2B — Thursday, February 12, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

“You can’t just write some-

thing 
that’s 
funny,” 
said 

Engineering freshman Peter 
Flanagan, 
a 
recently 
hired 

E3W writer. “You have to write 
something that’s funny and fits 
the guidelines of a standardized 
paper, so we’re actually parody-
ing something. It’s difficult in 
that regard, getting used to it, 
but all the editors are really tal-
ented, so they all know how to 
reformat a joke to fit the guide-
lines, so they’re really helpful to 
new writers.”

The combination of humor 

and a standardized format is an 
ideal one for students for whom 
writing is usually not one of 
their favorite activities.

“It’s a good experience,” Fla-

nagan said. “Engineers have to 
take a couple of English classes, 
so might as well get it in a club, 
too.”

While 
the 
Every 
Three 

Weekly does have a distin-
guished and recognizable style, 
it’s not immune to innovation. 
The publication is constantly 
trying to think of other ways to 
reach out to students and gain 
new readers. In addition to pub-
lishing its articles on a website, 
the paper has recently unveiled 
The Click House, a section of 
the website that satirizes online 
click-bait articles, similar to 
The Onion’s ClickHole.

“(New formats for the Every 

Three Weekly) are still up in the 
air and being debated,” Flana-
gan said. “With any form of web 
content, there’s also the oppor-
tunity to create videos, which 
is vastly out of our realm and 
scope right now. But it’s been 
talked about, because there’s a 
lot of joke opportunities to be 
made there.”

The writing process at the 

Every Three Weekly begins 
with a meeting between the 
writers and editors where they 
pitch concepts for articles.

“We all just bring ideas to the 

table,” said Flanagan, describ-
ing the writing process. “We all 
listen to each other’s ideas, and 
we all vote on which ones are 
good.”

Verbally pitching ideas is 

essential in to determine which 
ideas seem to work the best.

“It’s just which one gets the 

most laughs,” Flanagan said. A 
week later, the writers and edi-
tors meet to edit the articles. 
The paper does not publish 
every article the writers pres-
ent to them, both due to the 
paper’s insistence on quality 
and the physical limitations of 
the newspaper format.

“I’ve submitted two (arti-

cles),” said Flanagan. “I feel like 
both of them have an OK shot of 
getting in the paper.”

Any given issue of the Every 

Three Weekly brings a variety 
of laughter, from the “Oh yeah, 
that’s something silly that I can 
relate to,” chuckle to the “I can’t 
believe I just read that!” guffaw. 
Topics range from personal 
relationships 
and 
fraternity 

antics to serious social issues 
such as Ebola and the Keystone 
XL pipeline. Given the publica-
tion’s predilection for subver-
sive humor and controversial 
topics, one might wonder if 
there are any topics the Every 
Three 
Weekly 
won’t 
write 

about. The answer is yes.

“We’ll never approach rape 

jokes, under any circumstanc-
es,” Michels said.

But humor based on race and 

political issues is fair game, 
with a condition.

“We try to always make sure 

that the joke is pointed at the 
system of oppression and not 
the victims of oppression,” 
Michels said.

A recent example of that 

tenet is the article “Unarmed 
white teen gets brutally slapped 
on wrist,” which was written in 
response to the Michael Brown 
shooting and subsequent con-
troversy.

“We wanted to make a joke 

on something as newsworthy as 
these murders,” said Michels, 
“but we knew that under no 
circumstances could we alien-
ate the victims. So instead we 
pointed the joke at this oppres-
sive system and the controversy 
surrounding it.”

By setting up a fictional sce-

nario and writing about it in a 
mock-outraged tone, the Every 
Three Weekly managed to use 
humor to deliver their com-
mentary on a tragic, controver-
sial event and draw attention to 
the absurdity of the situation. 
The publication is dedicated to 
insightful political commentary 
in addition to laughs.

Not everybody appreciates 

the joke, however, which has led 
to moments of controversy for 
the publication throughout the 
years. In 2005, the paper pub-
lished an article titled “Phelps 
to major in pussy,” which led 
to an associate athletic direc-
tor appealing to the Univer-
sity Activities Center executive 
board to limit the newspaper’s 
funding. Briarwood Mall took 
objection to the paper when 
it accidentally referenced the 
mall by name in an article about 
a pedophilic Santa, titled “Mall 
Santa tells child exactly what 
he wants for Christmas.” The 
paper was repeatedly protect-
ed from censorship by various 
Supreme Court precedents and 
University initiatives.

