The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, November 11, 2019 — 5A
“There may be trouble ahead,” Sharon Van
Etten warns us — and certainly when it comes to
Jeff Goldblum, one can always expect a spark of
mischief. Right off the bat, his new album makes
a bold promise to secrecy and playful roguishness.
Between Van Etten’s ominous vocal opening, and
the title of his new album, I Shouldn’t Be Telling
You This, there certainly seems to be something
special in store. Please, Jeff, tell us more — or
rather, tell us anyway! As always, we welcome
Goldblum’s brand of trouble with open arms.
For those of you wondering: Jeff Goldblum
and jazz — what the heck? Here’s a quick recap in
the wacky misadventures of everyone’s favorite
“Jurassic Park” hot scientist: The suspect was
last seen here within the pages of the Arts
section for a review of his 2018 debut album, The
Capitol Studio Sessions with The Mildred Snitzer
Orchestra. As Goldblum’s first public foray into
jazz performance, the album — a mix of traditional
smokey-jazz club and stand up comedy — featured
a range of performers, from the hypnotic vocals
of Haley Reinhart to the witty quips of comedian
Sarah Silverman.
I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This does a good job of
recycling what worked well in The Capitol Studio
Sessions without bogging the album down with
boring repetition. What made Goldblum’s debut
remarkable was his ability to meld comedy and
music in a single album; the comedy didn’t intrude
upon the act of musical performance, and neither
did Goldblum take himself too seriously. Alongside
good-natured, witty chit-chat between songs —
The Capitol Studio Sessions was a live recording
— the album managed to add some much-needed
life to a genre considered to be “dying,” if not dead
already.
Just as he did the first time around, Goldblum
finds his stride is the core foundation of his
revitalization of classic hits with a modern touch.
I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This features a range
of covers with a more robust roster of celebrity
guests: From big names like pop-icon Miley Cyrus
and Sharon Van Etten, to more obscure artists
Fiona Apple and Gregory Porter, Goldblum invests
in greater artistic diversity on his second run. Like
a classic Hollywood blockbuster, half the fun of
the album comes from Goldblum’s class of musical
A-listers — who wouldn’t want to hear Miley Cyrus
sing her version of blues legend B.B. King’s songs?
Goldblum also nails the tricky tightrope walk
between nostalgic indulgence and reinvention.
Nearly every song on the album is a cover, but
each cover is able to stand on its own. “Let’s Face
The Music and Dance,” the opening song in the
album, features Sharon Van Etten’s slow, honey-
dripping voice. A touch ominous and romantic,
Van Etten flips the tables by emphasizing the
somber undertones of the lyrics, rather than the
traditional upbeat, energetic versions of Nat King
Cole and Frank Sinatra. More significantly, the
song recalls a famous scene of Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers’s 1963 movie “Follow the Fleet.”
In sorrowful serenade, Astaire coaxes Rogers
into a final dance, all parts romantic, longing and
beautiful. As Rogers and Astaire spin across the
stage, coming together and then falling apart just
as quickly, Van Etten’s version of the classic “Let’s
Face The Music and Dance” captures the tragic
essence of Rogers and Astaire’s original version.
The fun doesn’t stop there: Other notable songs
(and there are many) include “The Sidewinder/
The Beat Goes On,” featuring the vocals of Inara
George. Bright and energetic, George’s wispy,
alluring voice totally transforms this all-too-
familiar hit into a convincing old-time swing
song. Famously performed by Sonny and Cher
in 1967, “The Beat Goes On” wasn’t originally a
jazz tune — until Jeff Goldblum came along, that
is. “Make Someone Happy,” featuring Gregory
Porter, offers an uplifting spin on a melancholy
song through Porter’s earnest, rich vocals and
the smile-inducing backup singers who chime in
throughout.
Goldblum’s cheerful, somewhat eccentric spirit
is infused to the very essence of his new album —
just like the last and, I’m sure, like the next one
too. Last time I wrote of Goldblum, I noted that
fun is what permeates Goldblum’s music — and fun
is everywhere to be fun in I Shouldn’t Be Telling
You This, too. When it comes to reviving a genre
— jazz is so much more than a genre — Goldblum
may be exactly what we need. Fun is what jazz is,
and fun is what might just “save” jazz from the
dark clutches of becoming yet another “Ew, that’s
something my parents like, no thanks!” Maybe
what Goldblum “shouldn’t be telling us” is that
jazz, like a lot of old things, can be cool. Moreover,
it can be ours. While we spend our limited time on
Earth fighting every war we can find, there is still
life to be enjoyed. Maybe in the great generational
clash of the 21st century, we can find some common
ground in jazz. After all, “while there’s music, and
moonlight /And love and romance / Let’s face the
music and dance.”
Jeff Goldblum makes jazz?
MADELEINE GANNON
Daily Arts Writer
FOOD COLUMN
“I’m going to tell you, like, the true story. Nobody
got the story right yet. We haven’t told any press
this whole thing yet,” said Ian Lafowitz, co-owner
of Joe’s Pizza (all five New York City locations and
the new Ann Arbor one).
