Vegan cheese ingredient, often / THU 8-8-2024 / First nonhuman species encountered in the "Star Wars" franchise / Response to an anticlimactic reveal / Basic level of a popular ridesharing app / Company with a purple heart in its logo / French vineyards

Constructor: Christopher Youngs

Relative difficulty: Easy; even tired and unable to type, still a 3:30 solve

THEME: MINUTE HAND [Part of a clock depicted four times in this puzzle?] — there's four HAND rebuses; I'm a fan of the reveal in that in involves repronouncing "minute" to make the theme work

Word of the Day: LOU (He asked Bud "Who's on first?") —

The Heptapod languages are two constructed fictional languages used in Ted Chiang's short story, Story of Your Life, as well as its later film adaptation, Arrival. In-universe, they are used by the "heptapods", an alien race that makes contact with humanity.

The languages are classified by two separate names, "Heptapod A" and "Heptapod B", as the species uses two separate languages; the former is a spoken language, and the latter a semasiography. These two languages together encapsulate two different concepts of time—Heptapod B presents time as synchronous, while A presents time as sequential, with causality. The two languages are grammatically unrelated. [wikipedia; in the film the alien creatures are nicknamed Abbott and Costello, who are the Bud and Lou (respectively) actually referred to in the clue]

• • •

Christopher Adams here again, filling in today (and also Saturday) for some tricky puzzles. Full disclosure: I solved this while dead tired (two full time jobs after an ungodly early morning run). Thankfully it seemed like a lot of answers / clues were ones I've seen before, and those dropped in quickly enough (even if my tired fingers couldn't quite type them correctly the first, or second, or even third time). Only real problem was going for UNCLE at 5D first, and even then my thoughts while solving were "UN---, "unhand" doesn't fit, let's go UNCLE, but that doesn't fit with "scotch and..."...oh, there's a rebus here", and (in theory) I was off to the races again.

Theme answers:

• SCOTC[H AND] SODA [Mixed drink with an alliterative name]
• [HAN D]YNASY [Preceder of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese history]
• EASIER SAID T[HAN D]ONE ["It's not as simple as it sounds"]
• C[HAND]ELIER [Ornate lighting fixture]

Anyway, thank goodness this was an easy solve, which, nothing wrong with that sometimes for a Thursday. Sometimes it's a tricky hard puzzle. Sometimes it's an easy puzzle to introduce a tricky concept (here, a rebus). And sometimes it's just a relief to have an easy puzzle after a long day; not every Thursday needs to be hard, and if nothing else, this provides a greater contrast for when it actually is difficult.

And thankfully it was also a fun theme; the theme answers were more fun than not (especially the spanner, which I assume was one of the seeds, but also SCOTCH AND SODA and even HANDY NASTY HAN DYNASTY). The down answers were also lively; it's easy as a constructor to focus only on the long entries since they take up more real estate and are what most solvers will notice first, but the shorter rebus entries were all fun. Admittedly, they all used HAND quite literally (as opposed to the acrosses), but three of the four (all but AT HAND) had clues that were evocative and made them fun, and bonus points for the consistency of having actual hands in all the downs but none of the acrosses. Also, bonus points for running REDHANDED through two theme entries pretty cleanly (only the nearby EVO is a demerit), which is a nice touch.

Olio:

• STU [Name spelled out in "The Alphabet Song"] — As far as clues go, this is an old chestnut that's oft RETOLD, and I wish it weren't. It is the second worst cluing angle that I see regularly in the NYTXW; the first, of course, is the NYTXW cluing names (and especially female names) as anything but actual people with that name. I am once again asking Will, Joel, etc. to stop this practice (and I am once again tired of having to make this point).
• ODD [Like most primes] — Two is, of course, the oddest prime of all, as it's the only one that isn't odd.
• COD [A carved one hangs in the chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives]— It's known as the Sacred Cod, and the state Senate does them one better with (and I am not making this up) the Holy Mackerel (which, imo, is the best fish; it's certainly my favorite to eat).
• CASHEW [Vegan cheese ingredient, often] — I did not know this, and now I have a new quest for the next time I'm at the local Hy-Vee (assuming this doesn't happen at the Iowa State Fair this weekend).
• EPEE [Weapon that shares an etymology with "spade" and "spatula"] — Also did not know this, very interesting to learn this and will research it more tomorrow. Will not, however, watch any Olympic fencing; too busy rewatching the men's 1500m and 400m races.
• ASIA [Setting for the FIFA World Cups of 2002 and 2022] — Given that I lived in one of the host countries here while they were building some of the host cities for the Men's World Cup, quite easily saw through the misdirect of country vs continent here.
• SLEEP ["Don't give up on your dreams. ___ longer" (quip)] — I'm going to bed, no alarm, see you all Saturday.

Yours truly, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

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