Idaho motto word / THU 3-2-17 / Winger of "Shadowlands" / Muslim minority / Ice hockey's Robitaille / Deck with a Justice card / Issa of comedy / Ancient Iranian

Constructor: Peter Gordon

Relative difficulty: Relatively easy, with something extra in the clues

THEME: Question and Answer — 20A: WHAT FAMOUS POET; 25A: HAS A NAME THAT'S; 43A: A DOUBLE DACTYL? 52A: EMILY DICKINSON

Word of the Day: MEDE (60A: Ancient Iranian) —

The Medes^{[N 1]} (/miːdz/, Old Persian Māda-, Ancient Greek: Μῆδοι, Hebrew: מָדַי‎) were an ancient Iranian people^{[N 2]} who lived in an area known as Media (northwestern Iran) and who spoke the Median language. They mainly inhabited the mountainous area of northwestern Iran and the northeastern and eastern region of Mesopotamia and located in the Kermanshah-Hamadan (Ecbatana) region^[5] Their emergence in Iran is thought to have occurred between 1000 BC to around 900 BC.

This period of migration coincided with a power vacuum in the Near East with the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), which had dominated northwestern Iran and eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus, going into a comparative decline. This allowed new peoples to pass through and settle. In addition Elam, the dominant power in Iran, was suffering a period of severe weakness, as was Babylonia to the west. (Wikipedia)

• • •

Laura here, guest-posting for Rex, who is under the weather. (Perhaps he needs a 17A: Muscle maneuverer [OSTEOPATH] to give him a 42A: Checkup imperative [SAY AH].) For the record, I'm not generally a fan of Q&A themes, given that you often have to get the question from the crosses, since the clues are usually something unhelpful like "First part of question..." and "Second part of question..." However, there's something more interesting going here, in that the clues for the themers (and... wait for it...) are, like the answer to the question in the grid, also double dactyls. A dactyl is a metrical foot of three syllables, with the stress on the first syllable. A double dactyl is two of those feet next to each other in a line of poetry: EM-il-y DICK-in-son. Now look at the clues: 20A: START of a QUEST-ion is; 25A: MORE of the QUEST-ion is; 43A: END of the QUEST-ion is. Now, look at ALL the clues: 1A: PLACE known for PAMP-er-ing, 2A: I-da-ho MOT-to word ... get it? Cool, huh? It's like you're waltzing your way through the clues. (And because you also needed to know: The dactyl is the opposite of the anapest, which is a three-syllable foot with the stress on the final syllable. Dr. Seuss wrote in anapestic tetrameter: "But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches/ Would brag, "We're the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.") This might have been even more fun if Dickinson herself had written many poems in dactyls; generally she wrote in common or ballad meter, which is alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. That's why you can sing many of her poems to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (or the Gilligan's Island theme song). (Full disclosure: I used to teach Introduction to Poetry.)

There is a specific verse form also called the double dactyl, a kind of doggerel in the same general wheelhouse as the limerick. John Hollander (his last name is a dactyl!) wrote a famous one:

Higgledy piggledy,
Benjamin Harrison,
Twenty-third president
Was, and, as such,

Served between Clevelands and
Save for this trivial
Idiosyncrasy,
Didn't do much.

... which is how I felt about the fill itself -- higgledy piggledy, idiosyncrasies, like 62A: Argentine footballer (MESSI) or 31D: Thomas the clockmaker (SETH), that I hadn't heard of, and some that I had, like 64A: Wife in "The Godfather" (KAY) and 48A: Issa of comedy (RAE). I'm glad that we're starting to see the brilliant and hilarious Issa RAE more often than the crosswordese staple Charlotte RAE (clued as a double dactyl: "'Facts of Life' governess").

Signed, Laura Braunstein, Sorceress of CrossWorld

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