Tuesday September 11th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 7:23
Average Tuesday: 13:50
Best Tuesday: 6:10

I was slow to parse METADATA at 1 across ("information about other information") and didn't get any immediate help from 1 2 or 3 down and thought, "this is going to be rough for a Tuesday." From that point on, however, it was just see clue, write answer all the way, even grokking the FLOWERY LANGUAGE theme to get my head in the right place for the long answers. My only snag in the end was GAWP, which I guess is a word along with gawk and gape meaning more or less the same thing.

I love a nice reversal of the standard crossword clues, so when I saw "Elevator innovator Otis," all I could think was, "Fair play, Timothy Polin." I've written "Otis" into crosswords a hundred times, but nope, I couldn't have told you his first name was ELISHA. The invention of a "safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails" is just such a fine thing, isn't it? Nice mini theme with that answer falling right next to FLOOR, I suppose. The long in the tooth mini theme for AGE and OLD I appreciate a bit less. LOKI  and SATYRS go well together too. The longer I look at this puzzle, the more I'm appreciating its consistency, even if it ended up playing a bit easier than makes much sense. 

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