The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, April 10, 2017 — 5A

Classifieds

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

ACROSS
1 “__ Noon”: Gary
Cooper classic
5 Tippy watercraft
10 “Make it snappy,”
in memos
14 Length-times-
width calculation
15 Take place
16 Pleasant
17 *Niña and Pinta’s
sister ship
19 Camper’s
quarters
20 Like some rye
bread
21 Number of little
pigs, in a fable
22 Decorative theme
24 Crystal ball
reader
25 Up to now
28 *Leader of the
pack
32 Surfing at one’s
desk, say
34 Places for studs
35 Fellow
36 Rod’s fishing
partner
37 “__ you go
again!”
39 Like Solomon
40 Aunt, in
Argentina
41 Fashionably
smart
42 Crusty roll
44 *Yale, for five
U.S. presidents
47 “SNL” host’s
monologue, e.g.
48 Door-to-door
cosmetics seller
49 Cavalry sword, in
Sussex
51 Kitchen cover-up?
53 Granola
alternative
56 Luau torch type
57 Coffee break
time ... and a hint
to an abbreviation
aptly placed in
each answer to a
starred clue
61 Opinion column,
for short
62 Unfamiliar (to)
63 Director
Preminger
64 Baseball’s
“Amazins”
65 Bamboo lover
66 Karate award

DOWN
1 “__ it been that
long?”
2 Tax-sheltered
plans: Abbr.
3 Heredity unit
4 Venomous
letters
5 Cleaner sold in
green canisters
6 National park in
Maine
7 ATM maker
8 Avignon assent
9 Division of
history
10 “O Canada,” e.g.
11 *Renamed
lemon-lime soft
drink
12 Clearasil target
13 Rose of 
baseball
18 Festoon
21 Lipton products
23 Takes for a
sucker
24 Princess Fiona’s
beloved ogre
25 Somewhat,
informally
26 NBC newsman
Roger
27 *Spot for bargain
hunters

29 Golfer’s goal
30 Surgical beam
31 January, in
Mexico
33 Hawke of
“Boyhood”
38 Triple or homer
39 One who scoffs
at boxed Merlot,
say
41 “Hurry up, will
ya?”
43 TV network, e.g.

45 Sidesteps
46 Smashed into
50 “__ sera”: Italian
“Good evening”
51 Proton’s place
52 Plumbing unit
54 Calorie-friendly
55 Not domestic,
flight-wise: Abbr.
57 Travel guide
58 Dockworker’s gp.
59 Clamorous noise
60 Understood

By Agnes Davidson and C.C. Burnikel
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
04/10/17

04/10/17

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, April 10, 2017

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

WORK ON MACKINAC Island 

This Summer – Make lifelong friends. 
The Island House Hotel and Ryba’s 
Fudge Shops are seeking help in all areas: 
Front Desk, Bell Staff, Wait Staff, Sales 
Clerks, 
Kitchen, 
Baristas. 
Dorm 
Housing, 

bonus, and discounted meals.
(906) 847‑7196. 
www.theislandhouse.com

ANN ARBOR APARTMENTS ‑ 
CMB Management has 17 premier loca‑ 
tions to choose from! Call today for spe‑ 
cials and to schedule a tour of your new 

home! 734‑741‑9300

CASH FOR YOUR used vehicle

Reputable, honest Mike: 734‑263‑0764

BROADVIEW APARTMENTS ‑ 
FREE 
Parking, 
FREE 
laundry, 
and 
FREE 
resident 
shuttle! 
As 
low 
as 
$1110 
for 
rent! 

