Optimistic maxim from Virgil / WED 2-12-20 / Lorena who was #1 female golfer for 158 consecutive weeks / parents grandparents in teen lingo / Overly optimistic 1910's appellation / Team sharing arena with Flyers informally

Constructor: Rich Proulx

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:23, first thing in the morning)

THEME: GOD (62A: What each set of circled letters is, relative to the first word in its answer) — non-consecutive circled letters contain name of the god of [first word in the answer]. Thus

Theme answers:

• LOVE CONQUERS ALL (17A: Optimistic maxim from Virgil) contains VENUS
• DEATH AND TAXES (27A: Reliable things, to Ben Franklin) contains HADES 
• THUNDERSTORMS (43A: They make loud noises during showers) contains THOR
• WAR TO END ALL WARS (54A: Overly optimistic 1910s appellation) contains ARES 

Word of the Day: TENT SHOW (6D: Circus) —

noun

an exhibition or performance, especially a circus, presented in a tent. (dictionary.com)

Definitely a step up from most non-consecutive-circled-letter puzzles, because of the added first-word element, but those ragged circles are still ragged circles, and finding words like that inside of long phrases just has never impressed me very much. I think the theme is good enough, but the execution has some bumpiness. You've got a very Eurocentric GOD assortment, with the Norse god really standing out like an odd duck among the Greek/Romans. Also, your revealer is just .... GOD? That's it? There has to be a better way to do this. This is one of those days when having a *title* on weekday puzzles would really really help. Then you can suggest the whole GOD thing in the title without having to spoil everything with a painfully straightforward revealer and its clunky clue. Or ... maybe this one would still need a revealer, even with a title ... but if so, it needs something better than what it's got. Also, smaller issue, but it's *THE* WAR TO END ALL WARS, and the clue for it should definitely have "with 'The'" tacked on to the end. And speaking of clunky clues—that one (54A: Overly optimistic 1910s appellation). The word "appellation" would like to object to being used in this vague, absurd way. So would "1910s." I'm sure it's hard to clue this answer without using the word "WAR," but try harder. Oh, and one more thing about themer clues: DEATH AND TAXES are "certain" (in the Ben Franklin quotation), not merely "reliable." Also also, "Ben." Why the informality. Just say "Franklin" or use his full first name, unless the shortening has something to do with the answer. Pay more attention to cluing!


Clue on TENT SHOW is bad, in that a [Circus] is a *kind* of TENT SHOW. [Circus, for one] would work. The editing has not been tight at all lately. Not that big a fan of a single ALTOID, but I guess it's fair. Better than CERT (is that the singular of CERTS?), and definitely better than, say, ARREAR. Fill gets a little ragged in places, esp. the SW (EPI ALLA ATAD REA AMO), but I very much liked BAT GUANO and SIDELONG. I guess I've heard THE OLDS before (8D: Parents and grandparents, in teen lingo), but thankfully my own teen daughter (who is, let's be clear, a big fan of giving me s***t for all kinds of reasons) has never used that horrible condescending phrase. Well, not around me, anyway :) Lost time trying to parse that phrase, and also writing in ETNA instead of OSSA (26D: Mount near Olympus) (nice sort-of GOD tie-in!). Not much else to slow me down here. Struggled most with the last answer (why does this always happen!?), which was "I MEANT" (59A: "Let me try that again ..."). Nothing in the clue suggested the act of speaking, so I had to run all the short Downs in that SW corner to finally put the final nail in this one. Overall, a qualified thumbs-up.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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