The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 — 5

“Skyrim” is a video game of 

profound influence. It’s one of 
those names, like “Mario” or 
“Zelda,” 
that 

everybody 
seems to know. 
My non-gamer 
girlfriend says, 
when 
people 

ask, 
that 
she 

“doesn’t 
play, 

but played ‘Sky-
rim’ for a little 
bit once.” To say 
it’s broken into 
the mainstream 
would be a mas-
sive understatement — it’s one 
of the top 20 best-selling games 
of all time, at over 20 million 
units sold.

And it’s not just a commercial 

success. At an unheard-of 96 on 
Metacritic, it’s one of the most 
acclaimed video games ever. 
Last week, the game’s publisher 
re-released the game on cur-
rent-gen consoles with a graphi-
cal update, and bundled the 
base game with all of its DLC.

I was going to review “Sky-

rim Special Edition” just like 
any other release. But what’s the 
point of me regurgitating praise 
for a game that’s already been 
lavished by every major gaming 
and non-gaming publication on 
the planet? You heard the opin-
ions of the games press back in 
2011, and I agree with them. It’s 
an extraordinarily ambitious 
open-world role-playing game. 
The overarching story is com-
petent, but the sense of explo-
ration and world building are 
masterful. The music is heart-
meltingly beautiful. The graph-
ics were unreal at the time. 
There’s a truly absurd amount 
of content to engage with. By 
any measure, “Skyrim” is a mas-
terpiece.

But you know that already. 

My critical opinion of the game 
doesn’t matter at this point. 
Instead, I want you to consider 
the opinion of my roommate, 
LSA Senior Matt Kotrba.

I’ve known Matt for four 

years and lived with him for 
three, and I can safely say that 
“Skyrim” is the only video game 
I’ve ever seen him play more 
than once. In fact, he plays it all 
the time — and he’s been devour-
ing the remaster since Bethesda 
sent me a copy. He would never 
self-label as a gamer, and he 
never seems interested in the 
many games I buy that he could 

easily play for free. Matt rep-
resents one of the many mil-
lion mainstream purchasers of 
“Skyrim” — the guy who doesn’t 
read the trade sites, or listen to 
any gaming podcasts. He’s just 

an average guy who 
fell in love with 
“Skyrim.”

“It had to be dur-

ing junior or sopho-
more year of high 
school,” 
he 
said. 

“Back when every-
one 
else 
started 

playing it. Everyone 
was talking about 
it at school, but I 
didn’t get it until a 
year after that.”

Matt said his friend Jamie 

Brandon was the first to turn 
him on to it.

“One of my friends from high 

school just had the game on,” 
Matt said. “It was like, ‘here, 
you need to see this, ‘cause it’s 
so good.’ And she pretty much 
just forced me to start a profile 
and start playing. She played 
a lot more games, but I never 
played really anything at all. 
We had like, PlayStation 1 and 
all that for my brothers growing 
up, but I never played any of the 
games. They just never seemed 
interesting.”

I sat on the couch perpen-

dicular to him as he booted up 
the game from the PS4 menu 
and buttoned through the start 
screen. I noticed that for what-
ever reason, everything was in 
French.

“Actually, it’s really helped 

me in practicing French. I’m 
trying to learn it, and this is 
perfect because it’s as if I’m 
going to France,” Matt said. 
“Everybody’s speaking French 
to me, I’m going to towns and 
French vendors and guards and 
people are talking to me. And 
you respond with questions and 
stuff. It’s good ‘cause you read 
and listen and hear and talk.”

The North American version 

of “Skyrim” includes language 
options for English, French, 
Spanish, Italian and German.

“Just look at this — it’s beau-

tiful!” Matt said, as his charac-
ter peered over a ledge at the 
rising in-game sun. “I mean… 
it’s different from other games, 
I guess, like you don’t go into 
it thinking ‘okay, I’m gonna do 
these things to beat this part of 
this game.’ You can just enter it 
thinking ‘okay, cool, I’m gonna 
see some cool shit, do some cool 
stuff, and we’ll see if we can run 
into people and learn about sto-

rylines.’ It’s like a folk tale or 
something.”

