The intelligent inhabitants of 
the exoplanet Kepler-1084B — 
the only non-human intelligent 
beings in the universe, as they 
suspect — turn on their radio 
receivers and listen in on the 
signals originating from Earth, 
193 lightyears away. For centuries, 
they have been searching for 
signs of life beyond their home 
planet. They want to believe that 
they aren’t alone in the universe. 
Their arduous, fruitless search for 
interplanetary life has not only 
crushed that hope but has also 
led them to question their own 
existence. Is their civilization 
capable of surviving for eons or 
is it only an ephemeral blip in the 
timeline of the universe?
By chance, they tune into the 
frequency for the signal from 
the inter-arena communication 
network 
for 
Crisler 
Arena, 
unintentionally 
transmitted 
deep into space from the edge of 
a mitten-shaped peninsula on 
the distant pale blue dot. They 
demodulate the radio wave and 
hear a brief pulse: 277.18 Hertz, 
the D sharp above middle C in 
human terminology. They hear 
the noise again. And again. The 
pulse repeats 104 times. The 
aliens 
frantically 
attempt 
to 
decipher the signal’s meaning. 
But mere seconds after the pulses 
begin to change pitch, they hear 
something 
horrifying: 
radio 
silence.
Timeout in Ann Arbor — the 
Wolverines’ last one remaining. 
The coaches, with their March 
Madness hopes on the line 
following a string of disappointing 
losses, pull out their whiteboards 
and draw up a play that will seal 
victory for the University of 
Michigan. Conventionally, this 
is how timeouts operate: The 
players get a chance to breathe 
and plan their next play while 
the fans watching on television 
at home are subjected to a couple 
of minutes of advertisements. 
In two minutes, a basketball 
game becomes more watchable 
by giving its players a breather 
and demonstrating its economic 
viability 
as 
a 
monolithic 

institution of American culture, 
courtesy of Burger King or State 
Farm or The Home Depot.
Timeout conventions are less 
defined for the thousands of fans 
inside the arena. In the absence 
of convention, tradition emerges: 
in-arena 
entertainment. 
This 
is meant to be a pastime, not a 
memorable focus of the game. 
Most basketball game attendees 
remember 
the 
key 
moments 
of the game but can’t vividly 
recall listening to “Heads Will 
Roll – A-Trak Remix” while the 
referees decide where to spot an 
out-of-bounds pass from a clumsy 
point guard intended for an 
inconsistent three-point shooter. 
This is how it is supposed to be.
This is not how it is supposed 
to be.
The aliens desperately scan 
as many frequencies as they 
can but fail to find any further 
transmissions from intelligent 
life forms. Unbeknownst to them, 
their alien numbering system 
is highly incompatible with the 
humans’ systems of mathematics. 
This adds an insurmountable 
layer of difficulty to detecting 
radio frequencies besides the 
one they discovered by chance. 
The aliens, unable to pick up new 
signals, grapple with the notion 
that the silent inhabitants of 
Earth have met the worst fate.
The aliens are determined to 
prove the continuance of life on 
the distant planet. They resort 
to spectroscopy to examine the 
chemical vital signs of civilization 
on 
Earth. 
Their 
concern 
immediately 
intensifies. 
They 
detect extremely high amounts 
of heat-insulating carbon gases 
and trace amounts of heavy 
radioactive metals in Earth’s 
atmosphere. Any hope they had 
for Earth’s inhabitants sharply 
reduces; any hope they had for the 
long-term viability of intelligent 
lifeforms on the planet vanishes 
completely.
The aliens lament humans’ 
doomed existence. 
The irritating sound of the 
distinctive guitar riff from “Mr. 
Brightside” fills Crisler Arena. 
Many 
humans 
lament 
their 
doomed existence.

The ‘Brightside’ 
Transmission and the 
collapse of humanity

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

4 — Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

The Michigan Daily Crossword Puzzle

Sunday, April 9, 2023 - Puzzle by Madison Hammond

ACROSS

1. Shower bar

5. Restful resorts

9. Loses color

14. Bad to the bone

15. Wrestler Hogan

16. Holmes played by Millie Bobby
Brown

17. Process of deciding something
again and again

20. Straight from the garden, as an
ingredient

21. Not on time

22. Bed-and-breakfasts

23. Mexican Mrs.

25. Rowboat pair

27. Bell vegetable with green and
red counterparts

33. Dribble catcher?

36. It's a long story?

37. ___ Gras

38. Other, in Madrid

40. Fishing tool, for some

43. Pay attention to

44. Horses' straps

46. Smoothie berry

48. "Live ___" (Taco Bell slogan)

