Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: November 8, 2018

My time: 13:58.

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Sam Ezersky takes GO WEST, YOUNG MAN literally in this puzzle.  Four key phrases that end in "lad" (young man, of course) have had that part moved to the west, or leftmost, side of the answer.

"Many a hit by Def Leppard" is power ballad, which now reads as LAD POWER BAL.  "Like medieval knights" is armor-clad, which once the lad has gone west turns out to be LAD ARMOR C.  "Meal served in an edible bowl" is LAD TACO SA.  And finally, a "famously expensive commercial" is of course a Super Bowl ad, but if you young man heeds Horace Greely, it becomes L AD SUPER BOW.

"Put at sea" had me all asea from the start, because it's not literal.  It's ADDLE.  I also had trouble with LAID IN for "stored away."  It still somehow seems off to me.

I'm surprised that a guy who reads as much as I do isn't intimately familiar with Ira LEVIN, the American author of such classics as A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys from Brazil.

"NFC North team, to fans" is VIKES.  Who calls them that?  Nobody, I'll bet.

Spaceship Earth is the ride and geodesic sphere at Walt Disney World.

In Carl Jung's conception, the ANIMA is the feminine unconscious of the male psyche, while the animus is the unconscious masculine side of a woman.  There are four stages of the ANIMA --- Eve, Helen, Mary, and Sophia --- representing how the male ego views women, from the object of sexual desire to seeing women as specific human individuals with good and bad qualities.

One of these days I'll write ENOKI in without hesitation.  It last came up on October 3.

The variant spelling of the Egyptian king of the gods AMEN-RA last appeared exactly one year ago today, November 8, 2017.

Clever clues: "Grp. that's well-financed?" is OPEC. "Tag line?" is I'M IT.  "Arm for taking needles, for short?" is DEA --- not quite sure about that one.

There was very little new material, so it must be that the reason this took so long is the jumbled letters of the themed clues.  That's the WAY it is, I suppose.  I did enjoy the wordplay after I figured it out.