Matt said he’s beaten the 

game a couple times. “I just 
keep going back as different 
characters,” he said.

Over the years, I’ve attempt-

ed to get Matt into games that 
are similar in genre to Skyrim, 
maybe so I could have another 
gamer around the house. I made 
Matt sit down and try “Far Cry 
4,” “The Witcher 3” and even 
Bethesda’s follow-up to “Sky-
rim,” “Fallout 4.” The attempts 
were unsuccessful.

“I guess those games … I don’t 

know. (They) just seem like a lot 
more intense. (“Skyrim”) just 
feels a lot more original, and it’s 
not specifically a story, it’s just a 
world to explore. Exploration, I 
guess, is the biggest difference. 
Other games, it’s just a lot of 
taking over enemy territory.”

Matt also never played “Sky-

rim” ’s predecessor, 2006’s “The 
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” but 
watched his brother play it.

Checking that the conversa-

tion recording was still going, 
I watched Matt kill a rabid 
wolf, called a “loup” in the 
French translation. Matt then 
expressed his disdain for always 
having to kill stuff while explor-
ing “Skyrim” ’s overworld. He 
felt it interrupted the pace of 
exploration. 

“The combat is the worst 

part,” he said. “That’s why I 
usually play as a guy with a bow 
and arrow or magic. It’s just 
like, being a cool sniper. Then, 
I can just keep looking around.”

To conclude our conversation, 

I asked Matt how he felt about 
the upgrades included with the 
new version of the game.

“I think it’s awesome,” he 

said. “I feel like the visual aes-
thetic is a big part of what 
makes this a game. And the 
improvements 
are 
awesome. 

Yeah, I definitely noticed them. 
It just makes the world seem 
more real. The light effects, the 
cool sounds and stuff.”

I pointed out the deep red 

sky in the background of Matt’s 
mountain voyage. I didn’t rec-
ognize the way the sky looked 
from the original version of the 
game.

“That’s a big thing in this one. 

The sky is always different.”

Matt said that if he were 

in my position, he would give 
“Skyrim Special Edition” an A+.

“The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 

Special Edition” was reviewed 
using a post-launch digital copy 
provided by Bethesda.

Bethesda remasters a true classic 
with ‘Elder Scrolls V’ special edition

The game is beloved not just by gamers, but mainstream roommates, too

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

On the morning of Nov. 12, 

the Taubman College of Archi-
tecture, alongside architecture 
firm Lord Aeck Sargent, opened 
its new exhibit “Triptychs.” The 
exhibit honors LAS’s founding 
principal and Taubman alum, 
Terry 
Sargent, 
who 
passed 

away in 2014. “Triptychs” dis-
plays Sargent’s original sketches 
and shows how they have been 
brought to life.

Since the ’90s, Lord Aeck Sar-

gent has had a deep concentra-
tion in sustainability. With four 
different office locations, Uni-
versity of Michigan alumni and 
buildings all over college cam-
puses, LAS has made a name for 
itself as a top, modern day archi-
tecture firm.

Joe Greco, president of LAS, 

and Jim Nicolow, director and 
architect of LAS Ann Arbor 
office, 
both 
discussed 
their 

company and the work of Mr. 
Sargent in an interview last Sat-
urday, before the opening of this 
long-awaited exhibit. Their cur-
rent goal is to create buildings 
that produce more energy than 
the energy that is used.

“The work of sustainability 

comes from a grass roots level 
… It’s not about high tech engi-
neering. It’s about smart choices 
and how the systems are all inte-
grated in a cohesive way that are 
high performing,” Greco said. 
“It’s all part of the design pro-
cess.” 

“We always look at the local 

climate (when thinking about 
design) and what are the oppor-
tunities and challenges posed by 
those climates,” Nicolow added.

