The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, November 5, 2019 — 5A

You walk into a bar on Halloween dressed 
as Margot Robbie dressed as Sharon Tate from 
Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in 
Hollywood.” You spent 20 dollars and six hours 
trying to put on fake eyelashes and the bar is empty. 
The guy dressed as Austin Powers you flirted with 
at Rick’s on Tuesday isn’t there, your roommates 
who couldn’t decide on a trio costume that wasn’t 
“Mamma Mia” or the Kardashians aren’t there. 
The only other person there is a girl approximately 
your height also in a black turtleneck, also in an 
a-line, white, mini skirt, also in white go-go boots, 
also rocking the same flawless, golden locks. Like 
Carrie Bradshaw, you couldn’t help but wonder, 
is that girl you? Or is she, perhaps, a Kafka-esque 
manifestation of your own sense of self? She looks 
at you, you look at her, and in the pornographic 
version of this story, you two furiously make out. 
But this isn’t the pornographic version of this story, 
so you look at each other for an extra second or two 
before she wonders aloud: Are you also Sharon 
Tate? You blink your fake eyelashes a little too 
forcefully in an enthusiastic nod. She drags you to 
the dance floor where her friends have assembled 
as the entire cast of the movie you are both dressed 
up as. So much for trying to be original. 
Your friends enter the bar dressed as a 
combination of Selena Gomez, Avril Lavigne and a 
sexual fantasy. The same guy flirts with all of you. 
He is dressed as nothing. Not the concept, which 
would’ve been more interesting. I guess you could 
say he is dressed as Jared from Saginaw who is a 
senior studying economics. Or you could say he is 
dressed as nothing. 
You pose for too many pictures and try to suck 
in your gut so much that you almost give yourself 
a stomach aneurysm, if that’s even a thing. You 
drink shots of whiskey and chase them with pickle 
juice because it makes you feel mature. You think 
about the last three Halloweens when you were 
Cher Horowitz and Eleven and Gilda Radner. You 

decide, collectively, that this place sucks. You then 
go to a suckier place, perhaps the suckiest place. 
You arrive and see the line, hell no. You know 
it’s not worth the walking pneumonia, you wish 
you stayed at the other bar or never went out in 
the first place. Your friend reminds you that she 
is in Greek life, so the four of you waltz up to the 
masked bouncer like the cast of “The Bling Ring.” 
Without a singular qualm, your friend whispers 
in slow motion a very specific fruit or vegetable or 
brand of Tequila. This is the password. You enter 
the establishment feeling like a king. 
The feeling of superiority melts away before it 
has a chance to grow into confidence. Every boy 
is dressed as a character from “Peaky Blinders,” 
while his female counterpart is a devil or an angel 
or Ashley O. 
You never pay for a drink. You pretend to 
have seen “Peaky Blinders.” You try on different 
personalities like costumes, it is Halloween after 
all. You wonder if that boy dressed as Austin 
Powers will be there. He is. He doesn’t remember 
you. You wonder about all the people you don’t 
remember but then you remember that you can’t 
remember. 
You talk to a boy or, rather, he talks to you. He 
tells you about his screenplay. You wonder if he 
will read this column and know who he is. You 
second guess writing this line because it could 
come off weird but you promise it’s not weird. Yet, 
saying that it’s not weird makes it feel like it really 
is weird. You leave it in unless your editor decides 
to take it out. 
He asks for your number and the only digits that 
come to mind are 867-5309. You give him your real 
number and hope that his fake mustache is in fact 
fake. 
You leave with one out of three of the friends you 
came in with. You get pizza for the third time in 72 
hours. Your friend gets two slices and a date. You 
get a pie and a drunken text. 
You get home, you rip off the 20 dollar, six hour, 
fake eyelashes in less than a second. You fall asleep 
on the couch with your white go-go boots on. It is 
your last Halloween in Ann Arbor.

Becky Portman: Your last
Halloween in Ann Arbor

BECKY PORTMAN
Humor Columnist

HUMOR COLUMN

Like the sudden reminder of a like on an old 
Facebook picture, past versions of ourselves are 
often the hardest things to grapple with. Look in the 
mirror for too long, and you’ll start looking strangely, 
endlessly flawed. How much of that image is what we 
have created ourselves, and how much is due to the 
double binds society thrusts upon us?
Saeed Jones’s “How We Fight For Our Lives: 
A Memoir” takes an unflinching look back at a 
past version of himself, and in doing so 
examines the degrading, paradoxical 
situations thrust upon gay Black men. 
Jones, at an all-too-young age, was shown 
the contrast between who he wanted to be 
and what society had predetermined he 
would be:
“Being Black can get you killed.
Being gay can get you killed.
Being a Black gay boy is a death wish.”
From the start, Jones writes his 
youth as being defined by being pulled in 
multiple directions. A pull between his 
Buddhist, single-mother home in Texas 
and summers spent with his Christian 
grandmother in Memphis. Between his bookish 
nature and society’s expectations for Black men. 
Between the homophobia of his grandmother, the 
willful ignorance of his mother and his true sexuality. 
Later, he’s pulled between his home and mother 
in Texas, an expensive education in New York City 
and a debate scholarship in Kentucky. Between being 
asked to simultaneously fulfill the role of a child, 
father and husband. And finally, between the life he’s 
built for himself and family tragedies that interrupt 
that growth.
“How We Fight For Our Lives” asks essential 
questions about what happens when people are 
ground down on opposite sides. Does their edge 
become pliable like clay, or sharp as a knife? Jones is 
uniquely unafraid to ask hard questions about who 
those people are who are grinding them down. If it’s 
the ones they hate, are they necessarily evil? What if 

it’s the ones they love?
As with other queer youth, he’s caught between 
who he is and who his family wants him to be. Jones’s 
ability to tackle these problematic issues is his most 
valuable asset. Even in trauma, like when his mother 
finds explicit instant messenger chats between him 
and older men, he has the understanding to ask how 
he’s affected his family.
As he works on updated versions of himself, Jones 
must constantly re-sync that self with his family. 
Calling back home from college is a reminder of the 

Saeed Jones his mother knows. The memoir’s third 
act is the final echo of this process: Tragedy strikes his 
family, and Jones must re-evaluate his professional, 
strenuously built life with the one he left behind.
Through his adolescence, Jones learned to 
address trauma by writing and reading poetry. His 
background as a poet lends itself immensely to “How 
We Fight.” Jones’s poetry background seeps into 
every crack he can carve out of the memoir genre. 
The prose is best when it embeds poetic devices 
in what could still be a late-night talk between old 
friends. If it is genuinely conversational prose, it’s 

the well-crafted version of yesterday’s argument you 
perfect in the shower the next day.
Jones’s imagery, phrases or deliberate use of 
particular words stick in your mind. Mark Twain 
describes history as not repeating but rhyming. 
Like his poems, this memoir rhymes similarly by 
repeating devices or odd word choices from previous 
chapters. In a particularly difficult passage about 
sexual assault, previously used diction and syntax 
come back like a ghost to haunt Jones.
Even while recounting the most jarring traumatic 
events, Jones omits no embarrassing or complicating 
details. The disturbing realities of the intersection of 
racism, sexuality, sexual assault and family life are 
laid out bare. Sometimes, one can’t help but re-read 
to confirm a detail was actually acknowledged. The 
reader’s feeling of seeing the genuine, messy reality of 
trauma shows why these themes are best presented 
in memoir form. 
The mood is somehow both contradictory and 
cohesive. Jones has confidence, even while explaining 
his greatest insecurities. He’s understanding of his 
family’s actions while acknowledging the hurt they 
caused him. Many of these complexities could have 
been lost with a less expressive writer.
All these complexities are packed into a rather 
short memoir without feeling rushed. Unlike other 
books attempting to touch on various themes, the 
book in no way overstays its welcome.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that his writing 
tiptoes through contradictions and complications 
in mood and theme, given that Jones is forced to 
tiptoe through these contradictions in his own 
life. Ultimately, “How We Fight For Our Lives” is 
a concise, but a fully fleshed-out exploration of the 
complexities of growing up with the world stacked 
against you. Jones shows queer people can’t just sit 
back and watch their future selves unfold. They must 
fight to create a life for themselves, and then often 
fight for their life itself.

