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ACADEMICS
Curriculum for teaching Arabic draws controversy Students, faculy join nationwide debate over instruction on informal dialects LIAT WEINSTEIN & DANIELLE PASEKOFF Daily Staff Reporters
ALEC COHEN/Daily LSA sophomore Cristina Guytingco speaks on the importance of bringing together communities of color during the conclusion of the Trotter to Trotter Community Walk at the new Trotter Multicultural Center Wednesday.
Trotter to Trotter Community Walk celebrates history, new building
Multicultural center set to open on State Street following years of advocacy by students CLAIRE HAO
Daily Staff Reporter
Wednesday afternoon, more than 50 University of Michigan student leaders, staff and faculty gathered in the Trotter Multicultural Center on Washtenaw Avenue one final time for the Trotter to Trotter Community Walk ahead of the grand opening of the new building on State Street Thursday morning. Mingling over food and drinks, attendees acknowledged the work of past activists and
reminisced over memories in the Washtenaw building before walking down South University Street and through the Diag to the new building on State Street. According to Vice President for Student Life E. Royster Harper, the initiative to move the Trotter Center from Washtenaw Avenue to a more central location was the result of over a decade of student activism. Harper explained students of color pointed out the original location of
Engineering grad Katie Bouman produced method to create historic image LEAH GRAHAM Daily News Editor
When astronomers announced on Wednesday they had captured the firstever photo of a black hole, an international team of scientists said they had seen the “unseeable.” Collaborating with more than 200 researchers across the world, the Event Horizon Telescope project used data from eight radio telescopes in six locations provided the input necessary to compile the photo. Katie Bouman, a University of Michigan alum and postdoctoral fellow at MIT, created an algorithm as a graduate student that helped make the groundbreaking feat possible. Now an assistant professor at the California Institute Of Technology, Bouman got her start at the University, graduating with a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering in 2011. Following the project’s achievement, Bouman’s name was trending nationally on Twitter Wednesday night. See PHOTO , Page 3A
ple who love the University, who want the University to be a place where everyone feels they have a home and they belong,” Harper said. “So I think what’s wonderful about the new location is that it’s in the heart of campus… So what we’re saying is that’s in the heart of who we are, what we do and what we’re committed to … For me, the new Trotter is about a new beginning on our campus with each other and for each other.” See TROTTER, Page 3A
Final Carceral State Project symposium Students, of the year talks strategies, hopefulness AEI host
RESEARCH
Alum’s work on algorithm led to black hole photo
the Trotter Center on the periphery of campus seemed to reflect communities of color being on the periphery of the University as well. The Washtenaw location’s distance from the center of campus also posed accessibility and safety issues, Harper said. According to Harper, University efforts to move the Trotter Center to State Street began four years ago. “I think this is a powerful and emotional experience for a lot of peo-
LSA sophomore Nisreen Khokhar is currently enrolled in Arabic 402 and has taken various Arabic courses at the 100 and 200-levels throughout her college experience. Like Arabic language students across the nation, Khokhar and others in the University of Michigan’s Department of Middle East Studies currently go back and forth about whether or not the University should be teaching Modern Standard Arabic or informal Arabic dialects, like Egyptian or Levantine. “Honestly, I would love more exposure to dialect, but at the same time, because there’s so much difference (between MSA and dialect), that I think MSA tends to be what foreign language students learn in general,” Khokar said. “I think the fact that (the department teaches) both in the first two years is actually pretty great because it gives you an
introduction.” Arabic is characterized as a diglossic language, meaning that it has formal and informal registers that are used in different circumstances. MSA and Classical Arabic — known as Fush’a — are used in newspapers, books, official documents and other formal correspondences, while informal Arabic — known as Ammiya — is typically present in music, pop culture and spoken among family and friends. MSA is first learned in school, while Ammiya is most Arab speakers’ vernacular. Between 2006 and 2009, enrollment in Arabic language programs grew by 47 percent across U.S. universities, sparking increased debate about whether to teach colloquial Arabic dialects in addition to MSA. Currently in the department, the first two years of coursework are focused on both MSA and dialect, but the curriculum shifts exclusively to MSA in the levels that follow. See ARABIC, Page 3A
CAMPUS LIFE
Last panel focuses on ways to encourage reform in criminal justice system EMMA STEIN
Daily Staff Reporter
The Carceral State Project hosted its last event of the academic school year on Wednesday night to discuss the future of the carceral state and concrete actions people can take to change the system. The event was part of its symposium series and was cosponsored by Afro-American Studies, History and the Residential College, drawing in a crowd of approximately 100 community members and students and featured a panel of five speakers. Amanda Alexander, executive director at the Detroit Justice Center and a senior research scholar at the University of
Michigan Law School, moderated the event. Alexander began the roundtable by asking the panelists what true community safety looks like and how their definitions relate to the current carceral state. Panelist PG Watkins, an organizer at No New Jails, said they feel most safe when the people around them are safe and have all their necessities, such as food and shelter, taken care of. Watkins noted many people resort to crime in order to provide for their families. “So to me, when I think about the times I felt most safe, or what could make me feel safer when I don’t feel safe, is really a lot about like knowing who’s around me,”
Watkins said. “Feeling a sense of connectivity and community. Something that I talk about is like, I can feel safe when I know all my basic needs are met and the people around me have their needs met. You know, everything’s taken care of, there’s no reason to, ideally, there’s no reason to cause harm or hurt each other because everything that we need is there for us.” Watkins continued by saying their idea of safety is completely separate from the carceral state. Watkins discussed how, if everybody supports their communities, the effort to make sure everyone has their basic necessities covered will expand to larger society. “In my ideal world in the world
that I try to practice and be in community with every day is disconnected from the carceral state,” Watkins said. “But I do think it starts with us. Focusing really hyper local, like on our blocks, in our neighborhood, is how can we make sure that we are good with each other, and that will echo out.” Panelist Korbin Felder, program associate at America Friends Service Committee, discussed how different people have varying relationships on safety and the carceral state. He said regardless of his own opinion, many people feel the criminal justice system reduces crime and are not in favor of getting rid of it completely. See CARCERAL , Page 3A
KARTIKEYA SUNDARAM/Daily Michael J. Steinberg, public interest/public service faculty fellow at the University of Michigan, speaks at the Carceral State roundtable in Hatcher Graduate Library Wednesday afternoon.
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 101 ©2019 The Michigan Daily
live taping of podcast
‘Ordered Liberty’ records episode on campus, tackles conservatism and ideology KENDELL LEWIS Daily Staff Reporter
“The Ordered Liberty” podcast co-hosts David French and Alexandra DeSanctis stopped at Weill Hall at the Ford School of Public Policy to record a live episode on Wednesday night. While their main focus was conservatism on campus, they also touched on populism, abortion, democratic socialism and free speech. The University of Michigan’s American Enterprise Institute’s Executive Council, along with the National Review Institute On Campus and Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Michigan, sponsored the segment titled “Liberty with Integrity: How consistency and civility are inseparable from the conservative case for freedom.” The podcast covers religion, culture and politics. French is a veteran and an attorney, as well as a senior fellow at NRI, and DeSanctis is a staff writer for National Review. After making jokes about Michigan State and Ohio State, French introduced the main topic. See PODCAST , Page 2A
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 SPORTS......................6
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News
2A — Thursday, April 11, 2019
MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers
TUESDAY: By Design
WEDNESDAY: This Week in History
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Guys, Ann Arbor is college town heaven
Umich students are more dedicated to standing 45 min in line for free ice cream than literally anything else
Also for the record, I’m not mad anyone is leaving Umich for the NBA I just get sad when they leave early lol
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In my room, taped above my @UMich diploma is the rejection letter I recieved from the same institution my senior year of high school. It’s my favorite reminder of Walt’s wiset words: All our dream can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. #MondayMotivation
Very inspiring talk by @UMich professor, Merck awardee, @jbiolchem editor, and one of my personal rockstars Ruma Banerjee about her personal and scientific journey @expbio! She is a role model and terrific scientist! Congratulations! #womeninSTEM
umich is a whole different school when the weather is nice and we can actually go outside
W O LV E R I N E O F T H E W E E K You’re about three weeks away from finishing your sophomore year. Being almost halfway done with your education, how do you feel? What do you plan to accomplish the coming couple of semesters? I feel intimidated by the fact that in some two odd years, I will be an ‘adult’. While I have learned a lot in college, there is still a lot to learn about life, outside of school. I suppose what’s so intimidating about being done with college is the current ambiguity that surrounds what my occupation will be post-graduation. These final two years, I hope to find clarity in my career’s direction, and continue maintain a healthy and happy life
LSA sophomore Nick Sullivan
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which the chain has been hateful group, why it’s not your peers are gonna think banned from certain locations just a problem of just a poor you’re insane if you actually group that say what you think,” DeSanctis because of a “legacy of anti- conservative “In the age of Trump, LGBTQ behvior,” French said doesn’t make you a hateful said. “The purpose of a college But instead, education in my mind is to (conservatism on campus) is the culture war is worsening organization. a huge topic for conservatives as progressive intolerance is people are fighting about seek the truth and you can’t who are trying to figure out extending to big companies and whether or not we should be do that if you aren’t able to say writing mean tweets or stoking what you think is true because how to be ambassadors for corporations. their point of view and their “The Chick-fil-A problem the f lames of the culture war.” you think you’re going to be According to French, shouted down.” movement on college campus sums up the issue that French said there is constant citizens are in particular,” French said. conservatives are dealing with American “It sort of boils down to… can in a lot of places, especially constitutionally freer than ever and widespread confusion between manner and ideology you be civil and decent and college campuses,” DeSanctis before. American society, “As of right now, you have among still own the libs? And this is said. something that you begin to DeSanctis said she believes more rights to speak and to saying Trump was one of the see a lot in our hyperpolarized “punching back” is the wrong freely exercise your religion most centrist candidates put times — that we live in a world approach to the culture war. that any time ever on free forward by the GOP since “What we should be talking speech rights and in more President Gerald Ford in the where it seems as if persuasion is gone and what we’re doing is about is substance,” DeSanctis than a generation on religious 1970s. “For example, would you call we’re trying to stoke our own said. “We should be talking liberty,” French said. “And about why Chick-Fil-A should that’s not secured by 5-4 Trump moderate? Most people bases as a way to win.” In response to the Chick- be allowed to be in airports, majorities of the court. The now would say ‘Trump is not Sudoku Syndication http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ Fil-A Bans controversy, in why Salvation Army is not a leading religious liberty case of at all moderate,’” French said. the last 20 years was decided “He is extremely aggressive… he is extremely contentious in 9-0.” French said the current his manner (and) his demeanor. issues are based on culture But in many ways, he is the least ideological, most moderate rather than laws. “It’s not because of the political candidate that the EASY government,” French said. GOP has nominated since Ford “It’s because of your peers. It’s maybe.” French emphasized the because of your employers. It’s because of the Twitter mob. importance of mainly focusing It’s the shame campaigns. And on and targeting persuadable that’s not judges, okay, that’s opponents. “If you aim your expression, culture... so, the question that I’m consistently asking is and you dictate your expression what is the mechanism, what by your communications with is the plan for conservatives the unpersuadable opposition, to be ambassadors to a culture you are going to be more that is increasingly turning frustrated and more angry its back on free exercise, free and often deceived as to the speech, and locked in the effectiveness of conservative communication,” French said. enormous battle?” French provided an example DeSanctis tied this uncertainty back to from when he was in law school conservatism activism on in 1992 and his professor would campus. She said young not refer to an “unborn child” conservatives often feel they or “fetus” but rather a “clump do not have a voice, especially of cells” or a “biologic product.” when they are the only Out of frustration, he raised his hand and asked why she would conservative in a classroom. “You probably have not use a term such as “fetus,” © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. ROSES puzzle by sudokusyndication.com situations where you feel like and he was shocked by the in class either the professor reaction of his classmates. See PODCAST, Page 3A is going to shut you down or Generate and solve Sudoku, Super Sudoku and Godoku puzzles at sudokusyndication.com!
PODCAST From Page 1A
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Thursday, April 11, 2019 — 3A
FOOD TRUCK FUN CARCERAL From Page 1A
RUCHITA IYER/Daily Benji Benolieli, founder of Truckshuka Food Truck, prepares a vegetarian shakshuka outside the University of Michigan Hillel Wednesday evening.
PODCAST From Page 2A “(They were) hissing and booing… screaming ‘ahhh’ and yelling,” French said. “(They were) trying to drown me out from saying this.” DeSanctis said this story teaches people to be tolerant of and to react calmly to ideas they disagree with because it will send a message conservatives can tolerate diverse ideas. “If we are transitioning to a model of ‘well, I also should try to shut down or mock or troll people who I disagree with,’ suddenly you’re not sending the message that conservatives can tolerate dissenting ideas,” DeSanctis said. “Suddenly we’re becoming like people on the left who don’t want to hear the truth… I think it says so much that they can’t even hear a basic truth… and about the weakness of their argument.” While recognizing major progress in America, they agreed toleration of ideas has worsened on college campuses. “I think a lot about why that is and one big area where that
TROTTER From Page 1A According to Trotter Center Director Julio Cardona, many alumni have called him voicing excitement and support for the new Trotter Center. Cardona said the move to State Street from Washtenaw Avenue represents collaboration and multiculturalism among a variety of student groups. “What we saw in recent months is a collective of student groups where before everyone was in their own silos,” Cardona said. “That to me is the students saying, ‘Let’s just work together and really for the greater good.’ I think that will be a lasting impression. I hope students can take this experience to their career, and then explain to their friends and co-workers what true multiculturalism could be like because they experienced that here.” Before the walk to Trotter Center on State Street, students, staff and faculty shared how the Trotter Center has impacted their time at the University and what the Trotter Center location change means to them. LSA senior Camyrea Barnes, secretary of the Black Student Union, recalled attending her first BSU meeting at the Trotter Center her freshman year. After years of long walks to the Trotter Center on Washtenaw Avenue for BSU meetings, Barnes said the opening of the Trotter Center on State Street is an emotional moment for her. “We made this walk faithfully every other Thursday to the BSU meeting,” Barnes said. “Now I’m graduating, and seeing this space that’s being opened on State Street on a central location for Black students to go to and congregate and have mass meetings, knowing the decades of work that’s been put in by students
seems to be the case is shutting down speakers who come to campus and the university administrations being complicit in shutting them down,” DeSanctis said. French said in addition to the temptation for conservatives to fight back, the Tucker Wars began to show the Horseshoe theory, or the right and left becoming more alike, in American politics as populism becomes more prevalent. “Right and left are not so much competing over fundamental ideas of the role of the state as they’re trying to compete over who’s technocrats should rule,” French said. Clare Ath, campus outreach coordinator for NRI, is not a student at Michigan but advocates conservative ideas on college campuses. She said Michigan was the first teststop on the podcast tour they are launching on the topic of civility. “How can you further conservative messaging from a point where you’re trying to win over the other side, not isolate it further from the other side?” Ath said.
Ath said that many topics discussed were relevant and interesting. “There’s a difference between criticism and censorship,” Ath said. “I think people on both sides can do a better job of holding themselves accountable to the principles they say they espouse.” Engineering junior Conor O’Donnell said he found the identity perception aspect of political discourse to be most inf luential. “One of the most impactful things I learned is the way to view political discourse in the way that you view who you’re speaking to,” O’Donnell said. “As opposed to looking at people that are most antagonistic in political debate, you want to focus on the people that are gonna be the most rational and most accepting to your ideas because if that’s your impression of the people who are listening to you, you’re more likely to articulate your ideas in a more calm, rational and intellectual way.” After the recording finished, there was a question and answer session open to the audience.
Some topics discussed were religion, critique vs. censorship, abortion and the Romney family. One student asked about the distinction between a baker refusing to bake a cake and a company engaging the advancement of political ideas. “The baker cases and f lorist cases and wedding photographer cases are in this very specific subset that essentially is saying ‘will the state use its power to force a creative professional to use their talents to advance an idea they don’t agree with?’” French said. LSA freshman Max Resnick said it was interesting to hear the idea of both sides feeling they are losing the culture war because he previously felt like the right was more likely to be seen as winning. “But now that I’ve heard that, I look around and I see, yeah, people do feel like they can’t express their opinion because of the culture war,” Resnick said. “Then, it definitely seems to me that the left feels like they’re losing the culture war, as well.”
to have this moment, it’s very emotional. My heart is just so full that it’s actually happening.” LSA sophomore Cristina Guytingco, programming chair of United Asian American Organizations and a member of the Trotter on State planning committee, said the Trotter Center is an important space for communities of color to host a variety of events. “Trotter was the only space where we could have events because everywhere else you had to pay, you had to book, you had to navigate all these regulations, but we always could count on Trotter,” Guytingco said. LSA sophomore Dalia Harris, La Casa project coordinator and another member of the Trotter on State planning committee, said she started her time at the University at the Trotter Center. Harris said she’s looking forward to forming new memories across communities of color at the new Trotter Center on State Street. “Personally for me, Trotter is where I started,” Harris said. “For the Latinx community, we have our orientation program here … And I have so many memories of meeting so many different people in this space. And this new Trotter means so many new memories are going to be made. And I’m just so excited because not only will it be a space for our community, but it’s a space for all of our marginalized communities, not separately but together.” Elizabeth James, BSU adviser and Department of Afroamerican and African Studies program manager, said the Trotter Center has been an integral part of her campus experience since she became involved in BSU in 1980. James voiced how meaningful of a space the Trotter Center has been for communities of color. “It’s just such a beautiful thing to see all of us here together and to see that this is
actually real,” James said. “I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve dreamed about being closer to campus because I knew how cold it was for you all to walk down here because I’d walked down too. I knew how much this place meant to you because you did make that trek. It was a strange kind of calling that brought us all here but we knew this was the place to be.”
In 1981, after requests for their own cultural centers from several other minority groups, the University decided to expand Trotter into a student multicultural center. LSA sophomore Ugochi Ndupu, peace officer of BSU and a member of the Trotter on State planning committee, recognized the efforts of BAM and Being Black at U-M, a movement started by BSU in 2013 to share experiences of Black students on campus. BBUM gained national traction, eventually releasing a list of demands. The demands included the creation of a Trotter Center closer to the center of campus. Ndupu expressed the Trotter Centers on Washtenaw Avenue and State Street are possible due to the work of student activists in these movements. Ndupu said the new Trotter Center on State Street compels her to continue their work. “It made me realize as a Black student here on campus, I have a purpose to keep that legacy of student activism going and also to make sure that their demands are getting carried out and appreciating the work that they’ve done,” Ndupu said. “That’s why new Trotter means so much to me.” Guytingco echoed Ndupu’s sentiments, also acknowledging past student activists and expressing students of color will continue to take up the space they deserve on campus. “It’s really emotional and impactful for me to know that so many students, so many people that have gone before us have fought for this space on campus,” Guytingco said. “And now for me to carry on their legacy through our work, where people of color and marginalized groups have a space on Central Campus, this is really empowering for me and I hope for so many others. We have a space, and we’re here, and we’re going to continue to take up space because we do.”
“It’s really emotional and impactful for me to know that so many students, so many people that have gone before us have fought for this space on campus.”
Chuck Ransom, Multicultural Studies and American Culture librarian, is currently working on a project archiving the history of the Trotter Center. According to Ransom, the Trotter Center’s origins began with a group of Black female students in the 1960s who approached University Housing asking for an all-Black f loor in the residential halls. Among other initiatives to help Black students facing marginalization at the University, students in the Black Action Movement spearheaded the 1971 opening of the Trotter House, a Black student cultural center named in honor of civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter, Ransom explained.
“I went to U of M, I took these similar classes as an undergraduate… we had to talk about race, we had to talk about white supremacy, but just because someone is Black or just because someone’s formerly incarcerated it actually doesn’t mean that they’re going to support abolition, per se,” Felder said. Alexander then asked the panelists about strategies to go beyond the carceral state and what current projects give them the greatest sense of hope moving forward. Felder discussed the progress Michigan has already made in terms of criminal justice reform. He referenced his work in other states, such as Alabama and Mississippi, and emphasized how the high attendance at the event is inspiring. “You don’t see people showing up in other places after hours like you all did today,” Felder said. “Michigan has made progress, I could talk all day about the progress. Sure, we have problems. We spend more on corrections than higher education. It is a huge bureaucracy, but we have made progress and it would be irresponsible for us not to talk about the progress we have made.” Panelist Michael Steinberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, also discussed his current hope for the future of the carceral state. He addressed how mass incarceration has become a bipartisan issue, which allows for more productive policy making. “I am hopeful — I have never been more hopeful on this issue than I am right now,” Steinberg said. “The reason I am hopeful to the point that it is not a partisan issue. … (Conservatives) don’t support mass incarceration either, it’s
ARABIC From Page 1A LSA junior Owen Hughes enrolled in Elementary Arabic I his first semester at the University. As a new student pursuing mathematics, he said studying Arabic gave him the opportunity to think in ways his other classes didn’t allow. Currently, Hughes is taking Intermediate Arabic II, the fourth course in the sequence focused on the Egyptian dialect. Introductory Arabic classes, which are housed under the Department of Middle East Studies, teach formal Arabic in conjunction with either Levantine or Egyptian dialects. Hughes said while it is useful to know MSA — Arabic’s formal register — the department’s structuring of dialects occasionally makes it difficult to converse with native speakers. “During the first year, I spoke like four words of colloquial Arabic,” Hughes said. “I didn’t know the grammar, I knew almost none of the vocabulary and we never used it in class. So when you go and speak it with a native speaker, there are no native speakers of formal Arabic— they don’t exist.”
PHOTO From Page 1A Bouman explained the research team’s process to CNN. “We developed ways to generate synthetic data and used different algorithms and tested blindly to see if we can recover an image,” Bouman said. “We didn’t want to just develop one algorithm. We wanted to develop many different algorithms that all have different assumptions built into them. If all of them recover the same general structure, then that builds your confidence.” The result was a slightly blurry photo of a black hole in Messier 87, a galaxy more than 50 million light years away, surrounded by a bright orange ring. Various obstacles have blocked scientists from successfully photographing black holes in the past, ranging from the challenges
not for the reasons we oppose it, for humanitarian reasons, it’s for money, they think it is a waste of money. But the fact that we have the same goals makes me hopeful and I think in the next five years we are going to see a huge difference.” Watkins then said people are too reliant on the carceral state and should shy away from calling the police for every minor inconvenience. “I think part of what we have to know is we can’t get past the carceral state if we can’t see past the carceral state,” Watkins said. “All that we see in response to conf lict is ‘I need to call the police.’ What do you call the police for?” The event concluded with the panelists suggesting concrete ways for attendees to get involved. Steinberg told the audience to actively question people who make comments which sustain the f laws in the criminal justice system. “I would encourage everybody to challenge your family, your friends if they are saying things that help perpetuate mass incarceration,” Steinberg said. “Whether it is calling the police over something that you don’t need to call the police, whether it’s wanting to lock people up forever, or calling people in prison animals. I think it is incumbent upon all of us to challenge that.” LSA freshman Sarah Sukal said she attended the event to learn more about what she can do as a student to help create change in the carceral state. “I want to understand how our prison system actually works,” Sukal said. “I hadn’t really heard of the concept of the carceral state before. You think about people being locked up, but you don’t think about what’s actually going on inside the prisons, you don’t really know what you can actually do to help.”
Wijdan Alsayegh, a lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies, said the debate over whether to teach colloquial in addition to formal is central to Arabic language programs across the country. “This is the essential debate in American universities,” Alsayegh said. “You are going to find this debate in every Arabic program. So which one do our students prefer— dialect or standard? So it is normal and even in (different) countries we have this debate. Which one is the most important — the dialect or the standard?” Gottfried Hagen, department chair of Middle East Studies, explained the goal of integrating MSA with dialect in the curriculum is to help students achieve proficiency in the Arabic language. According to Hagen, the mixed curriculum began at the University in 2012, with the hopes that students would gain the skills necessary to speak Arabic in real-world environments, where speakers often switch between MSA and dialect during a single conversation.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com associated with overcoming the physical distance from earth to the difficulty of taking a picture of something that essentially devours light. Bouman led the development of the algorithm that proved crucial in the process of devising imaging methods. That algorithm, which was created in 2016, patched together information collected from radio telescopes located around the globe. Bouman discussed the process in an interview with MIT News in June of that year. “Radio wavelengths come with a lot of advantages,” Bouman said. “Just like how radio frequencies will go through walls, they pierce through galactic dust. We would never be able to see into the center of our galaxy in visible wavelengths because there’s too much stuff in between.”
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Opinion
4A — Thursday, April 11, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
KIANNA MARQUEZ | COLUMN
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ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN
G
So, what does good gun policy look like?
