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(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