Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
ACROSS
1 High-ranking
Indian
5 Jack rabbits, e.g.
10 Mr. Ed’s foot
14 Like Bond foes
15 RLX automaker
16 Bring down with
a big ball
17 *“The Color
Purple,” for
Oprah Winfrey
19 Great Plains tribe
20 Soccer game tie,
often
21 Infiltrator
22 Email command
23 Hitch, as a ride
25 Long locks
27 Retailer known
for little blue
boxes
32 Maple output
33 Singer Amos
34 Bottom corner of
a square sail
36 Pass along
40 Is obliged to pay
41 Valentine symbol
... or, when read
as two words,
what you can’t do
when the
answers to
starred clues are
spoken
43 Dallas
quarterback Tony
44 Hiking trails
46 Word before
cook or burn
47 “Yeah, yeah, I
get it”
48 Monk’s title
50 Winter traction
aid
52 Game divisions
56 Car in a ’60s
song
57 Stagger
58 Off-road transp.
60 Horseshoe-
shaped letters
65 Inland Asian sea
66 *Special Forces
soldier
68 Dry with a towel
69 Words on a
Wonderland cake
70 Turkish currency
71 Egg container
72 Got off one’s duff
73 Mexico City
problem
DOWN
1 Riviera resort
San __
2 CoverGirl
competitor
3 Jazzy jargon
4 Et __: and
others
5 Went for a
burger, say
6 Unhittable serve
7 Pre-grilling spice
mixtures
8 Blow one’s stack
9 Lascivious
deities
10 *1990s Reform
Party candidate
11 Hall’s pop music
partner
12 Holey layer
13 Nourishes
18 Site of
Napoleon’s exile
24 Pilgrim Standish
26 Corn serving
27 Sporty car roof
28 State whose
straw poll was
discontinued in
2015
29 Banjo ridge
30 *Boneless
seafood option
31 Tapes up tightly
35 Like a test
answer with an
“x” next to it
37 Norse mischief-
maker
38 Love, to Ovid
39 Oxen harness
42 Black-and-white,
e.g.
45 “No seats” letters
49 Traditional sayings
51 Gestation
location
52 Shrimp relative
53 Spooky
54 Brings in
55 Fender guitar
model, briefly
59 White House no
61 Slim swimmers
62 Bleak
63 Prefix with
dynamic
64 Guys-only
67 Punk rock
offshoot
By Jerome Gunderson
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/15/15
09/15/15
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
TUTOR NEEDED
Chem and ACT prep 5‑8 hrs/wk $20/hr
Hrs flexible. Contact nseyhun@umich.edu.
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
HOUSE CLEANING FOR Retired
Professor. $15 per hour. Flexible hours.
668‑8850
ROCKSTARS WANTED
Jimmy John’s Delivery drivers/bikers,
sandwich makers (PT) & Managers (FT)
All Ann Arbor locations.
Resumes to jfencyk@jimmyjohns.com
ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT
now available close to Ross & Law
School 1 year lease September 2015 ‑
August 2016 $875 utilities included.
Call: (734) 834‑5021
CENTRAL CAMPUS, FURNISHED
rooms,
shared
kitch.,
ldry.,
bath.,
internet,
rent from $575 per month.
Call 734‑276‑0886.
WWW.CARLSONPROPERTIES.-
COM
734‑332‑6000
! NORTH CAMPUS 1-2 Bdrm. !
! Riverfront/Heat/Water/Parking. !
! www.HRPAA.com !
THESIS EDITING, LANGUAGE,
organization, format. All Disciplines.
734/996‑0566 or writeon@iserv.net
SERVICES
FOR RENT
HELP WANTED
6 — Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
GENDER AND MEDIA COLUMN
The media’s trouble
with girlfriends
INT. CROWDED NEW YORK
CITY SUBWAY – MORNING
I
t’s an unbearably hot, humid
July
day. One
sweaty,
solitairy
20-year-old
girl stands
against
the center
pole. Her
appearance
is marked
by heels she
obviously is
not handling well, a University of
Michigan umbrella that negates
any pretense of style and white
headphones resting innocently in
her ears. She laughs uncontrol-
lably.
* * *
Obviously, that perspiring loser
was me. I spent my summer riding
New York subways, and to pass
the time I became enamored with
podcasts. (Yes, I’m a Millennial,
come at me.) I’ll admit, I had never
really understood the podcast
game, as a lifelong reader myself.
But my much more cultured friend
gave me a list of ones she thought
I would like, and my summer
became marked with having
strangers’ voices constantly in
my ear.
Now back at school, one of
those podcasts is still a weekly
touchpoint for me — “Call Your
Girlfriend,” a podcast primar-
ily about two long distance best
friends catching up every week.
Ann Friedman and Aminatou
Sow — both warm, accomplished
and well-read women in their late
20s — spend an hour each week
talking about a range of topics, all
squarely within my wheelhouse:
Feminism, politics, Beyoncé,
menstrual cramps and “The Good
Wife.”
