Sunday November 4th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 30:29
Sunday Average: 49:24
Best Sunday: 21:55

It's another relaxed morning in Tirana solving a crossword over maybe too much coffee. Today's puzzle has a diagonal black line that cuts the grid almost into HALVES and I'll confess that I got almost zero answers on the eastern half on my first run through. Being in Eastern Europe, I really should have immediately known that "Soda brand with more than 90 flavors" would be FANTA, since this is the only place that I drink the stuff (usually after a night of drinking rakia).

I loved the first two answers in the NW triple stack with the seasonally appropriate BOBS FOR APPLES and then ARE WE DONE HERE?, a phrase I probably use daily. WIRED RECORDERS, on the other hand, is about as bland as it gets, but if that's what it takes to prop up the stack, so be it.

Is "Give mouth-to-mouth to?" really a ? type clue for KISS? It seems PRETTY straightforward.

Sometimes I wish that the NY Times was allowed to be a bit more playful with its cluing, especially now that I've gotten into more indie crosswords like The American Values Club. "Ancestry" is fine as a clue for DESCENT, but I'd be more likely say "Film that was way too scary even before the monsters show up (with 'the')." I like that we had a Spider-Man creator double feature cluing, but couldn't we say "Stan who takes all the credit for creating Spider-Man" and "Steve who actually did most of the work creating Spider-Man" for LEE and DITKO, respectively?

I chuckled a bit at "You should avoid feeding on them" for FAST DAYS. That one took me a minute along with FIG EATER ("Shiny beetle disliked by fruit growers"), which I definitely wrote in thinking, "Well, I guess this is a thing."

Finally, I'm embarrassed that I didn't get SENATE for "Century in American politics" until I was missing only the "n," especially because I'm positive I've seen that exact cluing before.

Overall, I loved this crossword and being able to spend a quiet morning over coffee on it just made me want more. Good thing I have all these indie crosswords ready to go for my flight to Belgrade today. See you tomorrow in Serbia!

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