WORK ON MACKINAC ISLAND 
This Summer – Make lifelong 
friends. 
The Island House Hotel and Ryba’s 
Fudge Shops are seeking help in all 
areas: Front Desk, Bell Staff, Wait 
Staff, Sales Clerks, Kitchen, Baristas. 
Dorm Housing, bonus, and discount‑
ed meals. (906) 847‑7196. 
www.theislandhouse.com

By Ed Sessa
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/31/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

01/31/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Thursday, January 31, 2019

ACROSS
1 Word that 
appears four 
times in a 1963 
film title
4 Roof tiles
10 Deadens, as a 
piano string
15 Media agcy.
16 Roadster in 
the Henry Ford 
Museum
17 How sardines are 
packed
18 Mythical bird
19 With 63-Across, 
ending lines 
of a poem by 
72-Across
21 Hydrocarbon 
group
23 1995-2006 New 
York governor 
George
24 Alice Sebold 
novel, with “The”
27 The W in kWh
31 Athlete’s peak 
performance
32 Wines and dines
34 Thrill
36 Credits list
39 Place for 
spectacles
40 __ Navy: discount 
retailer
41 Harmful spells, in 
the Potterverse
44 Gen-__
45 Like universal 
blood donors
47 Nantes notion
48 Drill parts
49 Symbolized
52 Roof features
54 WWI battle river
55 Really cool place?
60 “Indubitably!”
62 Hot pot spot
63 See 19-Across
68 __ Van Winkle
69 Tolkien 
ringbearer
70 Tell
71 Sheep’s call
72 Poet who used 
the starts of 
24-, 41- and 
55-Across to 
describe the 
woods
73 Old-Timers’ Day 
VIP
74 Unspecified 
amount

DOWN
1 Diego Rivera 
creation
2 Speed skater 
Ohno
3 “Mary Poppins” 
and “Mary 
Poppins Returns” 
actor
4 Component of 
the “at” sign
5 Chaney of 
horror
6 Toss in
7 Beat
8 Cuban boy in 
2000 headlines
9 One curing meat
10 Saucer, e.g.
11 Like many 
’60s-’70s 
protests
12 __ juice
13 Trough guy
14 Road sign 
caution
20 Move gently
22 Safecracker
25 Initial disco hit?
26 Smokey, for one
28 1964 Anthony 
Quinn role
29 Religious belief
30 Dynasts of old 
Russia

33 What H, O or N 
may represent
34 Pirate riches
35 Choir group
37 __ lift
38 Tiny bit
41 Lair
42 Great Barrier __
43 Hot streak
46 Stretches
48 Sweet root
50 Actress Falco
51 Itch
53 Evening star

56 Southend-on-
Sea’s county
57 Focus group 
surveys
58 Water brand
59 Give back
61 Harness race 
pace
63 Fave pal
64 Be in the 
wrong
65 Egg __ yung
66 “Mangia!”
67 Zeta follower

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT

In terms of his methods, 
director 
Hirokazu 
Kore-eda 
(“Nobody Knows”) is algebraic. 
His latest film “Shoplifters” 
interrogates every axiom that has 
been used to define family. Is it 
childbirth that makes a mother? 
Does calling someone mom, dad, 
sister or brother automatically 
baptize that person into fulfilling 
the corresponding role? Do these 
titles even encompass all that a 
person actually means to us? Can 
family be chosen, or renegotiated 
or be anything other than an 
unalterable birthright?
At 
the 
same 
time 
that 
Kore-eda 
reevaluates 
these 
supposed axioms, he applies 
selective 
coefficients 
within 
the formula for family drama, 
focusing 
specifically 
on 
the 
effect of poverty. The family 
in 
“Shoplifters” 
consists 
of 
couple Osamu (Lily Franky, 
“The Devil’s Path”) and Nobuyo 
(Sakura Andô, “100 Yen Love”), 
as well as the various dependents 
with whom they share their 
lives: A young boy named Shota 
(Jyo Kairi, “Erased”), a young 
woman 
named 
Aki 
(Mayu 
Matsuoka, “A Silent Voice”), 
Aki’s 
grandmother 
Hatsue 
(Kirin Kiki, “Returner”) and 
the most recent addition to the 
nontraditional family, a young 
girl named Yuri (Miyu Sasaki, 
“Samurai 
Gourmet”). 
The 
nontraditional family is united in 
their shared victimization, each 
one clinging to the bottom rung 
of the economic ladder; they also 
share the burden of finding a way 

