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By Mark McClain
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/05/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

12/05/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2018

ACROSS
1 Insurance 
submission
6 Spars on the 
briny
11 Spanish I verb
14 Vital body vessel
15 Choristers who 
are usually 
women
16 Young bloke
17 Get increasingly 
steamed
19 “Diary of a Wimpy 
__”: Jeff Kinney 
book series
20 Home of the 
NHL’s Blues
21 Scrape off
22 Radio hobbyists
23 Rickie Fowler’s 
org.
24 One way to travel
26 Provocative 
social media 
tactic
32 Old Italian bread?
34 Jai __
35 Forearm-related
36 Wee hr.
38 Approves
39 Disciple’s query
40 “Am not!” retort
41 Spa treatment
43 Bullet __: list 
highlight
44 Battlefield order
47 __ Mode, 
designer voiced 
by Brad Bird in 
“Incredibles 2”
48 Strive
49 Skinny
51 Sleeping bag 
closer
55 Getting stuff 
done, initially
58 “Who, me?”
59 Striking white 
stripe between a 
horse’s eyes
61 From A to Z
62 Venue with 
skyboxes
63 Expected
64 Animation frame
65 Venomous snake
66 Hindu spiritual 
writing

DOWN
1 Despicable 
dudes
2 Ransack

3 Depleted sea
4 “__ Quiet 
Uptown”: 
“Hamilton” song
5 Spanish dessert 
wine
6 Bryn __ College
7 Goya’s “Duchess 
of __”
8 It may be ear-
piercing
9 Bullfight figure
10 ID gradually 
being omitted 
from Medicare 
cards
11 Water’s 
capability to 
neutralize acid
12 Injure badly
13 Track ratios
18 President who 
appointed two 
women to the 
Supreme Court
22 Sledding spot
23 “Yes, fine by me”
25 Pierre’s “his”
26 Second cup at a 
diner, e.g.
27 Unite on the sly
28 Spoken for
29 Stairway 
element

30 Statistician Silver
31 Dire
32 Bakery unit
33 Cross inscription
37 Like harvested 
hay
42 Video game 
stage
45 Black ice, e.g.
46 Boeing rival
49 All-in-one Apple
50 Florida State 
player, familiarly

52 Secured, as a 
win
53 Source of cones
54 Early late-night 
TV host
55 Lacking slack
56 Business 
magnate
57 Olympics coach 
Karolyi
59 Tower authority: 
Abbr.
60 The SEC’s Tigers

More than almost any movie 
released this year, “Instant Family” 
wears its heart on its sleeve. Early 
on, as Mark Wahlberg’s (“Mile 
22”) Pete and Rose Byrne’s (“Peter 
Rabbit”) Ellie walk through a 
foster care center, the camera 
lingers on a poster announcing 
“November is National Adoption 
Month!” Throughout the movie, 
characters work to make clear the 
plight of youth in the system and 
the importance of finding them 
loving homes. Before the credits 
roll, websites are given for viewers 
to find out more about fostering 
adopting 
children. 
“Instant 
Family” is a message movie, and 
it’s not a terribly subtle one.
There’s a cynical side of me 
that’s driven to criticize the film for 
this ham-fistedness — it’s the same 
side that’s led to my cementing a 
reputation as someone who likes 
to, or at least has a knack for, 
writing negative reviews — but 
if it’s cool with you, I’d like to do 
something different. Instead of 
lambasting “Instant Family” for 
its cheesiness, I’d like to focus on 
how fundamentally good-hearted 
it is, and how genuine emotion 
driven by strong performances 
and a terrific sense of humor earn 
it every ounce of its schmaltz.
So many films try and fail for 
this sort of touching story. They 
go their entire runtimes tossing 

