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Thursday, November 6, 2014
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‘U’ lacks policy for preserving key records RITA MORRIS/Daily
Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Color Purple,” speaks about friendship and writing at Hill Auditorium Wednesday.
Alice Walker highlights empathy in historic lecture After being uninvited last year, author fills Hill Auditorium By CHARLOTTE JENKINS Daily Staff Reporter
Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, poet and social justice activist, spoke to a packed Hill Auditorium Wednesday night at the 20th
Annual Zora Neale Hurston Lecture. Walker’s most notable piece is her award-winning novel “The Color Purple.” She is also known for her work on social justice and feminist issues. The University Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and the Center for the Education of Women sponsored the annual lecture, which aims to honor Hurston, a noted African American author, by bringing
prominent scholars to campus. Walker opened by acknowledging the controversy surrounding the University’s rescindment of the invitation it had extended to her to speak at the Center for the Education of Women’s 50th Anniversary event last August. Walker was scheduled to speak at the event but was uninvited by the University, allegedly because donors for the event threatened to cancel their funding because
of her views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “As many of you know, it was not ordained that I should be here,” Walker said. “In its own way, I think it was divine justice that I should be here.” Walker said she was thrilled to speak at a lecture named for Hurston, a well-known pioneering African-American author and anthropologist whom Walker said she considers a See WALKER, Page 3A
REGENTS RACE
By CLAIRE BRYAN Daily Staff Reporter
Though Republicans dominated most races on election night, a seat on the University’s Board of Regents was not in the cards. After a long and close race, Democrats Mike Behm and Kathy White, an incumbent, won the two contested seats on the board early Wednesday morning. White led with 1,352,347 votes, followed by Behm, who received 1,263,196 votes. Republican candidate Ronald Weiser held 1,258,361 votes and Republican candidate Rob Steele held 1,254,325 votes. The race changed significantly as votes were counted throughout the course of Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. As of 2 a.m. Wednesday, Steele led with 596,732 votes, followed by Weiser with 594,196. But after
the heavily Democratic Wayne County votes were counted, the results flipped entirely, putting White and Behm in the lead. White is the current chair of the board and will be serving her third consecutive term as regent. White balances her time between her position as regent, as a professor at Wayne State University Law School, an instructor of law at the United States Military Academy at West Point and a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. As she continues her time as a regent, White’s priorities lie in creating civil discourse on campus, engaging students and examining the University’s structural problems. “Keeping the University of Michigan affordable enables students from all backgrounds, with different perspectives, to enrich the academic environment through their engagement with each other,” White wrote in an e-mail Wednesday. White said running for office helped get her in touch with issues voters are concerned about. See REGENTS, Page 3A
By LEV FACHER Daily Sports Editor
Of the many grievances voiced against former Athletic Director Dave Brandon before his departure Oct. 31, lack of transparency was at the forefront. Brandon’s consistent response to requests for his public records, however, was in line with University policy. Despite the fact that Michigan state law requires public bodies to “protect public records from loss, unauthorized alteration, mutilation, or destruction,” according to University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald, there is no University policy currently in place to ensure that employees retain communications in accor-
dance with state-level regulations. State law stipulates that public records be kept and disposed of in accordance with a formal schedule, which requires that correspondence be retained for two years after the date of its creation before it can be destroyed. University officials, however, claim that on-campus regulations are separate and exempt from state law. “It’s our policy that it’s up to individual users to determine their own document retention,” Fitzgerald said. “The University doesn’t have a set schedule.” In a March 28, 2014 response to The Michigan Daily, Patricia Sellinger, the University’s Freedom of Information Act coordinator, indicated “there are no responsive records” corresponding to the request submitted for “all e-mails sent to and from Athletic Director Dave Brandon between March 13 and 14, 2014.” A similar request for e-mails See RECORDS, Page 3A
ANN ARBOR
F U T U R E S TA R
Democrats win close race for regents’ seats
Though Republicans led early, White, Behm elected to governing board
Brandon’s e-mails could not be retrieved through repeated FOIA requests
Hieftje to head last meeting as A2 mayor Meeting changed to accommodate midterm election By JACK TURMAN Daily Staff Reporter ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Brooklyn, Mich. middle school student Kianna Moore poses with junior guard Spike Albrecht after an open practice Wednesday.
ELECTION 2014
Strong showing for G.O.P. masks split ticket trend Despite reelecting Snyder, voters pick Peters for U.S. Senate By BEN ATLAS Daily Staff Reporter
On a night when Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate, made gains in governors’ races
nationwide and won nearly every statewide office in Michigan, there was one notable exception: a victory for Rep. Gary Peters (D–Detroit) in the race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat. Not only did Peters win, but he also tallied more total votes and won his race by a greater margin than Republican incumbents Gov. Rick Snyder,
Attorney General Bill Schuette and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. Both common political theories as well as circumstances unique to this election cycle might explain this split-ticket outcome. Public Policy Prof. Elisabeth Gerber said midterm elections tend to swing See SPLIT-TICKET, Page 3A
Due to Tuesday’s midterm elections, the Ann Arbor City Council meeting will be held Thursday evening. The Council will discuss the resolution regarding the approval of a purchase order to the Environmental Systems Research Institute and a resolution directing City Administrator Steve Powers to negotiate with Dahlmann Corporation. This will also be the last City Council meeting run by outgoing Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje, who will be succeeded by current councilmember and Mayor elect Christopher Taylor. Resolution to approve a purchase order to ESRI The Council will discuss See CITY COUNCIL, Page 3A
the piercing b-side A look at the professionals who aren’t afraid of the big needles
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INDEX
Vol. CXXIV, No. 23 ©2014 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
NEWS......................... 2A SUDOKU.....................2A OPINION.....................4A
SPORTS.......................6A CL ASSIFIEDS...............6A B-SIDE ....................1B
News
2A — Thursday, November 6, 2014
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Professor Profiles
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY: Alumni Profiles
NOT IN THE LEASE
asleep. There was no going back, hold for one caveat: Annie lives in a house with nine other roommates. “I had texted them in a group text; I said, ‘Hey, does anyone mind if I get a mini pig?’ No one answered, so I just kind of brought him home.” Now, Milo shares Annie’s room, claiming comfortable spots in piles of her clothes and under her bed. In the spirit of these maternal instincts — and honoring Milo’s — Annie took the pig to the Arb last week to roam free and enjoy nature. He wasn’t as keen on the trip. “I was hoping that he would feel so happy to not be cooped up anywhere, and he didn’t want to move
— MICHAEL SUGERMAN
Women’s basketball
Satyameva Jayate
BY BRAD WHIPPLE
After 14 years of attempting to making her name easier for English-speakers to pronounce, Jayate discusses embracing the power of her name’s meaning. She writes: “My names. Our names. Honest, unabridged, and authentic.”
WHAT: The ongoing series will feature Latvian Photographer Inta Ruka, who provides her view of her region’s current struggles as it integrates with the European Union. WHO: Penny Stamps School of Art & Design WHEN: Today from 5:10 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Theater
“Like This”
Research PODIUM Classy or creepy? symposium
BY LEJLA BAJGORIC
BY AMELIA FULLER
Bajgoric contends that Skizzy Mars embraces “hip hop done in a way that hip hop usually isn’t done.” The lead single off his new album, The Red Balloon Project, this track is elevated by Skizzy’s flow over a solidly crafted production.
In an age when college singles are warned of the potential dangers of interacting with people online, Fuller discusses the conflict she faces when she discovers carefully written love notes on her dorm room door.
THE FILTER
WHAT: The Fall 2014 Research Computing Symposium will feature a poster session and presentations from leading researchers in the field. WHO: Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering WHEN: Today from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. WHERE: Rackham Graduate School
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Music, Theatre & Dance freshman Jesse Aaronson rehearses “Othello” Wednesday night.
Speaker Series Museum lecture
MiC
With a weekend win against Davenport, the Michigan women’s basketball team has embraced some new faces. As players describe, earning a starting position is a week-to-week grind in practice.
… I was like, ‘Seriously, it took all that effort to get you out of the house … and you want to be carried the whole time,’” she said. Another struggle in taking Milo out and around is that Annie’s landlord has forbidden pets. She said the pig has yet to attract unwanted attention — other than eliciting more frequent visits from her friends because of his cuteness, Annie said Milo lives in a fairly quiet and discreet manner, ambling around her room and napping for most of the day. Overall, Annie’s really not worried about getting in trouble. She doubts anyone will squeal on her.
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Nothing to squeal about The student’s name has been changed for privacy reasons. Two weeks ago, LSA senior Annie made a new friend, and he moved in that night. The special man was Milo, a miniature pig that Annie’s older brother convinced her to buy from one of his close friends. “I wasn’t exactly searching for a pet,” Annie said. “I had before thought that students who have pets … it’s sort of unfair. You’re gone all day, you can’t really give it attention, it has limited access to being outside and things like that.” When she first met Milo, Annie’s doubts continued to grow. Then, she held Milo in her arms; he curled up in her lap and fell
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WHAT: This presentation will discuss the historical and contemporary role of “multi-sensory” exhibits. WHO: Museum Studies Program WHEN: Today from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. WHERE: Museum of Art
CORRECTIONS A version of “With global issues, collaboration becomes key” published on Oct. 28 mistakenly identified the World Health Organization as a nongovernmental organization. WHO is an authority of the United Nations, which in turn represents its member countries. l Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com.
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
After months of escalating conflict, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he would seek Congressional support before engaging in further campaigns against the Islamic State, The New York Times reported.
2
Daily Arts takes a look at the only professional piercing shop in Ann Arbor — Pangea — and a broader look at the piercing culture on campus. >> FOR MORE, B-SIDE ON PG. 1B
3
A Maryland boy had made plans to kill his parents before driving to his school and killing students and teachers with a stolen handgun, CBS News reported Wednesday, based on court documents obtained by CBS Baltimore.
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Power conservation A2SF to face possible change of venue in 2015 focus of alum startup Partners use ‘U’ resources to launch tech. company
Dean and Sherman, both 25, met their startup a reality. during their freshman year at the While YouKnowWatt helps University and developed a closer improve energy consumption at the friendship in their senior year when individual level, the creators hope they discovered their shared inter- that it will assist in solving a larger ests in entrepreneurship and energy crisis — the terawatt problem. By LEA GIOTTO consumption. Both graduated in May “Basically the terawatt problem For the Daily 2011, Dean with a degree from the is if you look at how much energy Business School and Sherman with a the world is consuming and you University alumni Jack Dean and degree in chemical engineering. look at what we’re projected to conSteven Sherman know what’s up— The University was instrumen- sume in 2050 — we’re on an unsusor, watt’s up, to be more precise. tal in launching YouKnowWatt, tainable path: huge upward trends In March 2013, the duo founded Sherman said. In November 2012, in population, energy consumption, YouKnowWatt, a startup whose the startup won 1000 Pitches, an and 85 percent of energy comes biggest product is an app — energy. annual competition on campus that from fossil fuels we dig up from the io — that allows users to monitor allows students to present their ground,” Sherman said. their home’s energy consumption business ideas in the hope of win“This is an infrastructure that and the cost of that energy con- ning the $1,000 prize to help make takes decades, if not generations, sumption in real time. their pitch a reality. to change,” he said in a talk about “We were originally interested Sherman added that TechArb, the terawatt problem he gave at the in doing something to make energy which provides resources to entre- Business School in November 2013. consumption more sustainable, so preneurs in Ann Arbor, and the Dean and Sherman are also we went into it wanting to make Master of Entrepreneurship pro- focusing on a new project called consumers more aware of their gram, which he completed http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ in Customer Discovery Ninja — which Sudoku Syndication energy consumptions,” said Sher- August 2013, provided him and Sherman said allows entrepreneurs man, a College of Engineering alum. Dean with the resources to make to do “on-demand, live interviews” with customers. The market research tool allows entrepreneurs to call potential clients from their Internet browser and conduct a recorded interview. HARD The project’s overall aim is to allow businesspeople to make their ideas more accessible to customers and get feedback on these ideas. “Most people think market research and think … surveys and focus groups — those have really big flaws,” Sherman said. He said he thinks that the ondemand interview system will be more effective. “We do have some customers with this and we’ve developed some traction and we hope to develop some business soon,” Sherman said. While the pair said they hope to work again with YouKnowWatt and the problem of energy consumption, they are happy with their current project as well. “We really learned a lot going through YouKnowWatt and jumping in headfirst and now we’re applying those lessons in Customer © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. puzzle by sudokusyndication.com FULL CARDIO. Discovery Ninja and we can kinda already see that we know what we’re doing.” Generate and solve Sudoku, Super Sudoku and Godoku puzzles at sudokusyndication.com!
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Pending projects near Ingalls Mall could see ‘Top of the Park’ moved By TOM MCBRIEN Daily Staff Reporter
With the news of upcoming summer construction, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival’s “Top of the Park” series may need to change its name to “Top of Something Else.” The Ann Arbor Summer Festival is a three-week music, art and culture series produced as a joint nonprofit venture between the University and the city of Ann Arbor since 1984. This coming summer, however, the festival’s outdoor component, named Top of the Park, may have to move from its usual location on Ingalls Mall due to pending University construction plans. University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the construction plans have yet to be submitted to the University’s Board of Regents. “To be a good partner for the Summer Festival, we wanted to give them an early alert that this project could go forward this summer and to make sure that they had plenty of time to explore more options,” he said. Amy Nesbitt, executive director of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, said a special search committee is cur-
rently evaluating potential alternative locations for Top of the Park. While unable to give specific details, she said three of the four major locations the committee is considering are on-campus. “Since we are a nonprofit that was co-founded, Top of the Park could potentially have great sites to be hosted on city property,” Nesbitt said. “We are trying to be open-minded about this as an opportunity. But historically, there has been so much support from the University and the University community that has allowed us to do so much that there is a lot to consider. There are many University spaces that really lend themselves well to what we do.” Top of the Park is known for showcasing local and national music groups, performance artists and screenings of movies such as “Gravity,” “The Hunger Games” and “The Artist.” With a change of location, however, could come changes in programming. “The move will affect some of the program choices depending on how big a stage we can have,” Nesbitt said. “If we have a smaller stage, maybe we can’t do quite as big of bands or maybe some of our outdoor exhibits will be affected.” Apart from the potential programming changes, the potential move would also result in an increase in the cost of putting on the event, though admission would still
be free. Nesbitt said cost considerations would be a factor in choosing the temporary location. Additional expenses may include building new structures, rebuilding different booths, altering stage and sound systems and differing power expenses. While festival organizers will not know exact costs until a new location is chosen, they have started a fundraising campaign to help defray any additional expenses should the move in fact occur. This would not be the first time that Top of the Park has had to change locations. Until 2006, the series was held on top of the Fletcher Street parking structure between the Power Center for the Performing Arts and the School of Dentistry. The festival derived its name from this original location: Top of the Park(ing garage). Construction on the garage in 2006 forced festival organizers to look elsewhere until they decided on Ingalls Mall as a suitable replacement. “What we have found since 2006 is that it is so welcoming and expansive in Ingalls Mall with some grass and some trees and some shade,” Nesbitt said. “A lot of people really loved the new location.” The indoor, ticketed portion of the festival, called the Mainstage, will be unaffected by the construction. The festival will run from June 12 to July 5, 2015.
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3A — Thursday, November 6, 2014
WALKER From Page 1A mentor and inspiration. Walker’s talk focused on the theme of friendship, examining the different kinds of friendship that exist. She also emphasized the importance that creating connections has in achieving world peace. “Friendship is really important, and not just between men and women and women and women and people you know; it’s important between countries,” Walker said. She is a vocal social justice advocate and explained the critical potential she believes global diplomacy can have in preventing war and other atrocities. “We in this country are in the habit of dropping bombs on people, dropping napalm on people, dropping drones on people,” Walker said. “The only way we will save ourselves, the water, the mountains that haven’t been decapitated … is if we do it as friends, on a global scale.” In her lecture, Walker said the midterm election held Tuesday was futile and that the American political process is not on the path to actual change. She discussed her belief in the need for a new system — one that defies politics. “I see the political system as not only born broken, but unfair, and destined to be unfair forever,” she said. “If we really want to have a world that is safe for our children, we really need to have more imagination than to just talk about red states and blue states and Republicans and Democrats.” Walker characterizes herself as a “womanist,” and believes this is important in her activism. DAAS Professor Michael Awkward, founder of the Zora Neale Hurston Lecture, mentioned in an interview with the Daily that Walker uses the term “womanist” to “signify that gender equity for Black American women is impos-
SPLIT-TICKET From Page 1A against the party of the president, thus giving Republican statewide officeholders a boost. Gerber also added that the structural advantages of incumbency — such as having greater name recognition — helped the Republicans defeat their Democratic challengers. Unlike those races, neither Peters nor Republican opponent Terri Lynn Land was running as an incumbent, but rather for the open seat created by Sen. Carl Levin’s (D) retirement. The outcome in this race had more to do with circumstances unique to their race than common midterm election trends, according to Gerber. “I think (Peters) was just a stronger candidate,” Gerber said. “He sort of won on his own record; I’m not sure Terri Lynn Land was as strong as a candidate.” In Congress, Peters broke with the Democratic leadership on fiscal issues on more than one occasion, which Gerber believes could have improved his crossparty appeal. Exit poll data from NBC News showed evidence of cross-party activity tilting in Peters’ favor: 20 percent of Rick Snyder voters also voted for Peters, while just 5 percent of those supporting Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer also voted for Land. It is difficult to determine whether Republican crossover can be attributed to a negative impression of Land that pushed Republican voters away or simply to a positive attraction to Peters. Yet given Land’s relatively good name recognition as Michigan’s former Secretary
REGENTS From Page 1A “I will continue to listen and apply my experience to find solutions to our stakeholders’ concerns,” White said. “I also intend to continue to be in close communication with student leaders to make sure I have an understanding about their concerns and can address them promptly.” Behm currently works as a litigator in Flint and is an active member of the Democratic Party. He worked as a volunteer lawyer for the Clinton campaign in 1996 and created programs to edu-
sible to imagine until we recognize that the lives of Black women and men are inextricably bound together.” Walker discussed her opposition to war and how she wrote a children’s book titled “Why War is Never a Good Idea.” She said her strong anti-war and antiapartheid opinions contribute to her opposition to the Israeli occupation of the Gaza strip. During the question and answer portion of the event, an audience member asked about Walker’s view of the conflict in Gaza, and Walker responded by again emphasizing the importance of friendship and empathy. She also compared the struggle of the Palestinians with that of African-American slaves, saying it is critical that the situation be resolved. “There’s something about that situation that is really crucial for the world to understand,” she said. “If we don’t understand what’s happening there, I don’t think we can make it as a world. It’s that crucial.” Another question posed to Walker was about how people achieve friendship and peace among others who murder and commit atrocities. “I think it’s more about compassion, that they are such a mess, and what they’re missing in life,” Walker said. “I’m not eager to go to the prom with those men in that group in Nigeria, but it has a lot to do with your own capacity to have empathy for people,” she said in reference to an incident in April when terrorists from the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram kidnapped almost 300 young girls. Walker shared a few of her poems throughout the lecture, including one titled “Hope,” which she said was dedicated to humanity. “Hope that every failure is an arrow pointing towards enlightenment,” she read. “Hope to sin only in the service of waking up.”
of State, Gerber theorized that some Republican voters just gravitated toward the congressman based on policy appeal. In addition to fiscal policy drawing crossover, Political Science Prof. Mike Traugott said the gender wage gap was also a deciding factor. Land took positions against abortion and same-sex marriage. “I think especially for women in the electorate, the Land campaign was at a distinct disadvantage against Gary Peters on these issues,” Traugott said in an interview Tuesday night. NBC News exit poll data showed that Peters performed better among women who identified as either Republican or Independent than Schauer did in his race. While his victory amidst a political climate favorable to Republicans was not the norm, Peters did say it was a very feasible outcome in Michigan. “I think Michigan has always had a history of ticket splitting,” Peters told reporters at the MGM Grand in Detroit on Tuesday night. “(Voters) look at individual candidates, look at what those candidates bring to the office and are willing to split the ticket. That doesn’t happen often.” To find the precedent, Peters would have to go back 24 years and recall the electoral history of Levin, the man he will replace. In 1990, Republican challenger John Engler unexpectedly defeated incumbent Democratic Gov. Jim Blanchard by a narrow margin. Despite the election of a Republican governor, Levin easily fended off a challenge that year from thenU.S. Rep. Bill Schuette, who is now Michigan’s attorney general.
cate citizens about elections to discourage voter intimidation in 2004. As a newly elected regent, Behm’s priorities lie in making college affordable and accessible statewide. “I would like to see the state of Michigan reinvest in the University of Michigan and in public education,” Behm said in an interview with the Daily late last month. This year the results of the regents do not parallel those at top of the ticket races, despite what historical patterns for state boards have predicted. In 2012, Democrats Mark Ber-
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ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Student startup creates product for infant care and joint pain Warmilu creators hoping to find business in area hospitals By EMILIE PLESSET Daily Staff Reporter
After being diagnosed with joint disease, Fay Lum-Lee, a 58-year-old resident of California, experienced a great deal of pain when moving throughout her day and spent much of her time in bed. However, Warmilu, an advanced therapeutic warming technology created by University graduates, reduced her pain and allowed her to continue driving and moving around with her family. The Warmilu technology was originally created to prevent hypothermia in preterm babies and help them retain or increase body heat to improve their chance for survival. The technology is now also being used as a non-pharmacological treatment for adults with osteoarthritis or chronic joint pain. Warmilu CEO Grace Hsia, a University alum, who completed
CITY COUNCIL From Page 1A the renewal of the annual licensing and maintenance agreement with the ESRI, a service used to create maps and other forms of data presentation. The ESRI, which includes the Spatial Data Engine, is responsible for Ann Arbor’s base software utilized for the maintenance and access of the City Geographical Information System databases. The ArcSDE is responsible for spatial information storage in the database. Programs like ArcSDE are used to create sophisticated maps and graphics. This engine
RECORDS From Page 1A sent to and from Brandon — who resigned his post Oct. 31 — between July 24 and July 26, 2013 was denied on the same grounds. Both requests were made during the process of investigating the circumstances surrounding former kicker Brendan Gibbons’ permanent separation from the University for violating the Student Sexual Misconduct Policy. “If you have a government employee creating any kind of a document, even electronically, that’s a public record,” said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. “If he’s writing to other people that he does business with about Athletic Department business, then that absolutely should be a public record.” The Michigan Penal Code states: “All official books, papers or records created by or received in any office or agency of the state of Michigan … are declared to be public property.” While the penal code does not explicitly define the University as an “office or agency of the state of Michigan,” the Freedom of Information Act does, stating: “All state agencies, county and other local governments, school boards … and public colleges and universities are covered.” Fitzgerald, however, said the
nstein and Shauna Ryder Diggs won the two open seats on the board and were carried to victory in part by the election of President Barack Obama at the top of the ticket. Republicans Andrea Fischer Newman and Andrew Richner won the election in 2010 on the coattails of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s landslide victory. Weiser currently serves on the board of many for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including the $4.6 billion-valued real estate company he founded, McKinley Associates. He stressed his expertise in the fields of diplomacy, accounting, finance and politics throughout his campaign and
her Master’s of Entrepreneurship in 2013, created the startup idea during her senior year as an undergraduate in the University’s Material Science and Engineering program. Hsia said the technology generates warmth instantly for three and a half to five hours. The device — which is incorporated into heating pads and blankets — also has safety features that limit the maximum temperature so it doesn’t burn or overheat the user. “We’re spreading the warmth to save infant lives,” Hsia said. “But we’re also using warmth to improve the lives of folks here in the U.S.” The startup is looking into applying the technology to a wearable band so that it can be applied to joint pain more directly. For people like Lum-Lee, this technology has subdued joint pain and improved movement. “For a lot of these folks who have a chronic condition like the chronic joint condition, that is amazing, it’s liberating,” Hsia said. “That’s what we’re able to do: provide this liberation and continued mobility and freedom for these baby boomers.” The startup began manufacturing the technology two years ago and made its first sale in the
last quarter of 2013. Depending on shipping, a warming pack can cost between $30 and $40 and a blanket is about $10. When Warmilu began in 2011, it was called M-Wrap. However, at the suggestion of a University professor, the company changed its name to better convey its vision of using warmth to transform lives around the world, and not just at the University. “Parents love their child,” Hsia said. “Unfortunately their love is not enough to reduce the likelihood of death in these preterm infants. Warmth becomes the embodiment of the parent’s love for these infants. That’s why we’re called Warmilu: it stands for ‘I love you’ at the end of the name.” To develop the technology, the Warmilu team tested out the warming blanket in India, where it positively improved the health of 20 infants. The organization is working to expand the use of their warming technology and is hoping to bring the blankets to Detroit area hospitals. The Warmilu team used many of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and resources available in the Detroit and Ann
Arbor areas such as the University School of Information and the Innovate Blue initiative in order to create the technology and put it on the market. Engineering graduate student Alex Chen, Warmilu’s chief operating officer, said the technology is an example of how science and engineering principles can create positive change in the world. “When you have a social venture, it means more than just making a product,” Hsia said. “With startups you’re addressing a problem with a potential product or solution that can be commercialized, but when you’re a social venture you’re looking at some social challenge that you’re looking to address. There is a problem there that has to deal with people.” Hsia said social entrepreneurship involves listening to peoples’ challenges and understanding social issues. “As a social entrepreneur what you find yourself doing is not only trying to develop a product, but also really understanding the social systems and the gaps in the system that are creating social challenges,” Hsia said. “You’ve got to have passion for it.”
provides access to multiple users while maintaining a secure environment. To renew this annual agreement, the Information Technology Services Fund budget has planned for the cost of $58,435.62.
Lot, located across the street from the Ann Arbor library, and the affordable housing fund. Dennis Dahlmann, head of Dahlmann Corporation, has expressed interest in using the former Y Lot to generate money for Ann Arbor’s Affordable Housing Fund. This resolution, which was originally on the Council’s Oct. 20 agenda but was postponed, would require Powers to use all of his resources to formulate an agreement to make this official.
After serving as Ann Arbor’s mayor for 14 years, Hieftje will lead the Council tomorrow for the
last time. In the mayoral election Tuesday, Democratic candidate Christopher Taylor, who served on the Council for six years representing Ward 3, defeated Independent candidate Bryan Kelly. Taylor’s first Council meeting as mayor is scheduled to be Nov. 17. This will also be the last meeting for councilmembers Sally Petersen (D–Ward 2) and Margie Teall (D–Ward 4). Incumbents Kailasapathy and Chuck Warpehoski (D–Ward 5) were reelected along with new councilmembers Julie Grand (D–Ward 1), Graydon Kraphol (D–Ward 4) and Kirk Westphal (D–Ward 2).
LoMonte wrote in an e-mail interview. Policies at Western Michigan University and Northern Michigan University are also in compliance with the state’s document retention schedule. University General Counsel Timothy Lynch declined to comment on the relationship between state law and University policy, as did MSU General Counsel Robert Noto. The Daily’s FOIA requests for Brandon’s e-mails were submitted months before an Oct. 28 report from MGoBlog.com, a popular non-University-affiliated Michigan sports blog, which gained national traction largely thanks to e-mails allegedly sent from a University e-mail address associated with Brandon’s name. The e-mails, confirmed as authentic by MGoBlog, were deemed by many to be confrontational and unprofessional, and included phrases such as “Quit drinking and go to bed,” and “Have a happy life.” The Daily could not independently confirm the authenticity of these e-mails. When the Daily submitted requests for e-mail archives of various other Big Ten athletic directors in mid-2014, representatives from MSU, the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Nebraska, Purdue University
and the University of Illinois responded with offers to provide the records. The University of Minnesota, Indiana University, Pennsylvania State University and Ohio State University did not respond immediately. The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966, states that if “the public body has arbitrarily and capriciously violated this act,” the circuit court can award compensatory damages plus $500 in punitive damages to the individual who submitted the original request for records. The Michigan Penal Code lists a similar penalty for willfully destroying records, a violation “punishable by imprisonment in the state prison not more than two years or by a fine of not more than $1,000.00.” The University’s transparency, especially at a high level, has been repeatedly criticized in recent years. In 2011, The Michigan Daily published a special report detailing the University’s high fees for Freedom of Information Act requests, finding that it charged much more for documents than comparable public institutions. Separately, in July, the Detroit Free Press announced that it would be suing the University’s Board of Regents for allegedly violating Michigan’s Open Meetings law, which requires that public bodies adhere to a number of guidelines for public debate.
Resolution to direct Powers to negotiate with Dahlmann Corporation Councilmembers Mike Anglin (D–Ward 5), Jack Eaton (D–Ward 4), Jane Lumm (I–Ward 2) and Sumi Kailasapathy (D–Ward 1) sponsored a resolution that would require Powers to negotiate with Dahlmann Corporation regarding the use of the former YMCA
University is “not a formal part of state government,” and University employees are free to choose if, when and how frequently they delete their e-mails. The University has argued in court multiple times that it is a state agency, including the 1994 case of Moore v. University of Michigan, regarding the firing of a whistleblower in the school’s information technology department. The case centered on “whether (the University) can be characterized as an arm or alter ego of the state,” according to the case brief. The University prevailed in court on the back of an argument that it is “an extension of the State.” “It would be shocking to insist, in the face of decades of legal precedent, that open-record laws don’t apply to a public university,” LoMonte said. “Michigan law requires every state agency to maintain and enforce a records retention schedule.” In comparison, Michigan State University’s document retention policies appear to comply with the law, requiring “General inter/ intra and non-institutional office communication that deals with the operation of a campus unit” to be maintained for two years before it can be deleted. “(MSU’s) schedule contains the same two-year retention policy for correspondence … (as) the records retention schedule for state agencies in Michigan,”
was endorsed by The Detroit Free Press in October. Though Weiser said it was unfortunate that he lost by such a small margin, he does not intend to stop working with the University in the coming years. “It is what it is,” he said. Steele was the second republican candidate who ran in the election. He stressed transparency in University actions during his campaign, offering open office hours for University students and faculty and posting the checkbook and budget online. He ran for the board in 2012 as well and was unavailable Wednesday for comment.
Hieftje’s last Council meeting
DID YOU READ YESTERDAY’S PAPER?
Good. Because we were at 420 Maynard until 4:30 a.m. making it for your enjoyment.
CATCH UP ON OUR MIDTERM ELECTION COVERAGE ONLINE michigandaily.com
Opinion
Page 4A — Thursday, November 6, 2014
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com PETER SHAHIN EDITOR IN CHIEF
MEGAN MCDONALD and DANIEL WANG EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
KATIE BURKE MANAGING EDITOR
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
Follow the yellow brick road
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all means a few things every year: football, changing leaves and job searches. Recruiting season in the Business School officially started, and recently I turned down my return offer to work full time in finance. It wasn’t an easy decision, nor a simple one. The decision required a lot of self-reflection. In retrospect, the factors I considered are indeed important to ELI the broader decisions of life CAHAN in general, beyond just a first job after graduation. There were four main paradigms, four main pieces of advice that went into the decision. As a senior, I feel it my obligation to share those thoughts, such that you may too share some of the introspection as you think about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. Climb the mountain to see the world, not so the world can see you. There are numerous pressures on us as students throughout our schooling: financially, academically and socially. These pressures generally convey to us a sense of things we “should” do — whether grandma says you “should” be a lawyer at Chanukkah, or whether your friend says you “should” break up with that girl at the tailgate. Be wary of the “should.” The essence of this nugget is in pushing you to do things that make you feel personally validated, not socially valorized. As a Ross student, I felt like I should do banking, and to have people see my logoed-out swag would be a nice perk to that. In the end, the Tshirt you wear in the gym means very little to anyone else if it means very little to you. Do what you love and like, because nobody’s going to care unless you’re doing brain surgery. As a corollary, personal validation usually runs parallel to genuine enthusiasm. While I disagree with some of what this quote alludes (as an aspiring doctor, I love and like brain surgery and people will care about it to boot…), the message is valuable. Understand what you like to do. Understand what makes you happy. Take a step back. You will not last long, nor be good at, a job (or a relationship, etc…) that is forced. Do you, in all that you do. Be authentic and genuine, inside and out. I did not like the work I was doing, and I did not like the person I was becoming. Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Now, as you do you, know that there will be
I
difficult choices along the way. You must take ownership of these choices. The greatest blessing of college is that we may choose our path — but know that saying yes to one option often requires saying no to another. As Dorothy traveled down the road, inevitably she faced a fork, turned left, and kept walking. She was forced to see that decision out to the end. Likewise, appreciate the importance of the decisions you make — and do not regret them, nor think twice. Just make sure you see them all the way through. I said no to my offer — a definitively left turn where others might have turned right — and I take ownership of it. Let’s hope I get to Oz. To know your limits is to realize you have none. Finally, the amazing thing about carving out your own path is how many opportunities will come up that you never expected. Opportunities are definitely a surprise — if you saw them coming, they would have just been “part of the plan.” You would be shocked by how good of a position you are in as a University of Michigan student. So give yourself some credit, and perhaps more importantly, some time. Patience is not easy, but it is a virtue. Doors will swing open, but only when you walk far enough away from your comfort zone. And remember, you can only walk through one door at a time, so you’ll have your pick of the litter. Embrace the uncertainty. Let it surprise you. Open your sails, and let the wind carry you. I certainly hope this one may be true for me as I apply to medical schools. So all of this is to say, if you love banking, do it. Just make sure you’re making the decision because it’s what you want, for who and how you want to be. You’re allowed to be selfish on this one. A career is a long time, and constitutes a considerable part of your adult life. Work/life balance exists for those whose work is not a part of who they are. As such, I would encourage you to let work be a fundamental part of your life. Don’t think of it as a balance — work on one side and life on the other. Think of it as game of Jenga — the entire substance of the shape, of your being, constructed from both, each supporting the other. But don’t worry too much. The best thing about Jenga is that, though for a fleeting moment life may come toppling down, you can always build yourself back up. And, your friends will be with you as you do. — Eli Cahan can be reached at emcahan@umich.edu.
A rude awakening
n my naïve freshman mind, my arrival on campus would mark the commencement of long-awaited independence. Nine hours away from home, I prepared myself for living in a bustling city away from overprotective parents and — surprisingly — even more protective brothers. I expected freedom. I anticipated exploring every corridor of campus and roaming about Ann Arbor. I hoped MELISSA for adventurous nights. HowSCHOLKE ever, as a junior, I realize the extent of my naiveté. Instead of carefree exploration, I often find myself in a world fraught with more restrictions than I’d ever known in my past: Don’t walk home from the library late at night! Stay in well-lit areas. Avoid walking alone! Don’t go running at night! Don’t get too drunk! Watch your drink at parties! Only drink the ones you’ve physically opened yourself! Call somebody when you’re walking! Put your hood up! Pay attention to your surroundings! Walk in a manly fashion! If someone bothers you, keep walking and ignore them! Be careful in parking garages at night! Always carry your keys in your hand! Don’t blare your iPod in the evening when you’re jogging! Text us when you’re back at your apartment! In addition to cautionary appeals, women soon introduced me to their personal methods of protection. My mother continually tries to convince me to carry pepper spray. One friend avidly practices self-defense. Likewise, another possesses a phone app designed to automatically notify the police if necessary. Another friend taught me to carry my keys between my fingers. The freshman version of me — out of a combination of naïveté and perhaps stubborn pride — mistakenly assumed they were overworrying, and I didn’t need to follow their example. Receiving a barrage of catcalls within the last year, however, has shattered my foolish former pride. Now, whenever I’m alone and a random twinge of fear slithers up my spine, my keys are wedged between my fingers. Catcalling, or street harassment, plagues about 65 percent of women and roughly 25 percent of men — what mostly identified as LGBTQ — according to a survey conducted by an organization known as Stop Street Harassment.
Although a video depicting a woman in New York City receiving about 100 instances of catcalling within 10 hours was recently released, street harassment isn’t restricted to metropolitan areas. I’ve been catcalled both in Ann Arbor and on the streets of my rural hometown. Every instance of vulgar commentary has incited extreme disgust and subsequent rants. Yet, the most recent incident enrages me the most. Several weeks ago, after dozing on the couch while attempting to do some late-night homework, my roommates insisted I go to bed. I stumbled up the stairs in a semi-conscious stupor, flicked on my bedroom light, placed my backpack next to the window and proceeded towards the bathroom. As I walked away, I heard someone outside yell, “Hey cutie!” I looked out my window to discern where the noise was coming from and in the parking lot below stood a group of guys. One in particular gestured to me to affirm the comment was meant for me and just stood there staring. Fuming, I shut my blinds and ran downstairs. Street harassment was an injustice I was beginning to stomach, but this time, I was livid! How dare some stranger bother me in the safety of my own apartment! Is there no longer a place where one can feel entirely secure? Harassment isn’t confined to the streets. Threats are invading our homes and our online presences. Yet, those attempting to combat these threats and bring more awareness to the misogynistic ideologies responsible are often threatened themselves. The woman featured in the video capturing catcallers in New York reportedly received death and rape threats after her participation in the project. While the sexism and objectification within media can fuel the manifestation of these ideologies in real life, women speaking out against these societal problems are threatened, silenced, and sometimes, feel compelled to leave their homes. Rather than threatening women, we need to cultivate a culture where women can freely voice concerns about sexist attitudes. Likewise, more men need to seriously take these issues into account and alter their attitudes regarding objectification and sexism. Until this awareness is gained, some individuals will consistently question their safety in every space. — Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tom Bissell
T
om Bissell is a writer from the Upper Peninsula. He visited Ann Arbor last year. In the wake of Robin Williams’ death and the talk of depression in the artistic mind, I evoke his thoughts. When I walked into the Hopwood Room to see Tom OMAR Bissell that Thurs- MAHMOOD day at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I expected a red carpet laid out and students from The Michigan Daily swarming him with burning questions. I’d been in the room a couple times before, and each time I felt as if I were trespassing into a sacred kind of writers’ realm, now more than ever. Instead I walked into an empty room, an old round table laden as always with perfectly arranged journals that were there for decor more than for reading. I saw a man in the far left corner sitting under a lamp and actually reading one of the humble writings that had been laid on the table. Remarkable, I figured — the first person that I’d seen reading something from that table was a writer. He sat with one leg atop the other, brows furrowed and the tips of his fingers on his cheeks. He wore spectacles of a scholarly sort that complemented his scruffy speckled facial hair. Well built, ruddy, a man of God’s Country. He wasn’t surrounded by a gaggle of nerds who had followed his work like comic books, and there wasn’t a mike in sight. So I did what made sense. I walked up to him, shook hands and introduced myself, and in a second I was pouring out all my frustrations to him. How I’d been struggling with the same kind of drudge that he’d described in his younger years — the anxiety, depression, total lack of productivity. I’d read in his Grand Theft Auto article of how he didn’t write anything for years due to his addiction to the video game, and how he’d spend each night “carpet
bombing the apartment,” pacing around as he promised himself that tomorrow would be different. I’d been doing pretty much that since my junior year of high school, though my distractions were different. I’d read his profile of one Mr. Jim Harrison, the renowned novelist from the UP who was read far and wide, and whose literature was studied by French schoolchildren. Mr. Harrison lived a secluded life out in the wild of Colorado, where the wolves could be heard howling. He had lived for a long time with depression and was never really meant for school, having left Michigan State University after years of frustration with the bureaucracy of the English Department. I saw in these writers a character that I’ve always had as well — depression, an urge to go live in the wild (seriously) and a disdain for the system. Tom had left teaching some time ago. I explained to him the slumps I’d been going through. I told him that his writings spoke to me and told me that far from being a freak, I was quite a normal writer. And in the wake of Robin Williams’ death, the matter is even more stark. Ask CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta. We artists have always toiled in a dark part of the mind, and there is something universal in our demeanor that puts people off. It is hard to find those who genuinely like us. It is easy to believe the world is against us, and even easier to do nothing about it. “People out there just completely impulsive, breaking the rules,” Sanjay Gupta has said. In my time here, I’ve said things that I shouldn’t have, things that to me are too true. I’ve been open about my disdain for the social justice movement, for contemporary art, for the utter lack of intellect involved in studying for letter grades. But that same depression, that same compulsion, is also the neurological font of our creativity — ask Gupta. Art comes from misery, and I know that even as it flows from my pen. “If I can even call myself a writer,” I told Tom Bissell. He assured me I could.
I’ve always suspected a conspiracy against talent, but Tom was empathetic. He talked about how as an aspiring writer he’d imagined that the guys that get an article in reputed journals have red carpets rolling out for them, before laughing at his youthful naiveté and shaking his head. I smiled. I couldn’t get enough of him. The next day I went to the UMMA to hear him speak there again. In the Hopwood Room, he had played down the writer’s life so much that I was quite relieved that I was keeping my premed options open. Here was no different. He voiced some more of my frustrations elegantly well, that artists were not appreciated, that writing was a lost art. That he had quit his job at a university because he could no longer guide writing students into miserable lives. Depressing, but cathartic. He spoke to me. I spoke to him again as I was buying one of his books, “God Lives in St. Petersburg,” one that he had recommended to me. I told him about my spiritual journey the night before with the Hare Krishnas. Something had made me turn around to their music, probably a state inspired by Tom in the Hopwood Room earlier. I had ended up going with them to their temple in Ypsilanti and partaking in all sorts of exotic rituals and chants, offering petals and rose water and fire to a statue of their founder. I met people looking for God, and in all seriousness I find that, as creepy as the event was for a Muslim, it was one now imprinted on my college psyche for some time to come. “You know why I went?” I asked him with a smile. “I asked myself … ‘What would Tom Bissell do?’ ” He looked at me, chuckled, and told me that he would’ve turned the hell around and walked away. As he signed my book, he crossed out his name and wrote this down for me in ballpoint black ink, and I think he meant it: To Omar, With my absolute best wishes to you. Good luck. — Omar Mahmood can be reached at syedom@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Devin Eggert, David Harris, Rachel John, Jacob Karafa, Jordyn Kay, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Paul Sherman, Linh Vu, Meher Walia, Mary Kate Winn, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe KATIE STENVIG ET AL. | VIEWPOINT
Minority enrollment
The drop in minority enrollment on this campus is a national scandal. The numbers just released for 20142015 show that enrollment of underrepresented minority students is the lowest it has been since 1970; this year’s freshman class is 3.7 percent black, 4.3 percent Latin@, and 1.4 percent Native American. For more than 40 years, the University has broken the promises it made to the Black Action Movement after the movement shut down the campus in a three-week student strike demanding 10 percent Black enrollment within two years. The percentage of Black students on this campus today is less than in 1973. This is the new Jim Crow. The University’s admissions policies discriminate against minority students by ignoring the reality of segregation and inequality of our schools, racial biases in standardized tests and pretending racism doesn’t exist. These policies have led to broader attacks on public education, integration and equal opportunity in K-12 schools, most starkly in the immediate and rapid degradation of education in Detroit following the ban on affirmative action. The struggle of the Black community of Ferguson against racism and police brutality is the much-needed antidote to these worsening conditions everywhere in the country. Students on this campus, inspired by the struggle in Ferguson are taking matters into their own hands, and asserting the leadership of the student movement over and against the inept, cynical dysfunctional leadership of the administration. We cannot afford to have any more illusions in this administration. Since 2006, the University has used Proposal 2 as an excuse for the drop in minority enrollment. But the steady decline began even before the ban on affirmative action. There’s no good excuse for this drop. Prop 2 doesn’t prevent the University from adopting admissions policies like the 10 percent plan implemented in Texas following the ban on affirmative action there. The plan guarantees accep-
tance to the flagship campus to the top 10 percent of every high school in the state, eliminating the most biased admissions criteria, standardized tests, for a large portion of admissions. The policy has been very popular and successful. Compared to the University of Texas at Austin, this University, despite its liberal reputation, is becoming a segregated backwater. Students admitted under the 10 percent plan perform as well or better than the students admitted based on their SAT scores. The 10 percent plan has also opened the University to poor, working-class and rural white students who had been excluded before. The only reason not to adopt such a plan is to maintain the elitism, and the University’s prerogative to do whatever they want with no public accountability. As the University has become more privatized and focused on the interests of rich donors over the interests of the students and the character of education, the administration has risen to a new level of arrogance, hypocrisy and utter disregard for the minority, women, immigrant and international students on this campus. This administration has a wellrehearsed routine of saying pious words about diversity, making false promises, creating distractions from the real issues and co-opting and threatening student leaders. The recent statements by University President Mark Schlissel at the Board of Regents’ meeting about the University’s diversity plan made clear that nothing has changed on the part of the administration. The Daily reported that Schlissel announced the administration had “formed a leadership committee to consider the changes recommended by the provost’s faculty-led committee on diversity and inclusion … and the committee released a report detailing several potential changes, including the creation of a strategic plan for diversity.” Regarding the administration’s ongoing meetings with the Black
Student Union, Schlissel said “These ongoing discussions are resulting in very productive consultations.” What?! Every year, the administration creates another committee to work on minority enrollment or campus climate or sexual assault awareness, and they are always the same: ‘Diversity Blueprints,’ ‘Expect Respect,’ and now ‘Change It Up’ and the ‘Inclusive Language Campaign,’ the committee for ‘student input’ regarding renovations to the Trotter Multicultural Center and the decadelong search for a more central location for the building. It’s time to cut the crap. WE DON’T WANT ANY MORE COMMITTEES. As long as the number of minority students continues to drop, racism on campus will increase. As long as the administration covers up rape instead of punishing the rapists, the real message will be clear that rape goes unpunished on this campus, and incidents of rape, sexual assault and harassment will continue to be rampant on this campus, no matter how many sexual assault-training programs students are forced to attend. ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. If you are tired of the administration’s worn-out lies, broken promises and endless failed committees; if you have been raped or been the victim of racist or sexist attacks or harassment on this campus, and want to fight for real justice, come speak out at our public tribunal on hostile campus climate this Friday at 7 p.m. in the Henderson room in the Michigan League. It’s time to take matters into our own hands, to build the power of the student movement to win real justice, equality and dignity for everyone. Katie Stenvig is an Alum. Tala Taleb is an LSA freshman and a Defend Affirmative Action Candidate for CSG. Joseph Frailey is an LSA freshman. Sienna Yoo is an LSA freshman. Austin Hamling is an LSA junior. All the authors are members of BAMN.
Weekend Roundup
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts & Culture
Thursday, November 6, 2014 — 5A
EVENT SPOTLIGHT: Rude Mechanicals’ Othello CAMPUS
EVENTS
By Emilie Plesset, Weekend Roundup Editor | Photos by Rita Morris, Daily Staff Photographer
T
his weekend, the University’s straight play theatre group Rude Mechanicals will open its fall play in the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre with an adaption of Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Othello.” Rather than performing the play in its traditional 17thcentury setting, LSA junior and “Othello” director Clare Brennan hopes to emphasize the play’s dynamic characters by creating a more modern background to deemphasize the distraction of a historical setting. Brennan said the modernized setting makes the play’s symbolism and themes more visible. “We’re creating our own world where it exists,” she said. “I’ve put myself into it and dug really deep into the themes of the show and how they wrap themselves in there.” The Shakespearean tragedy examines the destructive nature of jealousy and suspicion through its main character, Othello, a Moorish general in Venice, as his deceitful relationship with Iago, an envious solider and rival, ruins
both his life and marriage. After Othello promotes another soldier over Iago, the villain maliciously plots against Othello, poisoning his military career and planting suspicions of infidelity into his marriage. “This play really stuck out as something that connected to me as a student and as a young person,” Brennan said. “Especially the way it wraps up in the end, it very much is left hanging. A lot of it is very much in the audience’s hands to decipher and figure out after they leave.” Brennan said she thinks the play’s themes of jealousy and betrayal as well as the conflict of love versus lust will resonate with students. “It is really a play that asks us a lot of direct questions about instances in your life,” Brennan said. “We’ve all been through something like this and it kind of puts it on us a little bit.” In addition to performing a Shakespearean play in the fall, Rude Mechanicals will perform a contemporary piece during winter semester. The theatre group has yet to choose next semester’s play.
“We’re creating our own world.”
UPPER: Music, Theatre & Dance seniors Matt Daniels and Danielle Cohn rehearse Othello at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. LOWER: Music, Theatre & Dance junior Emily Shimskey and Cohn during the Wednesday evening rehearsal.
3 THINGS By JACLYN NAGEL Daily Weekend Contributor
We’ve been at school for over two months now, and you’re probably tired of frat parties and Netflix marathons. Or maybe you’re not. Either way, you should still try to do something new this weekend. If you don’t like it, I promise you can go back to your smelly fraternity basements next weekend. But wouldn’t you like more memories besides barhopping when you leave after graduation? FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7 Take advantage of these last few days of fall (and above-freezing temperatures)
to do this weekend
by visiting a local cider mill. Pretty soon all of them will be shutting down for the winter, so go and get your last fix of fall pictures and homemade donuts before it’s too late! If you’re lucky, maybe they will even have roasted almonds for sale. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8 This Saturday night, the State Theatre will be showing “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” at midnight. Though I know next to nothing about the movie, I do know that seeing a midnight movie in Ann Arbor is on my bucket list. Take this opportunity to cross it off of yours, considering you’re probably still
recovering from Halloweek anyway. Plus, midnight movies are only $7, which is definitely a win when you’re as broke as I am. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9 In case you can’t go a week without football, ditch campus for the day and head down to Ford Field. The Detroit Lions will be playing the Miami Dolphins and it is sure to be a fun day in the D. BONUS: Ford Field is indoors so you won’t turn into a walking popsicle like at the Big House last weekend. Maybe you’ll even get to celebrate a win, a feeling that we Michigan students are slowly starting to remember.
Looking at Quidditch from a player’s perspective By BRAD WHIPPLE Weekend Roundup Editor
When I tell people I play for the Michigan Quidditch team, people typically roll their eyes or giggle. Then the two big questions follow: “Who’s the snitch?” and “Do you fly?” The snitch is a runner who is trained to tackle, backpedal and defend a ball hanging by a Velcro strap at all costs — it ends the game, and one misstep could end a team’s season. The brooms don’t fly, but are still between players’ legs anyway. They’re PVC pipes that are lightweight, sleek and don’t draw all the attention and questionable looks that an actual broom would. It seems funny to envision running around while holding a broom and trying to score a semi-deflated volleyball by throwing it through a set of three hoops staked in the ground. But it’s possibly the most fun I’ve ever experienced. And some may think that the players don’t take it very seriously, since it’s neither a club nor a varsity sport. But we put just as much
heart into it as any team would, and we exhibit just as much commitment to improving our skills. We love winning, we love the celebration that follows a snitch catch, and we want to bathe in that glory this weekend when we travel to Grand Rapids for our regional Midwest Cup. For many teams, this weekend means a bid to the Quidditch World Cup VIII in April. Being held in Rock Hill, S.C., the World Cup is an international event that draws thousands of spectators and includes the best 80 teams. But it’s not an easy road. The game is more physical and grueling than most are led to believe. Quidditch is a full-contact sport. At the World Cup, the stakes are higher, and players don’t mess around as many are vulnerable to injuries. But like any other sport, there are rules to keep players safe — you can’t wrap around the neck, you can’t infringe upon a defenseless player and you can’t lead with your shoulder when making a collision. As a result, the rate of injuries has decreased through the
years with better officiating. As an unpredictable and natural aspect of sports, injuries don’t detract from how fun it is to play the game. We have an elaborate playbook of calls for use during games, we have to think on our feet to make smart choices and we have phenomenal talent all around. Additionally, the social aspect of meeting people with diverse interests and backgrounds makes being a part of the group all the more meaningful. Aside from playing, the Quidditch team does a lot for the community. To try and spread the enjoyment of the game, the team attends birthday parties to teach younger kids how to play. Quidditch also hosts a Yule Ball every winter semester, which draws more than 300 students. Quidditch may always have the reputation of being an imaginary game from J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series. But the real-life adaptation has been gradually garnering the respect it has desired and deserved. And for those who give it a try, it can be much more than words on a page.
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RELEASE DATE– Thursday, November 6, 2014
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
PARKING
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Actor who spoke the line, “I’d show him who was king of the forest!” 5 Sharing word 11 Newborn nurturer 14 Northern terminus of I-79 15 Frank quality 16 Andean tuber 17 Scoop a major news magazine? 19 Install, as tiles 20 It often gets blown off 21 Subscriber’s gift 22 WWII battleground 23 Cyberchats, briefly 25 Running wild 27 Sheriff of Nottingham’s plan? 32 Bag-screening org. 33 Dent, say 34 “The Magnificent Ambersons” director 37 Pioneering computer 40 Pony up 42 Wool source 43 Purse counterpart 45 __ bath 47 Gusto 48 Hearst Castle? 52 Anxious place to be 54 Watering hole 55 Wind quintet member 56 Ignoring, with “to” 59 Greek restaurant offerings 63 Title for Sean Connery 64 Banner advertising overstocked shelves? 66 President pro __ 67 Release payment 68 Corrida critter 69 Intractable beast 70 Sacks out 71 Fume
2 In __: stuck 3 Bring in 4 Get to work again 5 Window units, briefly 6 Over 7 Fascinated by 8 Text __ 9 “You can’t be serious” 10 Lyrical “before” 11 Eruption output 12 City west of Daytona Beach 13 City boss 18 A few rounds, e.g. 22 Moonshine source 24 Dim __ 26 Son of Adam 27 Mushroom part 28 Annapolis inst. 29 Reasons to pull out the tarp 30 Rest of the afternoon? 31 Emmy category 35 Give off 36 54-Across reorder, with “the” 38 Take unfair advantage of, as a privilege
39 Attention to detail 41 Actor Brynner 44 Slow and steady 46 Cotillion honoree 49 Everlasting, to the bard 50 Yields to gravity 51 Hush-hush hookups 52 Shade-loving plant
53 Village Voice awards 57 Sanctuary section 58 Probably not a really good show 60 Laugh-a-minute type 61 Big brute 62 Put one over on 64 Many AARP members: Abbr. 65 Hesitant sounds
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Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FOOTBALL
Peppers to receive redshirt after season-ending injury By ALEJANDRO ZÚÑIGA Managing Sports Editor
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Senior defender Ben Manko scored his first goal of the season on Senior Night, but it wasn’t enough to topple the Buckeyes.
Wolverines doomed by late goal on Senior Night By WES ROMAN Daily Sports Writer
The combination of Senior Night, a rivalry and a legitimate chance for both teams to earn a top-four finish in the Big Ten gave U-M OHIO STATE 2 Soccer 1 MICHIGAN Stadium a festive atmosphere before the Michigan men’s soccer team’s pivotal match against Ohio State on Wednesday night. But less than 30 seconds from the opening whistle, the mood changed dramatically. Straight from the kickoff, the Buckeyes found space down the right flank, and a cross fell to forward Danny Jensen 12 yards out, where he slotted his shot past fifth-year senior goalkeeper Adam Grinwis. Twenty-six seconds in to the biggest game of their season, the Wolverines trailed. Although Michigan leveled the score later in the first half, it was the Buckeyes (5-3 Big Ten, 8-6-4 overall) who shocked the Wolverines with a late goal in the 85th minute. Ohio State secured a 2-1 victory over its biggest rivals and the coveted spot in the top four of the Big Ten. Michigan came into the match full of confidence and hope. It had just defeated in-state rival Michigan State and was finally playing the kind of soccer Michigan coach Chaka Daley envisioned.
The Wolverines also had a complicated scenario in which they could clinch a top-four finish in the Big Ten, guaranteeing a home game to open next week’s conference tournament. But when Michigan State’s 3-2 victory over No. 2 Indiana went final midway through the first half, Michigan’s goal became very simple: beat Ohio State. That task, however, would prove much more difficult. The early goal registered as a shock to their system, but the Wolverines (3-3-2, 6-8-3) responded with perhaps their most exciting and attacking half of soccer this season. The rest of the first half was played at a frenetic pace, with plenty of chances for each team. “Conceding 30 seconds in is never a good thing,” Daley said. “I think we had to exert quite a bit of energy to get back, but I think we did that effectively.” The Wolverines got a prime chance for an equalizer in the 30th minute, when senior midfielder Marcos Ugarte cut in from the left side and went to the ground in the box, earning a penalty. But much to the dismay of the home crowd, fifth-year senior Tyler Arnone’s penalty was stopped by a diving save from Buckeye goalkeeper Alex Ivanov. However, on the ensuing corner, the Wolverines found their much-needed goal from an unlikely source. Senior defender Ben Manko found himself on the end of an inch-perfect cross
from Ugarte, and Manko — looking very much like a lifelong forward — scored the first goal of his Michigan career. “(Ugarte) put in a great corner kick, I got up and scored the goal … (it was) an unreal feeling,” Manko said. “But (I was) a little disappointed not to get the win at the end of the day.” The second half proved more difficult for Michigan. Grinwis made a pair of spectacular saves to keep the teams level, but the Wolverines were unable to create many good chances. The decisive goal came in the 85th minute, when Ohio State midfielder Christian Soldat curled a shot past two sliding defenders. Grinwis seemed to anticipate a deflection, took a step in the wrong direction and could only watch as the ball slowly rolled into the net. The loss, then, ultimately represented a chance squandered. “We found out (about the Michigan State result) at halftime,” Daley said. “Unfortunately, we got the wrong end of it by not getting the result tonight.” With Wednesday night’s result, the Wolverines will have to play on the road for the entire Big Ten tournament. But in the first round, they find themselves with a familiar opponent: the Buckeyes. In what should be a thrilling rematch, Michigan can only hope that it gets the chance to celebrate on its rival’s home field.
Anyone who watched the Michigan football team’s season opener against Appalachian State knows what it was missing without Jabrill Peppers. The freshman made his first career start against the Mountaineers, recording a pair of tackles at nickel back. But the former five-star recruit dazzled the crowd most with an electric punt return in which he eluded several would-be tacklers. But that return went for just six yards. It was that kind of season for Peppers — not that it was much of a season at all. He certainly would have starred on the Wolverines’ secondary and punt-return unit, but each time he got a sniff at stardom, injuries forced him back to the bench. Peppers suffered an apparent ankle injury that afternoon against the Mountaineers and hurt his leg again before Michigan’s Sept. 27 game against Minnesota. Wednesday, Michigan coach Brady Hoke officially announced Peppers will take a redshirt this year. Hoke said Peppers will “be in good shape” in four to five weeks, and should have no issues returning fullspeed for spring practices. The injury won’t need surgery. “I’ve talked with his mother, talked to doctors, trainers and everybody that should be included in the conversation (about redshirting),” Hoke said. “He’s taking care of himself. He’s been great with
treatments, great with rehabs and all those things. “He’s not going to be where you’d want a guy to be (healthwise) who has that kind of ability.” Because Peppers has played in less than 30 percent of the Wolverines’ games this season — he appeared in just three contests — and didn’t see the field after the midway point of the season, he’s eligible for the medical waiver, which could theoretically give him six years with the program should he be redshirted again. But someone with Peppers’ talents likely won’t be taking another redshirt year. Not when he was a standout as a true freshman who could have started anywhere in the secondary. “We were very excited about what he brings from an attitude standpoint to the explosiveness he had, the athletic standpoint, the makeup speed — all the things that made him one of the most recruited guys in this country,” Hoke said. “His football intelligence was at a high level. “We lost, possibly, (our starting) nickel or even a safety. Either one of those. He could’ve played all three positions.” And the Wolverines could have used the depth in their secondary, which has allowed
12 touchdowns and surrendered 189 passing yards per game, even after Indiana attempted just eight passes last week. Peppers was burned a handful of times as a corner against Utah on Sept. 20, but his recovery speed helped him avoid surrendering any big plays. And though Dennis Norfleet has done well returning punts, it’s hard not to wonder what Peppers would have contributed to the special teams. According to the stattracking site Football Outsiders, Michigan ranks 65th in the nation in offensive starting field position, excluding clockkills at the end of the first half and garbage drives at the end of games. But instead of contributing, Peppers will watch from the sideline as the Wolverines fight to reach bowl eligibility — just like running back Derrick Green, and linebacker Desmond Morgan, and tight end Khalid Hill and wide receiver Drake Harris. And Michigan will be left wondering what it might have had this fall in the nation’s former No. 2 recruit. “Oh yeah, no question (he was as good as advertised in practice),” Hoke said, smiling. “No doubt. I mean, in two-adays … Yeah.”
“He’s been great with treatments, great with rehabs and all those things.”
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
The Michigan women’s soccer team’s defense was strong, but its offense couldn’t create enough chances to pull away.
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‘M’ falls in second OT By KEVIN SANTO For the Daily
Nearly 19 minutes in to extra time, Minnesota midfielder Josee Stiever gained possession in the MINNESOTA 1 18-yard 0 MICHIGAN box after a defensive scramble and failed clearance by Michigan. Before a Wolverine defender could get to her, Stiever lofted the ball to the back post, where midfielder Taylor Winn Wodnick headed it across the goal line. That goal, scored in the final minute of double overtime, sent the Michigan women’s soccer team home packing with a heartbreaking loss to the Golden Gophers on Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament. The Wolverines entered the tournament the Big Ten’s No. 3 seed, while the Golden Gophers were No. 6. Michigan coach Greg Ryan was quick to emphasize that the goal was not representative of the team’s defensive performance as a whole. “(The defense) was outstanding, I think it was one of the best performances of the year,” Ryan said. “They kept
Minnesota under pressure the entire game. You know, the one chance fell to them, and it was a perfect cross and an easy header.” However, it was Michigan’s offense that struggled to create chances throughout the game, and it appeared the match would end in a stalemate as both teams battled evenly throughout. “I think both offenses were struggling,” Ryan said. “Neither team created great chances to score. I thought Minnesota’s defense was very, very good. We just weren’t able to get open for an easy shot.” Michigan’s best opportunities to score came in the second half, when sophomore forward Nicky Waldeck was on the ball often and catalyzed the attack against Minnesota’s back line. While Waldeck had only one shot on goal, it was her precision passing that resulted in some of Michigan’s best opportunities. Ryan emphasized that playing the ball through Waldeck was a tactical strategy that the Wolverines were trying to employ. “(Minnesota) leaves those spaces in the flank areas, there is a big pocket out there,” Ryan
said. “Our game plan from the very beginning was to try to find Nicky in that space and to attack from there.” The Wolverines now begin the anxious waiting period in anticipation of their postseason fate. But Ryan was optimistic about his team’s chances of earning an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. “It’s up to the committee,” Ryan said. “If you look at the Big Ten and the number of teams they are going to take, I think Michigan is in a great position. We’re going to come back and recover, and then train like we’re preparing for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.” But Ryan was quick to dismiss the defeat as a hindrance to the Wolverines’ success if they receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament. “The team morale has been fantastic all year whether we have won or lost,” Ryan said. “We’ve had no problems getting motivated for that next game. We’re getting ready for a second season now.” The first round of the NCAA tournament will begin Nov. 14, and the Wolverines hope to have the opportunity to break some hearts of their own.
the b-side B
The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, November 6, 2014
PANGEA By Yardain Amron, Daily Arts Writer
THE BEST PROFESSIONAL PIERCING SHOP IN A2 When I arrive at the address Kenny gave me, I expect to find him sharpening hooks or assembling rigging. Instead, a cleanshaven father and his two young sons are packing up a haunted house Halloween party from the previous night. Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” belts over the PA; a fondue machine drizzles chocolate in the corner; it smells like the pet rats caged by the door. “T-minus five minutes,” the father yells. I guess I’m early. And still slightly worried my tattered Vans are inappropriate. I’ve just never had to consider the question before: What do you wear to a private body suspension of a couple celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary, a couple that you’ve never met? (A: anything but loafers). Frankly though, I still wouldn’t even know that hanging yourself from hooks pierced through your skin is a thing people do, if Kenny hadn’t pierced my own ears a month ago. Surprise Mom!
gea’s established itself as a sturdy brand every piercing-shop owner has wet dreams about: clean, safe, professional; high quality jewelry and service worth the little extra green. It’s $35 for most piercings
piercing market in Washtenaw County, and grown a loyal clientele around the country and as far as the United Kingdom. When I stopped by the shop on East Liberty Street in late
instructions but I couldn’t keep my eyes on his eyes. His ears are jarring: hoops, studs, bars, and posts; chrome plugs in lobes stretched the size of soda caps. This is the exact
I felt kinda rude face-gaping; he has nice green eyes and a scruffy dwarf beard, but also two green jewels off a bridge piercing between them, and two more high nostril studs below those,
bites), and a pair of cheek piercings. How does he go through airport security? “... You cool dude?” I blinked, and the radio seeped back into the shop; Evanescence — “Bring me to life.” Before I could answer, I looked down at Kenny’s arm, at what I first mistook as alien bumps. Last year, Kenny had silicon implants incised under his left forearm epidermis. If you can’t picture what that even means, the whole procedure is featured on an episode of Pangea’s weekly web-show, The Modified World, hosted by owner J.C. Potts. The show, which gets 30,000 views on average per episode, documents and explores body modification, “the people who do it, the people who get it, and why it matters,” as Potts says at the beginning of each episode. The show’s also a boon to sales and has helped spread the word about Pan*** gea’s new online NICHOLAS WILLIAMS/Daily jewelry store, TOP PHOTO: Kenny Hughes began piercing in 2001 and works at Pangea for its stringent standards. ABOVE: Josh Campbell pierces LSA sophomore Eric Hur’s helix. When you get which launched your ears pierced this past summer in Ann Arbor, you (most of the gold have three options: stab yourself, (half off the second if you’re feel- September, the leaves were still dude I want piercing my ears. and a pointy cone called a sep- is custom made by Potts). risk diseases at the mall or go to ing frugal!), and jewelry ranges green. Inside, there’s a massive He slid his business card tril on the tip, a vertical labret See PANGEA, Page 3B Pangea — the only professional from $50 to over $2,000. With- abstract mural of Hell behind the across the glass: over a starry through the center of his lower DESIGN BY MIRANDA RIGGS piercing shop in the whole city. out any serious competition, the counter where Kenny sat, big and universe, Kenny stands under lip, two pairs of studs on each AND CAROLYN GEARIG Since opening in 2002, Pan- store’s consumed most of the burly. He explained aftercare the gaze of a big cat. side of his lips (often called shark
the b-side
2B — Thursday, November 6, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NETFLIX PIX
STYLE COLUMN
The importance of being Kendall Jenner
T
his past Monday, Kendall Jenner, heir to the Kardashian celebrity throne and Bruce Jenner’s middle part, turned 19. Media outlets from Vog ue to Cara Delevingne’s Instagram joined in wishing ERIKA her a happy HARWOOD birthday — something that, years ago, would have raised many a bold, well-groomed eyebrow. I’ve avoided the topic of Kendall’s quick rise to her spot in today’s fashion oligarchy mostly because I’ve been the sole cause of the Daily’s saturation in all things Kardashian. I even delayed writing this column because “Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons” was on and I desperately needed to understand why Khloé was dating French Montana (I still don’t — name one redeeming quality, Khloé). And for a while — a long while — I didn’t think Kendall was going to be that big of a deal. Obviously, I was wrong. It’s not that Kendall’s “It Girl” status comes as a total surprise. There’s a solid percentage of people in the entertainment industry who got their shot at fame just because they’re the spawn of other celebrities. Celebrities have bred talents in their own right, people like Stella McCartney, Angelina Jolie, Rashida Jones and Sofia Coppola. Stars who have developed their careers and personas to the extent that you no longer associate them with the reason they’re on this earth — even if you share a last name with that reason and that last name is “McCartney.” But seven years ago — when “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” first premiered, and Kim could barely land her own gigs outside of QuickTrim ads and Kendall was a mute, awkward 12-year-old — the idea of
anyone from the KardashianJenner dynasty going on to achieve great success seemed laughable. It probably still does to some people, but hey, I wasn’t shamelessly playing your iPhone game every day on my train rides to work this summer, was I? I could go into uncomfortable detail about Kendall’s modeling aspirations, which in the beginning, were played out with some frequency on the show — and if there’s one thing I do understand, it’s the E! network. Despite the show’s increasing success and Kendall looking more and more like a model each season (she’s 5’10” and probably 75 percent leg), I still wasn’t sold on the idea that she would be able to break into high fashion. She landed a few commercial spreads and covers on magazines like Seventeen and Teen Vogue, but she shared these gigs with sister Kylie and most likely got them thanks to the burgeoning popularity of “Keeping Up” — definitely not because she was “Kendall Jenner, model.”
She’s gone from Kardashian sister, to Jenner, to just Kendall. Then there was the Marc Jacobs show. Not just any Marc Jacobs show (not that anything he does can be so casually classified), but the Jessica Langenarrated, eyebrow-bleached, blunt-bobbed, nip-tastic Fall 2014 Ready-to-Wear show. I remember exactly where I was — probably because it’s where I am for most things — sitting under my electric blanket in my bed. Fully swept over by the hype of fashion week, I made a point of watching the show’s live stream. To me, it’s still the standout show of that season. The bold yet muted colors, the clone-like androgyny of the models, Jes-
Daily Arts Writers dig through recent Netflix releases to find the movies worth revisiting or discovering.
sica Lange serving as orator and, of course, Marc Jacobs coming out after the finale in Adidas track pants. It was definitely memorable. The unforgettable production value made me somewhat oblivious to the individual models walking down the runway — to be fair, they had bleached eyebrows and wigs on. It wasn’t until I went on Twitter afterward that I realized one of the blondebrowed, nipple-bearing models was indeed “aspiring” model Kendall, signaling a firm and final farewell to the days of Forever 21 campaigns. Since then, fashion has heeded to a full-on Kendall takeover. Reflecting on fall fashion week, it’s hard to name a show she didn’t walk in. We’re talking Chanel, Givenchy (she’s basically best friends with Riccardo Tisci), Marc Jacobs, Emilio Pucci, etc., etc., etc. It would be easy to credit a famous family for her success, and in part, we can. Kim’s ties to fashion tightens each day, and with a brood as famous and vast as the Kardashians, it’s not a novel idea to say they know people in high places. But making it from the oft-criticized world of reality television, to commercial modeling, to high fashion takes a little more than being able to cite Kris Jenner as your mom ... OK, a lot more. With such a large family, it’s possible that there will always be a slight Kardashian-Jenner stigma Kendall has to face — but based on her long strides in the past few years, it may not necessarily be a bad thing. In that small span of time, she has gone from Kardashian sister, to a Jenner, to just Kendall — high fashion model, Givenchy muse, Cara comrade — all by 19 years old. If that doesn’t erase any doubts you have on the power that is being Kendall Jenner, just give her a year or two. Harwood has just coined the phrase ‘nip-tastic.’ To congratulate her, e-mail erikacat@umich.edu.
WE KEEP UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO. @MICHIGANDAILY EPISODE REVIEW “The Flash” continues its strong first season, adding necessary depth to its supporting cast in its fourth episode while A introducing the first hints ‘Going of a recurring Rogue’ villain. While The Flash Barry Allen The CW (Grant Gustin, “Glee”) continues to be a strong lead, “The Flash” has started to flesh out the characters around the superhero. A large aspect of this episode was characters learning to trust each other as the Flash faced off against the week’s villain, Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller, “Prison Break”). Cold serves as a brutal, calculating villain and his utilization of a stolen high–powered cryonic gun was handled well. Using the gun to physically push Barry’s powers to their
DRAFTHOUSE
“The Birdcage”
“The FP”
One of the greatest films to remember Robin Williams by, “The Birdcage” is a testament to the pain and hilarity of family dynamics. Armand Goldman (Robin Williams, “The Face of Love”), a gay drag club owner, and his partner Albert (Nathan Lane, “The English Teacher”) receive big news when their son Val (Dan Futterman, “A Mighty Heart”), comes home from college, engaged to be married. A problem quickly materializes when Val elucidates the identities of their in-laws — an ultra-conservative Senator and his uptight wife. To appease his fiancée’s parents, Val asks his parents to lie, playing it straight for a night. Williams’s performance illustrates his deadpan abilities to perfection in between delivering gag lines and prat falls. This film will make you laugh and think, as it draws upon serious issues of conformity and gay rights, conveyed by a fabulous Nathan Lane in tights and pearls.
“The FP” is a highly original indie film that’s as low-budget as it is entirely bizarre. In the nearfuture, gang warfare is perpetrated through Dance Dance Revolution multiplayer battles (well, they didn’t get the rights to DDR — in this, it’s Beat Beat Revelation. Yeah.) after which the loser collapses and dies for an unexplained reason. It’s a smirking comedy, one that knows exactly how ridiculous its premise is and milks that fact. Perhaps the most interesting part of this film is its vision of the future of American English. Words are slurred together and abbreviated. Gangster slang and racial epithets have become staples of speech, but have taken on strangely positive connotations (“nigga” now stands for Never Ignorant of Getting Goals Achieved). The film is horribly paced and, well, kind of a mess in general, but it’s worth checking out for its ludicrous subject matter alone.
UNIVERSAL
DISNEY
“Happy Gilmore”
“Old Yeller”
Ah, it was 1996. Which meant, among other things, I was still wearing (and peeing in) Pull-Ups. Good thing, because another Adam Sandler farcical dungaree-wetter graced the moron in all of us. Sandler’s 1995 “Billy Madison” was the one about school. His sophomore film, “Happy Gilmore,” covered untrodden fringe: It introduced idiot to selflessness. It taught us over-educated Millennials a few things. Sometimes being a jackass should take precedence over politeness. Yes, I’m talking about Happy trying to stab another hockey player with his ice skate. Possessing insta-recall of ageless quips will take you far in life. If a mutton-chopped nursing home orderly (played by Ben Stiller) snapping, “You can trouble me for a warm glass of shut-the-hell-up!” at Happy’s grandma doesn’t make you feel reborn, then good luck with friends.
“Old Yeller was a mongrel, a ugly lop-eared mongrel!” The song harkens back to younger days, when we read all the old dog stories in Mrs. Brooks’s fifth grade class — Where the “Red Fern Grows,” “Shiloh” and, of course, “Old Yeller.” The movie yearns for the idyllic life of the Old Texan West, a life where a young man can grow up not knowing what money is, save maybe the Confederate dollar that Papa used to have. Even more charming is the antiquated acting, the old Southern accent and country speech — “He ain’t an ugly yeller dog, he’s a pretty yeller dog!” This classic is always worth revisiting. A testament to childhood and love, it is a story that has moved America’s heart for generations
SINGLE REVIEW
THE CW
limit was the greatest test for the young hero in his short run. The episode’s backbone was it’s exploration of trust, as Barry’s faith was shaken in his own support team at S.T.A.R. labs. The development for engineer Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes, “Arrow”) was welcome as the character had to face the fact that his cryo gun was in the hands of Captain Cold. Cisco had previously been relatively one-note, a goofball who rarely took anything seriously, but “Going Rogue” gave the character a chance to mature
UNITED ARTISTS
in order to win back Barry’s trust. This, paired with the friendship between Cisco and fellow S.T.A.R labs member Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker, “Friday the 13th”) in previous episodes, has created a strong pair of brains behind the show’s hero. The development of the people around Barry has allowed “The Flash” to improve in its initial run. With the hints of Captain Cold’s return, hopefully this development will extend to the series’s villains as well. — MATTHEW BARNAUSKAS
On Friday, Theophilus London dropped the track “Can’t Stop” off his new album Vibes, which was released on ATuesday. He teased Can’t Stop the track, Theophilus which feaLondon & tures Kanye Kanye West West, back Warner Bros. in September before quickly taking it off the Internet. But now that it’s out for good, we can’t stop listening to it, just like the title suggests. Though different from London’s norm and reminiscent of West’s earlier days, the track sounds effortlessly put together. The artists’ styles cohesively blend — Kanye contributes a less-aggressive, more introverted verse than anything we’ve heard from him on Yeezus, while London provides
WARNER BROS.
both the melodic hook and his own smooth, lyrically impressive verse. With an unconventional jazz-like sound and some Kanye one-liners — “It ain’t Ralph tho” — “Can’t Stop” has the potential to become the upbeat, catchy track to listen to while walking to class in the dead of winter and wondering why the hell you didn’t go to
UCLA, ugh. This song, as well as the rest of Vibes was produced solely by West. The two have reportedly collaborated on music for West’s upcoming album, as well. For now, I think it’s safe to say this track is “Ralph, tho.” —R ACHEL KER R
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
PANGEA From Page 1B Still, why would someone want that — to look like that? Most of mainstream society can’t wrap its head around it. “You ready to do this?” “For sure,” I say and nod way too confidently. Pangea’s three piercing rooms are small square inlets without doors. I lay on my back on an orange operating table. I stretched my head to the side while Kenny handled, through two pairs of sterile rubber gloves, a sharp piercing needle. Kenny seems confident, and it’s just my lobes. Lobes are allowed. “When you’re ready, take a deep breath in. I’ll pierce on a slow exhale.” *** Two weeks later, with the leaves turning fiery, I went to Kenny’s house in Ypsilanti to interview him about piercing culture. His apartment is in a brick block building. Out front, a Styrofoam cup was caught in the green hedges. Without plugs, Kenny’s lobes were wrinkled and string y. He wore long black Dickies shorts. The same cat from his business card eyes me. “I see what you did there. What’s its name?” “Blinka.” Blinka clawed the wall. A PlayStation 4 rested on a vacuumed carpet; Next to the TV, a cinderblock bookcase filled with Horror novels, and then next to that, two display cases, one with jewelry and the other with trinkets and a Kiss doll. We sat on the couch. Kenny said his foray into piercing was like the next kid’s. When he was six, he asked his mom if he could get his ears pierced. After some coaxing, she agreed, but qualified it was a one-time thing. She took him to the local mall in College Station, Texas, and the boy left with holes in lobes, face glowing. He was hooked, and started experimenting. He pierced himself, pierced his friends — first just ears, then noses and lips. “We were all putting holes in each other.” His parents eventually caught on and were startled a bit by their son’s off beat hobby. They told him to take out the jewelry, but Kenny was in his teenage-rebel phase. “I was grounded a lot in high school.” Six months out of high school, in 2001, Kenny took a job the counter of the local piercing shop. He was eventually offered a two-year apprenticeship, but the shop went bust six months later. He moved to Houston in 2007 and eventually finished his apprenticeship at the wellregarded Taurian Piercings & Metals. When Taurian closed in 2010, he moved to Ypsilanti to work at Pangea. As Blinka snuggled into Kenny’s lap, I asked him what a piercing career at Pangea is like. “It can be stressful, man.”
As one of two main piercers at the shop, Kenny’s paid $80 minimum per day, or $20 per piercing, plus tips. “A slow month is two-thousand to twenty-five-hundred dollars, a busy month, four to five-thousand,” he said Doing 20 to 30 piercings a day can be extremely stressful though. “You’re trying to get through stuff fast and in a precise manner, and at the same time you have people waiting for you in the lobby.” Impatient moms are worst: “Sometimes you wait hours, I’ll be honest. But do you really want me to rush through this shit nonchalantly and potentially fuck up your daughter because you don’t have the patience? … Not being able to sleep for a couple days is not fun.” Blinka jumped down and up onto an elaborate cat bungalow. Kenny broke a small smile. “I have this job where I can make people happy on a daily basis. I can change someone’s life. It makes me all warm and tingly inside.” The sentence looked ironic on the g uy. We laughed and I caught sight of his lizard tong ue (inspired, he said, by Lizard Man, a dude who’s undergone hundreds of hours of body modification to look like his favorite reptile.) “I fucking stab people for a living. If someone was walking down the street and poked me with a needle they would go to jail. People pay me to do that.” There’s something incongruous about this status quo. Most people don’t want to look like Kenny. We likely haven’t dated someone nor have friends that look like Kenny. Worse, no matter our claimed liberalism, we likely hold ingrained stereotypes of people like Kenny. Why else is it that we don’t want our doctors looking like Kenny? That Kenny has lost g irlfriends af ter being introduced to their families? “Some were more accepting, but for the most part it’s been bad experiences.” When mainstream societ y experiments, we tr y OJ with pulp, paint the bedroom salmon, maybe go bungee jumping. Just simple studs in my lobes will do, please and thank you. Why would anyone want so many holes in their body? Or suspend their body via shark hook? I was playing with my studs again, t wirling the moonstones in their holes, when I realized the same applied to me. I like how my earrings looked, but I still don’t know if my more traditional parents will approve of my piercings. Them to Me to Kenny to Lizard Man is just a matter of deg rees of judg ment. “It’s your own fault for not being able to even g ive it a tr y and see what I’m like,” Henny said. “I don’t care though, miss out on whatever you want. It doesn’t really affect me.” *** “Don’t let me know if body fat pops out this time. I didn’t
need to know that last time,” John says. From behind a surg ical mask and sterilized gloves, Kenny squeezes a chunk of John’s back and propels a long piercing needle in and then back out. Fondue chocolate is congealing in the corner now. A metal album called Wisconsin Death Trip screams over the PA. By the wall, John Campbell sits backwards on a chair covered with a white surg ical tablecloth. A single line of blood f lows down his bare back. His nipples are pierced, “it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as you would think,” and he also has t wo small silver metal tunnels in his lobes. Marlee is snapping smartphone close-ups of the t wo hooks hang ing from four fresh holes in John’s back. The hooks are eng raved in swirly script with his and Marlee’s names, wedding date, and the words “one year anniversar y” — a surprise g if t from Kenny. It still smells like the bundle of sage Kenny burned. Behind him, on t wo disinfected tables covered with white surg ical table clothes, is his makeshif t piercing station: boxes of rubber gloves, sterilized rubber gloves, lubricant, saline and alcohol solutions, dental bibs, blue dye, gauze in rows of “pre” and “post-packs,” various t ypes of hooks Autoclaved and hermetically sealed, plus some sutures — just in case. John eats his third pack of M&Ms. We’re talking about needles, and Marlee says she’s terrif ied of hypodermic needles, which surprises me because she’s a phlebotomist; also because what’s a hypodermic needle to hang ing upside-down from your knees (Marlee’s doing that next.) “I’m just scared of takings f luids in and out of my skin,” she said. But you’re not scared of suspending? I tell her how I like shots. She calls me weird. John looks ner vously at the rigg ing in the center of the room. From a metal roof support 20 feet up, a thick rope hangs bet ween t wo metal pulleys. A carabiner connects the lower pulley to a small f lat metal bar with lots of holes. A thinner rope weaves through the holes leaving two long loops. We gather around the rope and Kenny attaches the hooks in John’s back to the rigging. Last year, John only got off the ground for a few seconds before feeling a panic attack coming on ( he suffers from them reg ularly). He wants to improve on that record. Kenny starts pulling the rope slowly, and the slack tautens. The hooks pull the skin on John’s back until it turns white. Kenny increases the pressure slowly. Skin stretches. It looks like bat wings have been growing, about to burst from his back. I can’t take my eyes away. A part of me weirdly wants to know what that feels like. Suspending from your back. Floating like that. Another part of me wants to run away before its Marlee’s turn.
Thursday, November 6, 2014 — 3B
BOOK REVIEW
Five books for the literary and lazy By ALEX BERNARD Daily Arts Writer
“I’m going to read more!” “I’m going to do my homework a week in advance!” “I’m not going to wait until the last minute to write my Michigan Daily article!” We’ve all lied to ourselves before. We’ve all tricked our overlyambitious 20-something minds into believing our fall semester was going to be productive, not like those “other” semesters. But it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen partially because of classes and clubs and work, and partially because you’re not Malala Yousafzai. “Who’s that?” you ask. At 17, she’s the youngest Nobel Peace Prize Winner ever. Read the news. Who has time to read though? Between classes, daily calls home to your parents, running for CSG President and playing quarterback for the football team, who can spare even an hour to read? Reading doesn’t have to be a chore though. It can be fun, like jet-skiing with Hillary Clinton or bungee-jumping from the St. Louis Arch. Or sleeping. Maybe avoid “Infinite Jest,” “Atlas Shrugged,” or “The Dictionary of Modern English Usage” (all books in my room). Just f ly through quick, sharp novels. Here are a few that you might not know about: “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” by George Saunders, 192 pages Satirist and humorist George Saunders is widely regarded as one of contemporary literature’s most important and most original voices. His bizarre and off-beat stories shed light on what’s been in front of our faces the whole time, often much to our chagrin. He’s been compared to Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, even Mark Twain. He’s just that good. Published in 1997, “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” is Saunders’s first book. Six short stories and a novella. That’s it. In just 192 pages, he picks apart a dystopian America with precision and simplicity, deconstructing everything from race to class to sex. It’ll take about a day and a half to finish ( breaks included) and will look great next to a coffee mug on your Instagram or slipped into the front pocket of your messenger bag. “Wolf in White Van” by John Darnielle, 224 pages
From the lead singer and lyricist of The Mountain Goats, comes a jarring novel about Sean Phillips, a man facially disfigured at 17 yearsold. After “the accident” (no spoilers), Sean creates Trace Italian: “A Game of Strateg y and Survival!” Strangers play. Sean helps and struggles and thrives. That’s all you need to make one of the most original stories in fiction today. This book stirs. It wakes. Then it shakes. It’s an expertly crafted work with a unique voice and a sharp, unforgiving perspective. Darnielle attacks what it means to be alive with ferocity and ambition. The result in an exceptional work that is much more than just a story; it’s an experience. Buy this book, finish it this weekend, and read it again. I’ll be in Espresso Royale doing the same. “The Name of the Star” by Maureen Johnson, 400 pages The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux moves to London for school, a body is found brutally murdered outside of a pub. The murder begins a string of killings that mimic the gruesome crimes of Jack the Ripper. One night, while outside of her dorm, Rory spots a grave-faced man in a long black cloak. The next morning, a body is found on her campus. (Cue music.) Johnson, usually a writer of realistic YA lit, dives headfirst into the paranormal with this haunting tale – the first of a series of four. Don’t be concerned about the 400 pages either. It’s a quick, pulseracing read. “The Name of the Star” will chill you, thrill you and make you paranoid of any man in a top hat. And the end will – well you’ll just have to read it, won’t you? Just be sure you’re not alone. Or in the dark. Don’t make my mistakes.
by his best friend, Ford Prefect. The two spend the novel traversing the galaxy and trying to find the meaning of, well, Everything. Where 800-page novels weigh you down with lessons and (ugh) metaphors, “Hitchhiker’s Guide” doesn’t even take itself too seriously: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” I read this book in a day. The next day, I went out and bought the sequel. I read that in a day too. The next three sequels are sitting on my desk, eager to be added to this list at a moment’s notice. “Stardust” by Neil Gaiman, 288 pages Tristan Thorn promises his true love he’ll bring back a fallen star. His journey begins, and we’re off. Neil Gaiman, a master of fantasy and wonder, delivers an enchanting novel that never ceases to be suspenseful, hilarious and the favorite book of young Gaiman nerds everywhere. An old witch seeks to regain her youth. A flying pirate ship sweeps through the clouds. A Daily Arts Writer gets goose bumps and audibly gasps at the end. This book has it all. Murder. Romance. Magic, magic and magic. For 288 pages, anything can happen. And anything does. Buy it. Read it. Rinse. Repeat. So there you have it. Five books. Finish them. And then next week, read: “Franny and Zooey,” by Salinger, “Sirens of Titan” by Vonnegut, “Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future” by A.S. King, “Amsterdam” by Ian McEwan, and “Pudd’nhead Wilson” by that guy named Twain. Read, read, read. Then do your homework. It’s due tomorrow.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, 224 pages If we’re talking about dark humor (and we always are), then look no further than Adams’s most famous story. When Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked from Earth
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
TRAILER REVIEW Pharrell Williams’s “It Girl” is by far the most visually interesting music video I have seen in a long time. The producA tion combines anime-like scenes, Pharrell old-schoolColumbia video-game graphics and even some bizarre, neon-inverse coloring of a dancing Pharrell. The music video opens up on a sandy cartoon beach. As Pharrell begins the first verse, musing “my compass spinning baby,” a compass in the sand is shown spinning on the beach. Such continuity between the lyrics and visuals occurs sporadically throughout. The next scene is a grooving Pharrell, with his entire body flashing and filled in by bright, neon colors. The background is plastered with hundreds of floating little characters and symbols. The stimulus overload from this scene makes it absolutely off-the-wall and unique. A videogame that looks a lot like Maplestory then pops up on the screen with Pharrell as
It Girl
NICHOLAS WILLIAMS/Daily
Josh Campbell looks at his work on LSA sophomore Eric Hur’s pierced helix.
COLUMBIA
the skateboarding protagonist, but then quickly changes into an anime beach scene of sorts. I could definitely see “It Girl” getting some heat for this video here, as there are plenty of young looking girls in bathing suits who certainly have clearly defined, um, proportions. While this may be typical of anime/ manga style art, Pharrell lurking in the background with a pair of binoculars inspecting the girls definitely sets a creepy vibe for the moment. The music video proceeds to alternate between its computergenerated trippiness, cutesyvideo-game sets and anime scenes until finally rolling out
the credits in a similar fashion to Pokémon games on Game Boy. Personally, my favorite part of “It Girl” comes a little after the halfway mark, when cheesy-video-game Pharrell buys a dolphin spaceship, goes to outerspace, shoots some bad guys and visits Galactic Mount Rushmore with Pharrell’s face (and hat) chiseled in. Even from the start of the music video, it’s clear that the computer-generated animations and effects of “It Girl” allow for fantastical outside of the box thinking that makes this production well worth five minutes of your time. —KENNETH SELANDER
the b-side
4B — Thursday, November 6, 2014
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
CHEFS
GOTH NIGHT
OF
ANN ARBOR
NICHOLAS WILLIAMS/Daily
DJ Jinx spins a set at Necto’s industiral night.
Exploring Factory Monday at Necto ‘Internationally known’ event draws GothIndustrial crowd By ADAM DEPOLLO Online Arts Editor
The streets were quiet when I drove with a friend to Necto on a Monday night two weeks ago. It was about midnight; we found a parking spot in front of the State Theatre, walked across empty intersections toward the club’s unassuming façade and, finding no line, made our way inside. I really wasn’t sure what I would be seeing behind those doors. I knew that Necto’s Factory Monday must attract a healthy crowd — it has been a tradition since 2004 and, according to the club’s website, is “internationally known” — but I honestly had no idea what to expect from the night’s GothIndustrial crowd. What exactly do several hundred morose, leatherand guyliner-clad twenty-somethings do when they together in a room? After climbing the stairs leading to Necto’s main dance floor, it became immediately clear that I had been asking the wrong question. I was there during Halfway to Halloween, one of Factory Monday’s monthly theme parties, and the club was filled with around 600 costumed patrons sporting a roughly equal mix of goth-inspired garb and bright, colorful outfits taken from video games and TV shows. The mood was festive — everyone was waiting for the night’s culminating costume contest — and as my friend and I went around the club talking to some of the guests, the warm, welcoming feeling pervading the room was inescapable. I asked the patrons I spoke with how often they came to Factory Monday and was
surprised to find that almost everyone in the room was a regular. Sal Giorzano, a tall guy dressed as the villain from “Repo Man,” explained that he had been coming to the night since it began in 2004. “Shit, I’ve been here probably two years’ worth of Mondays,” he said. “I’ve been coming here for twelve years, since they started Mondays here.” And it became increasingly clear that the welcoming atmosphere I noticed when I walked into the room is exactly what attracts people to Factory Mondays. Samantha Littleton and Nicole Walker were relative newcomers to the night — Walker had only been there a handful of times and this was Littleton’s first visit to the club — but they were willing to drive more than four hours from their home in Michigan’s thumb to enjoy the comfortable vibe at Necto. “I feel comfortable here,” Walker said. “People normally look at me weird for wearing leather, but I like to come here because I always get compliments on it. So it’s the atmosphere, everyone’s so nice.” “I actually only came here because of (Walker),” Littleton added. “I’m not really into the whole goth thing. But I like it so far. Like she said, everybody’s so nice here.” Necto Manager Bryan Kostoff and DJ Jinx, the two directors of Factory Monday, explained that that friendly, welcoming atmosphere is what allows the night to be successful, even on an off-day like Monday. “The community is very inclusive and very vibrant,” DJ Jinx said. “You’ll walk in and you’ll meet one person, then you’ll meet thirty more before you leave for the night. It’s actually one of the things that makes a night on a Monday thrive instead of a traditional weekend. Everybody seems to want to talk to everybody else, it makes it a better place.” The welcoming vibe at
Factory Monday differs starkly from other Industrial nights around the country, which, as Kostoff explained, can often be somewhat exclusionary. “Other places that typically have industrial music or that kind of scene, it’s a kind of a hard crowd,” he said. “They only play rather aggressive industrial music, it’s not a very welcoming environment. It’s a little elitist.” And Necto’s more eclectic atmosphere can turn off more devoted members of the goth scene like Giorzano. “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “This is the second time I’ve been here in a year. I’ve stopped coming. If they have big events, I’ll come out for the big events. The crowds have changed a lot. The new generation sucks, but it is what it is.” But as DJ Jinx and Kostoff explained, Factory Monday isn’t really about catering to any particular crowd. “For us, we try to have a much more open vibe to what we do,” Kostoff said. “We’re not a straight up Industrial night — we try to embrace nerd culture because that’s who we are.” “We’re a potpourri night, in a lot of ways,” DJ Jinx added. “We welcome everybody, you know, the strange from any community.” It’s about building and supporting an eclectic community of people, a circle of friends who, though drawn from different backgrounds, are simply there to have a good time and enjoy each other’s company. “If I wanted to cater only to the ‘I’m gother than thou, oh woe is me’ crowd, we’d be doing fifty or sixty people a night and I’d be bored and depressed out of my mind every week,” DJ Jinx said. “But with this, I’ve got people who I genuinely want to see and look forward to hugging and seeing next week. Every Monday is like a family reunion, and every week my family gets a little bit bigger and more unique.”
NICHOLAS WILLIAMS/Daily
Brendan McCall is the executive chef at Mani Osteria and Isalita.
By GIANCARLO BUONOMO Senior Arts Editor
When Brendan McCall was a student at the University in the late ’90s, he thought about becoming a lawyer, or maybe an architect. He still could pass for one — medium height, slim, with a trimmed beard and thick glasses. But one look at his arms, and his profession becomes quite clear. “There’s two ways to tell if someone’s actually a cook. One, your arms are burned,” he says, jerking up his sleeve to reveal a series of thin red lines running elbow to wrist. “If you’re a chef and your arms aren’t burned, you don’t work in the kitchen any more.” “And then this,” he says, pointing to the bottlecap-sized callous between his index finger and palm, the result of years of gripping a knife. McCall has certainly earned his scars. He’s now the executive chef at both Mani Osteria and Isalita, two wildly popular restaurants on East Liberty that are favorites of both reviewers and students alike. But McCall’s journey started as a kid, when his hands were still soft but a love of food was already seared into his conscience. Born in Somerville, Massachusetts, McCall moved around a lot, but was anchored by his large, extended family — many of whom originated from Sicily. “It’s clichéd at this point, but cooking is part of your lifestyle,” he says of his Italian-American heritage. “You don’t have to rediscover food as a daily part of your life, which is what’s happened to a lot of Americans,” he adds. Growing up in a family where grandparents might have three separate kitchens in one house, and children were enlisted to peel potatoes and pick herbs at every gathering, it would be hard not to become a food lover. But when McCall came to Ann Arbor for college, he soon learned that he wouldn’t always have thirty food-crazed paesanos with him
at every meal. “I took it for granted, because that’s how I grew up,” he says. “But then you come to college and you suddenly have to create and maintain that culture for yourself.” As a student, he majored in history and anthropology and nurtured his ever-present interest in cooking by hosting dinner parties for friends. But after graduating, and realizing that he had no interest in law, he decided to turn his hobby into a living, at least until he figured things out “While I’m deciding this, I still have to pay my bills to U of M, so I thought ‘Why don’t I get in a kitchen?’” he says. McCall got a foot in the kitchen door by starting at the lowestranking positions, dishwashing and prepping, at Diamond Jim Brady’s Bistro in Novi. He waited patiently for a chance — really a temporary promotion. “There’ll be an instance where some guy calls off, he has too much to drink the night before, he doesn’t show up for his shift, you’ve been paying attention, and then suddenly you’re working the lunch shift,” he says. McCall kept paying attention and was soon working different stations in the kitchen and making friends and connections in the industry. These early days were a slog, no doubt, but necessary to learn the basics. He then moved on to kitchen jobs in Metro Detroit, and stints in Portland and Charleston, before finally returning to Ann Arbor, for what he dubs a “followed-agirl-here kind of thing.” Now back in his college town, McCall became a sous-chef at Eve, a once-lauded Kerrytown establishment that unfortunately closed in 2011. He even worked at Zingerman’s, or “anywhere I could get knowledge,” as he puts it. His big break came, however, when he became the executive chef at Everyday Cook, a unique new eatery and store in the Kerrytown Market. It was a highly creative, experimental environment, where lunch every day was determined by the bounty of the farmers market, and private dinner parties could feature cuisines, and proportions, not typically seen in these parts. “We’d do something like 15 course tasting menus from southern Spain for eleven people,” McCall says with a laugh. After a short stint in catering, McCall wanted to open his own place. When I ask whether, because of his background, he immediately wanted to do Italian, he explains that the restaurant business is rarely that accommodating. “If you’ve been in the business long enough with friends, you’ve had a lot of ideas for things you’d want to do, but you can’t find the space, can’t find the backing, can’t find the team,” he says. “ You need someone who’s going to take that chance on you, so I was really just waiting for a chance, rather than a specific cuisine to do.” With his business partner Adam Baru, he opened Mani in May 2011. McCall knew that for the restaurant to be successful, and satisfying, it had to have the correct proportions of
authenticity and comfort, which are always a concern when serving “real” Italian food. “You want it to work, right? There’s really no point in doing it if people aren’t going to enjoy it. We’re trying to make them happy, we’re trying to feed them. If they’re happy, we have a healthy business,” he says “If I try to do something that’s only for me, only what I love, but no one else likes it, and I keep pushing it, then that’s just ego, and it’s not going to work in the long run anyways,” he adds. Mani’s menu reflects this philosophy. There is a simple Margherita pizza, but there’s also one with pistachios and red onions. Brunch features an egg dish, but this egg is all’amatriciana, an adaptation of the classic Roman pasta sauce of tomato, Pecorino cheese and cured pork cheek, or guanciale. “What we try to do is make it approachable, oftentimes recognizable, but with lots of surprises, with an element of discovery,” he says. And as Mani gets more and more popular, McCall’s dishes can get more and more creative and surprising “When we opened, people just wanted the salads and the pizza,” he says. “It took several months for them to say ‘Lets try the octopus,’ or ‘Let’s have more of that pork belly.’ They start to trust you a little more. Now that we have their trust, I think we can do more.” But Mani wasn’t enough. Baru’s wife is Mexican, and he and McCall had always wanted to open a Mexican eatery in Ann Arbor that went beyond burritos and nachos. This idea became Isalita, opened two years after Mani, but separated by just a wall. One wouldn’t have thought it would be hard to serve Mexican food in Ann Arbor, but McCall says otherwise. “If you want to talk about having a difficult time with people’s understanding of the cuisine, Mexican is a much more difficult sell than Italian,” he says. “Italian has a much longer history of being related to fine dining, of people thinking that they’ll go out for a full dinner, while people think of Mexican as knocked-down, inexpensive, lots of beans and rice, lots of cheese.” Isalita’s menu isn’t any of those things — think watermelon gazpacho and braised lamb tacos. And though it is a separate restaurant from Mani, ideas and people flow between them. “The staff is excited by both sides. You’ll see a lot of the staff at Mani dining at Isalita, and vice versa. Both sides are very proud of both restaurants,” he says. McCall is himself proud of having fathered this multicultural restaurant family. But his success doesn’t mean that he can sit back and watch the kids peel the potatoes and pick the herbs. When he shows the photographer and me Mani’s wood oven, we ask if he’d mind standing in front of it for a photo, or if the heat, now shimmering off the bricks, is too uncomfortable. He laughs. “This is where I stand every night.”