Hall-of-Fame hoopster Thomas / MON 7-6-26 / Modern lead-in to coin or stock / Temporary suspensions / Cybertruck maker / European capital that's home to the Little Mermaid statue / Muppet with a noted feud with a pet rock / Instrument played by a Muse / Event that might include juggling, singing and magic tricks / 2009 comedy about a bachelor party and its aftermath / Steve ___, 2003 N.F.L. M.V.P.-winning quarterback / 1960s Pontiac muscle car / Serpent seen on a sarcophagus

Constructor: Alex Eaton-Salners

Relative difficulty: Easy (solved Downs-only)

THEME: VOICE PARTS (56A: Sections of a choir ... as hinted at by this puzzle's circled letters) — the circled letters contain the voice parts ALTO, BASS, SOPRANO, and TENOR, respectively. I think (maybe???) the fact that the circled letters are non-consecutive is supposed to indicate "parting" in some way—like, the voices have been chopped into "parts" or been "parted" from one another (!?); otherwise, I'm not sure what the revealer is doing besides telling me something I can already clearly see for myself, i.e. that the circled letters contain voice parts:

Theme answers:

• TALENT SHOW (17A: Event that might include juggling, singing and magic tricks)
• BLANK STARES (24A: Looks of total confusion)
• STOP, DROP AND ROLL (36A: Three-part fire safety technique)
• THE HANGOVER (46A: 2009 comedy about a bachelor party and its aftermath)

Word of the Day: Chappell ROAN (37D: Singer Chappell with the double-platinum album "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess") —

Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (born February 19, 1998), known professionally as Chappell Roan ([...]CHAP-əl ROHN), is an American singer and songwriter. She is known for her camp and drag queen–influenced style.

After signing to Amusement Records—in partnership with Island Records—in 2023, Roan released her debut studio album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. The next year, Roan achieved global recognition with the single "Good Luck, Babe!", which reached number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 and became an international top-five single. The song's popularity led to a resurgence of her debut album, which became a sleeper hit and peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200. It yielded the multi-platinum single "Hot to Go!", while her 2020 single, "Pink Pony Club", reached number one on the UK singles chart. In 2025, Roan won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and earned her second UK number-one single with "The Subway". (wikipedia)

• • •

I was kind of high on the puzzle coming out of the NW, before I knew what the theme was. The fill felt fresh—I ran GALAPAGOS, SONGBIRD, and COPENHAGEN in pretty short order: a strong triad. But then I saw the theme, which is to say, I saw the ALTO in TALENT SHOW, and that ... was that? I had the first few circled squares of the next two themers and proceeded to just write in every voice part I could think of (without looking at the Across clues, of course):

The puzzle gave the game away too quickly. But I figured at least I might get a good revealer out of it, something to make all the non-consecutive circles make sense (non-consecutive circles that spell out things not being much of a feat on their own). What I got, by way of revealer, was VOICE PARTS, which, if it doesn't involve wordplay, is painfully literal and obvious and unnecessary (yes, those are VOICE PARTS, please tell me something I don't know), and if it does involve wordplay ... I'm not totally sure I understand it. The clue for VOICE PARTS says that it's "hinted at" by the circled letters, and "hinted" implies something more than simple literal description. But the wordplay ... what is "PARTS" supposed to suggest? That the voice parts have been broken into ... parts? That the letters that make up the voice parts have been ... parted from one another? A very unstuck landing, this revealer. So what might've been a 3-star puzzle gets dropped to 2.5 stars for the wobbly revealer. I considered raising it back to three because the fill was actually above average, on the whole, but then I was forced to take the half star back because of TEHRAN, IRAN, an incredibly dumb redundancy (10D: Capital city between Baghdad, Iraq, and Ashgabat, Turkmenistan). TEHRAN, IRAN? What else is it gonna be, TEHRAN, SWEDEN? LOL, the totally unnecessary attachment of the country at the end of that answer earned a red card from me. And sorry, that decision is final, no appeals. Also, seeing plural APRS yet again (twice in two days??) didn't help. Also, don't park your stupid Cybertruck in my puzzle and expect anything more than a middling to negative review (6D: Cybertruck maker). That's two days in a row of including that white supremacist buffoon in the puzzle. Enough already. I ignored it yesterday, but yeesh. Neither TESLA nor ELON requires you to point to that guy. Please stop. 

