Gold! (Solution No. 3,290)

Mission accomplished for The Other Doctor Mitchell at State Games of America!  This was the competition she had been aiming for all year, and she skated her best program yet.  The jumps were there, the spins and spirals were there, and she carried good speed through the whole program.  It was a solid win (four first place ordinals and a second), and her third win in a row (Chesapeake Open and Skate Wilmington).  It also gives her a complete set of State Games medals: silver from Colorado Springs 2009, bronze from San Diego 2011, and gold this year.  On to Adult Nationals in 2014?

Meanwhile, Bangle skated well enough that she was a hair’s breadth from a medal even though she forgot a part of her program.  Instead of panicking, she improvised from there, threw the missing jump in at the end, and skated strongly.  

Your humble blogger also found himself in the wrong place on the ice a few times (chasing in on the play as in two-man instead of holding the line), but those mistakes got fewer and fewer in games three and four, and I didn’t blow a call all weekend.  It was a great experience, and it gave me the confidence to know I can still work the high-level games: maybe not top-tier juniors, but all the rest.  

Sabers did about as expected in his first competition since moving up out of the Y14 class.  He won his first two bouts and then was eliminated by the eventual bronze medalist, finishing thirteenth.  We saw some good fencing (one of the local rivals earned his E rating, while another won the bronze in the senior saber event) and learned a few more lessons to take back to practice.

Four Mitchells, three sports.

I'll subject you to one more picture before the puzzle solution.  The one at right was taken at opening ceremonies Friday night in Hershey.  Making it there was a significant accomplishment for everyone.

Themework:  Our constructors worked their signature in to the puzzle at 8d and 23d

Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): Easy

Political/musical content: not really much

Solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,290 below the fold.

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” first or last letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters; “§” heteronym, “¶“ letter bank

Across

1a	FUND | A | MENTALIST	FUND (“finance,” cross-reference to 1d) + A (†) + MENTALIST (“mind-reader”)
9a	NEWS | PA | PER	PA (“father”) following (“follows”) N E W S (“every direction”) + PER (“for every”)
10a	CHICO	Double definition
11a	<~NEED<	<~DEAN< (“academic official,” homonym indicated by “discussed,” reversal indicated by “in reverse”) I didn’t like this one.  It read to me like an easy way out rather than a clever combination.
12a	MOTO | *RMOUTH	MOTO (“Japanese detective”) + *HOT RUM (anagram indicated by “mixed”)
14a	E}C{LECT_IC	E_LECT{R}IC (“power”,) addition of C (“crew’s leader”) indicated by “comes into”), omission of R (“Republican”) indicated by “ousting”) Some will love this clue, others will hate it.
15a	A THEN A	If you go from A to A, you can never get to B Very clever bit of wordplay.
17a	AMA ZON_	AMA (“doctors’ group”) ZON_e_ (“area,” omission of last letter indicated by “almost”) Let’s help our constructors (all of them: I’m not picking on Hot and Trazom here) find some other groups that use the initials AMA.
19a	CAN | VASES	CAN (“container”) + VASES (“vessels”) I think you could do something clever with the fact that these two components are both names for some kind of container.
22a	~PIGEONHOLE	~PIDGIN (“simple languageº) + ~WHOLE (“from start to finish”), homonym of the whole thing indicated by “spoken.”
24a	P(L)AN	PAN (“cooking utensil”) containing (“to hold”) ^L^ettuce (first letter indicated by “head”)
26a	COBRA	Coinage: CO-BRA would be a supplemental (“associate”) brassiere (“support”) Another love it or hate it clue.
27a	NEG(OT)IATE	NEGATE (“deny”) containing (“getting”) OT (“overtime”)
28a	V(*ALED)ICTORIANS	VICTORIANS (“Dickens and Thackeray, e.g.”) containing (“enthralling”) *DEAL (cross-reference to 2d: “NEW DEAL”) Hot and Trazom may have built the puzzle around this one.

Down

1d	FI(N)ANCE	FIANCE (“future partner”) containing (†) mo^N^ey (middle letter indicated by “in the middle”)
2d	NEW DEAL	Spoonerism of  DUE KNEEL (“as expected” + “genuflect”)
3d	*AMPS	*SPAM (anagram indicated by “shredding”)
4d	*EUPHORIC	*I HEAP OUR (anagram indicated by “bananas”)
5d	TURBO_	TURBO_t_ (“fish,” omission of last letter indicated by “tail cut off”) You were warned: sometimes a clue needs a space inserted to parse correctly.  Meanwhile, I didn’t like this particular definition, since the “turbo” is part of an engine, not an engine or motor by itself (unfortunately, I had to have the turbo replaced on our car this summer).
6d	LOCOMOTIVE	Pun: LOCO (“crazy”) + MOTIVE (“what might drive”)
7d	SE(<IZU<)RE	SERE (“dry”) containing (“on the outside”) <UZI< (“submachine gun,” reversal indicated by “brought back”)
8d	JOSH | UA	JOSH (“to joke”) + sq^UA^re (middle letters indicated by “center”)
13d	E | *CHOLOCATE	^E^at (first letter indicated by “beginning”) + *CHOCOLATE (anagram indicated by “ground”)
16d	~DAYLIGHT	~DALEITE (“valley inhabitant,” homonym indicated by “heard about”)
18d	*ALGEBRA	*LAB GEAR (anagram indicated by “organize”)
20d	*SULT | AN | A	*LUST (anagram indicated by “uncontrolled”) + AN (“one”) + A (“sign of adultery”)
21d	SINGERS	Pun on “singe” (toast)
23d	HEN | RI	HEN (“chicken”) + RI (“small state”)
25d	STIR	Double definition