Onetime Dr Pepper rival / MON 1-1-18 / Some canadian petroleum deposits / Trammps torch song / Letter shaped girders

Constructor: Matthew Sewell

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Monday ... it's over-sized, so maybe it's just Medium)

THEME: "torch songs" — famous song titles that in some way involve "fire" are clued as "torch songs" ...

Theme answers:

• "BLAZE OF GLORY" (17A: Jon Bon Jovi torch song?)
• "BURNING LOVE" (29A: Elvis Presley torch song?)
• "ETERNAL FLAME" (36A: Bangles torch song?)
• "LIGHT MY FIRE" (45A: The Doors torch song?)
• "DISCO INFERNO" (59A: The Trammps torch song?) 

Word of the Day: "Inside LLEWYN Davis" (39D: "Inside ___ Davis" (Coen brothers film)) —

Inside Llewyn Davis /ˈluː.ɪn deɪvɪs/ is a 2013 American black comedy-drama film written, directed, produced, and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. Set in 1961, the film follows one week in the life of Llewyn Davis, played by Oscar Isaac in his breakthrough role, a folk singer struggling to achieve musical success while keeping his life in order. It co-stars Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, F. Murray Abraham, and Justin Timberlake. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is a solid idea. The "torch song" thing, with its winky little "?" clues, is cute. Nice play on the word "torch." This set of themers feels awfully loose—a bunch of nouns that are rough synonyms for "fire" (incl. "fire" itself) and then the adjectival outlier "burning." Also, the Trammps!? I mean, everyone knows the song "DISCO INFERNO," but the Trammps? Despite knowing the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack like the back of my hand, I had no idea who the Trammps were. All the other musical acts are phenomenally famous, so once again, we have an outlier themer. But it's Monday, and the theme is probably tight *enough*, and certainly the song "DISCO INFERNO" is iconic *enough*, so OK. If you sat on this theme for a bit, you could probably eventually come up with a better set of answers—maybe a set that doesn't force you to go 16 wide with your grid?—but who knows? Not great, but good enough.


There is a problem, though, with grid construction. Those NE / SW corners are ridiculously enormous, which make the puzzle a. slightly tougher than a Monday should be, and b. slightly rougher (fill-wise) than a Monday should be. HAR / ENE / STD—that's the dregs at the bottom of your BELEAGUERED SW corner. In the opposite corner, ICE CAVE is "???" and GAGSTER is almost literally painful. Grid construction is tough business, and this grid has resulted in a certain level of unfortunateness. Things I would try desperately to cut from my own grids: ONLOAN, AAAA, PFC, HAR, ENE, IBEAMS, OYS, DHL, OMS, ICECAVE, GAGSTER, SHH, ANAT. Also OIL SANDS, but mostly just 'cause I barely know what those are. That answer definitely made this harder. But OIL SANDS isn't bad per se. The other stuff, OK, maybe I couldn't ultimately kill off all of it, but seriously, it should Eat At You, when there's that much crud in your grid. Publishing stuff like this just encourages constructorial complacency. Oh, and LLEWYN ... I'm calling foul there, too. I get that that was a fairly major movie, but good lord, Welsh, forget about it. In my head I heard "Loo ell ynn" and so ... yeah, that was all just crosses. In short—fine theme, not a good enough reason to go 16 wide, grid oddly built, which encouraged more junk fill than anyone wants to see. OK. So, first puzzle of 2018 gets a low pass. Coulda been worse!

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS crossing INFERNO and INFER? No. 

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