While satire can be protect-

ed on paper and through laws, 
there are some things that can-
not be protected against, as 
made terrifyingly plain after 
the Charlie Hebdo attack in 
France. As proponents and 
practitioners of satire, the 
Every Three Weekly staffers 
were shocked and saddened.

“In 
our 
meetings, 
we’re 

constantly laughing,” Michels 
said. “We’re constantly joking 
about things that, honestly, we 
shouldn’t be joking about. In all 
of our discussions about Charlie 
Hebdo, there wasn’t the usual 
joviality.”

However, this did not slow 

the paper down, and they com-
mitted themselves to paying 
tribute to the victims of the 
attack through humor. The 
result was an infographic titled 
“How satirical newspapers are 
dealing with the Charlie Hebdo 
tragedy.” The infographic per-
fectly captures the paper’s per-
fect mixture of humor, social 
commentary and sense of mor-
als.

The Every Three Weekly’s 

agenda is not a political one, but 
a populist one, seeking to reflect 
the opinions of the student body 
and show there is someone out 
there who understands their 
concerns, while the University 
administration may not. One 
of the paper’s most notable 
achievements in that regard 
occurred beyond the scope of 
the newspaper format.

“We created a fictional can-

didate to run in the CSG elec-
tions,” Michels said. “He won. 
He could not be installed in the 
student government because 
he didn’t exist, but we created 
a little bit of a wave there.”

The candidate for the 2011 

elections was Karlos Marks, 
with Joseph Stallone as a run-
ning mate. Even though the 
fictional candidate couldn’t be 
installed, students saw Karlos 
Marks as a symbol of their dis-
satisfaction with the student 
government, and the numerous 
votes for him were a clear state-
ment of that. Moreover, the stu-

dent support of Karlos Marks 
illustrated the Every Three 
Weekly’s ability to establish a 
meaningful connection with 
University 
students 
through 

its combination of laughs and 
truth.

Above all else, the Every 

Three Weekly represents the 
idea that humor can be a very 
valuable aspect of life.

“My 
favorite 
thing 
that 

humor does is allow us to take 
a second look at the things that 
surround us, the choices we 
make, the ways that we act and 
the cultures we participate in,” 
Michels said. “We can take a 
second look in a way that doesn’t 
startle or offend. It’s a humor-
ous look, and we can challenge 
ourselves and challenge the way 
we perceive things, all while 
sharing this humor that we can 
all really relate to.”

Sharing his perspective on 

the topic, Flanagan described 
the experience of seeing ComCo 
perform in Angell Hall.

“They filled one of the Angell 

Hall rooms, and they were 
charging admission, too,” Fla-
nagan said. “College students 

on a budget, who could do any-
thing else on a Friday night, 
decided to go to ComCo. So 
clearly, University of Michigan 
students value humor.”

“And there are so many dif-

ferent forms of it,” Flanagan 
continued. “The Every Three 
Weekly and ComCo are com-
pletely 
different 
types 
of 

humor. But you go to the source 
that you find to fit yourself bet-
ter, so we’re filling that void if 
you will.”

It is true that there are many 

humor-based 
organizations 

throughout 
the 
University, 

each with its own style. While 
one person may prefer the 
structure of the Every Three 
Weekly, another may be taken 

by the rapid-fire unpredict-
ability of ComCo, the inspired 
weirdness of the Gargoyle or 
the straightforward jokes of 
the LOL ROFL Comedy Club. 
Whatever a student may prefer, 
the Every Three Weekly exists 
to provide its unique version of 
humor, and the writers’ dedica-
tion to their craft has ensured 
that they will remain an insti-
tution for as long as University 
students want a laugh.

Nobody 
can 
predict 
the 

Every Three Weekly’s next 
move, what subjects it will 
tackle and what new formats 
it will explore. But there is 
one thing people can be sure 
of: sometime within the next 
three weeks, another issue of 
the Every Three Weekly will 
be completed, rife with fake 
news and laughter, and the 
staffers will once again set out 
into the Diag to try and get the 
paper in as many hands as pos-
sible.

“We figured just being in 

people’s faces, being loud and 
aggravating is the best way to 
do that,” Michels said with a 
smile.

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

The rodeo-centric “Liv-

ing for Love” video features 
Madonna as matador sur-
rounded by a 
flock of bulls, 
however these 
aren’t just any 
kind of bulls. 
They are ripped 
male 
danc-

ers 
rocking 

rhinestoned 
facemasks 
and 
horns. 

