German film award akin to an Oscar / THU 5-26-22 / Exclamation after a witty comeback / Print collectors for short / Famed designer whose career was boosted by American Gigolo

Constructor: Jonathan M. Kaye

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "The Gambler"! — four theme clues are from the chorus of Kenny Rogers's "The Gambler"; the theme answers reimagine the meanings and/or contexts of hold 'em, fold 'em, walk away, and run:

Theme answers:

• WRESTLING MATCH ("20A: "You've got to know when to hold 'em")
• ORIGAMI CLASS (31A: "Know when to fold 'em")
• LOWBALL OFFER (41A: "Know when to walk away")
• ELECTION SEASON (57A: "And know when to run")

Word of the Day: LOLA (34D: German film award akin to an Oscar) —

The German Film Award (German: Deutscher Filmpreis), also known as Lola after its prize statuette, is the national film award of Germany. It is presented at an annual ceremony honouring cinematic achievements in the German film industry. Besides being the most important film award in Germany, it is also the most highly endowed German cultural award, with cash prizes in its current 20 categories totalling nearly three million euros.

From 1951 to 2004 it was awarded by a commission, but since 2005 the award has been organized by the German Film Academy (Deutsche Filmakademie). The Federal Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs has been responsible for the administration of the prize since 1999. The awards ceremony is traditionally held in Berlin. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm afraid I really liked this puzzle, but I'll start with the one part I hated, which is GROGU. Unless this jumble of letters is clued as [Where pirates go to college], it's entirely unwelcome. It's absolutely exhausting how much of the extreeeeeeemely extended "Star Wars" universe I am expected to be familiar with. See also "Game of Thrones," but especially this Disney-owned Baby Yoda "Mandalorian" stuff. I know "The Mandalorian" exists, and I know BABY YODA because it's an oft meme-ified phenomenon. Pretty sure I've seen BABY YODA in puzzles before, and that's OK, because that's the well-known part of that only-on-the-Disney-Channel show. But GROGU? Please think about the names you're floating out there. I see only-on-the-Disney-Channel pop culture names like this and can't help but recall that two of the greatest filmmakers in history (OZU, VARDA) still haven't appeared in the NYTXW even once. And yet tertiary actresses on marginal sitcoms, some singer who had a #9 hit in 2008, and (now, apparently) secondarily famous names of marketing gimmick creatures are somehow things I have to know. Names are great when they are in your wheelhouse but they are Hostile when they are part of some in-group you're not a part of. We all "don't know things," duh. But can we stop with the "Star Wars" universe? Hiatus? Moratorium? It's not like we Haven't Heard From That Universe Before! It's not underrepresented. Just because you have the opportunity to put a "new" name in the grid doesn't mean you should. And now GROGU is going to be in so many constructor wordlists, ugh. Well, at least you know it now. Remember: it's where pirates go to college. That is how you will remember it if you do not watch that show. You are welcome.

I'm mad at GROGU because it was the *only* thing I didn't like about this puzzle. This is such a dumb (in a good way), simple, clever theme. Taking all the verbs in the chorus out of a poker context and plunking them in absurdly literal contexts—I don't know why this works, but it does. Plus, now I'm singing "The Gambler" in my head, which, as earworms go, could be worse. Plus, I was oohing and aahing a little even before I got to the theme, as I dropped BOURDAIN and then BLOWHARD right alongside it. BOURDAIN was a fine writer and by all accounts a lovely man, but he was *repeatedly* (and literally) referred to as a BLOWHARD in the press, so I gotta imagine that BLOWHARD / BOURDAIN pairing would've made him smile. I couldn't quite figure out what WRESTL- was gonna do in that first themer, but I could see ORIGAMI coming into view pretty quick, so that's when I got the literalness of the theme concept. I had trouble with CLASS (wanted CRANE (!?)), and later on I had a little trouble figuring out what SEASON you were supposed to "run" in (that SW corner is a tiny bit hairy). But mostly the theme answers came easily, and delightfully, unexpectedly. I most admire LOWBALL OFFER—such a great phrase, such a perfect answer for "when to walk away." 

