Source of Erebus Gaia in Greek myth / THU 3-29-12 / Rhône feeder / Carrier whose main hub is Kastrup airport / Cousin of a bittern / Big name in kitchenware / Electrician's alloy

Constructor: Milo Beckman

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: The opening notes of "TWINKLE TWINKLE, Little Star" and the "NOW I KNOW MY ABCS" song — rebus puzzle with those notes across the ... middle ... sort of. (It's a 16x14 grid, so it's a little wonky):

DO DO SOL SOL LA LA SOL / FA FA MI MI RE RE DO

Word of the Day: CARSON, CA (19A: Community near Los Angeles) —

Carson is a city in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, Carson had a total population of 91,714. Located 13 miles (21 km) south of downtown Los Angeles and approximately 14 miles away from the Los Angeles International Airport, it is known as a suburb of the city.^[8] Incorporated on February 20, 1968, Carson is the youngest municipality in the South Bay region of Greater Los Angeles. (wikipedia)

• • •

An ambitious train wreck. Great idea to run the notes across the ... middle ... sort of, and NOW I KNOW MY ABCS works perfectly (in that you sing it to the tune of the notes on the left side of the grid), but then there's those notes on the right ... and nothing to sing them to ... and TWINKLE TWINKLE, which really only gets you through DO DO SOL SOL ... so the theme doesn't work. [Words sung to the beginning ...]—but what about the end notes? Again, great idea, but just Not There in the execution. Scrap. Drawing board. Next. Hey, HOW I WONDER WHAT is 14. Maybe you could shove YOU ARE in there somewhere. Symmetry would be blown, but at least those damned eastern notes would have something to do. Now, neglecting the fatal thematic flaw, the grid is not bad, and I always enjoy a rebus. Plus, the notes actually *did* (by the end), help me to get one of the answers (the SOL in SOLAR, to be exact) (44D: Kind of power), so fun was had. And I'll take ambitious over yawny (which many puzzles have been of late). But thematically this one just feels like a miss. Maybe a near miss, but still...

I thought the puzzle was actually pretty dang easy except for the whole center area. Even after I'd gotten the note / rebus thing, I had no idea what was going on song-wise, since I had only the eastern notes (broke through at ISERE; 24D: Rhône feeder) and couldn't / didn't sing them so had no idea what they represented. I thought maybe the western notes would be a mirror image. No. Once I finally broke NOW I KNOW MY ABCS open, I put it all together. Which reminds me—that damned SW corner (and, to a lesser extent, the NE corner) killed me a little. ROO instead of OWL (67D: Pooh pal) and DDE instead of IKE (69D: Two-time opponent of 32-Across). Ouch. Up top, I don't know / didn't remember CHAOS as a place (8A: Source of Erebus and Gaia, in Greek myth), and ["Shoot!"] always throws me, as my first idea for a synonym is always "DANG!" So even with -K in place, ASK didn't come right away. Everything else was pretty straightforward. The "L" part of SOL always surprises me, no matter how many times I see it written out. Went in expecting "SO," so MAUSOLEUM took slightly longer to come into view than it should have (28D: Commence hostilities). Time was a few seconds faster than last week's, though I'm pretty sure this one's going to play harder for most folks (if the NYT times being posted right now are any indication).



Bullets:

• 29A: Carrier whose main hub is Kastrup airport (SAS) — got it off the "S," but didn't really *know* it, and then doubted it after I couldn't make SPA work for 3D: Resting place (SOFA). Things worked out eventually.
• 49A: Cousin of a bittern (EGRET) — off the "E"; pretty common crossbird.
• 60A: Place for a butcher and two others (TUB) — Nice one. I like the "...and the rest" quality of "two others." 
• 43D: Electrician's alloy (SOLDER) — the fact that this word is a noun always surprises me. Solidly verby in my mind. 
• 14D: Big name in kitchenware (EKCO) — The fashion designer is Marc ECKO. I remember this because "CK" = Calvin Klein = fashion designer. Hell yeah it's a good mnemonic.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld