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Arts
Monday, September 19, 2016 — 5A

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

ACROSS
1 Dangerous wind
for small boats
5 “You’re gonna
need a bigger
boat” movie
9 Barbecue rod
13 Actor Sharif
14 Verbal exams
16 Actress
Lollobrigida
17 Ship-fouling
organisms, on
Talk Like a Pirate
Day?
19 Lights-out tune
20 Horse hue
21 Spyglass
component
23 With 48-Down,
mediocre
24 “Alas ... ”
26 Cry of fright
27 Burning
29 Key lime __
30 Pigpen
31 Story surprises
32 What kids ask on
a long trip, on
TLAP Day?
36 What George
Washington
could not tell,
according to
folklore
37 Oregon Trail
wagon pullers
38 Ship’s right-front
section, on TLAP
Day?
43 Sends to the Hill
45 Agrees to
46 Wonderment
47 Wood-shaping
tool
48 Urgent distress
signal
49 When right turns
are sometimes
permitted
51 Tax agcy.
52 Dire fate
54 Two of a kind
55 The color of
tropical seas
57 Cold northern
region, on TLAP
Day?
61 “The Sopranos”
actress Falco
62 Human trunk
63 Ring of light
64 Flatfish
sometimes
served stuffed
65 Recipe amts.

66 Online auction
site

DOWN
1 Dollop
2 Doctors’ org.
3 Food storage
area, on TLAP
Day?
4 Swashbuckler
Flynn
5 __ of 6-Down:
French heroine
6 5-Down of __:
French heroine
7 Minnesota’s state
fish
8 Like a smooth-
sailing clipper
ship
9 Rank above cpl.
10 One tickling the
ivories
11 Sitting at the
dock of the bay
12 Tries a bite of
15 Taxpayer ID
18 Dissenting vote
22 Fictional Tom or
real-life Diane
24 Massage facility
25 Balloon filler
26 Old anesthetic
28 Wicked one
30 Mixes
31 __ Hold ’em

33 Enjoy, as
television
34 Overjoyed
35 Chess castles
38 Shove off
39 Post-WWII babies
40 Bill for drinks, on
TLAP Day?
41 Be indebted to
42 Married
43 Upper crust
groups
44 Rio Grande city

48 See 23-Across
49 Rowboat
propeller
50 Specialized
market segment
53 Giants slugger
Mel
54 All in favor
56 Director Ang __
58 Deadly snake
59 Dockworkers’
org.
60 Playfully shy

By Grant Boroughs
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/19/16

09/19/16

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, September 19, 2016

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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Rackham 
Auditorium 
was 

filled 
with 
#20 
jerseys 
on 

Saturday 
night 
as 
Literati 

Bookstore 
warmly 
welcomed 

retired 
USA 
soccer 
player, 

Olympic gold medalist and FIFA 
World 
Cup 
Champion 
Abby 

Wambach.

While 
fans 
are 
used 
to 

watching Wambach on the field, 
she now tours as the author of 
her new memoir. “Forward” 
follows her life as she grows from 
an athletic, yet overlooked, child 
of seven to becoming one of the 
most successful soccer players 
the world has ever seen. With 
on- and off-the-field memories, 
defeats and triumphs, she tells 
her story with honesty and élan.

Saturday’s event, an on-stage 

interview, began with Wambach 
explaining that she has never 
actually watched the ball hit the 
net.

“It’s a momentary blackout,” 

she told the interviewer. In the 
first chapter of her book, she 
wrote: “Although my eyes were 
open and aimed in the right 
direction, as soon as leather met 
rope the picture went black…”

She explained the adrenaline 

rushes, the pressures of being 
a team leader and the lack of 
choice she had in playing the 
game of soccer.

“I was so good at what I did, I 

never felt like I had a choice,” she 
said. However, she added that 
she “never wanted to be known 
as just a soccer player.”

Wambach 
also 
made 
a 

powerful name for herself as an 
advocate for equal rights. As the 
leading scorer (184 career goals) 

of any male or female player, 
Wambach set high standards for 
all soccer players and athletes.

“I’m in my prime for this,” she 

told the audience. Her career, 
she said, was in the perfect time 
period of “women who didn’t 
have Title IX rights and young 
girls who don’t even know about 
it … I am bridging that gap.”