Call today for specials! 734‑741‑9300

STUDENT SUMMER STORAGE 
Specials ‑ Closest to campus ‑ Indoor 

Clean ‑ Safe ‑ Reserve online now 

annarborstorage.com call 734‑663‑0690

 ARBOR PROPERTIES 

Award‑Winning Rentals in Kerrytown,

Central Campus, Old West Side, 
Burns Park. Now Renting for 2017. 
734‑649‑8637. www.arborprops.com 

GEDDES HILL APARTMENTS ‑ 

SAVE up to $1200 off rent! 
Call now for details! 734‑741‑9300

712 WEST HURON ‑ PURRFECT 
downtown location. Bring your furry 
friend for FREE! $0 Application Fee. 
 

Call today to schedule your tour! 
734‑741‑9300

FOR RENT

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT

SERVICES

AUTOMOTIVE

 
4AD

Future Islands

DAILY TV/NEW MEDIA COLUMN

A girl kills herself, leaving 
behind 13 cassette tapes

Understandably, 
a 
number 

of viewers have published their 
criticisms in the week since “13 
Reasons Why” premiered. In this 
piece from The Mighty, a website 
dedicated to publishing stories 
from people with serious health 
conditions, Alyse Ruriani explains 
her issues with the show, and with 
“Thirteen Reasons Why,” the novel 
on which it’s based.

I agree with some of Ruriani’s 

points; she mentions that the series 
doesn’t address mental illness’s 
role in suicide, which is a pretty 
glaring oversight considering “a 
mental disorder and/or substance 
abuse is found in 90% of suicide 
deaths.” At a time when so many 
people still don’t understand the 
nature of mental illness — that 
you don’t have to have quantifiable 
reasons why you’re suicidal, that 
you can be suicidal because mental 
illness attacks your mind just as 
clinically as physical illness attacks 
your body — it’s true that greater 
exposure to stories explicitly about 
mental illness are necessary.

Maybe it’s better to think of “13 

Reasons Why” not as a story about 
suicide, but a story about bullying. 
It’s not an entirely accurate 
portrayal of depression, with its 
cause-and-effect storytelling, but it 
does paint a devastating picture of 
how acts of bullying can pile up and 
build off each other, how relentless 
bullying can make a person believe 
they’re worthless. Organizations 
like The Trevor Project and It Gets 
Better exist for a reason.

But I also don’t think that even if 

“13 Reasons Why” was meant to be 
an accurate depiction of suicide, not 
every story about suicide needs to 
fit into that majority statistic. I don’t 
think “13 Reasons Why” is trying 
to pass itself off as the definitive 
portrait of depression and suicide. 
Can’t this just be a story about one 
girl and what drove her to suicide? 
Do we have to expect it to fit into all 
of our preconceived notions about 
why things like this traditionally 
happen?

Besides, though “13 Reasons 

Why” 
rarely 
explicitly 

acknowledges mental illness (it’s 
mentioned that Clay used to take 
pills and see a therapist, but that’s 
mostly just hinted at), it never 
outright dismisses the possibility of 

Hannah having clinical depression. 
Perhaps this is simply a story with 
uninformed characters, a story full 
of people determined to scapegoat, 
to find someone to blame instead 
of accepting that not everything is 
easily explainable.

That might seem like a cop-out, 

to suggest that it’s not the show 
that’s ignorant but the characters, 
but there’s evidence for it. “13 
Reasons Why” is frequently self-
aware in ways that people overlook.

There’s one scene in particular, 

in the final episode of the series, 
that illustrates this beautifully. 
The two main characters, Hannah 
and Clay, each sit down with their 
guidance counselor, Mr. Porter, 
at different times. Director Kyle 
Patrick Alvarez (“The Stanford 
Prison 
Experiment”) 
toggles 

back and forth between these 
two conversations, showing us 

Hannah’s final attempt to seek help 
at the same time that he shows us 
Clay confronting Mr. Porter with 
his failure to save her.

“13 Reasons Why” — which, it 

must be said, isn’t a great show, 
though it’s often quite a good one — 
paints Clay a little too frequently as 
the hero. That continues in the final 
episode, as he walks Mr. Porter 
through the final day of Hannah’s 
life, showing him that it was his 
negligence that led to Hannah’s 
final decision to kill herself.

And it’s true: We watch Mr. 

