By Kurt Mengel and Jan-Michele Gianette
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/09/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

12/09/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, December 9, 2019

ACROSS
1 “Georgia on My
Mind” singer
Charles
4 Party music mix,
briefly
9 Keep from
having kittens,
say
13 “Big Band” and
“Jazz” periods
15 Easily fooled
16 __-in-one:
golfer’s ace
17 Career-boosting
political spending
on local projects
20 Speaker sound
21 Smitten
22 Dancer Duncan
25 Thurman who
played The Bride
in “Kill Bill” films
26 Chill in the air
29 Pos. opposite
30 Amateur radio
hobbyist
33 “Cats” poet’s
monogram
34 Chief Norse god
35 “Great” dog
36 Zeros
40 Polite address to
a woman
43 Creme-filled
cookie
44 Rx
47 Paltry sum
51 Madison in NYC,
e.g.
52 Polite way to
address a man
53 Positive vote
54 Aspen getaway
56 To a greater
extent
59 “There you have
it!”
60 Issue’s most
important
element ... and
a hint to 17-,
30-, 36- and
47-Across
64 Leave out
65 Prefix with sonic
66 Sunrise direction
67 Sport played on
horseback
68 Africa’s Sierra __
69 Sgts.’ superiors

DOWN
1 Change the wall
color
2 Excites
3 Football play
measure
4 Forensic
evidence
5 Glass container
6 iPhone assistant
7 Tie, as a score
8 “I have to know!”
9 Prison knife
10 Cornmeal dish
11 “__ the
President’s Men”
12 “I agree”
14 Slide on the road
18 Word of mock
sadness
19 Wild hog
23 Swiss watch
brand
24 Friends in Lyon
27 + or - particle
28 Opposite of post-
31 __ a kind
32 Commercials
36 Yukon
automaker
37 “__ to you,
matey!”
38 Many a techie

39 Bare-naked Lady
40 Variety show
hosts, briefly
41 Sushi tuna
42 Postal service
44 Word before
vows or status
45 Most wicked
46 Leaves
48 Syrup brand
since 1902
49 Impressive sight
50 Quik maker

55 Convenient bag
57 Director
Preminger
58 “__ be in
England ... ”:
Browning
60 Floor cleaner
61 Broody music
genre
62 Geographical
direction suffix
63 Daisy __: Li’l
Abner’s wife

As I entered Literati, I walked by Grace Tulusan, author of “The Body
Papers,” who sat in the back of the room with a small smile and an earnest
glow in her eyes. The lights on the second floor of Literati Bookstore
dimmed, and the seated audience murmured in quiet excitement as she
weaved her way to the front.
On her final stop on the book tour for her memoir “The Body Papers,”
winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing author
Grace Talusan began her talk with why she had to get these words out
and onto a page. The catalyst was her niece’s
eye cancer diagnosis, a reminder of life’s
fickleness. It also served as a reminder that
voices like hers mattered and needed to be
heard.
Talusan said she never considered herself
worthy enough to be a protagonist. Growing
up in the 1970s and 1980s in New England as
a Filipina-American, she only ever saw her
identity portrayed as a joke or caricature.
As she began writing the essays that would
eventually be compiled to become the memoir,
Talusan wrote a story for her former and
present self. At two, Talusan and her family
immigrated to New England. In a mostly
white town, the Philippines faded into a far-
away place people knew about because of the
U.S. military bases set up there.
In the excerpts Talusan read from her memoir, she unraveled the
necessity detailing the immigrant experience. Otherwise, others would
take over that narrative and misconstrue the truth. In a mixed-status
family (having some documented and undocumented family members),
Talusan’s family was granted a path to citizenship with an amnesty bill
passed in the ’80s, a compassion toward immigrants she fears has been
lost today.
As one of the Filipina-Americans attending the lecture, it was almost
unnerving hearing Tagalog words in public and having experiences to
relate to. I rarely found books or any forms of art that I could culturally
relate to. In this way, Talusan is the electrifying mouthpiece for the

unseen and unacknowledged, especially those silenced by a society not
made for them. Talusan, like so many other minorities in the U.S., lived
that unwritten narrative and finally wrote it down.
Talusan described the experience of being told that “Filipinos eat
dogs” and discovering that Filipinos were on display at the 1904 World’s
Fair in St. Louis. In a scrapbook during her research, she found a photo
of her great-grandfather at the fair, playing the piccolo in a military
parade, in what Talusan called America’s “ideal outcome of colonialism.”
Talusan argued that assimilation becomes erasure, as even her parents
told her to only speak English, eventually losing any Tagalog she knew.
Talusan skillfully weaved her Filipinx identity with the anxieties of
having her personal trauma public for the first time.
“The Body Papers” is about the unsayable.
Living with anxiety, depression and PTSD,
Talusan feared the world and those she
loved most would turn on her once the bomb
exploded — once the truth that she was a
survivor of abuse surfaced. She worried about
how the people closest to her would react.
A major support system for her, Talusan’s
writing circle told her that there was no need
to protect those who did not need protecting:
Her abusers and those who didn’t believe
her. In revealing her truth, Talusan hoped it
helped survivors feel less alone.
Her publisher warned her that “a book is a
bomb.” Talusan joked that she initially heard
“balm” instead of “bomb.” And when the
memoir dropped, the bomb did explode and
reverberate around the country and the world but not in the way she
expected. Critically acclaimed but more importantly with the flood of
love and gratitude from readers, Talusan was embraced by every person
with a passion for words and for an understanding of the pains and joys
of being human.
In the process of crafting the memoir, Talusan learned to cultivate
writing as a relationship with herself. Much of Talusan’s talk explored
writing as a joyful and cathartic practice. An audience member asked
what kept her writing, even if she was afraid. Talusan said her rage over
why stories like hers are not out there fueled her. And, because, despite
that anxiety and pain, it was writing that pulled her out of those depths
every time, to realize the joy in living again.

In conversation with Grace Tulsan

ARTIST PROFILE

NINA MOLINA
For The Daily

It’s that time of year again — Christmas trees sit outside of
hardware stores and string lights line rooftops. Cookies are in the
oven and carols on the speakers. The holidays are here!
There are many things I love about December. Soft sweaters and
fuzzy socks top the list, along with warm drinks and cozy nights.
Behind the generalized jubilee, however, lies another
reason for my Christmastime affection.
It’s Nutcracker season. It’s time for Sugar Plum Fairies
and Snowflakes to grace almost every stage of the world,
launching a yearly resurgence in the public’s proclivity for
dance performance.
Nutcracker season is the only month of the year when
my love for ballet aligns with the rest of the world’s. For 30
days, I revel in the same classical music as everyone else
in Starbucks who hears it over the speakers. I see images
of my beloved art form in the windows of Hallmark stores
and on billboards on the side of the highway. I cherish
this opportunity to share what I love so much with an
audience that is so big. In a report from DanceUSA, “The
Nutcracker” makes up an average of 48 percent of revenue
for American ballet companies — that’s almost half their
money from only one show.
The story of “The Nutcracker,” like many ballet classics,
is very odd. A little girl bursts into joyful dance upon
receiving a weird nutcracker doll from her even weirder
Uncle Drosselmeyer. Later that evening, she encounters a

pack of life-size rats led by an evil Rat King trying to attack her for
reasons that are completely unclear. She then watches as her doll
turns into a life-size soldier and she ends up killing the Rat King by
simply hitting him once on the head with her ballet slipper. After
the rats leave, she flies off into a land of sweets with her nutcracker,
who has now turned into a prince.
Needless to say, no one goes to this show for the narrative. We are
there for the beautiful music and Christmas themes, which is why
the production has been successfully redesigned so many times.

This statement then begs the question: Which is the best? Which
choreography, whose costumes and what version of the story is
most effective?
Well, I quite like the Waltz of the Flowers by George Balanchine,
and the Mother Ginger costume from Pacific Northwest Ballet. The
San Francisco Ballet drops so much snow during their Waltz of the
Snowflakes that it’s awe-inspiring to see the dancers able to keep
moving without slipping. The Royal Ballet has a beautiful pas de
deux (dance for two) in the first act and their Sugar Plum adagio at
the end of the ballet is so well-matched to the grandeur of
Tchaikovsky’s genius music that even watching it on my
phone makes my heart swell.
But that’s just me. The true beauty of Nutcracker lies
in its accessibility. By nature of its mass production,
December is the best time of year to go to the ballet. Even
locally, you can see the Academy of Russian Ballet at the
Michigan Theater on Dec. 14, or there’s a performance
supported by the Ballet Detroit Foundation at the Lydia
Mendelssohn Theatre on Dec. 15. Randazzo Dance
Company will perform their version at the Power Center
on Dec. 22 and you’re only a quick Google search away
from finding dozens more possibilities in Ann Arbor’s
neighboring towns.
For many dancers, the Nutcracker will be their first or
only chance to perform. For many audiences, it will be the
first time they’ve seen a ballet. The intersection between
these two firsts, underneath a flurry of snow and a dash of
sugar plum sweetness, is often what makes this production
so special.

Battle of the ‘Nutcrackers’: The holidays are for ballet

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

ZOE PHILLIPS
Daily Arts Writer

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Just in case you’ve missed their steamy award show
performances or flirty social media banter, I’ll break the news:
Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes are an item. That’s why
the title of Cabello’s sophomore effort, Romance, shouldn’t
come as a surprise. Nor should the album’s content — a
deep dive into Cabello’s rose-colored vision of love to the
tune of anthemic pop. Luckily, however, it isn’t all lovey-
dovey as Cabello attempts to capture the dark, thrilling
and painful aspects of romance whether you’re in it or not.
“My emotions are naked, they’re taking me out of my
mind,” Cabello confesses on “Shameless.” It’s the perfect
track to plunge the listener into the emotional landscape
of Romance and peek into Cabello’s headspace: nervous,
overwhelmed and very much in love. The music itself feels
heavy. Guitars close in on Cabello until she absolutely has
to spill her feelings.
If “Living Proof” is the aftermath of her shameless
confession, the situation worked out in her favor. Cabello
is blissful. Thematically, this song is the pickup line, “Did
it hurt when you fell from heaven?” on steroids. “Where
did you come from baby / and were you sent to save me?”
she asks wide-eyed. In the chorus, Cabello’s voice reaches
the heavenly heights she sings about, an impressive feat
no matter how you feel about her gushing.
Cabello is
more clear-
headed
when
fending
off
a
former
flame.
“So you want
me now? That’s
funny / ‘Cause
you didn’t give
a … back then”
she sings on the
Latin
inspired
“Should’ve Said

It.” It’s a much-needed dose of sass and suitable dance-alone-
in-your-room material.
“Feel It Twice” is the flip side of this poor timing. Cabello
is sympathetic to the person she fell for “two years” ago, but
who only just made up his mind about her now. “I know love
is the loneliest place when you fall alone,” she sings from
experience, but this time it’s her telling him she “doesn’t
feel the same.” As the song builds, her voice echoes until

Cabello and the listener both are overwhelmed by her rush
of thoughts.
Cabello wholeheartedly dives back into the sweet side of
love on “Easy.” The message is straightforward — thinking
that you’re “hard to love” until the right person makes it
“seem so easy,” but Camila is playful about it. Her lover lists
“her crooked teeth” as one of his favorite things about her and
she coyly asks, “Anything else?”
The only explicit track on the album, “This Love” finally
gives Cabello some edge. “Fuck this love / Get out of my
veins,” she cries. It’s the moment romance burns her and it’s

refreshing. A subdued ode to the toxic person who plays her
“again and again,” Cabello sounds just as passionate in love as
in misery, if not more so.
“I’ve known you forever / now I know you better” Cabello
winks on “Used to This,” which chronicles Camila’s journey
out of the friendzone with Shawn. It’s sweet, but it stands out
for feeling real. Cabello grounds her feelings in experiences
instead of the abstract. “No, I never liked San Francisco /
never thought it was nothin’
special / ‘til you kissed me
there” she admits.
But out of all of the
touchy-feely
songs
on
Romance,
Cabello’s
song
for her dad, “First Man,”
takes the cake for being the
mushiest. A piano ballad
that follows her going on
a date to walking down
the aisle, she thanks her
dad for being the “first
man” to really love her and
reassures him about her
boyfriend.
Romance is like a box of
chocolates,
except
with
each track, you kind of
know what you’re going to
get. Nearly every song is
sweet and chewy, pleasant
to listen to with excellent
vocals. However, even a theme
as compelling as love can get
tiring after 14 songs. One can’t
help but crave some saltiness,
more
hurt
or
melancholy,
for
balance.
This
isn’t
to
dismiss listening to the album
altogether persay, just make
sure you wait until you’re really
in the mood for romance.

Camila gets cozy with ‘Romance’ in a sweet ode to love

ALBUM REVIEW

KATIE BEEKMAN
Daily Arts Writer

EPIC RECORDS

Romance

Camila Cabello

Epic Records

Romance is
like a box of
chocolates,
except with
each track, you
kind of know
what you’re
going to get.
Nearly every
song is sweet
and chewy,
pleasant to
listen to with
excellent
vocals.

Talusan is the
electrifying mouthpiece
for the unseen and
unacknowledged,
especially those
silenced by a society not
made for them.

6A — Monday, December 9, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com