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

Constructor: Colin Adams

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

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)

• • •

The highs here just aren't high enough. The grid is solid. It's fine. But the marquee stuff doesn't seem to have a lot of energy to give. This just seems very tame and unambitious next to most themelesses. Usually you can tell which answers were the "seed" answers, the ones that the puzzle was built around, the ones that the constructor had set aside to use someday because they're fun / cool / unusual. I can't tell what those answers were today. KICKED ASS? BEACH BUM? ALAKAZAM? LIP FILLER? These are the most interesting things in the grid, but these answers are also where interestingness tops out. It's hard to get too excited about OPEN SPACE or RARE BIRD or NFL TEAMS or RETAPES. Again, the grid holds together well, it's competently made, there simply aren't any proper highlights. Also, no real difficulty. And a lot of the fill runs both short (3-4-5) and either overcommon or somewhat ugly (RUNAT ADELE CANI BOK MOS ADUE HOU ILOST USEME ENRON). Lots of filler, not enough killer. 

[38D: Part of a film studio's overhead?]

There were only two points in the puzzle where I had even a moment's hesitation. Trying to turn the corner from the NW up into the NE, I stalled when I didn't know Kaitlin OLSON (I've seen her name, for sure, but that's one of those shows where the world zigged and I zagged—I think maybe I've seen one episode), and then instead of PICO I had NANO at 7D: One-trillionth. NANO is (merely) one-billionth. The NANO error did give me my one memorable, semi-fun moment of the puzzle, when I wanted the ingredient in the savory Chinese pancake to be ONION-something, and while wrong, the correct answer was ultimately in the ONION family—a weird coincidence, which was followed by an even weirder coincidence, which was that ONION actually was in the puzzle, just down below (52A: Bit of a fast-food side order = ONION RING). This weird ONION mistake that revealed near-symmetrical onions in the puzzle was maybe the highlight of my solve, and it was all a bizarre accident. The other moment of hesitation that I had came in the parfait answer. Apparently I don't eat enough parfaits, or even see them, or really know what they are. I think of them like a layered dessert of some type in a tallish glass dish (the kind that allows you to see the layers). And this appears to be basically correct. Somehow I didn't know OATS were involved, at all, let alone as a topping. Just ... uncooked oats? Granola oats? Why would you eat these? Was ice cream not available?

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.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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The "p" in Paddington Station? / FRI 7-4-25 / What comes before B? / Gossip, informally / Rapper who won his first Grammy with "King's Disease" / Hefty herbivore / RIghtmost column on the periodic table / Tree goop / Put a pilot back into action? / Nickname for basketball's Mike Krzyzewski

Constructor: Colin Adams

Relative difficulty: Easy 

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: CHIN (50D: Gossip, informally) —

intransitive verb

slang : to talk idly (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Got off on the wrong foot with this one, as it wanted not one but two pop culture names from me right off the bat, before I ever got out of the NW. This is bad editing. It's bad when a single section gets too (TOO!) dense with any one kind of proper noun. Since NAS can't very well be changed, then ELLE should be. Scads of other ways to clue ELLE. SLEWs, even. To be hit with a 2014 song title and a 2020 album title within the first ten seconds of the solve ... unpleasant. I know that ELLE King exists, and that's about all I know about ELLE King. And I certainly had no idea NAS did anything in 2020, let alone anything Grammy-winning. So before I even got started, my feeling toward this one was "bah." But at least I knew NAS and knew that ELLE King was a musical name of note, and that latter bit of knowledge eventually got me straight up there, but still—inhospitable opening. I'm pro pop culture in puzzles, just ... spread it out. Luckily, the puzzle did not continue in this irksome fashion. There are only a handful of names in the entire rest of the puzzle, which is (for the most part) solid and nicely varied in terms of its frame of reference. Some might say it's a little too sportsy (COACH K, SHOHEI OHTANI, BATTER'S BOX, that clue on SERVE (44D: Start to rally, maybe)), or a little too CORPORATE (shilling, unnecessarily, for UBER and ORAL-B). Count me among the latter group. But there were enough nice marquee answers here to keep me relatively happy. The first time the puzzle tilted my feelings from negative to positive was with "THIS OLD THING?" an answer I could see materializing before I ever looked at the clue (such is the power of short crosses). Great colloquial phrase. Pair it with the greatest player in the history of Major League Baseball (sorry, Babe Ruth), and you've got two powerful pillars to build your grid around. This ended up being an enjoyable experience overall, even if it ended somewhat as it began, with a disappointing small corner, this time in the SE. The UBER ad + OXES (?) = no. Put those OXES in an UBER and get them out of my sight.

