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