Monday, August 31, 2020 — 13
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘Trinkets’: A show made 
perfectly for Twitter

‘I Used to Go Here’ is a 
different campus return

The Michigan Daily’s 
Albums of the Summer

‘The Best Parts of Us’ celebrates our ties to the Earth

Photo provided by Netflix

Photo provided by Taylor Swift

It might seem that if a Netflix 

executive wanted to get a grasp 
on what the kids were up to these 
days, all they would have to do 
is log on to Twitter — a pseudo 
soapbox of what new generations 
value and want to see change in 
— and soak it all in. Needless to 
say, Twitter is not the real world, 
but it occupies a very strange 
role in American society. When 
users start asking if crimes like 

shoplifting can be normalized, 
they are (mostly) joking. But 
apparently no one told Netflix 
this, because they took gen-Z 
Twitter quips and ran with it for 
two seasons.

“Trinkets” is just another 

addition 
to 
Netflix’s 
diverse 

catalogue of original coming-
of-age stories. The show centers 
on Elodie (Brianna Hildebrand, 
“Deadpool”), a socially-awkward 
lesbian junior in high school 
and her two girl friends — the 
stubborn, 
loud-mouthed 
Moe 

(Kiana Madeira, “The Flash”) 
and the rich, popular Tabitha 
(Quintessa Swindell, “Euphoria”). 
Each character has their own 
semi-separate subplot revolving 
around love, typical of Netflix 
teen shows. Season two continues 
where the first left off: Moe 
struggles to be the girlfriend her 
lover Noah (Odiseas Georgiadis, 
“Sacred Lies”) wants. 

JOSHUA THOMAS

Daily Arts Writer

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

A return to campus is always 

a return to the familiar. We 
see the friends we’ve missed, 
the places we’ve been thinking 
about and the routine we’ve 
been craving. That said, to say 
that this year will be different 
is 
an 
understatement. 
It’s 

difficult right now to imagine 
the normal college experience. 
Imagine what returning to the 
University will feel like in a 
year, or five, or fifteen.

Watching 
“I 
Used 
to 

Go Here” in this context 
was interesting. Kris Rey’s 
(“Unexpected”) 
indie 
flick, 

which 
was 
supposed 
to 

appear at this year’s South 
by Southwest before it got 
canceled, follows struggling 
writer Kate Conklin (Gillian 
Jacobs, “Community”) as she 
returns to her alma mater 
in 
Carbondale, 
IL. 
Kate’s 

crumbling life is immediately 
established — within the first 
few minutes, she talks to her 

publishers about her canceled 
book tour while toting a box 
of invitations to her canceled 
wedding. Going back to her old 
university not only distracts 
her from her failing book sales, 
it draws her back into her 
college days.

It’s 
clear 
that 
Kate’s 

alma mater awakens a deep 
nostalgia — she begins every 
conversation with “I used to,” 
as in “I used to live here,” “I 
used to dance in this room,” 
etc. She reunites with her 
old mentor, creative writing 
instructor David Kirkpatrick 
(Jermaine Clement, “What We 
Do in the Shadows”). She runs 
into old classmates, played 
by Jorma Taccone (“Popstar: 
Never Stop Never Stopping”) 
of The Lonely Island, and Kate 
Micucci (“The Little Hours”) 
in a short but memorable 
cameo. She visits her old house 
where she and her friends 
lived while they were students, 
and eventually befriends the 
kids who live there now. All 
throughout, she gives updates 
to her (very pregnant) friend 

Laura (Zoë Chao, “Love Life”), 
who chats with her about all of 
their old college spots but also 
serves as a reminder: Kate is 
an adult who has been out of 
college for a long time.

With the nostalgia comes 

what I can only describe as a 
regression in behavior. Within 
the first day of returning to 
college, 
Kate 
parties 
with 

the kids who live in her old 
house. Her realignment with 
David 
indicates 
a 
mentor-

mentee 
relationship 
that 

is complicated at best and 
problematic 
at 
worst, 
and 

she finds herself jealous of 
April (Hannah Marks, “Dirk 
Gently’s 
Holistic 
Detective 

Agency”), David’s star student. 
She makes cringeworthy and 
juvenile 
choices, 
because 

something 
about 
a 
college 

campus reignites the impulses 
of her college days. But this is 
apparently what can happen 
when you come back to college.

KARI ANDERSON

Daily Arts Writer

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

Sally Cole-Misch dedicates her 

debut novel, “The Best Part Of 
Us,” to “every living thing.” An 
environmental 
communicator 

by profession, Cole-Misch refers 
to more than just humans or 
other animals. Her dedication 
encapsulates the entire natural 
world. Clusters of birch trees, 
steep rocky cliffs, vast lakes and 
bays — Cole-Misch recognizes 
that everything around us is 

living, pulsing, with energies 
unique to its spirit. 

“The Best Part Of Us” is a 

captivating celebration of nature 
that pushes us to consider our 
connections to the Earth. Cole-
Misch tells her story through 
the eyes of Beth Llyndee, an 
adolescent girl who returns to 
her family’s island in the fictional 
Lake Wigwakobi every summer. 
Beth’s summers on her island 
are the most treasured part of 
her childhood, a place where she 
can hike on trails and swim in 

waters she knows by heart. Lake 
Wigwakobi is a part of Beth, 
much more a home than her 
house in Ann Arbor. When Beth’s 
tight bond with nature suddenly 
shatters, she’s forced to choose 
between her family and her 
cherished island refuge. 

Cole-Misch’s strength lies in 

her formation of setting, writing 
about Lake Wigwakobi in an 
evocative and compelling way 
that immediately draws readers 
to the island. Upon first viewing 
of the lake, Beth “leaned over the 

bow to watch the water change 
from aquamarine to indigo as the 
lake deepened, and to brilliant 
white when the bow broke its 
stillness and collected it into 
waves.” 
Similar 
descriptions 

accompany 
everything 
from 

picking blueberries on the island’s 
peak to watching the sky dance 
with northern lights on a summer 
night. “As Beth absorbs her view—
the water, people, trees, rocks, and 
sky—her back lifts, her arms fall 
to her side, and her legs relax to 
cross at her ankles,” Cole Misch 

writes. Her words paint the Earth 
as our ultimate refuge, a source 
of strength to draw from and live 
intimately within.

“The Best Part Of Us” is a 

lighthearted read that shines in 
its simplicity. The novel’s plot 
isn’t exceptionally noteworthy 
or adventurous — the spotlight is 
instead on the natural world. “...
some of us need to step outside 
what man creates and does to one 
another to find peace and clarity in 
the woods, water, and sky,” Cole-
Misch writes. Each character is 

multilayered and built beautifully 
to show how variable human 
relationships to the environment 
can be. Beth thinks clearly 
when sitting on the forest floor 
surrounded by pine needles, while 
her mother thinks only of the 
island’s dangerous cliffs posing a 
threat to her family’s safety. 

TRINA PAL

Daily Arts Writer

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher
Phoebe Bridgers is the master 

of emotive storytelling. She didn’t 
reinvent or revolutionize the art of 
it though, and she’s not pretending 
that she has. “I think I’m pulling 
from a lot of different places, 
stealing from a lot of different 
people,” she said in an interview 
with NPR. 

Most 
overtly, 
she 
“steals” 

from idol Elliott Smith, his name 
all but mentioned on title track 
“Punisher.” Here, she details 
her self-proclaimed “obsession” 
for Smith and addresses the 
song directly to him, using his 
conventions. The opening lines, 
the chorus, her signature double 
tracking and detailed storytelling 
all hark back to his work. But 
Smith isn’t the only clear influence 
here— frequent collaborator and 
bandmate Conor Oberst has his 
share on the lyrics, and the pops 
of baroque instrumentation are 
reminiscent of Illinois-era Sufjan 
Stevens. 

However, Punisher isn’t about 

Bridgers’s obsessions and idols so 
much as it’s an honest exploration 
of where she finds inspiration 
for her music. Oftentimes, her 
lyrics read like quiet ruminations, 
unfurling 
to 
reveal 
intimate 

details that grapple with personal 
and interpersonal relationships 
at their most unsettling. Bridgers 
thumbtacks specific moments, 
ideations and people that have 

impacted her and, in many ways, 
haunted her on this album. 
The lyrics get so intimate and 
vulnerable that they sometimes 
feel as though they shouldn’t 
make sense to anyone outside of 
that experience. There’s a moment 
on “Garden Song” I revisit often 
that goes: “The doctor put her 
hands over my liver / She told me 
my resentment’s getting smaller.” 
Lines like this have connotations 
that are poignant enough to stick 
around long after the song is 
over. Bridgers balances the very 
personal, sometimes emotionally 
scarring details of her lyrics with 
her soft, dreamy instrumentation 
and her gentle voice. 

I’ve spent nearly every day of 

summer in private conversation 
with Phoebe Bridgers’s Punisher. 
So much so, it soundtracks 
many memories for me. It’s not 
that complicated: The future is 
indecipherable most days, so, 
much like the album, my mind 
retreats to more private moments 
of the past. 

Diana Yassin — Daily Arts 

Writer

Taylor Swift, folklore
As a shameless Swiftie, folklore 

was the answer to my summer 
music prayers. It wasn’t just 
because one of my favorite artists 
had released an album I didn’t 
see coming, it was also because it 
arrived just when I needed it the 
most. A few days after its release, 
I ended a long-term relationship 
and wore “Cardigan” like a warm 

blanket for the following weeks. 
Its imaginative, love-sick mood 
comforted me and reminded me of 
why young love is such a powerful 
thing. And that’s what Taylor does 
best — she romanticizes love in a 
way that makes us feel nostalgic 
for lost relationships and missed 
chances, even if we’ve never 
experienced them first-hand. 

Many critics say that folklore 

sounds a lot like Swift’s older 
music, but I have to disagree. 
While I can certainly see where 
they’re coming from — folklore is 
more tame than Swift’s previous 
releases Reputation and Lover — 
the album possesses an organic 
sound that we’ve never seen in 
Taylor’s work before. In a moment 
when the world is overwhelmed 
by all of the bad things going on, 
it’s nice to sit with Taylor’s soft 
acoustic songs and take a moment 
just to dream. folklore is a dreamy 
ode to love, filled with allusions to 
fairy tales and stories Swift came 
up with herself for the album. 

Perhaps the most striking part 

of folklore is that Taylor created 
the album from start to finish all 
while in isolation. The fact that she 
was able to write an entire album, 
record it, and then market it with 
a killer music video is impressive, 
but this project is also a sign of 
hope during these troubling times. 
Even while we’re apart from the 
people we love and longing for 
life to return to some form of 
normalcy, folklore reminds us that 
there’s still a space to create and 
dream.

Kaitlyn Fox — Daily Arts Writer
Music has been a crutch for 

everyone during 2020. For a lot 
of us, we went back and listened 
to music from our childhood or 
adolescent years, or even dove 
head first into new types of music. 
This year has been rough for 
the music industry in countless, 
unimaginable ways. Inevitably, 
music 
persists, 
adapting 
to 

change. Taylor Swift has tapped 
into and thrived off of this change, 
capturing this summer of solitude 
with folklore.

Swift never fails to surprise 

the world with her various eras, 
ever-changing from album to 
album. 2019’s Lover was both a 
fan favorite as well as a critical 
success. It was arguably Swift’s 
most masterful look into the 
beauty of love, which many know 
was inspired by her long term 
partner, Joe Alwyn.

folklore was a bigger Swift 

surprise 
than 
usual, 
to 
say 

the least. One of the biggest 
departures from her last two 
albums, reputation and Lover, 
folklore is everything Taylor Swift 
hadn’t done yet. The album is 
simple and digestible. It has some 
of Swift’s most powerful lyrics and 
showcases her wildly impressive 
vocal range. The understated 
aesthetic of the album, from the 
simple cover to the lowercase 
stylization of the song titles, 
makes the beauty of each song 
stand out more. Swift has taken 
a step back from the spotlight on 
this album, leaving each song to 

speak for itself without any of the 
drama or glitz of her 2017 and 2019 
releases. 

The album itself is raw, but 

it really came out at the perfect 
time. A breakup-esque, escapist 
album in the middle of a pandemic 
is something the world needed. 
Who better to get it from than 
Swift, the girl who writes about 
love and heartbreak better than 
anyone else? 

Giselle Ciulla — Daily Arts 

Writer

Deerhoof, Future Teenage 

Cave Artists

If there was any band that could 

pull off a concept album about the 
youth population living through 
an absurdist’s post-apocalyptic 
world, it would be Deerhoof. 
The experimental rock group 
hailing from San Francisco has 
been going on for more than two 
decades at this point, and they 
aren’t getting any easier to define 
stylistically. With Future Teenage 
Cave Artists, they moved towards 
a more narrative approach.

The 
brilliant 
songwriting 

and texture play is what really 
allows the concept to come alive. 
The atmosphere can only be 
described as a cross between an 
“Adventure Time” episode on 
acid and a Hieronymus Bosch 
hellscape. The guitar tones, of 
which there are numerous across 
the album, vary from downright 
face-melting 
to 
grotesquely 

playful. The drums are played in 
such a drunken haphazardness 

that it leaves the listener either 
in awe of the talent or concerned 
for the drummer’s wellbeing. Add 
the iconic high pitched singing of 
Satomi Matsuzaki and what’s left 
is a final product that both excites 
and unnerves.

Perhaps the best part about 

Future Teenage Cave Artists is 
that it isn’t reliant on its narrative 
to be great. While it’s true that 
the stylistic choices they made 
create a world, it isn’t totally 
obvious at first what that world 
is. The greatest indicator might 
be the title itself. After several 
listens, it slowly becomes more 
clear what the band is trying to 
communicate. As amazing as 
Deerhoof is at building a dystopian 
world that blurs the line between 
fun and nightmarish, they are just 
as great at crafting a collection 
of absurd rock and pop bangers. 
Honestly, there might not be a 
better summer for it.

Drew Gadbois — Daily Arts 

Writer

The Chicks, Gaslighter
In 
the 
same 
manner 
as 

Beyonce’s Lemonade, Gaslighter 
is 
a 
chronological, 
sonically 

explorative case study of a broken 
relationship. The “girl who left 
the tights” on lead singer Natalie 
Maines’ boat, a recurring motif 
on the record, might as well be the 
countrified “Becky with the good 
hair.” title track. 

DAILY MUSIC WRITERS

Daily Arts Writer

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com