un policy is a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, optimal gun policy is about gun control: regulating guns and gun ownership with the aim of making society safer. On the other hand, reducing the volume and lethality of civilian arms should not reduce, to the extent possible, the capacity of those same arms to do good and make individuals safer. An adequate balancing of these interests is what American society, currently plagued by nearly 100 firearm fatalities per day, screams silently for. As I opined in my last column, this balancing is not impossible. Permit-to-purchase laws, which require prospective gun buyers to acquire a permit from state or local law enforcement in addition to passing universal background checks, are tried and tested. These laws make society safer because they ensure that those buying guns are qualified to enjoy their benefits, rather than targeting certain guns or gun attachments. However, they, and other laws like them, will need to be introduced at the state level for their benefits to be enjoyed. For any staunch Second Amendment supporters still reading at this point, the main grievance with my position is almost certainly a constitutional one. Ammunition for this defense of the Second Amendment is often found in the curt opinions of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who has launched his own crusade against the supposed relegation of the Second Amendment “to a second-class right” by the Court. To adequately protect what Thomas terms the Court’s “constitutional orphan,” many Second Amendment supporters claim that we should disregard all gun control regulations but those most substantially beneficial to public safety and least burdensome to individual rights. Even though applying this strict standard to gun laws has scant legal precedent, for the sake of argument, we can assume that legitimate gun control measures have to both further a “compelling governmental interest” and be narrowly tailored to do so. Reasonable people would agree that the government has a compelling interest in reducing firearms deaths. And requiring a permit from law enforcement in order to obtain a firearm definitely
qualifies as a narrowly tailored measure, in that it entails neither an assault weapons ban nor limits on magazine capacity – measures that arguably reduce the capacity of law-abiding gun owners to defend themselves. Anyone worried that local or state gun registries would inevitably lead to the feared “federal registry” would do well to review the concept of federalism. As for the efficacy of permitto-purchase laws, I am confident that even die-hards such as Justice Thomas would be satisfied. A study published four years ago detailed how Connecticut’s 1995 permitto-purchase laws were correlated with a significant decline in firearm homicides. Another found strong evidence that Missouri’s repeal of its own permit-to-purchase law in 2007 led to increased gun violence. Yet another study supported these findings. In 2015, the Court denied certiorari, an order in which a higher court reviews the decision of a lower court, to an appeal of a local-level assault weapons ban, and Thomas dissented by noting that if a broad ban on firearms can be upheld based on conjecture that the public might feel safer (while being no safer at all), then the Second Amendment guarantees nothing.” Permit-topurchase laws not only stop short of broadly banning firearms, but demonstrably make the public safer as well. So why do federal efforts to enact much more restrained measures flounder, such as the recent Democratic-led bills expanding background checks to nearly all firearms transfers? There’s a lot of lying, of course. Graced by frequent support from the president himself, the National Rifle Association has used its platform to persuade Americans that universal background checks will “make it harder for good people to defend themselves and their families.” Keep in mind, background checks are only meant to flag those who shouldn’t own guns. How, then, could those same checks possibly inconvenience “good” people? More importantly, perhaps, are the institutional dynamics halting any chances of success for federal gun control measures. High numbers of Americans support universal background checks, but pro-gun voters prioritize halting such measures more
than pro-gun control voters care about passing them. Gun control simply isn’t that high of a policy priority for many Americans. Additionally, contemporary partisan divides make the Senate a disproportionately Republican place. When only rural states receive a relative advantage in the Senate, and rural states are now almost entirely dominated by Republicans, the result is a Senate more conservative than the country it represents. It’s no surprise that the universal background check bill will likely pass in the House but not in the Senate. For these reasons, advocates of permit-to-purchase laws should look to the states. Last year’s midterm election saw Democrats make more gains in state legislatures and governorships than did Republicans, including in several states where gun control measures have already been passed and met with severe backlash from Second Amendment supporters. States also passed an increasing number of gun control laws after the Parkland shooting last year, proving correct former Associate Justice Louis Brandeis’s assessment of states as laboratories of democracy. Passing gun laws stateby-state certainly has limitations, such as encouraging cross-state gun transfers. But the relatively homogenous considerations of state governments, contrasted with the myriad political pressures that burden the federal government, still make them excellent for addressing those problems like gun policies that have trouble gathering nationwide traction. I think it’s fitting to end this column with the mantra of NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, who is for many the face of pro-gun advocacy: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Yes, Mr. LaPierre, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun (that “good guy” usually being a trained law enforcement officer, or several, with the requisite force to overcome an attacker). But wouldn’t we much rather the bad guy didn’t have a gun in the first place? The best way to do that, as of now, is with permit-to-purchase laws. We have every reason to lobby for their passage. But it’s a task best left to the states. Ethan Kessler can be reached at ethankes@umich.edu.
SOFIA ZERTUCHE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT SOFZER@UMICH.EDU
Take care of your planet
A
The world of my dreams is all green
fter I return to my dorm after a stressful day of classes and schoolwork, I retreat to a place that is always there for me to de-stress: the Arboretum. From my vantage point, I watch the sky go from blue to orange to purple as I visit the highest point of the Arb around dinner time. It truly works wonders for my mental health, at least on a day-to-day basis. Even so, I often wonder about the real advantages these green spaces have for us and if they improve the quality of our response to climate change. Experiencing the benefits of green space first hand truly feels like a blessing. Our psychological connections with nature are some of the most habitual and necessary ones that we make, so it makes sense why our brains are tailored to essentially feel revived by plant life. Since the establishment of the Arb in 1907, the University of Michigan has been able to shape this green space into a place for many uses, including exercising, leisure and studying the local ecosystem. Various directors have led incremental initiatives to expand the property of the Arb and utilize it for its topography and biodiversity. Among many initiatives, a few of the most important strategies span from maintaining the natural beauty of the topographical features and vegetation since 1916 to creating multicultural and intersectional art installations in 2000. As a result, it’s clear our green spaces in Ann Arbor, such as the Arb and the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, have been developed in such a way that we are able to establish an important emotional connection with our local landscapes. While there are personal benefits to creating a meaningful relationship with nature, it’s easy to
think that experiencing the natural environment without tampering with it benefits the green space. On a broader scale, I’m curious to explore if the devastation that our world faces today is a result of the human population maintaining and creating less green space. At the same time, I believe there is a possibility that large green spaces, whether they be natural or urban, may not necessarily be a counteracting force against climate change. Essentially, the largest contributor to rising temperatures causing climate change is the emission of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon, from industrialized areas. Since cities are the most concentrated industrialized areas of our modern society, initiatives attempt to reduce the urban heat island effect and make large metropolitan areas less of a hot spot.
We have to consider the fact that more should be done to improve the quality of the environment Even so, at the deliberate rate that the greening of cities is occurring, these initiatives are not enough to completely offset the level of heating that occurs with the emission of greenhouse gases at street level. This large-scale struggle is expanded on by Franco Montalto, a civil engineering professor at Drexel University, discussing the Javits Center in New York City: “Green infrastructure can help to mitigate the heat island effect, but local factors will determine by how much, and widespread greening of the city is going
to be required to generate significant improvements at the urban scale.” Though many of us, myself included, relish in the personal benefits of having accessibility to a massive green space like the Arb, we have to consider the fact that more should be done to improve the quality of the environment and public health. In other words, it’s not enough for the University to provide this green space as both a conservation of nature and a method of self-rehabilitation: We should be doing more to restore the quality of our environment and mend public health in the process. Providing a cleaner, more regulated environment by creating green infrastructure in addition to green spaces should be the method that this city and the University uses to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants. As we have seen, there is a strong correlation between poor public health, both mental and physical, and the urgency of a changing climate. Furthermore, I urge the University to invest in methods that mitigate the negative consequences that Ann Arbor’s industry puts upon us and ultimately commit to complete carbon neutrality. We are grateful for these large green spaces that you make available to us, but we are dreaming of something more. I want us to have this mentality: Why can’t we have a permanent, far-reaching green space all around us instead of one that is only available for some escape? I believe that the strongest barrier we face in terms of avoiding climate change is action, and we need the total implementation of green spaces, green technology and green habits to propagate a series of actions that will eventually sustain a green lifestyle. Kianna Marquez can be reached at kmarquez@umich.edu.
ANONYMOUS | SURVIVORS SPEAK
I
In a place between emptiness and devastation
f a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? If a girl is sexually assaulted and no one tries to stop it, does she still matter? After it happened, I couldn’t speak for days. Motionless, I sat on my bedroom floor in front of a mirror — desolate eyes blankly staring at the bruises on my body, unable to accept it as mine. I often have nightmares in which I return to this moment, my first examination of the damaged goods I had become. As I restlessly toss and turn in bed during these times, my mind’s eye first sees my neck — a blank canvas one moment, painted by a sea of black and blue and purple and green the next. I will never forget the feeling of utter powerlessness, when my cries for help were met with hands smothering my mouth and neck and his words, “I know a whore like you wants this.” My gaze travels downward, and I see the wrists encircled by bruising and abrasions unmistakably resembling silhouettes of human hands. Even now, the sound of male laughter can send me into hysterics. I can’t help but think of his housemates’ drunken laughter, their humor in observing my sober attempts to free myself as they held down my wrists and waited for their turn. Finally, I look at my face, unable to recognize the girl staring back at me. At that moment, all I feel is shame. All I feel is disgust towards myself and my body, unable to
consider myself as anything but a filthy object used to the point of worthlessness. No number of showers or bottles of empty mouthwash since that night has helped me feel clean again. This recurring nightmare relentlessly lingers, even now, an unwelcome addition to the myriad of habits that arose in the subsequent months after my assault. I secretly developed a vice of self- harm, my habit of “only” once a week quickly turning into “only” once a day, a routine that inevitably gave way to two, three, maybe even four times from the moment I woke up until the time my eyes fluttered shut at night, my body exhausted from wracking sobs. I became trapped within the jaws of an eating disorder, the 25 pounds dropping off my already-small frame the closest I could come to disappearing from this world. My mind often conceptualizes in the form of color, with this night being the before and after point in the timeline of my life. I used to feel kaleidoscopes of bright neon shades and swirls of pastels. Now, I only see black. Most of the time, I don’t think I deserve the elusive ‘healing’ referenced so often by my therapist and fellow survivors. I even question if I deserve the title of ‘survivor’ in reference to an experience that I still think is my fault. Last year, in a place between emptiness and devastation, I expressed these emotions in the form of a poem: Is Healing Feeling like I was physically beaten and raped just yesterday? My absent minded habit of
stroking the spot on my skull that was shoved into a hard surface before my ‘friend’ removed the clothes from my dazed body? The lump in my throat and wetness on my cheeks that arise just before every interaction with my family, my mind yet again reminded of the trauma I don’t have the courage to tell my own mother? The crippling feelings of selfblame that prowl around my thoughts on an almost hourly basis? ‘You shouldn’t have gone to his house.’ ‘He picked you because he knew a girl with a pretty face wouldn’t have fallen for his kindness.’ ‘What did you expect when a boy expressed interest in a lackluster person like you?’ Though I still don’t have the answer to this poem’s question, what I do know is that I am surrounded by people that will hold me up when I am falling to my knees, and endlessly radiate light into the darkness in my mind. For them, I am forever grateful. They have been— and continue to be—integral in my path to return not to my “old self”, but instead to one with improved capacity for self-compassion and growth. This “new me” will revel in floodlights of brilliant hues, never letting the events of that night define me. This is the third piece in the Survivors Speak series, which seeks to share the varied, first-person experiences of survivors of sexual assault. For more information please visit our website.
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.
Sports
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Thursday, April 11, 2019 — 5A
Peters thriving as hitter and leader Thome, Munger leave strong legacy
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Senior center fielder Natalie Peters has put to rest any questions as to whether she peaked as a sophomore.
DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer
Now in her 35th season, Michigan softball coach Carol Hutchins knows a starter when she sees one. When it came time to tab nine of them ahead of the team’s opening weekend, Hutchins felt ready to go all-in on just three: senior second baseman Faith Canfield, freshman left fielder Lexie Blair and senior center fielder Natalie Peters. It was an open secret that Canfield, an All-American last season, and Blair, the No. 28 prospect in the 2018 class, were shoo-ins. Peters, on the other hand, came into 2019 coming off a regression year that followed a stellar sophomore campaign. After posting a .361 batting average en route to second team All-Big Ten honors in 2017, Peters’ average tumbled by 49 points to a .312 clip last season. The beginning of Peters’ senior year suggested her best days may be in the past. Through her first 17 games of 2019, she hobbled to a .234 batting average across 47 at-bats. But in the past month, Peters has put any questions of whether she peaked as a sophomore to rest. “(Peters) has been locked in at the plate,” Hutchins said. “She’s starting to see herself in that role, she seems to be seeing herself as an ‘I’m going to get this done’ (player).” Peters has posted six multihit games and a .434 average over her last 20 games. She played an integral role in last
weekend’s sweep of Indiana, racking up six hits in eight at-bats. On Friday, she tallied three hits and drove in two of Michigan’s four runs before scoring a third herself. After singling, stealing a base and drawing a walk in Saturday’s game, Peters had herself a series finale to remember. She doubled in the seventh inning before coming around to score on senior designated player Kenzie Nemitz’s walk-off double. Peters has spent most of the season sandwiched between Canfield and Blair in the twohole of Hutchins’ batting order. Being wedged between two of the country’s most dangerous matchups means she doesn’t get a lot of attention as a slap hitter, but her bat has quietly played a major role in the Wolverines’ offensive revival. During its current 15-game win streak, Michigan is averaging nearly nine runs per game — a stark contrast to the 3.59 runs per game it averaged through the first five weeks of the season. By getting on base, Peters creates opportunities to drive in runs for Blair and senior first baseman Alex Sobczak, who lead the team with 32 and 25 RBI, respectively. Though the Wolverines sit atop the Big Ten, the pressure of being a senior as the regular season winds down doesn’t faze Peters in the slightest. If anything, it drives her to embrace the stage that these opportunities provide. “I’ve worked so hard my whole life and now is the time when I can just finally play,”
Classifieds
Peters said. “I’m really not trying to think about the fact that it’s April. Everything I’m working for is for the team, it’s not for anybody else.” Despite her strong numbers at the plate, Peters’ impact is most felt as a leader. As the only senior outfielder on the roster, Peters has taken a number of younger players under her wing. Blair has felt the effects of Peters’ efforts first-hand, particularly on defense. After Blair’s fielding error allowed the Hoosiers to take a fourthinning lead on Sunday, Peters was the first player by her side. Peters reminded her that “there was a lot of game left” — a sentiment that settled Blair’s nerves as Michigan began its eventual comeback. “I truly look up to (Peters),” Blair said. “Since day one when I stepped on campus, from the first practice, I’ve looked up to her as a mentor. … She knows the ropes around here, she’s experienced, and it’s not like she doesn’t thinks of herself as above everyone, which is what I really look up to. She’s poised out there, she’s calm, cool and collected and she’s a great mentor. “(Peters) is always talking to me before every pitch, just telling me what to do or where to move. Little stuff like that is what really helps in the game. She gets on me about the details to make sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.” With the crescendo of her career on the horizon, Peters has stepped up to the plate both as a hitter and leader.
