The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 — 5

This week the book review will 
be featuring works from Gimmick 
Press, a independent publisher of 
niche literature and art based in 
Plymouth, 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.
“Three-Way 
Dance,” 
a 
collaborative effort combining 
work by Michael Chin, Frankie 
Metro and Brian Rosenbacher, 
is a collection of creative work 
on professional wrestling. This 
singularity is not particularly 
rare; there are lots of only-
one-on-this-topic books, and 
the 
professional 
wrestling 
niche is practically its own 
genre. The onslaught of books 
about very specific subjects 
(historically 
significant 
beverages, insomnia, dirt, the 

evolution of houses) usually sits 
comfortably in nonfiction, but 
“Three-Way Dance” entirely 
shuns jovial didacticism. This 
is no Bill Bryson romp through 
the 
glut 
of 
WWE 
(World 
Wrestling 
Entertainment, 
Inc. Stay with me) — it’s 
Allen Ginsberg as a Reddit 
poet, “Fight Club” starring 
“Arrested 
Development” 
era 
Michael Cera, a fully plausible 
analogy for the palatial scale 
of absurdity in American life. 
Like 
professional 
wrestling 
itself, the collection is cheesy 
and heartbreaking, true but not 
real.
For those who are unfamiliar, 
professional wrestling is an 
orchestrated 
performance: 
a match whose outcome is 
decided 
beforehand, 
whose 
every move is predetermined 
and practiced. Fight becomes 
theater, 
thrill, 
spectacle, 
a concertina of pain (real, 
manufactured) and glory (the 
same) packaged for maximum 
entertainment. WWE is the 
biggest professional wrestling 
corporation 
in 
the 
United 
States. It’s a conglomerate that 
includes 
a 
film 
production 
wing 
(animated 
and 
live 
action), a publishing sector for 
biographies and calendars, a 
fleet of private jets and even 

a music studio that releases 
albums of entrance music as 
well as songs sung by wrestlers 
(John 
Cena’s 
“You 
Can’t 
See Me,” for example). I say 
this 
because 
it’s 
important 
to 
understand 
the 
giddy, 
unhinged hugeness of WWE, 
the enormous size and scope of 
its excesses.
Neither 
informative 
nor 

consistently beautiful, “Three-
Way Dance” is simply weird. 
What’s so captivating about 
the collection is the exhausting 
comprehensiveness 
of 
the 
authors’ 
infatuation 
with 
a wacko slice of American 
culture, this overlooked world 
of 
violent 
dramaturgy 
and 
faithful spectatorship.

“Fritz Von Erich wasn’t a 
Nazi soldier, but he played one 
in the ring in the 1960s,” writes 
Chin in “The Family Trade.” 
What a way to start a poem! 
The whole book is shot through 
with a sense of the surreal: 
“Was it that you were the first 
white dude I ever saw wearing 
a do-rag, a fashion plate / 
Before your time, well before 

Hulkmania, and I can’t believe 
your fuzzy boots never / Caught 
on 
with 
the 
mainstream,” 
Rosenbacher writes.
For Chyna, one of the only 
female professional wrestlers, 
Chin writes an ode: “You signed 
a new contract. This time with 
Red Light District Video. A 
distributor for your homemade 

sex tape. They called it, ‘One 
Night in China.’”
In “Todo Lo Malo,” Metro 
writes, “It seemed only right 
to take a pound of flesh as 
a souvenir, maybe not a full 
pound, thought El Matarife, 
as he commenced to digging at 
the boy’s right eye and finally 
removing it, tossing it into the 
horrified/elated crowd.”
Split 
into 
three 
distinct 
sections by author, “Three-
Way 
Dance” 
never 
feels 
cohesive or purposeful. The 
jarring 
differences 
between 
the 
authors’ 
styles 
and 
formats pushes the book into 
dangerous territory; meaning 
is often obscured in exchange 
for 
unsatisfying 
simplicity 
or confusing distortion. This 
would be more of a problem if 
professional wrestling didn’t 
offer up so many incredible 
tidbits, so much rich material to 
be transformed.
Luckily, WWE has nearly 
everything: gender, childhood 
obsessions, 
money, 
sex, 
consumption, race. Facades of 
control, appearances, histories. 
You watch knowing the fight 
is a sham, that it’s made up, 
but your eyes insist this must 
be real: the contact of face on 
mat, fist on face, teeth forced 
into gums and bones into 

muscle. It’s love, death, failure, 
opulence. It’s all fake.
“Three-Way 
Dance” 
is 
unafraid of these contradictions. 
Instead, 
Chin, 
Metro 
and 
Rosenbacher embrace the ways 
professional wrestling presents 
a version of the world and then 
immediately negates it. The 
book is a tempest, directionless 
and unpredictable, and within 
that mess sentences often jump 
out for their succinct loveliness. 
Rosenbacher, in “O is for Ole 
Anderson 
and 
Ox 
Baker”: 
“2nd best bet – Ox Baker’s 
heart punch. / It landscapes 
cemeteries.”
A heart punch, landscaping 
cemeteries: what a startling gem 
in a jumble of truly mediocre 
poetry. This book is full of 
awful lines (“It is in falling that 
we might rise,” Chin writes in 
“The Falls”), but when it’s good, 
it’s good. Which is sort of like 
wrestling, in a way. When it’s 
bad, when you see through it, 
when the fight is boring, you’re 
reminded of the falseness of 
the whole enterprise. But when 
it’s good the fight takes on an 
eternal drama, something that 
(like literature) both requires 
and rewards faithful attention. 
“Like Icarus who dared to 
touch the Sun / Like Icarus who 
dared to burn too brightly.”

