One of a models repertoire crossword1/2/2024 ![]() ![]() I did love “company for a king or queen” for SEALY.Ī CHEVY NOVA was my first car! I shared it with my brother at college. (Thanks for the recommendation for “The More the Merrier,” Rex.) The NW was really hard, though looking at it afterwards, it doesn’t seem like it should have been so bad. I had been held up by spelling the actor’s name as MCCRae, with those two letters in the exact spot to keep me from advancing into the SW. The NE and SW finally opened up when I got TOY PIANO and therefore SCHROEDER. Only the SE came easily because I knew AIDA (Memphis didn’t fool me), LANA (easy clue, but not my favorite clue type) and INNES (big fan of ER back in the day). I thought I wouldn’t finish but powered through. But I'm surprised that, with all the sizzling themeless grids that I know are being submitted and rejected, this one was deemed fit for the NYTXW. Maybe on a nostalgia level or something, I don't know. SERTA before SEALY (klassic kealoa*) ( 15D: Company for a king or queen). PSST and AHEM before " LOOK!" ( 16A: Attention-getting cry). INC? Really, that's your INC clue? Yeesh. I guess EMBASSY Row is what you call the place where embassies. he was big in the '90s, so he'd've fit right in to this grid. ![]() damn, that was Dominik HASEK, who somehow Also Has A HACEK In His Name (over the "S"). Absolutely no idea on HACEK (34A: Diacritic over the "r" in "Dvorák). Unsurprisingly, given how before (even) my time this puzzle feels, it was a bit of a struggle for me. so I can take a break from words, which I love, but omg so many words, writing and lecturing and reading and what not, sometimes I need them to stop). I listen to classical music precisely so I don't have to deal with the mental clutter of words (i.e. ![]() Choral music was just never ever (ever) really my thing. Musically, I'm more familiar with the SCHROEDER REPERTOIRE, i.e. sure, PART SONGS, great, congratulations. I'll stipulate that PART SONGS is a *fantastic* answer and that I'm just ignorant. I just read the definition of PART SONGS and honestly still don't get it. ![]() Eventually I just guessed SONGS because I figured well, that's a word that means "numbers," so OK. Is that like a round song, like "Frère Jacques"? Oof, I had PART and then no idea. It's GOLDEN AGE not GOLDEN ERA (12D: Prosperous period). DIET PILLS are awful in real life and so awful in the grid. Trying to pretend they're not literary just makes them fussier / weirder, not better. People use that? It's weird that the puzzle wants to make ARGO and EYRE non-literary. Is that also bygone? Oh, no, just corn oil. What is Mazola? ( 10A: Sister brand of Mazola). This one fell short on both counts. The good stuff was not nearly good enough, or widespread enough, to offset the overall musty feel of the grid. Puzzles should have broad frames of reference and the cluing should be alive to the language of today. I really liked " JUST SAY IT!" as that was the one thing that felt like it had a pulse. Laura INNES isn't a contemporary reference any more, not since RIVERDANCE was a thing (seriously, has this puzzle been sitting in a drawer since '97?). 1 all-time movie crush) (OK, maybe tied with Teri Garr). I love Joel MCCREA (26D: Joel who once played Wyatt Earp in film), but then I watch more old movies than is probably healthy, and anyway, what a borrrrrrring clue for MCCREA-a charming, dreamy leading man who was the star of some of the greatest movies of the '40s, including Sullivan's Travels and one of my five favorite movies of all time, The More the Merrier (with JEAN ARTHUR, my No. I learned CANTAB from crosswords and then promptly stopped thinking about it because constructors got better at filling grids and also got slightly less Ivy-centric in their thinking (I think of CANTAB like I think of ELIHU Yale, i.e. How long has it been since someone tried to use THEPO in a grid? When's the last time someone used the term POOBAHS unironically? I think I learned that term from "Happy Days," which means it was already old-timey 45 years ago. How long has it been since there were CHEVY NOVAS? ( Not since the '80s). '80s, possibly, were it not for NEVE Campbell. For real, this could've come out in the late '90s, No Problem. I was having flashbacks, seeing fill I hadn't seen in two, four, twenty-four years, and for the life of me I could not find more than a wisp of contemporary. Felt like being bludgeoned with olde-tymeiness. ![]()
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