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FOR RENT

By Jeffrey Wechsler
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/17/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

01/17/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Thursday, January 17, 2019

ACROSS
1 Fear of spiders, 
usually
7 Google Earth 
predecessors
14 Aesthetic 
feature?
16 Hillary supporters
17 Lumberjack’s 
favorite pirate 
phrase?
19 Theater award
20 Actor Holm
21 Slender Olive
22 Lumberjack’s 
main interest in 
naval records?
27 Eero Saarinen’s 
father
30 Many Sinatra 
recordings
31 Pipe shape
32 Quick cuts
33 Gig gear
35 “__ pinch of ... ”: 
recipe words
36 Lumberjack’s 
way to punch an 
opponent?
39 Reverberate
40 Baltic capital
41 Store __
42 Small matter
43 Toon crime-
fighter __ 
Possible
44 Check phrase
45 Lumberjack’s 
preferred ABC 
News reporter?
49 Civil War soldier
50 __ of the woods: 
mushroom type
51 Athlete who 
wrote a history of 
African-American 
athletes
55 Lumberjack’s 
reaction to an 
overly hard 
crossword?
60 Track foundation
61 French’s product
62 Bottomless pits
63 Ignore

DOWN
1 Sideways 
whisper
2 Crackers once 
sold in a red box
3 Actress Lena
4 Quail group
5 Having four 
sharps

6 Pertaining to a 
heart chamber
7 PEI setting
8 Meteorologist’s 
scale: Abbr.
9 Veal piccata 
chef’s needs
10 Contrary to 
popular belief, 
its name is not 
derived from 
its trademark 
sandwich
11 Described in 
detail
12 “For all in vain 
comes counsel to 
his __”: Shak.
13 Old draft org.
15 Jane Hamilton’s 
“__ of the World”
18 Med. specialist
22 “__ la vie!”
23 A, as in Athens
24 __ dixit: 
unproven claim
25 One who knows 
the ropes
26 Tumbler, e.g.
27 13th-century 
Norwegian king
28 Sensor that 
detects objects 
using closely 
spaced beams

29 Texter’s modest 
intro
32 How things are 
going
33 Jungian concept
34 Corp. get-
together
35 Mate’s greeting
37 Bearded flower
38 Burn a bit
43 Food on sticks
44 Repressed
46 Cries out for
47 “Please explain”

48 Cowpoke’s polite 
assent
51 Tsp. and oz.
52 Places to 
unwind
53 Cilantro, e.g.
54 Watery swirl
55 Nest egg 
acronym
56 __ rule
57 Novelist Harper
58 Mormon 
initials
59 Mex. neighbor

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Over the winter break, I was 
lucky enough to see “To Kill a 
Mockingbird” on Broadway. The 
script for this new production, 
which opened on Dec. 13, was 
written by Aaron Sorkin. It was an 
incredibly spellbinding experience, 
easily one of the best plays I have 
seen all year.
Jeff Daniels’s Atticus Finch 
was refreshing, in both ambiguity 
and strength, as Daniels managed 
to capture Atticus’s flaws and 
finer moments in this production 
without sounding overly preachy. 
Celia 
Keenan-Bolger’s 
Scout, 
furthermore, was quite convincing 
— she expertly straddled the 
boundary between child and adult, 
oscillating 
between 
adolescent 
memory and adult reflection.
As 
with 
many 
Broadway 
productions, 
especially 
those 
based on books of this stature, the 
production value behind the play 
was superb. The sets were great, 
the courtroom with empty jurors’ 
chairs in particular standing out in 
my mind. And while the music and 
lighting were not much to speak 
of, they perfectly underscored the 
childish simplicity of the narrative.
A little after attending the play, 
however, I began comparing it to the 
novel. In doing so, I became aware 
of many striking departures Sorkin 
took in this production — many of 
which seem to rob the story of its 
greatness.
Sorkin complicates Atticus, for 
example, painting him not as a 
perfect figure but as a flawed man 
working to do what he believes 
to be best. The best example of 
this comes in the middle of the 
play, as Sorkin adds a tense scene 
between Calpurnia and Atticus, two 
characters previously described as 
having a sibling-like relationship. At 
the height of this scene, Calpurnia 
accuses 
Atticus 
of 
muttering 
 
