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Greek letter that refers to a lone wolf, in Gen-Z slang / FRI 10-10-25 / Nonet of Greek mythology / Part of a film studio's overhead? / A.Q.I. measurer / Barrage with insults, in online lingo / Company whose stock price cratered in the early 2000s / Key ingredients in con you bing, a savory Chinese pancake
Friday, October 10, 2025
Constructor: Colin Adams
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: LAVERNE Cox (37D: Actress/activist Cox) —
Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBTQ advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first trans woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on U.S. broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt.Cox appeared as a contestant on the first season of VH1's reality show I Want to Work for Diddy, and co-produced and co-hosted the VH1 makeover television series TRANSform Me. In April 2014, Cox was honored by GLAAD with its Stephen F. Kolzak Award for her work as an advocate for the transgender community. In June 2014, Cox became the first transgender person to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Cox is the first transgender person to appear on the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine, with her February 2018 cover on the South African edition. She is also the first openly transgender person to have a wax figure of herself at Madame Tussauds. (wikipedia)
• • •
[38D: Part of a film studio's overhead?]
Not seeing any tough spots today. Also not seeing many tough or tricky clues. The "?" clues are all pretty transparent. A BEACH BUM "bakes" in the sun (26A: Someone who spends a lot of time baking?). A CENT is one out of a hundred ... pennies in a dollar (not a very evocative clue) (13D: One out of a hundred?). A BOOM MIC is used "overhead," i.e. above the actors, ideally out of frame (38D: Part of a film studio's overhead?). ANT FARMS are ["Colonial homes?"] because ants live in social groups called "colonies." A+ is a blood type. I don't really understand how your knowledge is wasted in BAR TRIVIA (49A: Where all of your knowledge might be wasted?). I get that your teammates might be wasted, or you might, but your knowledge ... that doesn't really make sense. I see the wordplay the puzzle is going for, obviously, but the phrasing doesn't quite work. (Has anyone ever competed in BAR TRIVIA under the pseudonym BART RIVIA? I'm guessing yes). Then there's the one "!" clue today, which is weirdly in the (imagined) voice of the (inanimate) answer (34A: We're booked! = ROOMS). The "!" signifies that you take the clue extremely literally. Rooms are, in fact, booked (at hotels, motels, Holiday Inns, e.g.).
Bullets:
- 1A: Viking of cartoon fame (HAGAR) — a gimme if you're old and maybe even if you're not. This is Monday stuff. It is not 1-Across on a Friday stuff.
- 21A: Christopher Nolan movie with a palindromic name (TENET) — when you say an answer is palindromic, you immediately make it twice as easy to get as it would otherwise be. Every letter. (except the middle letter, obvs) gets you a bonus letter! I don't remember if I saw TENET or not (which is how I feel about most Christopher Nolan movies post-Memento). There's just something slightly sad about TENET sitting over TENT, which now looks like an emaciated TENET. "How 'bout we do TENET again, just ...without one of the 'E's? Sound fun?"
- 30A: The emperor and his subjects in Disney's "The Emperor's New Groove" (INCAS) — another moment where I was unexpectedly entertained by my own error. I had the -CAS and was like "wait ... that movie was about ORCAS? That can't be r— ..."
- 8D: A.Q.I. measurer (EPA) — A.Q.I. is "air quality index." I'm not sure the EPA measures it anymore. I'm not sure the EPA does much of anything anymore. Well, there's a government shutdown right now (right? who can tell with this government...), so almost certainly nothing's happening at the EPA right now. But even if the government were open, I don't see "oversight" of any kind as a real priority for this admin.
- 24D: Greek letter that refers to a lone wolf, in Gen-Z slang (SIGMA) — I like a lot of Gen-Z slang, but this I just rolled my eyes at. This is some pathetic right-wing "manosphere" nonsense. If you really wanna know more about this meaning of SIGMA, here you go. (It is apparently mostly used as a pejorative now, though Gen Alpha apparently knows it primarily as a nonsense term from this one time when a character asked "what the SIGMA?" on Spongebob Squarepants (!???)). The puzzle gave me [Greek letter], that was enough, moving on ...
