Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

ACROSS
1 Parking lot fillers
5 “Me too!”
10 Cutlass
automaker
14 Nike competitor
15 Valuable violin,
for short
16 Genesis or
Exodus, e.g.
17 Like the 1920s-
’30s,
economically
19 Wild revelry
20 Audition
hopefuls
21 Enjoyed a sail,
say
23 Indian melodies
24 Excellent work
27 Dean’s email
suffix
28 Japanese sash
30 Back of a flipped
coin
31 2,000 pounds
32 Uncooked
34 Greek
messenger of the
gods
35 Dramatic
weight-loss
program
38 Geek Squad
member
41 Fireworks
reaction
42 EPA-banned
pesticide
45 Roger who broke
Babe Ruth’s
record
46 Refusals
48 Prior to, in
poems
49 Deadeye with a
rifle
53 “A Doll’s House”
playwright
55 Decorative inlaid
work
56 Watchful
Japanese
canines
57 Comet Hale-__
59 Hectic pre-
deadline period
61 Thought from la
tête
62 Hayes or Hunt
63 Slaughter in the
Baseball Hall of
Fame
64 Surrender, as
territory
65 Grab
66 Emailed

DOWN
1 Musical set at the
Kit Kat Club
2 Guacamole fruit
3 Tear gas weapon
4 Margaret Mead
subject
5 Georgia and
Latvia, once:
Abbr.
6 Horseplayer’s
haunt, for short
7 Island near
Curaçao
8 Perry in court
9 Convention pin-
on
10 Section of a
woodwind quintet
score
11 Conrad classic
12 Guard that barks
13 Big __ Country:
Montana
18 Approximately
22 One-to-one
student
24 Prejudice
25 Corrida cry
26 Undergraduate
degrees in biol.,
e.g.
29 Scottish hillside
33 Detective’s
question
34 Sunshine
cracker

35 Massachusetts
city crossed by
four Interstates
36 Insurance covers
them
37 “Please stop that”
38 Film lover’s TV
choice
39 Corn serving
40 Hardly roomy, as
much airline
seating
42 Preordain
43 “It’ll never happen!”

44 Most uptight
47 Many a Punjabi
50 Goldman __:
investment
banking giant
51 New employee
52 Eyelike openings
54 Tugs at a fishing
line
56 Clearasil target
57 Clic Stic pen
maker
58 Poem that extols
60 Pince-__ glasses

By Clement McKay
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/26/15

01/26/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, January 26, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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Call 734‑996‑1991 

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(906) 
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Pig is looking for interns to help w/ mar‑
keting and research. Great way to learn
the music business, get free entry into
shows. Email zachary.tocco@gmail.com 
with the subject “INTERN” for more info.

DOMINICK’S HIRING FOR spring 

& summer. Call 734‑834‑5021.

THE 
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! NORTH CAMPUS 1‑2 Bdrm. !
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PARKING 2015‑16 at “Prime” locations
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2,3,4 BEDROOM APARTMENTS
South Campus Fall 2015‑16
1015 Packard ‑ $1370‑$2680 + Utilities
Call 734‑996‑1991 to sched a viewing

2015‑2016 LEASING
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4 BEDROOM HOUSE Fall 2015‑16
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SERVICES
FOR RENT

HELP WANTED

ANNOUNCEMENT

PARKING

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT

5A — Monday, January 26, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Björk’s strange, 
dark ‘Vulnicura’

ONE LITTLE INDIAN

Don’t push her in, she’ll short circuit.

Björk’s new album 

is a challenging 
avant-garde work

 

By AMELIA ZAK

Daily Music Editor

There’s an episode of Friends 

where Ross reawakens a per-
sonal piano “sound” he acquired 
in college. He 
wants 
each 

song 
to 
be 

understood as 
a 
“wordless 

sound 
poem,” 

made complete 
by 
helicopter 

sounds, 
door-

bells, jackham-
mer 
noises 

and dog barks. 
The rest of the 
“Friends” cast neglects to inform 
him of these floundering artis-
tic attempts. When listening to 
Björk’s newest album, Vulnicura, 
I felt like Ross. Any attempt I 
would make at recreating the 
sounds of Vulnicura would be 
equally as awkward and ridicu-
lous. I could never reproduce 
these sounds — I couldn’t even 
sing them in the shower — and 
I can barely apprehend the Ice-
landic depth or enjoyment that 
some could find in Vulnicura.

