ACROSS
1 “Hardball” station
6 McCain’s org.
9 Mardi Gras
mementos
14 São __, Brazil
15 Body spray brand
16 Baseball Hall of
Famer Murray or
Mathews
17 Arrange ahead of
time
18 Irish actor Stephen
19 Jeans accent
20 *Competition won
by a knockout?
23 Magazine fig.
25 Easily led sorts
26 Seminary subj.
27 Kerfuffles
29 Easily roused
crowd
32 Single
33 Highest North
American peak,
to natives
36 *Certain cutlet
41 Not quite boil
42 Grammar class
subject
43 Slide subject
46 Common motel
prohibition
47 Turned on
48 With no affection
52 Corp. bigwigs
53 *Nonviolent
revolution
57 First name on a
1945 bomber
58 SoCal team, on
scoreboards
59 Athenian with
harsh laws
62 Race with batons
63 Clean one’s plate
64 Respected
church member
65 Deuce beaters
66 Recently retired
NCAA football
ranking system,
and, as a plural,
a hint to the
answers to
starred clues
67 Pitcher’s arm,
say
DOWN
1 U.S. Army cops
2 Encl. with a
manuscript
3 Type of ale
4 *Dressing with
Buffalo wings
5 Nightclub of
song
6 Brooks of C&W
7 Daisy variety
8 Flower child’s
parting word
9 Swiss capital
10 Revise text
11 Sooner or later
12 Semi-filling liquid
13 Come to terms
21 Pearl Harbor’s
__ Arizona
Memorial
22 Personality with
an online book
club
23 Carp family fish
24 Prefix with
sphere
28 Go off-script
30 2005 Bush
Supreme Court
nominee
31 *Arm-
strengthening
reps
33 Mil. award
34 L.A.-to-Tucson
dir.
35 ATM giant
37 Phishing medium
38 Rollerblading
safety gear
39 José’s “this”
40 Loch near
Inverness
43 Angels’ slugger
Pujols
44 Martin of “Adam-
12”
45 “Lawrence of
Arabia” Oscar
nominee
46 1785-’90 U.S.
capital
49 Star
50 Newton
associated with
apples, not figs
51 Exams for future
J.D.s
54 Nivea rival
55 Diary pages
56 Old Greek theaters
60 Average grade
61 Food scrap
By Pawel Fludzinski and Amy E. Hamilton
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/09/15
09/09/15
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
WWW.CARLSONPROPERTIES.-
COM
734‑332‑6000
THESIS EDITING, LANGUAGE,
organization, format. All Disciplines.
734/996‑0566 or writeon@iserv.net
PART-TIME RETAIL Merchandiser
Alternate needed to merchandise Hall‑
mark products at various retail stores in
the ANN ARBOR area. To apply, please
visit: http://hallmark.candidatecare.com
EOE Women/Minorities/Disabled/Vet‑
eran.
3 BEDROOM TOWNHOME
2 1/2 bath with den, incl. all appliances,
full size washer and dryer
1275 Wisteria ‑ $1,700/mo for 1 yr lease
Call 734‑663‑7633 for more info
ROCKSTARS WANTED
Jimmy John’s Delivery drivers/bikers,
sandwich makers (PT) & Managers (FT)
All Ann Arbor locations.
Resumes to jfencyk@jimmyjohns.com
CENTRAL CAMPUS, FURNISHED
rooms,
shared
kitch.,
ldry.,
bath.,
internet,
rent from $575 per month.
Call 734‑276‑0886.
HOUSE CLEANING FOR Retired
Professor. $15 per hour. Flexible hours.
668‑8850
! NORTH CAMPUS 1-2 Bdrm. !
! Riverfront/Heat/Water/Parking. !
! www.HRPAA.com !
FOR RENT
SERVICES
HELP WANTED
6A — Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘Teenage Girl’ is
brutally honest
Frank sex scenes
abound in adaptation
of UM prof.’s novel
By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY
Daily Arts Writer
“The Diary of a Teenage Girl”
is raw, in your face and unapolo-
getically uncomfortable. It builds
its aura around
the
dynam-
ic of what is
considered
acceptable and
socially
unac-
ceptable and, by
doing so, audi-
ences succumb
to
watching,
following
and
loving a per-
fectly
casted
story of discov-
ery and social
acceptability.
Speaking in generalizations,
the world has “normal” people
and “abnormal” people. How-
ever, despite being “normal,”
we all have the stray abnormal
thought. We might keep it to
ourselves and ask “Why did I
just think that?” Our normal-
ness certainly outweighs our
stray moments of abnormality.
“The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is
the culmination of those stray,
atypical moments.
Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley,
“M.I. High”), an average subur-
ban girl growing up in 1970’s San
Francisco, opens the film with “I
had sex today. Holy shit.” Min-
nie is the movie’s focal point.
