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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Ill-fated ship of film / WED 10-27-10 / 1920s chief justice / 1955 novel made into 1962 1997 films / QB's utterance

Constructor: Jay Kaskel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: COUNT DRACULA — four answers have a draculicious sound to them (clued with four "?"-style clues)


Word of the Day: "The POSEIDON Adventure" (9D: Ill-fated ship of film) —

The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 American action-adventure disaster film based on the novel of the same name by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a tsunami caused by an under sea earthquake and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to journey up to the bottom of the hull of the liner before it sinks. // It won the Academy Award for Best Song for "The Song from 'The Poseidon Adventure'" (also known as "The Morning After"), which became a hit single for Maureen McGovern, as well as winning an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual Effects. Shelley Winters was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a film for the role. The cast of the film includes five past Academy Award winners - Winters, Gene Hackman, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine - as well as numerous Academy Award-winning off-screen artists and technicians such as the film's composer John Williams, screenwriter Stirling Silliphant and editor Harold F. Kress, to name just a few. Parts of the movie were filmed aboard the RMS Queen Mary. (wikipedia)

[Wow, this song is Horrible]

• • •

Cute theme, interesting grid, not an obscurity in sight (with nifty little bonus theme answers in FANG — 62A: Part of a vampire — and GORIER — 34A: Displaying more violence). Tough getting started as the theme answers and theme-revealer are mutually referential (thus offering no initial help), but once I shoved REALITY BITES into place (square by square), and BLOOD showed up in the next theme answer, I had a good idea what I was dealing with. Still, struggled briefly in the NE (never saw "The POSEIDON Adventure," so that ship was Nowhere on my radar), and also briefly in the NW (tried NO DICE, NO SALE, and NO SOAP (!?!?) before NO DEAL (2D: "Sorry, Charlie")). But I absolutely killed the bottom half of the puzzle and ended up with a fairly normal Wednesday time in the end.

Theme answers:

• 20A: Comment on life by 52-Across? ("REALITY BITES")
  
• 28A: Deposit and withdrawal site for 52-Across? (BLOOD BANK)
  
• 43A: Crib plaything for a young 52-Across? (BAT MOBILE)
  
• 35A: Result of an encounter with 52-Across? (PAIN IN THE NECK)

I GUESS (46D: "Um ... OK.") you could consider ATHROB a nod to the horror theme (1D: Like the heart during a horror movie). Ditto HEROINE, as clued (49A: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, e.g.). Not a bad little Halloween-week puzzle, all in all.

Bullets:

• 16A: Makes less than a killing (DOES OK) — "a killing" is not on any scale that I'm aware of, making "less than" an odd direction.
  
• 60A: Frozen water, to Wilhelm (EIS) — Also, to Werner. And Waldheim. And presumably all Germans, whether their names begin with "W" or not.
  
• 39D: QB's utterance (HUT) — this may be the first time anyone's ever used "QB" and "utterance" in the same phrase. Fine word, but not a sports word. "Whilst we were in the huddle, Brett Favre once quipped..." Um, no.
  
• 47D: 1955 novel that was made into 1962 and 1997 films ("LOLITA") — teaching this in my 1950s Crime Fiction course this term. Movie-wise, I highly recommend the 1962 film [two Shelley Winters films in one puzzle!] and highly recommend that you avoid the horrid, humorless 1997 adaptation at all costs.
• 53D: 1920s chief justice (TAFT) — in four letters, I knew it was him, but I forgot that he was chief justice well *after* he was president. TAFT is from Ohio. Crosswords will ask you to know this at some point. Trust me.
• 54D: Subject of the book "Six Armies in Normandy" (D-DAY) — second "D" was the very last letter I filled in. Before I read the cross clue, the only answer that was popping into my head was DRAY...
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. "Puzzling Future" — article on crosswords featuring interviews with me and other Pomona College students/alums — is now online here.

Parting words from von Trapps / MON 5-17-10 / Mount where Noah landed / Fully focused attentive / Suffix with labyrinth

Constructor: Jay Kaskel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Parting words... — theme answers are famous "Parting words" (which are the first words of every theme clue)


Word of the Day: SAXE-Coburg-Gotha (31A: ___-Coburg-Gotha, former British royal house) —

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (German: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) served as the name of two duchies, Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, in Germany. They were located in what today are the states, Bavaria and Thuringia, respectively, and the two were in personal union between 1826 and 1918. The Duchy came to an end in 1918 with the other German monarchies, and the Free State of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was merged into the new state of Thuringia two years later. // The name, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, also may refer to the family of the ruling House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. This family played many and varied roles in nineteenth-century European dynastic and political history. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hey, everybody. I got in very late last night (1:30am) and now it's 8am-ish and I'm running on reserve battery power, and precious little of that. So this will be brief, and I'll regale you with tales of my weekend trip to Idaho (for my grandma's 90th birthday) tomorrow. Lots of pictures, many of them crossword-related. Here's the short version: I saw the whole of my mom's side of the family; everyone was lovely; my grandma is beyond awesome and I'm not sure I believe she's actually 90 — her little house is filled with arts and crafts of her making, all of it legitimately appealing and not just "pretty good for a grandma with spare time on her hands." And her scones. Dear lord, those things were tasty. I was going to ask my wife why they were so delicious and before I could get the question out of my mouth, she said "butter." "Mmm, butter." OK, I'm drifting away into random anecdote land now, so I'll get to the puzzle and promise you slightly more coherence tomorrow.

Oh, one last thing — perhaps my favorite moment of the weekend was seeing my grandma at her 90th birthday. I crossed the room to say 'hi' and 'happy birthday' and give her a hug, and I didn't even make it within hugging distance before she exclaimed, "Take that cap off! I don't allow that." Thus, caught somewhere between embarrassment and laughter, I said "OK" and walked penitently to the outer hall, where I hung the offending item of apparel with my coat, thinking "man, grandma does not &*$% around." No wonder her whole family (excluding me, apparently) turned out so incredibly kind and polite and generous and well-behaved. Decorum will be observed! Seriously, my grandma is a force of nature, and a tough broad, and I have incredible respect and love for her.

[Did I mention she also enjoys giant margaritas?]

As for the puzzle — didn't much care for it. I think the theme is a really cute idea, but it's also really inconsistent. Some of them are real "parting words" ("HIYO SILVER AWAY!" / "I'LL BE BACK"), one is part of a longer parting ... song ("SO LONG, FAREWELL..."), one is involves a metaphorical parting of an abstract concept ("BYE BYE, LOVE") and the last has nothing to do with the speaker's parting. Trump is firing *you* — he's not going anywhere ("YOU'RE FIRED!"). Bigger problem was the fill, which was really subpar. Lots and lots of tiresome short stuff. The gangly crosswordese of ECARTE (28A: Card game for two) over SAXE was the epicenter of bad, but the bad spread all over, especially strongly from the OER/AER crossing down to the far SW corner and the plural of the word no one likes in the singular: ADES. I would list all the bad short stuff, but I haven't got it in me right now. Trust me, it's there. All over. Look in every corner. Search every cranny. Climb every mountain. Etc.



Theme answers:

• 17A: Parting words from the Everly Brothers ("BYE BYE LOVE")
  
• 23A: Parting words from the Lone Ranger ("HIYO SILVER AWAY!")
• 34A: Parting words from the Terminator ("I'LL BE BACK")
  
• 49A: Parting words from the von Trapps ("SO LONG, FAREWELL...")
  
• 57A: Parting words from Donald Trump ("YOU'RE FIRED!")
  

Bullets:

• 62A: Claudia ___ Taylor (Lady Bird Johnson) (ALTA) — I'm sure I've seen this clue before, but I completely forgot the answer. I know ALTA better as Sp. for "high" or (related) a ski area in Utah.
  
• 11D: Homer Simpson type (SCREW-UP) — I've been watching the show for 20+ years and still needed most of the crosses to get this. It's apt enough, but it's not a word the show uses. Plus, while he's a SCREW-UP, he's also remarkably successful (he has a beautiful house and family ... and a Grammy ... and he's been to outer space with Buzz Aldrin ... etc.)
  
• 40D: Fully focused and attentive (ALL HERE) — huh. I don't like this. ALL THERE, sure. ALL HERE ... lost a "T." But then again I've only had 4 hours of sleep and am currently jet-lagged, so perhaps I'm not ALL HERE myself.
  
• 47D: Mount where Noah landed (ARARAT) — this makes me laugh, as it makes it sound as if Noah landed on a horse (see "not ALL HERE," above).
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]