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Trying to hear it all

By MELINA GLUSAC

Senior Arts Editor

I really don’t want to start 

another piece talking about being 
cooped up in Espresso Royale and 
contemplating life. It’s been done 
before, and if there’s anything a 
burgeoning writer strives to avoid, 
it’s clichés. But I’m here — the walls 
are the kind of red that looks like 
home, the paintings are abstract 
enough to distract me — and I’m 
starting to think. Funny how that 
works.

Espresso is a fine establishment 

that arguably fuels the entire city 
of Ann Arbor, serving up fresh 
brown nectar that nourishes the 
busy bees of town every day. They 
sashay these streets with their bur-
gundy cups in hand, headphones 
on ears, life restored. Buzzing, 
buzzing, buzzing. But since I’ve 
been on a mini caffeine-hiatus late-
ly, I need something more. I don’t 
have a burgundy cup in my hand. 
The 
background 
conversations 

aren’t cutting it today; my eaves-
dropping abilities are kind of rusty. 
Nay, I need a great song to fill the 
void. After all, what else can? Love, 
some say? But what the hell is that?

I’d be lying if I said Espresso’s 

playlists aren’t confusing. At this 
very table, I’ve written an English 
essay to The Bends by Radiohead, 
read “Twelfth Night” to something 
that literally sounded like Gyorgy 
Ligeti’s “Lux Aeterna” and heard 
some good ol’ Marcy Playground 
while sending out about 200 
e-mails in a row. These jams have 
done the job at their respective, 
distracted playtimes, but right now 
music is paramount. I need the real 
good stuff in my ears, the ooey-
gooey fusion of voice and instru-
mentation that will command my 
full attention and sweep me off 
Earth and help me forget.

“So what’s your favorite song?” 

I ask Natasha, Megan and Maddie.

***
Natasha says, “La vie en rose” 

by Edith Piaf. The track is creaky, 
smoky, almost as if it was recorded 
that way on purpose. Cooing brass 
and strings lead the listener in, but 
somehow it doesn’t sound hokey 
— and this bit goes on just long 
enough, mimicking Edith’s iconic 
cadence. Dahhhh, dah dah, dah dah, 
dah dah. The original queen enters: 
“Des yeux qui font baisser les 
miens / Un rire qui se perd sur sa 
bouche.” Come again? “Eyes that 

gaze into mine / A smile that is lost 
on his lips.” Ah, okay. Now we’re 
talking. She’s in that kind of love.

Piaf straddles the fine line 

between desperate longing and 
the simultaneous thrill of a mun-
dane conversation — as long as it’s 
those eyes, those lips, all of it is 
ecstasy. La vie en rose. Her verses 
are a casual tête-à-tête in a Parisian 
café, but her chorus is an amphi-
theater of bended French syllables 
and deep dives into the diaphragm 
that yields the world’s most roman-
tic growl. It’s no wonder the song 
is universally beloved. Somehow, 
Louis Armstrong’s version pales 
in comparison — all covers seem 
weak, inappropriately meek. Piaf 
gave us courage and attitude, and 
she showed us that it was perfectly 
okay to be yourself when you fall in 
love. None of that feigned sugary 
bollocks. Just sweet sass.

And then Megan says, “There is a 

Light that Never Goes Out” by The 
Smiths, which is one of my favorite 
Smiths songs (and songs in gen-
eral). Megan is right on with this 
one. Unfortunately, I can’t help but 
think of Zooey Deschanel when 
I hear it because of the elevator 
scene in “(500) Days of Summer,” 
which aroused every jeans-rolled-
up hipster man in the nation. But 
if you can push the bangs and the 
Manic Pixie Dream Girl “quirk” 
to the way back, “There is a Light” 
shines through.

Morrissey is melancholy but try-

ing his best not to be: “Take me out 
tonight / Where there’s music and 
there’s people / Who are young and 
alive / Driving in your car / I never 
never want to go home.” As he’s on 
the cusp of asking this auspicious 
girl out, he finds he can’t, but he’s 
still so content driving with her. He 
sounds almost childish, clingingly 
puerile when he pleads, “I don’t 
care, I don’t care, I don’t care.” 
Whether that’s the agony of life or 
the agony of love beating at his glo-
rious British chest is uncertain, but 
it’s intoxicating nonetheless.

Like a car driving down a high-

way at night, the song’s drums are 
the engine. The guitar chords are 
forward-thinking; the strings are 
filled with enough whimsy and 
wonder and fleeting phrasing to 
make you think everything is going 
to be okay. “To die by your side is 
such a heavenly way to die,” Mor-
rissey weep-croons. It’s happy. It’s 
sad. It’s us.

And then Maddie says, “Some-

body to Love” by Queen. Ah yes, 
the ultimate ballad of horniness.

Does it get better than this? 

Freddie Mercury is better than 
Morrissey, debatably better than 
Piaf. His voice is obliterating 
everything I just listened to, and 
I’m sitting here smiling like an 
idiot. How did someone combine 
opera and rock so well? Where did 
that voice come from? How is it so 
masculine yet so pretty, and how 
does it overflow with passion while 
still hitting some of the most deli-
cate, crystalline notes in rock ‘n’ 
roll history? I don’t know.

I could go on and on and try to 

dissect it, like I did with the first 
two, but that’s not helping me. I 
can sit here and ponder and pon-
der, wondering why I don’t have 
a favorite song and why my three 
friends were able to rattle off theirs 
so quickly, and I can try to unravel 
the enigma of Mr. Mercury. But 
that won’t give me a favorite song. 
That won’t tell me why sometimes 
I get irrationally freaked out, nor 
will it explain how I can feel incan-
descently glad a few minutes later. 
And we can’t even bring love into 
this, not again.

Music, then, is what we’re left 

with. What I’m left with — always. 
I’m here, in Espresso, with Fred-
die and Edith and Morrissey and 
now Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, and 
they’re talking about everything. 
Songs are a kind of eavesdrop-
ping, a two or three-minute long 
glance into the lives and loves of 
certain lucky, creative individu-
als, and we’re fortunate enough 
to have headphones to facilitate 
our nosiness. I’m trying to hear it 
all; I need something to invigorate 
me like the coffee I’m smelling, the 
people I’m seeing. Smiling, smil-
ing, smiling.

Just as Cuomo is about to finish, 

I pause my music in a daze. Play-
ing in Espresso, I notice, is some 
ethereal troubadour singing a 
real depressing number, probably 
lamenting the loss of his Birken-
stocks — bizarre, as usual. I smile. 
And I’m given a choice: I can look 
at the walls again, notice the paint-
ings. I can start to think, and won-
der if I’ll ever find a favorite song, 
if this one is the one, if Freddie 
actually found somebody to love. 
Will I?

A big breath. My pulse starts to 

decelerate. My finger hovers above 
the keyboard. I press play. 

Or I can just listen. 

Thursday, March 24, 2016 — 3B

By DAYTON HARE

Daily Arts Writer

Most instruments within the 

realm of Western classical music 
have a long and elaborate history, 
their origins veiled in a certain 
amount of mystery. Violins, flutes, 
cellos, 
oboes 

— all have long 
lines of ances-
try and plumed 
pedigrees, 
all 

have 
peda-

gogues 
and 

pedagogies. As 
a result of this 
long 
history 

and the deep-
ly 
ingrained 

traditional-
ism 
inherent 

in 
classical 

music culture, new instruments 
often have difficulty establishing 
themselves within the repertoire, 
forced to overcome the prejudices 
and obstinate attitudes of the elder 
instruments. This is certainly the 
case with the saxophone, whose 
origin — in sharp contrast to earli-
er instruments — is a clear and spe-
cific part of the historical record. 
Invented by Adolphe Sax in 1840, 
the saxophone has since become 
most famous for its prominence in 
jazz music, played virtuosi such as 
John Coltrane and Charlie Parker.

But in addition to the saxo-

phone’s 
well-known 
affiliation 

with jazz, the last several decades 
have seen the rise of saxophone in 
the classical music sphere. Solo-
ists and chamber groups of enor-
mous ability dazzle audiences 
with newly composed music for 
their instrument — and perhaps 
there is no more famous classical 
saxophone ensemble active today 
than the Prism Quartet, who will 
be performing in Ann Arbor Sat-
urday.

“The Prism Quartet formed in 

1984,” said Timothy McAllister, 
soprano saxophonist for the quar-
tet and associate professor of Saxo-
phone in an interview with The 
Michigan Daily. “At the time, they 
were all graduate students at the 
University of Michigan here, all 
under our great mentor, the profes-
sor emeritus of Saxophone Donald 
Sinta.”

