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Unopposed elections for LSA Student Gov. conclude ANDREW COHEN/Daily
Dr. Marschall S. Runge, the new vice president for medical affairs and University Health System’s chief executive officer, holds a meet and greet in the Rotunda Gallery at the North Campus Research Complex on Thursday,
LSA juniors Jason Collela and Reid Klootwyk win executive seats By CARLY NOAH Daily Staff Reporter
#UMICHVOTES
With litigation pending, CSG elections undecided Commission likely won’t announce winners until Friday night By LEA GIOTTO and TANAZ AHMED Daily Staff Reporters
The results of this week’s Central Student Government elections remained undecided early
Friday morning. Voting closed online at midnight Friday. According to the CSG Compiled Code, unofficial results are to be released to candidates 24 hours after polls close. Official results are to be released on the CSG website within 24 of confirmation by the University Elections Commission and after all pending litigation concludes. Election complaints can be delivered to the election director up until 24 hours after the polls close.
The UEC convened Wednesday and Thursday for hearings after Make Michigan filed a complaint against The Team for destruction of campaign materials. Make Michigan claimed that representatives or volunteers from The Team threw buckets of water on advertisements written in chalk that read “Vote for Make Michigan,” and subsequently replaced them with chalk advertisements that read “The Team.” Make Michigan members and
volunteers said they had drawn these promotions near the block ‘M’ on the Diag the night of March 16. The destruction allegedly occurred the night of March 18. “It’s under (UEC) code that they are responsible for educating all of their members and candidates and ensuring they follow the rules that are prescribed for the election,” said Law School student Rachel Jankowski, counsel for Make Michigan. See ELECTIONS, Page 3
Following an uncontested election, LSA juniors Jason Colella and Reid Klootwyk were elected the next president and vice president of LSA student government, respectively. Eight of the 10 vacant spots for LSA representatives were also filled in uncontested elections. The two remaining positions will be filled by write-in candidates, who had not been announced at press time. At a candidate forum on Monday in the Michigan Union, the candidates stressed student engagement, as well as the implementation of an international student mentorship program and a project to allow transfer students to defer their enrollment like admitted freshmen currently can. At the event, Colella and Klootwyk both emphasized the importance of interacting with students. Klootwyk works as the vice chair
EVENT PREVIEW
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
MUSKET performs ‘Into the Woods’ like never before
Talented cast of student performers brings a fresh spin to modern classic By ALEX BERNARD Daily Community Culture Editor
Adam Quinn was excited. He couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “I can guarantee that in seven months of research, there is something we are doing with this show that we have revealed to no one, that no production of Into the Woods has done before. And I can guarantee that.” That’s what director Adam Quinn told me in a Starbucks on the corner of State St. and Liberty St., where dozens of students tapped away at their laptops. It was easy to imagine what they were typing about: an economics paper, a sociology thesis, a tweet about how the barista got their name wrong on the cup – “It’s Alex, not ‘All Hecks!’” It was easy to imagine. It always is. After all, it’s an ancient, respected practice – peoplewatching. Observing that old man walk his Dachshund to impress the pretty woman on the bench
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and guessing that the wiener dog isn’t company enough anymore. Seeing that child trip over a tree root and distantly wondering if she’ll fall in the shower when she’s 82, and will she break her hip? And who will help her? It’s old. Old practice. Old stories. “Into the Woods” – a musical about old tales – has become just that: Old. Fascinating, thoughtprovoking and important, but familiar. Like a Lifetime Achievement Award or Robert De Niro. Or gravity. And yet, MUSKET – Michigan’s only student-run musical theater group – promises a divergence, an unprecedented approach to one of our most celebrated, most widely performed musicals. With music by the incomparable Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Lapine, Into the Woods debuted on Broadway in 1987 to critical acclaim and 10 Tony nominations. Last December, the Disney adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick and Emily Blunt, among others, opened in theaters, capturing three Oscar nominations and a handful of other accolades. The musical follows some of our favorite fairytale characters – Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and his Beanstalk See INTO THE WOODS, Page 5
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for the LSA SG Communications Committee. He has served on LSA SG for one year since transferring from a community college. Colella, an East Quad resident advisor, also serves as chair for the LSA SG Budget Allocation Committee. He has served on LSA SG for three years. In an interview, Colella said he and his running mate are hoping to change students’ opinions on the role of LSA SG. “People are really cynical about student government,” he said. “It’s not because we don’t do anything, which is what a lot of people would say. It’s because people don’t realize all of the things that we have done to help improve the LSA experience. It’s a matter of working to let people know what we’re doing.” Colella added that involving international students in campus affairs will help increase on-campus diversity. “International students is a big project we’ve been working on for the past year in student government; we’re creating this big international student mentorship program,” Colella said. “We’ve been meeting with administrators and trying to figure out what our vision is to better See LSA, Page 3
Wolverines earn WNIT quarterfinal berth in win SAN PHAM/Daily
Michigan tops Missouri at Crisler Center, 65-55
Author Kazuo Ishiguro signs copies of his novels during a fiction reading event from the Zell Visiting Writers Series in the University of Michigan Museum of Art on Thursday.
UMMA hosts British author for Q&A session Kazuo Ishiguro speaks as part of Helen Zell Writer’s Series By TANYA MADHANI Daily Staff Reporter
Students and Ann Arbor residents packed the Apse Room in the University’s Museum of Art on Thursday, awaiting the entrance of British author Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishiguro was invited to participate in a University reading as part of the Helen Zell Visiting Writers Series, which has hosted writers such as fiction writer Sergio Troncoso and graphic novelist Alison Bechdel. Ishiguro read for 40 minutes from an excerpt of his
most recent work, “The Buried Giant,” a fantasy-historical fiction novel set during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, and fielded questions from the audience. When asked to name authors and works that have been most influential to him, Ishiguro noted Charlotte Brontë and Marcel Proust. Brontë’s narration style in particular, Ishiguro said, has influenced his own writing to the point when he mimicked a scene from her novel, “Jane Eyre,” in one of his works. “I do love (her) and I hadn’t realized how much she had influenced me in my writing,” Ishiguro said. “I read ‘Jane Eyre’ a few years ago and there are all these things I’ve ripped off from it. There’s a particular way her narrator appears to con-
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fide in the reader.” Ann Arbor resident Karen Park said she attended the event after reading Ishiguro’s novel, “Remains of the Day,” and said, while she loved the setting, she wished there was more opportunity for questions from the audience rather than a lengthy reading of his novel. “It was still great to have him be here and be able to talk to us,” Park said. “I had a hard time getting into (the chapter) as he was reading it. I heard that sometimes it’s not best, like when you do a book on tape, to have the actual author reading the book. Perhaps that’s the case in this case, that it’d be better read than spoken out loud by the author.” Park said, however, she See AUTHOR, Page 3
Vol. CXXIV, No. 88 ©2015 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
By KELLY HALL Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan women’s basketball team always records hype videos for the fans, but Thursday, it didn’t need them. Wolverines coach Kim Barnes Arico said the home-court advantage at Crisler Center would make the difference, and it did. The fans exploded after foul calls on Michigan and became louder with every bucket that expanded its game-defining lead late in the second half. “The energy is huge in a basketball game, especially when you’re trying to withstand a run that the other team is making, or when we’re trying to run and put it away,” said senior forward Nicole Elmblad. “To have the crowd we had tonight was special.” After a rough start, the Wolverines (8-10 Big Ten, 19-14 overall) beat Missouri 65-55 with a well balanced offense that included five players scoring in double digits, led by senior guard Shannon Smith, who recorded 13 points. “A lot of times, we’ve got a couple people that are leading us in scoring,” Elmblad said. “When we’re able to distribute that scoring and we’re able to get everyone on the court as a threat, it makes teams struggle to guard you.” Added Barnes Arico: “Nicole Elmblad knocked down some shots for us, See WNIT, Page 3
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS........................5
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2 — Friday, March 27, 2015
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Campus Voices
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
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LEFT LSA sophomore Cierra Jackson dances with The Movement at The Team Rally, an event that supports Will Royster running for CSG president and Matt Fidel running for CSG vice president on the Diag on Monday . (Virginia Lozano/Daily) RIGHT Ann Arbor resident Joel Reinstein raises his hands in support of divestment during the Central Student Government meeting in Rogal Ballroom in the Michigan Union on Tuesday. (Ruby Wallau/Daily)
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BAMN presents platform BY EMMA KINERY
Student group By Any Means Necessary presented the Defend Affirmative Action Party’s candidates for CSG elections, focusing on minority enrollment and sexual assault.
THE WIRE
Schlissel speaks in D.C. BY NABEEL CHOLLAMPAT
University President Mark Schlissel spoke Thursday morning in Washington D.C. at the annual University of Michigan Congressional Breakfast. He spoke specifically about the University’s upcoming research projects, including M City.
Epidemiology presentation
Mental health discussion
WHAT: Speakers from around the world will present about nutrition in this symposium. WHO: Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases WHEN: Today from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: Michigan League
WHAT: University professors will speak about mental health and suicide, with a specific focus on suicide in Japan. WHO: Counseling and Psychological Services WHEN: Today at 1o:30 a.m. WHERE: Michigan Union— Anderson Room D
MFA Dance concert
Wallenberg lecture
WHAT: Patty Solorzano’s “Footprints” will explore the relationship between humans behavior and the environment, and Eryn Rosenthal’s “Figure/Ground” examines anti-Apartheid movements. WHO: School of Music, Theatre, & Dance WHEN: Today at 8 p.m. WHERE: Dance Building— Betty Pease Studio
WHAT: World-renowned Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind will speak about his history in designing world-famous projects. WHO: Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning WHEN: Today from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union—Rogel Ballroom
California prison lecture
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
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New data form the French investigation of the Germanwings flight that killed 159 people suggests WHAT: Alumnus Emily that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz Harris will explore the California prison system and did not respond to his the challenges it poses for co-pilot’s demands to return authorities. to the cockpit, the New York WHO: The Prison Creative Times reported. Arts Project WHEN: Today at 5 p.m. The Michigan womWHERE: Duderstadt en’s basketball team Center advanced to the WNIT quartfinals with its 65-55 win over Missouri on Thursday. The Wolverines will play at Southern Mississipi on Sunday at 3 p.m. WHAT: The University Symphony Orchestra and Philarmonia Orchestra will The Saudi Arabian perform Mahler’s Symphony military began No. 6. operations against WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance Houthi rebels that have taken WHEN: Today at 3 p.m. over Yemen’s capital. The WHERE: Hill Auditorium White house confirmed that Please report any President Obama authorized error in the Daily logistical support, the to corrections@ Associated Press reported. michigandaily.com.
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Student-created website works to make music more positive “Lyric Revolution” effort stems from entrepreneurship class project By LINDSEY SCULLEN Daily Staff Reporter
Prompted by a shared distaste for current popular music, a group of students is using a class project to start a “Lyric Revolution.” Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Hannah Baiardi, a cofounder of “Lyric Revolution”, said she often finds the majority of popular music today is both “derogatory” and “offensive.” “I find it, personally, really discouraging,” Baiardi said. “A lot of times it’s not sophisticated. It can tend to be shallow, repetiSudoku Syndication tive and not really very deep. As a musician, I find that really irksome.”
To combat that problem, Baiardi and a group of classmates from the class, “Entrepreneurial Creativity”, have built and launched a website titled “Lyric Revolution.” The site features local artists and forums for viewers to engage with other musicians and music lovers. The website was first conceived in the class, which is taught by Education Lecturer Eric Fretz and is one of the core classes for the University‘s entrepreneurship minor. At the beginning of the class, Fretz has his students create a PowerPoint slide about themselves, their passions and projects they are interested in. It was that process that brought the group together and allowed them to realize their common passions. “We all kind of came together on this idea that meaningful lyrics and positive changes through music can be really powerful,” said LSA sophomore Jacqueline Shandler, a co-founder of Lyric
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Revolution. “I can see it going well beyond this class because we’re all passionate about it. We’re all driven. We want to see it go somewhere.” Currently in its second week, the website is built around a “featured artists” page, which spotlights local artists and their original compositions posted on SoundCloud. The founders said the featured artists are meant to represent a clear distinction from the sounds of today’s Top 40 hits. “People can’t really control which music, what they’re going New York City firefighters work the scene of a large fire and a partial building collapse in the East Village neighborhood of to hear,” Shandler said. “You New York on Thursday, March 26, 2015. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) could be going anywhere and hear music that isn’t appropriate.” It’s that lack of control that drives the group toward attempting a “revolution,” a transformation in the way today’s music is written. http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ Another part of the initiative is found in the “our parodies” tab on the website. Currently, a parhis food at a restaurant known Safety Board report released last ody of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred for its French fries when he felt week said a leak reported just Lines” is displayed. In place of the explosion next door. “It just before the deadly blast may have the opening line of Thicke’s chohappened out of the blue. ... We come from a 3-year-old section rus, “And that’s why I’m gon’ were shaking even an hour, hour of plastic pipe rather than a take a good girl. I know you want and a half later.” 127-year-old cast-iron segment it,” are the following lines: “And Mayor Bill de Blasio said that came under scrutiny in the that’s why I stand for justice. You NEW YORK (AP) — An preliminary evidence suggested a immediate aftermath. know I’ve earned it.” apparent gas explosion leveled gas explosion amid plumbing and De Blasio noted no one had A third tab on the website asks an apartment building, largely gas work inside the building that reported a gas leak before users to “join the conversation,” destroyed another and launched collapsed was to blame. Thursday’s blast. Con Edison said and provides space for users to rubble and shards of glass A plumber was doing work it had surveyed the gas mains on post comments. across streets in the heart of connected to a gas service the block Wednesday and found One post made by the foundManhattan’s trendy East Village upgrade, and inspectors from no leaks. ers is titled “Be the Change.” It on Thursday, injuring 19 people. utility Con Edison had been there Bystander Blake Farber, who poses two scenarios; the first one Smoke could be seen and smelled to check on a planned meter lives around the corner, said he’d describes a situation in which for miles. installation an hour before the been walking by the building and Pitbull’s “Time of Our Lives” Restaurant diners ran out fire, company President Craig smelled gas seconds before the big comes on the radio while a babof their shoes and bystanders Ivey said. But the work failed the blast. ysitter is driving a child to an helped one another to escape inspection, partly because a space Firefighters continued pouring activity. The second scenario is the midafternoon blast, which for the new meters wasn’t big water on the buildings for the same, but in place of Pitbull, damaged four buildings as flames enough, and the inspectors said hours after the explosion, in an the radio plays a song that’s both shot into the air, witnesses said. gas couldn’t be introduced to that area of old tenement buildings catchy and helps raise awareness Passers-by were hit by debris part of the building, Con Ed said. that are home to students and about social issues. and flying glass, and bloodied The state Department of Public longtime residents near New “It’s simply a platform for convictims were aided as they sat on Service was monitoring Con Ed’s York University and Washington sidewalks and lay on the ground, response. Square Park. versation, to kind of pick people’s brains about, you know, how they said. The fire happened a little over Firefighters said at least 19 do you feel about lyrics? What “It was terrifying — absolutely a year after a gas explosion in a people were hurt, four critically, terrifying,” said Bruce Finley, a building in East Harlem killed some with burns to their airways. can we do to change that? Can See WEBSITE, Page 3 visitor from San Antonio, Texas, eight people and injured about De Blasio said it didn’t appear that who had just taken a photo of 50. A National Transportation anyone was missing.
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19 injured in New York fire, building gas blast blamed Smoke spread for miles after the Manhattan structure collapsed
Friday, March 27, 2015 — 3
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NEWS BRIEFS FOREST TOWNSHIP, MICH.
Body of student found in Genesee County State police say a body found floating in a pond in Genesee County is that of a Wayne State University student who disappeared from a bar in Otisville three months ago. The Flint Journal and The Detroit News say that the body found Thursday morning is that of 27-year-old Ken Gruno. The pond is in Forest Township, just outside Otisville and about 12 miles northeast of Flint. State police Lt. Ryan Pennel says Gruno was carrying identification. He says there are no signs of foul play. Pennel says a neighbor spotted the body in the pond, which remains mostly frozen over. Gruno left his coat behind when he left Otisville Hotel Bar in the early hours of Dec. 27. He was visiting with high school friends at the bar.
BIRMINGHAM, ALA.
Obama commends payday lender rules Embracing proposed new rules aimed at payday lenders, President Barack Obama on Thursday said working families need protections from heavy debt burdens and warned Republicans that he would veto attempts to unravel regulations that govern the financial industry. Obama praised the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for its proposal to set standards on a multibillion-dollar industry that has historically been regulated only at the state level. “One of the main ways to make sure paychecks go farther is to make sure working families don’t get ripped off,” Obama told about 1,800 people at Lawson State Community College. Obama’s remarks come on the same day the consumer agency was announcing the proposed payday lending rules in a hearing in Richmond, Virginia.
WEBSITE From Page 2 we really influence the music industry five years from now, 10 years from now?” Baiardi said. In addition to being one of the founders, Baiardi is also featured on the page as an artist. The first song listed on the page is hers. One song, titled “We! are Students for Clean Energy Rap,” mixes beats and Spanish and English lyrics. The song distills the mission of Students for Clean Energy, a campus group that promotes the University’s use of clean energy. “Hey listen up ya’ll Wolverines,” the lyrics read. “The sun goes down, the sun goes up, time to pass that heat around.” Baiardi said the team hopes the project will eventually become integrated into student organizations on campus. They hope to have a cappella groups sing their parodies or to work with MUSIC Matters, for example. They would also like to see other University classes engage with the project in some form. While the website’s intended audience is students on college campuses, Baiardi emphasized that anyone can be involved. “Maybe somebody doesn’t have the capacity to write lyrics, but they can write a song or they can post a song here and then someone else on the other end can write lyrics for that piece and then upload it and here you have this thing that’s produced,” she said. In this way, Fretz said, “Lyric Revolution” embodies the idea of creativity that lies at the core of the class. “It’s a relatively new course, but I would say that this is the most fun that I have had teaching in my entire life, because you just sort of turn Michigan students loose and when you refuse to give them a specific guideline and they have to come up with stuff, the things they come with are really amazing,” he said.
LSA From Page 1 the experience of students in LSA.” Klootwyk said his experience as a non-traditional student has helped him understand the needs of transfer students better. “Freshman students are allowed to enroll in the University and take a gap year,” Klootwyk said. “Transfer students can’t do that. A gap year is something that enhances their outlook on life and education as well as they come back to campus.” Colella added that the most important part of their election platform is connecting with LSA students. “The biggest improvement is to better represent the students,” he said. “To really hear from all 18,000 students as best we can.” LSA senior Natasha Dabrowski, the current LSA SG president, said she was excited to see what Colella and Klootwyk would do in their positions and added that both are “knowledgeable, qualified and compassionate individuals.” “Jason has served on too many LSA SG and administrative committees to name, and Reid is a fast learner who already, as a transfer student, has shown his leadership potential within LSA SG,” Dabrowski said. “I have no doubts that this team will continue to grow as leaders within LSA SG and serve as diligent advocates for all LSA students.” Dabrowski said she has appreciated her experience serving as LSA SG president. “I have felt a responsibility, having served on LSA SG for four years, to continue my commitment to LSA students and the University and to push myself in everything that I do as president,” she said. Along with president and vice president, 10 students were elected LSA SG representatives. LSA sophomore Aishawarya Singh said she decided to run for reelection because she thinks the work of LSA SG will not only better the college experience of current students, but also future ones. Singh said she has worked with the Residence Hall Association to improve toilet paper quality in the
WNIT From Page 1 Shannon Smith played sensational in the second half. (She’s a) difference maker, and (senior forward Cyesha Goree) just had a great game overall.” In the first round of the tournament, the Michigan favored an unconventional offense that included starting freshman forward Emoni Jackson for the first time. But against the Tigers (19-14), the Wolverines chose to go with a battle-tested lineup featuring their four regular starters and sophomore guard Danielle Williams, which — at least at first — didn’t work. When Missouri jumped out to a 12-3 lead, instead of implementing a stronger defense, Barnes Arico decided to focus on offense, leaving junior guard Madison Ristovski, freshman guard Katelynn Flaherty and Smith, a senior guard, all out on the court. “I think one of the strengths of our team is that we can put multiple scorers in at any one time, so when we brought in Madison and Katelynn and then you have them in with (sophomore guard Siera Thompson) and Shannon, we have four really great threats from the outside,” Barnes Arico said. “When we haven’t scored in a while, we always go to that lineup.” Barnes Arico’s plan worked. Michigan fought back with an 8-0 run in just over a minute, forcing the Tigers to call a timeout. But it didn’t help much. Directly after, the Wolverines pulled ahead for the first time when Smith fed a breakaway pass to Goree for a fastbreak layup to make it 15-14. The first half ended with a lot to be desired by the Wolverines. After going shot for shot with Missouri for a majority of the first half, a
AUTHOR From Page 1 would still give the book a chance. “I think I’ll borrow it from the library first,” she said. LSA senior Jenny Zhang said she attended because of her love for Ishiguro’s books and her own desire to write in the future.
