My time: 17:51, eight minutes faster than average.
Theme: "Pi R Squared," says the title, and lo and behold, every time the letter string P-I-R appears, it's in one square. For example, "lift weights" is PUM[P IR]ON. "South Amrican mammals with trunks" is TA[PIR]S.
I would not have solved this quite so fast if I hadn't seen the title, which spells it out pretty plainly. Honestly, I'd rather that the title have appeared as an answer in the puzzle, or at least maybe something like area of a circle in the puzzle as "What you get when you apply the formula that appears x number of times in this puzzle." That would have made it a great theme. As it is, it's just kind of, meh. Some letters go in a single square. Okay.
I was only slightly surprised to see that IGUANA was the answer to "in the Caribbean it's known as the chicken of the trees." I thought it might be something like *POSSUM.
NANTES is the city famed for being a,port on the Loire. Its port is called Nantes Saint-Nazaire.
Never heard of SEDALIA, a Missouri town apparently home to the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival.
SOBA noodles have come up a lot in the puzzle but this is the first time they've been noted as "often eaten cold in the summer."
I didn't know that SPRUCE is a wood commonly used in the making of violins. Maple is another. Spruce is chosen for the top, also called the front, table or soundboard. It is light in weight, yet longitudinally strong and laterally flexible. To the eye, the most prominent feature of a spruce top is the darker vertical graining. These grains are the annual growth rings of the tree.
The Algonquin apparently called the MISSISSI[PI R]IVER "the father of waters." That seems eminently reasonable. They called it something like meche sebe.
Kings County, New York, is coterminous with Brooklyn and the second-most densely populated county in the US. Queens County is, similarly, coterminous with the borough of Queens. They're both in the EMPIRE STATE.
The clue "Sapa ____ (title for Atahualpa)" is pretty opaque, isn't it? Sapa INCA is the hispanicized spelling of Sapa Inka, the title of the emperor of the Incas. Atahualpa was the last true Sapa INCA, before the Spanish executed him and began a conquest with puppet emperors.
UGA or the University of George has come up before but this time they're clued as "sch. for Bulldogs."
Also in sports, Slammin' Sammy SOSA is the only player with three 60+ home run seasons. I guess Big Mac didn't make that record.
Apparently the EMU is the only bird with calf muscles. I think that's odd. Why not an ostrich or cassowary?
MARGO Price sounds like a country singer who was active around the time of Hank Williams, but actually she was born in 1983. Her most famous song is "Hurtin' (On the Bottle)," or maybe "Hands of Time."
"When doubled, 1934 Cole Porter comedy short" turns out to be PAREE. "Paree, Paree" is a 1934 short film, a condensation of the 1931 film 50 Million Frenchmen, which he co-wrote. It stars Bob Hope and Dorothy Stone.
Maa was a EWE in the film Babe. She was voiced by Miriam Flynn. She was killed by three wild dogs who were attacking the flock, until Babe came and drove them away. Jeez, that turned out to be a downer.
Finally, REE Drummond is a food and crafts blogger and TV personality. Her blog is called The Pioneer Woman.
Clever clues: Especially given the Pi R squared theme, "square things" is a pretty sneaky clue for ATONE. "Grumpy co-worker" is DOC. "Spare part?" is PIN.
Wow, that was a lot of new material! I like learning new things, but this puzzle was pretty basic.
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