Horrified and elated: Professional wrestling literature

I can appreciate the old-timey 
charm of “The Sting,” the wit 
and absolute hilarity of “Snatch” 
and even the sub-par jokes in 
“Tower Heist.” That said, there 
is secret sauce to any heist 
movie, an imperative ingredient 
without which the plotline will 
inevitably fall flat. So, what 
makes a heist movie solid? It 
isn’t really about the heist at 
all. It’s about the characters. 
Unfortunately, “Triple Frontier” 
doesn’t 
follow 
this 
golden 
rule from the heist handbook. 
Though stacked with a star-
studded cast and a potentially-
intriguing storyline, Netflix’s 
latest release only manages to 
offer guns, brawny men, money 
and more guns, failing to include 
any relationship development, 
humor or substantial flavor.
The 
film 
begins 
in 
classic-heist fashion, with 
a 
group 
of 
ex-Special 
Forces 
operatives 
reuniting with the shared 
motive of filling their 
wallets. Leader of the pack 
Santiago 
(Oscar 
Isaac, 
“Ex Machina”) reveals his 
intentions to rob a high-profile, 
South American cocaine lord, 
Lorena, who is known to be 
swimming in money. Though 
not without coaxing, Santiago 
manages to convince former 
operatives and friends to put 
their honored reputations as war 
heroes on the line and embark 
on the ultimate heist, for a shot 
at the massive jackpot. However, 
Santiago and company quickly 
find themselves in for more than 
they bargained for, when their 
swift plan to get the money, 
take out Lorena and split goes 
awry. In short, the men soon find 
themselves on a nightmarishly 
long 
journey 
across 
South 

America, racking up a troubling 
body count and falling under the 
dangerous spell of greed.
In order to care about an 
elaborate plan to finesse the 
system and finagle millions of 
dollars, we first have to care 
about who is doing the finessing 
and finagling. While the film is 
chalk full of talented actors like 
Ben Affleck (“Justice League”), 
Charlie Hunnam (“A Million 
Little Pieces”) and Pedro Pascal 
(“If Beale Street Could Talk”), 
through such weak dialogue 
and little to no background, 
there is no real inclination to 
invest in these men or their 
operation. The link between 
the five men behind the heist is 
clear: They are all buddies from 
their back-in-the-day military 
careers. But the existence of 
this link alone isn’t enough to 
convince us of the emotions 
and friendship between the 
characters. Aside from scenes 

of them shooting or being shot 
at, the only other interactions 
between 
the 
men 
revolve 
around drinking or having dull 
conversations. Though the film’s 
use of five central characters has 
opportunity for development, 
(i.e. establishing one member 
of the gang as the funny one, 
another as the cynic and so 
on) by not taking the time to 
thoroughly 
distinguish 
each 
character’s 
personality, 
they 
become 
interchangeable 
and 
awkwardly all morph into one.
Along with its overall lack of 
life-blood, the film’s portrayal 
of 
gender 
and 
masculinity 
is frustrating. The level of 

testosterone in “Triple Frontier” 
is so high that it practically 
radiates through the screen. 
Yes, guns and dollar-bills are 
quintessential staples in any 
heist flick, but that doesn’t mean 
either should be treated with 
the same importance as the 
characters themselves. The very 
fact that filmmakers include 
entire scenes of money being 
burned or dramatically flying 
in the wind, but cannot manage 
to 
create 
semi-entertaining 
character 
conversations 
or 
connections, 
is 
undeniably 
problematic.
Further, throughout the film 
there are quips about Santiago’s 
informant 
Yovanna 
(Adria 
Arjona “Pacific Rim: Uprising”), 
a beautiful woman in need of 
his help rescuing her brother 
from police captivity. Without 
fail, the other men consistently 
bring up Santiago’s “girlfriend,” 
boyishly aiming to tease him 
(and successfully irritating 
us). The film’s reiteration of 
Yovanna’s looks and hints 
at an underlying chemistry 
between her and Santiago, 
despite her minimal screen 
time and lines, is a tired and 
weak attempt to slap a side-
story onto the already poor 
main plotline. Quite simply, we 
needed more from the film, but 
a poorly constructed romance 
wasn’t it.
“Triple Frontier” was not 
doomed from the start. The 
film could have adhered both 
to 
genre 
conventions 
like 
money, weapons and long-lost 
friendships, while still crafting 
an 
element 
of 
originality 
through fun character personas. 
But instead, it relies entirely on 
the former and does nothing 
to create the latter. By not fully 
utilizing its talented cast and 
focusing too heavily on the heist 
framework, the movie loses itself 
and its viewers.

