Protein in a niçoise salad / WED 9-2-25 / School within both Princeton and Carleton? / Console for the game Pitfall! / Reason for a tucked tail, perhaps

Constructor: Michael B. Berg

Relative difficulty: Easy (5:24)

THEME: ZHUZH UP — Fancify … or a phonetic hint to 17-, 23-, 50- and 62-Across

Regular words get the "zh" sound added to them to make wacky phrases

Theme answers:

• [Neutral shade in some Florida décor?] for TAMPA BEIGE
• "zh" gets added to "Tampa Bay"
• [Lighthearted invitation for joining one's sled team?] for SKIP TO MY LUGE
• "zh" gets added to "skip to my Lou"
• [Headline during a zombie attack?] for THE DEAD SIEGE 
• "zh" gets added to "The Dead Sea"
• [Price of makeup at the dollar store, informally?] for BUCK A ROUGE
• "zh" gets added to "buckaroo"

Word of the Day: GENA (Rowlands of "A Woman Under the Influence") —

Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands (June 19, 1930 – August 14, 2024) was an American actress, whose career in film, stage, and television spanned nearly seven decades. She was a four-time Emmy Award and two-time Golden Globe winner, and she was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

She rose to prominence for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, including A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), both of which earned her Oscar nominations. She also won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Opening Night (1977).

• • •

Hi squad, and welcome to a Malaika MWednesday! This is a fun one for me, because it's actually Wednesday!! Usually I do these write-ups on Tuesday at around 11pm or just before midnight, and then schedule the post, because I don't wake up early. But I'm in London right now, writing this leisurely at 8:45am, and you will all see it when you wake up. By the way, if there's anything you think I should do in London, Madrid, Paris, or the Canary Islands, please let me know in the comments :)

It's raining here, of course!

This is a pretty standard "add a sound" theme. I'm not a fan of themes where the entries are "wacky." I just don't really think they're funny. (I didn't think they were funny in this puzzle either, alas.) But this puzzle has two things going for it-- first, there is a reason for the wack-ification. The revealer indicates that we are "upping" the instances of that sound in these phrases. Second, this is an interesting phrase! In the Crossword Forum that I'm in, people have discussed the spelling of this one before, and I'm pretty sure we all agreed on what we see here in the grid. It's fun to see in a puzzle, with those Z's and H's. 

(Other phrases that I've thought about the spelling of-- "sesh," as in "jam sesh" and "hun" (or is it "hon"??) as the abbreviated "honey.") 

Merriam Webster seems to agree on the spelling, btw

There's something a little unsatisfying about the fact the word is spelled with a "zh" but all the theme answers use "ge" to make that sound. I wonder if it could have been possible to get any theme answers with a French-ish "j" into the puzzle? I'm bad at brainstorming this kind of thing though. "Add a letter" is way easier to brainstorm than "add a sound." Sound off in the comments with any ideas!

Bullets:

• [A half-filled auditorium, per Robert Frost] for HELL — I had not heard this quip before, and I think it is very funny!
• [Pair of cymbals with a foot pedal] for HI HAT — Whenever I see this word, without fail, I think about the opening lines of Buffalo Stance-- "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce the hi-hat!"
• [World's most-watched television franchise, informally] for IDOL — What???? For real???? This isn't like.... Dragon Ball or something???
• [Greeting that becomes another greeting if you add an A at the front and reverse it] for HOLA — How do y'all feel about clues like this? I think I like them. They're almost like logic puzzles. But I know some people who really hate them.
• [Fairy tale baddie] for OGRE — In slang right now, "baddie" means super hot girl, and this clue cracked me up.

xoxo Malaika

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Fashion retailer headquartered in Spain / TUE 9-2-25 / Core-strengthening exercise / Chain with in-store salons / Travel blogger's gadget / Número to tango / Certain parent overseeing a child's career, in showbiz lingo / Khan of Khan Academy

