Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Heroine of Verdi's Il Trovatore

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: BLACK / AND / WHITE — 39A: With 41- and 43-Across, cop cruiser ... or a description of the five animals named in this puzzle

The animals:

SNOW LEOPARD (20A: Asian cat)
ZEBRA (13D: Equus quagga)
PANDA (30D: One of the 2008 Olympic mascots)
SKUNK (53D: Polecat)
KILLER WHALE (60A: Shamu, for one)

Word of the Day: TOCSIN (35A: Alarm bell) —

n.
An alarm sounded on a bell.
A bell used to sound an alarm.
A warning; an omen.
[French, alteration of toquassen, from Old French touque-sain, from Old Provençal tocasenh : tocar, to strike (from Vulgar Latin *toccāre) + senh, bell (from Late Latin signum , from Latin, signal; see sign).]

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Doing some of my solving on paper now, so not terribly certain of the difficulty ratings as a result, but this one felt somewhat on the challenging side (for a Tuesday) and a quick glance at the leaderboard at the NYT puzzle site shows slowish times for a Tuesday. My time would put me at 12th (out of 100 as of right now), which, considering I solved on paper (significantly slower method), I'm quite happy with. The theme ... was B&W animals. And there they are. Only thing I can say is that I did not know SNOW LEOPARDs were black and white. And I didn't know the PANDA had been an Olympic mascot (though 2008 Olympics were in China, so that makes sense). Difficulty lay first in the theme clues,

which were vague / odd (esp. the ZEBRA one), and second in the NE corner, which is crammed with hardish stuff (including ZEBRA). Corner is hard to get into because of LEONORA (who?) (25A: Heroine of Verdi's "Il Trovatore"), and then METZ (and not ST. LO, as you suspected) (10A: French city in 1944 fighting), and then TIMOR, which is familiar enough, but not when you're trying to fill it in w/ no crosses (12D: Island near Java). Luckily MAI and ARIE and IAMB and TOR were gimmes, so with some fussing and erasing, it all worked out. Just bogged me down. Also, TOCSIN (35A: Alarm bell) is only dimly dimly familiar to me, so I had to come at the eastern part from below. Otherwise, my only problems were stupid mistakes. Writing in SCRAWL for SCROLL (44A: Form of many a diploma) — I think I read it wrong — and utterly blanking on ___ WHALE. Seriously. Just stared at it, imagining what specialized name an orca could possibly have ... [headdesk].

Bullets:

1A: AARP or the National Rifle Association (LOBBY) — bad start. Wanted an abbr. because of "AARP" in clue. Spelled-out "NRA" should've clued me in.
6D: Potential enamorada (SEÑORITA) — again, not a Tuesday clue. A fine clue, but more Thursday.
8D: Like some exercises (NAVAL) — more vague/tough cluing.
38D: "99 Red Balloons" singer, 1984 (NENA) — weird coincidence: just caught about five minutes of an old "Family Guy" episode, in which there is a very strange "99 Red Balloons" joke. And then I walked directly upstairs and did this puzzle. That was my second weird coincidence of the day. The first was watching "Spectacle" (fantastic Elvis Costello-hosted show about music) this morning, and learning from Costello's interview with Clinton (sax player) that Robert Byrd was an accomplished fiddler. Got in my car afterward, turned on NPR, and learned that Byrd had died—NPR not only mentioned his fiddling, they also played a snippet from his fiddle album of the late '70s!