I was recently asked who I
consider to be my favorite writer.
It’s always a difficult question
for me to answer — everyone I
look up to for their writing, I
look up to for a different reason,
and there are quite a lot of those
people. A Bob Dylan quote about
his influences always jumps into
my mind: “Open your eyes and
your ears and you’re influenced.”
There is something to learn from
everyone.
But today I’m going to talk
about an answer I pretty much
never
give
in
conversation:
Taylor Swift.
I know what you might be
thinking — “Ugh, not this again.”
I stumble into a conversation
about Taylor Swift, or onto a
news headline about her, on at
least a weekly basis. We’re all
obsessed with her, in a national
sense, whether we love her
or love to hate her. Even I, a
fan of Swift’s, can admit that
it can get a little
tiresome.
Today
my goal is just to
tackle Swift from a
literary perspective,
because
to
me
she
is
the
best
representation
of
something that I’ve
seen
from
other
artists as well.
When I said I
never give Taylor
Swift as an answer,
it
was
for
two
reasons. The first
I’ve already hinted
at: It’s Taylor Swift.
There are a lot of
things about her I
don’t like. I think
that
people
are
right
to
criticize
her
tendency
to
slip
in
and
out
of
convenient
identities
(“the
victim” being a big
one), and a few too
many of her songs
for my liking milk
the concept of being
“not like other girls.”
I wanted to know
that she supported
Democrats
much
earlier than 2018
(although I’m very
glad
to
have
it
confirmed
now).
Only
last
month,
Akanksha
Sahay
wrote a great piece
interrogating
the
complicated,
at
times
problematic
nature
of
Swift’s
relationships
with
feminism
and
privilege and her
recent
political
evolution.
The
second
reason
is
more
what I’d like to go
into
here:
When
people ask which
writers I admire,
they usually mean
a specific type of
writing. I generally
take
it
to
mean
novels
and
short
stories,
because
fiction is what I
write
personally,

but I’m sure people would also
be receptive if I named a poet,
an essayist or a playwright.
A songwriter is a little less

expected, which in a way makes
sense — you don’t sit down and
read songs.
I got into Taylor Swift in
middle school, not long before
I started attending an arts
school where the literary part
of myself would be set on fire by
writers like Joyce Carol Oates
and Flannery O’Connor (both
of whom, I’ve found out since,
have their own huge sets of
problems, but that’s for another
time). In those days, I wrote
constantly: on the bus, in class,
after school. All of my class notes

from middle school generally
follow a pattern — half a page
or so of real note-taking, then
two or three pages of exciting
fiction during which you can bet
I wasn’t paying attention at all.
The front pocket of my backpack
was always crammed with the
loose pages of some story, strung
together across whatever was
around: printer paper, loose leaf,
napkins, pamphlets.
While occasionally I’d muster
up a crush on someone just to
have something to talk about, I
was not particularly interested
in romance at the time. So when
I danced around my room to
the songs from Taylor Swift
and Fearless, shouting along to
the lyrics about some boy I was
falling in love with, no particular
person had taken shape in my
mind. I loved Swift’s images —
“the moon like a spotlight on
the lake,” “Friday night beneath
the stars / In a field behind your
yard” — but didn’t live in them
myself, and didn’t really want to
yet.
I loved Taylor Swift more

