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TUESDAY!
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Call: #734-418-4115
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ACROSS
1 Pilothouse
wheels
6 Sphere in a
library
11 Cheering syllable
14 Use a broom
15 Lubricate again
16 Touchdown
approx.
17 Adjusted sales
figure on which
some royalties
are based
19 Bus. get-together
20 Gentle touch
21 Letter that opens
with a click
23 Headache
treatment
26 Concerning, on
memos
27 Seasonal bug
28 Wood-finishing
tool
33 Tennessee
senator __
Alexander
36 Zoo critter with
striped legs
37 Brass instrument
played like a
trumpet
42 “Sure, I’ll give
you a ride”
43 Sleep audibly
45 Long, narrow
mollusks
50 Hotel divs.
51 Poet Khayyám
52 Place for
meditation
55 Intense
personality
57 Response to a
clever put-down
59 Actress Hagen
60 Motto for the
cautious ... or a
hint to the starts
of 17-, 28-, 37-
and 45-Across
65 Washington
MLBer
66 Mount in Exodus
67 Lucky break
68 Genetic info
letters
69 Seagoing mil.
training group
70 Spine-tingling
DOWN
1 QVC rival
2 Baaing mom
3 Tennis do-over
4 Gracias, across
the Pyrenees
5 Hurled weapon
6 “The Heart of the
Matter” novelist
Graham
7 Hawaiian floral
rings
8 “Uh-oh!”
9 Stand-up routine
10 Besides
11 Send back, as to
a lower court
12 Clothing
13 “Marvelous”
Marvin of boxing
18 Bed with high
sides
22 Yellow
“Despicable Me”
character
23 CIO partner
24 Balkan native
25 Shoe company
with a cat in its
logo
29 Doone of Exmoor
30 Ref’s ruling
31 Retired newsman
Donaldson
32 LAPD alerts
34 1990s veep
35 Camper driver,
for short
38 And so on: Abbr.
39 Shop __ you drop
40 Par
41 Clever Bombeck
44 Contractor’s fig.
45 Portly
46 “The Joy Luck
Club” novelist
47 Mexican
revolutionary
played by Brando
48 Word before
“Pizza” or “River,”
in film
49 PlayStation maker
53 Social faux pas
54 Lots and lots
56 Part of AAA:
Abbr.
57 Point __ return
58 Qualifying race
61 __ conditioner
62 Capek’s robot
play
63 Slide down the
slopes
64 Collarless shirt
By Patti Varol
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/20/16
09/20/16
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
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6 — Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
There’s no such thing as a
perfect awards show. Sure, it
might be odd to open this way in
a review of what
was, by and large,
one of the best
Emmy Awards I’ve
ever seen, but it’s
true. Even the most
generous of awards
committees
can’t
honor
every
deserving
recipi-
ent, and that’s not
even
consider-
ing the sheer number of scripted
television shows that aired in the
past year, or taking into account
the fact that one man’s deserving
recipient is another man’s over-
rated trash. And then there’s the
entirely different, but still tangen-
tially connected, train of thought
that leads to difficult questions
like, “Wait, why do I care about
this?” and “Does any of this even
matter, in the grand scheme of
things?” So imagine my surprise
— an apt word to describe Sun-
day’s telecast — at an Emmys that
was satisfying, efficient and …
kind of great?
The first sign of a pleasant
surprise: Jimmy Kimmel was
funny. His late-night persona
often smacks of smug, smarmy
comedy, but after overcoming a
painfully unfunny pre-recorded
intro, Kimmel was energetic,
brisk and agreeable. (I will con-
tinue to ride for Andy Samberg’s
performance last year as long as
I have to — we must protect his
ascension to Steve Carell-level
national treasure.) The sand-
wiches stunt and predictable
Matt Damon bit played well;
even the introductions and one-
liners landed effectively. As one
can only hope good hosts will do,
he kept things moving.
And to be sure, despite FX
and HBO’s relative dominance
(specifically “The People vs. O.J.
Simpson: American Crime Story”
and “Game of Thrones”), the
highlight of this year’s ceremony
was how the com-
mittee found ways
to honor the less-
er-publicized
but
truly worthy per-
formances,
writ-
ing and direction.
Louie
Anderson’s
win for his deeply
odd but stunning
performance
on
“Baskets” was a
sure sign of changing, more com-
prehensive tides. Aziz Ansari
and Alan Yang’s writing on the
“Parents” episode on “Master
of None” — which was, for me, a
bit overrated — was still heart-
warming to see honored, and led
to one of the better speeches of
the night. And “Transparent” ’s
Jill Soloway’s award for directing
“Man On The Land” was a much-
deserved underdog win against
HBO heavyweights “Veep” and
“Silicon Valley.”
It would be difficult to talk
about this year’s ceremony with-
out also mentioning the number
of genuinely moving acceptance
speeches, from Patton Oswalt’s
short, touching shoutout to his late
wife to Jeffrey Tambor’s under-
stated but impassioned plea for
inclusivity to Julia Louis-Drey-
fus’s tearful tribute to her father.
