Constructor: Alan Siegel
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (like, on the easier side of Monday-easy)
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THEME: SMARTPHONE (63A: Device that can replace 16-, 23-, 37-, 40- and 51-Across) — the clue tells you exactly what the theme is, so why am I bothering to write an explanation? I don't know:
Theme answers:
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Way too matter-of-fact to be interesting. Yes, your phone can do all these things. We all know what phones can do. They've been doing them for well over a decade now. PEDOMETER!? Were those ever common? This puzzle feels very behind-the-times, very "can you believe the gadgets and gizmos they have these days?" Maybe ten years ago this would've been moderately interesting. Today, it just reads as musty. The fill isn't doing the theme any favors, either. It also feels stale, KPOP and KCUP notwithstanding (you really should be limited to just one "K" answer per grid, but since those are some of the only currentish things in the grid, we'll let it slide). MIDI always feels old (if you clued it in relation to music technology, that would be cool, but probably not easy enough for a Monday, even though it's the only kind of MIDI that comes up when you google MIDI); INKPOT, superold; FCC OOH EMO feels rough and xwordese-y; MENSA (ugh) ORSO ODEON OMAN, same. I don't understand why the short stuff in the nooks and crannies of this grid isn't a lot cleaner. In particular, I don't understand going with this SW corner. ENGR is grievous to look upon, and under the partial BONA it's somehow even worse. This quick rewrite isn't great, but everything in it is better than ENGR and BONA (and I did it in about a minute, without the aid of construction software):
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Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (like, on the easier side of Monday-easy)
Theme answers:
- ALARM CLOCK (16A: Morning waker-upper)
- PEDOMETER (23A: Step counter)
- COMPASS (37A: Orienteering aid)
- ROLODEX (40A: Trove of business contacts)
- CAMCORDER (51A: What many a home movie was once shot on) (weird to reference bygone-ness here and *only* here when the point of your theme is that they've *all* been superseded)
Utica (/ˈjuːtɪkə/) is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 U.S. Census. Located on the Mohawk River at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains, it is approximately 95 miles (153 kilometers) west-northwest of Albany, 55 mi (89 km) east of Syracuse and 240 mi (386 km) northwest of New York City. Utica and the nearby city of Rome anchor the Utica–Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area comprising all of Oneida and Herkimer Counties.Formerly a river settlement inhabited by the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, Utica attracted European-American settlers from New England during and after the American Revolution. In the 19th century, immigrants strengthened its position as a layover city between Albany and Syracuse on the Erie and Chenango Canals and the New York Central Railroad. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city's infrastructure contributed to its success as a manufacturing center and defined its role as a worldwide hub for the textile industry. Utica's 20th-century political corruption and organized crime gave it the nickname "Sin City."
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As you can see, I also got rid of DR. MOM because it feels so goopy and sentimental and faux-nostalgic and semi-sexist and just generally made-up. "MR. MOM" I would absolutely accept, as it is a funny movie starring the amazing and always criminally underrated TERI (4) GARR (4). But DR. MOM just grates. Feels like advertising copy. Also, by changing OMEN to ONES, I get rid of that awkward OMEN / OMAN 1-2 "punch" at the end of the Acrosses. And I get rid of the grid's second"Star Wars" clue—two birds, one stone! You know there's something lacking in the puzzle's overall entertainment value when I'm spending most of my mental energy just reworking the short stuff. It doesn't feel like there's much else for me to do today.
My hometown is in the grid, but I don't have a ton of nostalgia for my hometown, and literally zero family members live there any more, so ... yeah, always weird to remember that I spent most of my childhood and my entire adolescence in FRESNO (1975-87) (47D: Largest inland city in California). I've lived in Binghamton almost twice as long now, but ages 5 to 17 somehow feel way more transformative, momentous, and memorable than ages ... blah blah blah to whatever I am now, it's all a blur, and COVID Times haven't helped unblur it. I never had a ROLODEX but I always thought they were cool-looking. The world was more aesthetically pleasing with some of these bygone gadgets in them. I miss card catalogues too, frankly. So informative, so satisfying to comb through. The flattening of all human experience into phone experience is one of the very worst things about recent technological "progress," if only for aesthetic reasons. Physical things and physical spaces are nice, and everyone just looks the same no matter what they're doing now. Chatting? Hunched over phone. Banking? Hunched over phone. Watching movie? Hunched over phone. Same same same. Ah well, the three-dimensional world was fun while it lasted. I want my puzzles to be current, but much of what passes for "current" in real life you can straight-up throw in the ocean as far as I'm concerned. Only don't do that, because the fish and birds are having a hard enough time with pollution as it is.
Hope your team won the "Big""Game"! (I lie, I don't care ... but I do hope you're happy ... see you tomorrow!)
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