By Susan Smolinsky and C.C. Burnikel
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/19/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
11/19/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, November 19, 2019
ACROSS
1 Longstocking of
kiddie lit
6 “Jason Bourne”
star Damon
10 Shell rowers
14 Biting, as criticism
15 Sound reduced
by carpeting
16 Hill worker
17 Earl Grey relative
18 Old Roman
fiddler
19 Buttonlike earring
20 #1 in Major
League Baseball
career earnings
23 Puppy’s cry
24 Chaney of “The
Phantom of the
Opera” (1925)
25 Acidity nos.
28 1970s joint U.S.-
Soviet space
flight
35 Function
37 Actors’ union,
briefly
38 Remove from
office
39 Fortified city of
Castile and León
41 Diamond stat
43 “MASH” corporal
44 “Cape Fear” star
46 Spinning toy
48 Building bricks
brand
49 Math class
surprise
52 Arles article
53 Salad dressing
ingredient
54 Sis or bro
56 Musical genre of
Tito Puente and
Dizzy Gillespie
63 “See ya!”
65 Acting
independently
66 “For real!”
67 “Um, that’s fine”
68 Villainous
69 Par-three clubs,
often
70 Route-finding app
71 Risqué message
72 Common teen
phase
DOWN
1 Hemingway
moniker
2 Eur. island
country
3 Chow kin, briefly
4 Voting substitute
5 Spanish airline
6 Darn
7 Asian PC brand
8 Really excite
9 “I can’t top that”
10 Job for a judge
11 Upscale hotel
12 LSU URL letters
13 Elope, say
21 They sometimes
attract: Abbr.
22 Racing giant
Bobby
25 Italian fashion
house
26 Crude abode
27 David’s weapon
29 10-Across tool
30 Rainbow flag
letters
31 National
gemstone of
Australia
32 Alpine melody
33 Customary
practice
34 Binary system
digits
36 Peace Nobelist
Wiesel
40 Ann __, Michigan
42 Debtor’s promise
45 Team nicknamed
the Birds
47 Italian tower
town
50 Niche
51 Alphabetically
last flower on
a list of familiar
ones
55 Tennis great
Borg
56 All-inclusive, and
a hint to 20-, 28-,
49- and 56-Across
57 The Piltdown
Man, notably
58 Operating system
since the ’60s
59 Orion’s __
60 Sleep like __
61 Cab alternatives
62 Lemon peel
63 AAA service
64 “Eureka!”
6 — Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Billie Holiday once famously sang, “Autumn
in New York, why does it seem so inviting?”
Indeed, there’s a certain magic inherent to
the fall season. But, while New York holds an
alluring sway (I’m a New Yorker myself), I would
argue that there’s a greater force at work than
the call of the Big Apple when the leaves change
color. Holiday is right about one thing: Fall is the
season of jazz and swing.
Think about it — there’s something incredibly
fitting about embracing the music of an age
gone by as nature sheds it summer green in
exchange for autumnal reds and golds. There’s
just something about the gravelly voice of Louis
Armstrong when the wind howls, the warmth of
a blazing saxophone solo and the romance of the
music combining with that of the season.
But listening to swing doesn’t mean you have
to barrel back into the past. The old hits are
classics, but it’s time to make some room on
the stage for new artists to continue the grand
tradition of the genre. Here are a handful of
contemporary bands who might just bring forth
the new “Roaring ’20s” — after all, 2020 sits on
the horizon, and history tends to repeat itself.
Postmodern Jukebox, or PMJ, is an interesting
beast. Created from the musical imagination of
Scott Bradlee with the intent to bring “classic
sounds (he) loved back into the mainstream,”
PMJ quickly grew in scope, talent and popularity.
The PMJ roster hosts nearly 100 musicians in all,
including both vocalists and instrumentalists.
Rather than a traditional band with the same
members performing every track, PMJ “rotates”
their musicians, with every song, album, or
live performance offering a different musical
combination, or as Bradlee puts it, a “rotating
collective of musical outcasts.” The most fun
thing about PMJ, however, is that they don’t just
cover classic swing or jazz songs, or even write
their own — no, they take modern, contemporary
hits from any and every genre, and reshape
them into vintage-style jazz/swing tracks. Like,
for instance, a swing cover of Florence and the
Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over,” or a smokey
jazz-club version of Radiohead’s “Creep.”