49. DC comic book hero with a
magic ring

53. Thick slice

54. ___ Paulo

55. Italian wine region

58. Salary

61. Chipotle alternative

65. What might happen if you
ignore the starts of 17-, 27- and
49- Across?

68. Take ____ in the right direction

69. Campus study spot home to
Bert's Café, familiarly

70. Mathematician Turing

71. You might throw this at an
enemy

72. Small storage building

73. Supermodel Banks

DOWN

1. Feudal worker

2. Walkie-talkie sign-off

3. Assistant

4. ___ v. Ferguson (1896 Supreme
Court ruling)

5. ___/her/hers

6. Knitting stitch

7. ____ mater

8. Chairlift alternative

9. Veggie found in a pod

10. Like some email filters

11. Pork cut

12. Musk of SpaceX and Twitter

13. Without

18. Number of little pigs

19. Kind of tide

24. Swiss peaks

26. Makeup brand by Ariana Grande

28. Gloss target

29. Atlantic or Pacific

30. Youngest Everdeen, in "The
Hunger Games"

31. Mode, of "The Incredibles"

32. Clears (of)

33. Darty essential comprising a gallon
of MiO, vodka, and water

34. Old Roman road

35. Actress Larson of "Captain Marvel"

39. Like some unfair arguments

41. Make a scene?

42. Actresses Issa and Charlotte

45. NBC sketch show since 1975

47. Baghdad resident

50. Suburban homeowner's pride

51. Beaded calculator

52. Acknowledges silently

55. Solvers' cries

56. Get-together, informally

57. "Toodles!"

59. Vincent van ___

60. ___ Woods of "Legally Blonde"

62. Greasy

63. Wild hog

64. Delvey who conned her way into
the NYC elite

66. Midwestern slang word

67. Pot top

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10
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12
13

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15
16

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18
19

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24
25
26

27
28
29
30
31
32

33
34
35
36
37

38
39
40
41
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43

44
45
46
47
48

49
50
51
52

53
54

55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64

65
66
67

68
69
70

71
72
73

Read the constructor notes

SUDOKU

WHISPER

“What is the 
absolute worst 
question in the 
world? The one you 
don’t ask ~~~ Kevin,
my neighbor”

“Don’t let 
yesterday use 
up too much of 
today. 
 ~~Will Rogers”

WHISPER

JACK MOESER
Senior Arts Editor

the (un)convention(al) b-side

akdjhfkjahgkhg. (Am I the only 
one who pronounces keyboard 
spam differently depending on 
which letters it uses most? This 
would sound different if it had 
lots of Es and Hs.) The intro 
should be unconventional too, 
shouldn’t it? How do I do that? 
I was told, “Just don’t write an 
intro. That’s unconventional.” 
But that’s giving “this is daring” 
energy./ First of all: This may be 
my one opportunity to publish 
brackets. We should be allowed 
to use them more. In the name of 
unconventionality: [ ] / um. / Why 
did I decide to do this? / We are 

Arts writers. Art cannot escape 
convention. Every film, book, 
song and designer coat collection 
is built on the dictations of those 
before it. Even works that break 
conventions can only do so 
because those conventions exist. 
/ … But also. / We cannot escape 
convention. It surrounds us. We 
form society and smaller cultural 
sects that, while created by and 
malleable to individuals, turn 
back to instruct and categorize 
us. We follow conventions to 
avoid conflict, because we don’t 
know how to exist outside of 
them, or because they are so 
inherent to our daily lives that 
they have become invisible. / 
I asked these writers to find 
conventions and point them out. 

Or to tell me about the times 
they broke conventions. Or tried 
to. Or thought we should get 
rid of a convention — even if it’s 
harmless, convention gets old. / 
And there’s one more part. My 
favorite part. / Language. / As 
writers, we are constrained to 
its conventions. These writers 
have taken language and moved 
it to other formats, molded it into 
fiction, paired different writing 
styles in a single piece, pulled it 
through their personal stories, 
used it to invite discourse from 
YOU, the reader, or looked a 
language convention in the eye. 
/ Right, so here we examine and 
question the conventions of art, 
culture and language. / That’s it 
from me. Enjoy.
Design by Phoebe Unwin

