Isabeau

IMO the revealer is confusing -- I was trying to make ends work, as in "cover ends" or "story ends". Then I tried "book cover / story ends". I get what it's trying to say (put BOOK at both ENDS of the highlighted lines, each half separate) but the phrasing doesn't work (I put this more in the editors than the constructor though.) Also the clue for 35D sounded like a "calm down!" rather than "bye", I think because of the exclamation point. It was hard to let go of that, lol.

12D reminded me of a shirt I saw someone wearing a few weeks ago. It said, with the first line big and the second line smaller: You matter. Unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light squared. Then, you energy.

Nice and smooth-- and several entries were ones I guessed immediately but didn't enter because obviously that wasn't the right answer... except it was. RIGAMAROLE is one, and FELLAS. And several gimmes for me (SPAWNPOINT is one I'm super familiar with, and I know enough British slang to get SNOG.) Had hIres/z before HIDEF, oboes before REEDS, and wanted COhost for COLEAD but didn't fill that in. In other, more personal news I'm grieving my first dog today-- he was over 15, which is a good run for a lab, but I'm a bit sad. Please hug your dogs for me, y'all, because I can't. (Hugging cats or other critters is also acceptable.)

Is "go GAGA over" about losing temper, as the column says? I thought it was the opposite -- enthusiasm rather than anger.

Fun fact: some tabby cats (including my current boy) have agouti coloring, named after the animal. Instead of a solid color, or stripes, or spots, they have fur where each individual hair is a gradient of several colors. It gives a really cool effect -- from a distance it's greyish (even though grey isn't one of the colors), closer it has a speckled/static look, and if you ruffle through the fur you can see the innermost color. A number of animals have agouti variants (dogs, mice, rabbits, horses, etc, and of course agoutis) but I first learned about it because of my cat. And I like sharing knowledge.

Shape for SOLID was my only mis-fill... except for the typo on 27D where I accidentally hit Y instead of U. If team building exercises result in a TRyST, you're probably doing it wrong ...

Oh hey, a Tuesday puzzle with a REBUS ;)

So -- it is relevant that I have not-so-great eyesight -- I thought that the symbol after 1A was a 🎄aka a Christmas tree; that the other symbols of similar shape were otherwise-colored Christmas trees; and the various round shapes were 🌳 aka round-topped trees. Why the trees were blue as well as red and yellow and green, I had no idea, but I figured it would become clear as I did the puzzle. It did not. Why are trees going to parties? Or, more accurately, /how/ are trees going to parties??? So I come to the column, and the header image is of what looks at first glance to be ping pong paddles 🏓 "Aha," I says, "it's multicolored Christmas trees and multicolored paddles / racquets. That ... makes even less sense??" Finally I pulled out a magnifier and determined the symbols were, er, party hats and balloons. 🎈 Which connects better to the party theme I guess... 😂

Congrats to the new graduate! I loved the puzzle. And was able to get it without looking anything up -- which is the ideal for me but not always possible. Also, DINO chicken nuggets taste best.

Main grumble: the crossing for L_A and _EROS was one I had to run the alphabet on. Luckily that didn't take long...

Huh, I'd never thought of LOX on latkes. Lox on bagels, yes; latkes get sour cream (or plain yogurt) or applesauce. But it doesn't sound bad, so maybe I'll try it...

The MELLON/ROHE crossing looked like it was the last thing for me -- at least I knew it was a vowel, so it wasn't so much running the alphabet as just aeiouy -- except that I'd had DArNDEST for 32D, making 38A rELL_N. Oh, and dING for TING, making 11D RAdION. Oops. At least those were easily findable. I'd actually realized DA_NDEST could go either way, so that was my first change after none of the vowels gave happy music. Side note, DA?NDEST with either letter looks weird to me. I'd spell them damnedest. Note: I'm not saying that the puzzle is wrong, just not my default. Also, writing KOLN (instead of Köln) bugs me almost as much as putting n for ñ (especially for años), but such is crossword life.

And when Julius Caesar was looking for his sewing equipment, he finally asked his friend: "Etui, Brute?"

For 21A, "beyond my ken" is a phrase I've heard. (I want to make a Barbie joke.... "for reasons beyond my Ken" ...)

I predict a lot of complaints, so let me add some praise: this was crunchy in a good Thursday way. It was a bit slow because I was having trouble keeping the extra letters in my head -- I got the revealer* and figured the letters would be outside the grid, and figured they'd make words relating to butts, but I hadn't pinged that they were symmetrical, and with a different word on each side ... slow. (*actually the HALFTON/NOONE clued me in first-- HALFTON via crosses, and I know the music one was missing an E ... couldn't be a standard rebus because the E didn't fit in, which meant outside letters or nonstandard rebus. But then BUTTOUT popped into my head, plus I realized the three letter "Field" could be ARE(A), and the E and A could be part of "rear" ... that side ended up being "seat", but potayto potahto.) But(t) I enjoyed it :)

My cat plays "The Floor is Lava" (or, perhaps, The Floor Is Dog) by using my body as a bridge. Usually I see his jumps coming...

