By Jeffrey Wechsler
(c)2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/08/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

11/08/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Friday, November 8, 2019

ACROSS
1 Long-nosed fish
4 Took to the 
cleaners
11 With 29-Down, 
anticipates 
potential trouble
14 Burns wrote one 
on a louse
15 “After this, no 
more questions”
16 Tahiti, to Gauguin
17 Total confusion at 
the creamery?
19 Actor Cage, 
casually
20 Avoided a family 
affair, perhaps
21 Fabled beast
22 Golden __
23 Carefree 
adventure
24 Little tunneler
25 “The L Word” 
co-creator 
Chaiken
26 Giant among 
Giants
27 Alicia Keys 
record label
29 Without markup
30 Foot condition 
seen in oaters?
34 Checked the 
latest blog entry, 
say
35 Comparison of 
a motor coach 
to all other travel 
options?
39 Gershwin classic
41 Ike’s WWII 
command
42 Prefix with 
laryngology
43 Throws the game
44 O’er and o’er
46 Thunderstruck
47 Synagogue 
storage cabinets
48 T’ai __
49 Compassionate 
words
51 TX library 
honoree
52 Barista’s 
occupational 
hazards?
54 “Don’t Bring Me 
Down” gp.
55 Fur-loving de Vil
56 “Who __?”: New 
Orleans Saints 
chant

57 Lee follower
58 Beach pest
59 “You __ devil!”

DOWN
1 Visit the engine 
room, perhaps
2 Put on a pedestal
3 Sharp answers
4 Head for the hills
5 Frying medium
6 It’s NW of 
QWERTY
7 Allen of Vermont
8 “See the ___ 
clear’d, and then 
we will depart”: 
“King Henry VI”
9 Grandson of 
Adam
10 __ Arc, Arkansas
11 Require for 
success
12 Ones from afar
13 It may be hard to 
keep
18 State hwy., often
22 “Jo’s Boys” 
author
24 “Storage Wars” 
network
25 “I speak the truth”
27 Brand munched 
by E.T.

28 Want badly
29 See 11-Across
31 Boxer’s boxers
32 Gold __
33 Agitated
35 Many a heist
36 E.M. Forster’s 
“__ End”
37 Opposite of 
momentary
38 Reason for a 
cover-up?
39 Less fresh

40 Emulate a 
nightingale
44 “Whoop-de-doo”
45 Played a piccolo-
like instrument
46 Needle front?
48 “Downton Abbey” 
countess
49 Deftly
50 StubHub parent
52 IV units
53 2003 holiday 
film

BOOK REVIEW

People watching, the search for cultural identity 
and the subtleties of growing up in the city gracefully 
intertwine as Su Hwang offers her upbringing to the 
reader in her poetry collection “Bodega.” Born in 
Korea shortly before immigrating to New York City, 
Hwang uses her experiences to develop an expansive 
collection of memories of partial assimilation that she 
relays through 
her collection 
of 
poems. 
Every 
reader 
experiences 
years 
of 
growing up in 
an immigrant 
household 
in 
the 
mere 
94 
pages 
of 
“Bodega.” 
Those 
who 
have 
already 
experienced this phenomenon will find the 
experience even more vivid as their own flashbacks 
enhance Hwang’s already robust sentiments.
Hwang’s exceptional ability for photographic 
description is the vehicle through which she shares 

the experience of growing up in a land separated 
from her heritage. Each vignette incorporates a more 
creatively accurate degree of detail than one would 
receive through their own eyesight. In the bodega-set 
poem “Instant Scratch Off,” 
Hwang picks up on the slight 
tensions between interacting 
members of different racial 
groups while incorporating 
unmistakable features of the 
individuals, like a Nigerian 
man’s “salt-and-pepper hair 
gathered into a seahorse.”
This 
meticulous 
level 
of 
physical 
and 
social 
observation juxtaposes the 
more rushed and self-centered 
standard protocol of bodega 
visitors, giving the everyday 
scene its seemingly more rare 
quality. The scene epitomizes 
what makes Hwang’s writing 
so charming and impactful: 
She 
manages 
to 
analyze 
situations and states of mind 
that many people, especially 
those of immigrant families, 
have been through on a more 
thorough level than most are 
willing to do — perhaps at times as a self defense 
mechanism.
Hwang’s most chilling works are those that tackle 
the issue of feeling stuck between cultures — being 

