That looks like the sort of laziness I'm looking for- although likely a bit of overkill... aha, pg 79 of the camel 3rd ed.:

*foo = \$bar;
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But I see that it creates a global, whereas I really only want a lexical....

local *foo = \$bar;
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would seem to come close though. Although, if I can't use a lexical, perhaps I should just declare our %bar before the function call, and just call it what it is without bothering to pass a reference... that seems like a bad solution though.

Thanks! I learned something. Of course, I'm always up for learning more, if any other smartymonks care to divulge their secrets.