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FOR RENT

2 & 4 Bedroom Apartments

$1400‑$2800 plus utilities.

Tenants pay electric to DTE

Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3

w/ 24 hour notice required

1015 Packard

734‑996‑1991

5 & 6 Bedroom Apartments

1014 Vaughn

$3000 ‑ $3600 plus utilities

Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3

w/ 24 hour notice required

734‑996‑1991

 ARBOR PROPERTIES 

Award‑Winning Rentals in 

Kerrytown 
Central Campus, Old West 

Side, Burns Park. Now Renting for 

2018. 

734‑649‑8637 | www.arborprops.com 

FALL 2018 HOUSES

# Beds Location Rent

 6 1016 S. Forest $4500

 4 827 Brookwood $3000

 4 852 Brookwood $3000

 4 1210 Cambridge $3000

Tenants pay all utilities.

Showings scheduled M‑F 10‑3 

w/ 24 hr notice required

734‑996‑1991

SINGLE REVIEW: ‘THERE’S A REASON’

 It’s been two years since 
Brooklyn-based indie pop 
group Wet last came out with 
new music. After their debut 
Don’t You in 2016, they pretty 
much fell off the map, giving 
no indication that they were 
working on future records 
other than the occasional 
releases of remixed versions of 
old songs.
 Until this past week’s sur-
prise, “There’s a Reason”: 
evidence that Wet is back in 
the studio with a potential new 
album just around the corner.
 The single is also evidence 
that Wet have used their hia-
tus as a time to explore their 
sound, gaining confidence and 
adding weight to their previ-

ously noncommittal synthpop 
ambivalence. “There’s a Rea-

son,” contrasting the washy 
ballads that often times turned 
Don’t You into a haze of direc-
tionless rambling, is a bubbly 
celebration. The steady per-
cussion keeps a lighthearted 
tempo, the nearly nonexistent 
synths clink together in the 
background like champagne 
glasses. Towards the end of the 
track, dulcet string instrumen-

tation give the listeners one 
final serenade.
 Throughout it all, the steady 
optimism of frontwoman Kelly 
Zutrau’s vocals holds the song’s 
various components together. 
“There’s a reason you’re by 
my side again,” she sings over 
a beat that leaves no room for 
Don’t You’s hesitation.
 With “There’s a Reason,” 
Wet proves themselves to 
be new and improved; self-
assured, they back every note 
with a conviction that gives 
their melodies substance. It’s 
almost spring, and Wet is ready 
to blossom.

-Shima Sadaghiyani, 

Daily Music Editor

It’s a classic scene. Pizza boxes 

litter the floor. Soda cans lie 
empty on the table. It’s 2 a.m.. 
“Mario Kart” is on the TV. Is 
this a middle school sleepover? 
No, it’s an average Wednesday 
in some dorm or apartment or 
student house somewhere on a 
college campus. College kids like 
to play video games, but what a 
lot of college kids like to do more 
than play video games is play old 
video games. The GameCube is 
a popular console on campus, 
with perhaps 70 percent of 
its usage coming purely from 
“Super Smash Bros. Melee.” 
“Wii Sports” still makes regular 
appearances from time to time. 
But “Mario Kart” remains the 
gold standard. It’s not unusual 
to see an Xbox 360 or Playstation 
2 right next to a much nicer and 
more expensive newer model on 
the mantel. What’s the appeal of 
old games? Is it simple nostalgia? 
Or is it something deeper?

When I left for college after 

high school I brought my family’s 
Nintendo Wii with me. I didn’t 
take the PS4 that had become a 
mainstay over the previous year 
or two. Part of the reason for 
this was because it was easier to 
convince my younger brother to 
let me take the Wii than the PS4, 
but part of the reason was also 
that I thought the Wii would be 
a more fun thing to have. I was 
right about that, but not for the 
reason I had originally thought. 
While 
my 
freshman 
year 

roommate and I did play some 
“Mario Kart” and “Wii Sports” 
from time to time, what really 
made the Wii worth our while 
was its backward capability 
with GameCube games. We 
picked up a copy of an early 
2000s children’s game, “Teenage 
Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Battle 
Nexus,” for a few dollars at a 
game shop and reignited our 
childhoods.

I cannot recommend this 

game 
enough 
to 
anyone. 

Designed for children by people 
who clearly didn’t care that 
much about the finished product, 
the game is simple enough to 
seem easy but poorly designed 
enough to be excruciatingly 
difficult. Some of the jumps 
between 
platforms 
require 

mind-boggling precision. Many 
of the boss battles took us weeks 
to complete. It had a simplicity 
you wouldn’t find in modern 
games and a stupidity that was 

almost charming. Would we 
have ever bought a Ninja Turtles 
game that was released for 
the PS4? Doubtful. Something 

about it being a GameCube 
added to the mystique. We later 
picked up a Hot Wheels game 
that was actually impossible 
and the first and third games in 
the Turtles GameCube series, 
neither of which were as good 
as “Battle Nexus” and were soon 
abandoned.

One of my current roommates 

brought home his old PS2 after 
Thanksgiving and has spent 

the past few months playing 
through the game version of 
“Shrek 2.” Multiple members of a 
student org I’m in bring their old 
Nintendo DSs on every trip we 
go on so they can play Pokémon. 
Old games have a strange appeal. 
“Super Smash Melee” is still 
deemed 
the 
greatest 
Smash 

game, even though both Brawl 
and the one they released for the 
Wii U feature more players and 
more characters. Graphics have 
improved dramatically since the 

mid-2000s, so why is there an 
appeal in cracking out “NCAA 
2005” for the Xbox 360? 

For 
a 
culture 
that 
is 

increasingly growing cordless, 
cords 
are 
starting 
to 
have 

nostalgic value. Just the act of 
having to plug a controller into 
a TV and sit within a certain 
range to not pull the console off 
the ledge adds a level of intimacy 
with the product that doesn’t 
exist in modern videogames. The 
fun factor of, “Oh, I remember 
this level,” and the journey of 
rediscovery is an easy way to 
form connections to childhood 
with people whom you’ve only 
known since the age of 17 or 18.

Recently “Wii Sports Resort,” 

the “Wii Sports” spinoff that 
required an extra “Wii Motion 
Plus” adapter for the controllers 
in order to be played, has become 
my friend’s go-to late night game 
of choice. The jankyness of the 
controls, the randomness of the 
game designs, the hilarious idea 
that Nintendo actually released 
a game designed purely to get 
people to buy an extra add-on 
for their Wii-motes and that 
people actually did it, all of that 
has made “Wii Sports Resort” a 
great addition to our late night 
nostalgia. Expense is surely 
another reason why old games 
appeal to college students. Video 
games 
nowadays 
are 
really 

expensive. New games can go for 
as much as $80 just for a single 
disc or download. But you can get 
an old PS2 for like $30 on eBay. 
These things don’t break often 
either. Most GameCubes were 
made between 2001 and 2005 
and most people I know who 
still have one have never had a 
problem with it. A buddy of mine 
had an old Xbox that had to be 
kept a precise angle so as not to 
shred the disc in it but that was 
still remarkably useable after 
almost 15 years of use. This kind 
of tactile upkeep adds a sense of 
character to an object and gives 
the games a story, a story that is 
funny to tell to others.

So the next time you wonder 

if your house needs some more 
videogames, 
maybe 
consider 

going backwards and picking 
up an old Wii, Xbox or PS2. Or 
go to your grandma’s and dig 
an old Atari or N64 out of the 
attic. For many college students, 
video games are a semi-constant 
part of their lives. The older the 
better.

The renaissance of 

2000s era video games

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN

IAN 

HARRIS

Starnone deftly sketches 
a ghost story in ‘Trick’

The late and great American 

author 
Henry 
James 
was 

fascinated with the ghost story. 
Unlike most writers of horror 
fiction, however, James was 
not concerned with a ghost’s 
capacity to scare. Rather, he 
focused on its ability to function 
as dark reflections of humanity, 
how they supernaturally guide 
us through the darker side 
of the human psyche. Ghosts 
are “the strange and sinister 
embroidered on the very type 
of the normal and easy,” writes 
James in the preface of his final 
ghost story, “The Jolly Corner.”

Daniele 
Mallarico, 

the 
central 
character 
of 

contemporary Italian author 
Domenico Starnone’s “Trick,” 
is very much a ghost himself. 
An 
aging 
illustrator 
past 

his prime, Daniele has been 
commissioned to create images 
to embellish a deluxe edition 
of “The Jolly Corner.” While 
this task certainly occupies 
his 
time 
and 
his 
fading 

livelihood, Daniele primarily 
functions as a grandfather as 
the book unfolds, as he labors 
to look after his four-year-old 
grandson, Mario. The contrast 
between Daniele’s overbearing 
protectiveness 
(manifested 

sometimes in meanness) and 
Mario’s advanced innocence 
for a boy his age defines the 
relationship 
between 
the 

two 
but 
creates 
problems. 

Conversations between those 
two push the narrative forward, 
as 
Starnone 
explores 
the 

connection between artistry 
and age.

Translated masterfully into 

English 
by 
Pulitzer 
Prize-

winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, 
“Trick” — like “The Jolly 
Corner” — is “about the horror 
of returning to one’s place of 
origin,” states Lahiri in her 
introduction. Daniele has to 

return to his ancestral home in 
Naples, which has now become 
the modern living space for 
his daughter and her family. 
And while his daughter and 
her husband are off at a work 
conference having relationship 
issues of their own, Daniele 

has to care for the boundless 
ball of energy that is Mario. 
While Mario oscillates at 100 
kilometers per hour between 
playing with his action figures, 
watching TV and just generally 
jumping and moving around, 
Daniele is weakened in his 
old age and constrained in 
his 
childhood 
home. 
This 

contrast of bodies — “One 
small and mighty, the other 
large, laid low” — is central to 
the relationship dynamics of 
“Trick.”

Much like Spencer Brydon, 

the protagonist of “The Jolly 
Corner,” Daniele prowls the 
house he once grew up and 
confronts the ghost of the man 
he might have been. Only for 
Daniele, this ghost is alive and 
has manifested itself in Mario. 
For a four-year-old, Mario is 
quite capable but limited by 
his size; for example, he knows 
exactly how to make breakfast 
for his family and how his 
father takes his coffee, but 
he can’t reach the milk in the 
fridge. In this way, Mario and 
Daniele are a perfect pairing, 
yet they never play off of each 
other’s strengths. Many a time 
their relationship is strained 
because Daniele lacks the vigor 
to do what Mario asks of him. 
The climax of the narrative, 
a “trick” Mario plays on his 
grandfather, 
is 
humorous 

on paper, but is exacerbated 
because completing the “trick” 

requires Mario to go beyond his 
physical capabilities and listen, 
for once, to Daniele.

The crucial moment that 

defines 
the 
relationship 

between 
grandfather 
and 

grandson 
happens 
when 

Daniele finally allows Mario 
to work alongside him, both 
drawing. While Daniele works 
on the James story, Mario, 
miming his elders in a way 
only a child can do, decides 
to draw his grandpa. When 
Daniele gazes at Mario’s work 
to see what he drew, he is in 
awe of the “natural harmony 
of composition, a fanciful sense 
of color.” Yet Mario doesn’t 
realize the simple perfection 
in his drawing, which causes 
Daniele to be overcome with 
horror: “I really was my ghost.”

After 
Mario 
is 
finally 

reunited with his parents and 
the story ends, an appendix 
awaits the reader, presented 
as Daniele’s diary before and 
during his time with Mario, 
accompanied by some of his 
illustrations. To Lahiri, it is “an 
organ literally cut out of the 
story, 
seemingly 
extraneous 

but in fact fundamental to our 
understanding.” Providing a 
crucial subtext to the action 
of the book, this appendix 
fuses Starnone’s writing with 
James’s fiction, glued together 
by Lahiri’s translation. But 
while 
Starnone 
willfully 

combines 
art 
of 
the 
past, 

he does so with purpose. In 
Mario’s purity of age, he only 
does what he knows and copies 
the work of his grandfather, of 
the past. In copying, however, 
he creates something entirely 
new, 
something 
comparable 

to his grandfather’s work but 
stands entirely on its own. 
While most artists are well past 
their childhood, with “Trick,” 
Starnone reminds them to never 
forget their initial inspirations 
and how their art serves as a 
vivid link between past and 
present.

ROBERT MANSUETTI

Daily Arts Writer

“There’s A 
Reason”

Wet

Columbia Records

COLUMBIA RECORDS

What’s the 

appeal of old 

games? Is it 

simple nostalgia? 

Or is it something 

deeper?

BOOKS

“Trick”

Domenico Starnone

Europa Editions

Mar. 6, 2018

6A — Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ACROSS
1 Flow back
4 “Get outta here!”

10 Column in a

pugilist’s record

14 Congressional

auditing org.

15 Rhine wine

region

16 Stable parent
17 Door-to-door

seller’s form

19 Very smart
20 Gosling of “Blade

Runner 2049”

21 Tupperware

sound

23 Jeans label
24 Nightly TV staple
25 Do some

bargain-hunting

28 Where 

K-I-S-S-I-N-G
goes on

30 Hold the floor
31 Fabled beast
32 Brad Paisley

venue

34 Copycat
35 Text with maps

and timelines

39 Org. in Dan

Brown’s “Digital
Fortress”

40 Temps
41 “There’s an __

for that”

44 Figures on a

sports news
crawl

47 Input, as

accidentally
erased data

49 Residential 

get-together

53 Aviation prefix
54 Pop __
55 Mongolia locale
56 Camp Lejeune

gp.

57 Losing

proposition

59 Game with

ringers

63 Burden
64 Smart people?
65 NBC skit show
66 2016 #1 hit for

Rihanna, which
can precede both
parts of 17-, 25-,
35-, 49- and 
59-Across

67 More sinewy
68 Farm area

DOWN
1 Cause of star
wars?
2 Scrubby
wastelands
3 Fragrant shower
gel
4 Setting for most of
“Charlotte’s Web”
5 Overhead trains
6 Volcanic __
7 Billy Blanks’
workout system
8 Become frozen
9 Aquarium fish
10 SHO sister
channel
11 Liqueur in an
espresso martini
12 Point in the right
direction
13 Formally withdraw
18 Point in the right
direction?
22 Ask for a hand?
24 “Empire” actress
Long
25 Nasal dividers
26 Deli option
27 Cookie with a
Peeps variety
29 Antarctic waters
33 Many mos.
34 “__ Road”:
Beatles album

36 QB’s mistakes
37 Mongolian tent
38 London-born
supermodel
42 Word of interest?
43 Quid __ quo
44 Omen on
February 2nd
45 “Starsky &
Hutch” Ford
model
46 Highbrow
filmmaker

48 The “N” of 
CSNY
50 “Get outta here!”
51 Garlic
mayonnaise
52 Worth more to
collectors
56 KGB country
58 “Naughty,
naughty!”
60 __-fi
61 Squeeze (by)
62 Plotting

By Robin Stears
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/14/18

03/14/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

