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Hello! It's Clare, again. Hope everyone is having a great summer so far! I'm up in Lake Tahoe enjoying the glorious weather and lake while wearing holes in my shoes from how much walking around the restaurant I'm doing as a waitress. I've been trying to squeeze in as much World Cup watching as possible around work. As a huge Lionel Messi fan, I'm rooting for Argentina to win, but they haven't looked so hot so far. I might have to get behind Mexico or Belgium (or Germany for my sister) instead.

Constructor:Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty:Fairly easy for a Tuesday
THEME: ALTOGETHER (45D: "One more, please")— Five answers have AL repeated back to back in them

Theme answers:

• CENTRALALPS (3A: Popular European skiing region)
• INLALALAND (18A: Spaced out)
• KUALALUMPUR (26D: Capital of Malaysia)
• HALALFOOD (33D: Meals permissible under Islamic law)
• IAMMALALA (44A: Autobiography of Nobel laureate Yousafzai)

Word of the Day: IMAN (40D: Mogadishu-born supermodel) —

Zara Mohamed Abdulmajid (born July 25, 1955), mononymously known as Iman ("faith" in Arabic), is a Somali-American fashion model, actress and entrepreneur. A pioneer in the ethnic-cosmetics market, she is also noted for her philanthropic work. She is the widow of English rock musician David Bowie, whom she married in 1992. (Wikipedia)
I mentioned this so many times in my last write-up, and I feel the need to make sure you remember: The Warriors won the NBA Finals!! I'm pretty excited about that, if you couldn't tell.

Anyway, on to the puzzle. This might have been the easiest time I've had with a Tuesday puzzle — at least since I started these write-ups — and may even be my fastest time ever on a Tuesday. The fill was pretty easy, I thought, albeit often uninspiring, and the theme actually helped me solve some of the puzzle. The theme had answers that were both across and down this time, which was a nice change of pace. CENTRALALPS and HALALFOOD were bland theme answers, but KUALALUMPUR was interesting, INLALALAND was clever, and the book IAMMALALA is amazing. There were a good number of theme answers, and they were all tied together nicely with ALTOGETHER (59A).

I did have a bit of trouble with the southeast corner. For me, 63A: Boy of Mayberry: OPIE (a name I'd never heard of) crossed with 64D: Citizen competitor: SEIKO (a company I've never heard of), meant some fiddling. I also had never heard of a literary OMNIBUS. There were a few other answers that felt obscure, too: 14D:ASIANA, 19D: ANI, and 9D: POLECAT.

Miscellaneous:

• Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes very well. On the last Tuesday of last month, there was a clue for 39D that was "snow many push them back, for short," and I really wanted to make it "etas" instead of "etds." Oddly enough, today's puzzle had a very similar clue. 38A: It may be delayed by snow: Abbr., and I again tried to make it "eta" instead of ETD.
• Also, like last month, there were quite a few names in the puzzle: DEL TORO, LAILA, OPIE, SHERA, ADAM, ABEL, IMAN, ERROL, LEBRON, ANDMYERS.
• I had no idea that OREO was the sister brand of Nilla wafers. That's probably the most bizarre way I've ever seen OREO clued — and it's been clued a lot of ways.
• My favorite fill clue was 60D: summer sign as LEO.
• I've spent a lot of time listening to The Weeknd's music, but I had no idea his real name was ABEL Tesfaye. Fun fact: He chose the Weeknd as his stage name because he and a group of friends just left home one weekend and never went back. (He dropped the "e" because there was already a band called "The Weekend.")
• 45D: "One more, please" as ANOTHER made me think of this scene from the first Thor movie (you only need to watch about the first 20 seconds):
• In case it hasn't yet been made obvious that I'm a Warriors fan, I must once again point out that the Warriors swept LEBRON in the Finals.
• 47A: "College GameDay" channel as ESPN. My freshman year, ESPN had College Gameday at Yale for the Big Game against Harvard. Harvard's football team won, sadly. And, I didn't get on camera.
• Learn something new every day: Before this puzzle, I had no idea both bagels and vodka originated in POLAND. But I'm very grateful to the Poles for them. Sorry you didn't make it to the next round of the World Cup.

Signed, Clare Carroll, sunburnt Tahoe waitress

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