THEME: PARAMOUNT (50A: Of the highest importance ... or, when parsed differently, what each bracketed number in the clues indicates?) — the word "PAR" appears at the front of every word in the theme answers (first once, then twice, then three times)—so the bracketed number at the end of every theme clue indicates that answer's "PAR amount":
Theme answers:
PARCHEESI (18A: Popular board game adapted from India [1])
PARALLEL PARKING (23A: Challenge for student drivers [2])
PARTY PARTY PARTY! (41A: Never stop having fun [3])
I don't really know what to do with this. I don't get it. I feel like I should get it. It's Monday. Monday themes should be clear. And this one appears clear. There are brackets telling you the amount (number) of "PAR"s in each theme answer. But ... why? What does Par have to do with anything? Is it golf? It doesn't feel very golfy, this puzzle. And nothing about PAR AMOUNT gets at the fact that "PAR" is in every word of every theme answer, and at the front of every word. Like, the PARs don't just appear, they appear in a very specific fashion ... but the revealer is only concerned with the "amount"? I feel like there's something clever here that I'm missing. Sadly, all I see are 1, 2, 3 "PAR"s ... for some reason. Or no reason. Just 'cause. Doesn't seem like a particularly inspiring idea for a theme. The parsing of PARAMOUNT as PAR [space] AMOUNT is kind of cute, but the end result is just ... counting "PAR"s, and that doesn't seem like much. Also, "PARTY PARTY PARTY" feels like a very weak and contrived way to get your three "PAR"s in. Is that a phrase people say? When they want to ... party (all the time) (party all the time) (party all the time)? I dunno. But I did enjoy the Downs-only solve, which felt constantly PARilous (just imagine that that is a good pun). I really thought I was going to fail to finish, multiple times, right up to the very end, when, finally, I managed to see GOTCHAS (4D: Hidden snags). With only the "C" and the "A" in place, I was Not seeing it. Earlier, I wanted CATCHES, which seemed to fit the clue really nicely, but the crosses just wouldn't work. So I was happy to get that last big 'aha' with GOTCHAS, although I can't say that's a term I've seen in the plural very often, if ever. Strange theme, challenging Downs-only solve. Some interesting / unusual answers (SPAM FILTER / REPORT BACK / KNAVERY). I didn't have a bad time, that's about all I can say by way of an overall assessment.
So GOTCHAS was my main struggle point. I got SPAM FILTER with absolutely no help from crosses (9D: Email winnower), so that made the whole NE very pliable, but once I got into the center, and all around that third themer, things got real gunked up. KNAVERY is not an answer that's easy to parse, as you almost never see it and so don't expect it. At least I didn't. Plus I had EEO or EOE at 36D: Accessibility law inits. at first (Equal Employment Opportunity / Equal Opportunity Employer). But it's a very specific law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that the clue was after. Not having that "A" made KNAVERY impossible to see (34A: Scoundrel's deeds). Also, I know a little too much about Inuit watercraft, I think, as I wrote in UMIAK for 34D: Watercraft for an Inuit (KAYAK). "Like the kayak, the traditional umiak was made from a driftwood or whalebone frame pegged and lashed together, sometimes with antlers or ivory, over which walrus or bearded seal skins are stretched" (wikipedia). If you solved crosswords in the olden days, you may not have made the same mistake I did here, but perhaps you're nodding your head understandingly. So my first pass at KNAVERY came out UNEVERY, which almost looks wordlike (something less than every?), but isn't. I also had NEW TO before NEW AT (28D: Starting to learn) and I had trouble figuring out THRIFT (43D: What misers take to an extreme), which is not a word that screams "miser," for me. REPORT BACK was a bear (25D: Give a debriefing (to)), but the K from KAYAK (er, UMIAK), got me RUBIK, which got me the "B" I (really) needed to see the BACK part of REPORT BACK, and then I was able to infer the rest.
Bullets:
12A: Designer ___ Boss (HUGO) — pretty notorious Nazi. Made uniforms for Nazis. Used prisoner-of-war labor. Surely there are other HUGOs. Why not Victor? Or Weaving?
38A: Card game whose name is something players cry (UNO) — also GIN. Gotta be careful.
59A: Up in the air (ALOFT) — was able to parse this Across fairly easily because I'd been thinking about this word recently, as it's a word that is potentially lethal when playing Quordle (or Octordle). You can have all the letters but still screw up and play FLOAT if you're not careful. And FLOAT and ALOFT don't just share the same letters—three of those letters are in the same place. Tricky. Dangerous.
26D: Prime use for a crowbar (LEVER) — I think the "use" thing threw me. A crowbar simply *is* a LEVER. Like, [Crowbar, e.g.] would've been a fine clue for LEVER. The clue isn't wrong, but its phrasing made me think the answer would be something like "PRYING" or "SMASHING WINDOWS" (only, you know, shorter).
