Tenet of chivalry / MON 10-4-10 / FF's opposite / Early synthesizers / Sicilian spewer / Drinker's next day woe

Constructor: Adam G. Perl

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: Flip-Flops — theme answers are two-word phrases; phrases in top half of the grid are reversed in bottom half


Word of the Day: MOOGS (36A: Early synthesizers) —

Moog synthesizer (pronounced /ˈmoʊɡ/, mohg; often anglicized to /ˈmuːɡ/, moog) may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for analog and digital music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled analog synthesizer systems in the early 1950s. The technological development that led to the creation of the Moog synthesizer was the invention of the transistor, which enabled researchers like Moog to build electronic music systems that were considerably smaller, cheaper and far more reliable than earlier vacuum tube-based systems. (wikipedia)

• • •

Barely noticed this one. I felt almost guilty about how easy the theme answers were to get in the bottom half. Theme is cute, though STATE POLICE (23A: Highway troopers) and POLICE STATE (45A: Oppressive regime) aren't divergent enough for my taste—both firmly in the realm of law and order, while the items in the other pairs are from fairly different universes. Despite little oddities like SAPOR (6A: Taste) and the hard-to-parse DOORDIE (that's DO OR DIE, 28D: Like a dire situation), I flew through this in record time. Under 2:30, which, for me, is insane, even on a Monday.

Other theme answers:

• 17A: Michelle Obama and Laura Bush (FIRST LADIES)
  
• 56A: Tenet of chivalry (LADIES FIRST) — keep thinking this is "LADIES' NIGHT," probably because I want to play the Kool & the Gang song ... maybe I can find the Queen Latifah / Monie Love song "LADIES FIRST" ... yep, there it is. Mmm, college:

• 31A: Drinker's next-day woe (HANGOVER) — I've had a beer and a scotch today. HANGOVER unlikely.
  
• 39A: Eave (OVERHANG)
  

Love gin & TONICs, so it was with great irony that I blanked at 12D: Gin's partner until I had something like three crosses. FLOOR IT (22D: Put the pedal to the metal) [and not the PETAL to the medal] is probably my favorite non-theme answer of the bunch. Grid is a bit dull overall. A little heavy on Wheel Of Fortune letters (RLSTNE). I mean, just look at the SE corner, for example. Cheater squares in the east and west help keep the answers short and (largely) uninteresting.


A note on the clue for LADIES FIRST — [Tenet of chivalry] is an example of how debased the concept of "chivalry" is in contemporary culture. The paradigmatic example of "chivalry" now is a man's holding a door open for a lady. That's pathetic. Where are the elaborate rituals of courtesy!? The armor!? The horsemanship!? "Chivalry" when used in the modern sense is always at least mildly ironic. The word "tenet" makes the clue doubly laughable: "Thou shalt hold a door open for a lady, lest thou be thought a beast."

Bullets:

• 40D: Drunk's outburst (HIC!) — I was expecting this to be a lot more profane.
  
• 55A: Beachgoer's shade (TAN) — that's one of them. I prefer to stay pasty white—perhaps a mild ECRU, at best. Some people I've observed (namely Scandinavians on Greek vacations) go for red.
  
• 20A: Sicilian spewer (ETNA) — and not your uncle Tony after he's had too much to drink (speaking of [Drunk's outburst]...)
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]