Constructor: Rena Cohen

Relative difficulty: Medium (normal Tuesday)

THEME: PRETZEL (39A: Salty snack whose varieties are found at the ends of 18-, 24-, 52- and 61-Across) — words at ends of theme answers are common PRETZEL shapes:

Theme answers:

• TITANIUM ROD (18A: Surgical implant)
• TEETHING RING (24A: Soother for sore gums)
• RUSSIAN TWIST (52A: Core-strengthening exercise)
• SELFIE STICK (61A: Travel blogger's gadget)

Word of the Day: ZARA (40D: Fashion retailer headquartered in Spain) —

Zara (/ˈzɑːrə/; Spanish: [ˈθaɾa]) is a fast fashion retail subsidiary of the Spanish multinational fashion design, manufacturing, and retailing group Inditex. Zara sells clothing, accessories, beauty products and perfumes. The head office is located at Arteixo in the province of A Coruña, Spain. In 2020 alone, it launched over twenty new product lines. // Zara was established by Amancio Ortega Gaona and Rosalía Mera Goyenechea in 1975. Their first shop was in central A Coruña, in Galicia, Spain, where the company is still based. They initially called it 'Zorba' after the classic 1964 film Zorba the Greek, but after learning there was a bar with the same name two blocks away, rearranged the letters to read 'Zara'. It is believed the extra 'a' came from an additional set of letters that had been made for the company. It sold low-priced lookalike products of popular, higher-end clothing fashions. They subsequently opened more shops in Spain. (wikipedia)

• • •

A much rougher outing than yesterday's. I don't eat PRETZELs much, certainly not the store-bought snack-food kind, so I'll have to take the puzzle's word that there are in fact PRETZEL ... rings? Pretty sure I've had all the other kinds, though I have no idea what the distinction is between a ROD and a STICK. Those seem like the same shape. Maybe a ROD is ... stubbier? At any rate, these are PRETZEL shapes. I don't know why anyone except perhaps the most ardent PRETZEL enthusiast would be excited by a theme like this, but you can't argue that the theme is a theme, very theme-shaped and theme-like, like many themes that we have seen before: "Last (or first) words all belong to X category." Unlike yesterday (which also had a central — as opposed to final — revealer), this puzzle's revealer is a bit of a dud. Imagine if yesterday's revealer had simply been NEW. That's the kind of energy PRETZEL is bringing. Plus the fill is weaker, much more crosswordese-leaning, than yesterday's. EKE ITRY ELIS ABU IBIS ISIS NEMO SSNS ILE TET. The center is particularly rough—everything from that cringey ICER NENE pairing through the center (ENO OTS) down to ELON. That stretch also passes over what is potentially the hardest part of the grid: the SAL / ZARA crossing—a proper noun / proper noun crossing, at least one element of which seems reasonably likely to be unfamiliar to some solvers. I have seen the Khan Academy guy's name before, but can never remember it (SID? SIL?), and as for ZARA, I'm sure it's a huge deal, but this is (probably?) the first I'm hearing of it. That's why god invented crosses, and also why god commanded that you not cross less-than-universally-famous proper nouns at a vowel. I inferred the correct vowel there, but only by calling on the infernal powers of OOXTEPLERNON (the god of short bad fill), whose influence is all over this thing.

[named after a row in the Oct. 30, 2009 puzzle]

I also had no idea who NEAL Shusterman was, so there's another proper noun that was slowing me down today (the puzzle is mostly very easy, but it only takes a few "???" answers to significantly slow things down. I should also say that I have no idea what a RUSSIAN TWIST is. I don't know how Russians twist? Is it different from how other people twist. I do all kinds of twists at the gym, I wonder if any of them are Russian. Here's a description, and yeah, I've done these. No one ever told me they were Russian:

To perform the Russian twist one sits on the floor and bends both knees while feet are kept together and held slightly above the ground (or put under a stable surface). Ideally, the torso is kept straight with the back kept off the ground at a 45-degree angle with arms held together away from the body in a straight fashion and hands kept locked together like a ball or one can hold a weight to increase the difficulty. Next, the arms should be swung from one side to another in a twisting motion, with each swing to a side counting as one repetition. The slower one moves the arms from side to side, the harder the exercise becomes, working the abdomen that much better. When moving one's arms during the exercise, it is crucial to not stop between repetitions or else one will lose the effect of working the abdomen. As with all exercise, consistent breathing in and out during the exercise is important as one must ensure proper oxygen flow.

