Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: Gesture suggesting "I see what you did there" / MON 12-8-25 / Wyoming skiing mecca / Center of a stone fruit / Stuff on an artist's palette

Constructor: Dan Kammann and Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only)

THEME: DIGIT (40A: Finger or toe ... or, when read as two words, what you can do to the ends of 17- and 62-Across and 10- and 34-Down) — last words of themers are things you can "dig":

Theme answers:

JACKSON HOLE (17A: Wyoming skiing mecca)
WORK OUT WELL (62A: End successfully)
LAST-DITCH (10D: Eleventh-hour)
CHERRY PIT (34D: Center of a stone fruit)

Word of the Day: Robert Benchley (13A: "___ is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings": Robert Benchley => OPERA) —

Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist, newspaper columnist and actor. From his beginnings at The Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, through his many years writing essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from his peers at the Algonquin Round Table in New York City to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry.
Benchley is remembered best for his contributions to the magazine The New Yorker; his essays for that publication, whether topical or absurdist, influenced many modern humorists. He also made a name for himself in Hollywood, when his short movie How to Sleep was a popular success and won Best Short Subject at the 1935 Academy Awards. He also made many memorable appearances acting in movies such as Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Nice Girl? (1941). Also, Benchley appeared as himself in Walt Disney's behind the scenes movie, The Reluctant Dragon (1941). His legacy includes written work and numerous short movie appearances. (wikipedia)

• • •

Felt lucky that I was able to get this to WORK OUT WELL in the end, because the Downs-only solve was definitely a struggle for me today. It started out very smoothly, as I ran the table on the first five Downs I looked at, but after that, my progress became halting and awkward. Got OAKS and could see that the first word of 17A had to be (probably) JACKSON, but I crossed that "N" with FINS (6D: Scuba gear = TANK), and screech, no more progress in that direction. I managed to get down the west side of the grid, all the way down through CHERRY PIT, but once down there, yeesh, that SW corner. Couldn't decide on SCAB v. SCAR (56D: Covering over a wound), had no idea about LULL, but the real problem was that I could not figure out how to make any kind of answer out of S-YN--. Even after I got it down to S-YNOD, I just stared at it. I know the word "synod," but there was an extra space in there. SKY NOD, is that a thing? I figured I had something wrong, but all the crosses were very right, and so eventually I just had to run the alphabet to come up with SLY NOD. Not a happy discovery. SLY NOD must've come from someone's overcrowded wordlist. I can imagine sly looks and sly grins, but SLY NOD ... man, it just doesn't look good. I'm not sure how a nod can be "sly." Metaphorically, maybe, in the sense of a subtle reference ("... De Palma's SLY NOD to Hitchcock..."), but as clued, it's harder to see (56A: Gesture suggesting "I see what you did there"). I just searched ["sly nod"], in quotation marks, and most of the first hits that come up are crossword-answer sites referencing this clue. I didn't actually work out SLY NOD until the very, very end of the solve.

["... and giving a [SLY?] NOD, up the chimney he rose!"]

I also had some trouble remembering pets with food in cheek pouches (44D: Pet that stores food in cheek pouches). Chipmunks aren't really pets. Weirdly wanted ECHIDNA. Are those pets? Maybe I'm thinking of chinchilla? Echidnas are spiny anteaters of Australia and Papua New Guinea, so no, probably not pets. Anyway, not sure why HAMSTER wouldn't come to me, but it wouldn't. For a while. Until I got the "H" from HO-HUM. As for the WEI dynasty—no way, no how (64D: Early Chinese dynasty). I worked out WELL from the theme (which I could see at that point), and just inferred the other two letters. Eventually had to get back up to the top and fix the whole FINS debacle. After that, I bounced to the SW corner where I finished up with (ugh) SLY NOD. While I didn't like SLY NOD, I did like the theme. Or, rather, I thought it was just OK ... when I thought it was just a bunch of holes in the ground. Because I solved Downs-only, I didn't notice that DIGIT was a revealer. I thought that maybe the puzzle didn't have a revealer at all. But the reinterpretation of DIGIT is clever, and, combined with mostly solid fill, lifts this one into somewhat above-average territory.

Bullets:

52A: "Let me clarify ..." ("I MEANT...") — somehow "I MEANT" is 10x worse than "I MEAN" as fill, and the clue today compounds the problem. The clue and answer aren't grammatically parallel. "Let me clarify" is a complete sentence. "I MEANT" is not. After "Let me clarify...," despite the ellipsis, you would start a new sentence, whereas "I MEANT" would be followed immediately by a dependent clause ("... [that] I can't..." "... [that] you don't ..."). There's probably some way to swap them out one for the other, but my brain can't hear it.
12D: From ___ to dusk (DAWN) — easy enough, but I know the phrase the other way around: "from dusk to (or til) DAWN." Maybe I've been listening to too much music about partying all the time. Or else the Tarantino movie title is wielding undue influence. Oh, no ... I remember now who's responsible:

30A: "Enola Holmes" actress ___ Bobby Brown (MILLIE) — I feel like crosswords are single-handedly keeping Enola Holmes in our collective memories, usually as the non-ENOLA Gay clue for ENOLA. For that reason, I think it's important to steer away from Enola Holmes whenever possible. The first half of the final season of Stranger Things just dropped last month. That's the show that made her famous. I would've used that show here, for reasons of timeliness, and also to prevent ENOLA Fatigue.

1D: Magic charms (MOJOS) — got this right away, which feels like a very Crossword reflex. Like, I don't think I ever thought of "mojo" this way before crosswords, but now ... it's right there. Top of the brain.
34D: Center of a stone fruit (CHERRY PIT) — At the center of *a* stone fruit is a "pit." At the center of one specific type of stone fruit is a CHERRY PIT. This distinction caused me several seconds of hesitation, but once I got the "C" in there (from LYCRA, where it was easy to infer—not much else can go in that empty place ... nothing, in fact), I was able to imagine CHERRY and that was that.

That's all. See you next time.

And remember: 🌲🐈Holiday Pet Pics🐕🌲 can be sent to me through this Thursday (rexparker at icloud dot com), at which point I'll start posting them in waves, after every post through the end of the year. I'l be waiting patiently by my Inbox ... just as Sunny here waits patiently by the tree for Santa ... or for you to leave the room so she can destroy your tree:

[thank you, "crayonbeam"]

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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