[TONI!]

With the exception of the very beginning, there weren't many places in this grid where I wasn't flying. Frequently felt like I was solving a Tuesday-level puzzle. By far the hardest part, the stickiest area, was the "GOD" part of "GOD, YES," ugh (42D: "Abso-freakin'-lutely!"). As with the "UH" in "UH, OK" (12D: "Fine, I guess"), I had no idea what the puzzle was going to do with the first half of the answer. Seemed completely arbitrary. I had "-O-, YES" and was kind of alternating between "WOW, YES!" and "BOY, YES!" (kinda like "BOY, BYE"* but more positive). Now, I could've wiggled my way out of this impasse if I'd only remembered that the rightmost column on the periodic table was GASES, but the only thing my brain could remember was INERT ... because that's what those GASES are. More commonly called the Noble GASES now, they were def known as "inert GASES" when I took chemistry in high school ("historically," wikipedia tells me—thanks for that, wikipedia). Remembered the INERT part but forgot the GASES part, that is just so typically me. So anyway, GOD/GASES was my hang-up. Didn't help that those answers were right on top of MEDIA SHY, which was also tough for me to get from the clue (51A: Avoiding coverage, in a way). But that was it for me, difficulty-wise. Everything else was slam-bang fast. 

Had a couple of weird moments where it felt like this puzzle had been hanging out with me for the past few days, as it was throwing me stuff I had just been thinking or talking about. I remarked the other day to my wife, out of the blue (mostly), that I thought my favorite living actress, and one that didn't get nearly enough credit for her greatness as she should, was TONI Collette. And that was just one week after my best friend asked me (during our lake vacation) if I'd ever seen Muriel's Wedding, to which I replied as if she'd insulted me: "Of course I did. I think I saw it with you!" Yes, 1994, Abba, I'm almost certain we saw it together during grad school when I put way more energy into movies and my friends than I did into my ostensible reason for being in grad school. Good times! Anyway, TONI has been freshly on my mind. And only yesterday I was listening to Conan O'Brien's recent interview with Martin Short, in which they talk a bunch about Short's being inducted into the "Five Timers Club" on SNL (8D: Show with an illustrious "Five-Timers Club," in brief) (a made-up "club" for people who have hosted the show at least five times).  And speaking of watching movies in grad school with my friends (as I was, just ... above [points with finger] right there), last week at the lake we rewatched our most-watched (by far) movie of the '90s, Dazed & Confused, which opens with Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" playing over a slo-mo shot of a MUSCLE CAR (a GTO) cruising into the high school parking lot. So even if ELLE and NAS did nothing for me up front, the puzzle eventually got around to things that have been on my mind, and for that, I was grateful.

[I know I posted this opening scene very recently but it's classic so I don't care]

Bullet points:

• 16A: Hurly-burly (HOO-HA) — crossword puzzle really loves this one. Me, not so much. As Google's A.I. will tell you (correctly, it turns out) if you search [hoo ha], HOO-HA is commonly used as slang for "vagina." This meaning has really taken off, so much so that I'd say it's the dominant meaning for many, if they know the term at all. I'm not big on cringey euphemisms for genitalia. Duluth Trading Co. has an underwear line called "Bullpen" (you know ... for your balls?) and a line of jeans called "Ballroom" and I won't come anywhere near either (though I love their products in general). As for HOO-HA, a cursory image search yields prodigious evidence of what I'm talking about:

• 60A: To pieces? (ODES) — "pieces" of poetry that are frequently titled "To [something]"
• 6D: Put a pilot back into action? (REAIR) — since aviator-type pilots fly through the air, it seems like it might be worth noting, just in case there's some confusion, that the "pilot" in question here is a television pilot.
• 7D: Healthful smoothie ingredient (KALE) — a couple years back, my daughter designed Rex Parker thank-you cards with pictures of my cat Alfie on them. She did five versions. One was of Alfie standing on his hind legs to get at some KALE:

[original photo]

That's all. Well, not all. In honor of our country's birthday ... here's one more thing from Dazed & Confused:

["Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."]