Actually, not moving on at all. Done. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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67 comments:
Palindromes don’t need to have an odd number of letters do they? PEEP is a palindrome? (Ergo no middle unmatched letter.)
Easy Friday. No WOEs, although neither Kaitlin OLSON (6D) nor LAVERNE Cox (37D) came trippingly off the keyboard.
Overwrites:
@Rex nanO before PICO at 7D
At 13D, thought "One out of a hundred" might mean a thing is rare before I realized it was a CENT
lAyup before TAPIN for the hard-to-miss shot at 22A (I'm no basketball maven)
Really wanted nuTS for the 48D parfait toppings but the first two letters of OATS were unassailable by the time I read the clue
Finished it without a cheat, so I guess it was easy (for a Friday). GENETECIST was hard to get, especially after the misdirect (Will Shortz obviously wanted us to think about inherited $$$$$). BARTRIVIA isn't a location, so using "where" in the clue is misleading, and Rex is right to question whether it wastes one's intelligence. Well constructed puzzle.
Weird one. Lots of mysteries but even more gimmes. So guessing the mysteries wasn't hard.
Bad clues for BARTRIVIA and CENT (there are other sets of a hundred, like the Senators).
The big guy pretty much nailed it. Pleasant to go through but just not late week fare. Didn’t know OLSEN but didn’t need to since all the acrosses went in without hesitation. Liked OPEN SPACES, BEACH BUM and the somewhat odd cluing for DRUM SOLO.
Leave In Silence
Today we get an epic singular of convenience. KICKED ASS seems like it’s playing to a certain group - simple with SIGMA. The puzzle loves LSU. I love OATS - eat them everyday. Knew of LAVERNE but really didn’t know her until the Rex link.
MOS Def
Enjoyable enough solve on this cold Friday morning.
106 Beats That
thought it was clean and tight. wasn't easy until a central toehold then woosh back to the difficult spots. i liked it.
Oats are an ingredient in granola, which is a common topping for yogurt parfaits. Terrible clue.
Highlights:
• Playful cross of PEEKABOO and ALAKAZAM.
• Lovely answers PLINTH and RARE BIRD.
• TEAM of NFLTEAM abutting TEAM of TEAMO.
• [Something you might have when trying to move quickly] for FIRE SALE. Mwah!
• FLAME touching corners with FIRE.
This was a Reconstruction Solve for me, where I put in many answers that ended up being replaced. LAYUP before TAPIN. NUTS before OATS. RARE SOUL before RARE BIRD (which is much better). PRIM before GRIM. WENT IN before FELT OK for [Was no longer under the weather].
Fixing these entailed much riddle-cracking, and brought much satisfaction.
Thus, satisfaction and spark in the box today, simply a splendid outing. Thank you, Colin!
I found the southern half more enjoyable (and slightly easier) than the north. I felt kind of icky when I stumbled upon LIP FILLER. The thought of someone injecting something into my lips is unsettling enough, and then to realize that someone chooses to do it on purpose is, well kind of gross.
I got a chuckle out of BAR TRIVIA and thought the clue was close enough for XWorld. I thought that one, along with the cluing on some of the easier answers like ANT FARMS, BOOM MIC and FIRE SALE ended the solve on a high note.
Mostly easy, with some work to be done in the SW corner. ANT FARMS/nests/hills and BAR/pub TRIVIA in particular.
I can say from years of experience that tap-ins are very easy to miss (as are @Conrad's lay-ups).
Hey All !
Yes, easy puz. If I may BRAG, 12:24. Twelve and 1/4 minutes (for me) is blitzingly fast. I don't try for speed, it's just that dang clock is always there whilst solving online, but I pay no attention to it until finished. Funny enough, my first pass through only got me 5 or so answers, but quickly filled in after that.
