of movies I intend to frequently re-watch. I never took much to e-readers or e-books and like to read front to back a copy of the New Yorker that comes to my door every week (thank you, Grandpa). Before I joined The Daily, I would always pick up a copy on my way up my dorm at the end of the day. Call me old- fashioned, but there’s something about actually having a physical copy of a piece of entertainment or work of literature that helps me to connect with it. I find that screens create a distance between us and the material we are trying to engage with, or at least they do for me. That’s why I’m against media socialism. I live in fear of the idea that one day, the only place I will be able to find new music is by paying $10 a month to Spotify or, god forbid, giving even more money to Apple. So join me. Drag that song from your iTunes to your iPhone. Pop that CD into the player in the car. Bust out a cassette tape every now and then. You might find yourself rediscovering an old favorite, or finding new meaning a song you’ve heard a thousand times. You might also realize you haven’t been missing anything at all. In that case, no problem, I’m sure Spotify will have a few suggestions for you. Spotify. Pandora. Apple Music. What do these things have in common? They are all music streaming services that have become all but omnipresent across the entertainment landscape. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and the forthcoming Disney streaming service are gaining an ever larger foothold on the way we consume media. I try to avoid taking part in any of it. Oh sure, I mooch off my family’s Netflix account and occasionally log into my roommate’s HBO Go app on my laptop, but when it comes to music, for many years now, I have done what most of my friends are convinced is insane: I’ve remained firmly rooted in the past. I have never had a Spotify account. Ditto for Pandora or Apple Music. When I was in middle school, I would occasionally dabble with Grooveshark, which to the ill- informed was kind of like a free Spotify before Spotify was a thing (it was also totally illegal and got shut down eventually), but I never made the jump to the trendier music platforms that have come to dominate our culture. There’s a very simple reason for this, the same one I give whenever I am questioned on this point by any of my understandably incredulous friends: I don’t believe in media socialism. There’s an analogy I like to use whenever I end up on this particular soapbox. Imagine a world where there aren’t any bookstores. The only way you can read books is by going to a library. Now imagine that public libraries don’t exist. The only libraries that are around are ones privately funded and owned by corporations that have become increasingly stringent about giving the authors of those books the proper cut of the profits from their work. These authors have no choice but to go along with this system because if they don’t put their writing out through these privately owned libraries, then there will be no real way for them to get it out at all. That is the world that I believe we will soon be living in with regards to music. What will I do if, say a decade from now, I decide I don’t agree with something that the Spotify company is doing, or, for whatever reason, I no longer want to pay for the service and decide to leave it? Suddenly, I no longer have access to any music from the past decade and a half of my life, having not purchased an album since around 2013. I already feel trapped in the technological prison of Apple. In the past two years, both my phone and laptop have broken and have required replacement and both times I felt forced to pay a new Apple product even though I felt strongly that I was buying what was essentially an inferior product to what I had before (the lack of ports on the new MacBook Pro is especially detrimental to a film major’s lifestyle). I fear that many of us will soon end up in this same trap with music. I still download songs (or albums from CDs I’ve purchased), load them onto my iPhone and manually choose what playlists and songs to listen to whenever I leave class or go for a run. Many have called me insane. I can only get away with this because I don’t listen to a lot of modern music, so it’s not like I’m constantly having to go out and buy the new Travis Scott or Kanye West album. Those people might be right. But I don’t think I’m entirely wrong either. Much and more has been written about how bad the move to streaming is for artists, and while it seemingly creates a more diverse marketplace, it also minimizes the number of outlets that new music can be successfully distributed through. I’m a slow adapter. I still frequently use my external disc drive. I’m not at all opposed to purchasing DVDs or Blu-Rays By Tim Schenck ©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 10/24/18 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis 10/24/18 ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: Release Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 ACROSS 1 Vote to accept 6 Sincerely asks for 10 Vicki Lawrence sitcom role 14 Harley owner 15 “This is __ a test” 16 Flower painted by van Gogh 17 Roadblocks 19 Friendly 20 Win the affections of 21 “__ lost!” 22 Mental flash 23 Be rude to 24 Doc’s org. 26 Good name for many a tree-lined street 28 Energy 29 Barely sufficient 33 “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” co-creator Fey 37 Crossed (out) 39 Prepare, as Romano 40 Womb-related 42 Crowd control weapon 44 Part of TNT 45 Trace amount 47 Not tacit 48 Ledger column 50 Charlotte-to- Raleigh dir. 51 Did nothing 52 Calypso- influenced genre 53 __ of March 57 Minor argument 60 Baseball bat wood 62 In the center 64 Airport idler 65 Gambles in a church basement, maybe 67 Golfer’s selection 68 Easy gait 69 Winemaker with 1900 acres of vineyards in California 70 __ a bell: sounded familiar 71 Short-horned bighorns 72 Lid inflammations DOWN 1 Clerics in un monastère 2 “Outlander” novelist Gabaldon 3 Gumbo pods 4 Salon jobs 5 Crosby, Stills & Nash, e.g. 6 Fancy neckwear 7 Final stage of a chess match 8 TV series with choreographed numbers 9 Word with metric or merit 10 Wawa and 7-Eleven 11 Bone-dry 12 Attic pests 13 Topside, perhaps 18 Cowardly 25 With 38-Down, bar offering found in each set of circles 27 Big name in small construction 30 “Poker Face” Lady 31 Needle case 32 Tear to bits 33 Sushi option 34 “For real?” 35 Brooklyn NBA team 36 Captivating 38 See 25-Down 41 Greek letter 43 Support group? 46 Mold into a new form 49 Paper clip alternative 53 Senseless sort 54 Shabby 55 Sharp-eyed hunter 56 Astringent plumlike fruits 57 Prepare, as a 25-/38-Down 58 Prefix with graph 59 Neural transmitter 61 Hoping for more customers 63 Drops off 66 “Amen!” Why I don’t believe in “media socialism” IAN HARRIS For a band from Toronto, Great Lake Swimmers gives off a strong flyover country vibe, an initial modesty that quickly finds its voice. At The Ark on a rainy Friday night, lead singer Tony Dekker stood awkwardly at the mic, his hands in fists and stance unbalanced. Bassist Bret Higgins wore abbreviated cowboy boots that barely reached above his ankles. The rest of the ensemble — Kelsey McNulty on keyboards and Erik Arnesen on guitar and banjo — also exuded a midwest humbleness in their presence. Only drummer Marshall Bureau added a showy, urban energy to the stage. However, once the band settled in, their music pulled the audience along for a great ride. On tour for their new album The Waves, The Wake, Great Lake Swimmers stepped away from their usual acoustic guitar-centered sound to a more multi-instrumental taste. The band often records albums in non-studio locations like an abandoned grain silo for their debut Great Lake Swimmers and a 145-year-old church for The Waves, The Wake. As a result, even with the acoustic beauty produced in a venue like The Ark, their live set has trouble mimicking the recording. Still, Great Lake Swimmers found a way to fill the space with the addition of McNulty on keyboards. Her stripped-down synth patterns contrasted the more classic folk guitars and bass, bringing the band into a new era. Although the band could not transport a whole woodwind section, they were clever in how to adjust the set and minimize gaps in the music. Several songs began with a solo instrument then added different sounds, crescendoing into a massive wave. Despite their indie status, Great Lake Swimmers released their first album back in 2003 and have since produced a steady stream of EPs and records. Reliant on the songwriting talents of Dekker, Great Lake Swimmers has been a constant presence in the Canadian folk-rock scene, receiving nominations for the Polaris Prize and Juno Awards. While tracks like “The Great Exhale” from New Wild Everywhere and “Zero in the City” from A Forest of Arms follow the traditional songwriting verse-chorus- verse-chorus formula, other tracks run off on tangents of enchanting harmonization or instrumental interludes. When the band played “In a Certain Way,” Arnesen’s banjo riff alone could carry the song. Great Lake Swimmers are a hidden gem of folk rock music. Although they are based in Canada, their soulful rhythm guitar and sincere lyrics radiate a Midwestern feel, making the band right at home in the Great Lakes state. Great Lake Swimmers own the midwest sound MEGHAN CHOU Daily Arts Writer CONCERT REVIEW NETTWERK Although they are based in Canada, their soulful rhythm guitar and sincere lyrics radiate a Midwestern feel, making the band right at home in the Great Lakes state. Heists have never felt so heartwarming. “The Old Man and the Gun” provides the mostly-true story of Forrest Tucker, a lifelong criminal who escapes prison at 70 and begins a gleeful spree of robberies again. He confounds nearly everyone he encounters, from a woman he falls in love with (Sissy Spacek, “The Help”) to an amused detective (Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”) to dozens of nervous bank tellers. Director David Lowery (“A Ghost Story”) outfits the film with a nostalgic look and feel. The picture is grainy enough to feel as if the events not only happened in another era, but were filmed then too. His camerawork is self-indulgently goofy at times, with quick pans and zooms, invoking the absurdity of the story at hand, yet his style more prominently features extreme close-ups of his well-chosen cast. The proximity to their visages is not claustrophobic; it’s endearing and emotionally persuasive. Perhaps these shots work well because every performance in the film is genuine and captivating. Even those in the supporting cast, including Danny Glover (“Sorry to Bother You”) and Tom Waits (“Short Cuts”), never feel as though they are acting. Each line of dialogue feels fresh and spontaneous, each idiosyncrasy smooth and habitual. Above all, the film oozes humanity, and that’s why its impact is so memorable. “Old Man” defies the abrasive tendencies in its genre with admirable indifference. It is among the few truly “feel good” crime stories, not forcing a viewer in with guns and violence, but inviting them instead with a pair of twinkling eyes and an old-timey charm. Those twinkling eyes, of course, belong to none other than Robert Redford, a legend made iconic by his role as the Sundance Kid. Not only does Redford’s dry wit and contagious grin hold the movie together, but makes it believable too. A viewer might ask themselves, “Would I really hand over money to a man who never showed me that he had a gun?” And upon seeing Redford’s confident charisma, the answer is inarguably: Yes. A recurring point of humor in the movie is the way that Tucker smiles politely at the people as he robs them, making them feel at ease as they hand over bags of cash. But the expression is as much a descriptor of Redford’s witty charm as it is the audience’s reaction to the robberies — not trepidation or urgency, but glee. For all these enjoyable moments, the film purviews a gentle appreciation and not much else. Lowery aims for a pure, untainted ode to Redford’s legendary career, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But when the narrative momentum picks up, the genuflection overrides any possibility of tension from the audience. The truth is, the film wraps the viewer up so completely within itself that the constant encomium does not vastly take away from the experience. However, it prevents the film from having a truly gripping Robert Redford charms in ‘The Old Man and the Gun’ ANISH TAMHANEY Daily Arts Writer “The Old Man and the Gun” Michigan Theater Fox Searchlight Imagine a world where there aren’t any bookstores. The only way you can read books is by going to a library. Now imagine that public libraries don’t exist. DAILY ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN FILM REVIEW FOX SEARCHLIGHT 6A — Wednesday , October 24, 2018 Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com