FOR RENT
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
BIOCHEM 212
TUTOR WANTED
Text Judy
(312)‑678‑6736
By Morton J. Mendelson
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/30/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
10/30/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2019
ACROSS
1 Gets misty, with
“up”
5 Salon treatment,
briefly
9 Benjamins
15 Curly coif
16 Popular river
name from the
Welsh for “river”
17 They’re
exchanged in
Hawaii
18 Nonstick
cookware product
19 Religious season
20 “Don’t take the
blame”
21 Risked it big-time
24 Cooler filler
25 Chinese zodiac
critter
26 Approximate nos.
27 MN and NM
30 Puts (in)
tentatively
32 Bad-mouth
33 Word before bug
or ant
34 Prov. bordering
four Great Lakes
35 Hairpiece
36 Hazardous gas
37 Risked it big-time
42 Parrots geese
43 Fill up on
44 Nero’s 91
45 Exclusive
46 Part of UNLV
47 Wore
51 BB-shaped
veggie
52 Coll. Board
exams
53 “I’m sorry, Dave”
film computer
54 “__ you serious?”
55 Risked it big-time
59 Compensate for
61 Short hoppers?
62 Hall of Fame
pitcher Randy
“The Big __”
Johnson
63 Hairpiece
64 Pennsylvania
county
65 5 for B or 6 for C
66 Coffee and wine
67 Lairs
68 One logging on
DOWN
1 Fistfight souvenir
2 __ hours
3 Second
Commandment
adjective
4 Footprint maker
5 Silicon Valley
city
6 Pentathlon’s five
7 “That’s a no-no!”
8 Where losers
of a race may
be left
9 West Point
students
10 Gravity-powered
vehicles
11 Classic video
game
12 Reaffirming
rebuttal
13 __ chi
14 Boomer that no
longer booms
22 Screwdrivers,
e.g.
23 Give approval
online, in a way
28 Slacks, briefly
29 Email status
31 Far from self-
effacing
33 Mystic on a bed
of nails
35 Comforted
36 Soda since 1905
37 Explore
OfferUp
38 Hue
39 Prohibited
40 “Awesome!”
41 Wide-open
spaces
46 Coffeehouse
orders
47 Sure winner
48 Contaminates
49 White-coated
weasel
50 One with bills to
pay
52 Look of disdain
56 Hockey’s Phil, to
fans
57 Sped
58 Waikiki bash
59 Needing no Rx
60 Egg __ yung
6A — Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
King Princess’s album promo video for Cheap
Queen is pure satire. King Princess is in drag as
she goes off into crisp banter with comedian
Kate Berlant. The promo masterfully captures
the intersection between women being clever
and being sexy, the perfect introduction to the
focal points of King Princess’s debut album.
The album promo, along with cover art
that features King Princess in a burlesque-
inspired outfit, immerses fans in the wonderful,
underrepresented
space
of
women
being
exceedingly funny without being labeled as
annoying or trying to get in your bed. Burlesque,
according to Wikipedia, is work “intended to
cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or
spirit of serious works. ” It has always been
controversial, especially with its connection
to strip clubs. With one quick Google search
you can find an article titled, “Is Burlesque
empowering or demeaning for women?” King
Princess takes any notion of this condescension
to those involved with burlesque and reverts it
with Cheap Queen. The debut album is literally
a vintage-inspired, empowering strip tease that
sits at the intersection of comedy, sexiness and
class.
Among the satire in the album promo, King
Princess weaves in small, quotable odes to the
energy that guided this break-up album. At one
moment she stares stone-cold at Kate Berlant
to say, “Do you like my leg hair through the fish
nets?” The next moment she acknowledges the
liberating space she creates for her fans: “To
see that my concerts like provide this space
for young queer kids. Especially for dykes, it’s
like, there has to be some sort of kind of haven
to fucking rage. There’s something church-like
about it.”
Sexiness through mockery is completely
authentic to Mikaela Straus (the real name
behind King Princess). Watch any interview
and you feel your panties drop while she mocks
herself or boring music. In this way, her debut
Cheap Queen feels completely authentic. She’s
vulnerable in her authenticity and sadness, and
that’s at the forefront of this debut. With Cheap
Queen, King Princess takes the pressure away
from being a hyper-feminine Instagram baddie
and instead grasps the sexiness that lies in
comedy and humility. It’s a lesbian heart-break
album that crushes and empowers its listeners
simultaneously.
This
retro,
going-backwards-to-move-
forward sort of female empowerment is woven
throughout the listening experience of each
track. Most notably, the title track “Cheap
Queen” incorporates audio from an old-timey
female movie, woefully spilling lyrics in the
background like: “Smiling for the audience” or
“cheap queen.”
One of my favorite tracks is “Hit The Back,” a
dance track that’s clear and direct about exactly
what her lover is missing now that they’re no
longer together: “Ain’t I the best you had, and I
let you throw it down, hit the back.” The Playboy
School of Pop video that’s set to the tune of
“Hit The Back” is even better; it displays King
Princess dressing as a hot version of every high
school trope, from cheerleader to basketball
player. She’s anything she wants to be. She
liberates her fans to feel the same.
King Princess’s journey started when she
exploded onto the scene after Harry Styles
tweeted about her hit single “1950.” Now only
20 years old, she’s on the rise, making music
for “the queer kids in the front,” as she says. In
the music video for “1950,” she rocked a small
drawn-on mustache. Now, for Cheap Queen, she
draws on fully arched eyebrows in full glam.
She’s exactly what pop needs — she exists in a
space that’s undefined and sexy as hell. King
Princess writes catchy love struck tunes to
female lovers. She’s always specific, always
daring and never holds back. Fall on your knees,
the reign of King Princess is here.
King Princess has arrived
SAMANTHA CANTIE
Daily Arts Writer
COLUMBIA RECORDS
ALBUM REVIEW
Cheap Queen
King Princess
Columbia Records
Twenty years ago, Mike Judge created “Office
Space,” the perfect distillation of the nine to five
ennui that can sometimes veer into the surreal, all
borne out of being trapped in a cubicle for most of
the day. It was an unglamorous era for the humble
programmer, before the excesses of the following
decade set in.
Years later, Judge returned to a similar theme
after the successes of his following projects with
the HBO series “Silicon Valley.” The bleak dystopia
is (seemingly) flipped on its head in the show’s
titular location, with the bleak gray interiors of
Initech replaced by the colorful, open office layouts,
all-you-can-eat lunches of Hooli. Characters like
Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch, “Tag”)
are trying to escape their jobs not out of extreme
boredom, but rather the possibility of becoming
the next iterations of the CEOs of the companies
they work at. “Passion” and “energy” become
the buzzwords of the day, with the “worthy”
deservedly capturing the fruits that capitalism can
endow.
Reading between the lines, however, one
can come to realize that the world portrayed by
“Silicon Valley” is its own type of dystopia, with
the real-life effects of the real-life equivalents of
the personalities of the show becoming a larger
part of the national conversation. The brash,
uncontainable ego of characters like Hooli CEO
Gavin Belson (Matt Ross, “American Horror Story:
Hotel”) are some of the best bits of the series,
but when we see some of those elements in the
Zuckerbergs and Bezoses of the world that Belson is
presumably a caricature of, the consequences are a
bit more dire. Or when the cartoonish greed of Russ
Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos) is reflected in
the Adam Neumanns of the world (who get billion
dollar payouts to leave their companies while their
employees lose their jobs), the utopianism that
many companies, venture capital firms and other
cogs of the tech ecosystem try to spread seems more
and more like the front to ever-growing grifts.
Yet it is always difficult to not cheer for the
protagonists of the series, however flanderized
they’ve become. Maybe in their early days, this
was itself the attitude towards the now despised
Facebooks and Amazons of the world. One of the
frustrating parts of the show is that since Pied
Piper (the startup in the center of it all) never really
passes the startup stage, we never see how the
transition into potential global behemoth affects
the attitudes and relationships of the characters (a
la “The Social Network”).
“Silicon Valley” returns for its sixth and final
season this week, and despite the relative downturn
in quality of the previous two seasons, it is set up
with a lot of promise for a final season to match
the high bar set by its first few. Even between
when it started five years ago and now, perceptions
within and without “The Valley” about the societal
impact (mostly negative ones) and responsibilities
of the behemoths in the Bay Area have changed
drastically, and the quirks of the characters that
made them so endearing are not as funny anymore.
There is a lot of room to explore these ideas as well
as analyze the changing landscape in the tech
world with the trademark wit and precision which
Judge has shown time and time again.