“you’re welcome” under his breath 
at her after taking on the case.
Atticus’s interactions with Bob 
Ewell are also quite different in this 
telling of the story. Ewell is now 
a virulent racist and anti-Semite. 
He claims that Atticus’s work as a 
lawyer must be an indication that he 
is secretly Jewish, and he criticizes 
Atticus among his white peers for 
this (alleged) Jewish ancestry.
Later, when Ewell comes to 
confront 
Atticus, 
they 
engage 
in a brief altercation. Unlike the 
Atticus of the movie and the novel, 
this Atticus does not refrain from 
engaging in this fight, which 
eventually culminates in Atticus 
pinning Ewell’s hands behind his 
back and holding him by his hair.

One of the aspects of Harper 
Lee’s novel that I have always found 
most compelling is the ambiguity 
that she brings to Southern race 

relations. Unlike many other novels, 
she portrays Southerners as neither 
entirely bad nor entirely good. 
Scout’s young age further enhances 
this narrative, as the reader is forced 
to confront early 20th-century 
race relations from the point of 
view of a naïve adolescent, losing 
any stereotypes that they may hold 
regarding these issues.
Sorkin, on the other hand, 
modifies the story to make it 
more acceptable to our Trump-
era left-wing prejudices. These 
modifications felt slightly cheap — 
unlike Lee’s novel, it felt as though 
Sorkin was giving the audience 
exactly they wanted, leaving in no 
ambiguity and provoking no higher-
level 
questioning 
surrounding 
Southern culture.
Sorkin deflects criticism of the 
“white savior” trope, for example, 
by 
adding 
the 
confrontation 
between Calpurnia and Atticus. 
To my great surprise, Atticus 
responded to this criticism by 
apologizing to Calpurnia — rather 
than demonstrating the flaws in this 
“white savior” trope, Sorkin takes it 
further, portraying Atticus as aware 
of his own prejudices though his 
actions seem to perpetuate them.
Atticus’s fight with Ewell was 
similarly flawed in my view. Though 
some may argue that this speaks to 
his flaws in terms of his inability 
to control his own emotions, I saw 
it instead as a cheap attempt at 
solidifying Atticus’s masculinity 
and strength. This was yet another 
instance in which Sorkin’s additions, 
rather 
than 
adding 
intriguing 
complexities 
to 
the 
narrative, 
merely served to create new flaws.
Just as with Atticus’s newfound 
introspection, I found Ewell’s anti-
Semitism to be a cheap attempt at 
pandering to modern sensibilities. It 
served no purpose in the narrative 
besides engaging further with 
modern audiences — a surprisingly 
surface-level 
reference 
to 
the 

resurgence of neo-Nazism.
If anything, Sorkin seems to be 
grasping for more prejudices that he 
can give to Ewell. It almost seems as 
though Sorkin thinks that Ewell’s 
initial racism wasn’t enough — that 
saying the n-word a couple of times 
and accusing a Black man of a crime 
he did not commit is not enough 
to provoke the audiences anger; 
that without this addition of anti-
Semitism, the audience might not 
despise Ewell to the proper degree.
On 
the 
other 
hand, 
Lee’s 
controversial 
sequel 
to 
“To 
Kill a Mockingbird,” “Go Set a 
Watchman,” chose to depict Atticus 
not as a slightly introspective savior-
like figure but as a deeply flawed 
and hypocritical man, a lawyer who 
spends his free time with racist 
individuals and engages in racist 
discussions even as he voluntarily 
defends a Black man in the South’s 
racist courts of law.
Though I was initially upset 
by this new novel, (as were many 
readers), this play served as a 
helpful reminder of the frightening 
yet powerful message that this book 
seems to send: that we all hold racial 
prejudices and that even a flawless 
pro bono attorney like Atticus can 
still hold deep racial prejudices. Lee 
destroys the idyllic Atticus in favor 
of the flawed, racist Atticus, forcing 
the reader to examine their own 
prejudices.
Sorkin’s play, however, instead 
reminded me of the pitfalls of our 
hyper-polarized cultural climate. 
We live in the supposedly “post-
racial” era, where a Black man could 
be elected to the presidency. Our 
entertainment is expected to reflect 
these post-racial attitudes, whether 
it be the criticism of Atticus or the 
addition of Ewell’s anti-Semitic 
prejudices. Lost in this climate, I 
fear, is the ambiguity and complexity 
that gives the performing arts their 
thought-provoking qualities.
This is not to say that Sorkin’s 
additions are not more culturally 
appropriate, or that they might 
not reflect a better, less-prejudiced 
society. But at the end of the day, 
they are not original to the text — 
they give the audience what they 
want to see instead of what they 
might be forced to see. But, as I have 
said before, the performing arts are 
not meant to comfort us, they are 
meant to challenge us. They should 
make us slightly uncomfortable. 
They should force us to confirm our 
prejudices, not confirm to us that 
we have overcome other people’s 
prejudices. And in this regard, 
unfortunately, Sorkin’s “To Kill a 
Mockingbird” fell flat.

Aaron Sorkin’s ‘TKAMB’

DAILY COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

SAMMY 
SUSSMAN

Is it possible to achieve the 
environmental call to action 
of 
Rachel 
Carson’s 
“Silent 
Spring” in a work of fiction? 
Richard Powers is resolved to 
find out.
Powers’s “The Overstory,” 
which made it onto the 2018 
Man 
Booker 
shortlist, 
is 
his first attempt at literary 
environmentalism; 
it 
is 
reasonably 
and 
enjoyably 
successful. While the novel was 
not predicted to transcend the 
English prize’s shortlist, “The 
Overstory” remained a 2018 
favorite. The novel, clocking 
in at just over 500 pages, 
features a near-overwhelming 
eight central characters, the 
likes of which range from a 
Vietnam War veteran to a 
loveable patent attorney 
to 
an 
unruly 
college 
senior. 
The 
curvation 
of all eight stories are 
brought together (or at 
least near one another) 
over the course of the 
novel by trees — which 
appear 
spiritual 
and 
conscious, intervening in 
the characters’s lives and 
thoughts — when they sound a 
call to environmentalism.
The 
environmentalism 
that 
all 
eight 
characters, 
through 
varying 
spouts 
of time, succumb to, take 
disparate shapes. For Patricia 
Westerford, it is scientific 
research; 
for 
Nick 
Hoel 
and Mimi Ma, it is joining 
a 
radical 
environmentalist 
group working desperately to 
preserve trees still standing 
in the United States. When 
a sampling of the characters 
break the law in the name of 
the environment and things 
go unsparingly wrong, they 
are forced into shadows. The 
intensity of the story slowly 
defuses 
here. 
Implications 
ensue for some characters. For 

others, less so.
Powers is most heralded for 
his ability to capture such a 
large narrative arc in a novel. 
“He (Powers) would probably 
be Herman Melville of ‘Moby 
Dick’,” 
writes 
Margaret 
Atwood. “His picture is that 
big.” And yes, “The Overstory” 
is surely substantial. Not only 
does the novel incorporate so 
many characters, but Powers 
devotes generous prose to 
each, allowing for considerable 
backstory and development of 
psyches. This shines brightly 
in the first 150 pages. The 
introduction of each character 
— with each cast member 
consuming about 20 pages — 
is well paced, calculated to 
appear almost as separate short 
stories. Especially striking are 
passages about Adam Appich 
and Ray Brinkman. Powers 
details a blushing love story 

and 
a 
complex 
childhood 
that bring the novel to life 
for readers. These lengthy, 
brave introductions make the 
characters sticky and easy to 
form loving attachments.
This 
praised 
and 
intense 
narrative 
capacity, 
however, is also why “The 
Overstory” 
stumbles. 
Once 
the interweaving of the eight 
narratives begins, switching 
routinely between different 
characters’s 
perspectives, 
readers 
are 
left 
grappling 
for a central thesis or story 
to 
follow. 
Unfortunately, 
one is not found. It is too 
difficult to be moved by one 
event 
or 
character 
when 
these scenarios are merely 
glimpsed at, disregarded as the 