dorms. She also said she plans to create projects that would improve student access to Counseling and Psychological Services and the University Health Service. LSA freshman Anna Giacomini said she chose to run for a position because she noticed her friends complaining about issues with the campus, but they showed little intention of attempting to improve them. “The points on my platform include putting more lighting near the CCRB as well as the streets by the IM building, bettering SafeRide by advertising through social media and hiring more drivers, and creating an app specifically for University of Michigan students that can contact the police and inform them of the individual’s location on campus,” GIacomini said. “When students feel safe, they are more likely to thrive and accomplish their goals.” LSA sophomore Charlotte Shreve said the encouragement of fellow student government members influenced her decision to run for LSA representative. “This year I hope to take on more projects individually, especially some ideas I’ve been thinking up that are in the very early stages,” she said. “In addition, last semester I had the privilege of working with our Diversity Affairs Committee more than I had in previous semesters, and I am really looking forward to continuing my work with them and growing that committee and their outreach.” LSA freshman Alexandra Contis said she was inspired to run for LSA representative because of her experience living on North Campus. “I think often times we treat North Campus as another satellite location far away when, in reality, it is one university,” Contis said. “I am also interested in more … lighting, especially on North Campus by Northwood and the NCRB because safety and student well-being is my main concern, and should be the University’s as well.” The other LSA representatives are LSA freshman John Petrie, LSA junior Zelin Wang, LSA senior Yong-Joon Kim and LSA freshman Briana Karcho.
buzzer-beating open triple left the Wolverines trailing, 33-28. Michigan went back and forth with Missouri for the first four minutes of the second frame, but by the 16:11 mark, it regained the lead off of a Goree jumper. Directly thereafter, Goree drained another. “I think at halftime, coach got on us about our assists,” Goree said. “We usually have 20 assists per game, and we only had four at (halftime). She told us we weren’t moving the ball as much as we should, so I think the second half, we came out, made extra passes, knocked down some shots and that’s what got us going.” Goree wasn’t held back by foul trouble, and it made the difference — she recorded a double-double and didn’t commit any fouls. The lead was cemented into place after her layups, and the Wolverines worked up to a 14-point advantage with 1:50 left in the game off of 59-percent shooting in the second half. But Michigan is priding itself more on its defense that grabbed 36 boards. “I think our defense was the key to our game tonight,” Elmblad said. “I thought (Goree) was huge down low, and she did a really good job of helping. When other people were coming off of screens or finding open looks, she was there to get a block or steal, and she was just coming through huge with the help defense.” Though Michigan usually relies heavily on its 3-pointers, it only made one Thursday and was still able to dominate when it needed to. The Wolverines bought into Barnes Arico’s halftime speech about the importance of moving the ball, and as a result, they will travel to Southern Mississippi for a WNIT quarterfinal matchup at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Unlike Park, Zhang said, while she hadn’t read the book, she was interested in reading more of it in the future. “As he was reading it, I kind of started imagining it in my head,” Zhang said. “So it was pretty vivid and evocative in letting the audience or whoever was listening imagine these scenes unfolding in their heads.”
PHOTOS OF THE WEEK
DELANEY RYAN/Daily
Senior Nicole Elmblad fights for a loose ball in Michigan’s 65-55 win over Missouri.vv
ELECTIONS From Page 1 “That includes not causing major infractions like this one: destructing an opposing party’s campaign materials.” Destruction of campaign materials is a violation of campaign conduct as outlined by the UEC Election Code, which is part of the CSG Compiled Code. The code declares that, if violated, individuals or parties receive demerits — one or two demerits are given for minor infractions and three or four are given for major infractions. Destruction of campaign material is a major infraction. Individual candidates are disqualified if they receive five or more demerits, and entire parties are disqualified if they receive 10 or more. Regardless of whether a member of The Team or a noncandidate was responsible for the destruction, Make Michigan asked the Central Student Judiciary to give The Team three or four demerits. “We believe beyond a reasonable doubt that The Team was responsible for this,” Jankowski said. “No one else would have the intent or the want and malice to do these kind of actions. There’s no reason anyone would come out and pour water onto sidewalk chalk unless it was an opposing party intending to destruct campaign materials and replacing them with their own.” However, some members of the commission questioned that assertion and suggested other groups could have been responsible, including the third party running in CSG elections, the Defend Affirmative Action Party. “Wouldn’t it make even more sense for a member of DAAP to remove Make Michigan’s campaign materials and put something that makes it look like The Team might have done it over it?” asked Law School student Paige Becker, chair of the UEC.
Jankowski said in response that DAAP could have committed the violation, but the fact that The Team’s advertisements replaced Make Michigan’s does not make DAAP look guilty. Law School student Sarah Brenner, legal counsel for The Team, said Make Michigan’s complaint fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a candidate or volunteer of The Team committed the destruction. “As we all know, this destruction occurred on the Diag,” she said. ”The original Make Michigan chalking occurred on March 16th, and the pictures (of the new “The Team” chalking) were taken on March 18th. That’s two days in between. Within two days, thousands of people walk across the Diag, any one of which could have destroyed Make Michigan’s chalking.” For a party to be found guilty, the person who committed the act, along with the act itself, need to fall under CSG’s “scope of coordination.” Brenner said to fall under that scope the person who committed the act must have been “a candidate or a non-candidate who worked with or at the request of the party.” An act that falls within the scope of coordination must be “what the candidate or party requested the non-candidate to do.” “So if the person did not do what the party requested them to do, they would not fall under the scope of coordination,” Brenner added. Overall, Brenner argued that there is not enough evidence for The Team, or anyone representing The Team, to be found guilty. The commission also brought up an additional element in the case — the fact that Make Michigan’s chalk drawing was only partially eradicated. The chalking originally said, “Vote for Make Michigan.” After the destruction, while “Make Michigan” had been removed , the “Vote for” portion remained. “Can you think of any rea-
son why someone who is clearly pouring water to destroy Make Michigan’s chalking, why they wouldn’t also pour water on the words, ‘Vote for’?” Law school student Brian Koziara, member of the UEC, asked. Brenner said she did not find this question incriminating to The Team. “I mean I can think of plenty of reasons,” she said. “If someone is trying to get two parties in here, the two biggest parties on campus that are fighting for this election, I can see somebody putting water on one place and then creating an issue. I mean, absolutely anyone on campus can do that.” The UEC also considered two other lawsuits Wednesday. Multiple candidates were accused of missing the mandatory candidates’ meeting at the beginning of the campaign season. According to Becker, candidates who were thought to have had legitimate reasons for missing the meeting such as time conflicts with classes were given warnings. Candidates who did not have a legitimate reason were each given a demerit. A lawsuit between two University Law students was discussed as well. One student alleged there was an e-mail violation where the candidate used a listserv which did not belong to the student. An additional lawsuit was filed Thursday by Make Michigan against The Team. Make Michigan claims The Team committed a campaign funding violation by not reporting all of the party’s campaign expenditures. The date and time for the hearing of this lawsuit has not yet been decided. Another lawsuit on e-mail violations was also filed Thursday by Make Michigan against a candidate for The Team running for the Art & Design representative position. UEC will hear the lawsuit on Friday.
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Opinion
4 — Friday, March 27, 2015
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com AARICA MARSH and DEREK WOLFE EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
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I
Reevaluating race
t has become clear at this point: We, as a society, have become very adept at punishing a specific kind of racism. From the racist University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon chanters to the Donald Sterling disaster about a year ago, we have become very good at pointing out individual instances of racism. We have also, as a consequence of this, come to agree that making racial remarks of JENNY any kind is a bad thing. As long as nobody says any- WANG thing about race, nobody can be racist, right? To be seen as racist — to be outed for making an ignorant remark pertaining to race — now stands as one of the most shameful labels we can carry. For me, it’s a very frustrating situation to deal with, because the discussion always shifts to talking about whether or not certain people are actually racist. We get public releases from the SAE chanters, Donald Sterling, Paula Deen, etc. trying to persuade the public that they’re not racist at all. And it usually devolves into something like, “Wait, look at this! See this photo of me and my friend, (insert name of an individual of color)? See how not-racist that makes me?” Instead of turning this unfortunate situation into an opportunity to discuss the ways in which minorities continue to face institutional oppression (for example in regards to Greek life on school campuses), we instead return attention back to the very perpetrators of the heinous situation that started the whole fiasco. For the rest of us who don’t receive this kind of public attention for our remarks, the behavior is not all that dissimilar. “Why does everything have to be about race?” we say, always in defense of something. We’re scared. We don’t want to think of ourselves as bad people, and what kind of person is worse than a racist? We don’t want to believe that, in our own small way, we might be contributing to a larger system of oppression that has not been eradicated. As I have said, we have gotten really good at noticing a certain brand of racism and then teaching others that as long as we don’t say anything related to race, we can’t possibly be racist. The consequence of that is counterproductive. Dialogue needs to be happening, much more than it is, both on campus and in our larger society. And to do this, I think we need to reevaluate the permanence of being marked a racist.
By permanence, I mean this: When someone, probably unintentionally, says something racially problematic, we tend to see their whole being as problematic. They are racist instead of they said something racist. Jay Smooth, the host of a popular New York hip-hop radio show, gave a TEDx Hampshire College talk about just this: the awkward conversations we have when we dare to point out someone else’s ignorant remarks. In the talk, Smooth said, “I think we should consider … how we might take a suggestion that we may have said or done something racist and take it in stride and not completely freak out and assume that the world thinks that I’m a bad person.” His remedy for how we take criticism was a simple analogy, one that better captures the mentality we should have regarding racist comments: “When you go through your dayto-day lives, there are all of these mass media and social stimuli as well as processes that we all have inside our brains that we’re not aware of that cause us to build up little pockets of prejudice every day, just like plaque develops on our teeth.” It’s a funny but apt analogy, because it means “racism” is something that needs to be “cleaned” on a daily, regular basis. It’s something that needs to be dealt with in a very direct and attentive way. “I have something stuck in my teeth?” Smooth goes on to elaborate. “But I’m a clean person!” He shows us how ridiculous it sounds to take dental hygiene personally the way we might take critiques of our comments personally. We’re “socially hygienic” not because that’s who we are, but because that’s what we actively practice. Of course, I should add that by choosing not to “maintain” our social awareness regarding race, we let our biases and prejudices take a more permanent, damaging turn. If left unchecked, they can fester and rot until we’re left with something irreversible. Another final point I want to make is that being more socially conscious of race is an important step we should take as a school and society, but it’s not the final, all-problemssolved step, not when institutional racism continues to hinder people of color regardless of how well meaning the vast majority of us may be. However, our improved “hygiene” can allow us to be more open and willing to listen to others’ experiences and critiques, thereby opening up the opportunity to shift our institutional practices on a large scale.
We’re “socially hygienic” not because that’s who we are, but because that’s what we actively practice.
