Thursday October 11th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 18:14
Thursday Average: 26:07
Best Thursday: 10:18

I imagine some will be opposed to the NO BRA DAY themed puzzle two days before the actual day, but I suppose it's a Thursday type puzzle, so this is where it got placed. Whereas I have no problem with awareness creating days, I hope everyone participating (and everyone else) is also donating in some concrete way to the cause as well.

As far as the theme goes, we have the letters "bra" somewhere in the theme answers, which, when removed become a valid solution to the given clue:

  • "Picking out of a lineup, e.g." yields BRAIDING
  • "Upper body muscles, for short" gives you LAB RATS
  • "Extremely" gets BRAVERY
  • "First name in 'The Godfather'" of course is VIBRATO
  • "Chess piece" can only be BRAKING
It's fun and probably straightforward enough that even my self of a year ago might have managed to put it together. As for the fill, I was extremely upset that "Sign at some beaches" is NO DOGS. I think I would clue it as "Sign at some joyless beaches" or "Sign at a beach that I don't want to go to." 

I also BRISTLE at EBB OUT, because surely that's redundant, right? 

Today in answers that used to be things I barely or didn't know but are now virtually automatic write-ins: LOOFA, ENDIVE, James AGEE (although I knew him by way of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" but he's never clued that way). Today in answers that I loved long before in crosswords: ETTA James, SHE-RA, ARIADNE (fun trivia: Ariadna is the name of the daughter of the great Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva). 

I've finished all of my high school visits in Dhaka and am now EAGER TO get to my free day tomorrow. Bring on Friday. 

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