‘Triple Frontier’ is a bad 
romp full of testosterone

NETFLIX

FILM REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

Triple Frontier 

Netflix

SAMANTHA NELSON
Daily Arts Writer

Once upon a time, there 
was Karen O, frontwoman for 
the early 2000s rock band, 
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. There 
was also hip-hop artist turned 
music producer Danger Mouse. 
One day, they decided to unite 
their respective powers to gift 
humanity the ultimate musical 
collaboration of 2019 (thus far): 
Lux Prima. 
Lux Prima, at its core, is a 
story. Together, Karen O and 
Danger Mouse weave together 
dreams, presenting an album 
which is fluid, authentic and 
unbound by any limitations. 
The 
nine-track 
album 
is 
characterized 
by 
seamless 
transitions 
and 
natural 
progressions.
The 
title 
track 
“Lux 
Prima” 
opens 
softly, 
slowly warming up like 
the 
introduction 
to 
a 
good book, or drowsily 
climbing from slumber 
on a Sunday morning. 
The track is long, nearing 
eight 
minutes, 
but 
it 
never 
feels 
overdone. 
The surreal echoes of the 
“Lux 
Prima” 
envelope 
the listener like a warm 
breeze — all at once sad, 
comforting and hopeful. Vocals 
are minimal for the majority of 
the song, instead emphasizing 
the dreamlike atmosphere of 
the track. One feels almost as if 
they’re drifting aimlessly along 
a lazy river.
Then, Karen O and Danger 
Mouse take the audience for an 
unexpected but very welcome 
spin. As the track nears on 
minute three, where most songs 
would usually come to an end, 
the electronic ambiance fades 
out, replaced by steady drum 
beat. It’s as if O and Danger 

Mouse have shifted gears, or 
flipped on a new track. It is a 
song hidden within a song — a 
plot twist that could rival the 
best of ABC’s Thursday night 
television lineup. Then, by 
the six-minute mark the song 
abruptly transitions back to 
the same soft sound waves of 
the introduction, but rather 
than falling to an end the track 
ramps up for the rest of this 
powerhouse album. 
The 
following 
tracks 
“Ministry” 
and 
“Turn 
the 
Light” are good, but largely 
unremarkable 
on 
their 
own. Rather, they are more 
important in the context of the 
album, building the momentum 
to 
the 
album’s 
climax: 
“Woman” and “Redeemer.”
“Woman” is the highlight 
of the album — and the song is 
everything it should be with 
a name like that. Powerful, 

strong and dominant, O comes 
roaring in with a distinct surge 
of energy. The song feels like 
an assertion of her identity 
and womanhood. It’s the type 
of unapologetic, sassy, foot-
tapping song that you can’t 
help but rock out to. “Woman” 
easily steals the thunder of 
the album. And unlike the 
beginning of the album, the 
song is more grounded, more 
human. “Redeemer” continues 
the momentum of “Woman,” 
still powerful but grittier. It 
feels as if Karen O and Danger 

Mouse 
have 
awoken 
both 
themselves and the listener 
from the distant dreams of the 
opening “Lux Prima.”
The album slowly winds 
down 
from 
its 
climax 
of 
“Woman” 
and 
“Redeemer,” 
symbolic of how the story 
woven together by Karen O and 
Danger House is slowly coming 
to an end. “Leopard’s Tongue” 
is notable for the subtle, exotic 
tone of the bass beat (vaguely 
reminiscent of Mayssa Karaa’s 
“White 
Rabbit”). 
“Nox 
Lumina” rounds out the album 
as an appropriate end to this 
refreshingly 
unusual 
story. 
Starting soft and then growing 
fuller, the ending track is 
noticeably more somber, and 
just a touch ominous.
Karen O and Danger Mouse’s 
album collaboration is fantastic 
not because the songs are 
engaging (which they are) or for 
good lyrics (all together 
haunting, 
energetic 
and 
hypnotizing), 
but 
because 
the 
album 
seemingly 
breaks 
all 
the 
rules. 
Together, 
these two artists found 
a way to find some much 
desired 
originality 
without 
compromising 
their 
authenticity. 
Together, Karen O and 
Danger Mouse created 
something 
new, 
beautiful 
and unexpected. The non-
traditional structure of tracks 
like “Lux Prima” and “Nox 
Lumina” keeps the listener 
on their toes, eradicating the 
boredom accompanied by the 
lackluster effect of drawn-out 
albums. Meanwhile the story-
arc design of the album keeps 
the music grounded amidst 
the rabbit-hole of Karen O’s 
enchanting 
vocals. 
Simply 
put, Lux Prima is invigorating 
for those weary of all things 
cookie-cutter.

Karen O/Danger Mouse 
collab is fresh, invigorating

BMO RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

MUSIC REVIEW

Lux Prima 

Karen O & Danger Mouse

BMO Rights Management

MADELEINE GANNON
Daily Arts Writer

Three-Way Dance 

Michael Chin, Frankie Metro and Brian 
Rosenbacher

Gimmick Press

2017

MIRIAM FRANCISCO
Daily Arts Writer