WHISPER

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

By Kurt Krauss
©2020 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/12/20

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

02/12/20

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2020

ACROSS
1 Home on the 
range
6 Hardly wimpy
11 Film watcher’s 
channel
14 Take the honey 
and run
15 “Encore!”
16 Évian water
17 *Power outage 
standbys
19 Digital readout, 
for short
20 Up the creek
21 “I, Claudius” star 
Jacobi
23 RSVP part
24 *“I don’t care if 
you made plans, 
cancel them”
28 Airplane 
assignment
31 Escape
32 Man-to-man 
defense 
alternative
33 Treat like a dog?
35 Place for a “ped” 
to cross
38 Bobbsey girl
39 *Morally upright 
person
43 __-fi
44 Big rig
45 Bandleader 
Lombardo
46 Beanery sign
48 Ticker tape 
letters?
50 Award adjective
53 *Stretch between 
two Bushes
57 “Huh!?”
59 __ squash
60 Language 
spoken by Jesus
63 Bygone airline
64 Ballpark 
brushback, 
perhaps ... and a 
hint to each set of 
circled letters
67 Rock’s 
Fleetwood __
68 Code name
69 Driving 
instructor’s urgent 
reminder
70 “Hometown 
Proud” 
supermarket 
chain
71 Weapon with 
a hilt
72 Fills completely

DOWN
1 TV host Philbin
2 “Jagged 
Little Pill” 
co-songwriter 
Morissette
3 Old register key
4 They report to 
sgts.
5 Pile
6 Barbie’s 
company
7 Get on in years
8 Aries or Taurus
9 Like many yoga 
practitioners
10 Beginning
11 Ringer in la 
casa
12 Wool coat 
that is often 
plaid
13 Something to 
chew
18 Holiday quaff
22 Cartoonist 
Chast
25 Source of 
increased 
government 
revenue
26 Overlook
27 Common base
29 Auto financing 
abbr.

30 Afternoon affairs
34 Even score
36 Pester
37 Pub __: casual 
fare
39 Rascal
40 Bolivian border 
lake
41 Fed. agents
42 Deli choice
43 Brief time
47 __-Caps: candy
49 Marked for the 
class

51 Go after, as a fly
52 “The Masked 
Singer” judge 
Robin
54 Cuts back
55 Currently airing
56 “All bets __ off”
58 Flu symptoms
61 LAPD alerts
62 Actress Sorvino
63 Texter’s “No 
more details!”
65 Sellout letters
66 Leb. neighbor

SUDOKU

6

2
3

5
9

9

7
8

4

1

4
2

6

7

1

8

7
4

3

9

3

1
2

1
2

Sudoku Syndication
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1 of 1
3/9/09 10:03 AM

“60 characters. 
Bare your soul.

 Get featured in the Daily!”

WHISPER

Introducing the

“Tara is just a rat back-
wards, who likes cheese 
anyways”

DAILY MIDWESTERN COLUMN

The musical roots 
of the Midwest

MAXWELL SCHWARZ
Daily Midwestern Columnist

The world would be a mighty 
silent place had it not been for 
Little Walter wailing on a harp 
with Muddy Waters egging 
him on in Chicago come 1950 
or thereabouts. In that instant, 
the Chicago Blues were born — 
urban blues, electric blues. The 
sound filled Chicago and it came 
to define it. It was the moment 
when the music of the Midwest 
was born. This is to say nothing 
of the influence of other artists, 
such as Duluth-native Robert 
Zimmerman, better known as 
Bob Dylan, of course.
Which is all to say the 
Midwest has sound. It trembles. 
There is music in these roads, 
nestled deep in these pines. It is 
folk, it is country, it is the great 
Americana backbeat pressing 
back against your tires as you 
cruise up I-94 through Madison, 
WI. From Minnesota’s own 
Jayhawks (who produced the 
masterpieces 
“Hollywood 
Town Hall” and “Mockingbird 
Time”) to Allison Krauss — 
the queen of Americana who 
hails from Decatur, Illinois. To 
those artists whose boots are 
dirty and sounds are rich, to 
those reclaiming country from 
Nashville and putting it back in 
the Heartland where it belongs, 
I do tip my hat.
We have a hillbilly-tinted 
concept 
of 
country 
music, 
dominated by fake twang and 
pop sentimentality. Country 
music may have been born in 
Bristol, Tennessee, but that kind 
of music was meant for folks all 
over every stretch of America 
to which a dirt road leads you. 
The Midwest is dotted with 
rust towns and green towns 
and towns where the wheat 
swallows up old tractors and 
metal Tonka trucks. There are 
all sorts of Midwesterners to 
whom country music sounds 
like home. Take, for example, 
the guy who fixed my tire when I 
was stranded in Onaway. Or my 
dad, who walks his property on 
the weekends and checks to see 
how much maple sap collected 

in the buckets for him to make 
maple syrup. Even this guy I 
once saw drinking a Budweiser 
and driving a tractor down 29 
Mile. These are country folk. 
You can see it in their eyes.
Michigan 
band 
Frontier 
Ruckus 
has 
been 
steadily 
putting out what I can only refer 
to 
as 
criminally-underrated 
folk-Americana 
since 
2007. 
I cannot recommend “Way 
Upstate 
& 
the 
Crippled 
Summer,” both parts 1 and 2, 
enough. Frontman Matthew 
Milia’s warbling, intense lyrics 
find a cozy nook in between the 
banjos and rusty chords.
Lord Huron — an LA-based 
indie folk crew made up of 
Michigan natives — produces 
some of my favorite music, 
by far. Their debut album, 
“Lonesome Dreams,” has just 
enough distant ambience to 
remind you of how beautiful 
the loneliness of nature can be. 
“She Lit a Fire” is particularly 
striking, with dancing, sparkly 
chords that blend into the 
ambience. 
Their 
sophomore 
album, “Strange Trails,” plays 
heavy to a country-rock vibe. 
Tunes like “Meet Me in the 
Woods” and “Love Like Ghosts” 
are 
spectral 
and 
haunting, 
buried 
deeply 
within 
the 
mythos of solitude peppering 
Michigan’s natural splendors.
Yet, the heart of Midwestern 
roots 
is 
Minnesota 
— 
specifically the Twin Cities. 
For proof, grace your eardrums 
with Garrison Keillor’s folk 
spectacle 
“A 
Prairie 
Home 
Companion,” which played live 
from the Fitzgerald Theater 
in St. Paul. The show has since 
been 
renamed 
“Live 
From 
Here,” with Punch Brothers 
frontman Chris Thile taking 
over hosting duties. Essentially, 
the show features skits, music 
and performances by folk, blues 
and Americana artists of all 
kinds, oftentimes performing 
twangy impromptu renditions 
of newer songs.

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
Salvant and Diehl prove jazz is 
still relevent at the Mendelssohn

NATALIE KASTNER
Daily Arts Writer

There are few moments in our 
fleeting lives that lead us to be struck 
with gratitude: the birth of a child, 
true love, near death miracles, and 
for me, the concert of Cecile Mclorin 
Salvant and Aaron Diehl. There was a 
moment during a very beautiful étude 
that Aaron Diehl played, right after 
an acapella vocal section by Salvant, 
where I could not stop smiling, even 
in the middle of February, in the 
thralls of seasonal depression. 
The young duo, exquisitely artistic-
looking and effervescently endearing 
in their charisma, played two shows 
at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater 
Thursday night. This performance 
acted as a jam session elevated to its 
highest form. As I walked into the 
theater, a very jolly usher handed me 
a program and with a wink said, “The 
program is, there is no program.” 
Diehl and Salvant riffed off of each 
other for which song they wanted 
to perform next. It was obvious how 
well the couple knew one another. 
Within a few seconds of suggesting 
a song, the two were off and running 
with one fabulous arrangement after 
the other.
When I think of jazz, the first 
thing that comes to mind is not 
necessarily the storytelling. I think 
of smokey dark rooms with men 
crouched over their instruments all 
in rhythm with each other. With the 
performance by Diehl and Salvant 
I saw a new side of jazz. Each song 
was a story. Salvant was constantly 
making specifically informed choices 
with her voice to tell a story. It wasn’t 
just the lyrics. She would cry out one 
section and chew the words out in 
another. At her most passionate, her 
voice enveloped the Mendelssohn 

with a warmth that I did not think 
could be mastered by someone at 
the age of 30. Salvant’s velvet voice 
shifted qualities effortlessly and 
with complete control. It wasn’t her 
standing and singing before us, her 
whole body contorted and shifted to 
compliment the sound.
Diehl matched her in artistic 
mastery, but was far more subdued 
in his performance. He only stood 
to bow once during the show when 

he modestly gave us a smile, but the 
rest of the show we only got to see his 
profile as he concentrated on the keys 
— this added to the enchantment of 
his sound. When the lyrics fell short 
as a result of their old-fashioned 
nature, Diehl filled in the subtext. In 
a song like Burt Bacharach and Hal 
David’s “Wives and Lovers,” which 
is obviously past its time, Diehl was 
able to reinvigorate the story through 

his musical accompaniment. It made 
these beloved standards relevant 
again; his performance was not just 
a rote rendition but a commentary on 
the place of these songs in the world 
today.
Even though I am a lover of the 
“Great American Songbook,” I can’t 
help but cringe at how outdated some 
of the songs are. Diehl reworked 
these tunes into ones worthy of the 
21st century again. By manipulating 
the music that backdropped lyrics 
about a cozy “cottage for two,” Diehl 
illustrated 
the 
coercive 
themes 
present in many of these songs, 
exemplifying how vocal jazz can 
survive the rapidly-changing culture.
The 
second-to-last 
tune 
they 
played was in honor of their friend 
who was a drummer. Salvant didn’t 
go into what happened, but it was 
obviously something tragic because 
the 
following 
performance 
was 
incandescent. Even with the flu 
going around and people coughing 
throughout the night, there was not 
a single sound through the 10 minute 
segment. The room was silent in 
reverie. 
The way Salvant set up the evening 
allowed for that sacred experience 
at the end. Throughout the show, 
she spoke to us as if we were a close 
friend she had just met at a coffee 
shop. She spoke about awkward 
romantic experiences, her favorite 
artists and her friendship with Diehl 
as if we deserved to know, and not 
like we all bought a ticket to see a 
Thelonious Monk winner. She was 
charming, endearingly innocent and 
authentic. 
Both Salvant and Diehl are off 
to the next town, but their impact 
will stay with me. The good news 
is, Salvant was here last year too, so 
chances are she will stop by again. 
Hopefully along with Diehl.

With the performance 
of Diehl and Salvant I 
saw a new side of jazz. 
Each song was a story

TV REVIEW

JUSTIN POLLACK
Daily Arts Writer

It’s unfair to compare NBC’s new comedy 
“Indebted” to the recently departed “The 
Good Place” just because they’re both NBC 
comedies that air on Thursdays. These 
shows have little in common — nowhere are 
their differences more evident than in the 
execution of their respective premises. “The 
Good Place” took one of the most complex 
sitcom premises on network television and 
accomplished it with ease. On the other end 
of the sitcom spectrum, “Indebted” takes 
one of the most basic premises and struggles 
to give its audience a reason to care.
Dave (Adam Pally, “The Mandalorian”) 
and Rebecca (Abby Elliott, “How I Met 
Your Mother”) are excited to “get their 
closets back.” They are finally moving 
out of the toddler phase of parenting, and 
starting to reclaim their adult lives. Then 
Dave’s parents show up with unnecessarily 
complicated stories about how they are in 
debt because they love vacations and have 
no health insurance. Also, Dave has a sister 
(Jessy Hodges, “Barry”) who is nothing 
more than a pile of lesbian stereotypes 
with no characterization. “Indebted” is 
constructed around a simple narrative — a 
relatively young couple has to deal with the 
man’s socially unaware and clingy parents. 
The whole episode should’ve 
raised the eyebrows of parents 
everywhere.
Filming in front of a live-
studio audience makes multi-
camera television different than 
single-camera, as the actors 
must be more performative. 
The parents, played by Steven 
Weber (“13 Reasons Why”) and 
Fran Drescher (“The Nanny”), 
seem much more comfortable 
than Pally and Elliot. But that 
doesn’t excuse what feels like 
relatively cheap dialogue. As 
misunderstood as technology 

is by grandparents, dialogue like “the 
tweeter” and “airBLT” ha the sole purpose 
of getting uninspired canned laughter from 
Drescher’s character. The loudest laughs 
are reserved for anytime one of the parents 
makes a simple statement about sex, which 
the writers must assume is inherently funny 
simply because the characters are old. 
It remains uncertain if the show will ever 
recognize the potential that “Indebted” has 
to contribute to the discourse about cost 
of healthcare in the United States and the 
parenting styles of Millennials and Boomers. 
I couldn’t tell you how Dave’s parents 
moving in will affect their lives, why his 
parents have no concept of savings or what 
any of the characters do for a living. Simply 
put, the table-setting is just horrible.
I am hoping that the lack of character-
based humor in favor of repetitive gags could 
just be a symptom of it being the pilot. For the 
show to succeed, it must spend more time 
on building the histories of the characters, 
which the pilot spent zero time on. Based on 
this first episode, Dave seems to be relatively 
unaffected by the carefree lifestyle of his 
parents. The most successful version of this 
show would focus on how the parents spent 
their way into massive debt and how their 
efforts to spoil Dave and his sister impacted 
each of them respectively. Unfortunately, 
after one episode, NBC gives us no reason to 
care.

‘Indebted’ is weak, 
uninspired comedy

NBC

6 — Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