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Defining sustainability
T
he surprising thing about words is that they can be completely ineffective. Coming from a person who clearly adores words — at least enough to have her own column — this is a strange declaration. But it’s exactly because I think about words more than the ELIANA average person HERMAN that I have had this epiphany. (Pretty sure I’m a word nerd; I’m even happier because that rhymed, if that gives any insight into my thinking). From taking a variety of history, literature and even philosophy classes (yes, I’m that kind of student, no regrets), I’ve learned that most issues in society arise because people cannot create a universal definition for a majority of words. In other words, everyone has their own interpretation, or definition, of a word, and they’re unlikely to shift their views. When it comes to personal definitions and morals, we’re a deeply stubborn species. And these personal definitions create deep divides over some of today’s most pressing issues. Take “sustainability,” for instance. To me, “sustainability” and “living sustainably” mean living in lasting harmony with the environment. We only get one beautiful planet to live on, so we should exist with it in a way that preserves its complex, interconnected systems. I think I first developed this way of thinking when I was a little girl and my parents were teaching me how to swim. They always told me to respect the water. At the time, I didn’t really understand it. Honestly, I thought they just meant ‘don’t slap the water,’ because that was
how I respected my little sister. But I think this mantra that reverberated through my childhood stayed with me. I have grown up with a personified view of the environment which I believe is deserving of the same level of respect as my teachers and grandparents. But everyone has their own family and background that shapes the way they understand words, especially hot-button words such as “sustainability.” I’m sure more conservative people associate words like “sustainability” and phrases like “environmentally friendly” as loopy, hippie terms that just cut down strong businesses and inflate the government. And those conservative extremists aren’t completely wrong — supporting sustainable living would mean keeping corporations like ExxonMobil and others with no regard for the environment in check. However, that doesn’t mean environmentalists are just drugged-out, lazy hippies hugging trees and aren’t actually doing anything to make a difference. On the flip side, conservatives are not all religion-crazed, big-business lovers who want to destroy the environment. These negative stereotypes and generalizations get in the way of actual progress and are deeply unsustainable. It’s all right to have your own understanding of a word, but the only way to move forward on any issue is to try and understand the opposition’s definition of that word and what shaped their understanding. So, I know this is a bit of a paradox, but while words can be
extremely polarizing, people talking through these words can break down the generalizations. To have a sustainable life, we also need to have sustainable, healthy relationships with others, regardless of our divergent ideologies. That goes beyond sustainability and into many of the world’s current issues. If we’re able to see our “opposition” as people just like us, we could actually start creating durable solutions. One of the benefits of sustainability is that there are so many different ways to move toward living a sustainable life that people from all different religions and political ideologies can take part without compromising their morals. Go vegetarian, or just cut down on meat. Michigan Dining has implemented “Meatless Mondays,” because just one vegetarian day per week can make a difference. Live a zero-waste lifestyle or start recycling. Or next time the cashier asks if you want a bag, say no thank you. How many plastic Walgreens bags does one person need anyway? Replace your plastic water bottle with a metal or glass one (yes, I’m still not over this). Repair clothes instead of automatically buying new ones. Buy locally grown foods. Those are just a few examples of how to move to a more sustainable life. When I learn more, I’ll share them. Hopefully I can help expand your definition of sustainability. I’m sure you can help with mine.
Hopefully I can help expand your definition of sustainability.
— Eliana Herman can be reached at erherman@umich.edu..
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe GABRIELLA MEYER
E-mail Gabriella at gabsmey@umich.edu
— Jenny Wang can be reached at wjenny@umich.edu.
RIHAN ISSA | VIEWPOINT
What can we do to TAKE ON HATE? Arabs who? Muslims who? They are born and raised here? Can they even call themselves Americans? You may have asked questions like this and been surprised to learn about Arab and Muslim American communities across the nation. Although Muslim and Arab are often used synonymously, the terms are distinct. The first identity is religious and the second is ethnic. The media — what is supposed to be our most trusted source of information — regularly portrays these communities as one and the same. However, the truth is far from that. American Muslims are racially and ethnically diverse and can be Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Arab and any other race represented on this planet. Also, Arab Americans are religiously diverse, and a great number are Christians. On top of not understanding who Arab and Muslim Americans are, the normalized hate and discrimination against these communities has reached new heights, becoming consistently more aggressive and blatant. Three Muslim American college students were shot dead in Chapel Hill, N.C.; a Muslim family was physically assaulted while grocery shopping in Dearborn; and a mosque in Houston was the target of arson — to list just a few instances of hate and violence in recent weeks. We, as the University community, must actively engage in constructive conversations that will produce tangible results and
challenge the hostility toward Arab and Muslim Americans. The campaign to TAKE ON HATE is a national movement that strives to address our country’s growing misconceptions and discrimination toward Arab and Muslim American communities. The campaign focuses its efforts on building the capacity of these communities, correcting cultural misconceptions through public education and working with policy makers to promote change. TAKE ON HATE is holding a community conversation right here on the University’s campus. The aim of the conversation is to build greater understanding of and discover solutions for the current situation these communities face. Together, we can create solutions to challenge the status quo within our communities and build bridges across diverse communities. The conversation will include a breakout session in which participants can brainstorm among small groups of their peers, before sharing with the larger group. Your input will be crucial in influencing TAKE ON HATE’s national initiatives. This is your chance to connect, learn and share on the measures we, as a connected society, can take to end the hate. Join us from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 2 at the Michigan League in the Michigan Room. See you all there! Rihan Issa is a graduate student in the School of Social Work.
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KIRK ACHARYA | VIEWPOINT
Include the female voice Women’s participation in world politics has come a long way since the post-war, civil and human rights movements in the 1960s. Speaking candidly, anyone with the literacy and desire to read a newspaper can blatantly see that statement is false. The nature of today’s conflict has created a world in which trained soldiers on battlefields no longer make up the most casualties — it’s women and children dying on the streets. Beyond the fatality of armed conflict, in her paper, “The Role of Women in Mediation and Conflict Resolution,” author Roohia S. Klein describes how “rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of sexual violence are used as weapons of war in international conflicts.” In 2000, the United Nations passed Resolution 1325, which aims to better incorporate the perspectives of women in seeking resolution and prevention of conflict to combat sexual violence. The language of this document suggests that its text is more of a legal recommendation rather than an urgent call for women’s justice. Resolution 1325 “urges Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions.” What does this piece of paper actually
accomplish in its practice, though? Women’s rights activist Jody Williams is looking to address the effectiveness of the resolution on world conflict. During a guest lecture given at the University, she discussed the reality of 1325’s implementation in the UN. Though the document is a good step, women are not represented nearly as equally with respect to men in peace committees and conventions. The argument goes beyond political representation to include women in the military body of UN peacekeepers. If armed peacekeeping operations had a proportionate population of females, there would be more emphasis placed on the treatment and importance of sexual violence in conflict zones. Along with Jody Williams’ critique of 1325, Klein gives accurate downfalls of the resolution in the section of her paper, “SCR 1325 Ten Years On.” She directs attention to the lack of structural changes within UN bodies to accommodate for female representatives. The author also points out the absence of time constraints or quotas and incentives to implement 1325. These together add up to a failure to measure any real-world effects the resolution has truly found. The UN was founded on the ideas of common peace and human
rights across all member states, but its actions to achieve those ideas are slightly ironic. It’s a loss of the integrity within a system that is promising so much to populations that have already been stripped of human rights. While the fact of representation is much debated, women make up half of the world and there are plenty of them significantly more capable than many male officials elected or hired to serve the UN in finding peaceful and lasting resolution to conflict. Nick Bryant of the BBC defends the efforts of 1325 with the Security Council; female representatives occupy a third of the seats. In addition, the UN boasts 31 permanent female representatives. Even Bryant can’t argue with statistics showing the shortcomings of 1325, though, as “84 percent of the ambassadors at the UN are men. There may be more women at the table, but they are still heavily outnumbered.” The United Nations has made positive strides with their resolve to include women in policy making. However, it’s not enough to bridge the gender participation gap in the UN’s infrastructure — thereby falling short of including the female voice in world conflicts. Kirk Acharya is an LSA junior.
Arts
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STYLE COLUMN
INTO THE WOODS From Page 1 – as they chase after their wishes until, eventually, the wishes are granted, we break for intermission and return to find our heroes facing what happens after “happily ever after.” “I really believe this is a fantastic show with a fantastic book, beautiful music, glorious lyrics that I really think are some of the best lyrics in musical theater,” Quinn said. “I truly am of the belief that ‘Moments in the Woods’ is one of the best songs ever written for musical theater, one of the most specific and intense songs.” Director (and choreographer) Quinn explained that, long before the curtain opens tonight, he and his cast tackled these songs and stories like they would any other musical, essentially blinding themselves from previous performances for the sake of original interpretations and clean character development. “The way we’ve kind of approached this is not that there’s a specific concept that we’re going with, or a certain style or a certain time period, but simply that I have gotten the script as if it’s a new musical,” Quinn said. “I basically have, from the beginning, encouraged the actors, ‘Don’t watch the movie, don’t watch the musical, don’t watch that PBS documentary on it ... Instead, find out what’s actually in the text.” From there, the cast of 23 – chosen from an audition pool of about 300 – developed their characters through table reads, experimentation and exercises. One exercise, in particular, focused on breaking free from restrictive blocking and exploring new corners of their characters’ psyches. “We took all the props and put them in the center of the room, and we said, ‘OK, now today, we’re gonna do the show, but I want you to throw away all the blocking you’ve known,” Quinn said. “And I just want you to do the story in the round now, and it will force you out of blocking, it will force you out of choreography, and it will force you to just tell the actual story that’s being told.’” The result, according to Quinn, has been an unpredictable, vibrant rehearsal process and unexpected works of striking originality. Over time, through six-a-week rehearsals, this originality was fostered by the cast’s chemistry with one another – both off and on the stage. “It’s been really also fun to watch people like Sam (Yabrow), who’s playing Jack, work with the actor who’s playing Milky White because they literally had never met on the first day, and now when you look at them on stage, I mean, I at least see them as best friends from childhood,” Quinn said. “And whether or not Paul (Mayer) and Sam actually feel that way about each other, the relationship that they’ve
Let’s get it trending
W
COURTESY OF MUSKET
This picture was taken moments before Ellen danced through the aisles.
created is really just beautiful.” And yet, it’s not just the actors’ chemistry, comedy and approach that define MUSKET’s 2015 winter show. Like the musical he directs, Quinn is striving to subvert the old stories, to dig deep into the solid, impenetrable stone of Sondheim and find something new, something to hold in front the audience and say, “Look at this! Have you ever seen anything like this?!” Quinn’s process began with the Narrator. “The one big realization I had, and what I guess you could say my concept or my key for this show – I like to call it the ‘Key to the Show’ – has been the Narrator (played by Mackenzie Orr),” Quinn said. “Every single thing that happens in this show is because of the Narrator ... Everything that the characters are saying is coming as well from the Narrator, which then implied to me that everything that is happening on this stage is coming from the Narrator’s psyche.”
“It’s so simple, and yet, like nothing you’ve ever seen.” “Well, how’d you incorporate that realization into the show?” I asked (like a good journalist). Quinn opened his mouth, but hesitated. A sound, the beginnings of an answer, escaped from the back of his throat before he stopped himself and said he’d rather not divulge anything, that this show has a few “secrets” that are too good to give away just yet. Yet. “The Narrator functions in a much more present, powerful and in-your-face way than the traditional Narrator of ‘Into the Woods’ would,” Quinn said. Post-interview and off-therecord, Quinn divulged those secrets. I had shivers – the kind that start at the base of your spine and work their way into your brain like an electric cur-
rent. It’s so simple, I thought. So brilliantly simple. And yet, like nothing you’ve ever seen. As I packed up, Quinn told me how he sat in his room last semester, with tears in his eyes, asking himself again and again, “What the hell am I gonna do with the Narrator?” until, finally, it hit him. He picked up the phone, called his producer Ryan and said, “Hey this may never work, but I wanna throw this at you.” Since last May, Quinn has been working on this show, shaping a production that would eventually involve over 200 students, from creative teams to cast to crew to orchestra to assistants to the marketing team and so on, all with a single, unshakeable, unwavering drive to reshape what has been sculpted over countless times. “A million actors have played the Witch, a million actors have played the Baker’s Wife, a million actors have played Jack – but no one has done it like these actors. No one has given these interpretations,” Quinn said. From proposal to late night phone calls to production meetings to tech week, Quinn, his crew, his entire cast, have dedicated themselves to telling a story worth telling and offering something more, something real and significant. Where the craziness isn’t just craziness anymore. “I would call Ryan (the producer) almost every week being like, ‘I have this new crazy idea!’ and then the crazy ideas became a little less crazy in January when we had auditions and then they became a little less crazy when I was going through design concept meetings and they became a little less crazy as I was rehearsing it with the cast and now those ideas aren’t crazy anymore. Those ideas are reality and those are ideas that are physically built and manufactured and created.” At the Power Center, this weekend, for only three performances, audiences can see something crazy. A twist. A subversion. A real change. Like “Into the Woods,” MUSKET has taken an old story, unraveled its fabric and sewn something new, something that’s never been seen before, at least not outside of a director’s imagination. Until now.
STYLE NOTEBOOK
Men’s calves and legs are not to be seen By ANDREW MCCLURE Daily Arts Writer
Dudes, out with the shorts. I wish I could spin this as my own, but I hold too much respect for Fran Lebowitz, the sardonic author and commenter who, as her 1993 Paris Review interview put it, “disapproves of virtually everything.” This week ELLE interviewed her and, per usual, she said something inspired and funny and realized: Men in shorts are disgusting. It gets better when she says she’d rather “see someone coming toward me with a hand grenade” than sit next to shorted men “on the subway in the summer.” Even though Lebowitz is cooler than I ever was when I peaked socially back in the late 90’s, and her voice has a lower register, and her opinions are sharper and leaner than things that are at once sharp and lean, I agree with every boner in my body: Shorts are vile.
Friday, March 27, 2015 — 5
First, the anatomical. Calves are, in the main, gross to look at. It’s the one body part that is never just right by any measurable function. Faces have the “golden ratio” and penises have rulers. Calves are invariably too skinny or too fat or too unshapely or too shapely. Even when they are close to “nice,” you can thank some bulging purple vein or a moon-sized mole to fuck it all up. Rats! Try again! To be sure, calves are nasty and unflattering and exposing yours makes you look like a GSI who doesn’t know what year it is. Second, the, er, anatomical, again. Legs are, in the main, on dudes, gross to look at. This bit for the the homies who thought they could justify shorts by skipping my first point since they like their thighs and wear fourinch inseams. The only thing more exposed leg flesh does to you is expose more of your veins and moles. So unless “veins and moles” falls under your mating
market’s searched-for buzzwords, light your shorts on fire or give them to someone who hasn’t had braces yet. He’ll rock ‘em better than you and wear a PullUp underneath. Spring is here and that means snapbacks, sun, Sperry’s and style bloggers saying, “Spring is here and that means…” ad nauseam. I understand the utility of a tee when it’s hot AF outside, I really do. Nobody has ever proven to me that moist weather demands veins and moles and calves. Throw on some slacks and roll those cuffs like they do in Esquire. There’s a reason that publication remains important: good writing, captivating interviews, sound advice and no calves. Because syntax was never my thing, here are other articles to avoid this season: socks that people can see, flip-flops, tanks, frayed belts, unironic graphic tees and serial commas.
hether we admit to it or not, one day we will look back on 2015, with its lobs, smokey eyes and high-waisted everything, and think, “Dear god, why?” This type of shameridden regret has already permeated through ERIKA most of us HARWOOD in one form or another. When I think back to my childhood, flared, patched denim and all, I wonder why I ever thought anything I wore was cool. Then I remind myself that I was in fact, a child, and that’s reason enough to justify my sartorial missteps. What surprises me the most is that I can also think back to much more recent years, to trends that still hold some level of relevance, and roll my eyes and think “that looks so dated.” (see: long, wavy hair with a center part à la 2012 Kim Kardashian.) People are already discussing the looming exit of the skinny jean, an idea that I want to reject now, but will probably succumb to within months. Lest I forget how I scoffed at the idea of skinny jeans years ago, thinking that pants which served no other purpose than to cut off your circulation altogether
would never catch on. I was obviously a little off-base — she types, unable to feel her legs at all. This all begs the question*, why bother with trends if we’re only going to look back on them in horror/embarrassment? For one, we could start by not looking back on them in horror/ embarrassment. Would I wear a bubble shirt, the itchy, one-sizefits-all top that reached its peak around the same time “Lizzie McGuire” did, in 2015? No, because I’m not an insane person. But I do hold a lot of respect for eight-year-old Erika, who pestered her way into one after months of eyeing it in a Limited Too catalogue. It itched so good — until nine-year-old Erika subconsciously dubbed it passé. All of us have fallen prey to trends. Whenever I stumble upon pictures from the ’90s of my style-ignorant father I consistently find myself thinking, “It takes one bold color to somehow combine the subtlety of a pastel and the abrasiveness of neon.” There’s no way he cared about clothes enough to think that he was making some original or progressive statement with what he was wearing. I can almost guarantee that he saw it on a rack with dozens of others and thought, “I need a shirt and this seems normal enough.” And by the standards then, it probably was. We look back, and we laugh, and we ask ourselves how we
possibly could have worn that, but that’s what life is, adjusting to change like some sort of vestiary Stockholm syndrome. It only took a few months of being surrounded by skinny jeans for me to throw up my hands and say, “I guess this is what’s covering my butt for the next 10 years.” Whether we find ourselves to be fashion visionaries or claim to be a person who only buys clothes when they absolutely need to, none of us can escape the feeling of trend regret, but that’s exactly why we should embrace our current options. If you want to model your wardrobe after fall 2015 Givenchy, facial piercings and all, now’s the time. Or if you’d rather dig through piles of vintage to discover your ideal baby-doll dress, have at it. Trends are a fleeting pipeline to genuinely enjoying fashion and being able to discover and experiment with style. There will always be the potential of minute embarrassment years down the road — but if you’re going to regret something, it might as well have been inspired by Riccardo Tisci. *I’ve recently been informed that this is the wrong use of “begs the question” but I’m 22 years old, and frankly, it’s too late to be telling me these things. Harwood is taking fashion cues from Lizzie McGuire. To show your support, email erikacat@umich.edu.
BOOK REVIEW
‘Satin Island’ follows postmodern lit By KARL WILLIAMS Daily Arts Writer
In a notorious essay on Joseph O’Neill and Tom McCarthy for the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith outlines two Satin divergent roads for the Island novel: lyrical realism and Tom McCarthy the avantAlfred A. Knopf garde. Most fiction falls February 17, 2015 under the category of lyrical realism; it is the legacy of Gustave Flaubert, a mimetic attempt to represent life with a focus on detail and the consciousness of characters. The avant-garde pushes against lyrical realism and, instead, tries to find new forms and modalities for writing fiction. Smith eulogizes the coming death of lyrical realism, in the mode of which O’Neill’s novel “Netherland” is written, and prophesies the renaissance of a new avant-garde written in the mode of McCarthy’s first novel “Remainder,” a novel that offers “a glimpse of an alternate road down which the novel might, with difficulty, travel forward.” Since the publication of Smith’s essay, McCarthy, for better or worse, has been seen as a torchbearer for the avantgarde, blazing the way for a new form of novelistic expression after the apparent death of postmodernism. McCarthy’s newest novel, “Satin Island,” bears testament to his ability and place as a writer of the avant-garde. If you’re looking for a page-turner, go somewhere else. For McCarthy’s narrator sums it up: “Events! If you want those, you’d best stop reading now.” The narrator of McCarthy’s novel is U, an anthropologist turned corporate ethnographer who idolizes Claude LeviStrauss and who has been assigned to write “The Great Report” at an enigmatic corporation known as the “Company.” At the beginning of the novel, he announces himself, “Call me U.” ironically evoking the opening of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” “Call me Ishmael” Whereas, when Ishmael says this, it is an act of self-assertion,
U uses this utterance as an act of self elision; U is a deliberate pun on “you” along with the prefix u- (as in Utopia), and he is, therefore, both everyman and no man. McCarthy’s narrator is an impressively passive figure, one of those corporate men whose sobriety and vacancy allows him to fit seamlessly into the miasma of corporate life. The prose McCarthy deploys evinces U’s inauthenticity: It is often blank, cold and expressionless, written more like a memo than a novel. However, the expressive power of McCarthy’s prose comes from its ironic formalization of corporate jargon. But inauthenticity is U’s greatest characteristic. He is no Huck Finn or Augie March. U’s interest in the murder of an English parachuter and similar incidents across the world leads him to remark that it is “an originally unoriginal event becoming even more unoriginal, and hence even more fascinating.” Within this paradox lies the brilliance of U’s character. He is compelling for how boring he is. He is like every man in fiction: He has memories, impressions, reflections. He walks. He thinks. He has sex. But McCarthy, in a beautifully Beckettian move, removes the veneer of individuation from these characteristics, creating a character remarkable for the absence of personality. The Great Report sounds a lot like the epic modernist project most notable in the work of Joyce, Pound and Eliot: an attempt to capture all of culture within a single text. However, U comes to two conclusions: that this report is either unwritable or it has already been written. He fears that the Great Report has been written, not by a single author or even some Pynchonian syndicate, but “by a neutral and indifferent binary system that had given rise to itself, moved by itself and would perpetuate itself.” This is postdigital fear of being subsumed into a totality wherein he lacks the control to act or interpret that motivates him to re-conceptualize both the Koob-Sassen Project and the company and to begin a search for a new kind of meaning. At the Company, U works on the Koob-Sassen Project, the
nature of which he is not legally allowed to disclose. However, he does not seem to know what this project constitutes or even his own role in it. All he does know is that there isn’t “a single area of your daily life that it hasn’t, in some way or another, touched on, penetrated, changed.”
