My time: 13:08, three minutes slower than average. This one was a doozy! I did not do it in a TRICE.
Theme: a quote from "Sex And the City" and it goes like this: "Men in their 40s are like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle..." TRICKY, / COMPLICATED, AND / YOU'RE NEVER / REALLY SURE / YOU GOT THE RIGHT / ANSWER.
Wow, that's... not clever or insightful. At all. It's really, really bad writing. I'm not taking offense; I'm sure men in their 40s are far from God's gift to single women. This line just sounds like something they'd put in the mouth of the "type A businesswoman" character on "The Simpsons" so the other characters could look confused.
Well, onto the fill.
I remembered from somewhere that the OBOE is the instrument to which the orchestra is tuned. I'm so proud!
Apparently Beck Bennett is a player on "SNL." I know his face, not his name. And he often plays MIKE PENCE.
Also apparently there is a Triple Crown in baseball too, for pitching. One category is ERA (Earned Run Average). The other ones are wins and strikeouts. There's also a batting Triple Crown but that's enough sports stats for today.
The clue "piolet, e.g." completely flummoxed me. I don't think I've ever heard of a piolet. It's a two-headed ICE AX.
Every single person in public radio is named IRA. Today we get IRA Flatow, a science guy. He hosts Public Radio International's popular program "Science Friday." On TV, he hosted the Emmy Award-winning PBS series "Newton's Apple" and "Big Ideas." He also has written some books.
Oh good, more sports. GABE Kapler, an outfielder for a lot of teams, now a manager.
I know the song "Hello, Dolly!" quite well — Louis Armstrong does a fantastic version — but not much about the 1964 Broadway musical by Jerry Herman. Dolly Gallagher LEVI is the title character, a vivacious widow and matchmaker.
For "was verklempt from pride" I put *SWELLED but it's more Yiddish, KVELLED.
Ha ha! I was just talking about the Church of the SubGenius today! Mark Trail looks like J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. I was active in that silliness as a kid and did some drawings for the publications. The members are descended from YETIS. Boy, this clue is going to confuse and alarm a lot of people.
There's a rapper called Lil UZI Vert. I think they're running out of names. Oh well, at least this one is pronounceable by the human tongue. He was born with the British-nobility-sounding name of Symere Bysil Woods in 1994 and is a multi-millionaire! Oh, I've wasted my life.
Recently we had a "Rent' clue about Mimi, and today it's "role for Idina Menzel:" MAUREEN Johnson, based on the character Musetta in "La Bohème." Menzel is known for playing Shelby Corcoran on the musical dramedy TV series Glee from 2010 to 2013, and a non-singing role as Nancy Tremaine in the musical fantasy film Enchanted. She also voiced Queen Elsa in Disney's 2013 animated film Frozen, in which she sang the Oscar- and Grammy Award-winning song "Let It Go."
I've never heard of a FOGBOW, colorless cousin of the rainbow.
The Arizona State SUN DEVIL mascot finally gets its own place in the grid, rather than the school initials.
"Casual ristorante" is TRATTORIA, yet noted as being more formal than an osteria on October 7, 2017.
The word for Turkish inn IMARET appeared on November 11, 2018.
I remembered "Palindromist" Jon AGEE from way back on October 5, 2017! He also wrote a book on spoonerisms called Smart Feller, Fart Smeller.
Clever clues: "Senate rebuke" is a sly way to get to the tired old ET TU. "Go (for)" is RETAIL. "Driving test, of a sort" is GOLF.
And that's the end of this very challenging Wednesday! There was some good fill (ICE AX, BOATYARD, KVELLED) and some tired fill (RTE, ERA, ET TU), but mostly the grid looks good. Nothing wrong with the theme, I just felt the quote isn't worthy of inclusion.
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