You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all different (Puzzle No. 3,281)

Have you been reading Word Salad this semester?  Taking notes?  Well here is your final exam.  There are more twists in this puzzle than in the International House of Martinis, but there's nothing obscure or unreasonable in the answers.  All of them are things that Hot and Trazom have been discussing on their blog.  Don't believe me?  Take 14 down:  Go “om nom nom nom nom” and go “om nom nom nom”—that’s what 26 do (3,2,4)

Link to puzzle:  http://www.thenation.com/article/174007/puzzle-no-3281

Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): very hard. Several of the clues stumped me for a while.  I broke through with 26a, got some more, and was stumped again on a few more individual answers,which finally came to me in the morning. You need hints?  I'm ready: ask in the comments.

Hozom's comment: Setting an Example, in which Hot and Trazom discuss how rules can be bent in the definition instead of in the wordplay.  In particular, some people differ on whether or not it's fair to give an example of something as a definition of its class, such as "tabby" as a definition of "cat."

New York Times crossword constructors often use example definitions in their straight puzzles.  They have the advantage of being really brief, which is good when you have a limited amount of real estate on the page.  But usually they give you some kind of indicator to warn you this is an example definition, and most people consider that a sufficient concession to the solver.

BTW, if you don't get the title of this post: congratulations, you're under 45.  Go here.

Solution and annotation posted Monday-join us this weekend for Sunday brunch!