Thursday May 2nd 2019, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 20:48
Thursday Average: 24:40
Best Thursday: 10:18

"Kind of case in grammar: Abbr." is an ice cold first clue in a puzzle, but any time cases come up I am fondly reminded of my early mornings in Russian class. It turns out to be OBJ, by the way, but it really could have been anything. No revealer for the Thursday trickiness today other than the central answer (ON) AND (OFF), which shows that we are dealing with ON/OFF rebus squares. It all clicked for me with my certainty that "One's partner" had to be (ON)LY. From there, I figured out that the ON/OFF rebus squares were always next to each other and I was off to the races (eventually after a lot of milling around in this puzzle).

I don't think I'd ever bothered to look up SLOE-eyed and have just let it sit as an eye descriptor like any other. Apparently, it means dark, attractive, almond-shaped eyes.

I also enjoyed BELA and KARL(OFF) appearing right about the S(ON) (OFF)RANKENSTEIN themer. That's a nice mini-theme within the puzzle.

I didn't know "Art in German" but it turns out it's KUNST. 

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