The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, March 13, 2019 — 5A

In the next week, the Book Review 
will be featuring works from Gimmick 
Press, a independent publisher of niche 
literature and art based in Detroit, 
Michigan. Gimmick was established 
in 2015 by Josh Olsen and Katie 
MacDonald with a commitment to 
diversity and inclusion of both subject 
matter and voice throughout all aspects 
of their work. Gimmick publishes 
digitally through “Worthless Treasures” 
and calls for printed chapbook and 
anthology submissions throughout 
the year. They’re currently accepting 
submissions for an anthology of 
creative nonfiction about pop culture 
obsessions.
I find it necessary to preface 
this: I don’t have much experience 
reviewing poetry. I’ve spent most 
of my time with nonfiction, the 
remainder with fiction and poetry 
only when a particular poet has been 
introduced to me within a larger 
academic context or a stroke of luck 
brought me their way. So I enter this 
reflection on Mark James Andrews’s 
“Motor City is Burning” by defining 
it as exactly that — a reflection, 
not a review. Which is fitting, in 
the end, because this collection is 
much more about evoking a sense 
of place rather than challenging and 
advancing the contemporary canon. 
And that place is the grimy, Beatnik 
basements 
scattered 
throughout 
Detroit during the ’60s and ’70s. It is 
the rock ‘n’ roll, blues-laden scenes and 
rioting in the streets that lit Detroit 
on fire during a tumultuous era in our 
country’s history.
We identify and recall beat poetry 
based on its distinct, mythologized 
features and the lifestyle it inspired: a 
dirty and progressive use of language, 
the flagrant abuse of drugs and alcohol 
and a privileged assumption of anti-
materialism and counterculture ideas. 
Andrews’s collection is reminiscent 
of the beat style, and self-aware in its 
endeavor: In the poem “Words Can’t 
Describe,” Andrews writes “I lifted 
my pages off the green felt and began 
to chant / my own personal Howl / 
derivative to be sure but I was pure and 
sincere / and the young crowd was with 
me.” Most of the poems unfold like this, 
following a stream of consciousness 
rhythm, written as if Andrews couldn’t 
get the words out of his mouth and onto 
the page fast enough. They all contain 
this performative air, meant only to 

be read to an audience at Dick’s Bar or 
Samsara Lounge — settings for many of 
these poems.
Often enough though I find that it’s 
easy to confuse good poetry with a 
confident speaker. And much of a beat 
poet’s allure is in their delivery, their 
undeniable style. This is what I think 
about when I read Andrews’ poetry, 
how, were I seated before him at Dick’s 
Bar listening to him perform in a daze 
of smoke and a cloud of alcohol, I could 
be swayed by it. But on the page, in 
2019, these poems seem anachronistic. 
Even when he’s talking about current 

events, a suicide on Belle Isle Bridge, 
the language harkens back to a style 
and demographic from which poetry 
has distanced itself. And it’s one reason 
I cringe when reading some of these 
poems.
I’m not sure sincerity is enough to 
compensate for the derivative nature 
of them, the feeling that, because I’ve 
read Ginsberg and Thompson and 
Burroughs, I’ve read Andrews before. 
And I’m not sure sincerity makes the 
heady sexual imagery of some of these 
poems any easier to swallow. Perhaps 
one of the most explicit examples 
of this is an excerpt from the poem 
“Rusty Cage,” which seems to take 
place in a strip club or cabaret: “I’m 
waiting for the next one / a stunning 
amazon / lanky, goofy, sneaky pretty 
/ bare midriff top. / I hope her gig is a 
belly dance / or anything with a little 
bravery.”
Given the opportunity to briefly 
glance over the collection, anyone can 
notice the prefuse objectification of the 

