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CITY

City Council election 2017:

Status quo affirmed in A 2 as Lumm, Eaton and Smith remain seated ISHI MORI & MAYA GOLDMAN Daily Staff Reporters

AYUSH THAKUR/Daily

Students gather during the CSG meeting on the Diag to promote divestment Tuesday.

CSG debates #UMDivest on Diag Hundreds circle CSG Diag Day meeting Body investigates alleged anti-divestment to lobby in favor of and against divestment statements by executive CSG member DYLAN LACROIX Daily Staff Reporter

In support of Palestinians and the #UMDivest movement, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality and more than 250 allies formed a human circle around the Diag proceeding Central Student Government’s first assembly in an open space in near-freezing

weather. The crowd also included a large cluster of anti-divestment University of Michigan students who countered with their own lobbying and speeches against the resolution. SAFE introduced the resolution to divest University funds from corporations allegedly complicit in human rights violations against Palestinians. The resolution calls upon the University’s Board of See DIVEST, Page 3A

MORGAN SHOWEN Daily Staff Reporter

University of Michigan’s Central Student Government voted early Wednesday morning to convene an investigative committee — a select committee on oversight — to review the “improper use of CSG materials” by a member

of the executive team. Debate extended past midnight on two separate investigations. The final vote count stood at 33 for, one against and three abstentions. According to reports compiled by the ethics committee as stated during CSG assembly, a member of the executive team allegedly sent an email statement to a recipient See INVESTIGATES, Page 3A

Tuesday’s Ann Arbor City Council elections concluded with Jane Lumm, Jack Eaton and Chip Smith emerging as winners, affirming the status quo in the legislature. This Tuesday was the final odd-year election in Ann Arbor, as residents voted in 2016 to move councilmember term length from two to four years. Ward 2 — WINNER JANE LUMM Incumbent Jane Lumm won handily in the Ward 2 elections earning 2548 votes, or 64.2 percent of the 3968 votes cast.

35.69% Jane Lumm Jared Hoffert 64.04%

Her opponent Jared Hoffert earned 1420 votes, or 35.8 percent of the total votes cast. This will be Lumm’s fourth term on City Council. Ward 2 encompasses the east and far northeast of Ann Arbor, containing large parts of Nichols Arb and institutions like the Washtenaw Community College. Lumm could not be reached for comment at the time of publication. Hoffert said though he lost, he was proud he managed to capture more than a third of the vote with a quarter of the fundraising Lumm had. He also pointed out he won in student-heavy Precincts 1 and 2, even though he was virtually unknown prior to running. “I won Precincts 1 and 2, which is very student-based, so I think

26.73% Dianne Giannola

72.60% Jack Eaton

Ward 2

Ward 4

51.47% Chip Smith

48.36% Ali Ramlawi

Ward 5

See COUNCIL, Page 3A

Stanford psychologist delivers DEI Vets outline UM Regent challenges keynote speech on harm of stereotypes Weiser:

CAMPUS LIFE

ADMINISTRATION

of serving in Vietnam

Dr. Claude Steele says stereotyping and prejudice feed into each other, erode trust

Veterans Week event panel highlights isolation felt after veterans’ returns

Claude Steele, a psychologist known for his work on stereotype and social identity threat, gave a keynote address Tuesday afternoon for the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s diversity summit. The weeklong summit, marking a year since the five-year Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan was launched, first kicked off on Monday with a debrief of the results of its sample climate survey. Steele spoke to over 100 faculty and staff, though not many students were present. Steele, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University, has previously held positions at the University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley. His address focused on the topic of how to achieve a successful and diverse community Before the event, assistant Vice Provost Katrina WadeGolden told The Daily believed Steele’s address would contribute to the values of the summit. “(His address) points up to what our ultimate goal is for the summit,” Wade-Golden said. “That all can contribute, thrive and grow. That’s the foundation not only for the summit but for the DEI

JULIA FORD For the Daily

Ref lecting on wartime experiences as well as assimilation and treatment after service were six veterans who participated in a panel on the Vietnam War Tuesday. The event was one of many offered throughout Veterans Week, which the University of Michigan’s Veteran and Military Services offers this Monday through Friday to celebrate and educate the public about the sacrifices of veterans. The six men served in various positions on the ground and in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. One panelist, Ted Spenser, said he continued his military work in a lifelong career. While each of the veterans’ jobs varied greatly, when asked by an audience member about soldier camaraderie, they were all in support of one another. Panelist Dale Throneberry, however, said a distance was maintained between fellow servicemen. See VETERANS, Page 3A

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ANNA HARITOS Daily Staff Reporter

initiative as a whole.” Robert Sellers, vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, introduced Steele and addressed the importance of moving forward in today’s society. “We are no longer standing still,” he said. “We are moving forward. We are moving

forward even in the face of really really troubling and disturbing times. We are moving forward in a period of time which there is probably greater divisiveness than many of us have seen, and this divisiveness clearly is much broader than our community and often originates off campus, but like anything, has

an impact on our campus.” Steele echoed Sellers on the changing sociopolitical milieu in America. “In a way of background, we are in the middle of a real demographic shift in the population of the United States,” Steele said. “And as a society it brings challenges, See KEYNOTE, Page 3A

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Dr. Claude Steele discusses his work on stereotypes at the Diversity Summit Keynote Address in the League Tuesday.

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INDEX

Spencer is disgusting Potential Richard Spencer visit sparks outrage among Regents, email shows ANDREW HIYAMA Daily Staff Reporter

In an email obtained by The Michigan Daily, University of Michigan Regent Ron Weiser (R) expressed his desire to deny the request of prominent white supremacist Richard Spencer to speak on campus. “Spencer is a disgusting and dangerous man. This has been expressed by many members of the University community,” Weiser wrote. “I hope we are successful in keeping him off Campus.” Weiser’s statement is, so far, the clearest opposition to Spencer’s request by any member of the University’s administration. In recent interview with The DailyUniversity President Mark Schlissel said the only thing the University was considering regarding Spencer’s request was the University’s ability to ensure community safety and a lack of disruption. “What the University will do is it will speak to the representatives of the person See WEISER, Page 3A

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................5

SUDOKU.....................2 CROSSWORD...............6 SPORTS................7

News

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Every Wednesday, The Michigan Daily will be asking a University affiliate what the University’s Bicentennial means to them.

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“The Bicentennial is really cool because we’re able to not only think about our past, but look forward to the future. There are a lot of initiatives, like Campus of the Future and M-BARC, which is making a time capsule of our entire history essentially, so there’s a lot of reflection but a lot of planning for the future, too, which I think is cool. I think reflection is a huge part of — as an institution — what we have to do in order to learn from our past and make a better future for our students.”

kevin @kevinadairr u know why i haven’t had a GREAT ass time at a umich party? bc no ones played the jellyfish pineapple house jam from spongebob

LSA senior Victoria Rai

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CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES Veterans Week: Student Veterans at Michigan Panel and Discussion WHAT: A group of students will discuss their experiences serving in the military. WHO: Veteran and Military Services WHEN: 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. WHERE: Michigan Union — Parker Room

Writing History Through Photography: Kojong’s Funeral of 1919 WHAT: A presentation and analysis on the narration of Korean King Kojong’s funeral through photography. WHO: Nam Center for Korean Studies WHEN: 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. WHERE: Weiser Hall — 555

Trotter House Groundbreaking Ceremony

WHAT: Groundbreaking ceremony for the Trotter Multicultural Center’s new State Street site. WHO: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion WHEN: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. WHERE: State Street (Between Kelsey Museum and Barbour Hall)

The Road Ahead for Israel and Palestine: Two Years WHAT: A talk discussing the possibility of a two-state solution and roles of the U.S. and Middle East. WHO: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies WHEN: 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. WHERE: Weiser Hall — 555

Michigan Dining @MichiganDining

Community Assembly and Interactive Panel Discussion WHAT: Will include remarks from University President Mark Schlissel and updates on the Year One Progress Report. WHO: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion WHEN: 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. WHERE: Rackham Graduate School — Auditorium

CultureXchange: North Campus Cultural Festival

Prechter Bipolar Research Program Lecture

Student Recital: Emily Camras, cello

Julia Laing @julialaing_

WHAT: A celebration of the cultures that make up the University of Michigan through art, performance and cuisine. WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance WHEN: 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. WHERE: Walgreen Drama Center — Stamps Auditorium

WHAT: Author Marya Hornbacher will join a panel on the discussion of research in bipolar disorder. WHO: Depression Center WHEN: 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. WHERE: A. Alfred Taubman Biomedical Science Research Building — Kahn Auditorium

WHAT: A performance including the works of Ben-Haim, Partos, Avni and Stutschewsky. WHO: School of Music, Theatre & Dance WHEN: 8:30 p.m. WHERE: Stearns Building — Cady Room

Umich, mich state, pistons, red wings AND the lions all took home W’s this past weekend so yeah you could say it’s a good day

Central Student Government aims to spread acceptance for autism

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EMMA KINERY

Event comes as many students do not disclose their autism to the University KATE JENKINS For the Daily

Several members of Central Student Government gathered in the Chemistry Building to spread autism awareness Tuesday afternoon. CSG engaged passing students with their brightly colored table and wheel, which students could spin to learn facts about autism and engage in conversation. Public Policy senior Nadine Jawad, Central Student Government vice president, and LSA senior Shavon Edwards, senior policy adviser to Jawad, said they have dedicated themselves to promoting neurodiversity

Happy Compost Awareness Week! Compost-enriched soil reduces erosion, alleviates soil compaction, and helps control plant disease.

acceptance throughout the academic year, putting on events each month to reach out to and educate students around campus. Few metrics exist around austism at the University, Jawad and Edwards said, because many students are either undiagnosed or do not disclose to the university. Jawad said the issue of neurodiversity stands out to her because it touches so many students in some way, including all members of CSG present at Tuesday’s event surrounding this issue. “What’s interesting about the team that’s putting this together is that we all have a different reason and

experience behind why we think that this is important,” she said. “From an allyhood perspective we need to make campus more inclusive and accessible to everyone who studies here.” CSG would like to make all students at the University of Michigan more aware of autism in the hopes that students will become informed enough to become allies to autistic peers. LSA freshman Usha Yeruva, intern to the senior policy adviser, said CSG aims to impress upon the student body the idea that everyone experiences autism differently. “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism and that’s something we are really trying to push,” Yeruva said. Last year’s campus Diversity, Equity and Inclusion climate survey revealed disabled students are 145 percent more likely to experience discrimination than students without disabilities. Education graduate student Jeff Edelstein, co-founder of the nonprofit College Autism Network, was also present at the event. Edelstein’s organization acts as an informational hub, connecting students with autism to resources they need. “Around disability, outward or inward, if we are trying to create a more inclusive campus, students with disabilities need to be acknowledged to a greater degree and there needs to be stronger allyhood among students,” Edelstein said.

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COUNCIL From Page 1A that says something,” Hoffert said. “I would love to have the students’ voice count.” Hoffert recalled being humbled by running for office and learning about the everyday issues that affect Ward 2 residents. He said he realized that to be able to be a good councilmember, he had to be able to represent the concerns of every resident in the ward. “For the first time I’ve ever run for office, nobody knew who I was; I think if you look at it that way it’s rather respectable,” Hoffert said. “We’ll see what happens in three years, if I feel like coming back to the table.” LSA junior Jacob Caruso volunteered on the Hoffert campaign, knocking on doors and calling voters leading up to election night and then running back and forth between polling places to hear results. He got involved after his roommate, who also worked on the campaign, persuaded him to, but what really drew Caruso to the campaign was Hoffert’s desire to officially classify Ann Arbor as a sanctuary city. “There’s some ups and downs,” Caruso. “It was a good experience overall.”