excluded from exposure to the experiences typical 
of growing up in her homeland, yet being equally 
deprived of the aspects of culture that seem inherent 
to those who are more historically American. It 
is the existential battle fought by the children of 
immigrant households as they endeavor to escape 
the cultural purgatory between their family and 
their surroundings.
Hwang 
convincingly 
highlights 
this 
all-
encompassing lack of belonging: “There’s no place 
like home / There’s no place like home / There’s no one 
place.” 
The 
moment 
one 
begins life in a 
new land, they 
begin to lose 
their heritage 
— 
“Family 
trees reduced 
/ to oral / 
traditions” 
— 
but 
one 
never 
fully 
assimilates 
to 
the 
new 
culture. Hwang’s pained awareness on this matter 
grants her collection the honest and raw nature that 
makes it so captivating to any audience and relatable 
to those who have undergone similar experiences.
The 
intersections 
of 
Hwang’s 
meticulous 
descriptions of her surroundings and her self-aware 
portrayals of internal conflicts above all connect her 
distinct talents to give the greatest insight to her 
immigrant upbringing. In “Fresh Off the Boat | Five 
Sonnets,” she addresses an interaction in which her 
family is verbally assaulted and then told to go back to 
where they came from. The remainder of the sonnet 
has two focuses: Her family’s reactions (from the 
fear in everyone’s eyes to her brother’s tearful face 
in her embrace) and her internal response, which 
intertwines profound anger and speechlessness 
with an underlying wish that she can simply escape 
to a place where she feels actual belonging. Hwang’s 
ability to echo these themes of racial tension and 
exclusion in her discussion of seemingly unrelated 
household 
memories 
and 
casual 
observances 
gives 
her collection a seamless 
consistency from one poem to 
another that few authors can 
maintain over the course of an 
entire collection.
This, then, is Hwang’s 
secret recipe to an impressive 
poetry 
collection. 
Her 
technique is deliberate and 
perfected, 
implementing 
hyper-realistic 
description 
without 
getting 
caught 
up in the frills of overly 
elaborate devices. As she 
adds transparent sentiments 
regarding 
her 
struggle 
and that of immigrants in 
her 
periphery, 
her 
vivid 
descriptions absorb the reader 
and she sees from her eyes 
what it means to grow up in an 
immigrant household. Most 
works attempting to do so still 
cause the reader to feel like an outsider looking in, but 
Hwang’s readers gaze out at an unaccepting world.

Insight into the immigrant
experience with ‘Bodega’

ANDREW PLUTA
Daily Arts Writer

Scrolling through Gracie Abrams’s Instagram 
(yes, J.J. Abrams’s daughter) is like flipping 
through her diary. Her aesthetic is the glow of 
Christmas lights with polaroid pictures taped to 
her bedroom walls, Muji pens scribbling journal 
entries, posts of political activism and snippets 
of her humming voice amongst the hue of those 
festive lights. 
By opening the pages of her diary, so to speak, 
on Instagram, Abrams consistently lets the 
viewer step into the warmth of her wistful room. 
She’s been at this for years: three years ago she 
posted a snippet of a song called “Minor.” I fell 
in love with the romantic teenage earnestness 
she exuded, as if “Minor” was a walk through 
the movie “Me and Earl and The Dying Girl.” 
“Minor” is a longing, youthful love letter. She 
whispers the lyrics: “I’ll put on a show, if you just 
come over. I’m sorry your house is in Glendale, 
or somewhere far.” 
Gracie has built up a cult following on 
Instagram in the three years since. In these years 
of fragmented songs, fans consistently voiced 
their restlessness, begging for her to release 
something official. On Oct. 24, 2019, she finally 
debuted her first official single “Mean It,” along 
with a VEVO verified music video. Accordingly, 
the song feels like a walk inside the glimmer 
of Gracie’s room. The music video features her 
placing objects inside her room, whispering her 
woes with a pouty face as she sprawls across her 
bed. The intimacy of this powerhouse teenage 
femininity I had followed on my feed for years 
had finally broke onto the official scene. 
It’s important to note that the term diary 
particularly stirs up images of femininity, and 
her Instagram and various media outlets are 
described as diary-esque. I believe what drew 
me most to Abrams is this exactly: her capture 
of the “diary energy” of the teenage girl, and 
the power she brought to it. The dewy skin 
and hoodies with her soft spoken voice that’s 
knifelike, the dreamy bedroom and wistfulness 
— three years ago she let me feel power in this, as 
I was 17, figuring out where my power could be. 
Her instagram launched her into the respects 
of Lorde, Clairo, FINNEAS and the producers 

she formally works with today. Seeing the magic 
of the teenage bedroom transformed into a 
palpable power that garnered intense respect 
of powerful producers felt like watching Clairo 
rise, but without the rush and with the space to 
breathe. 
Growing up with artists like Arianna Grande 
and Nicki Minaj, I pondered if in order to 
be empowered as a female, the teenage girl 
bedroom-centric aesthetic had to be suppressed. 

Abrams is refreshing in this way — she has an 
authority that doesn’t need to be menacing 
or sexy or embody male characteristics to be 
taken seriously. She’s a soft vocal, and she’s 
authoritative in being her. 
Abrams rose and broke in by opening her diary, 
letting us flip through the pages and showing 
how this version of the teenage girl is a force to 
be reckoned with, as is every other version. 
I’ve been listening to Gracie Abrams in my 
room, my Christmas lights bouncing off of my 
poster-filled walls, while I sit criss-crossed on 
my white comforter. I used to be embarrassed 
by the term “diary.” Artists like Gracie make 
me feel powerful in this space, journaling in my 
bedroom. Gracie’s debut single is this space for 
me. If you want to feel the power of girls in their 
bedrooms scribbling up thoughts and dreams, 
listen to “Mean It.”

