ACROSS
1 Lobsters’ sense
organs
6 Celebs
10 Flight from the
law
13 Poker declaration
14 “__ my guard
down”
15 Famille patriarch
16 Form by
combining
elements
18 One-piece
garments,
slangily
19 Rome-based
carrier
20 Toll road
timesaver
22 “Girls Just Want
to Have Fun”
singer
24 Performer’s
supporters
28 Guacamole, e.g.
29 Twisty letter
30 Diva delivery
31 Snoozed
33 Fictional voyager
40 Retired New York
senator Al D’__
41 Rational
42 DDE rival
45 Esteemed league
member
46 N, in Morse code
49 Sparkle
52 Currencies
53 Irrationality
58 Bravo preceder
59 Host of the 2015
MLB All-Star
Game
61 Not masc. or
fem.
62 Prod
63 Gold brick
64 Fashion
monogram
65 Jury member
66 Fluff, as hair

DOWN
1 Italian capital of
its own province
2 Kind of nitrite
3 Actress
Anderson
4 Golf stroke that
can be practiced
in a hallway
5 Cornell University
city

6 Brand that “gets
the red out”
7 Epic with a very
big horse
8 Refillable candy
9 Metal playing
marbles
10 Delaware Valley
tribe
11 Comes into view
12 Salutation
abbreviation
15 Bite-size Chinese
appetizer
17 Tarzan portrayer
Ron et al.
21 Mothers of
Invention
musician
23 Empty, as threats
24 Fourth notes
25 “Entourage”
agent Gold
26 Diarist Anaïs
27 Rum-soaked
cake
31 “The Affair” airer,
briefly
32 Morticia, to
Gomez
34 Peaceful
relations
35 Annual tennis
team event
36 Texting farewell

37 Chap
38 Lennon partner
39 On Soc. Sec.
42 The same
number
43 Places where
élèves study
44 Wicked ... and,
homophonically,
like five long
puzzle answers
46 One of the
reindeer

47 “The Bell of __”:
Longfellow
48 “Don’t need to
watch that movie
again”
50 Spiffy
51 Fencing attack
54 Celebrity chef
Burrell
55 Lengthy story
56 Nebraska natives
57 Evening, in ads
60 Anger

By Kenneth J. Berniker
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/24/16

02/24/16

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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@michigandaily
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When I asked my 16-year-old 

sister if she wanted to see “Son 
of Saul” last Friday night, she 
expressed a great interest. She 
had never heard of the film, but 
had over-
heard me 
talking 
about 
it 

a 
little, 

so 
she 

knew 
at 

least that 
it 
was 

a 
Holo-

caust 
film. 
I 

thought 
it 
only 

fair 
to 

warn her 
that this film a) was Europe-
an (therefore in subtitles and 
highly character driven) and b) 
takes the viewer into the heart 
of a death camp; there would 
be, in short, some disturbing 
content. She was undeterred.

As we watched the film, 

I repeatedly saw her shaken 
expression, her hands often 
covering her mouth in terror. 
And when we left, she was 
expressionless, 
almost 

catatonic, in her demeanor. 
I never asked her what she 
thought of the film as a 
whole, but I know she found it 
distressing.

I didn’t find the film so 

shocking, 
and 
was 
more 

surprised by how little death I 
actually saw given the setting. 
For almost the entirety of the 
film, the camera never leaves 
the protagonist Saul’s face 
or back as he navigates the 
seemingly labyrinthine halls of 
the death camp. In fact, almost 
everything in the shot other 
than Saul’s face or back remains 
out of focus and distant. We are 
maddeningly aware that there’s 
more happening in the scene, 
but we can’t actually see it — 
like a flicker in the corner of 
the eye, but with the turn of the 
head, the apparition vanishes.

We 
therefore 
experience 

the entirety of the death camp 
through Saul, and there is no 
shortage of horror to be found; 
we are with him when he leans 
against the metal door of the 
gas chamber and hears the 
desperate screams of hundreds, 
only for the noise to suddenly 
cease; we are with him at the 
pits as Jews are led like lambs 
to the slaughter, one by one 
lined up, pushed to the edge 
of the pit and executed with a 
bullet to the head; we are with 
him as he fires the scorching 
ovens.