The Downs-only solve was pretty dang smooth, aided as it was by all those free (circled) squares that the theme just handed to me. I had some trouble with TEHRAN, IRAN because wtf (see above), but not much trouble. My only real holdup was a dumb mistake: I wrote in TELE- instead of MEME at 45D: Modern lead-in to coin or stock. "Lead-in" had me thinking prefix and ... I dunno, maybe "telecoin" is a thing now. So many other dumb things are "coins," why shouldn't there be a telecoin? But the "T" and "L" from TELE really made the Acrosses lock up. Ended up with POLEL- and TCN-IR and it doesn't take a genius to see that those weren't going to work, so I looked to see which of my Down answers might be wrong and while at first I thought it might be DECREPIT (38D: Dilapidated), a second look made it clear it was TELE-. So, TELE- to MEME to victory, as MORATORIA finally fell into place (34D: Temporary suspensions).

Bullets:

• 15A: Muppet with a noted feud with a pet rock (ELMO) — "noted"? I see that yes, indeed, it has been noted. ELMO did not exist when I was a kid, so I still think of him the same way I think of the Jacksonville Jaguars—basically, he's an expansion Muppet. And since my daughter never watched Sesame Street (that I can remember) I've been blissfully unaware of whatever that annoyingly-voiced baby-talking puppet gets up to. But the pet rock thing has apparently been going on for over a quarter century, and there's even a book about this so-called "feud," so ... the clue is valid. Also, hats off to the EMO / ELMO cross. If you're having a "feud" with a pet rock ... yeah, you might be EMO. Ask your doctor. 

• 19A: ___ wave (summer phenomenon) (HEAT) — topical. Maybe too topical. NYC had a record-setting HEAT wave just this past week. The added presence of HUMID today (47D: Like sticky summer weather) made it feel like the puzzle was just rubbing it in.
• 39D: Instrument played by a Muse (LYRE) — had my typical LUTE/LYRE confusion here, which made the SE section (already gummed up by my TELE-for-MEME error) even dicier. 
• 35D: Basic skateboarding trick (OLLIE) — this was a gimme; it's in the crossword all the time. But today, perhaps because the puzzle was so name-y, I noticed how OLLIE was clued as a trick and not a name, and then I thought about how, before it was a skateboarding trick (first clued that way in 2011), OLLIE used to be clued as either one half of the comedy duo Laurel & Hardy (Stan Laurel and Oliver aka OLLIE Hardy) or as one part of the comedy trio Kukla, Fran & OLLIE (OLLIE was a dragon—also, a puppet, as was Kukla; Fran was just a regular human lady). OLLIE Hardy appears now only sporadically (as Stan's partner) and we haven't seen OLLIE the puppet dragon since 2015. Both old comedy OLLIEs were before my time, but ... I dunno, I kind of miss them. Skateboarding shmateboarding, I want my puppet dragon and/or bowler-wearing big guy!

[Did Tootsie Roll MINTEES ever catch on???]

