(Maybe a mixed reference, since the Pied Piper was the one with the rats, but that’s fine.) At 47A, “Letting out all the stops to drown out the other instruments?” is another musical reference. As crazy as it sounds, even with the title “Musical Interlude,” the theme didn’t ring for me until I got to my third themer, which happened to be the top entry, “Iditarod, for one?” And then “Alaskan dog race” popped into my head, but the first part wouldn’t work — AMAZING DOG RACE it was, an expansion of “Amazing Grace,” plus DO. (This was the first example that I couldn’t put a musical spin on; amazing that Ms. Lin was able to play with so many references.) If your internal jukebox is the same, I imagine you had a similar experience and enjoyed this trip to the scale.

Source: New York Times August 22, 2020 22:18 UTC