female body employed in many of these 
poems (I gave it to a co-worker and 
they commented on it, unprovoked). 
Because, of course, with the tradition 
of this era and its poetry comes the 
tradition of extraneous sexual imagery, 
often to the detriment of the female 
body (The poem “Revolution” opens 
with the statement that “Revolution 
was about pussy / more pussy / strange 
pussy / better drugs”). The narrator 
dismisses the ’60s revolutionaries in 
this poem, as he gazes upon the Occupy 
Detroit protesters in the park. But with 
the employment of over-sexualized 
language and a kind of bebop 
rhythm, he still romanticizes this 
era and draws us back to it.
“Satan bebopped into Detroit / 
with a wad that would choke / The 
Four Horseman of the Apocalypse 
/ with a Saturday Night Special,” 
begins the poem “Boom Boom.” 
Each poem in the collection is 
dedicated to a different rock or 
blues musician. “Boom Boom,” 
dedicated to John Lee Hooker, 
is more straightforward in its 
dedication than the rest, seeming to 
narrate a bit of Hooker’s importance 
in the Detroit jazz scene. But this 
connection between dedication and 
content is hard to locate in many of 
the poems. Most serve a symbolic 
purpose, anchoring the poem in 
time and memory, making them only 
accessible for those familiar with 
the musician or a specific historical 
instance. His use of allusions do this 
as well, especially in “Boom Boom” 
where the substance of the poem is 
weighed down by references lost on me 
and, I’m sure, other readers.
The strongest poems in “Motor City 
is Burning” are the ones that both speak 
to a unique experience and don’t sink 
under the weight of history. “Looking 
at You,” dedicated to Wayne Kramer 
& MC5, is one of these. Recounting 
the night he saw MC5 play The Magic 
Stick, Andrews moves from a party 
on one end of Detroit to the crowded 
floor beneath the stage, and captures 
the rush of excitement and adrenaline 
that pushes a night forward from one 
place to the next before ending, in this 
case, “with a mic upper-cut popping 
my chin” as the narrator stood in front 
of the stage. There are moments in this 
poem where the sincerity Andrews 
speaks of in “Words Can’t Describe” 
break through gauzy descriptions and 
reach the surface. Moments like small 
children waving “as if our passing was 
an event / and I felt foolish just for a 
minute.”

‘Motor City’ needs a Tylenol

I really cannot stand Billy 
Joel.
Granted, there are a lot of 
artists I dislike, but none of 
their music is as pervasive and 
unavoidable as his. Billy Joel 
reaches for both the everyman 
charm of Bruce Springsteen 
and the campy virtuosity of 
Elton John however, he misses 
both marks, falling flat on his 
face in the middle.
Billy Joel is no stranger to 
lukewarm critical reception — 
when asked about the critics 
in a 1982 interview with 
Playboy, 
Billy 
responded: 
“What they say has absolutely 
no effect on me! I really don’t 
care what they say. It doesn’t 
bother me. It’s irrelevant!” 
He has been known to rip up 
negative reviews on stage 
during his concerts, which is a 

great way of showing that you 
are definitely not mad.
Let’s move to his actual 
music, beginning with the 
mawkish 
piece 
of 
work 
that is “Piano Man”: The 
narrative is centered around 
the perspective of a dive bar 
musician who describes the 
lonely 
clientele 
that 
pass 
through on a Saturday night. 
Like almost all his songs, the 
central character, in this case 
the “piano man,” is a hammed-
up version of himself. While 
masquerading as a portrait 
of the common man, the song 
does 
not 
actually 
explore 
the emotional world of the 
patrons in any way, the only 
real observation being that 
they are lonely and dream 
of a better life. Instead, the 
narrative turns on how much 
they all come together to 
enjoy the music of ... Billy 
Joel. Likewise, any attempts 
he 
makes 
at 
empathy 
or 

insight are painfully banal; 
take “The Stranger”: “Well, 
we all have a face that we hide 
away forever / And we take 

them out and show ourselves 
when everyone has gone.”
A lot of Billy’s stories, 
much like “Piano Man,” seem 
to focus on how effortlessly 

