The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, November 10, 2017 — 5A
ACROSS
1 Bills, say
5 Alfredo may be
associated with it
10 Ways of viewing
the world
14 First name in folk
15 Yale of Yale
fame
16 “Fillet of a fenny
snake / In the
cauldron __ and
bake”: “Macbeth”
17 Cosmetologist’s
choices at happy
hour?
19 Local govt. bond
20 Inspired
21 RR stop
23 Janitor’s tool,
briefly
24 Marx collaborator
26 Collapse, with
“over”
27 Previous to,
poetically
28 Nursery supply
29 Cosmetologist’s
preferred
vacation venue?
32 “Art is __ that
makes us realize
truth”: Picasso
33 Knots and yards
34 Cosmetologist’s
expression for
hastily exiting?
38 “Just like me”
40 Shrek, e.g.
41 Cosmetologist’s
favorite capital?
44 Take shots of
48 Mark on the
Oregon Trail
49 Like crab apples
50 Leonine savior’s
domain
52 Enzyme suffix
53 Romantic ideal,
with “the”
54 Dieter’s breakfast
55 “__ Trigger”:
Bugs Bunny
cartoon
57 Cosmetologist’s
wall covering?
61 Like much
cheese
62 Final ordeal,
perhaps
63 Low joint
64 Rx contents
65 Does another
tour
66 Attention-getter
DOWN
1 Brooklyn Bridge
array
2 Garfield’s
girlfriend
3 Oozy stuff
4 Threw a party
5 Place to pray
6 Memorable
fighter
7 Pride, for
example
8 Annabel Lee’s
kingdom was
by it
9 Writer who
created the
Dashwood
sisters
10 Watson’s home
11 Snow globe,
perhaps
12 Muezzin’s tower
13 Deli equipment
18 Dec. 25 or Jan. 1
22 Intimate, with “to”
25 Food fish
26 “Private
property” sign
warning
30 Mike Pompeo’s
org.
31 Having four
sharps
32 A lot like
34 Like neglected
clothing
35 Latin lover’s word
36 Steven of “The
Walking Dead”
37 Small songbird
38 Biblical patriarch
39 Breakfast side
42 National park
figure
43 Threatening
phrase
44 Weird
45 How theme park
visitors often
stand
46 Longtime maker
of O gauge track
47 Place for trophies
51 Rock concert
sight
56 Newspaper VIPs
58 Buckeyes’ sch.
59 Sucker
60 Part of CBS:
Abbr.
By Jeffrey Wechsler
©2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/10/17
11/10/17
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Friday, November 10, 2017
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
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Some weeks ago an article by
the composer and performer Elliot
Cole appeared on NewMusicBox,
an e-zine which is one of the most
interesting media outlets dedicated
to contemporary music today. The
piece, entitled “Questions I Ask
Myself,” duly made its way around
the social media circles of the hip
and with-it of the contemporary
classical music community and
managed to provoke more than a
few interesting conversations. In
it, as one might expect, Cole cycles
through a series of inquiries he has
put to himself about the nature of
the compositional profession in
modern society, at least from his
perspective. And, as he discloses
at the beginning of the text, it
works not so much as a “coherent
critique of anything,” but rather as
something that he has put out into
the world because the questions
are ones he “wrestles with” — and,
it turns out, ones that a lot of the
rest of us wrestle with too.
As I imagine was the case for
many who saw it, reading Cole’s
questions made me feel vaguely
guilty, as if I were somehow being
accused of something. Part of this,
no doubt, comes from the fact
that several of Cole’s questions
were the sorts of things I also ask
myself, usually before quickly
stowing them away in some rarely-
used corner of my mind, the sorts
of uncomfortable things about
music culture that we don’t like to
talk about. Another part of it, no
doubt, is that I am being accused
of something, along with everyone
else who’s part of this community.
To a certain extent, it’s an entire
creative culture that stands trial.
Cole’s article serves as a sort of
solitary Socratic method, wherein
he airs a question but doesn’t really
endeavor to answer it. But in order
for a Socratic style to be completely
effective, there really has to be
someone to play a responsorial
role. Everyone can do this for
themselves, on their own, but the
following are my own reflections
on some of the questions that
struck me the most.
***
Am I just trying to impress
people and get famous?
This is obviously a question
that is more personal than about
musical society at large, but
nevertheless I think that it has
implications about the kind of
culture we cultivate around our
art. And there really isn’t a simple
answer to it. The easy way out is
to just say “no,” but that probably
isn’t entirely honest. While a
classical-style
composer
may
never be famous in the same way
that a pop star might become,
there’s certainly an allure to being
well-known and well-regarded
amongst a particular ingroup (a
group which, not coincidentally,
there’s a damaging habit of
regarding as somehow “better”).
More than that, the history of the
genre since the 19th century is
that of a slow-burgeoning museum
culture, rife with cults of idolatry.
