Patronize off-track betting say / SAT 5-26-18 / 2014 Facebook acquisition / Portrayer of Warren Buffet in HBO's too big to fail / Intimate practice done at distance / War-torn mideast city

Constructor: Peter Wentz

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (7:02) (honestly thought I was like a minute faster, oh well...)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: LARGO (8D: Slow and dignified) —

adverb & adjective

1. 1. 

   (especially as a direction) in a slow tempo and dignified in style.

noun

1. 1. 

   a passage, movement, or composition marked to be performed in this way. (google)

Thought I was going to go to sleep and solve this one in the morning, but then I couldn't fall asleep right away (I blame my afternoon nap) and then my wife began solving the puzzle Right Next To Me,   which made sleep impossible ("what's she writing? she's writing fast, is it easy? why can't I turn this part of my brain off?"), so I had to just get up and solve the thing. I don't think I was as affected by near-sleep as I am when I try to solve immediately after actual sleep, but some kind of slo-mo effect did seem to be in place. I thought I torched this, but my time was just Pretty Good (by my standards). My fingers apparently weren't moving as quickly as I thought they were. I expect the puzzle to be a CROWD PLEASER, both because it's on the easy side (for Saturday) and because the marquee answers are both bright and familiar. Nothing very obscure in this grid (except Thatcher's husband's name, wth!?). My only gripe is that the SE is just a little too overladen with techy stuff. Two 8-letter apps *and* HTTP in the same little corner = overkill. Spread it oouutt. Oh, and no way the clue for THE CURE should refer to the song "Friday, I'm in Love" when IN LOVE is also in your grid. That is an editing error. THE CURE's catalogue is pretty sizable. No reason for that to happen.


The vast majority of this grid felt quite easy for a Saturday, but there were a few answers in key positions that I struggled to come up with. Slowish start in the NW where I dumbly passed up the chance to write in AZT (4D: Drug marketed as Retrovir), because even though it was my first guess, I thought, "that can't be right ... 'retrovir' sounds more like some kind of Viagra-type pill—Retrovir: Returns Your Manhood!" But the three-letter pill was Of Course AZT, so boo hiss to my instincts. I also opted for LENTO over LARGO, because I will forever get those two confused. But after that initial awkwardness, I settled in. Still, here are the handful of answers that noticeably stopped my flow:

Flow stoppers:

• 32D: Margaret Thatcher's husband (DENIS) — again, I ask, wth? (who the hell?). That's a French St.'s name and that's really all that that name is. 
• 41A: Heat (ESTRUS) — as this answer crosses DENIS, you can see how things got a little mucked up there in the middle east of this puzzle. Talk about your vague-cluing. [Heat]! That could go a ton of ways. I had EST- and never once considered ESTRUS. That's not a word I've thoguht of or seen in a long long time. [Heat] has so many literal and slang meanings. Argh. So, yes, the DENIS-in-ESTRUS portion of our puzzle was rough going.
• 36D: Certain voter ID (DEM) — I am booing this answer so hard. This is an answer where the constructor high-fives himself and the solver just stares at him, eyes half-lidded.
• 47D: "Never stop improving" sloganeer (LOWES)— I am truly terrible at all slogans. Even the ones I know (from TV advertising) I think, "Oh, right that ... slogan ... what was that advertising again?" So now of course I can hear the LOWES guy's voice sloganeering this slogan, but while solving, nope.
• 58D: Some shelter volunteers, briefly (RNS) —that danged first letter! I should've just left it and it would've filled itself in easily enough from the cross, eventually, but of course I had to sit there and *think* about the stupid letter. Costly, time-wise. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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