Joseph Knecht

  A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y.  Today's constructor, Yale linguistics major  Jem Burch  is making his LAT debut and takes us back to elementary school to relearn our vowel sounds and to demonstrate some of the vagaries of English spelling and pronunciation.  His theme clues had me stumped for awhile -- they are identified only by being the 5 longest answers in the grid and they are not intended as a solving aid, but rather a second puzzle you can solve if you want to understand the theme ... The first thing you notice is that the first word of each theme answer begins with the letters SH , but the rest of the letters don't seem to follow any pattern.  But when I moved them in order to the top of this review for explication, they made a bit more sense -- the remaining letters of the first word make the sound of the long vowels:   Ā ,  Ē ,   Ī ,  Ō , and  Ū   i.e. ... 16A. Old New York ball field:  SHE...

    Do You Want Fries With That? Today veteran Matthew Stock treats us to an embedded letter theme, and doubles our fun by embedding two consecutive letters, and then doubling them in the fill. And to add to our fun he has at least one Easter Egg, plus some sparkly fill -- and as we'll see very shortly, some of it may be too sparkly! Here are the themers ... 20A. "Wait for meeeee!":  I'M COMING I'M COMING .  A preview of coming attractions? ... 25A. Harry and Sally from "When Harry Met Sally ...," e.g.:  ROM COM COUPLE .  I started with the iconic "I'll have what she's having" clip (just Google that phrase if you don't know what I'm referring to), but then stumbled on this video review, which has much more to say about Harry and Sally 's long term relationship than the 3 minute scene in the restaurant. It also has a brief scene about the influence that the movie had on other  ROM COMS ,   notably  Heartburn  another Nora ...

  Just Some Singers in a Rock and Roll Band Veterans Kevin Christian and Doug Peterson team up today with a simple theme consisting of 5 two word question clues, each beginning with a play on the last name of a pop singer.  They fill each clue with a two word in the language phrase beginning with the singer's first name.  I couldn't find any pattern in the second word of the fill and there was no reveal.  Here are the themers ... 17. Iggy's therapist?:  POP PSYCHOLOGIST .  You can see why Iggy Pop might need a psychologist -- he was A Real Wild Child ... 23. Taylor's comeback?:  SWIFT RECOVERY .  Taylor came back from her recent ERAs Tour and apparently finding the last leg to be rather torturous she was in need of some RECOVERY   ...  39. Donna's time off?:  SUMMER VACATIONS .  Known as the " Queen of Disco ", Donna Summer's life was tragically cut short by lung cancer, even though she was not a smoker.  Afte...