Many of LAS’s buildings are 

at universities like Baylor Uni-
versity’s College of Medicine, 

Georgia State University, Geor-
gia Tech University, Michigan 
State University and the Univer-
sity of Michigan’s Dearborn and 
Ann Arbor campuses.

“David Orr said that ‘architec-

ture is crystallized pedagogy’,” 
Nicolow said. “(The company 
tries to) have the building not 
only be sustainable and sensi-
tive to the environment, but to 
also do it in a way that is under-
standable and provides teaching 
moments.”

These teaching moments also 

shine through in the showcase. 
“Triptychs” shows three-piece 
panels of the evolution of an 
architecture 
design: 
begin-

ning with Sargent’s sketches, 
moving to Barbara Ratner’s 
watercolors and finishing with 
Jonathon Hillyer’s photography 
of the building itself. Greco and 
Nicolow noted some of the final 
products don’t look exactly like 
the sketch, but there is always 
some piece of Sargent’s creative 
work that is embedded in the 
building.

“(Sargent) was never egotisti-

cal,” Greco said. “He taught us 
that the firm revolves around 
serious collaboration. That was 
his legacy and his approach.”

When asked what three words 

best describe “Triptychs” and 
Mr. Sargent’s work, the two said: 
“Integrated, 
Innovative 
and 

Poetic.” With those three words 
in mind, we headed over to the 
exhibit after the interview.

The gallery is located at the 

Taubman College Liberty Gal-
lery at 305 W. Liberty Street. For 
anyone who has ever been there 
before knows that that studio 
warehouse itself is a piece of art. 
With high ceilings, lots of natu-
ral light and an abundance of 
architecture projects and mod-
els, it feels like the perfect place 

to present Sargent’s architectur-
al designs.

The gallery shows numer-

ous projects that Sargent pro-
posed along with the water color 
renderings and the final pho-
tographs. To see the transforma-
tion of sketch lines on paper to 
full-fledged, sustainable, func-
tional buildings was immensely 
impressive to view. As someone 
who highly appreciates archi-
tecture, I could not find a more 
inspiring exhibit to attend.

Those three words Greco and 

Nicolow used can be seen in the 
integration of three different 
art forms — sketching, painting 
and photography. They all cap-
ture that same concept, but in 
diverse mediums. These build-
ings are innovative not only to 
modern day architecture, but 
also to all people and the envi-
ronment. These designs demand 
to be noticed — they are com-
plex and simple together in a 
style that can only be defined as 
poetic.

Sargent’s work at Taubman 

and LAS is what can only be 
described as highly credible. 
Along with the fine work of 
Barbara Ratner and Jonathon 
Hillyer, these talented artists 
form the building blocks to the 
evolutionary effect of triptychs.

One can clearly see the 

importance of Sargent’s work 
to LAS, to Taubman and to the 
overarching field of architec-
ture when visiting this exhibit. 
In addition to the gallery, there 
were 
multiple 
testimonials 

about working with Sargent and 
the kind of man and architect he 
was — one whose footprint has 
been made on his buildings, in 
his firm, and right here at the 
University. 

“Triptychs” will be displayed 

until Dec. 18.

ERIKA SHEVCHEK

Daily Arts Writer

Taubman opens architecture exhibit 
to honor founding principal Sargent

CONCERT REVIEW

Alex G shows don’t work quite 

like other shows.

Normally, the kind of audience 

member who shouts out song 
titles, demanding that the band 
play them, is looked down on. 
It takes a certain level of either 
ignorance or arrogance (or both) 
to believe that you should be the 
one telling the artist what to do. 
At The Blind Pig on Saturday, 
however, during the final show of 
Alex G’s tour with openers LVL 
UP and Brandon Can’t Dance, 
these more vocal showgoers were 
rewarded. Alex G only really ever 
prepares half of their setlist, and 
leaves the rest up to the audience, 
so when the audience started 
chanting “Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!” 
the band responded by playing 
“Sarah” — though not before Alex 
himself pretended to be angry 
with the audience for shouting 
their request.