Pink Martini, founded by politician Thomas
Lauderdale, started as a musical group meant to
provide entertainment to lackluster fundraisers
and political events. Then, Lauderdale met
vocalist China Forbes, and thus Lauderdale’s
“little orchestra” became the multilingual jazz
band Pink Martini we know today. To jump
into the world of Pink Martini, start with their
original hit “Hang on Little Tomato.” Not only
is it a fun song — as the title suggests, about a
lonely tomato who’s stuck in the rain — but
the track works as a great example that not
everything has been done before. When it comes
to revitalizing genres whose heyday has come
and past, there tends to be a general sense of
“Well, what left is there to do?” Pink Martini’s
answer: Sing about vegetables. And you know
what? It works. Garden veggies aside, the band
is unique in its strong dose of “international
flavor.” Lead singer China Forbes regularly
performs in various languages, including tracks
(and even entire albums) sung in French or
Spanish. Take “Sympathique,” a song composed
in the traditional style of old-French music. Pink
Martini, like many modern groups who foray
into jazz and swing, do not limit themselves
solely to those two genres. A characteristic that
makes them even more fun to listen to — you
never know exactly what to expect, but secure
in the knowledge that disappointment is a non-
player.
One would think Madeleine Peyroux had
hopped right out of Woody Allen’s “Midnight
in Paris” if common sense didn’t reason better.
Her voice, slow and hypnotic, was born to be
matched with the slow beat of a double bass and
easy improvisation of the piano. Notable songs
include her cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me
to the End of Love,” her take on Frank Sinatra’s
beloved “The Summer Wind,” and more. Yet her
songs, while seemingly timeless, still contain a
modern touch in the lilt of her voice. Her songs
also lack the busy instrumentation characteristic
of classic swing or jazz bands, but this absence
allows Peyroux to maximize the charm of her
voice, as if she’s a snake charmer and we’re the
coiled serpent rising to her coaxing song.
A special mention for Jeff Goldblum, too —
but read our latest review of Goldblum’s new
album for the full scoop. Take a chance to see
how different the streets of Ann Arbor feel on
a blisteringly cold evening with a well-formed
swing playlist to keep you company on the
journey.
Time to swing into 2020
MADELEINE VIRGINIA GANNON
Daily Arts Writer
POSTMODERN JUKEBOX PRODUCTIONS
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
BOOK REVIEW
I know mysteries. I read them all the time.
Before applying my Origins overnight face
mask, I might sneak in a couple of pages of
Ruth Ware’s latest release. At airports, I make
it my tradition to stop at Hudson Booksellers
to grab a New York Times best-selling
thriller to keep me preoccupied during my
flight. They’re easy.
They’re formulaic.
There’s that mantra
of “not everything
is
as
it
seems”
embedded in each
page. There’s the
unreliable narrator
and, if we’re lucky,
the
alcoholic
detective. To top
it off, there’s the
clichéd twist at the
very end. I know
what to expect.
“The
Family
Upstairs”
is
different.
The
novel opens from
the perspective of
Libby, phoning her
mother
to
reveal
news
that
she’s
been
waiting
for
her 25th birthday
to announce. Libby
simply
tells
her
mom,
“They’ve
left me the house.”
Hidden in this seemingly blasé report is
the news that Libby has transitioned from
a woman that splurged on inconsequential
cosmetics and saved up six months of her
hard-earned money for a weekend trip to
Barcelona to the owner of a multi-million
dollar mansion on Sixteen Cheyne Walk,
SW3 Chelsea. It’s easy to understand the
magnitude of her transformation by her own
thoughts: “Now she owns a house in Chelsea
and the proportions of her existence have
been
blown
apart.”
Indeed,
Libby’s
“existence has
been
blown
apart,” but not
in the way that
she thinks. In
the
process
of
becoming
a
very
rich
woman, Libby
investigates
the
sinister
origins of the
Chelsea house.
Twenty-five years earlier, police were called
by a “concerned” neighbor to 16 Cheyne
Walk. There, in the kitchen, were three dead
bodies: An elegant woman, a man with salt-
and-pepper hair and another unidentifiable
man. They were dressed in black, hands
clasped together. Upstairs, a baby was
crying. According to the police report, their
deaths have been deemed a suicide, but the
circumstances are strange. Why hasn’t the
family been seen in public for months? Who
took care of the baby weeks after the parents
died? And, most importantly, where are the
other four children who supposedly lived in
the Chelsea house?
The novel is told in three perspectives
— Libby Jones, Lucy
and Henry — during
the past and present.
Whenever
I’m
immersed in the point-
of-views
of
several
characters
early
in
the novel, I tend to get
distracted. I’m usually
not
invested
enough
in each character to
continue reading. I
didn’t feel that with
“The Family Upstairs.”
