2017-04-06

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Ann Arbor, Michigan

b-side: The Food Issue

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ISSUE

THE

Arts takes a deep dive into the cultural ubiquity of food, both on a local, national and global level

» B-section

CAMPUS LIFE

Timeline of GEO Negotiations

Nov. 16, 2016

Bargaining between GEO and University Human Resources for a new contract begins

Conference boosts role of women in businesses

May 1, 2017

Current contract expires

Feb. 2, 2017

GEO holds ‘Grade in’ in Haven Hall in first public demonstration of bargaining period

March 28, 2017 March 13, 2017

400 participate in GEO holds Diag GEO sit-in at Fleming rally in protest administration building of University rejection of proposals DESIGN BY AVA WEINER

GEO to vote to authorize walkout following final negotiation session Union of more than 2,000 graduate students leverages action against administration ALON SAMUEL

Daily Staff Reporter

The Graduate Employees’ Organization — the union representing more than 2,000 graduate student instructors and graduate student staff assistants at the University of Michigan — will

be voting Thursday to authorize a strike ballot among GSIs and GSSAs. The vote comes after the final contract bargaining session with the University’s human resources department Wednesday evening ended unresolved. At the heart of the contentious negotiation process, which began in November, are aggressive

bargaining practices on the part of the University administration, and GEO’s ambitious platform of increased benefits and wages. The bargaining has taken on heightened significance in Michigan’s precarious labor environment, as this is the first contract GEO has negotiated under right-to-work laws. GEO

president John Ware, a Rackham student, said Wednesday night’s session came “down to the wire.” “It was the most productive session in a long time, and we got a lot done,” he said.

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Event aimed to encourage involvement and empowerment, entrepreneurship roles CHETALI JAIN

Daily Staff Reporter

Creating social change and gaining entrepreneurial success as a woman were among the emphasized topics discussed by female business leaders at the Women, Entrepreneurship and Social Change Conference Wednesday afternoon. Fostering conference, held in the Michigan League, was organized by LSA senior Hayley Maybaum. Maybaum met Sonya Passi, the founder and CEO of FreeFrom, while doing pro bono work at a law firm in New York City during a summer internship, and the pair collaborated with the Center for Entrepreneurship

to connect social justice with entrepreneurship at the University through the conference. After the initial networking breakfast, Passi began the speaker portion of the conference. Passi is based in Los Angeles, where she runs FreeFrom, a national organization dedicated to providing economic justice and entrepreneurial empowerment to survivors of domestic violence. The goal of her organization’s efforts is to help survivors achieve financial stability on their own.

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Author Kate Brower highlights unique Wrapping Ross group experience as White House reporter to explore up CSG

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

for the semester

Year in review: assembly prioritized representation, engagement, mental health NISA KHAN & RHEA CHEETI Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

LSA seniors David Scahfer and Micah Griggs’ administration came to an official end last week as eMerge’s candidates LSA junior Anusha Sarkar and Public Policy junior Nadine Jawad weresworn in. The second half of the Schafer term furthered the ground work from Fall, now acting on their resolutions and plans made promised. Diversity A resolution was unanimously passed to support the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. With Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor already celebrating the holiday, the resolution aimed to be a gesture toward indigenous and Native American tribes that are still active in the state. One of the authors, LSA senior Kaitlin Gant, said it was vital for the University to support its students.

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BUSINESS

Acclaimed journalist emphasizes First Families’ relationship with staffers COLIN BERESFORD Daily Staff Reporter

Author and journalist Kate Andersen Brower detailed the experiences of those who often work behind the scenes at the White House, ensuring everything functions smoothly while serving the first family, while discussing her new book, “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House,” Wednesday night. Brower said staffers who often work with first families for up to 30 or 40 years, develop close relationships with them. “I came up for the idea for ‘The Residence’ when I was a reporter at Bloomberg News and I had lunch with Michelle Obama and about a dozen other White House reporters,” Brower said. “And at this lunch, a butler came in and out of the room … and Mrs. Obama called him by his first name and it made me wonder who are these people who, none of us, as reporters, ever got to actually see.” Brower said the stories she shared from the book were largely unknown until she began talking to White House staffers. Ann Arbor resident Frank Tinnie was surprised by many of the stories that Brower shared, since he didn’t know many of them. “The fact that the staff has been there for so long, and generations of families have

worked there, I thought that was interesting,” Tinnie said. “And the idea that the first ladies still stay in contact.” As the event was held in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Brower fittingly told many stories about Gerald and Betty Ford, and added that Betty Ford is her favorite first lady. “(Dick Cheney) fondly remembers approaching

President Ford along with Donald Rumsfeld, and going into the Oval Office — this was during the presidential campaign — and just very meekly suggesting that someone tell Betty Ford to stop being so vocal about her support for the Equal Rights Amendment,” Brower said. “And President Ford just looked at him and said, ‘Boys, you know where her office is in the East Wing; you go

tell her yourself.’ ” The departure of each president is often an emotional one after four or eight years spent with staffers. Whether it’s eating with staffers or having tea with them, Brower said the first families get to know the people who work for them.

business of marijuana

Green Wolverines plans on leveraging economic prospects in cannabis KENNEDY WERNER

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Daily Staff Reporter

Despite the legal ambiguity in the cannabis industry, there is potential for business to bud. This is the core foundation of the new Ross School of Business Green Wolverine student organization, a club founded by Business sophomore Adam Rosenberg, centered around education, investment and exploration of opportunities for success within the legal cannabis world. Through guest speakers, open discussions and philanthropic events, Green Wolverine provides members with ways to become more involved with this industry. The organization held its first open meeting Wednesday night for its 88 general members as well as others interested in joining. The meeting discussed the market value of cannabis, its medicinal benefits and the legal ambiguity of the plant. COLIN BERESFORD, DAILY REPORTER/Daily

Author Kate Brower discusses her book “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House” at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library on Wednesday.

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INDEX

Vol. CXXVII, No. 61 ©2017 The Michigan Daily

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ART S . . . . . . . . . . . . B -SEC T IO N

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News

2A — Thursday, April 6, 2017

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ON THE DAILY: SMTD DEAN TO TAKE LAST DANCE IN AUGUST In an email sent to students, faculty and staff in the school, Dworkin announced that he has mixed emotions about his resignation. “It is necessary for me to have the opportunity to focus more on my family, and this step reflects a joint family decision on our part,” he wrote in the announcement. “I appreciate your understanding about this, and my need for privacy on this matter.” Dworkin was the first AfricanAmerican man to lead the program, and he was approved by the Board of Regents for the position in March of 2015. In his resignation announcement, Dworkin stated he will work as a faculty member teaching creative entrepreneurship and arts leadership courses in the fall. He will also help with the transition for the interim dean. “I look forward to supporting the interim dean, as well as furthering

the field of creative entrepreneurship and arts leadership for the broader university community,” he wrote. The interim provost, Paul Courant, is set to recommend an interim dean in the coming months, and he will lead a national search to appoint the next dean. The University Record reported that Courant reached out to Music, Theatre & Dance faculty and staff to ask for recommendations for potential search advisory committee members. In the announcement, Dworkin highlighted some of the Music, Theatre & Dance School’s accomplishments that he witnessed while he was part of the staff, including the creation of the Department of Chamber Music, and the increase in community engagement activities for the school, to name a few. “I am honored to have been part of the tremendous evolution of our school over these past two years,

which has been extraordinarily exciting, and has included so many successes on the part of so many students, faculty, and staff,” he wrote. Dworkin has spent some time at the University of Michigan, as he obtained a bachelor’s degree and master of fine arts degree in violin performance from the University. “From my time as a student once upon a time to my role as dean,

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the School of Music, Theatre & Dance—which means the people who comprise our school— has transformed my life, as I know it has for so many of you,” he wrote. - ERIN DOHERTY & MATT HARMON

Michigan Students @UMichStudents

it’s the best day of the week! thanks @michiganalumni for the bagel & coffee (bring your own cup to reduce waste!)

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RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Nubar Gambourian @nubarg98 Only in Michigan can it be under 50 degrees, rain, thunderstorm, be super windy, snow, and be over 70 degrees within 10 days...

JOHN YAEGER/Daily Dr. Cameron Gibelyou, Coordinator of Teaching, Programing, and Innovation for the LSA Dean’s Office, leads a seminar on Christianity and science for the Bicentennial Interfaith Conference in Ross on Wednesday.

CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES Policing Black Citizenship

Ancient Philosophy WHAT: Come hear David Charles from Yale University lecture about ancient philosphy. Charles has researched the connection between philosphy and psychiatry. WHO: Department of Philosophy WHEN: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. WHERE: Angell Hall, 2175 Classics Library

WHAT: A Harvard Law School professor, Annete Gordon-Reed, will speak on Black citizenship, from the country’s founding to Ferguson, as part of the Brian Simpson lecture. WHO: UM Law School WHEN: Noon to 1 p.m. WHERE: South Hall, Room 1225

Freedom and Flourishing Project Talk

Arab Folk-Dance Workshop

WHAT: Listen to Charles C.W. Cooke, the author of “The Conservatarian Manifesto,” speak about the future of government, specifically local governments. WHO: Department of Philosophy WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. WHERE: Michigan League, Vandenberg Room

WHAT: As part of Arab Heritage Month, Karim Naji, an Egyptian dancer, percussionist, musician, DJ and composer, will host an Arab Folk-Dance workshop. WHO: Department of Near Eastern Studies WHEN: 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. WHERE: Michigan League, Room 4 (Ground Level)

The Research University and Society WHAT: Five former University presidents will take part in a bicentennial conversation about the past and future of the University and higher education. WHO: Bicentennial Office WHEN: 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. WHERE: Rackham Auditorium

Stamps Senior Show WHAT: A showcase of live art featuring thesis work by BFA Interarts Performance and BFA Art & Design sudents will be on display. WHO: School of Art & Design WHEN: 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. WHERE: Duderstadt Video Studio

daniel

@dfrechettee

Feast of Ideas

Gender and Feminist Psychology

Abby @stuffedcabbage1

WHAT: Harley Dutcher, a University of Michigan graduate student, will expand on the “safe” sex conversation for young women. WHO: Department of Psychology WHEN: Noon to 1:30 p.m. WHERE: East Hall, Room 4464

that came from the Department of RASHEED ABDULLAH Homeland Security. Daily Staff Reporter “We’ll be able to host a linear accelerator, which is a machine After seven years of planning that accelerates electrons,” she and design, the University of said. “It’s a medical machine so it’s Michigan Nuclear Engineering actually used for cancer treatment Laboratory building reopened but it’s being donated to us by the Monday afternoon, complete with Department of Homeland Security, more space and renovations in its whom we work for.” laboratories, offices, conference Pozzi said the linear accelerator rooms and collaboration rooms for will be especially helpful in students. detecting nuclear material in Previously, the building housed containers. She said this is critical the decommissioned Ford Nuclear in advancing nuclear security. Reactor, which shut down in the “In these applications, we early 2000s. are looking for Uranium or Electrical Engineering Prof. Uranium-235 inside hidden David Munson, Jr., a former dean of containers,” Pozzi said. “So imagine engineering, said he was involved someone were to try to smuggle in in the building’s historically some Uranium for a weapon and relevant renovations. you want to find it inside a shielded “It was constructed sometime container. To do that you would after World War II and there have to interrogate the container Sudoku Syndication was a research effort that was with a beam of particle from a highlaunched in the University that was energy X-ray that would come from really done as a memorial to the the linear accelerator.” Other world-class lab equipment has been added to the building, including imaging tools and gamma ray detectors, which Pozzi described as critical HARD to characterizing radiation. “These can detect not only the presence of gamma rays but also tell you where they’re coming from so they can characterize a whole field of radiation and where it comes from,” she said. For the students who will be doing research in the nuclear engineering lab, Pozzi said collaboration rooms, generous lab space and advanced lab equipment promise a more intellectual working environment. These facilities, she explained, will positively affect students who are investigating topics in nuclear engineering and writing their theses. “A lot of students will be affected by this lab,” she said. “Student doing on their thesis work will be able to do some A TRADITION UNLIKE ANY OTHER. © sudokusolver.com.great For personal use only. experiments because of the new space.” puzzle by sudokusyndication.com

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$12.4 million in renovations over seven years add equipment, safety measures University alums who were killed in World War II,” he said. “The goal of this research was to pioneer peaceful uses of atomic energy.” Munson said despite the building’s nuclear reactor shutting down more than a decade ago, it took many years for federal regulators to approve new construction and renovation because of the need to clean and ensure the safety of the space. The building is now home to a variety of features and laboratory space aimed at advancing nuclear security, safety, energy and nonproliferation, the prevention of the spread nuclear weaponry. Sara Pozzi, a nuclear engineering and radiological sciences professor, is one of the researchers using the new facilities to detect and characterize nuclear material in a popular new field in nuclear engineering. Pozzi mentioned one of the cornerstones of the nuclear engineering labs included the linear accelerator, a medical device

I’m about to get hit by lightning on my walk from class and I won’t complain

WHAT: Faculty from different disciplines will present 20-minute talks at 14 participating restaurants, shops and galleries around Ann Arbor. WHO: Bicentennial Office WHEN: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. WHERE: Ann Arbor restauraunts, shops and galleries

Former Ford nuclear reactor lab building reopens for engineering use

9

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Michigan in Color

Thursday, April 6, 2017 — 3A

Vietnamese and Tchaikovsky: |Arab| |American| Finding fullness in one’s culture TINA AL-KHERSAN

Michigan in Color Contributor

|Arab| |American| They ask, Are you Arab? Or American? Do they not understand That heavy things break through light boxes? |Arab| My affinity for grape leaves And ability to roll my Rs Does not confine me between the letters |A and b|. |American| My childhood spent in Michigan And the lack of any accent Does not restrict me in between the letters |A and n|. |Arab-American| You have created neat categories For messy ideas.

IMAGE COURTESY: MEGAN TRAN

KHANG HUYNH

Michigan in Color Contributor

I’m not proud to make this declaration by any means; I’m actually quite devastated that this has become a facet of my being, but holy fuck do I detest reading. I’m not talking about the dayto-day casual Reddit browsing, Facebook lurking stuff, or the kind that is fundamental. I’m talking like the big-ass textbooks, fucking “War and Peace” type of reading expected of me from a bunch of classes I’ve taken. Every Facebook meme ever created that pokes fun at not doing the reading can have my name found tagged somewhere in the comments section. And before you say anything, yes, I see the irony in me writing this for people to read while simultaneously dispelling my unfavorable feelings toward the practice. The title says it all, but bear with me. I have this inclination to test the patience of authority; I love erring on the side of mischief. I’m honestly a little shit, and this display of little shittiness can best be shown through my inability to tell you about the plot of a single novel the average high schooler should have read in any of their English classes. I mean, I didn’t even check out the last book I was required to read for my AP Lit class senior year, like I was that done with reading by then. Jay Gatsby? I don’t know her. Hamlet? Couldn’t say that I am familiar with that queen. Mrs. Dalloway? Which school did she teach at? Because I can’t say I’ve ever met her. I’m not even telling you all of this to, like, brag, either — like, it’s actually something real embarrassing and shameful to admit, but this primer on my propensity toward not reading becomes relevant soon, I swear. Reading is hard. Reading is really fucking hard and I relished in the glory of my simple acts of disobedience by just … not doing it. My attention span is essentially the Planck-length equivalent of time, which could perhaps explain my habit of becoming engrossed in the lives and times of the authors of books I should’ve been reading instead of reading the actual books themselves. I mean, I told you it’s not that I hate literature or anything. It most likely was because I couldn’t be bothered to read anything expected of me out of both laziness and adolescent mischief. This habit would manifest itself throughout various classes, in different forms, but nonetheless with the same result. Physics lessons on Einstein’s theories of relativity led me to instead learn about his hobbies as an amateur violinist while calculus lectures on Newton’s creation of an entirely new branch of mathematics led me to follow this tangent about his religious fervor and penchant for being weird as hell. Toward the end of middle school, I had to learn this Tchaikovsky piece for a symphony audition. It was his “Serenade for Strings,” the 48th opus, which was this orchestral masterpiece written in the absolute most horrific time signature ever. The technical demands of the piece alongside

the massive Romantic-era middle finger that was the time signature drove me to, of course, not read through the piece at all. I want to make a brief mention that my habit of disregarding readings did not simply end at the written text; rather, it indiscriminately dismantled any drive I would have to begin reading anything that was required of me, and that included this daunting sixpage shitstorm of a serenade. During the free periods I should have spent rehearsing the serenade’s dreaded triple piano “pianississimo” measures, I instead, surprisingly, read this book about the composer himself. It was in “The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky” that I read this quote from him that would resonate with me well into the current day. Tchaikovsky described himself as “Russian in the fullest sense of the word,” to which I thought: “How incredible. Not just a veritable sense, but the fullest sense. How affirming it must be to be able to fully identify with a culture.” I think the reason as to why his words connected with me to such an extent is because they made me aware of this hollow cavity inside me that housed my cultural identity. It led to the realization that I couldn’t truly say that I fully identify as anything. I was born on the first of November in Can Tho, a large port village that skims the Mekong Delta along the southern fringes of Vietnam. I couldn’t really tell you anything about what life was like there besides the fact that it’s just really fucking hot. I was really young when I left Vietnam with my parents to pursue the prospect of a better life here in the States. The first four years of my life I recall entirely in Vietnamese. My clearest memory from this time in my life was a very specific moment where my mother was sitting at the kitchen table eating. I asked her why she made so much noise while she ate, to which she laughed and asked me if I would like to eat with her. I sat there with her and we just had this casual and carefree conversation in the kitchen. I don’t know why this one specific memory is so clearly branded frame for frame in my mind, but it, like other memories of my early childhood, was narrated back to me entirely in my mother tongue. I think the closest I’ve ever felt to Tchaikovsky’s cultural “fullness” was at this point in my life. I started school at 4 years old. I never realized that the children in my class had the privilege of growing up in homes where English was regularly spoken. I remember crying so hard on the first day of preschool that I fucking puked a storm on my teacher. It was such a mess; there were all of these people around me mouthing these weird sounds and reacting with confusion when I couldn’t understand them and then the puke being everywhere — like it really was just not cute. I didn’t pick up English as quickly as my teachers would have liked during early elementary school. I swear to God I was about a hair away from repeating the first grade because of my inability to properly speak the language or make any progress in those little English workbooks where you

fill in a letter to make words and phrases. In the end, I couldn’t tell you what made it all click, but I would eventually pick up English incredibly fast. Like, scary fast; scary like the reading teachers had to constantly tell me to slow down with my reading, essentially putting a harness on my reading skills so that the other kids could “catch up.” This was pretty much how the rest of my schooling went with regard to English. I honestly did pretty well in my English classes. Like I’m not even trying to gas myself up here or anything, but my essays were usually pretty fucking lit despite my never doing the required readings for any of those classes. I don’t even know, like I went from this scared and confused child who couldn’t understand what anyone around him was saying to someone who would be asked to proofread college and scholarship essays for friends. English was no longer a burden on me. I learned to use it well enough that I began to identify as somebody who had a pretty lit command of the language, but this achievement came at a cost. What I hadn’t noticed was that during the years I spent developing my English, my ability to speak Vietnamese suffered. I began to realize that I couldn’t speak Vietnamese like I used to. I would stutter, mumble and replace various words with their English equivalent. As much as I tried to communicate with my parents, the words just couldn’t come out with the clarity and eloquence I was so familiar with when speaking English. I knew that I knew these words. Spoken to me, I’d understand almost every Vietnamese word my parents would speak, but as I sorted through the linguistic rolodex in my brain to try to hunt for the right string of words or phrases to respond back to them, nothing came out. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s like getting into a really fucked up accident and having to learn how to walk again. Like you knew that at some point in the past you could do it, and that you did it pretty well, but here you are, trying to pick up these pieces of your past so that you can put together at least a semblance of who you once were. With language having had such a profound impact on me, I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I more or less lost my ability to proudly communicate in my mother tongue. I was even having trouble calling it that. Like aren’t you supposed to know your mother tongue better than anything else? By technicality English is my second language, so I just felt so distraught realizing that my ability to speak it had so greatly surpassed the language I was basically born speaking. In a way it felt like language, something I had learned to confide in for so long and something that helped me form my identity, betrayed me in some type of way? I can’t really think of another word for it. Honestly, I was just about 50 shades of shook over the whole situation if you really want to know the truth. This whole story brings me back to what I was talking about earlier, the whole discussion on “fullness.” I guess a kind of end goal for me in terms of culture and identity would be to

connect to something remotely similar to Tchaikovsky’s cultural “fullness,” and I don’t mean end goal like it’s something I want to do before I die or anything. I just mean it in the sense like, “Damn, wouldn’t it be really fucking incredible to feel the way Tchaikovsky felt about his own identity?” I think why this whole ordeal hit me so hard is because I feel like language is one of the most important facets of a culture. Like, beyond anything else, language connects you with others in such a personal way, so I kept asking myself, like, if I can’t speak the language of a particular culture, can I even fully identify with it? I’m just very preoccupied with the word “fully,” but how, like, many things can I even fully identify as? It just brings up a shit ton of questions, like, “Can I fully identify as a given ethnicity if I wasn’t born in a certain place?” or “Can I fully be an ethnicity if I don’t necessarily look like a person who belongs to it?” Perhaps such an inability to fully identify as anything nowadays is something symptomatic of the modern age. Like, it could just be something that accompanies the common practice of compartmentalizing every aspect of our being into these new and labeled divisions. Maybe in some ways this Tchaikovskic fullness isn’t realistic. Like, I could just one day come to the realization that I will never be able to, in any manner, replicate even the modicum of the fullness Tchaikovsky wrote about, but even if that were the case, I don’t think there are any real detriments toward the pursuit of such a feeling. Some might call it myopic, like somehow having this focus on a singular aspect of culture in the hopes of attaining some abstract fulfillment isn’t sensible. I mean, I can definitely see how people would believe that, seeing it as being vapid and shallow, but I think we have to keep in mind that we all currently live in this era where we ourselves have the ability, now more than ever, to form our own identities. We can choose to append or remove certain facets and aspects of ourselves to grow closer to our ideal self, and I think that’s a very freeing aspect of it all, despite claims that it can be seen as being inauthentic or full of shit. I guess the hyper-idealized millennial sense of self is the result of a fluid amalgamation of various different things. Maybe this fluidity is a completely different sense of self than Tchaikovsky’s original interpretation of fullness, or perhaps the result of this amalgamation is exactly how he may have felt. I mean, as much as I’d like to, I can’t really slide into his DMs to ask him how he personally defines fullness, so I guess a lot of it is up in the air. The fact of the matter is, I’m still trying to figure out my own sense of self and how it relates in the context of the world around me. And maybe I won’t ever be able to say that I am Vietnamese in the fullest sense of the word and feel the satisfaction Tchaikovsky felt. I guess I can be fine with that and just do my best to work toward a sense of fullness and fulfillment that reflects what it means to be fully myself, whatever the hell that may even mean.

You have compartmentalized me. My fondness for Kathim Al-Saher goes in the first box, But my affection for Hozier goes in the second box. My hair belongs in first box, But my first name falls in the second box. My religion falls in the first box, But my education falls in the second box. When will you learn That heavy things will break through light boxes? These categories that you have created, Fabricated, And demarcated Do not confine me As I am not either or, And I am not both.

How Dare You? HALIMAT OLANIYAN

Michigan in Color Senior Editor

Dear friend, Today I cried in public for the first time in a long time. I cried in reaction to a performance by the CRLT Players from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. I was not supposed to be there since they only perform for graduate students, faculty and staff. However, my participation in the English Department’s Diversity Committee got me the invite so there I was. I sat next to Theresa Braunschneider, not knowing she was the associate director of CRLT and the coordinator of Diversity Initiatives Dramaturg for the CRLT Players. I was grateful to be able to discuss the performance and work through my emotions with Theresa of all people. Even so, I could not hold back my tears. I cried as I watched Mariam, a fictional character from “A Thousand Cuts,” represent my Muslim identity and its depth on stage. I watched as other fictional characters who were supposed to be her friends and peers make assumptions of her, portray their stereotypes onto her, dismiss her and call her out for not being a “real Muslim” because she did not wear a hijab or fit their stereotypes of what it means to be Muslim or what Islam looks like. I watched as other fictional characters idly sat back and witnessed Mariam be labeled, attacked and excluded by the community. They told her not to worry about the election and that nothing could really happen because of checks and balances. Yet here we are. I, too, was repeatedly told how to feel, be and handle my identity. After watching how Mariam was treated, I couldn’t help but to think of you, my friend. You represent every person who has ever claimed to not be racist because of their one ethnic friend. You represent every person who will hold up a poster that claims their solidarity to take

a picture for the news or post it on social media but truly does not care about minority issues. Most importantly, you represent the people who claim to respect my identities and yet support the policies that attack my identities. How dare you. How dare you claim to respect how I feel and say you stand in solidarity with me yet support my attacker and feel nothing for how my identity is being attacked. However, this is not about you or your fake support. This is about how we claim “all men were created equal” and “thou shalt love thy neighbor,” yet that truly only applies to the dominant, white, Christian men and, sometimes, women. I have had enough of the fake pretenses. The very government that is supposed to protect me sees me as a threat. What am I to do? I’ll tell you what I am not going to do. I will not allow you to pretend to be my ally. I will not allow you to fill me with dismay or make me feel like I am in the wrong for being upset. I will not idly sit back while you disrespect me. I will call you out and remove you from my life. I will forever stand up for what I believe in. And you “those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” So don’t you dare. Don’t you dare tell me I’m overacting. Don’t you dare tell me to respect policies that reinforce the stigma I have faced my entire life. And don’t you dare tell me it’s going to be OK because it’s already not OK. It has never been OK. Still I feel sorry for you. I am sorry you can’t see past your naïve, prejudice-based fears and break through the stereotypes society has fed you. And I am mad. I am mad because I truly cared about you. But this is not about you. This is about how I feel and you have no right to devalue my feelings. So this is goodbye. And I am not sorry.

Attention: Seniors! MiC is looking for seniors to write a personal statement about how your experience as a student of color on campus has been. Good? Bad? We want to hear. If interested, please contact us at michiganincolor@umich.edu.

Opinion

4A — Thursday, April 6, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

NICHOLAS TOMAINO | COLUMN

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

FROM THE DAILY

Prioritize transgender rights

A

t the end of February, the Trump administration revoked the Obama-era “Dear Colleague” letter, which extended Title IX protections against sex discrimination in schools to protect gender identity and allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that corresponded with their gender identities. By backtracking on this policy, the federal administration has significantly weakened schools’ incentives to allow students to use restrooms that correspond to the gender they identify with. Shortly after, the University of Michigan’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs passed a resolution that reaffirmed the right for people on campus to use the restrooms that correspond with their gender identities. The Michigan Daily’s Editorial Board commends the University for continuing to uphold previous guidelines protecting students. While we believe that transgender rights should be protected at a federal level, the state and other local actors — such as the University — have a duty to enforce these recommendations when the current federal administration will not. Transgender rights are a nationwide issue, as human dignity should not be based on where a person happens to live. Redacting these guidelines put in place by the Obama administration affects people regardless of geographic location. Despite the promises of President Trump and Betsy DeVos to protect the LGBTQ community, rescinding the “Dear Colleague” letter makes clear the administration’s disregard for the rights of the LGBTQ community. Furthermore, this action once again perpetuates false and harmful notions that transgender people are predators. The daily experiences of discrimination faced by transgender people, including — but definitely not limited to — access to public restrooms, are difficult enough without a government that fails to validate their humanity. Given that the federal government is rolling back on Obama-era policies, states must take action. States must create legislation that works especially to protect the rights of K-12 students and people in the workforce, who will likely feel the brunt of gender discrimination more than students on (usually more liberal) college campuses. Michigan currently does not have statewide laws, housing policies, employment policies or anti-bullying protections in schools with children of all grade levels that explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Additionally, Michigan has no laws facilitating legal

“

gender change on official identification documents. In contrast, states such as California and Minnesota support and uphold these policies and more. Michigan state government needs to do more to stand up for the civil rights of transgender people to show fundamental compassion and dignity. Nonetheless, as federal policies continue to cut down on previous progress toward equality for all people, and Michigan state policies are severely lacking in protections, universities across the country are gradually making strides to foster a more inclusive community. The University must continue to make strides along with them. In the United States, there are 1,036 universities with nondiscrimination policies that include gender identity and expression. Moreover, there are 212 colleges and universities, including the University of Michigan, that have gender-inclusive housing for people of all gender identities and expressions. Granted, East Quad Residence Hall is the only official on-campus gender-inclusive dorm at the University. Additionally, there are very few gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus. Therefore, the University must continue to work toward ensuring equal access to all spaces on campus regardless of gender identity. However, it is great to see that the University is taking important steps many other universities in the United States have not.

Though we recognize that this is not a perfect solution, and there are certainly ways to improve and increase resources for transgender students, these are important steps in the right direction. These are not the only two cases that show the University’s initiative for a more inclusive community. Recently, the University began to allow students to indicate their preferred pronouns on course rosters so faculty and staff know how students identify regardless of the sex on their application. This made the University one of seven colleges and universities in the United States that does this. While it is important to acknowledge more must be done to improve the campus culture and create lasting, effective policies, we commend the University for taking crucial strides such as these to make the environment inclusive for all students. We ask it continues to take steps to better protect the rights of all students. While the Trump administration may have backtracked on rights for transgender people by reversing the guidance from “Dear Colleague” of the Obama administration, it should not dictate how we handle this issue, either at the University level or at the state level. Transgender rights should be a topic of federal concern, but given today’s climate, it is the job of the state and local actors such as the University to make protecting these rights a priority.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. —PepsiCo’s apology issued from its Twitter account regarding a recently released — and then removed — advertisement. The ad was met with harsh criticism for portraying protesting and the fight for civil rights as trendy, lighthearted and commodifiable.

”

T

Consistently inconsistent

he nomination of Judge watch the confirmation hearings, Neil Gorsuch to the listen to Gorsuch’s responses and Supreme Court has appreciate his perspective about displayed how partisan politics the role of the judiciary would influence political have learned that he strategies. Senate believes that judges do Democrats have not make laws or policy. promised to obstruct Equally as important, Gorsuch, who most he understands that likely will not reach judges do not factor the 60-vote margin their personal opinions needed to overcome or beliefs into their a filibuster. That decisions. Rather, they strategy has forced uphold precedent and Senate Republicans follow the law. NICHOLAS to threaten the A profound respect TOMAINO nuclear option, and admiration for amending long-standing Senate impartiality sounds pretty rules requiring a 60-vote mainstream to me. In fact, when supermajority to a 51-vote simple politics are taken out of the majority when appointing discussion, I believe Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nominees. qualifications, record and Will Senate Democrats reputation are beyond reproach. succeed in filibustering the However, those trying to make confirmation of President Donald logical sense of this objection are Trump’s Supreme Court justice operating under the assumption nominee, Neil Gorsuch? Will the that Schumer is actually open Republicans change the rules to consensus-building. The sad and invoke the nuclear option? It reality is that he is not. turns out that how the Democrats Recall that in January, feel about these two options Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel depends on who is in power and Maddow that it was difficult for who stands to be disadvantaged him to imagine any “nominee by the decisions. that Donald Trump would On “Meet the Press” this past choose that would get Republican weekend, outspoken Senate support that we could support.” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer His promise to do his best at (D–N.Y.) argued that President keeping the seat vacant for the Trump should gather with Senate entirety of Trump’s presidency Democrats and Republicans is not only hypocritical but also to “try to come up with a undemocratic. mainstream nominee.” Schumer Let’s not be hoodwinked by asserted that the rules should Schumer — a senator whose not be changed by Republicans obstructionism is no more in order to obtain cloture (the than a reaction to a lingering limitation of legislative debate by aftertaste of Mitch McConnell calling for a vote). Furthermore, refusing to consider Obama’s he is critical of invocation of the nomination of Merrick Garland so-called nuclear option. after Antonin Scalia’s passing. It appears, however, as if On “Meet the Press,” McConnell Schumer has a very short memory referred to the “Biden Rule” as regarding “rule changes.” His justification — acknowledging former colleague, then-Senate that neither side would have Majority Leader Harry Reid expected any different a decision (D–Nev.), invoked the nuclear had the shoe been on the other option in 2013 — so it would take foot. It is crucial to recall that only a bare majority of senators in 1992 when George H.W. Bush to confirm all nominees except was president and Biden was Supreme Court picks. Angered chairman of the Senate Judiciary by Reid’s partisan and damaging Committee, Biden established ploy, the Republicans warned that that Supreme Court vacancies the Democrats would potentially should not be filled in the midst suffer the consequences of the of a presidential election. rules change were the Senate In deference to the fact that majority ever to flip. Trump won the election, and Well, that day has arrived. has offered his nominee for As a New York state resident consideration, Mitch McConnell and politically curious citizen, I has argued, “The Senate should would greatly benefit from Mr. respect the result of the election Schumer explaining exactly and treat this newly elected what the qualifications are for a president’s nominee in the same “mainstream nominee.” Anyone way the nominees of other newly who took the time to carefully elected presidents have been

treated.” He also has pointed out two examples in which up-or-down votes were given under Democratic presidents: Ginsburg and Breyer under Clinton and Sotomayor and Kagan under Obama. Certainly, recent history provides precedent for an up-ordown vote and no filibuster. Some Democrats, such as Sen. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.), have recognized that the left’s intransigence threatens the institution of the Senate as we know it. Yet, despite this sensibility, other Democrats appear to be consistently inconsistent. Schumer feels quite entitled to filibuster Gorsuch’s confirmation, effectively allowing a minority vote of 41 to prevent cloture — hardly an up-or-down vote when a minority can block a confirmation. And Schumer argues that invoking the nuclear option would be wrong today, even though Harry Reid felt it was warranted in 2013. As to the justification for a filibuster and the imperative for changing the rules (i.e., invoking the nuclear option) Schumer’s own Senate colleague Elizabeth Warren felt very differently than Schumer about both in 2013. From a floor speech on Nov. 13, 2013, she criticized filibusters and called for a rules change: “We need to call out these filibusters for what they are — naked attempts to nullify the results of the last presidential election … we have a responsibility to protect and defend our democracy, and that includes protecting the neutrality of our courts and preserving the constitutional power of the president to nominate highly qualified people to court vacancies.” Sens. Schumer and Warren must realize that “biting off their nose to spite their face” accomplishes nothing productive. If the nuclear option takes place, the Senate may very well approve even more conservative judges during Trump’s administration with only a majority requirement. One thing is for certain: The Republicans are fully aware that the filibuster is merely a naked attempt to nullify the results of the last presidential election. And the aftertaste of the nuclear option will be worse than not considering Merrick Garland.

Nicholas Tomaino can be reached at ntomaino@umich.edu.

DOUGLAS MCELHANEY | OP-ED

Wolverine football should take the lead

T

here is nothing like a fall afternoon at the Big House. A football game, a great band, discerning fans and lots of excitement. About 110,168 fans on a regular basis, not counting the vast TV audiences, couldn’t be wrong. But there is another storyline here. College football has become much bigger than the universities it actually purports to represent. Michigan football is branded on the sweats and tees and mugs of every Wal-Mart in the country. People recognize “Hail to the Victors” when they hear it, and if they watch national sports, they’ll recognize the distinctive helmets. Michigan alumni clubs propose “game-watching” events in a sports bar setting as their major activity. Young recruits squint as spotlights feature their signing day on national broadcasts. And most notably, the Michigan coach has become what is needed today to get your brand out there in cyberspace — headlinemaking notoriety with nationwide football camps and tweets that bring attention to his star status. He is remunerated seven times more than his ostensible supervisor, the president of the University of Michigan. No one should be naive. Making money is what makes major college football today. As media look for more events to broadcast and pushes colleges to grasp the golden ring, money becomes ever more important. Go to a game and you will see it all — replete with long, scheduled delays on the field so that TV can get in ads. Tickets are legally scalped online while the little guy trying to make $20 on State Street is prohibited from doing so. Food

sales are huge because you can’t bring your own popcorn in with you. The band, likely for the media, is now amplified — that is to say, our band, not the visiting team’s. It is only a matter of time before the University permits more overt advertising on scoreboards and even in the naming of the stadium. How about the Ajax Widget Michigan Stadium? This is our free-market system, but whether many universities can perpetuate this business model in the future is anyone’s guess. Let’s make some changes so that football can flourish. First, since college football is big-time entertainment, pay the actors. Though he expresses his gratitude for his education and opportunities, as Jake Butt said in a press interview at the end of March, his scholarship is hardly enough to cover his rent, let alone any other expenses. And only a small elite later translate their athletic prowess into a paycheck at the professional level. Some of us might be surprised at how much these young people sacrifice, including their university education, because their focus on a long season, and not on their studies, makes academic achievement an unattainable goal. When you see the heroic plays they make and the injuries they sustain, they need recompense. It would be the honorable thing to do. If players wished to matriculate at the University, they could compete on an equal basis with the kids who populate the student section at the games. And by the way, a few years ago it was the students, not anyone else, who protested when an obviously injured player was not immediately

pulled out of the game, and when the cost of their attending a game reached new heights. All that for someone else’s pocket, to the exclusion of students and players. Second, create the Michigan Football Corporation. That could readily accept funds from alumni, unabashedly sell its brand and raise the money needed to keep it all going. A corporation, most simply, could be located in Ann Arbor and lease and maintain the stadium and its blandishments. The corporation could apply its rents and royalties to bringing more deserving cash-short students t =o the University campus. The team could serve as a farm team, as in baseball, or in European soccer, training and selecting the next generation of stars for the big time. Such a model would avoid the unnecessary conflicts inherent in marrying a huge business to a university. It would eliminate the seeming contradictions of educating young people versus running a quality business. It would insulate the University from the vagaries of the sports market, which increasingly relies on huge budgets. If you’ve been to a bowl game or a regular season match at a number of our less football-focused sister universities, you’ll note that the market for watching games is nearing its saturation point. The University of Michigan is a great university and its maizeand-blue Wolverines are world famous. Let’s provide them the space to grow. Douglas McElhaney is an LSA alumnus in the class of 1968 and the American Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2004 to 2007.

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Thursday, April 6, 2017 — 5A

Kugler aims to be a Lugbauer’s surge powers Michigan’s offense starter in fifth year Week for his performances last week against Toledo, Central Michigan and Penn State. But with Lugbauer, it hasn’t just been about the raw statistics. It’s about how he records them. Power is the defining characteristic of Lugbauer’s game. At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, he’s a prototypical middle-of-the-order slugger with the ability to drive the ball out of the park in any direction. Last week, that was on full display. Even though the contest had been effectively decided in the Wolverines’ favor, Lugbauer provided the defining moment of Wednesday’s game against Central Michigan. In the seventh inning, he hit a deep shot to right field that finally landed on the roof of the neighboring indoor track and field building, a hit that Michigan coach Erik Bakich described as an “absolute bomb”.

JACOB SHAMES Daily Sports Writer

ORION SANG

Daily Sports Editor

Patrick Kugler was quick to say he never considered transferring. But the fifth-year senior center certainly couldn’t have been blamed for doing so — or for at least considering it. Through his first four years on the Michigan football team, he played in just five games, failing to carve out a consistent role on the offensive line. Time and time again, Kugler found himself on the wrong end of the depth chart. So it would have been understandable had he decided to leave Michigan and pursue a graduate transfer elsewhere for his final season of eligibility — perhaps somewhere like the University of Texas El-Paso, where his father, Sean Kugler, is the head coach. Kugler shot that down Tuesday night, though, saying it would be “Michigan through and through.” Kugler’s career thus far may seem like an unexpected turn for a player who many expected to be the anchor of a powerful offense. As the No. 1 ranked center in the nation with offers from nearly everywhere, Kugler arrived in Ann Arbor as one of the most highly-touted members of a ballyhooed offensive line class under former Michigan coach Brady Hoke. The expectations for him and the rest of his linemates could not have been more overstated. Yet, that vision of a mauling offensive line that would finally give Hoke his desired power-running game never took effect. After Hoke was fired following Kugler’s second year, current head coach Jim Harbaugh stepped in. Harbaugh brought an entirely different staff and mentality, with Kugler calling the new four-hour practices an initial “shock.” But he stuck around, even when many of his peers didn’t. One by one, each of the offensive linemen from that 2013 recruiting class left the team. And when fifth-year senior guard David Dawson announced earlier this spring that he would be transferring to Iowa State for his final year, Kugler officially became the last man standing. He is older and wiser now, which may prove to be a boon for a team as inexperienced as Michigan is — especially on the offensive line, which will

enter the year with just 48 total starts, 38 of which belong to senior center Mason Cole. One of those 48 does belong to Kugler. He started in last year’s season opener against Hawaii at left guard in place of an injured redshirt senior Ben Braden. It wasn’t his natural position, but he made do. Braden, though, returned shortly, which left Kugler out of a spot. And, when then-sophomore offensive tackle Grant Newsome went down with a season-ending injury, the next man up was a freshman, Ben Bredeson, instead of Kugler. That brief taste of a starting position left Kugler wanting more, especially after realizing he may not have approached the competition with the requisite intensity. “You’ve got to outwork everybody,” Kugler said. “There’d be times where I’d probably get outworked last year or I wouldn’t do the extra work the past couple years, so it’s just about trying to get in there and get all the extra work that you possibly can.” This time around, he says, he has done “all the little things” to try and get on the field. That has meant seeking more treatment after practices and workouts and trying to eat healthier — Kugler says he has been trying to cut down on pizza, his favorite food — while continuing to familiarize himself with the offense. “It’s not a new system, but it’s a new terminology a little bit with (assistant head coach and passing game coordinator) Pep Hamilton here,” Kugler said. “So it’s just about getting the calls down, and they put a lot more emphasis on making calls with the center, so that’s been the key for me, just trying to get everything down. And it’s been going really well so far.” Perhaps those adjustments, along with his improved work ethic, will lead to Kugler finding success in his final year. Either way, he’s not leaving Michigan — not before he gives it one last shot. “I think that I’m one of the top five — everyone thinks they’re one of the top five,” Kugler said. “If I’m not starting in spring ball, I’ll earn that during (fall) camp, or if I don’t, I’ll try to be the best senior leader that I can regardless of what my role is on the team. “… It’s my fifth year so it’s my last go-around, (and) I want to prove to everyone that I belong here and (that) I’m a Michigan man.”

“That’s been the key for me, just trying to get everything down”

Entering the season, expectations for junior third baseman Drew Lugbauer were high, and deservingly so. After a sophomore season in which he hit .294 and slugged .483 with seven home runs and 47 runs batted-in, the preseason Big Ten Player to Watch had established himself as a lefthanded power source in the heart of Michigan’s lineup. Through the 15 games of the season, however, that version of Lugbauer was nowhere to be found. Leading up to the Wolverines’ first home game, he possessed a .164 batting average and had struck out 21 times in 55 at-bats. But a return to Ray Fisher Stadium was seemingly all that was needed for Lugbauer to find his form. Since blowing open Michigan’s home opener against Northern Illinois with a two-out grand slam, the third baseman has been on a tear, hitting .403 with six home runs and 24 RBIs — good for a slugging percentage of .807. He was recognized by the Big Ten as the Conference Player of the

“Farthest ball I’ve ever seen hit, for us or against us, in the five years I’ve been here,” Bakich said. That’s not the only extraordinary feat Lugbauer has proven himself capable of. Against Penn State on Saturday, he swatted two opposite-field home runs, including a first-inning blast that landed in the outfield of the adjoining Alumni Field and a fifth-inning drive down the line that cleared the 25-foot-high left-field wall. “I don’t care who you are, that’s really hard to do as a hitter,” Bakich said. “To not only hit the ball the other way but hit it with such authority you clear the fence. “He’s showing line to line power, and he’s really elevating himself as one of the best power hitters in the conference. He’s a kid who works extremely hard and has created this for himself.” But even when Lugbauer struggled to find his rhythm at

“My swing is kind of geared towards (power)”

“I want to prove to everyone that I belong here”

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily

Fifth-year senior center Patrick Kugler came to Michigan as the No. 1 center.

the plate, he was able to make his moments count. Despite his subpar batting average and slugging for the first month of the season, he still was tied for second on the team in RBIs with 10 — a testament to Lugbauer’s work ethic and his ability to remain focused. “Even when the hits weren’t falling for him, he prepared the same way and invested just as much time,” Bakich said. “He’s not going to do anything different.” Certainly, Lugbauer draws the most attention for the barrage of home runs he launches into the stratosphere. But in the same fashion as his training, there’s nothing different about his approach at the plate, whether the end result is a line-drive single up the middle or a towering blast to right field. “I just try to put a good swing on it,” he said. “My swing is kind of more geared towards (power), so I just try to find a good pitch to hit and get super selective in doing that.” But with the way Lugbauer has been batting lately, there’s a good chance he won’t be seeing nearly as many good pitches to hit in the future.

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Junior third baseman Drew Lugbauer has been on a tear at the plate recently, hitting .403 with six home runs and 24 RBI — good for a .807 slugging percentage.

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ACROSS 1 Highlands hat 4 Serenade, as the moon 9 Pearl seeker 14 Botanist Gray 15 Naproxen brand 16 “__ Mio” 17 *Judy Blume genre 19 Bags with handles 20 Calendario start 21 Sierra __ 23 Former Radiohead label 24 __ Valley: Reagan Library site 25 *Got from the cloud? 27 Not having the know-how 29 Locomotive, e.g. 30 Compose, in a way 31 Single-celled creature 35 Sinusitis docs 36 *Like much Chinese cooking 39 Reebok rival 42 Dapper 43 Cal. pages 46 Like 49 Unite securely 51 *Three-year school, commonly 55 Julie’s “Doctor Zhivago” co-star 56 Subj. with unknowns 57 “Cool!” 58 Concert venue 59 Softens 61 Some football linemen ... and what the answers to starred clues have? 63 1999-2004 Olds 64 Vast, in verse 65 How-__: do-ityourselfers’ buys 66 Printing flourish 67 Freelancer’s supply: Abbr. 68 Fused

DOWN 1 Occupies oneself with, as a hobby 2 Just plain silly 3 Mob inductee 4 Scott of “Arrested Development” 5 Tavern favorite 6 Mello __ 7 “__ From the Bridge”: Miller 8 Wyoming county 9 Act grandmotherly toward 10 Metric lead-in 11 Elected 12 Gold or silver 13 Lives 18 Trifle 22 N.Y. Mets division 25 __-glace: rich sauce 26 Got on in years 28 Long. counterpart 32 Coastal eagle 33 Museum curator’s deg. 34 Oils, e.g. 36 __-Flush: household cleaner

37 Bite symptom 38 Network logo 39 Overnight bag item, maybe 40 Elvis played one in “Blue Hawaii” 41 One working the crowd 43 Souvenir 44 With no end in sight 45 Berlin boulevard

47 Myriad 48 Pay dirt 50 “Encore!” 52 Can’t take 53 Turner autobiography 54 “We Got the Beat” band 58 Casino fixtures 60 Part of TNT 62 Charlemagne’s domain: Abbr.

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Sports

6A — Thursday, April 6, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Seizing catcher role, Alexander aids Betsa’s pitching MARK CALCAGNO Daily Sports Writer

When sophomore catcher Katie Alexander visits senior right-hander Megan Betsa in the circle between pitches, the message is usually simple: just breathe. As complex as a softball pitcher’s throwing technique can be, that’s what the pair focuses on in the middle of pressure-cooker games. Alexander’s pointer comes from an offseason yoga program, which was originally intended to relieve lingering pain in Betsa’s back and shoulder. Instead, yoga has become the basis for Alexander’s fix to any fluster the Michigan softball team’s ace might experience. “When (Betsa) breathes and focuses on spin, then it happens for her,” Alexander said. Even in the best of performances for Betsa, Alexander’s presence is consistent. In the seventh inning of a nearly flawless March effort against Kent State, Betsa became visibly frustrated after walking a batter to bring the game-tying run to the plate. But there was Alexander, jogging out to the circle to tell the starter exactly what she needed to hear. Betsa subsequently struck out the final two batters of the game, completing the shutout and her fourth-career no-hitter. “Katie has gotten comfortable communicating with (the pitchers) and letting them know what they need to do better,” said pitching coach Jen Brundage. “Anytime the catcher takes charge and can go out to the mound to calm the pitcher down, it’s a good thing and a sign of maturity in that catcher.” Added Michigan coach Carol Hutchins: “Catchers are selfless. They’re there to make the pitchers feel good. Tell her what she needs to know and tell her what she needs to hear. You want

SENIOR RIGHTHANDER MEGAN BETSA 2017 Season

13-5

Win/Loss Record

1.23 Earned-Run Average ARNOLD ZHOU/Daily

Sophomore catcher Katie Alexander has forced her way in as the starter, and become a calming influence behind the plate for senior right-hander Megan Betsa.

them to beat as one heart — that’s for sure.” Reaping the benefits of Alexander’s mound visits, Betsa is on the best stretch of her career. In the past three weeks, she’s tallied seven complete-game shutouts, two no-hitters and three-straight Big Ten Pitcher of the Week honors. As the season progresses, the chemistry between the pair on and off the field continues to grow. Though the pair are two years apart, Alexander considers Betsa “a best friend.” That relationship is apparent throughout their starts together, as Betsa and Alexander are almost always the first to highfive each other after the final out of an inning. But that chemistry is still relatively young. Alexander caught just 13 games last season, spending most of the

season as the bullpen catcher behind both junior Aidan Falk and sophomore Alex Sobczak. After Falk moved back to first base this season, however, a battle between

“When (Betsa) breathes and focuses on spin, then it happens for her” Alexander and Sobczak ensued. And Sobczak — using 29 appearances from 2016 to boost her resume — was called upon to start six of the first seven games for the Wolverines. Recently, however, Alexander’s

hot bat convinced Hutchins to make her the go-to catcher. In 23 starts, Alexander has hit .293 with eight RBI and a homerun, besting Sobczak’s .200 batting average. “Katie totally took advantage of her opportunities,” Hutchins said. “She’s provided some great offense, and she’s a great spark. She took over that position.” Behind the plate, Alexander excels at blocking pitches in the dirt — essential to catching for Betsa, who bounces breaking balls to garner swinging third strikes. “She does a really nice job smothering the ball,” Hutchins said. “That’s a big quality when you have a pitcher like Betsa, who lives off throwing it in the dirt and making them swing.” But to prepare for a larger role this season, Alexander needed to improve defensively, putting a strong focus on framing pitches and adjusting to Betsa’s repertoire.

Alexander spent most of the summer practicing with Sobczak, working on not tipping off Betsa’s rise ball by “going up with the pitch” rather than giving a high target prior to the pitch. That, along with an increased focus on framing pitches, has allowed Betsa to nip corners and notch a nation-leading 221 strikeouts. “Whether it’s her body position or the way she catches the ball, she’s getting a lot more calls back there,” Betsa said. “It’s helping me out a lot.” Thanks to Alexander, Betsa’s transition to a new catcher for the second straight season has occurred with no apparent hitches. But if the ace does endure any problems in the circle, she knows Alexander will visit with a straightforward message. Just breathe.

221

Total Strikeouts

.139 Opponent Batting Average

Reunited, Williams experiences her final game with twin sister SYLVANNA GROSS Daily Sports Editor

It happened after all the frenzy and after all the shouts of excitement and team hugs. After realizing that her team was the first Michigan women’s basketball team to win a championship and hang a banner at Crisler Center. It was after she got to look up at the scoreboard and see her team had beaten Georgia Tech, 89-79, in the final of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament. And it was after playing the final game of her collegiate career in a Michigan jersey. After all of this, senior guard Danielle Williams got to hug her identical twin sister, Dominique. Dominique had hopped a redeye from UCLA — where she plays on the Bruins’ women’s basketball team — to surprise her sister in the middle of pregame warmups. Danielle was shocked, especially as she had been trying to FaceTime and call her periodically throughout the day. They embraced tightly at the team’s bench, both of them slightly emotional. After all of the hysteric celebration, Danielle was able to

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily

Senior guard Danielle Williams was surpised by her identical twin sister Dominique, who flew in from UCLA, at the WNIT championship game Saturday.

describe why that moment was so emotional.

“I think she’s the greatest person that I know,” Williams

said. “I will tell everybody that. We always joke like, ‘oh who’s the better twin?’ Not just in basketball, but in life. But honestly, I would always pick her. She’s the better one every single day and every single time, no matter what. “She’s just that great, that selfless, that wonderful, and I’m just … I can’t believe she’s here, and it makes this that much more wonderful.” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico has just as much praise for Danielle herself. Earlier in the year and throughout Williams’ career, Barnes Arico has commended Williams for her contributions off the court, saying, “there’s not a day that goes by that I’m not thankful that Danielle Williams is in the program.” Barnes Arico even went so far as to add: “Every program needs a Danielle Williams. If my child could ever be like Danielle Williams, I would’ve hit a home run.” Laura Williams, the twins’

mother, described the moment that Danielle realized Dominique would be her lifelong friend. The two, according to their mom, are inseparable. And when Dominique walked into Calihan Hall, Danielle’s “jaw dropped.” The athletes decided to

“She’s done so much on and off the court, I’m just so proud of her” commit to different schools, a difficult decision for the two of them, but one they knew they needed to forge their own paths. But, according to Danielle, the duo still talks constantly, making the distance feel minute. Other things, too, tie the twins

closer together. For example, Dominique was also selected as a team captain by her peers and, like Danielle, Dominique also wears the number 20 to honor WNBA Indiana Fever guard Briann January. “I just think (the game was) great,” Dominique said. “Either way, it’s great. Win or lose, I’m proud of her. She’s done so much on and off the court, I’m just so proud of her. I’m excited for what she’s done in a Michigan uniform.” Despite not playing as many minutes or stuffing the stat sheet as much as other players, Williams was voted as a team captain for two consecutive years. Some teammates even refer to her as ‘the Mom.’ Every single Wolverine felt motivated to win the WNIT for Danielle and her fellow senior guard Siera Thompson. In her final year, Williams averaged 1.9 points per game, 2.8 rebounds and played an average of 17 minutes, though she appeared in all 37 games and started in 21. As a junior, she earned Academic All-Big Ten and her third varsity letter. Williams will leave behind a gap in the roster, as most seniors do. Both she and Thompson were Barnes Arico’s first recruits for Michgian, making the pair a special class for the coach. In the WNIT championship game, Williams grabbed two offensive rebounds and three defensive rebounds and contributed four points to the team’s total. She ended her college career by playing 35 of the 55 total minutes of the game. Despite any personal achievements Williams may have had this season, she still remains humble to her team. “I just don’t have any words,” Williams said. “It took everybody, and it took everything. Everybody contributed and everybody stepped up on the team. I can go through every single person on our team and things that they did tonight that they worked throughout the whole season for. We earned it, we definitely earned it.” And, at the end, she got to earn it with her better half watching.

B

The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, April 6, 2017

THE

ISSUE Design By Jacob Bergen

the b-side

2B — Thursday, April 6, 2017

no pretense of false honesty in order to gain customer approval. “(Fleetwood) is a very real place … you can tell that the people who work here aren’t faking it,” Bell said. “And I think a lot of people can tell that and appreciate that it’s not fake … we say, ‘I appreciate you,’ and we appreciate you; we say, ‘Get the fuck out,’ and we mean ‘Get the fuck out.’ ” I thought the plain-spoken forthrightness was refreshing.

LEAD

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

And if the popularity of Fleetwood is anything to go off, many other individuals do as well. The biggest spectacle of Fleetwood lies in its genuineness. What you see is what you get. Open and honest, Fleetwood truly is a diner for the people: accessible to all, regardless of whether it was hobbled into at 3 a.m. for respite or purposefully sought out at 11 a.m. for a family brunch. The Fleetwood Diner has

a knack of quietly storing memories within its rickety walls. It’s not extravagant, nor is it embellished, but everyone manages to have their own set of outlandishly distinctive experiences. The diner manages to represent the surrounding community, all its traditions and idiosyncrasies, with a tireless integrity that persuades customers to keep coming back. Well, that and the Hippie Hash.

SECONDARY

THE MICHIGAN DAILY Ann Arbor’s own Fleetwood Diner

Seventy years later, all roads lead to Fleetwood

The peculiar Ann Arbor diner is riddled with stories and history SHIMA SADAGHIYANI Daily Arts Writer

“There’s an old payphone back here that doesn’t work,” said server Rob Bell to me one hazy afternoon, as I stopped by the restaurant where he worked. “One night this total crazy person was talking on it … one of our regulars dealt with it and went over there and hung up on the phone and the guy was like, ‘That’s really rude’ and (the regular) was like, ‘You gotta go man.’ ” Welcome to the Fleetwood Diner. Just hugging the edge of downtown Ann Arbor, Fleetwood squats at the corner of two intersecting streets, its brightly striped awning a beacon against the monochromatic pavement line. It promises food ‘round the clock, a pair of the dirtiest bathrooms to ever grace mankind and, most importantly, a dining experience like no other. The first time I visited Fleetwood, it was as a wideeyed freshman late one random Tuesday night. Eager to escape the confines of my residence hall, I grabbed the hand of my closest friend at the time — a girl whom I knew for all of three days — and marched us both resolutely toward the infamous diner. Situated so far away from Central Campus, it had almost seemed like a myth — the house that all the older kids in your neighborhood had sworn was haunted but nobody dared visit. When we passed underneath its f lickering neon sign for the first time that night, I had half expected the inside of the diner to be filled with ghostly mist: hallowed ground nestled between railroad tracks and a tattoo parlor. Instead, disturbingly normal f luorescent lights stabbed the corners of our eyes as we were hastily seated at a table in the corner. The menus haphazardly tossed in our general direction were lined with creases, various stains forming technicolor abstractions across the pages. Eager to play the role of beguiling tourist, we both ordered what Fleetwood is most acclaimed for: the Hippie Hash. Our food arrived as a verifiable feast heaped on top of plates spiderwebbed with cracks. We worked through our meals in relative silence, engrossed in studying the multitude of stickers that embellished almost every available f lat surface. Portraying everything from clean-cut business logos to elaborate illustrations, every decal was distinctive. In that moment, they seemed like fingerprints of a city that was still very much unknown to me. The kaleidoscope of shapes and colors was subtly compelling, enticing unfamiliar eyes to repeatedly wander the expanse of the diner. There was an unconventionality in

even the simplest of objects: a green ribbon tied around a random mustard bottle; tables that were constantly pushed into new configurations to accommodate incoming customers. I ate. I observed. Fleetwood spat us back onto the street around an hour later — uncomfortably full and still reeling. I was more than a little surprised and, walking back up the endless line of East Liberty, more than a little disappointed. Fleetwood hadn’t been the fantastical experience I had romanticized. There were no performances of Weird Shit. Instead, the abnormality of Fleetwood manifested itself in deceptively modest ways. Rather than the mass pandemonium I had been expecting, several bizarre fragments of eccentricity all occurred simultaneously, scattered within the cramped space. A man seated on top of a haggard barstool had endlessly stirred his coffee with a single

The abnormality of Fleetwood manifested itself in deceptively modest ways

pinky finger while our waitress harassed a set of poor-tipping customers. The long tendrils of her hair whipped around like snakes, almost colliding with the people who had sat at the table adjacent to ours. They had taken no notice, focused more on decorating their empty plates with ketchup bottles held aloft like paintbrushes. In the other corner of the restaurant, detached from it all, a man had fallen fast asleep, cheek pillowed on a stack of pancakes. Fleetwood Diner’s brand of peculiarity manifests in the little things. Minuscule details that include the building itself. Like any piece of architecture with a history, the diner seems to have a life of its own. The cacophony of scrawled graffiti signatures and tattered pieces of art on the walls spiral like the rings of a redwood, each tattered layer corresponding with a particular time period. Underneath the dust and discoloration, the checkered tile of the f loor stretches into roots that are wrapped around the very heart of the city; a tree grows on South Ashley Street. However, first and foremost, it is the people who trail in and out of the diner that truly make its space come to life. Fleetwood is contingent on its customers in a way that is distinctive from surrounding restaurants. Their inf luence

lies beyond solely monetary value; the very essence of Fleetwood, the qualities that make it unique, is only maintained as a result of the people who walk in through its doors. After all, it is an interactive diner — one that is able to be altered by any person who decides they want to leave their mark, whether that be through a sticker plastered on off-white walls or hurriedly engraved initials on a table corner. It is this communal quality that makes Fleetwood so singular. Within its crooked walls, it holds various stories from various individuals. It is a restaurant anybody can stumble into and instantly feel welcome. The Fleetwood Diner has remained stubbornly relevant since its creation in 1947. Not one for being overly fixated on remodeling, it seems to let its different parts grow independently, resulting in a restaurant that is a blend of retro and modern. Fleetwood can’t be pinned down to an exact time period. Eightiesesque black-and-white barstools stand next to decal based off contemporary pop culture. The primitive cash register is a tan-andbrown monstrosity always surrounded by a sea of sleek iPhones. A mess of contrasts, Fleetwood appears to exist in a slightly different world than the rest of Ann Arbor. Even the restaurant workers seem like they have been molded from Fleetwood itself, traversing the cramped corners with a practiced ease. Take Rob Bell. A waiter at the diner for almost 13 years, he balances numerous tasks with an easy smile. As he runs from the cash register to the kitchen to customers’ tables, he still somehow finds spare time to share accounts of his most memorable Fleetwood moments. “A lady brought a birdcage in here in the middle of the night,” Bell said. “Like maybe 12:30, 1:00 a.m., and she had two birds in there and one of them was dead … she thought it was sleeping.” Though not as surreal as deceased birds, Bell went on to describe the numerous small fights that occurred within Fleetwood’s history. The relative tranquility in his voice as he described tables being f lipped and food being thrown made it seem like late-night diner brawls were normal incidents. “A guy threw the cash register at me about 10 years ago,” Bell said. When asked why, Bell responded, “He threatened to kick my ass so I said, ‘C’mon, player, I got the knife.’ ” Iconic. Apart from the overall amiability, there was also a distinct candidness as Bell talked about the occasional dead fowl and airborne cash register: he didn’t strive to make Fleetwood appear picture-perfect. There was

FLICKR A picture of a Ukranian Easter table

The cultural customs of foreign foods and holidays Erika Shevchek chronicles her life in food, family, and tradition ERIKA SHEVCHEK

Daily Community Culture Editor

I’ve had a type of innate luck — I was raised in a home where my parents, heavily anchored in their heritage and religion, brought me up to eat … and to eat well. My family, a combination of Ukrainian and Hungarian backgrounds, are firm believers in the power of food and the style of embedding it into our everyday lives. Whether that be religious holidays, family reunions or a weekend meal, food is and will always be the seal of my family. 2003 Ukrainian Orthodox Christmas Eve consisted of anxiously waiting. We waited for the Ukrainian Santa (yes, he was different from the North Pole Santa), to come to our house and for our ancestors to return from the heavens and eat our Kutia. We put the Kutia, a sweet rice dish made with berries, poppy seeds and honey, out on the dining room table along with pictures of my deceased grandparents. My family would have a moment of silence and then head off to bed. Christmas morning, the Kutia would be gone, and the spoons would lie in the bowls after being used. Six-year-old me was more than spooked out — I was infatuated. “Mommy, Baba and Dede came last night!” I exclaimed to my mother, excited that the grandparents I never got to meet returned to the dining room that previous night. As I matured, I unfortunately found out that my parents ate the Kutia after my sister and I went to sleep. Nonetheless, as a memorable and holy ritual, I still try to think that Baba and Dede and the rest of my ancestors eat our tasty Kutia and are with us on Christmas holidays. 2008 The long hours standing in a foreign church are tedious, but when the congregation and Father Frank move outside to the front yard, I know it is time to bless the Easter basket (and church was finally over). Unique in everyone’s basket are always assortments of kobasa (Ukrainian pork sausage), paska (a sweet

bread), cheese blintzes, butter, cream cheese, red horse radish, mustard and pysankas (Ukrainian decorated Easter eggs). Father Frank walks around, throws holy water onto each basket and blesses them. ~ “Christos Voz Crest! … He has risen,” I say to my aunt as I nibble at the kobasa on the Easter Sunday morning. She slices her famous and delectable paska; she replies to me, “Voistynu Voskres” or “He has risen indeed.” We set the dining room table for our annual Orthodox brunch — a space sprinkled with vibrant colors and dishes. Bagels, lox, cream cheese, the condiments from the Easter basket and orange juice decorate the Ukrainian tablecloth. My sister, mom, dad and aunt all gather around the table, and we each grab a “Uki egg” and peel away. 2013 My cousins and I sit around the fire pit on a beating-hot August Saturday. Sweating, we catch up on school, jobs and significant others, the typical thing to do at a family reunion. The uncles play horseshoes and smoke cigars while the aunts finish up the chicken goulash, stuffed cabbage and nokedli (a type of mini Hungarian noodle dumpling). It seems odd that a group of 50 or so Hungarians would make a huge fire on an 80-degree day, but that is how we “sutni szalona,” or “roast the bacon fat.” With rye bread in one hand and a metal spear stabbed into a slab of bacon fat in the other, I prepare myself for the Hungarian-style food dish we unconditionally love. When the bacon fat begins to turn a dark brown, we slap it onto our rye bread — pressing the fat until it is fully covered in grease and looks dirty (hence, we call it “dirty bread”). We add some roasted onions and peppers on top (or other veggies if preferred), and we eat in silence for the next few minutes as our taste buds become supremely satisfied. Later, I grab some csoroge, a deep-fried cookie with powdered sugar, before my cousins tell me to get my butt to the front yard for a family volleyball game.

2016 My dad, his sister and I sat at our favorite sushi place in my hometown. My dad popped some takoyaki in his mouth, and I watched him chew the fried octopus ball. “C’mon, just try one E,” he said trying to convince me. But the now-vegetarian me looked at my father blankly and continued to eat my edamame. In that moment, I truly ref lected on what it means to be a vegetarian and how it is a privilege. I thought of how my entire life I was brought up to eat meat, both Ukrainian and Hungarian, and how I never second-guessed it. We discussed the concept of modern-day diet choices — how once there was a time where one did not have the freedom to restrict or expand his or her diet. My aunt looked at me, with a twist of history and sadness in her eyes. She explained to me truthfully about what life was like coming to America with her parents. Coming over from Ukraine at the age of 4, my aunt was launched into the rough area of Frankford, Philadelphia, as a poor immigrant. “Vegetables and potatoes were all we could afford, so we ate a lot of stew,” she continued. It all began to click when I realized why my Dad’s stews are always so hearty and delicious. “If there was meat on the table, you were considered really lucky.” Feeling guilty, I listened earnestly as I pushed around my veggie sushi on my plate. Vegetables were not a choice for a diet, but for survival; meat was not frowned upon, but was seen as a true luxury. My aunt, remembering the hardships of being an immigrant, and I, knowing that I have the ability to pick and choose what I eat, sat in the same booth. We ate in the same booth, but we came from completely different places, had severely different childhoods and had an entirely different view on food itself. I thanked them for everything they did, for everything Baba and Dede did … I thanked them for giving me the opportunity to even sit in a Japanese restaurant and be a vegetarian.

the b-side

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Thursday, April 6, 2017 — 3B

BOOK REVIEW

The cover of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s new cookbook

TAJ CAMPTON PLACE Chef Srijith Gopinathan

ARTIST

IN

PROFILE

Michelin-decorated chef Gopinathan reflects on culinary style and philosophy ANAY KATYAL

Managing Arts Editor

Srijith Gopinathan — executive chef to San Francisco’s Taj Campton Place Hotel — found his career path to be fraught with what he says were “big time complications.” Hailing from southern India, Gopinathan had as traditional of an upbringing as any of his regional contemporaries possibly could — a mother who (at least initially) wasn’t the happiest at his culinary aspirations, and a family of engineers, doctors and the like to supplement that. “I certainly was a black sheep,” Gopinathan said. But his time off the beaten path seems to have paid dividends. As of 2016, the Campton Place boasts two Michelin stars under Gopinathan’s reign, a feat very few restaurants in the world have achieved. In addition to that, Gopinathan holds the prestige of being the only Indian chef to have reached two star status as well. His role as a purveyor of fine Indian dining in the Western world is something he calls “a big responsibility.” “Indian food is one of the finest and f lavorsome cuisines in the world. Unfortunately Indian cuisine in West has not been represented by professionals. We are just getting there,” Gopinathan said. And his team at Campton Place have been quietly and admirably leading the charge in that respect. “We are an example for Indian-inf luenced fine dining … [and] we communicate that well to our

guests.” And there’s stark truth in that statement. His rotating menu consistently offers the best ingredients Indian cuisine has to offer, while also channeling the kind of avant-garde experimentation that can be better associated with the likes of Ferran Adrià and Heston Blumenthal — but reaching that point took an extensive professional, and philosophical, education. After pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Hotel Management, Gopinathan’s career path took him to a variety of destinations

His rotating menu consistently offers the best ingredients Indian cuisine has to offer

across the globe. Following his studies in India, he spent time at a variety of hotels in India before taking the helm at the Taj Exotica hotel in the Maldives. He later took to America to further his culinary education in Hyde Park, NY, at the Culinary Institute of America. Afterward, he found himself in the kitchen of famed two star restaurant Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, in Oxford, England, where he further

honed his craft and better mastered the fundamentals of Michelin-tier European cuisine. It’s these experiences that Gopinathan said affirmed his choice of taking up the profession of being a chef. “That’s when I figured I really wanted to cook and I enjoyed doing it,” he said. Gopinathan has been the executive chef at the Campton Place since 2008. In that time, he has made a distinct name for himself thanks to his skill in finding a seamless cohesion between traditional southern Indian cuisine and classical, European fine dining. Touching on the fundamentals of his style, Gopinathan emphasizes that his adherence to quality ingredients is what helps bring his visions to fruition. “It all starts with right ingredients. I always advocate for the best possible raw materials and try to maintain the integrity of the main ingredients … without masking [them] much,” Gopinathan said. “San Francisco also spoiled me much by providing me with [some] of the best ingredients in the world.” Gopinathan’s ambitions aren’t settling anytime soon, either. After earning his second Michelin star in 2016, his eyes are still set on bringing fine Indian dining to the Western mainstream. Lately, he cites his Indian contemporaries’ culinary successes in London as a point of inspiration for his own visions. “We should and will be part of mainstream scene here in less than five years. I’m sure of that.”

GRAND CENTRAL PULISHING

The undead to uncooked: ‘Fun with Food’ review

Sarah Michelle Gellar’s cookbook matches ease with taste DOMINIC POLSINELLI Daily Arts Writer

We all know Sarah Michelle Gellar for her empowering performance as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gellar even contributed to early 2000s teen flicks in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and probably peaked in cinema as Kathryn Marteuil in “Cruel Intentions.” But what happens when you put this prolific badass in the kitchen, and she writes a cookbook? Pure magic. From a young age, I have been obsessed with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The title heroine was everything I could’ve asked for: fierce, independent and, most importantly, human. The show doesn’t hide the fact that Buffy is a teenager — a teenager with very real problems. Now our heroine has a family, and her issues have evolved from the undead to the uncooked. As a mother, Gellar continues to slay recipes as well as she did vampires. A slayer turned mother, Gellar has found the importance of family in cooking and sharing meals, putting together a collection of over 115 recipes titled “Stirring Up Fun with Food.” Gellar wrote in the introduction, “Mealtimes have always been when I ‘unplug’ for a bit and engage in real, honest connections. Once I had kids, this experience became even more important.” She sets the book in the context of involving her kids in cooking, using creative methods to make the process fun and inviting for them. In describing her creativity in the kitchen Gellar asks, “Isn’t it more fun to eat food out of a jar?” The answer is a resounding yes, for kids and pseudo-adults (college-aged people) alike.

To test out how collegebudget and kitchen-friendly her recipes were, I attempted the Truffle Parmesan Risotto and Asparagus Fries with fellow Buffy fanatics and editors Madeleine Gaudin and Carly Snider. This was my first undertaking of any type of risotto or baked vegetable — and possibly Carly’s first time in a kitchen — and the outcome was more than affordable, manageable and satisfactory. Total prep and cook time was approximately 45 minutes, which was perfectly reasonable for the busy college student. And

But what happens when you put this prolific badass in the kitchen, and she writes a cookbook?

the result was simply delicious. The asparagus fries were crunchy, tasty and guilt-free; the risotto turned out creamy and satisfactory and could’ve only been improved with the addition of some grilled chicken. Better yet, the ingredients list wasn’t overly complicated. Having had most of the necessary ingredients, we only had to purchase the asparagus, rice, buttermilk and cheese. It also made a hefty portion of food, completely feeding four college students and leaving plenty as leftovers. The most important takeaway from our time in the kitchen is that kidfriendly recipes also equal college-friendly recipes —

apparently, our parents were right about us still being kids all along. The book is cleverly sectioned into the months of the year, with recipes suited for seasonal tastes. The beginning of each section features a couple paragraphs about the month and Gellar’s personal culinary highlights that directly address the time of year. She writes that June is “time to loosen up, relax, kick off your shoes, and get a little sand between your toes. Eating outdoors is the rule rather than the exception, and every meal feels like a celebration of the season’s bounty.” She does a fantastic job contextualizing her recipes, adding a personal touch that goes a long way with motivating the reader to replicate her craft. Even more exciting is her inclusion of “Star Wars Day” (May 4th) and Shark Week recipes in their respective months, making fun treats with creative presentations. Gellar notes that the recipes are personally connected to her family: “What other kids can say their mom and dad were voices in a ‘Star Wars’ series?” From Chewbacca-shaped cookies to “Shark Fin Parfaits,” Gellar’s creativity shines brightly in these subtle inclusions. She doesn’t stop there, including a section for school nights in her September chapter and the summer solstice in June, appealing to parents who might want fun culinary ideas for any holiday or time of the year. By including a wide array of manageable recipes, Gellar has produced a cookbook not only appealing to actual kids, but also to college-aged kids on a budget. Equally as adept at slaying vampires as she is producing delicious meals in the kitchen, Gellar’s “Stirring Up Fun with Food” makes a fantastic addition to any home.

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4B — Thursday, April 6, 2017

FILM NOTEBOOK

CHEF PROFILE

Chef Roger Urso in his kitchen at Sigma Chi Fraternity

DOMINIC POLSINELLI/THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Chef Roger Urso brings flare to college kitchens Sigma Chi chef Roger Urso talks efficiency, affordability, and health when it comes to starting and running a kitchen NATALIE ZAK

Managing Arts Editor

“What originally turned you on to cooking?” “Fire.” And so answered Chef Roger Urso, owner of the company Food and Logic, chef for multiple organizations on campus including fraternity Sigma Chi, where his kitchen is based, and Lamda Chi. And what’s more, he’ll cook for you. Banquets, luncheons, individual meals — Urso is the cook for hundreds of students across campus, and he’s only one man with a sous-chef. “I used to wash dishes at Ernesto’s in Plymouth … you see (the cooks) hitting the shit with whiskey and wine and fire. I was like ‘I want to do that!’ So I spent my lunch hour, every day, learning how to cook.” So he learned. At the age of 14, Urso started to cook. Pre-internet and pre-tidily packaged Tasty Facebook videos, Urso learned by watching and repeating. Years after that, he ended up in the hotel business, catering banquets and events. And after that, he ended up in Ann Arbor by way of a Craigslist ad. Ten years later, after moving from one business to starting his own, Urso has cooked for countless fraternities and other organizations on campus, making name for himself because of his company’s defining tenets — affordability and efficiency. “We’re about $40,000 more reasonably priced than anywhere else on campus,” Urso said. “It’s about seventeen to eighteen hundred dollars per semester to eat at dining halls, and I’m seventeen thousand for two semesters. And you get scratch cooked food.” Because after ten years, Urso has seen what other kitchens on campus offer and has decided what he can change. As a man dedicated to food and the communities he serves, he trades a little less money for a little more love. As he puts it: “We’re not greedy.” The “we” he’s talking about is him and his sous-chef Eddie, who was chopping, cooking and moving chicken during my entire time in the kitchen, located at the back of Sigma Chi’s house on State Street. The lunch he was was preparing? Chicken and waffles, with fresh fruit — watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple — on the side. “We focus heavy on meat, and for vegetarians we’ll focus on ruffage, vegetables, fruits … we’ll always have a complex carbohydrate, nothing saturated in butters and fats,

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and we’ll always have lean proteins,” Urso added. “We always try to stay more towards not flour tortilla, but more corn.” Urso is cognizant of dietary needs as well as varying diets. Gluten-free, dairyfree, vegetarian, vegan — all considered, respected and taken care of by handy hot boxes. He doesn’t buy from massive companies or multipurpose facilities. He gets up every morning and makes trips to Meijer, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Gordon, gets to the kitchen at eight, and leaves at six. “We buy our food daily, and we don’t do trucks. I had someone deliver 700 pounds of bad chicken and it was frozen,” Urso said. “Any time you get

Urso offers two choices: organic or not. Most of the time, the answer is not.

that type of food in, you still have to look at it, you have to chop into it and smell it because could you imagine getting stuck with 700 pounds of bad chicken?” But it goes further than that. When tending to dietary needs, it could be as simple as making pesto that substitutes sunflower seeds for nuts. And then even making sure the sunflower seeds weren’t processed in a facility that processes nuts, and so on, and so on. Even then, healthy eating can go so far. In his drastically and noticeably cheaper meal plans for students, Urso offers two choices: organic or not. Most of the time, the answer is not. “You give the house an option … do you want to go GMO, do you want everything to be organic, do you want your beef and your chicken grassfed, free-ranged?” Urso said. “Then you show them the price difference and none of them really want to go organic. It’s expensive.” As a result, Urso focuses on the positives and the potential — the healthy eating that can emerge even when GMO’s are in play and grass-fed is traded for facility-fed, and the savings that can still occur in that compromise. “It’s the parent’s money, and you have social budgets,” Urso

said. “If we can save you 35 to 40 thousands dollars in eight months, what can you do with that money?” Urso’s ability to balance affordability and quality is valuable when it comes to costcutting techniques. Although he loves Greek life, the people he cooks for and the vast community he’s created that stretches across campus, he repeatedly emphasizes the need to remain “separate,” but also in the know when it comes to money and finance security. “We go through about five thousand pounds of meat a month. But you have to know how to buy it, and you have to buy it in bulk. So you have to have a good relationship with your treasurer, and you have to know that the money’s there, and when the money’s going to be running out,” Urso said. “We have to set the right expectations like ‘Hey for seven months you guys are going to eat like kings, and then we’re going to dip off in the last month.’” Overall, the people he cooks for do eat like kings because despite being aware of dietary and health concerns, Urso isn’t ever limited in trying out dishes — as long as they’re not too out there. Russian, Korean, Italian, Greek to stuffed chicken parmesan and goat cheese mashed potatoes, nothing is a little too out there, except vegetable stir fry — the clients weren’t a fan. All in all, Urso goes through about five thousand pounds of meat, one thousand eggs and 15 pounds of coffee all in a month. And this isn’t a mere estimate — each summer break he spends running and planning. Running, so he can “workout, get healthy … when I come back I can get fat again and off we go.” Planning, because he can write eight months of menus during the summer; each meal needs to be planned down to the spice. Urso said one word he would use to describe his kitchen is “efficient” but in comparison to other kitchens on campus, including dining halls, his stands out as more than efficient. They seem better, healthier. So I told him this. “This is better eating than most of the University offers,” I said. “Yeah because what causes cancer? Food,” Urso responded. “Look at agriculture, right, how does it start? … Monsanto, they genetically modify seeds … they go to other plants that have natural pesticides and herbicides in them already and then they splice it and they take the DNA and they marry it with another seed,” Urso explained. “They grow a whole crop of

UNIVERSAL PICTURES Still from Bridget Jone’s Diary

As inspiring as the perfect kiss scene

A look at food & chocolate in the most notable romantic comedies BECKY PORTMAN Daily Arts Writer

Allow me to the set the scene. Katz’s Deli is filled with diners enjoying their corned beef and pickles, sipping on Coca-Cola and discussing 80’s politics in heavy New York accents. The busy diner quiets down to an astonished hush as Meg Ryan’s Sally loudly re-enacts her bedroom noises for all to witness. Mouths drop, men smile, and that famous line is said with perfect comedic timing and delivery: “I’ll have what she’s having.” Thank you, Nora Ephron, thank you. From “When Harry Met Sally” to “Bridget Jones” to “Pretty Woman” to “Clueless,” food plays a defining role in establishing the relationships between characters and creating a timeline from firstdate jitters to the breakup blues, from hot and heavy to sad and weepy, food can create romance and heartbreak in a film. I am not talking about those food-centered romcoms (As in “Julie and Julia,” “Waitress” and “No Reservations”), I am talking about your run of the mill romantic comedy. The ones probably featuring Katherine Heigl or Julia Roberts, depending on the decade, and most likely Hugh Grant or a younger replacement. The same basic structure exists throughout these kind of films surrounding food: First it’s the cute coffee date, followed by their first dinner together at a fancy restaurant (French or Italian), then comes the happy, dating montage which includes eating pizza while walking down the sidewalk at night, playfully feeding each

that … Every third stage, they treat the soil with roundup, then they plant the seed, and that seed can (now) resist the poison, so it starts to grow. Soon as it sprouts, they spray the field with roundup. Three months later, they spray it, with roundup. Twenty days later they spray it, with roundup. Ten days later they harvest it.” “Then they take it and feed it to pigs and cows and chickens, and now where’s the poison, it’s in them,” Urso continued. “And then where’s the poison? You buy it at the store. And then where is it? It’s in your body.” So how do you avoid consuming pesticides and other

other cotton candy on the pier, seductively baking brownies, tossing popcorn at the movies, etc. This montage is usually succeeded by the breakup scene, which can differ slightly based on the tone of the movie –– usually it has to do with another woman, a lie gone too far, or the female lead must choose between her success or her love life. The breakup scene invariably results in the postbreakup scene in which the female character can be found helplessly binge-eating junk food on the couch watching a sappy movie surrounded by candy wrappers, tissues and empty wine bottles. After the post-breakup scene, the characters typically get back together and live happily ever after ... wedding cake anyone? Think of “Lady and the Tramp,” where that spaghetti scene has inspired many brave couples to try pasta kisses all over the world. How about Elle Woods stuffing her face with chocolate in “Legally Blonde” after Warner breaks up with her, a pathetically honest reaction to a bad split? Look at the evident romance and sexual tension in “Pretty Woman” as Richard Gere offers Julia Roberts a strawberry with her champagne. Did you ever notice in “Clueless” how Alicia Silverstone’s Cher and Paul Rudd’s Josh f lirted over carrot sticks and pretzels on the couch? Is it a coincidence that their transition from sorta-siblings to full on lovers is told through their snacking habits? I think not. All of these scenes provide the viewer with an incredible amount of insight into the state of the relationship. Whether a prelude to a steamy sex scene or a mascara covered pillow

and takeout for one, food in rom-coms plays a more crucial role than you may think. Post-breakup scenes in romantic comedies are notorious for their use of chocolate and ice cream to define the sad woman’s state of mind. Put aside the portrayal of women as weak and helpless after a man breaks up with them, that’s an entirely different article. Still, the female lead tends to turn to food in times of romantic uncertainty or hardship. The queen of rom-coms herself, her majesty Bridget Jones said it best: “I’m enjoying a relationship with two men simultaneously. The first is called Ben, the other, Jerry.” Ice cream, chocolate, Doritos, Chinese food, and now I’m getting hungry. Junk food is always there for our lonely heroines even when men are not. After all, “If someone breaks your heart , punch them in the face , seriously punch them in the face and go get some ice cream.” Thank you, Frank Ocean, thank you. Food is as crucial an element in romantic comedies as any Beach Boys song or promoting unrealistic expectations of love. Through food, we can better grasp the foundation on which the characters build their relationship. Friends do not share milkshakes, friends do not feed each other chocolate covered strawberries. There is something informative, and sometimes sensual, about the way we view food, especially within the framework of relationships. By looking at romantic comedies through a food lens, we can better understand the way relationships develop on screen.

harmful, over-processed goods? “You can’t,” Urso said. Despite doing his best to ensure the meals he serves are low in sodium and full of the appropriate nutrients, when it comes down to us, he can only do his best for the people he serves, as well as for his own health and family. “It’s (the poison) not going anywhere; it’s never going anywhere.” But that doesn’t stop him from trying his best. He has a monopoly on loyalty at the University; this can be plainly seen in the wall that decorates his storage closet in his kitchen. It is covered in selfies and

snapshots of meals he has served and people he has met. After ten years he knows that if any other company were to come knocking on the houses he serves, promising better prices, better meals, that they would be sent away. It’s because of this loyalty that he doesn’t knock on other people’s doors, he just waits for them to come to him. But that doesn’t mean Urso isn’t expanding: not physically, but digitally. “We have 32 shows in edit right now,” Urso explained. “We have a cooking show that we’re going to let rip soon. It’s called ‘Let’s Fucking Cook.’”

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Thursday, April 6, 2017 — 5B

BAR PROFILE

CAFE PROFILE

Known for its unique drinks, The Last Word is hidden away on East Huron

COURTESY OF THE LAST WORD

Back to the ’20s: The Last Word a hidden town gem Literati’s Espresso Bar

SARAH AGNONE/THE MICHIGAN DAILY

A mixed review of my top three coffee shops in AA

Arts Writer Sarah Agnone travels around Ann Arbor recording the tastes and sounds of her favorite caffeine-crutch suppliers SARAH AGNONE Daily Arts Writer

On any college campus, coffee indisputably reigns supreme and the University of Michigan is no different. Students prioritize their time for it, walk into class late with it, use expensive Keurigs or stop at the many coffee shops around campus (anything to avoid the dining hall coffee). Some of us drink it habitually, purely utilizing the caffeine. Others look to enjoy it, or at least pretend to for Instagram. When we meet someone who claims not to drink it, we’re hugely surprised. So for those of us who make it no secret that we’re utterly and totally dependent on coffee, here’s a closer and quirkier than usual look at the most frequented coffee shops. The Walk-In Pinterest Board: Lab Coffee Shop The epitome of a hipster coffee shop. Snuggly placed right onto Liberty St., a stone’s throw from State. The shop features the classically huge pour over, pressed f lower decorations, famous matcha, and a great selection of strangely f lavored but delicious deserts. Colorful books about succulents sit underneath actual succulents. Trendy Chance the Rapper themed cards and knick knacks for sale line the back shelf while Frank Ocean plays in the background. The

employees are, you guessed it, so hipster and repping every f lannel Urban Outfitters ever sold. Depending on who’s there, it’s a laid back environment. But at peak hours of the day, it’s hectic and you won’t find seating or even a place to stand with any personal space. Being this crowded and popular, it’s a talkative place. Late afternoon sees fewer customers and a quieter space. Plus, the matcha is everything it’s praised to be, as are the sea-salt lattes. As for that first date, it’s memorable and the look and menu already give more than enough to talk about. The Pit Stop: Espresso Royale Maybe it’s just my personal vendetta against them or maybe more than one of us shares the theory that Espresso Royale is really only loved for not being Starbucks and sits abrasively close to both ends of central campus. And maybe it was a Starbucks employee who convinced me of their coffee’s glaring shortcomings and the vendetta is really just my thought that not liking them the way everyone else does is such an original though. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of their coffee but it does the trick on Monday morning before an 8:30 a.m. Regardless, I had to pay an extra $0.80 for soy despite it being the 21st century in which no one orders real dairy anymore. On top of that, they

clearly consulted no Pintrest boards and could really update the look. But at the same time, Espresso doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t, and I have to give credit where it’s due. For the most part, people run in, grab their coffee and maybe a snack, and rush out. Very few stay and set up at their tables. Not to mention, they make the meanest zucchini bread that you’d never know was also vegan. No complaints about the pumpkin chocolate chip or banana bread either. As for first date ability, they’re kind of great. In the basement of the South U location or the throngs of plush chairs at the State St. location, it’s not obvious you have no idea what to say to the guy who just paid for your almond milk vanilla latte extra vanilla since he paid when everyone else is talking, minding their own business, face-timing mom. It’s laid back and cozy. Good Luck Finding a Table: Literati Coffee Pina Colada Macaroon. Enough said. (The older sibling to Lab. If it were a font, and not a coffee shop, it’d be Newsprint. White, light, wood aesthetic. Consulted at least fifteen Pintrest Boards. Second f loor with a bookstore underneath makes the experience. For the mature coffee palette, seeking an Ethiopian pour over, this is your place. If your date is into books, look no further.)

SARAH AGNONE/THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Finding & trying the drinks and apps of our resident speakeasy CARLY SNIDER Senior Arts Editor

DOMINIC POLSINELLI Daily Arts Writer

At the corner of Huron and 1st — where urban Ann Arbor begins to blend into suburbia — sits the large sign that spells out “LIVE” glaring over the street. Yet, just around the corner off of Huron Street, an indiscriminate door in the wall leads to the basement of this building, introducing a vastly unique atmosphere to the world of Ann Arbor’s bar scene. Parading as an unassuming, practically unmarked door on that quiet stretch of Huron, The Last Word really is the hidden gem of Ann Arbor. This little hole in the wall is one of the best kept secrets among the newly turned 21-year-olds of the University’s undergraduate population. A cursory google of the bar yields a website with little information other than its address, contact information and a slideshow of photos. Their Facebook page yields little more except for a slew of near-perfect ratings. It’s an experience

reserved for those willing to make the trip to the hidden corner, but one well worth it. The speakeasy style bar is covered in dark wood, dim lighting and photographs of times past. The space itself is small and warm, pairing perfectly with the menu and atmosphere. The Last Word is most comparable to the generally popular Mash. The similarities end with their basement settings, however, as The Last Word differentiates itself in its expansive alcoholic offerings and diverse menu. The drink menu is expansive — broken up into chapters based on type of alcohol and flavor. Cocktail highlights include “Boy Blue” and “The Heist,” both deliciously crafted and tastefully balanced. They’re a far-cry from everyone’s typical go-to fishbowls from Charley’s, albeit pricier in exchange for their quality. The cocktail menu also contains an extensive list of whiskeys and bourbons, featuring one-ounce “tasting pours” and two-ounce “sipping” sizes, allowing customers to try smaller samples of the spirits without having to pay for a full-sized glass. The lists of dark liquor

cater to every palate and wallet imaginable — including more common bourbons like Jim Beam to the elusive, elite Pappy Van Winkle. The food menu is concise, but varied in comparison to a typical cocktail bar. Most items are clearly designed for sharing, such as the charcuterie and cheese boards. The fries — flavored with one of three types of seasonings — are crisp and well-portioned, served with an additional three dipping sauces giving them a diverse flavor palette for the price. The menu isn’t overwhelming; it acts as a humble addition to the impressive drink selection and friendly ambience. Thursdays at The Last Word feature an incredible jazz band, raising the speakeasy feel to new levels beyond the other days of the week. The band is catchy and entertaining, setting the mood unlike any other establishment in the Ann Arbor area. The bar’s secrecy makes their performances feel special, entirely reserved for the patrons lucky enough to find a seat on a crowded Thursday night. No matter the night of the week or occasion, The Last Word is the perfect boozy getaway.

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

My life and home growing up with a chef as a father ELI RALLO

Daily Arts Writer

My father’s mind is most alive in a kitchen. He can create the most thrilling and unique flavor from seemingly mundane ingredients or spices. Some may equate culinary talent to experience or education, but the way his hands dance with ingredients in the kitchen can only be attributed to a passion that has grown since he stood on his own tippy toes in his childhood home, watching his own father. In many families, it is common that one parent normally takes the role of “cook,” and I assume that most people would consider either their father or mother a fairly talented cook when it comes to things like simple chicken dishes and casseroles. But, my father surpasses the cooking-to-feed-hungrychildren-casserole chef. Rather, he is the Leonardo Da Vinci of pasta sauces, the Mozart of culinary endeavors and the Monet of wood-oven pizza. I grew up sitting at a hightop table in the middle of a restaurant that was nearly 15 years old the day I was born; it was a place I’d grow to know as home more than I know my own. My father is a restaurateur, and the first of what would eventually become three successful restaurants is the my favorite place in the world. At eight years old I could name a dozen Italian pasta shapes

and sauces. When matched perfectly, the two mingle in the most romantic way to make customers swoon. I could work a panini press like an expert, pair prosciutto and arugula with Jersey tomatoes on a pizza, and I knew that the secret to creating the best burger in the world was nestling a fried egg between the toasted ciabatta roll and patty. My father teaches me life lessons through breakfast sandwiches; he educates me in ways unknown through the proper food and wine pairings. He hands my brothers and I advice through the knead of pizza dough and seasoning of fresh fish. I wouldn’t call the lessons of my childhood orthodox, but I wouldn’t trade for a dad who teaches me about sports or cars or math. All these seem too mundane for my dad, a person who never let me leave for school in the morning without eating a “Vic McMuffin” (family secret) and a coffee. In between mouthfuls of caprese salad, leek and parmesan bruschetta, turkey chili and perfectly cooked medium rare steak, I learned how to give, how to share, how to love, how to please and how to listen. I never realized that during the moments I was sharing the kitchen with my father, trying his new creations or enjoying a meal at that old high-top table, I was being taught the most valuable lessons. Things I’ll carry with me anywhere I ever go, these homemade risotto stuffed tomato values

are values you will not learn in a classroom. You will not learn them in a book. You will not learn them from a professor. But from watching the way a pair of hands can take raw ingredients and transform them into love. My father does not cook to feed, or to eat or to just survive. He cooks to share and to unite. He cooks to laugh, to cry, to enjoy, to revel. He does not cook to live; he lives to cook. He has an infatuation, one I myself have adopted, with the way in which food serves such an important purpose; not for sustenance but for bringing people together, no matter how different, at one table, to share something. As a child I was always taught that I must believe in something in this world, to make life worth it. My father’s religion is made up of worshipping parmesan cheese and fine red wine; it is praying to the gods of pork chops and red peppers; it is the expression on the face of a person who has had a bad day and is immediately lifted with one bite of gnocchi. He has taught me to believe strongly in the power of tomatoes, in the power of a dinner table, in the power of creativity in the kitchen. My father’s mind is most alive in the kitchen, in the dance of rosemary and olive oil, in good focaccia, in a full stomach. Seeing as the lessons I have learned from him are as irreplaceable as my grandfather’s base recipe for tomato sauce, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Arts

6B — Thursday, April 6, 2017

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ARTIST PROFILE

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

RHYMESAYERS ENTERTAINMENT Rapper MF Doom

Reflecting on MF Doom’s nonsensical ‘Mm.. Food’ YouTube’s star ‘Babish’ An exploration of the absurdity of MF Doom’s oft-forgotten record now combines film & food

COURTESY OF ANDREW REA

A still of “Binging with Babish”

ANAY KATYAL

Managing Arts Editor

Food has become a focal point of sorts for today’s hip hop elite. Action Bronson styles himself as much a rapper as he does a culinary raconteur. Rick Ross found himself on the forefront of memedom thanks to his love for pears. Hell, Drake has his own brand of whiskey. It isn’t that good, mind you, but it exists, and that’s what matters. That all being said, food’s newfound hip hop limelight, while bombastic, is the result of years of rap’s old guard’s lyrical love for food finally bubbling over into present day — and what emcee to best illustrate one of the many virtues of the genre’s relationship with food than the erratic and enigmatic MF Doom? MF Doom is likely one of hip hop’s most inadvertently versatile emcees. After releasing six different albums in a 10 year period, one would think that listening to his discography could afford them a fairly solid understanding of Doom’s ways. It isn’t a terribly hokey idea — the same could largely be said for a variety of other rappers who have been around longer than Doom, but fail to boast as large of a discography as he does. Yet, if you attempt to compare any one of his works against another, you’re likely quick to realize Doom’s unhealthy penchant for throwing his listeners absurd, aural curveballs. Boisterous production is often nestled against lyrics that are simultaneously nonsensical and bizarrely genius — lyrics that Doom threads together so cohesively that they have a near percussive quality to them. Those features are

fundamental to Doom’s style, one-liners juxtaposed against but his application varies across kitschy, unconventional beats a dauntingly large spectrum — — something his few guests but I digress. This isn’t a lesson have a knack for doing as well. in Doom’s discography by any The yet-to-be-unmasked Mr. means, but it is important to Fantastik holds the title of one understand the foundation of of the most memorable lines the man’s crazed style before on Mm.. Food, spitting “True taking a gander at a more to the ski mask New York’s my relevant example of his artistry, origin / Play a fake gangsta like in this case, his blatantly an old accordion” on the album’s culinarily-grounded caricature magnum opus, “Rapp Snitch of an album, Mm.. Food. Knishes.” Isolated, many of Mm.. Just as its name suggests, the Food’s lines don’t seem terribly record’s subject matter primarily noteworthy, but in the context relies on food and references of the album’s instrumentation to it. The masked enigma we and emotions, they come off as know and love finds himself masterfully constructed. rapping about beer, snacks and Why Doom grounds this gluttonous desserts album so deeply MM.. Food over and over in food remains again. It’s absurd, as much of a MF Doom absolutely. It’s also mystery as the slightly gimmicky, man himself. One Rhymesayers undoubtedly. But interpretation Entertainment the fact that it is that when works so well in listening to Mm.. spite of those facts Food, Doom’s use is a testament to the enduring of food anchors his artistry in a style that Doom so often touts. way that allows him to construct A fan of double and triple one of the genre’s more creative entendres, his use of references and (laudably) absurd works. to food often becomes a medium His lyrics are vehicles to a for laudable insults (grounded in simple, singular message — his trademark clever wordplay) Doom is one of the genre’s best, to other hip hop contemporaries and he’s well aware of that — a skit on “Gumbo” memorable fact. He hammers that message mentions “Not perfect for every home by slapping together an situation but edible (w)rappers unnecessary backdrop grounded could actually beef up your next in food purely to create an meal,” illustrative of the kind album that’s humorously overof brute braggadocio layered the-top, and unwaveringly within his songs. (and unapologetically) selfThat being said, as much aggrandizing to boot. Who else as his lyrics gattle and his would do that but the very best? production bounces, his songs That was probably a rhetorical tread absurdist waters too — but question he’s asked himself that’s not to say it’s a terribly multiple times over when negative mark against Doom or putting together the record. Just the album, either. Oftentimes, on like he notes on the album, “It’s Mm.. Food listeners find Doom about the beats / Not about the exchanging lyrical cohesion for streets and who food he about aural excellence, touting his to eat.” bread and butter of memorable

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

Basement Arts confronts unspoken female violence Daily Arts Writer

Set in a communal bathroom of a college dorm, the play “Dear” follows four women’s encounter with violence and how it affects their lives and their womanhood. “It’s really interesting to see how verbal and physical violence affects these three women,” said Elle Smith, an SMTD junior and director of the show. “We simultaneously hear these stories of the atrocities committed by other women who have been sentenced to jail for their crimes.” The play considers how

the acts of violence by female killers connect to the dayto-day circumstances college students face. Smith ref lected on the parallel between what this play is exploring and how audiences can relate to its themes. Four women — April, Francie, Greta and Hazel — are the driving forces of the show. “April is the character who we see through her monologues,” Smith said. “She is very pretty and very girly and she is undervalued because of that.” April, played by SMTD freshman Christie Moyle, is a progressive character; during a two-week period and as time passes, the audience is able

MADELEINE GAUDIN Senior Arts Editor

When the “Rick & Morty” surprise episode that dropped last Saturday gave nod to a long lost Szechuan McNugget dipping sauce, the internet blew up and “Binging with Babish” was on the case to try to recreate the mysterious sauce. Andrew Rea, the man behind the hit YouTube channel has carved out his own little corner of the web cooking famous dishes from movies and TV shows. From the burgers of “Bob’s Burgers” to the prison sauce from “Goodfellas,” he’s cooking his way through the screen canon. “Since before movie theater snacks were a thing, people were sneaking Baby Ruths into movie theaters back in the ’20s,” Rea said. “You can’t go see a movie in a theater without a box of popcorn or sneaking in some goobers in your jacket.” Although his mother taught him how to cook at a young age, Rea’s background is really in film. He didn’t go to culinary school, but his love of movies and television — fostered while at film school — led him to food. “I’ve always loved television and movies and TV and movies always seem to love food,” Rea said. He started doing the show accidentally. After investing in a camera and light kit, he found he had the perfect set up for a cooking show and decided to give it a go. “I had just seen an episode of ‘Parks & Rec’ where Chris and Ron had a burger cook-

that she is actually quite vulnerable,” Smith added. The other two characters are Hazel and Greta, the best friends of April and Francie. “Hazel and Greta are the two sidekick type characters. Greta (played by SMTD junior Savanna Crosby) is Francie’s to witness how her character best friend and she is constantly evolves. looking for validation with “She ends her section her friendships with other very differently women,” Smith than she begins said. “She [Greta] it,” Smith said. loves to write and “Dear” Additionally, is more sensitive, Studio One Francie, played but when she Walgreen Drama by SMTD senior is aligned with Zoey Bond, poses Francie—she can Center a contrast in bite.” April 6th, 7th & 8th personality, which Meanwhile, @ 8 P.M. allows the play to Greta’s move through a counterpart April 8th @ 11 P.M. series of different Hazel, played by character SMTD sophomore dynamics and Megumi interactions. Nakamura, is “Francie is sort April’s best of the ‘Regina George’ type friend and “we see her as character and as we get to see she is reacting to the loss of more about her, we realize her friend, but she’s not as

Recent play “Dear” questions nature of violence in womanhood BAILEY KADIAN

In an interview about his series “Binging with Babish,” Andrew Rea talks experimenting and innovating on the small screen off, and Chris’s burger was this list of bullshit foodie buzzwords,” Rea said. “And I was like ‘Would that actually taste good?’” In the episode, Chris cooks a turkey burger with a papaya chutney, taleggio cheese crisp, micro greens and black truff le aioli all on a gluten-free brioche bun. So, yeah, basically a mess of trendy, pseudohealthy food. Ron deftly beats him with a beef burger on a classic, white bun. In his video, Rea cooks both, and he comes to a similar conclusion. The beef burger wins, but Chris’s burger does taste as delicious as Beyoncé smells. “I had to take some creative liberties,” Rea said. “Like taleggio, that’s an example of where I know the writers were just fucking around because taleggio is a soft cheese and there’s no way you can make a crisp out of it, it’ll just bleed oil and turn into a mess, I tried.“ Instead, Rea blends Fontina and Parmesan to create a similar funky taste to the taleggio, but with a harder cheese. Rea does pretty thorough research for most of his dishes, synthesizing parts from various recipes to create something he thinks to be most true to the source material. “For ‘Inglorious Bastards’ ’s strudel I was looking at the oldest, Austrian / Viennese strudel recipes I could get my hands on to try to recreate something that would have been of that era,” Rea said. Beyond historical and textual accuracy, Rea’s signature is to make as much from scratch as possible, even when it’s not necessary. He grinds his own beef, makes his own pasta and even made a

whole Thanksgiving dinner for the “Friends” episode. “There wasn’t really any need for me to make an entire Thanksgiving meal and make every element as good as I possibly could,” Rea said. “They like it when I’m a little over the top I think.” YouTube is the perfect platform for that sort of over-the-top content. With hundreds of super quick Tasty and Tasty-spinoff videos spamming newfeeds and timelines everyday, the internet seemed to be the right way to break into the food entertainment world. “YouTube and Internet cooking videos in general are the way of the future,” Rea said. “This is a generation that likes compact, information rich entertaining.” Rea was inspired by fast, aesthetically pleasing style of Tasty videos, but wanted to make videos for people who were more serious about cook. “Let’s do this same thing where it’s like a nonstop barrage of information, food porn and let’s throw a little entertainment in there as well,” Rea said, “That’s what I think people are after.” The match Rea has made — that of food and film — seems to be one made in heaven, and Rea hopes to develop the channel into a fulltime career. “I have a lot of ideas for verticals and spin offs, different little show concepts that I want to explore and as soon as I’m able to make this my full time job,” Rea said. “Which I hope will be pretty soon.” In the meantime, he’s going to keep binging on, well, everything.

victimized as she appears to be.” Smith admits that the casting process was difficult because there were so many women who brought different elements to these roles. “We had nearly fifteen girls audition and it was incredible to see so many young women interested in this play,” Smith said. “They all brought something very unique to the table and it was definitely the most difficult thing I have ever had to cast.” The play explores violent acts as the central idea, while thinking about other ideas of womanhood, of men and the power of unity. “We are looking at how else violence is expressed, if not physically. Thinking about these three women, what does it mean when we are fighting with each other? And not standing together?” Smith asked. “Dear” also abandons male roles when considering acts of

violence. The appearance of men or discussion about them is a rare occurrence in this play. “There are few men mentioned in the play, and when they are, it a strategic mention of who they are and the role these men play in these women’s lives,” Smith discussed. Lily Houghton, the show’s writer, gives a lot of f lexibility to the cast as they learn what works and what doesn’t in transitioning the piece from script to stage. “That’s part of the fun of working with a new work— something that may read really well doesn’t translate to the stage, but it was really fine in a read-through,” Smith said. This play aims to unite and encourage women, while illuminating important themes in all of our lives, and, Smith said, “It is important (that) women come to see this show to realize that we are stronger together, rather than fighting apart.”