Newsman Roger / SUN 5-6-12 / 1920s Olympic track gold medalist Paavo / Sister 1920s-30s evangelist / Old country name from Portuguese for beautiful / Savanna grazer / Protector of dead in Egyptian myth / Air Force college athlete

Constructor: Alex Vratsanos

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: A-V Club — theme answers are two-word phrases (or names), first word starting with "A," second word starting with "V"

Word of the Day: Sister AIMEE (86A: Sister ___, 1920s-'30s evangelist) —

Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American Los Angeles, California evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s.^[1] She founded the Foursquare Church.^[2] McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, especially radio, which she drew upon through the growing appeal of popular entertainment in North America. (wikipedia)

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Not much of a theme, but who cares? It's Sunday, so all I ask is that the grid not suck and the theme not be tiresome, convoluted, or otherwise annoying. This one's so simple, it can hardly offend. And the constructor gets to indulge his amazing vanity. It's win-win.


Theme answers:

• 23A: Have, say (AUXILIARY VERB) — by far the hardest of the theme answers to pick up. Because of its placement, and the general vagueness / toughness of clues in the N and NW, it took me a good while to really get started. Once I got going, though the cluing seemed thorny at times, the puzzle most felt normal, difficulty-wise.
• 38A: They're likely to blow (ACTIVE VOLCANOES)
• 65A: Not seeing eye to eye (AT VARIANCE) — one of three AT phrases in the puzzle (see also AT MOST and AT PEACE).
• 68A: End of the main part of the Constitution (ARTICLE VII) — "VII" isn't really a word ... I mean, that's a five, not a "V"
• 89A: Electrical pioneer (ALESSANDRO VOLTA)
• 114A: Common houseplant with colorful blooms (AFRICAN VIOLET)
• 50D: Brandy, for one (AQUA VITAE)
• 46D: Some succulents (ALOE VERAS)

Stupidly started with some kind of -MAN at 7A: Air Force college athlete (FALCON), and so had MNOP for my [10D: Alphabet quartet]. Followed that up with AMENDS for 21A: Nervous ... that is to say, I read the wrong clue. This *often* happens on Sunday, when the print-out of the puzzle (because it's all crammed onto one 8 1/2 x 11 page) leaves the type tiny and the numbers in the grid prone to being obscured. Bah. BAH. Once I got that whole northern area sorted out, the only persistently nasty part of the grid was at the very tiny opening that links the northern section to the eastern section, i.e. the PEELE / SLIT area. I've *barely* heard of George PEELE (36D: Shakespeare contemporary), and I teach poetry from that time period regularly. Never thought of a SLIT as a "channel" before (43D: Microchannel). Thought the ELAND (49A: Savanna grazer) might be on ORIBI (wrong continent, probably). And OBLIQUE is very oddly clued. I'm not even sure how it's equivalent to [At a glance] which seems more adverbial phrase than adjective. Weird.

Bullets:

• 26A: Protector of the dead, in Egyptian myth (ISIS) — just a guess, off the "I"
• 63A: Decidedly eligible, in a way (ONE-A) — about the toughest ONE-A clue I've ever seen.
• 105A: Two-finger keyboard shortcut in Windows (ALT-TAB) — not a Windows user, but could infer the answer easily enough with a few crosses.
• 118A: Speaker of the line "He thinks too much: such men are dangerous" (CAESAR) — To be clear, Shakespeare's CAESAR says this, not real CAESAR. For the third Shak-related clue of the day, see 41D: Romeo's "two blushing pilgrims" (LIPS).

• 4D: Record label for the Kinks and Pink (ARISTA) — this is how I confirmed LENTO (31A: Slowly). I get LARGO and LENTO confused.
• 51D: 1920s Olympic track gold medalist Paavo ___ (NURMI) — I partially remembered this, somehow, though the first two letters needed crosses for me to be certain.
• 112A: Old country name from the Portuguese for "beautiful" (FORMOSA) — formerly "Taiwan"; that was tough. SE corner gave me a minor scare there at the end, but a correct guess of WAFTS helped me pry it open (94D: Drifts).
• 91D: It might go up via an escalator (SALARY) — I'm not familiar with this concept, though, again, it wasn't too tough to infer.
• 56D: Newsman Roger (O'NEIL) — Dude does not have a wikipedia page, what the hell? He was "the reporter of record" for the JonBenet Ramsey story, according to his bio page at MSNBC. And the world is better for it, I'm sure.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Pagliacci clown / THU 2-2-12 / NHL's Laperriere / Oscar Wilde poem By the * / Cinematographer Nykvist / When doubled Miss Piggy's white poodle / L * du jeu 1939 Renoir film

Constructor: Stu Ockman

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: Confucian aphorism — REAL KNOWLEDGE IS / TO KNOW THE EXTENT / OF ONE'S IGNORANCE

Word of the Day: Howell RAINES (42A: Journalist Howell) —

Howell Hiram Raines (born February 5, 1943 in Birmingham, Alabama) was Executive Editor of The New York Times from 2001 until he left in 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal. He is the father of Jeff Raines, one of the founding members of the rock band Galactic. He is currently a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio, writing the magazine's media column. (wikipedia)

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This is my Thursday? An incredibly banal quotation? No thanks.

The grid is weird. I do like those looooong Downs (a lot), but the rest, not so much. TACHOIALITHEAIS! Is that corner for real? For real? And was ALET really unavoidable? That section does not look that hard to fill.

Honestly, this is just a dull quotation puzzle with an inexpertly filled grid. While I'm teaching, if Thursday puzzles aren't damn good, I can't spend a lot of time with them. I just can't.


Also: Journalist Howell? Really? Somewhere eventual Hall-of-Famer Tim RAINES is weeping for your silly New York provincialism.

Also: [More] = OTHER = painful.

[I'm hearing from sources (literally, just this second, via email) that this is a debut, so I feel slightly bad, but my feelings are my feelings. If nothing else, this never should've run on a Thursday]

Bullets:

• 14A: Oscar Wilde poem "By the ___" (ARNO) — nuts. The problem with making your clues for short fill really obscure is that there's no payoff. Just a "... huh. OK." At best.
• 15A: Ingredient in traditional medicine (ALOE) — I have no idea how "traditional" is being used in this clue. My doctor has never prescribed ALOE.
• 20A: Man's name that's Latin for "honey" (MEL) — again, nuts. French helped me here.
• 35A: TV network that broadcast live from Opryland USA (TNN) — the one area that gave me trouble, first because of [More] / OTHER, and then because I'd transcribed the quotation wrong and put a "T" where the "H" was supposed to go (had [More] = OFTER for a bit). 

• 5D: Not being such a daredevil, say (SANER) — boooooooooo. SAFER is so much more appropriate here. Not clever, just annoying for its trying-too-hardness.
• 54A: Together, in Toulon (UNIE) — French helped me here, too, though less so. "États-Unis" led me to the wrong spelling here.
• 10D: "La ___ du jeu" (1939 Renoir film) (RÈGLE) — French helped me here, too. This is pretty tough, as French words in U.S. puzzles go. I knew most of the other proper nouns, like ED ASNER (19D: "Elf" co-star, 2003) and IRENE (26D: Memorable 2011 hurricane) and even TONIO (learned from crosswords) (33D: "Pagliacci" clown). Would've guessed Miss Piggy's poodle was Fifi, but it's not such a long way from there to FOO Foo, I guess. The only Lap... oh, it's not "Lapierre," it's "Laperriere" (!?!?!?! who????). I was going to say "the only 'Lapierre' I know is Wayne."

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Happy birthday, dad.

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