Stella Zawistowski makes tracks through time.
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MONDAY PUZZLE — What’s so bad about “showing one’s age”? I tend to hear people using the expression with an air of self-denunciation, as if merely being able to recall the events of decades prior were something to be ashamed of. (Meanwhile, I can barely remember where I’ve put my keys two minutes after I set them down.)
It was refreshing to see today’s puzzle maker, Stella Zawistowski, “freely admit” her age and subsequent expertise regarding the crossword’s theme in her constructor notes below. One might say that her years are what earned her the right to craft such a puzzle, rife with references to things that not everyone currently living can remember. Ms. Zawistowski is showing her age — and we’re all the luckier for it.
Today’s Theme
Each of today’s themed entries features a bracketed addendum showing a date range. Here’s 17-Across, for example: “Listing of disciplinary infractions [1950s to early 1980s].” Filling in these entries may at first seem unsatisfying: What the heck does a PERMANENT RECORD have to do with the 1950s to early ’80s?
Here’s where we’ve got to do a little crossword detective work. You may have noticed that each bracketed date range appears in the second half of its clue — that’s where you can find what it’s referring to in the entry. Check it out:
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1950s to early 1980s: PERMANENT RECORD
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1970s to early 1990s: MASKING TAPE
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1990s to 2000s: HIGH-YIELD CD
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2010s to present: SINGLE STREAMING
And voilà. Without so much as a revealer, we’ve taken a tour through the listening formats of the last 70 odd years. Do you have a favorite way to listen?
Tricky Clues
25A. “Pigeon shelters” are called COTES, or dovecotes, and should not to be confused with “côtes,” the French word for “coasts” (so don’t go to the Côte d’Azur looking for a blue pigeon shelter).
32A. An “Abbr. before a year on a business sign” is ESTAB., short for established. I’ve only ever seen “Est.” used for this abbreviation on signage, but it seems at least 41 other crossword constructors have lived a fuller life than I.
65A. While this clue doesn’t refer to a famous person, you might well say that the “Star in Lyra” has its name in lights: VEGA is a star in the constellation known as Lyra, or the Harp. (VEGA is also the second-brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere, so it enjoys a certain celebrity in the night sky.)
9D. “One of a pair of shakers” had me picturing the salt and pepper on my kitchen table. Here, though, each unit is a MARACA.
28D. I was unfamiliar with the phrase “No guts, no GLORY” as an adage — perhaps because I’ve always defaulted to the simple rhyme, “No pain, no gain.” More recently, though, I’ve tended to opt for a line that fellow “Succession” fans may recognize: “You can’t make a Tomelet without breaking some Greggs.”
38D. On its own, the clue phrase “Easy to eat” wouldn’t be a clear indication of its entry. But with the added context of “as some grapes and watermelons,” we can deduce what it’s getting at: SEEDLESS.
41D. A “Texter’s astonishment, spelled cutesily” is OH EM GEE, which is the phonetic spelling of OMG. (For more fun with phonetic spellings, see grammagrams, as explored in a recent crossword by Alexander Liebeskind.)
Constructor Notes
I’m delighted to be back after a nearly two-year absence from The New York Times! I freely admit that I am old enough to have used all of the music formats featured in the puzzle’s theme.
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