If l only get one ONION RING, I LOST.
Not much else to say. PLINTH is new, I believe I've heard it before, but still unsure what it is. I'm guessing a stand beneath a head sculpture?
Have a great Friday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
If I had to guess, "Sigma" may refer to a corporate program called Six Sigma, which means six standard deviations above the mean, or a very high performance level.
Me again. Apparently my time was my FriPuz record! Yay me!
But, an un-BRAG, I missed Wordle Yesterday, losing my 118 day Streak! Argh! Longest streak is 143 Days. Starting over ...
RooMonster Useless Data Guy
Kaitlin Olson was also amazing in Hacks, one of the best shows of the decade.
I always hear that DRUM SOLO as a transition from the previous song on Abbey Road, not as the beginning of “The End.” So that slowed me down a bit as I reached The End of this puzzle, compounded by the weird parfait clue. As RJ points out, oats are a part of the granola that often tops parfait. When I read the clue, I thought, “I haven’t eaten that many parfaits in my life, but none has been topped with OATS. They’ve all had granola . . . wait a minute . . .”
Let's be generous and assume Rex meant "except in the case of a middle letter".
Click the link Rex provided.
Correct
My daughter, 13, and her friends, all girls, 13, used sigma for an entire summer a couple summers ago. I, a man, 43, never understood it. None of my adult male associates understood it either. So no. This slang did not emerge from the manosphere. I’m guessing because the manosphere doesn’t exist…unless of course you’re referring to fans of the 1966 Classic: MANOS! The Hands of Fate!!
MANOS. The HANDS of fate.
MANOS. The hands of FATE!!
Besides that zig zig, this was the easiest Friday puzzle I can recall.
Buddy read the dictionary page he linked to. It was absolutely coined in the manosphere. The fact that it escaped doesn’t negate that fact.
Thank you! So many people in the comments wonder aloud about questions the blog has already answered
Now *that* I watch! 🥰
I stand corrected. Although I will point out the irony of this “movement” winding up in the “skibbidee(sp?) toilet”.
The manosphere is not a thing.
Hmmm. For all these years I've been making cong you bing with green onions. I guess I'll just have to give those scallions a try next time.
Pretty please is MAY I not CAN I
My wife makes a concoction called "Overnight OATS" which is a healthy breakfast option, something akin to a parfait.
HAGAR the Horrible is not the only hoary answer in this puzzle. Over in the opposite corner we have CERTS. When was the last time you bought a pack of those? They've been discontinued for some time, you know, because of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil which is stuff you really don't need in a breath mint, let alone any kind of food.
Zipped through the top half. Not so much the bottom half. Today is a day when I feel hampered by my lack of sports knowledge (LSU, HOU, ERIC, even FOES). Another thing that slowed progress is putting in ANThillS before ANT FARMS. And, I wanted 54 Across to be KILL- or KILLED something, instead of KICKED ASS. Eye roll. BOOED at that one. They are just a little too enamored of that word.
Dupe of VIA, and not incidentally so. One origin of TRIVIA, in the sense of "trivial", is TRI+VIA = a fork where three roads meet which is a roundabout way of referring to a public place, a common place, or eventually a commonplace. I can almost never remember that one; I had to look it up just now. Another origin story that I CAN and do remember is in the opposition between the trivium of the classical liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric, and logic, which FORMS a triple) and the quadrivium of higher learning (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, forming a quadruple), with the trivium considered more "basic". All this word knowledge is arguably a waste of brain space, except maybe when it helps you win a prize in a BAR TRIVIA contest where it's not wasted at all.
I did really like the clues for BOOM MIC, FIRE SALE, and BLOOD DONOR. That there is some good solid Friday cluing.
Speaking of which: Happy Friday, everyone!
Hagar, Enron etc fitting as this was tepid, old fashioned and just not exciting or with the times. Stale and rote.