Rare avantgarde that doesn’t fall into incoherence. In this project McCarthy captures the ubiquitous and invisible effect of corporations: they are so prominent as to be unnoticeable. Furthermore, in a comic passage, he elucidates the ability of corporate capitalism to take the critiques raised against it and absorb them for its own purposes. Think of Che Guevara T-shirts or the Rolling Stones songs played on car commercials. Working for Levi’s, U takes the concepts fold and rip from the French Leftist philosophers Deleuze and Badiou and, taking out “all the revolutionary shit,” reframes them to sell jeans. As U notes, “The machine could swallow anything.” The title of the novel comes from a dream U has. Satin Island (Staten Island without the first “t”) appears to him in a rather baroque dream of the detritus of civilization; it is “an excrescence, a protuberance, a lump: an island.” He imagines it as “the other place, the feeder, filterer, overflow-manager, the dirty, secreted-away appendix without which the other bodyproper couldn’t function.” The byproduct of civilization, its effluvia, is what signifies it; it is the very sign that gives it meaning. “Satin Island” is a strange and exciting book. McCarthy’s novel is one of the rare avantgarde novels that doesn’t fall into the trap of incoherence. A new path for the novel is certainly not yet visible, but the more McCarthy continues to write, the more illuminated this road will become.
Arts
6 — Friday, March 27, 2015
EVENT PREVIEW
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
‘Monologues’ to A ‘Big Happy’ mess tell women tales By SOPHIA KAUFMAN Daily Arts Writer
Play returns to the ‘U’ with diverse cast and female empowerment By GRACE HAMILTON Daily Arts Writer
For students touring the University, their starting point is often the Michigan Union on State Street. For the past month, The Vagina an enormous banner has wel- Monocomed these logues students with “The Vagina March 26th at Rackham Monologues” stretched con- Auditorium, fidently across March 27th the arch of the at Trotter entrance, deco- Multicultural rated with pink Center and purple. The bold placement 7:30 p.m. of the sign, Tickets at Mason unable to be missed by pass- Hall: $5 presale, ersby, echoes $10 at the door the confidence of the play it promotes. There’s no beating around the bush here. This Thursday and Friday, March 26 and 27, Eve Ensler’s triumphant play of female empowerment will be performed at Rackham Auditorium and the Trotter Multicultural Center. This is the 5th annual showing
of “The Vagina Monologues,” sponsored by Students for Choice, a student organization which advocates for pro-choice legislation. The cast of 15 is a diverse group of women ranging in age, race and acting experience. With recent criticism of the play for being non-inclusive of certain identities, “our mission has been to prove to people that it’s still relevant and that we are being as inclusive as we possibly can; there is a place for everyone to be in and enjoy this play,” said year’s director Kayla Smith, an LSA sophomore. Both Smith and producer Rhani Franklin, an LSA sophomore, are new to theater at the University, and first time directors and producers. This fact seems only to have added to the strength of their vision and connection to the play. “Art and performance can be a really powerful way to communicate a message and enact social change,” Smith said of the play. “‘The Vagina Monologues’ will make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, but it will also make you think about real issues.” The breadth of issues that the play is able to address makes it a powerful catalyst for conversation and thought. “It’s fun and different and shocking,” Franklin said. “There’s so much I wouldn’t have thought to talk to people about until seeing this play.” Beyond just being a conversation starter, the play is
a call for action. “It also encourages activism for ending violence against women and gender violence to college campuses,” said Kylee Smith, an actor in the play, said. Kylee, a master’s student in the School of Social Work, will be performing in the play for the fifth time this year. “The most important message is that violence against women needs to be stopped,” she said. While responses to the play, both at the University and across the nation, have ranged from disgust to kneeling praise, “The Vagina Monologues” is intended to relate to all people — men included. “I think a lot of times when people try to explain to men why feminism should matter to them, they say things like, ‘Well, how would you feel if someone did this to your mother or daughter or sister?’ ” Smith said. “I find issue with that because men shouldn’t have to feel sympathy or that they are involved and invested in feminism because of someone close to them, they should feel this way because women are humans, women are half the population.” College is a time for people to enter into conversations they’ve never had before, listen to voices they’ve never heard and explore issues that are shushed in other settings. “The Vagina Monologues” presents these challenges and profound privileges, all in one. It is guaranteed to open some eyes.
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Friday, March 27, 2015
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Executive producer Ellen DeGeneres and her fellow creators of “One Big Happy” have clearly realized that non-traditional Cfamilies on TV shows are One Big proof of being socially con- Happy scious. Unfor- Series tunately for their audience, Premiere they seem NBC determined to prove how Tuesdays at with the times 9:30 p.m. they are in the most grating and gratuitous ways possible. Even the title lends itself too easily to criticism — the show is nothing more than One Big Flop. The pilot opens with Lizzy (Elisha Cuthbert, “The Girl Next Door”) buying prenatal vitamins in a drugstore, accompanied by her straight best friend and roommate Luke (Nick Zano, “What I Like About You”). The two are planning on raising a child together and are disappointed when they find out that their latest try to get pregnant failed. Later, Luke meets a flirty and fun Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Prudence (Kelly Brook, “Piranha 3D”), who encourages him to hop over the bar, fix himself a drink like she has done and live life to the fullest. She likes science fiction and walking around the apartment naked for no reason. Predictably, Luke has never met a woman like her before and is devastated when he finds out the beautiful Brit is about to be deported. Lizzy can’t wait to see Prudence go — after several quips
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NBC
This picture was taken moments before Ellen danced through the aisles.
about Lizzy not being a “very good lesbian” because she prefers not to hug Prudence in the nude, it is abundantly clear the two don’t get along. Then, Luke and Prudence get married, Lizzy tells them she’s pregnant and Luke is the father and Prudence decides that it is too much for her and runs to the airport. Lizzy has a change of heart, follows her there and gets down on one knee to “get the girl” for her straight best friend — and thus ends the episode in true sitcom fashion. “One Big Happy” is full of strained one-liners about lesbians, stereotypes about straight guys and more off-color boob jokes than the 2013 Oscars. Brook does the best she can with the inherently sexist, one-dimensional character she has been given, which incorporates a lot of hair flipping, forced smiles and gratuitous prancing around with pixelated body parts. Zano looks confused as to whether he should be emphasizing the dude-bro or ready-for-parenthood side of his personality, although it doesn’t really matter as the one is as unbelievable as the other. Cuthbert seems to be perpetually looking around for a live studio audience to appreciate her lines, but her hopeful gaze is met only
with the hollow emptiness of canned laughter. The few other characters in the show are there only to set up jokes so that these three can triumphantly deliver their punchlines. There are a few lines that suggest the writers are hesitantly trying to steer the show in a better direction, less focused on serious plot in favor of pointing out patterns in movies and shows that incorporate so many of the same banal plot drivers. For example, when Lizzy says slowly to Luke’s drunkenly slumped form on the couch, “Maybe you shouldn’t let her get on that plane,” and, when he doesn’t understand her, exclaims, “Oh my God, have you never seen any movie ever?” If the writers continue poking fun at themselves and give up pretending this is anything other than a low-budget sitcom, they might arrive at something worth watching. But the main takeaway from the show for people who know anything about the executive producer is a general feeling of disappointment. “One Big Happy” is the first sitcom to feature a lesbian lead since Ellen DeGeneres’s “Ellen,” and it’s missing, above all, her wit and her spark. Come on, Ellen. We know you can do better.
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Release dates don’t matter By RACHEL KERR Daily Arts Writer
Last week, Kendrick Lamar surprised us all by dropping his third studio album To Pimp A Butterf ly. This came only days after he announced its March 23 release date. And while it’s being called an error on his label’s part, it only further solidifies the fact that the release date is dead. In the age of the Internet, labels have struggled to adapt to the way people listen to music. The CD died its first death when Napster was born in 1999, and the birth of iTunes in 2003 finalized this transition into the digital music world. But Napster had changed something; people no longer believed they needed to pay for music. Though iTunes offered songs for only 99 cents, the Internet offered them for free. Doors had opened that could not be shut. Today we have streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube, which offer royalties to artists and require minimal payment from us. Still, album sales are down, so record labels try to combat the allure of the Internet. For instance, albums will inevitably leak. If your favorite artist has something out soon, you can probably hear it a couple days before somewhere in the crevices of the Internet. Artists know this and are adopting new promotional methods to prevent this, for example, by not using any promotional methods. It began with Beyoncé and her 2013 self-titled project; arguably the most influential artist of our generation ignored all album release precedent and dropped a full audio-visual album without any prior promotion. The move was monumental. I mean, everyone remembers where they were the first time they heard “Drunk in Love.” This wasn’t the only time an artist had dis-
regarded release conventions: Frank Ocean dropped CHANNEL Orange on iTunes a week early, Radiohead barely gave us any notice before King of Limbs, Death Grips uploaded Government Plates to the Internet with no warning. But something changed on that fateful December night when Beyoncé debuted. Since then, fellow artists, too, have abandoned the traditional album rollout. Most recently, Drake dropped If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late without any announcement, the title itself a potential comment on the surprise release. And who can forget the whole U2 Songs of Innocence debacle, where everyone with an Apple account got the album uploaded to their iTunes for free, whether they wanted it or not? D’Angelo, Skrillex and Kid Cudi also made little to no announcement before releasing their 2014 projects, and both Kanye West and Rihanna have said that their 2015 albums will drop whenever they want them to, without an official date. And while there’s an obvious difference between surprise release dates and surprise albums – one involves promotion and the other doesn’t – both disregard the calendar. But this strategy seems to work in an era where people want easy access to everything, where people want everything right now. Take Beyoncé, for instance. It sold over 800,000 copies in the first three days, despite no promotional announcements. What’s the point of putting a specific date on the release when the album will sell just as many copies, if not more, without it? So, I’m glad Kendrick dropped his album early. After a year of artists forsaking traditional promotional strategies, I almost thought it was a little lame that he was even giving us a release date.
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Friday, March 27, 2015 — 7
Baseball Preview Mirroring the decade of dominance A
round the time that Barry Larkin was playing for the Michigan baseball team in the 1980s, the team was wildly successful. In that 10-year span, the Wolverines went to nine NCAA regionals, won seven Big Ten titles and earned four trips to the College World Series, comprising what many consider to be a decade of dominance unlike many others in the sport’s history. There were AllAmericans, Big Ten Players of the Year, first-round MLB draft picks and future Hall of Fame players throughout the roster. They came together to propel the program into the national spotlight. And a similar stretch could be on the horizon. But to get there, Michigan coach Erik Bakich will need to recapture the intangible elements that allowed those teams to be great. When asked why he decided to come to Michigan, Larkin said more than anything it came down to the core values stressed in Ann Arbor that made him feel at home. “Some of the things that were really stressed in my BEN FIDELMAN household were extended when I came up here,” he said. “There’s something about the values and what’s important to the people. The other thing was just the people surrounding the program, the people around the University of Michigan.” During his recent
induction to the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, Larkin shared more of his experiences on being recruited to Ann Arbor. As Larkin grew to be a standout football player in Cincinnati, he caught the eye of legendary football coach Bo Schembechler, who gave him a spot on the football team at Michigan. When an unexpected player returned for his fifth year on the team at Larkin’s position, Schembecher allowed the freshman to take a redshirt year and play baseball during spring season instead of working with the football team. “By the end of that season I decided I just wanted to play baseball,” Larkin said. “I had to go tell Bo that … and the meeting didn’t go too well. He reminded me, ‘Larkin, this is the University of Michigan. Nobody comes to the University of Michigan to play baseball.’ ” Schembechler told Larkin to go home and come back the next day when he had come to his senses, but nothing would change in his mind. “I thought that was the end of it,” Larkin said. “But we were out there taking ground balls in spring baseball practice and this guy in a parka comes walking inside the stadium and stops on the third-base line. He says, ‘Larkin, you sissy! Come hit a man that can hit you back instead of that baseball.’ It was Coach Schembechler.” Telling one of the most storied coaches in the history of college football something he didn’t want to hear was one of the best moves Larkin made in his life. In his college career, Larkin went on to be a two-time All American, two-time Big Ten Player of the Year and lead the team to the College World Series in backto-back seasons.
By recruiting the best talent the Midwest has to offer, along with using ties from his time in California and the East Coast, Bakich is putting the fruits of his first true recruiting class to work right away. And the results will prove impressive. The tangible rankings are nice to look at. This year’s recruiting class came in at No. 20 in the nation, and for the first time in a few years the Wolverine coaching staff has enough veteran firepower to shelter some of the young players from jumping into game action too quickly. For the handful of freshman players who are getting playing time, the results are largely positive. The standouts from this 2015 class have been second baseman Jake Bivens, who is hitting .304 and has started in 21 games this season, along with right-hander Ryan Nutof, who has proven to be a reliable starting pitcher for the Wolverines through six appearances in his young career. Another is right-hander Bryan Pall, who has a minuscule 0.63 earnedrun average through 14.1 innings of relief. Others could emerge in due time this season. While those rankings can sometimes predict on-field success, they can’t often measure the field of character. From a Michigan coach’s perspective, you look for a combination of talent on the field, in the classroom and as a leader in the players you’re recruiting. The types of players Bakich seems to be looking for have to be strong in all three phases of that evaluation to have a spot in the program. Bakich has a ways to go with the current team in both on- and offfield areas, but make no mistake about it: When firing on all cylinders, it has no ceiling. Some year in the near future, people around the program will know it’s “the year.” The right blend of baseball talent and passion for Michigan will come together and propel this program back to that decade of dominance it experienced in the 1980s. This year might not be the one where it all comes together for the Wolverines, but following Bakich’s vision, “the year” won’t be far off.
Big Ten preview: Wins are there for the taking By ISAIAH ZEAVIN-MOSS Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan baseball team, after a season of playing .500 baseball and a quick postseason elimination, sets out on this year’s conference play with a firm belief that it can bring home success, pride and, perhaps, hardware. Fortunately for the Wolverines, the Big Ten does not boast unusually formidable talent. If this season is to truly represent a turning point, Michigan will have to hold its own inside the conference. Here is a preview of the Big Ten’s best in 2015. No. 11 Maryland (3-0 Big Ten, 17-5 overall) The Terrapins, who are playing their inaugural season in the Big Ten after making the switch from the ACC, represent this year’s toughest competition. Maryland’s offense ranks first in batting average, on-base percentage, runs scored and home runs. Before its loss to James Madison on Tuesday, Maryland strung together a 10-game win streak in which it scored 9.9 runs per game. Though Maryland’s pitching staff ranks in the middle of the Big Ten in most team statistics, sophomore fireballer Mike Shawaryn leads the Big Ten in strikeouts and wins. Last season, Shawaryn was a Freshman All-American. Player to watch: Infielder Brandon Lowe Lowe is the leader of Maryland’s elite offense, hitting .402. Lowe also leads the Big Ten in hits, runs and slugging percentage. Last season, Lowe was named to the Freshman All-American Team and led the team in batting average as a freshman. No. 17 Illinois (17-5) One of the biggest surprise stories in this young season has been the success of the Fighting Illini. After a quick exit in the Big Ten Tournament last season, few expected to see the elite performance that Illinois has put on thus far. Nevertheless, the Fighting Illimi is second in the Big Ten in both home runs and total bases. Player to watch: Left-handed pitcher Kevin Duchene Duchene leads an Illinois pitching staff that leads the Big Ten in team earned-run average (2.08) and opposing batting average (.201). Duchene has allowed just two runs all season and is third in the Big Ten in opposing batting average (.167). No. 19 Indiana (1-1, 16-5) In 2014, the Hoosiers won the Big Ten Tournament and went on to make it to the NCAA Regionals. Two players from last year’s team, Dustin DeMuth and Joey DeNato, graduated and were drafted professionally. Indiana has found similar success this year. It has won 13 of its last 14, and the Hoosiers do it by crushing the baseball. Indiana is second in slugging percentage (.410) and third in home runs (14).
Player to watch: Right-handed pitcher Thomas Belcher Belcher leads a staff that ranks third in team ERA and opposing batting average. Belcher has allowed just 16 hits in 22.2 innings, and is the only starting pitcher in the Big Ten yet to walk a batter. Nebraska (3-0, 18-7) With last weekend’s sweep of Michigan, the Cornhuskers started this year’s conference play on a perfect note. Already this season, Nebraska has put together an 11-game win streak and, although they went on to lose, the Cornhuskers brought the tying run to the plate against No. 1 LSU. Sophomore designated hitter Ben Miller is third in the conference in hits (31) and RBI (23). Player to watch: Left-handed pitcher Kyle Kubat The seasoned Kubat has been lights-out this season, with a 1.60 ERA and four wins. He has been a workhorse for coach Darin Erstad this season, logging 39.1 innings, good for third in the Big Ten. Ohio State (2-1, 15-6) Coming into this season, the Buckeyes, similar to Michigan, had a vision of a team finally producing tangible results. “Last year, we had a young team and dealt with a lot of adversity,” said Ohio State coach Greg Beals, in the days before opening day. “We are confident we are a much tougher team this season.” So far, the young Buckeyes have shown promise. The pitching staff, almost entirely comprised of underclassmen, has posted a 2.58 team ERA, ranking fifth in the Big Ten. Player to watch: Left-handed pitcher Ryan Riga After a junior year that left many wanting more — his ERA ballooned to 4.33 by season’s end — Riga has used his seniority for extra motivation. Leading the team in almost all major categories, Riga’s 0.98 ERA is good for third in the Big Ten. Iowa (14-5) Though they have yet to play any ranked opponents, the Hawkeyes
have had success, despite playing just two games within the friendly confines of Iowa City. Despite the success, Iowa struggles to stand out on either side of the ball. The only statistic in which the Hawkeyes lead the Big Ten is hit batters. Ouch. Player to watch: Right-handed pitcher Calvin Matthews Matthews has been astounding this season. Having only let across one earned run in 26 innings, he leads the Big Ten in ERA (0.35). Rutgers (2-1, 6-14) After losing 13 of their first 16 games to start the season, things looked to be spiraling downward fast for the Scarlet Knights. But last weekend, Rutgers traveled to West Lafayette and took two of three from pesky Purdue is now riding a four-game win streak. Junior pitcher Howie Brey, who surrendered only one run in seven innings Saturday, is eighth in the Big Ten in strikeouts (29). Player to watch: Outfielder Tom Marcinczyk Marcinczyk is the third hitter in the Rutgers lineup, batting .356 with a .603 slugging percentage and 18 RBI. Michigan State (1-2, 10-11) Though they have not been able to find any consistency, the Spartans can at least hang their hat on being always on their toes — they lead the Big Ten in runners picked off (eight) and are fourth in fielding percentage (.974). Player to watch: Infielder Mark Weist Weist is the only Spartan hitting above .300, ranking 15th in the conference in batting average (.341). Purdue (1-2, 9-14) While Purdue may not win very many games this season, the Boilermakers will make you work to get them out. They are second in the Big Ten in walks (88), as well as batters hit by pitch (28). They are currently on a four-game losing streak, most recently in an 8-2 loss to Ball State. Player to watch: Left-handed pitcher/first baseman Kyle Wood Wood is not only the catalyst of Purdue’s offense — he is the only Boilermaker to be hitting above .300 (.370) — but he has also posted a 1.69 ERA in two relief appearances.
