6 — Friday, December 6, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
What makes a good documentary? And why watch a
documentary in the first place? By my own measure, if I
can come out of watching one feeling a mixture of touched
and hopeful, yet hopelessly enraged, I’d consider it pretty
successful. Lynn Novick’s PBS documentary series
“College Behind Bars” (produced by the legendary Ken
Burns) is one of the few I’ve seen that accomplishes all of
them.
Through four one-hour episodes, Novick gives viewers
a look into the Bard Prison Initiative, a program run
by Bard College in a few prisons in New York state that
allows a select few inmates those institutions to pursue
associates and/or Bachelors degrees, identical to those
given to students at Bard’s main campus in Annandale-
on-Hudson, New York. Through interviews with several
of the students enrolled in the BPI program as well as its
administrators and other officials, Novick fully captures
the sanctuary that the program provides amid the chaos
of the prison yards, as well as the efforts made to disrupt
and prevent the spread of those sanctuaries.
Much has been written, unfortunately, for decades
now, about the disgraces of our civil justice system (i.e.
Michelle Alexander’s excellent “The New Jim Crow”),
a conversation that is intimately tied into the failings
of the American prison system. While not necessarily
unique on a global scale, yet repulsively backwards for a
“developed” country, the cruelly punitive streak of our
country’s prison system is a point reiterated by many of
the interviewed students. They emphasize how while the
idea of incarceration involves an obvious denial of liberty,
the prisons they live in add insult to injury in a variety of
dehumanizing ways, one of which is the constant artificial
disruptions such as mandatory headcounts that make
pursuing any form of education that much more difficult.
Novick also makes the audience look inward, and truly
examine where this punitive streak derives from. One
of the more surprising revelations is that programs such
as Bard are nearly entirely privately funded. Why not
publicly? She shows evidence of a (quite bipartisan, mind
you) concerted effort by politicians to whip up public
resentment against those “evil felons” and deny them any
sort of benefit while they are incarcerated. Who cares if
that money is being spent instead to lock more people up
in the first place (perhaps to do hard labor) and harass
minorities? It’s not hard to blame the students when they
rightly ridicule the idea that the time they serve is meant
for “rehabilitation.”
Another common thread that runs through all
the interviews with the students, professors and
administrators of the BPI program is just how beneficial it
is to every single person involved. I’d be surprised if even
the most ardent supporter of extra-punitive punishment
would not waver a bit on their views after watching
“College Behind Bars,” and the best outcome of the series
would be more public support for programs like BPI that
let the multitudes of incarcerated people in the country
gain an opportunity for a better life.
Ken Burns strikes again: ‘Bars’
TV REVIEW
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily Arts Writer
The holidays aren’t always twinkle lights and chestnuts roasting over
open fires. For some, it’s a hard reminder of things lost. For others, it’s a
difficult warning of what’s still around. Some of us are lucky enough to
call someplace “home” when the snow falls and the bells come jingling.
But even for the lucky ones, being home can be stressful.
Boyfriend
Matt
(Brent Morin, “How
to Be Single”) and
girlfriend
Emmy
Quinn
(Bridgit
Mendler, “Good Luck
Charlie”) travel from
L.A. to Emmy’s native
Philadelphia to spend
the holidays with her
family. There, Matt
intends to make a
good impression on
the rest of the Quinns,
but his plans get
snuffed out early by
Emmy’s patriarchal
father Don (Dennis
Quaid, “A Dog’s Journey”), a sheriff whose jurisdiction covers not just
Philadelphia, but his entire family, too. Don’s a traditionalist, to say the
least. He lives by a set of rules that he ensures his family follows to a tee.
No drinking, Mass on Sundays and Christmas lights up for no more than
10 days “because it isn’t Las Vegas.” Naturally, there are complications
this Christmas. Emmy’s sister Kayla (Ashley Tisdale, “The Suite Life
of Zack and Cody”) is getting a divorce. Her other sister Patsy (Siobhan
Murphy, “Schitts Creek”) is having
trouble conceiving. Her brother Sean
(Hayes MacArthur, “Super Troopers
2”) lost his job, and Don refuses to
give Matt a chance. Just another
Christmas as far as most
of us are concerned.
If the plot sounds
like it could border on
the generic — perhaps
even the conservative
— you would be only
half-right. There are moments in the first episode, and
even the rest of the season, that champion traditionalism.
These plaid-and-Carhartt-clad Quinns mean business.
Men are men and ladies decorate the tree. Sure, it is a fish-
out-of-water family plot. Yes, some of the jokes encroach
on outdatedness. But I don’t think that “Merry Happy
Whatever” gets at anything other than what it’s like to live
in a traditional, blue-collar family. And that includes the
bonds that ultimately come with this kind of family.
The first episode is not representative of the entire show.
The traditions established early on quickly get ruptured,
and not even by the newly arrived boyfriend. Being a family is difficult,
and there are natural fissures that erupt in between traditions. Some
family members struggle with trying to recognize their sexuality, others
with new-fangled ideas of equality. Even Don, the center of their steady,
cautious universe, is having difficulty pursuing a new romance after
being widowed for the better part of his adult life.
Even the in-laws struggle. Expressing themselves and their opinions
is
a
constant
balancing
act
with managing
to
stay
under
Don’s radar. The
best of them is
absolutely
Joy
(Elizabeth
Ho,
“Disjointed”),
whose
wit
and
charm
effectively even
out the rest of the cast’s frantic attempts to restabilize their continually-
swaying boat. An early interaction with an elderly lady that at first seems
to be endearing quickly takes a sharp turn, but she handles it with a kind
of confident, yet self-deprecating grace.
Some may be turned off by “Merry Happy Whatever,” and I
understand that. A laugh-track was an interesting choice. In the end, it
doesn’t really offer any answers or solutions. But there aren’t ever any
satisfying conclusions to family trouble. We bumble our way through it.
We say some things we probably shouldn’t say. In the end, those who
love us forgive us, accept us and wake us up on Christmas Day by playing
“Jingle Bell Rock” as loud as they can at 5 a.m. “Merry Happy Whatever”
is about neither the “merry” nor the “happy.” It’s all about the “whatever”
that we ultimately managed to get caught up in. It’s gross. It’s sweet. It’s
just another Christmas, Hanukkah or December at home. It’s family.
‘Merry Happy Whatever’ is more jolly than it lets on
TV REVIEW
MAXWELL SCHWARZ
Daily Arts Writer
Merry Happy Whatever
Netflix
Streaming Now
As of right now, I am writing this with my iPod Nano stowed away
in the bottom drawer of my bedroom dresser. I could sift through it
the way I would sift through that drawer and revisit just as much
of my 11-year-old interests. I trace my world back to 2010 with my
parents’ references to the deaths of the CD and the radio. Somehow,
2020 seems like a return to form with digital sales of music all but
entombed. I cannot fathom a music world untethered from the
streaming world. My interests are far too deep, shamelessly imposed
by the algorithms of a streaming service. I lived through a time
where MTV and award shows had the same influence as Spotify’s
“Today’s Top Hits” playlist, but the transition between the two is
as fuzzy as fiction to me. The
span between Frank Ocean’s 2013
Grammy win and 2017 Grammy
protest measures a history I have
yet to understand. Either way, the
inception of Apple Music was the
beginning of my appreciation for
Ocean, too.
The
modern
magic
of
music streaming services are
comfortably contemporary, but
their ancestry can be traced back
to the era of Britney Spears’s
...Baby One More Time. Napster was envisioned by two teenagers in
1999. “Napster” flowered from co-founder Shawn Fanning’s online
username into the world’s first music streaming platform. His
partner Sean Parker took an interest after Fanning shared the idea
of a software powerful enough to stream shared MP3 files. With the
combined efforts of Fanning’s programming and Parker’s investment
strategies, Napster was launched in May 1999. By October of 1999 it
had over four million songs in circulation. By March of 2000, the
Napster community had over 20 million members.
This registered a new millennium with the first-ever dip in global
record sales. Major record labels went into a frenzy and subsequently
called for a summit among their various executives. Litigation for
Napster crossed every angle as companies and acts from Metallica
to Dr. Dre pelted them with breach of copyright lawsuits. Napster
was effectively shut down with 50 million members in 2001 as a
result.
Napster lingers by virtue of its liquidation and obvious influence
on streaming services like Soundcloud, Apple Music and Spotify.
Parker and Fanning actually attempted to alter Napster into such
a platform in its last breath before bankruptcy, but couldn’t secure
the licensing. Regardless, the idea of a subscription plan turned
many listeners off from the brand — mail-in money orders simply
didn’t have the same efficiency as digital, paperless billing. With
the looming risk of lawsuits still in the air and the technological
restrictions of 2001, a replacement for Napster never took its place.
Perhaps it was the plug-in nature of technology at the time or the
greater value attributed to physical possessions, but the status quo
for music consumption stuck around. CD sales and airplay were
still the primary factors for music
exposure and success.
The same goes for music genre
popularity: alternative rock and
pop music reigned. This trend
carried on into the early 2010s,
even with the EDM trend that
gripped the pop sector. Teen pop
made a resurgence with popular
Disney and Nickelodeon shows
like “Wizards of Waverly Place”
and “Big Time Rush.” But as the
world took a turn toward music
streaming, hip-hop quickly eclipsed other music genres. Rock
music’s position as the most consumed music genre for over 50 years
was usurped by hip-hop.
Despite the rise of music streaming in the mid-2010s, Spotify
and Soundcloud were established in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
Their rise and expansion, sans the teen success story, mirrors that
of Napster. Both centered in Stockholm, they paved their way to
popularity in Europe before becoming international mammoths.
This was the very beginning of streaming’s influence; in 2010,
Spotify was making more money for record labels in Sweden than
any other brand. By the end of 2011, its subscriber base doubled to
two million. It doubled yet again by the end of 2012 with over four
million paid users and a whopping 15 million active users in general.