Looking back at ‘Silicon’
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily Arts Writer
TV NOTEBOOK
Earlier this week, I was talking to an old
friend, and I told her that I had bought tickets to
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” for me and
my whole family the instant they went on sale.
She wasn’t surprised; I had done the same thing
for many movies in the past, like “Star Wars:
The Last Jedi,” “Beauty and the Beast” and
“Avengers: Endgame.” I am what you would call a
little bit obsessed with movie franchises, and my
family — especially my sister — shares my love of
Disney movies in particular.
However,
during
our
conversation,
she
made an offhand remark asking me if I could
remember the last Disney movie that I had seen
that wasn’t part of a franchise or a reboot. I told
her of course I could name one, and then I sat
there in shock realizing that I couldn’t. I have
since realized that, as far as I can remember, it
was back in 2016 with Disney’s “Moana.”
By the end of 2019, Disney will have released 11
movies in theaters (not including those of which
are Fox properties, or Disney’s Fox releases):
“Captain Marvel,” “Dumbo,” “Penguins” (a
Disneynature
film),
“Avengers:
Endgame,”
“Aladdin,” “Toy Story 4,” “Spider-Man: Far From
Home,” “The Lion King,” “Maleficent: Mistress
of Evil,” “Frozen 2” and “Star Wars: The Rise of
Skywalker.” The wide variety of movies looks
impressive, but with the exception of “Penguins”
(a documentary), there is not a single original
movie in that list. Every single one of them is
either part of a series or a reboot of a classic.
I personally love Disney films. It doesn’t
matter to me if it’s a reboot or a sequel, if it’s
animated or live-action: I love them all. But it is
staggering to realize how many box-office hits in
this day and age lack originality. All the Disney
“Star Wars” movies are part of a larger franchise
that began in the ’70s, and all the Disney Marvel
movies are based on comic books dating back to
1939. All the live-action, remade classic movies
are based on old Disney cartoons. Even Disney,
arguably one of the most imaginative and
creative film companies, seems to be grasping at
straws when it comes to moviemaking. They are
sticking to franchises and reboots because they
know that those are the kinds of movies that will
get them a return on investment.
And to be fair, those movies are successful.
Disney dominated the box-office in 2019; as of
this week, the top six movies in the domestic box-
office charts this year are all Disney properties.
They know what works to make money, and right
now, it’s franchises and reboots.
Disney announced a number of upcoming
films from 2019 to 2023 at its D23 expo earlier
this year, and a majority of them fall under the
franchise and reboot category. For instance,
from 2020 to 2022, there are at least seven
Marvel movies slated to come out, complete with
release dates and everything. There are a few
original movies sprinkled in, but not many.
And with the addition of Disney+ (release date
Nov. 12, 2019), even more franchise and reboot
movies and television shows are to be released
outside of theaters. Disney is really banking on
the nostalgia factor and the franchise frenzy
with a lot of the Disney+ content: a new “Lizzie
McGuire” TV show, a “Star Wars” universe TV
show “The Mandalorian,” a live-action “Lady
and the Tramp” movie and a number of lower-
caliber Marvel heroes’ TV shows are just some of
the new content to be added, not to mention the
“oldie but goldie” Disney TV shows and movies
that haven’t been on air or in theaters for years.
Disney is flourishing right now — that much
is clear. But what will happen when the era of
franchise and reboots finally ends? While they
will probably always be a successful company,
(how can they not be with entire theme
parks based on their films?), they will have to
understand their audience’s interests and make
hasty adjustments based on what people want to
see sooner or later.
Eventually, they’ll have to stop churning out
sequels and remakes and finally create something
new, something never-before seen. They’ve
done it before: Back in 1950 when “Cinderella”
came out, the scene where her ripped-up dress
was transformed into her iconic ballroom dress
amazed viewers, who had never seen animation
like that. But that was 70 years ago. They’ll have
to up their game a little, though I’m pretty sure
they’ll catch up when the franchise era dies
down.
In the meantime, I’ll still happily hop on the
franchise train and see “The Rise of Skywalker”
the night it comes out.
Disney has been very busy,
and the future looks bright
SABRIYA IMAMI
For The Daily
FILM NOTEBOOK
Disney is flourishing right now — that much
is clear. But what will happen when the era of
franchise and reboots finally ends?
It is always difficult
to not cheer for the
protagonists of the
series, however
flanderized they’ve
become.