My time: 20:19, five minutes faster than average.
Theme: "At the Halloween Play..." The themed Across clues are punny phrases that happened "at the Halloween play." The answers aren't riffs on already-existing phrases but jokes about various Halloween things. For example, "when the black cat appeared, the" AUDIENCE HISSED. "The vampire never" REFLECTED ON HIS ROLE. And so on.
The one that I first figured out was "the mummy was a hit" AT THE WRAP PARTY. But I also appreciate "the critics loved the witch's performance," WARTS AND ALL.
All right, let's get to POINT B by going through the fill.
I simply could not remember the heartburn reliever brand MYLANTA.
Never heard of rap producer IRV Gotti, born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. The founder of Murder Inc. records, he was acquitted of laundering money in 2005.
I've watched a couple seasons of "Stranger Things," but I still needed crossfill to get LUCAS. He's the nerd. Ha ha! Just kidding. They're all nerds. He's the African-American one.
Why is SECOND the most common street name in America? It goes SECOND, Third, First? Hey?
"Source of some tweets" gave me some trouble. First I put *AVIANS, forcing me to change my Down crossing answer RAG for "rip (on") to *NAG. But then I later discovered that *AVIANS would make another crossing word *ACOLSTE. So I changed *AVIANS to *AVIANY. You know, an adjective! That bird is so aviany! Well, no. I had to change "rip (on)" back to RAG to get AVIARY. That makes sense!
"Component of béchamel sauce" is ROUX. Béchamel sauce is a white sauce made of ROUX and milk. ROUX is a sort of gravy made simply by melting butter and stirring in flour. I personally have tried and failed to make it.
I normally can't stand clues about small towns being north or south or some given distance from some other place, but "Indiana city that's 100 miles west of Lima, Ohio" is a great clue when the answer is PERU. PERU is the county seat of Miami County, Indiana! Make up your own names, Indiana!
We all know what a dodecagon is, but what's a hendecagon? A chicken-shaped polygon. No, it has eleven sides. Also called an undecagon or a unidecagon.
HAKEEM Jeffries is a Democratic congressman of New York and the chair of the House Democratic Causcus.
I know what the original IPOD looked like, but I wasn't aware that its control was referred to as a click wheel.
It wasn't an answer, but I discussed Bach MOTETS on October 8.
As I Lay Dying father ANSE Bundren last appeared April 26, 2018.
I remembered that ST. L was the answer for "Card's place" from way back on September 27, 2018!
I forgot, however, about Al Capone's right hand man, Frank NITTI, who makes his third appearance in this blog.
Clever clue: Two of Us? is ITEM. "Apt thing to wear during allergy season?" is A SHOE — now that's a groaner.
Well, all in all this was a successful and ABLY constructed Sunday puzzle. The theme was silly and fun, and the clues were challenging. I had no issues with how any of the clues were written.
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