In the temples we erect to our art,
the great concert halls and houses
of symphony orchestras, it’s not
uncommon to find architecture
that serves as a literal Pantheon of
classical music, with busts of the
deified great masters of the genre
— Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and
the like — arranged around the
rim of a great dome structure. And
what pianist, for instance, when she
hears the reverent tones in which
Martha Argerich is discussed,
doesn’t wonder to herself what it
would be like to be talked about
in that way? On the whole, the
entire way we have set up our
institutions — the competitiveness,
the perfectionism, the Hobbesian
free-for-all of finding the best gig
— betrays a spirit ill at ease with
itself, and an obsession with at
least localized fame.
Have I used esoteric musical
preferences and interests to
feel different from (superior
to?) other people? Has that
isolated me? Can I in good faith
encourage others to do the
same?
This
question
is
in
some
ways related to the first, but
only tangentially. In my larger
community, the one outside of
exclusively classical music circles,
the idea of my being a composer
seems to impress a fair number
of people (which, relatedly, never
fails to make me feel embarrassed
and trigger an acute attack of
imposter syndrome). I sometimes
worry that, in the beginning,
when I was a middle school
student or so, this element was
part of the appeal. I grew up in a
relatively rural community where
I often felt extremely alienated,
and throughout the process, my
inability to connect deeply with
many people led to a gradual
immersion in art, first books and
then music. As I grew more and
more engaged in these sorts of
things, it grew harder and harder
to connect with others, in a sort
of endless feedback loop. And this
certainly augmented the process
of isolation. Only by physically
leaving the place have I been
able to escape. While I feel that I
can encourage people to pursue
esoteric tastes and extraordinary
musics, this encouragement must
be coupled with an admonition to
avoid the mistakes of my younger
self. My self-isolation and artistic
entrenchment gradually took on a
harmful and condescending tone,
a sort of self-congratulatory “get
a load of these rubes” internal
dialogue, the sort of thinking that
is cancerous to both a healthy mind
and a healthy society. Which leads
perfectly into the next question I’ve
chosen, the concise but poignant:
Am I a snob?
To
which
the
answer
is
“probably, yes, but I’m working on
it.”
What’s
the
difference
between being a champion of
my community and being a
partisan, fighting to expand
the size and status of a little
kingdom just because I happen
to belong to it?
Again, each of these questions
is related to the others in some
way. In my view, part of this
has to do with not being a snob.
Obviously I love the music that
my community produces, but I’m
never going to convince anyone
else to love it by brute force.
Partisanism is often one of the
most counterproductive ways to
create converts. Proselytization
only works if people are willing
and ready to hear what you have
to say, and the best way to create
an environment in which that’s
the case is to be ready to listen to
what they have to say. You can’t go
into it thinking that your way is the
best way, unwilling to hear things
different from what you know. I
fully believe in spreading the music
of my community, but the process
should be far closer to commerce
than conquest. Kingdoms have to
make way for democracies.
Am I OK with an aesthetic
ideology that values making
people
uncomfortable
more
than making people happy?
This pertains mostly to the
vanguard
of
contemporary
classical, the spectralists, the
composers of New Complexity
and other descendants of the 20th
century avant-garde. And I also
feel that it’s far easier to address, at
least in my mind. To me, the answer
is “yes, sometimes.” I don’t believe
that music shouldn’t ever just exist
just to make people happy, but I
think there is certainly value to
be found in discomfort. Whether
or not you believe in any gods, it’s
probably fairly easy to agree that
we live in a fallen world. I don’t
see a reason why our art shouldn’t
reflect that, shouldn’t express our
distress at the state of things. And
this certainly isn’t an exclusively
classical music phenomenon: Look
at some of the great art of recent
years in the genre of hip hop, for
instance. Kendrick Lamar’s To
Pimp a Butterfly certainly isn’t
a cheery album, and if you’re
really engaging with it you should
probably feel pretty uncomfortable
afterward. But it’s great art, and
making people happy doesn’t have
to be the first priority of artists.
Our
whole
disposable
capitalist culture is obsessed
with novelty and progress. Is
a value system based on the
newness of music really as
countercultural as I think it is?
This is harder to tackle, and I
think the answer really depends
on what exactly the “newness”
of an artist’s work is. Oftentimes
I think that art can genuinely
be used to subvert expectations,
to poke holes in our imaginary
conception of what our society is.
On the other hand, Cole is right
to question new music’s ability to
be countercultural. Sometimes
(maybe most of the time, but
I hope not) it can be used to
support existing structures and
hierarchies, cloaking reactionary
effect with revolutionary language.
Especially with something like
orchestral music or opera, sub-
genres that require large financial
means, music can be used to serve
the capitalist class and propagate
the neoliberal order. An excellent
example of this is Mason Bates, as
Marianna Ritchey points out in an
article published this last summer.
Bates, who was the second-most
performed
living
orchestral
composer in America, after John
Adams, in the 2014/15 season, is
famous for using technology in his
music. Especially in our political
era, art is inseparable from
ideology, and the type of music
the Bates writes — sometimes on
commission from monied interests
with a stake in the status quo —
easily slides into the neoliberal
mold. It’s a symphony Silicon
Valley style. And Cole is right to
be concerned about this state of
affairs. Perhaps my own political
ideology is showing, but to me art —
to the extent that it can be — should
be used to pull down our ivory
towers, to empower the powerless
and to change the way we look at
the world in a revolutionary way.
Obviously,
Cole’s
questions
are just the beginning of a
larger
conversation,
but
they
offer valuable material for the
discussions that we need to be
having within our community.
The few I’ve addressed here
are just a sampling of the larger
collection, and not necessarily the
most important, but if everyone
took a few minutes out of their day
to think them and the rest over, we
might build a better world around
our art. And isn’t that, at its heart,
what doing art should be about?
Questionable answers
CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMN
DAYTON
HARE
CBS
‘S.W.A.T.’ premiere is
remarkably promising
To all those that mourned
to loss of Shemar Moore from
“Criminal Minds,”
you can breathe
easy
again
knowing he’s made
his return to CBS
as the lead of a
new crime drama
series,
“S.W.A.T.”
Daniel
“Hondo”
Harrelson (Shemar
Moore,
“Criminal
Minds”)
is thrust into an somewhat
unwanted lieutenant position of a
S.W.A.T team in Los Angeles. The
city is plagued by political and
racial tension, and Hondo uses
his experience from the streets
as well as his loyalty to the police
force to alleviate the restlessness.
The show moves at a perfect
pace. The main plot revolves
around how social unrest exists
in today’s society and highlights
many serious issues our country
is facing right now, like police
brutality and sexism toward
women in the work force. The
writing carries enough heart
without being overly dramatic
or cringe-worthy. The lines are
delivered with weight in serious
moments, but those moments also
come with happier, light-hearted
ones.
The
actors,
especially
Moore, can flip-flop between
these two tones with ease. The
change up between the two
evokes laughter appropriately and
also gives you goosebumps when
some serious shit is going down.
The plot isn’t the sole factor
bringing attention to real life
problems. The writers clearly
incorporated situations that evoke
empathy and show the complexity
and
uncertainty
that
these
issues carry. For example, the
opening scene shows how the old
SWAT lieutenant,
William
Spivey,
(Louis
Ferreira,
“The
X-Files)
accidentally
shot
a young, innocent
black
man
on
the street. It is
clear this was an
accident,
as
the
lieutenant immediately saves the
boy’s life and brings him to the
hospital himself. However, in the
recent political climate, this tragic
event inspires racist attitudes and
launches the episode into the
repercussions of moments like
these.
This scene isn’t singular. Hondo
is constantly fighting a battle
between what he values as just
and what is expected of him from
the police force. His character
asks for civility, as he works to
protect both the citizens of Los
Angeles and his fellow officers.
His emphases the importance
of respect and communication,
on both sides of the problem.
His morality makes him a very
attractive presence in the show.
“S.W.A.T” goes beyond the
typical
cop
show,
normally
comprised
of
firing
bullets,
explosions
and
unnecessary
tough guy attitudes. It’s meaning
goes
deeper,
showing
the
oppression and abuse of power
parallel to those cops using their
badge for it’s intended use. The
chief (Patrick St. Esprit, “NCIS:
Los Angeles”) promotes Hondo
in light of the shooting, replacing
Spivey, not because he truly
wants Hondo in that position, but
because he wants a black man in
it to show the public he values
“equality.”
To spice things up, there is a
romance brewing between Hondo
and his boss, Jessica Cortez
(Stephanie Sigman, “Annabelle:
Creation”). The office relationship
makes
Hondo’s
disobeying
of orders even more saucey.
However,
their
relationship
seems to be compromised because
of their relative hierarchy in the
force. They both put their careers
as their number one priority,
which draws on another social
issue — does one sex have to be the
one to give up their career? Are we
really moving toward a time that
both partners in a relationship
can work full time?
In addition to all of the social
issues this show draws on, it’s
entertaining
to
watch.
The
intense moments, like one-on-one
combat gets your blood pumping.
When Moore tackles the bad guy
to the ground, you can’t help but
feel weirdly proud. There was
one explosion, which I think is
a pretty good ratio as long as the
next episodes don’t overdo it.
Because let’s be real, nothing is
more annoying when the writers
clearly couldn’t come up with
something better so they just blow
things up.
I have high hopes for the rest
of the series, and I’m personally
excited to see Moore back in a
badass role. He was born to play
it, and his casting in a show filled
with this much truth gives it real
potential to deliver.
OLIVIA ASIMAKIS
Daily Arts Writer
“S.W.A.T.”
Series Premiere
CBS
Thursdays @ 10
p.m.
TV REVIEW