Good morning, cruciverbalists. Malodorous Manatee here with his friend Shaun the Sheep. Shaun seems in fine fettle on this spring day. Easter, Passover and Flauschink have all come and gone (until next year) and it's a good time to sit back, relax, sip a piña colada, or two, and contemplate today's theme. After giving the matter some thought, Shaun has suggested that we start with the reveal:
34 Across: Palm fruit ... or what the creator of this puzzle's theme apparently is?: COCONUT. As in COCONUT Palm. Watch for falling objects!
Theme: I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
Merv Griffin
Jeffrey Wechsler is a name quite familiar to those who hang out at the LAT Crossword Corner. To say that he has constructed a shipload of puzzles published by the L.A. Times would be an understatement. If I am not mistaken, this is his second within one week and his one hundred seventy-ninth overall. For today's puzzle, Jeffrey has elected to riff on COCONUTS. As he suggests in the reveal, Jeffrey has apparently gone cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs due to all the research and writing and punning and cluing and re-writing. Then he has to sit back as editors second guess everything he has done. Oy! There certainly exists a correlation between all of this and one's mental well being. Whether or not there is causality is a matter best left to the judgement of you, dear reader.
14 Across: Attempted coup participants: CO-CONSPIRATORS. A coup d'etat (French for "blow of state" as used, also, in final blow or "coup de grace") often shortened to "coup" is the seizure of a government and its powers. In 1799, Napoleon and his CO CONSPIRATORS staged a successful coup against the ruling French Directory. Napoleon was, himself, the intended target of a coup. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Napoleon Bonaparte et Amis
20 Across: Many an 18th-century painter: ROCOCO ARTIST. ROCOCO is an elaborately ornamental style of painting.
42 Across: Environmentally concerned: ECO CONSCIOUS. ECO, ECO-friendly, and ECOlogical were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2008.
51. Source of an organic fiber: SILKWORM COCOON.
Silkworm Cocoons on a Mulberry Leaf
Let us now take a look at the other clues and answers. Puzzles are sort of like responsive reading, aren't they?
Across:
1. #1 Toto song that mentions the Serengeti: AFRICA. Toto is a band originally formed in Los Angeles in 1977. Depending on the source cited, the name came either from the canine in The Wizard of Oz or from the the phrase "in toto" meaning all encompassing and which was scrawled by the band, as a means of identification, on some of their early demo tapes. The Serengeti is a region of AFRICA renown, among other things, for its large lion population.
7. Whittling, for one: CRAFT.
12. Wavy patterns in some op art: MOIRES. Although it is a word that few of us have occasion to use, and as a plural on even fewer occasions, we do come across MOIRE not infrequently in puzzles.
13. Cool one's feet at streamside, say: DANGLE. A shaman gave a man a potion for erectile dysfunction. The instructions were to take only a single teaspoon and then count out loud: one, two, three. "How do I stop it from working?" asked the man. "Say one, two, three, four" replied the shaman. That evening when he and his wife were in the bedroom he followed the instructions. His wife became quite excited and, while taking off her clothes, asked "What was the one, two, three for?" This is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition. We might end up with a dangling participle.
17. Stretching muscles: TENSORS. Today's other anatomy lesson.
18. Iowa State city: AMES. Alternatively, a State University location often seen in crossword puzzles.
24. Low-quality: POOR.
26. CFO's degree: MBA. A company's Chief Financial Officer might, or might not, hold a Masters of Business Administration degree.
UCLA Anderson School of Management
Class of 1979
27. Intelligence org.: NSA. National Security Agency. We need to be careful, and not be too hasty, because sometimes it turns out to be the National Security Council.
28. Form close ties (with): BOND.
29. "Let's have at it!": GAME ON.
Wayne's World
32. Point: AIM.
33. Circle segment: ARC.
35. __ dog: TOP. TOP Dog means someone who is dominant, or apex, in their field.
36. Classic Pontiac: GTO. Gran Tourismo Omologato loosely translates to Grand Touring Homologated (a vehicle, or engine, approved for sale or for a particular use). I had a 1999 Suzuki SV650 motorcycle that was homologated for sale in California. When I went back to the dealer to ask why the owner's manual had me in shifting into sixth gear at 35 miles per hour when you could hit about 50 mph in first gear, the salesperson just smiled silently.
1969 Pontiac GTO
37. Not moving: AT REST.
38. Desires: YENS.
39. Bellows of "The Agency": GIL. "The Agency" was a television show about the CIA. GIL Bellows is an actor who appeared in that show and who also, among other roles, played Tommy in "The Shawshank Redemption" motion picture.
40. Dessert order: PIE.
41. Flower holders: BEDS. A reasonable attempt to device us but the use of the plural meant the neither VASES nor STEMS was going to fit. URNS would have fit but . . . .
47. Old Venetian judge: DOGE. The DOGE's Palace, en Venezia Italia has many murals on its walls painted by Tiziano Vecellio who we know as Titian. He was famous for his use of reds (the colors, not the barbiturates).