out cheap, predictable emotional 
moments sandwiched between 
equally 
dull 
jokes. 
“Instant 
Family” director Sean Anders is 
no stranger to this, having helmed 
“Daddy’s Home 2” — a truly sad 
attempt at a Christmas comedy 
— but here he strikes gold. Where 
“Daddy’s Home 2” seemed nearly 
incapable of landing a punchline, 
“Instant 
Family” 
establishes 
early on that it knows how to set 
up a great joke and how to follow 

through with it. It may be too early 
to say that Anders learned from 
the mistakes of his earlier films, 
but at the very least, he’s clearly 
learned to let the jokes breathe 
and allow the chemistry between 
his performers to speak for itself.
Wahlberg and Byrne head up the 
cast and play off each other well. 
The relationship between them 
that forms the core of the movie is 
easy to believe as a result. There’s 
little 
time 
spent 
establishing 
them; we’re just thrown into their 
marriage and expected to follow 
along. The stand-out of the cast 
is Isabela Moner (“Sicario: Day of 
the Soldado”) as Lizzy, the oldest 
of the foster siblings Pete and Ellie 

adopt. Moner already proved that 
she can partially salvage even a 
flat script with her work in the 
“Sicario” sequel, and with the 
stronger script present in “Instant 
Family,” she shines in a role that 
finds her perfectly portraying 
a teenager who has been in the 
system long enough to become 
jaded by it. The young actress’s 
work in the past year alone has 
proven her to be a talent to watch 
as her career continues.
For 
all 
the 
well-deserved 
praise there is to be heaped upon 
the main cast, a word must be 
spared for the supporting players. 
Octavia Spencer (“The Shape of 
Water”) and Tig Notaro (“Dog 
Days”) play Karen and Sharon, 
the two social workers who help 
Pete and Ellie as they enter the 
world of foster parenting, and they 
both lend vibrant performances 
to 
characters 
that 
another 
script may have left devoid of 
personality. Here, they become 
comedic highlights of the film, 
an odd couple that never fails 
to get a laugh. As Pete’s mother 
Sandy, perpetual scene-stealer 
(and University alum!) Margo 
Martindale (“Sneaky Pete”) gets 
perhaps the most emotionally 
resonant moment of a film chock-
full of them. Everyone, onscreen 
and off, gives their all, and the 
finished product reflects that over 
and over again. “Instant Family” is 
a film with a goal, gooey edges and 
all; it’s a rousing, funny and deeply 
moving success.

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

FILM REVIEW

‘Instant Family’ is a fun 
and wholesome delight

In a recent interview with 
Vulture, rapper Earl Sweatshirt 
reflected on the sound of his 
most recent third studio album 
Some Rap Songs, stating that, 
“(the album) is infinitum. It’s 
the snake eating its tail.”
As the quote suggests, Some 
Rap Songs brings to mind 
an image of the ouroboros. 
Each song is built solely off of 
loops — segments of endlessly 
repeating 
warped 
beats, 
stripped-down instrumentals 
and muffled audio clips. Each 
track’s end eats the beginning 
of the next, creating a sort of 
timeless vacuum both within 
the 
songs 
themselves 
and 
within the album as a whole. 
In this nebula, Earl Sweatshirt 
floats, 
allowing 
his 
verses 
to 
unravel, 
free-form 
and 
purposefully 
off-beat. 
The 

resulting sound is markedly 
different 
from 
the 
sharp 
technical perfection of any 
of Earl’s past projects, yet to 
produce something polished 
doesn’t seem to be the point. 
Within 
the 
hypnotism 
of 
intense loops, Some Rap Songs 
constantly 
redefines 
itself, 
creating a layered meditation 
on where Earl Sweatshirt has 

been, on how he is now and 
on where he could go in the 
future.
In 
the 
ouroboros, 
it 
is 
impossible to arrive at the 
end without simultaneously 
stumbling upon the beginning. 
In 
the 
same 
sense, 
it 
is 
impossible to appraise this 

