Saturday's New York Times crossword solved: October 20, 2018

My time: 12:36.

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AHOY THERE!  Ben Gross and James Somers are responsible for this themeless, which was probably built around the modern phrase NETFLIX AND CHILL.  It's definitely a coup for them as constructors, but there are few other good bits as well, like BITE-SIZED ("easy to eat, in a way"), FLIP PHONES ("dead ringers" --- as in obsolete phones; that's a good one), and RENT-A-COP.

The Greek symbols known as PSIS have come up a couple of times, but today they're clued as "sorority letters."

Did you know Marie ANTOINETTE married at the age of fourteen?  Me neither.  They do say that it took seven more years for the marriage to be consummated, so whew.

The Israel P.M. between Netanyahu and Sharon is Ehud BARAK, who held the post from 1999 to 2001.  The one who was between Sharon and Netanyahu (the second time) was Ehud Olmert.

CODY, Wyoming, is home to the Buffalo Bill Museum.  It's an easy answer to guess, of course.  The museum itself looks like fun.   It contains five museums in one, including the Draper Natural History Museum, the Plains Indian Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum and the Buffalo Bill Museum.

The LAC de Neuchâtel, in German the Neuenburgersee, located in Romandy, Switzerland and is the largest lake located entirely in that country.

"They're hard to beat" refers to GREAT ODDS, which sounds off to me.  I would have accepted low odds, but "great" ones?  What does that even mean?  Anyway, I had *GREATESTS at first, like the Alis and Serenas of the world, hard to beat.

On September 30, Merlot and zinfandel were offered as examples of full-bodied wine.  Today it's a SHIRAZ that is said to be full-bodied.

The Latin pronoun ILLE means "he," as in "festinare nocet, nocet et cunctatio saepe; tempore quaeque suo qui facit, ille sapit."

I'm not sure I agree that "panegyric" is a sufficient clue for EULOGY.  They are used in different contexts.

Clever clues: "Powerful ray" is MANTA.  "Advanced" is LENT.  "Bean town?" is LIMA.  "Caesarian section?" is I CAME, which isn't exactly right; this pun should be reserved for the actual section of the quote, veni.  "Relatives of tails" is TUXEDOS.  "A bitter pull to swallow?" is ALE.  I thought "joint tenant?" might be tenon (which sits in a mortise) but it's INMATE.  "Ended a phone call?" is BUTT DIALED, ha!  "Sing about?" is RAT ON.

And now, my REPORT: This was a challenging but mostly fair puzzle, with a great deal of clever and vague clues.  I enjoyed it but wish I had done a bit better.  Well, TTYL.