That's all for today. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. I set the "Number of Days Without a Star Wars Reference" counter back to zero yesterday, late in the day, because, as someone in the Comments pointed out, the clue for RTE (46D: This is the way: Abbr.) is an expression frequently used on and popularized by The Mandalorian.
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THEME: "Split Seconds" — I don't really know what "Split Seconds" is supposed to mean*, but the theme is essentially TWO OUT OF THREE (ain't bad) (though it ain't good, either) (66A: Amount that "ain't bad," so to speak ... or what to make with six sets of answers in this puzzle?)—basically six entire rows get double-clued, but the rows have three "answers" in them, so ... you have to make three "answers" out of the two ... or, looking at it another way, you have to take the three "answers" and imagine them as two. Yes, it is as confusing and awkward as it sounds:
Theme answers:
GA TECH / ANGELIC / ENSURE (out of these three (unclued) "answers," you "make" the following two: GATE CHANGE and LICENSURE) (22A: With 23- and 24-Across, airport announcement / Requirement to practice, perhaps)
SOLI / STENCHES / STABLES ("SO LISTEN..." and CHESS TABLES) (30A: With 32- and 35-Across, "Now, here's the thing..." / Some board game surfaces)
MADRE / SPECTATED / INNER (MAD RESPECT and ATE DINNER) (48A: With 50- and 54-Across, serious props / Had an evening meal)
CHIAS / MUSCLEMEN / TINES (CHIASMUS and CLEMENTINES) (87A: With 88- and 91-Across, syntax-reversing rhetorical device / Small peelable citrus fruits)
THE REST / "I MEANT IT" / HEFT ("THERE'S TIME" and ANTITHEFT) (105A: With 106- and 108-Across, "No need to hurry" / Like some security measures)
WASABI / TODDLES / SOFTEN (WAS A BIT ODD (!?!?!?) and LESS OFTEN) (115A: With 118- and 121-Across, didn't quite fit in, say / Not as frequently)
[22A: GA TECH]
Word of the Day: Chiasmus (see 87A) —
In rhetoric, chiasmus (/kaɪˈæzməs/ky-AZ-məs) or, less commonly,[citation needed]chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμαchiásma, "crossing", from the Greekχιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ"), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words".
A similar device, antimetabole, also involves a reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses in an A-B-B-A configuration, but unlike chiasmus, presents a repetition of words. // Chiasmus balances words or phrases with similar, though not identical, meanings:
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves.
I know you've all been wondering how the installation of my new router went, and, well, it went great! No problems. Working internet, achieved! Wait, you weren't wondering that? Some of you must've been wondering that. How many of you were wondering that? [counts hands] one two ... OK, looks like six of you. Six or so. Anyway, like I say, you know longer have to wonder or worry. Turns out I can follow printed directions pretty darned well. So I got my internet back up an running, with full printer connectivity and everything, just in time for ... this. I haven't disliked a puzzle this much for a while. I mean ... while I was solving, the actual experience, I just kept wanting it to be over. So many unclued [See blah blah blah previous clue] answers. So much bizarre parsing and reparsing. All for a punchline that also seems kind of backwards to me. I have to make (i.e. enter) three answers out of the two answers that are clued. Three out of two, not TWO OUT OF THREE. As I say in the theme description, I see how you can turn it around and say that I have to make (i.e. envision) two answers out of the three answers on each theme-answer row. But still, the punchline didn't land as well as it might have for me because it just seemed backwards. But that's not the real problem here. The real problem here is ugh these "words" / phrases / answers. Starting with LICENSURE. Sure, it's a word, but man it's ugly, and I almost never hear it. You need a license to practice. LICENSURE is so bizarrely formal. And SPECTATED (an unclued "answer" in the second themer)—again, not a word you're actually likely to hear ever. "Spectators," sure, but SPECTATED, awk! ATE DINNER? That's about as close to ATE A SANDWICH as you're going to get. In fact, it ... WAS A BIT ODD (oof, not a standalone phrase). Did you all know what CHIASMUS was. If so, I'm impressed, because I did not. I know about "chiastic structure," which I guess is what CHIASMUS exemplifies, but this specific name of this specific rhetorical device? Uh uh. So, lots of weird and awkward words and phrases, all sliced and slapped together in unclued slabs of answer-like "answers." It hurts.
PAGE RANK? (96A: Early Google algorithm for determining the importance of websites)! TEASER RATE? (73D: Initially offered lesser charge)! Whose idea of a good time is this? Everything from ART TEST on down to the SW corner was miserable. You get a few nice moments with the longer answers like CASABLANCA (14D: Classic film said to be the most quotable movie of all time), though that clue is terrible ... "Said to be"???? Who said? How would you even measure that? It's true that I can think of a few famous quotes (including the spurious "Play it again, Sam"), but ... there's gotta be a better way to clue that. GOT A LOAD OF is decent (3D: Laid eyes on but good), though I had GOT A GANDER at first (!), and then GOT A LOOK AT. MANIFESTOS is fine, but ... so many of the "answers" today were unclued that the puzzle feels gutted of half its potential pleasure. No clues on ANGELIC or MUSCLEMEN or STENCHES. Just [See blah blah Across] over and over. It's not that it was particularly difficult, it was just complicated, and almost utterly devoid of pleasure. NO, SIR, not for me.
