Wednesday's New York Times crossword puzle solved: December 12, 2018

My time: 9:42, very slow but still just under the average.

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David J. Kahn must be a classic rock fan.  In this puzzle that celebrates QUEEN, he teaches us that they played LIVE AID / BENEFIT / CONCERT in 1985, and that the iconic frontman's name is FREDDIE / MERCURY.  As if that weren't enough, circled squares at the top and bottom, when assembled over three answers each, spell out BO / HEMI / AN and RH / APSO / DY.

Figaro!  By the way we also have the 1977 album AJA in th grid, for more classic rock goodness.

Anyhoo, CABO San Lucas is a resort in Baja California.  I've never been.  To Mexico.

Italian physicist Bruno ROSSI worked on cosmic rays.  During World War II, Rossi worked on radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, and he played a pivotal role in the Manhattan Project, heading the group at the Los Alamos Laboratory that carried out the RaLa Experiments.

I could have sworn this has come up before, but I can't find it in the archives: a slang term for a home run is TATER.

I wasn't sure whether "Sevastopol's locale" would be *RUSSIA or CRIMEA.  Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.  So it's the Ukraine, or was.  Damn commies.

"Benchmark figure given how old a person is" is AGE NORM.  That's a tough one to get.

Did you know Christian DIOR said "My dream is to save women from nature"?  In Newsweek, 1957.

ETYMA is a new one to me.  It's the plural of etymon, meaning a root word or an earlier form of a word in the same language.

The STRAIT of Hormuz, near the Persian Gulf, was showcased on September 5.

The mushroom ENOKI keeps coming up.

EVIE Wilcox, a character in Howards End, appeared on February 6.

Clever clues: "Choice words" is AND / OR.  "Subject of a spot check?" is ZIT.  "Went platinum?" is DYED.  "Rash decision?" is TALC.

Scaramouche, scaramouche, can you do the fandango?  This was a fun puzzle, though slow going for me.  I did NAZI all those QUEEN references coming.