6 — Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
By Frank Virzi
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/29/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
01/29/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2019
ACROSS
1 Tricky road
curves
6 Too hasty
10 “Boy, am I dumb!”
13 Bowl over
14 Valpolicella wine
brand
15 Suffix with
project or
percent
16 *Killjoy
18 Metro stop: Abbr.
19 State south of
Wash.
20 *Face
consequences
for poor
decisions
22 Like Lincoln
in the Lincoln
Memorial
24 Yom Kippur
observers
25 Italian wine hub
26 South African
golfer Ernie
28 Make a wool cap,
say
29 MLB exec
Joe who was
the Yankees’
manager for 12
seasons
32 Wrangler’s ropes
34 *Furniture
restorer’s
chemical
37 Wild cards,
maybe
38 Arrive at
39 “At Last” singer
James
40 Charged particle
41 Recipe amts.
45 Polar expedition
vehicles
48 ’70s-’80s FBI
sting
50 *Airborne unit
member
53 Tijuana gold
54 “__ little teapot ... ”
55 Stationery supply
with a blade ...
and a hint to
the answers to
starred clues
57 Min. part
58 Companionless
59 Quai d’Orsay’s
river
60 WNW opposite
61 Swiss watch
brand
62 Trial rounds
DOWN
1 Señor’s wife
2 Stock market
purchases
3 Furious with
4 Outer: Pref.
5 Video
conferencing
choice
6 Carrot or turnip
7 Dominant dogs
8 Wintry pellets
9 Marx brother with
a horn
10 Mete out, as
PEZ candy
11 Hidden, as
motives
12 Publishing family
14 __ Wonder:
Robin
17 Note-taking aid
21 Classic ’30s-’50s
vocal quartet,
with “the”
23 Lake on the
border of Bolivia
and Peru
26 Critical-care ctrs.
27 Release
30 Queen’s “Another
__ Bites the Dust”
31 Shares again on
Twitter, briefly
32 Set a match to
33 Befitting
34 Love handles?
35 Grand Prix, e.g.
36 Han and Leia’s
son Kylo __
37 Loathe
40 14-legged
crustacean
42 Nova __
43 Mother or father
44 Gooey campfire
treats
46 For face value
47 Song syllables
48 NRC forerunner
49 Hair salon staple
51 Winery prefix
52 Opposite of
post-
56 Shirt with a
V-neck, perhaps
NEED A PLACE TO STAY THIS
SUMMER? BEST DEAL IN
LAND
MARK!
Subletting fully furnished,
modern apt in U‑M’s preeminent
luxury high‑rise. Close to central
campus w/ beautiful view! Avail.,
5/1‑8/5, 2019.
*Building includes TV lounge, exer‑
cise room, outdoor hot tub and grill
*Private bed and bath
*Fully furnished w/flat‑screen TV,
Wash
er/dryer, kitchen w/DW, MI‑
CRO + A/C
Call 240‑994‑6332 or email:
janetrose48@gmail.com
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
SUBLETS
Maggie Rogers thrives in a space
where elements oppose each other. Pair
that with an ability to not only feel the
world vehemently, but to recalibrate
when life rapidly transfigures, and you
get Heard it in a Past Life.
Life
changed
dramatically
for
Rogers in July of 2016, when Pharrell
Williams held a surprise master class
at NYU, where Rogers was completing
her senior year as a music student.
Although Williams listened to multiple
examples of student work, he quickly
lionized Rogers within the classroom
setting, heaping praise on her song
“Alaska.” Williams noticed a match
between Rogers’s description of her
lived experience and the music. She
described her sound as rooted in the
folk from her youth (having grown up
playing harp and banjo), but also as
taking on a new life when she studied
abroad and discovered the world of
electronic dance music. Unknowingly
to Rogers, Pharrell’s praises were
recorded on video and uploaded to
YouTube. Two million views later, and
Rogers has achieved eminence in the
music industry.
Following the viral video, Rogers
launched a world tour, starred as a
musical guest on “SNL” and opened
for Mumford and Sons, all after
only releasing a five-song EP and a
couple of singles. In her documentary
published in March of 2018, she relayed
the daunting notion of life spinning
out of control, and the importance
of creating a thoughtful, reflective
space to artistically create on her own
time. Heard it In a Past Life is Rogers’s
proclamation of recapturing herself
and her story.
The album explores contradictions,
particularly those that have emerged
since Rogers’s rise to fame. Rogers
creates a space that explores humanity
with a lens that is both macroscopic
and microscopic, a freedom that is
exhilarating yet messy and a sense of
self that is rapidly changing while also
continuous. These opposing ideas fit
perfectly into the contradiction that
is Rogers: folk with slight southern
twang, paired smoothly with electronic
production.
The
album
intimately
inspects
a human’s ability to be a tiny speck
among
the
immensity
of
Earth.
However, humans are simultaneously
large-scale, inherently introspective,
ever-changing while holding the ability
to influence the world grandly. The
track “Alaska” touches on the austere
grandeur of Earth, as Rogers’s trip
to Alaska after her freshman year of
college illuminated the colossal size
of the state’s mountain scenery. Such
landscape makes one feel so small, like
a gear in the bigger machine. Heard it
In a Past Life weaves this macro feeling
that the scenery of Alaska provides
through each track. For example, the
song “Overnight” uses samples from
glacier and frog sounds. Moreover,
when reflecting on the song “Alaska,”
Rogers posted the following comment
on Instagram about the process of
naming the album: “There are so many
aspects of this song that feel like they
don’t belong to me, like it’s so much
bigger than me. Like I heard it in a past
life…”
But the album doesn’t just explore
the human life as one piece among a
much bigger puzzle. It also runs micro,
touching on introspectively watching
oneself change.
‘Heard it in a Past Life’ rings
in a space between opposites
SAMANTHA CANTIE
Daily Arts Writer
CAPITOL
ALBUM REVIEW
It is the second semester
of my junior year in college
and
everyone
has
left
Ann Arbor. Maybe they
were smart to leave, as
temperatures
become
negative and the possibility
that
the
administration
might actually cancel classes
for the first time in five years
looms. Whatever the reason,
the second semester of junior
year is a time where a lot of us
choose to study abroad. For
foodies, this means endless
gastronomically
diverse
culinary experiences around
the globe — spicy, fresh
paella served in a sizzling
carbon steel pan in Spain,
all the textbook cacio e pepe
in Rome, round crackling
Napoli pizzas with fresh
basil leaves and gobs of warm
mozzarella
swimming
in
the perfect smear of grassy
tomato sauce, paper thin
crepes exploding with swirls
of nutella and sliced banana
on the streets of Paris, glasses
of chilled French white wine
and dark moody Italian reds,
cappuccinos and espressos
and nutty biscottis.
The knowledge of the
culinary world outstretched
before me for thousands
of miles in every direction
has put me in a food lover’s
rut. I am sick with envy
knowing
what
culinary
experiences
lie
waiting
overseas, experiences that
my classmates and friends
who traveled this semester
are currently discovering.
The Instagram photos of
their sensational meals in
Europe, South America, Asia
and Israel just don’t satisfy
the craving I have to travel
in pursuit of discoveries
through the diverse culture
of food.
In all my envy — filling
notebook pages with wishes
and woes of meals in the
Italian
countryside
and
cafes with views of the Eiffel
Tower, staring at Snapchat
stories and photographs of
every towering hazelnut ice
cream in Prague and pool
of hummus accented with a
swirl of olive oil, imagining
myself sipping the perfect
midday aperol spritz over a
copy of an old Faulkner I’ve
read twice already — I lost
what the city that I call home
means to me.
Ann Arbor, despite being
a classic university town,
houses
more
than
your
typical college food spots. It
has a grown-up, culturally
diverse, spirited food scene —
one that has been curated by a
forward thinking community
of intellects who constantly
push the boundaries of the
expected in all realms of life.
The culinary spirit of our city
spans miles and countries,
time and space, all within
walking distance and for far
less than the cost of a plane
ticket to leave Michigan.
Though
I’m
one
to
argue the Midwest doesn’t
know a thing about pizza,
there are certainly some
Italian restaurants pushing
themselves
toward
the
wood
fire,
doughy-yet-
crispy heart of an authentic
Italian pizza, something I
could devour in moments
while burning the roof of my
mouth on stringy cheese and
tangy sauce. Bigalora Wood
Fired Cucina is definitely
challenging themselves to
incorporate more authentic
Italian flavors in their trendy
upscale pizza joint, which
features tons of hip finger
foods and a too-good-to-be-
true gluten free crust. When
I am pining after the pizza of
my childhood, or the pizza of
any cafe in Naples, I am quick
to order Bigalora — a place I
know I can trust to deliver
flavors that put me on a plane
to Italy within a matter of
moments.
