Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: November 29, 2020

My time: 14:00, a new record!  Beating my old time by 47 seconds!

Theme: "Six-Pack," a title which indicates that the eight themed answers (four Across, four Down) are neologism portmanteaus.  That is, they are new coinages, of two words packed into one answer, each one sharing six letters.  

For example, "very short-lived gemstones" is EPHEMERALDS, which is a portmanteau of ephemeral (very short-lived) and emeralds (gemstones).  They share the six letters E, M, E, R, A, L.  

"Pounding on a pie topping" is HAMMERINGUE, which is a blend of hammering and meringue.  They share the six letters M, E, R, I, N, G.

And so forth for the other themed answers: Gilgamesh / game show, Superman / permanent, Obamacare / macarena, Airedale / red alert, etc.

And now, the fill.

"Its logo has a blue, red, orange, yellow and green M" is GMAIL.  I use it all the time and I didn't think of that.  Some people hate it.

Sports!  I know nothing about it.  Nicolas PEPE is a French soccer winger for Arsenal and plays Nationally for the Ivory Coast. 

I like "handed a hand" for DEALT IN and "ask to be handed a hand" for ANTE.

BEN Vereen is a stage and film actor who won a Tony for his role as the Leading Player in "Pippin," a musical in which a performance troupe, led by a Leading Player, tells the story of Pippin, the son of Charlemagne, a young prince on his search for meaning and significance. 

I have not heard of the singer HER (a backronym for Having Everything Revealed) or her 2019 Song of the Year nominee, "Hard Place." 

I'm quite familiar with the Three Musketeers, but I didn't know ARAMIS was a cologne.  It was started in 1966.

In chess, the SLAV Defense is an opening in which the queen's and white bishop's pawns are moved forward.

I know the RHINE is a German river, but being a geography numbskull, I could not have told you that Rotterdam is where it empties to the North sea.

I did not know that MOCHA was named for a Mideast city.  Al-Makha, Yemen, to be exact.

"Having four sharps" means IN E, which I sort of got into on September 26, 2018, but I didn't and won't remember.

Designer ALDO Gucci came up on December 19, 2017.

Maya Angelou's And Still I RISE was in the puzzle on October 1, 2018.

Theater material SCRIM came up on August 15 as a clue, for which the answer was linen.

Clever clues: "Snoopy sort?" is BEAGLE.  "You can scratch with it" is CUE BALL.  "Beat box?" is METRONOME.  "Leaders of the pack?" is ACES.

This was a pleasurable Sunday puzzle.  I had absolutely no idea while solving that I was on track to my fastest Sunday time.  I was too caught up in the solving.  And now, our revels are AT AN END.