A nice, tough, 11+-minute workout for me.
I guess you gotta get that stuff in before it gets too dated. Gnarls Barkley-era) slang to cram into one puzzle. MAD PROPS (1A: Big-time kudos) and OH, SNAP (16A: Response to a good dig) in the same grid!? That's a wicked lot of 2006 (i.e. In short, not an ELKES in sight, and despite being harder than yesterday's puzzle, this one was much, much more lovable. Very workable grid leads to astounding smoothness, with all the difficulty located in the (devilish) cluing. 72 words is pretty high for a late-week puzzle, but when a grid is this clean, this fresh, it's easy to see the value and upside of a somewhat high word count.
