Constructor: Jake Halperin
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
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THEME: doubled letters— two-word answers that become self-descriptive when you double the first letter of the second word in the answer:
Theme answers:
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Well this is suitably weird. It's not the most consistent theme in the world, but it definitely gets points for creativity. I think the first three themers work great, but that last one really mucks things up (you generally want to reserve that final themer slot for your Best themer, not your worst one). First, I thought the Seven Deadly Sins were "cardinal," not "capital"—I actually don't know the term "capital sin" at all. Or, I do, but only by inference. I've probably seen it, but it feels off. A cardinal sin is"(in Christian tradition) any of the seven deadly sins" (google/Oxford Languages), and Sloth is one of those, so ... insert disappointed frowny face here. But even if you accept this "capital" business, this answer is already an outlier in a much more significant way, in that it is the only answer that refers not to a phonetic change but to a (mere) case change. All the other front parts of the themers refer directly to pronunciation; CAPITAL S has absolutely nothing to do with pronunciation. So on two fronts, it's weak and should never have made the team. I wonder if there are two-word phrases with "soft" or "short" letter options that would've worked. Think on that one yourselves. For now, I'll just say that I definitely enjoyed 75% of this theme.
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
Theme answers:
- LONG-I ISLAND (17A: Wight, e.g.?) (i.e. "Wight" has a long "i" in it)
- HARD-C CANDIES (28A: Crunch bar and Cadbury Creme Egg, e.g.?) (i.e. "Crunch" and "Cadbury Creme" have hard "c"s)
- SILENT-M MOVIE (44A: 1995's "Johnny Mnemonic," e.g.?) (i.e. "Mnemonic" has a silent "m")
- CAPITAL-S SIN (59A: Sloth, e.g.?) (i.e. "Sin" has a capital "S")
Renee Danielle Montgomery (born December 2, 1986) is a retired American basketball player and sports broadcaster who is currently vice president, part-owner, and investor of the Atlanta Dream, and one of three owners of the FCF Beasts Indoor Football Team. During her 11-year playing career in the Women's National Basketball Association, she won two championships with the Minnesota Lynx in 2015 and 2017. During her college playing career, she won a national championship with the UConn Huskies in 2009. In 2020, she married music artist Sirena Grace in Atlanta, Ga.[...] During the 2011 WNBA season, Montgomery had the best season of her career once she became the starting point guard for the [Connecticut] Sun. She averaged 14.6 ppg and was voted as an all-star for the first time in her career. [...] In 2017, Montgomery averaged 8.0 ppg and achieved a new career-high in field goal shooting percentage. Montgomery also started in 12 of 34 games played while Whalen was sidelined with a hand injury. The Lynx continued to be a championship contender in the league after making it to the Finals for the sixth time in seven seasons, setting up a rematch with the Sparks. This time the Lynx would win in 5 games, winning their fourth championship in seven seasons, tying the now-defunct Houston Comets for most championship titles. (wikipedia)
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The grid was also predominantly enjoyable, but there were a couple moments of cruelty and stupidity that made me cringe. First, SEAN / SPICER—why would you make such a show of that guy's name!? Melissa McCarthy is great, but her presence in the clue cannot remove the slime from the grid. Then, what the hell is a BEGATHON!? That seems a really ungenerous way to talk about a fundraiser. I think that answer is supposed to be fresh and fun, but it felt like something a Newsmax guy like SEAN / SPICER would say about any org. that needed money. I looked it up, and BEGATHON is derogatory slang for absolutely ordinary stuff like PBS fund-raising drives. Come on, man. Today is especially not the day for this sneering selfish right-wing nonsense; I'm already trying hard to ignore the fact that a huge chunk of this country is not-so-secretly happy about the Russian attack on Ukraine (the bombing has begun). So spare me your architects of white-right disinformation and stupidity, and spare me your contempt for the needy. In general, but especially today.
The puzzle was easy, by and large, but I had a few struggles. The most embarrassing struggle, for someone who has a Ph.D. in English and whose daughter minored in linguistics and who generally likes word-related stuff a lot, is that I totally spaced on VELARS (47D: Both consonants in "geek," phonetically). It's normal not to know VELARS—it's probably the toughest vocabulary word in the grid—but *I* should've remembered this. I was trying VOC- and VAL- and everything but the right thing. Had to build most of it from crosses before I remembered it. I also forgot CREAM existed, for a bit (29D: Band with the first platinum-selling double album). Eric Clapton was in that band, so there's some more white-right disinformation-spreading garbage for your puzzling day. Sigh. The funniest thing that happened to me today, screw-up-wise, was that I kept wanting AXE and it kept being wrong until finally it decided to show up at the very bottom of the grid (60D: Eliminate). It's relatively normal to want a word, have it be wrong, and then have it show up elsewhere. But to want that word and have it be wrong *twice* before actually showing up—that's strange. What's really strange is not that I wanted AXES for 7D: Handled sharp objects? (AWLS), but that I wanted AXE again at 42D: Leaf-cutter, e.g. (ANT). I had the "A," obviously. Then I saw "cutter" in the clue and AXE was the first thing that leapt to mind. Never mind that only a psychotic is going to use an AXE to cut leaves. The longer answers today were a joy. I really liked TOP-LOADER and SHAKY CAM, and even the somewhat less showy PRE-FLIGHT, mostly because it started "Rocket Man" playing in my head:
Hope you found this puzzle at least as enjoyable as I did. See you tomorrow.