While the quartet originally 

formed as a group of students 
seeking to advance their education 
through competition, it soon grew 
into something with a greater 
sense of purpose.

“They formed to perform locally 

and also to compete in local and 
national chamber music competi-
tions — they ended up doing really 
well, and won a few major compe-
titions, which led to a more serious 

plan and mission for the group,” 
McAllister said. “Very quickly the 
group started to get involved with 
commissioning new music — con-
temporary music by living com-
posers, namely those associated 
with the University of Michigan 
here, faculty (and) recent gradu-
ates.”

In the years following its found-

ing, Prism was a major force in the 
promotion of the saxophone as a 
serious chamber music ensemble 
rivaling the traditional string 
quartet, a heterodoxy which soon 
distinguished 
them 
from 
the 

crowd.

“The idea of the saxophone 

quartet being something out there 
that would rival the traditional 
chamber music models — I think 
that was much more a pioneering 
effort on behalf of Prism,” McAllis-
ter said. “(Because ensembles like 
the string quartet) have so much 
more history, (Prism) worked very 
quickly to make up that ground, 
just by getting today’s most impor-
tant composers to write for the 
saxophone quartet.”

Since its founding, Prism has 

had several member changes. 
McAllister himself was hired in 
2000, the third soprano saxophon-
ist to be a member of the ensemble. 
Today, the quartet is comprised 
of McAllister, Taimur Sullivan 
on baritone, Zachary Shemon on 
alto and Matthew Levy — the only 
remaining founding member — on 
tenor.

“We’ve 
always 
hired 
from 

‘Michigan aesthetic,’ which is 
quite singular, both born out of 
the playing styles of Donald Sinta 
himself and his teacher Larry 
Teal, who was the first professor of 
saxophone anywhere in the United 
States,” McAllister said. “The first 
professorship in that field start-
ed here at Michigan. We’re very 
proud of that.”

Prism has long been associated 

with the University, and in the past 
few decades has served as a model 
to saxophone students in the 
School of Music, Theater & Dance.

“I did four degrees here at 

the University of Michigan, in 
the music school, and I knew for 
myself I grew up knowing about 
the Prism quartet, I came to col-
lege here knowing its history and 
its trailblazing status,” McAllister 
said. “That was an inspiration for 
all of us who were in the (saxo-
phone) studio at the time.”

For the concert on Saturday, 

Prism will be working with several 
creative collaborators. Renowned 
jazz saxophonists Diego Rivera 
and Andrew Bishop will be join-
ing the ensemble for performances 
of “Improvisations” by Chris Pot-
ter, “Found” by Matthew Levy 

and John Coltrane’s ballad “Dear 
Lord,” arranged by Dave Liebman.

“We wanted to really collabo-

rate with some really fantastic 
local jazz musicians, because the 
program called for that,” McAl-
lister said. “The goal has been to 
show this merging of the classical 
tradition with the more academic 
jazz tradition, and basically to 
show the middle ground, to create 
a collaboration that demonstrates 
both sides of the instrument as a 
single organism.”

The program’s primary fea-

tured piece is “Improvisations” by 
Chris Potter — a legendary jazz 
saxophonist — which was com-
posed for the quartet, the concept 
being that the composer/perform-
er would join the quartet to play in 
their own piece. When the piece 
was premiered it was played by 
Prism, Potter and Ravi Coltrane, 
the son of John Coltrane. On this 
week’s program the piece will be 
performed with Rivera and Bishop.

“The whole concert is quite a 

collage of a lot of our activity. It 
showcases some of our more seri-
ous classical pieces, it showcases 
some heavy concert jazz music and 
it has some transcriptions,” McAl-
lister said. “So it’s kind of a nice 
survey of our legacy, of the kind of 
activity that we’ve embarked upon 
for the whole history of the group 
but also in the more recent history 
of the group.”

In the upcoming concert, Prism 

will also be premiering a new 
piece by William Bolcom, a Pulit-
zer prize winning composer and 
professor emeritus in Composi-
tion at the University. Bolcom’s 
work, “Schumann Bouquet,” is a 
transcription of piano music by 
the Romantic era composer Robert 
Schumann.

“We wish for no major composer 

living composer to leave this Earth 
without at least considering writ-
ing for saxophone quartet,” McAl-
lister said of the quartet’s mission. 
“And if we can have a place in get-
ting those people to write for our 
medium, great; if we can be at the 
forefront of getting their attention, 
great … but we really actively seek 
out the leading figures of our time.”