It’s weird to judge people on their
specific brands of stunned grati-
tude, especially when they’ve just
been judged on their actual work,
but Rami Malek and Sarah Paul-
son deserve the unofficial Emmy
Award for Outstanding Accep-
tance Speeches. Malek’s perfectly
paced and delivered ode to “all
the Elliots out there” comes sec-
ond only to Paulson’s retroactive
and heartfelt apology to the real
Marcia Clark.
Yes, we can complain about
certain omissions. “The Ameri-
cans,” while finally being nomi-
nated after four seasons of thriller
perfection, still failed to win an
award outside of Margo Martin-
dale’s repeat Guest Actress win,
though Malek’s win over the
incredible Matthew Rhys is hard
to argue with. Tatiana Maslany
also pulled off the upset over
Keri Russell in recognition of the
utterly transfixing body of work
she’s put together as a whole in
“Orphan Black.” “Fargo,” whose
second season was one of the
most perfect seasons of television
in recent memory, also went home
empty-handed. (I’d be remiss if I
didn’t somehow throw Bokeem
Woodbine’s name in here some-
where, so there. That’s his name,
and his performance in “Fargo”
is one I’ll never forget.) And I’d
rather not discuss the utter disre-
spect shown to “The Leftovers,”
which is, in this writer’s opinion,
the best show on television and
the recipient of a whopping total
of zero nominations.
But it’s tough to complain
about an Emmys that awarded
hard-working actors like Sterling
K. Brown and Courtney B. Vance,
finally honored the comedic bril-
liance that is “Key and Peele” and
found “SNL” ’s first openly lesbian
cast member, Kate McKinnon, at
a rare loss for words. It’s an easy
line to draw from the Emmys’
general air of progressive poli-
tics to the standard “TV is doing
diversity better than movies”
argument. It is, of course, not that
simple. There’s still work to be
done. Still, the 2016 Emmys were
a heartwarming celebration of
“Peak TV” and how much more
is possible on television than ever
before. As Leslie Jones put it in
the night’s most optimistic, con-
fident and touching segment, the
Emmys just wanted to feel beauti-
ful, y’all.
FX
So no one told you life in jail would be this way *clap clap clap clap*
TV REVIEW
NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT
For the Daily
Jimmy Kimmel hosts a surprisingly
successful Emmy Awards on ABC
“Game of Thrones” and “American Crime Story” win big
I
’ve always had an underly-
ing suspicion that I could be
incredible at baseball.
Not right away, of course. But
maybe if I trained hard for say,
three years
or so, I could
be terrific. I
could thrive
on the lack
of prolonged
running, or
indulge in
the hilarious
furtiveness of
the steal. It’s
completely
unfounded
in any sense
of reality;
the game of baseball just has a
universality that makes even the
most uncoordinated of litera-
ture columnists dream of major
leagues.
Every game of baseball is a
story, with primal, relatable
goals and high stakes that will
make you stop scarfing down
peanuts for a second and watch.
Perhaps this is why American
literature has paid so much trib-
ute to baseball, even as baseball
falls out of favor to more com-
plicated, hurried games.
Baseball in our current cul-
tural landscape means some-
thing much different than what
it means on the page — today,
the average salary for a pro
baseball player is four million
dollars. When my grandfather
was invited to play for the New
York Yankees in 1951, he turned
it down because he had two kids
and could make more money as a
truck driver for a beer company.
When baseball was becom-
ing synonymous with American
ideals, there wasn’t the absurd
financial incentive that exists
for ball players today. There was
only a love of the game. But now
even though the players are mil-
lionaires, the history of baseball
in this country still goes deep
enough to make it an integral
part of American literature.
Americans have been living
out their fantasies of baseball
vicariously through the English
language since the game’s inven-
tion in 1839 in New York. But the
stories we hear are rarely basic
stories of winning and losing
— baseball lends itself as a meta-
phor for the human experience.
It accepts projection of sadness,
loss, mirth and triumph. Stories
like Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s
“Casey at the Bat,” which my
father read to me when I was
probably three or so, are incred-
ibly depressing.
Casey’s failure has become
an unavoidable part of our cul-
ture. When he strikes out, we’ve
become so invested it feels as
though we ourselves have lost
a hero. His irreversible mistake
changes everything, stripping
him of his identity and the
people of his town of joy. We’re
so willing to allow events to be
representative of ourselves and
our lives, which is why this story
is so devastating — we either are
or have been the disappointed
citizens of Mudville.
Stories about baseball, like
the 2011 novel “The Art of Field-
ing,” are also often subtly about
the way we struggle and become
ourselves. In Chad Harbach’s
book, we meet Henry Skrim-
shander as a freshman at the
fictional Westish College. For
his entire life, Henry has been
an almost magical, zero-error
shortstop, defining himself
through the game of baseball.
But like “Casey at the Bat,”
standing with the weight of the
world on his shoulders, the crux
of the story comes when Henry
must learn how to deal with fail-
ure and disappointment.
The rest of the characters’
lives in the novel also revolve
around the world of baseball
in the extremely small bubble
of Westish College. Henry’s
cultivated and confident room-
mate, Owen, has a preternatural
understanding of the physical-
ity of the game. However, their
gruff mentor, Schwartz, cannot
match the ease of movement
with which Owen and Henry
play. The characters’ relation-
ship to the game is constantly
reflected in their relationships
and time outside of it. “The Art
of Fielding” sees baseball and
human existence as relatively
analogous, like most litera-
ture that finds itself baseball-
inclined.
I was at a minor league base-
ball game in Maine this summer,
cheering on the Portland Sea
Dogs against the Hartford Yard
Goats. Children dressed up as
condiments and raced across
the field — mustard won. The air
smelled of French fries and fresh-
ly cut grass and I ate a hot dog
wrapped conspicuously in Won-
der Bread. Looking at the men
nonchalantly rounding the bases,
I rudely announced to the group
I was with that they weren’t
even running that fast and that
I could probably do that. I tuned
out the announcer describing the
local hardware store that had
sponsored the game and thought
about the poem “Baseball” by
Linda Pasten.
“When you tried to tell me /
baseball was a metaphor / for
life: the long, dusty travail /
around the bases, for instance, /
to try to go home again...I didn’t
believe you. / It’s just a way of
passing / the time, I said. / And
you said: that’s it. / Yes.”
Lerner is in a league of
her own. To try and join,
email rebler@umich.edu.
The stories of
America’s pastime
LITERATURE COLUMN
FILM REVIEW
It’s no secret that Ira Sachs
(“Love is Strange”) has a gift
for emotional realism. Never
has
that
been
more
apparent
than in his lat-
est film, “Little
Men,” which fol-
lows
the
bud-
ding
friendship
between
Tony
Calvelli
(new-
comer Michael Barbieri) and
Jake Jardine (newcomer Theo
Taplitz). The two meet at Jake’s
grandfather’s funeral — Tony’s
mom owns the store beneath
the grandfather’s apartment —
and instantly become insepa-
rable.
The friendship is treated
with a patience rarely seen in
film. The young men are given
plenty of screen time to just be
together. Long shots of the two
rollerblading, sitting, stand-
ing, walking and doing almost
anything else thirteen-year-
old boys do in silence follow
most scenes of dialogue. Those
stretches of silence are perhaps
the film’s strongest moments.
Sachs shows what friendship
looks like without letting the
audience in on its secrets and
specificities.
This gentle treatment of
adolescence extends to all the
children in the film. The kids
in Tony and Jake’s acting class
pulse with the same level of
realism.
In
an
especially lifelike
(and very funny)
moment, one of
the
girls
tells
Tony that she’s
really “into older
guys”
when
he
asks her to dance.
These small celebrations of the
everyday are what make the
film as realistic and powerful
as it is.
The film misses out every
moment that it chooses not to
spend with its two young leads.
The parallel plot of the squab-
ble between the Jardines and
Leonor (Paulina García, “Glo-
ria”), Tony’s mother, is not only
less compelling, it’s poorly exe-
cuted. Brian, Jake’s father, is
played unconvincingly by resi-
dent indie dad Greg Kinnear
(“Little Miss Sunshine”). He
and Lenore (Paulina Garcia,
“Narcos”) navigate a legal mess
with a lack of passion that bor-
ders on boredom. This dryness
is only made more apparent
when compared to the pure
vitality that threatens to break
through the screen whenever
either of their sons are on cam-
era.
As fate would have it, the two
little men are not allowed to be
best friends forever. Towards
the end of the film, the parental
subplot takes over. Rents and
voices are raised, and Lenore
must close up her shop. With-
out the common ground of the
store, the boys drift away from
each other.
The boys’ breakup itself is
raw and heartbreaking — never
more so than when Jake tries to
rollerblade back to Manhattan.
But its power and poignancy
is undercut by the slog of legal
narrative required to reach that
moment.
Keeping with the trend of
Sachs’s other films, a gay sub-
text could be detected in Jake
and
Tony’s
friendship.
But
keeping in the reality of the
simultaneous
sexuality
and
sexlessness of thirteen-year-
olds, the film decides to hint
rather than commit — and it’s
better for that choice.
Characterized by the most
realistic and poignant repre-
sentations of adolescence in
recent history, Sachs’s film is a
beautiful ode to the everyday.
It’s just a shame “Little Men”
isn’t only about its little men.
MADELEINE GAUDIN
Daily Arts Writer
‘Little Men’ ponders male friendship
B
“Little Men”
Magnolia Pictures
Michigan Theater
TV RECAP
REBECCA
LERNER
A-
68th Primetime
Emmy Awards
ABC
Aired Sunday, Sept.
18
Every game
of baseball is
a story with
relatable goals.