Wednesday September 19th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 11:09
Average Wednesday: 17:43
Best Wednesday: 7:24

I stupidly wrote in wINeBAR instead of MINIBAR for "Fancy hotel room amenity," despite spending a fair amount of time in fancy hotels these days. However, I dutifully ignore the minibars for obvious reasons, while of course helping myself to all the fancy free SOAP.

I enjoyed the YIDDISH theme today, especially the exclamation OY GEVALT with its rather uninspiring cluing of "Jeez!" I was generally familiar with the six Yiddish phrases (if not always the spelling), mostly from encountering them in other crosswords, except for MEGILLAH for a "long, involved account." Now that I'm looking it, however, and I see it stated as "the whole megillah," I'm vaguely recalling coming across it in pop culture more than a few times. Now I know what was being said.

I'm impressed that this puzzle manages six theme answers plus a revealer while keeping the fill largely above average. LAVA LAMPS, OCEANIA,SCHNAUZER, and BIG MOUTH are all legitimate and fun, with the only real UGH spot being the plural IPOS crossing SSN, but that all falls within the realm of reason.

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