The album floats around the 

marriage of three musical ele-
ments: Björk’s specific throaty 
and moaning voice, a recurring 
string section and the impos-
sibly cool additions of revered 
electronic artists like Matthew 
Herbert and Haxan Cloak. In 
the past, Björk’s albums fol-
lowed 
outlandish 
themes 

(her last revolved around her 
thoughts and opinions of the 
growing universe), but here 
Björk has never been more vul-
nerable. It’s as if she opened up 
her diary and began to sing its 
contents aloud. Her voice cries 
over every track, explaining her 
marriage’s decline and the disin-
tegration of her once whole fam-
ily. The album is a dam breaking 
that held back waters of Björk’s 
nervous depression.

Fogged by a high school 

obsession with Björk’s 1993 
single, “Big Time Sensuality,” I 
imagined I was qualified enough 
to conquer the album.

I was deeply mistaken.
This type of experimental 

music surpasses other modern 
bands of the same genre, like St. 
Vincent and tUnE-yArDs, in its 
depth and ability to be under-
stood by the everyday listener. 
Unqualified to properly review 
this kind of avant-garde art, I 
received the album as a fasci-
nated third party. So here’s my 
song-by-song, 
minute-by-min-

ute transcribed listening session 
of the album. If you have the 
album, or are skilled in the fine 
art of “finding free shit on the 
Internet,” jump in with me:

The 
album 
begins 
with 

“Stonemilker.” With a strong 
cello and string section begin-
ning, I am surprised from the 
start. Her emotional, hiccup-
ing voice enters in slowly, drag-
ging you into a series of pleads 
to a lover she’s losing. “Show 
me 
emotional 
respect,” 
she 

whispers. Deep bass vibrations 
emerge and the speakers in my 
room start to shake. I imagine 

Björk shaking as much as my 
bedside table as she coughs the 
question “What is it that I have 
that makes me feel your pain?” 
Lying on the ground, listening 
along, I’m starting to become 
more and more aware of my 
emotional and musical short-
comings that do not permit my 
critical analysis of this album.

Next song, “Lionsong” — a 

personal favorite of mine. With 
absolutely 
no 
consistencies 

other than the string section 
that follows along, it feels like 
your buckled into a rollercoaster 
of Björk’s crippling heart. That 
sounds dramatic, but just go take 
a listen. “Maybe he will come 
out of this loving me?” — ouch.

“History of Touches” digs 

deeper into an electronic sound. 
A synthesized piano and heavy 
electronic base guides the song 
with each sound vibrating off 
her voice. The song drags itself 
out of the emotional and into 
the physical, recalling “every 
single fuck we had together in 
a wondrous time lapse.” At only 
three minutes long, this is pos-
sibly the most digestable song 
on the album.

“Black Lake” is a 10-min-

ute adventure of the mind that 
made me wish I had cannabis 
on hand. The album is starting 
to become sonically repetitive: 
here’s 
another 
string-based 

song layered over by a string of 
electronic creations. With each 
new verse the song builds with 
pounds and rolls of strings. If 
you can’t survive the entire 
track, just try and make it to the 
song’s apex, lasting from the 
fourth to the fifth minute. From 
there until the completion of the 
song you are trudging through 
the emotional sludge of the 
Black Lake with Björk. Bring 
some weed, and good luck.

Following “Black Lake,” I 

went to “Family” looking for an 
emotional and musical respite. 
Instead I found another out-
landish and dark creation with 
(surprise!) strings, electronics 
and Björk’s depictions of her 
newly created vat of human sad-
ness that could easily be slipped 
into the film score of “Alien.” 
The largest distinction to be 
found in “Family” is Björk’s 
malleable vocals as it occupies 
an almost witch-like persona. 
Minute three arrived, a strong 
cello appears, and any ebb and 
flow I thought I had begun to 
understand disappears imme-
diately.

“Notget” follows the theme 

of the album. More strings, 
more cries of sadness, more 
really cool electronics. “Our 
love could not keep us safe 
from death”, “Without love I 
feel the abyss and understand 
your fear of death” are some 
of the throaty proclamations. 
This repetition has my sympa-
thies dissipating quickly.

A respite! Finally! “Atom 

Dance” is the waltz of this 
album. I was surprised (but 
with all this weird nothing 
really surprised me at this 
point) by this unique dance 
number; it is the closest the 
album 
comes 
to 
the 
hap-

pier songs — and apparently 
times — that Bjork once gave 
in ’90s albums like Post and 
Debut. It was here that I played 
“Big Time Sensuality” just to 
remind myself that Björk has 
known happier times. And 

maybe she’ll find happiness 
again soon? You poor woman. 
My poor confused roommates.

