September 20, 2022

Title: DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD

Constructors: Kelsey Dixon & Brooke Husic

Editor: Amanda Rafkin

Theme Answers:

REBA DUETS (22A: McEntire album with a featured artist on every track)

WNBA DRAFT (13D: Event where the Sun and Sky select new players)

SCUBA DIVE (51A: Explore a coral reef)

BARBADIAN (35D: Caribbean islander who might celebrate Crop Over)

Theme synopsis: Today's grid is a visual representation of DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD. Each theme answer contains the word BAD, a synonym for "UNGOOD." Each Across answer is paired with a Down answer, giving us two - a DOUBLE - pairs of theme answers, each forming a PLUS sign out of the crossing BADs. (That may be the longest theme synopsis I've written!)

And now a word from our constructors:

Kelsey & Brooke: we are so excited for our first collaboration!! in addition to the theme answers, our favorite answers+clues are 15a, 4d, 27d, 47d, and obviously the timely 3d.

Things I learned:

• RAP SNACKS (15A: Company that makes Lil Yachty's Hot Cheese Fries) RAP SNACKS, founded by James Lindsay in 1994, has been called "The Official Snack of Hip Hop." Each RAP SNACK package features the face of a hip hop artist, and each artist receives their own flavor. However, if you'd like to try Lil Yachty's Hot Cheese Fries, you might have to wait, because according to the website, this flavor is currently sold out. You might luck out and find them at the store though. RAP SNACKS are sold at Walmart, Kroger, Best Buy, and Target, as well as other retail outlets.
• JEAN SMART (53A: "Hacks" star) Hacks is a TV series that premiered in 2021. JEAN SMART stars as Deborah Vance, a comedy diva needing to reinvent her aging act to remain relevant in Las Vegas.
• BRO (30D: Hiro, to Tadashi Hamada, for short) Hiro and Tadashi Hamada are characters from the 2014 animated Disney movie, Big Hero 6. Hiro Hamada is a young robotics prodigy, and Tadashi is his late brother (BRO, for short). Hiro teams up with Baymax, a robot, to find the masked villain responsible for his brother's death. A TV series, Big Hero 6: The Series, continued the movie's story. 

Random thoughts and interesting things:

• HAS (1A: "After the Love ___ Gone") "After the Love HAS Gone," is a 1979 song by Earth, Wind & Fire.
• TUB (19A: Rubber duckie's place) Some of you may recall the rubber duckie story I shared with you a couple of months ago. (Brief recap: our daughter and her boyfriend, on their last visit, hid tiny rubber duckies all over our house.) Well, here's a rubber duckie update: we are still finding rubber duckies! I just found another one Saturday. Last week when the weather turned cool, I grabbed a

  

  Rubber duckies galore

  long-sleeved button up shirt before my husband and I headed out on our daily walk. I hadn't worn this shirt for several months, so couldn't figure out what was in the pocket...it was a rubber duckie! Here's a photo of all the rubber duckies we've found so far. Our daughter estimates we've found about half of them...I'm going to need a bigger mug! I guess I could just put them all in our TUB.
• REBA DUETS (22A: McEntire album with a featured artist on every track) REBA DUETS was released in 2007, and was REBA McEntire's 27th studio album. The album includes REBA DUETS with Carole King ("Everyday People"), Kelly Clarkson ("Because of You"), and Justin Timberlake ("The Only Promise That Remains").
• ODE (36A: "___ to 9th & O NW" (Clint Smith poem)) Clint Smith is a poet and a staff writer for The Atlantic. "ODE to 9th & O NW" is from his debut poetry collection, Counting Descent.
• SAPPHO (38A: Ancient poet from Lesbos) I have previously written about SAPPHO and her poem "ODE to Aphrodite."
• SNUB (43A: Awards season slight) and NOM (60A: Awards season recognition, for short) I enjoyed this pair of clues. During awards season will you receive a nomination (NOM, for short), or will you be SNUBbed?
• AVA (2D: "Colin in Black & White" director DuVernay) Colin in Black & White is a 2021 Netflix miniseries directed by AVA DuVernay. The series dramatizes the teenage years of Colin Kaepernick.
• SEPTEMBER (3D: "Do you remember the 21st night of ___?") Our second reference to an Earth, Wind & Fire song. This is a line from the song "SEPTEMBER." I previously wrote about this song when we saw Demi Adejuyigbe as a theme answer in January of this year.
• WNBA DRAFT (13D: Event where the Sun and Sky select new players) From crosswords, I have learned that the Connecticut Sun and the Chicago Sky are WNBA teams.
• DEUCES (23D: "Peace out!") The practice of holding up two fingers (as a peace sign) while saying "Peace out!" as a way to say goodbye eventually evolved into the use of "DEUCES!" to mean "Peace out!"
• IHOP (27D: Breakfast chain with a Minions collaboration) I have previously written about the IHOP's "Minions Menu."
• MEME (47D: Surprised Pikachu, for example) The Surprised Pikachu MEME has been making the rounds since 2018.

Geography review:

• STS (42A: Beale and Bourbon (Abbr.)) Beale Street is located in Memphis, Tennessee, and is the street that the song, "Beale Street Blues," took its name from. The song, in turn, is referenced by the title of James Baldwin's 1974 novel, If Beale Street could talk. Bourbon Street is located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.
• BARBADIAN (35D: Caribbean islander who might celebrate Crop Over) Barbados is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the easternmost of the Caribbean Islands. Many BARBADIANs participate in Crop Over, a harvest festival that takes place throughout the months of June and July. Crop Over celebrates the calypso and soca music of Barbados. As part of the festival, the King and Queen of the crop are crowned, an honor for the male and female BARBADIANs who harvested the most sugarcane.

I was in ninth grade when I read George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and that was many years ago. This is to say that while DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD sounded vaguely familiar, I needed to look it up to jog my memory and remember that George Orwell coined the term in his 1949 novel; it was part of the Newspeak language in the novel. DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD means terrible, very BAD, and that's what we have today...in an enjoyable way. This puzzle features diagonal symmetry, it is symmetrical along a diagonal axis running from the top left corner to the lower right corner of the grid. This allows the theme answers to cross and provides the BAD PLUS signs. In addition to the theme and the answers I've already highlighted, I liked the answers HOROSCOPE and DENIAL. Thank you, Kelsey and Brooke, for this puzzle that was not at all a DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD start to my day, but was absolutely delightful.