ACROSS
1 Los Angeles
player
4 Dancer Charisse
7 1938 “The War of
the Worlds” radio
broadcaster
10 Chewed-over
material
13 The Obama
years, e.g.
14 Cube that rolls
15 “The Murders in
the __ Morgue”
16 Harlem
Globetrotters
promoter
Saperstein
17 Feel out of sorts
18 Official reproach
20 Diamond, for one
21 Not of the clergy
23 Peaceful ’60s
protest
24 Sandwich with
tzatziki sauce
25 Vermeer, notably
28 Cold response?
31 Actor Pesci
32 __ Free: caffeine-
free soda
36 They’re bound
to sell
37 CIO partner
38 Hides from
animals
39 Remove, as a
knot
40 10% of MDX
41 Poky one
42 London gallery
43 Unisex fragrance
45 Strings for
Orpheus
46 “Just like that!”
sound
47 High
temperature
48 Abbr. in job titles
49 2001 Pixar hit,
and a hint to the
start of 19-, 22-
and 24-Down
52 Spanish
surrealist
53 Poker variety
55 Formally ask for
58 Ignore the alarm
clock
61 Come before
62 Ceramic
casserole dish
63 Ancient land
in the Fertile
Crescent
64 Still going on
DOWN
1 Authentic
2 Diva’s moment
3 West African
country
4 Atlanta-based
health agcy.
5 Traffic directive
6 Guess apparel
7 Luxury voyage
vessel
8 Seriously
overcooked
9 “Capisce?”
10 Shrewd
11 Car service app
12 Floor sample
19 1989 Al Pacino
thriller
22 Website’s list of
browser data
rules
24 Magic ring-
wielding
superhero
26 Get beaten
27 “House” actor
Omar
28 Borders on
29 Sir Arthur __
Doyle
30 Spicy Mexican
wraps
33 Serves as
matchmaker
34 Uses a swizzle
stick
35 Daysail
destination
43 Mike Trout and
Mickey Mantle,
by pos.
44 Hectic hosp.
areas
50 More pleasant
51 Grenoble’s river
52 British bombshell
Diana
54 Use the good
china, say
55 Healthful
getaway
56 Despot portrayed
by Forest
57 Drink from a
kettle
58 “The Simpsons”
disco guy
59 Cariou of “Blue
Bloods”
60 Actor Beatty
By C.C. Burnikel
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/12/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
09/12/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2018
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Anxiety in the key of Stevie Wonder
In April, I’m asked to write
about an album cover I think is
important, and I choose Talking
Book by Stevie Wonder. I admire
its candor and closeness: the first
album cover to show him without
his glasses. He looks more
vulnerable than on his previous
covers,
and
simultaneously
more introspective and mature.
I admire Wonder for his drive
to evolve, to maneuver through
new sounds and
ideas; by 21, he
was writing and
producing
all
his own music.
He had an early
pop phase and a
“classic period,”
all by the time he
was 25. I yearn
for that level of
self-awareness,
self-confidence,
self-sufficiency.
I listen to the
album while I’m
writing, and I get
addicted. I march
around town to
the twangy beat
of “Maybe Your
Baby,”
the
sly
chorus
echoing
on a loop in my head: “Maybe
your baby done made some other
plans.”
Midsummer, I buy a record
player from an old high school
classmate for 40 dollars. I’ve
always wanted a record player.
I don’t own any records other
than a few I found for free
at a yard sale last summer in
Baltimore — some Tchaikovsky
and Mozart, the Beach Boys’
L.A. (Light Album), a frayed folk
compendium,
Eminem’s
The
Marshall Mathers LP — because
until now I’ve never had a valid
reason to buy them. I ask my
brother if I can look through
his
collection,
gifted
from
my grandfather several years
ago, and in those cardboard
boxes, I unearth gold mines:
Louis Prima, Ray Charles, The
Beatles, Aretha Franklin. The
one Stevie Wonder record I find
is Talking Book, and I listen to it
about twice as often as I listen to
everything else combined.
As I’m nearing the end of a
novel I’ve been
working on for
six
months,
my family flies
west
to
visit
the
National
Repertory
Orchestra.
In
Denver, we see an
exhibit featuring
works by Jeffrey
Gibson,
which
incorporates
beading,
weaving,
neon
lights, electricity,
video and color
all over the place.
I’m
enamored.
The
exhibit
is
titled
“Like
a
Hammer,”
after
the
idea
that
someone who is “like a hammer”
is “capable of building up and
tearing down.”
One material Gibson uses is
song lyrics, and I spend several
minutes staring at a decorated
punching bag entitled “You
Can Feel It All Over.” The
description on the wall quotes
“Sir Duke” and mentions the
creative venture of reworking
the words, of channeling joy
into pain and vice versa. I take a
picture of the punching bag and
the description.
Writing the last chapter or
two of my book on this trip, I
start thinking about what will
come afterward: I’m proud of
the book, and I want to query
it, to enter it in contests, to find
an agent and get it published.
I’m
indirect
and
wishful
when I talk about these things
with my family and friends —
“Published? If only,” I say, or,
“That would be a
dream come true”
— but it is what
I want. If not for
this book, then for
the next I write, or
the next. However
long it takes, it’s
what I want, less
in a dream way,
more in a goal way.
I’m not close,
but I do feel closer
with
this
book
than
I’ve
ever
felt before. The
prospect
makes
me
incredibly
nervous. I think
about
failure
constantly. I teeter
between optimism
and
realism,
excitement
and
levelheadedness.
Day by day, I coach
myself with the
same advice Stevie
Wonder will give me later in the
summer: “Be cool. Be calm. Keep
yourself
together.”
Someday
it will strike me as funny how
that’s what the song tells you to
do when the music itself sounds
so jittery and urgent.
I start revising, and as I revise,
I begin finding weak words in
all of my writing: “felt like,”
“slightly,” “kind of.” “Maybe”
seems particularly common. Is
particularly common.
Even when Wonder’s songs
are excited and happy, there’s
an element of apprehension. I
know everyone relates to music
differently, and this could be
my own projecting. But I can’t
think of him without thinking
of the restlessness of “Higher
Ground,” the bursting nostalgia
of “I Wish,” the existential
wariness of “Pastime Paradise.”
The insecurity of “All Day
Sucker,” “My World Is Empty
Without You” and “Bang Bang
(My Baby Shot Me Down).”
Sometimes it’s in the melody,
sometimes the lyrics, sometimes
both. Yet I continue to associate
Wonder’s music with happiness,
the way I always have: music for
a good mood, for inspiration,
faith, joy, for picking yourself
back up again.
I have my first real panic
attack in June. I’m actually not
sure if it’s the first I’ve ever had,
but it’s the first I’ve decided to
name, anyway. Two hours later,
I drive the five hours from Ind.
to Mich. I usually listen to music
the whole way. It’s a tradition
I love: singing my heart out,
alone and loving it. A five-hour-
long concert where the venue
is my car and the star and the
audience are both me, no one
else to worry about.
This time, I worry about
everything
that
crosses
my
mind. I listen to half of “Hem of
Her Dress” by First Aid Kit, two
or three minutes, then turn the
music off in the middle of the
song. The rest of the five-hour
drive I spend in silence.
I get startled easily. I say
this sentence all the time as
half-explanation,
half-apology
for jumping into the air when
someone
surprises
me
by
opening a door or saying “hello”
when I didn’t know they were
there. Lately, it’s been getting
pretty comical. A dog will start
barking, and I’ll fall out of my
chair. Sometimes I even gasp, my
hand flying to my heart like I’m
a woman out of some Southern
melodrama.
I
don’t
know
whatever got me
to be so uptight
(“everything is
all right,” my
mind sings), but
this is one of
the things about
myself
I’ve
decided to just
go with.
Sometimes
I get tired of
music. I love it,
and I surround
myself
with
other
people
who love it, and
it
seems
like
they never get
tired of it. But
I do. I get tired
of books, too,
reading
and
writing.
My
passions
stem
from the works
and people who
make me back
up to the things I love: Mitski.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy.” Haydn. Tomi Adeyemi.
First Aid Kit.
This happens to me toward
the end of Aug., with Stevie
Wonder’s Down to Earth. I’m
finally about to start querying
my science fiction novel, and
Down To Earth is exactly where
I’d like to be, so I put it on shuffle
at the beginning of a 20-minute
car ride.
I’ve never heard of it before,
and when I press play, I’m
expecting to have to skip songs,
make
concessions.
But
I’ve
underestimated Wonder, who
was only 16 when he released
it. The album wraps me up
and carries me away. Suddenly
there’s no place I’d rather be than
here, “Sixteen Tons” trailing me
like a ghost on a moonlit drive.
Pulling up next to my mother’s
house to “A Place in the Sun,” I
spend five minutes accelerating
and reversing, inching my car
closer to the curb, even though
it’s the suburbs and nobody
cares. No one will crash into me
LAURA DZUBAY
Daily Arts Writer
UNIVERSAL MUSIC NEW ZEALAND
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
How I learned to
dance on two feet
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
I’ve always been a bit of
an awkward dancer, far more
comfortable tossing my body
around in a crowded concert
pit than following any sort
of rhythm. Being a closeted
homosexual for nearly 20
years certainly didn’t help,
fueling my anxiety over my
outward image — constantly
battling the “faggot”s spewed
my
way
throughout
my
teenage years, the “Still no
girlfriend?”s from my family,
the urges to belt out some
Britney Spears lyrics at the
top of my lungs.
It was, in no lesser words,
exhausting.
And then I moved to college
and I began to go to house
parties and then bars where
dancing is the social norm,
and I was absolutely mortified
(unless my BAC was a bit
higher than what is considered
“healthy,” of course). I was
mostly conservative on the
dance
floor,
moving
only
one foot at a time, never
daring to risk the fluidity,
the natural ease of two feet.
The
deeply
internalized
homophobia
of
my
youth,
steeped in Catholicism, was a
fickle venom, infecting all my
actions with “What if this is
too gay?”
Making the full leap from
punk and indie to pop was a
bit of an awkward period in
my life. Spending my high
school years as a “scene” kid
whose
playlists
consisted
heavily of Passion Pit, A Day
To Remember and Modern
Baseball, I only began to really
explore my love for pop music
during my last year living in
my parents’ home; I waited for
eight hours in line for a Marina
and the Diamonds concert,
accompanied by flashes of
embarrassment with an outfit
on that was far better suited
for Warped Tour.
Lorde’s
Pure
Heroine,
Taylor Swift’s Red and Lana
Del Rey’s Born To Die were
absolutely
critical
albums
during this volatile period
in my life, helping me get in
touch with a vulnerability I
repeatedly swallowed out of
fear. Lorde’s “Ribs” helped
me make peace with growing
up; “All Too Well” gave me
a glimpse of the intimacy
I denied myself during my
adolescence;
“Off
To
The
Races” showed me the power
in femininity.
Slowly but surely, I began to
surround myself with people
who made me feel more at ease
in my own skin, mostly fellow
queers who helped me find my
rhythm in my newfound love
of pop. Without even realizing
it, I began to dance with two
feet, to allow my hands to
rise above my head and fall
to my knees. After living
years and years on a tense
ledge threatening to crumble
beneath me at any moment,
it was like having lungs that
fully inflated for the first
time. I had finally learned to
love the music that had always
drawn me like a magnet.
I mentioned before that I
didn’t notice when or how I
began to dance with two feet
because it was like learning to
ride a bike. Now, the occasional
instances of homophobia don’t
hurt me the way one would
expect anymore, like a slap
to the face or a dagger to the
heart. Rather, it now serves
as a reminder to shake my ass
the second I hear the deep
bass of Ariana Grande’s “Into
You” burst through a speaker,
to share a drunken screech
of excitement at the opening
saxophone
of
Carly
Rae
Jepsen’s “Run Away with Me”
and let it all go when Lorde’s
“Supercut” rings through my
ears.
I went out to Rick’s a few
days ago, possibly the most
oppressively
anti-queer
establishment in Ann Arbor,
and rather than feeling the
effects of the old venom that
haunted my veins, I finally
noticed just how comfortable I
finally was on the dancefloor.
Like learning how to ride a
bike, the hypervisibility that
is inevitably forced upon me
in a space like Rick’s didn’t
cost me my newfound rhythm
rather reinforced it as a life
skill.
DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Senior Arts Editor
here. I just want to hear the end
of the song.
A few minutes later, like a
cliché or a fiction, I pause in
the middle of “The Lonesome
Road” and turn off the car.
I don’t think about Stevie
Wonder all the time, or I didn’t
use to. Most of the moments I
thought about him this summer
didn’t feel like landmarks at the
time, and it’s only in looking
back that I see any thread at
all. At the time they only felt
like moments that were worth
attending to. I’m hoping that’s
the case with this piece of
writing; I’m writing it because
I can’t sort through myself
alone and no musician can do it,
either, not even Stevie Wonder,
but there are times when it
feels like the two might help
each other along. This piece
isn’t meant to be entirely about
Stevie Wonder, but I wouldn’t
have included him if I’d thought
it was entirely about me, either.
It’s about something in between
somewhere — about the way
music enters our lives, not
only as a soundtrack, but as a
translation of something very
close to us, a message to be
decoded.
It occurred to me as strange
the other day that “Angel Baby
(Don’t You Ever Leave Me)”
never got as popular as “Uptight
(Everything’s
Alright).”
It’s
catchy and just as upbeat. Maybe
it’s because it’s a more insecure
song and people really do want
everything to be alright. Then
again, “Superstition” was a hit,
so maybe I’m wrong. Maybe
people love a good anxiety
story.
Even when
Wonder’s songs
are excited and
happy, there’s
an element of
apprehension
Sometimes I get
tired of music.
I love it, and I
surround myself
with other
people who love
it, and it seems
like they never
get tired of it. But
I do
6A — Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com