The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, September 17, 2018 — 5A

ACROSS
1 Potato chips 
source
5 __ bean
9 Rick’s 
“Casablanca” 
love
13 “Aww!”
14 Spring bloom
15 Les __-Unis
16 Neighbor of 
Yemen
17 Large-scale 
departure
19 Island setting for 
Melville’s “Omoo”
21 Court order to 
testify
22 Mindless 
memorization
24 Farm sound
25 Blue expanse, on 
a clear day
26 Cost of a car, 
in most family 
budgets
31 1860s White 
House nickname
32 Thought
33 Traffic light color
37 Gardener’s bane
39 Quick taste
41 Produced
42 American flag 
feature
45 At hand
48 Buddhist school
49 Edmund Hillary’s 
conquest
52 Fermented quaff
55 Slugger’s stat
56 Get up
57 Removing from 
the text
60 1971 New York 
prison riot site
64 Region including 
Egypt, Israel, etc.
66 “__ be fine”: “No 
prob”
67 Sad verse
68 Spell-checker 
discovery
69 Not virtual
70 __ a one
71 The “Y” in “YTD”
72 TV award, and 
a homophonic 
hint to the four 
longest puzzle 
answers

DOWN
1 Loch Ness local
2 Adidas rival

3 Home of the 
NBA’s Jazz
4 Robert of “Dirty 
Grandpa”
5 Restricted in 
number, as an 
edition
6 Nest egg 
acronym
7 Hit’s opposite
8 Take for granted
9 “Was __ hard on 
you?”
10 Stows cargo
11 Caused some 
nose-pinching
12 Evaluate, as 
metal
15 Bring to light
18 Traditional black 
piano key wood
20 Singer Amos
23 Old flames
26 Big mouths
27 Help rob the 
bank
28 Taunt from the 
bleachers
29 Emulate Degas
30 “Slippery” tree
34 Do nothing
35 Wordsworth 
works
36 Attended, with “to”

38 Reduce in 
brightness
40 __ pressure
43 Rotund
44 Jazzman Blake
46 Pilot
47 Take ten
50 Distance 
between bases, 
in feet
51 Go to bed
52 Commercial 
writers

53 Bizet opera 
priestess
54 Tribal leader
58 Avant-garde
59 Motown’s Marvin
61 Receipt detail
62 Linguine 
seafood sauce 
morsel
63 One on your 
side
65 Daycation 
destination

By Craig Stowe
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/17/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

09/17/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, September 17, 2018

There’s something utterly 

charming 
about 
comedian 

Hasan Minhaj. He has big 
eyes that bug out whenever 
he delivers a joke and he’s not 
afraid to be self-deprecating at 
any chance he gets. 

Last 
weekend, 
comedian 

Minhaj visited the Michigan 
Theater with his “Before the 
Storm” standup show. The show 
is meant to be a preview for his 
upcoming show on Netflix, 
“Patriot 
Act 
with 
Hasan 

Minhaj,” which will debut in 
Oct. 28, 2018.

Ann Arbor didn’t disappoint 

in its enthusiasm, delivering 
two sold-out shows. Hundreds 
of people flocked outside the 
Michigan Theater’s entrance, 
and their nervous energy was 
infectious. I felt like I was 
waiting outside of the movie 
theater to watch a Bollywood 
movie premiere in the U.S. after 
it became a huge hit in India. 

Minhaj immediately thanked 

us for agreeing to lock up our 
phones with Yondr so that we 
wouldn’t leak any spoilers for 
“Patriot Act.” At the beginning 
of his tour, he had asked the 
audience 
to 
refrain 
from 

taking and posting videos, but 
inevitably, he would look down 
at the front row and see lots of 
“old uncles” with their phones 
up, taking a video even as he 
asked them not to. 

With the quick wit that 

brought 
Minhaj 
to 
“The 

Daily 
Show” 
as 
a 
senior 

correspondent, he launched into 
the heart of his show, discussing 
politics in an entertaining but 
serious way. Minhaj is a master 
of using our emotions to build 
up our laughter and energy so 
that when he tells us something 
somber, we feel it hard. Using 
video 
clips, 
graphics 
and 

some funny pictures, Minhaj 
commented on the country’s 
political and cultural landscape, 
from the fear of terrorism to 
media portrayals of people from 
different ethnic backgrounds.

For the same reason we 

had to lock up our phones, I’m 
not going to spoil too many of 
Minhaj’s bits about politics. 
What I will say is that if you’re 
looking to figure out the cost 
of terrorism insurance, then 
Minhaj is your guy. 

My favorite part of the show 

was 
the 
conclusion, 
when 

Minhaj stepped aside from 
politics and delved into his 
personal life with the story of 
how he proposed to his wife. 
Upon deciding it was time to 
finally make the commitment, 
Minhaj set out to buy an 
engagement ring, and saw his 
bank account hit $0 for the first 
time in his life.

Then, Minhaj realized he 

still needed money for the 
actual proposal part.

He turned to the ultimate 

source of good deals — Groupon 
— to book a sunrise hot air 
balloon ride on a Wednesday 
morning. After facing a few 
challenges 
(his 
soon-to-be 

wife thinking he was going 

to murder her when he drove 
her to an empty field at 4:00 
a.m., realizing the hot air 
balloon pilot would come up 
with them in that tiny basket 
and another couple going up 
on a balloon next to them 
and the guy proposing to his 
girlfriend with a massive sign), 
Minhaj drove her to the closest 
breakfast place he could find 
that was open (Applebee’s) and 
proposed. 

This show was everything 

I wanted it to be and more. As 
Minhaj has stated earlier in his 
Netflix special “Hasan Minhaj: 
Homecoming 
King,” 
there 

weren’t many people of similar 
backgrounds for him to look 
up to while growing up. Going 
to school, dating and pursuing 
his passions all came with their 
own complications in addition 
to his confusion with identity 
as an Indian American from a 
Muslim family. Looking at the 
audience last weekend, it was 
clear that others felt the same 
way. But in simply sharing his 
stories, Minhaj is telling us it’s 
okay, because we’ve all faced 
similar challenges, and now 
we’re better for it. 

“Before 
the 
Storm” 
was 

just a taste of how Minhaj 
seamlessly talks about pressing 
issues in today’s American 
society without becoming too 
dark. 
Sometimes 
the 
truth 

can be hard-hitting, but with 
Minhaj’s 
eyes 
bugging 
out 

every five seconds and his self-
deprecating personal stories, 
it’s much less scary with lots of 
laughter. 

Hasan Minhaj brings joy 
to the Michigan Theater

NITYA GUPTA
Daily Arts Writer

NETFLIX

It has become something of 

a tradition for me to begin the 
year by writing about Strange 
Beautiful Music, an annual 
contemporary music marathon 
put 
on 
by 
the 
musicians’ 

collective New Music Detroit 
— and who am I to break with 
tradition?

Running now for 11 years, the 

Strange Beautiful concerts had 
their latest iteration over the 
weekend, and there’s as much 
to say about them as ever. This 
year the marathon was divided 
across two days and three 
different venues, presenting a 
genre-defying hodgepodge of 
performances. Friday saw the 
Charles H. Wright Museum 
of African American History 
and The Detroit Institute of 
Art play host to a variety of 
different sets, and Saturday 
saw 10 hours of music at the 
Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s 
The 
Cube. 
Due 
to 
the 

expansiveness of the events, I 
wasn’t able to catch the entire 
marathon (missing the Wright 
Museum sets on Friday), but 
what I did see proved to be 
an effective reminder of the 
cultural vibrancy of Southeast 
Michigan’s avant-garde music 

scene.

Friday evening’s sets in The 

DIA were intense and viscerally 
moving in a way that I haven’t 
encountered too many times 
in my life. The performance 

space was the Rivera Court, 
a spacious chamber in the 
center of the museum named 
after the painter of the famous 
“Detroit Industry” murals that 
adorn its walls, Diego Rivera. 
I arrived partway through 
a performance by the James 
Cornish Light Opera, a group 
of some 13 musicians and two 
dancers, who were performing 

a musical interpretation of the 
poem “I Come From There” by 
the late Mahmoud Darwish, a 
poet who has been called the 
national poet of Palestine. I 
later learned that the music 
and 
dancing 
were 
largely 

improvised, but by that time I 

was taken by the raw emotion 
of it. Making use of drones and 
a free sort of meter, the sonic 
space the musicians created 
was meditative and ritualistic, 
infused 
with 
the 
sort 
of 

aching 
melancholy 
familiar 

to those who have yearned 
for 
something 
unattainable. 

By 
the 
end, 
however, 
the 

music turned ferocious and 
terrifying, a clamour that filled 
the reverberant walls with a 
harrowing sound of apocalypse, 
a thunderous noise that left me 
shaken to the core. The best 
way I can describe the music is 
simply as essential (in the true 
sense of something being part 
of one’s essence) and somehow 
referential to a longing at the 
core of the human spirit.

After a brief interlude the 

next set went on, Marcus 
Elliot’s 
Beyond 
Rebellious 

Ensemble. 
Made 
up 
of 
a 

rotating cast of characters, this 
weekend’s version of the group 
played a set of tunes coming 
out of the avant garde jazz 
tradition. Elliot, as bandleader 
and 
conductor, 
provided 
a 

collection 
of 
melodies 
and 

structures 
beforehand, 
and 

during the performance would 
direct the feeling of the music 
and cue the ensemble as needed 
throughout, 
occasionally 

writing directions on a small 
whiteboard he would show 
to the group. Afterward he 

described 
this 
process 
as 

“conduction,” a term which 
he credited to the composer 
Butch Morris. The set itself 
was incredibly engaging — 
one man who sat to my right 
described it as “transcendent” 
— and incredibly varied. At 
some moments there were 
catchy head tunes I later 
found myself whistling, and at 
other times there were wild, 
raucous explosions of sound or 
ethereal squeals that offered a 
new perspective on the sorts 
of sound an ensemble like that 
could produce.

Saturday featured around 

10 hours of performances 
at the DSO. As one might 
expect, these ranged widely 
in style, tone and genre, varied 
in such a way that nothing 
ever seemed to grow stale. 
As one also might expect, I 
won’t touch on everything 
that happened during the 10 
hours, but I do feel like it’s 
important to mention a few of 
the performances that I found 
to be the most meaningful.

One 
of 
the 
more 

conventional 
groups 
to 

perform on Saturday was the 
Detroit Composers’ Project, a 
collective formed by composer 
Harriet Steinke (who was a 
peer of mine a couple summers 
ago at a music program in 
Paris) to promote the work of 
Michigan-based 
composers. 

When 
I 
say 
conventional, 

it’s important not to think 
of it as a pejorative; I say 
“conventional” only insofar 
as it refers to what you tend 
to 
find 
at 
“contemporary 

classical” 
concerts, 
which 

is to say classical musicians 
performing notated music on 
classical 
instruments. 
The 

project already premiered a 
number of compositions earlier 
this month, at the DIA, and it 
was a delight for those of us 

Strange Beautiful 

Music and the mosaic of 

Detroit’s avant-garde

CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMN

DAYTON 

HARE

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

DETROIT SYMPHONY MUSIC 

who weren’t able to attend the 
first show for them to present a 
set at Strange Beautiful Music. 
The group played a variety of 
compositions, each with its own 
personality, and by the end one 
was left with a good impression 
of the diversity of music being 
made contemporary classical 
scene today.

This impression of musical 

diversity was only augmented as 
the day went on. Another group 
stemming from the classical 
tradition was the University’s 
own Contemporary Directions 
Ensemble, 
which 
presented 

a 
stunning 
program 
of 

works 
from 
three 
living 

women 
composers, 
Anna 

Thorvaldsdottir, 
Angélica 

Negrón and Julia Wolfe. The 
Thorvaldsdottir in particular 
was wonderful and spacious, 
enveloping the listener in a 
meditative sound-world until, 
near the end, a beautiful melody 
appeared, 
breaking 
through 

the music like sunlight through 
clouds. Set in contrast to the 
Wolfe, which was thrillingly 
energetic, the piece made quite 
a lasting impression.

Throughout 
the 
rest 
of 

the day audience members 
heard from groups like the 
freewheeling and noisey group 
ONO, 
the 
“sono-cybernetic 

exoskeleton”-donning 
Synergistic Mythologies, the 
experimental band saajtak, the 
New Music Detroit collective 
itself — I could go on, but 
the point is that there wasn’t 
any one dominant idea at 
the marathon. It was a wild, 
wacky amalgamation of all of 
the vaguely out-there music 
being made around Detroit, 
and 
a 
beautiful 
reflection 

of the artistic diversity of 
the 
city. 
Strange 
Beautiful 

Music continues to be an 
invaluable platform for the 
avant-garde, the weird and the 
unclassifiable, and one of the 
highlights of the year.

DETROIT SYMPHONY MUSIC