Song of 1859 / FRI 12-24-10 / It has 3750 steps of penitence / Scrooge player of film / Sacred symbol to Zeus / Word on vin bottle

Constructor: Jay Kaskel and Daniel Kantor

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: SILENT NIGHT (59A: Song of 1959 ... or what the five circled letters represent?) — silent N, I, GH, and T can be found in circled squares in four Christmas-related theme answers


Word of the Day: IAN Ziering (52D: Ziering of "90210") —

Ian Andrew Ziering (born March 30, 1964) is an American actor best known for playing Steve Sanders on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210. (wikipedia) (so he *started* playing a teenage at 26 ...?)

• • •

Hot on the heels of the GHOTI / "Fish" puzzle, we get another puzzle based on the vagaries of the English language and its pronunciation. When I first finished, I did not get the "silent" part of the puzzle — I thought the fact that NIGHT was "hiding" in the circles (quietly?) was the feature signified by the word SILENT. That wrong conclusion lasted only a few seconds, as I realized it made no sense, and the circles didn't form a Christmasy shape that I recognized, so some quality of the letters themselves must be important (I reasoned) and bingo—theme solved. Helped (somehow) that NIGHT shares 4 out of 5 letters with GHOTI. The fact that the silent letters all appear in Christmas-related answers (including the date-specific CHRISTMAS EVE) is a nice touch. The puzzle felt a little slight for a Friday (possibly because of all the short, basic answers occasioned by the strange, black-square-heavy grid design), but there are very few weak spots and the theme is tight and clever. Thumbs up.

Theme answers:

• 18A: Carols, often (CHRISTMAS HYMNS)
  
• 24A: Scrooge player of film (MICHAEL CAINE) — when was that?? Ohhh...
  

• 38A: Polar opposites? (NAUGHTY OR NICE) — okay, That is a good clue
  
• 51A: Time before the present day? (CHRISTMAS EVE) — again, good clue
  

Started out tough for me and then opened right up. Then ended up tough again (started and finished in the NW). First things I put in the grid with any confidence were RARA (15A: Uncommon, in ancient Rome) and CRU (6D: Word on a vin bottle). Couldn't remember my lesser trigonometrical functions (i.e. ARCTAN, 4D: Inverse trig function), so had to move along and found GEHRIG (8D: The Iron Horse of baseball). From there I was able to get into the NE and once CHURCH HYMNS was in, I caught fire. The only real thorny parts were all part of that NW corridor that runs the length of MAURITANIA (2D: Its capital is Nouakchott) and MUSIC STAND (3D: Score keeper?). Never heard of the USAC (39D: Car-racing org.), so needed every cross there. Terrible trouble seeing MT. SINAI (didn't expect a mountain to have "steps") (29A: It has 3,750 "steps of penitence"). OH I and HEN were very well hidden (21D: "___ don't know" + 1D: Game ___), and it took me a while to give up on YES as the answer to 1A: Not an ideal answer to "Do these jeans make me look fat?" ("HMM...").

Bullets:

• 14A: Feu fighter (EAU) — another great clue, punning (I assume) on this band name:

• 17A: N N N (NUS) — Greek letters. That "N" was the last letter I filled in, I think.
  
• 57A: With 67-Across, sacred symbol to Zeus (OAK / TREE) — I did not know this. Pieced it together with little trouble. Lots of ancient stuff today, what with two Latin words and Zeus and Greek letters and MT SINAI.
  
• 5D: Exclamation hear 12 times in Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" (RAH) — I am familiar with that part of the song, but somehow remember the syllable differently: MAH or BAH or LAH or maybe combinations of all those...

• 12D: Lady whom Don Giovanni tries to seduce (ANNA) — HMM ... opera. For me, this generally means "insert random woman's name here." And so it was today. Crosses: mercifully easy.
  
• 32D: "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" setting (THE RIVIERA) — this movie co-starred ... MICHAEL CAINE. Nice touch.

• 35D: Lily, in Lille (LYS) — as in "fleur-de-"

Merry Christmas Eve.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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