Film with tagline Nightmare isn't over / SAT 1-19-19 / Three-syllable woman's name meaning gift / Persian word from which chess comes / Traditional drink with sedative euphoriant properties

Constructor: Erik Agard and Paolo Pasco

Relative difficulty: Easy (5:58) (over a minute faster than yesterday) (shoulda been faster)

THEME: none

Word of the Day: KATIE Ledecky (3D: Olympic swimming gold medalist Ledecky) —

Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky (/ləˈdɛki/; Czech pronunciation: [ˈlɛdɛtskiː]; born March 17, 1997) is an American competitive swimmer. She has won five Olympic gold medals and 14 world championship gold medals, the most in history for a female swimmer. She is the current world record holder in the women's 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle (long course). She also holds the fastest-ever times in the women's 500-, 1000-, and 1650-yard freestyle events. (wikipedia)

Inexplicably terrible start had me feeling like I was pretty slow, but apparently everything outside the NW of the grid went very well for me, and I finished with my 4th best Saturday time of the Modern Era (i.e. since I started keeping official records in April '18). I think the longer answers in the NE were easy off just the first few letters, and unlike many central stagger-stacks (those 13s in the middle of the grid), this one presented no problem at all. I feel like I did another puzzle just yesterday with MICHELLE OBAMA clued in relation to "Becoming," so that answer went in easily. Had the -TIVE so CASE SENSITIVE, also easy. PERSONAL SPACE took a tad longer, but not much. Some slight slowing in the SE, but otherwise, this one was very pliant—that is, once I finally got out of the NW and started going. I'm pretty mad at myself about the NW because, in retrospect, I should not have been floundering. I have this dumb habit of not looking at the clues for longer answers until I've gotten a bunch of the shorter crosses. This is a pretty good habit to get into—you're much more likely to know a short answer than a long one, so why not look there first?—but sometimes, like today, I get stuck fighting the short stuff when, if I'd just looked at a longer Across, I'd be able to crack things open. I had ELBA TEE ISLET and SHIA, but for some reason I got bogged down getting made at myself for not remembering Ledecky's name. Then I put in ANION (!?) instead of ANODE (2D: One of two poles). This made me want the bizarre ANO for 22A: Third of a dozen? (ZEE), my logic being that the third letter of "a dozen" was AN O. If I'd just looked at 15A: Under tight control, then ON A LEASH would've gone in easy. Or maybe I actually did do that and it didn't help at all. I really should record my solves for better recall.


Is ERMINES / LEAR / MMA better than ENGINES / LEAN / GMA? I feel like ENGINES and LEAN are both better, in that there are broader, better cluing possibilities for both. MMA / GMA is kind of a push. I love that MMA is in here, though. True story: I tried to include MMA in a NYT puzzle once and it got Edited Out! See 11-Down here:

grid via xwordinfo

Loved the clue on PERSONAL SPACE (35A: Mine field?), and generally loved this puzzle. These are two of the best in the business right now. I'm not sure I've ever disliked a Paolo Pasco puzzle in my life, and Erik's batting something close to 1.000 as well.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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