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Release Date: Thursday, April 11, 2019
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
FOR RENT
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Sizzling Tex-Mex meat 7 Polling results: Abbr. 11 Adams of “Vice” 14 Boy whose wings melted in the sun 15 Four-star review 16 Forest female 17 Gently used 18 Salinger title teen 19 “Let’s get out of here!” 20 Drawer in the court 23 Isn’t feeling 100% 26 Grafton’s “__ for Alibi” 27 Ship stabilizer 28 “You overreact when you’re hungry” candy bar 33 Brand of suit Bania gave Jerry in a memorable “Seinfeld” episode 34 Lamb’s alias 35 Indiana state flowers 37 Cast a spell on 42 Banking biggie 44 Acrobatic dive 45 It may contain curls and crunches 49 Nice dad? 50 MADD ad, e.g. 51 Holly genus 52 Clinic technician 57 Singer DiFranco 58 Opera set in Egypt 59 Ex-Met pitcher known as “Dr. K” 63 __ profit 64 Pitch indicator 65 One way to travel 66 Carpentry tool 67 __ loser 68 Kids’ card game ... and a directive pertaining to the four longest puzzle answers DOWN 1 Shark tip-off 2 Bandage brand 3 Boxer’s target
4 Biometric identification technique 5 Narwhal feature 6 Queens tennis stadium 7 Sharply defined 8 Transaction without financing 9 “South Park” rating 10 Magic 8 Ball, some hope 11 Brody of “The Pianist” 12 Revealed the function of, with “over” 13 Streisand title role 21 La Brea __ Pits 22 Ref’s ruling 23 Quickly, quickly 24 Memo lead-in 25 Wheels for a celeb 29 New York cager 30 Farm follower? 31 Jargon 32 Former Portuguese colony in China 36 More senseless 38 Had a great first date
39 Deep blue dye 40 Aloha State bird 41 “Jurassic World” predator, for short 43 “The coast is clear” 45 Withdrew gradually 46 Kayak alternative 47 Actor Stephen who is a UNICEF Ireland Ambassador
48 Traitor 49 Course before contingencies 53 Anatomical pouches 54 Storage cylinder 55 Excited 56 Words said with a finger wag 60 “__ know you?” 61 Canon SLR 62 Unspecified degree
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04/11/19
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FILE PHOTO/Daily
Seniors Hallie Thome (left) and Nicole Munger (second from right) will leave Michigan with strong legacies intact.
BENNETT BRAMSON Daily Sports Writer
Legacy. What is a legacy? This question, made famous by the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, is one that is often asked in sports — particularly, it is posed in collegiate sports. A little over a year ago, the Michigan women’s basketball team’s all-time leading scorer, Katelynn Flaherty, concluded her senior campaign in Waco, TX following a second round NCAA Tournament defeat to Baylor. Once Flaherty’s career as a Wolverine ended, two questions followed: what is her Michigan legacy and what is next for the program? Now, one year later, those questions are beginning to get answered following another second-round appearance and the emergence of a freshmen class with astronomically high potential. However, with the impending graduation of the Wolverines’ two co-captains, seniors Hallie Thome and Nicole Munger — two other program legends who played alongside Flaherty the prior three seasons —the same questions are, once again, arising. To find those answers now, one could take a look at stats: Thome is the program’s second alltime leading scorer and Munger accumulated over 1000 points after starting just her final two seasons. Together, the duo led Michigan to its first ever back-to-back second round Tournament appearances and they brought home the program’s first banner in the form of a WNIT championship. But, to really understand the lasting impact of Thome and Munger and what could happen to the program upon their departures, once must look back to 2014. *** From the time Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico began recruiting Munger and Thome, she knew they were going to be special. “They were great and expected excellence in everything that they did,” Barnes Arico said. “That’s what Michigan stands for. So we knew that when they came here they were different. Different kinds of kids with different kinds of expectations. And they wanted greatness.” Before convincing either player to come to Michigan, though, Barnes Arico had her work cut out for her. For Munger, a kid from a small Philadelphia suburb, the idea of playing at Michigan, far from her home, was tough. “I was always a home body growing up. Always,” Munger said. “Sleepovers I wouldn’t do, so I was always like ‘I’m going to school in Philly.’ ” But, eventually, Munger ended up getting over her early fears and committed to play for the Wolverines. “I knew that Michigan was a place that I could never pass up,” Munger said. “I mean I walked on campus and just got the chills for the first time. And it was just the place that I wanted to be. … It’s just a place that I couldn’t have said no to.” While the Wolverines weren’t necessarily on Munger’s mind until the recruitment process began, for Thome, it was a completely different story. Thome is from the suburbs of Cleveland, just a three-hour drive away from Ann Arbor. She’s come to Michigan for multiple reasons ever since she was in seventh grade. And while, at first, she wasn’t positive Michigan was the place for her, after talking with her AAU coach, a friend of Barnes Arico, she
came around. “Being able to perform athletically and academically at the highest level, you can’t really pick any place better than Michigan,” Thome said. *** Once they arrived on campus, the two roomed together and quickly became friends. They did everything together, like go to California Pizza Kitchen at the Briarwood Mall and befriend the owners. The only time the pair really weren’t connected at the hip was on the court during game time. “I thought I would start, maybe,” Thome said. “And then if I started I would play a few minutes and that would probably be it.” Thome ended up starting every game her freshman season and averaged about 25 minutes per game. Munger, on the other hand, was put into a much more minimal role, starting only once and averaging just over 12 minutes per game. Even though Munger did not have played as much as she may have liked, Barnes Arico still holds that she was beloved by all. “She was a fan favorite from the first time we put her in a game her freshman year and she was the front of the press,” Barnes Arico said. “And you wonder who was up there in the front (of the press) before (freshman forward) Naz (Hillmon)? It was Nicole.” Their freshmen year ultimately concluded in a loss in the semifinals of the WNIT. The next year, with both playing in bigger roles, the Wolverines yet again failed to qualify for the Big Dance and instead again went to the WNIT, despite a 28-9 record and a third-place finish in the Big Ten. This time, though, they helped Michigan win it. “We hung the first banner, so it’s definitely an accomplishment,” Thome said. “And I remember coach saying the freshmen, at that time, went up to her and said, ‘We’re going to hang another one.’ ” That championship came directly in the middle of Munger and Thome’s stay in Ann Arbor — and also helped create a shift in program expectations. “The (culture) when we came in was like, “Let’s have a postseason,’ ” Thome said. “… Now it’s time to show everyone why we think, no matter what we do, we should be able to continue our season more than one or two games. It’s more (than) being happy we’re in the Tournament. (It’s) being happy we’re winning games.” *** In their junior years, Munger and Thome made large contributions to Michigan’s first tournament team in five years. Munger’s hard work finally paid off and she joined Thome in the starting lineup. And while both Munger and Thome knew that they were in supporting roles in the Flaherty show, they both averaged career highs in points (9.1 points per game and 17.4 points per game, respectively) and rebounds (4.4 rebounds per game and 7 rebounds per game, respectively) — although Munger would increase her points per game mark in her senior season. Following their junior seasons, it was finally Munger and Thome’s time to take over the reins of the program and assert themselves as team leaders. “When we first got our team together this summer, I just knew how excited I was,” Munger said. “This group was a really special group because we knew we had each other. … And we knew that we were missing a lot, but at the end of
the day we still had so much.” At that first team meeting over the summer, Munger and Thome met with their new freshmen. Munger expected their first practice with the new players to be somewhat laid back and relaxing. The captain, the consensus hardest worker on the team, Munger expected to be the one who went abnormally hard and led the workout. Instead, the freshmen came out with a fire Munger hadn’t seen before. “They came in and ran this workout and I was dripping sweat,” Munger said. “They were doing each throwing drill, going back and forth with each other. And there was no competitiveness, which there usually is when freshmen come in because they’re trying to prove themselves to each other and see which one’s the best. They were just trying to get better.” But that’s just a testament to what Munger and Thome’s senior campaigns looked like. There was no sense of entitlement or feeling of superiority felt among the co-captains over the rest of the time. Even when the co-captains received All-Big Ten honors, they did not allow it to go to their heads. That, in part, is due to Munger and Thome’s personalities, as well as the sense of sisterhood instilled within the program — a sisterhood Munger and Thome prided themselves on continuing. “I think we’ve always been such a tight group over the years and we’ve always called each other sisters and bridesmaids and all that,” Thome said. “But I think to become a senior, and to see it all happening and to see the relationships being formed … I think it’s definitely a cool thing to see.” That sense of sisterhood became especially important during the team’s early season struggles. After starting out 3-6 in the Big Ten, things were not looking great for the Wolverines. It was left up to the senior co-captains to try to turn the tide in their final season. And while Thome and Munger could have taken a step back and allowed the season to spiral out of control, neither was willing to give up on their goal of making it back to the NCAA Tournament or throw away their last year at Michigan. “This January and February were a favorite part (of the season) of mine,” Munger said. “Everyone counted us out and I think it was just part of a defining moment where this program could have sunk this year and said to hell with it, but they followed our grit and our desire to make the tournament. “We got it done and that was really special to me.” *** Now, with their senior seasons over, Munger and Thome finally have some free time on their hands to reflect on the last four years and do as they please for their final few weeks. Munger continues to work out at the team’s facilities, decked out in Michigan gear, mulling over her future plans. She hopes to become a graduate assistant and, eventually, a coach. Thome, meanwhile, has taken the opposite approach. She’s spent her time at the public, university gyms — the North Campus Recreational Building to be specific. She’s distanced herself from the game a little bit more than Munger and has a summer internship in Chicago working for Nike before potentially taking a job in Fort Myers, FL.
Read more online at MichiganDaily.com
Sports
6A — Thursday, April 11, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A tale of two seniors: The story of Emma McLean and Olivia Karas SHIRA ZISHOLTZ Daily Sports Writer
It all started in the summer of 2013. Emma McLean, a rising high school junior, was spending a beautiful day on a boat in northern Michigan. Her phone rang, the screen flashed the name “Olivia Karas.” She answered. “I just committed to Michigan!!” said the girl on the other end. And just like that, McLean had her future Michigan women’s gymnastics counterpart, and a dynamic duo was born. Right off the bat, the two became immensely close. Like, finishing-each-other’ssentences close, so it’s no surprise that McLean and Karas spent all of their time together trying to figure out the game called life. There were times when they would miss the bus and chase after it so they wouldn’t be late to practice, or would miss dinner and would eat dry cereal on McLean’s dorm room floor. “I think that coming in as a two-person class, you’re kinda automatically bonded and put through everything together,” Karas said. “Which I think we both liked. I think we have similar but different personalities, so we complement each other nicely. I think you get tossed into this environment with just one other person and we just kinda — “…We just kinda have to figure it out,” finished McLean. “That’s something that’s important to explain to every freshman class. Like, there’s no guidebook, there’s no handbook, no one’s there to hold your hand and tell you what college is going to be like. Nothing prepares you for it. And I think having to figure that out with each other really just forms that bond.” As the lone two newcomers on the Michigan women’s gymnastics team when they
arrived, the adjustment, unsurprisingly, was difficult. However, they always knew that they had a strong, loving team as their backbone. And they used that fortitude to make sure that everyone else that came in had that same secure, cherished feeling. “I think that when we were freshmen, we did get that love,” Karas said. “And we were kinda taken in as the babies that everyone really did love. And we got that affection right off the bat. “But some people didn’t … so I think for the two of us, we saw that, and were like, ‘There’s no more of this (feeling of exclusion). This is how it goes. This is how we’re going to do it.’ It’s taking everyone under your wing, appreciating everyone … there’s no hierarchy.” Using that inclusive mentality, McLean and Karas have taken their experiences and tenure to create a lead-by-example mindset for the rest of the team. That means going up to a teammate before they are about to compete and giving words of encouragement or cheering as loud as they can from the side because they know it’s that teammate’s personal preference. It means knowing that everyone is different, and accepting and utilizing those differences to bring the team closer together. “It means being…,” Karas started. “Balanced,” McLean said. Karas smiled. “Exactly.” It’s not just the love that brings the team together. It’s the fact that, going into national championship weekend, they have so much still to prove. “Personally, I think I’m looking forward to just shocking
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Seniors Emma McLean and Olivia Karas will finish out their respective Michigan careers at NCAA Championships in Fort Worth, Texas next week.
everyone,” McLean said. “And I think, something that I know Michigan says — I think it was the basketball team that used it a long time ago — ‘Shock the world.’ That kind of thing.” But the best part about being a leader is learning, too. “You learn more every single year that you’re here, and your senior year, you kinda put it all together,” McLean said. “And you’re like, ‘This is why.’ And I think this year, (Michigan coach) Bev (Plocki) has helped me learn that when we believe in ourselves, the sky is the limit. And I think going through adversity and never giving up really brings it full circle.”
Coming in as a two-person class, you’re kinda ... bonded.
Karas agreed and reminisced about how last year, she questioned whether she even wanted to try to ever do a floor routine after tearing her Achilles. She remembers the work, the frustration, but the ultimate realization of why she’s here shone through. “This year is definitely my ‘why,’ ” Karas said. “Because of this group, this team, what we’ve accomplished so far, and what we will accomplish.” Since that day in that summer of 2013, Karas and McLean have rebounded from injury, learned countless lessons, developed incredible skills, and grown tremendously as teammates, housemates, leaders, and friends. And now, as seniors, going into their final weekend competing in the maize and blue, they’ve taken time to reflect on their years in Ann Arbor. “I would definitely thank this
whole University for the pride in Michigan,” Karas said.“I think once you get here, there is an automatic ‘We are Michigan, we bleed maize and blue, we’re the leaders and best.’ And I think that’s ingrained in everyone, athlete or not.” Added McLean: “Walking around on campus, where else would you rather be? I don’t think there’s anywhere that’s better. The experience as a whole has been great, and wellrounded. It’s just been the best. From the second I got on campus freshman year, I’ve loved every second.” So, what next? Standing in sweatpants before
conditioning in the Donald R. Shepherd Women’s Gymnastics Training Center for one of the last times ever, reminiscing on the times they’ve had at Michigan and together, the duo looked at each other and laughed. “I think it’s going to be interesting experiencing life without a sport in a few weeks, but we’ll figure it out,” Karas said. “Like we always do.” “That’s literally our thing,” McLean said. “We don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but we’ll figure it out. like we have so far … There’s never a dull moment.” Karas laughed, and repeated: “Never a dull moment.”
I don’t think there’s anywhere that’s better.
Saved by the bell
In shortened contest, Michigan tops Indiana State, 6-4, salvaging a series split with the Sycamores AIDAN WOUTAS Daily Sports Writer
In a rarity for baseball, both teams were racing against the clock. With a five-and-a-half hour drive back to Terre Haute, Ind. ahead of Indiana State on Wednesday evening, even the possibility of a shortened seven-inning game wasn’t enough to risk pushing up against their prearranged 7:30 travel curfew. Coming off yesterday’s hard-fought 8-7 loss — only its second home loss of the year — the Michigan baseball team managed to hold its lead despite a worthy challenge from the Sycamores to hang on and win, 6-4. “Indiana State is a savvy, quality team,” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich. “They don’t get rattled, they play well on the road, they’re a good and complete team. We knew we had our work cut out for us.” A sluggish start to the game for both teams was highlighted by a solo home run fired over right field by sophomore outfielder Jesse Franklin in his first at-bat of the game — exactly what happened in Sunday’s 8-0 win against Minnesota. With Michigan leading 2-0 in the top of the third, Indiana State momentarily threatened to tie the game up after starting left-hander Angelo Smith walked two batters in a row. That threat was quickly extinguished as the Sycamores’ Romero Harris hit a grounder which Michigan turned into a 6-4-3 double play. “They probably feel like they had multiple scoring opportunities in the first three innings that they couldn’t capitalize on or we stopped,” Bakich said. “Angelo (Smith) pitched us out of some big jams as well.” The Wolverines’ offense picked up in the bottom of the inning. Singles from Kerr and Blomgren sent two runners home while freshman first
baseman Jack Van Remortel scored on a passed ball. Sophomore catcher Harrison Salter, who started over sophomore Joe Donovan, dropped a sacrifice bunt in a squeeze play to send senior Ako Thomas home and widen Michigan’s lead to 6-0. Salter, who has had limited playing time so far this season, had made his mark on the game with a sacrifice f ly in the bottom of the second that scored Blomgren. “Those hits felt great,” Salter said. “We work a lot on situational stuff, and while the team gives me crap for being such a good bunter, we ended up needing it.” After a lightning-fast fourth inning with 1-2-3 frames for both teams, Indiana State found its offense in the top of the fifth and managed two runs from singles, marking junior right-
hander Jack Weisenburger’s first conceded runs of the season. It seemed initially as though the Wolverines would contain the Sycamores’ offense in the sixth. But with two outs and the bases loaded, a single to center field from Jake Means notched Indiana State another two runs to narrow the score to 6-4. “We knew even up six that they weren’t going to go away quietly,” Bakich said. “Today was shaping up to be very much like yesterday if it weren’t for the travel curfew.” With the clock relentlessly ticking toward the 7:30 deadline, the Sycamores were unable to capitalize on this momentum. To allow Indiana State to get on the road, the game was ended after the sixth inning, and Michigan was saved by the bell.
We knew even up six that they weren’t going to go away.
ABBY SNYDER
Daily Sports Writer
Baseball is a long game. Nine innings; three-plus hours; three, four or even five days a week, come rain, shine, or even snow – a legitimate possibility in Ann Arbor, even in April. The time has arrived in the Michigan baseball team’s season when its demanding schedule is starting to take a toll on the players’ bodies. It’s not uncommon for players to sit out a midweek game to rest up for a big weekend. On Wednesday against Indiana State, it was sophomore catcher Joe Donovan who was scratched in favor of redshirt sophomore catcher Harrison Salter ahead of a big weekend series at arch-rival Ohio State in Columbus. Salter ended up making the most of the opportunity for the Wolverines. He notched a single and two RBI on a sacrifice fly and a sacrifice bunt as well as a solid performance behind the plate in No. 24 Michigan’s 6-4 victory over the Sycamores. “I was really excited. It’s always great to come out here and get the start,” Salter said.
ALEC COHEN/Daily
The Michigan baseball team beat Indiana State after the Sycamores failed to capitalize on momentum late in the game.
“It’s always an honor to come out and do my part and continue our legacy here this season.” Salter has served this sort of fillin role all year for the Wolverines. He’s started games against California State UniversityNorthridge, Manhattan, Western Michigan and San Jose State – the last two also coming in the middle of the week – as well as coming off the bench in games against Binghamton and Michigan State over the course of the season. He’s hitting for a respectable .267 batting average over his nine games this season with five hits and five RBI. Wednesday was his biggest day so far this season, though. His two RBI helped build Michigan’s momentum in what ended up being a tight game to close a midweek series against the Sycamores. “Today was just great,” Salter said, grinning. “We work a lot on
situational stuff. People on the team always give me crap for being a good bunter, but it always comes in handy when you need it during games.” Clutch hitting like Salter’s has become an increasingly important part of Michigan’s success recently. Four of their last five games have been decided by a margin of two runs or fewer. Against tough teams like Indiana State, which, like Michigan, has been in and out of the rankings over the course of the season, a hit here or there can make all the difference. “We had our work cut out for us,” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich. “They’re a very complete team. We knew even up six, they weren’t going to go away quietly. We were two very evenly-matched clubs. It’s whoever gets that one extra hit or makes that one extra play wins the game.”
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
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2B — Thursday, April 11, 2019
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B-SIDE: STYLE
B-SIDE: MUSIC
Virgil Abloh’s three brands that are moving to the top LOUIS HAMATI For The Daily
Virgil Abloh has become one of the biggest names in the modern fashion world, and not for a lack of effort. He started his career as a creative director for Kanye West, directing for albums like 808s And Heartbreak, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne. A few years after interning at Fendi in 2009, he began designing his own clothes, starting two brands that would in turn lead him to creatively direct another big firm. His third was one of the biggest brands in the world. From Pyrex Vision to OFF-WHITE to Louis Vuitton, Abloh started with a vision and saw it through each step of the way. Abloh started Pyrex Vision in late 2012, launching the first collection at RSVP, the Chicago boutique he opened with designer Don C a few years earlier. The idea behind Pyrex Vision was simple: Take regular Ralph Lauren flannels and Champion garments, screen print a number and a logo on the back and sell it for hundreds of dollars above the price it originally sold for (the Ralph/ Pyrex flannel retailed for $550). Call it what you want, but with Abloh’s vision and the support of Kanye West, A$AP Rocky and others that called themselves the “#been#trill” crew, Pyrex Vision started a cultural revolution within streetwear that would continue on with Abloh’s legacy. With Pyrex Vision selling out
on nearly every release, Abloh was able to shelf the brand for his bigger and still active brand OFFWHITE. The first collection launched for Spring/Summer 2014, and with this brand, Abloh told Style.com that his goal was to “merge street sensibilities in a proper fashion context.” In the years since this first launch, OFF-WHITE has done exactly that and plenty more, achieving the perfect balance between the pinnacle of streetwear within the youth while selling at nearly every luxury retailer next to fashion giants like Gucci, Celine and Louis Vuitton. OFF-WHITE not only has given Abloh the opportunity to showcase more of his vision, but has led him to collaborate with almost every corner of the industry. Just in the past two years he released OFF-WHITE suitcases with RIMOWA, launched an art exhibit with Takashi Murakami, designed merch for Kids See Ghosts and Travis Scott and released an entire rug collection with IKEA, all while DJing shows at Lollapalooza, ASTROWORLD and Camp Flog Gnaw. Among these collaborations is one of the biggest launches he’s had at this point in his career: “The 10” sneaker collection released with Nike. Abloh and OFF-WHITE brought Nike their first mustneed sneaker since the death of the Air Jordan Retro (queue “Facts (Charlie Heat Version)” by Kanye West). 10 pairs of sneakers, nine of which released within a two-hour span, that became nearly impossible to purchase
with all the hype surrounding the release. The coveted sneakers can now be found selling on Stockx for a lovely price of $1,150 and solidified Abloh’s place as one of the biggest icons of modern streetwear. At that point, Virgil Abloh had nearly reached the top of the fashion Mount Olympus. The only thing left to bring him up was his appointment as creative director of Louis Vuitton. The announcement of Kim Jones’s replacement broke the internet, and nearly every celebrity ran to Instagram to congratulate him. His first show included a rainbow runway the length of the Palais Royale Gardens, vibrant baggy clothes modeled by none other than Kid Cudi and Playboi Carti and ended with a tearful hug with his former Fendi co-intern Kanye West. Abloh certainly did not disappoint the viewers of his Spring/Summer 2019 show, especially with this keep-all bag that stole every eye in the vicinity. With the continuation of OFF-WHITE, more incredible Louis Vuitton handbags (see the glow) and all of the random collaborations that make him so great, Virgil Abloh isn’t going anywhere. With each coming year, more people assume he’s reached his peak and with each year he surpasses the last. One of the leaders of the Instagram generation and the new king of luxury, Abloh will continue to be the most talked about figures of our time. Let’s just hope he can still make time to premiere unreleased music at his DJ sets.
With each coming year, more people assume he’s reached his peak and with each year he surpasses the last
COLUMBIA RECORDS
The magic of three notes and learning new chords CLARA SCOTT Senior Arts Editor
There is nothing more comforting than a triad of notes, hanging in the air. It seems perfect, like the combination of three fingers pressing three keys was always meant to be. The root note rounds out a f loating base, the second, a filler, the third, a cherry on top. In pop music, the natural ease of triads comes easy and quick. If you listen to anything currently on the top 40 radio charts, I bet you that there is an obvious triad of notes hiding somewhere in the chorus. Even more specifically, The Chainsmokers have really run with this basic musical theory into the seemingly neverending sunset, and I will never get “baby pull me closer in the back seat of your Rover” out of my head. It’s not by choice, trust me. The human brain just loves the sound of threes, no matter how cliché they may be in music — it’s truly the original earworm. My interest, however, is not with The Chainsmokers — it is in the breakdown and power of those chords the band has built a pop empire upon. The EDM duo is not alone in this hack of the music
industry’s machine: Sia has written the majority of her songs in less than 15 minutes, so did Amy Winehouse, and for the love of God, listen to the pre-Revolver Beatles once and a while and try to find a progression that you couldn’t make up just sitting at the piano for fun. Instrumental aficionados and beginners alike are familiar with the range that understanding chords can give you alone, without any real idea of the notes that are inside of them. They just sound good, like you’ve discovered something completely new and perfect despite their age-old history. And in that natural feel comes the magic of chords. The frustration of learning a new instrument is soon offset by the excitement of creating something with your own hands, something that sounds fantastic and offers you a new realm of possibilities. They’re an accessible way to start playing, and a comfortable ending point for those who don’t want to go down the long and winding path that is music theory. I personally wouldn’t consider myself a virtuoso, but I learned piano and guitar through chords and can survive on that alone. Some of the most talented song writers followed
B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE
basic chord progressions, eschewing complex melodies for the innate beauty of simplicity. There’s a reason Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is often one of the first songs that people learning guitar pick up: G, D, A minor and C are all threepronged chords, an easy starting place from which to learn more. The ubiquity of triadic chords in popular music does not devalue them. In fact, their commonality makes them an even more important skill in the process of learning an instrument. They’re the base that jam sessions are born out of, that song writing begins with, that campfire singing picks up from. When you learn the basics, you open a whole world to explore, one that most other people are familiar with. With the first chord you figure out, your fingers shaking over the three strings, the three keys, the three notes in the air, you finally have the ability to connect with all of the music that’s ever been written. It seems dramatic, but it’s true. Chords are the framework of every song structure, the f loor on which a melody dances. If you can sing, all you need is a handful of notes and you’re golden. Especially three.
