Friday August 17th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 39:20
Average Friday: 28:53
Best Friday: 10:21

I'll have to confess that I've been dreading Friday and Saturday for this week. It's my first week blogging as if I know crosswords and throw in some jet lag and I figured there just couldn't be any guarantees I could get this one done. This puzzle had enough total unknowns for me to give me a good scare, not to mention a time well above my Friday average, but the final tile to fall came with my screaming objection to "sliest" with an "i." That just looks terrible and probably cost me a solid 5 minutes of checking every other tile for plausibility. Of course, it would have to cross sagitta, which wikipedia tells me "should not be confused with the significantly larger constellation Sagittarius." So, thank you for that. As long as we're crossing sagitta, I tried Perri Clark, Kerri Clark, Jerri Clark.... and on and on before finally landing Terri Clark. I also scanned the wikipedia entry for "beta decay" and feel no closer to being able to pretend I know what that is. I dunno. I also found Z is for Zebra impossibly difficult to parse for some time.

For the "New England prep school attended by J.F.K.," I was sitting on CH---- for some time asking myself, wait, JFK didn't go to Chilton, did he? I was fairly confident Chilton was fictional (and too many letters), as some post-puzzle googling confirmed. But, my friends! I've learned that Chilton was based on Choate Rosemary Hall! I'm sure this was well known to Gilmore Girls superfans, but you'll have to forgive my excitement as a relative neophyte.  

As an unrepentant kibitzer, I am thrilled to add kibitz (to give unwanted advice, especially to someone playing a game) to my vocabulary, if for no other reason than to recognize when I'm being told to stop doing it. Sagan, Secret Sauce, and Shrooms will always be welcome in puzzles as far as I'm concerned. While I doubt that I can often have been said to have "worn an outfit with panache," I quite enjoyed the appearance of Rocked It as well. 

I spent the better part of a van ride between Kolkata high schools hacking away at this one. While I felt like I was being fairly brutalized by trivia in this puzzle, this one stands as an example to my theory that if you're willing to put in the time, most puzzles will fall if you keep hacking away. I'm just glad that I knocked this one out before jet lag truly set in. Tonight I'll be flying to Jaipur where I'll get to spend three whole nights, which, if you know my travel schedule, qualifies as absolutely luxurious. Maybe I'll even hit spa. Aah. 



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