than
anything
because
she
made writing fun. The pieces
from that initial phase that I
remember most clearly all have
to do with that passion: an image
from her first album’s liner notes
of Swift poring over a notebook,
deep in concentration, a video
of her exclaiming about how
she’s getting a really good idea.
Another video of her high school
classmates being interviewed,
talking about how Swift was
constantly writing — they’d even
seen her write on paper towels
and napkins when she didn’t
have paper.
There were always writers I
loved, but Taylor Swift struck
something new for me. In middle
school, like everyone, I felt
awkward, cumbersome, insecure
and off-and-on lonely. It thrilled
me to learn about somebody who
was so passionate about writing
that, when she was my same age,
she’d decided to make a career
out of it — and she’d done it
successfully. Swift was working
regularly as a songwriter long
before she put out her first
album, and a few albums later,
she was still excited to be doing
it. Her first album’s first song,
“Tim McGraw,” mentions “a
letter that you never read,” and
one of her very first hits, “Our
Song,” ends on the image of
writing: “I grabbed a pen and an
old napkin / And I wrote down
our song.” And while it’s true
that she sometimes wielded this
self-reference in ways I didn’t
like (“All those other girls, well
they’re beautiful / But would
they write a song for you?”), I
was still drawn to this attention
to writing because it made me
feel encouraged in my own life.
As a kid who had often stayed
in from recess during elementary
just to write short stories by
myself, I was enamored. I’m
still enamored. Swift didn’t
just have passion; she had the
direction and determination to
see that passion through, and
she still does. She writes in her
music videos, and in YouTube
videos about her songwriting
process. One Google search of
“Taylor Swift writing” yields a
ton of images of her scrawling in
notebooks, mulling over a guitar.
I think one of the reasons
we love Swift (those of us who
do) is always going to be her
image. When Taylor Swift falls
in love, it’s in a beautiful dress,
in the rain. When Taylor Swift
writes, she looks good doing
it, and then later that writing
comes out on an award-winning
album. Through all of her
storytelling — her love stories,
her angry tirades, her diary-
esque reminiscing on childhood
memories
and
family
and
friends — she paints a picture
of a world, a dream, in which
her own emotions and thoughts
and ideas become manifest.
This is the very core of the act of
writing, and it’s what makes it so
easy to fall in love with Swift’s
work. She can take the emotions
that make her vulnerable and,
using talent and hard work and
her craft, turn that vulnerability
into
something
admirable
and untouchable. To me that
has always been the ultimate
superpower.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, November 12, 2018 — 5A

By Matt McKinley
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/12/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

11/12/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, November 12, 2018

ACROSS
1 Tempo similar to
lento
6 Quacked
insurance name
11 Film watcher’s
channel
14 Plane, to Pierre
15 “Fighting” Notre
Dame team
16 Listening organ
17 Forgetful moment
19 Falsehood
20 Request
21 Great enthusiasm
22 Revise, as text
24 Indian lentil stew
25 Sporty sunroofs
26 One arguing for
the unpopular
side
32 Absorb the
lesson
33 Applauds
34 Effort
35 Rowing tools
36 “Cha-__!”:
register sound
37 Delighted shout
from the roller
coaster
38 Summer hrs. in
Oregon
39 William __, early
bathysphere user
40 Exclaimed
41 Education
division governed
by a board
44 Peer
45 Humble dwelling
46 Aleut relative
47 Louvre Pyramid
architect
50 Govt. agent
53 Windy City rail
initials
54 Facts known to a
select few ... and
a hint to each set
of circled letters
57 Funhouse
reaction
58 Wafer named for
its flavor
59 Like a funhouse
60 Dr. of rap
61 Best Buy “squad”
members
62 Faked, in hockey

DOWN
1 Dalai __
2 NYC’s Madison
and Lexington

3 Hockey
enclosure
4 Received
5 Rescheduled
after being
canceled, as a
meeting
6 Afflicts
7 House with
brothers
8 Slimming
surgery, for short
9 Braying beast
10 Frito-Lay corn
snacks
11 Blessed with
ESP
12 Primary
thoroughfare in
many towns
13 Believability, for
short
18 Break in the
action
23 Soft shoe
24 TiVo products
25 Freq. sitcom
rating
26 Right smack in
the middle
27 Threat from a
fault
28 NFL list of
games, e.g.
29 Crook’s cover

30 Claire of
“Homeland”
31 Observed closely
32 Cuts (off)
36 Phone in a purse
37 Legal document
39 Enjoying the
ocean
40 Enjoyed the
ocean
42 Yves’ yes
43 Biblical pronoun
46 Cooled with
cubes

47 Ocean map dot
48 Cereal go-with
49 Smooching in
a crowded park
and such, briefly
50 Road divide
51 Lake that’s a
homophone of
59-Across
52 Lightened, as
hair
55 Nietzsche’s
“never”
56 Casual shirt

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Taylor Swift and the
image of writing

