Scheming sergeant of old TV / SUN 6-14-20 / Pointed arch / Rodriguez who starred in Jane the Virgin / Indescribable religious ideal / Dandy on Downing Street / Ollie's foil in old films / Things proposed by Greek philosopher Democritus / Some toy dolls of 1980s / Gates of Hell sculptor

Constructor: Randolph Ross

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (9:36)

THEME:"Making Arrangements" — Clues are imagined quotations in which one phrase is an anagram of another phrase (said phrases are left blank in the clues and appear in the grid):

Theme answers:

• 23A: Sign at a chemical plant: "This facility is ___—___" (with 114-Across) (CONTAMINATED / NO ADMITTANCE)
• 31A: Question to an English teacher: "Why did Poe write his poem"___"? Answer: "___?" (with 98-Across) ("A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM" / "WHAT AM I, A MIND READER?")
• 45A: We can tell the boss's assistant is a ___ because he always ___ (with 87-Across) (SYCOPHANT / ACTS PHONY)
• 50A: My weight increases when traveling because ___ during ___ (with 84-Across) (VACATION TIME / I AM NOT ACTIVE)
• 64A: Someone who is ___ years old now will be ___ in six years (with 68-Across) (FORTY-FIVE / OVER FIFTY)

Word of the Day: ANNE Moody (30A: Moody who wrote "Coming of Age in Mississippi") —

Anne Moody (September 15, 1940 – February 5, 2015) was an American author who wrote about her experiences growing up poor and black in rural Mississippi, and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement through the NAACP, CORE and SNCC. Moody fought racism and segregation from when she was a little girl in Centreville, Mississippi, and continued throughout her adult life around the American South. [...] In 1969, Coming of Age in Mississippi received the Brotherhood Award from the National Council of Christians and Jews, and the Best Book of the Year Award from the National Library Association. In 1972, Moody worked as an artist-in-residence in Berlin. She went on to work at Cornell and in 1975, released a collection of short stories, titled Mr. Death: Four Stories. One of the stories, New Hope for the Seventies, won the silver award from Mademoiselle magazine. (wikipedia)

This is substandard work and the only explanation for it is cronyism, or, if you'd rather, the particular inertia of accepting puzzles from the same people (men) year after year after year after year because well they've been published year after year after year after year ... by you ... so there's a precedent ... that you set, but ... you can't argue that the name on the byline is an experienced constructor, largely because you've continued to publish him ... year after year after year. Every time I see his name, I think "oh no" and immediately thereafter I think "no, come on ... maybe this will be the time that the puzzle is at least pretty solid and not groaningly weak and bygone and sad!" And every time, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the damn football, I end up in a disappointed heap on the ground. Let's be clear: there is virtually no concept here. Take any phrase that you can make an anagram out of. *Literally*, any. Any. Doesn't matter. Do the phrases have to have anything to do with each other? No no no, we can just make it *seem* like they do when we write our convoluted and preposterous theme answer clues. Symmetry takes care of itself, since by definition both parts of an anagrammed pair are of equal length. So ... you just need five (!!?!) and bing bam boom, Sunday puzzle, and since you are a veteran (because the editor has published you year after year after year), you get paid literally the most you can be paid for an NYT crossword. Lather, rinse, *********ing repeat. I'm not mad at the constructor. It's the editor that's the problem. The NYTXW needs new leadership, new vision, new energy. 'Cause what we're seeing here, and far too often, is just sad. A puzzle running on former glory, i.e. on fumes. Inevitably good puzzles appear, because good constructors still submit and their puzzles get through. But the NYTXW should be good, or at least *aiming* for good, every time out. This one isn't even trying. "Making Arrangements"? That's your title? May as well have been "It's Random Anagrams, Folks, Take It Or Leave It, I Get Paid Either Way!"


Do I have anything more to say about this puzzle? I really don't think I do. SNEE and ESALEN and LEDTV ... I have those things to say. I liked the Negro Leagues clue on MONARCH (16D: Jackie Robinson, in his only year in the Negro Leagues).

Satchel Paige

ICEFISH is OK (43D: Sit out on a frozen lake, say). But those are more than offset by stuff like NOSERAG (ew!) and ONCD and OGIVE etc. Sgt. BILKO might've enjoyed this one, but not me. Hard pass. Better puzzles (and editors) are out there. I Promise You. XO.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]