6A — Monday, November 18, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

By Kurt Krauss
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/18/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

11/18/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, November 18, 2019

ACROSS
1 Aquarium
5 Yeshiva teacher
10 Dance in a pit
14 Iranian money
15 For all to hear
16 Baja’s opposite
17 Swashbuckling 
leading man 
of Hollywood’s 
Golden Age
19 Precious
20 Delivers, as 
a convention-
opening speech
21 Donny or Marie
23 Hairstyles
24 Art Deco 
designer
25 Barbara of 
“Mission: 
Impossible”
27 German 
shepherd of 
’50s-’60s TV
32 Beach head-
turners
33 Forest moon 
that’s home to the 
Ewoks
34 Dedicated poem
35 First chip in the 
pot
36 Tokyo’s country
37 Pinot __: white 
wine grape
38 Geol. or chem., 
e.g.
39 Nattily dressed 
fellows
40 Fortune-teller’s 
card
41 North 
Vietnamese 
leader with a trail 
named for him
43 City near Provo
44 “SportsCenter” 
channel
45 Gear tooth
46 “Peanuts” 
newspaper 
section
49 Jeep model 
named for a tribe
54 “I get it now!” 
cries
55 Hotel chain since 
1952
57 Trap fluff
58 __ Oyl
59 Advance, as 
money
60 Enemies

61 Package sealers
62 Pre-revelry nights

DOWN
1 Long haul
2 Suffix with billion
3 __ a soul: no one
4 Ice cream bar 
named for a 
Yukon river
5 Rapids transports
6 Fashion monthly
7 Pop music’s 
Backstreet __
8 Pastry that might 
be sticky
9 Ralph Kramden’s 
pal
10 Drama set at 
an advertising 
agency
11 Bread spread
12 Laurel seen with 
Hardy
13 Difficult
18 Diving birds
22 Swizzle
24 Hyphen-like mark
25 Con game
26 Bit of high jinks
27 Transfer to 
memory, as data
28 Best way to sign
29 MLB exec Joe

30 “Take the cake” 
or “cream of the 
crop”
31 Home on a 
branch
32 Diner fare
36 Basketball 
scoring technique
37 Grotesque 
architectural 
figure
39 Part of DVD
40 Irish lullaby start

42 Thieves’ bank jobs
45 Hands over
46 Cow kid
47 State east of 
Indiana
48 Horse hair
49 Paper holder
50 Bee home
51 Ukraine’s capital
52 Feminine suffix
53 Breaks off
56 Suffix with pay or 
Cray-

HELP WANTED

Help needed removing snow 
periodically for elderly father 
near North Campus 
Contact Cheryl
773-403-4245 or 
clf@umich.edu 
$25+ per job 

If you’d like to join me in hitting the gas on 
emerging female pop as a means to quell over-
thinking and just get dancey, then BENEE is 
the woman for you. 
Stella 
Bennett, 
who 
goes 
by 
BENEE 
(pronounced Benny), just dropped a new EP 
STELLA & STEVE, which follows the success 
of her debut EP 
from 
earlier 
this year, FIRE 
ON MARZZ. 
BENEE 
is 
a 
19-year-old 
pop artist from 
Auckland, 
New 
Zealand. 
After 
winning 
four 
times 
at 
the 2019 New 
Zealand Music 
Awards, 
she’s 
blowing up with 
Spotify streams 
in the same way 
she’s 
blowing 
up my shower 
dance playlist. 
Where 
FIRE 
ON 
MARZZ 
was a cosmic explosion (with killer animated 
art to match the soundscape), STELLA & 
STEVE chills down and bunkers in on laid-
back grooves. 
BENEE was introduced to me while I was 
sitting in the back row of a Pacifica minivan. 
This felt intentional; the Pacifica as a whole 
needed a remedy from mindless transit and 
BENEE stepped up to the plate. On a six-
hour drive with six people who each had 
vastly different music tastes, she was one of 
the few artists that pulled people’s heads off 
the windows to ask, “who’s this?” Following 
my time in the Pacifica, I went on a bender 
of testing out BENEE’s universal pacifying 
quality, watching to see how she can satisfy a 
diverse room with pop that eases. She hasn’t 
failed me yet.

