Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle (2024)

THEME: ON THE BOARD (56A: Helping to manage a nonprofit, say ... or where to find the answers to the starred clues?)— things that can be found on a board:

Theme answers:

• CHESS PIECE (17A: *King or queen, but not prince) (chess board)
• WOOD GRAIN (10D: *Texture in a cross section of timber) (wood board)
• CHARCUTERIE (35A: *Artfully arranged meats) (also wood, but for eating off of: a serving board)
• THUMBTACK (32D: *Cousin of a pushpin) (bulletin board)

Word of the Day: SAMIRA Wiley(18D: Actress Wiley of "Orange is the New Black") —

Samira Denise Wiley(born April 15, 1987) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role asPoussey Washingtonin theNetflixcomedy-drama seriesOrange Is the New Black(2013–2019) and as Moira in theHuludystopian drama seriesThe Handmaid's Tale(2017–present), for which she won thePrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Wiley also had starring roles in such films asThe Sitter(2011),Nerve(2016),Detroit(2017), andSocial Animals(2018). She also narrated the Netflix documentaryNight on Earth(2020). (wikipedia)

• • •

I thought this was a fantastic Monday theme. It's not the snappiest revealer, maybe—since I was solving Downs-only, I had no idea how it was clued and assumed it had to do with sports, where, when a team (finally) scores, the announcer might say they're ON THE BOARD (as in the scoreboard, duh). And now that I write that out, I realize that there are probably lots of boards not represented by this puzzle. Scoreboards and tote boards and emery boards and diving boards—the theme has Sunday potential in terms of its scope, though (like Many theme ideas) it might get wearisome stretched to a 21x21 grid. At any rate, what we get is a vibrant set of theme answers, representing four very different board types, with CHARCUTERIE holding its rightful pride of place—that was probably the answer that was most fun to parse from a Downs-only perspective. I had no idea what the theme was and (as with every Across answer) had to just rely on letter patterns supplied by the Downs in order to make sense of the answer. The puzzle hadn't really grabbed my attention to that point, but "TRIP OUT, CHARCUTERIE FOREMEN!" has a way of making you take notice. I appreciated that the puzzle gave me a couple of fine longer non-theme answers (HARD TIME, COLD BREW) and even threw in some surprisingly sassy short stuff in the bargain, like DUCK IN or GO OFF, which is a normal enough phrase but in the grid looks like a typo for "goof." And as for DUCK IN, phew, also hard to pick up Downs-only. I had STOP IN and then when that didn't work ... zippo. It's fun when answers, even short answers, feel *worth* discovering, and not just the same old. This puzzle had far more personality than most Monday puzzles—more than most puzzles generally, to be honest.

The thing that made it harder than normal, at least from a Downs-only perspective was ... well, first, the fact that so many of the 7+-letter answers were Downs (when you can't work crosses, the longer an answer is, the harder it is to get if you don't know it right off the bat). But the bigger problem for me was the grid seemed kinda name-y. Pop culture name-y. These tend to have a heavy risk/reward component—if you know 'em, wheeee, if you don't, especially if the names aren't terribly common in the general population, yikes. My big yikes was SAMIRA Wiley. Now I kinda sorta knew the name, but the vowels, The Vowels! Sigh. I survived by the skin of my teeth, but *only* because ATE RAW was already in the grid, which allowed me to infer that (probably!) ATE was not the answer at 29A (-TE). My ear wanted something that sounded like SaMEERa as the name, but I was absolutely prepared to doubt my brain and go with SAMARA (which is not a thing, unless you are John O'Hara and you have an appointment there, in which case you'd have to add an "R").

Staring down SAM-RA / -TE, I was in guessing territory. After crossing "A" off the ... board ... I was left with "I" and "E" as plausible answers. Both ÉTÉ (French summer) and ITE ("meteor" suffix) are viable 3s, so I had to go with a hunch—which looked more namelike: SAMIRA or SAMERA. I chose the former. I had my reasons, but it was just dumb luck.

BATEMAN was right up my alley, but as I wrote it in I had this feeling that BATEMAN was gonna be somebody else's SAMIRA (i.e. a pop cultural blindspot, though with perhaps more familiar / inferable letter combinations) (25D: Patrick ___, villainous protagonist of "American Psycho"). Jason BATEMAN seems like the more Mondayish BATEMAN to me. But back to things I *didn't* know: ICE Spice! (9D: Rapper ___ Spice). I would like to confess my mistake and come clean about my membership in the LIL Spice fan club! I see we have other members here with us today (I see you). Welcome.

ATE RAW felt a little wobbly as a verb phrase (3D: Consumed uncooked). EAT RAW would be great, in the sense that it's a common fad diet slogan, but ATE RAW, while completely defensible, doesn't quite have the zip. UTERUS was hard as hell to parse because when POUCH wouldn't fit, I was out of ideas and not getting a ton of help from (inferred) crosses (44D: One of two for a female kangaroo, surprisingly). Once I gotGOOFF (boom!) and committed to NEGATE and ROMEO in the crosses, I saw the second UTERUS, but that was a weird way to come at that answer. Cool, but not Monday-easy. I never ever want ANAL in my grid (despite having put it in a grid once—once!) so I had PRIM in there at first (50D: Fastidious to a fault). The SW corner bugged me—it's a throwaway little corner, just an innocuous stack of fours, so I shouldn't notice it at all, but AAH / ASEC had me like "aaaah, no." There's something ugly about having *two* strongly subpar answers in such a tight space. My printed-out grid has alternative after alternative scribbled in the margin (if you construct, you know that your brain can fall down an infinite rabbit hole trying to make a tiny section of grid come out "right"). Here are the versions I currently have written at the bottom of my print-out:

AGRA

SPEC

HAWK

MIRA

SPEC

GAWK

TARA

ALEC

GAWK

HERA

AVEC

HAWK

SARA

AVEC

GAWK

Clearly none of the above answers bothers me as much as AAH (-not-AHH) and the partial ASEC. Your irritation level may, and probably does, vary.

[I know the puzzle wants me to seeHAWKas a bonus theme answer but I absolutely do not and would be willing to sacrifice him in a heartbeat to make this corner better (61A: Skater Tony who is also 56-Across?).]

See you later.

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THEME: "Typecasting" — familiar phrases are clued via names of famous people that are "typed" in some funny / punny way:

Theme answers:

• QUOTATION MARKS (22A: "RUFFALO" and "TWAIN"?)
• CUT-OFF JEANS (33A: HARLO and SMAR?)
• JUMPING JACKS (46A:LORD and KEMP?)
• STARBUCKS (63A: *O'NEIL* and *ROGERS*?)
• LONGJOHNS (66A: CEEEEENA and LENNNNNON?)
• SPLICED GENES (85A: WILDERODDENBERRY?)
• DASHED HOPES (100A: S-O-L-O and L-A-N-G-E?)
• TWO-DOLLAR BILLS (112A: RU$$ELL and BLA$$?)

["Starring JackLORD"]

Word of the Day: PAPAS fritas(72A: ___ fritas (Cuban French fries)) —

Papas Fritas(typically stylized aspApAs fritAs) were an Americanindie rockband that formed in 1992 and released three studio albums before breaking up in 2000. The band's name is Spanish for "fried potatoes" (specifically "French fries" in American English) but is also a pun on the phrase "Pop has freed us," which they used as both the name of their music publishing company and their2003 career retrospective. (In 2006 a German band also named Papas Fritas released a single called "Stehpisser," which is erroneously listed as part of the American band's discography in several online music stores.) (wikipedia) //In Spain, fried potatoes are calledpatatas fritasorpapas fritas. Another common form, involving larger irregular cuts, ispatatas bravas. The potatoes are cut into big chunks, partially boiled and then fried. They are usually seasoned with a spicy tomato sauce.Fries are a common side dish in Latin American cuisine or part of larger preparations such as thesalchipapasin Peru orchorrillanain Chile. (wikipedia)

• • •

[Prized possession]

If you're going to call it "Typecasting," then all the clues should involve actors. You're "casting," after all. I'm fine with the fact that the puns all involve the ways that the names are "typed" (out)—the "type" part works—but the "casting" part, come on, they should all be actors, especially since you've gone ahead and made many of them actors already. NICCCCCCHOLSON, not LENNNNNON. I guess finding two double-S (i.e. double-$) Bills who were both actors would've been a very tall order (impossible, actually). Still, it was annoying to have roughly half the names be actors (which seemed to fit the title) and then have the other names just be generally famous but non-acting people. Other than that, I guess the theme was fine. Cute, even. I know that the overall solving experience was grim, though. Too much crummy fill, too much weak cluing, not enough exciting or interesting answers. I was groaning and eye-rolling a lot today, with Peak Groan coming with TV TAPE, what on god's green earth is that supposed to be?! TV TAPE???! TV TAPE. I'm just going to keep saying it, hoping that through iteration, it will magically turn into something, something real, something someone has actually said before. Just gruesome. Embarrassing. How do you talk yourself into TV TAPE!? (21A: VCR medium). You gotta exercise discretion. You cannot let your wordlist push you around. There's so much of this going around—constructors who think that just because it's in their database, it's good. No experienced constructor is ever going to try to palm TV TAPE off on you. Criminal. Editorial malpractice. But since it's been used before, it's been used since—four times this century now. Precedent is not enough of a reason to include something. Certainly not something this unpleasant. (Every prior TVTAPE clue was [VCR insert]—I can't tell if this clue is better worse or same—probably same, in that I don't care, I just want the answer to go away)

I've heard of a HACKSAW, but not a BACKSAW (70A: Cutting tool with a reinforced spine), ugh. DCPOWER, another ugh (89D: What's generated by solar panels). Come on. Use real phrases, I'm begging you. I would accept DEAD HEAT as an answer (happily), but IN A DEAD HEAT is something like ON A SANDWICH, i.e. a phrase you might say, but that does not have enough standalone energy to stand alone. Never going to accept that MUCKER is a thing. One can muck stalls, but you would never (ever) call someone a MUCKER. Are READ-A-THONs real? Sounds made up. The tin-eared, no-respect-for-actual-usage quality of some of these answers is killing me. Such an annoying distraction. Why is MICA "glam rock?" (48D: Glam rock?). Is it ... shiny? Wikipedia says it's used in cosmetics and food (?) to add "shimmer" or "frost," OK. Did not know that. Also did not know ATE, which seems like absurd slang to me. Do people not have to ask you to repeat yourself? Why would you use ATE to mean "did a great job on" when ATE IT already means "did a terrible job on." I've seen James Harden and others (basketball players, that is) do this thing where they mime eating after they do something great—is that the context for this ATE? That clue was Trying way, way too hard to be ... what, youthful? I dunno. Rough. Oh, damn, just realized Harden's not eating—he's cooking! MY BAD.

Never heard of CECIL the Looney Tunes turtle, which is weird, since I grew up on Looney Tunes cartoons. Maybe I have seen him but he's just so minor, so D-list as "LT" characters go, that I can't remember him. Come on, Joel—you could've clued him as [Pomona College sagehen mascot]. Real missed opportunity. Your alma mater is very disappointed.

AU LAIT before BLACK (1A: One way to order coffee), OH I SEE before AH I SEE (110A: "Got it now"), TREYS before TRIPS (31D: Strong poker holding, informally), TAM before TAJ (57D: Cap worn by dervishes). Absolute prayer on the PAPAS / SALADIN crossing. Luckily I knew SALADIN enough (from being a medievalist) (55D: First sultan of both Syria and Egypt) to be able to best-guess the spelling, because PAPAS I was never gonna get (confidently) from that clue (72A: ___ fritas (Cuban French fries)). BEERAMID sounds like a quirky, original answer (36A: Drinker's structure made from stacked cans), but once it's been used (and it has, several times in the past few years now), its novelty wears off. Novelty terms like that are good once and then you really gotta leave them alone for ... well, a long time. See you in 2034, maybe, BEERAMID. Don't normally care about two-letter preposition dupes, but there sure are a lot of "IN"s today (WEAR IN, IN IT, I'M IN). Also "IT"s (Give IT A go, IT IS SO, IN IT (again)). Really didn't care for much about this puzzle outside the basic theme concept, which I think is solid, playful, entertaining. I just wish the fill had been stronger and the cluing much more ... much less ... well, different, anyhow. Apter. On the money-er.

Peter Gordon's "A-to-Z Crosswords 2024 (Petite Pangram Puzzles)" is gearing up for a new season.

Every day (including weekends) for 13 weeks you’ll get a 9×11easy-to-medium crossword whose answer contains all 26 letters. They will be written by Peter Gordon and Frank Longo. The puzzles will be delivered to your email inbox in two forms: Across Lite, which can besolved on your computer, smartphone, or tablet; and pdf, which can be printed and solved on paper. All this for less than17¢ a puzzle.

These are great fun, a welcome addition to my daily solving regimen (delivered right to my Inbox). At 9x11, it's not as much of a time commitment as a full 15x15 puzzle, but it's much more engaging than a typical Mini puzzle. I always learn a lot of words and names from Peter's puzzles, and since these puzzles always contain every letter of the alphabet, the fill is never dull. The Kickstarter ends today (Sunday, 6/2) at 10pm EDT, so sign up now. Right now. Totally worth it.

That's all. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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THEME: none

Word of the Day: "THE DAILY"(7D: Popular news podcast since 2017) —

The Dailyis a daily newspodcastproduced by the American newspaperThe New York Times, hosted byMichael BarbaroandSabrina Tavernise. Its weekday episodes are based on theTimesreporting of the day, with interviews of journalists fromThe New York Times. Episodes typically last 20 to 30 minutes. (wikipedia)

• • •

Promoting your company's own podcast in your crossword? Suddenly I feel a whole lot less bad about not knowing what the hell "THE DAILY" is. As if the subtle dumbing down and the gamification of the crossword weren't bad enough, now they're gonna use it as a self-promotion vehicle? Is this ... SYNERGY? Ugh. Today's puzzle on the whole wasn't bad—despite those sequestered NW and SE corners, it had much better flow than yesterday's, for me—but there weren't enough marquee long answers today, and what there was didn't reach the peaks it oughta reach in a late-week themeless. FREEZER BURN was the peak. SPACE CADETS was kind of a shrug, and none of the rest of it really got above middling. The whole thing just felt a little flat and tame. And once again, way too easy for a Saturday. "THE DAILY" (or, rather, the "DAILY" part of "THE DAILY") was my only sticking point, the only thing in the whole grid I didn't know and had any trouble getting besides MEZE, which I thought I didn't know, but when I got the "Z," all of a sudden I remembered (39A: Small appetizer in Turkish cuisine). I solved in perfect clockwise fashion, from NW all the way around to W, ending, tastily enough, with STRUDELS (27A: Pastries popularized during the Hapsburg Empire). I was a bit slow on the uptake with a couple answers—BACK PAY, for instance. I was 92% certain that the clue was doing some kind of thinly veiled wedding clue there, as the puzzle often uses "union" in that vague, potentially misdirective way. But no, the "union contract" is exactly the kind of thing you imagine when you hear "union contract," i.e. a labor union, and BACK PAY is just a straightforward answer. But that was sincerely the struggliest moment I had outside "THE DAILY." Saturdays really oughta pack more punch than that.

I kept expecting some bizarre or unfamiliar answer to leap out at me (or not leap out at me, I guess), but the hits just kept coming. I opened with PUPAE / AUTOS after I couldn't put together 1A: Five-star, as a hotel (POSHEST) (not a fan of that clue for that answer at all—there might be several five-star hotels in the area, but only one can be POSHEST—the superlative adjective there felt unwarranted). PUPAE was wrong, of course, but that didn't matter, as I went AUTOS to SERTA to PERVADE and by that point had enough momentum to blow through the rest of the NW and turn PUPAE to PUPAS, no problem. "THE DAILY" stopped me coming out of that corner, but then SPACE CADETS came along with the assist and from there I managed to swing up into the NE and continue my clockwise journey. From that point, it was a light jog around the crossword track, with no real difficulty and only a few unsightly moments awaiting me. ABRA is now and always has been terrible, full letter grade deduction for relying on it in any circ*mstance, esp. as clued (i.e. a CADABRA-less incantation). Hmm, I'm now in wiktionary looking at other possible meanings of ABRA and while they aren't crossworthy, they are fascinating:

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THEME: none

Word of the Day: WASPS(49D: Female flying group in W.W. II) —

In theUnited States,White Anglo-Saxon Protestants(WASP) is asociologicalterm which is often used to describewhiteProtestant AmericansofNorthwestern Europeandescent, who are generally part of the whitedominant cultureorupper-classand historically often theMainline Protestantelite.Historically or most consistently, WASPs are ofBritish descent, though the definition of WASP varies in this respect.WASPs have dominated American society, culture, and politics for most of the history of the United States. Critics have disparaged them as "The Establishment".Although the social influence of wealthy WASPs has declined since the 1960s,the group continues to play a central role in American finance, politics, andphilanthropy. (wikipedia) [... whoops, sorry, wrong WASPS ... here we go]:TheWomen Airforce Service Pilots(WASP) (alsoWomen's Army Service PilotsorWomen's Auxiliary Service Pilots) was acivilianwomen pilots' organization, whose members wereUnited States federal civil serviceemployees. Members of WASP became trained pilots who tested aircraft, ferried aircraft and trained other pilots. Their purpose was to free male pilots for combat roles duringWorld War II. Despite various members of the armed forces being involved in the creation of the program, the WASP and its members had no military standing. (wikipedia)

• • •

Haven't found a late-week themeless puzzle this unpleasant in quite a while. First off, it's got that super-segmented, every-corner-a-separate-puzzle design that tends to impeded flow and generally feel sloggier than other grids. But many puzzles have gone that route and still been enjoyable. This one just missed me in terms of its overall sensibility, that sensibility being that of the techbro / biznessspeak / "apps will make it better" / wealth extraction culture that makes so much of modern life so grim. "Convince me you're not a robot!" This was not the future I was promised. Robots asking me to prove I'm not a robot so that I can, what, download an app that mines my data or fill out some survey that is also a game that is also an ad. Ugh, "disruption" culture, so grim, esp. from a labor standpoint. I can't think of an uglier word than "UBERIZE" (17A: Disrupt with technology, as an existing industry), unless that word is "SYNERGY," are people still saying that? (65A: What might cause 1 + 1 > 2). Can someone disrupt "SYNERGY," please? Can someone UBERIZE "SYNERGY"? GAMIFY is what the NYT is doing to the crossword, as the puzzles get easier and more like Candy Crush ("look at the post-solve animation!"). More phone-friendly, but not necessarily (or at all) better, as puzzles. I know I'm going full "Old Man Yells at Cloud" today but kindly shoot UBERIZE and GAMIFY and DATAMINE and SYNERGY into the sun. And while you're at it, throw NUNHOOD in there too, what the hell? (59A: Sisters are a part of it). When the answer wasn't NUNNERY I thought "what is it? NUNDOM?" "He's entered the priesthood," yes. "She's entered the NUNHOOD?" That sounds like she has donned a very large hooded nun garment, or else has moved to a neighborhood made up exclusively of nuns. Also, LES MIZ has a "Z" (43A: Musical originally released as a French concept album, for short = LES MIS). Just take the "Z" from UBERIZE—he won't be needing it where he's going (i.e. the sun). It's not that the fill is A MESS (although A MESS is not great), it's that the fill is so personally off-putting that I just couldn't get into it. It has some nice answers, but the funk of late-stage capitalism was just too much for me today.

The three long answers through the center are solid enough, but not exactly exciting. The best answers in the grid are oddly symmetrical—"NO IT'S NOT" has both snappy colloquial energy and a fun hard-to-parse quality that made it fun to figure out (39D: "Nuh-uh!"). Side note: NUH-UH! has appeared twice in the NYTXW, and I wouldn't mind seeing it more. So hard to make five-letter answers interesting. The letters in NUH-UH! are not exactly grid-friendly, which may account for why we haven't seen it that much. But back to the puzzle. I also liked "NO IT'S NOT"'s counterpart, FIENDING (12D: Hankering, slangily). It's not a word I'd use (I'm still an old-fashioned JONESING guy...), but it's got a spicy slanginess that makes it more interesting than most answers today.

UPDATE:

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THEME:"THE WALLS HAVE EARS" (7D: "Shh! People may be listening" ... or a hint to eight squares in this puzzle)— a rebus puzzle where "EAR" can be found in four boxes along the left edge (or "wall") of the grid and four boxes along the right.

