Peace Nobelist Cassin / SAT 6-8-13 / 1955 doo-wop hit / Title for Schwarzenegger / Leader of Silver Bullet Band / Child support payer in modern lingo / 6 is rare one

Constructor: David Quarfoot

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: UNGAVA Peninsula (12D: Northern Quebec's ___ Peninsula) —

The Ungava Peninsula of Nunavik, Quebec, Canada, is bounded by Hudson Bay to the west,Hudson Strait to the north, and Ungava Bay to the east.

The Ungava Peninsula is part of the Labrador Peninsula and covers about 252,000 km² (97,000 sq mi). Its northern-most point is Cape Wolstenholme, which is also the northern-most point of Quebec.

The Ungava Peninsula is a part of the Canadian Shield and consists entirely of treeless tundradissected by large numbers of rivers and glacial lakes, flowing generally east-west in a parallel fashion. The peninsula was not deglaciated until 6,500 years ago (11,500 years after the Last Glacial Maximum) and is believed to have been the prehistoric centre from which the vastLaurentide Ice Sheet spread over most of North America during the last glacial epoch. (wikipedia)

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Always love seeing David Quarfoot's name. Usually means a ton of fresh entries and generally clean fill, and today was no exception—well, there was one crappy entry that irked me all out of proportion to its size. So I blazed through this, for the most part, so that in about six minutes I had everything done but the NW. I got HEIR, EMCEE, APHID, OLE and (around the corner) ERNE. But I had YEAH at 5D: When doubled, a taunt. I think I was thinking "Yeah, sure." as in "I bet," as in "b.s." I didn't like it, but it was four letters, it ended in "H," and it was a word I knew. I never should've written it in, though, because it kept me from being able to parse *any* of the Acrosses (*all* of which were a. phrases and b. phrases with abbrevs. in them—thus, not so easy to parse). Finally figured out DEER (34A: Game with points), which got me HOT STONE (3D: Item used in an exotic massage) (exotic?), and only then did I decide to pull YEAH. Then thought "is NYAH a word?" Apparently. So, sadly, the worst entry in the grid was the one that held me up. You never, ever, ever want that to be the case. Enjoyment levels plummet. But luckily, my enjoyment level coming into that corner was high, so things were still cool in the end.

Embarrassing how long it took me to get ED SULLIVAN (24A: "Toast of the Town" host), but I'm gonna blame that entirely on UNGAVA (!?), which was totally new to me. Oh, also, I thought LST was HST (27D: W.W. II inits.). That "V" could've been anything. "I.O.U.S.A." (48D: 2008 documentary about the national debt) is a little insidery hat tip to director Patrick Creadon, who directed the crossword documentary "Wordplay" (2006). I think it's junk fill, but I can't stay mad at it, since it's an actual title and not, say, a prefix or a var. or whatever. I was (typically) on DQ's wavelength today, throwing down the longer stuff w/ just a letter or two in place. BABY DADDY (63A: Child support payer, in modern lingo) went in off just the first "Y" and the rest of the corner was done before I could blink twice. Whole puzzle took me half as long as yesterday's death march. Good times.


I know "2008" was supposed to cue "iPHONE" for me, but it didn't (1A: One was first purchased in 2008 = iPHONE APP). I had MR. OLYMPIA (15A: Title for Schwarzenegger) as MR. OLYMPIC at first, til I noticed the resulting PCR at 9D: 6 is a rare one, which I assumed (rightly) was nonsense (it's PAR). I don't know doo-wop that well, but I had the YOU and figured, at four letters, that's gotta be ONLY (I could hear the song, which I mostly know from some long-forgotten jingle) (43A: 1955 doo-wop hit). I will admit that I actually considered VIC at 33D: Roman numeral that's also a name (LIV). I might also have considered CID ... it was a weird five seconds.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld