My time: 13:52, a new record by eight seconds!
Theme: Well, the title is "Get Out Of Here," which however way you read it doesn't really convey the idea that you must get "of" out of the themed answers. That's right, the nine themed Across answers are well-known phrases with of in them, but taken out, and clued as if they had no of.
For example, "stand-up's bombs?' is COMEDY ERRORS. "Swim team guru?" is STROKE GENIUS.
The first one I got was "archeologist's assertion about a finding?" This is BONE CONTENTION. My favorite is "hire Phil Collins's band," which is BOOK GENESIS.
A simple but quite effective theme. Once I caught on, the rest of the themed answers were easy to figure out.
And now, the fill.
I know the name LATOYA Jackson, but didn't know they left her out of the Jackson 5. Actually until I looked her up, I wasn't sure if she was male or female. But now it all comes back to me: the spousal abuse she suffered, the estrangement from the family, the "Playboy" spread.
GERI Allen was a jazz pianist, composer, and professor of music.
Two onomatopoeia close together gave me trouble: "explosive sound" which turned out to be BLAM, and "drops (down) heavily," for which I put *THUMPS and then *THUNKS but it's PLUNKS.
The word bavardage I know, but clishmaclaver is a nice one that I don't think I've heard. They both mean GOSSIP.
I'm not happy with the clue "gets out in dodgeball, say" for PEGS. It's phrased to be read as intransitive, but clearly they mean it to be transitive. I find that to be poor form.
"Keys near G's" are A FLATS. Who cares?
Here's something I've never heard of: ISTRIA, the European peninsular region that is shared by Croatia, Slovenia, and a tiny part of Italy. The name is said to be derived from the Histri, a fierce tribe of pirates whom Strabo refers to as living in the region and who are credited as being the builders of the hillfort settlements there.
HENRI Poincaré's conjecture involves a hypothetical about topology and is so insanely complicated that I can't begin to understand it. Basically it involved wrapping string around a donut. These theoretical mathematicians are strange people.
LEKS are Albanian currency units. Currently one Albanian Lek equals 0.0098 United States Dollar.
Of the two TYS noted in the puzzle, I recognize the name Cobb. Ty Burrell is Phil Dunphy on "Modern Family."
I just guessed that LOON is Minnesota's state bird. It seemed reasonable.
Patti LuPone has come up in the puzzle before, but today she is clued for her role as Eva Peron in EVITA. She won the 1980 Tony Award for her work in the original Broadway production.
Apparently "Fluff Yeah" is a brand of UGGS. I think they're hideous. They look like a satire of trendy house slippers.
I was already vaguely familiar with "RUR," the 1920 science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. It stands for Rossum's Universal Robots and introduced the word "robot" to language.
Shiraz is the fifth-most-populous city in IRAN and the capital of Fars province. And the wine, of course, is named after it.
EVA Green was clued as playing Vesper Lynn in Casino Royale on November 1, 2018. Today she is clued as playing the title role in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
Journalist ANN Curry last appeared on December 3, 2018.
MR. CUB, nickname of Ernie Banks, was the clue and not the answer on October 26.
MIT's business school SLOAN came up on October 15, 2017.
"Digital imaging company that used to make film" is AGFA, which was last in the blog way back on December 22, 2017.
Clever clues: "Brand that comes out a head?" is PEZ. "Fan group?" is BLADES. "Get in gear?" is SUIT UP. "Dubbing need" is SWORD — I could only think of the foreign film aspect of dubbing! The word "bit" threw me off (I was thinking "piece," not "cutting tool") in "helical bit" for AUGER. "Serve well?" is ACE.
This was a fun Sunday, with few problems for me. The theme is fun, the fill interesting. To me, it was a piece cake.
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