A week after the drive, Pacifica vibes came 
full circle — BENEE dropped STELLA & 
STEVE, Stella being herself and Steve being 
her car (which she stands on in the EP cover 
art). In an interview with Billboard she says: 
“‘I call everything Steve. Since I was little, 
I’d go on, like, holiday and call hermit crabs 
Steve,’ she said. ‘And I still do. I’ll name a 
snail Steve. Everything is called Steve in my 
world. My car is also called Steve.’”
STELLA & STEVE continued to become 
oddly 
ethereal 
for me due to 
lead 
single 
“Find 
an 
Island.” BENEE 
started 
as 
a 
means 
of 
escape for me, 
and 
“Find 
an 
Island” focuses 
on the dreams 
of 
an 
island 
far 
far 
away, 
hooking 
you 
with its bouncy 
three-beat 
rise 
and 
fall. 
The escape of 
BENEE mostly 
comes from her 
smooth 
lower 
register, which 
is the equivalent of eating a Godiva truffle. 
I find an island far away from here with the 
ease of her melodious pop and her badass 
self-assurance. I don’t need to think hard 
listening to BENEE. I can just sit in the back 
of a Pacifica and exist. 
The EP’s capture of carefree shows up best 
in “Supalonely,” featuring Gus Dapperton. 
The amusing swing of “ooo, ah, yeah, I’m 
lonely” makes you lean your head back with 
a sly smirk. The lyrics on “Monsta” do the 
same, hitting you with silly daggers: “But then 
instead of eatin’ me, he offers me a blueberry.” 
BENEE is an animated, laid-back adventure. 
She is the off-switch to a brain on overdrive, 
and she’s definitely my next on-the-rise-star 
in my recent expedition of escapist female 
pop.

BENEE’s latest is beautiful

SAMANTHA CANTIE
Daily Arts Writer

UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP

ALBUM REVIEW

Any good show creator knows that with 
animation, you can push the boundaries of 
where you want your show to go. Couple that 
with Adult Swim’s infamous raunchy style, add 
a dash of science fiction and sarcasm and you 
get “Rick and Morty,” arguably one of the most 
meaningful Adult Swim shows out there. It’s 
amassed a loyal and devoted following ever 
since its rocky beginning back in 2013, and has 
recently been renewed for 70 more episodes. 
But fans rejoice, because it’s back from the 
dead with no lapse in quality or humor. The 
show bounces back and levels up in its own 
witty, symbolic and chaotic way. The season 
premiere is almost just like a regular episode 
of “Rick and Morty” but on steroids, which was 
necessary and appreciated after such a long 
hiatus.
The 
season 
premiere 
kicks 
off 
with 
an extremely loose parody of “Edge of 
Tomorrow,” which is nothing unfamiliar to 
the series as its humor and plot points are 
often heavily reference-based. The episode 
immediately addresses the change in the 
family dynamics, as Jerry (Chris Parnell, “Will 
& Grace”) forces Beth (Sarah Chalke, “Milo 
Murphy’s Law”) to make Rick (Justin Roiland, 
“The Cyanide & Happiness Show”) abide by 
the new protocol that requires him to ask for 
permission to take Morty (Justin Roiland, 
“The Cyanide & Happiness Show”) with him 
during his adventures rather than whisk him 
away at a moment’s notice. They fly off into 
space to harvest death crystals that show you 
how the way you’re going to die and how it 
changes with the decisions you make. Always 
the naive one, Morty hides one in his pocket 

and sets out to do the exact right things to end 
up with his longtime unrequited love, Jessica 
(Kari Wahlgren, “DC Super Hero Girls”). Rick 
ends up getting brutally impaled in a spaceship 
accident, 
and 
thus 
has 
to 
continuously 
reincarnate himself using clones from parallel 
universes in order to find his way back home. 
To resurrect the fanbase from its lengthy 
hibernation, the premiere uses harmless fan 
service by referencing past seasons. They don’t 
make the mistake of letting the references get 
in the way of the plot; it only serves to excite 
fans who had been begging for an inkling of 
“Rick and Morty”-related material for what 
seemed like an eternity. It’s almost so chaotic 
that it’s difficult to keep up with everything 
going on at once. It took me a couple watches 
to fully understand and connect where this 
episode is in relation to the past three seasons, 
but its complexity is nothing to fear. It’s always 
a gift when shows have something to offer 
every time you rewatch it, and with shows 
that are as quick-witted as this, it’s nearly 
impossible to catch on to all the jokes and 
references in the first go. 
But that’s not to say that the premiere didn’t 
offer anything to the start of the season. “Rick 
and Morty” never fails to craft fresh new ideas 
to bring into the mix, and this new season is 
no different. It has layers in ways that many 
shows lack and proves that overlap between 
quality and Adult Swim-type networks (which 
people often make snap judgements about 
being superficially vulgar) can exist. One can 
only hope that the 70-episode renewal won’t 
constitute a decrease in quality, but at this 
rate, I doubt we have anything to worry about. 
Since the start of the series, it’s only been an 
uphill spiral of wit and creativity, and after 
this break, I’m sure the creators aren’t willing 
to let it slip through their fingers again. 

‘Rick and Morty’ doubles
down on chaos in Season 4

SOPHIA YOON
Daily Arts Writer

YOUTUBE / ADULT SWIM

TV REVIEW

Rick and 
Morty

Season 4 Premiere

Adult Swim

Sundays @ 11:30 p.m.

FLICKR / ADULT SWIM

It’s always a gift 
when shows 
have something 
to offer every 
time you rewatch 
them, and with 
shows that are 
as quick-witted 
as this, it’s nearly 
impossible to 
catch on to all 
the jokes and 
references in the 
first go.

STELLA & STEVE

BENEE

Republic Records

