Point in planet's orbit that's closest to sun / WED 9-22-10 / Sanctuary fixture / Kansas canine / Turn of millennium explorer

Constructor: Peter A. Collins

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: EIEIO — four theme answers contain those five vowels (in order); theme revealed by OLD MACDONALD (57A: Subject of a children's song associated with the vowels in the answer to each starred clue)


Word of the Day: PERIHELION (46A: *Point in a planet's orbit that's closest to the sun) —

n.
The point nearest the sun in the orbit of a planet or other celestial body.

[Alteration of New Latin perihēlium : PERI- + Greek hēlios, sun.] (answers.com)

• • •

Cute idea for a theme, but when you have to go to PERIHELION for your fourth theme answer, you should ... keep searching for a fourth theme answer. Jarring to go from common to common to common to WTF!?!?!? I can't be the only one who's never even seen the word before. Surely there is a list somewhere at some puzzle/word nerd site of words and phrases that have this particular vowel sequence. I can't help but wonder if there isn't another path to the execution of this theme that doesn't involve such an obscure (in everyday language) word. It's a cool word, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see it in a late-week themeless. It's icky here, though, because it feels forced. "Here's the only other 9-letter word or phrase I could get to do this." Less than ideal. Also less than ideal is the fill. Grid seems Very lazily filled. Just because a section is tiny doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Just changing MOOS (58D: Sounds heard by 57-Across) to MOPE makes the south instantly much better (two letters changed, three words improved). I get that those MOOS and BAAS are (maybe) supposed to be bonus theme answers, but come on, they're just common (and annoying) plurals that we see in puzzles every day. Load the puzzle up with animal sounds, or else lose MOOS and BAAS in order to make the grid better. That LADED (65A: Put on, as cargo) / ILENE (68A: "Mr. Belvedere" actress Graff) / ARLENE (51D: Francis of "What's My Line?") (all yuck) section Has to be improvable as well. MALAY (1A: Dweller on an Asian peninsula) / A MOLE (?) (14A: Whack-___) / YESES (5D: Some survey responses) / ALEF (4D: Beth preceder), same thing. A little less churning out, a little more thought to the small details—that would be nice.

Theme answers:

• 20A: *Turn-of-the-millennium explorer (LEIF ERICSSON)
  
• 30A: *1996 Grammy winner for the album "Falling Into You" (CELINE DION)
  
• 38A: *Treaty of Versailles signer (PRESIDENT WILSON)
  
• 46A: *Point in a planet's orbit that's closest to the sun (PERIHELION)
  

Difficulties for me included PERIHELION, obviously; the HEART part of LOSING HEART (3D: Becoming discouraged), which I just couldn't see (possibly because I had NAH for HAH, 34A: "Not a chance!"); HIGH ALTAR, the clue for which meant nothing to me (35D: Sanctuary feature)—is a "sanctuary" a specific architectural feature of a Catholic church? I just don't know. I also had trouble getting the (graphic) RIB SPREADER (26D: Tool used in thoracic surgery). Everything else was easy, but those hiccups were enough to put me into an above-average time.



Bullets:

• 37A: 1,055 joules: Abbr. (BTU) — reflexively wrote in ERG. Physics 3 letters=ERG. One of the perils of putting brain on autofillpilot: occasional wrongness.
  
• 44A: Pitcher Maddux who won four straight Cy Young Awards (GREG) — arguably the best pitcher in baseball for a good stretch of the '90s. In addition to his many pitching accomplishments, he won 18 (not a typo) Gold Glove Awards. Ridiculous. He is sure to be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.
  
• 11D: Tool used by Hansel and Gretel's father (AXE) — another peril of brain on autofillpilot. Tool, three letters, starts with "A" — now AXE is a good bet, but my brain went AWL! Pretty sure their father was not a cobbler...
  
• 1D: Catch that might be mounted (MARLIN) — tricky, odd-sounding clue, but I got it easily. Weird how I can nail this and yet muff LOSING HEART.
  
• 42D: It was dropped in the '60s (LSD) — and the '70s. And the '80s. Etc.
  
• 38D: Any singer with Gladys Knight (PIP) — I've seen people sing with her who were not PIPs, so not *any* singer. I looove Gladys.
  
  
  

Happy birthday to my not-so-little girl. Double digits. Holy cow. I think that's officially tweendom.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]