Monday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: August 13, 2018

My time: 4:58.

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Lynn Lempel created this pretty simple Monday, in which the wordplay is all in the clues.  She takes four well-known phrases and gives tow clues for each, showing how they can be used negatively or positively.  In other words, GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS.

GO DOWN IN HISTORY can mean "leave a lasting legacy, or do worse at school."  MAKE PASSES can be "succeed on the gridiron, or invite a slap in the face."  GET A RUN can be scoring in baseball or a bad thing happening to your stocking.  And DRAW A BLANK can mean "be lucky in Scrabble, or some up short memorywise."

Since the wordplay is in the clues, this isn't the most visually amusing or exciting puzzle.  I mean, it's clever to think of these double meanings, but it doesn't effect the grid, so it's really making commentary about a standard puzzle.

I remembered that ETON is on the Thames from looking up the map showing it being near Windsor.

"Vichyssoise vegetable" is LEEK.

Yet another news journalist I've never heard of: it's ANN Curry.  She's covered war zones and disasters.

I've heard of Lou RAWLS, but I didn't know he has more than 70 albums.

ATLANTA being the world's busiest airport first came up on January 6, 2017.

We learned about Arthur ASHE Stadium on October 11, 2017.

Clever clue: "One giving you the aye?" is PRO (as in vote). 

There were very few new items for me to learn today, so I'm not sure why it took longer than four minutes.  It wasn't all that engaging; maybe that slowed me down.  Anyway, WIPE the slate clean and start again Tuesday.