Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: February 7, 2019

My time: 19:01, two minutes slower than average

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Morton J. Mendelson thought of this puzzle, and after slogging through it, my get up and go just got up and went.  It was a doozy of a theme.  In eight answers, GO OVER THE EDGE becomes literal: the go part of the answer is cut off at the grid's edge.

So "no one can get in a fight by himself" is answered in the puzzle as TAKES TWO TO TAN, "world traveler since 1985" is CARMEN SANDIE, the classic song becomes "ODNIGHT IRENE," the long-running Broadway show comes out as CHICA, and "expensive dental work" is LD TEETH.  And so on.

Once the theme became apparent, it was easier, of course, but at first I struggled mightily.

A ZOMBIE is a kind of rum cocktail with a huge heaping helping of sugary juice.

"Some Windows systems" are NTS.  It was introduced in 1993 and is still in use, which came as news to me.

Never heard of him but should have department: Sir William OSLER was a Canadian doctor and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of physicians, and he was the first to bring medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside clinical training.  He has frequently been described as the father of modern medicine.

Confusing until you remember the theme department: "Babies in a pond" is SLINGS.  As in [go]SLINGS.

Goethe's "The ERL-King" last appeared on October 20, 2018.

The Biblical land Edom was examined on December 6, 2017, at which time I noted that ESAU was said to be the progenitor of the Edomites.

San REMO, Italy, appeared on October 11, 2017.

ZION National Park, in Utah, appeared on February 20, 2018.

"Basted, e.g." is SEWN, as explained on October 2, 2018.

Current device AMMETER first appeared on August 16, 2018.

Clever clues: "Things kids sometimes draw" is LOTS.  "What you may call it?" is NOUN.  "Air condition?" is WIND.  "What's honed on the range?" is [go]LF GAME.

Whew!  It seems like I started this blog entry AGES A[go].  So much stuff to learn, so little time.  I think I would have preferred this puzzle to have marked the answers that needed the go cut off.  But there it is.  Welp, time to...

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