Thursday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: January 14, 2012

My time: 9:21, five minutes faster than average.

Theme: SPIN THE BOTTLE.  This is somewhat tricky.

Five circled squares contain the letters b-o-t-t-l-e, in a ring, as highlighted above.  But it runs both ways.  That is, the answers work one way if the B is at the bottom of the ring going clockwise, and the other set of answers intersecting the circled squares work if the B is at the top of the ring going clockwise.

For example: The Across clue, "ancient unit of length," is CUBIT.  That's all fine and good.  But a B doesn't work in that circled square when it comes to "petrol unit," the intersecting Down clue.  So on my grid it reads as LIBRE, but should be read as litre. (I probably should have entered both as a rebus, but I didn't.)

Similarly, the clue "moves like molasses."  That's seeps, but in my grid it appears as STEPS.  The intersecting clue is "spud," for TATER.  (It could easily be the other way around, seeps and eater.)  Another example: GATOR crosses with lubes, that on my grid reads as LUTES.  The substitutions all make legitimate words, even if they don't fit the clues.

And now that your head is spinning, the fill.

North American baitfish is CHUB, a type of minnow.

ABUSE "of power (common impeachment charge)" is a rather apt clue for this historic day.  Also in the fill: POTUS and AOC.

"Home of Baikal, the world's deepest lake" turns out to be ASIA, which isn't exactly informative.  Oh, it's located somewhere in one-third of Earth's land mass, is it?  Great, that narrows it down.  It's in southeast Siberia.

OLIVIA, niece of Sir Toby Belch, is the lover of Cesario in "Twelfth Night."  Cesario, of course, turns out to be Viola in disguise. Her other two suitors, entirely unwanted, are Orsino and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

"90 Day Fiancé," which sounds simply dreadful, is on the TLC network.  Now I know what to avoid! 

Stephen Curry was born in AKRON, Ohio, home to Minor League Baseball's RubberDucks.  So was LeBron James!  In the same hospital!

"Docs treating vertigo" are ENTS?  Yes, it's usually a symptom of the inner ear, and not of crippling anxiety and obsession with mysterious beauties.

I have never heard the word ABOUTNESS, defined as "relevance of text, in librarian's lingo."  I'm not sure we need this word!

Clever clues: "Core features" is ABS.  "What a letter needs" is a LEASE; that's very tricky.  Here a letter is someone who lets or rents a house.  "Uses a light scalpel on?" is LASES.

Well, this one was a BLAST.  Sort of.  I enjoyed the clever theme, but figuring out which letters went in the circled squares was tough for me.  It was only until after I'd solved the whole thing that I saw, finally, that the Bs were at the top and bottom of the ring and turned in sequence.  I was all set to draw a web of lines to show the "switched" letters!