Ann and Aminatou are the
long-distance besties that I hope
my close female friends and I to
be someday. But they also are one
of the few external expressions of
close female friendship I’ve felt
connected to in a long time. Bar-
ring 2005’s seminal “Sisterhood
of the Traveling Pants” film and
Monica and Rachel’s relationship
on “Friends,” pop culture has a
dearth of accurately represented
girl best friends. Other than my
close family members and few
friends of the male inclination, I
can say pretty much exclusively
that the most important people
in my life have been my female
friends, and I want to see more of
that in the media I so reverently
consume.
There are shows and movies
that stab at it: “Gilmore Girls,” one
of the most feminist shows of all
time, is a celebratory homage to
strong and intelligent women. And
yes, Lorelai and Rory each have a
best friend: positive, supportive,
slightly dependent figures in both
their lives. But on a show that is
so female-focused it barely passes
the reverse Bechdel test, there
are few Gilmore female relation-
ships beyond these singular best
friends during the seven-season
course of the show. In contrast,
“Girls” doesn’t lack a variety of
friendships, but the show spends
more time engaging with the self-
ish, destructive side of friendship,
never building up the warmth and
connection that can and should be
present.
On the other hand, “Friday
Night Lights” never pretended to
be an expert on female friendship.
It was a show about a small-town
football coach and his luminous
wife. But since its debut in 2006,
“FNL” has been rightfully her-
alded as a show that thrives in its
relationships — the spectrum of
intimacy is palpable between all
the different types of characters
that exist in Dillon, Texas. But
while we see Coach and his play-
ers connect, young teens fall in
love, fathers and sons crumble and
one marriage stay blessedly strong
throughout, “FNL” never gives us
the relationship that I find most
relatable: The close female friend-
ship.
Why do some of the best writ-
ers of our time struggle with this
relationship? Is it that writing is
still a man’s game in Hollywood?
Or that executives can’t imagine
a female relationship that isn’t
sexualized in some form? I really
don’t know. But I can count on
one hand the number of friend-
ships I have seen in pop culture
that reflect my own, and I don’t
like that.
Enter: USA’s “Playing House.”
I’ll admit, I’m way behind the
times with this show, now deep
into it’s second season. “House,”
a half-hour sitcom written by and
starring real-life best friends Len-
non Parnam and Jessica St. Clair,
follows two adult women at cross-
roads in their lives. Maggie is eight
months pregnant when she discov-
ers her husband is cheating on her,
and Emma quits her high-powered
job to come home and help her
raise the baby.
It’s the perfect domestic part-
nership my best friends and I
dream of having, if sexual prefer-
ence wasn’t an issue. But really, this
show gets it. Maggie and Emma
are comfortable with one another
in ways only female friends can be.
They fight, but it’s never overblown
or disastrous. They understand
each other’s strengths and weak-
nesses deeply, and feed into one
another’s insecurities only when
feeling insecure themselves. They
have fun together. They laugh
often. They talk about boys and sex
and careers with equal measure.
As a show, “Playing House” isn’t
perfect — the humor is risk-free
and the plot points are never
particularly strong. But like “Call
Your Girlfriend,” it’s a comfort-
ing and rarely seen expression of
female friendship. I see myself and
my friends in Maggie and Emma,
and I’m grateful that their rela-
tionship is never belittled.
I know I am lucky in the female
friendships I have had, to hold
such a high standard within pop
culture. But in a world infatuated
with bromances, I’d love a little
more representation. As I sit here
on my porch, drinking a beer with
my best friends — all smart and
kind and interesting and funny —
I can’t help but think: Why hasn’t
anyone made a show about us?
Hollywood, please get to work.
Gadbois needs new deoderant.
To recommend a brand, email
gadbnat@umich.edu.
NATALIE
GADBOIS
Gary Clark returns
ALBUM REVIEW
By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY
Daily Arts Writer
Over the 42-minute finale of E!’s
docu-series, “I Am Cait,” the first
chapter of a long, groundbreaking
journey came to a close. Cait
and Kris Jenner
reunited. Cait met
the pastor who
would
officiate
her name-change
ceremony.
And,
finally,
Bruce
Jenner
officially
became
Caitlyn
Jenner — her authentic self —
and struck the chord of a new
beginning.
Caitlyn Jenner’s marriage to
Kris seemed as if it was only a
dream at this point, but for the
Kardashian/Jenner clan, it was
the glue that held their antics
together. Like most imminent
sit-down discussions, this began
tense: Curt hellos, “Where should
we sit?” and “OK, let’s get to it.”
But in contrary to E! culture,
there wasn’t a cat fight; there
were minimal tears and a sensible
Kris Kardashian. Over the course
of “I Am Cait” ’s first season, the
Kardashian side had often felt
like guest stars as opposed to
Caitlyn’s new group of girlfriends,
which is fine — the show wasn’t
about the Kardashians, it was
about Caitlyn’s journey into the
transgender community — but
it’s hard to ignore Kris’s feelings
of being left behind. Conversely,
it’s hard to ignore Caitlyn’s hurt
feelings over how the marriage
ended and Kris’s lack of support.
Nonetheless, the women and
audience settled on the notion
that from now on it will be better.
*Scene closes with a selfie.*
Ultimately, this episode and the
entire season led into Caitlyn’s
official transition into herself.
She hosted a gorgeous ceremony
in her newly-redecorated Malibu
home complete with her girl
squad, Boy George and a gay
men’s choir. Shandi read different
meanings of the name “Caitlyn”
inviting smiles; Jennifer read a
touching E.E. Cummings poem;
and finally, Candis sang “Amazing
Grace.”
Everyone
dressed
flawlessly in white. ’Twas an
occasion that would give any
Kardashian wedding a run for its
money. Next, Cait and her friends
discussed the role of religion in
the transgender community over
lunch. The conversation covered
many bases: A man shouldn’t
dress like a woman. You shouldn’t
touch a pig. Yes, those are both
biblical verses discussed, and yes
they do not hold much weight in
today’s society. No, that doesn’t
make anyone godless. It’s a
poignant
scene
that
touches
on the presence of spirituality
in the trans community while
concurrently acknowledging the
fact that many are pushed away
from religion as they move toward
their true selves.
Ultimately, Caitlyn Jenner bid
her first-season audience farewell
make-up-less from her bedroom
webcam: “We’ve got a long way to
go, but at least we’ve got a really
really good beginning. And that
makes my heart feel good.”
Before “I Am Cait” aired,
E! got a lot of side eye for the
term “docu-series.” And as the
series
premiered,
progressed
and finished, the show itself has
been judged based on the merits
of reality television as opposed
to the documentary it aimed to
be. “I Am Cait” can pride itself
on showing the best in its cast
as opposed to capitalizing on
the less-than-desirable parts of
human nature.
E!
“Can my hat BE any bigger?”
By REGAN DETWILER
Daily Arts Writer
I’m a hard fightin’ soldier, and
I’m on the battlefield
I’ll keep bringing soul to Jesus
by the service
– the service.
That I bring.
The service
... is hard.
So sings an
old Bible song;
the
voice
of
some essential
elder.
Enter
Gary Clark, Jr.
on the electric
guitar,
soon
to be followed
by a gospel choir for the opening
track, “The Healing,” of Clark’s
second studio release, The Story
of Sonny Boy Slim. This track, like
most of the album, is spiritual,
it’s personal and it’s powerful
— it’s blues, it’s rock and, at
times, it’s funk. Clark’s sound is
warm and empowering, charged
with a relaxing undercurrent of
momentum.
His voice evokes John Legend
and his verging-on-psychedelic
guitar solos evoke remembrances
of Jimi Hendrix. These evocations
make up the skeleton of Clark’s
full-bodied
musical
aesthetic,
nuanced
and
completely
unique. And it’s this muscular,
multifaceted sound that over the
years has earned him collabs with
artists like Foo Fighters, Alicia
Keys and Sheryl Crow.
The longest track on The Story
of Sonny Boy Slim, “Down to
Ride” has a promising title, but
reaches only 7:52 in length, and
the time that would have been
occupied with an awesomely
intense guitar solo instead was
met with a mellow but repetitive
synth beat and much less guitar;
it comes off as stingy, almost
lazy in comparison to Blak and
Blu’s “Third Stone from the Sun/
If You Love Me Like You Say,”
which opens with that burning
solo we were aching for, followed
by heavy drums fortified with
integrity. What’s worse is that
“Down to Ride” is the last song
on Sonny Boy Slim; Clark bids his
audience farewell with a circling
electronic beat (really?). Clark’s
first studio album, Blak and Blu,
back in 2012, was much grittier
than Sonny Boy Slim, with songs
over nine minutes long as he
seamlessly filled the timespace
with those incredible Hendrixian
solos.
I’m making it sound like I hate
the album, but The Story of Sonny
Boy Slim is strong in many ways:
most notably, it has more variety
than Blak and Blu. “Church” is
an easy acoustic ballad that uses
a
harmonica
and
gospel-like
background vocals. Songs like
“Hold On” and “BYOB” use jaunty
electric guitar, horns and bass in
ways that give this album much
more of a funk undertone than we
have seen Clark use in the past;
instead of focusing on long and
intense guitar solos (which some
fans may miss), this album covers
more ground. And he manages to
do this without sounding forced,
which is a testament to Clark’s
versatility and musical fluency.
This kind of variety also gives the
album potential to garner more
widespread appeal than Blak and
Blu, and luckily Clark has enough
talent to pull off a slightly more
popularized release.
Less grit may make him easier
to listen to for people who found
his first album a little too intense,
but the Austin native is best when
he’s at his most soulful, grinding
on the guitar and chiming in
with his honey-toned voice only
every now and then. Sonny Boy
Slim will make you feel cool,
calm, collected and ready to take
anything as it comes, because
as he sings to you like velvet,
“Everywhere you go, just know
that you’re a star.”
B+
The Story
of Sonny
Boy Slim
Gary Clark, Jr.
Warner Bros.
Records
WARNER BROS. RECORDS
“Could I BE any more pensive right now?”
‘Cait’ marks the end
of Jenner’s renewal
A
I Am Cait
Season finale
E!
‘Cait’ shows
the best in its
cast.
TV REVIEW