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By David Alfred Bywaters
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/29/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
03/29/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Friday, March 29, 2019
ACROSS
1 Result of littering,
maybe
4 Recipe direction
8 Round paths
14 Airport info
15 Minorca, por
ejemplo
16 Promote
17 Frantic activity at
a clothing sale?
19 How some insults
are veiled
20 Luster
21 Electric guitar
effect
23 Meh
24 Comedy bit
26 Wooden bird
sculpture?
28 Recreational walk
31 European relative
of aloha
32 Financial claim
33 Heroic poetry
35 Scheming wife of
Augustus
40 With 42-Across,
white-collar
crime ... and
a hint to four
Across answers
42 See 40-Across
44 Mongol invader
45 “__ Tired”:
Beatles “White
Album” song
47 Long-gone time
48 Plant with
therapeutic sap
50 Ball VIPs
52 Cereal maker’s
storage building?
56 Longtime NBC hit
57 Drive-in need
58 Ivan IV, from
1547 to 1584
60 Passageway
64 Theater company
66 Dispassionate
bivalve?
68 Fairy tale sibling
69 Logician’s adverb
70 “Really? Me?”
71 Tired
72 Precious
73 Favorite
DOWN
1 Coat holders
2 Wasatch Front
state
3 Opposite of
embiggen
4 Traffic stopper,
perhaps
5 Leb. neighbor
6 Diamond
concern
7 Spicy sauce
8 Capital NNW of
Albany
9 Cheer syllable
10 Euphoria
11 “You don’t need
to tell me”
12 Home of the
Drillers of Class
AA baseball
13 Watch
surreptitiously
18 Colorful tropical
flower
22 Middle
management
issues?
25 Cheer
27 Satchmo’s
birthplace, briefly
28 Narrow opening
29 Turner with
numbers
30 Enjoy an easy
chair
34 Monastic leaders
36 Charmingly
pastoral
37 Member of a
Baroque consort
38 Memo heading
39 Survey range
components
41 Meh
43 Takes badly?
46 Threatened
49 These days
51 Charm
52 Spa features
53 Like much of
Oregon
54 Make amends
55 “I give up!”
59 Uncommon
61 Open-handed
blow
62 Unconvincing, as
an excuse
63 Put out
65 Energy
67 NY airport named
for a mayor
FOR RENT
SERVICES
have
fun
doing
the
sudoku.
xoxo
“Gloria
Bell”
isn’t
your
typical
coming-of-age
movie,
and
its
titular
character
certainly
isn’t
your
typical
coming-of-age protagonist. In
a standard coming-of-age film,
the protagonist is most likely a
teenager or a twenty-
something,
with
the bulk of their
life ahead of them.
They
experience
a major life event,
like a relationship
or
a
death,
that
changes them. All
loose ends are tied
up by the end, and
the viewer is left to
assume that, after they’ve been
affected by this life-altering
event, there’s no changing left to
be done. However, “Gloria Bell”
understands that this is anything
but true. People never stop
changing and people never stop
growing. In other words, people
never stop coming of age.
Gloria, played brilliantly by
Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”),
is a fifty-something divorced
mother of two living in a less-
than-ideal apartment. In fact,
mostly everything in her life
is less than ideal — her adult
children no longer need her the
way they used to, her job leaves
something to be desired and
her relationship with her new
boyfriend is dysfunctional, to
say the least. Whether we are
aware of it or not, the reality of
Gloria’s life is uncomfortable for
a lot of us. We like to believe that,
by the time we’re Gloria’s age,
we’ll have our lives “figured out.”
The hard, confusing parts of life
will be behind us. Gloria’s life is
an example of a life that doesn’t
go as planned, and the prospect
of things not going as planned
is unpleasant to think about.
Nevertheless, it is the truth.
“Gloria Bell” is unafraid to bring
awareness to it through the lens
of Gloria’s experience.
While
the
middle-aged
focus of “Gloria Bell” may feel
unapproachable
to
younger
audiences, the film is dedicated
to creating a universal appeal
in order to counteract this. For
one, dating, apartment living and
partying — all things we associate
with youth — are significant
parts of Gloria’s life. The film
shows that these facets of life are
in no way restricted to people in
their twenties and early thirties.
Additionally, the movie is quite
funny, largely due to Moore’s
relentlessly charming on-screen
presence. Michael Cera (“Scott
Pilgrim vs. the World”), a well-
known millennial icon, makes a
few appearances as well. “Gloria
Bell” also avoids isolating its
younger viewers by bridging the
generational gap between older
and younger people. Although
the film showcases undeniable
cultural
dissimilarities,
like
differences in music taste and
attitudes toward smoking and
technology, what each generation
values at its core — family, love
and human connection — is
essentially the same. Gloria’s
desire for meaningful connection
is at the root of nearly
all her actions, as
it is for most of us,
regardless of age.
All in all, “Gloria
Bell” is a celebration
of life’s uncertainty
in all its stages. It
knows that nothing
is
certain
and
that
everything
is
susceptible
to
change. In the final shot of the
movie, Gloria is shown dancing
fittingly to Laura Branigan’s
triumphant
’80s
anthem
“Gloria,” with an appearance
of happiness and freedom on
her face the audience has never
seen from her before. She dances
with her arms outstretched,
open to all possibilities. Instead
of wallowing in fear of life’s
perpetual flux, Gloria basks
in it and opens herself up to it.
And while she will inevitably
continue to change and “come of
age” after the credits stop rolling,
it’s clear that the growth she
has undergone over the course
of the film is monumental. Her
personal growth and ultimate
acceptance of it inspires viewers
to not only accept the change that
will certainly come their way, but
to welcome it with open arms.
‘Gloria Bell’ rejuvenates
FILM REVIEW
ELISE GODFRYD
Daily Arts Writer
Gloria Bell
Michigan Theatre
A24
Robert Mapplethorpe is an
enormously complicated figure —
that’s no less true today than it was
30 years ago when the attention of
the art-consuming world was rapt
with the progress of the Cincinnati
obscenity
trial
surrounding
his work. Born in 1946, the
photographer rose to fame in
the 1970s as an unabashed and
celebratory visual documentarian
of New York City’s gay community,
one of the first prominent artists
to elevate to the level of museum
gallery depictions of a group many
Americans still regarded with
hostility. Later in the decade, he
gained still more attention — and in
the eyes of his detractors, notoriety
— for often-explicit depictions
of
his
friends
in
the
City’s
underground BDSM community,
bringing his technical mastery and
fascination with classical forms to
bear upon subjects some welcomed
and others would have prefered
were left unaddressed.
In
the
midst
of
all
this,
Mapplethorpe was delving deeply
into the genres of self-portraiture,
still life, portraits and the nude,
honing his craft. In this latter
category he often foregrounded
the Black body, cherishing it for its
beauty and comparing it to bronze
sculpture. But this treatment of
his Black subjects (particularly his
omission of their faces) sometimes
came under scrutiny: Famously,
the poet Essex Hemphill offered a
withering critique of what he saw
as Mapplethorpe’s fetishization
of Black men and the museum
world’s embrace of it. He wrote
in his essay “Does Your Mama
Know About Me?” that “what is
insulting and endangering to Black
men is Mapplethorpe’s conscious
determination that the faces, the
heads, and by extension, the minds
and experiences of some of his
Black subjects are not as important
as close-up shots of their cocks.”
But by the time of his death in
1989 as a result of complications
from HIV/AIDS, Mapplethorpe
had developed into one of the most
significant photographers of the
late-20th century. That same year,
and spilling over into the next,
Mapplethorpe
was
catapulted
into household-name status when,
first, the Corcoran Gallery of Art
cancelled a planned exhibit of
his series “Robert Mapplethorpe:
The Perfect Moment” following
political
pressure
from
social
conservatives, and then when
the Contemporary Arts Center in
Cincinnati and its director, Dennis
Barrie, were brought to trial on
charges of obscenity due to their
booking of the same series. While
Barrie and the museum were
ultimately acquitted by jury, the
trial
nevertheless
represented
a crucial moment in the fights
surrounding
artistic
freedom,
censorship and funding for the
National Endowment for the Arts
that raged throughout the decade.
Caught up in the vicious opening
salvos of the culture wars that were
to consume much of the ’90s, in
the eyes of many Mapplethorpe’s
work came to occupy a social
place similar to Serrano’s “Piss
Christ” — provocative, stirring,
simultaneously
revered
and
reviled.
So how do we reckon with an
artistic legacy like that?
Two weeks ago, the University
Musical
Society
presented
a
performance
attempting
to
get at that very question. The
world premiere of the fully-
staged
version
of
“Triptych
[Eyes of One on Another],” a
new work co-commissioned by
UMS, the performance aimed to
re-contextualize
Mapplethorpe’s
work
by
juxtaposing
his
photographs
with
words
and
music in a theatrical context. In so
doing the creators of “Triptych”
demonstrated for the millionth time
the power of collapsing the barriers
we have erected between art
forms, and how interdisciplinary
art opens up fruitful aesthetic and
social dialogues.
Directed
by
theater
artist
Kaneza Schaal, and with music
by Bryce Dessner — a composer,
performer and curator many know
as a guitarist in the rock band
The National — and a libretto by
multi-disciplinary
artist
Korde
Arrington
Tuttle,
“Triptych”
doesn’t cohere into a narrative
in the traditional sense. Instead,
the performance was structured
(as the name implies) into three
principal sections, interweaving
texts
from
numerous
sources
— including the obscenity trial,
Mapplethorpe’s close friend Patti
Smith and Essex Hemphill — into
a series of songs held together by
Dessner’s polyglot musical style.