INVESTIGATES From Page 1A — undisclosed by the CSG body — announcing CSG does not support the #UMDivest movement and resolution. The member allegedly then held a conversation with another student regarding the movement in which he asserted CSG’s opposition to divestment. This email and conversation would fall under the classification and improper use of CSG clerical services and the power in the Compiled Code, as well as the inappropriate use of CSG resources and power, as CSG had not voted upon the issue of divestment at the time of the alleged email statement nor conversation. The situation is reminiscent of a past controversy with then-LSA sophomore Jesse Arm, a former CSG representative. CSG members could not confirm at the time of this publication whether the resolution was based off of a public Facebook status posted by LSA senior Gabe Colman that originally claimed LSA senior Joe Goldberg — who is also on the Hillel board and has historically spoken against divestment — was convincing a representative to vote against divestment. The post has since been edited to remove Goldberg’s name, however, Facebook edit history and screenshots of the original post obtained by The

VETERANS From Page 1A “We never developed that real close relationship because everyone was always constantly rotating in and out of the whole unit, which was difficult, especially when you got home and you wanted to talk about what had happened, but there wasn’t anybody to talk to,” Throneberry said. “Your parents, your family, your friends, they’d hear the story one time and that was it. They didn’t want to hear it again.” Lawrence Dolph, another panelist, said he felt World War II veterans bonded through a common victory and national support, while their service and return from Vietnam felt more isolating and defeating. “We never experienced what the World War II guys described in various terms — I think a term they would never use today is ‘bromance,’ but they seem to be very close to one another,” Dolph said. “We had to sort of manage it just because of the sheer carnage.” The panelists also noted that while World War II veterans were welcomed home to celebrations and praise, Vietnam veterans returned to a charged political environment, often attracting criticism for events

Ward 4 — WINNER JACK EATON Incumbent Jack Eaton, D-Ward 4, was victorious in Ward 4 earning 2371 votes, 70.2 percent of the 3376 total ballots cast. Independent candidate Diane Giannola earned 26.73 percent of the ward with 873 votes. This will be Eaton’s third consecutive term in City Council. Eaton told The Daily he is ready to get back to the City Council chambers. He plans to focus on pedestrian safety, affordability and the Gelman plume in the next three years, as well as openness and transparency initiatives. While he’s excited at the outcome of the election, he isn’t shocked. “I’m pretty pleased,” Eaton said. “I’m not surprised that I won because my opponent didn’t run a very vigorous campaign but I’m pretty pleased with the margin of victory. I’m looking forward to getting back to work. … It’s a privilege to represent the 4th Ward and I’m really quite grateful for the support they’ve given me.” Giannola could not be reached for comment. Ward 5 — WINNER CHIP SMITH Incumbent Chip Smith emerged as the winner in Ward 5’s contentious City Council race, defeating Jerusalem Garden owner Ali Ramlawi by a small margin.

Daily show Colman’s original text. A CSG member stated the identity of the member in question is not being disclosed “to preserve the integrity of the investigation and presume innocence of the individual(s) in question.” CSG Business Rep. Lauren Ward, a Business junior, commented on the post stating: “CSG prides ourselves on bringing in the best Michigan has to offer. Rest assured, we are investigating into this situation as this type of rhetoric is absolutely deplorable and not representative of CSG’s beliefs or values.” The Daily could not confirm Ward’s investigation is the same as the ethics committee’s investigation. “These two individuals are entitled to their opinions, but what is shocking are the words he used,” the post read. “He said there are ‘not enough white men’ and ‘Jewish people’ (on the assembly), which alludes to the idea that there are too many black and brown people. He said because there are more people of color on the assembly, the Divestment resolution would pass. He then told the woman something about checking her Facebook friends to make sure she was truly on his side-- in my opinion, a very threatening thing to say.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

KEYNOTE From Page 1A and it raises the question of why it’s so important to achieve a racially diverse community.” Steele also noted the issues of prejudice and stereotypes were not just restricted to race, but to gender as well, noting the example of Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court bench. Steele welcomed uncomfortable feelings as signs of breaking the boundaries of a homogeneous educational community. “We have to recognize that the sense of discomfort isn’t something that’s temporary,” he said. “It’s a feature of trying to bring together a diverse community. … When you have a very diverse population with people coming from a lot of different histories, you realize that the way we used to educate students might not transfer to this new population.” Steele’s most salient piece of advice centered around building relationships between social groups. “At the heart of it all is trust,” he said. “It’s very hard to trust across lines. If I’m overstating, I might say that I think it’s much more important for institutions to focus on building that trust than to focus entirely on bias. There needs to be an ongoing effort to build trust within our community.”

Opinion

4A — Wednesday, November 8, 2017

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BILLY STAMPFL | COLUMN

One-click internships

here’s officially a Common App for internships. Though it hasn’t yet gained widespread popularity, students across the country, tasked until now with tediously applying to internships one by one, will soon rejoice. But should they? I’m not so sure. On one hand, applying for internships is timeconsuming and difficult. It requires researching different internships, writing cover letters and refining résumés. A lot of companies ask for a statement of purpose. Some want a personal statement. You need letters of recommendation, an official transcript or even proof of enrollment at your college. And this is once you’ve decided where you want to apply — finding out what you want to do and where you want to work might be the toughest and most important step of all. So why not celebrate another “There’s an app for that” moment that we have grown so accustomed to in the digital age? Why not take advantage of new websites that save time and effort? I was motivated to write this column because of a story on NPR that details two Georgia Tech students and their prized innovation, InternBlitz. InternBlitz is an online platform that allows prospective interns to type their standard information only once, then apply for internships. At first only available to Georgia Tech students, the website is now open to all. The site is making it far less tedious to apply for internships. I tried my hand with the site and, though its database of companies and internships is still small, I can see its usefulness and simplicity. You simply add a résumé with your basic information (name, phone number, email, etc.) and start picking internships for your cart. Once you’re done shopping, you review your cart, click “Apply” and you’re pretty much finished. Granted, it’s a great idea. I’ll never argue that we should reject technological innovation that makes things simpler

and probably more efficient. But I wonder if a website like InternBlitz will be costly in the long run. To prove my point, it might be useful to compare InternBlitz to Amazon. On Amazon, you shop for clothes, books and accessories. For the most part, the things people buy on Amazon are not essential (though this is probably going to change). On InternBlitz, you shop for internships. It’s safe to assume that, in a perfect world, consumers (or applicants) should spend more time picking the perfect internship than they do choosing the perfect adult party game. (The “What Do You Meme” adult party game was listed as the No. 1 bestseller in Amazon’s Toys and Games category for November.) I support Amazon and the ways in which it has made consumerism more efficient. But sometimes time and effort are indispensable. They’re necessary. Yet we have started dedicating all of our energy to minimizing the amount of time and effort required to do things that have always taken time and effort. There should not be a Common App for internships because students need to go through the painstaking task of applying. It’s a process that allows students to explore different career paths and make connections with people in different fields. It’s beneficial for companies to know who is willing to work hard writing cover letters and personal statements — students who really want the job do these things, while those who aren’t as passionate choose not to go through the hassle. All the extra effort that comes with applying to internships is a powerful signal to employers that the applicant is dedicated to getting an opportunity. I’m currently applying for internships in Washington, D.C., for next semester. I want to work and do research at a think tank, where there are always far more applicants than open positions. Most of the think tanks also require bundles of materials, and it takes a lot of time to find the right organizations and sort out cover letters and résumés.

But there are two benefits to this struggle. For one, I’ve learned a lot about the different think tanks in Washington and what each of them does. This will make my final decision more informed and more likely to benefit me in the long term. Second, I like to think that not everyone is willing to go through the struggle. I would like to imagine some of my potential competitors are not willing to put in the time that applying requires. But if a platform like InternBlitz is available to everyone, that assurance disappears, and it doesn’t matter if a student has the work ethic needed to write countless cover letters and personal statements. For these reasons, I don’t support InternBlitz. Researching and applying to internships is meant to be time-consuming. The process weeds out the weak and distinguishes those who truly want to take advantage of an internship experience. Again, I’m not advocating neo-Luddism. I like technology, and though I think we could use it more effectively, digital innovation is undoubtedly aiding economic growth and making hard tasks easier. But why can’t some hard things just remain hard? When conceiving new websites and startups, we need to consider the costs of the ease for which we’re striving. InternBlitz and other websites are already in use and will most likely become more and more popular. Students will be happy to avoid the painstaking process of applying for internships. But we should consider what we’re losing in the long run. Time spent researching internships and writing cover letters is well spent. It would be a shame if thousands of students chose the wrong internship because they didn’t have to really look into any, or if students who were willing to do the work didn’t get at least a little recognition from employers. In this case, technological innovation doesn’t seem to be helping us.

Billy Stampfl can be reached at bstampfl@umich.edu.

NATALIE BROWN | NATALIE CAN BE REACHED AT NGBROWN@UMICH.EDU

Challenge your fear of failure

hroughout the past couple weeks, all I have heard about is summer internships. Whether it’s going to the internship fair, applying to internships or accepting a position, it’s a frequent conversation in my circle of friends, housemates and classmates. I have never actually applied for a “big time” college internship. It’s not that I don’t want a cool internship far away from home, where I gain job experience and connections from a fancy company. The truth is, whenever I find myself on websites to apply for positions, I stop myself. I have begun to recognize my inability to apply or start an application has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am afraid. I fear if I put myself out there after spending time and energy with these applications, I still won’t get a job. So not applying in the first place just makes it so much easier — I don’t have to deal with rejection if I don’t try. There is great power in fear, especially in how it can change the way we think. Fear can be a driving force that allows us to work extremely hard to accomplish a difficult task, or it can stop us from even trying because they think they will fail either way. With this knowledge, we need to consciously work to make our inevitable fears a driving force in productivity, rather than hinder us. I had never thought about this concept until the first time I was rejected from the University of Michigan. It was the summer going into my freshman year of college, and I had already planned on attending my second choice school. I was sad but knew I could always apply to transfer if things didn’t go in my favor.

When things were not panning out at my first university, I applied to transfer. I was again sent a rejection letter, with the option to be considered for the following semester. With fear fueling my decision, I applied once more and tried my best to enjoy another semester at my first university. On the third try, when I was finally accepted, I was relieved I had continued to persevere because it worked out for me in the end.

The continued experiences we have with rejection allow us to push forward. Now, I see this as an example of how the fear of being in a situation that was not great for me pushed me to work harder and persevere through rejection. So when I came to the University, I was ready to apply for a competitive major I thought was perfect for my goals. I was open to applying because I knew I was going to continue to work as hard as I did before. But when I received the news of another rejection, I was heartbroken. When applying for internships, schools and academic prog rams, the way we prepare ourselves for acceptance and rejection is crucial. This mental preparation or change in thought allows us to not be fazed because we realize rejection is a normal part of putting ourselves out there. In the case of my major, I had not prepared myself for

the rejection, even though I knew the prog ram was competitive. But it also taught me that if I want something or work extremely hard, I can still be rejected. I am not going to get ever y job I apply for, just like not ever yone I confess my love for is going to love me back. The way we prepare and ref lect on these experiences helps us grow and build on skills for our big goals and dreams. They can help us in our personal and professional life because rejection, fear and failure will continue to play a role in all areas of our lives. The continued experiences we have with rejection allow us to push forward. And this means we need to do it on our terms and on our own time. So this summer, I’m not going to have that big-time college internship. But when I am ready to try again, I know I’ll actively work on the way I think about my fear of failure. I will have to prepare myself knowing that it is okay to apply to internships and really want something because ultimately the worst thing they can say is no. The truth is most of the time, I can always apply next year. So don’t hold back! Audition for the role you always wanted, apply for big-time college internships and tell the person you like that you are interested in them. Because you are only the one who holds the power in the way you think, and you can prepare and ref lect on things to see these experiences as steps of growth. As Hilary Duff says in my favorite teen romantic comedy, A Cinderella Story, “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Ellery Rosenzweig can be reached at erosenz@umich.edu.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. SAMANTHA PLOUFF | OP-ED

An inhumane investment

used to have a lot of pride for attending the University of Michigan, a university I considered ethical, forward-thinking and diligent about acting on the opinions of its students. Lately, however, I have been quite disappointed in my school. I recently learned the University invests in Roark Capital Group, a large private equity firm involved in a horrific and widespread animal welfare scandal that is anything but something to be proud of. Roark-owned Focus Brands, parent company of Moe’s Southwest Grill, Schlotzsky’s and McAlister’s Deli, recently publicly committed to ban some of the worst forms on animal abuse from its supply chains. But Roark is also the major investor in prominent restaurant companies such as Arby’s, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, which have all failed to address the cruelty inf licted on chickens slaughtered for meat in their supply chains. Thousands of people nationwide have called upon Roark to ensure the rest of the chicken-serving companies it invests in publicly adopt similar welfare policies and ban unthinkable cruelties. Consumers’ calls, however, have been met with complete silence. If Focus Brands can make this important commitment, so can the other chicken-serving companies Roark invests in. Without meaningful animal welfare policies, these companies allow suppliers

to breed chickens to grow so quickly that their legs become crippled under their own bodies. Chickens spend their entire lives crammed together in dark, crowded sheds, where they breathe air filled with the stench of ammonia and sit in litter soaked with their own waste. A lifetime in these conditions causes disease, organ failure, respiratory problems and painful sores on the chickens’ bodies and

The University has an ethical responsibility to its students and to animals. feet. When it comes time for slaughter, suppliers are allowed to shackle live animals upside down, slit their throats and scald them in hot water, often while they are still fully conscious. As a lifelong animal lover and advocate, I know no chickens should ever be subjected to these abuses. I also know that chickens are sensitive and intelligent animals with unique personalities and the ability to communicate and even develop friendships with each other. Studies have shown chickens can complete complex mental tasks, learn from watching each other and pass down information from one generation to another. It

makes me sick to think that countless wonderful creatures needlessly endure immense suffering every day. Roark has both the power and ethical responsibility to encourage the companies it invests in to join the likes of Burger King, Starbucks, Panera Bread, Subway and dozens of others by banning some of the worst forms of animal abuse from their supply chains. It’s baff ling that Roark continues to fail to do what is in its power to ensure the companies it profits from do not take part in heartbreaking animal abuse. I believe the majority of University students and alumni would not want our institution affiliated with the animal cruelty that Roark condones. I can’t understand why the University would support such horrors by investing in Roark. The University has an ethical responsibility to its students and to animals to stop profiting from animal cruelty. That’s why I am calling upon my fellow students to urge the University to take a stand against sickening animal abuse by divesting from Roark. We would never idly stand by if our beloved pets were facing such terrible abuse, so why not take a stand for chickens, whose cognitive abilities rival those of cats and dogs? Together, let’s encourage the University to be the school we know it can be — one we can say we’re proud to attend. Samantha Plouff is an LSA and Art & Design sophomore.

