puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com
By C.C. Burnikel
©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/02/22
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis
11/02/22
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, November 2, 2022
ACROSS
1 Flash __:
impromptu
gatherings
5 Chew like a
squirrel
9 Pretzel topping
13 Pentathlete’s
sword
14 Low opera voice
15 Joshua __
National Park
16 Swell
17 “Your work is
awesome!”
19 Overstep
boundaries,
perhaps
21 Civil rights activist
Baker
22 Beverage brewed
in a chawan
23 “The Bone
Garden” novelist
Gerritsen
25 City that hosts
the State Fair of
Texas
29 Fifth of a nickel
31 Round of
applause
33 Aggravate
34 “I’ll handle this”
36 __-Free: contact
lens solution
37 By way of
38 Fact-checker’s
catch
39 Leave stunned
40 Troubled to no end
42 Thanos, to the
Avengers
43 Those, in Spanish
45 “Say cheese!”
46 QB stats
47 Org. fighting for
LGBTQ rights
48 Garlic’s covering
49 Emphatic
agreement
51 Washed-out
53 Go out for a bit?
56 Light in signs
58 Text from a glum
chum
60 Gala celebrating
the Academy
Awards
64 Heavy burden
65 Like ground
chicken
66 Dubai dignitaries
67 Fully aware of
68 Palm fruit
69 Promotional
sample
70 Turns blue, maybe
DOWN
1 Deserve
2 Offer one’s two
cents
3 Academy Award
category
4 One with a
crystal ball
5 Go and Go Fish
6 Org. that uses
cryptanalysis
7 Arthur in the
International
Tennis Hall of
Fame
8 “__ that be nice!”
9 Real bargain
10 Bark
11 Field for grazing
12 Value of a Q tile,
in Scrabble
14 Bathroom fixture
18 “Great to find that
out”
20 Eclectic online
digest
24 Arrives, and an
apt description of
the sets of circled
letters
26 Au pair
27 Sans serif
typeface
28 Go rollerblading
30 Music genre that
spawned screamo
32 Donkey Kong,
e.g.
34 Southpaw
35 Wear down
39 Yahoo!
alternative
41 “Spare us
the details!”:
Abbr.
44 Served, as
ice cream
48 Brings down
the house
50 Plain silly
52 Four-footed
Jetson
54 Like a 30-degree
angle
55 Guadalajara cash
57 January or June
59 Something to
chew on
60 Like antiques
61 Zooplankton’s
habitat
62 Litter box visitor
63 Hoop’s outer
edge
SUDOKU
WHISPER
“That 2 day
weekend just
don’t be hittin
like it used to...
”
“Provide a new
weekly cross-
word.”
WHISPER
By Baylee Devereaux
©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/26/22
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis
10/26/22
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2022
ACROSS
1 Homes in
Honduras
6 “Let’s put a
smile on your
plate” breakfast
chain
10 Chop (off)
13 Like a brand-new
candle
14 __ drum
15 Mimic
16 Receptionist at
a high-rise hotel,
one might say
18 Pothole filler
19 __ card
20 Kunis of “Black
Swan”
21 Sharp cry
22 Instagram
influencer, one
might say
27 French article
28 Orchestra
leader
31 Capital city on a
fjord
34 Give up, as a
right
36 In the know
37 Bartender
pouring a
selection of craft
beers for tasting,
one might say
41 Black Mission
fruit
42 Eggs on
43 Rolls the credits
44 “The Office”
sales rep
who solves
crosswords
during meetings
46 Actor Meadows
48 Pathological liar,
one might say
53 “Take a __
breath”
55 Fútbol cheers
56 Female sheep
58 Part of BYOB
59 Audiophile with
an extensive
collection of club
mixes, one might
say
63 Top of a
semicolon
64 Place of refuge
65 Unleash upon
66 Approves
67 Bring (out)
68 Cereal tidbit
DOWN
1 Talk a blue
streak?
2 Those opposed
3 Replay tech
4 __ guitar
5 Completely
stump
6 Kin by marriage
7 “2001”
supercomputer
8 Some
underground
rock bands?
9 According to
10 After
11 Birthstone for
some Libras
12 BOLO target
14 Advice from
a nervous
stockbroker
17 Spanish aunts
21 “Be glad to”
23 Heavy shoe
24 Fails to mention
25 Carry on
26 Sharp
29 Cocktail garnish
30 Chooses
31 Send-__:
farewells
32 Buttonhole, e.g.
33 Bone-connecting
tissues
34 Japanese cattle
breed used for
Kobe beef
35 Had a bite
38 She-__: Marvel
role for Tatiana
Maslany
39 Ancestry.com
printout
40 Singer Lovato
45 Short snooze
46 Taxing trip
47 In and of __
49 Hypothesize
50 Stout and porter
51 Nasal partitions
52 Tinker with
53 Long-extinct
bird
54 “Star Wars” critter
that looks like a
teddy bear
57 Art Deco icon
59 Spicy
60 Lifeboat blade
61 GI morale
booster
62 Electric __
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
6 — Wednesday, November 2, 2022
‘The X-Files,’ monsters
and the fallacy of
scientism
There’s an episode in the
third season of “The X-Files”
— “Quagmire” — where special
agents
Fox
Mulder
(David
Duchovny,
“Aquarius”)
and
Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson,
“Sex Education”) are in Georgia
investigating
“Big
Blue,”
a
continental version of the Loch
Ness Monster. In the rest of
the show’s “Monster of the
Week”
installments,
there’s
always something to hunt — a
200-year-old
shapeshifting
serial killer who lies dormant in
30-year increments, a human-
flatworm hybrid that inhabits
the New Jersey sewer system,
a parasitic slug worshipped by
a cult. But “Quagmire” is not so
open-and-shut.
Scully
criticizes
Mulder’s
futile
cryptozoological
obsession,
and
she’s
right.
Mulder takes out an alligator
instead of a water dinosaur.
There is no Big Blue, and the two
return to the FBI headquarters.
This isn’t entirely out of
place, though. “The X-Files”
waxes philosophical frequently,
something that I missed as
a preteen (admittedly, I was
focused
on
the
impossibly
frustrating will-they-won’t-they
dynamic between the leads).
The show uses its Monster of the
Week episodes to experiment
—
they
are
constantly
stretching and contracting the
ontology of monsters. Though
inconsequential to the show
as a whole, these episodes are
fascinating explorations of the
metaphysical.
Throughout
“Quagmire,”
though, Mulder is deadlocked on
the existence of Big Blue. It’s a
microcosm of his lifelong pursuit
of the unknown — an obsession
that is the very essence of his
character, defining him as the
foil to Scully’s voice of reason.
A conversation near the end of
the episode sums this up quite
nicely. Scully compares Mulder
to “Moby Dick’”s Captain Ahab,
asserting that no matter what
he believes, “everything takes
on a warped significance to
fit (Mulder’s) megalomaniacal
cosmology.” She goes on, “It’s
just … the truth or a white
whale … what difference does it
make?”
“The X-Files” exists in the
realm of the uncertain, a story
told through convoluted and
inconsistent
fragments
from
which we try to derive meaning.
Its mythology is impossible
to decipher under blankets of
bureaucracy and government
conspiracies. But Scully is a
scientist through-and-through,
here to pull back the curtains.
“The X-Files”’ depiction of an
even-keeled, astute and self-
sufficient female scientist was
state-of-the-art. When 13-year-
old me met Dana Scully for
the first time, I met myself. I
learned that these aspects of her
character — logic, calculation,
perpetual skepticism — were
the pieces making up my own
view of the world.
I wasn’t alone in this. Scully
is responsible for a generation
of STEM-interested women and
girls, a theory that is not only
supported by testimony, but a
rigorous course of research, too
— in true Scully fashion.
LAINE BROTHERTON
Digital Culture Beat Editor
Read more at MichiganDaily.
The monster is closer than we think:
When a house is more than a home and a
reader is more than an observer
CAMILLE NAGY
Daily Arts Contributor
When most of us think of a
monster, we tend to visualize the
same stereotypical markers: four-
legged beasts and shadow-people
with claws like blades, creatures
of inhuman sizes or with no shape
at all, supernatural beings that can
kill without moving or those who
simply move through the world as if
its laws do not apply to them.
What most of us do not picture,
though, is a place.
Mark Z. Danielewski’s mixed-
media horror novel “House of
Leaves” is unique in this sense,
crafting a monster not just out of
place but out of the characters’
expectations and, perhaps even
more interestingly, the reader’s.
“House of Leaves” is a hard book to
describe. On the surface, it follows a
family that moves into a house only
to discover that it is larger on the
inside than it is on the outside. While
at first only a tiny difference of
three-quarters of an inch is noticed,
the problem quickly expands to
include an intricate set of seemingly
endless tunnels under the house. As
the characters attempt to explore
the labyrinthine maze, typical
horror hijinks ensue (such as the
unexplained disappearance of the
family pets or mysterious sounds
coming from the walls).
There are numerous stories
layered within “House of Leaves,”
and to only acknowledge the surface
narrative would not do justice to the
elaborate storytelling at play here.
The distinct, interactive formatting
of this novel plays an essential
part in its story, crafting not only a
memorable reading experience but
a profoundly haunting one, too.
The main story is presented
through the academic writings of
a strange, cryptic author (referred
to only as Zampanò) about a movie
following the family and their
experiences while living in the
house. The story implies that this
movie, while largely unknown by
general audiences, has attracted
an almost cult-like following in
the academic sphere, resulting in
numerous academic papers about
the house, which are referenced
throughout the text. Among these
articles,
an
ongoing
scholarly
debate over the authenticity of the
film persists. Thus, the main story
is made into an urban legend within
the book itself; readers are just as
unsure as the characters are about
whether the events at the house
actually take place or if the film is
an elaborate project created by the
main character of the movie, Will
Navidson. Alongside this book-
within-a-book are footnotes from
Johnny Truant, the man who is
presumably guiding us through
the novel while experiencing an
emotional breakdown, which we
witness through his annotations as
the story progresses.
If you’re confused by now,
don’t worry: that’s the point. The
formatting of the book makes
it clear that readers are meant
to spiral at the same time as the
characters (and that not everything
about the house will or should
make sense to us, just as is true for
those within the novel). During the
main descent into the house, the
annotations do not just become less
logical, but literally begin twisting
into and jumping across the page.
Following these footnotes — and
in turn, following the narrative —
serves to repeatedly confuse and
frustrate readers in the same way
the characters are confused and
frustrated by their surroundings
while exploring the underbelly of
the house. By forcing readers to
interact with the text through its
annotations and devolving form,
“House of Leaves” ensures that
the reader’s journey mirrors the
characters’ and creates a feeling of
shared experience between the two.
Choosing to ignore or skip these
elements of the story denies readers
the visceral experience Danielewski
intends for them. The author goes
to great pains to make “House of
Leaves” feel as authentic as possible,
from leaving his own name off
the title page in lieu of Zampanò’s
and Johnny’s to having fictional
editors write notes to the reader
throughout the text as if this were
a published manuscript from the
world of “House of Leaves” rather
than a fictional work. Beginning
with the introduction, Danielewski
practically dares readers to consider
the validity of his story by having
Johnny beg them to consider
otherwise. Even Zampanò admits:
“They say truth stands the test
of time. I can think of no greater
comfortant than knowing this
document failed such a test.” The
possibility that this book could be an
artifact from the “House of Leaves”
universe these characters exist in,
however outrageous or unrealistic
that thought, is planted in readers’
heads from page one.
There are numerous Easter eggs
and hidden pieces of symbolism
scattered throughout the text; to
decipher them all, some would
argue, is impossible. Yet, just
as there is a cult-like following
for the film in the story, there is
an online fanbase dedicated to
uncovering and discussing the
secrets within “House of Leaves.”
Through
this
community,
the
horror of Danielewski’s novel has
transcended print and found its
place among similar Alternate
Reality
Games
(ARGs),
found
footage films and urban legends.
While these may all appear to be
unrelated at first glance, these
modes of storytelling are tied
together by their inclusion of the
reader as a character within the
story’s world. Each form of media
is conscientious of the role the
reader plays in experiencing and
interpreting the story, and many
ask the viewer at the very least to
consider that the story could be
true, if not outright interact with it
as if it truly were.
Design by Emma Sortor
Everyone
knows
Cookie
Monster.
“Sesame Street” was a staple
of all our childhoods, with
its
easy-going
theme
song,
the
familiar
Muppets
and
the lessons of kindness and
compassion the characters all
taught us.
And, let’s be honest; everyone
had
their
favorite
Muppet.
Some liked Oscar the Grouch,
thinking his grumpiness was
funny and his trash can home
was silly. Others found Big Bird
appealing (but he always scared
me a little). Grover had his ever-
entertaining antics — Super
Grover was a huge part of my
childhood. And who could forget
Bert and Ernie? Their dynamic
was unparalleled.
But Cookie Monster was
always my favorite. I’m pretty
sure it started out just because
I appreciated and could relate
to his obsession with cookies.
What 3-year-old couldn’t? But
now, I think Cookie Monster
means something more than
just a love for cookies; he
represents a need for self-care
and the absolute importance of
putting yourself first.
Somewhat recently, “Sesame
Street” and its creators have
tried to shift Cookie Monster’s
love for cookies onto some other,
healthier foods in an effort to
encourage kids to eat healthier.
In fact, when Grover appeared
on “Jimmy Kimmel” he even
mentioned
Cookie
Monster
having “a little bit of a cookie
problem” and, as a result, is now
on a diet to eat “better” foods
instead of just cookies. Cookie
Monster being used to promote
diet
culture
is
concerning
because it can be very damaging
— it often encourages people to
forgo desserts and food labeled
as “bad” altogether.
That being said, considering
the
discussion
surrounding
Cookie Monster as a symbol
for addiction, it isn’t really
that surprising to see “Sesame
Street” try to change things up
a little with Cookie Monster
and his favorite food. And look,
I get it; parents want their kids
to be healthy. They want to see
their kids pick a carrot over a
cookie, and who better to teach
them that lesson than Cookie
Monster?
But as a college student who
faces burnout and has trouble
prioritizing self-care, I can’t
help but think Cookie Monster
has the right idea. Enjoy your
life. Do what makes you happy.
Eat a cookie.
Cookie Monster:
Our self-care champion
SABRIYA IMAMI
Managing Arts Editor
Design by Serena Shen
Design by Abby Schreck
Read more at MichiganDaily.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com