As of 2019, Spotify has 26 million paid subscribers and 191 million
total active users worldwide. Apple Music’s global 28 million paid
subscribers also comprises a huge chunk of the streaming market.
But how exactly does this tie into the rise of hip-hop? According to
a 2017 report by Nielsen, hip-hop’s surging popularity was powered
by a 72 percent increase in on-demand audio streaming. None of this
is to suggest streaming media did all the work on its own. Hip-hop’s
artists, producers and labels did the heavy lifting in terms of making
the genre what it is. Between the rise of massive artists like Drake
and Kendrick Lamar and the influence of hip-hop labels like Cash
Money Records and Top Dawg Entertainment, hip-hop built itself
as force worth reckoning.
The dynamic of streaming really comes down to its radar of
exposure. With over 50 million songs under their grip, Apple
Music and Spotify have the power to expose listeners to music they
otherwise wouldn’t have discovered with their algorithms. With
this, the roles of award shows, airplay and television broadcasting
carry less weight. Listeners now have more autonomy to curate
more unique and expansive tastes in music without popular bias
and money enforcing as many constraints. Despite record labels
adjusting seamlessly to the sway of streaming, they no longer
prevail as primary determinants of success for an artist. Artists
can distribute their work directly to listeners without sacrificing
their style to appeal to labels. This specifically boosts hip-hop in
two senses: one, more mainstream means of exposure never gave
the genre the recognition it deserved, and two, hip-hop has more
of an experimental element to it than other music genres. Whereas
pop leans more on a label to produce for an artist, hip-hop is more
fixated on an individual’s skills with production.
The effect is two-fold with streaming and music simultaneously
shaping one another. Hip-hop specifically grooves with these shifts
as it takes to more experimental routes. Subgenres like emo-rap
and trap especially gain benefits as they thrive on platforms like
Soundcloud. Music and production bounce off one another with
more ease and individual control now than they have in the past.
Streaming works to further this relationship through the platform’s
individualized attention to the tastes of listeners. The platform takes
into account factors of music the listeners themselves wouldn’t have
considered to tailor music interests with more unique turns. There
is less conformity to any particular genre, leading to more exposure
and collaboration we haven’t seen popular in the past.
From your Nano: A brief history of streaming services
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer
I trace my world back to 2010
with my parents’ references to
the deaths of the CD and the
radio.
By Jeffrey Wechsler
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/06/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
12/06/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Friday, December 6, 2019
ACROSS
1 Skip
7 Say good things
about
11 Umami source,
briefly
14 City grid feature
15 Detective’s need
16 “So there it is!”
17 Street stand with
full permits?
19 Filch
20 Tee preceder
21 Sufferer cleansed
by Jesus
22 See 35-Down
23 “Who wants
to visit Muscle
Beach?”?
26 AFC South
athletes
29 Sen. Warren, e.g.
30 “... for none of
woman __ / Shall
harm Macbeth”
31 Receipt
37 Got ready to
binge-watch ... or
a hint to phonetic
changes in four
puzzle answers
40 Shutterbug who
bugs
41 Brewer’s kiln
42 VW Golf model
43 Considered to be
45 Dumps litter in
the woods, e.g.?
51 Stout choices
52 Violate a truce
53 Onetime part of
Portuguese India
56 Drug injector
57 King’s pulse, BP,
etc.?
60 Tokyo-born artist
61 Group with
pledges
62 “Quit it!”
63 Was the boss of
64 Numbers game
65 Pinball wizard’s
reward
DOWN
1 Farm storage unit
2 First name in
couture
3 Categorizes
4 Carrier with
Tokyo HQ
5 In a dark mood
6 Winning slot
machine line
7 Where to claim
a W-4 head-
of-household
allowance
8 Author Gide
9 Airborne mystery
10 Palme __: film
award
11 Super __
12 Cut off
13 Gothic
architecture
feature
18 56-Across prefix
22 Fitness training
apparel
23 Superior
positions
24 Port SSE of
Sana’a
25 Source of tweets
26 Culinary meas.
27 “Field of Dreams”
locale
28 Vacation option
31 “__ who?”
32 Hatchet relative
33 John in Albert
Hall
34 Steakhouse
order
35 With 22-Across,
proud parent’s
cry
36 Low mil. ranks
38 Old PC
monitors
39 ’60s musical
43 Sommelier,
e.g.
44 White weasel
45 Steam, for one
46 John Paul’s
successor
47 Element from
the Greek for
“strange”
48 Indo-__
languages
49 “Peachy!”
50 128 fl. oz.
53 Conquest for
Caesar
54 Lingerie brand
55 Grayish
57 ’60s A.G.
58 Natural
resource
59 Word with dollar
or dog
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
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HELP WANTED
I, VIKRANT Yadav, hereby notify
that my son Aarav born on 1st March
2014 has changed his name to Aarav
Yadav. Henceforth, his surname on
the passport be Yadav and given
name by Aarav.
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