The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
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