6A — Thursday, February 14, 2019
Arts
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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
discounted meals. (906) 847‑7196.
www.theislandhouse.com
By Bruce Haight
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/14/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
02/14/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Thursday, February 14, 2019
ACROSS
1 Queen, e.g.
6 Fell for the joke
9 Put away for
future reference
13 ArkivMusic.com
purchase
14 Sch. with a
Tempe campus
15 Flooded
17 “Little Book of
Mind-Power”
author
19 Battery inventor
Alessandro
20 Stand food
21 Danish city
named for a
Norse god
23 Place for a shot
24 Gate info
25 Conversation
stumbles
26 Gives the nod
27 Hasty escape
28 Superman
specialty
30 Wrigley Field
feature
31 Like beds in
cleaned hotel
rooms
32 Peter of “9-1-1”
34 Tunisian currency
35 Takes a casual
drive ... and a
literal description
of 10 puzzle
answers
37 Bearings
39 Casual eatery
40 Ending to avoid?
41 Interject
42 Touchdown site
46 “Well, __-di-dah!”
47 Shooting initials
48 “Jeopardy!”
record-setter
Jennings
49 Spa emanation
50 Source of some
’60s trips
51 1840s-’50s home
to Liszt
53 End of an old
boast
54 Military camp
56 Luxury
accommodations
for bigwigs
58 Church offering
59 Prefix with warrior
60 1960 Wimbledon
champ Fraser
61 Laryngitis
symptom
62 Spied
63 Fire __
DOWN
1 Wi-Fi conduit
2 Raise from three
to four stars, as
a hotel
3 Classic cameras
4 So
5 Singer Carly __
Jepsen
6 Gets thinner on
top
7 “So THAT’s
what’s going on
here!”
8 Hoops goofs
9 BFFs
10 __ Jima
11 Space cadet’s
world
12 Erik of “CHiPs”
16 Work (out) with
effort, as an
agreement
18 Cosmetics giant
22 What’s up?
25 Pierre’s bills
29 Designer
fragrance
30 “To repeat ... ”
31 Trivial
33 PC storage
options
34 “Hands of
Stone” boxer
Roberto
35 Fortune 500 IT
company
36 Frisky
whiskered
critters
37 Polo need
38 Excited
41 Tap outflow
43 Tiki bar cocktail
44 Small battery
45 Swindle
47 Win the first four
World Series
games
48 “Whammo!”
52 Flaky mineral
53 Contender
55 Acidity nos.
57 German
conjunction
SUMMER EMPLOYMENT
FOR RENT
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NOW.
A year ago, Melody Herzfeld
was
leading
rehearsals
for
Marjory
Stoneman
Douglas
High School’s annual children’s
musical when a shooter opened
fire in the building and the
alarms went off. Thinking it
was a run-of-the-mill fire drill,
her 65 students trudged outside
before Herzfeld realized it was
something more and herded
them back in to take
shelter
in
a
storage
closet. They waited there
for two hours before
authorities took them to
safety.
What is it they say in
the
theater
business?
The show must go on.
And so it did, though the
production, a sweet adventure
tale called “Yo, Vikings!”, was
postponed by a few months.
“Song of Parkland,” a half-
hour documentary from HBO,
follows
Herzfeld
and
her
students in the aftermath of the
Parkland shooting as they head
back to rehearsals and grapple
with the awful tragedy that
befell their community.
That there is healing power
in art and song is probably
not news to anyone. And it’s
pointed out several times over
the half hour. But “Song of
Parkland” is more than that:
It’s an ode to everything that’s
special
about
high
school
drama programs, those joyful,
formative, underfunded spaces.
In the theater, one student says,
“we don’t have to worry about
being judged or worry about
what people are going to think
because this is our safe place.”
“Song of Parkland” makes
the case that experience in the
performing arts department —
where students are regularly
encouraged to find their voices
— has been foundational to the
activism that emerged from the
school’s students. “My same
kids that are my theater kids
are out there doing speeches
all over the place, those are my
kids too,” Herzfeld says.