to survive in spite of their poverty 
(usually taking the form of the 
titular practice of shoplifting). 
All the while, the constant 
pressure of their precarious 
financial situation threatens to 
erode the unquestionable care 
they have for one another and 
instead compel selfishness.
Other filmmakers would do 
well to pay attention to Kore-
eda’s 
cinematic 
arithmetic, 
especially 
others 
who 
also 
endeavor to tell insightful stories 
about families. It is tempting 
to try to account for each of 
the countless variables that 

shape family dynamics but, as 
“Shoplifters” attests, much more 
rewarding to zero in on a few.
While 
his 
approach 
is 
mathematical, 
Kore-eda’s 
results are poetic. For example, 
he structures his investigation 
of family dynamics in what 
could be described as a series of 
couplets. He pairs off members 
of the nontraditional family and 
devotes to these duos scenes 
like stanzas, each one poignant 
enough to stand alone but each 
one also working together to 
form a more resonant whole. 
And through all these stanzas, 
“Shoplifters” 
speaks 
with 
a 
steady 
tone 
of 
composure, 
inflecting 
characters’s 
exchanges 
with 
unselective 
compassion. As if to say, “So 

what if we shoplift? So what if 
break the rules? We are trying 
to survive. We are trying to take 
care of one another.”
So take, for instance, one 
of the most thoughtful of the 
aforementioned 
couplets: 
the 
relationship between Aki and her 
grandmother. When Yuri wets 
the bed the first night she stays 
with her new family and Aki’s 
grandmother offers to sleep next 
to Yuri, Aki protests, insisting 
on her rightful place beside her 
grandmother. Aki’s jealousy is 
not conveyed as dispassionate 
but rather a childish, touching 
manifestation of fierce love and 
loyalty – a familial dynamic 
too subtle for other directors to 
capture on screen.
Or take the design of a 
recurring set in “Shoplifters”: 
that is, the shabby place this 
nontraditional 
family 
calls 
home. It houses the dregs of 
consumerist capitalism. Every 
room is congested with cheap 
goods, to the point that the scenes 
in this house always border on 
inducing claustrophobia. And 
yet, it is in one of these cluttered 
rooms that Aki’s grandmother 
tends to Yuri’s wounds from her 
abusive upbringing. It is here 
that every member of Yuri’s 
new family strives to reteach 
her what it means to love and be 
loved. It is here that this family 
somehow finds room and reason 
to breathe and continue to live in 
spite of their living conditions.
Take 
any 
scene, 
any 
conversation, 
any 
shot 
in 
“Shoplifters.” Revel in its careful 
calculation and pore over its 
resonant results.

‘Shoplifters’ approaches 
film with algebraic eyes

JULIANNA MORANO
Daily Arts Writer

FILM REVIEW

AOI PRO, INC.

