New York Times, Thursday, February 24, 2022

I hope solvers find this theme as delightful as I did when I was first lucky enough to stumble upon it. I'm also happy with the grid, for which I owe a debt of gratitude to the editorial team for their insistence.

We did have an interesting difference of opinions on the BEGATHON slot. They would have preferred an entry like TOGETHER, which could lend itself to various clever cluing angles, whereas BEGATHON kind of only works with a clue that spells it out. I opted for the fresh, snazzy fill, maybe because I still have a way to go before I reach the master cluing ability that the NYT editors are so famous for.

I love a tricksy Thursday that breaks the rules in an innovative, entertaining way. However, plenty of solvers detest Thursday tricks because they're too hard, too kooky, or too rule-breaking. Today's felt like a solid compromise — a theme that employed standard wordplay but was still tough to uncover, in an interesting way.

I appreciated that Jake used a variety of letter modifiers: LONG, HARD, SILENT, CAPITAL. At first, CAPITAL felt like an outlier, but I liked that it introduced something unexpected.

Doubling letters also made for a cool extra layer. It's unusual to come across the II pattern.

Three perfect examples of the kooky phrases, too. [Wight] is an ISLAND containing a LONG I sound. [Crunch bar] starts with a HARD C and is a type of CANDY. I didn't enjoy "Johnny Mnemonic," but it sure is a MOVIE featuring a SILENT M in its title.

CAPITAL SIN didn't ring a bell as strongly as Seven Deadly Sins, but it's a standard term in Christian theology. Sloth starts a sentence here, but since it isn't typically capitalized, I didn't find this answer as cool as the other three.

I enjoy learning terms that are self-explanatory when you study them afterward. SHAKY CAM is exactly what it sounds like. BEG-A-THON made me laugh. I don't know if I'd ever use it in conversation, but it's such an amusing word that I might toss it in.

I didn't know what VELARS meant off the top, but it felt apt to include a sound-related word in this puzzle.

It takes a special kind of non-tricksy Thursday to appeal to me, and this one hit my sweet spot.