Herzfeld is warm and poised
— in a sense, she’s the drama
teacher we all had. If there’s a
common thread throughout the
documentary, it’s her. But the
big flaw of “Song of Parkland” is
that it’s never quite clear what
the documentary is about. Is
it about Herzfeld? The drama
department? Student activism?
Amy Schatz, the film’s director,
relies on the abundance of
footage and news clips from
the shooting’s aftermath. But
her product suffers from a
loose, meandering directorial
hand. At so many points, “Song
of Parkland” would benefit
from additional editing and
direction.
The
documentary
ends
at
last
summer’s
Tony
Awards,
where
Stoneman
Douglas
students
performed
“Seasons of Love” to
a moved audience. It’s
an easy, expected place
to conclude the story,
the students now on a
grand stage. But it’s a
little disappointing that “Song
of Parkland” has let us become
invested
in
the
small
but
cathartic Viking musical only to
shift gears altogether.
But it still leaves off on a
moving note, a speech Herzfeld
makes
when
accepting
an
Excellence in Theater Education
Award at the ceremony: “We all
have a common energy. We all
want the same thing, we cannot
deny it. To be heard, to hit our
mark, to tell our truth, to make
a difference.”
‘Song of Parkland’ is at
once moving, inconsistent
MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer
HBO
TV REVIEW
‘Song of Parkland’
HBO
Now streaming
Hedy Lamarr had the kind
of life that, at first glance,
sounds too dramatic, terrifying
and glamorous to be real. Her
biography reads like the plot of an
old fashioned noir movie — born in
Austria in 1914 at the cusp of World
War I, married to an arms dealer
with Nazi ties at the age
of 18, she defected from
the Nazis, fled to America,
became a Golden Era of
Hollywood movie siren
and invented a frequency
hopping signal system
patented by the US Navy
during World War II.
And
yet,
despite
absolutely
being
one
of the most interesting
people to have lived in
the past century, Lamarr
is decidedly not a household
name. In “The Only Woman in
the Room,” author Marie Benedict
attempts to bring Lamarr’s story
to the popular consciousness by
novelizing it in lurid first person
detail.
Writing
novels
about
historically overlooked women
from their perspective is a well
worn method, from 2013’s “Z:
A Story of Zelda Fitzgerald”
to Benedict’s own “The Other
Einstein.” It’s a clever way of
centering the women who have for
so long been sidelined, but it runs
similar risks to Hollywood biopics.
Rather than telling an organic
story
or
understanding
what
exactly were the most important
turning points in these women’s
lives, the narratives are usually
predicated on events the readers
are already familiar with. If you
took the screenplay of the most
bluntly written, unsubtle biopic —
a “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “On
The Basis of Sex” — and combined
it with Hedy Lamarr’s Wikipedia
page, the result would be “The
Only Woman in the Room.” We
follow story beats we already
know, and the readers get to feel
superior because we know what’s
about to happen when our narrator
says things like, “Austria became a
fascist state not only in practice but
in name. I clung to Papa’s words
that it was a technical change
only and what mattered was the
government’s ongoing dedication
to keep Nazi Germany at bay.”
Fascism aside, the novel is an
entertaining, easy read, but it
seems unsure of what exactly it
wants to be. “The Only Woman
in the Room” is stuck between
being
an
actual
novel
that
illustrates
characters’
interior
lives and creates emotional stakes
and a biography that draws a
straightforward and clear line
between discrete live events. It’s
ostensibly from the perspective of
Lamarr, but even though she was a
real person, the novel does little to
illustrate just who that person was.
There are a lot of qualities we come
to understand about Lamarr: her
savantlike intuition for seduction,
her ability to manipulate others’
perception of her, her tenacity,
her ability to survive abuse. But
Benedict’s writing does nothing to
bring us into Lamarr’s
world — we’re told these
are qualities she has,
and we watch her do
things and see things.
The prose holds her at a
distance, and the result
is a book chock full of
war, sex, love, death,
pain
and
glamour
landing entirely flat on
an emotional level.
