Tuesday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: October 9, 2018

My time: 6:25.

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It took the team of Natan Last, Andy Kravis and the JASA Crossword Class to construct this puzzle.  The depth, breadth, and length of their construction acumen is admirable.  In this one, the 2016 Best Picture nominee HIDDEN FIGURES is celebrated.  How?  By hiding "figures," or three-dimensional shapes, inside themed phrases.

"Coined phrase?" (ha, ha) is E PLURIBUS UNUM, in which you can find prism.  Linus' SECURITY BLANKET, which covers up a cube.  And NO SURPRISE THERE contains a sphere.

Mahershala ALI was the 2016 Best Supporting Actor for his role as Juan in Moonlight, but I know him best as Cottonmouth in "Luke Cage."

Another actor whose name I don't know is SKYLAR Astin, yet another in a long line of celebrities with potentially interchangeable first and last names.  He was in Pitch Perfect and Wreck-It Ralph.

For "island east of Lanai" I guessed *OAHU because I don't know anything about geography.  It's MAUI.  Oahu is to the northwest.  MAUI is directly east.  It goes Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molkokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Maui, Hawaii. 

Warren SPAHN was a Cy Young award-winning pitcher, mostly with the (Boston, then Milwaukee) Braves.

Yankee Years memoirist and longtime Yankee manager Joe TORRE came up on January 26, and I remembered!

"Tennis do-over" LET was clued as "court do-over" on September 9 of this year, and as when the ball hits the net on November 29, 2017.

Clever clues: "Website with a lot of home pages?' is AIR BNB.  "It can be greased" is PALM (I put *POLE).  "Remote location?" is TV ROOM.  "It may wind up at the side of a house" is HOSE.

This didn't take too much time.  It was clever and fun.  That's the DEALIO.  Uh, hep cat daddy-o.  Well, CHEERIO.