minnesota, Minnesota, Prince saying about a raspberry one. But
Speaker 3: I prefer vegetables. So I'm getting a blank colored blank,
Speaker 3: a beat colored beret. Beat colored beret, which is kind
Speaker 3: of like raspberry is a similar color.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 3: Right, your last one. I was expecting something about Tesla
Speaker 3: or Twitter, but instead I got Goodbye yellow brick Road.
Speaker 3: That's what happens when you confuse blank with blank.
Speaker 2: Ah, I've got it, And in fact, it was an
Speaker 2: answer in a crossword puzzle that I just In fact,
Speaker 2: it's been an answering a number of crosswords. The word elton,
Speaker 2: so we're talking about Elon and Elton. Yeah, but Elton,
Speaker 2: British singer John is all over the crossword universe right now.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's a good word, right, It's got
Speaker 3: interesting vowel positions, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you've got Eton, which of the British. The
Speaker 1: British right always in there, so Elon Elton.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Elon appears in puzzles a lot too because it's
Speaker 3: an interesting mix of letters. But yes, that's Elon Musk
Speaker 3: and Elton John. Well that was great, Jeremy, well done.
Speaker 2: This makes me so happy because I was very worried.
Speaker 2: I was very worried about the puzzler. I thought I
Speaker 2: was going to do really badly and I was just
Speaker 2: going to be cute.
Speaker 3: But that's great.
Speaker 2: I feel good.
Speaker 3: You did well, You're preparation and you were cute.
Speaker 1: So it's perfect adorable adorbs. Where can people find more
Speaker 1: of your puzzling or non puzzling content.
Speaker 2: Wherever they listen to podcasts? You can download The Middle
Speaker 2: with Jeremy Hobson. Subscribe there and we've got a new
Speaker 2: topic every single week and panel guests and live calls.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is if you also want to
Speaker 2: listen to it live. I say also because I do
Speaker 2: want you to subscribe to the podcast. But if you
Speaker 2: want to listen to it live, it's on over four
Speaker 2: hundred NPR stations every Thursday evening at eight Central or
Speaker 2: seven seven Mountain nine Eastern, six Pacific.
Speaker 1: There you go, get them all. Greg, do you have
Speaker 1: an extra credit for the Puzzlers?
Speaker 3: I certainly do. I certainly do. Here's the extra credit.
Speaker 3: I've collected kitchenware belonging to Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and
Speaker 3: Amanda Gorman because I love the blank of blank.
Speaker 1: Delightful. All right, I see Jeremy. I think he's got it.
Speaker 1: He's not in his head. Whether or not you got it,
Speaker 1: you will get the answer in the next episode of
Speaker 1: The Puzzler, So please don't forget to subscribe. Tell your friends,
Speaker 1: just spread the word why not, and we'll meet you
Speaker 1: here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3: Hey, puzzlers, it's the Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska, joining
Speaker 3: you once again with the extra credit answer from our
Speaker 3: previous episode. Jeremy Hopson joined us and we played Middle
Speaker 3: America Charades where every answer is the name of a
Speaker 3: state in the middle of America, and we include it
Speaker 3: using a charade, so your extra credit went like this
Speaker 3: Cyclops has one plus I should have known that, plus
Speaker 3: a gardening tool, and those three words are I, duh
Speaker 3: ho giving you the state Idaho. If you're in Idaho,
Speaker 3: we want to hear from you. We love having you listen,
Speaker 3: and we thank everyone for listening to the Puzzler Podcast.