Those who attend Prism’s Sat-

urday concert will witness a broad 
collection of musical styles, as it is a 
program designed to break the oft-
found stylistic unanimity common 
in classical music concerts.

“There can be such a chame-

leon-like quality to the instru-
ment so much that from piece to 
piece, style to style, genre to genre, 
you will feel that each of those 
is genuine, and almost complete 
identifiable with the saxophone,” 
McAllister said. “And yet each 
piece will sound different.”

Collaborators will 
accompany Quartet

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

By VANESSA WONG

Daily Arts Writer

The narrator in Jem Cohen’s 

film “Lost Book Found” says, “as 
I became invisible, I began to see 
things that had 
once been invis-
ible 
to 
me.” 

Filming 
city 

streets 
unob-

trusively 
with 

a single camera 
and plucking his 
narratives from 
months or years 
worth of docu-
mentary 
foot-

age, Jem Cohen’s films do just that. 
His work hones in on small details, 
layering snippets of individual sto-
ries to build a distinctive portrait of 
city life.

A hybrid of documentary and 

narrative, 
Cohen’s 
films 
look 

to the landscape of cities — the 
streets, objects and debris tossed 
to the wayside — to understand 
their inhabitants. Other times, he 
separates individual people from 
the bustling crowd on the streets 
and focuses on someone walking, 
talking on the phone or simply 
standing, a poetic perspective on 
seemingly mundane daily life.

“Night Scene New York” roams 

Chinatown’s night streets. Pedes-

trians dash for cover from the rain 
in “Helianthus Corner Blues,” a 
poetic second look at an ordinary 
nuisance. Crossing the pond to 
London, “On Essex Road” is a 
watchful observation of everyday 
engagements with historic cultur-
al markers.

The “Gravity Hill Newreels” 

chronicle the Occupy Wall Street 
protests in the fall of 2011. Unlike 
news media, Cohen’s films do not 
focus exclusively on the implica-
tions of the protest, but rather take 
the time to understand the protes-
tors themselves. Organizers lead 
groups in reciting a protest mani-
festo, people crowd around tables 
lined with literature. We read 
various protest signs, see a nod of 
solidarity between strangers in the 
encampments, watch volunteers 
pass out coffee and pack supplies.

Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s 

“The Passage Clock,” the films 
overlay imagery of Parisian archi-
tecture with a narrator reading 
through the various dictionary def-
initions of “passage” for a haunting 
exploration of motion and travel, 
evolution and loss, communication 
and archive.

“Lost Book Found” reminisc-

es about a notebook wherein its 
author meticulously groups and 
chronicles spaces all over the city. 
It’s a history of New York City 

slinking through forgotten alleys 
and discount stores, using the rel-
ics of commerce to explain what 
the past was like and the direction 
it took.

Cohen’s shots are constantly 

in motion, restless with the taut 
energy that drives the people in 
them. A roving camera settles its 
eye on a subject as a smattering of 
pedestrians will dash across the 
foreground, temporarily obstruct-
ing the view. Hints of someone’s 
arm gesturing mid-conversation 
peek out from the edges of a frame. 
While Cohen pinpoints the beauty 
in individuals, it’s the public inter-
section where all their stories con-
verge that is truly mesmerizing, 
and Cohen captures the atmo-
sphere masterfully.

Yet in spite of the relentless 

movement, Cohen manages to 
pluck out the exact details needed 
to make time slow down. As view-
ers, we’re immersed into the lives 
of his subjects. We stream across 
busy sidewalks, overwhelmed with 
our own thoughts and the external 
stimuli bombarding us, but then 
we look up and catch the eye of 
someone passing us. Cohen’s work 
captures that split second of under-
standing that this is us and this is 
you, and we see each other, before 
we both whizz off into the next 
chapter of our individual lives.

Jem Cohen at AAFF

FILM REVIEW

Films by 
Jem Cohen

Gravity 
Hill Films

Ann Arbor 

Film Festival

By SAM ROSENBERG

Daily Arts Writer

What exactly does it mean to 

be a celebrity in 2016? Or, bet-
ter yet, what does it mean to 
be famous in 2016? Apparently 
nowadays, if you’re part of a 
viral video or some other Inter-
net phenomenon, you’ve already 
reached celebrity status.

