6 — Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“Arth”
Definition:
(noun) a piece of really, really bad art.
Etymology:
Early 21st century, a Kerrytown porch filled with
exhausted artists who missed liking their art form.
You are an artist. You are
tired, and that cold you’ve had for
about two months is still nestled
in your nose and throat.
It is December, and there are
four collaborations due, two
final performances, a surplus of
overly-personal journals to write
and turn in — and it all has to be
done in three days.
Every artist I have encountered
in the past week has been utterly
exhausted, creatively bankrupt
and nervous. The pressure is on
to show what they’ve learned in
neat, shiny presentations.
When looking at art, my
mind generally breaks whatever I’m consuming into
two evaluative categories: Technicality and heart.
Technicalities are whatever can be taught, like if a
charcoal drawing of an apple actually looks like an apple.
Heart is whether or not it looks like the artist particularly
cared. Or is “heart” too tacky? It’s that indescribable sense
of enjoyment that you get from seeing something honest,
if that’s not too overused as an art-related buzzword.
It’s the same honesty you get when seeing a cartoon
version of someone as opposed to an oil portrait of them.
When actors improvise on stage before sinking into
character. When musicians throw together a slap-dash
cover of a country song in the 10 minute break in orchestra.
This element of honesty is driven by recognizing the
people creating the art as people rather than “artists.”
When this element is present, we do not see art as removed
and polished, but as something a person made. There is an
element of beauty and aesthetic spectacle in high budget
ballets or a 100 piece orchestra; that is a fact.
But my favorite pieces of art have always been those
where you can see the seams, where the process is not
only evident in the final product, but a part of it. It’s like
speaking with an incredibly confident and self-aware
person. You like them because they know who they are
and they are comfortable with it.
Often, this is the art that is
the artist’s favorite to make.
Particularly
when
you’re
an art student, it’s easy to
become overwhelmed by the
pressure to commodify your
art, to always be thinking
about how to market yourself
and how to make your work
clean and palatable. These
are useful skills, but they can
suffocate unadulterated and
experimental creativity and,
in turn, an artist’s love for
their art.
You are an artist. You
should make arth.
Bastardize your own art form. Boldly leap into one in
which you have zero skill or proficiency. Host a reading
specifically for bad iPhone Notes poetry, fingerpaint with
your friends or write a song about the neighborhood cat’s
secret life.
Arth is bad. Arth is not polished. It is experience based,
personal, creative throw-up.
It is compost: It is the eggshells from your goat cheese
omelette, the banana peels from those pristine pancakes
you made last Sunday and the orange rind from your
citrus scone endeavor. It is leftovers and garbage, yes, but
it is also what helps your garden grow and stay healthy.
ARTH; or, on making bad art
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
STEPHANIE GURALNIK
Daily Arts Writer
When I first read about “A New Brain,”
I thought the concept seemed absurd. An
autobiographical show about a composer
who suffers a chronic brain injury before
a deadline for a show he’s writing, and
that involves a humanized frog? I couldn’t
imagine how it would unfold.
The Department of Musical Theatre’s
Studio Production of “A New Brain” easily
put my concerns to rest. It was a simple,
humorous and compelling rendition of the
work. It was exactly what I’d hope for in a
studio production: Minimal staging and
costume, yet entertainment nonetheless.
The humorous tone was quickly
established in the beginning of the show, as
the main character’s order at a restaurant
turns into a quirky song about restaurant
food. This dualism between the characters
experiencing
and commenting
on
the
plot
continues
throughout.
When
the
main character,
Gordon Michael
Schwinn, played
by SMTD junior
Jack Mastrianni,
collapses at the
restaurant
and
is
rushed
to
the hospital, the
ensemble made up for the limited props
and lighting in this studio production.
From an ensemble member running
around with a flashing headlamp (to
represent an ambulance) to two curtained
dividers constantly being wheeled around
the stage, this work had a decidedly
modest feel.
This simplicity allowed for some simple
interjections of humor. A drill being held
aloft by the doctor, SMTD senior Hugh
Entrekin, during the operation scene, for
example, added to what was otherwise a
rather frightening scene of a man going
into a chronic brain procedure. The
doctor’s medical posters had a humorous,
lightening effect, especially when simple
smiley and frowning faces at the bottom
of these posters were meant to signify the
life-altering nature of these procedures.
The show featured Schwinn’s latest
musical composition — a musical for
children hosted by a man named Mr.
Bungee, played by SMTD junior Matthew
Sanguine, who dresses in a green sports
jacket and frog hat. Bungee exists as both
a personification of Schwinn’s artistic
work and as a character in his own
right, demanding that Schwinn make
his composition deadline despite his
hospitalization.
Besides Bungee, many of the other
characters integral to Schwinn’s life
exhibit easily identifiable stereotypes
taken to absurd extremes. There was the
main character’s boyfriend, SMTD junior
Luke Bove, a man so obsessed with sailing
that he can’t cut his vacation short to make
Schwinn’s surgery. And there was the
main character’s mother, played by SMTD
senior Madeline Eaton, a doting figure
who gifts her adult son with a teddy bear
and spoon-feeds him in an attempt to help
him recover.
The hospital workers, too, represent
a few key medical stereotypes. The
operating doctor cannot help but react
with excitement to every brain injury. At
one point, as he learns of a chronically
injured
patient
on another floor,
he eagerly fist
bumps Schwinn.
The two nurses
represent
the
two
ends
of
the
nursing
spectrum:
One
pampers
Schwinn,
while the other
frequently
criticizes him.
One
of
the
funniest moments in the show came
right before Schwinn’s operation, as the
nurses asked him about his family medical
history. The ensuing song, “Gordo’s Law
of Genetics,” pontificates on the genetic
dominance of unfavorable traits. “Smart
or dumb / dumb will predominate,” the
ensemble sings. “Fat or thin / The fat will
predominate.”
The
choreography
in
this
song
accentuated the humor, the lines about
“fat or thin” accompanied by an imaginary
rounded-stomach gesture. This was not
particularly outrageous humor but it was
intelligent, unpredictable and incredibly
well-executed. It wasn’t meant to offend
or to moralize, but it was smart and
engaging.
I left the theater impressed with the
Department of Musical Theatre, the
writing of James Lapine and the music,
lyrics and story of composer William
Flinn. It was amusing and entertaining,
and for a studio show, if not a general
University production, what more can
one ask?
SMTD’s ‘A New Brain’
is easy & entertaining
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Harry Styles came out with the music video for “Adore You”
just a week short of his upcoming album Fine Line’s release.
The single’s release, however, was supported by an elaborate,
meandering advertising campaign that spanned several
months. Together, Harry Styles and director Dave Meyers built
the fictional city of Eroda from the ground up, with the song at
the very base. Targeted Twitter ads promoting Eroda emerged
in October around the release of Styles’s “Lights Up” music
video. Scattered subtly throughout the campaign were arrows
pointing to a fine line (or, rather, Fine Line).
Extensive Twitter threads unraveled as quickly as details for
the album, with conjectures and conspiracy theories running
rampant. Eroda was immediately recognized as fictional, only
a map drawing on its website to counter the case. The ties back
to Styles were tongue-in-cheek once news of this mysterious ad
campaign broke. Eroda spelled backward is “adore,” a direct
connection to “Adore You.” This idea was further supported by
a slogan on the website that read: “Welcome to Eroda! We Adore
You.” A comment on the Eroda Twitter feed also claimed to
have booked a visit for December
for Dec. 13th — an option that is
one, unavailable and, two, the
same day as Fine Line’s release.
Claims of the island’s notoriety
for cherries, watermelon and
strawberries also emerged, with
songs from Fine Line’s tracklist
also referring to these fruits. One
of Styles’s new band members
also has the same voice as the
announcer for the Eroda ads. A bench seen on an Eroda Twitter
feed is purportedly located in St. Abbes, Scotland, where Harry
shot the “Lights Up” video — the list of references to Styles goes
on and on, but you get the point. The ad campaign was clever
and successful in garnering attention and interest in Styles’s
new work, regardless of whether the targets were fans or not.
The “Adore You” music video confirmed fan theories with
Meyers and Styles’s elaborate and luscious Eroda landscape.
The video spans seven minutes with the history of Eroda
presented prior to that of Styles’s character. The video starts
like the beginning of a “School House Rock” episode, an
animated globe whirring before it pans into the Isle of Eroda.
Located near England and “shaped unmistakably like a
frown,” the island is home to a forgotten, bleak fishing village
ripe with superstition. A perpetual spell of “resting fish face”
is cast upon every native’s face until Styles’s character is born
with a literally blinding smile. This casts him into solitude and
isolation, forcing him to leave home until one day, he meets a
literal fish out of water with a smile much like his. “Loneliness
is an ocean full of travelers trying to find their place in the
world,” the narrator puts it simply. From there, the music
video details Styles’s relationship with his fish friend. The two
eat tacos together, go for a bike ride and dance upon a hilltop.
The fish, however, grows larger and larger by the day and its
species races back to Eroda to find it. This leaves Styles with no
option other than to release it back into the ocean. The entire
village unites to help him in this endeavor. This effectively
clears the clouds cast over Eroda, transfiguring everyone’s
frown “into the unmistakable shape of a whale’s tale.”
In all its cheeky, abstract glory, the music video echoes the
song’s message on doing anything for the person you love.
Styles may not “walk through fire” for his fish friend, but he
does almost everything he can to show his appreciation for
its company, from knitting it a sweater to frantically seeking
fishbowl replacements to match its increasing growth. His
relationship with a fish adds a quirky, lighthearted element
against the gloomy backdrop — it’s a lot more fun than
screencaps would convey. But that’s not what makes the
music video so impressive or effective at consolidating Styles’s
message on love and its freedom from isolation. The video
tells a story perfectly in tune with the song, but its pithy layers
beyond the song’s lyrics make it artistically captivating. The
video gains the bulk of its meaning from abstract gestures,
like the extended fish out of water metaphor and the shape
of Eroda as a frown. But these symbols are not static and
they’re not there for the sake of
symbolism. Rather, the transience
of these abstract visuals and
explanations
envisions
them
as complex assets to the story.
We don’t care about the fish for
what it represents; rather, we
appreciate that it has an impact on
the protagonist of our story and
moves the plot along in tandem
with the song’s progression.
The marketing campaign only took this clever video
up another caliber. It not only heightened anticipation for
Styles’s music video release and album, but developed a
complex story arc for Styles’s art. Whereas most artists rely
on their on-screen personality and overall effect on others
to carry anticipation for their work, Styles developed an
artistic marketing ploy to bounce off the anticipation of his
fans for his new work. The social media ads were developed
over a long period of time, with attention radared to the
movements of fans and followers over the internet. “When
they found (something) we adjusted and/or leaned on it to
make sure that they could further go down the rabbit hole,”
says Columbia digital media director John Salcedo. The social
media ruse, more effectively than his robust Saturday Night
Live double feature as a host and musical guest or Graham
Norton performance, brought traction for “Adore You” and
Fine Line. This tactic puts Styles’s artistic flare at the center
of his celebrity. His artistry doesn’t strive for attention, but
rather appreciation as complex and beautiful pop music. This
separates Styles from his boyband past by putting his artistry
at the core, not stifling and reworking his personality to better
fit a strain or audience for attention.
Take a little journey to Eroda.
Meet my artist friend, Harry
DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer
YOUTUBE
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW
But my favorite pieces
of art have always been
those where you can
see the seams, where
the process is not only
evident in the final
product, but a part of it
By David Poole
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/10/19
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
R A Y
D J
S E T
S P A Y
E R A S
N A
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V E
H O L E
P O R K B A R R E L B
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A U D
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N L O V E
I
S A D O R A
U M A
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N E G
H A M O P E R A T O R
T S E
O D
I
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D A N E
G O O S E E G G S
M A A M
O R E O
M E D
C H
I
C K E N F E E D
A V E
S
I
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A Y E
S K
I
T R
I
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M O R E S O
V O
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M E A T O F T H E M A T T E R
O M
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T R A
E A S T
P O L O
L E O N E
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12/10/19
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2019
ACROSS
1 Chinese sauce
additive
4 Olympic
swimming star
Ledecky
9 L.L.Bean
competitor
14 Listening organ
15 Stereotypical Pi
Day celebrants
16 “Drab” color
17 Handel’s
“Messiah” et al.
19 Creepy film motel
20 *Fruity adult
beverage
22 Put in the mail
23 Cowboys QB
Prescott
24 Well-worn
pencils
26 “Keystone” police
28 *Black-spotted
orange flower
33 Prefix with center
34 __ Valley:
Reagan Library
site
35 Strand at a ski
lodge, say
37 Pitcher’s stat
38 *Toy pistols used
on stage
41 Prefix with natal
42 Asian food
breadcrumbs
44 Novelist Leon
45 They, to Thierry
46 *Toy car brand
49 Artist Warhol
50 “The Good Earth”
mother
51 Some SAT takers
52 Olympian bigwig
55 Canoeing
challenge whose
first word can
precede the
start and whose
second word can
precede the end
of the answers to
starred clues
61 Safe places?
63 Talus
64 Orange Muppet
65 Not tight enough
66 ER VIPs
67 Cockamamie
68 Beginning
69 Automated spam
creator
DOWN
1 Cat’s cry
2 Indian cover-up
3 Concert
keyboard
4 Rap on the door
5 Sleek, in car talk
6 75% of a quartet
7 Pop star
8 Ancient mystic
9 Position at work
10 Enduring work
11 Baptism or bris
12 Like Olympic
years,
numerically
13 “Wild” 1800s
region
18 Oolong and
pekoe
21 1921 play that
introduced the
word “robot”
25 Euphoria
26 Stay fresh in the
fridge
27 Celeb with her
“OWN” network
28 Andalusian aunt
29 Little rascal
30 Lively baroque
dance
31 Red Square
shrine
32 Give in
34 Grouchy look
36 Prone to prying
39 Often-
bookmarked
address, briefly
40 Grafton’s “__ for
Noose”
43 “80’s Ladies”
country singer
47 “Yee-__!”
48 Surround, as with
a saintly glow
49 Graceful steed
51 “Ni-i-ice!”
52 Cube root of acht
53 Merit
54 Forearm bone
56 Part of, plotwise
57 Boxing ref’s calls
58 “Anything __?”
59 Opposite of exo-
60 “Don’t play”
music staff
symbol
62 Date regularly
Adore You
Harry Styles
Columbia Records
SMTD