Is a Friday puzzle allowed to be this easy??
I think Oprah might refer to her crew as TEAMO.
I prefer my parfaits topped with Hall, but in a pinch, OATS will do.
Nurse: And what are you here for today?
Patient: ALAKAZAM so's a kin figger out what wrong wit me.
I spotted a RAREBIRD the other day. The elusive FELTOK.
Actually, I FELTOK about this easy Friday. Thanks, Colin Adams.
Wow, that Merriam-Webster write-up is quite the RARE BIRD in terms of its being written in a very opinionated style. That's not to say I disagree with the opinion or the style; it's just not what one usually finds in a dictionary entry, which is normally matter-of-factedly descriptive and dispassionate. Here, there's a lot of prescribing to go along with the describing.
Filled in the NW as fast as my little pencil would write and then, nada for the longest time. Finally got going again with PLINTH crossing SILENCE which led to the icky LIPFILLER. BEACHBUM begat BLOODDONOR and the SW had some easy clues that I hadn't read so the bottom turned out to be pretty whooshy.
Pop culture blind spots again --OLSON, LAVERNE, and TENET, but as OFL points out TENET being a palindrome was a big help.
Wanted AMOR (too short) for my sentiment and SLIMES for FLAMES but TEAMO, fixed that although I have to say I think of TEAMO as a sentence and not a sentiment.
OK Friday with at least a decent amount of entertainment CA. No Crying Aha!, but thanks for some fun.
Even when I breeze through a Friday, I rarely dominate to that point that there are clues I don't even read until after I'm done. Along with a record tome of 10:28 (I know, I'm slow!), I had no need to read the clues for seven answers, including the INCAS/GRIM/MOS across-oreo.The bottom third came slower, but still fell after no more than 3 of 4 passes each.
The only thing I didn't know and couldn't noodle was LARGO. I never know the operatic/classical music stuff, and the only LARGO of which I'm aware is the Maryland town and high school I would have attended if I hadn't gotten into a test school... on the waiting list... I know, I'm slow!
Aloud isn't allowed in a blog you read! Speaking of wondering, I wonder about a drug ad claiming "visible improvement of the intestinal lining!" If it's visible you've got bigger problems than wtf it looks like ;-)
But she's even better in the greatest show of all time, It's Always Sunny.
If Sunny and Hacks don't give you enough Kaitlin Olson, she also has another series, High Potential (an American adaptation of a French series High Intellectual Potential or HPI) in which she stars as an accidental police consultant with a high IQ, a blunt personality, and a messy life who notices details that others miss. If you like that sort of thing, you can find both it and the French original on Hulu.
I shot myself in the foot putting in sideache for FIRESALE and leaving it far too long. Seeing the correct answer was an aha moment. And a doh.
I had the same thoughts at EPA as you did, Rex.
I couldn't solve the SE corner without cheating on HOU. But my problems there were partly caused by having BOOM CAM instead of BOOM MIC and NUTS instead of OATS. I really don't want OATS on my parfaits, thank you very much.
Lots of people can form HORDES. I didn't know it was a zombie thing. But then what I don't know about zombies...
Also, I had misspelled TiAMO, which kept me from seeing BEACH BUM for a very long time.
I found this puzzle quite easy until it wasn't. The SE was a bear for me.
I liked it. Just challenging enough to fill in breakfast.
With magic clues in the NW, I thought DRUMROLL before DRUMSOLO, and the parfait clue didn't help. Kaitlin OLSON looked pretty good on Jimmie Kimmel last night.
Easy.
WOEs - INCAS and OATS as clued.
Costly erasures - mAy I before CAN I and BLOOD typer before DONOR (yes, I know that was not a good first answer).
Breezy and fun with a fair amount of sparkle, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did.
Kaitlin OLSON has a new series on ABC/Hulu called High Potential. It’s worth a look with a 96% Tomato rating.
certs arent a thing anymore. nor have been for nearly a decade
Am i the only one who had an issue with FELTOK? Also did anyone immediately think of Motorola/GE and Jack Donaghy and the famous Six Sigma?
I echo @Anonymous 10:45. I especially liked PEEKABOO, ALAKAZAM, PLINTH, RARE BIRD, and the cross of BOOED and BRAGS.
You may brag, especially if you come out and say it's a brag. Elsewhere in the comments there's a humblebrag beyond compare to anything I've seen in months, and winning the humblebrag contest would, I find, be nothing to brag about.
HAGAR the Horrible is still published in our local paper so I consider that as still-relevant fill. Even though 1A is where I got my first entry, the main part of the NW eluded me until the end. Some of that was caused by my having PICa at 7D, which prevented considering PEEK-A-BOO and also, with GENE in place, thinking that 3D was going to be a two word answer. GENETICIST was my last entry and a slight head-slap at my obtuseness.
My brain SEIZED when I tried to come up with ENRON (I had the final N in place and couldn't come up with the company.)
I mentally tried to fit "Oreo" into 48D because that's what I thought could be on the top of a parfait. Yes, the clue indicated a plural but I considered that OREO could possibly be used as a plural. No?
I've seen TENET, and I can't quite follow the time-traveling aspect of it. Maybe a third viewing will make it clear.
Thanks, Colin Adams, for an enjoyable Friday puzzle.
I mentioned yesterday that I had to drive my wife to an early-morning post-surgery appointment. It was in Natick, appropriately. Anyway, it was good news--she can take the boot off her leg, and walk with a cane. For the first time since late August, she could climb the stairs and sleep in our bed, rather than the couch in the living room. It was a very happy day! And yes, we are now looking for a one-story house to move into.
The puzzle was really easy until the SW, where I put in ANThillS instead of FARMS, which pretty much blocked everything, except for hEaled at 40-D, which then blocked everything else. If I'd ever heard of LAVERNE Cox or ERIC Dickerson, it might have been easier.I finally got going again with the LSU/MUSES cross, and worked my way into the NE corner, where the long answers were all pretty gettable, then came down through the middle, and unlocked the SW with RARE BIRD.
34-A was tricky; I think usually the answer would be the direct object of a sentence, e.g., "Book them!" for ROOMS, but here they are the sujbect of the sentence. Fair enough.
Did you know French fry has the same length as ONION RING? If I could have made 'fry' work for 50-D I would have gone with it.
The first baseball game my oldest granddaughter ever attended was in Traverse City, MI. The team was called the Traverse City BEACH BUMs back then. There was a triple play - men on first and second, hot grounder to third, step on third, fire to second, then to first. The team later changed its name to the "Pit Spitters" in recognition of the region's large cherry growing industry, and it's in a college summer league now.
We were up in Traverse City visiting my son Sam who was working at his first job -- I'll never forget his saying the five most beautiful words a parent can hear: "Dad, I got a job!" It was a beautiful area and I was a little sad when he left for a better position near Detroit. The Traverse City firm commissioned an analysis of its operations shortly after Sam started there, and it concluded that employee morale was low. The first step they took was to cancel the Christmas party, figuring "what's the point?" It took him a few minutes to convince me he wasn't kidding.
As the parent of a Gen Zer and a Gen Alpha (though he swears he’s Gen Z, and he is on the cusp year) the Gen Z kid would DIE before using Sigma as Slang and the Gen A kid says it ALL the time as a nonsense word. The Gen Z lone wolf thing is WAY more niche.
I only knew LSU because at one point I helped organize a conference with someone who got his PhD there; his email signature was Geaux Tigers!
There's also the Florida Key, plus the eponymous Bogart movie.
Unlike Rex, I liked the TENET on top of TENT. Too bad the series didn't continue with TEN below that; I don't think there's anything you can put on top of the series, though.
Pretty nice theme-deprived FriPuz.
Hardest thing about it for M&A: Findin a copy of the puz! ... Tried to print off a newspaper version of the puz at the NYTPuz website, and got the ThursPuz! [M&A hadn't get around to that puz's solvequest yet -- was their site tryin to remind m&e, or somethin?
@RP: "Tenet" was a pretty good schlock flick. Especially if U are into time travel.
staff weeject pick, of a mere 8 choices: MOS. I've no earthly (or alien) idea what its {12 pgs., maybe} clue means. Anyone know?
some faves included; KICKEDASS. ALAKAZAM. BLOODDONOR clue.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Adams dude.
@RP: "Green Onions" by Booker T & MGs -- primo instrumental! Have loved listenin to my 45 of it, over the years.
Masked & Anonymo4Us
... any bright ideas, on the followin puppy? ...
"Just a Notion" - 7x7 12 min. themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Easy, but MAY I and SEAT before CAN I and CENT slowed my whoosh.
@Southside, I suspect that there are many “cosmetic” procedures you would find even grosser, but yeah…I’ve never understood why people do that.
@Robert and Mette…I haven’t seen you comment before but MOST people on the blog are not hyper-critical and respond rudely to questions like yours. I love to read Rex’s take and will confess I don’t click every link or study it like a final exam.
Is anyone else having trouble printing today’s puzzle? I usually solve with paper and pencil. Help!
Kristi Noem immediately came to mind with lip filler answer.
p.s.
“got”, not “get”, in first msg attempt.
Oh, and that there MOS clue meanin just dawned on m&e … one page for each month. duh. M&A brainpan is gettin sooo rusty, with age…
M&A
FIRE SALE was perhaps my fave clue/answer combo. BOOM MIC, BLOOD DONOR, and PEEKABOO are pretty good, too. BAR TRIVIA’s not bad, unlike its clue. Crude type that I am, I really liked KICKED ASS.
Loved ALAKAZAM, not for its magic connection but because we’ve had a five year old, our grandson, living with us for the last 2 weeks and when he’s not building stuff with Lego bricks or racing Hot Wheels cars, he’s doing something Pokemon-related. He has a dictionary style book, with illustrations, listing everything you might want to know about every Pokemon character in the universe. This is not a slim volume. His fave is Charmander and he brought along his stuffed version of this fire-type guy to keep him company on the long flight from Brisbane. So thanks, Rex, for posting the pic of ALAKAZAM.
So, some nice longer answers surrounded by … what? I can’t actually remember.
This age Egs for the chuckles and Lewis for reminding me of some answers I had especially enjoyed. Beside peekaboo, alakazam, plinth and rare bird, I liked kickedass and blood donor
I confidently dropped in RARA AVIS for 34D "One-of-a-kind individual". Definitely BOOED when I saw it had to be the more mundane RARE BIRD.
We only get one ONION RING? At least there are multiple SCALLIONS. Speaking of which, the grid leans heavily on the POC (plural of convenience) to get the job done, including several two for one POCs, where a Down and an Across share a letter count boosting, grid filling final S. See RETAPE/INCA, NFL TEAM/ROOM, ER/SCALLION, MUSE/HORDE, BLOG/ANT FARM, and FORM/EVE. Each of those Ss just fill up space without adding anything of significance to the puzzle.
As further evidence of my pedantic bona fides, I thought 44D "Pretty please?" should be MAY I, not CAN I.
I can un-BRAG better than you; my streaks on SB are usually in the under-10 range
Rex's link says in part "sigma male, a phrase and concept credited to controversial far-right activist Theodore Robert Beale. " But I wouldn't be surprised he stole it from Six Sigma, as you posit.
I took MOS to mean months. 12 pages in a yearly calendar, each one depicting a month.
When I clicked Newspaper Version I got Thursday's puzzle; I quit and started again and just clicked the print button and got today's.
Once you know it's a 5 letter answer they do.
That's great news about your wife; I can just imagine the relief, both hers and yours.
As my PhD adviser once said, "Growing old is not for wimps!"
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