Happy 4th, everyone!

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*[from "16 Slang Terms You Should Know To Stay Hip With Your Kids"]: "Yes, “girl, bye” is a slang term. Yes, you can use “boy, bye” as well. And yes, they do in fact mean goodbye. Sort of. Similar to “bye, Felicia,” these slang terms are meant to express disbelief, disagreement, or disapproval towards someone or something. They’re often used in a sassy or assertive manner to express that the speaker is uninterested, fed up, or annoyed with the person they are addressing. Basically, it means the speaker is done with the interaction and wants to move on."

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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Going backward, in skateboarding slang / FRI 2-21-25 / Frozen, flexible first-aid items / "Fortunate Son" subject, informally / Rarest of all state birds / Utterly defeated, as n00bs / Its name in Botswana is the same as the word for "money" / What pogonophobia is the fear of

Constructor: Colin Adams

Relative difficulty: Easy (except for a single square ...)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: NIKKI Glaser (29A: Comedian Glaser) —

Nikki Glaser (/ˈɡleɪsər/; born June 1, 1984) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and television host. She hosted the television series Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, which premiered on Comedy Central in 2016. She starred in the 2022 reality show Welcome Home Nikki Glaser? on E! She hosted the reality TV dating shows Blind Date (2019) on Bravo and FBoy Island (2021–2023) on HBO Max and The CW and its spinoff Lovers and Liars on The CW. She also hosted the 2025 Golden Globe Awards, which made her the first solo female host in Golden Globes history.

She has acted in the Amy Schumer comedy films Trainwreck (2015) and I Feel Pretty (2018) and has appeared on shows such as Inside Amy Schumer and A.P. Bio. She has competed in competition shows such as Dancing with the Stars (2018) and The Masked Singer (2022). She has also participated in the roasts of Rob Lowe (2016), Bruce Willis (2018), Alec Baldwin (2019), and Tom Brady (2024). She has received nominations at the Critics' Choice Television Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Grammy Awards, and Primetime Emmy Awards. (wikipedia)

• • •

A good puzzle ruined by a textbook Natick—a single square that I had no way of knowing. A single square that I had to guess at. I guessed wrong. That is the nature of a guess—sometimes you're wrong. I thought my guess was based on solid inferences. I thought it was the more likely of the two options, based on the info in the clues and what I knew about the subjects involved. But nope. Final square—incorrect. Would've been a totally different result if that square had simply been a different letter. Change the "K" in FAKIE (!??!!?!?!?!) to FACIE (as in the term "prima FACIE"), and I got it ... because I know the term "prima FACIE," unlike the term FAKIE, which, as I say, "!??!!?!?!?!" If "K" had been "C" then NIKKI would've been NICKI, which, it turns out, is exactly how some people spell that name. Examples? Oh, I dunno, NICKI ****ing Minaj, for one. Worse, the FAKIE clue (24D: Going backward, in skateboarding slang) had nothing in it that indicated "fake," but it did refer explicitly to the direction the skater is "facing." Because that clue suggested "face" and In No Way suggested "fake," and because NICKI is, in fact, a way (a famous way) to spell that name, I guessed wrong. Did the rest of the puzzle happen? Don't know, don't care. From where I sit, the most baffling editorial choice I've seen in a while—making that a "K" instead of a "C."

