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Difficult puzzle, but the most devilish move was giving us the off-by-one-day clue after a Monday holiday. I've been confused about what day it is all week!

The northwest corner really baffled me -- I confidently entered "pirate" for 18A and who "dis" for 25A and it went downhill from there. I really enjoyed ITSAME, though!

The northwest corner stumped me, but I appreciated the trick when I finally gave up and read the column. It seemed like a fair surprise rebus, considering how long I'd spent wondering if the first circle needed to be an S or if it could be any of S, T, A, or R! A very clever solution. I'm usually terrible at recalling names, so I was amazed to pull KLAUS out of my memory banks immediately, ~2 decades after last reading A Series of Unfortunate Events! The clue that vexed me the most was ATRIA -- it was the first thing I thought of after solving only the final A, but I spent quite a bit of time arguing with myself over whether an atrium is a courtyard. Apparently it can be used to mean an open-air space -- another learning from a crossword!

Kudos to the constructor -- I thought this was a lot of fun! I actually didn't have any pairs solved when I caught on: I had already tried to convince myself that tying one's shoes could be described as NATURE, and then I solved DOWN from crosses and was trying to convince myself of "downing" as a saying when the pattern clicked. Made solving the other half of the puzzle a lot easier!

Oof, tough one for me, and not for any of the reasons mentioned in the "tricky clues" section. The places where I didn't have any clue for either word: ODAY x SKYE TEAMCOCO x SMEW next to SEAMUS I did like the "double back" theme, though!

Anyone else going to have the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" stuck in their head all day now? Just me?

I enjoyed the theme and felt like I got more than usual of these on the first try! The northwest corner was the one really challenging area for me -- I was completely unfamiliar with either LPGA or PRO-AM, and I wasn't convinced ASEA was a word. I also went back and forth on "see the point" or "get the point" until I figured out 17A was VOTESYES. Got there without lookups, though, so I'll call it a win!

I haven't been playing the crossword long, and I thought I had figured out a pattern in the picture run alongside this article -- that it was always a red herring, meant to throw you off the scent of how to actually interpret the clue in the headline. Not so today! I didn't have a clue on 21A until I scrolled down and saw the German Shepard below the grid, and then it clicked immediately. Maybe I'd have been disappointed if I hadn't already been stumped. This was a tough one, but I enjoyed it! Also, it taught me the actual meaning of the word "siege," which I always assumed was synonymous with "attack." Always nice to learn something!

The only part that really stumped me was ETAPE / ROEPER -- I thought surely "estage" made sense as the French for stage, and "Roeger" sounded plausibly name-like. Also, once I realized there needed to be an "IT" removed from the answer, I was stuck on "invitee" instead of VISITOR for 42A, despite "invee" not being a word. Otherwise I got through this fairly steadily! And for what it's worth, I got OMNOMNOM as soon as I saw a couple of the letters. It's been a common onomatopoeia for like... 20 years?

For some reason when I got to U_ER for "____ fees," UBER was the only answer I could consider. I spent way too long trying to figure out which letter was off in "BOXEBIN" for "Pens." I should have guessed that I needed an S to make it a verb! Other than that, this was a fairly smooth solve for me, and a fun one.

I enjoyed this one a lot! Got the theme after 2 answers and used it to immediately crack a third, but not the fourth (sorry, this Millennial has never heard of the Funky Chicken--but I guess that's why it's called a "fad"). Didn't know either of the names, but got them with crosses and didn't have to look anything up. All in all, a pleasant solve!