Theme answers:

• WEAR AND TEAR (1D: Routine damage)
• HEART-TO-HEART (36D: Distinguished students)
• "HEAR YE, HEAR YE" (13D: Cry from a town crier)
• BEAR STEARNS (45D: Investment bank that folded in 2008)

Word of the Day: PREGAP(4D: Space on a CD track where a hidden song can be placed) —

Thepregapon aRed Bookaudio CDis the portion of the audio track that precedes "index01" for a given track in the table of contents (TOC). The pregap ("index 00") is typically two seconds long and usually, but not always, contains silence. Popular uses for having the pregap contain audio are live CDs, track interludes, andhidden songsin the pregap of the first track (detailed below). //The track 01 pregap was used to hide computer data, allowing computers to detect a data track whereas conventional CD players would continue to see the CD as an audio CD. //This method was made obsolete in mid 1996 when an update toWindows 95in driverSCSI1HLP.VXDmade the pregap track inaccessible. It is unclear whether this change in Microsoft Windows' behavior was intentional: for instance, it may have been intended to steer developers away from the pregap method and encourage what became theBlue Book specification"CD Extra" format. //On certain CDs, such asLight YearsbyKylie Minogue,HoboSapiensbyJohn Cale, orFactory ShowroombyThey Might Be Giants, the pregap before track 1 contains ahidden track. The track is truly hidden in the sense that most conventional standalone players and software CD players will not see it. //Such hidden tracks can be played by playing the first song and "rewinding" (more accurately, seeking in reverse) until the actual start of the whole CD audio track. //Not all CD drives can properly extract such hidden tracks. Some drives will report errors when reading these tracks, and some will seem to extract them properly, but the extracted file will contain only silence. //Other CDs contain additional audio information in the pre-gap area of other tracks, resulting in the audio only being heard on a conventional CD player if the CD is allowed to "play through," but not if you jump to the next track. //Some CDs also contain phantom tracks consisting ofonlyindex 0 data, meaning the track can only be played on a conventional CD player by allowing the CD to play through a previous track to the next track. (wikipedia)

• • •

Rooms have four walls, not two, so unless we are supposed to be in some kind of hallway (or, since the puzzle seems so canal-obsessed, canal), then the theme is kind of wobbly at its foundations. I got the revealer first and expected to find "EAR"s on all of the walls. But no. Just the east and west walls. Not only did the puzzle neglect to EAR two walls, it also made the EARs ridiculously easy to find, arraying them very neatly, two in each of the four "wall" answers. It is very, very easy to get a longer answer when you know, before you even look at the clue, that it will contain not one but two "EAR"s. At about the halfway point, I decided to see if I could just fill in the remaining two "wall" answers with absolutely no assistance from crosses, and, sure enough:

That's a lot of real estate to just give away. In fact, the revealer itself gives most everything away, leaving us with nothing to do but find "EAR"s, like some kind of autumnal version of an EGG hunt (I'm imagining that the ears are ears of corn, but you could imagine that they are actual human ears if you wanted to go more of aBlue Velvet route). Hear an EAR, there an EAR. Shrug. The puzzle has a good concept, or at least a promising one, but (as happens so often) the execution doesn't really do the concept justice, failing to give us the proper four-walls experience, and failing to consider that once you get the revealer, it's just EAR EAR EAR etc. a barrage of EARs, all in predictable places. So, not nearly as much fun, nor as tough, as it should've been.

I took a weird route through this puzzle. When I couldn't get 1A: Chicken (WIMP) to work—I could think only of (COW)ARD but did not have enough (i.e. any) evidence to suggest there was a "COW" rebus afoot—I moved to the neighboring (due north) section and plunked down my first answer: EAU (6D: French hom*ophone of "haut"). And then ... the revealer was just right there. I didn't have to go down to the bottom of the grid to retrieve it; it just leapt into my boat. I had a few crosses in place before I saw the clue, but I don't think I would even have needed them. After that, I went EAR-hunting, and, well, ducks in a barrel at that point (what good are metaphors if you can't mix them?)

As for STONEFLY, well, it got me to look up STONEFLY, and man are they ugly. I thought they were going to be cool-looking, like dragonflies—you know, maybe OPALESCE a little—but no. They look like sticks. Actually, there are apparently ~3,500 species of them (and counting), so they probably look all kinds of ways. Despite being "common," they haven't been seen in the NYTX for almost forty years (last appearance was in the pre-Shortz era, 1988). STONEFLIES has yet to appear, so some ambitious entomology-minded constructor has a real opportunity there...

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