Doge Andrea Gritti by Titian
48. Catching a glimpse of: ESPYING.
There was a young lady named Hannah
Who slipped on a peel of banana
As she lay on her side more stars she espied
Than there are in the Star Spangled Banner
56. Most cunning: SLIEST.
57. When Rome wasn't built?: IN A DAY. Per the old saw. Rome was not built in a week either or, for example, was it built in the 10th century BCE. It was, according to legend, founded on April 21st 753 BCE.
58. Weighty reading: TOMES.
59. Guiding principles: TENETS.
Down:
1. Film lover's TV option: AMC. Originally known as American Movie Classics, AMC Network debuted in 1984 and originally focused on airing motion pictures made prior to 1950. As of 2015, almost 95,000,000 American households received the channel.
2. Pay, as a bill: FOOT. The idiom "FOOT the bill" is derived from an earlier idiom: to "foot up" or total the items on a bill at the bottom, or foot, of the bill. By the 1800's it had come to mean to pay the total at the foot of the bill.
3. It may be fried or puffed: RICE.
Fried
4. Piece of rebar, essentially: IRON ROD. Rebar is short for reinforcing bar.
5. Suppress, in a way: CENSOR.
A Hayes Code Certificate
See 44 Down
6. Part of NAACP: Abbr.: ASSOC. NAT'L would have left us a bit short so National ASSOCiation for the Advancement of Colored People it was.
7. Jaguar, e.g.: CAR. It could have been CAT but Co Coconspitators would have been a real stretch. Jeffrey used a different clue for CARs last Friday.
8. Genetic molecule: RNA. RiboNucleicAcid acts as a messenger carrying instructions fromDeoxyriboNucleicAcid.
9. Actor's rep.: AGT. AGENT One of about a dozen abbreviations in this puzzle - depending on what you chose to include.
10. Parade staple: FLOAT.
The "Animal House" Classic - 1978
11. Closed: TERMINATED.
The Terminator
13. Data storage medium: DISC.
15. Country club employee: PRO. As in golf PROfessional.
16. Stretches on a couch?: SESSIONS. A bit of misdirection. Not stretches such as one might do before exercising but stretches as in lengths of time. In this case, at a psychiatrist's office.
19. Some can be used forever--but only once: STAMPS. A nice riddle.
21. Signs: OMENS.
22. In the neighborhood of: ABOUT.
23. Overblown critique: RANT.
What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?
24. Elaborate entryways: PORTICOS.
25. Physician wearing a pink ribbon, perhaps: ONCOLOGIST.
28. Like potato chips, often: BAGGED.
What's In The Bag?
29. Showed up: GOT IN. Appeared wouldn't fit nor would arrived. In fairness, showing up and getting in are not quite the same thing . . . except, perhaps, on Saturdays.
30. Farm measures: ACRES.
31. Curly slapper: MOE. Hmmmm. let's see. As clued, MOE Howard from the Three Stooges. MOE Szyslak from "The Simpsons"? Moe Green, Moe Drabowsky? Naaah. Let's go with our very own.
Chairman Moe
34. Crime boss: CAPO.
Carmine Sabatini and the Stock Market
38. "That's well within my abilities": YES I CAN.
41. How to receive a freebie, perhaps: BUY ONE. A BUY ONE GET ONE Free offer sometimes appears in our puzzles.
43. Yo-Yo strings?: CELLO. Yo-Yo Ma is a world-renown cellist. I have had the pleasure of seeing him perform in person. My favorite recordings are the ones he did with Mark O'Conner and Edgar Meyer. O'Connor is a National Fiddle Champion and Mayer is the only bassist ever to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize for outstanding achievement in classical music.
Chief Sitting In The Rain / College Hornpipe
44. Official doc.: CERT. A candy mint? A breath Mint? Oh, it's a necessary-evil-let's-truncate-a-word-to-fit-the-grid moment. Hey, it happens. Official Document = CERTificate. See, for example, 5 Down.
45. Belief system: ISM. What is the correct way to pronounce nihilISM? Doesn't matter.
46. In the previously mentioned work, briefly: OP CIT. An abbreviation for OPus CItatum or OPere CItato.
49. Connection point: NODE.
50. Initialism for Tom Brady, according to most: GOAT. GOAT is often used to denote the player who's blunder causes a sports team to lose a game. In another context, as used here, it becomes the acronym Greatest Of All Time. Polar opposites.
52. 2000s toon heroine __ Possible: KIM. I am familiar with many animated series but I did not know this one. Fortunately, the answer was only three letters. Thanks, perps.
53. Tiny: WEE.
Wee Willie Winkie
54. CIA predecessor: OSS. The Office of Strategic Services
55. Finger Lakes locale: Abbr.: NYS. New York State. For the second time in a row, the puzzle I recap ends with a punt.