ERIN EVANS
Senior Arts Editor

I sing when I talk

Cecilia estaba en búsqueda de 
una comunidad que la aceptara. 
“Cecilia was searching for a 
community that would accept 
her.”
The Puerto Rican lexicon is one 
many don’t take seriously. Cecilia 
knew this. She knew it because 
of the soul-shattering, side-eyed 
looks she got from strangers 
when traveling with her family, 
whenever they spoke Spanish in 
public. 
“Mamá, ¿podemos ir al baño?” 
Ceci would ask as a kid. 
“Hija, habla en inglés,” her 
father would interject. Ceci’s 
father always made sure to make 
others comfortable, even if that 
meant sacrificing their cultural 
reality. 
This public disapproval is all 
because they talk too fast. All 
because they abbreviate words. 
All because they don’t follow 

language conventions. Despite 
this, Ceci was comforted to know 
that once she went off to college, 
she would find her people, other 
Spanish speakers, who would 
respect her native tongue and the 
way she chose to speak it. 
She knew that a lot of people 
moved far from home for college. 
Ann Arbor was 2,111 miles from 
Puerto Rico, Ceci’s home. She 
believed that Ann Arbor would 
open doors to people who would 
provide her with a sense of 
community, a sense of belonging.
¡And this was true! Ceci met 
Spanish speakers from all around 
South and Central America and 
from the Caribbean region as well. 
Once, Ceci was walking across 
campus with a friend from home, 
and two girls they’d never seen 
before approached them.
“¿Hablan español?” asked a tall 
girl with piercing blue eyes. 
“¡Sí!” Ceci and her friend 
responded. 
“¿De dónde son?” another girl 
with deep, brown eyes and long 

brown hair asked. 
“Somos de Puerto Rico,” Ceci 
explained. 
“Va, ¡qué emoción! Yo soy de 
Guatemala,” the blue-eyed girl 
replied. 
“Y 
yo, 
de 
la 
República 
Dominicana,” the girl with the 
long brown hair said. 
But 
despite 
these 
genuine 
connections, the verdict remained. 
Los boricuas hablan español 
malo. “Puerto Ricans speak bad 
Spanish.”
Ceci didn’t get it. She felt 
betrayed. 
How 
come 
she’d 
traveled 2,111 miles from home, 
secure in the fact that she would 
finally 
find 
community, 
just 
for this dreamy bubble of hers 
to burst? She thought that her 
Spanish-speaking 
counterparts 
would find her español triau’ cool. 
A representation of Puerto Rican 
culture. An intriguing semblance 
to 
the 
language 
they 
spoke 
themselves. But as she once again 
walked through campus with 
a friend from home a few days 

later, another Spanish speaker 
approached them.
“¿Hablan español?” a short guy 
with a wide smile and bright green 
eyes asked them as he passed them 
by and overheard them talking. 
“¡Sí!” Ceci and her friend 
responded. 
“¿De dónde son?” he asked. 
“Somos de Puerto Rico,” Ceci 
explained. 
“Perdona, no te entendí. Hablas 
muy rápido. ¿Puedes repetir?” the 
green-eyed boy inquired again.
“Somos de Puerto Rico,” Ceci’s 
friend replied this time. 
“¿De Puerto Rico? Ya, pues, 
bueno conocerlas.” the guy said. 
He hadn’t bothered to tell them 
where he was from. He didn’t 
understand what they said at first, 
and once he correctly heard they 
were from Puerto Rico, it was like 
a code-red warning sign had lit up 
in his head, yelling at him to flee. 
After this shocking interaction, 
Ceci asked other Spanish speakers 
repeatedly “¿what about us throws 
you off?” This happened in class, 

walking 
around 
campus, 
at 
parties. They always responded 
the same way. 
“You guys are so many. It’s 
overwhelming. You exclude us.”
This Ceci understood. In the 
same way Ceci felt alienated by 
strangers whenever she spoke 
Spanish in public when she 
traveled to faraway places with 
her family, they probably yearned 
for more familiarity with their 
home country than what was 
available to them in Ann Arbor. 
She had this in the strong, 40-ish 
Puerto Ricans that also went to 
school there. 
She couldn’t help but feel like 
this aversion to hanging out 
with Puerto Ricans was coming 
from somewhere else, though. 
Somewhere 
largely 
associated 
with the way Puerto Ricans 
apparently 
“butchered” 
the 
Spanish language. 
No one told them they spoke 
“bad Spanish” to their face. Ceci 
didn’t think they had the heart for 
that. But it was evident from the 

way they asked why Bad Bunny 
“mispronounced” words in his 
songs and how they always asked 
for them to repeat themselves 
when they spoke. There was 
something about the Puerto Rican 
way of speaking Spanish that put 
them off. 
Yo vivo en la sombra de los que 
me colonizan. “I live in the shadow 
of those that colonize me.”
Ceci, like many Puerto Ricans, 
took great pride in her native 
language. That pride is funny, 
though — well, more ironic than 
funny — because the language 
that they adore comes from the 
long and intense colonial history 
of their island. The language that 
they claim as theirs was forcefully 
imposed upon them. 
Ceci’s 
native 
language 
is 
Spanish, but that was brought 
upon her ancestors by Spanish 
colonizers. She was then forced 
to learn English in school because 
of Puerto Rico’s colonial status. 

GRACIELA BATLLE CESTERO
Daily Arts Writer

Read more at MichiganDaily.com