Throughout the video she 
is circled by these glamor-
ous horror-film reminiscent 
creatures, 
tempting 
them 

with her cape and fending 
them off with awkward cho-
reography. She rides one in 
typical bull fashion, fights 
one in plank position and 
finally dances in tandem 
with them.

The message here is clear: 

The rhinestone-masked bull-
dancers represent unhealthy 
relationships. 
They 
may 

appear shiny, but in the end 
they are only destructive. 
Madge tempts these relation-
ships and struggles with their 
allure (see her near make-out 
with a horned man). In the 

ends she dances with a group 
minus their masks, embraces 
positive relationships and is 
“gonna carry on” while “liv-
ing for love.”

Great song, but an overly 

stylized video. Several outfit 
changes for a single-scene 
video, well because a Madon-
na video cannot simply have 
one or two outfits. The red 
and black tones work in the 
first half of the video, but they 
eventually digress into some-
thing similar to an Instagram 
filter everyone avoids.

Upon defeating the final 

bull-dancer, roses fall to the 

ground and Madge throws 
her cape. The video closes 
with a Friedrich Nietzsche 
quote: “Man is the cruelest 
animal. At tragedies, bull-
fights and crucifixions he has 
felt best on earth; and when 
he invented hell for himself 
that was his very heaven.”

Ultimately, the video takes 

what is a phenomenal, uplift-
ing song, twists it around and 
shoves it into a metaphorical 
box. Consequently, the song 
loses much of its original 
glory by the video’s attempts 
to be more than a music video.

-CHRISTIAN KENNEDY

B-

‘Living 
for Love’

Madonna

Boy Toy Inc.

BOY TOY INC

WHAT’S NEW ON

FOR INTERVIEWS, TV RECAPS, FILM 
RETROSPECTIVES AND THE LATEST 

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

CHECK OUT

VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily

The Every Three Weekly staff writers pretend that they’re not taking Buzzfeed quizzes.

E3W
From Page 1B

EPISODE REVIEW

This 
week’s 
episode 
of 

“Archer” saw the spy gang 
stuck in an elevator on their 
way to an early 
morning meet-
ing. This meant 
that we got one 
of the few times 
in 
the 
series 

where 
all 
of 

the 
principal 

cast with the 
exception 
of 

Malory (Jessica 
Walter, “Arrest-
ed 
Develop-

ment”) were together for the 
entire episode. The idea was 
a novel approach — relying 
on dialogue while maintain-
ing a single setting. Even if it 
wasn’t exactly ground-break-

ing or original, the characters 
brought a flavor and humor 
that was enough to carry the 
episode. 
Particular 
high-

lights were Pam (Amber Nash, 
“Frisky Dingo”) channeling 

Omar from “The Wire” while 
drinking malt liquor early in 
the morning. In short, another 
entertaining installment in the 
excellent espionage comedy.

-DREW MARON

FX

B

‘Archer’

Season 6, 
Episode 5 
Thursdays 
at 10 p.m.

FX

The E3W’s 

agenda is not a 
political one, but 
a populist one.

TRAILER REVIEW

It’s those eyes, those big, 

crazy eyes — when you look 
into them, they don’t so much 
as look back, 
but stare deep 
into the soul. 
You’re 
trans-

fixed, lost in 
an 
abyss. 
It 

doesn’t 
mat-

ter that one of 
them 
might 

be lazy, or they often appear 
puffy; rather, it’s what the 
eyes, those big Buscemi eyes 
stand for. They’re the eyes 
of a man who knows what 
he wants, who thinks big, 
who, when he orders coffee, 
demands it be filled no less 
than six times. But how many 
secrets do they hide? How far 
must we wade to get to that 
most base layer, that darkest 
shade of Mr. Buscemi?

It’s most refreshing to see 

a more fleshed out charac-
ter in Mr. Grey, as portrayed 
in supercut by Mr. Buscemi. 
He’s now less a cardboard 
cutout, barely able to stand 
on his own, than a round-
ed character with faults, 
desires, even limits to that 
dark, erotic nature. When the 

going gets rough, he demands 
it stop. This Mr. Grey oozes 
power, maybe not the kind of 
power you were expecting, 
but a greater power all the 
same. Just look into his eyes, 
they’re calling … “Mr. Busce-
mi will see you now.”

-JAMIE BIRCOLL

A-

‘Fifty 
Shades of 
Buscemi’

HBO

“... clearly, 
University 

students value 

humor.”

“... just being in 
people’s faces, 
being loud and 
aggravating ...”

