Scoundrel's deeds / MON 6-8-26 / Email winnower / Popular board game adapted from India [1] / Watercraft for an Inuit / Accessibility law inits

Constructor: Tom McCoy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only)

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])

Word of the Day: HUGO Boss (12A: Designer Boss) —

Hugo Ferdinand Boss (8 July 1885 – 9 August 1948) was a German businessman who founded the fashion house Hugo Boss. He was an active member of the Nazi Party from 1931, and remained so until Nazi Germany's capitulation. His clothing company also utilized forced labour drawn from German-occupied territories and prisoner-of-war camps to manufacture military uniforms for the Schutzstaffel and Wehrmacht. (wikipedia)

• • •

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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