puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com
By Alexander Liebeskind & Yu-Chen Huang
©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/22/23
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis
02/22/23
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2023
ACROSS
1 Hint of color
6 Biblical tower site
11 Inquire
14 Play area?
15 Greek salad fruit
16 Sushi topper
17 Pride symbol
19 Texter’s “Hang on
a sec”
20 “Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon”
director Lee
21 No-frills font
22 Wee bit
23 Arachnid relative
that resembles a
crustacean
27 Sex therapy
subject
29 Helpful supporter
30 Loads
31 Give in a little
33 Irritate
36 Functions
perfectly, and
what can be said
about the starts
of 17-, 23-, 46-,
and 57-Across
40 Brief alarm?
41 Fake
42 Singer India.__
43 Gargantuan
44 “The Country
Girls” novelist
Edna
46 Minty frozen treat
at McDonald’s
every March
51 School year
division
52 Swarms (with)
53 Noble __
56 With 11-Down,
Michigan college
town
57 Nutty-tasting
winter vegetable
60 TNT part
61 Sounds from
happy cats
62 Loosen, as a
knot
63 Storm center
64 Borden
spokescow
65 Utopias
DOWN
1 Actress Reid
2 Setting of the
graphic novel
“Persepolis”
3 People next door
4 “Erin Burnett
OutFront”
channel
5 Knight’s tunic
6 “Ziggy Stardust”
singer David
7 Some Italian
sports cars, for
short
8 Star of HBO’s
“Barry”
9 Actress
Longoria
10 Part of a race
11 See 56-Across
12 Kinda
13 Shish __
18 Approximately
22 Slippery, as a
road
24 Barnyard sound
25 Actress
Kurylenko
26 Utility abbr.
27 Newton trio
28 “Am __ early?”
31 Dividing lines
32 Luau strings,
briefly
33 Diversify, in a
way
34 Ohio border lake
35 Marvel mutants
who battle
Magneto
37 Egg (on)
38 Macy’s red star,
for one
39 Literary “Listen!”
43 “I wonder ... ”
44 Units of
resistance
45 Language from
northern Spain
46 Utter
47 “Atlanta” actor
Brian Tyree __
48 Golfer Palmer,
to fans
49 Beach volleyball
Olympic gold
medalist __
Walsh Jennings
50 Pick up
54 Spelling
clarification
phrase
55 Wally Lamb’s “__
Come Undone”
57 Imitate
58 __-de-sac
59 German
conjunction
SUDOKU
9
9
4
1
6
1
2
5
7
2
4
3
8
1
9
6
1
5
4
6
1
3
2
8
Sudoku Syndication
http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/
1 of 1
4/6/09 10:18 AM
WHISPER
“If you are
struggling, you
are not alone.”
“Happy birthday
Amby!”
WHISPER
By Enrique Henestroza Anguiano
©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/15/23
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis
02/15/23
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2023
ACROSS
1 Tool that can
be a musical
instrument
4 Not berthed
8 Designated
14 Confidentiality
contract: Abbr.
15 Spider-Man
co-creator Lee
16 Prophecy source
17 Get-together with
a sketchy vibe?
19 Beam benders
20 Cookie-based
dessert
21 Spanish “those”
22 Salon job
23 Marketer’s blitz
campaign?
28 Affirmative
replies
30 General on a
menu
31 Sign of healing
32 __ Cruces, New
Mexico
34 “Yeah, I guess”
36 Pickleball shot
37 Intercom call on
Take Your Child
to Work Day?
40 Mud bath spot
42 Bash who
co-hosts CNN’s
“State of the
Union”
43 Mo
44 The Buckeye
State
46 WNBA official
47 A few bucks, say
51 Shake Weight
and The Flex
Belt, per their
infomercials?
55 Heaps
56 Limo destination
57 Jack up
59 Nut used to
make vegan
cheese
62 Cold Hawaiian
treat ... or a
directive followed
four times in this
puzzle?
63 Understood by
few
64 Despise
65 Org. with seven
teams in Canada
66 “This Is Spinal
Tap” director
67 Lyft competitor
68 Game Boy
batteries
DOWN
1 Beagle who pilots
an imaginary
Sopwith Camel
2 Like premium
streaming
services
3 Communion
rounds
4 Urgent letters
5 Narrow piece
6 Foodie website
covering 25
metro areas
7 “__ takers?”
8 Arcade
achievements
9 Bad move
10 Ups the ante
11 Telethon VIPs
12 Blight-stricken tree
13 __ Moines
18 Grapefruit kin
21 Succeed
24 “You can come
out now”
25 Rights advocacy
gp.
26 __ Tomé and
Príncipe
27 Recede
29 Hourglass stuff
33 Draw for some
pictures
35 Contact lens
holders
37 Uttered
38 Hr. for an after-
lunch nap,
maybe
39 Interval of eight
notes
40 Cry noisily
41 Soup with rice
noodles
45 Anne of Green
Gables, for one
48 “Riverdale”
actress
Huffman
49 “Caught
red-handed!”
50 Braces (oneself)
52 Nobel-winning
chemist Joliot-
Curie
53 Process that may
involve PT or OT
54 Roofing option
58 Of all time
59 Subway unit
60 “What __ those?”
61 Bio or chem
62 Moo __ pork
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“Bill Russell: Legend,” a two-
part Netflix documentary directed
by Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”) steps
back for the 3-pointer and sure as
hell lands with a splash. The film
travels through Russell’s storied
13-season NBA career with grace
and tender affection, citing his
friends, enemies and current play-
ers who grew up striving to be like
him.
Russell proposes that sports are
an art form, a metaphor the docu-
mentary builds upon through its
vivid descriptions and portrayal
of basketball. As a kid, Russell
spent hours in the library each day
reading books about artistic tech-
niques, studying paintings and
understanding the importance of
each individual brush stroke to the
greater picture. Russell used this
mindset while on the court and in
his personal life.
The film often calls upon
sketched animation with Jeffery
Wright (“The Batman”) reading
excerpts from Russell’s books to
help construct a picture of Rus-
sell’s childhood and personal life.
The use of actual art in the film
pushes Russell’s grand thesis: Life
is art. Russell suffered through
many growing pains, but he pushed
through, and this documentary
demonstrates how each thoughtful
brushstroke comes together to cre-
ate a beautiful picture. Russell and
the film both push that although
we may be messy artists, we must
never stop reinventing the way we
create.
“Bill Russell: Legend” strives
to live up to its name by calling on
other basketball greats. The film,
with its stories of Russell’s 11 NBA
championships, his role in plan-
ning the March on Washington
and his larger-than-life personal-
ity (and physicality), is clearly made
for and by fans of the iconic baller.
While this does help further the
film’s assertion that Russell is a leg-
end, it can come off as though he is
placed on too high a pedestal. With
interviewees like Magic Johnson
and Steph Curry, heroes from all
eras are called upon to speak to the
significance Russell had in their
careers. One common denomina-
tor was an infectious inspiration
rooted in Russell’s dominance and
character.
Russell is painted as a leader on
and off the court. The film uses
images of Russell’s position as a
team captain and eventual player-
coach to parallel his leadership role
in the civil rights movement. Rus-
sell, after the African-American
players for the Boston Celtics were
denied service at a Kentucky hotel
restaurant, organized a boycott of
an upcoming game with the Black
members of both teams. Russell
openly supported Muhammad Ali’s
ability to opt out of military service,
and even served as the first Black
head coach in the NBA in 1966.
He was more than a player; he was
helping to push the nation towards
inclusivity and anti-racism.
The documentary weaves the
story of Wilt Chamberlain, who
battled with Russell for years as
the other great big man in the NBA,
throughout the piece. “Bill Rus-
sell: Legend” contrasts Russell’s
ability to lead his team to victory
with Chamberlain’s success as an
individual player. Despite their
career-long rivalry, the story of
their unlikely friendship brings yet
another tender perspective to Rus-
sell’s life. Even after battling each
other on the court for 48 minutes,
Russell would graciously invite
Chamberlain to spend the night
with his family when the two were
playing in Boston. Chamberlain
always made sure to return the
favor.
While Pollard’s film often finds
the things worth celebrating about
Russell, it doesn’t shy away from his
story’s painful trials and tribula-
tions. Reading, Mass., the town out-
side of Boston where Russell and
his family settled down, held a din-
ner to honor Russell’s achievements
on the basketball court. What they
didn’t appreciate, however, was his
role as a civil rights activist. Weeks
after this celebration, Russell tried
to purchase a home on the wealth-
ier side of the mostly white town,
and within days, a petition barred
the Russells from the “nice side” of
Reading. Russell was appreciated
for his artful skill with a basketball,
but the people of Reading didn’t
care for other parts of him.
Netflix’s ‘Bill Russell:
Legend’ documentary
shoots and scores
THEJAS VARMA
Daily Arts Writer
DANIEL WISELY
Daily Arts Contributor
This image is the official album artwork for “Raven.”
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 — 3
Kelela’s Raven is an impassioned narrative
of rejuvenation and reflection
The raven is a historically sym-
bolic animal. Though it has served
as an image of loss, ravens have
also been represented as psy-
chopomps, creatures that guide
departed beings between the
material world and the afterlife.
Kelela’s new album, Raven, hinges
on mediating between worlds.
Her music is always experienced
at this mediation, as past projects
operated at the nexus of digital
and material, whisking together
her gossamer vocals with elec-
tronics that sounded like trapped
spirits trying to break free. It
felt like both a testimony to her
influences (most notably, Janet
Jackson) while also covering new
ground in both dance and R&B
music. Her songs paint poignant
portraits of vulnerability, weaving
together stories of broken rela-
tionships, no-strings-attached sex
and euphoric romance.
Kelela noted that Raven came
about “from the feeling of isola-
tion and alienation I’ve always
had as a Black femme in dance
music, despite its Black origins.”
These are issues that she’s been
outspoken about in numerous
interviews, but on Raven, they
are much more integrated into
the fabric of the music itself. The
result is a poised symbiosis of
back-of-your-neck whispers and
distanced atmospheres and an
impassioned narrative of rejuve-
nation and reflection.
Raven begins with “Washed
Away,” the first single on the
album. It’s the perfect introduc-
tion; the effortlessly light synth
instrumentation sounds like it’s
just emerged from water, paral-
leling the assertions of the title’s
namesake. The minimalism feels
purposeful, as the non-lyrical
vocal runs and drumless instru-
mentals convey the image that
she’s begun anew.
Every so often, Kelela strips
her songs to their essentials. Take
the song “Let It Go”: Instrumen-
tally, there are piano chords, a
creeping bassline, some percus-
sion and extraterrestrial chirps
that fade in and out at different
parts of the song. Kelela’s singing
sounds as tender as ever, but feels
more subdued than in previous
undertakings. There’s something
so hauntingly beautiful about the
instrumental gaps in her singing
if almost to reckon with her past
emotions — for just a moment, it
feels like your mind disengages
from your body
This detachment becomes inti-
mately embedded in the album’s
soundscapes. Where Kelela’s 2017
album Take Me Apart was fore-
grounded in wintry atmospheres,
an unforgiving onslaught under-
pinned by the delightfully scenic
landscape, Raven is cold and bar-
ren. “Closure” has the ambiance
of an empty alleyway at night,
where the sound of pipes drip-
ping and distant ambulances
are substituted for hi-hats and
reverberating metallic keys. Even
Kelela, talking to a lover, sounds
eerily distant from us as her
vocals fade into the back during
feature RahRah Gabor’s animated
verse. Spread across our ears and
slathered in reverb, the sounds
of Raven feel like they’re playing
from a speaker a mile away. Vocals
sound
haunted,
instrumentals
spectral — the songs reach out,
the emotions sink deep into our
skin. It conjures an atmosphere
that is unsettling yet captivating.
Simultaneously, it functions as a
tale of resilience, reflecting on her
strength through these experi-
ences.
Of course, as an album inspired
by her relationship with dance
music, Raven is infused with
the electric sounds of the club.
Kelela’s collaborated with several
prominent electronic producers
— LSDXOXO, Asma Maroof, Bam-
bii — who give Raven an edge,
drawing from UK garage, techno
and drum-and-bass, among other
genres. “Missed Call” gashes the
listener from the first second, but
when the drum break comes in, it
transforms into a dynamic experi-
ence. Kelela muses on reconnect-
ing with a past lover, her voice
sounding defeated, but the varia-
tions in her tone also prop it up
with a slight optimism, wheth-
er or not she’s successful. The
breakbeat sounds disordered and
fearful, which parallels her uncer-
tainty well. On other songs, like
the single “Contact,” they sound
comfortable and stable, almost
as if Kelela herself is controlling
them.
The centerpiece of Raven is the
title track, a profound testament
to her fortitude. Opening with
an ominous, buzzing synth line,
Kelela sings with grit: “Through
all the labor / A raven is reborn.”
As the song progresses, the wind-
ing synth gets louder, harmonies
flourish in the background and
it reshapes itself into a grand,
sweaty club anthem, as a barrage
of deep kicks pound away like
they’re caught outside in a storm.
The raven’s depiction as a psycho-
pomp becomes one of rebirth, pro-
ducing a reinvigorated energy that
courses through the veins. The
crossing of worlds positions the
raven as a symbol of transforma-
tion; battles are not permanent,
but simply one part of constantly
shifting experiences. Raven offers
affecting narratives of Kelela’s
renewal and affirms the queer,
Black legacy of dance music.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com