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]

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Georges with best seller Life User's Manual / THU 1-7-10 / CBS newsman Bob / Citi Field mascot / 10 superiors / Distinctive Dilbert feature

Constructor: Xan Vongsathorn

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: PEST CONTROL (57D: With 65-Across, extermination ... or what can be done to 10 answers in this puzzle without affecting their clues?) — a rebus puzzle where "ANT" appears five times. All "ANT"-containing answers work with or without the "ANT" in place.

Word of the Day: Georges PEREC (50D: Georges with best seller Life User's Manual) —

Georges Perec (7 March 1936, Paris – 3 March 1982) was a French novelist, filmmaker and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group. // Life A User's Manual (the original title is La Vie mode d'emploi) is Georges Perec's most famous novel, published in 1978, first translated into English by David Bellos in 1987. Its title page describes it as "novels", in the plural, the reasons for which become apparent on reading. Some critics have cited the work as an example of postmodern fiction, though Perec himself preferred to avoid labels and his only long term affiliation with any movement was with the Oulipo or OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle. (wikipedia)

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An amazing feat of construction. A very frustrating solve. For the second day in a row, the puzzle is wildly out of step with the day's normal difficulty range. If early returns at the NYT site are any indication, this is shaping up to be one of the hardest Thursdays in recent memory. The times look more like Fri/Sat times. Mine sure was. Average Saturday time for me. Couldn't see the rebus to save my life, even though I *knew* (after just a few minutes) it was there, somewhere. Had to seek and solve the theme revealer before I had any clue what was going on (which almost never happens), and even then it was rough going (finally put it all together starting with I W[ANT] IN!" / [ANT]ARCTIC). What's weird is that clues were made deliberately hard when the whole structure of the puzzle already ensured that the solving experience would be challenging. Traps at 30D: Letters between two names (AKA — I had NÉE); 57A: An Ivy (PENN — could've been YALE); relatively obscure clues on familiar names like ABE (28D: Former Japanese P.M. Shinzo) and ORR (34D: CBS Newsman Bob). Yikes all around. Wanted GET IT instead of GET ME (10D: "See what I mean?"). Never heard of (or barely heard of) IKEBANA (37A: Japanese art of flower-arranging). Ditto Georges SEREC. Whew.

Again, I'm blown away by the concept and execution. Really first rate. Also, despite a head-scratcher here and there, there isn't any out-and-out crap fill. Most people who try to be crossword heroes and make stunt puzzles end up with dud fill all over the place. Not this kid.

This puzzle should've run tomorrow. Much harder than the typical Thursday. But that's not Xan's fault. I love this kid. Shout out to Claremont, CA. Xan = Pomona College class of '09! Chirp chirp!

Theme answers:

• 7D: Set upon a slope, say (slANTed / sled)
• 16A: Enemy encounter (combatANT / combat)
• 20D: Trig function (secANT / sec) — worst of the bunch, as these mean the same thing ... right? Also, this was a brutal clue — I *know* I'm not the only one who had the "S" and instinctively, confidently, without blinking, wrote in SINE.
• 32A: Absolutely terrific (fANTabulous / fabulous)
• 29D: Yankee fighter (giANT / G.I.) — wanted REB.
• 40A: Gets upset (ANTagonizes / agonizes)
• 12D: Something that might work on a full stomach? (ANTacid / acid)
• 8A: They may have titles (pageANTs / pages)
• 45D: Cry at a poker game, maybe ("I wANT in!" / "I win!")
• 58A: Pole position (ANTarctic / arctic)

Bullets:

• 1A: Heebie-jeebies (jimjams) — man, the NW. I just tanked it. Only ever heard of JIMJAMS from xwords, and it just wasn't coming, even with the "J" from JACKS (1D: 10 superiors) and the (tentative) "J" from JIBE (4D: See eye to eye) in place. Also had NY MET for MR. MET (3D: Citi Field mascot).

• 23A: Teacups, e.g. (ride) — HARD! Fake plural and everything ... man.
• 42A: Plundering opportunity (foray) — I thought the plundering *was* the FORAY.
• 45A: Appearance of O or W (issue) — great clue.
• 27D: Soupy Sales and others (hams) — had to get in a time machine to solve this one.

59D: Distinctive Dilbert feature (tie) — even I, an inveterate "Dilbert" ignorer, knew this.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

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