I'm amused that I put married for SAIDIDO. Right idea, wrong word... I like that I didn't need to look anything up; any fill I didn't know (like HAINES and SUNROSE) was solvable by the crosses, and it all fell neatly into place in well under average time for Saturday. My only complaint is that now I want bacon...

Ummm speaking as a crocheter, spinning is a different craft! Crochet is pulling loops through loops, and while it does use yarn, spinning is generally not involved. *good-natured grumble* New Jersey / CALF is my favorite clue, but I liked the theme-- no trouble with it being phonetic. It didn't help me in figuring out the fill, but I've noticed some themes are needed to solve and some kick in after solving, and this was the second sort. You didn't even need to know Pig Latin to solve it, because it was clued straight -- the theme was pig-latin-ization of common phrases, not "take answer and apply PL before entering" (or "clue is to the PLized phrase but you enter the original"). And it was more my flavor of puzzle than yesterday's, so *heart emoji*

I disagree with the column -- segue vs Segway is hardly a chicken-and-egg thing. Segue is much older and comes IIRC from Italian, and also parallels with the Spanish verb seguir meaning "to follow". Segway the company did a play on the word because the Segway is a *way* to get around, but in no way came first.

Much love to you in your new chapter of life, Deb! Puzzle comments to come, just wanted to get that in.

Things I never can remember: * whether it's Evel or Eval (I always want to put Evil but I know that's not right) * whether it's Odie or Opie * that it's 'oe and not 'oí for the song * the last letter of Mr Rubik's first name Hmmm. Though speaking of BOWING, I'm a bit late doing this puzzle because I was at a concert tonight -- SF Symphony with Hilary Hahn on violin (*not* fiddle lol). Most excellent.

I actually said WHOA when I finished and the A lit up. Nice. Also yay for cog sci getting a mention! That was my major in college (under a different name though)

This was so smooth it was eerie.. you could even say normalnormal! In a lellel universe I might have BUNGLEd it, but not this one. Nice debut!

I'd say LOTHISVE but that isn't actually a word of its own, lol. But I did love it! Left the theme entries blank / filled by crosses, as is my usual strategy with Shenanigans Afoot puzzles, but PEERREVIEW had me figuring it out, which helped with the ones where I wasn't quite yet sure of the crosses. I'm sure there will be complaints but I found this fun. GOJOBOD (which also isn't a word)

Had kiNG before HONG, though OPTICAL led me to delete; adam before SELF, which I held on to for way too long given IFNOT felt obvious; and zorse before HINNY, though I have heard of the latter. (I can never remember which way around the parenting goes though.) Fun fact: with both mules and hinnies, the front half looks like dad and the back half like mom. Also, obligatory PELICAN poem: A wondrous bird is the pelican: His beak can hold more than his belican. He holds in his beak Enough food for a week. But I'm darned if I know how the helican.

Trivial nitpick: I feel like the theme clues should have been clued the other way round, or else worded differently -- if the "instruction for answering" says XX to YY , I expect the clue to fit the XX one and the fill to be the YY one. "Instruction for parsing" would work as fill-to-clue. But I like the trick :) Also my brain wants to parse the last lines together: Mike Reese weds Ibex Popup. They arranged for a bishop but the instructions got confused so it was a bar hop instead, as the entire wedding played The Floor Is Lava (and 18A looks for his sewing case again)

Had ChurnS for CRANKS for the longest time, only giving it up when 28A (which I had to look up)) meant 24D would have to start nn. Good puzzle. And my RESCUECAT sends a demand for attention.

Cackling at the Doris Day bit in the column. Love that song!

Smashing Punpkins: post-Halloween fun? My Chemical Romance: pheromones? Panic! at the Disco: fire alarm?

Also I am going to pipe up as someone who is familiar with COZYMYSTERY as a genre, and therefore doesn't think that was obscure at all. I read quite a few cozies -- some get a bit too cozy, leaning into a cutesy gimmick rather than writing well, but "some books in this genre aren't good, and some are decent but not my cup of tea" describes pretty much any genre. I am also not a librarian or involved with publishing. Just a reader... who wants to defend the genre :)

One fun thing about doing puzzles a lot: because it's Friday, I saw Athens and "probably the one in Georgia" immediately leapt up. Sometimes I'm so used to twisty clueing that I overthink Monday ones..

"Oh," said I around 15A, "it's OZ at different angles, because of Wicked 2 coming out." Then I got to the revealers...