Arts

5A — Wednesday, November 8, 2017

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

Jewish identity is explored in Basement’s ‘Bad Jews’

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

TV REVIEW

Stereotypes and more are placed in conversation in Harmon’s play BAILEY KADIAN Daily Arts Writer

Three cousins sit in a small studio apartment on Riverside and 84th street in New York City. They are arguing about a necklace — which holds far more value than what appears on its surface. This week, Basement Arts presents “Bad Jews,” a play written by Joshua Harmon. It is a story that projects the significance of familial ties, tradition and how a family’s history influences the present. “It is the night of the cousins’ grandfather’s funeral, who was the patriarch of the family and a Holocaust survivor,” said School of Music, Theatre & Dance Senior and director Noa Gelb. “They are currently discussing who gets the relic of the family, which is this Haim necklace, the Jewish word for ‘life.’” The play revolves around four characters who each provide different perspectives on topics of identity and understanding the impact of their Jewish roots. Daphna, played by LSA sophomore Sydney Prince — from her thick, curly hair, to her headstrong and assertive demeanor — embodies the stereotypical Jewish woman. Daphna’s cousins, Liam, played by SMTD junior Matthew Kemp, and Jonah, played by LSA sophomore Devin Raymond, are very different in personality. Those differences bring about their own series of problems within the ongoing debate. “Liam and Daphna are very similar, but on opposite sides,” Gelb said. “They have a lot of conflict, but they are essentially the same person, just with opposite opinions.” The playwright, Joshua Harmon, illuminated these similar-but-opposite dynamics in his script. “Harmon does this great thing — every time they speak without the other in the room, they have all these repeated lines that they don’t even know the other person is saying,” Gelb said. Melody, played by Nursing freshman Ashley Musleh, is immensely different than the other three characters. She is

the “non-Jew,” who acts as the well-behaved juxtaposition to the rest. She is Liam’s girlfriend and finds that she clearly does not fit in with the company surrounding her. “She [Melody] is thrust into this situation of this very strong, independent, opinionated Jewish girl, her also strong, opinionated cousin and their youngest cousin, who is trying to mediate between them without causing conflict,” Gelb said. “It’s a great show about relationships, family and outsiders.” As the play moves through the incessant debate of who will receive the relic of the family, there is an added twist.

Basement Arts presents “Bad Jews” Studio One (Walgreen Drama Center) November 9th @ 7 P.M. November 10th & 11th @ 7 and 11 P.M. Free

“This necklace was used as a ring, almost as a proposal mechanism for the grandmother for the “next” person, and the next spouse. Now Liam wants to propose to his girlfriend, using this necklace, thereby taking it out of the faith and out of the family,” Gelb said. The initial conflict becomes far more complex as new problems arise in considering how a symbol of the Jewish family can be transferred outside of its traditional realm. Gelb described how unique the Jewish faith is in that it represents a set of religious practices as well as a cultural community. “They all have very different views of what being Jewish means,” Gelb said. “What does it mean to be Jewish and not want to carry on the faith in the way that your community expects you to? What does it mean when your faith is your community and when

your community betrays your faith?” In considering more questions that the play grapples with, Gelb discussed recent discoveries while studying the script with the cast. “One thing that the show has created controversy for is the stereotypical nature of the characters,” Gelb said. “The very pure Gentile, very strong, opinionated woman and this fragile masculinity — they are all very heightened. One thing that we have explored is how we can take these stereotypes and add a little sympathy to them.” To combat the limitations posed by stereotypical depictions, the cast aimed to find depth in each character and challenged existing standards. Among the many topics this play explores, Gelb defined the specific stereotypes that surround the Jewish people: the idea of being “chosen people,” the Holocaust as an incredibly formative event of the past and the extreme importance of maintaining Jewish identity in our modern world. “It so important that people identify as Jewish,” Gelb said. “Not only did they come from a Jewish background, but that they are Jewish.” When asked about a rewarding part of the project as the director of the show, Gelb recalled a certain moment when she watched everything begin to piece together. “Normally I shout out things they need to fix, as I direct the scene. There was one point when we were doing it yesterday and we were sort of drilling it over and over until we got what we wanted,” Gelb said. “I forgot to stop them because I was so immersed in watching it. We had reached the end of the show and they were sitting there for like three minutes because I had forgotten to call blackout.” Gelb’s explained that when she first saw “Bad Jews” in D.C. she thought the show was funny and informative: “It was true to my identity as a Jew. It was a beautiful, theatrical, educational experience.” She hopes to provide a similar experience for audiences this weekend.

CONCERT REVIEW

MATADOR Look at those two

Vile and Barnett are the perfect pair at Royal Oak The duo performed in Michigan right on the heels of their release SEAN LANG

Daily Arts Writer

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI Daily Arts Writer

Just four days before her birthday, Australian Scorpio and, perhaps more importantly, musician Courtney Barnett made a stop in Royal Oak for a show with

American rock’n’roller Kurt Vile, on tour in support of their collaborative album, Lotta Sea Lice. Released in early October, the album came as a relative surprise, an eventual product

DISCOVERY Pablo Escobar stars

‘Escobar’ is a break from Discovery’s typical drivel Discovery adds to the multitude of drug lord-related series SAYAN GOSH For the Daily

Over the last few years, there has been a strange phenomenon brewing among the world’s TV viewers: An obsession with the infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, a man who was simultaneously a brutal killer and one of the most wanted men in the world, but also one who was beloved by many. Series such as Netf lix’s hit “Narcos” have been the main sources of this new rise in interest, and Discovery Channel continues the trend with the documentary series “Finding Escobar’s Millions.” The show centers around two ex-CIA agents: Doug Laux and Ben Smith, the former having previously gained recognition after writing a memoir about his time in, and the discomfort he experienced while in the agency. Right off the bat, it is apparent that these two are legitimate and qualified selections, and the show will not be too similar to some of the drivel that channels such as Discovery and The History Channel have recently produced. The pair are investigating the existence/ location of millions of dollars in cash hidden by Escobar throughout his lifetime spread all around Colombia. They enlist the aide of figures who were in Escobar’s inner circle, scientists who provide hightech equipment and journalists from Colombia’s most prolific newspapers. As one could expect, such an investigation requires the two leads forced to interact with some unsavory and dangerous figures in some of the poorest neighborhoods of cities such

of Barnett and Vile’s recent friendship which bloomed after they met on the festival circuit last summer. Consisting of almost the entirety of Lotta Sea Lice, as well as hits from each of the duo’s solo discography, their performance on Oct. 30 was conversational and relaxed, much like the album itself. As the two wound the audience through their folkrock musings, it became evident that the collaboration between them was just as much authentic friendship as it was an exercise in musicianship. Barnett and Vile, supported by the Sea Lice — Janet Weiss, Stella Mozgawa, Rob Laakso and Katie Harkin — opened with the first several songs off the album, in order. The two are charismatic but unassuming, both with their unkempt brown hair and quiet manner. Few words were spoken between songs, but watching the two interact onstage spoke volumes. When they played their fifth song, leading single “Continental Breakfast,” Barnett and Vile shared a not-so-furtive smile as they harmonized on its final

as Bogotá and Medellín. The show does address this and lets the viewer understand the stakes at each stage of the mission. Unlike in many “reality shows” produced by Discovery, the dangers in this series are real and not exaggerated for dramatic effect. Ironically, despite this, the show doesn’t do a great job transmitting that fear into the audience. While a Sicarioesque atmosphere would have felt out-of-place, the cheesy and generic music and sound effects used during some of the most tense sequences simply felt cheapening. In

“Finding Escobar’s Millions” Series Premiere Discovery Fridays @ 10 p.m. general, many of the shots feel extremely repetitive and similar to shots viewers would have seen a hundred times. The show does however provide suitable context and background information regarding Escobar and his life, and goes into further detail, especially in certain sequences in important Colombian newspapers. It does feel that the leads are doing a legitimate investigation. Another benefit of having such qualified leads is that they provide valuable insight into their thinking during certain situations. Some of the best parts of the show are when one of the two provides a brief, but realistic, assessment of the situation he is in, taking into account the

lyric, as if perhaps they had stumbled over the moment numerous times in rehearsing it. There was a spontaneity to the act, and the sense that it was involuntary for each of

Vile on lead guitar for Barnett’s “Depreston” and “Avant Gardener” gave the songs a new, more spacious dimension

them evidenced joy at its most carefree and honest. Similar moments characterized the rest of the show, as the audience

body language of the person he is speaking to, the movement of the people and things around him and how the environment and mood changes around him, highlighting the perceptiveness and training the individuals draw upon constantly during such a mission. For example, during a conversation with an Escobar associate in a precarious neighborhood, Laux walks the viewer through how he was gauging the mood and tone of the associate, and how he applied certain techniques to extract as much information as possible, while trying to endear himself to an inf luential, yet dangerous, man. What remains relatively unexplained, however, is the pair’s motivation for undertaking such a mission in the first place. It is brief ly touched upon, but all we learn is that money is not their motive, since they have to give away 95 percent of any money they find to the Colombian government anyway. It would be nice to know why two former CIA agents have such a desire to go on a dangerous mission, and why they care in the first place? Perhaps their motive is simply the thrill of the mission. “Finding Escobar’s Millions” is a gripping account of a very real story about a man that has captured the imagination of TV viewers around the world. Unfortunately, the production and cinematography of the show detract from, rather than enhance, the engaging topic and storyline. Nonetheless, it is a series that should keep viewers coming back for more to explore how Laux and Smith’s investigation continues and concludes.

was treated to more than a performance, but a window into the friendship between two of the greatest lyricists of the day. “This song is about wakin’ up, and smelling your bandmate in the bunk next to you,” Vile playfully jabbed at Barnett before one song. Later, he thanked her for “taking him on tour,” an act of subtle deference that hinted at the deep sense of mutual respect between the two. Aside from their banter, Barnett and Vile’s interactions within the music itself was fascinating. Vile on lead guitar for Barnett’s “Depreston” and “Avant Gardener” gave the songs a new, more spacious dimension while Barnett’s support on Vile’s “Life Like This” and “Pretty Pimpin’” contributed a subtle edge. The synergy between the two performers — as well as the Sea Lice — ultimately made for an engrossing, and thoroughly wholesome, evening of music. It’s unclear whether this is a one-off collaboration or just the first installment. Regardless, this is one intercontinental friendship you shouldn’t miss.

Arts

6A — Wednesday, November 8, 2017

TV REVIEW

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

FILM REAPPRAISAL

WARNER BROS Guy RItchie.

‘U.N.C.L.E.’ is stylish fun

CBS “Life in Pieces” airs Thursdays on CBS

‘Life in Pieces’ is busy but bland as it enters season 3 CBS’s attempt to compete with ‘Modern Family’ falls flat MORGAN RUBINO For the Daily

My face blank and my spirit blasé, I sat in front of the screen on a gloomy Thursday night in hopes of laughing at the outlandish endeavors of the Short family. And yet, there was nothing — nothing in the entirety of that half-hour episode that evoked a genuine laugh or even the slightest chuckle. While the season three premiere of CBS’s “Life in Pieces” wasn’t particularly awful, it felt generically stale in plot and tired in attempting (for a third year) to level with its prime-time sitcom “competition,” ABC’s “Modern Family.” It’s disheartening that a series with an innovative, vignettestyle structure and proficient cast appears to be traveling on a downwards slope, but after two seasons of the same old, scheduled humor, it’s clear why. A show highlighting four distinct, rarely interlinking plotlines simply translates to a whole lot of confusion, not the intended, nicelysegmented chronicles of a chaotic family. Even more perplexing, sometimes there’s a tying-together point, and sometimes there’s just not. To start off season three, we pick up with newlyweds Matt (Thomas Sadoski, “The Newsroom”) and Colleen (Angelique Cabral, “Enlisted”), whose nightmarish honeymoon is looking materialistically brighter after Colleen is granted two million dollars in settlement for her fall off of their motel balcony. But after the

couple receives the bad news that the motel has filed for bankruptcy and the settlement is off, they are forced to abruptly end the whole family’s Vegas getaway. This short story features the all-toopredictable arc of the newly rich losing all of their money, and while it was admittedly entertaining to watch the misfit family pop bottles on a party bus, it felt like this story ends before it gains any ground. The second vignette focuses on Greg (Colin Hanks, “Dexter”) and Jen’s (Zoe Lister-Jones,

“Life in Pieces” Season 3 Premiere Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. CBS “Whitney”) feeble and ineffective attempt to crack their daughter’s pacifier addiction. Again, while this short story brought up some very contemporary and amusing issues, such as Jen’s request that the fictional “pacifier fairy” be a man who battles against sexism, all-inall, it left me feeling disinterested and unaffected. Even with Hanks and Lister-Jones’s natural chemistry and quarreling, their comedic timing and brilliant facial dialogue are frequently underused in a mediocre plot. Then there’s the two final stories (which blended together into one in my mind), in which the young and emotionally lost Sophia (Giselle Einsenberg) runs away to visit the rubble of the family’s recently burnt-down

house, while elsewhere, Tyler (Niall Cunningham) announces that he and Clementine (Hunter King, “Hollywood Heights”) are “romantically unsyncing” (AKA divorcing). Both of these vignettes open up scenarios for heartfelt child and parent conversation, but these moments come off as forced and easily-fixable. In a sitcom with the premise of illustrating tried and true familial adversity, would it really be that hard to showcase some authenticity? The only real redeeming quality to “Life in Pieces” is its starstudded roster of talent, which shows up to play no matter what uninspiring tropes and worn-out plot lines they are constrained to. The cast carries the series on its shoulders; it’s just regrettable that we only see so little of them in such fast-paced episodes. If you blink, you might miss Hanks masterfully throw some side-eye after a witty remark or James Brolin (“Westworld”), as family patriarch John, curmudgeonly react to his family’s bizarre antics. And if you miss that, you’ve essentially missed all the entertainment. After enduring two seasons of similar dissatisfaction and yearning for originality, I unfortunately came to expect this lackluster of a “Life in Pieces” premiere. After all, the title slide reads: “One big family. Four short stories. Every week.” And if that doesn’t sound like the basis of every sitcom ever, then you’re likely still stuck on creator Justin Adler’s bandwagon — believing in the unforeseen potential of this imitated, insipid comedy.