narrative flits to another plot. 
Thus, while the characters are 
well crafted upon exposition, 
they are left behind as Powers 
takes on too large an idea in 
too small a space.
Conceivably the only central 
body 
in 
“The 
Overstory” 
is 
Powers’s 
refrain 
of 
environmentalism. It involves 
trees, trees and more trees. 
This is certainly an interesting 
and narrow selection of plot to 
choose as the factor to propel 
a reader through a novel. At 
times, this environmentalist 
focus is interesting. Powers 
traces 
over 
wonderful 
descriptions of nature and its 
power, scientific prose about 
flora’s communicative traits 
and, of course, forces readers to 
glare head on at deforestation 
and, 
implicitly, 
climate 
change. However, there is 
little 
emotional 
investment 
here. It is perhaps easier 
to be moved by the 
activists themselves — 
in the small pieces of 
them readers see — than 
by the destruction of the 
environment. If there 
is something profound 
and new that Powers is 
trying to express in his 
work, especially with 
respect to environmentalism, 
it remains behind the curtain.
Despite its shortcomings, 
“The 
Overstory” 
probably 
deserved its place among the 
other shortlisted novels for 
the Booker Prize. The story is 
undeniably bold, undertaking 
(with 
moderate 
success) 
a 
fascinatingly broad narrative 
with a well-meaning cast of 
characters. Powers’s writing 
is clean and consistent, and his 
literary environmentalism is 
original and intriguing. Still, 
these feats subdue potential 
character intimacy and the 
novel fails to stand by a robust, 
explicit thesis. For a paradigm 
of these latter features done 
well, see the prize-winning 
novel, “Milkman.”

‘The Overstory’ trades 
intimacy for advocacy

JOHN DECKER
Daily Arts Writer

THE SHORTLISTED

“The Overstory”

Richard Powers

W.W. Norton & Company

Apr. 3, 2018

MUSIC VIDEO: ‘THE SEDUCTION OF KANSAS’

“It’s almost like the version 
of Priests that made Nothing 
Feels Natural really died,” D.C.-
based trio Priests are quoted 
as saying in a preview of their 
new album, The Seduction of 
Kansas. This death, which was 
followed by prompt rebirth, 
Jenn Pelly writes, came in part 
due to bassist Taylor Mulitz’s 
decision to devote himself more 
fully to his other project, Flasher. 
Priests seized the opportunity 
to reimagine themselves in a 
more poppy vein, also bringing 
in producer John Congleton, 
who has worked with artists 
ranging from Earl Sweatshirt to 
bands like Modest Mouse. The 
resulting sound, or at least what’s 
hinted at by “The Seduction of 
Kansas,” is something that not 
all listeners seem particularly 
thrilled about it, as evident from 
the comments on the YouTube 
upload of the music video and 
this thread on the r/indieheads 
subreddit.
To their credit, Priests 
anticipated the divisiveness 
of their new material. Back in 
Nov., vocalist Katie Alice Greer 
tweeted from the band’s account, 

“I don’t think these are the songs 
some of you will have *wanted* 
us to make, especially if you liked 
(Nothing Feels Natural) & just 
wanted (Nothing Feels Natural) 
2.”
In any event, to point to the 

band’s reorientation towards 
pop as evidence — or, worse, 
proof — that they have “sold 
out” is to miss the point entirely. 
“The Seduction of Kansas” is 
accessible but ominous and, 
lyrically, just as politically 
charged as 2017’s Nothing 
Feels Natural, if more vaguely 
poetic. In the song’s music 
video, Greer, drummer/vocalist 
Daniele Daniele and guitarist 
G.L. Jaguar dance across various 
ballrooms of a Victorian estate, 
sometimes pausing for close-ups 
in which they caress the busts of 

white men whom I presume are 
now dead.
We occasionally watch the 
video from an additional remove, 
as guests in a movie theater, 
able to see other seats lined up 
before the screen. As a direct 
tie-in, the song’s most biting 
lyric comes at the end of the first 
verse, when Greer sings, “It’s 
the last picture show, all the 
cowboys they get ready / For a 
drawn-out charismatic parody 
of what a country thought 
it used to be.” It’s a line that 
immediately calls to mind every 
instance that anyone, from a 
powerful politician to a stranger 
on Twitter, has said, “This is not 
what America stands for!” in 
the past two-and-a-half years, 
while also addressing the tired 
absurdity of it all. America has 
been up to all kinds of skeevy 
bullshit for as long as it’s been 
around, and Priests have always 
been — and still are — interested 
in putting the mindset that 
ignores that fact on blast.

— Sean Lang, Daily Arts Writer

SISTER POLYGON RECORDS

“The Seduction 
of Kansas”

Priests

Sister Polygon 
Records

6 — Thursday, January 17, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

