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Thursday, August 7, 2014
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, August 7, 2014
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
South Quad prepares to open doors in the fall
Guardians'
Renovations feature
upgrades to dining
hall, main floor
By SHOHAM GEVA
ManagingNews Editor
After closing for renovations last
year, South Quad Residence Hall is
preparing to re-open, ending one of
three currently ongoing construc-
tion projects in the area, along with
the Munger graduate dorm project
and the West Quad Residence Hall
renovation. Both other projects are
expected to conclude in Fall 2015.
In a media tour Friday with The
Michigan Daily, University Dining
and Housing officials showcased
several of the changes to South
Quad, most notablythe renovations
to the dining hall, which have been
the focus of the project, as well as
several other structural changes.
Construction is not yet completely
finished on the building, but Peter
Logan, University Housing com-
munications director, said the Uni-
versity is confident that it will be
done in time for move-in Aug. 28
and 29.
In the newly renovated and
expanded dining hall itself, the
clear focus has been on variety
both in terms of food and design.
The space ranges from semi-
private dining rooms with low to
the floor cushion seating, to tables
made of wood reclaimed from
bowling alleys near the grill station
Wildfire, set to feature a different
type of grilled cheese sandwich
each day.
Further back are groups of
bright pink chairs and televi-
sions mounted on the wall adja-
cent to the Smoke station, which
will serve food from an in-house
smoker. To the left, there's a clear
machine, detailed in bright orange,
set to squeeze fresh orange juice
for a station, Toast, that will serve
breakfast all day. Above it all is an
exposed clay ceiling, one of the few
unifying factors present.
Tom Smith, Michigan Dining
associate director, said the goal
was to make the separate stations
distinguishable.
"They tried to create some little
nooks for seating, tried to make it
different," he said.
The facility is based on the same
micro-restaurant concept that
is also present in East Quad. In
total, South Quad's dining hall will
have 10 separate micro-restau-
rants, including a Latin-inspired
station, a vegetarian station, an
Asian-inspired station, the Madi-
son Street Deli, a Mediterranean-
inspired station and Finale, which
will serve desserts. A chef's area
will additionally serve as a space
for cookingclasses and demonstra-
tions.
The dining hall will seat 944
people at its full capacity, Smith
said, down from an estimated 956,
due to the removal of 12 seats to
increase walkability of the space.
102 of those seats can be converted
to general community space for the
building, separate from the dining
hall.
Smith said during the first
year South Quad is in operation,
he expects that the section will
be used mostly for community
space due to the closing of West
Quad across the street, which will
reduce the number of students who
eat there. After West Quad under-
goes renovations and reopens next
year, it will no longer have a din-
ing hall, meaning many students
may choose to use their meal plans
across the street at South Quad.
The facility will require 60 full-
time employees, excluding top
management, as well as up to 400
student employees. Similar to most
other dining halls on campus, it
will be trayless.
Smith also briefly touched upon
the subject of crowding in the din-
ing halls, which has been a report-
ed issue in the newly renovated
East Quad and recently built North
Quad Residence Hall. He said with
the opening of South Quad, he
expects the number of people eat-
ing at campus dining facilities to
spread out more, easing crowding
concerns from the past few years.
South Quad is the largest dining
hall out of the new three - North
Quad seats 190 and EastQuad seats
about 400.
"Maybe hindsight is 20/20,"
Smith said. "But [South Quad] is
what made sense to do last."
He added that a highlight of
South Quad diningishoweasilyit's
expected to absorb large crowds.
"The nice thing about this facil-
ity is that when we have a push of
students - and we'll have a lot of
people in here - you won't even
feel it," he said.
Along with the dining hall, sev-
eral new community spaces for
the building have also been a part
of the renovation. Logan said over
the past few renovation projects,
Housing has typically found that
when they ask for student input,
the response is that students want
more study space, a request which
was incorporated into the South
Quad changes in several areas on
the main floor.
Other additions include a game
room, gender-inclusive restrooms
and more music practice rooms for
the building.
