Saturday April 13th 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 27:00
Saturday Average: 35:34
Best Saturday: 10:34

I was well on my way to crushing this one with gimmes like KOREAN AIR and DELTA (I travel to Asia for a living, sometimes), NOTORIOUS RBG (just listened to an audiobook of some her writings), GREEN GOBLIN (potential danger because I could name probably at least 30 Spider-Man arch-enemies), and you'd better believe I know MC REN from N.W.A.! In the end, however, I couldn't quite MEASURE UP after getting stuck for ages in that southwest. There wasn't anything particularly GONZO there, but I wanted "God knowS" instead of BLESS and I kept thinking that the double "Film site" clues would have at least one that wasn't about camera type film. Also, is KALE really a "Long green?"

Look, it's another "Informal" and "North American" tagged answer with BUSHWA, meaning nonsense, apparently. Again, I think that tag combo is just code for a word made up to save crossword constructors.

Have you listened to Phoebe Bridgers and Bright Eyes sing a live version of "Shallow" from A STAR IS BORN? It's pretty great to hear Phoebe belt it out, even if she doesn't quite have Lady Gaga pipes.


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