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Arts
Monday, January 8, 2018 — 5A

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
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ACROSS
1 Green gem
5 Actress Greta
10 Ponzi scheme,
for one
14 Boy in “The Kite
Runner”
15 Toward the back
16 When tripled, a
1970 WWII film
17 Spanish “nothing”
18 Free, in France
19 Reddish-brown
horse
20 Israeli
submachine gun
21 Admit to
wrongdoing in
court
23 Embark from a
dock
25 Spaniel’s
welcome
26 Indian-born
storekeeper on
“The Simpsons”
27 Bening of
“American
Beauty”
31 Location-based
smartphone
game release of
2016
35 Half a bray
36 Radio knob
37 1998 biopic
about model
Carangi
38 Travelocity ad
figure
40 Ctrl-__-Delete:
PC reboot combo
41 Similar set of
individuals
43 Reveal
46 Help
47 Negative
connection
48 Climbing plant
52 Inland sea
between Iran and
Saudi Arabia
57 Dockworkers’ gp.
58 Soothing plant
extract
59 Pageant
headgear
60 Prefix with lateral
61 Arctic seabird
62 No __ sight
63 Bugs Bunny
adversary Elmer
64 Smartphone
message
65 Gave medicine to
66 Golf ball 
supports

DOWN
1 Two-faced god
2 Fill with wonder
3 Completed the
task
4 Significant period
5 Steel-gray
metallic element
6 Disney mermaid
7 Country star
McEntire
8 The __:
Shakespeare
9 Pizza herb
10 Conflict
11 Like much fall
weather
12 “I smell __!”
13 Lots of
21 Daily news
source
22 Coffee vessel
24 Japanese
alcoholic
beverage
27 Ice cream
thickener
28 Old-style you
29 Pack (down)
firmly
30 Sheep girl
31 Sheepdog from
Hungary
32 Being aired
33 S-shaped
molding

34 Never, in
Dortmund
36 Little bit
38 Bereavement
39 Bump on a branch
41 Like many
animated films ...
and a hint to 
21-, 31-, 41- 
and 52-Across
42 Floral wreath
44 Remove from
office
45 Law, in Lille

48 Madame of
physics
49 Arouse, as
interest
50 Avoid capture by
51 Surprise attacks
52 Good old days
53 Actress Sommer
54 Gumbo thickener
55 El __: weather
phenomenon
56 Wanders
restlessly
60 Baby newt

By Parikshit S. Bhat
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/08/18

01/08/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, January 8, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

 ARBOR PROPERTIES 
Award‑Winning Rentals in 
Kerrytown 
Central Campus, Old West 
Side, Burns Park. Now Renting for 
2018. 
734‑649‑8637 | www.arborprops.com 

FOR RENT

GO BLUE

Most of my winter break 
played out to the tune of Phil 
Collins’s Face Value, his debut 
solo album released back in 
1981. My dad put it on repeat 
every morning and in car 
rides where he made me turn 

off my “DIY crap” and put on 
something easier on the ears. 
I chose Face Value knowing it 
would be the happy medium.
It’s 
a 
brilliant 
album. 
Delivering us the impenetrable 
“In the Air Tonight,” Collins 
places himself on the same 
playing field as his former 
Genesis 
bandmate 
Peter 
Gabriel with a record that 
encompasses the genres of 
progressive rock, pop and 
funk. From the slow build of 
“In the Air” to the rhythmic 
bassline of “Behind the Lines,” 
Collins places a punchy synth 
and gated reverb drums beside 
piano interludes like “The Roof 
is Leaking.” Horns raise you up 
on one song, while the pull of a 
sitar and African-styled drums 
bring you back down to earth 
on another. Collins can do no 
wrong on Face Value; it’s his 
untouchable work of art that 
explores unforeseen bounds 
in music while charting the 
demise of his marriage.

So it makes sense that 
Francis and the Lights is so 
frequently compared to the 
former drummer and later 
singer of Genesis. The sound 
Francis 
has 
championed 
since 2007 is reminiscent of 
great prog-rock bands like 
Genesis and innovative in its 
modern-day fusion of genres 
through 
production 
that 

wasn’t accessible in the ’80s. 
Not to mention, Francis’s voice 
sounds so much like Phil’s, 
plain and simple. What Collins 
began, Francis has perfected, 
and while Francis has so far 
avoided horns and banjos, 
the punchy feel of songs like 
“See Her Out (That’s Just 
Life),” the opening track of 
2016’s Farewell, Starlite!, has 
a similar effect as songs on 
Face Value. The opening notes 
bounce back and forth, rope 
you in and, if anything else, 
you want to see it out until the 
end.
Just like “See Her Out,” the 
opening notes of “Morning,” 
the first song off of Just For 
Us, pull us in. But this time, 
there’s a difference. While 
Farewell, Starlite! throws us 
into a whirlwind of synth, 
“Morning” is gentler, its piano 
slowly delivering us into the 
drums rather than bursting 
into them. And this time the 
piano is here to stay. “Morning” 

seems to be a continuation of 
the piano Francis used briefly 
in the song “Thank You” on 
Farewell, Starlite!, piano that 
I only wanted more of as the 
album drew to a close. But 
that’s the thing, the piano 
is what makes the song so 
crushingly 
beautiful, 
brief 
and bittersweet. An album 
that wasn’t necessarily tragic 

didn’t need the instrument 
that makes songs so.
Just For Us is different in 
this regard; the 26-minute 
album 
is 
sorrowful 
as 
it 
traces the slow demise of a 
relationship. The piano that 
draws us in takes various 
forms as the album, and the 
relationship, unfolds. But even 
as Francis sends us from the 
frigid snaps of “Morning” into 
the blaring synths of “Just For 
Us” and then back into the cool 
piano of “Faithful,” there’s a 
cohesive whole to the album. 
Sometimes it’s difficult to tell 
where one song starts and 
another ends. 
The transition from “I Won’t 
Lie to You” into “Breaking Up” 
is perhaps the most beautiful 
on 
the 
album 
and 
best 
exemplifies its cohesiveness. 
The brevity of the former, a one 
minute and 12-second track, 
leads into the latter, and the 
two are inseparable in story 
and in song. Outside of this, 

Losing myself in the
art culture of Ann Arbor

Francis and the Lights brings beauty on ‘Just for Us’

As with most college students, 
going back home for winter 
break after a long time away 
was a strange experience. I had 
been away from home for so 
long that I found it difficult to 
recall the fine details of my home 
without looking at pictures. 
More frightening was that the 
memories of the art culture 
of New York City that shaped 
who I was as a performer and a 
person ever since I was young 
started to blur, as I immersed 
myself in the new culture that 
Ann Arbor had to offer. I did not 
find myself longing for the art 
from New York City, but rather 
trying to find my place in the 
art of Ann Arbor. There seemed 
to be a hole in the culture that 
surrounded me — one that I could 
not pinpoint. Even though I had 
been told that college was about 
self-discovery, I felt I was losing 
myself as an artist and a person. 
When I finally did find myself, 
it was very unexpected. More 
importantly, I discovered the gap 
that I had been feeling and was 
unable to articulate until now.
Over winter break, my sister 
performed in a comedy improv 
show in order to raise money 
to help the hurricane victims 
in Puerto Rico, and she invited 
me to go see the performance. 
I walked into a small, grunge 
underground 
theater 
in 
the 
East Village, a neighborhood of 
Manhattan in New York City. 
The small black box theater was 
filled with plush, cloth seats 
that looked as if they had a high 

probability of being infested 
with bed bugs. The theater was 
packed with adults drinking 
coquito, a traditional Puerto 
Rican 
drink 
usually 
served 
around the holidays. The show 

was comprised of many short 
comedy skits that celebrated 
Puerto Rican traditions during 
the holidays. As salsa blasted 
from the speakers, it filled the 
room with a sound that I had 
been missing back in Ann Arbor. 
I had rediscovered my own sound 
and my own culture through this 
production — something I had no 
intention of doing when I walked 
through the doors of the theater.
My mind went back to the first 
time my mother took me to see 
“In the Heights” on Broadway. 
It is a musical that tells the story 
of the Latino community in a 
neighborhood called Washington 
Heights (also in Manhattan). 
Seeing my culture and my people 
represented and celebrated in “In 
the Heights” was too much for my 
eight-year-old mind to handle. 
Before then, I had only ever been 
exposed to people of my culture 
as gangster characters, such as in 
“West Side Story,” and even then 

they were not played by minority 
actors and actresses.
Being a dancer, I was sure that 
my Latina curves would hinder 
my success. Being an actress 
and a singer, I was sure that the 
pigment of my skin would cause 
me to look too ethnic for most 
lead roles. When the beauty of my 
culture and its people unfolded 
before my eyes on a Broadway 
stage, all of those insecurities 
instantly vanished. This was 
the same feeling I had in the 
— perhaps bed bug infested — 
theater in the East village. What 
I had really missed was having 
my culture represented in art, 
whether it be in music blasting 
from a storefront, or a bunch of 
teenagers rapping on a street 
corner.
Ann Arbor is a community 
that is vibrant in all kinds of art. 
To immerse yourself in the art 
is not hard to do; however, it is 
not a complete culture. I could 
not find myself in the culture 
of Ann Arbor because I am not 
there. My culture was no longer 
represented in the art that 
surrounded me.
I had to come to terms with the 
fact that it would be difficult for 
me to find a concert performed 
by my favorite salsa or merengue 
artist, and that YouTube is my 
best friend for re-discovering 
my identity as an artist and a 
performer. As a community, Ann 
Arbor needs to strive to celebrate 
the minority artist — not just 
during Black History month 
or Hispanic Heritage month. 
It is more important than ever 
to foster a community where 
everyone can find themselves in 
every form of art. 

ISABELLE HASSLUND
Daily Arts Writer

NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Writer

the songs, whether blending 
together or not, repeatedly 
refer back to one another. 
“Never Back” is the ending 
to “Back in Time” as Francis 
continues to pour over the 
inaccessible nature of the past, 
how everything that led him 
to this point is untouchable. 
This 
inaccessibility, 
the 
unavoidable nature of demise 
— it’s another layer of tragedy 
on a narrative that builds itself 
out of loss. 
Inaccessibility is a theme 
that permeates the album, 
for while Farewell, Starlite! 
offered up more to the listener 
with its substantial tracks and 
features from Kanye West 
and remixes with Chance the 
Rapper, Just For Us is stripped 
down, 
barren 
almost, 
and 
untouchable for those who 
don’t participate in its story. 
Perhaps this is why on first 
listen the album seemed less-
than; where I wanted to hear 
the jauntiness of songs like 
“May I Have This Dance,” 
there was only stripped down 
synth on “Tear It Up.” This 
isn’t to the album’s detriment; 
it is simply different, jarring to 
a degree on first listen.
But becoming a part of the 
story, a part of the album’s 
sadness and dwelling in its loss 
is what makes the listening 
experience dynamic. Reflexive 
in its self-referentiality, he 
invokes the parallels of God 
and 
belief, 
self-doubt 
and 

uncertainty to paint a full 
picture of everything that led 
to the relationship’s ultimate 
end, draping us in despair with 
simple lines like, “You could 
try to be gracious … You could 
try to be nice to me.” That 
simple sentiment is absolutely 
destructive 
in 
Francis’s 

feather-light voice. “Scream So 
Loud” best displays Francis’s 
signature minimalism, both in 
its lyrics and sound. 
All of this sadness, this 
progression of emotion that 
becomes 
overbearing 
on 

certain parts of the album, 
culminates in the album’s final 
song “Cruise” which acts as a 
release, a reckoning with the 
heavy emotion of the previous 
songs. Twenty-four minutes 
builds to this, and while we’re 
more 
emotionally 
wrecked 
than we were before starting 
the album, “Cruise” is what 
makes it all feel like catharsis 
rather than a funeral. In 
Francis’s 
own 
words, 
it’s 
“straight 
from 
the 
horse’s 
mouth,” entirely uncut and 
raw.
The 
unity 
of 
Francis’s 
mournful Just For Us is what 
places him on a plane separate 
from Face Value. While the 
sound is similar, the invocation 
of minimalism that pervades 
the album is individual to 
Francis and Francis alone. 
It’s his expertise, after all. 
But like Collins he fuses many 
methods in doing this, genre-
bending not only on a musical 
scale but a branding one. His 
ability to breed sadness while 
simultaneously 
transcending 
categorization 
as 
a 
sad 
songwriter with sad songs 
is seen in his latest business 
venture: “Morning,” the new 
theme for “Keeping Up with 
the Kardashians.” And so we’re 
left asking the same question 
people asked of Phil Collins, 
Peter Gabriel and the entire 
brand Genesis built on doing 
the unexpected — Francis, 
who and what are you?

KTTF MUSIC

My culture 

was no longer 

represented 

in the art that 

surrounded me.

Becoming a 

part of the story, 

a part of the 

album’s sadness 

and dwelling 

in its loss is 

what makes 

the listening 

experience. 

dynamic.

KTTF MUSIC

