Dominick Talvacchio author page
1 puzzle by Dominick Talvacchio
with Jeff Chen comments
| T | A | P | M | A | T | E | Y | G | H | A | N | A | ||
| A | L | A | A | M | U | S | E | A | A | R | O | N | ||
| B | E | T | A | P | I | E | T | A | L | I | N | E | N | |
| A | P | T | S | E | S | C | A | R | O | L | E | |||
| C | H | I | P | S | I | Z | E | T | A | X | I | |||
| S | E | C | Y | B | Y | E | N | O | W | |||||
| L | A | M | L | A | N | D | S | S | O | H | O | |||
| I | T | S | A | L | L | G | R | E | E | K | T | O | M | E |
| N | O | R | M | A | S | I | D | E | N | Y | S | |||
| E | Z | P | A | S | S | K | A | R | O | |||||
| T | H | E | T | A | O | M | I | C | R | O | N | |||
| F | I | R | E | E | X | I | T | T | A | Z | O | |||
| O | N | C | U | E | L | A | M | B | D | A | T | A | U | |
| E | C | A | R | D | T | R | E | A | D | O | W | N | ||
| S | A | S | S | Y | S | I | N | G | S | N | A | S |
I love it when I see a theme I can't even imagine dreaming up. Take Greek letters, stick a bunch together, then parse them in odd ways to come up with creatively kooky answers? Fantastic! I had the hardest time figuring out LAMBDA TAU = LAMB DATA U, but what a hilarious image. Made me think of "Hamburger U," McDonald's training grounds.
And CHI PSI ZETA XI = CHIP SIZE TAXI? That's an incredibly cool find. A funny one, too!
THETA OMICRON = THE TAU MICRON sounds like a Stephen Hawking book.
I wasn't as hot on BETA PI ETA = BET A PIETA, as the spacing changes weren't as unpredictable. Still, the concept of betting a pieta (depiction of Mary and Jesus) is evocative.
The theme was so interesting that I wanted so badly to give it the POW! The fill didn't quite match in excellence, though. TABAC at 1-Down = sigh. ALEPH at 2-Down confuses the theme a bit. I'd much rather keep all other letters out of the fill for this theme, no matter what language.
ICAL crossing SECY — neither is a puzzle-killer, but they sure ain't good. Crossing them draws extra attention to these dabs of crossword glue.
OZAWA / TAZO is worse to me. I don't think educated solvers should be expected to know OZAWA off the top — I played in orchestras for 20 years, and I learned him only from crosswords — and while TAZO was once owned by Starbucks, I wonder if it's a big enough brand to demand solvers' attention. Crossing them doesn't feel fair.
Toss in some ARNO, OCTA, TUE, and I just couldn't do it. So close to a POW! on your debut, Dominick! I think if you'd left out ITS ALL GREEK TO ME, I still would have understood the theme, and you could have smoothed and snazzified your grid. Not a whole lot of room for bonuses, as it is — HAIRIEST and AMATEURS are fine, but not outstanding.
I've seen plenty of crosswords around ITS ALL GREEK TO ME, but this one was different. I like different.