100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Download this Issue

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

This collection, digitized in collaboration with the Michigan Daily and the Board for Student Publications, contains materials that are protected by copyright law. Access to these materials is provided for non-profit educational and research purposes. If you use an item from this collection, it is your responsibility to consider the work's copyright status and obtain any required permission.

January 09, 2020 - Image 6

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

6 — Thursday, Janurary 9, 2020
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

By Christopher Adams
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/09/20

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

01/09/20

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Thursday, January 9, 2020

ACROSS
1 Coffee holder
4 “Top Chef” host
Lakshmi
9 Droop
12 Tapped-off
remnant
13 Thread holder
14 T’ai __
15 Club condiment
17 “Fiddler” meddler
18 Chemistry
Nobelist Otto
19 Big musical
number ... or
what 60-Across
is to four puzzle
answers?
22 “My Friend” title
horse
24 Coral creatures
27 “A Legacy of
Spies” author
29 Makes a mess of
30 St. Teresa’s town
31 VII x XIII
33 Rodeo performer
34 Catchall abbr.
35 Pool tool
36 Eat in style
37 Dramatic
accusation
38 Paris transit
40 Deca- minus two
41 GPS part: Abbr.
42 Smart __
43 Eco-friendly
certification
letters
44 Tablet named for
an organ
46 Kosher food
carrier
48 Preserve, in a
way
51 “The Joy Luck
Club” novelist
55 Philosopher
__-tzu
56 Short rest
58 Word for a
woman
59 Hosp. area
60 Decisive ending
64 “I like that”
65 Cool beans or
warm fuzzies
66 Great Lake city
67 MC alternative
68 Yoga pose
69 Word for men

DOWN
1 Dash attachment
2 NATO founding
member
3 The Curies, e.g.
4 Propaganda
battle
5 Tarzan raisers
6 “Cut it out!”
7 Con __: briskly
8 Syrian city
9 Member of a
1990s girl group
10 Spa sigh
11 Martini default
16 Musical revue
performed in the
nude
18 Musical whose
first run won 10
Tony Awards
20 Gumbo pod
21 Refill a glass, say
22 Fire sign
23 Flippancy
25 Mambo legend
Tito
26 Nutella, e.g.
28 Shines
29 Cutthroat, as
competition
32 Meet-__:
romcom device

38 Musical
featuring ABBA
songs
39 Musical awarded
a special Pulitzer
in 1944
45 Radius neighbor
47 “You said it!”
48 Justice Kagan
49 Pithy saying
50 Lawn game
52 Wonder Woman
topper

53 Pungent
54 Zaps for
dinner
57 Sketchbooks
58 “The Da Vinci
Code” priory
61 Supervillain
Luthor
62 Hermana de la
madre
63 __ B: 9-Down’s
professional
name

The Voices Valiant Choir is
famous for their heartwarming
and
welcoming
concerts.
Young or old, everyone enjoys
exciting music and audience
participation. But the special
part is no one feels old when
they’re listening. As the well-
known American Choir Teacher

Helen Kemp proclaims and the
choir echoes, “You don’t stop
singing because you get old;
you get old because you stop
singing.”
Voices
Valiant
performed
their Fall semester concert on
December 14th at 11am in the
STAMPS
Auditorium.
They
are getting ready for the new
semester by welcoming new
members and beginning new
music.
The group was started by
Jerry Blackstone eight years
ago and is now run by Norma
Freeman. Their audiences and
members benefit greatly from
the choir’s work.
“There is tons of research out
there that says one of the most

valuable things that seniors can
do is to sing,” Freeman said. “It’s
such a hard one to multitask,
because you have to sing the
right note. You have to sing it
for the right length of time. You
have to sing it with words, and
sometimes the words are not
English words, and then you
have to sound like the person
next to you. So just that from a
mental aspect is looking over
how your brain is firing on all
cylinders that way.”
Even
the
physicality
of
singing is beneficial to the
seniors in the choir, according
to Freeman.
“And
then
physically,
we
work, but we do this in a gentle
way. But you know, older people,
we all tend to bend over, right?”
Freeman said. “But to sing and
to be able to sing with beauty
in your voice takes a lot of
breathing
technique,
getting
those shoulders back, standing
up straight and keeping your
head up. And you know, we just
think, ‘Why don’t we walk like
this all the time?’”
Not only does choir singing
have many physical and mental
benefits, but many have found
a home in this particular choir.
Mary Koi has moved around
her whole life and sang in every
place she lived. When she moved
to Michigan from Dallas, she
knew she had to find somewhere
to continue her singing. She
found Voices Valiant in 2016 and
has been a part of the group ever
since.
“You never feel a sense of
competition between the people
in the group,” Koi said. “It’s
just a really, really friendly,
welcoming, great place.”
Freeman feels this connection
to her choir as well. “There’s just
not a better feeling than loving
to sing and having people on all
sides of you that love to sing,”
Freeman said. “It just gives you
an immediate community and a
community where you feel that
you’re getting something, but
you’re giving too.”
With
the
new
semester
beginning, the choir of seniors
aged 50 and above with any
friends who want to join them
is excited for new music and
new friends. Their next concert
will be toward the end of the
semester and is sure to be a blast.

“I’ve yet to see anyone leave
the concert who didn’t have
a smile on their face,” says
Freeman. “That’s what we’re all
about!”

COMMUNITY CULTURE

The insightful music of ‘Hustlers’

FILM NOTEBOOK

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer

“Hustlers”
isn’t
just
a
story
about
ex-strippers performing a series of heists
aimed at the Wall Street con-men who
tanked the economy. It’s also not just the
best movie of 2019 (though to this writer,
it is most certainly that). “Hustlers” is a
time capsule. It conjures magic through the
story it tells in that specific way only cinema
can — by plunging the viewer directly into
the characters’ world. Its set design and
costuming give the movie a distinct texture,
evoking a highly specific place and time
— in this case, New York City during the
financial crash of 2008. Everything from
the bedazzled “Bebe” T-shirts to the Juicy
Couture sweatsuits, to the tanning beds, to
the massive handbags, evokes an early aughts
culture of fast fashion and glitz. “Hustlers” is
a glittery movie, start to finish, but it doesn’t
sparkle like a diamond — it sparkles like a
rhinestone.
The excess and the kitsch is the point,
and the film is a masterclass in how to build
a sensory world for the characters (and by
extension, the viewers) to inhabit. Brilliant
performances and an electric script by
director Lorene Scafaria (“The Meddler”)
fill that world, but a significant piece of the
film’s power is derived from how real it feels.
Nothing is more evocative, however, than the
music of “Hustlers.” My theory is this: If you
listen to the soundtrack start to finish with an
ear for context and history, you’ll be treated to
a complete economic history of the late 2000s
in the United States. I can’t think of any film
that uses music better or more intelligently
than “Hustlers” — not just in recent memory,
but ever.
“I guess I’m just a people person.”
The very first words we hear in “Hustlers”
aren’t spoken by a character, they’re sung
by Janet Jackson. She sings: “This is a story
about control,” as strip club newcomer
Destiny
(Constance
Wu,
“Crazy
Rich
Asians”) peers at herself in the mirror before
heading onstage. Within the first 10 seconds,
we understand something fundamental
not just about Destiny, but about the act of
stripping itself and what it means to her. Later
in the film, in voiceover, Destiny explains that
when the high-flying financiers of Wall Street
come to the club, it’s likely “... the most honest
transaction he’s had all day.” Money changes
hands, more clothes come off. Simple enough.
But because this is a story about control,
Destiny learns to manipulate that interaction
to her advantage, to use her looks and her
brains to control what men think of her.
She learns these skills from Ramona
(Jennifer Lopez, “Second Act”), a veteran
stripper who’s introduced while dancing to
Fiona Apple’s “Criminal.” Fiona sings, “It’s a
sad, sad world / when a girl will break a boy
just because she can,” as Ramona performs
gravity-defying feats up and down the pole,
and the stage floods with cash. “Criminal”
was written in 1996 by Fiona Apple when she
was 18, allegedly in just 45 minutes, when her
management team said her album lacked a
hit. They made a video featuring Fiona rolling
in her underwear around a dirty apartment
filled with sleeping, half-naked people, and
the song was a smash.
It’s
fascinating
the
way
“Hustlers”
repurposes
“Criminal,”
a
song
about
voyeurism and desire written by a teenage
girl who was presented to the world to be
ogled. It invites the viewer to see both the
song and Ramona through a different plane
on their respective prisms. The power of
Jennifer Lopez’s physical performance and
her obvious dominance over everybody
looking at her in the scene teases out the