“Mouth Mantra” contains 

some of the most impressive 
electronic work on the album. 
At six minutes long I’m expect-
ing to be bored by the repeti-
tion of sonic themes (strings, 
electronics, 
Björk’s 
vocals) 

but here I was pleasantly sur-
prised.

It’s pretty late, and I’m pret-

ty exhausted, but this song has 
me envisioning myself ventur-
ing through outer-space with 
Björk as she sings to me about 
sacrifice. This isn’t entirely 
unpleasant.

And finally, the light at the 

end of the deep dark tunnel of 
this album: “Quicksand” arrives 
with electronic spasms. Slow 
strings emerge once again, but 
at only two minutes long and 
with a change of topic — Björk’s 
words finally start describe 
a hope for rebirth — the song 
grips your ears until its finish. 
One of the album’s last lines 
says, “when she is broken she 
is whole and when she is whole 
she is broken.” This album 
would, and probably should, 
end in a confusing, insightful 
paradox.

LIONSGATE

Jack Sparrow would kick this guy’s ass.
Depp sinks deeper 
in dull ‘Mortdecai’ 

By VANESSA WONG

Daily Arts Writer

Certain tropes reappear in 

cinema so frequently that we 
might as well consider them 
laws of nature. 
Serious actors 
+ empowering 
real life story 
= Oscar. Seth 
Rogan + fart 
jokes = com-
edy. These are 
simplistic and 
well-trodden 
concepts, but they work.

“Mortdecai” takes a stab at 

its own genre specific equation, 
picking English Dandy off the 
cinematic shelves and tossing it 
in the medley with Internation-
al Heist and Frivolous Antics. 
And we can’t forget the mus-
taches. Because those are hip 
and funny, right?

Not always, kids.
The eponymous protagonist 

Charles 
Mortdecai 
(Johnny 

Depp, “Pirates of the Caribbe-
an”), a well-groomed and per-
petually 
featherbrained 
art 

dealer, gets tangled up in a 
scheme to recover a lost Goya 
painting. Not only is the paint-

ing a masterpiece, it also sup-
posedly 
contains 
Hermann 

Goering’s 
lucrative 
bank 

account details. Clearly, many 
people are after this painting, 
but Mortdecai must get his 
hands on it first. Illegal at times, 
this caper takes Mortdecai dan-
gerously close to Russian thugs, 
nymphomaniac daughters and 
fellow art rivals. All this while 
an MI6 agent cozies up to Mort-
decai’s beautiful wife (Gwyn-
eth Paltrow, “Shakespeare in 
Love”) and cracks in the mar-
riage emerge.

“Mortdecai” 
flounders 

because its foundational com-
ponents 
are 
too 
iconic 
to 

rebrand under another name. 
It’s too easy to tease out the 
film’s inspirations. It touches on 
Wes Anderson kitsch through a 
“Pink Panther”-style slapstick 
comedy lens. In fact, Mortdecai 
seems like a direct synthesis of 
Jacques Clousseau and Gustave 
H. Its storyline also evokes that 
of the “Grand Budapest Hotel,” 
which 
is 
painfully 
obvious 

considering that “Grand Buda-
pest” was released less than a 
year ago. In this film, the equa-
tion that originally arose from 
pure receptivity now becomes 

a sophomoric crutch to borrow 
from already successful prede-
cessors.

Mortdecai himself, the sup-

posed heartbeat of the film, 
isn’t as powerful of a char-
acter as he needs to be. His 
charm can’t support his arro-
gance, nor does his debonair 
background contrast sharply 
enough with his clumsiness. 
There’s also the added issue 
that the audience must stom-
ach Depp and Paltrow’s grat-
ingly awful English accents for 
two whole hours. The entire 
film revolves around Mortde-
cai’s eccentricities, and though 
everything seems to align, he 
fails to lock it all together, as it 
falls flat in the end. It’s disap-
pointing to see Depp, a power-
house actor, bumbling around 
in a role like this.

If the audience can over-

look the film’s many hurdles, 
we’re rewarded with at least a 
few decently funny gags. After 
all, it does stick to the tried-
and-true formula, and maybe 
mustaches really can invoke 
laughter. But it still can’t can-
cel out the gravity of “Mortde-
cai” ’s biggest sin: it just tried 
way, way too hard.

No grade 
will be 
given

Vulnicura

Björk

One Little 
Indian

C+

Mortdecai

Rave and 
Quality 16

Lionsgate

ALBUM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW

