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By Jeff Stillman
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
04/10/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

04/10/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, April 10, 2019

ACROSS
1 Punk rock 
subgenre
4 Catches 
red-handed
8 Medieval stringed 
instruments
14 GoPro product, 
briefly
15 Many a 
homecoming 
attendee
16 Covent Garden 
offerings
17 All-Star pitcher
18 Controversial 
excavation 
method
20 Beach house?
22 Little biter
23 Bible book 
between Daniel 
and Joel
24 Biblical pronoun
25 Nursery cry
26 Form 1040 agcy.
28 Permanent 
sites?
30 Sounds of 
contentment
33 __ Fables
37 Criticize harshly
38 Beachfront 
property, often
41 Org. for netmen
42 “Barney Miller” 
star Hal
43 Linear
44 Biathlon weapons
46 __ Bund: Swiss 
newspaper
48 Skelton’s 
Kadiddlehopper
49 Merit badge org.
52 Tut-tutted
56 Scottish family
57 Breed of Tonto’s 
Scout
59 Handyman’s 
work suggested 
by the starts of 
18-, 20-, 38- and 
57-Across
61 Shortest 
surname in 
Cooperstown
62 Kin of jujitsu
63 Yours, to Yves
64 Once known as
65 Planted a red 
herring, say
66 Poolroom 
powder
67 Drop the ball

DOWN
1 Cybermoney
2 Chinese 
gambling mecca
3 Forebodings
4 Sprint Cup org.
5 Utah ski resort
6 Break open
7 Word for word?
8 Tiber River 
capital
9 Center starter
10 Cincinnati player
11 “Happy Days” 
actress
12 Inhabitant 
of ancient 
Palestine
13 NCO rank
19 Work at, as a 
trade
21 Reason-based 
faith
25 Easter liturgy
27 One-piece 
dresses
28 Go through
29 Floored it
30 On __ with
31 Constitution 
section that 
creates the 
executive 
branch

32 On-the-sly alcohol 
containers
34 Poetic time
35 Downcast
36 Bullfight cheer
39 K thru 6
40 Upper body
45 Soup legume
47 Cultural, as 
cuisine
49 Sheep’s cry
50 Occupy, as a 
desk

51 Santa __ 
racetrack
53 Scandinavian 
coin
54 Fragrant 
compound
55 Discourage
56 Pull an all-nighter
57 Urge
58 Item in a kit
60 “__ to My Right 
Knee”: Rita Dove 
poem

COMEDIC WRITER 
needed to write funny captions. 
Pay is $25 for 12 cap 
tions. Basically 
~$2 per caption. 
Contact mitchelj@umich.edu.

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Question: 

What goes 
great with your 
morning coffee?

Answer: 

michigandaily.com

Concertos for two pianos and 
orchestra are somewhat rare, 
maybe because it seems like 
such overkill. The conventional 
piano 
concerto 
stages 
a 
dialogue (or a competition, or 
a fight) between the orchestra 
and the soloist, which can 
usually nearly match, or at least 
analogize, the orchestra in 
power and scope. It’s less clear 
what a concerto for two pianos 
is really accomplishing by the 
addition of the third character 
— a piano duet, by itself, can 
accommodate nearly any piece 
of orchestral music. Many pre-
20th-century examples of the 
form simply trade the role of the 
soloist between the two pianists, 
leaving whichever player not 
playing the prominent role 
to fill in gaps in the texture 
or mirror the orchestra. One 
recent example of the form, 
Philip Glass’s double concerto, 
works in part because Glass’s 
style tends to be more planar 
than dialogic — the piece plays 
interlocking masses of sound 
off each other. Glass uses the 
piano not as an analogue for an 
orchestra, but something like 
mallet percussion.
A 
younger 
composer 

who 
borrows 
heavily 
from 
the 
minimalist 
tradition 
that 
Glass 
helped 
create is Bryce 
Dessner, 
whose 
latest 
set 
of 
recordings 
includes 
a 
concerto 
for 
two 
pianos 
played 
by 
the 
French duo Katia 
and 
Marielle 
Labèque. 
This 
piece splits the 
difference 
between 
Glass’s 
static, rhythmically inflected 
style and the more narrative 
concerto tradition, balancing a 
sense of thematic development 
with a bright, clear harmonic 
language and motoric rhythms. 
Dessner doesn’t shy away from 
the intricate, nearly overloaded 
textures 
that 
are 
possible 
with the instrumentation, and 
the spontaneity with which 
he 
combines 
themes 
and 
gestures is thrilling. Phrases 
ricochet around the orchestra, 
woodwinds scribble around the 
edges of phrases, abrupt shifts 
in texture and color abound. It’s 
like a liquid minimalism, just as 
likely to disperse into skittering 
phrases as it is to condense into 
a stampeding rush.
The 
second 
piece 
on 
the 
album, “Haven,” 
is 
scored 
for 
piano duet and 
two 
guitars, 
played here by 
the 
Labèques, 
Dessner 
and 
the 
guitarist 
David 
Chalmin. 
“Haven” 
is 
a 
much 
more 
restrained 
form 
of music than the 
piano 
concerto, 
and 
carries 
a 
superficial 