Do people really say "MOMAGER"?? (10D: Certain parent overseeing a child's career, in showbiz lingo) Like "manager," but with "MOM" in front? It's just such an ugly word. Bad mouth feel. Sounds ridiculous. Seems like people would ask you to repeat yourself. "Sorry, did you say 'monitor'? 'dowager'? 'Papa Johns'?" All I saw was "MOM-AGER" (a variant on "teenager"). Like, maybe the "mom" was trying to live vicariously through her teenage child. SELFIE STICK feels depressingly like something someone would've put in the puzzle 10-15 years ago in an attempt to be "current." Those sticks had a media moment and then ... I haven't thought about them at all in years. Years and years. They feel bygone. Anyway, this puzzle's idea of "fun fill" just isn't mine today. I really liked DUKES IT OUT (30D: Fights), and the first couple themers are nice, but otherwise this one had a kind of dull, paint-by-numbers quality, with an unfortunate glut of overfamiliar short stuff. 

Other things:

• 64D: Org. that requires polygraph tests for all applicants (CIA) — I cannot take polygraphs seriously now that I know the test was pioneered by a bondage fetishist (who also happened to be the creator of Wonder Woman). I mean, no shame in bondage fetishism, but the polygraph's origins really put the whole "strapping someone down and making them tell the truth" thing into a different light. It all looks like kink play to me now.

• 1A: Número to tango (DOS) — Spanish for "two." It takes DOS to tango.

• 58D: Chain with in-store salons (ULTA) — puzzle's really leaning into fashion brand names today, but unlike ZARA, ULTA (a beauty store—makeup and what not) is a very common crossword answer and even if you've never set foot in one, you. should know the name by now.

[we don't have a ZARA in these parts, but we definitely have an ULTA]

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Getaway where guests are out of fashion? / MON 9-1-25 / RMS Titanic's undoer / Demilitarized space between antagonists / Annoying fee added to a price / Indicator of a half-price deal / Lustrous sheet material

Constructor: Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: "SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?" (35A: Sarcastic question answered by the starts of 17-, 25-, 51- and 59-Across) — four theme answers all begin with differently-spelled "NEW" sounds:

Theme answers:

• NUDIST CAMP (17A: Getaway where guests are out of fashion?)
• NEUTRAL ZONE (25A: Demilitarized space between antagonists)
• NUISANCE TAX (51A: Annoying fee added to a price)
• NOODLE SOUP (59A: Ramen or pho)

Word of the Day: NUISANCE TAX (51A) —

1. (derogatory) A tax imposed as a percentage of the selling price of goods or services, payable by the customer and transmitted by the seller to the taxing authority; a sales tax. (thefreedictionary.com)

• • •

From a craftsmanship perspective, this is something close to perfect. It's a simple theme, but it's got an absolutely killer revealer, and the theme is executed neatly, elegantly, and completely—that is, I don't know if there are any unused ways to write the "new" sound. Oh wait! What about the "nou" in NOUGAT? I mean, I can't think of any phrases that start with NOUGAT, but that "nou" would count as an unused "new." Still, this is a very nice set of answers. I confess I don't really know the term NUISANCE TAX. I thought when I looked it up that it would be something akin to a "sin tax," that is, a tax on things deemed to be a societal "nuisance," but no, it looks like it's just a .... tax ... that's annoying. Not qualitatively different from a sales tax. Aren't all taxes annoying? To somebody, surely. I did a cursory news search for the term and found it's not in wide use in this country, but seems to be in many stories coming out of Ghana, for some reason. At any rate, it's a real term. NUISANCE LAW seems like a somewhat more common phrase, and would've fit in the same space, but again, it hardly matters. The theme is still winning. There is a lot of short stuff in today's puzzle, and often that can make for a fairly dull solve, but today's fill is so clean, and the theme is so strong, that the preponderance of short stuff didn't bother me. I didn't really miss the absence of longer Downs. I love when a theme—and particularly an innovative revealer—just works.

