My time: 12:11, about three minutes faster than average.
No theme, but what wonderful fill we get today! ZEN MASTER, QUID PRO QUO, LIVESTREAM, AXIOMATIC, and JAILBREAK (in the sense of modifying a phone, like a hacker) are some of the highlights.
I hesitated on SAL / MINEO being in Giant, because I knew James Dean was in it, and I thought, what's the odds of them both being in that and Rebel Without a Cause? But he was. He played a troubled Mexican teen killed in WWII.
Did you know that ENG. was home to the first World Table Tennis Championships, in 1926? Who gives a damn? That has to be the worst clue for ENG. ever. In any case, we call it the UK, not ENG.
"Denim and chino" are TWILLS. The twill weave is characterized by its diagonal lines, which are created by an offset in the warp threads. Twill is popular because it is very durable and hides stains well, and it is used for jeans, chinos, furniture coverings, bags, and more.
I don't like "fall person, perhaps" for RAKER. First, that's not a word people really employ. Second, while someone who rakes is a person in the fall, there's nothing about a person raking that implies they're a fall person. This one is a clunker, in my view.
"| | |" stumped me, but those are sans serif IOTAS.
Ben SASSE is a Republican senator from Nebraska. He's a shitbird who hates poor working Americans. Seriously, what a dick.
"Neighbor of Scorpius" ARA, the altar constellation, was last seen on August 13.
The talus, or ANKLE BONE, came up in its plural form, tali, on October 5, 2018.
Clever clues: "Tips" is a misleading clue for ACMES. It was a very weak possibility, but I went with *FIGHT NIGHT for "event with a room full of people making a row;" it's BINGO NIGHT, which makes a much better joke. "Overdrafts?" is REWRITES.
This was a great puzzle. There wasn't much new material, yet I wasn't particularly speedy. Nevertheless, I had a good THYME doing it.
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