When I was in high school, one 
of my composition teacher’s first 
challenges for me was to compose 
a piece for the organ. The organ is 
a notoriously difficult instrument 
for non-keyboardists to compose 
for, and I had little familiarity 
with organ repertoire. As my 
composition teacher and I reviewed 
an early draft of my piece, he said 
something profound; something 
that stuck with me and affected 
how I think about the performance 
arts.
He told me that the hardest part 
of the composition process is not 
generating ideas, or getting ideas 
down on the page; it is the struggle 
between the ideas being conveyed 
and the medium through which 
they are being conveyed. It is not the 
struggle between the mind and the 
blank page, in other words, but it is 
the struggle between the musical 
ideas and the instrument that must 
communicate them.
As 
I’ve 
grown 
older, 
this 
philosophy has influenced how 
I think about art. It has come 
to qualify how I classify “good” 
performance art across genres. This 
art transports the audience member 
past the world of the artform to the 
world of the artwork. The audience’s 
need not focus on any meta realms 
of criticism or analysis; their entire 
focus is captured by the performers 
and the artwork itself.
This past weekend, for example, I 
attended a performance of “Juliet,” 
a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet” 
set in the Great Depression. This 
performance was an unstaged 
reading of the play; it featured actors 
and actresses dressed in normal 
clothing reading from music stands 
and thick black binders.
The 
script 
was 
written/
adapted by Alix Curnow (SMTD 
sophomore), Kellie Beck (SMTD 
sophomore) and Eli Rallo (SMTD 
junior). I will be scoring this play 
this coming month as it moves 
into the Duderstadt Video Studio 
for 
a 
staged, 
choreographed 
production in April. Going into 
the performance, I had read the 
script three or four times, and I was 
quite familiar with the changes the 
playwrights made in adapting the 
script to the Great Depression era.
Yet despite my familiarity, I 
was 
unexpectedly 
touched 
by 
the conclusion of this unstaged 

reading. Though I was skeptical 
at the beginning, I had gotten past 
the limitations of the production 
by the end. I was touched by the 
slew of deaths taking place onstage, 
though the actors and actresses on 
stage were clearly not dying. I was 
no longer distracted by the music 

stands, the lack of costumes, or 
the stage directions being read out 
loud. I had learned to observe the 
production for what it was, not what 
it could be.
I also find that I can judge 
“good” artwork as a performer 
through similar means. These 
past two years, for example, I have 
been a member of the University’s 
Javanese 
Gamelan 
Ensemble. 
The instruments that we play are 
many years old, and few are in very 
good condition. On a couple of the 
instruments, a few keys don’t even 
resonate, instead producing a rather 
pitiable “thud” when struck by the 
mallet.
Though not every instrument 
produces a pure sound, the effect 
of the overall ensemble, at least to 
my ears, is breathtaking. It is like 
nothing I am used to experiencing, 
and yet I find it to be incredibly 
engaging. When we perform, I 
sometimes enter a state of mind 
where the quality of the instruments 
and the sound they produce doesn’t 
matter. I am experiencing the piece 
for what it is, not for what it could 
be.
If this is the defining feature of 
“good” art, then the best art in my 
view is that for which audience 
member is no longer even conscious 
of the performers. Performance 
arts, after all, are an inherently 
hierarchical 
endeavour; 
the 
performers presents something to 
the audience, while the audience 
observes 
and 
experiences 
the 
performance. The performers are 

the source of the entertainment, the 
audience the recipients of it.
The best art, then, is that which 
collapses this boundary. Just as my 
composition teacher argues that 
bridging the gap between what 
is possible and what should be 
possible is the greatest challenge 
of the creative process, bridging 
the 
boundary 
between 
those 
onstage and those in the audience 
is the biggest challenge of the 
performance practice.
Occasionally, 
I 
witness 
performances where this comes 
true, 
where 
I 
don’t 
perceive 
this natural hierarchy between 
performers 
and 
audience 
members to exist. These are 
performances where it doesn’t 
matter who is performing, or what 
they are performing. These are 
performances where all I perceive 
is the work itself. I have completely 
immersed myself in the suspension 
of disbelief.
I don’t mean to make it seem 
as though this is a common 
occurrence. Personally, I can think 
of perhaps five or ten performances 
where this is the case. There was a 
solo piano performance in Paris, 
a video opera in Carnegie Hall. 
There was a moment of traditional 
religious music in a rural village in 
Vietnam, a recording of the New 
York Philharmonic that I first 
listened to when I was 16.
These moments are few and far 
between. I never know when I will 
next experience them. And to this 
end, I sometimes fear that they 
are as much a result of my state 
of mind as they are the quality of 
the performance taking place. No 
matter how good the performers, 
if I am not ready to receive their 
performance, I will never truly 
appreciate it.
But this is perhaps the most 
magical aspect of the performing 
arts; their inexplicable ability to 
draw in a willing audience member 
for an hour or two and not let go. 
It is hard to explain and harder to 
replicate, an ever-elusive experience 
far out on the temporal horizon. 
And yet it is what motivates me to 
attend rehearsal after rehearsal, 
performance after performance. 
It is an incredibly powerful force, 
these performing arts; simple, brief, 
fragile, and yet moving beyond all 
else.