The fill on this one was strong as well, with AFEWZS being the top answer of them all (46D: Forty winks)—got a genuine "wow" from me. Don't know if it's original, but it is a ton of fun to try to parse. Worth the effort! I really liked much of the cluing today too. 39D: "What is your greatest ___?" (interview question) (WEAKNESS) made me laugh because it made me think of the conventional fake-humble answer, "Sometimes I care *too* much" (or "I work *too* hard" or "Perfectionism"). I also loved the clue on ARMANI (46A: Famed designer whose career was boosted by "American Gigolo") because I am a huge fan of "American Gigolo" (the movie that kickstarted The Eighties and one of the greatest neo-noirs of the decade). If you aren't listening to "Erotic '80s," the latest season of Karina Longworth's "You Must Remember This" podcast, then do yourself a favor and remedy that immediately. It's a wonderful year-by-year trip through sex in the movies during the decade that comprised my entire adolescence, so yeah, I am into it, although it did coerce me into watching "Jagged Edge" (yesterday), which I was Not so in to. But now I'm glad I've seen it, I guess, even if it was pretty bad. Anyway, "Erotic '80s" is up to 1985 this week. Four more years to go. Get on board! OH DEAR, where was I? Oh, ARMANI! Richard Gere! Blondie! Cinematic '80s ... my happy place. Hope you found things to like in this puzzle, and if GROGU was one of those things, well, de gustibus etc. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. "item of wear" is such a weird, awkward phrase (29A: Often-changed item of wear => DIAPER). There's gotta be something better. [Oft-changed covering]? [... protective gear]? Maybe just [Oft-changed item]? I dunno, something else.

P.P.S. like several of you (it seems), I found the clue on SOARS (53D: Shoots up) to be jarring and unwelcome, to say nothing of inapt. Why evoke heroin usage here? Or mass shootings? It's awfully grim—grim enough that it bothered the constructor, who actually sent me an email this morning disavowing it (his clue was [Flies high]). 

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Sanity Clause / TUE 7-24-18 / Caesar's assassins / Thick Japanese noodle / Friday 13th New Beginning / Cuisine tom yum soup / McCarthy aide Roy / Need You Tonight

Constructor: Jonathan Kaye

Relative difficulty: 6:12

THEME: DNA — If you solve in the app (iOS or web), there's an animated [58A: Shape of 7-Down]: DOUBLE HELIX at [7D: When the ends of each of its letters are connected to those above and below, a simplified schematic of a famous structure]: {see screenshot above, which doesn't do it justice, and I can't figure out how to embed a gif in a Blogger post}

Word of the Day: DORA (58D: Picasso muse ___ Maar) —

Maar, whose real name was Theodora Markovic, was born in Tours, France, on Nov. 22, 1907, and spent her childhood in Argentina, where her father, a foreign-born architect, was working. Arriving in Paris around 1925, the beautiful dark-haired young woman was drawn into the world of photography, first as a model for Man Ray and others and then as a photographer.

     In the 1930's, with Andre Breton and Georges Bataille urging her into the Surrealist movement and encouraging her to paint, she joined the Union of Intellectuals Against Fascism and was active in other anti-Fascist groups. After meeting Picasso, she helped him set up his studio at 7 Rue des Grands-Augustins, where in 1937 he painted ''Guernica,'' a process she recorded in photographs. [New York Times obituary, 26 July 1997]

• • •

As I'm writing this, the animated DOUBLE HELIX at 7D is twisting gently in the grid on my iPad. This is a fantastic use of technology to enhance the solving experience, and I'm curious if this was something that the constructor had in mind when he constructed the puzzle, or if that feature was developed later. [Update: A twitter exchange just confirmed that he did not, and the feature was added to the web- and app-based solving interfaces by the tech team.] We've seen other gimmick-y puzzles from this constructor before (I remember liking a "hook" puzzle that used the letter J a couple years ago), all on Thursdays -- so it's interesting to find this one on a Tuesday; it had a Thursday "feel" (though I didn't solve in a Thursday time).

Theme answers:

• [20A: What 7-Down is]: BIOCHEMICAL
• [58A: Shape of 7-Down]: DOUBLE HELIX
• [11D: Creatures with 23 pairs of 25-Down]: HUMAN BEINGS
• [25D: Genetic bundles]: CHROMOSOMES
• [66D: Subject of this puzzle]: DNA

One would expect the fill to suffer in order to get that 15-letter center entry of Hs and Xs -- but I don't think the entries that intersect 7-Down are out of the ordinary for a Tuesday. Maybe [62A: McCarthy aide Roy]: COHN is not so well known if you haven't seen Angels in America eleventy-billion times. Elsewhere, Word of the Day [58D: Picasso muse ___ Maar]: DORA is some varsity-level art history trivia. (I keep looking back at that rotating DOUBLE HELIX. That is just so cool.) I'm not crazy about [5D: Lucy Ricardo, to Ricky]: TV WIFE; do we think of TV HUSBANDs? Maybe I've seen TVDAD or TVMOM. Also, there is an abundance (and by abundance I mean more than one) of acronyms for government and other agencies: CDC, OSHA, NLRB, AFLCIO. Ugh, DITS. I diss DITS. And you've got your common fill beginning with E: your EPEES and your EONS and your ELAL and your EOS and your EXPO and, hey, [54D: Jazzman Blake]: EUBIE! We don't see him as much in grids, so why don't we have him sing us out:

Signed, Laura, Sorceress of CrossWorld
[Follow Laura on Twitter]

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Record label whose name derives from Greek myth / THU 11-10-16 / Grandpa Walton portrayer / Colorul corn balls / Old ship constellation / Fish whose name is calculator number turned upside-down / Chances left after Slim left town / Compound under control by Kyoto Protocol

Constructor: Jonathan M. Kaye and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Jworm — the word "HOOK" represented by the letter "J" (for I hope obvious reasons)

Theme answers:

• RINGING OFF THE J (18A: Getting tons of calls)
• BY J OR BY CROOK (29A: No matter how)
• BE ON TENETERJS (42A: Wait anxiously)
• J, LINE AND SINKER (53A: 100%) 

Word of the Day: RIGEL (30D: Star in Orion) —

Rigel, also designated Beta Orionis (β Orionis, abbreviated Beta Ori, β Ori), is generally the seventh-brightest star in the night sky and the brightest star in the constellation of Orion—though there are times where it is outshone in the constellation by the variable Betelgeuse. With a visual magnitude of 0.13, it is a remote and luminous star some 863 light-years distant from Earth. // The star as seen from Earth is actually a triple or quadruple star system, with the primary star (Rigel A) a blue-white supergiant that is estimated to be anywhere from 120,000 to 279,000 times as luminous as the Sun, depending on method used to calculate its properties. It has exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen out to between 79 and 115 times the Sun's radius. It pulsates quasi-periodically and is classified as an Alpha Cygni variable. A companion, Rigel B, is 500 times fainter than the supergiant Rigel A and visible only with a telescope. Rigel B is itself a spectroscopic binary system, consisting of two main sequence blue-white stars of spectral type B9V that are estimated to be respectively 3.9 and 2.9 times as massive as the Sun. Rigel B also appears to have a very close visual companion Rigel C of almost identical appearance. (wikipedia)

• • •

I think I needed this. Simple. Straightforward. Competent. Like some nice toast and chamomile after you've been violently ill for 24 hours. "J" is HOOK. HOOK is "J." Yes. Yes, I can handle this. Is it going to get harder? Uglier? Thornier? No ... no, it's just the HOOK. Phew. OK. Can deal.

[Aw yeah. Alright.]

This puzzle was super-easy. I finished in just over 5, which was higher than I thought. Then I realized the puzzle is 16 rows high, not the usual 15, and the over-5 time made sense. 48 black squares is a Lot of black squares, even for a super-sized grid. Very segmented and choppy, but (mercifully) the 3- and 4-letter fill doesn't get into brutally bad or banal territory too much. Scrabble-f*cking in the SE corner totally not worth it (ATOZ, never worth it), but otherwise, grid is polished to a more-than-tolerable degree. I think SLOW LEAK is the most interesting / original non-theme thing in the grid (50A: Start of a flat, maybe). Definitely held me up the most, required the most thinking. Only flats in my mind upon seeing the clue were apartments and musical notes. Other slight hold-ups occurred in the east, where I plunked down RANI off the R- at 35D: Eastern V.I.P. (RAJA). And then with symmetrical abbrevs. in the NE (17A: It may require gloves, for short) and SW (59A: Plan to leave shortly?). Both good clues, both, briefly, stumpers.

OK, then. Onward. Upward. Crossword.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. Thanks for being such a great community of people. I have rarely needed community more.

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Abu Bakr others / THU 9-29-16 / Staples of Indiana Jones films / Designer Mode of Incredibles / Numero of Disney Caballeros / Onetime Venetian leaders / Sullivan who taught Helen Keller / Uber calculation briefly / Noted exile of 1979 / Spanish provincial capital / Like Aramaic language

Constructor: Jonathan M. Kaye

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: DIVIDED [BY] (61A: ÷ — word "BY" in theme answers reads as [DD] (for "B") in one Down and [VI] (for "Y") in the other because

DV
DI

See, it's like someone took the word "BY" and "DIVIDED" it in two, horizontally.

Theme answers:

• BYPRODUCT (17A: Carbon dioxide or water vis-à-vis cellular respiration)
• MADE BY HAND (29A: Artisinal, maybe)
• BOOBY TRAPS (46A: Staples of Indiana Jones films) (I just remember the one, but if you say "staples," I'm gonna trust you...)
  

Word of the Day: GSA (44A: Fed. property overseer) —

The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies, and other management tasks. (wikipedia)

• • •

Clever theme (I've seen the bifurcated letter gimmick before, but not like this, I don't think). Fill was ecru-boring—exceedingly unremarkable and stale—but not, it is worth noting, Bad. Not ugh-laden. Just boring. Not a clever, interesting, remarkable, noteworthy answer In The Bunch. That in itself might be a feat. A terrible feat, but a feat. But (as is not atypical) the theme carries all the interest, and it is interesting. There's only one issue with this puzzle—grasping the gimmick. After that, ho hum. In fact, the puzzle gets considerably easier after that. So the issue is, how / when did you grasp it. I got the "DD" / "VI" thing pretty early, after I could tell in the NW that IN VITRO was gonna have to be the answer at 2D: Kind of fertilization. Thought at first there'd be a state rebus ("NV"), but no, it was the "VI." After a "DD" pulled up right alongside it, my first thought (not surprisingly) was "Oh, a Roman numeral ... something. So, what is that ... hmm ... carry the 2 ... 1006 PRODUCT? What the!?" Sometime a little bit later, as I was working on another part of the grid, the fact the answer had to be BYPRODUCT occurred to me, and there was my aha moment. After that—fill in the blanks.


NE might've been the hardest section to get into, largely because I didn't know who Abu Bakr was (10D: Abu Bakr and others => CALIPHS), but SHAH was a gimme (9D: Noted exile of 1979) and OVERLAID wasn't too hard (I had -LAID in place) (11D: Like veneer), so that corner wasn't actually hard at all. None of it was. I'd've rated this Easy, but the time spent figuring out the gimmick, plus the slightly time-inflating trick-square-hunting put this one overall in average difficulty territory. I wish the fill had any life to it, so that I felt like commenting on it, but it doesn't, and I don't, so I'm off to watch Sam Bee. Good night. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Historic kingdom in Spain / THU 8-4-16 / North Sea oil port / Saknussemm discoverer of center of earth journey / Predators of elephants in myth / His brother was given name Israel / Offering from urban streetcar

Constructor: Jonathan M. Kaye

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: BOOT (59D: Result of a parking violation ... as illustrated four times in this puzzle?) — "O" in the names of car models turns into a "Q" in the Down cross, thus somewhat mimicking the shape of a BOOT on a car:

Theme answers:

• SILVERADQ (21A: Incapacitated Chevy?)
• EXPLQRER (25A: Incapacitated Ford?)
• CHERQKEE (46A: Incapacitated Jeep?)
• NAVIGATQR (52A: Incapacitated Lincoln?)

Word of the Day: ABERDEEN (10D: North Sea oil port) —

Aberdeen (ⁱ/æbərˈdiːn/; Scots: Aiberdeen  listen (help·info); Scottish Gaelic: Obar Dheathain [ˈopər ˈʝɛhɪn]; Latin: Aberdonia) is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 37th most populous built-up area, with an official population estimate of 196,670 for the city of Aberdeen itself and 228,990 for the local authority area. // Nicknames include the Granite City, the Grey City and the Silver City with the Golden Sands. During the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries, Aberdeen's buildings incorporated locally quarried grey granite, which can sparkle like silver because of its high mica content.^[3] Since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, other nicknames have been the Oil Capital of Europe or the Energy Capital of Europe. The area around Aberdeen has been settled since at least 8,000 years ago, when prehistoric villages lay around the mouths of the rivers Dee and Don. The city has a long, sandy coastline and a marine climate, the latter resulting in chilly summers and mild winters. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is one of those rare puzzles that I really don't enjoy while solving, but that grows on me in retrospect. The problem was that I had zero idea what was going on until the very, very last letter. I was literally filling in BOOT one cross at a time. My last letter was somewhere in BOOT. My first thought on completion was "that's it? four Q/O squares? that's ... nothing." But then as I thought about the visual, and the fact that all the booted answers were actual car models, with just the one "O" in their names, I started to warm to this thing a little. Just a little. Puzzle felt hard to me (though my time was in the Normal ballpark), first because the "Q"s just meant nothing to me and made nonsense of the Acrosses, second because I assumed "Lincoln" and "Ford" were presidents (61A: Roosevelt predecessor? didn't help!) ... then thought maybe "Chevy" was Chase. Only at "Jeep" did I begin to get an inkling of what was happening. Getting the "Q" early in most of the themers actually did much more harm than good. Couldn't see the answers to save my life.


Not a fan of DRONE BEE (60A: Queen's mate). Feels redundant, especially as clued. A drone *is* a bee. Also super-not a fan of the ASLANT clue (1A: Like the Miller beer logo). Who *%&#ing cares about that stupid logo, and in what universe does anyone think of it as a locus classicus of slanting? Don't mind corporate names in my grid, but that clue was gratuitous. BOSH instead of (Pish-) POSH? (16A: Malarkey) Whatever. ACES are "dogs"? Whatever. TOITY!? The most made-up ARNE in the history of ARNEs? Pass and pass. The long Downs were wicked hard and wicked good. 9D: Tails, of a sort (PRIVATE EYES) was just a brutal clue, and somehow PRACTICABLE (23D: Realistic) evaded me until very nearly the last cross. And the [Indian flatbread] wasn't NAAN? Rough. Fill seems average to slightly above-average, overall. Nothing terribly cringy. I feel like this puzzle lives in a slightly different cultural neighborhood than I do—one with absolutely no women, apparently. Oh, except SARA Teasdale and CELIE and QEII. About five times that many men in this puzzle, but 3 isn't 0, to be fair.

["Yeah ... We're doin' this one for all the ladies... for the 9-3, you know what I'm sayin'?"]

PS I like that Jai alai didn't make it into the grid but decided to hang out in the clues anyway (18A: Jai alai bet of 1-3-7, e.g.)

