Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Noted Irish crystal

Constructor: Bill Thompson

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BROKEN PROMISE (34A: Moral lapse that is reflected literally by the answrs at 17-, 24-, 46- and 54-Across) — theme answers begin and end with letters that spell out synonyms of "promise"

VARIETY SHOW (17A: "Hee Haw," for one)
WATERFORD (24A: Noted Irish crystal)
OSTEOPATH (46A: Physician with a D.O. degree)
PERCY SLEDGE (54A: "When a Man Loves a Woman" singer)

Word of the Day: REDWARE (15A: Pottery whose high iron content gives it a distinctive hue) —

n.
Earthenware made from clay containing a large amount of ferrous oxide, giving it a red color.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/redware#ixzz1oUau3g76

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Where's my Thursday puzzle? If this one worked out a little, it might be a Wednesday someday, but Thursday status is pretty far out of reach. The theme was pretty basic ("broken" word puzzles like this are common), with nothing tricky to figure out, and I didn't even have to understand the theme to solve it. And I solved it in a Tuesdayish time. I think it's a decent puzzle. It just doesn't belong on Thursday. Everyone can drop NAVIDAD in right away, and from there you're well on your way, with APE, IRONED, ART, and NSA being virtual gimmes at that point, if they weren't already. PERCY SLEDGE was a gimme. E*TRADE was a gimme. GARDNER was a gimme. RSTU was a gimme. YAO was a gimme. ELYSÉES was a gimme. Too much handed out on a fill-in-the-blank platter. The grid is actually pretty good. Solid, at any rate. That AGR / HOER / HONI part is ugly and could be fixed, or at least somewhat improved. But I really liked ON POT and EURYDICE and AEROSTAR. I also liked the overlong but interesting cluing on stuff like ONO (19A: Lennon reportedly described her as looking like "a bloke in drag") and TED (57A: Pal of Marshall, Lily, Robin and Barney on "How I Met Your Mother") (Will has made an appearance on "How I Met Your Mother" before, so there's a little wink there, probably).

[I wanted to post THIS cool video of this song, but it features brief glimpses of breasts and rear end, and sadly I am not in the mood to have prudes flag my blog for "inappropriate" content (again)]

There wasn't much that was unfamiliar to me today. I don't know what a "prompt box" is, but I'm guessing it's a ... box ... where the guy ... oh, it must be beneath the stage / facing the stage, so the CUER can help an actor who has forgotten his/her lines (41A: One in a prompt box). I was imagining cue *cards* and had no idea there was a "box" for that guy. George ADE is nobody to me (50D: "Fables in Slang" humorist George). I forgot HONI, but then remembered (27A: Hagar's daughter in the comics). Her boyfriend is a would-be minstrel named LUTE. Her mom is HELGA, and her mom's confidante is KVACK! The dog is SNERT, obviously. Thus concludes our "Hagar the Horrible" Tutorrible.

Bullets:

8D: Faa'a International Airport location (TAHITI) — early guess was TEHRAN. I'm just glad I've never seen FAAA in a puzzle.
30D: Rode a thermal current (SOARED) — recently watched the multi-part documentary "The Life of Birds" with host David Attenborough, and there was a lot about birds riding thermal currents.
32D: Old fur trader's locale (FORT) — young fur traders preferred urban loft space.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld