Gemstones resembling topaz / THU 10-8-20 / Benjamin Franklin adage / Much-litigated 2010 law for short / How Lennon wrote opening lines of I am the Walrus

Constructor: Francesca Goldston and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (high 6s?) (early morning solve)

THEME: TIME IS MONEY (56A: Benjamin Franklin adage ... or a hint to interpreting the answers to the four starred clues) — clues refer to familiar phrases that include "TIME," but in the grid, "TIME" has been replaced by some form of money, resulting in equally familiar phrases:

Theme answers:

• SPARE CHANGE (from 'spare time') (16A: *When many people solve crosswords)
• HARD CASH (from 'hard time) (28A: *Rough patch)
• PASSED THE BUCK (from 'passed the time') (33A: *Occupied oneself)
• TWO CENTS (from 'two-time') (42A: *Cheat on, say)

Word of the Day: CITRINES (37D: Gemstones resembling topaz) —

n.

1. A pale yellow variety of crystalline quartz resembling topaz.

2. A light to moderate olive. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

Appreciated this one much more after the fact than I did during the solve. Never ever grasped the essential concept while I was solving, and since I (stupidly, today) worked methodically from top to bottom, I didn't hit the revealer til very late, and at first I botched *that* answer quite bad as well. I think I was able to use (half-) knowledge of the theme to get TWO CENTS, but at that point I still wasn't fully aware that all of the themers, despite the "time" change, were still genuine, in-the-language phrases—that was the part that only came into view after I was done and reviewing the grid. I should remember on Thursdays to jump straight to the revealer as soon as I have trouble grasping the theme. Might've helped. Of course, might not have helped, as I would've been jumping into total blank space (always a time killer) and in the case of today's puzzle I wouldn't have actually known the revealer. In fact, even with many crosses in place, my first stab at the revealer was hilariously wrong. I had -MEIS- and I wrote in HOMEIISHEART, thinking ... somehow ... that that answer was an expression of "Home is where the heart is" (beat *that* for epic wrongness, folks!). So the cleverness of the theme concept came to me very slowly, and never fully arrived during the solving time, which made the whole thing a bit frustrating. In retrospect, I can admire the concept.

It's weird how I fell into *perfectly* hidden traps (or "traps," I guess) over and over today. The worst was EATS IT UP for 2D: Loves every second of something (LAPS IT UP). This worked for so many of the crosses (all but two, in fact) that I didn't question it. I had tried and failed to understand 1A: Relief from the desert? (ALOE), and so I'd forgotten about it, and having STARE CHANGE in the theme answer ... well, it's a theme answer; I just figured something weird was going on that I didn't understand yet. Brutal, brutal mistake. I also wrote in (the much more appropriate) HAR HAR instead of HAH HAH at 5D: "Everybody's a comedian," resulting in yet another wrong letter in that first themer (STARE CRANGE!), as well as a wrong letter in the first position of the *second* themer. It was as if these mistakes were designed to cause maximum theme miscomprehension, though I think they were just results of bad luck and the malfunctioning of my own dumb brain. I actually wrote in PASSED THE TIME at 33A and couldn't get it to work at one point, stumbling onto the theme without even knowing it. Fun. Never heard of CITRINES (the blog software is red-underlining it right now) and couldn't parse the Beatles clue so ended up with Lennon writing the opening lines of "I Am the Walrus" ON A COD (which seems like something you might actually try to do ON ACID). Had HOOT for RIOT, yet another theme answer-wrecking mistake (52D: Thigh-slapper). Everything that could go wrong did, themewise, and yet my time was still within reasonable Thursday range, so it's possible the puzzle was actually much easier than it seemed to me. As far as the fill goes, it seemed solid enough. I thought the SHOAL was the shore and not the fish swimming off of it (48A: Group of fish), which it is—primary meaning is sandbank or sandbar, particularly one that constitutes a navigation hazard. But it can also mean a large group of something, particularly fish. You gotta go down the definition list, but it's there. 

Favorite clue today was 51A: "It" factor? (HORROR) ("It" is a HORROR novel (by Stephen King) and movie, in case you didn't know). Bye now.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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