The preponderance of short stuff was advantageous to me, as a Downs-only solver. Generally speaking, the shorter the answer is, the easier it is to get with no help from crosses. I ran BIN EDU ROD and GLIB one after the other, no hesitation, which put me in great position to guess my first themer:

Opening up with a NUDIST CAMP definitely sets a tone—a liberated, free-spirited tone. I was like "well, alright, you have my attention, Lynn Lempel." I only needed the first two themers to see that *something* was going on with the "N" beginnings, and then I got to the central answer and, well, that was the real coup de grâce. At that point I was utterly charmed, completely won over. All the puzzle had to do from that point on was not trip over itself, and it managed that successfully. As Monday puzzles go, I couldn't ask for much more. Textbook stuff from the "Queen of Mondays."

My Downs-only struggles were few today. I don't really know the difference between SATEEN and satin, which is to say I don't really know what SATEEN is, but since SATIN wouldn't fit at 5D: Lustrous sheet material, I figured it must be SATEEN. This resulted in an answer that started BOE- in one of the crosses, which initially set off alarms in my head, but then the "S" went into the end of that same answer and I remembered that BOERS exist, so in went the "R," in went ACCRUE, and on I went. I wasn't entirely sure about ACCRUE at first because I wasn't sure how the term "interest" was being used in the clue (6D: Build up, as interest). I was thinking maybe you were building up interest in something in the sense of hyping it. But no, interest was simply building up in a savings or money market or what-have-you account. Wanted YAKKED (sp!?) before TALKED, as TALKED seemed too plain an answer for [Gabbed], which seems to imply a certain chattiness as well as a certain ... gossipiness or excess or something. I also wasn't sure how to take [Dispatches] at 52-Down. I thought maybe KILLS was the answer, but thankfully at that point I knew that that theme answer down there was going to start with a "new" sound, which got me NUISANCE TAX, which got me out of my [Dispatches] conundrum (it's SENDS). In keeping with the theme of "how is this word being used?," I sincerely thought that 36D: Spot to tie the knot (ALTAR) was going to have something to do with a necktie. Alas, NECK wouldn't fit. Maybe I thought the clue said "a knot," not "the knot." At any rate, none of these minor misunderstandings held me back for very long today. I don't time myself anymore, but I feel like if I did, today's would've been one of my fastest Downs-only solves ever.

Bullets:

• 23D: Indicator of a half-price deal (BOGO) — Buy One, Get One. Common retail parlance.
• 50D: Shaft on which a wheel turns (AXLE) — I taught myself the difference between AXLE and AXEL in the most ridiculously gendered way possible. That is, guys are into cars, and women are into ice skating, and since guys are generally bigger than women, the one with "XL" in it is the car one, and the other is the ice skating one, and no I don't care that my "logic" is based on all kinds of false suppositions. It works for my brain, and that's all that matters.
• 1A: RMS Titanic's undoer (BERG) — never really liked this term. In fact, never heard of this ICE-less BERG until I started doing crosswords. Maybe ICEBERG is redundant? Are there other types of BERG? I guess a mountain or a hill can be a BERG (it's literally "mountain" in German). ICEBERG is such a nice-sounding word, whereas BERG just kinda lies there like a lump. Blargh.

OK, that's enough for today. Happy September! Happy Labor Day! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)