Monday's New York Times puzzle solved: March 26, 2018

My time: 4:31.

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I thought I was on my way to a record, the way I zoomed through this Monday's, but I guess I didn't go as fast as it appeared.  One full minute too slow!

Andy Kravis explores the long vowel sounds in this puzzle: VICTORY LANE ("site of a postrace celebration"), director DAVID LEAN, TOE THE PARTY LINE, MICROLOAN, and the Debussy piano suite CLAIR DE LUNE, based on the Verlaine poem, which I had some trouble with because I kept erroneously trying to make some version of the children's song "Au clair de la lune" fit.  Ha ha, whoops!  I don't know anything about classical music.  (In my defense, the given translation, "light of the moon," fits clair de la lune, but not clair de lune, which is more appropriately "moonlight.")

Spelunkers explore not just caves, but ROCK CAVES.

I didn't know that DELTA had the slogan "Keep Climbing."  The campaign was created by the ad agency Wieden + Kennedy.

Have you ever heard of the Seattle Sounders?  No, you haven't.  They are a team in MLS, or Major League Soccer.

The Renaissance is largely believed to have begun in ITALY.  From Encyclopaedia Britannica: "While the spirit of the Renaissance ultimately took many forms, it was expressed earliest by the intellectual movement called humanism. Humanism began and achieved fruition first in Italy."

The ice cream EDYS last appeared January 21.

EAGLED, or scored two under par on, appeared January 15.  I still think "phoenix" would be a good golf term.

Clever clue: "Finish a drive?" is PAVE.

ANNE that's the end!