To be clear, I have no problem with either FAKIE or NIKKI being in the grid. The comedian is definitely crossworthy—I knew her! Just not how to spell her first name, apparently—and FAKIE ... is stupid (as is the idea that I'm supposed to know any skateboarding term beyond "OLLIE"—but as long as the crosses are fair, I got no problem with stupid things outside my wheelhouse. Happens every day. It's *specifically* the cross at the "K" that is the problem. For reasons stated. As I said, the rest of the grid was good—at least, that's what I vaguely remember. This is a total self-own (self-pwn?). But hey, if I'm the only one who had an issue there, then ... honestly, I'll be surprised, but strange things happen, who knows? If I'm a total outlier, apologies for not feeling like taking the time to talk about how much I liked the rest of the grid. Naticks are fatal errors. They suck all the joy out of the solve. Hard to write about the joyful parts of a puzzle when the feeling of joy has been completely drained away.

["And every stop is neatly planned / For a poet and a ONE-MAN BAND..."]

But before the last horrible square, I remember enjoying the BARHOPPING—the WET MARTINIs and the PIÑA COLADAs (side by side!), and ... I mean, OREO COOKIEs are an unusual bar snack, but OK, why not? (not in love with the redundancy of OREO COOKIE, but ... the phrase was probably used in advertising at some point, and it was easy to get, so I'm not really mad). Clean fill and strong longer answers everywhere I look, honestly. TIME TO KILL. ONE-MAN BAND. ZERO TO HERO. This would've been a well above-average Friday themeless. But the "K" square is the "K" square, and it's all I'm going to remember (unless I can forget this experience entirely, which I'm hoping tomorrow's puzzle helps me to do).

Assorted observations:

• 18A: Sue at Chicago's Field Museum, e.g. (T-REX) — I remember seeing this clue for the first time years ago and thinking "how the hell should I know? I've never spent any time in Chicago" (seriously, still true—I should fix that). But now, this clue is a gimme. This either speaks to my ability to learn or the puzzle's inability to be more creative. Either way, gimme.
• 21A: Jewelry designer Picasso (PALOMA) — missed opportunity to make this puzzle even cocktailier than it already is. I had my first PALOMA this past summer—apparently they're very popular, but they're not really for me, as I have become less and less of a fan of juice or soda in my cocktails over the years. Just the hard stuff, please, no fizz or fruit, thanks. Anyway, a PALOMA is tequila, lime juice, and grapefruit soda, although there are all kinds of variations

• 34A: "Fortunate Son" subject, informally ('NAM) — this seems like a term Americans who served there might say, but in everyone else's mouth, this abbrev. has always felt ... off. Inappropriate, somehow. Unless you're referring to the long-running Marvel comic book The 'NAM (1986-93)—if it's in an actual title (or if, say, it were in the actual lyrics of the CCR song in question today), then it's fine.

• 40A: Ancient Greek city known for its ornate columns (CORINTH) — I was looking for something related to DORIC or IONIC, the only two "column" types I know. I know CORINTH mainly for its allegedly rich leather ...

• 7D: Pot grower's activity? (POKER) — two POKER clues (see also ANTE) and I didn't even flinch! This is what happens when you ply me with cocktails... annoyability: diminished.
• 51A: ___ Lewis, first recipient of the James Beard Living Legend Award (EDNA) — probably should've been Word of the Day today. Never heard of her. I took one look at -DN-, and wrote in EDNA w/o even glancing at the clue.

Edna Regina Lewis (April 13, 1916 – February 13, 2006) was a renowned American chef, teacher, and author who helped refine the American view of Southern cooking. She championed the use of fresh, in season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan-, not deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants. (wikipedia)

• 44D: Its name in Botswana is the same as the word for "money" (RAIN) — interesting, I guess, but absolutely no help in getting the answer. Is the idea that RAIN means crops means ... money? (yes, rain is scarce in the Kalahari, so it's a blessing in more ways than one)
• 39D: What pogonophobia is the fear of (BEARDS) — I would've thought fear of pogo sticks ... or the comic strip "Pogo" ("Pogo!? No!!!!").

