My time: 8:21, a new record by five seconds!
This surprised me, as I thought while doing it that there might be lots that I wasn't familiar with in this puzzle. But it turns out that for the most part the clues were just deceptively vague. If I had known, I'd have tried to go even faster!
I thought there might be a sneak theme going for a minute, with EEK-A-MOUSE and BILL THE CAT, but no such luck.
I believe I have stated that I dislike blank clues. "_____ others" is such a boring, brainless clue for AMONG. Same with "_____ lines" for ENEMY. Snore!
"Supermarket chain inits." is IGA. I don't think they have those in the places I've lived. It was founded in the United States as the Independent Grocers Alliance in 1926. The headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois.
Although I enjoy his work, I had no idea that ANTS were a recurring motif in Salvador Dali's paintings. The ant, one of the animals most admired by Dalí, was represented in his artistic repertoire from the late nineteen-twenties until nearly the end of his career as a painter. he was horrified and entranced by them. Supposedly he said, "I have reached the conclusion that the ant is a superior being. To be truly familiar with something, one must eat it, and these ants eat time."
Never heard of the DORAL, "famed Miami golf resort." Ugh, it's a Trump property. Fuck that evil vicious murderous traitor.
I had no idea that Michael Faraday discovered and named IONS. (By the way, that's a great clue for a very common crossword answer. That's the kind of informative clue the puzzle ought to have for every answer, not some stupid blank.) The word ion comes from the Greek meaning "going." This term was introduced by Faraday for the then-unknown species that goes from one electrode to the other through an aqueous medium. Faraday did not know the nature of these species, but he knew that since metals dissolved into and entered a solution at one electrode and new metal came forth from a solution at the other electrode, that some kind of substance has moved through the solution in a current.
APSE is the "feature of Notre-Dame supported by flaying buttresses."
I had to think quite a bit as to why TOOL SHED is "structure near a bed?" Before I filled in the answer, I was ready for it to be a wordplay about a river bed, but I think it refers to a garden bed.
"Harpist's home key" is C FLAT. So what?
Big cosmetics chain ULTA last appeared on April 9, 2018.
Clever clues: "Classic British rock group" is STONEHENGE. "Response to an air offensive?" is BLEEP. "1000 in the military" had me trying to think of things like milliad? battalion? but it's TEN AM. "Blond in a bar?" is ALE. "Page seen in a wedding album" is RING BEARER.
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