Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
THEME: ALCHEMY (8D: 13-, 20-, 49- and 57-Across, commonly?) — word ladder going from LEAD to GOLD
Word of the Day: GOURDE (36D: Haitian currency) —
The gourde (French: [ɡuʁd]) or goud (Haitian Creole: [ɡud]) is the currency of Haiti. Its ISO 4217 code is HTG and it is divided into 100 centimes (French) or santim (Creole). (wikipedia)
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Surely someone at the NYT should have remembered that this theme has been done before—just this past August! But then this is also kind of a themeless (just 70 words, very thin theme content), so ... I don't know. Feels betwixt and between, and for that reason, and despite the manifest greatness of BOLLIX UP 
(10D: Bungle) and THERMOPYLAE as answers (9D: Where Persia defeated Sparta in 480 B.C.), I didn't enjoy it much. Actually, as a themeless, it's not half bad. A bit on the easy side, but full of mostly interesting words. Had a weird lot of trouble getting started, but once I got going, had no real trouble. Obvious theme (helps when you've seen it before) made GOAD and GOLD super easy to pick up, and so I had toeholds all over the place on this one. I think I realized why I tend not to like Fridays of late—they seem to be the "overload on '?' clues" day. Always one (or more) too many of them. Just too cutesy for my tastes. At least today's are mostly terse and not strained. [Secretive group?] is probably my favorite (GLANDS), although HERMIT (which took me Forever to get) is also pretty good (25A: Definitely not a company man?). I'm oddly proud of getting SHOAT with no crosses (5D: Young hog). No one ever calls Spade a 'TEC in The Maltese Falcon, that I recall (35A: Spade, e.g., for short), so I wish people would stop using him in 'TEC clues.Theme answers:
- 13A: Sleuth's quest (LEAD)
- 20A: Weight or freight (LOAD)
- 49A: Pointed encouragement (GOAD)
- 57A: What some hearts are made of (GOLD)
Just a few things I truly didn't know today. The A-TWO? Nope, not up on my Americanized spellings of German superhighways (1A: German superhighway connecting the Ruhr with Berlin). "GYPSY"? Heard of it, but know nothing about it: not its date, not any of its songs (36A: 1959 Broadway hit with the song "All I Need Is the Girl"). Had no idea a SQUASH ball was dotted (39D: Game played with a dotted ball). Otherwise, everything else in the grid is at least somewhat familiar to me (including GOURDE and HANSOM (43D: Victorian taxi), both learned from ghosts of crosswords past).The clue on HARLEY (21A: Road hog?) gives us a nice "hog" mini-theme (along with clue on SHOAT, and then QUAHOG: 42A: Edible clam).
Bullets:
- 26A: Endangered Arctic presence (SEA ICE) — "presence" is bugging me. It's a defensible use of the word, but ... I might have gone with "entity," for the alliterative clue if nothing else.
38A: "The powerful scent of real clean" sloganeer (PINESOL) — Powerful is right. Headache-inducingly powerful.- 55A: Angel Cheryl (LADD) — Mmmm, softball. "Charlie's Angels" is one of my earliest TV memories (after "Electric Company" and "Mr. Rogers," of course).
- 3D: Shipyard worker fired in 1976 (WALESA) — honestly wanted ROCKY here. Was he a shipyard worker? Was he fired? I know "Rocky" was 1976. Kind of funny when SLY showed up later in the grid (28D: Rocky, really).
- 14D: Walking the dog and others (CHORES) — wanted (yo-yo) TRICKS.
- 34D: Oxymoronic chances (EVEN ODDS) — Had ODDS. Put in EVEN, but because I had TIME NOR TIDE (?), EVEN looked wrong, so I took it out. Put it in. Took it out. Eventually changed NOR to AND (24D: They won't wait, in a phrase).
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