Fermented drink from Russia / SUN 9-10-23 / Motion-sensing Microsoft gaming devices / Bite-size Tex-Mex snack / Gas whose name comes from the Greek word for foreigner / Pharaoh who founded Egypt's 19th dynasty

Constructor: Adam Wagner

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "Detours Ahead" — you get one theme answer the normal way and another answer if you take the "detour," a word for "road" that sits underneath the regular theme and answers and, when substituted for the letters directly above it, provides a second theme answer (the primary clue is crossed out and the DETOUR clue is offered immediately thereafter):

Theme answers:

• BOB CRATCHIT / B(ROADWAY) HIT (22A: Dickens clerk DETOUR: Theatrical success)
• US BORDERS / USB (DRIVE)S (45A: Homeland Security concerns DETOUR: Computer port inserts)
• EMU EGGS / EM(PATH)S (68A: They're laid in Australia DETOUR: They feel your pain)
• FILM SPEED / FIL(L A NE)ED (88A: Photographer's setting DETOUR: Come in handy)
• ELASTIC BAND / E (STREET) BAND (112A: Feature of some sweatpants DETOUR: Well-known musical group with a place name)

Word of the Day: LIAR'S DICE (110A: Classic game of bluffing) —

Liar's dice is a class of dice games for two or more players requiring the ability to deceive and to detect an opponent's deception. In "single hand" liar's dice games, each player has a set of dice, all players roll once, and the bids relate to the dice each player can see (their hand) plus all the concealed dice (the other players' hands). In "common hand" games, there is one set of dice which is passed from player to player. The bids relate to the dice as they are in front of the bidder after selected dice have been re-rolled. Originating during the 15th century, the game subsequently spread to Latin American and European countries. In 1993, a variant, Call My Bluff, won the Spiel des Jahres. (wikipedia)

• • •

This is clearly a structurally ingenious puzzle, so I'm sitting here trying to figure out why it left me so cold. I mean, you've got detours that *are themselves* words for "road," which really gives coherence to the whole premise—you take a different path that is literally a path. Nice. I think the trouble was that I got it. I got it early. And then ... well, I guess there was some surprise left, in that you got to find out what the DETOURs were gonna be and how the different answers were gonna be parsed, but aside from the gimmick making the whole theme very easy (when you know those DETOURs are "roads, it doesn't take but a cross or two to just fill them right in), it didn't have any humor or twists or ... anything. I feel like once I saw the gimmick done once, every subsequent iteration couldn't get more than an "oh, OK" out of me. So I am in a place I've been many times before—admiring the architecture but not enjoying the solving experience so much. The other thing that was weirdly off-putting was how very very hard the puzzle seemed to be trying to be hip and now and current. On the one hand, better that than bland or stale. On the other hand, it started veering into "Hello, fellow youths!" territory. Something about BADASSERY into "SO ... YEAH" made me think "ah I see, yes, those are fresh, and colloquial, and I like them fine ... but that's about enough of that." And then "OH MAMA!" came along and made me think "SO ... YEAH, too much" and then SNEAKS snuck in there (as well as "kicks," in the clue), and then there was, well, whatever XBOX KINECTS is, and all of it eventually really put me in a wincing mood. 

Also balked at MINITACO (83D: Bite-size Tex-Mex snacks). I had MINI- and thought "this isn't going to be MINI TACO, is it?" But it was. I dunno. How small does a taco have to be before it's mini? Anyway, my point is that I was having trouble connecting (kinecting?) to a lot of the fill, especially the fill that was supposed to be flashy and new. LIAR'S DICE? "Classic?" I read the opening of the wikipedia entry (above, Word of the Day) and still had no clear idea what this game entails. This one was just missing left right and center. But again, I can't deny the cleverness of the theme concept and layout. The fact that the fill frequently hurt my teeth is very likely just a matter of taste. A me problem, as they say (sidenote: would actually love to see AMEPROBLEM, or better yet, AYOUPROBLEM, in the grid someday).

E STREET BAND was the one themer I felt really didn't work, since the "detour" (STREET) was being used in the DETOUR answer as a standalone word, instead of just a letter string (the way all the other DETOUR answers are used). Those DETOURs should all be BURIED inside their respective answers, but STREET is just sitting there ... being a STREET. An E STREET ... no hiding, no burying. DRIVE is also being used as a standalone word in its answer (USB DRIVES), but in that case the meaning of DRIVE is entirely non-roadway, which to me is just as good as being BURIED. The point is that the roadways should not be roadways in the DETOUR answers, and with E STREET BAND, the roadway is, in fact, a roadway. That's inelegant. Remind me to tell you some time about when my wife got sick and I thought I was getting sick and then our neighbors offered us Springsteen tickets and we had to turn them down (!) and then Bruce canceled his September tour dates because of some kind of ulcer disease. Having turned down the tickets, I doubt we're going to get offered them again for the rescheduled show. They're probably already spoken for. The bats are no longer living in our house, but I feel like their curse is still upon us.

BIRDS OF PREY (4D: Hunt-and-peck types?) ... I don't know if you know this, but they don't "peck" their prey so much as shred and mutilate and devour it. I get that you want the typing misdirection there, but ... these aren't hens we're talking about. I don't love RATED M, but it's definitely a thing you hear at the beginning of ads for video games in particular ("RATED M for 'Mature'"). "NO KIDS" feels like no fun—some of my best wedding memories involve kids—but hey, it's your wedding (65D: Restriction on some wedding invites). I hope you all knew what KVASS was (91A: Fermented drink from Russia) because that XBOX KINECTS answer kould easily have proven treacherous if you didn't. I knew KVASS, so no trouble with the "K," but the "I," YEESH, I can't believe how long it took me to get / make sense of BIO at 97A: Cells are covered in it, in brief. BIOlogy (class) covers the topic of cells, probably, yes. Anything else need explaining? Jacob stole ESAU's identity, in a way (12D: Early victim of identity theft?). Stole his birthright, but same difference, I guess.

Rebecca counsels Jacob to pretend to be Esau, in order to obtain the blessing [of the firstborn, from his father Isaac] in his brother's stead. He dressed himself in Esau's best clothes and disguised himself by covering his arms in lamb skin so that if his blind father touched him, he would think Jacob his more hirsute brother. Jacob brought Isaac a dish of goat meat prepared by Rebecca to taste like venison. Isaac then bestowed the blessing (bekhorah), which confers a prophetic wish for fertility (vv. 27–28) and dominion (v.29), on Jacob before Esau's return. (wikipedia)

What else? I thought that the [Component of a beekeeper's suit] was a MASK. Two letters in common with MESH. Tricky. Gregor SAMSA is from Kafka's Metamorphosis, but you probably knew that. One last thing: in case you missed it (and it seems highly possible that you did), there's a new episode of the BBC Documentary podcast featuring none other than crossword constructing phenom Robyn Weintraub, who walks us through the basics of her puzzle-making process and tells us how she got into crosswords in the first place. It's a delightful interview. Check it out here. And here's a still from the promo video she made for the podcast. I keep it on my phone. It makes me happy.

[*black squares that don't divide anything, but just make the grid easier to fill]

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]