Throughout the course of all this,
Mapplethorpe’s photographs were
projected,
massively
enlarged
and sometimes rapidly changing,
onto screens above and around
the performers as lighting effects
swept across the stage and at times
even illuminated the audience. This
interplay of movement and light
sustained the emotional state of the
show throughout: A particularly
striking effect featured a bar of
searing white light descending
from the ceiling, as if for a moment
heaven opened up. In lieu of an
overt narrative arc, the audience
was thus presented with fleeting
impressions
and
emotionally
resonant scenes which feel as if
they lead naturally from one to
another but are difficult to string
together into a plot.
The performance relied upon
the formidable artistic talents of
the vocal ensemble Roomful of
Teeth (who by now certainly needs
no introduction from me), as well
as two additional vocalists, Alicia
Hall Moran and Isaiah Robinson,
and
instrumentalists
affiliated
with the School of Music, Theatre
& Dance. The vocalists, in addition
to singing Dessner’s score, took
on a semi-dramatic role as well,
repositioning themselves on the
stage throughout the course of
the performance, equipped with
rolling music stands.
“It’s a wonderful and rich
score,” Brad Wells, the director of
Roomful of Teeth, told me in an
interview the afternoon before
the performance. As I learned
from him over the course of our
conversation, the project has been
in the works for quite a while — the
possibility of the Teeth and Dessner
collaborating on a Mapplethorpe
work was first broached around
four years ago — and the piece
finally materialized into a complete
work in the last several months.
DAYTON HARE
DAILY CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMN
Musings on Mapplethorpe
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
As
someone
who
grew
up in Silicon Valley during
its
most
profitable
boom,
I still have a soft spot for
it. One thing Silicon Valley
is brilliant at is wrapping
capitalist ventures in a shroud
of idealism and “changing the
world” (hilariously skewered
by the creators of the HBO
show “Silicon Valley”). We
all wanted to grow up and
create the next startup. Forget
working for the government,
or for a university. The best
way of improving the world is
through private venture. It’s
hard to deny that the Valley
has had its successes. Its very
nature has made it susceptible
to fraud of various degrees,
and
the
most
egregious,
absurd and horrifying fraud of
them all is Theranos.
The story of Therenos is
inseparable from the story of
its founder Elizabeth Holmes,
and
recent
documentary
“The Inventor” places her at
the forefront. Starting from
her first days at Stanford,
the documentary paints a
portrait of a young woman
who had a precocious talent
to mesmerize. So talented,
in fact, she could convince
established
scientists
and
investors ranging from Henry
Kissinger
to
prominent
venture
capital
firms
to
fund her fledgling company
whose aim was to create a
small device that could run
hundreds of blood tests with a
small prick of blood.
From
its
inception
in
2003,
Theranos’s
only
trajectory
was
upward.
Magazine profiles, glowing
endorsements
from
former
presidents: Elizabeth Holmes
was a bona fide goddess.
However, the main problem
was
that
her
company’s
product
never
worked.
And nobody could find out.
“The
Inventor”
interviews
several
former
employees-
turned-whistleblowers
who
describe the chaos within. A
chemist describes having to
reach
into
malfunctioning
machines containing disease-
ridden blood with his bare
hands. Others describe Sunny
Balwani, one of Theranos’s
leading men and Holmes’s
former
lover,
monitoring
their
every
move.
Blood
tests supposedly ran by the
Theranos
Edison
machine
were simply run on Siemens
machines.
Theranos
is
ultimately
a story of tragedy on too
many fronts to count. Ian
Gibbons,
an
extremely
qualified biochemist brought
on to be chief scientist of the
company, committed suicide
days before having to appear
in
a
deposition
regarding
patent theft. Tyler Shultz, a
former research engineer, and
grandson of Theranos investor
and former Secretary of State
George
Shultz,
describes
essentially
being
thrown
under the bus by his own
grandfather. Whistleblowers
were
followed
by
private
investigators and feared for
their lives.
“The Inventor” uses footage
from famed documentarian
Errol Morris’s interview with
Holmes. As she looks directly
into the camera, wearing a
black turtleneck she used
to wear to emulate her hero
Steve Jobs, and speaking in
her artificial baritone, it’s
difficult to ascertain whether
she is lying to our faces,
or whether she genuinely
believes her innocence.
Dan Ariely, a professor
of behavioral economics at
Duke University, points out
the unique ethos of Silicon
Valley, in which people put
out flag posts miles away and
confidently proclaim “we are
going to reach it,” without
ever figuring out how. People
who don’t believe it are pushed
aside
as
“old-fashioned,”
needing to be “disrupted.”
But perhaps disruption isn’t
all that it’s panned out to be.
Perhaps forethought, research
and genuine understanding
are actually more valuable.
One can only hope that the
story of Theranos teaches
everyone
who
works
in
technology the lesson that
“build fast and break things”
is not always the answer.
Theranos documentary is
is pure terror and tragedy
TV REVIEW
The
Inventor
HBO
Streaming Now
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily New Media Editor
As she looks directly into
the camera ... it’s difficult
to ascertain whether she is
lying to our faces, or whether
she genuinely believes her
innocence
6 — Friday, March 29, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com