What happens between songs, 

though, is one of the most reward-
ing aspects of an Alex G show. 
Alex readily riffs back and forth 
with the audience, often riffing 
on inane little bits that would fall 
flat were it not for his delivery. 
After the first few songs, he asked 
the audience, “Hey, you guys ever 
seen ‘Lord of the Rings’? Yeah, I 

was an extra in that movie … They 
flew me out to New Zealand.”

There’s nothing innately funny 

about this statement, but the con-
fidence with which it was said 
and his feigned expectation that 
the audience would be impressed 
made it resonate. Even better was 
when he asked, one song later, 
whether the audience was famil-
iar with “Harry Potter and the 
Chamber of Secrets” — “I was in 
that movie too.” About five min-
utes later he also let the audience 
know that he was in “The Matrix: 
Reloaded.” So as not to tire the 
bit, he stopped there.

About 15 minutes into the set, 

Alex let the crowd know that the 
band was about to play their last 
song — the show ended about an 
hour and several songs later. A 
lot of people find his behavior on 
stage cocky and off-putting, but it 
truly is a part of the art of putting 
on a show (or it is for Alex G, at 
least). Multi-faceted performance 
at its finest, with not just music 
live, but an offbeat comedy show 
interspersed with occasional cul-
tural commentary. It’s refresh-
ing to see a performer who is 
also a person, and it’s easy to see 
that Alex G — the person and the 
band — really just aim to have fun 
onstage.

At one point during the show, 

someone in the front row request-
ed “All Star” by Smash Mouth. 
Keeping with their tradition of 
letting the audience decide their 
show, Alex asked if anyone in 
the crowd knew all of the lyrics, 
and invited the young man who 
volunteered himself up on to the 
stage. What followed was comedy 
and art in an absurd conglomera-
tion. After the first verse-chorus 
cycle of “All Star,” Alex G’s lead 
guitarist started singing “Closing 
Time” by Semisonic on top of the 
already bizarre cover.

Later, after a spontaneous 

discussion of the virtues of Tom 
Cruise, the band announced that 
they would be playing two more 
songs, one that the audience 
could choose, then an encore. 
After playing “Animals” per 
request, Alex told the crowd the 
show was over. About 30 sec-
onds later, the band started their 
last song. Starting as a rolling, 
jazzy piece, Alex changed the 
keyboard he was playing to the 
DJ Sampler setting, and absur-
dity once again became the driv-
ing force of the show. The next 
three minutes were loaded with 
“woo”s and “yeah”s and artifi-
cial vinyl scratches, and you’d be 
hard-pressed to find someone in 
the audience who didn’t crack a 
smile.

Alex G brings welcome absurdity, 
crowd participation to Blind Pig

A

“The Elder Scrolls 
V: Skyrim Special 

Edition”

Bethesda

PS4 (Reviewed), PC 

and Xbox One

JACOB RICH
Senior Arts Editor

SEAN LANG

Daily Arts Writer

I

n the midst of an anxious 
and turbulent election, 
on Tuesday, November 

8, 2016, I fell asleep at 10:30 
P.M. I attribute my ability to 
doze off in 
this time 
of intense 
pressure to 
both my self-
diagnosed 
“stress-
induced 
narcolepsy” 
and the 
melatonin 
gummies I 
took from my 
roommate. Either way, I woke 
up at four in the morning on 
Wednesday, November 9 to dis-
cover that President-elect Don-
ald Trump won the over 270 
Electoral College votes neces-
sary to secure the presidency. 

I got up, turned on my 

light and took out my copy 
of “Swamplandia,” by Karen 
Russell. “Swamplandia” is not 
strictly apocalyptic in a tra-
ditional sense, since it doesn’t 
detail a societal collapse with 
zombies or a plague. But at its 
core, it shares a common theme 
with all apocalyptic literature: 
survival. The story centers on 
the Bigtrees, a family that runs 
an alligator theme park in Flor-
ida. Within the first few pages, 
the matriarch of the family dies 
of breast cancer and her death 
catalyzes their financial and 
emotional collapse.

Flipping to page eight, I read 

the lines that I was specifically 
looking for, the ones that could 
so perfectly capture how I was 
feeling. I strained my eyes to 
read the words, their poignan-
cy echoing in my silent house.

“The Beginning of the End 

can feel a lot like the middle 
when you are living in it ... 
If you’re short on time, that 
would be the two word version 
of our story — we fell.”

This fall takes place at the 

start of “Swamplandia,” and 

it’s a subdued descent that hits 
you all at once. The kind where 
in a single page, any semblance 
of safety or magic evaporates. 
That page might be in the 
weathered copy of “Swamp-
landia” on my bookshelf, or it 
might be a web page on a phone 
with its blue light broadcasting 
the glaring red of an electoral 
map.

There’s a downward momen-

tum and uncertainty to this 
election that makes people 
who diverge from the white, 
straight, male norm lie awake 
at night. Of course, people who 
voted for Trump are entitled 
to their vote and free speech. 
They are not all racists or sex-
ists, but to have voted for him, 
they needed to look past some 
damning evidence of sexual 
assault and countless examples 
of prejudice and ignorance. 
We’re hearing the same hateful 
rhetoric that has been simmer-
ing under the societal surface 
for years, at a much higher 
pitch.

This rhetoric can be alarm-

ing and frustrating, especially 
on this campus, where students 
of marginalized identities are 
constantly forced to speak 
as experts on diversity while 
simultaneously combatting 
intolerance and hate. Conser-
vative news is attributing the 
drastic reaction of students 
to the way we see ourselves 
as special snowflakes who 
can’t stand to have people 
disagree with us. In reality, 
what we can’t stand is violence 
and hatred directed towards 
women, minorities and queer 
and trans people.

This feels like the part of 

this piece where I should say 
that we need empathy, that in 
apocalyptic literature there’s 
always a societal divide and 
that polarization is normal, 
even encouraged in political 
races. That empathy could save 
the day, start a dialogue and 
create space for understanding 

both sides. I could even bring it 
back to literature and say that 
reading fiction increases the 
human capacity for empathy. 
(It does. By reading we slip into 
the lives of people who are so 
unlike us that we learn what 
it’s like to be someone else, 
improving our social skills and 
compassion.) Trump and his 
supporters are asking America 
to trust him, and empathy 
seems to be a first step to trust 
and unity. 

But trust must be earned. 

Trump’s speech throughout his 
campaign was fueled by racism, 
xenophobia, homophobia and 
sexism. It’s not my place to tell 
anyone whether they should 
move past that or not in the 
name of uniting the country. 
There have been hundreds of 
hate crimes across the country 
since last Tuesday’s election. 
People have a right to be scared 
and angry.

This has been a confus-

ing and disjointed year — in 
2016, Beyonce’s Lemonade was 
released, Donald Trump was 
elected to be the leader of the 
free world and the terrifying 
force of Harambe memes were 
unleashed upon the internet. 
We live in troubling times. It’s 
hard to take seriously a plea 
for unity coming from the 
same people who allowed or 
perpetrated rallying cries of 
division. It’s hard not to see the 
transition of power from Presi-
dent Obama to President-elect 
Trump as symbolic of some-
thing bigger and more sinister 
coming our way. 

But this is not the end. 

Obama told us that now is not 
the time to get cynical, that 
the sun would come up no mat-
ter who was elected. Thus far, 
he’s been right. So this isn’t the 
apocalypse. But it could be the 
start of a fall.

Lerner is chowing down on 

melatonin gummies. To wake her 

up, email rebler@umich.edu.

A fall from grace

Appreciating empathy in fiction during anxious political times

LITERATURE COLUMN

REBECCA 
LERNER

VIDEO GAME REVIEW

Inspiring “Triptychs” displays original sketches and proposed projects