Along with her successes, 

however, Wambach also touched 
on another part of her life —her 
mistakes and regrets.

She 
openly 
spoke 
to 
the 

audience about her mental health 
and alcohol abuse. “After the 
2011 World Cup, I became more 
famous,” she said. But with that 
pressure, 
Wambach 
stumbled 

into a period of severe depression 
and intense substance abuse, that 
she said she kept a secret. As the 
emotions poured out, Wambach 
expressed her deep guilt about a 
DUI that she received this past 
April. She had begun writing 
“Forward” before the incident, 
but “the book took on a life of it’s 
own and I had to tell my story,” 
she said.

With little girls sitting front 

and center, looking at Wambach, 
she 
earnestly 
shared, 
“(The 

DUI) was the best thing that 
ever happened to me, but I’m not 
going to make the same mistake 
two times.” Her vulnerability 
and courageous persona was also 
portrayed in certain chapters of 
her memoir like “Depressive,” 
“Addict” and “Failure,” which 
she said are names that have been 
given to her through the years. 
She said writing this book, of 
both the ups and the downs, was 
“cathartic and healing.”

Within her memoir, Wambach 

described 
in 
supreme 
detail 

moments on the field, including 
specific players that she faced, 
what goals she scored during 
which games and, of course, her 
most impactful memories. Some 
of these memories were not even 
during the games, but were the 
moments where she wrote that 
she “created relationships” and 
“the 
post-game 
locker 
room 

after winning those medals.” 
Recollections like this supported 
Wambach’s motto that there is 
more to life than soccer.

“All the labels that we give 

ourselves don’t matter,” she 
said. “The only label I really care 
about is ‘Human.’ ”

Wambach 
concluded 
that 

her next big goal is to break 
barriers 
of 
segregation 
and 

discrimination 
(especially 

women’s and LGBTQ rights) and, 
mainly, to enjoy her retirement 
as non-soccer-playing Abby.

The night ended with a Q&A 

from the audience and a book 
signing.

“What is your advice to 

the next generation of soccer 
players?” a young boy asked.

“One, (the competition is) 

gonna get harder, so watch the 
game. It will only make you 
better. Two, never let someone 
tell you you’re not good enough 
… it’s not about the end result; 
it’s about the process. Stay in 
the moment. Enjoy it,” Wambach 
answered.

And 
although 
Wambach’s 

memoir explained her progressive 
and audacious success in moving 
forward with her career, Saturday 
night’s event made it clear that 
she understands what it means to 
live for the now, play the game for 
the sake of the game and to never 
let labels define her. 

Abby Wambach brings 
memoir ‘Forward’ to A2

ERIKA SHEVCHEK

Daily Arts Writer

Olympic champion discusses life after soccer and substance 
abuse, generates warm welcome at local Literati bookstore 

“Son of Zorn” ’s pilot isn’t partic-

ularly good. It’s not excruciatingly 
terrible, nor is it some sort of fasci-
nating mess; there’s little to marvel 
at in its pedestrian badness. It’s 
simply an unin-
spiring, mediocre, 
even boring half-
hour of television.

This is some-

what 
surprising, 

given the conceit. 
“Son 
of 
Zorn” 

is a hybrid, live-
action/animated 
comedy 
(think 

“Who 
Framed 

Roger Rabbit?”) starring SNL 
alum Jason Sudeikis (“Sleeping 
With Other People”), Cheryl Hines 
(“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and Tim 
Meadows (“Popstar: Never Stop 
Never Stopping”). Zorn (Sudei-
kis) is an animated warrior from 
the island of Zephyria (interest-
ingly, this isn’t based on an exist-
ing property), who decides to move 
back to Los Angeles to rekindle his 
relationship with his ex-wife, Edie 
(Hines) and teenage son, Alangu-
lon (Johnny Pemberton, “Neigh-
bors 2”).