This
is
where
“The
Only
Woman
in the Room” really commits
the
unforgivable
sin
in
the
“fictionalized
account
of
underrepresented
historical
women”
genre.
The
whole
purpose is to make the reader
empathize with the figure, to
make people fully aware not only
of the woman’s underappreciated
accomplishments,
but
of
her
personhood. “The Only Woman”
certainly lists a detailed account of
Lamarr’s achievements, but it does
little to expand on Lamarr as a
person, on her desires and dreams
and heart.
‘The Only Woman in the
Room’ does not impress
ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer
‘The Only Woman
in the Room’
Marie Benedict
Sourcebooks Landmark
Jan. 8, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
As
I
walked
up
to
the
Kerrytown Concert House, I
double-checked my phone to
make sure I was in the right
place for the Tad Weed Jazz
Master Series: Tribute to Ron
Brooks. The sign in front told me
I had arrived, so I walked up to
the front door of what was most
certainly a house, and restrained
myself from knocking. Poking
my head through the door, I
found that the interior was set
up with a bunch of chairs in
multiple different rooms, all
facing a well lit stage. And on my
right, a kitchen. Yep, definitely a
house.
I
settled
in,
adapting
to
my surroundings. The people
around me greeted each other, all
seeming to know each other from
similar experiences. At around
20 years younger than almost
everyone in the room, I was not
a part of that community. But I
smiled to myself while flipping
through the program, enjoying
the atmosphere of camaraderie
in what was certainly a house but
also seemed to be a home.
Soon, the first three performers
— pianist Rick Roe, bassist Kurt
Krahnke and drummer Sean
Dobbins — entered the living
room and made their way to the
stage. They shook hands with
the people in the front row, even
giving some of them hugs. There
was a general air of community.
Then Roe counted them off, and
on they went. In a flurry of well-
rehearsed invention, the group
displayed their mastery of the
instruments and of cohesion.
Exchanging smiles and glances,
they soared through tune after
tune, barely stopping for a
breath.
About halfway through the
show, the band ceased their
incredible medley, and Dobbins
addressed
the
audience
for
the first time, inviting Ron
Brooks, the father of Ann Arbor
jazz, to the stage. Giving a
brief introduction for the man
everyone in the audience already
seemed to know, they then began
another set of songs with the
legendary bassist at their side.
Brooks welcomed the crowd into
the performance, smiling with
them, laughing with them, even
singing along to his instrument.
The music was a perfect blend
of familiarity yet inventiveness,
nostalgia yet passion — it made
you want to cry and dance at the
same time. The music perfectly
encapsulated the venue: intimate
with an air of excitement.
The concert concluded with
a Q&A for Brooks in which he
described his time in Ann Arbor.
He opened the first jazz club
in Ann Arbor, called The Bird
of Paradise, hosting numerous
soon-to-be jazz stars, from the
Count Basie Orchestra to Dizzy
Gillespie. He said his goal was to
give jazz to the next generation,
and
he
succeeded.
Dobbins
admitted to missing many first
hours due to his frequent visits
to the club when he was in
high school. And now he’s an
accomplished drummer playing
with the very musicians who
inspired him in the first place.
The Brooks Tribute Concert
not
only
introduced
some
truly
incredible
jazz
music,
but it also revealed a legacy in
Ann Arbor. This community,
audience
members
and
jazz
artists alike, have all found a
home in music, and a lot of that
is thanks to Brooks. During his
time in Ann Arbor and at The
Bird of Paradise, Brooks fostered
a community musicians and
music lovers, and formed lasting
bonds with that community. The
Kerrytown Concert House not
only displayed this community
beautifully, but conveyed the
home jazz found within their
very own house. Ann Arbor jazz
has a rich history and a thriving
community even today. As long
as the new generation finds their
place in jazz, or the Kerrytown
Concert House, the community
will never die and the music will
never stop.
Jazz in Kerrytown Concert
House makes it a home
DANA PIERANGELI
Daily Arts Writer
KATELYN MULCAHY / DAILY
EVENT REVIEW
Read more at
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