The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 — 5

One of the many pleasures 
of Andrea Lawlor’s 2017 novel 
“Paul Takes The Form Of A 
Mortal Girl” is the realization I 
came to that this novel is more 
or less unreadable by a straight 
person. 
It’s 
saturated 
with 
vivid, unsparing depictions of 
not only gay sex but also the 
ecosystem that surrounds it — 
glances and recognitions and 
guesswork, a whole network of 
affiliations and signifiers that I 
doubt anyone at all uninitiated 
would be able to wade through 
without frustration. I even have 
some queer friends who tried to 
read this book and couldn’t get 
past what one called Lawlor’s 
“vulgar” style. The expectation 
that 
we 
can 
(and, 
more 
dubiously, 
should) 
untether 
queer community from the act 
of fucking is understandable, 
but an occasional reminder of 
the particular (maybe banal) 
site of queerness restores some 
revolutionary 
potential 
to 
the thing. There’s something 
lovely, anyway, about feeling 
at home in a book that your 
straight friends would likely 
throw across the room before 
too long, to be thrilled by 
recognition and curiosity that 
feels particular. 
That being said, gayness is 
a lot more legible in the book 
than transness per se, despite 
the fact that Lawlor has become 
known as a member of a trans 

fiction-writing vanguard along 
writers like Jordy Rosenberg, 
Imogen Binnie and Casey Plett. 
That this imagined community 
is more of a listicle than a 
reality shouldn’t be that much 
of a surprise. “Trans literature” 
as a category was probably 
destined to be problematized 
out of existence before it could 
ever really come into its own. 
Transness 
was 
always 
too 
multiple and mutable to ever 
coalesce into a canon or even 
really a section of a bookshelf. 
It’s easy to see how one might 
think of this book as trans. 
Lawlor’s titular anti-hero is 
a shapeshifter whose powers 
seem to mostly exist in the 
realm of human possibility: 
He can change himself into 
a woman and can become a 
more masculine man, adding 
and shedding muscle and fat 
in various places like picking 
out an outfit. This can easily 
be read, if you only look at the 
blurb, as a liberatory allegory of 
transness, Paul’s abilities easily 
packaged into a metaphor for 
genderbending.
Lawlor doesn’t seem to see 
it that way, though: They said 
in an interview that Paul isn’t 
trans. What they have said about 
the book — that they started 
the book as a way to talk about 
“picking up people in bars,” 
that the book is a sort of time 
capsule of the ‘90s — seems to 
indicate that their goals aren’t 
to make a trans vanguard book, 
or at least not a straightforward 
one. This is apparent to anyone 
who has read more than the 
first ten pages. The opening 

fanfare, which involves Paul 
changing into his girl alter-
ego Polly and getting picked up 
by a punk rocker dyke, moves 
quickly into a sequence of Paul 

in boy-mode hooking up with 
a 
bearded 
Visiting 
Writer. 
Paul’s mores, though decidedly 
omnivorous, seem to rely on a 
sort of balance (“Paul wanted to 
fuck someone tonight, after the 

business with the rock star”). 
The fluidity is from night to 
night, not moment to moment: 
Paul is, generally, either a 
gay man or a lesbian woman. 

Lawlor’s game is something 
other than a straightforward 
valediction of gender fluidity 
as we understand it today.
Their 
interest 
seems 
like it has more to do with 

exploration, with knowledge, 
with covering as much ground 
as possible within the scope of 
the novel. That being said, it’s 
worth pointing out that the 
novel doesn’t really resemble 
any of the standard types — 
it’s not a hero’s journey or a 
bildungsroman. Lawlor said in 
an interview that they found 
some 
difficulty 
in 
writing 
Paul’s story with a conventional 
three-act structure, one that 
would involve him “learning a 
lesson.” They write: “I ended 
up doubling down on a more 
episodic structure because I 
realized my reluctance had 
to do with my understanding 
of how people change, how 
I’ve changed — really slowly, 
recursively, making the same 
mistakes over and over.” As the 
poet Brian Blanchfield pointed 
out in his excellent review in 
Bookforum, Paul’s story has 
more to do with the picaresque 
than with the bildungsroman, 
especially in that picaresque 
is a genre that calls for a 
certain kind of personality 
— 
adaptable, 
adventurous, 
forceful, wily — as well as an 
episodic approach to plot. He is 
able to read people’s affiliations 
and 
types 
based 
on 
little 
signifiers, and is also capable 
of applying the same scrutiny 
on himself. Paul is all of these 
things, an endlessly curious 
and savvy reader of people who 
is never content to stay in one 
place. His travels place him in 
dispirate places — Boystown 
in Chicago, rural lesbianism 
in Michigan and in off-season 
Provincetown, the “various” 

atmosphere of androgynous, 
utopic San Francisco. Lawlor is, 
like Paul, interested in covering 
a lot of ground, finding things 
out. Sex is one way of learning 
about people; so are long-term 
relationships and parties and 
friendships. The shapeshifting 
could, in the end, just be 
Lawlor’s way of showing us 
what else exists, giving Paul 
access both to leather bars and 
to the famously transphobic 
Michigan 
Womyn’s 
Music 
Festival. Paul isn’t transgender, 
he’s multiple.
If you’ll allow me a bit of an 
overread — reading this book 
as a bona fide transsexual 
was 
interesting 
because 
it 
reminded me that I know of 
more than one trans person 
(usually 
transmasculine) 
who refers to themselves as a 
shapeshifter. Based on several 
choices they could make, they 
could convincingly pass as one 
or the other gender. For those 
of us who are slightly gender-
ambivalent anyway, this is an 
appealing choice if you can 
pull it off, and it’s usually less 
difficult than one might think. 
Trans people, like Robin says, 
are “like everybody else, only 
more so.” We know better 
than anyone else that the line 
between genders is thinner 
than you might think, and a 
lot is possible with a certain 
attention to detail. In my case, 
sometimes I wonder what it 
would be like to have been 
predisposed to another path. 
My curiosity has never really 
metabolized into desire, but I’m 
not ruling it out. 

Like everybody else, except more so: On Andrea Lawlor

EMILY YANG
Daily Literature Columnist

SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

A “loomi” is the Oman word for 
a sun-dried lime: a Middle Eastern 
spice that is used as a souring agent. 
It is quite small — about the size of 
a key lime with black, pebbly skin 
— yet looming and distinct in flavor 
without being overbearing. While 
originating from Oman, loomi limes 
are used throughout the Middle 
East. You will find some loomi 
limes providing bright but subdued 
acidity in Persian stews and soups, 
a rounded sweetness to many Iraqi 
meat stuffings and a voluptous funk 
to many Arabic fish dishes. 
While Loomi Cafe may not 
always use its eponymous spice 
within its rotating menu, the flavors 
often present in the food are as 
playful as a loomi lime — titillating 
spices play behind a foreground of 
(usually citric) acidity.
Loomi Cafe is situated in a 
small diner-like space across from 
Monahan’s Fish Market inside the 
Kerrytown Market & Shops. Long 
time residents of the neighborhood 
may recall that Loomi Cafe now 
stands in the space formerly 
occupied by Kosmo’s Bop Shop, 
which has since moved to a new 
location next to Fleetwood Diner. 
Unlike its predecessor, Loomi Cafe 
defies an ethnographic label on the 
theme of food that might be served; 
A Peruvian pork or a Hyderabadi 

chicken dish presented one day may 
very well be replaced by a Nashville 
hot cauliflower dish a few days later. 
You’ll find comfort and perhaps 
a sense of relief when you learn that 
all of these entrees have something 
in common: Every entree is always 
served with your choice of fresh 
in-house pita bread, roasted (well, 

griddled) potatoes or white rice. 
Each choice of starch has its own 
unique, tantalizing voice. The pita 
bread sings in its toasty, sweet 
and near charred aroma, amidst 
its chewy texture backing track. 
The potatoes shatter with their 
glass-like crust yielding into wet 
but fluffy interiors. The rice is a 
most agreeable “fluffy bunny” 
companion to Loomi’s entrees — 

you lean toward the rice on the days 
you crave a subdued, yet fuller meal 
(probably on a rainy or snowy day).
If 
you 
find 
the 
generous 
portion sizes of Loomi’s entrees 
challenging, and perhaps would 
only like to consume a small amount 
of food, consider Loomi’s pupusas: 
a griddled, puck-like Salvadorean 
snack made out of ground corn 
oozing with delicious fillings. An 
analogue of the Korean bindaetteok, 
it resembles an amalgamation of 
a tortilla and a Hot Pocket. The 
pupusas at Loomi’s provide a 
satisfying toasted crisp exterior 
that explodes with the hot, often 
fatty, juices hiding within. While 
the pork and cheese pupusa served 
last year contained juicy chunks of 
pork with intermittent salty globs 
of cheese, the current chicken and 
beans pupusa served recently shows 
a more delicate, fluffier interior. A 
good pupusa is always handmade 
to order; the pat-pat-pat of the cook 
preparing your pupusa comforts 
you as you settle in at the counter, 
salivating in anticipation.
After multiple visits, you find 
clarity in the theme and vision 
among Loomi’s food. Each starch 
option (whether pita, potato, rice or 
masa) is like an Avenger: It possesses 
its own delicious superpowers and 
characteristics uniquely catered 
to different palates. Loomi Cafe, 
therefore, is the Avenger’s Tower: 
all forms of starches assemble at the 
counter to save your day.
Loomi Cafe is located at 407 N 5th 
Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

Loomi Cafe, or the Rise 
of the Avengers of Starch

PENNY LAM/DAILY

BRENDON CHO
Daily Food Columnist

RESTAURANT REVIEW
RESTAURANT REVIEW

Going into “Downhill,” I was 
most intrigued not by the fact 
that it is a remake of a popular 
foreign film, or that it stars top-
tier talents like Julia Louis-
Dreyfus (“Veep”) and Will Ferrell 
(“Anchorman”). When I saw the 
trailer, the first thing I said was, 
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 
movie about skiing before.”
The premise of “Downhill” is 
simple enough: a family on a ski 
trip in the Alps is threatened by 
an apparent avalanche. The main 
source of tension, however, is the 
priorities between husband Pete 
(Ferrell) and wife Billie (Louis-
Dreyfus) Staunton. As a cloud 
of snow approaches, Billie grabs 
Finn (Julian Grey, “Godless”) and 
Emerson (Ammon Jacob Ford, 
“Seal Team”), their two kids. 
Pete, on the other hand, grabs his 
phone and runs away. This split-
second fight-or-flight decision 
settles into a rift that sends the 
family into disarray.
Despite never having met 
before 
joining 
the 
project, 
Louis-Dreyfus and Ferrell are 
convincing as a couple. Pete and 
Billie feel very real as a married 
couple that has been together for 
so long that they have fallen into 
a rhythm. In one scene, they sit 
on the hotel bed eating french 
fries. In another, they brush their 
teeth in front of the sink, ducking 
and weaving around each other 

with perfect timing. But after the 
near-miss with the avalanche, 
and after Pete refuses to admit 
his cowardice, they lose their 
rhythm.
Watching the conflict play 
out on the stunning background 
of the Alps is surreal. My family 
has gone skiing every year since I 
was four, so many of the “family 
ski trip” aspects felt true to me, 
whether it’s one sibling dive 
bombing down the mountain 
while the other takes his time 
or a family game of Uno in front 
of the fireplace. But this is what 

gives “Downhill” its footing: it is 
a movie that is real and relatable, 
both in its comedy and its conflict.
The film is a remake of the 
Swedish film “Force Majeure,” 
a dark comedy that won critical 
acclaim and fan support back 
in 2014. “Downhill” was five 
years in the making, after “Force 
Majeure” director Ruben Östlund 
encouraged creating an American 
version of the film. As a result, 
this version in much lighter, 
finding comic relief during tense 
sequences via certain characters: 

Charlotte (Miranda Otto, “The 
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”), 
a woman at the ski resort with 
a shameless tendency for blunt 
and shocking declarations, and 
Zach 
(Zach 
Woods, 
“Silicon 
Valley”), Pete’s work friend who 
is hilariously bad at handling 
awkward 
situations, 
are 
particularly funny, as well as a 
brusque member of ski patrol 
played by Kristofer Hivju (“Game 
of Thrones”), a Norwegian actor 
who also appeared in “Force 
Majeure.” Still, there is something 
that seems to have been lost 
in translation, something that 
makes “Downhill” feel like it’s 
missing a beat.
Despite the comic relief and 
the acting backgrounds of its 
main 
actors, 
“Downhill” 
is 
not purely comedic. Ferrell’s 
tendency 
to 
play 
absurd 
characters is thinly veiled by 
his portrayal of Pete, who finds 
himself struggling to reconcile 
his current place in life with what 
he really wants. Louis-Dreyfus’s 
tangible emotions hold the film 
together, whether they are a 
well-crafted facial expression 
or the cracks in her voice as she 
explains the avalanche event to 
Zach and his girlfriend Rosie 
(Zoë Chao, “Strangers”). These 
performances, 
particularly 
Louis-Dreyfus’, 
turn 
this 
married couple into a pair of 
characters that are flawed and 
relatable.

Downhill

The State Theatre

Searchlight Pictures

KARI ANDERSON
Daily Arts Writer

‘Downhill’ never summits

FILM REVIEW

DAILY LITERATURE COLUMN

For those of us who are slightly 
gender-ambivalent anyway, this is 
an appealing choice if you can pull it 
off, and it’s usually less difficult than 
one might think. Trans people, like 
Robin says, are “like everybody else, 
only more so.” We know better than 
anyone else that the line between 
genders is thinner than you might 
think, and a lot is possible with a 
certain attention to detail.

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

While Loomi Cafe 
may not always 
use its eponymous 
spice within its 
rotating menu, 
the flavors often 
present in the food 
are as playful as a 
loomi lime