wryness and the irony in the song. Lines
like “I’ve got to cleanse myself of all these
lies ‘til I’m good enough for him” become
winking jokes, because how could Ramona,
a person with a presence that fills the room,
a person so in control, ever wonder if she’s
good enough for the men tucking money into
her underwear. It’s a laughable question. The
song also brings out a seriousness to Ramona,
a plea for redemption for the people she
would go on to hurt. “Save me from these evil
deeds before I get them done” indeed.
“2007 was the fucking best.”
The first act of “Hustlers” takes us through
Destiny’s rise to the top with breakneck
speed. She learns quickly from Ramona, and
makes good money. Each moment of success
— Destiny’s first shopping spree, being
invited to swanky parties, buying her dream
car — is punctuated with a montage and an
early 2000s club song. It’s a dizzying tour of
the pop charts in 2007, with songs like Sean
Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls,” and in easily the
best cameo of the last decade, Usher’s “Love
in this Club.” As the music plays, wads of
money are zipped into knee high boots, credit
cards are swiped, apartments are purchased
and giant designer handbags are bought with
massive stacks of singles. These songs aren’t
chosen just for nostalgia’s sake, or even just
to remind us that it’s 2007 on the movie’s
timeline. It’s excess in its purest, giddiest
form, but it’s excess rendered on two fronts.
They spend money like they’d always have it,
and the music matches that idea. Early 2000s
club radio had an ease and a buoyancy to it,
as though joy was a limitless currency. There
was no darkness in 2007’s Top 40 because,
as Destiny says, “For one last moment,
everything was so glamorous and so cool.”
There’s a scene in the film where Destiny
and Ramona are sitting in a car in a Cadillac
dealership, decked out in their new purchases
— big gold hoops, fur coats, perfect makeup.
Destiny decides she’ll buy the car, turns
on the radio to celebrate and “Gimme
More” by Britney Spears blasts through
the speakers. The pair immediately starts
dancing, and then we cut to a Wall Street
trading floor, where panic ensues. Britney’s
voice is robotic, almost post-human as she
sings, “Gimme gimme more /gimme more /
gimme gimme more” over footage of massive
banks hemorrhaging cash. It’s the perfect
culmination of the excess of the music and
culture the movie showed us just a few
moments before.
“Gimme More” was released at a time when
Britney Spears was sick of people touching
her, sick of people judging her. So she threw
away the premise that she was supposed to be
respectable, threw away the idea that she was
supposed to fit into any preconceived notions
about what a young woman in the public eye
should be. She shaved her head so people
would stop looking at her and she altered
her voice under layers of digital distortion to
release one of the great pop statements of the
21st century in the form of Blackout. It was
the end of an era in music — dance songs that

hit the charts were uncomplicated from here
on out. There was an aggression to “Gimme
More” that songs like “Beautiful Girls” just
didn’t have, a darkness and danger to it.
When Destiny and Ramona dance to “Gimme
More” in the Cadillac, they’re intoxicated
with the idea of wanting and getting more,
maybe even seeing themselves in lines like,
“Cameras are flashing / we’re dirty dancing /
they keep watching.” But they fail to hear that
“Gimme More” isn’t just a celebration — it’s
also a warning.
“Hands where we can see ‘em.”
If “Gimme More” was an inflection point
in the pop charts turning them incrementally
darker, “Royals” was the true sea change.
Lorde’s 2013 debut wasn’t just a massive hit, it
was also a key moment in defining the textures
and fabrics of the pop music landscape for the
rest of the decade. EDM drops and “hands in
the air” hooks were out. Trap hi-hats and low,
smoky vocals were in. The ease and lightness
of early 2000s dance pop was a thing of the
past. It’s not a coincidence, then, that “Royals”
is used to mark the true end in “Hustlers” of
the reign of Ramona and Destiny. The song
starts playing in the film as Ramona walks
down the street to take out cash at the local
ATM, and by the time she turns around, she’s
surrounded by police officers, ready to arrest
her. All the women involved in the scheme
are arrested one by one, and when the song
ends, the bars of the holding cell slam shut.
It’s clear it’s the definitive end of an era, not
just for these women, but for a moment in pop
culture as a whole. “That kind of luxe just ain’t
for us,” Lorde sings right as the rhinestone
sweatshirts and massive designer bags stop
making sense in the world of “Hustlers.”
When we see Ramona next, she’s working
at Old Navy and wearing a flannel shirt.
There are little details that tell us she’s still
herself: Her nails are still perfectly pressed
and glamorous, her makeup is flawless and
her hair is still long and shiny. But she looks
different, a little sadder and a little wiser.
Destiny too, looks different. Her house in 2015
is pristine and white and so are her clothes,
but she has none of her old glamor. Her hair
is chopped short and she wears cardigans
instead of fur coats. Her house looks straight
out of a Crate and Barrel catalogue.
Their worlds have changed, not for better
or for worse necessarily — “Hustlers” is far
too complicated a movie to make those kind
of value judgments — but their worlds are
quieter now. Less flashy and less sparkly.
Ramona and Destiny’s aspirations for a
specific kind of wealth have been put through
the wringer not only by the financial crisis,
but also by a world and a culture that’s
changing around them in real time. Their
dream of living a life glittering with the
crystals and diamonds Lorde sings about
are dashed — reduced to nothing more than
a fantasy. Sure, there were moments when
they had everything they wanted, when
everything was so glamorous and so cool. But
for now, they’re not caught up in that old love
affair. At least, until the next heist.

The launch of Disney+ in Nov. 2019
gave rise to original content such as the
ultra-meta “High School Musical: The
Musical: The Series” and the Kristen
Bell-hosted reality show, “Encore!” At
the platform’s disposal is the abundance
of licenced content that Disney has
racked up over the years.
One of the ways streaming services
attempt to lure you in is not just with
exclusive flashy original series but also
through content that has been around
for decades. While Disney+ boasts their
Marvel library and the animated classic
“The Simpsons,” my mind has been
wrapped around the agelessness and
rewatchability that surrounds another
animated show —“Phineas and Ferb” —
a children’s show about the impossible
adventures
of
two
kids’
summer
vacation.
Originally
airing
between
2007
and 2015, “Phineas and Ferb” was an
animated show intended for kids, but
came with an adult sensibility that also
welcomed older viewers. The humor is
not just slapstick but surprisingly clever,
with recurring gags that have lasted

since the first episode of the show.
Like the fact that Ferb never talks, but
when he does, it’s always an insightful
sentence in a British accent. Or when
someone asks Phineas “Aren’t you a little
young to be doing [insert activity]?”
and he replies: “Yes. Yes I am,” then
continues to build whatever it was that
he’s too young to be doing.
Every single episode boats sarcasm,
weird scenes with floating baby heads
and fantastic subplots involving Phineas
and Ferb’s older sister, Candance, in
her attempt to “bust” her siblings. Even
as she tries to report them, Candace
is aware of how the crazy thing her
brothers are doing will be over as soon
as she brings her mom to the backyard.
She’s aware of the unwritten canonical
rule that Phineas and Ferb will always
get off the hook. We can relate to her
frustration when her mom tells her
to cool it. Though somewhat of an
antagonist, even Candace was able to
have dimension — her obsession with
her boyfriend Jeremy transforms her
from cold-hearted to a bundle of joy,
perfectly capturing how all of us once
acted around an early-teenage crush.
Then there’s the B-plot that surrounds
their pet platypus, Perry, who doubles
as the secret Agent P who fights the
evil plots of Dr. Doofensmirtz, who

encapsulates what it means to be an
adult. He’s the villain who tries to take
over the world — in this instance just the
Tri-state area — but is always stopped by
the good guys.
Additionally, every episode features
a catchy song that is never more than
90 seconds. I’m not just talking about
“Gitchy Gitchy Goo” but the actual gems
like “You Snuck Your Way Right Into
My Heart” and “S.I.M.P” and “There’s
A Platypus Controlling Me.” Not to
mention the fact that everyone from my
generation knows the plastic tip at the
end of the shoelace is called an aglet
because Phineas and Ferb wrote a song
about it.
The optimism and curiosity that
surrounded Phineas and Ferb’s daily
projects
and
Dr.
Doofensmirtz’s
failed “-inators” are enough to keep
us endlessly entertained despite the
inevitable same result. Phineas’s line
“I know what we’re going to do today!”
reflects the inspiration, spirit and joy
that drives the entire show. There is
truly no other show like it, which at least
partly explains why people still watch it
today. The title sequence told us to “stick
with us cause Phineas and Ferb are
gonna do it all,” and they did just about
everything they could.

Revisiting ‘Phineas and Ferb’

Gloria Sanchez Productions

JUSTIN POLLACK
Daily Arts Writer

TV NOTEBOOK

“It’s a great
welcoming
feeling group,”
said Koi. “You
never feel a sense
of competition
between the
people in the
group. It’s
just a really,
really friendly,
welcoming, great
place.”

Inclusivity and
the Voices Valiant

DANA PIERANGELI
Daily Community Culture Editor

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan