Constructor:Jim Hyres and David Steinberg
Relative difficulty:Normal / Medium
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THEME:"Hit the Deck"— a visual representation of "TWENTY-ONE" (i.e. Blackjack) (69A: Game depicted in the circled squares) with imagined PLAYER hand on left side (1A: One side of a 69-Across showdown) and DEALER hand on right (14A: Other side of the showdown), with the PLAYER hitting twenty-one ("I WIN") (123A: 1-Across's cry) and the dealer going BUST.
Word of the Day:Max STEINER(87D: Composer Max who was called "the father of film music") —
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Hard to concentrate on / care about this puzzle right now, with immigrant families being literally torn apart as I write. Yep, that's blackjack ... there it is. PLAYER v DEALER, I WIN v. BUST ... cute. Shrug. Even if I weren't depressed at the thought of living in a racist police state for four more years, I don't think this puzzle would've amused me much. Buncha face card / numbers in circled squares ... I'd hardly call those proper theme answers. It seems like a pleasant enough diversion, but pretty old-fashioned and largely boring. Some of the fill was irksome, but mostly it was serviceable. It's "Gimme five!" not "GIVE ME FIVE" (which is what aliens say, with perfect enunciation, when imitating human life forms). GRAU is OFFAL. But the worst is SUM TO. I have no idea how that's even used. Does it mean "come to," as in "add up to"? Blargh, IMO.
Circled squares made "themers" easier, but the N and ENE sections of the puzzle were really hard for me, so the whole thing evened out to average difficulty. LOB, OMAR EPPS, and TVSPOT were all really hard for me to see, and so were TOOL BAR and VAMOOSE (without the "TV" part of TVSPOT, very hard to see the long Acrosses up there). And then the SUMTO (ugh) DAY TRADER part was also really hard for me. Lots and lots of methodical hacking in those parts to get them to work out. The rest flew by pretty easily.
Bullets:
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P.S. looks like a federal judge just ordered a temporary stay of the stupid immigration ban Executive Order, at least for those in transit / detained at airports. Small victory. I'll take it. Good night.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty:Normal / Medium
THEME:"Hit the Deck"— a visual representation of "TWENTY-ONE" (i.e. Blackjack) (69A: Game depicted in the circled squares) with imagined PLAYER hand on left side (1A: One side of a 69-Across showdown) and DEALER hand on right (14A: Other side of the showdown), with the PLAYER hitting twenty-one ("I WIN") (123A: 1-Across's cry) and the dealer going BUST.
Word of the Day:Max STEINER(87D: Composer Max who was called "the father of film music") —
Maximilian Raoul "Max" Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) was an Austrian-born American music composer for theatre and films. He was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, either composing, arranging, or conducting, when he was fifteen. [...] Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO Pictures and Warner Bros., and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three: The Informer (1935); Now, Voyager (1942); and Since You Went Away (1944). Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women (1933), Jezebel (1938), Casablanca (1942), The Searchers (1956), A Summer Place (1959), and Gone with the Wind (1939), the film score for which he is best known. // He was also the first recipient of the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, which he won for his score to Life with Father. Steiner was a frequent collaborator with some of the most famous film directors in history, including Michael Curtiz, John Ford, and William Wyler, and scored many of the films with Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and Fred Astaire. A lot of his film scores are available as separate soundtrack recordings. (wikipedia)
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[SKA BAND]
Circled squares made "themers" easier, but the N and ENE sections of the puzzle were really hard for me, so the whole thing evened out to average difficulty. LOB, OMAR EPPS, and TVSPOT were all really hard for me to see, and so were TOOL BAR and VAMOOSE (without the "TV" part of TVSPOT, very hard to see the long Acrosses up there). And then the SUMTO (ugh) DAY TRADER part was also really hard for me. Lots and lots of methodical hacking in those parts to get them to work out. The rest flew by pretty easily.
Bullets:
- 54A: Jane Rochester, nee ___ (EYRE)— guess who's back? Back again. (See yesterday's puzzle) (Charlotte Brontë wrote "Jane EYRE" under the pen name Currer Bell ... but you knew that)
- 101D: City that's home to the Firestone Country Club (AKRON)— forgot about their association with rubber. Kept thinking of Flintstones.
- 88A: Investment seminar catchphrase (CASH IS KING)— ??? This has some specific context of which I am unaware. Wikipedia entry on it is murky and mentions "investment seminars" not at all.
- 57A: Matchmaker of myth (EROS)— this makes him sound more like a dating service. He hardly puts happy couple together.
P.S. looks like a federal judge just ordered a temporary stay of the stupid immigration ban Executive Order, at least for those in transit / detained at airports. Small victory. I'll take it. Good night.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]