Wednesday ennui

I'm not feeling too inspired this Wednesday morning. I hear the NYS Themeless Thursday is a good one—can I wait until tomorrow? (Since I'm working my way through the recent book compilation of Thursday Suns—about half of them themeless—probably yes.)

The Wednesday NYT by Roy Leban contained a lot of stuff we seldom, if ever, see in crossword grids. IEIGHTYONE, with that implausible-looking beginning. BOSTONIVY (I'm partial to the local stuff that grows at Wrigley Field). 1940s tennis star Pauline BETZ, whose name is new to me. TAILBACK, AMARANTH, CASTANETS, SILHOUETTE, and MARZIPAN.

I was in the dark about the theme of Doug Peterson's NYS puzzle ("Where Ami?") until the final theme entry explained it all. WOMANIZER doesn't crop up often, either, does it?

Mel Rosen's CrosSynergy theme, "Courageous Venture," was kinda cute, and COQAUVIN made an appearance. Frances Burton's LAT featured four movie titles, two of which are utterly unfamiliar and one of which is somewhat unfamiliar. (Grr.) Nice shout-out to my livelihood, though, with EDITS crossing DELE.

NYS 4:05
CS 3:34
LAT 3:43
total 11:22, way over my goal of 10:30 (is it the humidity?)