Ann Arbor has created a
diverse flavor personality,
not pigeonholing itself to be
one specific flavor or cuisine.
It ignores the conventional
wisdom behind Midwestern
cities and food, pushing
itself to find an idiosyncratic
culinary persona. Ann Arbor
is breakfast food. It is really
good burgers and the perfect
menu that combines some of
the sunny West Coast with
a New York state of mind.
Fleetwood Diner and Blimpy
Burger
are
Ann
Arbor
classics that are perfectly
suited for a city with such
quirks and non-conventional
taste.
A world of flavor
DAILY HEALTH & WELLNESS COLUMN
ELI RALLO
Daily Arts Writer
“IO” is the latest film in
a series of Netflix misfires.
The
low-budget,
sci-fi
drama directed by Jonathan
Helpert (“House of Time”)
involves only a duo of
characters
and
limited
sets to convey profound
(but
actually
unoriginal)
observations
about
humanity,
and
crumples
quickly
under
atrocious
writing and an exhausting
narrative structure.
The story takes place
years after a catastrophic
environmental
collapse
on Earth made the planet
uninhabitable, forcing most
of the population to relocate
to a space station on Io, a
moon of Jupiter. Sam, a
biologist played by Margaret
Qualley (“The Nice Guys”),
searches
for
possibilities
of
continuing
human
life back on Earth, while
Micah (Anthony Mackie,
“Avengers: Infinity War”),
another straggler on the
planet, implores her to board
the last shuttle to Io.
Unfortunately, the most
notable aspect of the movie is
just how boring the concept
is. Sam’s research project is
laden with melodramatic,
blunt voiceover that sounds
neither scientific nor moving.
Her character is so passively
written that it’s a wonder
Qualley is able to breath any
life into the character at all.
The actress does her best to
read these lines of voiceover
and dialogue with nuance,
but they are still rarely more
than robotic.
These missteps make up
the entire first half of the
film, after which point a
viewer may find it difficult
to
stay
conscious.
The
introduction
of
Mackie’s
character, despite providing
the
film
with
some
momentum,
only
makes
the
conversations
more
ridiculous. The two start
quoting Plato and Homer
to each other verbatim and
analyze the human condition
in laughably heavy-handed
ways. Without a modicum
of
chemistry,
they
are
inexplicably drawn toward
each other simply to advance
the story. They both lose
their agency to the whim of
the screenwriters, flipping
on decisions and convictions
that
were
apparently
central to their actions. It’s
simultaneously
perplexing
and miserable to behold.
After
what
feels
like
decades
of
this
empty
philosophical jargon echoing
around, it becomes clear that
the filmmakers have no idea
how to end the trainwreck in
a climactic way. What ensues
is, shockingly, a conflict that
emerges from thin air and
resolves itself with more
conjured melodrama. It’s
akin to 2016’s “Passengers,”
another contained sci-fi film
with a halfway-intriguing
premise
and
a
bungled
finale.
In the end, “IO” plays out
as if it were conceived as a
TV show, with disconnected
plot
points
that
resolve
whenever
convenient
for
the writer. The conflicts
are so disjointedly episodic
that the film is unsure of
its own identity, leaping
from survivalist drama to
romance to science fiction.
Even the 96 minute runtime
drags beyond belief.
There is truthfully little
reason to put oneself through
this mess at all. Most casual
moviegoers
have
likely
already seen the tropes “IO”
has to offer, whether in the
abandonment of Earth as a
viable home in “Interstellar”
or the esoteric fascination
of a lone scientist in an
unfamiliar environment in
“The Martian.” In fact, it
might just be easier to believe
“IO” is the work of aliens
whose only knowledge of
humans is sci-fi films from
the 21st century rather than
a product of actual humans.
And with that ludicrous
theory
in
mind,
maybe
there’s one legitimate reason
to watch “IO.”
‘IO’ should remain in
Jupiter’s moon system
NETFLIX
ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Arts Writer
‘IO’
Netflix
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
FILM REVIEW
Heard it in
a Past Life
Maggie Rogers
Capitol