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

UMS brings Chanticleer NITYA GUPTA Daily Arts Writer

This Friday, the Grammy award-winning group Chanticleer will perform “Heart of a Soldier” at Hill Auditorium. Chanticleer blends 12 male voices to create an “orchestra of voices.” The group performs interpretations of vocal literature and contemporary compositions. The show tells stories about soldiering by traveling through history through music, looking at music by William Byrd about the Babylonian Captivity and the fall of Jerusalem, and by Janequin about the Battle of Marignano. It also looks at popular pieces from the world wars and ending with a reminder of peace with music composed by artists such as John Musto. “This concert is slightly different from what might be called a ‘typical Chanticleer show,’” wrote Chanticleer Music Director, William Scott, in an interview with The Daily. “Those shows started with very early music, perhaps Gregorian chant, and ended with some combination of Gershwin and African-American spirituals. This program, on the other hand, ends with a message about peace that is not only timely but, we hope elegant and moving.” Chanticleer does not stop at

just the music. Instead, the group also displays the emotional and theatrical realms of soldiering. From loss to betrayal to rage to hope, there is an intense range for the soldiers they portray. “It is a program of lights and shadows, happiness as well as sadness, fast music and slow, in a variety of languages and styles, with giddy sound effects alongside poignant reminders of how much better peace is, after all,” Scott

Chanticleer’s “Heart of a Soldier” Hill Auditorium Friday November 10th @ 8 P.M. $12-56

wrote. In doing so, Chanticleer encompasses the entire experience of being a soldier with grace, touching its audience members in the process. They are coming to the University as a part of Veterans Week. “We have had many veterans come up to us with tears in their eyes, thanking us for the way the program seems to point out the ennobling contribution of soldiers to our country’s (and any

country’s) past,” Scott wrote. Scott noted how gratifying it is to have touched people in such a way. He also wrote that many people especially enjoy singing along in pleasure to the pop songs “My Buddy,” “Boogie-WoogieBugle-Boy” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” “As always, music touches people in a visceral and sometimes vulnerable spot,” Scott wrote. “I hope we sing the program convincingly, in tune, with good diction and style and that the audience will feel that they have enjoyed going on this musical journey with us.” The U-M Glee Club will also make a cameo appearance in the performance. Scott noted that one of his favorite moments will definitely be when the Glee Club’s singers join in singing Jennifer Higdon’s touching “Our Beautiful Country.” Chanticleer began discussing the concept because the duality between history and emotions seemed interesting. They received exciting responses from composers Mason Bates and Musto and moved on to create the compelling program that is now “Heart of a Soldier.” “What we hadn’t known at the time we started planning this program was the incredible need to remind ourselves of the siren call of peace that so needs to be heard right now.”

‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ an imperfect, but unappreciated thriller MAX MICHALSKY For the Daily

In 2015, director Guy Ritchie (“King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”) released “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” a Cold War spy caper featuring Henry Cavill (“Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice”), Alicia Vikander (“Submergence”) and Armie Hammer (“Call Me By Your Name”) as a motley crew of international spies hunting for a missing warhead. The film seemed to be one nobody had asked for, adapted from a lowbrow 1964 television series of the same name. What’s more, it opened just weeks after spymovie blockbuster “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.” As a result, ticket sales were less than spectacular. With tepid critical reviews, the film came and went as little more than a blip on the 2015 summer movie radar. Today the film remains one of the most underrated spy films to come out of the last decade, featuring dazzling stylization, irresistible cast chemistry and an electrifying soundtrack. The spy flick was once a pillar of popular cinema: Filled with suave machismo, high fashion and exorbitant amounts of innuendo, the style of the classic spy movie is a cultural icon. Today, they don’t make spy movies like they used to; box offices are dominated by dark, gritty films like “The Bourne” series, and even the

once-campy “James Bond” films now boast sleek, blue-tinted color palettes. “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is an homage to a bygone era of film. It doesn’t concern itself with deep, troubled backstories or a dark, moody aesthetic. The film meticulously recreates the style of the classic spy film, from its splitscreen action sequences to its dramatic camera zooms. The film revels in this campy, carefree style with just enough modern flair to not feel dated. Critics panned the film for prioritizing style over substance, which it did. However, positing that criticism of this kind of film is like comparing Dr. Pepper to fine wine. The film wasn’t made to be deep — it was made to be stylish and fun, a goal it achieves in spades. The cast’s chemistry, too, stands out as a highlight of the film that was largely overlooked by critics. Each of the main characters is likeable on their own, from Cavill’s suave Napoleon Solo to Hammer’s stalwart Illya Kuryakin to Vikander’s charming Gaby. Together, however, these three feed off of one another and create a cast dynamic that’s downright irresistible. The characters all serve as excellent foils for one another, such as in a scene where Illya sits in a hotel room and quietly plays chess with himself, trying (and failing) to ignore Gaby drunkenly dancing to Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me.” The interactions between the film’s main characters are repeatedly

grin-inducing, and they’re part of what makes the film as much fun as it is. Speaking of “Cry to Me,” did I mention that this soundtrack is incredible? Because it is. Not only does the film sample numerous ’60s Italian pop classics (including one particularly memorable scene featuring Peppino Gagliardi’s “Che Vuole Questa Musica Stasera”), but it also contains numerous standout original compositions. A large virtue of these original compositions — composed by Daniel Pemberton — is how well they fit the action taking place on the screen. For example, during a car chase the engines may rev in unison with ripping electric guitar riffs, or the cars may bounce along a dirt trail to the beat of the soundtrack piece. This synchronization is subtle, but it lends the film a unique cadence that’s all its own. It may not be a dramatic masterwork, but from my first viewing of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” back in 2015, I knew the film was significant as a tribute to the golden age of on-screen espionage, and all the bravado, style and campiness that came with it. It’s absolutely an imperfect film, and not one I’d ever try to pretend is flawless, but those flaws rarely seem to impact the experience of watching the film. Instead, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” is the type of cinematic experience that thrills and entertains for every second of its 116 minutes.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sports

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 — 7A

Bracket breakdown: Analyzing potential NCAA Tournament opponents ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Writer

Ranked No. 11 at the beginning of the season, the Michigan field hockey team has proven that ranking was far too low. The Wolverines rattled off 16 wins in a row with 13 shutouts to finish off their season. Then, Michigan dispatched Ohio State, No. 9 Northwestern and No. 5 Penn State to win the Big Ten Tournament, securing an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. There is no longer any dispute about Michigan’s status as a top team. The Wolverines earned the third overall seed and will host Syracuse on Saturday. The Daily broke down Michigan’s side of the bracket. No. 3 Michigan Michigan finished its season with an undefeated 8-0 record in conference play and swept the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles. The Wolverines have a good balance of offensive and defensive standouts who work together cohesively. They rank second in the nation in goals-against average, eighth in goals per game and fifth in scoring margin. Senior goalkeeper Sam Swenson was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, and senior forward Katie Trombetta the Big Ten Player of the Year. Both were unanimous All-Big Ten First Team selections. Sophomore forward Meg Dowthwaite, who ranks 15th in the nation in goals scored, was also named to the first team. Fifth-year senior midfielder Esther de Leijer, who scored the winning goal in the Big Ten Tournament championship game despite a broken hand, made the second team. Though the Big Ten is not as strong as the ACC, Michigan has proved it is up to the challenge. The Wolverines’ offense has

been inconsistent at times — they were outshot by Penn State in the Big Ten Tournament final and didn’t score the gamewinning goal until the final minutes — which could cause them trouble against a topranked defense like Syracuse. But if Michigan finds its groove, it will be a hard team to beat. No. 11 Syracuse Syracuse didn’t make it out of the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, losing 3-2 to Louisville. However, the Orange managed an at-large bid due to the strength of their conference. Despite finishing 2-4 in ACC play, they were 12-6 overall, including seven victories over ranked teams. Syracuse has one of the stingiest defenses in the nation, ranking third in shutouts per game and goals-against average. It’ll be a battle of strengths as it faces a Michigan team that ranks first and second in those categories, respectively. Still, the Orange allowed fewer shots on goal than any team in the tournament besides Connecticut, which is no small feat considering their powerhouse conference. Two defenders made the All-ACC teams: senior Lies Lagerweij was named to the first team, and junior Roos Weers made the second team. Offensively, senior midfielder and forward Laura Hurff, an All-ACC Second Team selection, is a standout, but the team ranks only 15th out of 18 teams in the tournament in goals scored per game. Facing one of the only other teams that can match its defensive prowess will be a challenge for Syracuse, and that should give the Wolverines the upper hand in what will likely be a low-scoring matchup. No. 10 Louisville If Michigan makes the quarterfinals on Sunday, it will play the winner of the

ARNOLD ZHOU/Daily

The Michigan field hockey team enters the NCAA Tournament as the third overall seed and will host No. 11 Syracuse at Ocker Field on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

match between Louisville and Northwestern. The Cardinals advanced to the finals of the ACC Tournament, upsetting No. 2 Duke, 3-2, in the semifinals despite being outshot, 31-8. In the finals, they lost to North Carolina, 1-0, but received an at-large bid with a 14-7 record. The Cardinals, who are hosting the semifinal and final rounds of the tournament, fared better than Syracuse in conference play with a 4-2 record. Junior goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran, who had a careerhigh 18 saves against Duke, and senior midfielder Nicole Woods were both named to the All-ACC First Team. Despite its impact players, however, the team has a middling offense and defense. The Cardinals rank 26th in the nation in goals-against average

and 35th in scoring average. They managed only one shutout during the regular season — against unranked Central Michigan — and their scoring margin was lower than all but one team in the tournament. But Louisville has come through in big games, defeating Syracuse and Duke in the ACC Tournament. It also played in the toughest conference in field hockey, meaning that despite lackluster stats, the Cardinals could fare well against teams from less-competitive conferences. Still, most teams that are able to make it far in the NCAA Tournament stand out on either offense or defense, if not both. Because the Cardinals do neither, they’ll need some more big-game magic to keep their season going. No. 9 Northwestern

Northwestern made it to the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament, beating No. 20 Rutgers in the quarterfinals before falling to Michigan, 3-0. The Wildcats received an at-large bid with an overall record of 14-6 (6-2 Big Ten). Northwestern easily dispatched lower-ranked opponents but struggled against tougher competition, losing to every top10 team it faced except then-No. 10 Maryland. The strength of the Wildcats lies with three game-changing players. Senior defender Sophia Miller was one of only three unanimous selections to the All-Big Ten First Team. Junior midfielder Puck Pentenga also made the first team and was fifth in the nation in assists per game. Junior forward Pascale Massey, Northwestern’s most

prolific goal-scorer, was named to the second team. Pentenga and Massey lead a high-powered offense that ranks 12th nationally in goals per game, a feat that is even more impressive considering many of the teams ahead of them came from less-competitive conferences. However, the defense has at times left a little to be desired — only two tournament teams allowed more goals per game — which could explain the Wildcats’ struggles against top competition. In Louisville, however, Northwestern faces a team that has struggled offensively and one it has already defeated in the regular season, 2-0. With a strong foundation in Miller, Pentenga and Massey, Northwestern has the pieces to repeat that result.

‘M’ defensemen striving for consistency Wolverines emphasize MEN’S BASKETBALL

JACOB SHAMES Daily Sports Writer

Wherever Mel Pearson goes, offense follows. When Pearson became the head coach at Michigan Tech in 2011, the Huskies were coming off a 4-30-4 campaign in which they averaged just 1.97 goals and 24.9 shots per game. But after only one season, the Huskies were outshooting opponents and scoring nearly one more goal per contest than they had the previous year. As the head coach of the Michigan hockey team, Pearson has worked similar wonders. The Wolverines have gone from 51st in the country in shot attempts in 2016-17 to fourth this season and are tied for 10th in scoring. Pearson’s teams have always been quick to grasp his up-tempo brand of hockey. While watching sophomore forward Will Lockwood blast down the ice or the first line of seniors Dexter Dancs, Tony Calderone and junior Cooper Marody work in perfect harmony, it’s easy to forget all about last season. For Michigan’s defense, however, the learning process hasn’t been quite as smooth. “We’ve got to buy in and make a total commitment to team defense,” Pearson said after the Wolverines’ 5-4 loss to Penn State on Oct. 27. “We’ll score goals; we’ve got enough guys that can score goals. But we’ve got to play a lot better defensively.” Michigan allowed three goals in the third period and overtime of that contest, as well as 54 shots on goal. The following day, Pearson and the coaching staff arranged a longer-than-usual video session, which involved watching the game’s last five minutes and identifying defensive mistakes. This paid off, as the Wolverines rebounded with a 5-2 win over the Nittany Lions to split the series. “The last three goals in last night’s game, we had the puck possession and we just gave it away. Just poor puck management,” Pearson said after that game. “We (watched

video) not to be overly critical or to pick on anyone but just as a learning process going forward, so when we get in a tough game somewhere down the line, we can play with that composure.” But giveaways in the defensive zone have still plagued Michigan. Against Ferris State last Thursday, the Wolverines allowed just two goals, and both came as a result of avoidable turnovers — junior defenseman Nicholas Boka slipped and lost control of the puck, and Ferris State forward Lucas Finner stole the puck from sophomore forward Jake Slaker to score the Bulldogs’ second goal. Pearson understands that eliminating what he terms “unforced errors” won’t happen overnight, and that one strong performance doesn’t mean that process is complete. On Thursday, he chalked many of the Wolverines’ defensive lapses up to the competitiveness of the blueliners in always wanting to make an outstanding play, even if one isn’t available. “Just watched an NHL game this weekend and those defensemen, (if) they don’t have a play, they just gotta get it out and live for another day,” Pearson said. “I think that’s one of the big things. We have to just

understand the situation.” The Wolverines do have defensemen with the ability to contribute on offense — freshman Quinn Hughes, junior Joseph Cecconi and senior Sam Piazza have all tallied at least four points. But priority number one still lies in the defensive zone, as Pearson has used statistics as motivation for the unit to perform. “You call them together as a group to take pride in our statistics nationally,” Pearson said. “It’s a good reflection on your defensemen, your goals-against. ... We want to encourage them to do some things offensively but we want to be rock-solid defensively.” Sophomore defenseman Luke Martin — one half of Michigan’s top defensive pairing, along with Hughes — also stressed developing a rapport with other defensemen as a unit is key for improvement. “It’s a lot in practice and a lot in preparation, but the big key for me is communication,” Martin said. “Always talking with your partner, always dissecting shifts or plays and whatever it is and just getting on the same page and getting used to the way people play. Quinn and I — we’ve been talking so much and I think it shows that our chemistry and our

togetherness. It’s gotten so much better and I think we still have so much left to build on.” The aspect of chemistry has been hugely important to Pearson as well. While the Wolverines may lack experience or veteran presence in many areas, defense is not one of them, and Pearson has taken advantage of this, going as far as seating underclassmen next to upperclassmen in the locker room to aid their development. “A lot of these guys won the Big Ten championship a couple years ago,” Pearson said. “So they’ve been through it, they understand what you need to do to have success and win championships. They have it, they experienced, it, they earned it. They understand what it takes. Even during the game, most players, they’re sitting right next to each other, they can add some advice to them or even in the locker room between periods and all these practices.” Michigan’s transformation into one of the most dynamic offenses in the country took place quite rapidly. Building consistency behind this attack, however, has taken a bit longer. But through communication, video sessions and a strong focus on the defensive zone, Pearson and the Wolverines believe that stability will emerge in time.

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily

Sophomore defenseman Luke Martin emphasized that Michigan needs to establish consistency among its blueliners.

improvement on glass MARK CALCAGNO Daily Sports Writer

Going into the 2017-18 season, the Michigan men’s basketball team has some well-documented concerns. Questions of Duncan Robinson’s defense, Charles Matthews’ shooting ability and the Wolverines’ point guard competition were the focal points of preseason media availabilities. But one area of concern that has gotten little attention is the lack of proven rebounding ability Michigan returns this year. According to UM Hoops, the Wolverines return just 40 percent of its defensive rebounding from a season ago, hurt by the losses of D.J. Wilson, Derrick Walton Jr. and Zak Irvin – last season’s top three rebounders. That showed in last Friday’s exhibition when Michigan allowed Grand Valley State to grab 15 offensive rebounds and score 17 second-chance points. It’s only November – sure. But that statistic isn’t exactly encouraging, especially given the relative size of the opposition. Of the Lakers who played significant minutes, only one was taller than 6-foot-6 – center Drake Baar. Compare that to what the Wolverines will see on a nightly basis in the Big Ten. Michigan State, for example, features three players over 6-foot-8 in its starting lineup. Against larger teams, a lack of defensive rebounders could come back to bite more noticeably than it did in Friday’s 82-50 rout, and Michigan realizes this. “We gotta do better on defensive rebounds,” said fifthyear senior point guard Jaaron Simmons. “We had a lot of long rebounds, so us as guards, we gotta help on that.” Added John Beilein: “(Defensive rebounding) is obviously a concern for us. A lot of them were hustle plays, too. (Grand Valley State) did a great job with that, and fought really hard.”

To limit those second-chance opportunities, Beilein said rebounding is a focus of practice this week. One of his favorite drills – called “takeaways” – emphasizes physicality and assertiveness in crashing the boards. “It’s great touching point for us to say, ‘This is what we have, and now we’ve got to continue to emphasize it,’ ” Beilein said. “You can emphasize it in practice all day long, and you start play in games – you’ve got to see in games.” One player who has already displayed a knack for rebounding is junior forward Charles Matthews. Though he collected a mundane four rebounds Friday, his hustle and knowledge of the glass was evident. With just over six minutes remaining in the first half, Matthews jutted into the paint, got inside position and grabbed the rebound off a missed free throw attempt from freshman point guard Eli Brooks. Matthews then looked up and found Robinson on the perimeter for an open three. Matthews says he has always been that type of player – searching for loose balls and looking to capitalize off missed shots. “When I was younger, nobody passed me the ball, and I wanted to score,” Matthews said. “So I just said, ‘I’m going to get the rebound and go back up with it.’ That’s just a natural knack I have – just going up and trying to get the ball. And coaches are stressing on me to do it even more and continue to rebound.” Still, Matthews won’t always be there to take advantage of every missed shot. He knows the perils of giving up too many offensive boards – like Michigan did in its only exhibition. “A lot of them was long, granted,” Matthews said. “Still, we can’t let a team – I don’t care who they are – get 15 offensive rebounds. That could be potentially dangerous. We’ll correct.”

8A — Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Robbins setting high expectations for himself ORION SANG

Daily Sports Editor

Brad Robbins’ dad got a call two weeks before signing day. On the other end? None other than Jim Harbaugh. “My dad goes, ‘Oh hey, Jim!’ His voice cracked,” Robbins said Tuesday night. “It was priceless. Me and my brother were sitting in the other room just making fun of him.” Now Michigan’s starting punter as a freshman, Robbins still recalled the conversation fondly almost one year later. How could he not? After all, he admitted he was “pretty shocked” the Wolverines even came calling. But Harbaugh did. Then Chris Partridge and Jay Harbaugh visited his school. And on Feb. 1, Robbins faxed his national letter of intent to Ann Arbor — a tidy ending to a whirlwind recruitment. “It all happened so fast,” he said. “It was unbelievable. I’m just happy I’m here.” Originally, Robbins had picked Nevada after attending the team’s kicking camp before his senior

season. But the Wolfpack finished 5-7 last year. The day after their season ended, head coach Brian Polian was let go along with the rest of his staff. Robbins promptly decommitted — and began the recruitment process all over again. Coaches weren’t able to reach out in the immediate aftermath because it was a dead period. So he took the initiative, attending more camps to gain exposure and hopefully a late offer. It was a stressful time. His future was uncertain. But Robbins said he tried to stay level-headed. “My parents gave me good advice,” Robbins said. “They reassured me that something would happen. I could walk-on somewhere, something was going to happen.” Around January, a couple Big Ten schools reached out. Robbins spent nearly an entire month on the road, visiting unfamiliar campuses. Meanwhile, a couple kicking coaches he knew talked to Michigan’s staff and recommended his name. Then came the call from

Harbaugh, and everything fell into place. It didn’t take long for Robbins to make an impact for his new team, either. By the Purdue game, he had earned the starting job. For a team with an offense that has sputtered at times, Robbins takes part in crucial battles for field position. On the season, he’s punted 37 times with an average of 40.8 yards. Robbins feels like he has played “decent.” But he has higher expectations for himself. “I want to average like 60 yards, if I can,” Robbins said. “Over the past few games, I feel alright. But I don’t feel satisfied. I want to become more consistent. I want to help the defense out as much as I can. I want to put them in a really good position.” Robbins’ numbers may not leap off the stat sheet. But what he has done is somewhat remarkable considering the transition he faced going to college. For one, Westerville South High School, situated northeast of Columbus, never had a special teams coordinator. “I showed my coach in high school, I was like, ‘Look, I can do

a pooch punt, I can go directional (punting),’ ” Robbins recalled, laughing. “ ‘No, just kick the crap out the ball.’ That was my high school advice. “It changed when I got here. Expectations were way up here — especially with Kenny Allen leaving and him being as good as he was.” Expectations from his fellow special teams members are higher, too. Robbins has developed a friendly rivalry with redshirt freshman kicker Quinn Nordin. “We constantly chip at each other,” Robbins said. “We go back and forth. … I told him I’m going to kick field goals. He told me he’s going to take my job. It’s all good fun. He has a boot. He has a big leg, too.” Nordin and his fellow kickers can dream of knocking in gamewinning field goals. Robbins? He has other aspirations: placing a “perfect pooch punt” at the one-yard line, laying out a returner on the sideline and running for a touchdown after a bad snap. Of course, that last scenario might give Michigan fans some pause.

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily

Freshman punter Brad Robbins originally was committed to Nevada, but a whirlwind process landed him in Ann Arbor, where he is now Michigan’s starter.

FOOTBALL

Glasgow key for ‘M’ special teams unit TED JANES

Daily Sports Writer

Like many Wolverines before him, redshirt sophomore Jordan Glasgow is making the move from special teams standout to defensive contributor. In the words of Chase Winovich, “Jordan’s a beast.” Glasgow, who plays defensive back when he’s not defending kick returns, walked out as the special teams captain last weekend against Minnesota, a testament to his performance the week prior versus Rutgers. He made one solo tackle while playing safety against the Scarlet Knights and followed that up with a career-high three tackles that day against the Golden Gophers. His success has helped boost a special teams unit that is one of the best in the nation. Michigan (4-2 Big Ten, 7-2 overall) hasn’t allowed a single kick return to go for a touchdown this season and allows an average of just 14.59 yards per return — the No. 3 best kick return defense in the country. “We have good game setups, we have good plans every game and we have people that want to go down there and make a play, and I think that’s the most important thing,” Glasgow said. “If people run down there, think it’s going to be a touchback and slow down, it just gives the return team an opportunity.” That’s not an issue for Michigan, though, because according to Glasgow, everyone sprinting downfield on kickoffs wants to make the big hit. Many of those players aspire to play more consistently on offense and defense, so when they line up on special teams, that’s their time to stand out. Redshirt junior linebacker Noah Furbush and Winovich, a redshirt junior defensive end, both spent most of their earlier years on special

teams, but now play on defense fulltime. Winovich starts at his position, and Furbush rotates along with the other linebackers, but when they were sophomores, they were basically kickoff specialists. “I knew every single thing those kick returners did,” Winovich said. “The way they set up. The way they turned. I learned a lot about scouting people from that year. It was kind of just doing everything perfect, doing your assignment and trying to make big plays. “Going down there and putting somebody on their butt, being consistent, playing hard — showing that you’re an animal.” Added Furbush: “Everybody has got a role on the team, and everybody’s got to do that role to the best of their abilities.” Glasgow is doing just that. After leading the Wolverines with 12 special teams tackles in 2016, he focused this offseason on the improvements that would make him a better candidate at defensive back. For a safety, Glasgow admits that he’s a bit slow. He made a conscious effort to become faster before this season started, focusing on all the workouts that the strength and conditioning coaches plan for the team. “As long as you go through those, you give your entire effort and you give everything you have, you’re going to get better no matter what,” Glasgow said. “I just put all the effort I could into the plan that the coaches put together for me, and that helped develop me as a safety and defensive player.” Now, Glasgow is in the room with the safeties. He’s starting to put stats in the pass break up column, and he’s continuing to add to his tackles total. “Jordan does it every game,” Winovich said. “He’s been doing it. It’s one of those things, you do it for a while, and finally other people start to catch on. That’s Jordan.”

ICE HOCKEY

Third period inconsistencies holding ‘M’ back from sweeps BENJAMIN KATZ Daily Sports Writer

Following a dramatic, comefrom-behind win against Vermont on Oct. 21, Michigan hockey coach Mel Pearson said his skaters had started to establish themselves as a “third-period team.” The next Friday at No. 19 Penn State, the Wolverines (5-3-0) had two one-goal leads in the final period, only to allow two Nittany Lion equalizers to force overtime and eventually secure a 5-4 Penn State victory. But the subsequent night was a different story, as Michigan scored two goals within 74 seconds early in the third, winning the game 5-2 and splitting the series. Last Thursday, the Wolverines reverted to their new, selfproclaimed identity against Ferris State. What initially looked like a nail-biter over the first 40 minutes — with the Bulldogs one breakaway from tying or leading the game — quickly turned into target practice for Michigan come the third period. After sloppy play on both sides of the puck — including being outshot 11 to nine in the second period — and a 1-1 stalemate after two periods, the Wolverines finally broke loose early and often in the final stanza. Michigan controlled possession time within the offensive zone, put 26 shots on net and scored four unanswered goals, sealing a 7-2 routing. However, the next night again showcased late-game inconsistency. With a chance for its second straight home sweep, the Wolverines outshot the Bulldogs 12 to five and scored on a power play in the same frame. Nevertheless, Ferris State responded with the tying goal and eventually left Ann Arbor with a 3-2 overtime triumph and shocking series split. Through eight games, 13 of Michigan’s 28 goals have come in the third period. But the squandered late scoring

opportunities have slowly started to equal those capped off by goal flurries. Despite the similar feel of yet another third period dominated by the Wolverines, the results were starkly different in the stunning loss to the Bulldogs. Pearson faults an inability to capitalize on quality chances in the third period as a major reason for a disappointing end to the series. “When you look at the shots and shots attempted, I think we did a pretty good job taking the play to them,” Pearson said after Friday’s loss. “I think the shots were 22 to 12 and the ‘grade-A’s’ would be maybe six or seven to one, so I liked our third period. “We were a little soft in our zone on their second goal, the tying goal, defensively. We have to engage a little bit harder, a little bit more aggressive, but we didn’t. And then they got a quick pass and a goal. But I liked our third period — I can’t tell you we had a poor third period — but we just have to finish. We had great chances and it’s going to bother me watching the game back and watching the missed opportunities.” Though the team failed to execute Friday, Pearson holds confidence his team will continue to play with high energy down the stretch. He cites the presence of experienced upperclassmen as a catalyst for a recent, locked-in focus in the final period. “I think our leadership is really good,” Pearson said last Thursday. “They’re doing a good job of keeping the team in the moment. We can as coaches ask them to do that, but we’ve got some real good leaders and (that) extends to our coaches in the locker room. Just calm everything down, there’s a certain way we need to play to have success in the third period and we document that. Short shifts, manage the puck, play with discipline, a lot of things and if we can do that, we’re going to have success in the third period.

“We’ve got enough guys who can score. If you play on the right side of the puck, check the other team, you’re going to get your opportunities, especially when they have to start pressing. For the most part we did a good job, but we still have to get better. I know we’re only seven games in and I expect this to be in midseason form, but lots of really good things going on.” Junior defenseman Luke Martin agrees with Pearson about the importance of veteran leadership, but doesn’t see his approach and composure change from period to period. “I’m a solid steady presence back there,” Martin said. “I think I just continue to bring that in the third and hopefully be a little bit of calming influence on some of the younger guys. We just keep going forward and playing every shift like it’s going to make or break the game. And I think that’s just an important mentality in the third.” Closing out games in dominant fashion starts and ends with prevailing on defense, an area that still needs to be improved, Pearson and players concur — especially with No. 4 Minnesota (7-3-0) and its high-octane offense traveling to Ann Arbor this weekend. The Wolverines allowed just five goals in the third period this season, but all came at precious times and some off avoidable defensive miscues. They ultimately cost Michigan two straight sweeps against Penn State and Ferris State. Even with the hot Golden Gophers in town, the Wolverines expect to post impressive third period showings, stemming from a re-energized spark Pearson believes his team possesses late in contests. But it’s a matter of exploiting scoring chances that will be the difference between a sweep for either team and a split against one of the Big Ten’s — and NCAA’s — best.

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | N OV E M B E R 8 , 2017

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 // The Statement

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | N OV E M B E R 8 , 2017

Managaing Statement Editor: Lara Moehlman

Editor in Chief: Emma Kinery

Managing Editor: Rebecca Lerner

Deputy Editors: Yoshiko Iwai Brian Kuang

Design Staff: Michelle Phillips Hannah Myers Emily Hardie Erin Tolar Emily Koffsky

Copy Editors: Elizabeth Dokas Taylor Grandinetti

Photo Editor: Alexis Rankin

poetry Not To Be

not to be

BY MAGGIE KOLCON, DAILY SPORTS WRITER

What’s in a name? Nothing if you can’t remember it. Ah-hem. A first date should be: -Punctual -Unusual -Fun (not merely enjoyable) -Long -A fantastic production of “Henry IV, Part 1” followed by a few glasses of wine and extensive discussions of our favorite musicians that dissolves into a sloppy kiss sing-along

ILLUSTRATION BY BETSY STUBBS

Midtown BY ANNA HARITOS, DAILY STAFF REPORTER I could find eternity here, nestled somewhere between the pressed cotton sheets and your warm embrace My worries and fears miles away — there is an incomprehensible beauty to the fire that burns from within your crevices, which light you up from the inside even while you sleep It might be difficult to understand what is so alluring to me about the boy with impermeable skin about the boy with a dream but up here In our postage — stamp haven high about the havoc of the city — the gentle sound of your sleep mingles perfectly with the rumbling of the distant thunder that keeps me awake and the steady beat of your heart is the only prayer I need this morning.

I can feel it rising

The silence is crushing

Second date ideas: -A walk in the park -Grabbing coffee -Comparing favorite Radiolab episodes on the cold walk to a warm bed, followed by choosing locations for a Calvin and Hobbes tattoo on each other’s bodies

A third date should not be this hard to schedule.

BY ANNA HARITOS, DAILY STAFF REPORTER Now I am become

Death

The lady doth not protest if you want to sleep over.

Now is the winter of utter contentment.

spring i.

The destroyer of worlds Your eyes press against mine no emotion my mind screams your smell clings in my air suffocating me tenderly hell’s whisper in my ear you’re gone no thought

Wait

The heart is cold Wait The damage has been done.

ILLUSTRATION BY BETSY STUBBS

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY KOFFSKY

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 // The Statement

The Urge BY MAGGIE KOLCON, DAILY SPORTS WRITER

I have wondered about you

The Urge

BY REGAN DETWILER, COLUMNIST to tattle on her.

I have wondered about you

Be too grown up to bother. Am I the new person drawn toward you?

Choke on laughter —

But before I step further, should I take warning?

let it bust out my eyes.

Sit in a paler sky and sip tea in the hot-air balloon my husband bought after we eloped to Turkey —

fix his shirt. Cut the tags.

For I know — Glimpse my hair in every mirror.

you may not be what I expect.

And all ties —

Curtain every reflective crack. But what is it I expect?

Call Mom.

selflessly unload the dishes.

Do I expect you to fit some ideal?

Hit ignore.

Leave them unfinished out of spite.

Do I think it so easy for us to weave? Together?

Surprise them all —

Paint myself blue like a Celtic monk —

Do I think your friendship will be endless satisfaction?

because I’m consistent for once.

dangle my toes off a tall pole

A marathon of blissful confirmation bias? Sketch the Eiffel Tower — Will I see no further than my impression of you?

the Liberty Bell —

Can you ever be, in my mind or heart or body, even

research the Duke of Wellington

thicker than two dimensions?

and build him a monument too.

And will it shock me when you try

Fall back asleep.

in Egypt. Live there forever.

Tell my followers to send bread up in baskets and cheese too and wine

to break into the third? And I wonder

Monogram my purse.

from Montepulciano.

Erase every material trace.

Let’s get drunk!

if when I step forward to embrace you, my arms are wrapped around mystery —*

Spit it out!

do I believe in this mirage?

Swallow!

Believe you are a knowable thing? That you will be the caregiver, the challenger I envision for myself?

Pluck a wild mushroom and taste it. Never mind the pole — ax it down.

Let the poison slink through me — nibble every day till I’m immune.

Quickly! And these stupid followers too.

ILLUSTRATION BY HANNAH MYERS

Barter for a bike. And I have wondered if it may all be maya, illusion. This poem is a reformulation of Walt Whitman’s “Are you the new person drawn toward me?” *This line and the line above borrows phrasing from Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

Fix it up and ride it to farmers markets and rallies. Sip on the blue curacao sky.

ILLUSTRATION BY BETSY STUBBS

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 // The Statement

Autumn’s Dying Women Short Fiction

he only member of my family who ever believed in souls was my aunt. “Bless your soul,” she wrote every year in her sloppy and smudged cursive, directly under the pre-printed birthday message. She died late-summer, a lonely and childless death, colored like deep pink wildf lowers and her un-beating heart. I don’t know how she died, I never asked. I just knew I had to start believing in souls. *** This past autumn was desolate. My mother was depressed after her sister’s untimely death. I hadn’t reconnected with any friends I had fallen out of contact with in the summertime; their lives progressed without wondering about me. I spent most of my day sleeping and rarely attended class. I lived in my own tworoom apartment and, with the supplies my aunt had willed to me, used one room as a studio. I slept in the kitchen, read in the empty bathtub and left the heater buzzing as days grew colder and colder. I can’t pretend like I’ve ever known how to paint. I seldom used the studio for anything but sitting and staring, at blank canvas or out the small window. When I felt most alone I’d bring a boy to my apartment and we’d use the studio couch because my bed in the kitchen smelled like oil and cheese. Any time I’d try to paint I’d abandon the canvas for other pursuits. I’d stare at the unfinished work until it drove me mad and I hated each stitch of it, and then I’d dispose of it, burn it or throw it into the dumpster and watch it sink between bags of trash, soaking up the most disdainful smells. I called home less and less because I couldn’t handle the long silences from my mother. She must’ve thought I was getting busier, if she thought of me at all. I wasn’t sad. I was feeling something new. Now, the days are shorter like my prayers are being answered — I sleep more and time has the illusion of passing quickly. I’ve stopped bringing people home, I’ve stopped staring at unpainted canvases. I feel such hostility from the studio door that I won’t even enter. My mother has filled the spaces my aunt and I held in her calculated life. I imagine the conversations she must have about me at her office parties or with our distant relatives. I imagine her thin smile and uniform responses, her insistence that everything is and has always been

by Zoya Gurm, OK. I failed half of my exams and have been wondering how ashamed she would be if I dropped out altogether; I could find someone to marry and live off love, or I could stay in this adamant apartment for the rest of time. There are worse things I could do to her. I could die. *** My aunt’s funeral was daunting. It was held in a wide wooden room, only four of 50 seats filled: one for me, one for my mother, one for her work colleague — an uncomfortable woman who sweated right through her tight black dress, who despite her grieving gestures and pious tongue was the first to rush out the door — and one for a man whom I had never seen before — who shed a single tear and spoke to the casket with a heavy foreign tongue, a one-sided conversation that whispered through the wooden room like poetry. My mother had thrown the funeral and invited plenty — none had shown except the woman. The man had not been invited. My mother said a few words. I said a few to the room and cried only because the empty chairs sang my speech back to me. The man shook my hand at the service, after the woman had left and while my mother spoke to those who worked at the home. We said nothing, but we meant a lot. I don’t think he was f luent in English, but he understood enough. *** A week ago, I received a complaint that the stenches of my apartment have begun to seep through the walls and into my neighbor’s rooms. The smell must’ve come from my kitchen, where unwashed dishes rattled against one another in the sink. Old milk and crumbs from weeks of breakfasts, lunches and dinners formed a thin film at the bottom. When I heard that the landlord was coming to inspect the source of the apparently repugnant smell, I scrubbed the kitchen counters and threw out any expired food, spraying old perfumes my mother had given me three Christmases ago to stif le the scent. I’m not sure whether it worked. My landlord is a thin, lanky man who wears navy leather shoes. His apartments are not high-end by any means, but he makes a steady living ripping off students desperate for a place to stay. He’s not a bad man. Sometimes I see him as he

steps outside to smoke, and we have brief conversations. He barely remembers my name but often hands out advice, wheezing between drags. “You paint?” he asks me, his long neck craned through the doorframe of my studio. I haven’t been in there for weeks. The smells of oil paint and sloppy sex have been brewing for months and now all hit at once. “When I have the time.” “Yeah, I’m sure this is the culprit.” He inhales deeply to prove a point. The wooden f loorboards creak underneath his pacing. The smell makes me nauseated and nostalgic and I want him to leave. He begins poking through the unpacked boxes I have stacked against the wall. Some are full of dirty palettes and brushes. Others hold unfinished canvases or sketches I find too raw and alive to attribute to my aunt. I can’t bring myself to look at them. He leafs through them with his skinny fingers, decorated with silver rings of varying thickness. “You did these?” I nod. He pulls one from the stack to examine. I’m uncomfortable that he’s looking through my aunt’s work — his prying eyes are capturing the single lifeline I still have to her. I start to say something, but the painting he chooses is one I’ve never seen before; it’s a deep and vibrant pink, abstract and unfinished. The colors are concentrated to the sides of the painting, but they lean toward the center, as if the intention was to move in. The first moment I see its riveting texture, under the impure light of the small studio window, with the uncovered stitches of off-white canvas shining through, stenciled with light pencil marks so crisp and intentional that I can picture the crease between my aunt’s thick, arched eyebrows as she made them, my eyes fill with tears. I have never seen my aunt as an artist — I’d never seen her studio or her work — but this painting evokes such a recognition of her, the little bits that I saw. I feel as though I’m looking at a portrait of the artist herself. In a quiet, persistent voice, I ask my landlord if he is ready to leave. On his way out, he suggests washing the supplies or opening some more windows, but can’t reprimand me — I’m allowed to have my makeshift studio, and