Time Magazine recently put 

out a list of “The 30 Most Influ-
ential People on the Internet,” 
yet some don’t seem very influen-
tial. One particular case is that of 
Josh Holz and Daniel Lara, the 
teenagers behind one of 2016’s 
most popular memes, “Damn 
Daniel.” The two garnered Inter-
net fame after posting a collec-
tion of funny Snapchat clips on 
Twitter, in which Holz record-
ed Lara walking around while 
screaming “Damn Daniel!” and 
“Back at it again with the white 
Vans” in a strangely cartoonish 
voice. Thus, the “Damn Daniel” 
meme was born, and America ate 
it up. After the videos garnered 
extreme popularity (approxi-
mately 200 million+ retweets 
and 300 million+ likes), Holz 
and Lara made an appearance 
on “Ellen,” cameoed in Weezer’s 
“California Kids” music video, 
walked the red carpet at the 
“Allegiant” movie premiere and 
Lara earned a lifetime supply 
of white Vans. In addition to all 
that, Internet users have posted 
“Damn Daniel” trap remixes, 
created “Damn Daniel” tattoos 
and so forth. 

While the titular star of 

“Damn Daniel” did use his 
stardom wisely (he donated 
the lifetime supply of Vans to 

a children’s hospital), it’s kind 
of funny to think that someone 
can become famous simply by 
having a pair of shoes, a camera 
phone and a Twitter account. 
That being said, the past few 
years have shown that viral vid-
eos and social media have been 
the major catalysts for trans-
forming ordinary people into 
online superstars. Last year, for 
instance, “Alex from Target” 
took the Internet by storm when 
a picture of an attractive Target 
cashier went viral. As I men-
tioned in one of my first articles 
for The Michigan Daily, the vid-
eo-sharing app Vine is a perfect 
example of this. With its six-sec-
ond limit, Vine allows users to 
capture hilarious, spontaneous 
moments and creative, impro-
visational clips. Though Vine 
can be beneficial in showcas-
ing the talent of aspiring young 
actors and highlighting other 
realms of pop culture, it’s also 
a way in which companies can 
capitalize on the fame of popu-
lar Viners and make them into 
corporate sellouts. Numerous 
“Vine famous” stars also take 
advantage of their online celeb-
rity by coming together in highly 
populated areas for “Vine meet-
ups” to sign autographs and take 
pictures with fans.

The reason why this troubles 

and intrigues me so much is that 
fame, especially Internet fame, 
is a tricky double-edged sword. 
While it can be a great platform 
for helping raise awareness on a 
social cause or giving back to the 
community, it can also lead to 
media scrutiny, TMZ paparazzi 
and second-rate imitators. The 
way in which people yearn to 

be as close to the limelight as 
possible is perhaps an even big-
ger reason as to why people on 
social media become “famous.”

I witnessed this type of obses-

sion with instant celebrity in 
high school. In the spring of 
2013, I watched a senior from 
my high school, Jake Davidson, 
become an overnight sensation 
when he starred in a viral video 
titled “Kate Upton, Will You Go 
to Prom with Me?” I can recall 
spending half of my first period 
biology class huddled around a 
computer with other students 
to intently watch a KTLA pro-
file interview on Jake. He was 
also featured on CNN, Yahoo 
and Ryan Seacrest’s radio show. 
Other students at my high 
school would jokingly take pic-
tures with Jake and share it 
on social media to show off to 
their friends that they “met” the 
“Kate Upton guy.”

During that time, I remem-

ber thinking how amazing and 
insane it was that someone from 
my high school could become 
that famous instantly. But like 
most Internet “celebrities,” fame 
comes and goes. Months from 
now, “Damn Daniel” will be a 
fading memory, relived only for 
nostalgic purposes. Yet, most 
of all, there seems to be one big 
change when it comes to achiev-
ing American fame: fame used to 
be perceived as this ideal way of 
living that was only within the 
reach of actors, musicians, ath-
letes and entrepreneurs. Now, in 
an era of virality and expanding 
media outlets, it seems as though 
becoming a celebrity can be as 
simple as a click of a button or 
the tap of a touchscreen.

Internet fame: The 
‘Damn Daniel’ effect

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

Prism 
Saxophone 
Quartet

Sat., 8 p.m. 
Northside 
Community 
Church

$22 GA, $17 

students

