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