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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Chinese instrument with two strings / SUN 7-5-26 / Folk religion akin to voodoo / Satirist Freberg / What has flatter feet? / Bygone N.Y.C. music venue with rhyming initials / Lingerie brand with a Slavic-sounding name / Longtime Tribeca restaurant where some say the Cosmopolitan was invented, with "the" / Product displays seen at entrances to store aisles / Jewish mysticism, in one spelling

Constructor: Rich Katz

Relative difficulty: Very, very easy

THEME: "Boxed Sets" — familiar phrases are clued via "sets" of terms (listed inside the curly brackets that indicate mathematical sets) —the sequential arrangement of the terms in the sets indicates the phrases:

Theme answers:

• BABE IN THE WOODS (22A: {Elijah, Ruth, Natalie}) [BABE Ruth in [between] two WOODS]
• BEATS AROUND THE BUSH (28A: {Kerouac, Dubya, Ginsberg}) ["Beats" = Beat Generation writers]
• POWER BEHIND THE THRONE (41A: {WC, AC, DC}) [WC = water closet = toilet = "THRONE"]
• HONOR AMONG THIEVES (66A: {Bonnie, Oscar,  Clyde}) ["Oscar" here is the Academy Award]
• TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE (88A: {Larry, Sue, Emma}) [Larry Bird, Sue Bird, Emma Stone]
• ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES (97A: {Cinnabon, Kool-Aid, Hi-C})
• DOWN IN THE DUMPS (113A: {Landfill, goose feathers, junkyard})

Word of the Day: The ODEON (120A: Longtime Tribeca restaurant where some say the Cosmopolitan was invented, with "the") —

The Odeon is a restaurant in New York City. The restaurant opened in 1980, in space previously occupied by Towers Cafeteria. The restaurant was founded by Lynn Wagenknecht, Keith McNally, and Brian McNally. Wagenknecht continues to run the restaurant. Wagenknecht has characterized the restaurant as a brasserie. [...] The Odeon has been referred to as a "classic" New York City restaurant. In his 1989 review, Bryan Miller commented that the restaurant was already "called an institution" despite having been open for less than ten years. William Grimes referred to The Odeon as "ageless and definitively downtown" in a 2000 review of Village, a restaurant opened by former Odeon chef Stephen Lyle. Stephen Heyman, writing for Surface, described The Odeon and other restaurants operated by Keith McNally as gradually transitioning from a "forward operating bases of gentrification" to "important parts of the city's heritage". The restaurant has been credited with inspiring imitators hoping to mimic its ambience and success. // Scenes in Jay McInerney's novel Bright Lights, Big City take place at The Odeon, and the exterior was depicted on the book's first edition cover. McInerney has said that attorneys at his publishing house were concerned about depictions of drug use at the restaurant in the novel, so McInerney sought Keith McNally's permission to portray the restaurant in and on the book. McNally granted permission assuming the novel would not sell well. The exterior was also featured in the opening credits of Saturday Night Live. A celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of the novel's publication was held at the restaurant. // The Odeon is known for its celebrity clientele. Regulars at the restaurant have at points included Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Belushi, and Andy Warhol. Lena Dunham has a tattoo of the restaurant's sign. In addition to its popularity with celebrities, the restaurant was at one point popular among Wall Street quants. (wikipedia)

• • •

[19D: Bygone N.Y.C. music venue with rhyming initials]

There's something slightly cute about the basic idea here, but it's all so easy that it feels ... slight. Also, the fill, yeesh. At times, yikes. Real back-from-the-crosswordese-grave stuff like OBEAH (42D: Folk religion akin to voodoo) and BRAE (56D: Scottish hill); a single E-SPORT (13A: Gamer's pursuit); the completely made-up phrase SAID SHH; the almost-as-completely-made-up phrase US TIME. Maybe I should be grateful for those moments of wincing, because otherwise, I don't think anything outside of theme would be memorable at all, so fast did it all go by. Where is the resistance today? It's not in the theme, which is pretty dang easy to suss out. There was the odd thing I didn't know (ODEON ... actually, is that it? ODEON? I think I knew literally everything else in this grid, which is Insane on a Sunday. The puzzle feels barely here, is what I'm saying. Wispy. And the theme, for all its charms, doesn't really match the title. There's no "box" involved in any of these besides maybe the first one, where the WOODSes "box" in (i.e. flank) The BABE. I guess DOWN IN THE DUMPS follows the same principle. But really, this is just about sets, not "boxes." I thought the cluing was pretty clever at times, esp. the {WC, AC, DC} one—I'm not a huge fan of toilet humor, but the cluing on that one is so tight—all elements of the set are two letters ending in "C." Very nice. I've got no real beef with the theme. It's not mind-blowing, but it'll do. The rest of it ... if I didn't have a marked-up print-out in front of me, I don't think I could tell you anything about it—that's how memorable it was.

If I could chuck one part of this puzzle into the sea and then shoot it into the moon and then detonate it, it would be that NE corner. Everything from ERHU EBSEN ESPNU all the way through to the improbably singular E-SPORT. Not sure why that answer hits my ear so wrong in the singular, but it does. But the real dealbreaker up there is SAIDSHH. I have "OOF" written in the margins next to that answer. The term is SHUSHED. If you can have SAIDSHH in your puzzle, then you can have SAIDanything in your puzzle. Total garbage. There are other parts of the puzzle that are less than lovely (HAREMS BRAE APRS LAB RATS, for instance), but nothing can compete, uglinesswise, with that NE corner. I liked that the puzzle was cocktail curious. Or, in the case of Angel's SHARE, cocktail adjacent (1D: Angel's ___ (distiller's term for the whiskey that evaporates during aging)). I heard a whole podcast episode once with the inventor of the Cosmopolitan, but I forgot his name, and I most definitely forgot the name of the bar where he worked. I was happy to (re-)learn these facts, as well as learn various things about the ODEON in general (see Word of the Day, above), including the fact that it is depicted on the cover of the Vintage Contemporaries edition of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, a book I definitely owned at one point in my life: those Vintage Contemporaries were a real feat of design, the first imprint (besides maybe Penguin) that I remember being able to recognize at sight. 

Bullets:

• 21A: Kind of costume that includes a round hat and kerchief (SAILOR) — such a weird clue for SAILOR. I was like "'kerchief,' wtf?" but yeah, I guess ... conventionally, you've got the kerchief around the neck:

• 25A: "___ it and rip it!" (aggressive golfer's mantra) ("GRIP") — ugh, golf lingo. There are different "mantras" based on how "aggressive" you are? 
• 27A: Product displays seen at entrances to store aisles (END CAPS) — not sure why this term came to me so easily. Seems pretty ... technical. I did do inventory work (with a ten-key on my hip!) one summer in college, so maybe store display terminology soaked in somehow.
• 75A: 30-ounce Starbucks size (TRENTA) — these feel mythical. Never seen this size on an actual Starbucks menu. Then again, I go into Starbucks as seldom as possible. It's usually an airport-type situation.
• 16D: Lingerie brand with a Slavic-sounding name (OLGA) — almost went with OLAF, which is more Scandinavian than Slavic.

• 32D: What has flatter feet? (ODE) — the best clue of the day. Kind of a thinker ... in that I had to think about it for a bit before I understood it. An ODE is a poem of praise, i.e. a poem intended to "flatter," and poetry is (frequently) composed of metrical units called "feet" (like iambs, for instance). So ... ODEs have "feet" that "flatter" ... or "flatter feet." It's ... a little awkward, but I admire the ambition. 
• 75D: They might be up in arms (TATS) — LOL wish this clue had appeared yesterday (in case you missed it, yesterday I revealed that while on vacation, I got my first tattoo—and (up) on my (left) arm, no less:

• 87D: Satirist Freberg (STAN) — I know who this is. Unfortunately, I thought his name was SAUL. Also, now that I think of it, I have him confused with the cartoonist Saul Steinberg. So ... yeah, I have no idea who STAN Freberg is. Let's see ... OK, here we go. Happy 5th of July!

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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❤️ Support this blog ❤️: 

• Venmo (@MichaelDavidSharp)]

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