This is just what I hoped would happen — just
like the pizza, I’d come to Joe’s in search of the
true authenticity I knew was there. I’d let the dust
settle between Joe’s Ann Arbor grand opening and
my strategic entrance to the Diag-adjacent pizza
spot. I knew if I let press go crazy in the first week
of business for the sake of the “timely lead” or what
have you, I’d afford myself a more meaningful
interaction with the new restaurant weeks into the
future. I was right.
“A food columnist or critic knows better than to
show up on opening day,” Lafowitz said next. He
is a Michigan graduate (’00) and was awaiting the
perfect moment to disclose the Joe’s Pizza story.
I grew up on the stuff — Joe’s pizza, that is. Us
Mid-Atlantic dwellers have been familiar with the
famous slice since birth. I’ve already bridged the
topic of New York pizza in a former column, but
haven’t revisited the topic of pizza since having
received some emails deeply defending the Detroit
slice. I haven’t changed my opinions, and it’s finally
time to talk about something more important than
the pizza pie, and that is the simple slice.
A good pizza eater knows well the difference
between a pizza that’s supposed to be purchased
and consumed as a whole pie and a pizza that’s
meant to be purchased and consumed as an
individual slice — on a white paper plate, grease
seeping from crust to palms. Joe’s is the latter, and
it has an easy, inexpensive, quick persona which
lends itself well to a college town on the go.
“Joe’s opening in Ann Arbor, Michigan makes
zero fucking sense,” Lafowitz began, when I asked
how they wound up selecting Michigan as the first
state to open in after finding such success in New
York. “But it made sense to me,” he said.
Lafowitz is one of very few non-family members
working alongside the Joe Pozzouli family within
the Joe’s pizza-making business.
“I had no restaurant experience when I got into
this, I was a writer working in New York after
graduating from U of M in 2000. Joe’s Pizza had
been going religiously on Carmine Street since
1999,” he said. I can picture the location well in
my mind, having grown up eating there with my
father, and spending many nights this past summer
as the sky went purple, standing in line at 2 a.m. for
a slice of New York’s best pizza.
Lafowitz had an apartment right near the
Greenwich Village Joe’s location until he moved
to the Upper West Side and suddenly struggled to
find good pizza just miles away from his former
apartment.
“Within two weeks I was like, there’s literally
no good pizza on the Upper West Side. I asked all
my friends up there where they got good pizza, and
they were like oh, easy, we go to Joe’s.”
From there, Lafowitz decided he was going
to approach the Joe’s family, having no prior
connection to them to ask if they’d want to open a
second location up on the Upper West Side. He saw
a potential and passion within Joe’s that seemed
too special to contain on one New York street
corner. It seemed like a pretty simple feat, but with
no tangible menu and no website, it was pretty
much impossible to track down the family. After a
few months of grafting, he found an email address
and managed to get on a phone call with Joe Jr.
— the son of famed Joe Pozzouli, the patriarch of
pizza.
“He was really responsive to my ideas. I was like
I think you guys should open up another location
and I want to help. I can do the real estate or the
money. I was basically like you guys have given me
so much in my time living in New York and for that
I want to help you guys, what can we do,” Lafowitz
said on his early conversations with the family.
Lafowitz and Joe Jr. aligned at the best time — Joe
Jr. was one of the only direct descendents to go
to college over going right into the pizza making
business. Being back in New York, he was fired up,
young and interested in Lafowitz passion for his
family’s business.
“For a year we went back and forth on phone
calls. Finally, we met at the Starbucks on 6th
Avenue. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but
Joe Jr. was basically like I really like you, I believe
in these ideas, let’s go meet my father — and I said
‘right now?’ And he said ‘yep, right now.’”
Joe Jr. warned Lafowitz that his father would
either want to listen to what he had to say or
turn away and be uninterested. This would
be Lafowitz’s one and only chance to make an
impression on Joe and would change the fate of
the pizzeria forever. Joe Sr. spoke broken English,
mostly Italian, and never missed a day working in
the pizzeria.
Pino “Joe” Pozzuoli Sr. immigrated from
Naples, Italy in 1950 and opened his first pizzeria
in Boston. Since 1975, Mr. Pozzuoli has been
making pizzas every single day in Greenwich
Village, New York City. Sal and Pino Vitale (Joe’s
grandsons) and cousin Giovanni Carollo have
been huge parts of the Joe’s pizza pilgrimage as
well. The day Lafowitz met the family in the back
of Joe’s, Pozzuoli took immediate liking to him.
Lafowitz claimed he “just started talking, and Joe
Sr. listened.”
“I work with a three-generation family of pizza
makers. I’m one of the only people who work
with them that isn’t blood. They are so incredibly
passionate — and every single one of them has
experiences and stories that make this family and
this pizza what it is,” Lafowitz said, “Joe Sr. is 83
and that man makes pizzas seven days a week. The
family is what’s ‘in the sauce.’”
Lafowitz and the Pizzouli family immediately
made plans for the future of Joe’s. Together they
opened four New York locations: 14th Street,
Brooklyn, Times Square and Fulton St. Joe’s blood
runs each and every location for authenticity sake.