Porter’s session with Hannah, and 
we see him repeatedly stumble. 
When Hannah admits she was 
raped, he reveals his simplistic 
view of sexual assault, subtly 
victim-blaming by suggesting that 
if Hannah didn’t explicitly tell her 
rapist to stop, she must’ve initially 
consented then changed her mind. 
He repeatedly tries to rush her into 
an explanation for her feelings, 
then rushes her into revealing the 

identity of her rapist. Finally, he 
sets up a false dichotomy: Hannah 
must either press charges and 
directly confront Bryce, or “move 
on.”

What makes the sequence a 

great one, though, is that Mr. Porter 
isn’t a bad person. He’s probably a 
poorly trained counselor, but he 
recognizes his mistakes, and he 
sometimes says the right things. 
When Hannah asks him if he can 
promise Bryce will go to jail, he 
says, “I can’t promise you that, 
Hannah. But I will promise you 
this: I will do everything in my 
power to keep you safe and protect 
you in this process.”

While 
the 
series 
generally 

positions Clay as the hero of the 
narrative, the righteous avenger 
seeking justice for Hannah by 
confronting her bullies, Mr. Porter 
makes some good points in this 
scene. “Whatever happened to 
Hannah, between you and her, 
with other kids, she made that 
choice to take her own life,” he says. 
Later, when Clay suggests people 
should try to do better, Mr. Porter 
says, “We can try to love each other 
better, but we’re imperfect people. 
We love imperfectly, we don’t 
always get it right … you can know 
all the signs and understand the 
issues and still come out missing 
something.”

In that moment, the show’s true 

philosophy comes out. “13 Reasons 
Why” isn’t suggesting that there 
were 13 individual reasons Hannah 
killed herself, even if Hannah 
suggests that. In the wake of loss, 
everyone searches for closure, 
for some reason to explain how 
something so tragic could happen. 
Just because the characters of “13 
Reasons Why” never seriously 
consider mental illness as the sole 
cause for Hannah’s hopelessness 
doesn’t mean the show itself 
endorses that point of view.

In 
the 
end, 
“13 
Reasons 

Why” subverts its own title, 
acknowledging that people are 
essentially unknowable. Maybe 
Clay, or Mr. Porter, or anyone 
could’ve prevented Hannah from 
resorting to suicide. What’s even 
more terrifying, what few of the 
characters consider, is that maybe 
there was nothing they could’ve 
done.

BEN ROSEN-

STOCK

ALBUM REVIEW

Future Islands returns 
with stunning ‘Far Field’

On their fifth LP, Future Islands evokes beauty and expanse

Three 
years 
since 
their 

breakthrough album Singles, 
an album “of singles” that 
flexed about as much as the 
title might suggest, Future 
Islands have returned with 
their fifth LP, The Far Field. 
Hailing 
from 
Baltimore, 

Maryland, 
the 
three-piece 

have been committed to their 
particular 
brand 
of 
hard-

edged synth-pop revival for 
over 11 years. The Far Field is 
a stunning summation of this 
dedication and experience, and 
perhaps the most linear record 
in the band’s discography. 
Future Islands regularly tours 
with drummer Michael Lowry, 
but recruited him to play for 
the studio recordings this time 
around, lending the album 
a greater sense of direction. 
Despite the relatively boring 
“Candles,” 
The 
Far 
Field 

delivers on the promise that 
Future 
Islands 
made 
with 

Singles in 2014: a purposeful 
step 
towards 
accessibility 

without compromise of the 
band’s core values.

Singles “Ran” and “Cave” 

signal 
urgency, 
frontman 

and vocalist Sam Herring’s 
familiarly hearty rasp soaring 
over 
fast 
footstep-like 

cymbals. In the music video 
for “Ran,” Herring, fittingly, 
runs 
across 
a 
countryside 

before closing out the last 
minute crooning from behind 
dancing embers. Like Future 
Islands’ 
live 
performances, 

Herring’s face contorts itself, 
the visible strain in his brow 
evidence of his earnestness, an 
earnestness perhaps even more 
central to the band’s identity 
than Herring’s voice.

