Toy rocket company since 1958 / SUN 5-8-11 / First player listed Total Baseball / Millennia old Jordanian city / He wrote None but brave deserves fair

Constructor: Daniel A. Finan

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Working in Opposition" — two-word phrases where first word is an adjective and second word is its opposite (in plural noun form) ... except for the central theme answers, which somehow has a third central neutral part: (BAD FAIR GOODS)


Word of the Day: RISIBLES (65D: Sense of humor) —

n. pl: sense of the ridiculous : SENSE OF HUMOR {an article which tickled my ~ immensely—Vinnie Hicks} (Webster's 3rd Int'l Dictionary) [Vinnie Hicks??? That's an authority?]

• • •

Puzzle concept is fine, I suppose—pretty typical Sunday fare—but some of the fill was less than ideal. I think that Theme Density is overvalued, and that lots of puzzles are getting published lately that have tremendous Theme Density but also (likely because of said Density) significant flaws and infelicities in the fill. Eleven theme answers today, but ... it's not like the theme is scintillating, so do I really need eleven? Wouldn't nine do, especially if the grid could be cleaner?

Couple of rough crosses that I didn't fill in until all surrounding squares were filled: BIAS TIRE (35D: Radial alternative) / ESTES (54A: Toy rocket company since 1958) (never heard of the latter, and had BIO-TIRE at first because I assumed the first word of FAULTY SOUNDS was FOUL ...); and SUA (58D: ___ sponte (legal term)) / NOURI (64A: "Flashdance" actor Michael) (unusual (in xwords) Latin word and marginal actor with uninferrable name? Not good). Real puzzle of the day is RISIBLES, which is the terriblest word I've seen in a while (if RISIBLES is a word, then so is "terriblest"). Hard to find on the internet — well, hard to find in English. In French, it's common enough. I believe in RISIBLES only slightly less than I believe in RIBLET (51D: Barbecued bit) (did you know there's a RIBLET Mansion overlooking the Spokane River, named for Royal Riblet. Or that "The Riblet Tramway Company was once the largest ski chairlift manufacturer in the world" (wikipedia)?). As names go, DAVI is pretty terrible / obscure. Didn't know KERRI either, but at least that sounds like a name that someone might have (10D: Walsh with 2004 and 2008 gold medals in beach volleyball). Not sure I've ever seen ALI cross ALII before. I wonder what it's like to fly EL AL during the month of ELUL (67A: Month before Tishri). Those flights should be required to distribute crosswords to all passengers, esp. those headed to TEL AVIV. What else is there to say about this one? Not much.

Theme answers:

• 23A: Capris? (LONG SHORTS)
  
• 30A: Domes to let in London? (ROUND FLATS)
  
• 38A: Pre-2004 purchase from G.M.? (NEW OLDS)
  
• 47A: Sour notes? (FAULTY SOUNDS)
  
• 56A: Fractions of acres? (LITTLE LOTS)
  
• 70A: Shabby wares sold at an expo? (BAD FAIR GOODS)
  
• 83A: What socialists campaign for? (LEFT RIGHTS) — this one just doesn't sound right. Really sticks out.
  
• 91A: B and O, for presidents #43 and #44? (LAST INITIALS)
  
• 101A: Career criminals? (PRO CONS)
  
• 111A: Material for a biographer with a recorder? (TAPED LIVES)
  
• 121A: Best-looking rear ends? (TOP BOTTOMS)
  

Couldn't decide between TUT and TSK at 122D: Utterance of a finger wagger, but now see that TUT was already in the grid at that point (66A: "King ___," song premiered on SNL on 4/22/78). My favorite finger wagger was Dikimbe Mutombo, although his utterance would've been something like "not in my house" or "no, you may not put the ball into the basket at this time."

Bullets:

• 37A: Verizon forerunner (GTE) — I had MCI, which is apparently now a subsidiary of Verizon.
  
• 60A: He wrote "None but the brave deserves the fair" (DRYDEN) — the poet who gets most screwed by the typical Brit Lit I / Brit Lit II survey course divisions. He tends to fall into the gap, like Howard falling between the beds on his second honeymoon with Mrs. C in Season 6 of "Happy Days."
  
• 78A: Lead singer of the fictional Pussycats (JOSIE) — who's the lead singer of the *real* Pussycats?

• 89A: First player listed in "Total Baseball" (AARON) — "Total Baseball" being a statistical encyclopedia. Not hard to get even if you don't know baseball. Hank AARON is kind of a big deal.
  
• 95A: Battlefield sorting system (TRIAGE) — so, if you guessed Dewey Decimal System, you were wrong.
  
• 7D: Millennia-old Jordanian city that's a World Heritage site (PETRA) — learned it from crosswords and actually *remembered* it today, possibly for the first time. Did not know, and thus could not remember, the [Modern locale of ancient Illyria] (ALBANIA)
  

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. You can now purchase five crosswords from this past weekend's Crosswords L.A. Tournament. Price is just $5, all of which goes to the charity Reading to Kids. Worth it for the Tyler Hinman puzzle alone. Go here to purchase the set. You'll be glad you did.

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