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
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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
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