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

Classifieds

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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

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near North Campus
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$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