cool he is. In the Playboy 
interview, he tells this one: 
“I was in Turin for this press 
conference 
and 
this 
well-
dressed journalist with wing-
tip shoes from a left-wing 
paper asked, ‘Why did you 
play Israel?’ He was trying to 
create controversy. I said, ‘I 
played in Israel for the same 
reason I played in Cuba — to 
play for the people. We wanted 
to see what the people in Israel 
were like instead of listening 
to the propaganda we get in 
our country.’ The people at the 
press conference stood up and 
clapped.” This anecdote could 
come straight from a chain 
email circa 2005, right down 
to everyone in room standing 
up and clapping for him. He 
tells a very similar story about 
a show in Cuba as well — his 
self-aggrandizement 
is 
not 
constrained by petty politics! 
Let’s also look at the “A 
Matter of Trust” music video. 
It consists of Billy and his 
backing 
band 
performing 
an 
open-air 
basement 
concert 
while 
onlookers 
slowly congregate, the event 
eventually 
turning 
into 
an 
impromptu 
concert. 
If 

this sounds familiar, that’s 
because it’s almost exactly the 
same concept as The Beatles’s 
famous 
rooftop 
concert, 
except Billy Joel is under the 

building instead of on top of 
it.
Specifically, 
his 
feeble 
attempts 
to 
emulate 
the 
irreverent 
and 
mischievous 
public 
persona 
of The Beatles 
come across as 
arrogant. 
In 
regard 
to 
his 
experience with 
The 
Beatles, 
Billy 
says, 
“They don’t look 
like they were 
manufactured 
in 
Hollywood. 
They look just 
like me and my 
friends. I could 
see this look in 
John 
Lennon’s 
eyes 
that 
told 
me 
something: 
They 
were 
irreverent, they 
were 
making 
fun of the whole 
thing. 
It 
was 
this smirk on his 
face. They were 
a bunch of wise 
guys 
like 
me 
and my friends! That’s when 
it all took shape. I said, 
‘That’s what I want to do.’” 
The problem with this is that 
Billy Joel, like most people, is 
much, much, worse at being 
a wise guy than any of The 
Beatles.
He 
paints 
himself 
as 
beleaguered by cultural elites 
at every turn — he’s just trying 
to be Billy and they won’t let 
him! And you know what? 
He’s not totally wrong. A lot 
of the criticism of Billy comes 
from a place of condescension 
— he is perceived by critics as 
middlebrow and uncool. This 
is a correct perception, but 
such criticism merely feeds 
into his desire to be perceived 
as the scrappy underdog who 
doesn’t care what the haut 
monde has to say about him. 
Of course, this image does not 

square with the fact that he is 
one of the best-selling artists 
of all time, has five Grammys, 
and as of last summer, Jul. 18 in 
New York state 
is 
henceforth 
to be known as 
“Billy Joel Day.” 
Thanks, Andrew 
Cuomo.
There 
are 

plenty 
of 

musicians 
who 
don’t 
really 
offer 
much 
of 
substance 
but 
are 
pleasant 
nonetheless 
because 
they 
create 
well-
constructed, 
consumable art. 
There’s nothing 
wrong with that! 
What 
makes 
Billy 
so 
much 
more 
offensive 
is that a large 
part 
of 
his 
brand is based 
on a supposed 
authenticity, 
when in reality 
his appeals to 
“man of the people” imagery 
are a cynical, self-serving act.
When asked how he would 
define rock ‘n’ roll, Billy said, 
“It’s music that has passion 
in it, whether it’s a ballad or 
whatever. There’s some kind 
of 
intensity.” 
Aside 
from 
being a terrible attempt at 
defining 
rock 
music, 
that 
answer explains a lot of the 
lurid melodrama Billy shoves 
into his tunes. Billy is keenly 
aware 
of 
what 
signifies 
“meaning” in music and takes 
advantage of these tropes to 
create a veneer of poignancy. 
It is a hollow imitation. It 
is 
the 
Applebee’s 
of 
pop 
music, a tepid microwaved 
repackaging of actual musical 
expression, and it deserves 
little more than contempt.
I do think “Vienna” is a 
good song, though.

I loathe Billy Joel. Here’s
why this is not a problem.