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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Baseball great Buck / THU 6-30-16 / 1956 jazz/blues album with exclamation point / Heavy drinkers informally / Caligula's love / Tout's stock in trade

Constructor: Jonathan M. Kaye

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: TOP / OFF (38A: With 39-Across, refill to capacity ... or a hint to interpreting the clues at 17-, 27-, 46- and 61-Across) — if you literally take the top off of each letter in the theme clues (i.e. block out / discard the upper half of the clue), you get a new clue appropriate to the answer:

Theme answers:

• 17A: B0B (i.e. DUD) -> DEFECTIVE BULLET
•  27A: TB8L (i.e. IDOL) -> ADORED SUPERSTAR
• 46A: 8V8TB (i.e. OVOID) -> SHAPED LIKE AN EGG
• 61A: VMB (i.e. VIVID) -> BRIGHTLY COLORED 

[If you still don't get it, try this: A. draw a horizontal line straight through the clue; B. erase / block everything above the line; C. the remaining letter parts (everything beneath the line) is the clue]

Word of the Day: ERIKA Christensen (20A: Christensen of "Parenthood") —

Erika Jane Christensen (born August 19, 1982) is an American actress and singer whose filmography includes roles in Traffic (2000), Swimfan (2002), The Banger Sisters (2002), The Perfect Score (2004), Flightplan (2005), How to Rob a Bank (2007), and The Tortured (2010). For her performance in Traffic, she won the MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture along with her co-stars. // In 2006, she starred on the short-lived drama series Six Degrees on ABC. From 2010 until its ending in 2015, Christensen starred as Julia Braverman-Graham on the NBC family drama series Parenthood. In 2014, she won a Gracie Award for her performance in the role. Christensen portrayed Betty Beaumontaine on ABC's short-lived crime drama series Wicked City. (wikipedia)

• • •

I've seen variations on this theme before. Well, at least one, so maybe not variations, plural, but I've definitely seen the divide-a-letter gimmick before. I'm guessing many will finish and not really understand what is going on. It took me a little bit to put it all together, especially considering I had DEFECTIVE BULLET well before the revealer and couldn't make any sense of it. When in doubt, get Very Literal ... so I did, and voila. I am not a big fan of definitions-as-answers, and these answers have been particularly ... let's say, massaged (since it's a nice word) ... to get them into 15 form. So not only do I get definitions as answers, I get some pretty iffy ones at that. I would never get to DEFECTIVE BULLET from "Dud" unless absolutely forced to. The ADORED in ADORED SUPERSTAR is at least semi-redundant. SHAPED LIKE AN EGG ... well, that one's so ridiculous it makes me laugh, so I actually kind of like it. BRIGHTLY COLORED seems just right. Fill is smooth—it's a 78-worder, so it oughta be. The APER / REFI / EPEE / ERIKA is the only densely yucky part of the grid. SILLY ME and PRE-NUP give the grid a little colloquial zazz. This is not a type of puzzle I particularly enjoy, but it's reasonably well done for what it is.


Difficulty lay (aside from the obvious theme-figuring-out stuff) in a few misdirective / ambiguous clues. I was so proud of myself for dropping EMU and LARGEST, bam bam. And then the "A" in LARGEST worked for MAUVE so I knew I'd nailed it. Until I couldn't finish the corner. The hole I dug wasn't too deep, but it was ... interesting. Most notably, I convinced myself that "old-time cookie recipes" contained an ingredient called GERM (as in "wheat germ," duh). Other mistakes weren't nearly as costly. I knew "Tout" related to gambling, but for some reason I decided his stock-in-trade was ODDS (?). ID NO. was really hard for 24D: Prisoner's assignment, Abbr. And then the highly ambiguous 45D: Pen made getting into the SE a little tricky. If this were my puzzle, I'd probably have changed SORE (66A) to SAND, thereby getting rid of the always-terrible ADES and picking up the Flock of Seagulls song "I RAN" at 58D. But SORE works too. Different strokes etc.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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