DAILY LITERATURE COLUMN

LAURA
DZUBAY

‘Outlaw King’ is slow-moving, not worth the time

“Outlaw King” is a historical
war drama about Robert Bruce
(Chris Pine, “Wonder Woman”),
a fearless pariah who leads a

rebellion with his countrymen
to reclaim his homeland from
the formidable English army
in the 14th century. While the
movie boasts a strong attention
to period detail and notable
battle sequences, “Outlaw King”
collapses onto a weak narrative
skeleton
and
proves
mostly
unwatchable in its later acts.
Some
of
the
film’s
few
highlights are its costumes and
set design. The first quarter,
which largely takes place during
indoor feasts, never fails to
appear genuinely synchronistic.
The appropriately plain kilts,
candlelit interiors of war tents
and gleaming armor of soldiers
breathed life into an otherwise
bland visual palette and dismal
conversation scenes.
The inarguable high point
of “Outlaw King,” however, is
its first shot. The nine-minute

take initially reveals the politics
of the war in the confines of a
dark tent, then travels to the
brighter war camp outside. From
there, the shot showcases a
brilliantly choreographed sword
duel that likely took weeks to
rehearse, as well as an impressive
catapult launch that ends in
a fiery explosion. At first, this
opening sequence truly seems
to herald strong camerawork
and action scenes from director
David Mackenzie (“Hell or High
Water”).
And yet, for all the effort that
Mackenzie puts into his later
battle sequences, they fall short
of being original. One sequence
involving a riverbank by a dense
forest was so reminiscent of Peter
Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings”
that it felt tacky. Another set
piece involving a fiery nighttime
assault on Bruce’s camp brilliantly
combined practical and digital
effects to immerse a viewer in the
heat of the battle, but gradually
descended into incoherence as
Mackenzie’s camerawork lost its
focus.
Aside from the film’s action
and costumes, it is a thoughtlessly
constructed mess in terms of
narrative, editing and pacing.
Almost every character feels
underdeveloped
and
poorly
written, to the point that entire

passages of dialogue play out
nonsensically. While there are a
few standout performances from
Pine and Stephen Dillane (“Game
of Thrones”), even their lines

feel wooden and hollow. Pine
specifically does an admirable
job as a scruffy rebel king, and his
Scottish accent is spot-on. Though
the strength of his performance
cannot overcome a painfully weak
script, there are several moments
in the film in which viewers are
left wondering why characters

ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Arts Writer

NETFLIX

NETFLIX

“Outlaw King”

Netflix

FILM REVIEW

make the decisions they do,
forced to supplant their memory
with only guesses as to the logic
of events. Whether involving a
rushed romantic subplot between
Bruce
and
Queen
Margaret
(newcomer Rebecca Robin) or
a deceitful murder toward the
film’s start, Mackenzie does not
seem to care whether viewers
even receive such explanations.
Another
reason
that
the
narrative of “Outlaw King” may
confound the audience is through
its editing. While the film lasts just
over two hours, the original cut
was clearly much longer. There
are obvious gaps in the story,

entire missing scenes that later
contribute to a payoff that simply
doesn’t land. In particular, when
a fighter dies on the battlefield,
the frames decelerate to slow-
motion. The heroes cry the name
of their fallen companion, but the
audience often has no idea who
just died. The emotional impact of
these moments is nearly negligible
because the source of attachment
to these soldiers — a backstory
— ended up on the cutting room
floor.
Although,
inserting
these
scenes back into the film would
not be a neat solution either. In
the third and penultimate act,

“Outlaw King” takes a turn, to
put it mildly, toward being boring.
The film is paced in a way that
bookends the narrative tension,
and towards the middle, viewers
may not so much wonder what
happens next as they will why
they are still watching. A subplot
involving Bruce’s wife and a dull
recruiting phase for the rebellion
cut between each other for what
seems like an eternity.
For diehard war movie fans,
this film might just offer a solid
half hour of enjoyment. For
everyone else, myself included,
“Outlaw King” is below passable
and not worth seeing.

Viewers may

not so much

wonder what

happens next as

they will why

they are still

watching

She paints

a picture of a

world, a dream,

in which her own

emotions and

thoughts and

ideas become

manifest