“Dancing On My Own.” In
the latter, Robyn watches an
ex-lover from the corner, begs
him to see her and ultimately
dances with sorrow alone. It’s
a
crystalline
encapsulation

of
bittersweet.
When
she

wonders, “I’m right over here
/ Why can’t you see me?” she’s
asking a question, but it sounds
like a demand; with that
demand is the implicit belief
that a better world might exist
— that she might deserve the
right to escape her loneliness.
As she twirls around on the
dance floor and looks up at the
ceiling, she knows what she
needs and thinks maybe she
can get it. On “Honey,” Robyn
learns that the fact of necessity
has nothing to do with its

fulfillment.

That’s
a
profoundly
sad

realization, and it’s easy to
underestimate the minimal,
early-morning-hours-in-the-
club production of these songs.
Robyn says she’s no longer
an optimist, not like she once
was. “Things don’t always go
well, that’s just how it is,” she
told Pitchfork. What replaces
optimism is an acceptance
of love as a viscous fluid,
something that slips through
the fingers and falls onto the
floor with ease, glittering up at
you from the ground. You can
still enjoy it, but it’s fleeting.

Robyn is the pop star of

ambivalence, and the sadness
comes
with
its
counter.

“Missing U,” a song about
loss, sounds like a triumph
with its carnival synthesizers.
“Because It’s in the Music”
is a track to happy-cry to.
The counter melody makes it
sound as if it’s moving in two
different directions, mirroring
the back and forth of the lyrics
when she sings, “It’s a tired old
record / I still play it anyway /
Because it’s in the music.” On
“Ever Again,” she describes
the push and pull of a new
relationship while declaring
that she’s never going to be
broken-hearted again. It closes
out with the most joyous
production of the entire album.

And it’s a triumph, too, when

you consider her newfound
realization in context. After
eight years of battling pain
and loss at the fault of love,
she doesn’t say that she’ll
never love again — she says
she’ll never “hurt” again. She’s
still taking licks of the sugary
stuff while she can. She’s just
dropped
the
expectations

she once had. Gone are the
questions of “why” that dogged
her on the Body Talk series and
her eponymous album. This
time around, Robyn knows.

Also gone is most of what

could
pass
as
mainstream

pop. Opener “Missing U” and
the title track are as close as
she gets to pure pop, and even
these
sound
anachronistic

— not necessarily of the past
or the future, but of some
ethereal medium which draws
from both. There’s ’80s house
music, ’90s R&B and the
futuristic synths of “Send to
Robin
Immediately.”
What

brings it all together is the
obsession with entrancement.
To achieve it, Robyn avoids
simple
choruses
and
the

predictable drops of EDM. The
beats wander unexpectedly.
You have to wait and see
where they take you, and the
moments of transcendence are
almost always a surprise. In
“Send to Robin Immediately,”
a discernable beat pattern
doesn’t emerge until more than
halfway through the song. The
tropical “Beach2k20” is in
no hurry, strolling along for
six minutes, with pauses for
swim breaks. Honey rewards
patience.

Perhaps,
though,
the

greatest achievement of this
album is that it exists at all,
and still sounds so essentially
Robyn. No one else could
have made this album, and
despite her reboot, despite the
trauma, despite the eight-year
hiatus, with her newfound
realizations, new software and
an added calm, the absolute
joy is that Robyn is — after
everything — still dancing on
her own.

When Robyn describes the

eight-year hiatus she took from
her solo career, she says that
she spent the time “rebooting.”

“I
really
feel
like
I

rearranged my insides in a
way,” she told The New York
Times. Her hard drive was
wiped clean to make way for an
entirely new program. Honey
is our introduction to the new
software. What we meet is an
album about resolve, about
sticking your tongue out to
taste the sweetness and closing
your eyes with satisfaction
because you know not to

ask for too much more. The
momentary bliss is enough.

On the astonishing title

track (the existence of which
had been rumored for years),
Robyn opens in an ascending

voice, “Baby you’re not gonna
get what you need / But baby
I have what you want / come
get your honey.” A version of
the song was previewed on
an episode of HBO’s “Girls”

in 2017, but was far from
complete. Robyn reportedly
spent four years trying to finish
it, and it became, she says,
her white whale. The result
sounds accordingly deserved.
“Honey” glimmers like liquid
metal on the dance floor;
it pulses and churns with a
wistful determination, the sort
of contradiction that Robyn is
so skillful at capturing. Pop
tastemaker Jack Antonoff, in
praising her song “Dancing On
My Own,” describes Robyn’s
ability to capture apparently
disparate feelings succinctly,
like they’re sides of the same
coin — “this idea… where
the sadness is sewed into the
glory,” he wrote.

“Honey” is the sequel to

The momentary bliss of ‘Honey’

MATT GALLATIN

Daily Arts Writer

Honey

Robyn

Konichiwa Records

“The Chilling Adventures of

Sabrina” presents the titular
teenage witch (Kiernan Shipka,
“Mad Men”) with what we’re
told is an impossible choice:
Should the half-mortal, half-
witch accept her birthright,
pledge herself to Satan, attend
a magical school and join the
Church of Night? Or should
she keep on living a quiet life
in Greendale, with friends she
loves at Baxter High School and
her doting boyfriend? It’s the
tension in every adaptation of
the Archie Comics series: The
allure of magic perpetually in
conflict with the adolescent
desire to fit in.

Watching
“Chilling

Adventures,”
though,
it’s

hard to shake the feeling that
the foul world of the coven is
really much fairer than our
own. It’s deliciously morbid,
enlivened by off-kilter dialogue
delivered with sinister bravado
— what language might sound
like in a minor key. Sabrina’s
quarrelsome
aunts
and

guardians, Hilda (Lucy Davis,
“Better Things”) and Zelda
(Miranda Otto, “24: Legacy”)
are the best reminder that
the Church of Night is as fun
as it is frightening. “Where’s
Aunt Hilda?” Sabrina’s cousin
Ambrose
(Chance
Perdomo,

“Killed by My Debt”) wonders
in the second episode. “She
annoyed me, so I killed her and
buried her in the yard,” Zelda

replies matter-of-factly. A short
while later, Hilda claws herself
out of her grave and heads back
to the kitchen in a huff, saying:
“You’ve got to stop killing me!”

Resplendent
with
classic

horror influences, the show
shares some visual DNA with
fellow gritty Archie Comic
reboot
“Riverdale.”
But

“Chilling Adventures” is on an
extra dose of macabre; in the
third episode, a vampish clique
of witches helps Sabrina carry

out a revenge plot that would
make even Dark Betty blush.

It’s inevitable that the two

worlds tugging at this heroine
aren’t quite evenly matched.
Once we’re given a taste of
witchhood in all its glory, the
teenage trials Baxter High
throws at Sabrina are all a bit
too pedestrian. Her relationship
with the dopey Harvey (Ross
Lynch, “Austin & Ally”) is so
vanilla, we’re left practically
begging her to choose Nicholas
Scratch (Gavin Leatherwood,
“Grown-ish”), the handsome
young warlock competing for
her attention. Sabrina’s mortal
friends are sweet, but not much
else. And Sabrina’s principal
adding “The Bluest Eye” to

a banned books list, though
arguably a satanic act in itself,
doesn’t hold a torch to the
problems she has involving the
actual Satan. In the effort to
keep Sabrina down-to-earth,
“Chilling Adventures” forgets
that it’s far more interesting
when those adventures are
beneath the Earth.

Shipka’s Sabrina feels akin

to her comic book predecessor,
plucky and earnest, as if a
big smile and can-do attitude
might just keep the Dark Lord
at bay. But it’s her mortal
teenagerness, her disdain for
authority
and
tendency
to

question everything, that adds
some psychological depth to the
show. The coven is presented
as a path to empowerment, a
way for Sabrina to become a
great, unstoppable witch. But
really, Sabrina points out, isn’t
it all just in the service of the
man down below? What’s so
empowering about the choice
between freedom and power?

Being branded a witch, once

a punishment inflicted by the
patriarchy, has recently been
reclaimed as a feminist badge
of honor — a way for women
to signal their strength and
defiance. It’s not so simple in
the Church of Night, a rigid
institution filled with the same
kinds of jockish bullies that lurk
the halls of Baxter High. “When
will the world learn?” laments
Sabrina’s
possessed
teacher

Miss Wardwell (the fabulous
Michelle
Gomez,
“Doctor

Who”). “Women should be in
charge of everything.”

Netflix’s ‘Sabrina’ reboot
is a witching good time

MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN

Daily Arts Writer

TV REVIEW

NETFLIX

“The Chilling
Adventures of

Sabrina”

Season 1

Netflix

ALBUM REVIEW

KONICHIWA RECORDS

“Saturday Night Live”’s 27th

season premiere was scheduled
to air just 18 days after the 9/11
attacks. Reese Witherspoon was
going to host and Alicia Keys was
scheduled to perform as musical
guest; it would be Seth Meyers
and Amy Poehler’s first show as
new cast members.

The question loomed over

the heads of “SNL”’s staff:
Will the show go on? Creator
and executive producer Lorne
Michaels answered that the
show must go on. At 11:30 p.m.
EST on Sept. 29, 2001, “Saturday
Night Live” aired the first
episode of its 27th season. The
cold open featured former Mayor
Rudy Giuliani alongside Lorne
Michaels. Behind them stood a
group of New York City’s finest
— firefighters and police officers
with uniforms still covered in
the dust and ashes from Ground
Zero. Mayor Giuliani spoke about
the importance of preserving
New York institutions like “SNL”
and Michaels asked the question
we were all thinking, “Can we
be funny?” Giuliani responded
with perfect timing, “Why start
now?”

In a time where calamity

befalls calamity, I look back on
this moment in comedy history
for guidance. In the wake of
tragedy, can we be funny?

Stephen Colbert said, “You

can’t laugh and be afraid at the
same time.” If Colbert believes
laughter is the best medicine for
fear, then I believe as well. If fear
can be cured by laughter, I think
we should all take a big huff
of laughing gas every damned
morning. If fear can be cured by
laughter, John Mulaney is my
doctor and he just prescribed
America with 1000 mg of side-
splitting snickers. If fear can be
cured by laughter, then the only
option in fearful times like these
is to laugh — laugh with friends,
laugh with family, laugh with
your roommate, laugh with your
cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers,
sisters, laugh with the people
you hold dear.

In the wake of tragedy, can we

be funny?

On Saturday night, hours after

I discovered that 11 of my people
were murdered in Pittsburgh
during Shabbat services, I was
to go on stage and make people
laugh. My improv group was to
perform, as we do every month,
in Angell Hall, in front of an
audience of our peers. But, now,
how were we supposed to go on?

How could we go on stage with
the purpose of comedy during
such tragedy? As students lined
up outside Auditorium A, we
asked ourselves the question if

we could be funny. Could we
really be funny for an audience
that was just crying? Could we
really be funny, as natives and
strangers to Pittsburgh alike,
for ourselves? In a well-timed
response, we looked at one
another and asked, “Why start
now?”

All of the funds we collected

from that show will be given
to the families of the victims
of the Tree of Life synagogue

massacre.
The
laughter
we

created will fund part of a Shiva,
a funeral, or the rebuilding of a
temple destroyed by senseless
hatred.

In the wake of tragedy, can we

be funny?

If we stop living, laughing and

loving, fear has won. The show

must go on. And after we can
wipe away the tears and look
towards a better future, we are
ready to live again; we are ready
to laugh again.

After a national tragedy, we

are in a period of mourning as
a country. Acts of terror remind
us how much hate there is in
the world and it is beyond scary.
Eleven people were murdered
for being Jewish, and the Anti-
Defamation
League
reported

that it was the deadliest attack
on Jews in this country. In
this terrifying time, it helps
just a little to find the good in
the world. To remember those
who helped: the neighbors, the
community and the brave service
men and women. Because now
more than ever, we need good,
we need love, we need laughter.

In parting, dear reader, I

offer you several anecdotes that
never cease to put a smile on
my face. A few funny lines that
have circulated around many
a Shabbat dinner table and
Passover Seder. Some classic
Jewish jokes that my uncle
brings back time and again from
his box of borscht belt comedy.
Because we could all use a
smile right now. Jews believe
in the sanctity of numbers, and
three is a good number — three
patriarchs, three daily prayers
and
the
Kabbalistic
belief

that there are three pillars in
the mystical diagram of the
Tree of Life. Therefore, I have
listed three Jewish jokes for
your laughing pleasure. Also, I
couldn’t choose just one.

How do you know Jesus was

Jewish? Four reasons: One, he
was 30, unmarried and still
living with his mother. Two, he
went into his father’s business.
Three, he thought his mother
was a virgin. Four, his mother
thought he was God.

Two elderly women are at

a
Catskill
Mountain
resort.

And one of them says, “Boy,
the food at this place is really
terrible.” The other one says,
“Yeah, I know — and such small
portions.”

Three bubbies are sitting

on a park bench. The first one
lets out a heartfelt “Oy!” A few
minutes later, the second bubbie
sighs deeply and says “Oy vey!”
A few minutes after that, the
third bubbie brushes away a tear
and moans, “Oy veyizmir!” To
which the first bubbie replies: “I
thought we agreed we weren’t
going to talk about our children!”

Can we be funny?

DAILY HUMOR COLUMN

BECKY

PORTMAN

The show must
go on. And after

we can wipe
away the tears

and look towards
a better future,
we are ready to
live again; we are

ready to laugh

again

Wednesday, October 31, 2018 — 5A
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com