LSA Junior

the smell, albeit greasy, isn’t particularly discerning. *** My aunt was my mother’s only sibling. She rarely visited us though she lived nearby. My mother always told me she was a busy woman, between her jobs and hobbies and brief but invested relationships. Though I seldom saw or heard from her directly, she was constantly a presence in our home. On any given day, my mother would spend hours on our landline, deep in discussion with my aunt as if some new event of great importance had occurred every 24 hours. I’d return home from school and shut the door quietly to not disturb their long, endless talks. My mother would press our chunky home phone to her ear as she cooked or cleaned or sat on the bottom step of our carpeted staircase. In our echoing house I would hear her laugh and curse; her tense shoulders would relax each time our home phone began to ring. I imagined my aunt on the other side of the line. I used the short, dashing details of her life my mother would recount to me; I understood that my aunt was an eccentric woman, picking up painting and sketching after a messy divorce with a man she had married far too quickly. She was attractive in her youth and carried her beauty as she aged. My mother had been jealous of her as a child. I could picture my aunt’s manicured fingers clutching her steering wheel, a cigarette in one hand and her cellphone sandwiched between her shoulder and chin. Maybe she called from her apartment in the center of town, lounging on her plush sofa, f lipping through a magazine. Or perhaps she called from different places every time, like the bathrooms of brief lovers or hotel lobbies as she traveled to art shows in small cities, attracting crowds of connoisseurs and eagle-eyed critics alike. But these were all fantasies. I didn’t know if she was a smoker or if her work was ever displayed in any shows, I just liked the thought of it. *** I enter the studio. It’s evening. The end of sunset pours through the window. When I went to class this morning, for one of the first times this week, I let my apartment air out, following my landlord’s advice. It still smells foul, so foul.

Last night I laid my aunt’s unfinished pink painting on my studio couch before I went to bed. It’s still here. The colors are warmer under the evening sunlight, the white space is whiter than I remember it being yesterday. It’s a compelling painting. It has the color and texture of my mother’s voice as she spoke to my aunt on the phone. It has a wholesomeness that has been on my mind the whole day — it has a life so colorful that it can talk for hours and hours. It has stirred up a faint regret. I never heard those stories, even when I had the chance. I pace the room. Autumn has ended. Winter is sharp outside my window. I miss my aunt and I miss my mother. They left my life together, I can feel them somewhere in this color. My aunt’s oil paints are stacked in white cardboard boxes, torn and stamped and labeled by the U.S. Postal Service. The orange ones are on top. I reach for them. I don’t know how to compare brushes, so I just take a mediumsized one. There is masking tape around the handle. The bristles are glued together with purplish paint. My f loor is surprisingly cold when I press my thighs against it. I lay the canvas f lat in front of me. I scrutinize the pencil marks, where they have been erased, where they are the darkest. I squeeze a pea-sized drop of paint onto a heavily used palette. The painting before me is unfinished, but I know what it is. It has the character my mother forbade from our home — a provocative swing of the hips, a womanly tenderness. I begin to paint, adding more and more to my palette as I go, oranges then pinks then reds and blacks. I start cautious, within a dead woman’s lines. I want to do her justice. I am painting her soul. *** I wasn’t sure what to say to my mother when I saw her the morning after the funeral. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cold, veiny hands clenched around our home phone. There was no one to call. She looked up at me. Her eyes dripped streams, reddish against her discolored skin. Growing up, my mother never let me see her cry. Too many emotions were distracting, she taught me. I have vivid memories of her turning away, sheltering her aging face. She’d lock her bedroom

door with a sharp, metallic click, and I’d stand in front of it, in anguish. She was on one side and I was on another. That’s how it would always be. It was like that when she separated from my father. It was like that when my father’s truck f lipped over, his abusive neck cracked against the asphalt. It was like that at the end of any sad movie. I dropped my eyes to the f loor and retreated from the room, not one word of comfort or empathy from my chapped lips. We didn’t speak that day or that week. She fixed me meals but rarely ate anything herself. Our home was dead silent, she would sob at the calls of telemarketers. ***

It was early autumn when my mother began to ship boxes to me. The will had been read a month before, but my mother was reluctant. My aunt’s paintings were masks for promiscuity, for unconventionality. I was promised my aunt had not always been that way — it was a turn in her life, one that I had not seen either side of. Could my mother damn me to that? After a cold month of debating, the boxes came in, one by one. My mother grew thinner. The boxes lined the walls of my apartment, the empty room that would become my studio. Supplies littered the kitchen counter, unfinished artwork remained packed away. Caterpillars ate through stitches of blank canvas like leaves. I didn’t mind. The end of September, I would call my mother daily, just to be silent with her. I could picture her curling up in her bed-

room, her weak fingers holding a phone with no one to call or love. I would sometimes talk to her, about my life as it was, but would receive no response. It was October when I realized how alone I was. My routines withered. My studio became a haven for sorrow and detachment, for boys from classes I didn’t attend and ugly portraits of women I used to admire. I was promiscuous, unconventional. In November, my mother’s phone calls became unbearable. I shouted at her to respond to me but only received silence. Winter began to roll in. I decided I couldn’t enter my studio anymore. Spite piled against the door. Caterpillars died in their brown cocoons. My mother disconnected our home phone.

watch the paints fuse together as they wash down the drain. Souls have wants, souls have needs. I think about my aunt as an entity, somewhere wide and unreachable. I figure that’s how she’d want to be remembered. Deep pink, orange, tender. My aunt’s soul was never clear to me when she was alive but she’s here, in the studio lights and the dried paint that cakes the hair on my arms. I try to picture how my soul looks, how it accumulates in colors and textures. My mother wouldn’t believe in things like these. In grief, she is certain not to pour herself into spirituality. She’s afraid of her own emotions, her vulnerability. I’m sure she knows the empty relationships my aunt left won’t be filled with new people, sharing wine at dinner parties or on dirty couches. She needs something else that will fill the gap my aunt has left in her — a storyteller, a friend, the subject of jealousy and discipline. My mind is consumed with the painting and contemplations. I think about the oil paint as it glistens under different lights in my apartment. I don’t know much about the anatomy of souls, but in those colors, as they stack on one another, inside her pencil lines or deliberately outside, I know mine and my aunt’s are similar. *** I’ve been in the car for five hours. I borrowed a GPS from my landlord because my car doesn’t have one built in. He charged me ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY HARDIE a couple of dollars for it, but I didn’t mind. My car is mostly empty. My I’ve spent most of the evenings this week backpack is in my trunk. I didn’t pack any in the studio. clothes. The finished painting is in the pasI don’t always paint. Sometimes I look senger seat. deep into the colors my aunt painted and When I finished it, when it sat flat on think of her soft skin. Her heart-shaped the floor of a concrete studio, when the face grew a pink-brown when she spoke. boxes of bug carcasses rattled with in the She wore lipstick the color of her natural light breeze, my apartment had never felt lips. I look into the colors I’ve painted too — so silent and empty. I sat with the soul of a they’re darker, like the cold foreign eyes of woman echoing off my floor. Her flesh and the man at the funeral, like the heavy gray blood were buried that summer but what skin my mother wore those last days of sum- was left was there, flat and rectangular. I mer. knew I had to share my resurrection with When I do paint, time passes with ease. the one woman who needed to feel my aunt It never stutters. It is articulate. I feel more again. alive behind those studio doors than I have I drive down the street I was raised on. with any of those boys on my couch. My soul I turn into the driveway of my childhood loosens in my body. The cold of the floor still home, I come to a gentle stop. I watch my stings my legs when I first sit, but by the mother stir behind the curtains of the livtime I’m done, there is warmth in the walls, ing room. She’s not expecting me. I turn off warmth through the light fixtures, warmth the car. With the finished painting in one in my fingertips. My arms and legs carry arm and an autumn of words on my lips, I their own colors. I take long showers and approach the front door.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 // The Statement

High Risk creative non-fiction

dward meets me at the bus stop on campus with our standard greeting: smiling and clapping his hands slowly, letting out a whooping, “O-K, O-K.” He looks like he always has, wide-eyed and enthusiastic but stifling a perceptible weariness, in a hoodie, skinny jeans and white Vans. One of my best friends from back home, Edward is a student at Cornell University. He is, in many ways, exactly like me. We listen to the same music, we are both obsessed with basketball — playing and following — and our sense of humor is eerily similar. In fact, I’ve slowly realized that my still-tight-knit group of friends from back home is made up of, more or less, different racial variations on the same person. Or maybe — and this is most definitely true — everyone feels that way about their first group of friends. Either way, when you have spent a month and a half overcome with work and pressure and a poisonous sense of dejected alienation, you must leave, in some ways, to reconnect with a different, Ivy League version of yourself. It’s comforting to see him, even if it has only been less than two months since we last hung out. It’s Fall Break, and rather than spend more of my parents’ hardearned income on an insufficient trip back home to the Bay Area, I’ve decided to spend my own on a sabbatical to Ithaca, N.Y., the world’s most popular tourist destination. I initially figured it would be a standard visit, but Edward has notified me that, for some reason, we would be visiting a nearby casino in the process. After dropping off my baggage at his nearby apartment, we stop to grab lunch at a small sandwich place. “So what’s the deal with this casino stuff?” I ask after we catch up on the necessary subjects. “Yeah, that’s going to be sketch,” Edward laughs with a mouth full of Rueben. “It’s my boy’s 21st birthday, but we’re going to go to this random casino in the afternoon tomorrow.” “Who goes to a casino for their 21st birthday? Isn’t that more of an 18th birthday thing?” “I think he’s having something later that night with his main crew, but we’re just doing this with our friends.” The main crew. I always found it odd that we demarcate our friends like this, as discrete groups occupying different hierarchies. It makes sense, I guess; commingling between social groups is an unfortunately uncomfortable experience. After a bit of silence, I ask Edward the question that, eventually, every guy asks their friend after a prolonged era of separation.

by Nabeel Chollampat, Senior Arts Editor

“How’s it going with the ladies?” I smile knowingly at him. “Good one.” He lets out a big laugh, and then looks down at his sandwich. This is a running joke among our group of friends. We ask one another this same question, and we always laugh, providing some snarky answer. We all know it’s mostly a joke, but also, we all know that, buried somewhere, there is an aching, pulsing sadness at the heart of both the question and answer. As emotionally immature, college-aged men, we simply prefer to not address this explicitly. For guys our age, the barometer of success in your reported life is often “how many girls you’ve hooked up with.” I deeply despise this, mostly in that “this is incredibly degrading to women” way — someone give me a medal for doing literally the least I possibly can for feminism — but also in that “why is this a thing?” sense. *** On our way to this fabled casino, we stop to pick up three of Edward’s friends from their various fraternity houses. One by one, they pile into the back of the Honda CR-V Edward has borrowed: a long, lanky kid from New Jersey named Nishanth, who has an unfortunate tendency to talk about his finance major and “recruiting for consulting jobs”; a short guy in a “groutfit” named Chris; and the birthday man himself, a tall kid named John with a deep, lumbering voice. Off we go, this group of college kids in a CR-V, an hour and a half through rural, farm-country upstate New York toward Syracuse. The casino itself is a curious entity. We pull into the parking lot of an incongruously modern building titled Turning Stone Resort Casino situated in the middle of a somewhat rural, antiquated community in central New York. It’s painted in a blinding white, and much of the exterior is made up of glass windows. The main building housing the casino reminds me of some kind of extravagant Dubai hotel, an insidious growth planted in the middle of a depressive economy and agricultural blight. Inside, we are treated to the sights and sounds of your average gambling floor — or so I’m told. This might be as good a time as any to admit I’ve never actually been to a casino. I grew up in a Muslim household, went to Muslim Sunday school for 10 years and even went on the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca during my junior year of high school. I like to say I’m more culturally religious than actually so — read: “not very” — but nonetheless, there were many opportunities I was denied as a child: dating, alcohol, pork

products (bacon! I know!) and gambling. My family has been to Las Vegas, sure, but we visited that unknowable city armed with the same mentality with which Indian families visit Lake Tahoe — not to ski, of course, but to “see the lake!” I was never allowed to witness the casinos that lurked underneath the hotel rooms we stayed in; my sister and I were always ushered past them quickly, for absurd fear of our being whisked away by the seductive whispers of the devil. And so, the prestige and glamor of the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, N.Y., is my first taste of the distinctly American phenomenon of gambling. What lingers, however, both then and now, is the people. As one would expect in upstate New York, they are overwhelmingly white, and so there arrives the immediate, familiar and admittedly irrational discomfort that accompanies any racial minority. There are old ladies in the standard costume of lightkhaki capris; thick, ungainly tennis shoes; and oversized blue T-shirts; they slump over the chairs at the slot machines, their glasses lit up by the spinning numbers and cash signs, with plastic cups in hand. There are older men in “Members Only” jackets hunched over at the blackjack tables, and the dealers — of which there are noticeably more minorities — do their monotonous job with ruthless, robotic efficiency. I begin to realize, though, that I, along with my compatriots, am probably financially better off than most of the patrons. I am a part of this cadre of liberal, ivory tower elitists, encroaching upon a world that is not mine, so who am I to preemptively judge its citizens? What gives me the right to look down upon them, to try to decipher, as I often cruelly do, who were the bigots I had been taught to expect and who were simply people whom the world had abandoned? I resolve to spend my four hours here with as open a mind as possible; understanding is nothing more than a bridge to be crossed, by two willing parties. Chris decides he wants to stay at the blackjack tables and put those probability charts to good use, but the four of us, intimidated by the process, leave in search of the poker tables. Our search is initially fruitless, but in our travels around the floor, I am caught off-guard by the casually surreal rows and rows of slot machines, each one occupied by slight variations on the same old, white archetype I have now seen innumerable times. “Dude, this is fucking creepy, man,” I whisper to Edward. “What is?” “Like, look at these people on the slot

machines. Doesn’t this kind of freak you out?” “Oh, yeah, that shit’s weird. Like they’re just in the zone.” We turn to stare impolitely, just watching. “Do you think they’re, like, gambling their life savings?” I ask. “No way, man,” Edward replies. “How do you know they’re all, like, poor?” “That’s true. Why do you think they do this then?” Edward is silent for a bit, searching. “I don’t know, man. Probably just, like, they know all the people here and it becomes a thing.” This kind of vague explanation is characteristic of friends that can’t even enumerate the sources of their own unhappiness. We don’t know why, exactly, people gamble, but we can make a guess. And what surprises me is that his estimation isn’t some kind of treatise on the adrenaline rush that one endures, or the tricky allure of taking money from other people — rather, it’s simply a nebulous portrait of some web of interconnectedness, an improperly defined community in which people find themselves in one another. *** Of the few card games I know how to play, poker is by far the one I’m most enthusiastic about. A few summers ago, I experienced a harmless online poker phase, a year before my somewhat more socially damaging card trick phase. But the environment I am about to enter is completely new terrain: I have never had so much personal investment (money) in the games I’ve played. The thought of losing my $80 is, to me, wholly terrifying, and I realize this will be obvious to anyone playing against me. So instead, I compromise. I cash in $40 — a slightly less demoralizing amount — for chips, and ask the floor manager for an open spot. The poker room is smaller than I expected. It’s decorated like an old-fashioned salon of sorts, with wood paneling lining the walls and tables and chairs. The carpet is par-forthe-course hotel flooring, complete with the nonsensical loops and deep crimson shade. In one corner is a small bar, and in another is the cashier’s booth, where three tellers stand behind vertical bars like a prison, exchanging stacks of chips and cash underneath. The room isn’t full, but a few tables near the end are, populated by mostly silent men with headphones on. As it is, there are four spots open, but they’re two to a table. We decide to split up — me and Edward, John and Nishanth — because each of us is too frightened to play a game alone. Edward and I take our measly

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 // The Statement

stacks of chips and sit down at the ovalshaped table to which we are ushered. I peek in at a different game at the table behind me. There are eight people playing, a middleaged man leans over his backward chair as a woman — presumably a resort employee — massages his back. A young woman wearing a “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” hat sits across the table. Holding a glass of wine in one hand, she’s prone to loudly commenting on peoples’ moves as the rest of the players stay silent; I notice she’s currently the table leader, with an enormous pile of chips at her disposal, and I begin to suspect this brashness might be a strategy of some kind. Turning back to my table, I try to formulate my own game plan, but I’m reminded by the sobering reality of my small, $40 stack of red chips that a strategy is futile. I will be relentlessly bullied by the others, no matter what I try. As the dealer sets up the table, I survey the rest of the players. There’s an old man to my right and an old man to my left, both with headphones on. I would think this to be some form of cheating, but I notice it’s a common trend; many people around the room do the same, unnervingly silent and their hands covering their mouths as they watch the dealers. Edward sits across from me, and next to him is a young, well-built man in a military haircut. He has diamond stud earrings, and he wears the hood of his gray Nike sweatshirt over half of his head. Sitting beside him is another young guy in a gray hoodie, his hair in dreadlocks. He’s scrolling through his phone with one hand and flipping his formidable stack of chips in the other. Rounding out the table are older men, each one wearing earbuds and slyly sizing up the other players out of the corners of their eyes. It’s a dispiriting, but not unsurprising, fact that I have the least amount of chips at the table. I sigh as the dealer begins to deal. For the first few rounds, I fold, pre-flop. It’s a horrible way to play, I know, but I am deathly afraid of putting my money on the line against complete strangers. I can hear

my parents’ disappointed sobs as they cry somewhere in the metaphysical ether over the fact that their son has been lost to Satan. “But I haven’t even bet anything yet!” I cry back to them, but they don’t respond; the damage is done, and they begin to divert all the necessary funds toward my sister. When I do finally receive a good hand, I cautiously throw out a bet: $15. It’s a bit high, but I have pocket jacks, and I’m feeling decent about this one. My heart is racing, nonetheless, as I see my own money in the pot, up for grabs and susceptible to the worst of fates. Unfortunately, the other players are not complete idiots, so they all fold, leaving the scraps of big and small blinds for me to embarrassingly slide into my pile. Still, I begin to understand the appeal — I’m indescribably happy, even at the smallest of returns, that I’ve actually won something. I am filled with cheap adrenaline, ready for the next hand immediately. “No way I was going to play that, my man,” the guy with the crew cut says to me. I’m surprised, since no one has said much of anything up to this point. I smile, unsure of how to respond. Edward looks at me, laughing silently. He’s the better poker player between the two of us, but so far, he’s employed the same strategy as I have. “Man, Chris, you really don’t screw around, do you?” says the other man in the gray hoodie. He’s addressing the dealer, and it seems the sphere of conversation has opened. Chris, whose nametag is quite small, is a balding man who looks to be in his late 30s. He’s seen it all before, I can guess, and players chirping at him are nothing new. Ever unflappable, he smiles and mutters, “If you don’t mess with me, I don’t mess with you.” The man laughs and tosses him a chip, for which Chris thanks him and promptly slides into his secured tip repository underneath the table. Theirs is now a joking and playful relationship, and the game continues. “Man, I’m not even supposed to be here,”

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY KOFFSKY

Crew Cut sighs a couple of hands later. He sounds somewhat remorseful, but he remains at the table. The other players, with their earbuds still firmly jammed into their ears, look at him but don’t say anything. “My boy OD’d on some shit yesterday and his funeral’s tonight.” Edward and I shoot each other confused looks as conspicuously as possible, but no one else at the table seems to register the shock value of what he’s just said. The man with the dreadlocks responds: “Oh, yeah? What’s up?” “Yeah, heroin or some shit. And he was, like, my cousin, too.” “I feel, man.” At this point, I completely forget about the game. This is fascinating, riveting, and I am enthralled, in the way that a museum patron gawks at a particularly interesting painting. I had never heard something so shocking be delivered so casually. Needless to say, I fold for a few hands. “You smoke weed, Chris?” Dreadlocks has returned to his affable banter with the dealer. Chris smiles but doesn’t respond. “How about we smoke a blunt after this? You gotta smoke weed, Chris. When I got shot in the arm, who was there for me? When my mom kicked me out of the house, who was there for me? Mary Jane’s been the only girl I’ve ever loved, man.” Crew Cut laughs, nods and enthusiastically gives him a knowing handshake. A cynical thought creeps into my head: This all sounds so outlandish, so implausible, so what if it’s some sort of genius strategy? I haven’t even paid attention to the last few hands. Perhaps I’m being played. But I can’t deny the genuine rapport that’s been building between the two of them, even between Dreadlocks and the dealer. I smile at Edward, one of my oldest friends, and shake my head at the absurdity of it all. A few rounds later, I’m dealt pocket kings. Thrilled and overconfident, I place larger and larger bets, until the only two players left before the river — the final community card — are me and the man sitting to my right. I don’t have much betting power left, so I go all in with reckless abandon. Based on the cards on the table, this guy probably doesn’t have much better than pocket kings. He has pocket aces. I lose $40, and I leave the table. In one fell swoop, I am now dejected and in possession of a slightly smaller net worth. The world, once again, is cruel. I learn that Nishanth has accrued an absurd amount of chips. I walk over to their table and happen to come upon a hand in which he goes all in. It’s him against a man sitting at the end of the table. He’s talking a bit of trash, but nothing big. The dealer asks them to show their hands, and Nishanth wins — and wins big. I notice a flash of sadness in the other man’s eyes before he continues laughing and jawing at him. Nishanth, now sufficiently wellstocked, decides to cash his chips — $340

worth — and leave. As we make our way out of the poker room, I look back at my old table. Dreadlocks gets up to go to the bar, but not before asking Crew Cut, “What’s your drink?” “Bud Light,” he responds. *** As I lie to sleep that night, on a futon that is indescribably uncomfortable, I should be angry about my loss, but all I can think of is the two men from our table. I’m still amazed by the confessions they spouted, but I’m even more impressed by the quick friendship that was so easily formed. The two of them have, very likely, endured tragedies of which I would never know, but simply the enunciation of these was enough to initiate a relationship formed across the table of a casino. It is not, I surmise, the thrill of gambling that drives people to casinos, but rather, as Edward hypothesized, it may be nothing more than a chance at belonging. The same hope that drives me to wander into coffee shops unprovoked, the desperate pull of the unknown, buried relationships that we may never excavate — this may be the identical motivation that leads them to spend their Saturday afternoons risking their money in statistically futile fashion. We are nothing more than creatures that yearn for a sense of community. Yet there is no true happiness without the chance of sadness, no true satisfaction without the possibility of emptiness; these states of being are defined by what they are inherently not. Human relationships are not rich if they are not colored by the shadow of loneliness. I realize, then, that I have been massively hypocritical. For the duration of my afternoon, I simply projected my own presuppositions onto the people I saw, as if they were characters I could manipulate and bend to my own condescending will. I took no time to speak to them, to reach out into the void of human existence and offer my own hand. This is my burden: this inability to connect. The blank stares into slot machine screens, the silent murmurs in the Bingo Room, the easy back-and-forth in between folds and calls and raises — what’s the difference? What are they searching for that I am not? There is so much uncertainty involved in reaching out. I am but one of millions of people out there like me: perpetually alone and constantly complaining about it. But while the reasons for complacency are innumerable — fear of rejection, low selfesteem, etc. — aren’t they all subservient to this one ideal of connection? An ideal that, in practice, is infinitely harder for people who are symptomatically predisposed to avoid it. We crave it, though. We yearn for what we can’t do, what it seems everyone else can. The casino, then, is not some abstract environment through which I aim to focus my true critical interests — it’s a place where the dreams of one man brush up against the hopes of another. It’s a place of futures bet and chances lost. It’s a place of, for better or worse, communal risk.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 // The Statement

V ISUAL S TAT EMEN T

ANN AR BO R AT NIGH T Photos by Joshua Han This weekend I walked around Ann Arbor with an umbrella in one hand and a tripod in the other, desperately trying to shield my camera from the torrent of rain. I had always wanted to capture long exposure shots and thought this was the perfect time to try it out. As I walked through familiar streets, I realized that, though Iâ€™d been skimming the scenery every day, I never actually looked closely at it. This little excursion showed me there is always a new perspective to even a seemingly mundane little city.

Cars pass in a blur on Maynard Street.

Nickelâ€™s Arcade

A woman walks through the rain with an umbrella.

State and Liberty Street.

A mural adds a pop of color to an otherwise dark alley.