Saeed Jones’s memoir a
poetic, queer reckoning

LUKAS TAYLOR
Daily Arts Writer

Emily Dickinson, the notoriously reclusive and 
prolific American poet, goes on hot dates with Death. 
At least, she does in “Dickinson.” 
In “Dickinson,” Emily (Hailee Steinfeld, “The Edge 
of Seventeen”) faces a life of literary obscurity and 
domestic boredom as she grows up in Amherst, Mass.. 
Her father (Toby Huss, “GLOW”) prohibits her from 
publishing her beloved poetry and encourages her to 
remain in his household as a proper lady. Her mother 
(Jane Krakowski, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) 
would rather have all the chores to herself and see her 
wild and difficult daughter marry as soon as possible. 
Emily has other plans. Determined to become the 
greatest poet who has ever lived, she seeks adventure 
and sets off to break as many rules as she can. She 
publishes a poem against 
her 
father’s 
wishes, 
sneaks 
into 
Amherst 
College 
to 
attend 
the 
male-only 
lectures, 
throws 
extravagant 
opium parties and protests 
the construction of an 
environmentally harmful 
railroad with Henry David 
Thoreau (John Mulaney, 
“Big Mouth”). 
While Emily strives to cross boundaries and create 
change, she still struggles against the overwhelming 
pressure and strict social standards of her New 
England life. Her closest friend and secret lover Sue 
Gilbert (Ella Hunt, “Anna and the Apocalypse”) 
announces her engagement to Emily’s brother Austin 
(Adrian Enscoe, “Seeds”). The news sends Emily into 
a downward spiral and motivate her to fight back 
against the very systems that suppress her. 
“Dickinson,” however, refuses to restrict itself to 
simply retelling the story of Emily’s life. Instead, it 
commits wholeheartedly to the poet’s unconventional 
style and explores her world of creativity with 

anachronistic flair. 
This show isn’t interested in tired period piece 
tropes or pretentious dialogue to make its points. At 
the end of the season’s first episode, Emily runs to 
join Death (Wiz Khalifa, “Bojack Horseman”) in his 
ghostly horse-drawn carriage while “bury a friend” 
by Billie Eilish plays in the background. Despite how 
unconventional it may seem, it makes perfect sense. 
Nothing is off limits for “Dickinson,” and its subject 
material is only improved because of it. 
While the show revels in its outlandish moments 
and off-kilter humor, “Dickinson” still knows that 
its fun comes at a cost. Limited by her gender and 
sexuality, Emily’s attempts at causing mischief in the 
name of poetry are always tinged by her deep sense 
of loneliness and otherness. Constantly referred to as 
“weird,” Emily accepts the label happily to display her 
unique talents, but the separation of her inner world 
and those around her is 
undeniable. Her alienation 
is 
evident 
in 
every 
hallucination 
of 
Death, 
every Mitski song on the 
soundtrack, every moment 
of twerking in a hoop skirt 
and corset. 
“Dickinson” 
understands 
its 
own 
mythology so well that it 
doesn’t feel the need to 
reflexively prove its sincerity. Emily’s legacy speaks 
for itself, and this depiction of her living days doesn’t 
attempt to explain her technical poetic genius. The 
show focuses on the poet’s life as she is not often 
remembered: A brilliant, witty writer who felt true 
devotion to her friends and family, a far cry from the 
hermit persona that has defined her place in history.
Through this new series, Emily Dickinson has 
her own story rewritten without the burden of her 
stuffy, historic reputation. “Dickinson” seamlessly 
constructs a world where Emily can reclaim her own 
narrative and, in its brilliant execution, grants her the 
immortality she deserves.

