1995 Coolio song featured in the film "Dangerous Minds" / THU 7-13-23 / Scarlett's first love in Gone With the Wind / Effecting fundamental changes to perceptions / Group of computers commandeered by a cyberattack / Pataky of the Fast & Furious franchise / Mayberry boy of classic TV

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: PARA- to "Pair of" — words that start with "PARA-" are clued straight but represented in the grid as a visual pun, where the latter part of the word is literally a "pair of" ... something. Each "pair" appears as side-by-side rebus squares:

Theme answers:

• "GANGSTA'S DIE DIE" (i.e. "Gangsta's Paradise") (16A: 1995 Coolio song featured in the film "Dangerous Minds")
• LOGICAL DOC DOC (i.e. "logical paradox") (23A: "This statement is false," for one)
• BULL BULL OF JESUS (i.e. Parables of Jesus) (46A: "The Good Samaritan" and "The Prodigal Son," for example)
• SHIFTING DIME DIME (i.e. "shifting paradigms") (57A: Effecting fundamental changes to perceptions)

Word of the Day: NISEI (5D: American-born Japanese) —

Nisei (二世, "second generation") is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called Issei). The Nisei are considered the second generation, and the grandchildren of the Japanese-born immigrants are called Sansei, or third generation. (Ichi, ni, san are Japanese for "one, two, three"; seeJapanese numerals.) (wikipedia)

In college, my friend Malcolm and his friend John invented a drinking game called WITNEY. I don't remember how you played, but I remember it as elaborate, and I remember it involved dice. The main way I remember it involved dice was that Malcolm actually had WITNEY merchandise made, specifically, bumper stickers. The bumper stickers read: "WITNEY: When You Say It, Play It" (a play on "When You Play It, Say It" stickers that would appear on promotional copies of music to remind DJs to tell the audience what they were playing). Now, when Malcolm ordered the bumper stickers, he told the printer what it should say, and then said that following the slogan, there should be "two dice"— that is, a picture of a pair of dice. But what came back from the printers didn't have a picture of dice. Instead, the bumper stickers read, "WITNEY: When You Say It, Play It — TWO DICE!" With "TWO DICE!" written out like that. Ridiculous. Nonsensical. Perfect. I had one on my car for 16 years. Anyway, I smiled hard when I got the first themer today, both because I thought the concept was great, and because it reminded me of being young and stupid.