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

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