COLUMBIA RECORDS

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

Clocking in at three hours and nine 
minutes, “Never Look Away” is an epic 
journey through the life of Kurt Barnert 
(Tom Schilling, “A Coffee in Berlin”), 
a young artist seeking to find his sense 
of self through art. His youth was 
influenced by World War II — his aunt 
Elisabeth (Saskia Rosendahl, “Lore”) 
was sterilized and euthanized by a Nazi 
doctor due to her “mild schizophrenia.” 
When 
we 
first 
meet 
Kurt 
and 
Elisabeth, 
he 
is 
five or six years old 
and she is taking 
him to the famous 
1937 
“Degenerate 
Art” 
exhibition 
in Dresden — one 
of 
the 
greatest 
exhibitions 
of 
modern 
art 
in 
history. It is here 
where 
Elisabeth 
tells Kurt to “never 
look 
away” 
as 
“everything 
true 
is beautiful.” Kurt 
never forgets these 
words, 
and 
the 
loss of his aunt 
affects him deeply. 
Raised 
in 
East 
Germany, 
Kurt 
attends art school 
in Dresden. There, he meets his wife 
Ellie 
(Paula 
Beer, 
“Transit”) 
with 
whom he ultimately leaves for the West. 
Despite rising above his classmates, he 
is restricted by the prescriptive nature 
of Socialist realism. Kurt desires a 
greater artistic freedom, which he finds 
in Dusseldorf. Throughout the film, we 
see how World War II affected Germany, 
personally and societally. Directed by 
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 
(“The Lives of Others”), “Never Look 
Away” addresses the war with brutal 
honesty, reminding viewers of the 
Nazi slaughter of non-Jewish Germans 
with mental illness and “undesirable 
genetics.” Von Donnersmarck based this 
film on the life of German artist Gerhard 
Richter. The biographical accuracy has 
been debated, but the similarities remain 
unquestioned. Kurt’s ultimate artistic 
style is very Richter-esque; some of the 
works Kurt paints in the movie are direct 
references to Richter’s works.

This film is remarkably moving. Von 
Donnersmarck’s treatment of the war 
is raw. One particularly disturbing 
and somber scene, in which mentally 
ill women walk into a gas chamber to 
be euthanized, provokes a melancholy 
feeling of profound disgust. The film 
addresses life and death, particularly 
how living and dying affects those around 
us. Mother and child, birth and loss, 
creation and destruction. The viewer 
is engaged for every minute of the film; 
every scene adds to Kurt’s intricately 
layered history. 
This is not your 
average biopic.
Despite 
the 
intense 
and 
artfully 
woven 
plot, 
the 
film 
would not be as 
moving without 
its 
remarkable 
score. Composed 
by Max Richter, 
the 
wonderful 
music 
elevates 
the film. It is 
fluid, 
powerful 
and 
engaging. 
I 
am 
always 
drawn 
to 
repeated motifs, 
small 
visual 
moments which 
tie 
characters 
and 
scenes 
together. “Never 
Look Away” features a few of these, 
most notably Elisabeth and Kurt’s 
separate moments of aural rapture: 
An 
unexpected 
mechanical 
chorus 
provides the blank canvas from which 
Max Richter’s score erupts, sending 
chills down the viewer’s spine. In “Never 
Look Away,” film meets music meets 
painting to create a portrait of human 
suffering 
and 
flourishing. 
Growth, 
decay, regrowth — this arc emerges in 
Kurt and Ellie’s passionate romance, 
in Kurt’s art and in the career of Ellie’s 
father. I would say Von Donnersmarck 
paints a portrait himself, of being human 
in the face of inhumanity. This is not 
your average World War II film, either. 
Von Donnersmarck gives the viewer an 
intimate look into mid- and post-War 
Germany. It is a film about passion and 
perseverance. The viewer is ultimately 
reminded to appreciate art and love 
wholeheartedly, for how else are we to 
cope with life and loss?

‘Never Look Away’ is
a portrait on beauty

FILM REVIEW

ROSS ORGIEFSKY
For the Daily

BOOK REVIEW

NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Writer

‘Motor City is 
Burning and 
Other Rock and 
Roll Poems’ 

Mark James Andrews

Gimmick Press

Nov. 22, 2018

JONAH MENDELSON
Daily Arts Writer

‘Never Look 
Away’ 

Sony Pictures Classics

A lot of the criticism of Billy comes 
from a place of condescension — he 
is perceived by critics as middlebrow 
and uncool

He paints 
himself as 
beleaguered by 
cultural elites 
at every turn — 
he’s just trying 
to be Billy and 
they won’t let 
him!