Each character offered
relevant
information
that served to spur my
curiosity more. Libby,
Lucy and Henry could
have easily been written
as plot devices solely to
heighten the stakes of
the mystery. Instead,
we delve deeply into
their personal history
and characterizations.
Certainly,
they
are
related
to
the
mysterious
Chelsea
deaths in some way, but we’re only given bits
and crumbs in each chapter. In the process,
we learn the ways that Lucy juggles life as
a homeless single mother and, in the past,
Henry’s tumultuous relationship with his
father as well as his burgeoning romance
with a lanky blond-haired boy. Even as I
approached the half-way point of the novel,
I couldn’t have predicted where it would
end up. Deliciously cult-ish, dark and
surprisingly touching, “The Family Upstairs”
subverts
the
traditional
mystery-
thriller,
blending
together
multiple
genres. Don’t
get me wrong,
“The
Family
Upstairs”
is
still
the
perfect
book
to
grab
in
between
layovers,
though
at
the same time, the mystery tropes are not
overwrought. This attentive style and plot
that Jewell has crafted will leave even a
jaded mystery expert like myself guessing
until the very end.
‘Family Upstairs’ is more
than an everyday thriller
SARAH SALMAN
Daily Arts Writer
The Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell
Atria Books
Nov. 5, 2019
ATRIA BOOKS
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
This past Thursday evening, Hankinson Rehearsal Hall
hosted an improvisational performance from the Creative Arts
Orchestra. The orchestra consisted of SMTD students with a
combination of violin, viola, trumpet, piano, melodica, voice and
various percussion instruments.
The element of improvisation is what
sets the Creative Arts Orchestra apart
from other musical groups at SMTD.
Improvisation involves a lack of musical
guidance — no conductors, sheet music
or organized practicing — in addition
to the creative use of instruments, such
as banging on stringed instruments or
applying paper to piano strings for a
crunch-like sound.
Each of the six musicians were free
to play whatever they pleased, with
no prior restrictions on what to play.
That said, for some pieces there were
certain “filters,” as SMTD professor
Mark Kirschenmann called them, in
place for the orchestra to fall in line
with.
For one set, Kirschenmann informed
the
audience,
“We
will
all
play
keyboard instruments, and we are all going to sing, other than
that I have no idea what is going to happen.”
For another set, Weston Gilbert, the orchestra’s violinist,
presented the orchestra with a brief sheet of music with certain
chords and soloing sections for the individual musicians to
follow. Outside of the framework of pitches for each musician to
choose from, the rest of the set was all improvisational. In fact,
I had a chance to take a look at the sheet of musical frameworks
written by Gilbert. It was a sparse piece of music with only a few
complex chord progressions. The final measure featured a single
note for each musician to aim for as an end goal.
Outside of the musical framework, I was curious as to how each
musician decided what to play and what noises to make. After
the show, I spoke with Maya Johnson, an SMTD composition
Master’s student, who was on the viola for the group.
“I pay attention to what is or is not being done,” Johnson said
when asked how she decided what to play. “If everyone is playing
long notes, I tend to do the opposite.” It is this sense of opposites
attracting that I believe made the show
so interesting. “I also have my bag of
tricks ... I’m the only viola, so a low
C is never a bad move.” Johnson took
into account the unique properties of
her own instrument and used these
properties to add a new dimension to
the improvisational work.
The improvisation involved little
harmonization and few instances of
synchronized sound. However, the few
moments of resolve were welcomed,
like an oasis in a sea of musical
confusion. I found that I wanted to
keep listening in hopes of hearing such
a satisfying resolve or a discernable
melody.
In terms of the sounds themselves,
much of the improvisation actually
had repeating tropes. Much of the
concert sounded very “L.A. Noire” or like “The Twilight Zone,”
an eerie and unsettling soundtrack for a winter night. With a
muted trumpet and a ringing vibraphone, I felt as though I was
supposed to be solving a mystery.
I felt unsettled, discontented with the music being played
and what I was hearing, which is perhaps the purpose behind
this improvisational method. The dissonance and discomfort
builds to a point of relief, when the sounds finally assemble and
come to a close.
SMTD’s Creative Arts Orchestra
improvises within set constraints
ZACHARY M.S. WAARALA
Daily Arts Writer
Kirschenmann informed
the audience, “We
will all play keyboard
instruments, and we are
all going to sing, other
than that I have no idea
what is going to happen”