similarity to the earlier, pulse-
driven form of minimalism 
from the late 1960s. Like much 
minimalist music before it, it 
establishes a basic, repeated 
shape that then accumulates 
and disperses dissonance, like 
a river flowing over rocks. 
“Haven” 
doesn’t 
have 
the 
monomaniacal 
intensity 
of 
early Glass and Reich, though 
— it’s rather sectional, and can 
be read as following an overall 
A-B-A structure, like a sonata. 
Similar to the piano concerto, 
Dessner 
uses 
minimalism 
as a stylistic resource that 
can be channeled into more 
conventional forms.
“El Chan” is the final piece on 
the album, for piano duet. The 
set of miniatures are dedicated 
to Alejandro González Iñárritu, 
who Dessner worked with on 
the expansive score for The 
Revenant. Dessner’s language 
acquires 
a 
slightly 
more 
ominous, but still luminous, 
cast: dissonances accumulate in 
clouds above triads and seventh 
chords, frenetic gestures are 
cut short by bass hammer-
strokes. The music feels more 
differentiated, a jagged, misty 
landscape. The final piece, 
subtitled 
“Mountain,” 
ends 
with a series of slow, widely 
spaced chords, not suggesting 
tension or resolution but simply 
hanging, suspended.

Bryce Dessner plays with
composition on ‘El Chan’

ALBUM REVIEW

EMILY YANG
Daily Arts Writer

El Chan

Bryce Dessner

Brassland Records

Dessner doesn’t shy away 
from the intricate, nearly 
overloaded textures that 
are possible with the 
instrumentation

Before attending Assistant 
Professor José Casas’s “Flint,” 
I had already decided that I 
really wanted to like it. The 
premise of the play — a “call to 
action,” as the author describes 
it, meant to inform audience 
members of the Flint water 
crisis — seemed noble and 
highly important.
While the play did have its 
poignant, powerful moments, it 
lacked the focus and clarity to 
bring them home. The disparity 
of the many narratives in the 
play all but eliminated any 
overarching themes that might 
be drawn from the crisis, 
reducing a complex crisis into 
a series of heart-wrenching 
individual problems.
To 
understand 
these 
problems, 
one 
must 
first 
understand the basic structure 
of the play. It consisted of a 
series of monologues and duets 
in which people affected by 
the Flint water crisis spoke 
to the audience about their 
experiences. Over the course 
of the 
evening, we 
heard 
from 
various 
concerned 
stakeholders: a professor, an 
Autoworld worker, a deliver 
guy, an attorney and a nurse.
Though this technique was 
interesting at first, it eventually 
became cumbersome. I found 
myself wishing that characters 
would 
interact 
with 
each 
other at some point — that 
some character evolution or 
continuity 
between 
scenes 
and characters would begin to 
develop.
Furthermore, 
at 
many 
points, the dialogue resulting 

from this narrative structure 
began to feel awkward and 
preachy. The play began to 
feel as though it were a series 
of interviews with unrelated 
subjects, each one addressing 
the audience to detail the 
horrible 
effects 
that 
the 
crisis had on their life. The 
great disparity between the 
messages of these characters, 
however, diluted any central 
narrative or take away that 
might have developed.
Despite this, the acting talent 
on display was impressive. Any 
scene requiring a monologue 
usually becomes a staple of 
an actor’s repertoire; in this 
instance, the cast was required 
to perform two or three quasi-
monologues each. Each member 
of the cast excelled in this 
regard, consistently breaking 
the fourth wall and speaking 
seemingly 
extemporaneously 
to the audience without losing 
the audience’s attention.
The opening and closing 
ensemble 
numbers, 
for 
example, 
were 
absolutely 
stunning. 
In 
the 
opening, 
various 
members 
of 
the 
ensemble doubled each other‘s 
dialogues about the crisis. 
These were short, powerful 
statements meant to capture 
the lasting effects of this crisis. 
And near the end, as water 
flowed out of the pipes on the 
edges of the stage, the cast’s 
violent motions and groaning 
noises were truly horrifying; of 
everything in the play, this is 
the moment that stuck with me 
as I left the theater.
The set was very impressive: 
A chain-link fence stuffed full 
of dirtied water bottles framed 
the stage while dark brown 
pipes flanked the back left and 

right portions of the stage. 
During the intermission, these 
pipes were uncapped — in the 
ensemble scene, a slow trickle 
of water dripped from them 
into giant oil barrels.
A few of the narratives 
were particularly moving. The 
Attorney’s complaints about 
potentially moving trials to 
majority-white counties, for 
example, 
was 
particularly 
captivating. 
The 
Gardener 
and Socialist were also quite 
powerful, as the Gardener 
spoke 
of 
the 
peace 
that 
gardening brought him, the 
Socialist spoke of the damages 
that lead and other foreign 
substances can have to plants 
grown in contaminated soil.
The last minutes of the 
play, however, were its most 
powerful. In this monologue, 
a woman of color speaks to the 
audience about the cultural 
expectations 
that 
mothers 
(and mothers of color) face in 
speaking about this crisis. At 
one point, she tells the audience 
that “this play is over.” As the 
house lights abruptly turned 
on, she admonished us to listen 
to these stories and respond to 
them — to act on what we had 
heard and help be part of the 
solution.
In the end, I found myself 
wishing that the whole play 
had been this commanding. 
And while I applaud Prof. 
Casas’s 
ambitions 
on 
this 
project, I cannot say that it 
entirely lived up to what I had 
hoped for. Ultimately, it was a 
lengthy, slightly-disorganized 
rumination on the hazardous 
effects of the Flint water crisis 
— an incredibly important 
play, though not the most well-
executed attempt.

‘Flint’ is an ambitious play
that does not hit the mark

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Arts Writer

Megan Bascom and Nicole 
Reehort’s “Intersections” MFA 
Dance Thesis Concert explored 
themes of isolation, empathy 
and personal aspiration in the 
groups we find ourselves in 
on a daily basis. In Reehorst’s 
“Playing 
Dead,” 
a 
female 
protagonist 
navigates 
the 
practice of classical ballet, a 
journey that forces her to be 
both gentle and aggressive, 
fragile yet enduring. Bascom’s 
“ReGuarding,” on the other 
hand, 
has 
no 
protagonist. 
Instead, a group of dancers 
move around an obstacle course 
of 
abstracted 
sculptures, 
with relationships among the 
dancers and their environment 
constantly in flux.
Drawing from their distinct 
backgrounds, the two Masters 
candidates made very different 
choreographic 
decisions. 
Reehort’s piece began with 
her protagonist standing still 
at stage center, lights slowly 
illuminating her face and then 
her body. As a classical piano 
began to play, two dancers 
rolled across from either sides 
of the stage, unfurling fabric 
that would eventually entangle 
the protagonist as she slowly 
began to move. Bascom’s piece, 
by contrast, began with a bright 
red screen suddenly providing 
back-lighting for five dancers 
standing 
tall 
across 
stage 
center. As distorted electric 
guitar began playing over an 
electronic beat, the dancers 
energetically ran about the 
stage until they suddenly all 
stomped the music and screen 
to a halt. These beginnings 

placed the audience in two very 
different places from the start: 
Reehorst’s 
piece 
demanded 
attention to subtlety, while 
Bacom’s simply had us along for 
the ride.
The stage design acted as an 
early indicator of the different 
approaches. Reehorst’s set was 
comprised of ropes made of 
beige-colored ballerina lingerie 
knotted together, Bascom’s set 
employed 
eight 
abstracted 
containers of wood and metal. 
While the lingerie referenced a 
long history of lingerie in ballet 
and represented the established 
norms that literally entangle 
the main dancer, the containers 
seem 
to 
symbolize 
the 
immaterial obstacles of urban 
life, as the cast continuously 
fights to overthrow them.
The 
biggest 
difference 
between 
the 
performances, 
however, seemed to be the 
use or omission of music and 
dialogue. 
Reehorst’s 
piece 
used music sparingly, allowing 
us to be intimately connected 
with the protagonist for most 
of the time. When music did 
play, it was classical piano 
that indicated the start of 
a 
performance 
within 
the 
performance 
itself. 
This 
omission of music when the 
ballerinas 
were 
“offstage” 
gave the piece a self-aware 
objectivity that wouldn’t have 
been communicated otherwise.
Bascom, on the other hand, 
made use of high octane music 
and dialogue throughout. If 
all five dancers seemed to be 
acting as a group — playing 
off each other in any number 
of ways — fast-paced music 
would serve to accentuate the 
frenzy. During moments when 
only one or two dancers acted 

as others watched on, slower, 
more atmospheric music would 
support this intimacy. In this 
way, the use rather than the 
omission of music supported 
much of the social commentary 
Bascom seemed to be making.
Despite these differences, 
the performances had a great 
deal 
of 
thematic 
overlap 
(hence, 
“Intersections”). 
Reehorst’s 
focused 
on 
the 
plight of a woman trying to 
establish herself in a ballet 
company, hence its more muted, 
introspective 
nature. 
This 
protagonist fails to integrate 
herself throughout, only finally 
noticing the web of lingerie 
at the end after a great deal 
of strenuous, inward-looking 
solo performance. It is only 
then that she joins the other 
dancers as they synchronously 
roll offstage to conclude the 
performance.
The dancers in Bascom’s 
performance 
seem 
equally 
aloof to the obstacles before 
them. They move the metal 
containers around throughout 
the show, at times using them 
as protective barriers but at 
others 
involuntarily 
being 
bound to their control. After 
much quarrel, the five original 
dancers, aided by a curious new 
group of three others, come 
to a collective understanding 
that these containers are the 
source of their angst. The 
show ends on much the same 
note as Reehort’s with the 
group 
coming 
together 
to 
aggressively 
abolish 
these 
obstacles offstage. Regardless 
of their differences, “Playing 
Dead” and “ReGuarding” offer 
cohesive individualistic and 
collective insights into our 
intricately intersecting lives.

‘Intersections’ impresses
with original choreograpy

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

BEN VASSAR
Daily Arts Writer

6A — Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