That central premise should 

sound dispiritingly familiar to any-
one who’s watched enough televi-
sion. “Zorn” is a collection of tropes 
— the deadbeat dad trying to better 
himself, the fish-out-of-water, the 
white male antihero, etc. — that 

thinks it’s a novel spin on the genre 
simply because of its visual presen-
tation. And while the animation is 
deployed skillfully and creatively 
(the show gets away with a nice, 
winking gag involving a giant bird 
and a sword), the jokes only land 
sporadically.

Furthermore, Zorn looks to be 

the only fully-formed 
character 
worth 

investing in. Sudei-
kis’s 
voice 
acting 

is impressive, even 
bringing 
to 
mind 

Will Arnett’s stellar 
work as a similarly 
bullish 
character 

on “BoJack Horse-
man,” 
but 
Zorn’s 

development almost 

certainly promises to be the same 
redemptive arc we’ve seen in every 
TV show with an absent father. 
Meadows scores a few good laughs 
at the expense of psychologists and 
online professors everywhere, but 
Hines’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” 
comedic brilliance is frustratingly 
underused as a stock ex-wife.

What’s most frustrating, how-

ever, is the general lack of inter-
est in exploring more captivating 
material. Simply transplanting an 
animated character into the most 
well worn of narrative set-ups does 
not a successful story make. “Son 
of Zorn” seems content to mine 
the inherent absurdity of its prem-
ise only in the most surface-level 
ways, rather than fully embracing 
its narrative and comedic poten-
tial. The network sitcom is a dying 

breed in the era of seemingly 
unlimited content, and Fox has 
managed to produce a number of 
the best comedies currently on air, 
but “Zorn” refuses to engage with 
the substance that makes it stand 
out.

Still, Phil Lord and Chris Miller 

(“22 Jump Street”) are executive 
producers, and a few tantalizing 
gags offer their uniquely hilarious, 
whacky and meta sensibility that 
has already led to sitcom gold for 
Fox (“The Last Man On Earth”). 
An intriguing tag at the end of the 
pilot, too, promises a more compel-
ling storyline going forward. But 
rare glimpses of a more absurd and 
surreal show lying restless under-
neath the stifling pilot can’t jus-
tify the intermittently funny slog 
that we’re forced to endure in the 
show’s establishing half-hour.

Reported turmoil behind the 

camera might help explain an 
unexceptional pilot that features 
Jason Sudeikis and Cheryl Hines: 
series creators Reed Agnew and Eli 
Jorné (“Wilfred”) eventually left 
the project midway through pro-
duction due to creative differenc-
es, and Sally McKenna (“Myrtle 
Allen of Ballymaloe”) was brought 
on as the sole showrunner. The 
somewhat awkward mix of stan-
dard sitcom punchlines and more 
visual, understated humor hints 
at some of the tonal inconsistency. 
Perhaps the show the original cre-
ators wanted to make might have 
been more creatively ambitious 
and inspired; the version we’ve got, 
unfortunately, is not. 

FOX

“This is so dumb, right?”

TV REVIEW

NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT

For the Daily

Despite visual presentation, ‘Son of 
Zorn’ is still a stale television sitcom 

New FOX hybrid comedy isn’t quite as original as it thinks it is

C+

Son of Zorn

Series Premiere

Sundays at 8:30

FOX

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

“Holy shit. It’s beautiful out 

here,” Ross Gay said, opening his 
reading this past Thursday at 
White Lotus Farms. Such candor 
is characteristic of Gay’s pres-
ence and work, an act of inviting 
the reader in. It is worth men-
tioning that White Lotus Farms 
is exquisite, about seven miles 
off campus, dahlias in bloom, 
the grass almost glowing green 
against the rapid change of a 
twilight sky — nearby, a minia-
ture waterfall rushes steadily.

Gay read at White Lotus 

Farms as part of a reading series 
curated by One Pause Poetry, a 
local non-profit organization 
that seeks to showcase both 
emerging and nationally estab-
lished poets.

His third book of poetry, 

“Catalog of Unabashed Grati-
tude,” from which he read, is 
heavily touched by his green 
thumb. The poet spends much of 
his time gardening in the Bloom-
ington 
Community 
Orchard, 

many of his poems acting as love 
letters to the plants he handles 
as they exist within the context 
of a larger personal and global 
world. Before reading, he cel-
ebrated that even many of the 
weeds and flowers at the farm 
were 
“tremendously 
edible,” 

breaking into a Cheshire Cat 
grin minus the inherent creepi-
ness.