• 44A: 50 Cent piece? (RAP) — 50 Cent is a rapper (and actor) of some renown. But you probably knew that. 
• 36D: Subtly flirts with (WINKS AT) — LOL. I thought you said "subtly." Winking at someone is not "subtle"; it's overt and either corny, creepy, or hilarious, depending on context.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Small stretches, perhaps / FRI 1-3-25 / Woody's crush in "Toy Story" / Motif in 1995's "Se7en" / Simple question on a high schooler's hand-drawn poster / Subpar dining hall food / Common nap times, in brief / Much-sought-after commodity in "Dune" / Dutch constituent in the Caribbean / Area between the ribs and the round

Constructor: Colin Adams

Relative difficulty: Easy or Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: PROMposal (48D: Simple question on a high schooler's hand-drawn poster = PROM) —

The teenage rite of passage known as prom (short for promenade meaning "a ceremonious opening of a formal ball consisting of a grand march of all the guests") began in the late 1800's as a formal dinner held by American colleges and universities in the northeast to teach the graduating class etiquette before students set off into the world. Some high schools began to adopt the tradition around the turn of the century, and by 1950 it was the norm in American high schools. These days the prom has become somewhat of a competitive sport with students and even schools competing to have the best venue, attire, transportation, and, in recent years, the best invitation. // Asking someone to prom is almost as old as prom itself, but as the act of asking grows more and more elaborate the phrase "asking someone to prom" is no longer sufficient. The portmanteau from prom and proposal is a fairly recent creation apparently only dating back to 2011, and it's a fun new word used to refer to the surprising ways people are asking dates to prom. [...] So what makes asking someone to prom a promposal? You can ask someone to prom by presenting them with flowers and saying "Will you go to prom with me?" but a promposal often involves a little something more, and usually includes a special or elaborate act or presentation that took some thought and time to prepare. A promposal can be as simple as giving your intended date a giant cookie that reads "Prom?" or as over-the-top as jumping out of a plane holding a sign that reads "I'm Falling 4 U, PROM?" (merriam hyphen webster dot com)

• • •

This one felt flat, until the end (SE corner) when it really SPICEd up and closed strong. Hard to feel like you're gonna be going anywhere good when your opening word is AFTS :( (1D: Common nap times, in brief) and your next word is a -LOP kealoa* (2D: Subpar dining hall food) (we get SLOP, but GLOP has been clued via dining hall and cafeteria fare lots of times). And then a Hindu god, if only I could keep them straight (I wrote in RAMA—that's a god, right? Yes) (3D: Hindu god of love = KAMA). And then fourthly, up front, there was ESC (4D: F1 neighbor), with a clue that was *identical* to one we had just last week, I'm pretty sure (almost identical: [What's left of F1] (12/28/24)). That cruddy opening does resolve into FLASH FLOOD (14A: Sudden weather phenomenon) and TOM COLLINS (17A: Cocktail that's called a French 75 if you use Champagne instead of soda water), a decent long pairing, which helped ease the pain, but still, the first half or so of this puzzle was mostly just workmanlike, not exactly fun. It wasn't til "SUCKS TO BE YOU" that I thought "hey, there we go, there's the energy, hello, nice of you to show up." And when I threw JERSEY SWAP across the SE corner to close, I thought "Nice." Closing strong really makes a difference to one's overall impression of the puzzle (and vice versa—nothing worse than having a good time and having the ending of your solve just go pffffffft). 

Actually, my finish today was marred by tragedy, but it wasn't the puzzle's fault. Not exactly. I had gotten sloppy on the way down and ended up leaving an obviously wrong letter in one of the squares (one of the hardest squares in the puzzle, I think). I went past 45A: Small stretches, perhaps when I had only --BS because I had no idea. When I picked up the "I" (for "-IBS"), rather than relooking at the "-IBS" clue, I went by memory ... and misremembered it as a different clue that asked for a part (or "stretch"???) of the body ... so I wrote in RIBS. Turns out, I was thinking of the LOIN clue (22A: Area between the ribs and round). Which, I see now, actually has "RIBS" in it (!?!?! editor / test-solver / proofreader should've caught that). Anyway, I was just SLOPpy. Or GLOPpy. One of those. Thankfully, RISTS is not a word, and so my mistake was easy to find (45D: Hitmakers? = FISTS). Crossing that very deceptive FIBS clue with a "?" clue made that single square oddly treacherous, at least to me. But there was nothing treacherous at all about the rest of the grid. Breezy Friday, on the whole.

