8

Thursday, May 10, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

ACROSS
1 Bookie’s
concern
5 Wedge-shaped
bones
10 Elite Eight org.
14 Bygone
depilatory brand
15 Cantilevered
window
16 Panhandler’s
income
17 Start of a
business journey
19 Watery defense,
perhaps
20 Hustle
21 First name in
bike stunts
23 Phased-out
Secret Service
weapon
24 Way to get from
17- to 39-Across
29 Doce meses
30 Roll of bills
31 Woolly mammal
32 Seasonal song
ender
34 Proceed
tediously
37 Like pals who go
way back
39 Pinnacle of the
journey
44 Three Gorges
project
45 Wail
46 Former autocrat
47 Stat for Miguel
Cabrera
49 Menu phrase
51 Letter before
omega
52 Way to get from
39- to 63-Across
58 Bygone greeting
59 Site with digging
60 Witty remark
61 Word with work
or play
63 End of the
journey
68 Field of work
69 Food poisoning
cause
70 Times past
71 Place of bliss
72 Summer Triangle
star
73 WWI battle river

DOWN
1 Top 40 title for
Metallica or U2
2 Resting place
3 Overthrew
4 Las Vegas feature
5 Peruvian
currency
6 Occur
7 Catlike carnivore
8 “Deathtrap” actor
9 Gene variant
10 ’60s hot spot
11 Data storage
medium
12 Render
speechless
13 On the move
18 Cry of pain
22 __ gravity
24 Wholesale
quantity
25 Figurine material
26 Mesmerized
27 Wing it
28 Dutch
earthenware city
33 High-tech
greeting
35 Fertility clinic
specimens
36 Big name in
whisky

38 Naysayers
40 Darker-than-
ocher pigment
41 Cantina cooker
42 Threw
43 Pelee Island’s
lake
48 Toughened
50 Top of the heap
52 Triangular part of
a house
53 Roundish
54 Sierra __

55 Pizza slice, say
56 Playwright
Chekhov
57 Comfortably
familiar
62 Understanding
64 Seine site
65 Corduroy feature
66 “Dream on,
laddie”
67 Original
Dungeons &
Dragons co.

By Jeff Stillman
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
05/10/18

05/10/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, May 10, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

Through the public eye, it’s 

easy to view every aspect of 
Serena Williams’s life as picture-
perfect. She’s not only one of 
the greatest athletes of our 
generation — with 23 Grand Slam 
tennis titles and four Olympic 
gold medals — but she’s also a new 
mom to an adorable eight-month 

old 
daughter 
with 
charming 

husband, and Reddit co-founder, 
Alexis Ohanian. Still, what the 
media so often fails to recognize 
about Williams is the adversity 
she had to overcome to make it to 
the top as a Black female athlete, 
as well as the more personal 
insecurities she continues to face 
about being a “good-enough” 
mother. In a raw look into the 
anxiety and pressures that lurk 
within the greatest tennis player 

in the world, the five-part HBO 
documentary 
series 
“Being 

Serena” lets Williams take the 
reigns and write her own life 
story for a change.

In the first episode of the 

series, titled “Fear,” Williams 
encounters a series of unexpected, 
yet significant challenges. Just 
days before she was set to take 
on her sister, Venus, 
in the final match of 
the 2017 Australian 
Open, Serena had a 
bewildering 
dream 

that she was pregnant. 
Her 
suspicions 

rang true and, after 
receiving clearance to play from 
her doctor, she went on to win 
the title (with Venus joking that it 
wasn’t a fair match because it was 
really two against one).

From then on, the documentary 

showcases 
Williams 
coming 

down off of her good-news high 
and sinking into a deep hole of 
fear. Worries about not being the 
best mother and tennis player 
of all time rise to the forefront 
of Williams’s thoughts. Not to 

mention, Serena stays terrifiedly 
cognizant of the riskiness of 
her future delivery (considering 
her past history with blood 
clots during surgery). All of this 
pressure to be perfect and the 
uncertainty that comes along with 
being a first-time mother appear 
to suck the confidence right out of 
our champion, her vulnerabilities 

manifested 
and 

exposed.

As the camera — 

sometimes intimately 
handled 
by 
her 

husband, 
Alexis 
— 

follows Serena around 
the house, to training 

sessions and, ultimately, into 
the delivery room, we become 
privy 
to 
some 
very 
private 

moments. Even though filmed 
celebrity births are nothing new 
to television, the way in which 
Williams documents the entirety 
of her pregnancy sheds light on 
the not-so-glamorous parts of 
the process. In this way, “Being 
Serena” rarely feels forced or 
manicured as a series and ends up 
playing out more along the lines 

of an upscale home movie.

The 
most 
heartwarming 

instances 
of 
the 
premiere 

episode occur when Serena gets 
up close and personal in a one-
shot frame and provides some 
very conversational video diary 
updates. She vows that she will 
return to tennis even stronger 
after the birth of her daughter, 
using the documentary as a 
source of motivation to re-watch 
down the road. As the credits role 
and no formal director is cited, 
the most remarkable aspect of 
“Being Serena” is revealed — its 
honest, first-hand perspective.

Even without an uber dramatic 

storyline or intense, singular 
moment 
of 
conflict, 
“Being 

Serena” wins in its willingness 
to highlight vulnerability and 
the unpleasant truths associated 
with change. As the episodes go 
on, the documentary will surely 
continue to offer some much-
needed 
reassurance 
to 
those 

feeling isolated by their anxieties 
because in the end, even those 
who seem unstoppable are still 
human.

‘Being Serena’ is a 
look into a full life

MORGAN RUBINO

Daily Arts Writer

“Being 
Serena”

HBO

Series Premiere

SINGLE REVIEW: “STREAKY”

THIRD WORLDS

“Streaky”

Death Grips

Third Worlds

 “Streaky,” released this 
past Saturday, is not standard 
fare from Death Grips. It still 
has all their tells — blipping 
synths, MC Ride’s inexhaust-
ible, commanding voice at 
every volume, anxiety and a 
sense of foreboding but not 
since “Hacker,” from their 
2012 release The Money Store 
has Death Grips sounded so 
pop friendly. There’s a clear 
progression from chorus to 
verse and back to chorus 
again, which seems to be an 
intentional choice rather than 
falling back on simpler com-

positions. In addition, all leit-
motifs are introduced within 
the first minute of the track. 
There’s something comfort-
ing about the shift to a more 

traditional place, but also 
something intensely discon-
certing. “Streaky” possesses 
the sleekness of a Government 

Plates track and the coolness 
of some of the calmer moments 
of Bottomless Pit, but, as 
always, tension and worry 
are boiling underneath. Their 
six albums and other releases 
have proved that the group is 
capable of creating evocative, 
disparate sonic landscapes and 
“Streaky” points to a definite 
turn for Year of the Snitch. 
The predictability and ease of 
“Streaky” might be a sign of 
future restraint —or just a red 
herring.

- Jack Brandon, 

Daily Film Editor

