My time: 23:35, not great but still faster than average.
Theme: dropping the final "g" of well-known phrases, moving the "g" to the word following, and then recluing the phrases to fit the new meaning.
For example: fear of missing out is now meant to be read as FEAR OF MISSIN' GOUT, and thus clued as "What was causin' the doctor to check for joint pain?" Parking ramp is read in the puzzle as PARKIN' GRAMP and is clued as "drivin' around the lot with pop-pop?"
Get it? Is that clear? Don't make me slap you with my EVERLASTIN' GLOVE!
Lots of new material this week and several squares I had to guess at.
Didn't know that Al SHARPTON was the host of MSNBC's "PoliticsNation," or, indeed, that there was a show called that.
Gish JEN is a Chinese-American novelist whose works ring no bells for me.
Similarly never heard of St. John Greer ERVINE, whose plays span the 1910s to the '50s.
And if I thought yesterday's basketball coach Mike Krzyewski was bad, here's "longtime Yankees first baseman" Mark TEIXEIRA! Jeez Louise.
We all cherish The NeverEnding Story, but do we revere its author, German writer Michael ENDE? No, because we've never heard of him. Lionel Hutz sued his estate, I know that.
For "French marshal in the Napoleonic Wars" I put *FOY, for Maximilien Sébastien Foy, but it's not him. It's Michel NEY, who was known as Le Rougeaud by his men and nicknamed Le Brave des Braves by Napoleon. He was also known as the "last Frenchman on Russian soil" because he led the rearguard during the retreat from Russia. Interestingly, he turned on Napoleon, asking for his abdication and marching on him; he was lauded by Louis XVIII. But then he went back to Napoleon, depite promising to capture him for the king. He was later shot for treason. What a man!
Never heard of Camila CABELLO, a Cuban-American singer with a #1 hit, "Havana." She was in a band called Fifth Harmony. Cabello has won two Latin Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, a Billboard Music Award, five MTV Europe Music Awards, two iHeartRadio Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards (including one for Video of the Year), three iHeartRadio Much Music Video Awards, and a Billboard Women in Music award for Breakthrough Artist. Could I be so out of touch? No. No, it must be children who are wrong.
I've never heard of the bird SEA DOVE, but apparently it is also known as "little auk." And "dovekie." How cute!
Not known to me, but David CARR was an influential journalist and author. Ta-Nehisi Coates said in 2019, "I couldn't imagine myself as a writer if I had not met David Carr."
ANN MEYERS is clued as "basketball hall-of-famer who was the first woman to sign an NBA contract." Specifically, with the Indiana Pacers, in 1979, for $50,000.
German-born actress LUISE Rainer was active in the 1030s and '40s. She was the first person to win back-to-back Oscars, for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Also the youngest person to win two Oscars. Most observers agree that Rainer won her 1936 Oscar as the result of her moving and poignant performance in just one single scene in Ziegfeld, the famous telephone scene in which the broken-hearted Held congratulates Ziegfeld over the telephone on his upcoming marriage to Billie Burke while trying to retain her composure and her dignity.
For a red oxide compound I put *FERROUS but it's CUPROUS.
The plural ENNUIS is annoying to me. That's not right.
Hero of the Civil War George MEADE has come up before. Way to go, Snapping Turtle! You beat that traitor Lee. Fuck the Confederacy.
Belgian/French river YSER is such a crossword mainstay, I should get it in a snap by now.
Clever clues: "One who delivers" is MOM. "What can fall off a shelf" is ICEBERG. "Rock singers?" is SIRENS. "Call of the wild?" is PHONE SEX. That's rather blue for the Old Gray Lady. "One trading dollars for quarters" is TENANT.
Whew! What a wild ride this was. After all that I need a NESPRESSO.
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