Founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers / TUE 4-17-12 / Word repeated before Baby in hip-hop title / Asian gambling mecca / River separating Germany Poland

Constructor: Milo Beckman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ARROW — circles form an arrow and contain the letters in ARROW. Note reads: "The circled letters in this puzzle, when read in the correct order, spell the name of a shape. The four unclued answers are common three-word phrases usually accompanied by this shape." 

Word of the Day: ART ROONEY (21A: Founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers) —

Arthur Joseph "Art" Rooney, Sr. (January 27, 1901 – August 25, 1988), often referred to as "The Chief", was the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football franchise in the National Football League. (wikipedia)

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This is a nice little puzzle. Everything makes sense—all the theme answers are real and the circles form the shape they spell out. Simple, neat, good. I was mildly annoyed at the [see note] clues, mainly because I had already started the timer and my printout did not have the note on it, so I had to stop the timer, open the file again, find the note, read it, then restart the timer. So now it seems like there should be an asterisk next to my (fastish) time. But this is not a problem with the puzzle per se; just a problem with my software (not printing the damn note right on the printout), and with my obsessive need to track my on-paper solving times in a spread sheet. I had only a few stumbles—wrote in ADANTE for ADAGIO (I was probably thinking ANDANTE, which means "in a moderately slow tempo," but faster than ADAGIO) (4D: A little faster than largo). Did not know ART ROONEY, though the name sounds familiarish in retrospect. Completely blanked on PLATH, as that title (53D: "The Colossus and Other Poems" poet) is not one I remember. And for some reason I really had trouble coming up with the first word in USE OTHER DOOR. First tried THE OTHER DOOR (!?), and when the "E" worked I thought, "that cannot be right." And it wasn't.


Theme answers:

• YOU ARE HERE
• USE OTHER DOOR
• I'M WITH STUPID
• THIS SIDE UP

I remembered the crosswordy MACAU, but not how to spell it (MACAO at first pass) (45A: Asian gambling mecca). Had trouble coming up with "ICE" (5D: Word repeated before "Baby" in a hip-hop title) because Salt-'n'-Pepa's "Push It" (with its "OOH baby baby, b-baby baby, OOH baby baby etc.") kept running brain interference. Threw down ODER on reflex (7D: River separating Germany and Poland); had the "OD-," saw "river," added the "ER." I wouldn't know more than a small handful of European rivers were it not for crosswords. I never like seeing EN AMI, which feels sad and desperate (29D: As a friend, to François), but there are so few sour patches today that I wasn't bothered much by the answer today at all. Not much to gripe about today. But there's always TOMORROW (10D: Day when procrastination ends, supposedly).


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld