ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Thursday, February 4, 2016
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U.S. House committee hears Flint testimony AVA RANDA/Daily
Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, speaks during a debate at the Michigan League Ballroom on Wednesday.
Debate between prominent political figures draws 500 Topics of contention included Middle East, education and economic policy By TIM COHN Daily Staff Reporter
The University chapter of Young Americans for Freedom held a debate in the Michigan
League Wednesday between popular conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and University alum Bill Ayers, a liberal activist turned education professor at the University of Chicago. LSA sophomore Grant Strobl, president of the University’s Young Americans for Freedom, called the debate the “ultimate fight between the left and right.” The debate was moderated by LSA Dean Andrew Martin, each debater had 10 minutes to give
opening remarks and five minutes to rebut before opening the debate to pre-selected student-submitted questions as well as an audience Q&A session. The event drew almost 500 attendees. Before the debate, LSA freshman John Sack said that he was interested to hear what D’Souza and Ayers had to say, and was hopng for a lively, healthy dialogue. The debate covered a variety of issues, but specifically focused
on American foreign policy in the Middle East, economic mobility and education policy. Throughout the debate, D’Souza frequently pivoted back to the issue of individual economic freedom. This, he said, is one of the most important issues to him because of his personal experience as an immigrant who arrived in the country with only $500. D’Souza called the freedom to pursue financial wealth through See DEBATE, Page 3A
Members of Congress investigate individuals involved in water crisis By LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
The U.S. House Oversight Committee hosted a hearing on the Flint water crisis Wednesday, hearing testimony and questioning several individuals involved in the crisis. The water in Flint has been contaminated with lead since April 2014 following a switch from Detroit city water to Flint River water — a decision made by the city’s emergency manager, Darnell Earley, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder (R) in September 2013 in response to the city’s financial troubles. U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D– Flint); Joel Beauvais, acting deputy assistant administrator
CRIME
FLINT
Men’s rights group cancels meeting in A2 Return of Kings organizer suspends member activity after protests worldwide By RIYAH BASHA Daily Staff Reporter
Return of Kings, a men’s rights group led by Daryush Valizadeh, has allegedly cancelled their Feb. 6 meetups in all locations, including one stated to be held in Nickels Arcade in downtown Ann Arbor, according to the group’s website. “I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meetups can not be made private in time,” Valizadeh wrote in a post. “While I can’t stop men who want to continue meeting in private groups, there will be no official Return Of Kings meetups.” Valizadeh initially announced worldwide
meetings for men who read his website on Jan. 22. On their website, ROK advocates for policies that would legalize rape and advances “neomasculine” thought, such as subordinate roles for women in society. The news of Ann Arbor’s meet up spread on social media late Tuesday night, and campus police took steps to gain more information about ROK’s activities after receiving multiple tips from the campus community. Stockwell Residence Hall sent out an e-mail warning residents to take caution, and the University released a similar statement Wednesday evening. “DPSS is working collaboratively with the Ann Arbor Police as well as other local, state and federal law enforcement partners to monitor the situation,” University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said in the statement AAPD Detective Lieutenant Robert Pfannes did not return requests for comments. The University’s statement See MEETING, Page 2A
in the Office of Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Keith Creagh, director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality; Marc Edwards, professor of environmental and water engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute; and Flint resident LeeAnne Walters all testified before the committee. Darnell Earley, previous Flint emergency manager, stepped down from his position as Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Tuesday, one day before he was required to testify before the U.S. House Oversight Committee. Earley was not present at the hearing. The committee exists purely as an investigatory body to reveal information to the public and it will only be able to call forth witnesses and make suggestions to Congress. Peter Jacobson, professor of health law and policy, said he hopes Congress follow only recommendations set forth to See TESTIMONY, Page 3A
Discussion examines impacts of water crisis Pediatrician goes over events which led to the state of emergency in city By WILL FEUER
AVA RANDA/Daily
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Kinesology sophomore Cass Bouse-Eaton and LSA senior Eileen Enright deliver opening remarks at the first annual Greek Life Speak Out at Palmer Commons on Wednesday.
Panhellenic Association and SAPAC host joint speak out Sorority members talk sexual assault within and outside of Greek life By EMILY DAVIES Daily Staff Reporter
The University Panhellenic Association partnered with the University’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center to host the first annual Greek Life Speak Out on Wednesday.
In front of an audience of 150 students, about 20 sorority members made their way to microphones at the front of the room to “break the silence,” about their experiences with sexual assault. Between each monologues, the audience sat in a silence, amid some displays of emotion. Many women spoke about sexual violence they have experienced within the Greek system, while others described their experiences with sexual assault outside of fraternity houses or the University. In addition to testimonies from
sorority members, Panhellenic peer educators — sorority members trained to assist and support survivors within their sororities — read aloud anonymous stories submitted through Facebook prior to the event. Due to the confidential nature of the event, the Daily was asked to not record or quote speakers. Instead of applause, Panhellenic members encouraged students to tie signs to a string stretching between microphones to demonstrate their support for their sisters. See SPEAKOUT, Page 3A
In an effort to have an open and transparent conversation on the Flint water crisis, Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the pediatric residency program at the Hurley Medical Center spoke at the University Wednesday. In an hour-long presentation, she offered discussion of a timeline for the crisis and medical and psychological facts regarding lead and possible next steps. Hanna-Attisha headed a study in September 2015 that showed the proportion of children in Flint with high lead levels had significantly increased, contrary to what state officials said at the time. The lecture room in The School of Public Health was filled, along with two other full lecture rooms showing live See CRISIS, Page 3A
Music in Ypsi A look at how one band instructor is making a difference
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INDEX
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NEWS......................... 2A OPINION.....................4A SPORTS......................6A
SUDOKU.....................2A CL ASSIFIEDS............... 5A B-SIDE ....................1B
News
2A — Thursday, February 4. 2016
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Campus Voices
EAST QUAD EATS
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Ford School junior Rob Dickinson, Java Blu employee makes a sandwich in East Quad on Wednesday.
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY: On the Daily
Orglead: Risk Management
WHAT: Learn how to achieve your personal and professional goals by setting effective goals, finding motivation and embracing optimism and pessimism. WHO: Glenda Haskell WHEN: 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. WHERE: Administrative Servies Building - LPD
WHAT: Information for student orgs about how to manage obstacles regarding member safety and risk. Information will be provided on injury, safety, protocols and other related topics. WHO: Center for Campus Involvement WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Union Pendleton Room
#LSADEI WHAT: A student workshop and dialogue with students, faculty and University staff members who have been involved with the drafting of the LSA Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Plan. WHO: LSA Development, Marketing & Communications WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. WHERE: Michigan League - Ballroom
University researcher Julia Lippman conducted a study and found that romantic comedies normalize stalking behavior. In her study “I Did it Because I Never Stopped Loving You: the Effects of Media Portrayals of Persistent Pursuit on Beliefs abotu Stalking,” Lippman explored representations of stalking in Hollywood movies to see if women have become numb to taunting male behavior disguised as romance in such films. Potentially dangerous stalking behaviors are often portrayed as romantic in films. Lippman showed her
EIHS Lecture WHAT: In a lecture entitled “The Personal is Political: The Autobiography of Rose Pastor Stokes,” Regina Morantz-Sanchez will discuss the 1905 intermarriage between Rose Pastor and Graham PhelpsStokes, an immigrant and an Ivy League ProtestantAmerican reformer. WHO: Regina MorantzSanchez WHEN: 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. WHERE: Tisch Hall - 1014
Penny Stamps Speaker Series Voice Recital WHAT: Rashaad Newsome, an interdisciplinary artist, will present his work in which he explores the visual language of power and status. WHO: Rashaad Newsome WHEN: 5:10 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Theater
FRIDAY: Photos of the Week
Movie genre linked to stalking 426 female subjects 30 minute-long clips from from one of six movies: There’s Something About Mary and Management, which both portray romantic pursuits in positive light; Enough and Sleeping With the Enemy, which convey stalking negatively; or March of the Penguins and Winged Migration, both of which are neutral films. Even before the study was published, people have had qualms about the nature of romantic comedies: “Stalking myths are false or exaggerated beliefs about stalking that minimise its seriousness, which means that someone who more
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
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WHAT: Voice majors from the class of 2017 will display their talents and perform a variety of songs in front of an audience. WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance WHEN: 8:00 p.m. WHERE: Walgreen Center - Stamps Auditorium
Planters NUTmobile WHAT: An info session for those interested in applying for the Planters Brand Specialist-NUTmobile spokesperson position. Bring a resume and cover letter! WHO: Career Center WHEN: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. WHERE: Anderson Room, Michigan Union
Get to Work! WHAT: An interactive workshop where first-year students will be given guidance for assessing their interests and skills and exploring potential careers and opportunities. This is a fun, informal brainstorming activity. WHO: Career Center WHEN: 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. WHERE: The Connector Multipurpose Room
strongly endorses stalking myths tends to take stalking less seriously,” Lippman wrote in her study. After watching the excerpts from the films, subjects answered surveys, one of which posed questions about stalking myths. Those women who watched the first two films were generally accepting of the aggressive stalking behavior. This study was inspired by Lippman’s belief that terms such as “Facebook stalking” trivialize and downplay stalking behaviors and gendered aggression. — MARLEE BREAKSTONE
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
Republican candidate Rand Paul announced that he is dropping out of the presidential race, CNN reported. The announcement was made following a fifth place finish for Paul in Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
2
Daily Arts Writers explore Spoon University, an online food magazine, as well as a writer’s community on campus. >>SEE B-SIDE, PAGE 1B
3
Darnell Earley, the state-appointed emergency manager of the Detroit Public Schools, resigned on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. Earley was also Flint’s former manager and oversaw the decision to draw water from the Flint River.
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Hackett speaks with students about athletic dept. at forum Interim AD discusses recruitment, expanding seating By LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
Interim Athletic Director Jim Hackett and Liz Barry, special counsel to University President Mark Schlissel, discussed ideas for improving sporting venues, the recruitment process and the importance of a transparent relationship between the athletic department and students at an open forum Wednesday. The discussion was coordinated by Central Student Government as a venue for students to bring up topics pertaining to athletics
as the University transitions to anew athletic director, Warde Manuel, next year. CSG President Cooper Charlton, an LSA senior, said the idea for the dialogue was generated last semester to insure the inclusion of student opinions on athletics decisions. The tenure of now former Athletic Director Dave Brandon, tenure prior to Hackett, was surrounded with controversy and ended in his resignation in October 2014. During Brandon’s time in the position, students spoke out against Athletic Department moves such as higher student section ticket prices, advertising campaigns that offered free tickets with Coke products and the decision to put quarterback Shane Morris back in a game with a possible concussion. “We wanted to avoid the tumultuous situations we got
into in the past,” Charlton said. “We really wanted the students to feel like they are part of the process.” Several students in attendance offered ideas to improve student seating at various sporting events, including basketball and hockey. Currently, student sections at Yost Hockey Arena and the Crisler Center are spread out and divided across the seating space, which students said diminish from the overall bonding and excitement. Hackett said the excitement of the student section is a vital part of the University’s sporting event experience for both students and other attendees. “I love when we go crazy with the students,” he said. “That’s what makes me want to go to the games: to watch you. Not only does the team feed off of it but the rest of the fans do too.” Looking at recruitment — specifically football recruitment — Hackett said the values the University was built on, such as integrity and academic excellence, are important when looking for prospective players. “It goes without saying that
MEETING From Page 1A also condemned the group’s values. “The strong and unequivocal response of condemnation of this group by the University community demonstrates that our community values respect for all persons and rejects language and actions that promote sexual and genderbased violence,” Fitzgerald stated. A Facebook event
MARINA ROSS/Daily
Interim athletic director Jim Hackett speaks at a CSG meeting at the Michigan League on Wednesday.
the standards here are pristine in terms of integrity,” he said. “It’s a 150 year old program, and it’s the underlying values that make it great.” The discussion of recruitment followed the University’s Signing with the Stars event earlier Wednesday for National Signing Day, which featured University alums Derek Jeter and Tom Brady. Barry also highlighted the importance of an open route started Tuesday night by a University student calling for a protest against ROK posted celebrating the official cancellation. The protest, now called the Women’s Rights Awareness Rally, will still continue as scheduled on the Diag Saturday night, according to organizers. “We will be planning events and having speakers/ organizations educating us on several topics including sexual assault, women’s health, reproductive justice, and much more,” the event’s description
of communication between students and the athletics administration, especially with the ongoing transition from Hackett to Manuel. She said Manuel will be willing to work with students, but that students also need to actively share their opinions on these matters. “Warde is hard wired to be connected,” she said. “But I think this is kind of a shared responsibility. You
guys reaching out is half the equation.” CSG Vice President Steven Halperin, an LSA junior, said he appreciated the work Hackett has done during his time at the University, but is looking forward to seeing what new leadership will bring. “He has impressed me and the rest of the student body,” he said. “We are all going to dearly miss him, but we are excited for Warde too.”
reads. Businesses around the Nickel’s Arcade area also reacted negatively to the news of the meetup. The manager of a popular Maynard Street bar, who requested anonymity, maintained that security, however, would not be an issue. “We have so many bouncers already, and people walking the crowd to make sure no one is too intoxicated, or is trying to take a girl home without her permission,” he said. “Saturday night is already busy, and we have a great relationship with
the (city) police, too.” Henriette Rowland, an employee of University Flower Shop inside the arcade, said business owners she spoke to were aware of the event, but did not want to draw excessive amounts of publicity to ROK. “It’s sad that it’s happening,” Rowland said. “And it should be against the law. But we’re trying to find a good balance between not being too crazy about it and giving in, but also being outspoken about it and how ridiculous the whole thing is.”
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NEWS BRIEFS
Funding awarded to encourage medical discovery projects The Center for the Discovery of New Medicines has awarded funding for discovery projects done by University faculty regarding important health topics such as chronic kidney disease, different types of cancers and atherosclerosis. The grants will help researchers advance these projects so they can receive more funding from additional sources, such as federal agencies, foundations and industry partners. The CDNM’s role is to provide both financial resources and access to technology for researchers who could potentially create life-saving therapeutic drugs. Recipients of the awards include Ronald Buckanovich, associate professor of medical oncology; Vernon Carruthers, professor of microbiology and immunology; and Yuqing Eugene Chen, Frederick Huetwell professor of cardiovascular medicine. Also awarded were Raymond Trievel, associate professor of biological chemistry and Matthew Soellner, assistant professir of medicinal chemistry. The awards given this year ranged from $37,000 to $50,000. Since being established in 2012, the center has given more than 30 awards totalling nearly $860,000.
Study on apes highlights research gaps present in Africa, Asia Anthropologist Andrew Marshall, along with several of his colleagues, found that onethird of protected nature areas in Africa have not received any research attention. These findings hold implications that there is a disproportionate focus on great apes and their homes as compared to other equally important species. This can hold consequences for the field of anthropology, as well as the species being neglected. In a press release, Marshall said this obvious preoccupation with apes is detracting from other species that also need attention, especially in this region and in tropical Asia. Ultimately, nature areas and protected national parks in both Africa and Asia with great apes returned 3.1 times more hits than those without great apes. These findings lead to unrealistic assessments of the status of threatened species and result in serious gaps in the amount of knowledge available on how these species live — both in protected and unprotected habitats.
Studies reveal average increase in fuel economy last month The average fuel economy for new vehicles sold in January increased to 25.1 miles per gallon. The increase is from 24.9 as measured in December. Though overall, fuel economy is down 0.7 mpg from an all-time high in August 2014, it is still 5 mpg up from October 2007, the first month monitored by researchers at the University Transportation Research Institute. Researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle also focused on a national Eco-Driving Index, an index that estimates the average monthly emissions generated by a single driver from the United States. This index took into account the amount of fuel used per distance driven and the amount of driving. Sivak said in a press release that this increase likely reflects the seasonal decrease in sales of pickup trucks and SUVs, rather than an exponential increase in the amount of four-doors purchased. —ALEXA ST. JOHN
DEBATE From Page 1A free enterprise a hallmark of the American Dream, and suggested students get stipends to attend universities and colleges. In response to D’Souza, Ayers questioned the United States’ commitment to allocating its budget to military engagements abroad instead of devoting more spending to make education more accessible for all students. Attendees often cheered in agreement with both speakers. D’Souza drew raucous applause when he stated that health care costs kept rising because of the high number of people who rely upon publicly funded health care and the large tax burden this poses to the average taxpayer. “The guy who is getting the benefit is not the guy who is paying for it,” he said. Ayers’ biggest applause from the crowd came when he spoke about privilege throughout the country. “We, as a democracy, as a people, ought to say that whatever the most privileged and wisest parents have for their children, we should have for our community’s children,” he said. Ayers also emphasized the important role of education in a healthy democracy several times during the debate. One question submitted by an anonymous student directed to both speakers was: “If you could have been one of the framers of our Constitution, what would you have changed?” D’Souza answered that he would have reinforced the built-in checks and balances that help curb the power of the government. In response, Ayers simply stated that he would have changed two things: abolished slavery and given women the right to vote. Following the three studentsubmitted questions, Dean Martin opened the floor to any attendee who wished to ask the debaters a question. The topics
SPEAKOUT From Page 1A Engineering sophomore Maggie Hafers, president of Zeta Tau Alpha, said the Speak Out had an emotional atmosphere. “(I felt) shock, heartbreak, but also empowerment,” Hafers said. LSA senior Alyssa Gorenberg, a founder of the Panhellenic peer educators program, said she hoped the Speak Out would help create a safer and more supportive Greek community. “We want this event to be a staple in our community for the future,” Gorenburg said. “I think it’s really important to raise awareness for
TESTIMONY From Page 1A help the people of Flint deal with the aftermath of the crisis. “It’s Congress that needs to take action,” he said. “The purpose of the oversight committee is to hold public officials accountable.” In his remarks, Kildee said he thinks it is important to recognize that the major decisions that led to the water crisis were made by Earley and not the local government officials. “So when we talk about failure of government at every level, let’s just be clear about one point — one very important point: Every decision that was made for the city of Flint that relates to this crisis was made by a state-appointed emergency manager,” he said. “The mayor of the city has no authority; the city council in Flint had zero authority to make any decisions. That is an important point.” According to Jacobson, because of Michigan’s Public Act 72 — often referred to as the emergency manager law — Earley is unlikely to face legal consequences for his actions as the law provides virtual legal immunity for any actions taken by an emergency manager. During the hearing, Kildee also submitted a memo from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality which indicated they had misinformed the Environmental Protection Agency regarding their use of an optimized corrosion control plan. This information could have had the potential to keep lead out of
News of these questions ranged from the Flint water crisis to the Black Lives Matter movement. On the topic of the Flint water crisis, Ayers said Gov. Rick Snyder (R) should be driven from office for his failure in the matter. He called the incident a “catastrophic example of government being run like a business.” When the debate concluded, each debater received a standing ovation the audience and D’Souza and Ayers both were approached by dozens of fans and critics when they left the stage. In an interview, D’Souza described the debate as “more substantive” than another debate held between him and Ayers, at his alma mater, Dartmouth College. He stated his desire for liberal universities to be more open to dialogue from conservative students and to be more vigilant to protect the right to free speech. He called the undergraduate experience “a stage of life where you are learning,” and said he felt political activism on campuses to be less important than learning from one’s peers and developing personal political beliefs. Ayers said in an interview after that there was only one area that he wished had been further discussed — climate change. “Climate change is one area where you can see ideology trumping reality,” he said. “The problem with ideology is that it can be helpful as a guide for thinking but can also be a prison and a trap.” Strobl said he was pleased with the discourse between the D’Souza and Ayers, as well as the enthusiastic involvement from the crowd. “I was really happy with how the night went,” he said. “The debate could not have gone any better, especially because both speakers were unafraid to take on the tough issues. I think that is what the campus needs.”
Thursday, February 4, 2016 — 3A
SINDUJA KILARU/Daily
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha gives a talk about the Flint drinking water crisis at the School of Public Health on Wednesday.
video feeds. Public Health graduate student Patrick Kelly said he attended the event because he saw the crisis as an issue that hits close to home for him. “I think it’s one of the biggest environmental health crises of our time,” Kelly said. Though the passion in the room was clear, it seemed to be driven by curiosity rather than outrage. “It’s a sad situation, but I still need to learn more about it, myself,” said Public Health graduate student Christian Balcer. However, by the end of the presentation some attendees expressed anger toward the government’s response to the crisis. Health Informatics graduate student Jarrod Sandel said he was distressed by the official response. “You look at the work that Dr. Mona and other people have tried to do to try to bring this to a head,” Sandel said. “And to have them be stonewalled at every step is just horrendous. It’s a public health failure.” During her remarks, HannaAttisha said approximately 18 months went by with the state government and the Environmental Protection Agency withholding information. “Right away the water was brown,” Hanna-Attisha said. “It looked gross. It smelled gross. It tasted gross. People complained instantly about rashes and hair loss, but it fell on deaf ears … Then,
our sisters in our chapters and the Panhellenic community as a whole. I am hoping that people find that they have a space that is safe and confidential, that they can start to heal or continue their process.” Panhellenic Peer Educators handed out pamphlets at the the beginning of the Speak Out, which detailed confidential resources available to survivors and allies on campus. The back of the pamphlet had a blank space left for students to write, draw and/or reflect. There was also a confidential SAPAC advocate in attendance available to students if needed. Though SAPAC hosts annual Speak Outs at the University, LSA senior Laura Meyer, volunteer
coordinator for the networking, publicity and activism program at SAPAC, said there was an important distinction between this Greek Life Speak Out and the campus-wide one. “I think a lot of people make assumptions about Greek life without listening to the lived experiences of people within the Greek life system, which is why I think this is so important to create the community where people are comfortable listening to each other and sharing with each other,” she said. “And with that we can try to go forward and change the culture so this event is not necessary in the future.”
the water for an estimated $80 to $100 per day, according to the memo. Walters said the MDEQ misinformed the EPA due to alleged misinterpretation of the law, causing residents to think the water was safe for many months when it was not. “The MDEQ claimed they misinterpreted federal law regarding corrosion control,” she said. “They were allowed to tell EPA that they were following the law. Citizens in Flint were told for 18 months that the water was safe.” Snyder was not among those called to testify before the committee. Jacobson said this was part of a partisan bias, in which Congressional Republicans — who have the majority in both chambers— want to avoid harming a prominent Republican governor by shielding him from any tough questions he would face in the hearing. “The majority party rarely wants to expose wrongdoing among its own party members,” he said. “My guess is Snyder is not being called because they do not want to expose him to the questions from the minority members.” U.S. Rep. Elijah Cumming (D–Md.), one of the committee members, said he requested the chair of the commission, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) ask Snyder to come and to have him submit documents, but was refused. “Governor Snyder should have to answer for his
decisions,” Cumming said during the hearing. “We asked the chairman to invite him today, but he would not. We asked the chairman to send the same kind of document request that we sent to the EPA, but he would not.” Colleen Crossey, a political activist who co-organized a recent Ann Arbor protestcalling for Snyder’s arrest, said in an interview that she would like to see Snyder face consequences and appear before the committee. “Snyder should be held accountable because of his lack of oversight,” she said. “I want to see him held accountable and for him to go to Washington and answer the questions that he needs to answer.”
in October 2014, GM stopped using this water because it was corroding engine parts. This is when alarms and red flags really should have gone off.” Hanna-Attisha also noted the potential effects of lead contamination on children. These effects may include decreased IQ, ADHD behavior and increased criminality. Most of all, HannaAttisha said the children and the community as a whole have been affected by trauma. “We have a community that’s absolutely traumatized,” HannaAttisha said. “I see the moms in clinic, and the sacks under their eyes. This is trauma for two things, loss of trust in their government — governmental betrayal and neglect for two years. This is 2015. This is Michigan. We are literally in the middle of the Great Lakes and we could not guarantee a population that they’re drinking clean water. And they’re traumatized by lead.” Social effects aside, the cost to the government for treating these ailments will be significant, HannaAttisha added. “In the nation we spend about $50-100 billion dollars a year treating the consequences of lead poisoning,” Hanna-Attisha said. “So you add up decrease of lifetime earning, special education costs, criminal justice costs, mental health costs — it is staggering.” Speaking to ways to buffer the impact of lead exposure, she
also discussed efforts to increase accessibility to the Hurley Medical Center. The Hurley Medical Center confronts all the biggest obstacles between Flint residents and better health such as transportation, consistency and diet, according to Hanna-Attisha. To combat these issues, the center is located next to a bus stop, vulnerable families visit the same nurse at least until the child reaches age two and the center is located above a healthy foods farmers market, which offers special deals to clients. However, Hanna-Attisha said the center still needs a lot of development. “We’re building a plane while flying it,” she said. Hanna-Attisha offered advice on how to help the Flint area, specifically in regards to the water crisis. “Stop giving us water, we don’t need water,” Hanna-Attisha said. “What we need is an investment in tomorrow.” She recommended donating to research funds and hospitals on the front lines or to community organizations helping the dayto-day situation of these families. She finished the presentation by emphasizing the need to empower children, quoting Frederick Douglass. “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
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Opinion
4A — Thursday, February 4, 2016
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ANGELA DILLARD | OP-ED
History of the R&E requirement
In September 2015, I launched a UROPsupported project with four undergraduates and a graduate research assistant to explore and make public the history of LSA’s Race and Ethnicity requirement. The first question we set out to ask and answer was: What conditions on campus led to the creation of the Race and Ethnicity requirement? The second question has to do with the process that led to the vote of the LSA faculty on Oct. 8, 1990, which established the requirement. Leading up to the decision were what then-Dean Edie Goldenberg called “several years of soul-searching and intellectually challenging dialogue” in the Spring 1991 issue of LSA Magazine. “Faculty of all ranks and disciplines questioned the rationale of a ‘diversity requirement’ and asked how it could fit within the traditional understanding of a liberal arts education. Some expressed skepticism that a requirement would lead to the desired outcome, however worthy the intent. They were answered by others who argued that the College would be derelict if it failed to attempt to prepare students to face one of the most pressing social problems of the late 20th century,” Goldberg said. While Dean Goldberg uses the phrase “diversity requirement” in her carefully worded letter to LSA alumni, the real impetus behind the requirement was about racism. The first proposal for a “racism requirement” was generated by a student activist group, the United Coalition Against Racism, in tandem with two faculty groups: Concerned Faculty, and Faculty Against Institutional Racism. Motivated by a string of racist incidents on campus in 1987, they worked for over a year to get the proposal on the agenda of an LSA faculty meeting. Though this first proposal — sometimes called the “radical alternative” — was defeated, authorization was given to establish UC 299 as a pilot course dealing with issues of racism and intolerance. This was not what UCAR envisioned; the organization sought a committee consisting of seven faculty members from various ethnic and gender studies departments and two students from the Baker-Mandela Center to work together over the development of the course. They feared the course’s supervisory board would consist of people who had little understanding of race, racism and discrimination. In the meantime, the LSA faculty continued to consider and debate several alternatives. All of this unfolded against the backdrop of continued student protest by UCAR and within the broader Black Action Movement,
dubbed BAM III. As was the case with BAM I and BAM II issues of campus climate, the diversity of the student body and the faculty, questions of equity in funding and, of course, the nature of the curriculum continued to swirl. Some administrations, like LSA’s Dean Peter Steiner, were denounced as unresponsive and obstructionist. The debates over what would eventually become LSA’s Race or Ethnicity requirement (the name was changed to Race and Ethnicity in 1995) revealed stresses and fault lines within the faculty and on campus. Some warned of an overly politicized curriculum that would substitute “indoctrination” for “education”; others warned that the proposed requirement would not go far enough in fully addressing the underlying problems of racism; some feared more student activism, while others sought to promote more radical alliances between students and faculty. The tensions over whether the requirement should focus on racism or on diversity was never, we think, fully resolved. Most understood that no single course or degree requirement was sufficient to solve the problems of race and racism, intolerance and discrimination. The debates — captured in the pages of the local press, including the Daily, in archival materials stored at the Bentley, and in the living memory of participants — offer a historical window into the origins and evolution of the Race and Ethnicity requirement. We also believe they tell us something important about the history of our campus and the ways we have struggled with, and sometimes struggled over, questions of race, identity and education. The main goal of our project is to use a variety of sources to tell the story of the Race and Ethnicity requirement and to find creative ways of share our findings with the Ann Arbor campus. You can follow us on Twitter (@reumhistory). We’ll also be partnering with the Daily on an oral history project to capture the voices of faculty, students, alumni and administrators who took part in the events of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As LSA continues to review the requirement and to think carefully about the role of the curriculum in its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion plan, we hope that this history will help to inform our contemporary perspectives. Stay tuned for more. Angela D. Dillard is LSA’s associate dean for undergraduate education. She is also the Earl Lewis Collegiate Professor of Afroamerican & African Studies and a professor in the Residential College.
Falling before the finish line
W
ith surprisingly no obligations to fulfill, no deadlines to meet and no meetings to attend, I laced up my running shoes. After almost four Ann Arbor winters, 45-degree days in January are still anomalies to me, but they’re anomalies I take full advantage of. I jogged around the center of campus and rounded my way south through a MELISSA large section of student neighborhoods. I origiSCHOLKE nally told myself it’d be an easy jog — a short distance at a gentle pace. But I figured I could do a little bit more. I kept pushing onward. One more lap around the law buildings seemed feasible. Once I reached the last stoplight on my street, my over-ambitious mind told my tired limbs to work a little harder. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t jogged in more than a month or that I’d been running for 45 minutes already. I probably wasn’t going to be able to squeeze in another run for a while. I sprinted, ignoring the warning signals my body was sending. Darting around pedestrians on the sidewalk, my foot landed in a patch of fresh, slippery mud. I tumbled forward, slamming onto the concrete driveway of the house next to my apartment. My hands — outstretched to break my fall — were scraped and caked in layers of dirt and blood. Lying on my back like an overturned turtle, I conducted an injury inventory. “OK, so that was probably a bit too much at once,” I muttered bitterly as I hobbled along the last 30 or so feet to my apartment. That’s not the first time I’ve uttered that phrase, and the tendency to overexert myself crossed my mind countless times over the past few semesters. Overexertion, for me and many other college students, is a matter of
hindsight. This realization hit as I collapsed on the couch at the end of the day, after getting little to no sleep the prior night. It accompanied migraines and an empty stomach after realizing I forgot to eat until 8 p.m. or when two cups of coffee and a bowl of cereal were the only things sustaining me throughout the day. Additionally, it recently hit when a relatively mild case of bronchitis lingered for an entire month. College cultivates an environment of overexertion, and its effects are as diverse as the students experiencing this atmosphere. As a student population, we’re continually reminded that “busy” is always somehow “better.” Our success is constantly measured according to how hard we push ourselves and whether we’re pushing ourselves enough. For some, this equates to dividing time outside of class between numerous jobs, student organizations, internships and clubs. As these expectations increase, overexertion and exhaustion can plague students regardless of their course load. In this balancing act, something is always sacrificed — whether it be one’s social life, their grades or their physical well-being. For students of lower socioeconomic status, overexertion is an almost-certainty, and large amounts of money and the ability to even complete a degree are often at stake. For example, students often take heavy course loads of roughly 15 to 18 credits for a variety of reasons: completing a double major, switching a major or merely trying to graduate within four years. However, students from low-income households frequently do so out of financial necessity. Students coming from school districts located in low-income areas often are limited in their ability to accrue AP or IB credits that could count toward their degrees, placing them at a disadvantage in comparison to their peers. Taking more credits each semester lessens the time one needs to complete his or her degree, and decreases the immense financial burden placed upon these students.
S
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
On seatbelts and identity
aturday evening, I slid into the back seat of the third Uber I have ever been in. I was on my way to a near-Main Street bar with two friends, both from states with stricter seatbelt laws than Michigan. They instantly harnessed themselves into AARICA the passenger MARSH and rear-passenger seats of the Uber driver’s car. I remained unbuckled in the rear driver-side seat. I didn’t even notice I was the only one without a seatbelt on until we arrived at our destination. Though I always buckle up in the front seat of any car, it isn’t as instinctive to me when riding in the back. Fifty years ago, the federal government passed the National Traffic Safety and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, allowing it to create and enforce safety standards for motor vehicles. As the years passed, seatbelt requirements became more and more strict. In 1984, New York became the first state to require drivers to wear seatbelts. About one year later, Michigan was the third state to enact some sort of seatbelt requirement. By 2000, the Michigan legislature, similar to several states across the nation, instituted a primary enforcement law giving police officers the authorization to pull over drivers for not wearing a seatbelt. Originally, officers were only authorized to ticket unrestrained citizens after pulling them over for a separate offense. In 2004, Michigan was the first state east of the Mississippi River to achieve a 90-percent seatbelt use rate. Five years later, it held the national record for highest seatbelt use at 97.9 percent. Today, Michigan requires that all drivers
and front-seat passengers always wear their seatbelts. However, if you are over 15 years of age, a seatbelt is not required in the back seat of vehicles. In 2010, the state had the fifth-highest seatbelt-use rate at 95.2 percent. Nationally, the rate is 87 percent for drivers, 85 percent for front-seat passengers and 78 percent for rear-seat occupants in 2013. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2010 State and Territory survey, “Jurisdictions with stronger seatbelt enforcement laws continue to exhibit generally higher use rates than those with weaker laws.” The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute notes that seatbelt rates are often lower among men, younger people and occupants of pickup trucks. A 2012 national telephone survey found that short-distance drives, forgetfulness and discomfort were the top reasons for not wearing a seatbelt among those who sometimes used a seatbelt. Among those who never wore a seatbelt, discomfort, the belief that seatbelts are not necessary and a dislike of being told what to do were the top three reasons for their decisions. Seatbelt-use rates have soared since the 1960s as researchers and citizens have come to realize how vital they are to protection while riding in vehicles. In 2009, more than half of passenger occupant fatalities occurred while the passengers were unrestrained. NHTSA estimated that seatbelts saved more than 62,000 lives from 2009 to 2013. Growing up in a rural Michigan county, I witnessed a lot of unbuckled car passengers. Whenever I went on long trips as a kid with my cousin and her dad, he would make the back seat of his van into a pull-out bed and let us sleep during the ride. My mom always scolded me, telling me to make sure to wear my seatbelt in cars, but I was a kid. It was fun not having to wear a seatbelt.
When I turned 16, I stopped wearing my seatbelt in the back seat during short-distance rides or with drivers whom I knew. With fewer than 800 residents in my hometown, the roads are nearly always empty. I never questioned my behavior until I came to Ann Arbor and made friends who did. After watching the Democratic debate nearly three weeks ago, my friend Derek offered to drive me to my car. It was freezing outside. We piled into Derek’s roommate’s car, dropped another friend off at her apartment and then headed across campus to the Maynard Street parking garage. Almost 300 feet from our destination, Derek had a sudden realization. “You’re not wearing a seatbelt,” he said. “You don’t have to in Michigan when you’re over 15 years old and in the back seat,” I retorted. “There’s a strict seatbelt rule in this car,” replied Derek’s roommate, Sam. “I wouldn’t even start the car until everyone was buckled when I was a camp counselor.” “Well, I trust your driving,” I directed toward Derek. “It’s other people on the road that you have to worry about,” responded Sam, poking me in the knee as he said it. Instantly, I felt guilty. As much as I hated to admit it, they were right. How many times have I heard of a fatality when a car passenger was unrestrained? How many public service announcements have I watched about the importance of seatbelts? How many lives could have been saved with a seatbelt? The answer is too many. And yet, last weekend I found myself once again slipping into old habits. I remained unbuckled during that Uber drive Saturday night. But, looking at my two friends safely strapped to their seats, I once again felt guilty. Aarica Marsh can be reached at aaricama@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe, Hunter Zhao
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
BOB WEISBECKER
Recognizing that taking fewer than 15 credits prolongs both the duration and financial impact of one’s college education, the U.S. Department of Education recently proposed an initiative to restore access to Pell Grants throughout the year, which would enable students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to take courses during the summer. Additionally, the Department of Education advocated instituting an annual $300 bonus for students receiving Pell Grant funds who take at least 15 credits per semester. The Department of Education claims that the credit incentive would aid an estimated 2.3 million students and encourage students to complete their degree at a faster rate. This is all occurring in the midst of “15 to
E-mail Bob at weisbecr@umich.edu
Finish” campaign that encourages students to take larger course loads in order to succeed. While these initiatives are wellintentioned and done with an awareness of how difficult it can be completing a degree in a timely manner, incentivizing and encouraging students to assume heavier course loads places even more stress on a population of students who are already overworked and struggling with time constraints. Currently the maximum annual award a low-income student can receive from a Pell Grant is $5,775. Even if a student receives additional aid or scholarships, it’s likely individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds will need to work to cover any remaining tuition costs and basic living expenses. The struggle
to balance long work shifts with a larger course load may inhibit degree completion rates as well. The efforts and incentives are good first steps on a path to improve federal student funding and aid students in obtaining an education in the most efficient manner possible. However, these initiatives must be navigated carefully, recognizing the pressures placed upon student populations as they try to balance myriad expectations. If enacted, these proposals should aid students while still acknowledging that pushing overburdened students to move too fast may cause them to fall before they finish. Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu.
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thursday, February 4, 2016 — 5A
‘M’ introduces 2016 class Star-studded bunch helps unveil recruits on National Signing Day By JAKE LOURIM Managing Sports Editor
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Michigan’s “Signing of the Stars” was complete with a star-studded cast.
Harbaugh turns fantasy to reality on Signing Day
I
t started with his usual rallying call. Host Randy Sklar introduced the man of the hour, the day, the week and the year, and out came Jim Harbaugh, ready to put on a show. MAX “Who BULTMAN could possibly have it better than us?” Harbaugh asked the crowd, firing them up while also reminding them that on Wednesday especially, the answer was nobody. Harbaugh put on a spectacle to be remembered at Hill Auditorium, as his National Signing Day special event “Signing of the Stars” repeatedly crossed back and forth from being completely surreal to being too Harbaugh-esque to not be true. Ric Flair was there, reminiscing about a weekend spent at the Beta house while on a recruiting trip to Michigan, where he apparently signed a National Letter of Intent to play for Bump Elliott. Former Michigan quarterback Jack Kennedy rapped to open for country singer Josh Gracin, who opened for Sklar. Tom Brady and Derek Jeter sat on a couch and introduced high schoolers, and then Todd McShay, Mike Shanahan and Lou Holtz analyzed their film on a studio set. Jim Leyland dabbed. Let me say that again, just so it doesn’t get lost — Jim Leyland dabbed. This was Jim Harbaugh’s vision, overset onto the reality the rest of us inhabit. With the auditorium filled to capacity, Harbaugh created a weird, fascinating and fun signing day carnival that had a little something for everyone. Brandon Peters, Harbaugh’s potential quarterback of the future, was elated to meet Tom Brady. Kareem Walker, one of the nation’s top running back recruits, was most starstruck by Migos. Sklar was taken with Flair, Brady and Jeter, but also by meeting one of the early enrollees, linebacker Carlo Kemp. The fans got their dose of Harbaugh, which will sustain them only until his next idea gives them an opportunity they literally cannot get anywhere else. The team is going to Florida for spring practice in less than a month, and you can bet there are more big ideas on the horizon. “This is a perfect example
of how Jim Harbaugh’s mind operates,” Desmond Howard said after the conclusion of the event. And it was a perfect example. But it was only a slice of his imagination. Signing of the Stars brought so many aspects of Harbaugh’s first year into one big event, including a peek inside Harbaugh’s mind, which is at once a total mystery and squarely in the spotlight. Wednesday, he took a vision, propped it up into 3-D, and made it come alive. Even as silly as it was at times, Wednesday was a spectacle. Michigan’s early enrollees mingled with Super Bowl MVPs, MLB All-Stars, NFL coaches and analysts and more backstage. Ric Flair charmed and disarmed the crowd, and every player had a cardboard cutout of himself in the lobby. In fact, with less than 30 minutes remaining in the ceremony, the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Rashan Gary committed to the Wolverines. By the time the ceremony ended, there was a cardboard cutout of Gary in a Michigan uniform standing in the lobby. These things are uniquely of Harbaugh’s conception because, if anyone else had the idea, they would dismiss it as a fantasy. Harbaugh embraces his ideas and turns them into reality. One recruit Skyped in to talk about Harbaugh’s sleepover at his house. Harbaugh threw a pass into the stands and shot jokes across the stage with Lou Holtz. His brother, John Harbaugh, was there, shaking hands with Jim’s new players and telling a story about how, when Jim sent him a picture of new tight end signee Nick Eubanks, John told him to send Eubanks straight to the Ravens. And for the love of God, Jim Leyland dabbed. While all of this was happening, Gary was going through the final moments of his selection process. Gary, of course, committed to Michigan, leading the fans to chant, “GARY, GA-RY,” even though the coach couldn’t publicly comment on him yet. Gary missed the spectacle, but by signing up with Michigan, he won’t miss the next one. No one’s really sure what that will be, but with Harbaugh at the helm, it’s sure to be weird, it’s sure to be wild, and it will probably be a roaring success.
“This is a perfect example of how Jim Harbaugh’s mind operates.”
Bultman can be reached at bultmanm@umich.edu or on Twitter @m_bultman.
Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh said he just wanted to do something different to introduce his 2016 recruiting class this year. Of all terms to describe Wednesday’s “Signing of the Stars” ceremony at Hill Auditorium, it was certainly different. In his return to college football last year, Harbaugh was at Michigan for just over a month before he introduced the 2015 class, recruited largely by former coach Brady Hoke. This year, with more time to prepare, he had something bigger in mind. “How can we do something fun and a celebration?” Harbaugh wondered. “I’ve been watching this process, experienced it myself, how they pull a fax out of the fax machine and the coach stands up and talks about them, usually says some of the same things. We wanted to do something different, do something awesome. I was really pleased. I think today did that. It was awesome with a capital ‘A.’ ” No one knew what to expect going into the celebration Wednesday. Harbaugh made his first appearance around 11:40 a.m., introduced by host Randy Sklar, after the Michigan Stadium introduction video featuring James Earl Jones played on the big screen. He opened and closed his opening remarks by asking the crowd, “Who could possibly have it better than us?” Then, he and Sklar sat on a couch at one end of the stage in front of a packed auditorium. At the other end, football analysts Mike Shanahan, Todd McShay and Lou Holtz sat at a desk and broke down Michigan’s class as different celebrities and Michigan alumni. New England Patriots
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh introduced his 2016 recruiting class at an extravagant ceremony Wednesday.
quarterback Tom Brady — a Michigan alumnus — introduced the first recruit, four-star quarterback Brandon Peters. “I don’t know how to put it into words,” Peters said afterward. “Tom Brady is one of the greatest players to ever play. I’m a quarterback, too, and he’s a quarterback. You just look up to someone like that. “I was kind of nervous at first, walking up on that stage and seeing all those people. I had a bunch of adrenaline, but once I got settled in and started seeing things, I settled down a little bit.” More celebrities made appearances throughout the ceremony. Former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter introduced fourstar running back Kareem Walker, four-star defensive end Ron Johnson and threestar defensive tackle Michael Dwumfour. Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh, Jim’s brother, introduced three-star tight end Nick Eubanks. As they were introduced, six of the seven early enrollees joined Harbaugh and Sklar on
the stage (the only exception was three-star tight end Sean McKeon). Several former football players also made appearances, including former quarterbacks Jake Rudock, Denard Robinson and Devin Gardner, former walk-ons Joe Kerridge and Jordan Kovacs and former linebacker Jake Ryan. The event was packed allaround with famous faces, even those with no ties to Michigan or sports. Many more sent in comments on video: ESPN broadcaster Dick Vitale, former NFL coach Mike Ditka, former Michigan basketball player Jalen Rose and actor Vince Vaughn, among countless others. Perhaps the most enthusiastic guest was former professional wrestler Ric Flair. Harbaugh said afterward that Nate Johnson gave him the idea to invite Flair during a recruiting visit at Johnson’s home in Tennessee. “I was telling him about what this event was going to be like, talking about some of the people that were going to be here,”
“We’ll be back to work at 2:30, but why not have some fun?”
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Thursday, February 4, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
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Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 It precedes Romans 5 Maestro Ozawa 10 __ de somme: beast of burden 14 “__ luck!” 15 ’50s-’70s senator who wrote “Humor of a Country Lawyer” 16 Shuffle, for one 17 Dishonest memoir, e.g. 20 Ancient amulet 21 Dark clouds, perhaps 22 Pulitzer-winning book critic Richard 24 Bear’s team 26 Place for permanent storage 33 Dedicatee of an 1810 piano manuscript 34 Brand that includes N-Strike blasters 35 Sarah McLachlan song 36 Gun 37 Genre descended from the cakewalk 40 Gift subject to skepticism 41 Aussie colleges 43 “Lulu” composer 44 “__ Toward Tomorrow”: 1996 TV movie with Christopher Reeve 46 Part of West Point’s curriculum 49 Merged news agency 50 Convenient carrier 51 Garden gadget 54 Extent 58 One of anatomy’s great vessels 63 Classical theaters 64 Southwestern New York city 65 Linear 66 Filter 67 “South Pacific” co-star Gaynor 68 Bunker tool
DOWN 1 Leatherworker’s set 2 Smart 3 Part of TTFN 4 Man cave features 5 Wreckage resting place 6 Throw the ball away, say 7 Campus climber 8 Smucker’s spread 9 Suffix with neutr10 “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” matriarch 11 One-on-one sport 12 Conflicted 13 Slow Churned ice cream 18 1978 “SNL” Emmy winner 19 European capital 23 1994 Stanley Cup winners 24 Properly 25 Radio toggle switch 26 Hospital supply 27 Nicholas Gage memoir 28 __ suit 29 Hear again 30 Tribute title words 31 Flight segment 32 Like some small dogs
38 “__ le roi!”: French Revolution cry 39 It’s to dye for 42 Website directory 45 Loud speaker 47 Poi source 48 Honolulu’s __ Palace 51 Long narrative poem 52 Dandy 53 High spirits 55 Rowlands of “The Notebook”
56 94-day undertaking in the Cheryl Strayed memoir “Wild” 57 Classic fictional villain 59 Nice handle? 60 “Prince __”: “Aladdin” song 61 U.S. Army rank qualifier 62 Bosox legend
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Harbaugh said. “I said, Tom Brady! Tom Brady’s going to be here, the greatest quarterback of all time, four Super Bowl trophies. They said, ‘We’re a wrestling family. You’re going to have Ric Flair there. It doesn’t get any better than that.’ ” Toward the end of the two-hour ceremony, interim Athletic Director Jim Hackett introduced the final early enrollee, four-star defensive end Carlo Kemp. As Kemp spoke with Sklar and Harbaugh on the stage, Rashan Gary, the nation’s No. 1 recruit, was in New Jersey committing to come to Michigan next season. The audience found out and let out a loud cheer, and the early enrollees subtly expressed their excitement. The two-hour show stood out. Most schools announce their recruits by compiling a list of players who send in National Letters of Intent and holding a press conference to discuss them. Michigan took over the conversation, for better or for worse. “I think people will do something similar or they’ll criticize it,” Harbaugh said. “What do I think of that? I probably won’t think much of it. It worked for us. It was wonderful for us. And why not? We’ll be back to work at 2:30, but why not have some fun?”
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Sports
6A — Thursday, February 4, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Breaking down the PairWise By MINH DOAN Daily Sports Editor
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Kim Barnes Arico’s team lost for the fourth time in five games Wednesday.
Wolverines suffer worst loss of year No. 17 Michigan State overpowers ‘M’ in East Lansing By TED JANES Daily Sports Writer
EAST LANSING — If the Michigan women’s basketball team planned on being the “hardest-working team in America” — as the MICHIGAN 64 MICH. ST. 85 2015-16 squad’s bold slogan goes — it first needed to be the hardest-working team in the state of Michigan. Wednesday, that wasn’t the case, as No. 17 Michigan State dominated the in-state showdown and powered through the Wolverines, 85-64. The 21-point defeat was Michigan’s worst loss of the season. The hardest-working player at the Breslin Center wasn’t a Wolverine, but rather Spartan forward Akyah Taylor, who spent what seemed like half of the game on the hardwood, drawing charges and diving after loose balls wherever she could. “We’ve had kids step up and get a little more focused,” said Michigan State coach Suzy Merchant. “Some that is the insurgence of playing (Taylor) more in the starting lineup. I think she took four charges tonight. She is the glue that nobody really talks about.” Taylor — who finished with four points, eight rebounds, four assists — wasn’t the Spartans’ leading scorer, but her gritty presence fired up Michigan State (8-2 Big Ten, 17-4 overall) for the team’s fifth straight win in the only matchup between the two schools this year. Taylor stepped up to command the Spartans’ defense, but Michigan State guard Tori
Jankoska also earned praise from Merchant. Jankoska bore the burden of guarding Michigan sophomore guard Katelynn Flaherty. “I thought (Jankoska’s) mindset was great,” Merchant said. “Coming in, she really wanted to challenge herself and guard Flaherty.” Flaherty put up a teamhigh 18 points as well as four assists. Freshman guard Boogie Brozoski aided Michigan’s backcourt with 13 points, but at just 5-foot-6, she couldn’t help the Wolverines (4-7, 12-10) where they were struggling most. That location was under the basket, where the Spartans’ size gave them a huge advantage. Michigan freshman center Hallie Thome had eight points and just four rebounds. Michigan State outrebounded the Wolverines, 38-23. The leading rebounders were Taylor and Spartan forward Aerial Powers, who both had eight. The matchup between the centers, Thome and Michigan State’s Jasmine Hines, wasn’t critical to the outcome, as the Spartans’ backcourt did everything its team needed. The trio of Powers, Jankoska and guard Branndais Agee combined for 63 of Michigan State’s points. “Powers played like the AllAmerican she is,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “She’s tough. I can’t wait ’til she graduates.” Powers — who had a teamhigh 27 points — drove to the basket the entire first half and managed to get both Michigan senior forward Kelsey Mitchell and Thome in foul trouble early. And for every foul Michigan piled up, the Spartans capitalized. Michigan State knocked down all of its 19 free-throw attempts. The Wolverines still have yet to beat a ranked opponent this year, and their NCAA Tournament hopes continue to dwindle.
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The Michigan hockey team was expected to face an uphill battle on its quest to make it back to the NCAA Tournament from the get go. Why? There’s really only one reason: the PairWise Rankings. Many experts believed the Wolverines’ weak non-conference schedule — which featured only one team in the NCAA’s Top 20 preseason ranking (No. 8 Boston University), coupled with a weak Big Ten — would be Michigan’s biggest downfall. But with six weeks before NCAA Tournament teams are chosen on March 20, Michigan currently sits at No. 4 in the PairWise Rankings. So, how did this happen? Well, for one, the Wolverines have won games and continue to win games. More importantly, though, the teams Michigan played have fared better than many have expected. *** But let’s backtrack for a second. What are the PairWise Rankings? The PairWise Rankings were first instituted in 2001, when the NCAA moved to the computer formula after many experts around the country called for it. How the PairWise Rankings work is that three different variables (RPI, head-to-head results and common opponents) are used to compare every team in the NCAA. For example, since Michigan matches up well against 56 other teams in the NCAA, the Wolverines have 56 PairWise Ranking “points,” which puts Michigan at No. 4 in the rankings. (A full grid of PairWise Ranking comparisons for each team can be found here.) Along with the three variables
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Red Berenson’s team has benefited from its opponents’ success this season.
described, there are also bonuses, such as a quality-win bonus, which is given to any win against a top-20 team, and weights given to different wins and losses, such as home losses and road wins. Of course, no new system is perfect — tweaks and changes need to be made to make it fit in with what the formula was meant to do. “(The NCAA) explained that it would start off being 75-percent win-loss record and 25-percent strength of schedule,” Berenson said. “Then they kept tweaking it until they found the right system. “There was a point where if you won a game against a bad team, your PairWise could drop. Now, how can that be? You shouldn’t be able to go down if you win the game, so they’ve had to tweak the percentages, and I’m sure there’s more to it than that.” The biggest problem with the PairWise Rankings is that while we can talk about the variables that determine a team’s rankings,
the NCAA keeps the formula, and the math behind it, a secret. The PairWise Rankings are also very elastic. For example, while Michigan may be No. 4 now, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for it to drop outside the top 10, even if it loses only one game the rest of the season. For the most part, most people around college hockey have enjoyed the change and the fact that the NCAA Tournament teams aren’t chosen by a committee of people. It is important to note that the PairWise Rankings only pick the 16 teams in the tournament. However, there is a committee that determines the NCAA Tournament matchups according to seeds, proximity to home and attendance, among other various factors. *** With an explanation of the PairWise Rankings out of the
way, let’s talk about Michigan’s opponents this season. Most importantly: Dartmouth, Rensselaer and Robert Morris. None of those teams were expected to make noise in the NCAA this season. Despite this prediction, the complete opposite has happened. The Big Green — whom Michigan beat, 7-1, before tying, 1-1, the next night — have played well since the New Year. With just two losses in 2016 (one came against No. 1 Quinnipiac, in which the Bobcats needed a six-goal third period to come back and win, 7-5), No. 15 Dartmouth has strung together impressive victories over then-No. 10 Cornell, then-No. 18 St. Lawrence and Holy Cross. The Engineers — whom the Wolverines beat, 5-2, back in October — started off the year with a bang after a win over thenNo. 1 Boston College. Rensselaer has collected victories over Yale, Miami (OH) and Cornell, along with a tie against No. 1 Quinnipiac. The Colonials — whom Michigan beat, 5-3, before losing to them, 4-0 — have also played well down the stretch. Robert Morris currently sits in first place in the Atlantic Hockey standings and has wins over Penn State and UMass-Lowell. All those teams, along with the Big Ten playing a little better than many experts expected, have helped boost Michigan higher in the rankings. But at the end of the day, Michigan will continue to climb the PairWise Rankings if it continues to win, plain and simple. The Wolverines can play hypotheticals about what happens if X team loses or Y team wins against a top-ranked team, but the fact of the matter is that if Michigan keeps winning, they will be in the tournament. And the Wolverines know that. “It’s the idea that we want to win all of our games, especially in the Big Ten because we know we can win the Big Ten,” Nieves said.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Thome shut down Spartans make in loss to Spartans rivalry personal By LELAND MITCHINSON Daily Sports Writer
EAST LANSING — Hallie Thome’s first point in Thursday’s game came on a free throw just three minutes into the half. The only problem? It was the second half. After a 31-point performance Sunday, the freshman center was shut down in the Michigan women’s basketball team’s 86-64 loss at Michigan State on Wednesday. In the first half, Thome largely limited herself, earning two fouls and playing just eight minutes. But even when she was on the court, the Spartans had an answer for her. “Hallie gets bumped around all the time,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “She doesn’t really go to the foul line as many times as she gets bumped, and then she gets fouls called against her that are ticky-tack fouls. So I think experienced players learn how to use their body and not get fouls called against them, and I think that’s an area Hallie has to get better at.” With Thome on the bench more than she was on the floor in the first half, the Wolverines found themselves down, 48-28, at the game’s midway point. Michigan State was able to gain a 19-12 advantage on the glass in the first half, with Michigan’s No. 1 post player out of the game. Many of those Spartan rebounds quickly became points on the other end as Michigan State used its speed to push the fast break, holding a 31-4 edge on the break for the game. Michigan State relied on a three-player rotation to keep Thome in check, cycling
through centers Jenna Allen and Jasmine Hines and forward Kennedy Johnson. Each of the Spartans possessed a strength advantage over Thome and used it to full effect, keeping her from consistently establishing her position on the block. Whenever Thome found room down low, the Michigan State defense was quick to send the double team. But Thome has not yet developed the instinct needed to sense when the double team is coming and pass out to her open teammates. “They pushed us around,” Barnes Arico said. “Hines really is physical; she’s physical in the post. (Guard Ariel Powers) is physical, (guard Tori Jankoska) is physical. So that’s something that our younger kids really aren’t accustomed to, and they have to adjust to, and I think that their pressure and that physicality really affected us.” The fouls weren’t the limiting factor for Thome in the second half, as she only committed one more in the game. What was truly the issue for Thome was the way her defenders were willing to stop her. The triumvirate of Hines, Allen and Johnson combined for nine fouls on the night, with some even occurring when the ball was well away from Thome. Thome finished the game 2-for-4 from the field for eight points, and she collected three rebounds before she was subbed out for the final time with 2:25 left in the game. “She needs to bend and she needs to use her body more,” Barnes Arico said. “Her lower body needs to get stronger, and these are all things that we are going to spend time in the offseason working on.”
“I think their pressure and physicality affected us.”
By KELLY HALL Daily Sports Editor
During Big Ten Basketball Media Day last October, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was fired up. The event just happened to be the same week as the in-state rivalry football game between Michigan and Michigan State, and the hype surrounding the two football teams made its way to Chicago, where the two schools’ basketball coaches addressed the media. It was also the same day a statue of Magic Johnson in East Lansing was spray-painted maize and blue. “First, I’ve gotta say that this is rivalry week, and you’re not supposed to like your opponent,” Izzo said in October. “There’s a lot of great Michigan kids, but there’s some idiots. There’s some idiots on our side, too, that do crazy things. Messing with Sparty is a bad thing, like messing with their ‘M’ is a bad thing. But messing with Magic, that’s the worst thing. I’ll make sure that, from now on, maybe the basketball team will sleep (out there).” This week, football’s excitement has once again seeped into basketball. Saturday, the two basketball teams will meet at Crisler Center for their one scheduled contest this year, and it just happens to be the same week as football’s National Signing Day. Forward Matt Costello wouldn’t want it any other way. “The last couple of years, Michigan hasn’t really been competitive in football, just because they’ve had down years, but this year, I think it has everyone hype all year round for that rivalry,” Costello said in October. “I think that will definitely spill over (to basketball) because we’ll have Jim Harbaugh at our games and coaches like Coach Dantonio. It’s going to make the rivalry a lot of fun.” Costello, a Linwood, Mich., native who grew up a Spartan fan, thinks his in-state status
heightens his enthusiasm toward the rivalry. The starting center isn’t the only one from Michigan either. Fellow starters Denzel Valentine — whose father played at Michigan State — and Bryn Forbes both went to Sexton High School in Lansing, Mich. All three grew up Spartan fans, and it gives the trio a lot of fodder for conversation. “We talk about watching the games (growing up),” Costello said. “Denzel was obviously a State fan because of his dad, and Bryn (was a fan), so we just talk about the different fans and how they react to things.” Michigan’s top talent didn’t just land in Izzo’s lap, though. He specifically recruited the kids from Michigan for a purpose. “It’s the whole reason I recruit geographically,” Izzo said. “I’ve always believed in the state of Michigan, and I’ve always believed in recruiting in a Big Ten area because then those rivalries, Michigan (vs.) Michigan State, they should know about that. They should grow up not liking them. That’s kind of what you do. And that makes it more fun.” In-state status may be fueling the Spartans on Saturday, but it certainly won’t be the Wolverines’ main source of energy. Michigan has just two players from the state of Michigan, junior guard Derrick Walton and freshman forward Brent Hibbitts. Part of that reason is because Beilein picks up players to fit his system rather than making it personal. On his current roster, he has players from Portland, Ore., to Allentown, Penn., to Berlin. Next year, only one player from the Wolverines’ four-man recruiting class is from the state of Michigan. “I think having kids from in state make it better,” Izzo said. “There’s more passion to it. They know their mother is going to be at work, their dad is going to sit around the drinking fountain, and that’s what you play for.”
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A cooperative of ‘Lughnasa’ explores creative writers complex memories COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
Writers’ Community shops student pieces By NATALIE GADBOIS Daily Arts Writer
Around the table, talk turns to magical superpowers, English classes and the questioned existence of Wookie genitalia. Ten or so students joke and posture at one another, taking off jackets and pulling out laptops, reporting aloud answers to Buzzfeed quizzes. Time is called when a black top hat is placed in the center of the room, and the meeting begins. This is Writers’ Community, an intimate group of students who meet every Thursday to workshop one another’s writing. Though they come from a variety of majors and preferred writing genres, the members show an admirable dedication to their work and the improvement of one another’s. As club president Cammie Finch, an LSA senior, said, “It really is a community.” Legend has it that famed playwright Arthur Miller formed the organization while he was at the University in 1935. Originally just seven writers, the size ebbed and flowed over the next 70 years, even dipping down to two at one point. There is no official application process; for much of its lifetime, Writers’ Community has functioned as a semi-secret society. Members are brought in solely through word-of-mouth. “It’s always been our persona to be sort of a secret society,” Finch said. When she joined as a freshman, she was one of only four in the group, invited by a friend who had heard about it through another friend. “Workshopping and presenting your work to other people where it’s free reign to comment and you don’t know if it’ll be good or bad can be really frightening,” Finch said. “And with the low levels of people, that was a good
space to begin for me.” However, some of this clandestine persona was changed in 2013 when the group opened up to the public, even having a booth at Festifall — albeit in the community’s distinctly quirky way. They set up a cardboard poster outside of the Dana Samuel Trask Building, distant from the other Festifall booths, with their mascot the “Dapper Walrus” sitting on the table. “The ones who sought us out, those were the people we wanted,” Finch said. This strategy drew in over 50 people intrigued by the unusual nature of the club, overwhelming the group for a few months until the community was stabilized. Now, the group comprises around 15 writers with a variety of writing styles and forms, from screenplays to short fiction to poetry. There is a benefit to having such an arrangement of writers — their critiques and advice build on each other in unique ways, enriching the pieces bravely presented at meetings, Finch said. At this meeting, I watch as two very distinct pieces are workshopped. One, a short story that the group has been discussing for a few weeks now, is a dystopian tale with a resilient female protagonist. As the author reads her story, I watch the members take notes on their copies, nodding when they like a phrase or frowning when a word seems off. Though not an official rule of Writers’ Community, it feels as though honesty is part of the sacred ritual here — when one participant admits that he disliked a certain character, the story’s author isn’t defensive or hurt. She takes the criticism at face value. Here, opinions are valued and respected — the room lacks the jealous competitiveness often found in writer’s circles. LSA senior Eugene Jehl, who was one of the original four members before the group became public, finds this sense of camaraderie one of the most impor-
tant aspects of the community. “(In class) you’re kind of judging each other, or reading something and thinking, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good,’ or ‘Psh, I don’t have to worry about that.’ And it’s a ‘no one is talking about it, but everybody’s thinking it’ kind of thing,” Jehl said. “That doesn’t exist here. We all help each other out.” Perhaps it helps that it feels as though these people truly are friends, often flying off on tangents or ragging on each other with ease. Jehl finds this to be true. “The people are fun,” he said. “Everyone has a great sense of humor with each other; some are shy or introverted, but that’s cool, writers often are,” he said. “These have been some of my closest friends through my time at U of M.” Despite its semi-secret nature, Writers’ Community doesn’t give off an air of exclusivity or pretension. As Finch put it, “It’s just a bunch of nerds getting together each week to help each other out.” Many of the writers are serious about pursuing careers in the field; Finch is planning on getting her MFA, while Jehl is double majoring in creative writing and screenwriting. But others are only here for their own enjoyment: one other member is a neuroscience major, another planning to become a therapist. This diversity of talent and background is due in part to the move to publicize the club. An introvert myself, I walked into the meeting nervous, clutching my notebook as a crutch. But I was instantly welcomed. Jokes were made that they all must be on their best behavior since I was there. People introduced themselves and asked about my day. It was easy to understand why writers are drawn to this place and why they push themselves to a higher plane of excellence when they contribute. As Jehl said, “I joined three years ago, and I’ve never been able to get enough of it.”
By BAILEY KADIAN Daily Arts Writer
This weekend Rude Mechanicals presents “Dancing at Lughnasa,” a story of five unmarried Dancing at sisters facing the inevitable Lughnasa unraveling of Arthur Miller their family. Theatre Written by Brian Friel, Feb. 5 & 6, “Dancing at 8 p.m. Feb. Lughnasa” is 7, 2 p.m. set in Ireland, in the summer $7 (Students) of 1936, during $9 (Adults) the pagan Festival of Lughnasa. “Lughnasa” is a memory play, told by the narrator Michael, who recounts the events of that summer at the cottage in Donegal. “Lughnasa” explores the complexities of the family’s tense relationships, such as the sisters struggling with poverty and instability. The play also highlights the importance of Catholicism in Ireland and the threat emerging paganism posed. “Lughnasa” first premiered in 1990, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In 1991 it starred in London’s National Theatre, earning the original cast three Tony Awards including Best Play. With only three and a half weeks to put on this production, Rude Mechanicals is working hard to bring this story to life. Rude Mechanicals is a student theater troupe that aims to provide quality stage productions to the Ann Arbor area. The organization emphasizes the importance of allowing any member of the student body to participate in the productions, whether
onstage or behind-the-scenes. The organization was founded in 1996, by two engineering students who realized there were few opportunities for non-theater students to contribute to campus productions. Rude Mechanicals provides opportunities for students in the School of Music, Theater and Dance to try out roles they wouldn’t otherwise be able to explore. “This opportunity allows students to explore other facets of themselves artistically rather than being confined to the thing they decided to major in when they were 18 years old — it’s an amazing thing,” said director Regan Moro in an interview with the Michigan Daily. Moro explained the play’s focus on memory — the way it shapes us and frames our lives. In this play, the unraveling of the family is depicted through Michael’s memory of the events. “The play encompasses so many different things, on the most basic level, it’s a story about a family that is on the precipice of falling apart,” Moro said. “It’s also a play that examines the religious, political, and social atmosphere of Ireland.” The piece examines how memories change form and frame our outlook, depending on what we choose to hold onto. Moro said some memories are fact-based and some are distorted by our own perception of the event. Michael’s narration walks the audience through these depictions. “The last memory I think we all have (in this play) is loss of our last glittering memory,” Moro said, “a memory of our family before everything dissolved.”
Memory and its importance also translate to the technical design of this show. “There are certain details of a place, people or of things that stick out to you more than others,” Moro said, describing ideas shaping the production’s set and lighting. The lighting parallels Michael’s recounting of events — bulbs light up above certain characters as Michael remembers them. Moro described these lights as ominous and a way to highlight the back and forth nature of the plot. Memories are given a bluer tone, while the present has more pale, realistic lighting. These colors are shown through costuming as well. “There are bits of blue and green, a union of sky and the earth,” Moro said. “There is something mysterious and mystical about these colors that lifts it out of the drabness.” Moro also stressed that all members of the team — cast, assistant director and director — have worked together equally to figure this piece out, rather than dividing positions of power. “There’s no hierarchical thing,” Moro said. “We have ripped that down and it is all of us working together.” With thematic complexity, deep character relationships and a collaborative, insightful cast, “Lughnasa” has plenty to offer. “The play is full of depth, and it’s intricate and complex, and I still feel like I’m learning more and more about it, every single day,” Moro said. “It’s an enormous gift to work on something like this, especially because you feel like the growth never stops.”
STYLE RECAP
EPISODE REVIEW This season’s “New Girl” was off to an uncertain start, with its main character Jess (Zooey Deschanel, “(500) Days of Summer”) taking leave B+ for Deschanel’s pregnanNew Girl cy. Though Jess remains Season 5 the lynchpin Episode 5 that ties the FOX outlandish ensemble together, her absence has left them fending for themselves in one hilariously unprecedented situation after another. “Bob & Carol & Nick & Schmidt” demonstrates just that. Nick (Jake Johnson,
“Jurassic World”) and Schmidt (Max Greenfield, “American Horror Story”) must establish the boundaries of their extremely close friendship when Nick’s cousins come into town and ask Nick to donate his sperm to them. When Nick discovers Schmidt has planned Nick’s life out for him (with charts and timelines, no less), Nick realizes that it’s not his cousins that he must set boundaries with, but Schmidt — who spends most of the time navigating the helplessly dim-witted Nick through situations where his judgement fails him. Without Jess, who is sequestered for jury duty, Cece (Hannah Simone, “Oldboy”) must prepare for her wedding alone.
The well-meaning Winston (Lamorne Morris, “Glitch”) takes over Jess’s role and overenthusiastically goes wedding dress shopping with Cece, only to sway her into buying a hideously bedazzled dress after they both get too drunk off of complimentary champagne. Full of hysterical one-liners, this episode is no exception to “New Girl” ’s continued ability to elicit endless laughs. Despite initial doubts over the show’s absentee main character and a slow decline in its previous season, the unexpected new boundaries have created an element of surprise that leaves us looking forward to the new ways it will have us laughing this season. - SHIR AVINADAV
SINGLE REVIEW Yesterday, Feb. 2, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed out of procrastination when I came across this golden Atweet: “Teen Suicide is Alex Back … Panthers in the Teen Suicide Superbowl..... Run for Cover Tied Iowa Caucus..... Records New Kanye.... wow..... blessed..... incredible......” tweeted by Elvis Depressedly’s twitter account. The first phrase “Teen Suicide is back….” made me lose my breath momentarily. If you know anything about Teen Suicide, you know that they haven’t released a new full-length album since 2012, so this is big news. Lurking through Twitter, I found information about the band’s revival. They released a single from the new 26-song album to be named It’s the Big Joyous Celebration, Let’s Stir
VALENTINO
They’re just so beautiful, I don’t have anything mean to say.
Versatile Valentino By MARIAM SHEIKH Daily Style Editor
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the Honeypot, called “Alex,” and when I played this song it was like all of my hopes and dreams had been fulfilled. Teen Suicide fans have been waiting so long alone in the cold, and the band has released a fire track to bring us back home to the warmth. “Alex” begins with Sam Ray’s melancholy voice singing “Alex is the best / When she wants to die,” accompanied by the soft sounds John Toohey creates on the guitar and Alec Simke radiates from his bass. The lo-fi band is sticking to
their true colors. The entire song makes you feel kind of complacent, with lyrics like “We’re both only 16 / Skipping class to smoke weed,” and “Lying on her back / She says she wants to die.” Every sound complements the others, evoking a simultaneous feeling of tranquility and angst. The music is diverse and feels like a dream in the clouds during sunset. It’s gorgeous. April is too long a wait for this new album, but the little taste they’ve given us makes me feel #blessed. - SELENA AGUILERA
While fashion week for ready-to-wear clothing hasn’t quite begun, the couture shows are well under way in Paris. With gowns one could only dream of seeing in person, yet alone wearing, designers brought their A-game this season. But nothing stunned me more than the classic styles debuted at Valentino’s show. With ethereal floor-length gowns that ranged in color, texture and versatility, Valentino creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli managed to embrace all of the new edgy trends this season while keeping the everso-elegant Valentino brand very much in tact. Oh, where to begin? The show started with flowy gowns that pulled from ethereal elements, in colors ranging from deep forest green to oxblood, all the way to the it-color of
the season: mustard. Gowns embellished in rich velvet, patterned to perfection with regal gold embroidery, were some of the most notable. A bit out of character, some designs embraced the pure nature of the feminine body — with models completely nude underneath the translucent net and laced bodices, accompanied by a long tasseled robe. In a sign of another trend already starting to take hold, many of the outfits featured floorlength dusters, which often added a pop of color and contrasting texture to the runway look. High necks, deep Vs and ruffles all managed to make their way on more than one design in this couture collection. Accompanied by elegant headpieces and stunning body jewelry, each design from the fabric to the accessories was carefully curated and calculated to fit into the larger collection at hand.
Yet with all the impeccable designs and added extras, nothing managed to distract from the outfits. The lightness of the designs and the effervescent atmosphere of the collection overall was different when compared with the other darker and often heavier collections featured throughout Paris couture week. While none of us mere mortals may never have the privilege of wearing one of these engineered masterpieces, I’m sure that we will be seeing many of these designs at upcoming award shows and galas this season. As one of the first original houses to have started this high-fashion industry we style fiends find ourselves obsessed with each season, Valentino’s couture collection catered to the rich and famous, the pure, the daring, the goth, the goddess and everyone who finds themselves stuck in between.
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Spoon, a college ARTIST mag for foodies COVER STORY
A scrumptious look at the online food magazine. By MARIA ROBINS-SOMERVILLE Daily Arts Writer
I’m a foodie. At age 10, I fell asleep with a copy of the magazine Cook’s Illustrated draped over my face. I consider going to the grocery store an adventure, and sometimes I read Yelp reviews while I’m sitting in the restaurant. My sister laughed at me while I tried frantically to keep a few herb plants alive on my windowsill, and when I told her that I wanted to only eat produce that was in season to “enhance my culinary experience.” The most serious love poem I’ve ever written is a three-page ode to pizza. Kitchen clumsiness and a few too many pieces of burnt toast aside, I’m pretty sure I’m a foodie. You don’t need to be a gourmet chef or a food scientist to be a foodie. Sometimes, you can be a foodie just by falling for those suave Tasty videos clogging your Facebook newsfeed (and maybe clogging your arteries) or finding deep satisfaction in seeing “The 16 Presidential Candidates Reimagined as Food Puns.” A foodie is a person with an especially refined or particular interest in food. They can be found with a camera lens at table level as a sunny-side up egg seductively spills out of their burger at Frita Batidos, or perfecting a bird’s-eye shot of latte art at Ann Arbor’s Lab Cafe, all for the perfect Instagram. You may find them perusing aesthetically pleasing food blogs for a recipe to christen their recent freedom from dorm living, or texting friends to make a game plan to tackle Restaurant Week. The rise of foodie culture is inextricably linked to the growing digital world and increasing dependence on social media. The organization Spoon University has ridden this trend in the online food community to success both at Michigan and elsewhere. “Spoon” is an online publication run by college students that focuses on producing food-related content. The website was launched in 2013 by Sarah Adler and Mackenzie Barth during their time as undergraduates at Northwestern University. Spoon currently has more than 100 chapters at colleges and universities across the country and has even begun to expand internationally to the University of St. Andrews and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, as well as University of Delhi in India. The chapter here at Michigan was one of the first five chapters. I met with LSA senior Sara Estes who is currently the editorial manager of the University’s chapter of Spoon, to learn more. As editorial manager, Estes is responsible for overseeing all written content and for helping writers through the articlewriting process. “I usually come with a few things I want to get written about restaurants that are opening or closing, or events on campus,” Estes said. “Throughout the week I’m helping writers if they have any questions, and editing all of the local articles.” Writers choose to write local articles (Ann Arbor-specific) such as “15 Reasons You’re Gaining the Freshman 15 at Michigan” or “The 10 Most Instagrammed Foods in Ann Arbor,” which go through the editing process at the local chapters “National” articles such as “5 Ways to Cure Your Nasty Cold With Help From Beyonce” are sent to Spoon Headquarters in New York. There, editors decide whether to approve and/or edit the content before permitting the University chapter to publish it locally. Estes first got involved with Spoon when it began at Michigan in 2013. She was a sophomore looking to dabble in the intersection of writing and foodie culture. “It was small then, maybe 15
or 20 of us on the editorial side,” Estes said. Now Michigan’s Spoon Chapter has upwards of 90 official members. In keeping with the communal and collaborative nature of Spoon, Estes hopes to develop leadership in the organization while still respecting the autonomy and creative integrity of contributors. “Regularly I have an internal battle of making sure everyone is doing what they’re doing, but not totally feeling like their boss,” Estes said. “I want them to feel comfortable asking me questions. (At Spoon) you should make of it what you want — no idea is a bad idea.” The members meet Mondays in a large group, then split off into smaller groups to discuss the different aspects of the organization. Spoon often takes cues from seasonal trends or holidays to stay relevant. This can include anything from reviewing a new restaurant opening up on campus to planning an aphrodisiacfueled meal to woo a prospective Valentine. They’ve published everything from “Which Mediocre Halloween Candy Are You?” to “The Stages of Being Hangry, as Told by the Grinch.” Food at Spoon University can even extend to health and wellness issues. An article recently written at Emerson College’s chapter discussed the recent introduction of more body-positive Barbie dolls. Spoon at Indiana University recently published an article about lead poisoning in regard to the Flint water crisis, tying in the science of nutrition to an issue that is normally targeted in other news context. I sat in on an events group that was planning a cookie grams Valentine’s Day event and exploring options of partnering with Insomnia Cookies. Much of Spoon’s success has depended on partnering with local restaurants or gaining sponsorship from companies such as GrubHub or KIND. The group has also started to investigate options for partnership with other student organizations on campus that incorporate foodie culture into their goals and missions — for example, they hope to collaborate with student group Baking for BRCA, a group that sells baked goods in order to fund BRCA gene research. BRCA mutations can increase the risk of certain types of cancer. Where the editorial group met, members bounced ideas off each other, engaging in a collaborative process to come up with possible articles. With thousands of articles floating around in the Spooniverse, the team seeks to be specific, relevant and accessible. This is where the localized aspect of Spoon becomes important — members pitch ideas such as an article about foods that may be scientifically proven to increase happiness during the dull winter months, or even an article sprouted out of the odd realization that Patagonia, a camping store, sells food. The peek into the Spoon meeting highlighted why exactly the startup runs and succeeds the way it does. The environment is dynamic and fast-paced — members have their laptops open to various previously published Spoon articles, food blogs and master spreadsheets that categorize different articles in the works. Estes gave me a sneak peek of an upcoming article that compares different foods to various classes at the University. “Of course Comm 101 is avocado toast!” she laughed. Because Spoon’s content runs the gamut of anything from recipes, to Buzzfeed-style quizzes and listicles, or restaurant reviews or more health- and wellness-based content, it seeks to create an accessible and inclusive environment. The Internet community that allows for connection through the world of food may just be an update to centuries of people coming together over a meal for the purpose of debate, intimacy and
celebration. Spoon hinges heavily on a DIY model — writers can also be photographers, event planners and social media managers and the process of publishing articles mainly relies on brainstorming. The digital interface has also allowed Spoon writers to draw on pop culture, like “10 Stages of the Yom Kippur Fast, as Told by Amy Schumer”, which garnered a lot of attention and ended up on Buzzfeed. The ability to include multimedia aspects such as videos, animated gifs or quizzes creates a logical avenue for Spoon to work with popular websites like Buzzfeed that provide fun, easy-to-digest content aimed at millennials. Because it is a digital publication, Spoon also takes its social media very seriously. I spoke to the social media managers both at Michigan and at American University in Washington, D.C. Steve Baboun is the creative director of Spoon at American University, a successful chapter that just turned one-year-old. I asked him for tips to take great food photos. “Lighting is important, so you need good natural light,” Baboun said. “You need to get up close and personal with your food and not be afraid to manhandle it. Filters are important, but not overfiltering it — just playing around with contrast and brightness. We use a special application called VSCO.” Estes warned against the dangers of flash in trying to get the perfect food photo, which is important to boosting Instagram traffic — the Michigan Spoon’s Instagram has just passed the 3,000 follower mark. “Post pictures of things you know people are going to love, like Aventura Patatas Bravas or Totoro Tower,” Estes said. “Other than that, just have really clean photos of food. Never use flash in food photos.” LSA senior Carly Margolin is the University’s Spoon’s social media director. She echoed Estes’s sentiment about the importance of posting fan favorites of food to build a “base following” and then including new and different photographed culinary adventures. With their own office and close to 3,000 Instagram followers, the Spoon team at American has big goals for the future. “We want to be established as the number one foodie group on campus,” Baboun said. American’s Spoon chapter has benefitted from D.C.’s cosmopolitan environment, which allows them to plan events with many restaurants and publish articles such as the GrubHub-sponsored “21 Delivery Spots Near American’s Campus for When You’re Sick of the Dining Hall.” I spoke over Skype with Louise Gallacher, community manager and co-founder of Spoon at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She studies business management and heard about Spoon through Facebook. The chapter is very new, having started just a few weeks ago with a small team of 10 writers. “I think the beauty of Spoon is that it’s all conversationally written,” Gallacher said. “It’s not like you have to be formal or you have to be really confident. I think that’s what made me get involved personally: Anyone can do it. Anyone can at least have a shot.” This accessibility seems key. Readers and contributors are invited seamlessly into a foodie culture. Even the page for the general Spoon recipe article index answers hungry college students’ questions before they even ask them, with category options such as “I’m hungover,” “I’m tryna be healthy” or “I’m a noob” to choose from. The content is specific and instant enough to satisfy any college student’s palate, self-identified foodie or otherwise.
Upon walking into Ypsilanti Community High School and seeing Adam Collins, you’d probably think he was a student. Even in his second year as band director at the school, he still gets mistaken for a high schooler. At approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall, with clean-cut blonde hair and a very boyishly mousey yetundeniably good-looking face, wearing a maroon pullover and khakis, Collins doesn’t really look like he belongs at the head of a classroom. But when he stands on his platform, baton in hand, ready to conduct his students, it’s undeniable that he does, indeed, belong exactly there. *** At approximately 8 a.m., Collins stands in front of his first-hour symphony band class and tells them that they sound like they are trying to run a mile after eating a bunch of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. “Sound like you’re trying to run a mile after eating a salad,” he pleads with them halfjokingly. Analogies are a special talent for Collins, as his students seem to understand exactly what to do whenever he uses them, whether they’re about doughnuts or something as simple as pronouncing sounds to make. Earlier in the class, he told them to play an “ah” sound to elongate their sound, something I had never witnessed before in non-vocal performance. Sitting in the back left of Collins’ classroom, I’m right next to the tuba player. There are only three, two of whom seem to be putting in a good deal of effort, and one of whom seems to be pretending to play, as half the time he gets his instrument up to his mouth several beats late. However, that’s not really what’s remarkable about this third tuba player. What’s worth mentioning is that his instrument has a giant dent in it. From several feet away, it looks like I could probably fit my entire fist in it. According to Collins, only about 150 of more than 600 instruments in the school district work. And due to the socioeconomic status of many of the families in Ypsilanti — 75 percent are on free or reducedprice lunch plans, which means that, as a family of four, their combined annual income is less than $33,000 — most students can’t afford to rent their own instruments. “I’m making a little more than that on my own, and I feel like I’m struggling,” Collins said. “To quadruple the responsibility of that and actually take away some of the money I’m making is insane to me.” When the district got a quote for how much it would take to get the instruments up to working condition it was $34,000, which is at least $1,000 more than the annual salary for that typical family of four. Over the past year, Collins said they sent in about $10,000 worth of repairs — though he wasn’t sure where exactly that money came from — but it still wasn’t enough. For the first six weeks of school, his sixth graders didn’t have any instruments at all. “It was kind of a daily improvisation of what we were going to do that day,” Collins said. “Like, ‘Oh we don’t have instruments again today; let’s work on rhythm.’ That’s actually caused some issues now: because they were so accustomed to that, they’re still getting used to daily procedures and rules.” Consequently, Collins has learned how to do a lot of repairs himself, even though his budget for this year was only $350, which is “$350 more than I had last year.” To combat this, Collins spends a lot of his free time fundraising: He’s currently working on writing a letter to businesses to ask for money. He set up a website to fund donations for things like instrument repairs and sponsorship for students’ trips to Boston (while the district doesn’t currently have the money for this, Collins said he has committed to the trip), and he has organized other
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fundraisers like selling reeds, discount cards and cheesecake. “Cheesecake is a big one,” he said. “A lot of people really like cheesecake.” *** It’s been fated that Collins would become a teacher since before he was even born. His parents met at Eastern Michigan University’s music school — the same school he would later graduate from — when his mom accompanied a performance done by his dad. He grew up in a musical household and described himself as the band geek of his high school. Though he said he always knew he wanted to teach music, this idea really became cemented for him during his sophomore year of college. On a skiing trip during Spring Break, Collins fell headfirst into a patch of ice. He wasn’t wearing a helmet.
It’s undeniable that he does belong there. He suffered a broken vertebrae and a traumatic head injury that was so severe he had to be put into a medically-induced coma in order to stop his brain from swelling. When he woke up, his control of the right side of his body was minimal, and he couldn’t remember the previous nine days. “What mainly got me through that was music,” he said. “My parents told me that I was humming before I was talking after the injury.” While it took him only about six months to physically recover, Collins said it took him three to four years to reach mental and emotional stability again. “I had to relearn everything,” he said. “My left hand would go straight up and down and my right hand would go in a circle, so I spent like two weeks just working on this (up and down) motion,” he said. “Because of that, I have a good understanding of how to start from step one. I mean, it sucked. It was awful. But in the long run, I feel like it’s actually made me a better teacher because it gives me some compassion and empathy for students who are going through other things.” Some of those things, Collins said, are pretty heavy. “I have students who watched their dad get murdered,” he said. “I have one student who doesn’t have parents. He’s being raised by his brother, and he’s one of the best kids. To see these kids come in every day from that chaos that is their life, it’s just absolutely incredible.” It’s obvious Collins cares for these kids, and he does everything in his power to make sure they get a valuable learning experience. When he was in college, he told himself his teaching philosophy would be to have his students start from a place of passion, but he quickly realized that not everyone has passion for music. Instead, now he tries to find any passion his students might have and connect that to what they’re playing. “We did a piece at the beginning of the year, and I compared it to ‘The Notebook,’ ” Collins said with emphatic arm gestures. “The scene in ‘The Notebook’ where Allie and Noah are on the rowboat and it’s raining and Allie’s like, ‘Why didn’t you write me?’ and Noah’s like, ‘I wrote you a letter every day for a year.’ It’s almost self-sabotage because they’re making fun of me for the fact that I know ‘The Notebook’ so well, but at the same time, we go to play this again and they have that image in their minds.” And every once in a while, for a student or two, that really clicks. Collins had a student last year, David, who Collins said was rather unsure of himself. Throughout the year, though, David came in to work with and help Collins. He became more invested in music, and now he’s majoring in music education at
EMU. “At the beginning of this year, there was a woman who came up to me who turned out to be (David’s) aunt, and she came up to me and gave me a giant hug,” Collins said. “She said, ‘At the beginning of last year, David didn’t have any idea where he was going. He didn’t have any direction, and I wanted to let you know that because of the work you did with him and the direction you gave him, he has a purpose now.’ And like, what!? I don’t know how to react to that. Being told that I basically changed someone’s life, that’s heavy. It’s almost nerve-wracking to know that I have that potential, for good and bad. I could ruin somebody’s life. That’s terrifying.” *** Toward the end of class, Collins brings up the YCHS trip to Boston. He asks students who can afford to go on the trip for $0. Everyone raises his or her hand. He tells them to drop their hands once he reaches a number that they don’t think they can afford. $50: A few hands go down, but most remain. $100: A few more go down, but still a lot in the air. $200: Quite a few drop out. $300: Only about 10 hands remain in the air. He goes down to $250, and about 15 more hands shoot up in the air; he’s trying to find the highest number he can charge where at least 35 students can come, as that’s the minimum. It looks like the number will probably hover around $250, even though it costs about $600 per student for the trip, plus another $10,000 for transportation. “It’s really challenging to balance opportunities with their current socioeconomic status,” Collins said. But you can tell these kids really want to go. All the kids in Ypsi are excited (except for maybe dented-tuba kid), even when it’s just money talk. “There are many times that I just can’t have my full ensemble (in class), so I have to do it after school,” Collins said. “I do that mainly for their benefit. It’s a lot of extra time, but at the end of the day, they’re excited about it, and the culture is changing. They’re getting excited about playing music; they want to go out of their way to get better.” These kids practice up to twice a week after school, and Collins wants to reward that hard work with this Boston trip. They will get to take a master class with members of the Boston Symphony and see the symphony perform, among other smaller events like a tour of Harvard. “I feel like the reward is relative to the effort that they put in, and to say ‘You put this much effort in, but we’re just gonna go to festival’ — I don’t feel like that is representative of how much effort they’ve put into it,” he said. But even more than that, Collins wants to inspire these kids. He wants to push them out of their comfort zones, and to change their lives for the better, even though he’s terrified of ruining one. “The big one I think is really that master class because they get to see what you can do with what you have … to see where you can end up if you really apply yourself in music,” he said. He wants to teach them how to funnel their emotions into music, how to make the best of the situations they’re in. “This trip to Boston we’re taking, most of them can’t afford it,” Collins said. “But they just take that and they say ‘OK, so what are we going to do next?’ ” So what are they going to do next? They’re going to fight. They’re going to stuff envelopes with letters to send to businesses, they’re going to apply for grants, they’re going to sell those cheesecakes. What are they going to do next? Well, they’re going to go to Boston. To donate to YCHS for their trip to Boston, click the link in the story above or go to http:// ychsbands.org/how-you-canhelp/ and click “donate.”
the b-side
4B — Thursday, February 4, 2016
COMMUNITY CULTURE
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
TAYLOR MAC
Taylor Mac isn’t playing by your rules.
NBC
Taylor Mac soars ‘Apocalypse’ fine TV through decades Yellow is the new black.
By ALEX INTNER Daily Arts Writer
By ALLIE TAYLOR For the Daily
Performance artist and drag queen Taylor Mac, an actor, singer-songwriter, playwright, director, producer and Taylor Mac above all, entertainer, will Feb. 5 & 6, take the stage 8 p.m. at the Lydia Mendelssohn Lydia MenTheater on Feb. delssohn 5 and 6. Mac, Theater who uses ‘judy’ $40-$50 as a preferred gender $12-$20 (Stupronoun, is in dent Tickets) the process of developing and writing “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music”: a show where judy will perform nonstop for 24 hours, covering 240 years of music. Mac will sing an hour of each decade’s most popular music, starting from the birth of the United States of America, all the way up to 2016. The show this upcoming weekend will consist of songs from the decades 1956-1986. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Mac chuckled when asked what judy’s favorite decade to perform was. “They’re all like children,” judy said. “I love them all for what they are. They’re such a delight to do. Some are harder than others, but exciting to do because they are harder.” In the performance this weekend, judy will perform these three decades for the very first time. “That means (the show) is going to have a little chaos in it, which usually means it will
be more fun. Anything could happen.” Mac has been highly praised by The New Yorker, The New York Times and New York Magazine, and TimeOut magazine has deemed judy a future theater legend. Judy is more than just an actor or playwright (judy has also written 17 plays) — Mac is an artist and a hybrid, encapsulating the essence of what it means to be a true entertainer. “Being a hybrid isn’t something you are taught as a child,” judy said. “It’s not like people, when you’re a kid, say: ‘You know, you could be a performance artist drag queen!’ ” Judy’s actions and ideas of non-conformity inspire the theater world, as well as inspire those who are generally figuring out who and what they want to be. Mac’s paradigm-shattering plays, behaviors and performances connect to judy’s audiences so well because of the way in which judy approaches the crowd and communicates with them. “One of the things I try to do is to figure out what the audience needs,” Mac said. “It’s kind of my job as a theater artist to be a student of humanity. One of the things I do is say, ‘Well, what do I need?’ and because I’m, well, a person, if I need something, I’m guessing other people in the world might need it as well.” A big aspect of judy’s artistic philosophy is the idea that theater is about healing. Judy hopes to bring everyone together and consider things
that people normally may not spend time with. Through this, judy hopes that “we can heal ourselves a little bit from the things that are destructive in our culture.” Mac is a true entertainer that wants people who come to the show to laugh and be able to experience a full range of who they are as people and as a community. Above all, judy wants people to have a “freakin’ good time.” What’s so wonderful about judy’s art form is its spontaneity — Mac’s favorite part of judy’s work. “That moment on stage, where you know what you’re going to do and then something different ends up happening in the room — you have to go with it. You’re doing something completely different (than what you had planned), and everyone is on board and everyone knows it’s just happening right then and there. That moment is glorious.” Judy’s performances are continually executed with an ever-present spark. Each show is a new experience for Mac and the audience, keeping judy’s passion alive and audacious. “We’re doing two shows in Ann Arbor,” judy said. “So if you see the first night and then come the next night, you’ll see two different shows. You’ll see the same outline, but every single night we perform is different. And that’s what so exciting.” When asked what message Mac hoped to send to the college audience judy will be performing for next weekend, judy responded. “Oh, I just hope we hang out together.”
There are some reviews where I just want to write “that was fine” and move on. Some shows just aren’t doing anyB+ thing particularly You, Me remarkable and the or interesting, Apocalypse but they Miniseries make for a Premiere moderately entertainThursdays ing way of at 8 p.m. passing 43 minutes NBC of my day. “You, Me and the Apocalypse” fits right into that mold. It’s not reinventing any wheels or doing anything distinct, but it does bring a quirky tone to a dire situation, making for a fun hour of television which could easily turn into an enjoyable miniseries. “You, Me and the Apocalypse” takes place in the 34 days between humanity’s discovery
of an asteroid that’s about to hit the Earth and the asteroid’s impact. A seemingly random group of people end up in an underground bunker at the time of impact, and the show tells the story of how they got there. “You, Me and the Apocalypse” ’s biggest issue is how bland most of the characterizations are. The first episode works hard to give a backstory to a handful of the core characters, but it doesn’t do a good enough job of giving them depth within the backstory. Take Rhonda McNeil (Jenna Fischer, “The Office”), a death row inmate taking the fall for her son’s hacking of the National Security Agency. In the premiere, she moves into a maximum security prison and puts herself in hot water with the people who are there. Fischer brings a sense of warmth and fear to a character who barely has it on the page. Rhonda has a thin characterization, only brought to life by the performer. The one exception to this rule is Rob Lowe’s (currently on Fox in “The Grinder”) character,
Father Jude Sutton. Sutton runs the “Devil’s Advocate” division within the Vatican, which works to take down people who are being presented for sainthood. He smokes and he curses, so he’s an incredibly unconventional priest. That’s what makes him stand out; he’s not a standard type. Lowe brings a natural charisma and joke-telling ability that make the priest’s barbs that much more piercing. He’s the character who I’m most interested to see grow over the course of the series because his foundation is the strongest. Yet there’s a certain quirk to everything “You, Me and the Apocalypse” does. It’s familiar to anyone who’s seen “Shaun of the Dead.” It makes light of the end of the world. However, this series doesn’t have Edgar Wright at the helm to bring a visual inventiveness to the jokes. Still, that doesn’t mean the series isn’t good or isn’t worth watching. There’s enough in Lowe’s character alone to support a series, and hopefully the ensemble around him grows as well.
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
TRANSVIOLET
Transviolet, you’re turning violet!
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW Sometimes, when teenagers get bored, they make music videos. And when they make music C videos, they Castle usually do them Kevin Gates poorly. They follow the same formula: a bunch of solo shots dancing in front of the camera intended to make them look really cool. It’s not a stretch to say that Kevin Gates’s music video for “Castle,” released Jan. 29, uses this tired formula. The song, which isn’t even on the rapper’s recently released studio album, Islah, spends a lot of bars talking about Gates’s metaphorical kingdom and how anybody who challenges such a power structure will be shot at (a lot). The video’s plot is straightforward in that there isn’t one. Save an opening scene in which a subservient waiter serves a mimosa that Gates immediately laces with
Vampy Transviolet CATHERINE BAKER Daily Arts Writer
BREAD WINNERS ASSOCIATION
codeine, the rest of the video, which spans four minutes and 16 seconds, consists of Gates dancing and generally doing random things throughout nighttime Brussels. Even the end of the video just kind of fades away. It does little to complement a hook-friendly, trappy song similarly devoid of any discernible societal implication. It’s literally Gates, wearing a funny hat, doing funny dancing. It’s somewhat fun, though, which
provides the bulk of the entertainment value. The entire thing seems as if Gates and his crew were chilling together one day and thought it would be fun to shoot a music video in a foreign city. Each shot is hastily done; even the picture is low quality. Everything about it is down and dirty, which, at this point in his career, personifies Gates as well. - JOEY SCHUMAN
“When you do find something that you care about, don’t be afraid to share it, and get involved. There is nothing cool about ‘not giving a fuck.’ That’s just lazy. I do give a fuck. And I’m not afraid to say it.” – Transviolet in an interview with TMRW Magazine. Once again, Spotify’s Discover feature came in great use to me three weeks ago when making the long, arduous trek from Chipotle back to my apartment. I owe many burritos to the genius who made it possible for my love of relatively small bands to be satisfied this easily. On this particular, chilly January evening, Transviolet played through my crackling headphones and I fell in love. It just sounded so cool. While it was more difficult than anticipated to find information on this lovely band, I have since discovered that Transviolet is an LA-based quartet comprised of band members Sarah McTaggart, Judah McCarthy, Michael Panek and Jon Garcia. Utilizing no website or Wiki-
pedia page, Transviolet instead relies on their own social media to foster their relationship with fans and create an intimate and personal platform. Releasing its debut single in July 2015, Transviolet has since skyrocketed in popularity after receiving public endorsements from Katy Perry and Harry Styles. In September 2015, its first self-titled EP hit the charts as the band played on “The Late Late Show with James Corden.” Transviolet takes the best aspects of electronica, pop and synth to create a sound entirely its own. The opening track of Transviolet, “Girls Your Age,” is Lana Del Rey meets electropop. It’s sultry, seductive and cynical rolled into one when McTaggart sings, “Bad boy talking fast / Talking dirty / He tells me that I’m hot / So I tell him that I love him.” While the instrumentals remain minimalistic in order for the lyrics to take precedence, the vocal skill makes up for any loss in bass. In a nod to del Rey, the song ends with, “Live fast while you’re young, honey.” “Bloodstream,” my personal favorite from the EP, takes on a
heavier rock sound with strong vocals and crashing drums. Consistent, underlying synth retains the electronic vibe, yet brings a angsty edge to an otherwise upbeat song. “New Bohemia” continues to make social observations without sounding preachy. It speaks to the new generation and urges us to challenge preconceived notions and make our own mark on the world, insisting, “In waves we crash, one voice / Making headlines just for kicks / Trying to get love, not trying to get rich.” The closing track, “Night Vision,” retains the strongest electronic vibe, opening with artificially produced beats and crashing synthetic echoes. Subdued vocals croon, “Get on your knees / And praise me like you should.” With relaxed verses and a booming chorus, the juxtaposition creates a tangible shift in energy within the listener. The band’s social activism and desire to support other groups are just a few of the ways Transviolet’s making its own imprint on the musical sphere. One thing is certain: This is just the beginning for Transviolet.