Lafowitz knew, as the other New York locations
proved successful, that the next step would be to
open out of state.
“We thought about a lot of places. I’d been to
D.C., Boston, Miami and Philly to think about
opening somewhere else.”
Somehow, though, they landed in Ann Arbor,
Mich.
“I was back here at a football game last year,”
Lafowitz said, “and I saw the place where Joe’s is
now and I felt like it was this underserved part of
town. I mean when I was here the only quick and
easy place to eat in the South U area was Subway. So
I looked at my friend, another Michigan graduate,
who owned Michigan alumni bar Professor Tom’s
in New York at the time, and I said, ‘If I got serious
about opening Joe’s in Ann Arbor would you sell
your bar and help me?’ And he immediately said
yes.” Pete Levin, another Michigan graduate, is
Lafowitz’s partner in the Ann Arbor location.
Next steps included having the whole family
come experience a weekend in Ann Arbor to “get
them hyped,” as Lafowitz puts it. “You can’t force
anyone. Everyone has to sign off on these things.
I brought them to football games and basketball
games and showed them the campus and everyone
fell in love with it here.” Suddenly the Manhattan
constant was to be the first New York street slice
in Ann Arbor.
The foodie in me wanted to talk recipe, so of
course, I went there next.
Joe’s Pizza: The real story
ELI RALLO
Daily Food Columnist
Like any medium that slowly transitions into sophistication,
modern video games are increasingly paying homage to the
classics. As the age of the average gamer gets older and computing
technology becomes more sophisticated, any reminder of the
old days taps into a deep-rooted nostalgia that warms the heart
of those old enough to remember. No other game in 2019 better
exemplifies this reverence to the past than The Outer Worlds.
A space-western themed adventure, The Outer Worlds doesn’t
try anything new. Instead of attempting to amaze you with new
cutting edge features, The Outer Worlds just simply reminds you
what makes video games fun in the first place.
Within the first few hours of The Outer Worlds the player is
immediately hit with reference after reference to older classics
of the RPG genre. The character creation at the beginning is
shockingly similar to any Fallout game, and the intro sequence
steals numerous shots from the intro to Bioshock. The time dilation
power, a mechanic that lets the player slow down time, is identical
to the Dead Eye mechanic in Red Dead Redemption. These are
just a few notable ones — veteran gamers will undoubtedly spend
hours finding all the little tributes littered throughout the game.
However, despite the constant copying, The Outer Worlds still
maintains its own distinct identity. Like a Quentin Tarantino
movie, The Outer Worlds remixes successful aspects of older
games and merges them into a ‘40s art deco-inspired space frontier
that carries a dark humor while also being whimsically cute.
You play as a space colonist who, after being frozen in cryo-sleep
for years, is awoken to a galactic frontier controlled by feudalistic
corporations. After establishing their bearings and acquiring a
spaceship, the player is free to explore the galaxy. Open world but
not truly an open world, The Outer Worlds is split into planets,
dividing the game into smaller regions of exploration. This means
you can’t aimlessly walk to the edges of the world in search of
adventure. Rarely did I find serendipitous encounters, and most
exploration felt contrived, but it was never to
the point to make me stop playing. Fortunately,
each planet has its own unique feel — some
have exotic wildlife and megafauna, while
others boast futuristic cities and sweatshop-like
factories.
With exploration limited, the core of your
adventure is the relationships you forge with
characters and factions within the world. Some
characters can become your travel companions,
aiding you on mission and in combat. The Outer
Worlds has a surprising amount of depth in its
companion customization. Companions have
their own skill trees, equipment loadouts, combat
perks and special abilities. Refreshingly, non-
combat skills actually seem to matter. Missions
can sometimes be completed diplomatically and
a shrewd choice of words can unlock secrets
that combat never could. Mastery of dialogue,
engineering, hacking, and other non fighting
based abilities had tangible effects on the game
world. You’ll be regularly mixing and matching
different companions based on the context of the
mission because nothing is ever one size fits all.
In a traditional Fallout fashion, the decisions
you make tend to lie within morally grey territory and ultimately
have an effect on the outcome of the story. Nothing you ever do,
however, is so drastic as to permanently change the game. The
Outer Worlds isn’t trying to push edges — it just wants the player
to have fun. Though the choices will always be moral quandaries,
you’ll always come back even if you made a supposedly “wrong”
decision.
It’s hard to come by a game like The Outer Worlds in 2019. In
an era where most games are trying to be experimental or change
the industry, many forget that fun should always be the focus.
Borrowing successful elements from classic titles, The Outer
Worlds is a good ol’ fashioned video game. With all its homages, it
reminds gamers of the fun we used to have as kids and assures us
that this fun still lives today.
An ode to the classics: The Outer Worlds is incomparable
FLICKR
NEW MEDIA REVIEW
I Shouldn’t Be
Telling You
This
Jeff Goldblum & The
Midlred Snitzer Orchestra
Decca Records
FLICKR / DECCA RECORDS
ALBUM REVIEW
ELI LUSTIG
Daily Arts Writer
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
The Outer Worlds
Obsidian Entertainment
Private Division
Nov. 25, 2019