album without first looking 
back.
Earl Sweatshirt made his 
official debut in 2010 with the 
release of the “EARL” music 
video. “I got nuts to bust, 
and butts to fuck, and ups to 
shut / And sluts to fucking 
uppercut / It’s O-F, buttercup, 
go head, fuck with us,” he 
raps over scenes of him and 
other members of Odd Future 
(see: 
OFWGKTA) 
loitering 
around various locations in 
Los Angeles. Under a fisheye 
lens, they drink a suspiciously 
brown concoction that is equal 
parts 
prescription 
drugs, 
cough 
syrup, 
malt 
liquor 
and marijuana. They end up 
convulsing on the ground, 
foaming at the mouth and 
spitting 
up 
various 
bodily 
fluids. 
This 
offensively 
grotesque 
parody 
of 
body 
horror matches the insolence 
of 
the 
self-titled 
mixtape 
“EARL” emerged from. Here, 

verses barbed with hostility 
and cartoonish rowdiness land 
like punches to the gut.
Earl 
is 
aimlessly 
angry, 
pushing 
the 
boundary 
of 
social acceptability without 
any 
substance 
behind 
the 
drive. 
Yet, 
there 
was 
no 
denying Earl Sweatshirt’s skill 
— 
heavy-handed 
wordplay 
unpacking 
neatly, 
precise 
yet still unpredictable — and 
he 
soon 
caught 
attention, 
especially after disappearing 
shortly (spending a hiatus at 
a boarding school in Samoa) 
after Earl’s release, as the 
rest of Odd Future adopted 
“Free Earl!” into a rallying 
cry. In this absence, Earl 
Sweatshirt became a symbol 
that Odd Future used in part 
to catapult themselves further 
into the public sphere, an 
anarchic representation that 
was discordant to the Earl 
who ended up returning two 
years later to L.A. Within his 
time apart from Odd Future’s 
chaotic world, he found space 
to turn his attention inward, 
changing perspectives as he 
changed physical locations. 
Perhaps a result of this 
isolated period of discovery, 
or perhaps not, in between 
every 
single 
project 
Earl 
Sweatshirt has released — 
from Earl to 2013’s Doris to 
2015’s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t 
Go Outside: An Album by Earl 
Sweatshirt to this year’s Some 
Rap Songs — there has been a 
progression: of technical skill, 
of self, of forms of expression. 
This growth is evident within 
Earl’s music. Doris dismantles 
Earl’s juvenile foundations and 
builds them anew, grounding 
songs in more personal subject 
matter 
and 
showcasing 
a 
greater variation in sound 
while still maintaining the 
dense, twisting, MF DOOM-
esque 
lyricism 
he 
became 
infamous for in 2010.
I Don’t Like Shit takes 
Doris’s 
eclecticism 
and 
flattens it, focusing inward. 
Sweeping samples and bright 
jazz-infused chords are made 
murky, 
transformed 
into 
fragmented 
instrumentation 
and muddled melodies — a dark 
backdrop that Earl cuts right 
through. Oftentimes rapping 
at a slower pace than he did 
on Doris or Earl, his words 
seem to be the biggest focus 
of I Don’t Like Shit, diving 
into his own psyche with a 
heaviness that was never quite 
as apparent before. If this was 
rock bottom, then Some Rap 
Songs arrives like the first 
breath of air after emerging 
from the waves. It cuts all 
the previous deadweight to 
effortlessly hang suspended: a 

masterwork of efficiency.
In the grand scheme of 
Earl 
Sweatshirt’s 
entire 
discography (save for 2015’s 
loosie “solace”), Some Rap 
Songs stands out as a kind 
of anomaly. Rather than the 
clean organization of bars 