Gay started with what he 

calls “essayettes” or “delights,” 
mini-essays that keep in mind a 
definition of essay as an attempt 
or trial. In his first essayette, 
“Transplanted Figs,” he wrote 
of carrying figs, in all of their 
dirt and funk, through airport 
security. He calls this act “smug-
gling” with a signature touch of 
tenderness, as he declares, “I am 

carrying joy around in my bag.” 
Yet the levity of Gay’s work is 
never boundlessly saccharine. 
It moves to a place of loss that 
exists beside what is typically 
beautiful or delightful. He does 
this often — a small gratitude 
for a specific object or scene 
can travel through memory to a 
moment of hardship or intense 
pain, to return to a larger and 
more encompassing deeply felt 
gratitude.

In another one of his essay-

ettes, he writes of waking up 
from a nightmare, describing a 
disturbing feeling with humor. 
He jokes of a dream in which he 
is chosen to be Hillary Clinton’s 
vice president, poking fun at the 
absurdity of it, while still touch-
ing on the panic and paranoia 
that inadvertently burdens the 
human psyche.

Gay read, “To the Mulberry 

Tree,” a poem that opens with 
a bird “pitching his swill” on 
to the speaker’s face — in less 
poetic terms, a bird taking a 
dump dangerously close to Gay’s 
mouth, an objectively disgusting 
scenario. Yet the poem contin-
ues on with a sweet forgiveness 
and rich nostalgia that travels to 
include a haunt of death beneath 
the aforementioned mulberry 
tree, somehow circling back 
to the lines, “the three of us 
snugged in the canopy / on our 
tippy-toes, gathering fruit / for 
good.”

Gay ended with his title poem, 

a 12- or 13-minute celebration 
that overflows and extends. He 
starts, “friends, will you bear 
with me today…” and the audi-
ence complies. They giggle at yet 
another mention of animal feces 
or moments of the poem that 
are more sensual — “easy tiger 
/ hands to yourself. I am excit-
able” or a reference to “paisley 
panties.” He spouts plant names, 
as if in song, “thank you zin-

nia, and gooseberry, rudbeckia 
/ and papaw, Ashmead’s kernel, 
cockscomb / and scarlet runner, 
feverfew and lemonbalm / thank 
you knitbone and sweetgrass 
and sunchoke.” Readers need 
not be familiar with these plants 
to relish in their sound.

You can hear murmurs and 

gasps as the poem reaches the 
moments of strife amid such 
abundant gratitude. Gay pays 
tribute to his father’s death and 
with a reference to “dreadlocks 
in a drawer,” harnesses the pain 
of the racially charged murder 
of a friend. Gay personifies an 
overgrown arugula plant with 
the phrase “nary a bayonet,” the 
line humming as if an anthem 
that encourages us to, at the very 
least, try to let nature’s beauty 
and the existence of a life-giving 
love soften the blows of the fact 
that that incumbent death lurks 
among it.

As the poem nears its end, 

Gay’s voice rises, becoming more 
emphatic with each breath, and 
he says “give me a minute,” to 
which the dutiful audience com-
plies. Only the sound of a nearby 
stream rushes fills the pause.

So often reminders of a need 

for gratitude suggest the ignor-
ing of that which is dark and 
heavy in our lives. They sug-
gest an ignorant joy or a mold 
that fits only the minds of those 
predisposed to optimism. Ross 
Gay’s work focuses on a grati-
tude that is undoubtedly inclu-
sive of an unjust world, a loss of 
a loved one, a gratitude despite 
the fact that we get dirt under 
our fingernails or that a bird 
may indeed decide to make the 
side of your face its own person-
al restroom. His work and pres-
ence radiate a joy with potential 
to ease what ails us in a celebra-
tion of gratitude that is lyrical, 
humorous and so unabashedly 
growing toward the light. 

MARIA ROBINS-SOMMER-

VILLE

Daily Arts Writer

Ross Gay reads his lush poetry at 
Ann Arbor’s White Lotus Farms

Midwestern poet pays tribute to lost loves, gardening and fathers

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