STAFF PICKS The Daily baseball writers do their best to predict what will happen in the world of Big Ten baseball this season. Michigan overall record Michigan Big Ten record Michigan MVP Michigan Offensive POY Michigan Freshman of the Year Big Ten regular season champion Big Ten Tournament champion
Big Ten MVP Big Ten surprise team Michigan’s season ends here
Nathaniel Clark 34-23 16-9 Jackson Glines Glines Jake Bivens Maryland Maryland Brandon Lowe, Maryland Iowa Big Ten Tournament
Ben Fidelman
Danny Vargovick
36-21 13-12 Evan Hill Glines Bryan Pall Maryland Indiana Glines Iowa NCAA Regionals
35-22 15-10 Glines Glines Ryan Nutof Maryland Maryland Lowe Ohio State Big Ten Tournament
Isaiah Zeavin-Moss 32-25 13-12 Glines Glines Bivens Maryland Maryland Lowe Iowa Big Ten Tournament
8 — Friday, March 27, 2015
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Cronenworth: Two skills, one player By NATHANIEL CLARK Daily Sports Writer
Jacob Cronenworth stars as both a first baseman and closer for the Michigan baseball team. But there was a time when that was far from a certainty. When Cronenworth first arrived in Ann Arbor in the fall of 2012, he was six feet tall and 150 pounds, a far cry from the prototypical baseball prospect. “We weren’t sure about (Cronenworth),” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich. “We weren’t sure if he was just a pitcher or just an infielder, so we let him do both.” But Bakich saw that Cronenworth played hockey at St. Clair High Schoo (Michigan) as well as for Team USA in the 2009 National Team Identification
Series. The rough physical nature of hockey requires players to be fearless, and Cronenworth fit the bill. “Normally where I’ve recruited before, when you found a kid who played high-school football, you found a type of toughness,” Bakich said. “In the Upper Midwest, that’s the hockey mindset. I like recruiting guys that play multiple sports.” Cronenworth’s toughness ensured that Bakich’s concerns faded quickly. In the offseason, he added an extra 20 pounds of muscle to his frame. The growth paid dividends right away. At the plate in 2013, he hit .320 with 41 RBI — good for 10th in the Big Ten. In the process, he reached base in 21 consecutive games and posted a 16-game hit streak. The strong play was enough to earn him a spot on the Big Ten All-Freshman Team and All-Big Ten second team honors. He was even named a Lousiville Slugger Freshman All-American. His fearlessness paid off on the mound, too. Cronenworth finished 2013 with 23.1 innings pitched, seven saves and a 1.93 ERA. He surrendered a scant five walks during the season. Yet while he is certainly pleased that he exceeded Bakich’s early expectations, Cronenworth insists that he does not take too much pride in that fact. Which may come from his family including two hockey players — one of whom was a U.S. Marine. “I like to stay humble about everything,” Cronenworth said. “(The coaching staff) has treated me very well, and I’ve put in the time to be in the position that I am. I thank them for that.” Friday, Cronenworth — the man who was once unsure that he would even have a position to play for the Wolverines — will make his first pitching start for Michigan against No. 20 Maryland. In the wake of last weekend’s humiliating three-game sweep at the hands of Nebraska, Bakich felt the team needed a spark, and that Cronenworth is just the man to deliver it. “I just told (Cronenworth) to close every inning,” Bakich said. “He’ll blow it out for as many innings as he can go.” Cronenworth is approaching the challenge just as he has every
other in his life: with the confidence and toughness he gained from hockey. *** It would be a misnomer, though, to say that Cronenworth came out of nowhere when he joined the Wolverines. His characteristic fearlessness propelled him to become a four-time varsity letterwinner as a two-way player for St. Clair. He also made the All-State first team twice, in 2011 and 2012. But it was Cronenworth’s junior season that sticks out from his high-school career. At the plate he hit .564 with 18 doubles and 46 RBI, and on the mound he posted a 10-0 record and a 1.82 ERA. In the Saints’ 4-1 victory in the Division 2 state championship game, Cronenworth pitched a complete-game three-hitter. “That whole season was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Cronenworth said. “Nearly everyone on that team was a junior or a senior, and we grew up playing little-league baseball together. We always stay in touch since most of us play college sports.” At Michigan, Cronenworth proved his freshman year was no fluke. Last year, he pitched 25.2 innings over 18 contests, notched 12 saves — a single-season record for a Michigan pitcher — and put up a 1.79 ERA in the process. “I just try to have a good routine every time I come to the park,” Cronenworth said. “I try to stay consistent.” As for his time at the plate, while his 2014 batting average was a somewhat disappointing .268, he made up for it by doing the little things. He started all 60 games, drew 41 walks, placed 11 sacrifice bunts, hit four triples and stole 19 bases. His hockey discipline came in handy. Cronenworth’s relatively low batting average from 2014 didn’t phase him, though. He just went right back to work with the same tenacity he has always had. As a result, this season so far has been even more successful for Cronenworth. He is currently batting .312 with six doubles — the same number he hit in all of 2014 — a home run and 18 runs batted in. “(Cronenworth’s) plate discipline and strike-zone knowledge are outstanding,” Bakich said. “He’s really turned into a complete player. It’s rare to come across a two-way player like Cronenworth, because it’s hard to do.” His fearless didn’t fade with time. It has only grown over the years. *** Cronenworth’s dual threat has gained him both recognition for his play and interest from big-league franchises. This year, he was named a Preseason First-Team All American by two different organizations. He also was named the sixth-best MLB draft prospect in the Big Ten by Perfect Game. In short,
people are taking notice of this fearless athlete. “You have to be very gifted to be a great two-way player,” Bakich said. “You can’t focus 100 percent on either hitting or pitching. Jacob is naturally gifted at both.” And Cronenworth has no shortage of gratitude for the opportunity to play two positions. “I love playing both positions,” Cronenworth said. “Kudos to the coaching staff for letting me do this. It could go either way in the future.” Still, he refuses to dwell too much on the future, preferring instead to simply focus on the Wolverines’ season. “Right now, I’m in my college season,” Cronenworth said. “We’re in the midst of starting Big Ten play which is very important for us. What happens in June will happen.” *** Through it all, Cronenworth has always been able to count on the support of his family. He credits his father, Charles E. Cronenworth, for inspiring him to play baseball and for helping to instill the tough, disciplined attitude that he carries to this day. “My dad had a heavy influence on my athletic career in general,” Cronenworth said. “I model a lot of what I do after what he did.” Cronenworth’s family is also responsible for his love of hockey. Both his father and grandfather, Charles L. Cronenworth, played hockey at Michigan Tech. The elder Cronenworth was even offered a tryout with the New York Rangers in 1944, but instead chose to enlist in the United States Marine Corps where he obtained the rank of First Lieutenant. Toughness runs in the family. “My biggest hockey influence was my grandpa,” Cronenworth said. “He taught me how to skate.” But of all of Cronenworth’s fans, none match the dedication of his grandmother, Lorraine. She has been to every one of his games. She isn’t afraid of weather, travel or anything else. She just wants to see Jacob play. In many ways, Lorraine’s fearlessness is just like Jacob’s. “She’ll be sitting right in the first row,” Cronenworth said. “Rain, snow, wind, sun shining, cold — she’s here every game. I really appreciate her coming out to support me.” The appreciation extends beyond just Cronenworth himself, though. “My grandma always brings cookies for the team,” Cronenworth said. “They love it. It’s awesome.” While Cronenwroth will fill in as Michigan’s starting pitcher Friday, he’ll most likely remain the team’s closer and first baseman. But with Cronenworth, you never really know. He’s never been afraid of taking on new tasks, whether it’s a new position or a new sport. His attitude toward being the Wolverines’ starting pitcher will be no different.
Inside Bakich’s deepest team of Michigan tenure By DANNY VARGOVICK Daily Sports Writer
After finishing near the middle of the pack in each of Michigan coach Erik Bakich’s first two seasons at the helm in Ann Arbor, expectations are higher this year for one simple reason: the roster is better. Below, the Daily breaks down the Wolverines’ improved roster for the 2015 season. Outfield On offense, it all starts with senior centerfielder Jackson Glines. Coming off a second-team All-Big Ten performance last year, Glines’s sweet line-drive swing hasn’t disappointed this season. He hasn’t shown the doubles power that he did last year when he had the third-most in the conference, but he’s still hitting an astounding .453 — leading the Big Ten by 50 points — and owns a 1.082 OPS. Outside of Glines, junior left fielder Cody Bruder arrived in Ann Arbor this year and has immediately held down a corner outfield spot. He’s second on the team with a .330 average, but he’s closer to the middle of the pack among regulars in terms of on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Senior right fielder Kevin White has been the main starter in the other corner outfield spot opposite Bruder. He has just 51 at-bats on the season compared to Bruder’s 91, even though White currently owns a higher on-base percentage and slugging percentage than Bruder. Infield Junior first baseman Jacob Cronenworth plays Robin to Glines’ Batman in the lineup. Cronenworth has led off every game this season, getting on base at a .418 OBP. He excels at drawing walks and is the fastest player on the team, according to Bakich. Cronenworth, listed at just 167 pounds, has played mostly first base this year despite experience in the middle infield. Bakich says that having a middle infielder play first improves the team’s defense drastically and allows him to be creative with bunt coverages. Freshman second baseman Jake Bivens has been a revelation since being thrust into the everyday lineup due to junior shortstop Travis Maezes’s injury. He doesn’t hit for much power — he has just four doubles and no triples or home runs on the season — but he’s hitting .304 mainly because he barely strikes out. His six whiffs are lowest among the regulars, and he has either been walked or hit 17 times, which ties him with Cronenworth for the team lead. This makes the slap-hitting left-hander an attractive option in the second spot against righties. Senior shortstop Eric Jacobson has hit ninth all year, but impressed with a .298 average. The captain is the ultimate team player and quintessential
coach’s kid and moved over to shortstop following Maezes’s injury. He has done everything Bakich could have expected from him so far, but there is reason to be concerned: He has walked only once this year and has just one double, so if his batting average on balls in play — currently .347, which is likely unsustainable — dips, his effectiveness could be limited. Junior designated hitter Carmen Benedetti boasts the most consistent power on the team and hits cleanup. Benedetti is second on the team in slugging and leads the team in RBI with Cronenworth and Glines setting the table in front of him. Starters The starters are talented and young for Michigan. Sophomore left-handed pitcher Brett Adcock, sophomore right-handed pitcher Keith Lehmann and freshman right-handed pitcher Ryan Nutof have been the Wolverines’ top three starters, while freshman Jayce Vancena figures to get midweek starts. Adcock is a power pitcher who will get his fastball all the way up to 94 miles per hour. Bakich described his slider as a “swing and miss pitch.” He also throws a change and a curve. The team’s Opening Day starter, Adcock sports a 5.40 ERA on the season. His impressive 8.78 strikeouts per nine innings is mitigated by his 7.76 walks per nine innings. He has been as hot and cold as any pitcher could possibly be. He started the season out slowly, then was named the Big Ten Pitcher of the Week on March 2 for his two-hit, 11-strikeout, completegame shutout of Siena. He then went ice-cold again against Nebraska when he allowed six runs in 1.2 innings. Lehmann can get his fastball up to 91 miles per hour, but its effectiveness is based more off its movement than its velocity. Bakich called Lehmann a “sinker-slider guy who’s also got a curveball, cutter and changeup.” Junior left-handed pitcher Evan Hill is expected to return from injury soon. He led the Wolverines in innings pitched last year and posted a shiny 3.24 ERA, so his return will undoubtedly be huge. Relievers In the bullpen, Cronenworth returns as closer. Despite his talent at the plate, Bakich says that Cronenworth’s future is on the mound. He has a 2.79 ERA on the season and has the ability to come in at the end of games and get some swings and misses, evidenced by his 10.24 strikeouts per nine innings, while still limiting walks. Top to bottom, this squad is the deepest team Bakich has had at Michigan, and he returns almost all of his top players, so it’s not hard to see why expectations are high in Ann Arbor.