Although The Far Field is 

stylistically distinct from the 
rest of the group’s releases, it 
is also, in some ways, a return 
to form. On the lyric sheet 
included with the vinyl edition 
of the album, just below the 
list of acknowledgments, is 
a small note that the album’s 

title was inspired by Theodore 
Roethke’s poem of the same 
name, itself the fifth in a 
series titled “North American 
Sequence.” The poem informs 
not just the album’s themes, but 
the band’s mission statement.

“I learned not to fear infinity 

/ The far field, the windy cliffs 
of forever / The dying of time 
in the white light of tomorrow 
/ The wheel turning away from 
itself / The sprawl of the wave 
/ The on-coming water.” So 
ends the second part of “The 
Far Field,” evoking images of 
vastness, the same way The Far 
Field does with its 
soaring 
quality 

and 
occasional 

slow builds, from 
individuality 
to 
infinity. 
In 

Evening 
Air, 

Future 
Islands’ 

second 
album, 

was 
similarly 

inspired 
by 
a 

Roethke poem. (The artwork 
for both albums was also done 
by the same artist, Kymia 
Nawab.) Practically, the effect 
here is almost insignificant, 
but the connection does bring 
a greater sense of purpose and 
cohesion to the band’s work.

The 
opening 
track, 

“Aladdin,” rises out of nothing 
with a fade-in that will have 
you wondering for a moment 
whether you actually clicked 
play. The sort of detail that 
reveals its importance over 
listens, this fade-in is an 
indicator of Future Islands’ 
commitment to a theme. It 
makes sense that an album 
that confronts the relationship 
between the finite and the 
infinite must become slowly, 
from nothing, as did man. 
Where Roethke is “renewed by 
death, thought of [his] death, 
/ The dry scent of a dying 
garden in September,” Herring 
struggles, on “Cave”: “Is this 
a desperate wish for dying? / 
Or a wish that dying cease? / 
The fear that keeps me going 
and going and going / Is the 
same fear that brings me to my 
knees.” What’s more, Roethke’s 

“dying garden” is reflected 
in the roses (“Through the 
Roses,” “Black Rose”) of The 
Far Field. “Through the Roses” 
struggles with reconciling the 
highs and lows of life, before 
the 
chorus’s 
proclamation 

that “It’s not easy, just being 
human.”

Though 
keyboardist 

Gerrit 
Welmers’s 
and 

bassist 
William 
Cashion’s 

arrangements are expansive 
and 
sprawling, 
Herring’s 

accompanying 
narratives 

are 
often 
autobiographical 

in nature. “Black Rose” finds 

Herring wishing 
for 
another 

chance 
at 
love 

with a particular 
significant other, 
while 
“Beauty 

of 
the 
Road” 

is 
similar 
in 

thought and the 
most 
pointedly 

autobiographical, 

opening with the lines: “Left 
out on the road eight years ago 
/ And you left too but I never 
really thought you would go.”

On The Far Field, lyrical and 

stylistic decisions juxtapose 
the singular man and the 
expansiveness 
of 
being, 

continuing 
Future 
Islands’ 

obsession — a welcome one — 
with nature. All of the band’s 
album titles, save Singles, refer 
to nature (Wave Like Home, 
In Evening Air, On The Water, 
The Far Field) and mentions 
of blizzards, gardens, fire, 
rain and the overwhelming 
power of water are sprinkled 
throughout the album. The 
album’s only duet, “Shadows,” 
even invokes religion, with 
mentions of Dante and the 
Garden of Eden that further 
contextualize the experience 
of the individual. Masterfully 
creating a space both large 
enough to lose yourself in and 
simultaneously small enough 
that you may just see what 
looks 
like 
your 
reflection, 

peering back out at you, The 
Far Field leaves us with one 
final suggestion: “All finite 
things reveal infinitude.”

SEAN LANG

Daily Arts Writer

The Far Fields 

Future Islands 

4AD

SEARCHING FOR FREE WEBKINZ 

CODES?

SO ARE WE!

E-mail arts@michigandaily.com for 

information on applying.