Between parsing and unparsing and reparsing the answers and the unclued "answers" and then dealing with shorter fill that was not-at-all self-evident to me (HIST? EXPAT?), this one did not go particularly quickly for me. Sloggy. Not fun-tough. Fussy-tough. I think the PAGE RANK / TEASER RATE part was the slowest for me, mostly because neither of those terms is that familiar to me (I had SITE RANK or something like that, and then ... I don't know what kind of RATE I was considering, but it definitely wasn't TEASER. Maybe INTRO or something like that). I had to wait on the Dwarf because SLEEPY and SNEEZY have so many letters in common (102D: One of the Seven Dwarfs). I had no idea what was going on with ANY SIZE for obvious reasons, i.e. that is a terrible non-thing that should not be allowed to pass as a standalone answer (124A: What wristwatch straps are designed to accommodate). Though I enjoyed hardly anything in this puzzle, I weirdly enjoyed MOTT ST (95D: Thoroughfare through N.Y.C.'s Chinatown), largely because it's got this improbable phalanx of consonants at the end (TTST), and because it makes me think of the Rodgers & Hart song "Manhattan," specifically this lovely rendition by Blossom Dearie.
["And tell me what street / Compares with MOTT ST. in July..."]
Bullets:
28A: America's largest labor union, familiarly (THE NEA) — Pronouncing this as one word now (THEE'-nee-ya) so that I can pretend that stupid definite article isn't there.
26A: North African fortress, in one spelling (KASBAH) — lol is there another spelling? I saw "in one spelling" and thought "dear lord how the hell are they going to spell it today? QAZZBA?" But no, just KASBAH, the only way I even remember seeing it spelled. Although now that I'm looking at CASBAH, maybe *that's* the spelling I'm most familiar with. I already had the "K" in place when I looked at the clue, so maybe I'm just hallucinating KASBAH as the most familiar spelling. Anyway, there are at least three more spellings, in addition to the "K" and "C" spellings: QASBAH, QASBA, QASABA
[Yeah, look, the Clash spell it with a "C" so that must be the spelling I've always known]
41A: Former alliance of France, Italy, Japan, the U.S., the U.K. and West Germany (G-SIX) — there are so many "G" alliances that I'm not sure how anyone could keep them straight. I guess this clue gives you the opportunity to count, so, yes ... there are six countries you've got there. But you don't really need to count once you have the "G"—no other number is going to work but SIX. I mean, G-ONE would be pretty lonely, and G-TWO ... could be as bad as one, it's the loneliest G-group since the group G-ONE. Oh crud, I forgot about the G-TEN, that would've fit too. Never mind.
75A: Manufacturer's gross product? (SMOG) — that's a pretty clever clue for SMOG. But then SMOG crosses OPE 🙁 and all pleasure from the SMOG clue goes poof, just like that.
85A: Feature of an intersection that forces a turn (T-SHAPE) — had the "T" and thought "oh, what are those called ... T-STOPS? Three-way stops?" I would never in a million years have thought the answer would be something as dumb as T-SHAPE. It's just a "T." I guess you can't argue with the fact that a "T" is T-SHAPEd, but yeesh, that answer, not pretty. And crossing OPE! Rough patch there.
94A: Resident of the so-called "Nation of Poets" (SOMALI) — I have never heard Somalia so-called that. This was basically "Random resident of a country, good luck."
69D: Underworld boss? (HADES) — if you wrote in SATAN here, I understand, you are forgiven.
6D: Type of Thai red curry (PANANG) — good answer. Delicious answer. CURRY killed me on Quordle the other day because I had CUR-Y and had eliminated what I thought were all plausible letters that could go in that slot. And so I wrote in CURVY. D'oh! Forgot about the letters I already had in the word (namely, "R")! Rrrrrookie mistake.
36A: Musician who said "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination" (LENNON) — I wonder if "imagination" is supposed to be a subtle hint, since LENNON famously sang "Imagine." I think "Imagine" is kind of an insipid song, so here's something else.
That's all. See you next time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. If you are really into cryptic crosswords (I do at least one a day as a kind of cross (!)-training) the World Crossword Federation (yes, such a thing exists!) is sponsoring a U.S. Cryptic Crossword Championship next month. It's for U.S. residents of any nationality, and it's online, and you can find all the info you need at crypticsingh.com, or here, in this announcement:
*someone suggested that “Split Seconds” refers to the fact that you “split” the “second” “answer” in the trio in order to understand the clues, which is probably right, but as a solver, *I* have to “split” the *actual answers* to the clue definitions (i.e. the CH/ANGE in GATE CHANGE), so once again, the puzzle’s idea of what I am doing just doesn’t match what I perceive myself to be doing
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A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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