Peninsula shared by Italy Slovenia and Croatia / SUN 12-6-20 / Impromptu musical get-together, informally / Spanish term of affection between young women / Fluff Yeah slipper sandals / Digital image company that used to make film / Mathematician Poincaré with a famous conjecture / Clishmaclaver or bavardage to use some fancy language

Constructor: Tony Orbach

Relative difficulty: Easy (near-record time ... though I had to make a blind guess for the very last square) (high 7s)

THEME: "Get Out Of Here!" — phrases that go "___ OF ___" have the "OF" removed, and then are reclued, wackily:

Theme answers:

• BONE CONTENTION (23A: Archaeologist's assertion about a finding?)
• STROKE GENIUS (33A: Swim team guru?)
• BOOK GENESIS (40A: Hire Phil Collins's longtime band for a gig?)
• PRIDE PLACE (51A: The Serengeti, e.g.?)
• STREAM CONSCIOUSNESS (63A: Knowing everything that's available to view on Netflix?)
• FREE CHARGE (77A: Amenity offered at an internet cafe?)
• RITE PASSAGE (84A: Bit of reading at a bar mitzvah?)
• COMEDY ERRORS (90A: Stand-up's bombs?)
• FRAME REFERENCE (106A: Art shop worker's manual?)

Word of the Day: ISTRIA (104A: Peninsula shared by Italy, Slovenia and Croatia) —

Istria (/ˈɪstriə/ ISS-tree-ə; Croatian, Slovene: Istra; Istriot: Eîstria; Istro Romanian: Istrie, Italian: Istria; German: Istrien), formerly Histria (Latin), Ίστρια (Ancient Greek), is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Kvarner Gulf. It is shared by three countries: Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. Croatia encapsulates most of the Istrian peninsula with its Istria County (Regione istriana in Italian). (wikipedia)

• • •

Literally the only thing I remember about this puzzle is ISTRIA. There was a theme, but it just involved the removal of "OF" from the middle of common phrases, and once I knew that, I didn't even have to look at the clues (which, in a theme that is Entirely about the ha-ha quality of the clues, is kind of a problem). I just got crosses, and once I could infer either the first or second word of the theme phrase, I could pretty easily guess the rest. Had some trouble with PRIDE PLACE, as I tried PRIDE LIONS before letting crosses get me to PLACE. But otherwise, FREE got me CHARGE w/ no looking, ERRORS got me COMEDY w/ no looking, etc. Absolutely blew through this, so fast that hardly any of it registered. And then there's ... well not "Maude," she came earlier (29D: "When the country was fallin' apart, Betsy Ross got it all ___ up" ("Maude" theme lyric)). No, then there's ... ISTRIA. Not just ISTRIA, but ISTRIA crossing ... AYS, was it? AYS? Wow. I have never heard of ISTRIA. I know I am not alone here, as many people are already echoing my "????" sentiments on Twitter. But I look at a map and see that ISTRIA exists, OK ... but that final "A," my god, that is such a rough crossing. Seems like OYS could very easily be [Exclamations of regret]. In fact, I'm much much much more used to hearing OY as an exclamation than I am to hearing AY, what the hell?  ISTRIA is such an incredible outlier, familiarity-wise, vis-a-vis the rest of the puzzle, that you really should redo the corner, or at the very least do better with that final "A" cross. The other crosses were all solid and unambiguous, but I flat-out guessed on the last letter of ISTRIA. It just ... seemed like a peninsula was more likely to end in an "A" than an "O." I have no data for that. Just felt that way. Maybe that's because the only peninsula I know that fits here is IBERIA, which, by the way, is the answer my brain kept wanting, even when I kept telling it "that's Spain and Portugal, shut up!" So, there was a theme, I forget what it was, and also, ISTRIA. The end.

My friend Parker improved that SW corner in virtually no time. This is just the first thing he came up with, and it's already an improvement (in that it doesn't have ISTRIA and the rest of the answers are recognizable things):

And here, he just tweeted out another:

Sooooo ... what else? I actually think MIND BLOWN is good fill. It's an annoying cliché, but it's still got real currency and if I've seen it in grids, I haven't seen it often enough to remember it. I also thought JAM SESH was clever (1A: Impromptu musical get-together, informally). I don't think SESH was ever meant to be spelled, 'cause it truly looks horrid in print, but I like the slanginess of the phrase in general. DEAR SANTA is timely. Had some trouble getting to AUGER from 78D: Helical bit, mainly because I know AUGER (vaguely) by what it does, not what it looks like. But yes, it is spiral-shaped, since it bores, so I guess that's ... helical. Sure. Yes. I don't remember slowing down really anywhere else. Oh, I did half-hope that the NYT would get the DURAG spelling right this time. But no. We're still stuck on DO. D'oh! Oh, the GOSSIP clue was hard; I have no idea what is going on there (70A: Clishmaclaver or bavardage, to use some fancy language). I don't know why "to use some fancy language" is in there. Don't try to get winky or ironic with your fancy language. You're using it, use it. Own it. Run with it. Or get another clue. Anyway, "bavardage" is vaguely familiar, though I would've defined that ... nope, I'm thinking of "badinage," never mind. Sigh. Clishmaclaver sounds like a Dickens character. Again, no idea. But like I said, otherwise, there's almost no difficulty to this one at all. The theme made it super-easy to race through the whole thing with a minimum of hesitation. Really wish I hadn't had to end this thing on a blind guess, but you get what you get. Talk to you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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