Emily Dickinson pops off

ANYA SOLLER
Daily Arts Writer

APPLE TV

TV REVIEW

Dickinson

Season 1, Episodes 1-4

Apple TV+

Now Streaming

“The 
Laundromat” 
recounts 
dramatized 
vignettes about the Panama Papers, a 2015 data leak 
that connected hundreds of public figures and elites 
from 200 countries to an obscure Panamanian 
law firm, Mossack Fonseca. After the unexpected 
brilliance of his last project, “High Flying Bird,” 
Steven Soderbergh’s atypical foray into awards 
season is ultimately a well-meaning effort that falls 
flat. 
The director is clearly fond of the small fry, a 
self-proclaimed champion of the underdog. In 
“Laundromat,” he attempts to diverge from his 
known playbook, instead choosing to explain the 
international political scandal from a decidedly 
titanic perspective: The partners of the Panamanian 
law firm held responsible.
Mossack and Fonseca, played by Gary Oldman 
(“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”) and 
Antonio Banderas (“Life Itself”) respectively, are 
closer to narrators than characters in the story, 
frequently breaking the fourth wall to address the 
audience and divulge the nuances of their legal 
scheming. As a result, the talent of the two actors is 
largely wasted on stinging exposition and walking 
around through champagne-plied galas and white 
sand beaches. Soderbergh’s dedication to their 
viewpoint is compelling, elongating the single news 
cycle life of the Panama Papers into a measured 
look into their actual misdoings.
Yet, the plot is fragmented by Soderbergh’s 
unconditional adoration of the underdog. In addition 
to several stories about offshore shell companies 
that quietly run funds from bank account to bank 
account, the audience follows a recurring thread 
about an ordinary woman who discovers the Panama 
Papers through her dysfunctional insurance 
company. Ellen Martin, played by Meryl Streep 
(“Mamma Mia”), is the film’s sole everywoman, 

and is certainly noble in her cause to bring down 
the nameless corporations who control her life like 
the puppeteers they are. But eventually, her rigid 
morality feels like a performative ruse compared to 
the rest of the movie. There is something admirable 
about telling a story of corruption through a lens 
of rank, privileged apathy. That would be an 
inherently reflexive movie, immediately forcing 
the viewer to question their own beliefs about the 
politically translucent demons on screen. However, 
Soderbergh cannot resist his own temptations 
to include the layman, and the result is a wasted 
Meryl Streep performance that adds little to the 
film.

The result of Soderbergh’s breadth in perspectives 
is not enlightening, in fact, it’s hardly informative. 
“Laundromat” 
becomes 
lost 
in 
its 
stylistic 
idiosyncrasies and sprawling storylines to the 
point of mundanity. It has all the fingerprints of an 
entertaining movie, but that’s all it ever is. A middle-
school presentation about the Panama Papers 
would have covered the same amount of intellectual 
ground as a product suffused with movie stars, 
elaborate sets and high-level filmmaking. 
“Laundromat” is frequently compared to Adam 
McKay’s “The Big Short.” But the key difference 
between these two trenchant and bitingly smart 
political comedies is clear. I walked away from 
“The Big Short” with an understanding of the 
financial crisis that was half-soundbite and half-
real-understanding. “Laundromat” only provides 
the former, as compact and instantaneous as the 
Panama Papers news cycle itself. 

‘Laundromat’ is a slacker

NETFLIX

FILM REVIEW

ANISH TAMHANEY
Daily Arts Writer

Laundromat

Netflix

SIMON & SCHUSTER

How We Fight For Our 
Lives

Saeed Jones

Simon & Schuster

October 8, 2019

BOOK REVIEW