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Bautista, Saldana and Pratt
Marvel film focuses
on humanity in deep-
space setting
By BRIAN BURLAGE
Daily Arts Writer
In Bill Watterson's classic car-
toon strip "Calvin and Hobbes,"
one of the most intriguing of Cal-
vin's many alter
egos is Space-
man Spiff. He,
like Calvin, is a Guardiansof
young blonde-
haired kid. He the Galaxy
travels the uni-R
verse in his UFO- Rave and
like spaceship, Quality16
fighting aliens, Walt Disney
exploring aban- Studios
doned civiliza-
tions on desolate
planets and venturing into distant
realms of obscure galaxies. Many
things terrify him, and he often
doubts his heroic ability. In this
fantasy, Calvin isn't a hero per se.
He doesn't have infallible bravery;
instead, he's just a human kid. He
treks across the universe like any
of us would.
One of the early scenes of James
Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy"
reveals Peter Quill (Chris Pratt,
"Her"), an orphaned kid from
Earth now wandering around the
remote planet Morag. His 'out-
law' moniker, Star-Lord, poses the
same cheesiness and faux-heroism
as Calvin's. Crafty tracking shots
reveal a mask-clad Quill picking
his way through ruin, presum-
ably a long-abandoned civiliza-
tion on some planet far, far away.
The planet's landscape resembles
darker, more bizarrely colored
Utah canyons - much like Wat-
terson's. It's desolate. Quill's tiny
figure appears like a speck against
such an enormous backdrop.
Eventually, he enters a large struc-
ture draped in shadow. His gloved
hand drifts down toward his belt,
and when he pulls back his over-
coat, we see a Sony Walkman
attached to his hip. He presses
play on "Awesome Mix No. l." As
the music plays he starts to dance
around the empty structure, slid-
ing to and fro, kicking small alien
life forms, singing along with the
chorus. The scene is oddly con-
vincing: if you found yourself
alone in a strange building on
an even stranger planet and you
had your favorite music with you,
wouldn't you let it roll?
What makes this film so spe-
cial is how so many scenes evoke
this crazy yet very real sense of
humanity. Quill, like Calvin, is
so human in the way he reacts to
aliens, statements and situations.
Gunn's fusing of '70s pop songs
with a space-adventure film mere-
ly adds to its humanity. The alien
characters are blue, green and red,
they have bone-like objects pro-
truding from their head, they wear
human clothes, others wear no
clothes, some speak English, some
don't, they inhabit the severed
heads of ancient celestial beings
and they suffer from poorly orga-
nized prison systems. But in spite
of all the idiosyncrasy and inexpli-
cable variation, the story remains
believable. After all, it's not set
See GALAXY, Page8
TheD
By ERIKA HARWOOD
Senior Arts Editor
I remember first seeing the
lineup for this year's Lollapaloo-
za and being disappointed, yet
again. I've been attending the
festival off and on for the last
six years and seem to get more
and more discouraged with each
lineup release, ultimately avoid-
ing the event all together last
year. This year there were a few
acts that stuck out: Lorde, Blood
Orange and Chance The Rap-
per, along with mainstays like
Kings of Leon, Eminem and the
traveling Outkast reunion show,
which I would have sold most
of my limbs to see, but that's
another 2,000 word article for
another time. Unsurprisingly,
I'm not gelling with the crowd of
the enormous and at times over-
whelming festival as well as I did
when I was 16, and I still don't
think I'll ever understand how
Skrillex could headline anything
past the year 2011. However, I
was continually comforted by
the presence of acts I've recently
discovered along with longtime
loves, and I refused to let some
punk ass teens who've been at
back-to-back EDM shows since 1
p.m. ruin that for me.
Friday: It Rained
I'm going to be honest. Going
to a festival with a press pass,
especially when you live in the
city where it's taking place, hps
made me lot more choosy with
my selection of shows. As I was
getting ready to leave my apart-
ment in Rogers Park on the first
day of the fest, it started to pour
down rain. This was my fourth
Lollapalooza, and if there's one
thing I've gathered from my few
years of festival experience, it's
that it will always rain. Hard. But
it will also always pass within an
hour or so at most. So, I parked
myself on my couch, cracked
open a Rolling Rock and watched
the previous night's "Colbert
Report". The first show I was
really eager about was Blood
Orange, which wasn't until the
late afternoon, and frankly there
just aren't enough drugs in the
aily at
world for me to willingly g
outside for extended periods o
time while it's pouring rain. I'm
assuming I've reached the apex
of adulthood.
When I finally arrived at Gran
Park a little before 4 p.m. to meet
up with a friend for the Blood
orange show, I realized tha
things had changed from the las
time I was there. The line to ge
in seemed to take forever, and i
probably didn't help that I was in
a rush while also being surround
ed by drunk high schoolers. Afte
finally breaching the gates,I
made my way toward the pres
Can a
21-year-old
be too old for
Lollapalooza?
tent to grab a drink before the
show. After wandering around
aimlessly for a bit, I gave up and
decided to go early and park i
up front for Blood Orange. Afte
swimming against the curren
of Iggy Azalea fans consisting o
way too loud bros and fucked-up
15-year-olds, the intimate, casu
ally chit-chatting crowd waiting
to see Dev Hynes was refreshing
He took the stage with his girl
friend/Cupid Deluxe frequent
er, Samantha Urbani. The pai
sported homemade T-shirts with
messages against police brutality
and both made statements durin
the killer set to address the topic
making it all the more disturbin
when just hours later the couple
accused security of physically
assaulting them.
I left the show a few song
early, determined to finally make
it the press tent per the origina
plan. As I walked toward the
south end of the park, I coul
hear Iggy Azalea performing
"Fancy." For all the think pieces
that song has gotten, I still fee
Lolla
o little to no shame when I say
f that I think it's great, albeit over-
a played. That said, hearing it echo
x through Grant Park really brings
out the worst in people, myself
t included. Elbowing my way
t through the crowd that was high
d off the ecstasy that comes from
t seeing an Australian girl who is
t "kill-yourself hot" rap a Top 40
t hit along with the actual ecstasy
t they'd probably been licking off
n of their muddy hands for the past
- hour, I feltcompelled to call all of
r their parents and tell them their
I children are garbage.
s But I persevered, eventually
making my way to a place where
I had room to move without risk-
ing having other people's sweat
form a layer over my own. I ran
into a co-worker from my intern-
ship and we decided to catch the
last bit of Lorde together. On
the way over, I convinced him
that her album was great and
she did, in fact, have more songs
than "Royals" and "Team," yet
the only ones we managed to
see were those two along with
"Ribs." Good looking out, Ella.
e We headed back to get sta-
d tioned for Eminem, which I ini-
d tially planned on skipping for
t Phantogram - I'm glad I didn't.
T He came out and immediately
t exploded with the energy he
f seemed to be lacking the past few
p years. During the set, someone
- standing near us mentioned that
g she heard Rihanna might be in
. town. Lo and behold, Rihanna
- showed up and I freaked the hell
- out. In retrospect, it made per-
r fecetsense; the show was the ideal
h dress rehearsal/PR move for
y Eminem and Rihanna's upcom-
g ing The Monster Tour. Although
it didn't morph into the strictly-
g Rihanna set I secretly hoped it
- would (they only performed the
y songs they've recorded together),
it was the detail the set didn't
s necessarily need but undoubted-
e ly cemented it as one of the best
l shows of the weekend.
e See the rest of Erika's Lolla-
d palooza 2014 coverage, including
g a thorough account of whether or
s not it rained on each day, at michi-
1 gandaily.com/arts
UPPER -The Olive Branch will be South Quad's Mediterranean station, one of 1(
micro-restaurants. MIDDLE: The gluten-free room will be available by MCard
access only toavoid contamination. LOWER: Tables in one of the many dining
spaces are reclaimed bowling alley lanes.
READY FOR SCHOOL TO START? WE THOUGHT NOT.
But, since you have to come back, why not join the Daily? #rushTMD