And yet I was not disturbed, 

nor was I moved by Saul’s lack 
of perspective as he searches 
for a rabbi to provide a proper 
burial for a boy he believes, 
though is probably not, his 
illegitimate son, rather than 
commit himself to the final 
preparations for a prisoner 
uprising. Some might call my 
stoicism inhuman.

I don’t believe I’m inhuman, 

but I have been desensitized. 
I’ve seen many, many Holocaust 
films, and, having been raised 
in a Jewish home and having 
gone to Jewish day school for 
nine years, I have no shortage 
of vivid images of Holocaust-
related material and memory. 
After a while, these images 
and horrors stopped being 
horrifying — they just became 
facts, cold and nonjudgmental.

Of course, “Son of Saul” 

wasn’t made solely for me. But 
I ask myself why I so desire to 
see films like these, films that 
display human suffering in all 
its terror, where there is only 
one possible ending — death 
— and I am rather unmoved by 
it. Indeed, “Son of Saul” seems 
to offer no lessons, no reason 
to exist beyond portraying 
a more personal take on the 
otherwise grander scale that is 
most other Holocaust films — 
human suffering through one 
viewpoint, one angle, rather 
than many.

Is that enough of a reason for 

a film to exist? Is guilt over the 
Holocaust so high that any film 
that explores the subject gets 
an automatic pass for a dearth 
of content? If I want a film that 
depicts mass death, why can’t 
I cut out all Holocaust-related 
material and go see “Deadpool” 
instead? At least then I can 
laugh at the absurdity of it 
all, rather than sitting with 
resignation.

In 
fact, 
I 
did 
go 
see 

“Deadpool,” 17 hours after I 
saw “Son of Saul,” and, to my 
surprise, I found similarities 
in their stories. At their cores, 
both are stories of an individual 
coping with trauma: one seeks 
distraction from the horror of 

his daily life, the other seeks 
full-scale, 
bloody 
revenge 

— both seem to me highly 
irresponsible courses of action. 
And as its cocksure, self-aware 
attitude reiterates over and 
over again, “Deadpool” also 
has no reason to exist. It is 
the product of a moneymaking 
Hollywood machine: no more, 
no less.

But “Deadpool” is escapism 

where “Son of Saul” grounds 
itself in reality, a past reality 
but reality nonetheless. There 
are 
no 
alternate 
timelines 

and no reset buttons for “Son 
of Saul” and the Holocaust 
genre 
as 
a 
whole 
(unless 

you’re “Inglourious Basterds,” 
but 
that’s 
another 
story 

altogether). It is, ultimately, 
just a horrid chapter among the 
other many horrid chapters of a 
long human history.

Perhaps it is guilt that 

drives our fascination with 
the Holocaust (particularly in 
Europe), perhaps it’s a function 
of the “never forget” ideology 
passed 
down 
through 
the 

generations. Perhaps we cling 
to the glimmers of hope and 
escape, as one might do with 
the case of Saul, in an otherwise 
dark 
and 
twisted 
world. 

Or perhaps it’s that human 
suffering is itself fascinating, 
and the Holocaust represents 
the apex of that suffering.

I do not know the answer but 

I do know this: for as much as 
we research it, write about it, 
create films related to/about it, 
the Holocaust is out of our reach 
of understanding. The only 
ones that really understand it 
are those that suffered through 
it, and even they may not have 
come to terms with it. And for 
as many films and stories as 
there are about a hero, a savior, 
a 
do-gooder, 
those 
stories 

comprise a small minority that 
can never hope to relate the 
experience.

I 
think, 
therefore, 
“Son 

of Saul” is the best type of 
Holocaust film, the one that 
says nothing, that seems to 
have no reason to exist. In its 
silence, its frustratingly close 
camera angles, its out of focus 
middle and backgrounds, we 
are forced to accept that the 
Holocaust is beyond us.

The point, then, is not 

necessarily to feel or to relate, 
because we simply cannot feel 
and relate to this chapter of 
history in a way that would 
ever prove satisfactory. The 
point is to go to the theater, to 
submit yourself to more death 
without purpose, to know that 
you could go see “Deadpool” 
instead. 
Sometimes, 
it’s 

acceptable to just watch and be 
present and to know that what 
you’re watching is a Holocaust 
film. In the end, that’s all we 
can really do.