Gracie Abrams delivers 
the warm glow of a diary 

SAMANTHA CANTIE
Daily Arts Writer

YOUTUBE

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN

Over the past few weeks, Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”) has 
made a number of comments in regards to the Marvel Cinematic 
Universe and how he does not believe that it constitutes cinema. This 
sparked a wave of controversy, with numerous MCU directors such 
as James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) and Joss Whedon (“The 
Avengers”) entering the fray to defend their work. Bob Iger, the CEO 
of the Disney Corporation, invited Scorsese to get dinner with him 
to discuss his feelings. Twitter was in a full on war against the man, 
decrying Scorsese as an out of touch auteur. Many across the Internet 
saw this as a quintessential moment in which 
to say, “OK, boomer.” However, all of this 
anger at Scorsese is entirely misplaced. Simply 
put, the man could not be more right.
Since “Iron Man” was released in 2008, 
there have been almost 25 films released in 
the MCU. In that time there have also been 
countless DC flicks, X-Men movies, an attempt 
to reboot the Fantastic Four, and two different 
reboots of Spider-Man. Every movie studio has 
tried their hand at creating their own version 
of the cash cow franchise of the decade and 
most have failed. The DC cinematic universe 
crashed and burned with “Justice League,” 
the so called “Dark Universe” never made it 
past the Tom Cruise helmed “The Mummy” 
and Universal’s “MonsterVerse” has hit rough 
waters after the mixed reviews and lower 
box office numbers for “Godzilla: King of the 
Monsters.” If anyone out there in the world today believes that any 
of the people behind these “cinematic universes” had their eyes on 
anything other than money, they are sorely mistaken. 
What constitutes “cinema” can be debated all day long. Yes, the 
MCU films are moving pictures with audio attached to them that play 
in movie theaters and are usually seen while eating popcorn. They are 
ostensibly pieces of cinema in the sense that they exist within what 
we have come to define as cinema for a century. But as Scorsese points 
out, these films lack certain characteristics that most good movies 

have. They do not attempt to say anything compelling about society 
or the world at large. And despite what their legions of proponents 
will tell you, they do nothing to advance film as an artform. They are 
glorified amusement park rides, and nothing more. 
Characters in the MCU don’t have “arcs” in the way that most 
characters do in serialized fiction. While the characters do occasionally 
change, these changes often occur off-screen and are flip-of-the-
switch moments in which a character is completely different than 
they were before. For most of the series, Bruce Banner/The Hulk’s 
main storyline is his inability to balance the two halves of his life. 
Between the two most recent “Avengers” films, that problem is solved 
off-screen. That is not an arc. Many will point to Iron Man’s sacrifice 
at the end of “Endgame” as an example of how far the character has 
grown, but they conveniently leave out the fact 
that he was ready to make the same sacrifice at 
the end of the original “Avengers” film that was 
released seven years ago. If he has grown, he has 
grown to end up in the exact same place.
Certainly, there was a time when people 
decried other works of popular fiction as being 
devoid of deeper meaning and existing only to 
serve the whims of the masses. “Star Wars,” 
“Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” all faced 
these criticisms in their own time. And yet all 
three of those franchises exhibit those crucial 
items that the Marvel movies as of yet have 
lacked. Those stories are all about something. 
“Star Wars” is about family, “Harry Potter” is 
about love and “Lord of the Rings” is about the 
power of the human will. Are these simple and 
universal themes? Yes. But nonetheless those 
stories have beginnings, middles and ends. 
Characters grow and change and are fundamentally different people 
at the beginning than they are at the end. Each of these series was not 
(at first) created simply to fill a tub full of money, but to tell a story 
that the author wished to tell. Who is the author of the MCU? Is it 
Kevin Feige, the producer? Is it the Russo brothers? Is it the Disney 
company? No one knows for sure because the series has no true 
author. It’s an amalgamation of ideas designed mainly to make as 
much money as possible. Scorsese says it isn’t cinema, but that’s just 
semantics. The actual problem is that it isn’t a real story.

Ian Harris: What even is ‘cinema’?

IAN HARRIS
Daily Entertainment Columnist

MILKWEED EDITIONS

Hwang’s ability to echo these themes 
of racial tension and exclusion in her 
discussion of seemingly unrealted 
household memories and casual 
observances gives her collection a seamless 
consistency from one poem to another

The dewy skin and 
hoodies with her soft 
spoken voice that’s 
knifelike, the dreamy 
bedroom and wistfulness 
— three years ago she let 
me feel power in this, as 
I was seventeen, figuring 
out where my power 
could be

Scorsese says 
it isn’t cinema, 
but that’s just 
semantic. The real 
problem is that it 
isn’t a real story

Bodega

Su Hwang

Milkweed Editions

Oct. 8, 2019

6A — Friday, November 8, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