delivered one on top of the 
next in staccato bursts, this 
album is more organic. It 
glitches; it hisses; it loops 
relentlessly over bars that 
aimlessly 
drift 
off 
into 
a 
multitude of directions. Take 
opener “Shattered Dreams” — 
the loop begins with a sample 
from author James Baldwin. 
“Imprecise words,” Baldwin 
states and the beat haltingly 
picks up, stumbling under the 
drawn-out fuzzy repetition of 
“dreams.” Beneath it all, Earl 
ambles 
into 
nonsequiturs, 
“Mask off, mask on, we trick-
or-treatin’ / Back off, stand-
offish and anemic / Yeah, my 
n***a Ish, told him it’s a feelin’ 
/ Blast off, buckshot into my 
ceilin’.” The result is a track 
that sinks into an introspective 
haze, and within its garbled 
notes, Earl taps into a nearly 
uncharacterizable sentiment: 
a yearning, a searching and a 
wistfulness for something just 
beyond reach.
This 
strange 
abstraction 
of mood and sound is due 
in part to Some Rap Songs’s 
collaborators. The crew of 
young artists who worked on 
the album with Earl — NYC 
rappers MIKE and Medhane, 
alongside 
rapper/producer 
Sixpress 
and 
innovative 
collective Standing on the 

Corner, 
among 
others 
— 
are all known for pushing 
experimental 
boundaries 
within 
their 
own 
music, 
splintering apart traditional 
aspects of jazz and hip hop 
in order to create a more 
unorthodox 
form 
of 
soul-
searching. “I be with Mike and 
Med / Nowadays I be with Sage 
and with Sixpress, ya dig?” Earl 
says on “Nowhere2Go,” and it’s 
easy to see the effect of these 
new relationships through the 
album’s preference for feeling 
over structure.
Most of the tracks on Some 
Rap Songs hold some kind 
of technical malfunction — 
Earl Sweatshirt’s raps don’t 
sit quite right on the looped 
sample of Soul Superiors’s 
1970 song “Trust In Me Baby” 
on “Ontheway!” and his verses 
in “Peanut” are chopped and 
layered so roughly it becomes 
difficult to discern the words — 
yet it is these very cracks in the 
album’s musical landscape that 
allows the underlying emotion 
to be so easily perceived. Much 
like J Dilla brought a human 
aspect to the mechanics of his 
programming, 
incorporating 
aspects of swing and groove 
into his hip-hop beats, the 
flaws on Some Rap Songs make 
the album feel more personable 
as 
the 
unfocused 
looping 
samples give Earl Sweatshirt 
an opportunity to wander into 
self-reflection. 
Some 
Rap 
Songs 
is 
an 
attempt 
to 
reconceive 
not 
only what kind of music Earl 
Sweatshirt creates but who 
exactly Earl Sweatshirt is. 
On “Playing Possums,” Earl 
stitches together recordings 
of an old speech his mother, 
Cheryl Harris, gave at UCLA 
and 
his 
recently 
deceased 
father, Keorapestse Kgositsile, 
reciting an excerpt from his 
poem, “Anguish Longer Than 
Sorrow.” “To my son Thebe,” 
we hear Harris say. “Cultural 
worker and student of life, 
whose growth and insights 
inspire 
me,” 
and 
in 
the 
background, Kgositsile slowly 
echoes, “For some children / 
Words like home / Could not 
carry any possible meaning 
/ But / Displaced / Border / 
Refugee.” It is an effort to 
reconcile two very strained 
familial 
relationships, 
and 
although 
Kgositsile 
passed 
away before he could hear it, 
the intent behind “Playing 
Possums” 
still 
remains 
strongly rooted within the 
framework of Some Rap Songs: 
a cathartic letter addressed 
in the form of music, bringing 
with it the belief that there 
is always a chance to rebuild 
anew again. 

COLUMBIA RECORDS

ALBUM REVIEW

Thoughts on ‘Some Songs’

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Music Editor

“Instant Family”

Ann Arbor 20 + 
IMAX, Goodrich 
Quality 16

Paramount Pictures

Some Rap Songs

Earl Sweatshirt

Tan Cressida

Some Rap 
Songs is an 
attempt to 
reconceive not 
only what kind 
of music Earl 
Sweatshirt 
creates 
but who 
exactly Earl 
Sweatshirt is 

6A — Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