Art for what it is, not 
what it could be

DAILY COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

SAMMY 
SUSSMAN

‘Shoplifters’

Aoi Pro, Inc.

State Theatre

The promise of an original 
premise 
isn’t 
enough 
to 
distinguish “An Anonymous Girl” 
from your common thriller.
Money forces us to consider 
things we wouldn’t normally do. It 
worms its way into our brains, 
saturating 
every 
thought 
with 
the 
anxious 
sense 
that: You need this. When 
desperate, conventions are 
put to the side. I remember 
clamoring to raise money 
for a student organization. 
The situation was classic: a 
fast-approaching 
deadline 
with less than half the funds 
raised. Suddenly, it seemed so 
easy to stand outside in biting 
cold and ask passersby for 
spare change, or to cast away 
reservations 
in 
soliciting 
distant family friends to donate. I 
signed up for psychological studies 
and began to perceive throwaway 
flyers scattered around campus in 
a different light — like decadent, 
bittersweet chocolate, promising 
to reward its subject 10 dollars 
for 30 minutes of their time for 
something as simple as filling out 
a questionnaire. Nothing, really. It 
was almost too good to be true.
Jessica, the protagonist of 
“An Anonymous Girl” by Greer 
Hendrick and Sarah Pekkanen, 
needs money. Jessica works as a 
makeup artist for BeautyBuzz, a 

fictional company that is a stickler 
to their rules and apparently 
doesn’t pay their workers enough. 
Hey, isn’t that the rub? She 
stomachs the insecure ramblings 
of sixteen-year-olds and high-
strung mothers, using pasted 
smiles and insincere assurances to 
reap better tips. Sure, she doesn’t 
love her job, but it pays the bills. 

In particular, it pays the medical 
bills for Becky, Jessica’s sister, 
whose treatment Jessica has 
been secretly paying for the last 
18 months. When one of Jessica’s 
clients, an entitled college student, 
complains about an eight a.m. 
appointment for a psych study 
— a questionnaire with a $500 
payment — Jessica shows up in her 
place instead.
The 
study, 
an 
innocuous 
questionnaire on morality, unfolds 
in an eerie manner. It starts with 
relatively tame questions like: 
Could you tell a lie without feeling 

guilt? That, in and of itself, doesn’t 
warrant an eyebrow raise. I 
imagine myself thinking sure, face 
deadpan. The “thriller” aspect 
slowly creeps up on you, offering 
readers only bits and crumbs with 
alternating perspectives of Jessica 
and 
the 
psychologist 
behind 
the study, Dr. Shields, gradually 
escalating to a prolonged, spine-
chilling end. By then, it’s hard 
to know who to trust. At one 
point, I even doubled down on 
the dog.
I 
admit, 
the 
premise 
itself is a tad gimmicky. 
$500 dollars for a two-hour 
questionnaire? 
I 
had 
to 
suspend my disbelief for over 
half of the novel and take it 
as it is: a thriller. I pushed 
logical questions aside — say, 
basic ethical principles? — so 
that my incredulity didn’t 
cloud up my experience. I 
wanted to shake Jessica and 
tell her: “Just go to the police!” 
In an attempt to emphasize 
its psychological premise, “An 
Anonymous 
Girl” 
is 
littered 
with well-known psychological 
studies like The Asch Conformity 
Study and The Invisible Gorilla 
experiment, references that allow 
readers to recall what they learned 
in their high school psychology 
class, but also cheapen the plot of 
“An Anonymous Girl” itself. 

‘An Anonymous Girl’ is a 
poorly developed thriller

SARAH SALMAN
For The Daily

‘An Anonymous 
Girl’

Greer Hendricks & Sarah 
Pekkanen

St. Marten’s Press

Jan. 8, 2019

BOOK REVIEW

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

6 — Tursday, January 31, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

