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)

• • •

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

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