Friday, September 4, 2020

Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: September 4, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My time: 10:03, not bad for a Friday.  Right, on to the fill.  I'm ON IT!

Right away, I liked the hip modern clue "meme you've seen thousand times, maybe" for REPOST.  Does Brian Thomas browse Reddit?

"Land east of the Eastern Desert" is ARABIA.  The Eastern Desert, also called the Arabian Desert, is a large desert in Egypt, south of the Nile River delta.

For "drink that may contain aspertame" I wanted to put diet soda, but it doesn't fit.  It's DIET POP.  As an unaccented Atlantic American speaker of Standard American English this enrages me, especially since later in the puzzle we have CREAM SODA.

I did not know that DUNE won the very first Nebula prize in 1965.

I was torn as to whether "athlete in the NBA's Southwest Div" was MAV or *CAV.   That's because I'm a sports idiot.

"Tears" is a very Friday-vague clue for SPREES.  Same for "lips" for RIMS.

I don't listen to a lot of today's pandering country-pop, so DAN and Shay is a new one on me, pardner.

XIAN is the easternmost point on the Silk Road.  It is home to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.  That doesn't have much to do with the Silk Road, but it's a fun fact.

EVITA has come up a few times before, notably for the song "Another Suitcase in the Hall," but this time it's for the song "Oh What a Circus." It goes "Oh what a circus, oh what a show, Argentina has gone to town / Over the death of an actress called Eva Perón."

The painting technique ALLA prima (meaning "at first attempt") refers to painting wet on wet.

The brightest star in the constellation Lyra is VEGA.  Fun fact: Lyra was often represented on star maps as a vulture or an eagle carrying a lyre, and hence is sometimes referred to as Vultur Cadens ("falling vulture" or Aquila Cadens ("falling eagle"). 

The number one most confusing answer in this puzzle?  IN A ROMP for "going away."  I know IN A ROMP can mean "easily," as in "the horse won that in a romp."  Does "going away" also mean running off with the victory?

"Wedding dress that's often red" is SARI.  Red is an auspicious color in Hindi culture.

Montana Congresswoman JEANETTE RANKIN was last featured on April 7, 2018, but today is cited as the source of the quote "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote."  The way things are going we may need another one like her in the future.

The seat of Washoe County is RENO, which last came up on November 19, 2017.

Clever clue: "in a mean way?" is ON AVERAGE.  "High-level criminal?" is CAT BURGLAR.

And now, I'VE DONE IT!  Ta-da!  I used my BEAN.  There were two too many clues about "Full House" in this puzzle for my taste.

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