Still, there were a few slow points. Weird that so many A- words fit the clue at 1A: Out of whack. Well, there's ASKEW and AMISS. There's also AWRY, though that "fits" only at the level of sense (not letter count). That wasn't a slow point, actually, just a bumpy point. I got slowed down significantly only in trying to get in and out of the middle. Specifically, I couldn't fill out the phrase "DON'T ___" at 8D: Command to stay. Without the second part of that answer, I had no access to the center. "DON'T" is contained entirely in that upper-left quadrant. One more letter would've given me at least a little light. But nope. "LEAVE" seems straightforward now, but my only thought was "BUDGE," and when that didn't work ... stuckness. I got at the center from the west, using "SAY CHEESE" to pry my way in, but it didn't help much with the center, and also left me with the same word-break problem at LOGIC PUZZLE that I had with "DON'T LEAVE," i.e. I got the first word and had no idea about the second. LOGIC .... shrug. I work off crosses from start to finish when I solve, jumping around *only* when that method breaks down. It was in danger of breaking down today, but then, from just "-ECI-" I got PRECISELY, and I was back in business. PRECISELY to PERCH to LOGIC PUZZLE took care of the SW, and PRECISELY to REV to LEAVE to PRANK CALL took care of the middle and got me access to the east. No problems after that.

Bullets:

• 5D: Challenge to an intruder ("WHO GOES THERE?") — if you're the watchman in Hamlet, sure. Actually, I have misremembered this—the opening question of Hamlet is "Who's there?" I blame The Brady Bunch (Peter played a watchman in a play (maybe Hamlet??) and he had only one line, as I remember):

• 10A: What a bodybuilder builds during a bulk cycle (MASS) — "This meeting could've been an email" is how I think of clues like this, only what I mean is "This long clue could've been reduced to just one of the words in the clue": Today, [Bulk]. Just "bulk." That would do it.
• 20A: Basis of some admissions (GUILT) — tricky. Sounds like it wants something to do with college admissions (to my ears, anyway)
• 23A: Heaps of dressing? (LAUNDRY) — When I had "DON'T BUDGE" in place (at 8D: Command to stay), I wanted this to be BEDDING. So close!
• 47A: Much-sought-after commodity in "Dune" (SPICE) — since our last Dune clue a month ago ([Spice planet in the "Dune" universe] => ARRAKIS), I have watched a Dune—the first part of the newer Dune starring Timothée Chaladune and Dunedaya. I also watched the first half hour or so of David Lynch's Dune, which I really should finish, as I prefer its Lynchian bizarreness to the slick humorless spectacle of NuDune. Anyway, you don't have to watch much of any version of Dune to know SPICE is involved. It's the first order of business and main topic.
• 54D: Motif in 1995's "Se7en" (SIN) — true enough, though "motif" makes it sound almost ... decorative. Which it's not. Unless you decorate in gore. By the way, happy 30th birthday to this movie. I wish I could give the movie a present, just so the movie could ask me...

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

We're down to the last of the Holiday Pet Pics (no more please!)

Here's Curly. He came with the name "Squirrel" but then one day he chased a squirrel in the park and his owner was shouting "squirrel!" and it was all a little too ridiculous

[Thanks, Karl]

Millie Bean and Tula will do anything (apparently) for Christmas treats...

[Thanks, Patrick]

Knope seems unsure what the fuss is all about. "Is this bed?" That's really the only question that matters, and if you're a cat, the answer is always "yup."

[Thanks, Allison]

This is Bulldog. He's actually a standard poodle working undercover. Here he is in one of his many disguises, posing as a harmless family pet named "Santa Baby"

[Thanks, Karen and Joe]

Finally today we have Casey, who always loved stocking time. RIP, Casey, what a good dog.

[Thanks, Tom]

See you next time.

*kealoa = a pair of words (normally short, common answers) that can be clued identically and that share at least one letter in common (in the same position). These are answers you can't just fill in quickly because two or more answers are viable, Even With One or More Letters In Place. From the classic [Mauna ___] KEA/LOA conundrum. See also, e.g. [Heaps] => ATON or ALOT, ["Git!"] => "SHOO" or "SCAT," etc.  

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