Briton who wrote Fish Called Wanda / SAT 4-27-19 / Dutch craze of 1636-37 first major speculative bubble / Crowdsourced compendia / Half of long-running Vegas show / Early 2000s low-carb fad / Five-time pro-bowler with Chicago Bears / Alfalfa's sweetie in Little Rascals /

Constructor: Joe Deeney

Relative difficulty: Easy (6:21, not fully awake)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: Lake MEAD (50A: Lake on the Arizona/Nevada border) —

Lake Mead is a man made lake that lies on the Colorado River, about 24 mi (39 km) from the Las Vegas Strip, southeast of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the states of Nevada and Arizona. It is the largest reservoir in the United States in terms of water capacity. Formed by the Hoover Dam on September 30, 1935, the reservoir serves water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland.

At maximum capacity, Lake Mead is 112 miles (180 km) long, 532 feet (162 m) at its greatest depth, has a surface elevation of 1,221.4 feet (372.3 m) above sea level and 247 square miles (640 km²) of surface area, and contains 26.12 million acre feet (32,220,000 ML) of water.

The lake has not reached full capacity, however, since 1983 due to a combination of drought and increased water demand. As of August 2017, Lake Mead was at approximately 40% of full capacity with 10 million acre feet (12,000,000 ML) of held water.^] It has been smaller than Lake Powell (the second largest US reservoir when both are full) since 2013.

• • •

Tore through this thing even though my brain was working pretty poorly. I had trouble seeing simple things like G-MAN (5A: Extra in 2009's "Public Enemies") and IOWA, which I totally forgot was in the Big Ten (and I went to a Big Ten university for grad school). So the fact that I was able to finish somewhere in the 6-minute range tells me that overall this must have been very easy. I also found it mostly delightful. THE LUXURY OF TIME really looks like an answer I wouldn't like (something about the definite article...) but I can tell you that I got a real thrill getting that one off just the "XU" and "F." It's an unusual marquee answer, and I like it (37A: What one doesn't have in an emergency). Not as big a fan of obscure stuff like "ALL IS TRUE" (I teach Shakespeare, know exactly when the First Folio came out and why it's important, and have never heard of this original title of "Henry VIII," which is a play no one reads anyway). Also obscure: TULIP MANIA (though that one was highly inferrable, and honestly I got almost all of it from crosses before I ever saw the clue) (53A: Dutch craze of 1636-37, considered the first major speculative bubble). I'm not mad at TULIP MANIA because it's such a vivid phrase, and the "speculative bubble" bit gives it some historical relevance. But "ALL IS TRUE" is not vivid or relevant. Just awful. But that's all the complaints I have today, I think. Oh, well, RARED is not especially lovely. But the rest: clean and yummy.


Started with some luck, in that I wanted PEEL TASE URSA for the Downs. Now I balked at first two because they made impossible "PTU-" formation at beginning of 1A: Selling point (PLUS). But I went down and got LEAF PEEPER off just the "EA" (woo hoo!) (If you've never heard of LEAF PEEPERs, then you don't live in the northeastern U S of A). Put PEEL back in and it wasn't long before NW corner was worked out. Trouble with second half of both long Acrosses up there, especially ESSAY EXAM, which I had as a TEST. Easy fix, though. Slowish going through the DART / TAMPS / MEAD section, mostly because ON REPORT was so touch to see / parse. Had TUG AT before TUG ON (49D: Gently pull). But that's it for roughness. Finished in the NE, where yet another Shakespeare clue, this one a fill-in-the-blank, slowed me down a little, but not much. Main trouble up there was that I always spell BONSAI with a "Z." They really shoulda called it the ATKINZ DIET (11D: Early 2000s low-carb fad). The "Z" gives it a whole retro '90s vibe and maybe would've helped them make inroads in the rad teen market. The last thing I read before going to bed last night was the second volume of NEIL GAIMAN's "Sandman," so that was an odd coincidence. Speaking of ... time for green tea and comfy chair and morning reading. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. There hasn't been a solo woman constructor in two weeks. Just two woman co-constructors. So that's 13/14 men. In case you're wondering what the trend is.

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