She, just like most people, can be
both extremely self-involved and
self-loathing, depicted through
scenes in which she documents
her diary on a cassette recorder.
She has bad bangs and thinks
about sex almost exclusively.
And the thing with Minnie —
viewers have absolutely every
right to dislike like her for all of
the aforementioned reasons, but
it’s the balance of all her flawed
characteristics that allow the
audience to connect with her.
Moreover, Powly’s portrayal is
ethereal, bringing a social awk-
wardness and light humor to the,
at times, extremely dark plot.
Following Minnie’s declara-
tion of her non-existent vir-
ginity, time lapses back and we
learn that she lost her virginity
to her mother’s (Kristen Wiig,
“Bridesmaids”)
boyfriend,
Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard,
“True Blood”). This point in the
film’s synopsis invites a cringe,
but
the
onscreen
romance
between Monroe and Minnie is
nearly the opposite. He may be
35 and she 15, but there’s some-
thing behind Minnie’s bangs,
something immediately after
her self-obsession and imme-
diately before her self-loathing
that pushes their love away
from deplorable and toward
something more tender.
Aside from Powly, Wiig is
the only standout performance.
(Skarsgard does well, but the
depth of his character is mini-
mal in comparison.) For the
first hour of the film, Minnie’s
mother, Charlotte, is drunk and
high, throwing parties (which
15-year-old Minnie is delight-
ed to take part in). Even while
Minnie is having sex with Char-
lotte’s boyfriend, Charlotte is
often overshadowed by what is
happening on screen between
Minnie and Munroe. Charlotte,
at first oblivious to the affair,
eventually discovers Minnie’s
diary and tearfully asks, “How
long?”
after
which
Minnie
leaves home for several days.
Her moment of humanity comes
as she embraces Minnie upon
her return. She hugs, cries,
kisses and chokes out, “I need
to never talk about this again.”
It wasn’t an “I forgive you” or
an “It’s OK” typically said after
fuck-ups. Despite the movie cir-
cling Minnie’s self-discovery,
it’s that line that rings as the
most honest throughout the
already candid 102 minutes.
“The Diary of a Teenage Girl”
isn’t kind to its viewers. It says
everything we don’t want to hear
and does everything we don’t
want to do — which is exactly why
it’s necessary. If no one ever slept
with their mom’s boyfriend, how
would we know what would work
out? Minnie discovered herself in
an unconventional 1970’s fashion,
but if it weren’t for her, would we
know how to shake someone’s
hand and think “I’m better than
you, you son of a bitch?”
By SHAYAN SHAFII
For The Daily
I remember back when Tra-
vis Scott first announced him-
self
to
the
Internet. A few
blogs
start-
ed
buzzing
when pictures
of
him
with
Kanye
West
started
mak-
ing the rounds,
and
they
announced
that G.O.O.D. Music had signed
“the next Kanye.” Travis did his
best to dress like Kanye and Kid
Cudi and he would even modify
his voice to sound like them on
record. At the time, his entire
fan base was encompassed by a
single thread on a music forum,
tellingly titled “KanyeToThe...”
Since rap hasn’t been quite as
Kanye-centric the past couple
years, the hilariously inorganic
manner in which Travis has
“evolved” should not be over-
looked. Just as the music world’s
attention turned to Atlanta as a
hotbed for bizarre artists (see:
Young Thug, ILoveMakonnen,
Future), Travis, out of left field,
released
a
mixtape
carried
entirely by featured rappers and
producers from Atlanta. The
production credits reveal he’s
not the five-beats-a-day-for-
three-summers young Kanye
protégé he makes himself out
to be. Travis only co-produced
one track off the mixtape, while
four other producers cleaned
up after him.This was pre-Yee-
zus 2013, a time when plenty of
fledgling Internet rappers were
beginning to piece together
parts of Kanye’s identity and
construct them as their own.
From the onset of his career,
Scotty “La Flame” (suspiciously
close to Gucci Mane “La Flare”)
never even attempted to present
himself as a legitimate person-
ality. But hip hop was so deep
into the Church of Yetheism
that Kanye’s cronies got a pass
for aestheticized plagiarism.
Travis Scott was born from
the ashes left behind by the
phoenix on the cover of My
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,
and it has emanated through
everything he’s touched in his
short and fraudulent career.
When Kanye curated a star-
studded guest list for Twisted
Fantasy, he turned the album
into his own tasteful award
show of sorts, rather than let it
serve as a distraction for him to
hide behind. Travis, however,
has a proven track record of
using high-profile features to
play hot potato with the music
industry.
2013 saw him birthed into
relevance by Kanye and T.I. In
2014, he latched onto dynam-
ic duo Rich Homie Quan and
Young Thug, and now on Rodeo
he has features from Justin
Bieber and The Weeknd, who
has been building steam on a
year-long hype train packed
with great pop records. Is it not
suspicious that this guy already
has such an illustrious and well-
timed list of collaborators with-
out even first building a local
following? Why is the music
industry trying so hard to make
this guy happen? Is Travis Scott
an industry plant? His trajecto-
ry thus far certainly looks that
way. Point being, if rap were a
high school, he would’ve been
the kid who sat at a different
lunch table every day in search
of the elusive cool table.
It comes as no surprise that
the first voice on Rodeo doesn’t
even belong to Jacques Webster.
In a fashion not too dissimilar
from the role of Common on
Kid Cudi’s Man On The Moon
series, T.I. floats in and out of
the album with cringe-worthy
monologues about a “young
rebel against the system” (iron-
ic, because the powers that be
are very clearly working on his
behalf). “Oh My Dis Side” sees
Travis go for that hardly-audi-
ble-but-expressive type of rap-
ping that codeine-fueled artists
like Future and Chief Keef have
mastered, but his delivery falls
short of the emotion required to
make you feel … anything. Even
when Future mumbles lyrics in
his classic Xanaxed-out daze,
it’s at least about something
(usually heartbreak) or sung in
a way that evokes feeling; Tra-
vis spends the track mumbling
about nothing, leaving only
drab vibes and sonics (two of
his favorite words) in place of a
legitimate song.
The inconsistency in terms of
who Travis works with leaves
all of his collaborations void
of any chemistry. It’s as if two
strangers had to share a stu-
dio and made a song while they
were at it. When he finally does
snag someone from the cool
table for a feature, the authen-
ticity of their personality auto-
matically takes the limelight
— every time. Migos’ Quavo
appears on the latter half of “Dis
Side” to give a heartfelt recount
of his rags-to-Versace come-
up. “3500” is basically a Future
song where Travis only stops
by for the adlibs (the “straight
up” adlib was coined by Future
anyways). Travis really outdoes
himself on “Pray 4 Love” with
bars like “Contemplatin’ forni-
catin’ / Might as well fuck up
some shit / They lookin’ at me
way too crazy / Got me feelin’
communist.” He doesn’t really
make any sense, but how ‘bout
those Vibes™, right? The only
time it even feels like a real
human being is on the track is
when The Weeknd closes out
the song.
The hotly anticipated “Piss
On Your Grave” features Kanye
himself, who again renegades
Travis on his own track. Kanye
takes a break from Hampton
spouses to use an executive’s
face as a urinal, which, although
crude, channels the same frus-
tration as 2013’s “New Slaves.”
Travis makes yet another for-
gettable appearance on his own
song, with lines like “Told my
momma ‘bitch get back in the
door’” and “Kamikaze over
commas” (another obvious bite
from Future’s jargon). The dis-
parity between their verses
highlights the fact that context
and transparency are supposed
to shed light on an artist’s char-
acter and identity, which Travis
has none of.
For example, Kanye raps
about urinating on an executive
because of his well-documented
struggles in entering the fash-
ion industry (see: Yeezus). For
Travis though, there’s really
nothing left to say, as his every
word is an attempt to recreate a
black-rockstar persona that he
also stole from Mr. West. More
than anything in this world,
Travis Scott wants his music to
sound as important as the art-
ists he bites, but would he ever
really have enough substance
to deliver a speech like the one
Kanye delivered last week at
the VMAs? Or communicate
his upbringing through his
music, like Chief Keef? Or be as
painfully honest as artists like
Future and Drake? No, but he
can hire their producers.
Travis’s identity crisis is the cen-
tral issue regarding not just Rodeo,
but his entire career. He hides
behind a legion of Kanye’s side-
kicks and Atlanta super-producers
to curate something artistically
worth much less than the sum of
its parts. Yes, Rodeo is packed with
high-thread count beats and is one
of the best-engineered albums
since Daft Punk’s Random Access
Memories, but only with the help
of names like Mike Dean, Kanye
West and Metro Boomin. The
album closes with a series of ques-
tions from T.I regarding the young
revolutionary: “Will he make it?
Was it worth it? Did he win? Will
he survive the rodeo?” But these
are all the wrong questions. By the
end of Rodeo, only one pertinent
question remains: honestly, who is
Travis Scott?
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Never trust the porn stache.
GRAND HUSTLE
“Kanye said vampires were cool this year!”
Travis Scott still a
mystery after ‘Rodeo’
C-
Rodeo
Travis Scott
Grand Hustle
He wants his
music to sound as
important as the
artists he bites.
Kanye himself
again renegades
Travis on his
own track.
B+
The Diary
of a
Teenage
Girl
Archer Gray
Productions
Michigan Theater
and Quality 16
FILM REVIEW
Honestly: who
is Travis Scott?
ALBUM REVIEW