Friday's New York Times puzzle solved: April 6, 2018

My time: 16:30, not too bad but not great.

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This themeless by David Steinberg has some spectacular wall-to-wall fill: HELICOPTER PARENT, A RUN FOR ONE'S MONEY, SONIC DEPTH FINDER (!!), THAT'S WHAT SHE SAD, "DO YOU WANT TO DANCE" (the Beach Boys and Ramones song, originally a 1958 hit by Bobby Freeman, also covered by Bette Midler and Cliff Richard, among others), and STANDING IN GOOD STEAD.

We also get WAR BABIES "deliveries of the 1940s"), LUNAR ROVER, and E-Z PASS LANE ("quick way through a toll plaza").

Now that's really strong constructing chops.  I doff my cap.  Doff!

For "stops streaming" I had *CLOGS but it's CLOTS.

The terrorist group referred to more commonly in America as ISIS is also called ISIL, which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the LEVANT.

"Ex-Expo Rusty" had me scratching my head, thinking of expositions and fairs and such, but then the penny dropped.  It refers to the Montreal EXPOS, the Canadian baseball team established in 1969 and relocated in 2004 as the Washington Nationals.  And thus Rusty is the first name of a former player: Rusty STAUB, a right fielder and first baseman whose number the Expos retired.

A RONDEL is a 14-line poem which repeats the rhyme scheme throughout: ABAB, ABBA, etc, where the As and Bs are the same rhyme.

Cleverly, "thread holder" is not *SPOOL but SCREW.

I like seeing nods to Eugene DEBS and Medgar EVERS.

SÃO Jorge is a long thin island in the Azores archipelago of Portugal.

Itzamna is the spirit of early mists and showers (according to William S. Burroughs), a possible god of the sky in MAYA mythology.

California town Santa ROSA last appeared March 9.  Santa CLARA hasn't appeared in my notes yet as an answer, but it appeared in the December 17, 2017 puzzle as home to Levi's Stadium.

Clever clues: "They go to the dogs" is SCRAPS.  "French toast maker, maybe" is AMI.  "Result of an oil surplus" is ACNE, and "25 Down unit" is --- ugh --- ZIT.

I really enjoyed this one.  It wasn't a walk in the park by any means --- those long entries were hard to get a first hold on.  But once the first fell, the rest started coming, and I love the unusual fill.  I met its challenge with GUSTO.