My time: 6:48, not great. I got held up in the northwest corned after putting *REEL IN for "lure deceptively" rather than ROPE IN. And there was an unusual amount of unfamiliar material in the puzzle for a Tuesday.
Theme: Shakespeare quotes clued as if they were about a cookout. So "LEND ME YOUR EARS" has an absurdly long clue about Marc Anthony asking for the corn he forgot, "AY, THERE'S THE RUB" is about seeing spice mix, and — in somewhat bad taste — "THE POUND OF FLESH" is about a 16-ounce sirloin that Shylock brought to the cookout.
Ugh. But at least knowing that the themed answers were untouched Shakespeare quotes helped with the solving.
Did you know ACURA is the maker of the first mass-produced car with an aluminum body? It was the NSX.
"Unexciting Yahtzee roll" is PAIR. If all five dice match it's called a Yahtzee. I don't play a lot of what used to be known as "the yacht game."
I've never heard the term quarterback SNEAK. That's a play in which the quarterback takes the snap from center and immediately ducks forward behind the middle of the offensive line with the intent of gaining a small amount of yardage.
I know the DINAR as the currency of Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, but I forgot that it's also Serbia's currency, though it has come up before.
"Capri has a blue one" didn't mean anything to me. Apparently Capri is famous for its Blue GROTTO. Sunlight passing through an underwater cavity and shining through the seawater creates a blue reflection that illuminates the cavern.
For "department store eponym" I put *K-TEL, that series of records sold over the phone. I don't know why, just tired and dumb. It's KOHL.
I don't even know American geography. I certainly can't be expected to know that LEEDS is north of Sheffield. Isn't there some better, more interesting clue this city could have?
Clever clues: "William who took a bow" (TELL) is so-dumb-it's-clever, and "Las Vegas player" is a great clue for RAIDER.
Well, it was slow going today, but at least I didn't go slower than average. WHEW. And now, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
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