Sunday February 24th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 39:38
Sunday Average: 48:01
Best Sunday: 21:55

After an unimpeachable weekend with Southworth in Penang, I was forced to embark on a VOYAGE back to work life, which I hope I will never call real life. Even if a weekend of all the delicious food and drinks may be a DEVIATION in terms of my regular mad schedule, I remain confident that it's closer to what I should be doing and I certainly won't LOSE SLEEP over it. Although I was up at 4am to catch my flight back to KL and then an onward, stressful connection to Taipei, I still managed today's crossword with, I wouldn't say EASE, but perhaps competence.

The theme, based on the title "Everything evens out in the End" and revealed by WHAT ARE THE ODDS, took me a long time to parse, but I eventually grasped that if you take the odd (1st, 3rd, 5th, etc.) letters of the first word or words of the theme answers, you will spell out the last word. Thus, you have SMALL TOWN SALON, REINDEER RIDE, THE FARM TEAM, SWINGING SIGN, IS NOT TOO INTO, PROTEST POET, and FOOTNOTE FONT. Get it? Evens out? It's a curious theme, but I'm not sure it fills me with joy.

We had Crazy Rich Asians a couple days ago and now we get AWKWAFINA, which I'm just fine with and expect to see more of in the future. When do we get The Daily Show's (and recent Flophouse guest) Ronnie Chieng?

I'd never heard of Don AMECHE, so that clue was brutal, but he seems like he had a pretty neat career, first in radio, then as a leading man in the 40s and 50s, and finally a career revival in the 80s during which he won an Oscar for his role in Cocoon. Well done, Don.

Now it's time to get ATTUNED to Taipei, where I'll be for about 48 hours on the dot. Strangely enough, that's a long time for me to spend in a given place in this work life. 

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