Bircoll is dealing with Woody 

Allen-esque post-WWII anxiety. 

To give him some consolation, 

email jbircoll@umich.edu. 

FILM COLUMN

 Holocaust film 

malaise 

JAMIE 

BIRCOLL

I don’t believe 
I’m inhuman, 
but I have been 
desensitized.

Mellow ‘Life of 
Pause’ easy listen

Wild Nothing’s 

fourth studio album 
is soft and surreal.

By SHIMA SADAGHIYANI

Daily Arts Writer

Imagine looking into a kalei-

doscope — a bright whirlwind 
of color and ambiguous designs, 
always 
trans-

forming 
into 

new 
patterns. 

It’s intense but 
soothing 
and 

the 
undulat-

ing movements 
of 
light 
are 

entrancing; you 
could 
spend 

forever 
with 

one eye pressed against that 
small cylinder. 

Listening to Wild Nothing’s 

new album, Life of Pause, is a 
similar experience. 

With four complete albums 

already behind them, you would 
think Wild Nothing would put 
their years of experimenting 
with hazy vocals and varying 
electronic backgrounds behind 
to settle down for something 
more structured and simple. 
Fortunately, Wild Nothing con-
tinued to explore with albums 
like Empty Estate and Golden 

Haze which set the groundwork 
for (and produced a chromatic, 
subtly psychedelic adventure in) 
Life of Pause.

The album opens with “Reich-

pop” and the soft, Zen-like 
melody of the first few min-
utes transitions smoothly into a 
bright, upbeat tempo that pushes 
the song from something that 
you would use to meditate to 
something that deserves its own 
light show. By the time “I am the 
silent son / I am the only one / 
staying home today” is added to 
the mix, “Reichpop” is perfectly 
layered with nebulous vocals on 
top of a bouncing rhythm on top 
of the serene melody heard indi-
vidually in the beginning of the 
song. It’s five minutes of a beauti-
ful catastrophe, and the fun only 
continues throughout the rest 
of the album. Title track “Life 
of Pause” is a mess of contradic-
tions as the buoyant beat over-
powers the sorrowful “how come 
we were in love?” while “Adore” 
is a compilation of introspective 
guitar chords and haunting piano 
melodies that perfectly capture 
the essence of heartache. 

The songs in Life of Pause sew 

the album together like a patch-
work quilt — the edges meld 
smoothly together but each sec-
tion is different, which is the 
reason why this album is so 
interesting. Each song is its own 
composition. The only elements 

tying the entire album together 
are the muted vocals and ambi-
ent rhythm. The song “Japanese 
Alice” is fast-paced and bewil-
dering in its twirling tempo, 
completely 
contrasting 
the 

creeping and leisurely “Alien.” 
The tracks would have been too 
conflicting to be listened to in 
the same album if not for the 
uniting vocals making each song, 
no matter what the beat, seem 
remote and indefinite. 

And this dissonance in each 

song fits for most of the album 
because Wild Nothing usually 
knows how to push their surreal 
sound without being in your face 
about it. However, the groovy, 
harmonious vibe of songs like 
“To Know You” and “TV Queen” 
falls flat in the two weakest 
tracks of the album, “Lady Blue” 
and “A Woman’s Wisdom.” In 
both songs, the uniformity of 
the vocals and the beat creates a 
dreariness that stands out from 
the rest of the album’s bursting 
vitality. But these are just two 
songs in the entire 11-track album 
and actually help to provide a bit 
of a break from the other dizzying 
compositions.

Overall, Life of Pause is a mind-

blowing dream; a perfect mix of 
gauzy afternoon jams and retro 
tunes taken straight from your 
wildest daydreams and ready for 
you to explore on a day that is just 
a little too monotonous.

CAPTURED TRACKS

This is not a screenshot from the upcoming season of Workaholics.

A-

Life of 
Pause

Wild Nothing

Captured Tracks

EVER WONDER 

WHAT OUR VOICES 

SOUND LIKE?

CHECK OUT OUR 

PODCAST. 

SEARCH “PAUL MCCARTNEY 

IS DEAD” IN THE ITUNES 

PODCAST APP OR 

SOUNDCLOUD.

ALBUM REVIEW

6A — Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