B-SIDE: FILM
Ann Arbor’s organization, This shouldn’t be a shock: but make it cartographic People really love trilogies ZACHARY M.S. WAARALA Daily Arts Writer
From a genetic sta ndpoint, ever y living orga nism is a composite of billions of combinations of activated a nd deactivated genes. A nd these genes, facilitated over millennia of evolution, is what leads you to be you a nd me to be me. In that sense, we a re all just ma nifestations of the linkages bet ween our individual, evolved genetic ma keup. The key feat ures that ma ke us who we a re a re linked in some way, some connect-the-dot biolog y that ma nifests into a walking, living huma n. The sa me way that a n individual’s pa rticula r traits interact with one a nother to build that individual, a cit y ’s key feat ures link together to build that cit y ’s identit y. It is this capacit y for social linkage that ma kes Philadelphia the Cit y of Brotherly Love, that ma kes Columbus the mound of ga rbage that it is a nd that ma kes A nn A rbor the home of the Wolverines. Most people see A nn A rbor as a scat tered plot of biza rrely-a ngled intersections of oneway streets a nd four-la ne throughways dot ted with a blend of a ncient a nd modern buildings with no real def inite orga nization, but in realit y, the cit y focuses a round a ver y def ined track. The most popula r a nd well-
known pa rts of A nn A rbor a nd the Universit y ca n be found along a single, thoughtout pathway, g uiding one through the cit y ’s most importa nt feat ures. Through resea rch, I have identif ied this pathway as ta king the shape of the number three, sta rting at Zingerma n’s in Kerr y town a nd ending at the Big House. By drawing the number three on a map of A nn A rbor, one ca n discover the mathematically-alig ned key feat ures of the cit y that ma ke it the A nn A rbor we all know a nd love. We sta rt with the top lef t tip of the three at Zingerma n’s in Kerr y town, home of the g reatest sa ndwiches that A nn A rbor has to of fer. Though not frequented quite as much by underg raduates, it is held nea r a nd dea r to the hea rts of alumni who now have the money to pay for its riches. We move east from Kerr y town through Old Fourth Wa rd, a nd toe the lines of the Universit y ’s hospital forming the top cur ve of the number. The cur ve continues along Obser vator y, a nd cuts into the hea rt of central ca mpus before reaching South U, forming the central apex of the three at The Diag. Surrounded by classrooms a nd auditoriums of g ra nd performa nce, the Diag sits just adjacent from State Street, becoming the cross-
section of almost ever y thing A nn A rbor prides itself in: World-class teaching, good food, a rtistic appreciation a nd the acknowledgement of the Universit y ’s storied past, highlighted by the forbidden M of the class of 1953. We circle back out under the eng ineering a rch a nd clip the fringes of South U, just enough to hea r the hum of Pinball Pete’s a nd shouting from Cha rley ’s a nd Jug, voices of ghosts whose Sat urday nights went on fa r too long. The bot tom cur ve of the three stretches is through Ross, cut ting diagonally across Packa rd, sha rply hooking to the gates of the Big House. What bet ter place to end the three tha n Michiga n Stadium? It is the only place where one ca n truly see a nd feel the brevit y a nd depth of A nn A rbor ’s spirit ual ef fect not only on st udents, alumni a nd our rivals, but also general fa ns of the Universit y a nd our cit y. In some stra nge way of social a nd geog raphical evolution, the most salient feat ures of A nn A rbor that bring people here from a round the world ca n be traced out using the number three, linking the cit y ’s “genes” that ma ke it the A nn A rbor we know a nd love. From Zingerma n’s, to The Diag, through to the Big House, the number three outlines A nn A rbor ’s places to be.
IAN HARRIS
Daily Arts Writer
They say three is a magic number. Every child knows that the way to tell a story is to have a beginning, a middle and an end. At film schools all across America, the three-act structure is taught like the holy gospel, the magical story sauce that will make your movie compelling. Nowhere is this more evident than in the all-powerful movie trilog y, the holy grail of film series leng ths. Of course, modern movie franchises have found it hard to contain themselves to only three movies. As long as part three is still bringing in the dough, you can be sure that parts four and five are not far behind. That doesn’t change the fact that when people talk about the greatest film series of all time, they more often than not bring up trilogies. “Star Wars,” “The Lord of the Rings,” ‘Back to the Future,” ‘Indiana Jones,” “The Matrix,” “The Godfather,” the list goes on and on and on. There’s something perennially powerful about the three-act structure, and the trilog y is the three-act structure taken to its most grandiose state. The setup is as universal as it is simple. The first film constructs an intrig uing world filled with wonderful characters, and provides a simple story that seemingly
resolves at the end, but leaves room for growth. The second film throws a ton of complications into the mix, adds characters and an overarching narrative and ends on a huge cliff hanger. The third one wraps everything up. Many of the best “second in a trilog y” films are rightly accused at their time of release as being overcomplicated movies that only exist to lead into a third movie. That’s true, but is that really a fair criticism if the movies are meant to act as a cycle? Would it be fair to complain that the second act of a play only exists to set up the third? Many second chapters fair better upon release of the third, and audiences can see where all this is going. Conversely, if the third film is bad it can retroactively hurt the second one as well. “The Empire Strikes Back” was controversial when first released due to the unfinished feeling of its ending, but ever since “Return of the Jedi” it has been considered the best of all the “Star Wars.” On the f lip side, “Dead Man’s Chest” and “The Matrix Reloaded” were both hurt in the eyes of geek history by the disappointment of their follow-ups (for what it’s worth, I love all three “Pirates” films, but I digress). Of course, sometimes the trilog y isn’t allowed to stand on its own. “Star Wars” has all manners of sequels,
prequels and spin-offs since the original trilog y wrapped up almost forty years ago. “Lord of the Rings” was eventually followed by “The Hobbit,” and even “Toy Story,” which seemingly had closed the book as hard as it could possibly be closed, is coming back this summer for a fourth go around. These extra movies often hurt the perfectly balanced symmetry of a trilog y, but in some cases they merely restructure the original story in context of the others. The original “Star Wars” movies are now the second act in a trilog y of trilogies, which for trilog y aficionados is absolutely amazing. Despite the lack of traditional trilogies in modern movie making, almost anything can be restructured into a trilog y if you look at it in the right way. “The Marvel Cinematic Universe?” They’ve got three phases. It’s a trilog y. “Harry Potter”? One through three are the first act, four and five the second and six through eight the third. It’s a trilog y. College? Freshman year is prolog ue, sophomore year is act one, junior act two and senior year act three. It’s a trilog y. Meals? Breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you have three names, you are a trilog y. The three-act structure is the only structure, and it is beautiful. Internalize that and you will never be disappointed in the arc of anything ever again.
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thursday, April 11, 2019 — 3B
B-SIDE: NEW MEDIA
B-SIDE: FILM
Third time’s the charm: On The big value in having Hollywood’s ‘rule of three’ all three Michelin stars MADELEINE GANNON Daily Arts Writer
Of all the base human instincts which motivate daily lives, the human capacity to gossip is both fascinating and impressive. Whether it’s indulgence in guilty pleasures like “The Bachelor” or Star Magazine or catching up with TMZ and Twitter, everyone loves to gossip — those who deny it are probably liars. They are probably liars with “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” taped on their DVR (after all, who isn’t on the edge of their seat with Khloe’s cheating scandal?). And if there’s one thing people love to gossip about the most, it’s Hollywood. When it’s not a scandal (again, always the Kardashians), or digging up old dirt (Brangelina, anybody?), the death of a star is a supernova in the entertainment industry. Afterall, when a star falls, everybody knows two more are coming this way — but who? Famous deadly trios include the heartbreaking January of 2016, where the world lost Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Glenn Frey, the fateful year of 1970, witnessing the fall of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and more notoriously, the episode of 2009, where Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson passed in succession. All of these deaths collected in neat trios. It’s no wonder the pattern has drawn the curiosity of the masses. It’s the age old “rule of three”: When one celebrity bites the dust, you can be sure that two more will follow. If life is unpredictable, then the morbid “Rule of Three” is seemingly the only constant in life. But where does this Hollywood myth come from? Maybe it’s because “three” is a lucky number. Maybe it’s
mere coincidence inf lated by old-fashioned journalism. Or maybe there’s a secret celebrity cult where stars sign their name in the book of the Dark Lord (In “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”-esque fashion) in exchange for fame (talent being optional — looking at you, Mr. Cage). Regardless, Hollywood’s “rule of three,” however ludicrous, has by great coincidence, luck or grand design withstood the test of time to become one of the most well-known and (oddly) cherished superstitions. Where do we begin the search for answers? It could be a religious thing — the focus on the number three harkening
rings within the famous elite. The Church of Scientology alone has always been a point of fervent enthrallment for the rest of world, with its “hushhush” secrecy and high profile drama (Recall the supposed Tom Cruise wife auditions). It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that kings and queens of Hollywood blockbusters pass around a medieval-style goblet filled with expensive red wine (or the blood of unfortunate B-listers?) and chant holy prayers to invoke the powers of Apollo or the ancient Greek Muses. Or, more heartwarmingly, the answer could lie in how intimately these stars penetrate our daily lives. Celebrities are often household names, held near and dear to our hearts. The deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Big Bopper J.P. Richardson in 1959 became known as The Day the Music Died — if that doesn’t say something about how a nation can mourn an idol, nothing does. The Hollywood “rule of three” could be an attempt to reconcile how these beloved artists who often seem invincible — immortal, even — are still human, no matter how talented they are (or how much plastic surgery they buy). The “rule of three” is a fascinating example of humanity perceives death. Even though we often toot our horn about how advanced and modern the 21st century may be, when confronted with death it is almost instinctual to revert to (arguably) more primitive wonder with the supernatural, divine or unnatural. Sure, everybody has to die one day. But it’s far more fun to speculate that darker forces swirl behind the Golden Gates of Hollywood’s elite. For now, we can just cross our fingers that when another one bites the dust, they won’t take another fan favorite with them.
Sure, everybody has to die one day. But it’s far more fun to speculate that darker forces swirl behind the Golden Gates of Hollywood’s elite.
back to the holy significance of the number in Christianity: The Three Kings; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the list goes on. Could this pattern have emerged from the unconscious connection between death and religion? For the pious, death and religion are intricately intertwined. Could it be that the death of these larger-thanlife individuals is so jarring, so heartbreaking, that the masses could only turn to religion for solace? Another possibility is the existence of a secret, dark underbelly to Hollywood. Every so often news breaks of secret cults, orgies or gambling
B-SIDE: TV
NBC
Three, quas and the great people of this special town SAMANTHA DELLA FERA Senior Arts Editor
The number three is relevant to television in a lot of ways. It may refer to the number of good seasons “Arrested Development” had, or the Big Three television networks that control the minds of the American people. Maybe three alludes to the years since the sensational Michael Schur comedy “The Good Place” came to NBC, or the number of facelifts a cast member of “The Real Housewives” gets per season. Indeed, the number three is
relevant to television in a myriad of ways — none of which I particularly care about. What I do care about is a “Saturday Night Live” skit from 2017 titled “Short Film,” because, you know, I’m alternative. “Short Film” is “SNL” at it’s best: bizarre, stupid and starring Emily Blunt. It takes place in a quaint little town called Ann Arbor — yeah, we’re about to get pretty meta here. Debuting at the Ann Arbor Short Film Festival is a short entitled “qua,” a thriller featuring Blunt and written or produced by literally everyone in the theater besides one unsuspecting viewer played
by Vanessa Bayer. Most of what happens in the short isn’t relevant. What matters is that as Blunt runs through a grayscale forest, she is surrounded by giant white threes peppered throughout the trees and shrubbery. So what do those threes mean? When Vanessa Bayer asks that same question, none of the cast or crew seems to know what she’s talking about. “I’m sorry, what threes?” Kenan Thompson’s Ann Arbor counterpart asks. No one else seems to have seen the threes Bayer is referring to, leaving all parties involved baffled. I, too, was
SAYAN GHOSH
Daily New Media Editor
“Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey” is all that accompanies three small, rounded stars next to a restaurant’s name in the “Michelin Guides.” Yet those three stars are a gateway to global fame. People from around the world (well, certain kinds of people) will indeed go out of their way to go to that certain restaurant. Reservations will have to be made months in advance. The award isn’t accompanied by a gaudy ceremony or any more fanfare at all really. But for chefs around the world, those three little stars are worth sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. By now, the origins and mystique surrounding Michelin Stars are well known. Those who award the prizes in the first place are completely anonymous, known to no chef, no journalist, not even their own families. The first star for a restaurant is extremely difficult, and gaining each subsequent star becomes even more so. The pressure mounts exponentially as well. Even with one star, a chef is at least a minor celebrit y. But once a chef gets two or three, they become something only short of royalt y. Yet the higher one rises, the more precarious the fall. Bernard Loiseau, g raduate of the legendary kitchen La Maison Troisg ros and head chef of his own La Côte d’Or, committed suicide in
2003 after rumors that his restaurant would lose its third star. His story was the inspiration for “Ratatouille” four years later. The pressure in kitchens of this level are beyond our wildest imaginations, but are these three little stars really worth anything at all? Perhaps it is a rather silly question to ask. To many (maybe most) chefs, at least in the Western world, these stars represent the pinnacle of their profession, the equivalent of the Nobel, Oscar, Pulitzer, etc. Ultimately, though, the value is created by us, the consumers. But, once again, who are the consumers? France, Japan and the U.S. are the most represented countries in the list of Michelin-starred restaurants. As one can expect, the majorit y of restaurants can be found in the Parises, New Yorks and Tokyos of these countries. And they’re not cheap — the tasting menu at Benu in San Francisco is $310 a person. It’s clear that the people creating the demand are the one percent. Moreover, the cuisine very noticeably represented in any list of Michelin-starred restaurants is French. There’s no doubt that French cuisine is highly inf luential, and the layout and structure of the modern kitchen is thanks to the French. But it’s important to keep in mind that several rich and varied cuisines of the world are not represented on these lists due to a lack of chefs trained
at top kitchens overseas and a lack of clientele in their own cities. It’s hard to deny that meals from Michelin starred restaurants are often spectacular. However, it might be more valuable to completely ig nore these ratings and simply seek out the unique and special. Follow in the footsteps of Jonathan Gold and explore every nook and cranny of your local cit y to find every great meal you can. Highlight the upstart immig rant chefs who already make so many of your meals. Celebrate the women and other minorities who are so under-represented in these lists. And perhaps even more importantly, be willing to pay top dollar for certain cuisines. A fancy dinner need not always be French or Italian. Anthony Bourdain once said, “I’m very excited about the possibilities for that (Mexican) cuisine, and I think we should pay more attention to it, learn more about it, and value it more. This is frankly a racist assumption that Mexican food or Indian food should be cheap. That’s not right.” I’m inclined to ag ree, and more importantly, to advocate for this t ype of attitude for any cuisine from around the world which we already enjoy, and whose f lavors already inf luence every major Western cuisine today. The idea is, yes, Michelin Stars are a g reat metric to judge a restaurant. But we can extend our pockets and our gratitude towards so much more.
Those who award the prizes in the first place are completely anonymous, known to no chef, no journalist, not even their own families
confused by this sketch, a standout among most “SNL” sketches of date that are pitiful attempts at political satire. I found myself with three main questions: What the hell is “qua,” what do those threes mean and why did they pick Ann Arbor? Three big questions, three tentative answers. Let’s dive in. A quick google search proves my vocabulary may not be as extensive as I hoped to believe. “Qua” is actually an English conjunction, dating back to the 15th century meaning “in the capacity of” or “as.” Used in a sentence: The president qua commander-in-chief ordered to remove the troops from the Middle East. Kind of pretentious, right? A 20th century usage writer thought so, commenting, “Qua is sometimes thought affected or pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically.” Sounds like not only the description of a word, but of a short film that may be shown in a town like Ann Arbor. The mystery starts to unfold. But what do those threes mean? “Qua” has three letters, is that the answer? Probably not, but they have to mean something. In my research
I looked to a chaotically evil place for answers: YouTube comments. One viewer’s analysis of the short in particular stuck out to me as incredibly poignant. They claim that the short is about a mother whose daughter died after she left her in the bathtub. She’s in denial and running away from herself, surrounded by threes, the age of which her daughter died. At the end of the short when Blunt collapses, looks up at a clone of herself and says “It’s me,” she’s finally accepting that it was she who led to her daughter’s death. Quite a deep interpretation of a fake short film from an “SNL” skit, but not necessarily a bad one. I was pretty impressed until I continued reading the comment to find the final conclusion user Wolf Man Lykan came to: “lol jk I’m bored asf.” Maybe there never were any threes after all. So why Ann Arbor? Isn’t there enough madness going on in this sketch that it needn’t be placed in a Midwestern bubble? Couldn’t these millennial faux-creative types debut their passion projects anywhere? The answer is no, this sketch couldn’t take place anywhere but
Ann Arbor. Sure, NYC and LA are hubs for indie celebrity wannabes, but that’s so predictable. Who would suspect that a 29-squaremile town in the south of Michigan is filled to the brim with 20-yearolds convinced that they are God’s gift to creative world? That no one else gets it like they do? I love Ann Arbor, I really do, but part of the reason I love her so is that every day feels like I’m a part of an anthropological study someone is conducting “Truman Show”-style to see what happens when a bunch of people aged 18 to 35 are stuck in a Midwestern town with coffee shops and craft beers. Have you ever been to Literati and just looked around? The entire second floor coffee shop is full of white men with cuffed jeans and women with dyed hair freelancing. It’s fascinating, it’s marvelous, it’s the exact place “SNL” would choose to host an artificial short film festival. I may not know much about the etymology of the word “qua” or what the hell Emily Blunt was running from, but I know Ann Arbor. She’s a holy trinity of pretentious, passion and peculiar people — the perfect trifecta.
Isn’t there enough madness going on in this sketch that it needn’t be placed in a Midwestern bubble?
b-side
4B — Thursday, April 11, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
B-SIDE: FILM
B-SIDE: BOOKS
A plot as old as a triangle: ‘Three to Tango’ charms EMMA CHANG Senior Arts Editor
PAULINE BYNES
On the threefold literary litany of my very own life CASSANDRA MANSUETTI Senior Arts Editor
One of my favorite things to witness in the American suburban expanse is ridiculous buildings trying their best to incorporate motifs of classical architecture. On Eisenhower, in the south of Ann Arbor, there’s a strip mall that’s trying it’s best to look like a fun-size imitation of the Colosseum, except it’s only a semicircle, and I don’t think there are any Tropical Smoothies in Rome. At this faux façade, with its vehicular arena of a parking lot, there is a Tex-Mex fast-casual chain called Moe’s Southwest Grill. It’s objectively worse than Panchero’s or Qdoba, but I like it the best. I like it because it reminds me of Clemson, South Carolina, a then-small town with a college a lot of my family attended, home to a Moe’s location I ate at when I was eight or so. I was stupid then, so I probably made my mom order me a cheese quesadilla. The multicolored plastic kid’s cup with the big bendy straw lodged in the lid similarly lodged itself in my mind. Why am I talking about a pretty okay fast casual southwestern chain for a Books piece in a B-Side themed around the number three? Truth be told, I don’t know. I do know this is how my mind jumps: Weird Roman rip-off architecture to Moe’s to South Carolina to the Anderson public library. There’s a Moe’s in my Southern hometown as there is a daunting library that looks like a downsized Parthenon (or at least it was daunting to me when I was eight and two stories equated to about seven kid Cassies stacked on top of each other). I always left the library with a book when my mom took me, but I never read them there; my time was happily spent logging hours on the computers playing Magic School bus point-andclick games. I do know that tenuous little connections like this make up my lifetime career and hobby of reading and writing, from its humble beginnings in South Carolina to its radical new changes in Germany to its uncertain endings in Michigan. I’ve lived in a trilogy of fixed places in the never-ending and incessantly moving series of novels that is my life. I’ve lived in a few more houses, but
three places. Two continents. One girl who bided a lot of her time alone, in the pages of constructed worlds that were always easier to follow than real life. In first grade I was put in an accelerated reader program because I smoked all the measly excuses for chapter books out of the water. Some called me a gifted student, but I know now that translates to “gay and depressed by their teenage years.” I remember being presented with the challenge of tackling some more advanced literature — in this case, “The Chronicles of Narnia” — and the next day I came in proclaiming I was already finished with “The Horse and His Boy.” Never mind the fact “The Horse and His Boy” was the fifth book in the series. I, with my advanced tyke eyesight, had conquered it. I didn’t actually read the book. I just sat in my bed and stared really hard at a page for 30 seconds before f lipping to the next. Cut to few years later and a bunch of miles farther, and my fifth-grade class was tasked with writing a story for a big assignment for the class. Inspired by the worlds of Percy Jackson and Charlie Bone, my opus was about a group of ragtag friends who get thrust into a fantastical situation and solve it with some ingenuity and the power of staying true to your heart, or something. The gimmick with this story was time travel, and the name? “Back in Time.” A classic. I still have it printed on now decadeold paper if you want a signed copy. In fifth grade I was living in Germany, and the school library was up a set of stairs from the fifth and fourth grade hallway. It was the highest point in the school, its atmosphere airy from all the natural lighting the surrounding windows allowed. Almost every week I would parse through its tight shelves, looking for a title of “Horrible Histories” I hadn’t read before. A lot of the historical references were lost on me, but I loved the pictures. Walking up the stairs of the North Hatcher Stacks doesn’t fill me with that same brand of childlike glee. I hardly walk up them to check out a book, — only to suffer. Writing is a lot more involved now, and the reading so tough that even if I
try to read a page it feels like I’m back in first grade staring at argle-bargle. Yet at least in my sophomore year of college I find myself trying to read and write — more so than when I first moved to Michigan. Reading and writing was always mindless fun in the first two places I lived. In the third, it used to be a taxing chore. Fun was no longer to be found. My energy spent trying to make new friends or make sense of this crazy new state did often not see any reward, so I forewent my traditional pastimes for … nothing, really. When I became aware that my family was to leave Germany soon, that we would have to leave behind the life to which I had practically just adjusted, a spark died in me. Germany had become a waste; things would be better in Michigan, a fresh start. When things weren’t better in eighth grade at a Michigan Catholic middle school, I assured myself things would be better in high school. A fresher start. They weren’t much better at all. Being designated an accelerated reader back in first grade meant I spent reading time in a group separate from the class. However, this group consisted of me and me alone. Perhaps this was the first time I realized I was forever doomed to the outside, never able to pinpoint why I could never quite fit in. Did I just need to make more friends? Did I just need to have a girlfriend? How could I be normal? Perhaps the answers to those questions were found in the childhood books I read, with their outsider protagonists, and they secretly lodged their way into my mind. Only now do I know I’m far from normal, but I’m pretty cool with that. At the end of the day I really do love being a (beautiful) transgender woman. I regret a lot of things about my childhood, primarily the fact I’ll never have the girlhood I always wanted, but there were nuggets of good. Tiny, silly memories that form the person I am today. Scenes from the trilogy of places that is my life. I can’t rewrite my past, rip it out like a page of a notebook or chuck its Word document in a digital trash bin. I sure as hell can write my future, and until I figure out exactly what I want it to be, I’ll keep reading to find out.
RICK RIORDAN
Movies are no stranger to love triangles — “Twilight,” “The Princess Bride” and “Pretty in Pink” all heavily showcased the metaphorical polygon. “Three to Tango,” 1999’s spicy AustralianAmerican romcom, joins the ranks of movies that rely on the problems of having three people in a relationship. The triangle can be a gorgeously balanced shape — three equal angles and three equal sides all connected at clean points. But rarely does a love triangle ever emulate the stability of an equilateral triangle. More often than not, it resembles an isosceles triangle with two longer sides gripping for dear life on the shorter, conf licted member of the group, sometimes even morphing into that dreaded scalene triangle that seemingly follows zero rules of logic. But there is some semblance of thought behind a love triangle or, at the very least, an element of predictability. “Three to Tango” is no different. Characters end up heartbroken and, in true romcom fashion, pouring their heart out to the other in front of a giant crowd at some fancy gala in a big city. Matthew Perry (“Fools Rush In”) plays Oscar Novak, essentially a Chandler Bing who lives in Chicago whose
biggest worry is the fact that he’s in love with his boss’s mistress who also happens to think he’s gay. Like I said, love triangles are messy. Amy (Neve Campbell, “Skyscraper”) and Oscar have the kind of meet-cute we all want — Oscar, always the hero, dramatically saves Amy’s artwork and their first encounter is a tense moment in which everyone around them falls away. It was magical. The only cloud over the situation and the real sticking point of the movie is that Oscar’s boss also happens to be Amy’s protective (Domineering? Possessive?) boyfriend, Charles (Dylan McDermott, “Perks of Being a Wallf lower”). Eventually, the relationships evolve into the classic love triangle tropes: Oscar is seen as a “close” friend and Charles is the enticing rich-boy. Amy is stuck in the middle. Part of the reason love triangles work so well is that drama is inherent — the minute someone feels even a smidge of jealousy or a character realizes their feelings, all hell breaks loose. As Charles becomes suspicious of Amy and Oscar’s relationship, the only saving grace is the fact that Charles is convinced Oscar is gay. As Oscar pines away for Amy, the movie’s audience wishes for more of Oscar’s work partner, the man who is actually gay and with better jokes to boot. And, honestly, for how much I wanted to hate Charles, Dylan
McDermott is a gorgeous human being with a smirk to die for. Forget Matthew Perry and a bumbling Oscar — give me a Dylan McDermott who doesn’t know he looks like an actual Greek god. Though “Three to Tango” has an interesting premise, the actual plot fails to age well. The notion that Oscar and his work partner are dating hangs in the air with no one daring to touch them. Characters broach the subject unable to even say the word — through several uncomfortable moments in which secretaries and competing coworkers meet eyes and say the pair are — you know — demonstrate the uneasy attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community that was the norm in the 1990s. Eventually, the movie wraps up in the expected fashion: Oscar and Amy get together after a teary reunion in a diner and it eventually comes out that for all his confident posturing with Amy, Charles is, surprisingly, a sub in the bedroom. It was the kind of funny irony that the movie lacked throughout. “Three to Tango” didn’t add anything new to the concept of love triangles or romantic comedies. There were no insights, no vampires and an air of homophobia that’s present in too many late ’90s/ early ’00s movies. And yet, it’s still a charming romantic comedy that, even if you don’t love it, is easily enjoyed ironically.
Part of the reason love triangles work so well is that drama is inherent — the minute someone feels even a smidge of jealousy or a character realizes their feelings, all hell breaks loose
SINGLE REVIEW: ‘OLD TOWN ROAD’
COLUMBIA RECORDS
“R idin’ on a tractor, lea n all in my bladder.” These st upid lit ly rics drip, soa ked in the spirit of the hip-haw genre. There comes a time in a writer ’s ca reer when they a re launched into uncha rted territor y. Never would I imag ine this territor y to be the depths of the la rgely pastoral, cowboy agenda that is Tik Tok (Musical.ly ’s son, Vine’s dista nt cousin). Lil Nas X’s smash single “Old Town Road” has risen as a cult ural phoenix that ig nited the weirdest pa rts of the internet, personif ying the cowboy emoji a nd ig niting a n inescapable “yee-haw boi” energ y that has lead the meme empire to its clima x. In Ma rch of 2019, “Old Town Road” rose to the top of both Billboa rd’s Hot Countr y Cha rt a nd Hot R&B/ Hip-Hop Cha rt, only to be removed from the countr y cha rt due to
its supposed deviation from traditional countr y roots (a hem, some would a rg ue, a deviation from whiteness). Since being thrown from the horse that
‘Old Town Road (ft. Billy Ray Cyrus)’ Lil Nas X Columbia Records
is Billboa rd’s Hot Countr y Cha rt, Lil Nas X dropped a remix of “Old Town Road” feat uring Billy Ray Cy rus, a nd is now at the top spot on the Billboa rd Hot 100. “Old Town Road” is the blissf ul apex of the cowboy energ y that has f looded popula r cult ure. The pause bet ween “I’m
gonna” a nd “rideeeee” quite possibly hits ha rder tha n all four seasons of Ha nna h Monta na combined. Genius’s ly ric interpretation video of “Old Town Road” dropped just yesterday, a nd it soa red to over 2 million views in just eight hours. The most shocking piece of this phenomenon, however, is Lil Nas X’s fair a nd squa re, joyous at tit ude: This ma n seems to ta ke no notice of the questions his single raises about race, genre, media, memes a nd success. In inter views, he simply basks in joy without acknowledg ing his role in single-ha ndedly challeng ing present-day cult ural associations. He’s just a hip-haw cowboy, humbly praising pioneers like Young Thug a nd Lil Uzi Vert. That bliss — that ’s the root of yee-haw energ y. — Samantha Daily Arts Writer
Cantie,
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
B-SIDE LEAD: SHORT FICTION
b-side my bed, slip into my head. We don’t talk about it. For three days I adore her. I recount the whole situation over the phone to a close friend from back home. “You don’t actually like her,” she says. “You just don’t know how to be single.” I already knew that. A switch f lips and I cringe at my confession, and I’m intensely grateful that we could just be friends. I was just confused, I think. She Snapchats me about a boy she likes and I breathe a sigh of relief. I would not pay for the mistake of a hasty confession. I swear to forget about it not for now, but forever. Let this be a lesson, I think. Stop it with the girls, stop it with the feelings, stop seeking out what I know I COURTESY OF DYLAN YONO don’t want and don’t need and can’t conceivably contain in my complicated, consternated cranium. I got drunk thrice the next week. First on Tuesday, while shooting the shit with a couple pals. Then on Thursday, alone. The third time was at my party on Friday. It was a party for my people at The Daily. We probably broke a fire code, with 20-something writers crammed in my tiny apartment. I fell in love with three different girls that night. I had a type: Books writers. Only natural — I write for music, but I just feel a connection with the books writers, like I really know them. Girl one was the life of the party, but I forgot about her as soon as girl two walked in. Girl two was cute, so cute I felt pulled to her like gravity, but I forgot about her as soon as girl three walked in. Girl three didn’t write for books, but she was smart. She engaged me in a half hour of meaningful conversation. I only remember three minutes of it. Within three hours, the party emptied all three 12-packs of Twisted Tea and three bottles: one Capriccio sangria, one Barefoot rose and a handle of Costco vodka. I asked everyone to Venmo me three dollars. Twenty people said “Going” on Facebook — that would cover it. Thirty people came. I wake up to 10 Venmos and a slew of forgotten drunk selfies with two girls on Books I barely knew. I don’t really know anyone on Books, though. Wonder why I took pictures with them. I remember a smart girl, though. I think we only talked for like, three minutes, but she was smart, and smarts are attractive. What was her name? Her face? The smart girl Venmo’d me. Three dollars and a “Thank you!” in the description. That’s right — Jasmine. Maybe I didn’t remember what we talked about, but something told me that she Venmo’d me for a reason. And so I was compelled to Venmo her back. One cent? That’s too cheap. Two cents? That should be saved for giving someone your “two cents.” Three cents? Three cents would do it. Three cents to Jasmine. Venmo asked, What is this payment for? “hey, what’s up :~)” She gave me a like but didn’t reply. I don’t know what I was expecting by sliding into her Venmo anyway. I don’t know what I wanted. I didn’t want anything, actually. Did I not learn anything from the three girlfriends? Oh, right — almost forgot about those. Wonder what they’re up to. Emma is perpetually boring and drab, Instagram peppered with mediocre photos of her and her friends. Looks like she’s finally gotten a new boyfriend, though. We broke up three years ago, but the pain of our shitty soul-sucking relationship still stings like it was just yesterday. Poor boy doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into. I silently pray for him. Mary went through a breakup recently too, if her Twitter is any sign. I don’t know why she went and got another boyfriend right after dumping me anyway. From what I’ve heard, that guy
Loveless 3: A short story DYLAN YONO Daily Arts Writer
I’m single right now, and I’m never single. I don’t know how to be single. For years my life revolved around a girl. Three girls, Emma, Mary and Haley, in that order, with no more than a one month gap between each. Emma sucked. We broke up. Mary had her own shit to figure out. We broke up. And Haley? Haley was perfect. But my heart wasn’t in it anymore, and she deserved only the best. We broke up. Then the devil downstairs called. It had been three weeks since me and Haley ended it — just long enough for my moral compass to approve of reinstalling Tinder. Lots of cute couples looking for a third for a threesome — too advanced for me. I hook up with the third girl that swipes right on me. Deep down, I didn’t want to. I didn’t think I didn’t want to at the time, of course. I’m kind of a shy guy, so sometimes I need a shot to give me a bit of a confidence boost. I needed three shots of Fireball. That’s how I knew. It was okay. She holds my hand afterward and it scares me. I don’t text her the next morning, or the next one. On day three I unmatch her. Not enough — I uninstall Tinder too. Three weeks later I would dig up her number at 3 a.m. “hey, u up?” I delete the message before sending and delete her number too. That was the third time I ever slept with someone outside of a committed relationship, with someone I barely knew. The third time was not a charm. Thinking about it makes me shiver, so I swear off girls for a while. A few days later I go to a co-op party. I was going out with my friends, and I wanted nothing more than for it to be a wholesome, comforting night. I wanted to make unforgettable memories with the people I care about. No silly f lirting, no seeking sex, no going for girls. I wake up in the morning with minimal memory of the night. Three condoms line my pockets. How crazy a night was I planning on having? Looks to me like I didn’t do anything, though. Then I notice my arm wrapped around someone. It’s my best friend. Oh — almost forgot — I confessed my feelings to her last night. Sometime in the night, our faces side by side, enough moonlight filtered through the window for me to see the outlines of her face. I told her, a small part of me really likes you, but I could forget about it. Should I? “Maybe for now.” Those words echo in my head and I turn my back to her. I try to remember and make certain I really did that and it wasn’t just a dream. It was definitely not a dream. I slip out of my head, slip out of her bed, slip out of her house. I slip into my house, slip into
Thursday, April 11, 2019 — 5B was who you get when you try to describe Dylan Yono in three seconds. If he was anything like me, she should’ve known he was no good for her. She doesn’t look like she’s gotten her shit together — I thought that was the point of our breakup in the first place — but she’s clearly trying, now. I won’t speak to her, but I bear no ill will towards her. I wish her well. Haley’s taking a break from social media in the wake of our breakup. The only clue that she still hasn’t taken it very well is her Spotify. She made three playlists about me: “y so sad,” “i wish this was a movie” and “it’s time to sleep.” My photo graces the cover of the third one. Shot from behind, I sit hunched over a canvas with brush in hand, painting on a picnic blanket in her backyard. My heart aches. I want her to be happy. I don’t regret breaking up with her, but I miss knowing who to love. Only one thing is constant in my life, and it is getting the Jerk Pork Lunch Special at Jamaican Jerk Pit at 3 p.m. every Monday afternoon. Today a friend joins me. Alice had her third and final date with a frat boy at the ripe hour of 11 p.m. the night before, a disaster in all ways, so her story went. At the end of the night, he started acting weird, called off the sex, went to sleep, turned his back to her the whole night. She’s confused, horribly, horribly confused and all she wants is clarity, to know what went wrong. “What would make you act like that?” She asks me with sincere curiosity. “Nothing. I would never act that way.” My mind wanders to the girl I hooked up with. After lunch we part ways at the Diag. We talk shit about boys and how they’re all trouble. “You’re not a bad guy, though,” Alice tells me. I wonder if that’s really true. I spend the evening “studying” in a quiet corner at the library. No work gets done. I am lost in my head again. Me and Haley broke up so I could focus on myself. It’s been over a month now and I just replaced a thousand thoughts about her with a hundred thoughts about thirty different girls. If you do the math, you’ll find that my thought-burden tripled. I wish I could be free from this curse of three. A moment of clarity does not lift the curse, but for a moment I feel at ease. The last three weeks were not a loveless disaster. My club had a day of bonding where we went to a newsroom concert, studied together and watched a collection of short films at the theater. I made a new friend, and we enjoyed bubble tea together. A close friend and I had a slumber party, gossiping all night long. Another friend saw a musical with me. My cousin texted me to tell me she missed me. An acquaintance at an event meeting stopped me on the way out to tell me she thought I was really funny. Someone DMed me a meme that reminded them of me. My parents read my latest article for the paper, and told me they were proud. These three weeks were full of love. I just wasn’t looking. I feel on the verge of something that could put myself at peace. The library closes and I scurry over to the dorms to spend some time with a close friend. We relax in her room, listening to Frank Ocean’s “Pink + White,” talking about this and that and this and that. She says her love life has been uneventful lately, but she’s okay with that, and she’s been able to focus on deepening her relationships with her friends. I hug her and tell her I’m proud of her for that. We get a bit emotional about all the friend-love we’ve been feeling. There’s something fulfilling about it. It hits me. The curse isn’t the crushing weight of 3,000 thirsty thoughts. The curse is the emptiness in my heart when I forget about what truly makes me happy. I remember the co-op party and how I just wanted to make memories with the people I care about. I recall the sense of relief when the friend I confessed to liking a different boy. I realize my apathy toward the hookup girl, toward Jasmine, toward Haley, the apathy that made me realize I didn’t want to be in love anymore. I decide then and there to embrace those feelings from the moment of clarity in my cozy corner at the library. They would become more than just a moment. The friends that I love would become my lifestyle. My sophomore summer is only three weeks away now. I’ll be here, in Ann Arbor, and some close friends of mine will be staying too. I think about summer festivals and concerts, upcoming movies, restaurants I haven’t tried, the double-hammock in my closet, video games, all the things I want to go and see and watch and do with friends that are dear to me. Love for them wells in my heart. I fall in love in a different way. All is well now. Maybe romance will find me in my third year.
B-SIDE: MUSIC
Sometimes, we just need a quick and easy relief from the constraints of everyday life
Chainsmokers have taken their place. They contain a capsule of pre-2010s nostalgia that, when unearthed in 2019, reeks of male fragility and Axe Body Spray but also comes with the ATLANTIC RECORDS promise of unabashed joy and confetti cannons. Revisiting their breakthrough record WANT, which features “DONTTRUSTME” and their beguiling Katy Perry collab I found 3OH!3 was the perfect “STARSTRUKK,” encapsulation of an era defined myself transported back to by popped collars, Warped Tour, middle school, recalling images “Jersey Shore” and questionable of glowstick necklaces, striped hairstyles. Listening to them hats, colored braces, sweaty was like eating birthday cake foreheads, iPod Touches and hungover for breakfast — my lithe 4’11’’ body going a sweetly spontaneous in the little too hard on the dance moment, but really disgusting f loor at a school formal. It was in retrospect. Whether the an equally amazing and terrible douchebag personas Foreman sensation to re-immerse myself and Motte embodied in in Foreman and Motte’s f lashy “DONTTRUSTME” and the fantasy world, where parties never-ending, alcohol rest of their discography was are real or performative, their is f lowing, cocaine is being short-lived legacy represented insuff lated and girls are sex an important turning point in objects, qualities that are horrible both in concept and American pop music. As obnoxious and politically reality. incorrect as they were (and For all their hilarious, cringestill are, 12 years since their worthy attempts at charming debut), 3OH!3 resembled an women while also being creepy intoxicating care-free, DGAF and possessive toward them in attitude that is rarely seen in their music, there’s something today’s pop music landscape — absurdly fascinating about the although one could argue The combination of Foreman and
My long history with 3OH!3 SAM ROSENBERG Daily Arts Writer
If you want to see how dramatically times have changed, look no further than the overnight rise and gradual fall of 3OH!3. In the summer of 2008, a season dominated by Michael Phelps’s breakout at the Beijing Olympics and other timeless late 2000s pop songs like Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida,” Colorado duo Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte released their triple-platinum hit “DONTTRUSTME.” With its glitchy synths, sun-soaked casual misogyny and iconically odd lyrics (“Tell your boyfriend / If he says he’s got beef / That I’m a vegetarian / And I ain’t fucking scared of him”), the
song found massive charttopping success. It was heard everywhere that year — playing on the radio, at bar mitzvah parties, at summer camp and on that Tap Tap Revenge game everyone was obsessed with. Their champagne-coated, frat-boy brand capitalized on the dirty lust that spurred the uncontrollable hormones of American adolescents, simulating an experience that was at turns angry, horny and silly. As evidenced by the song’s over-the-top music video, the two frontmen also played with and reinforced tropes of masculinity, sifting through a series of costumes that included cheetah-printed speedos, wrestling singlets, cavemen loin cloths and white button-down shirts with loosened black ties and sunglasses (which they wore indoors, of course).
Motte’s predatory lyrics and their catchy, easily digestible sound. Other WANT tracks like “HOLLERTILYOUPASSOUT” find both 3OH!3 frontmen doing their best Lil Jon impressions, yelling with feverish aggression about their hometown of Boulder and bragging about a sexual transaction (the entire chorus is just the line: “Hey yeah, shake-shake your ass now”). The insidious, malegazey “PHOTOFINNISH” — yes, they even misspelled “finish” — contains so, so many problematic lines that it makes Michael Bay look like a novice. 3OH!3’s more refined but amateurish follow-up to WANT, 2010’s Streets of Gold, also carries a few hedonistic, grimy bops like the Ke$hafeaturing “My First Kiss” and the appendage-centric “Touchin On My.” And yet, I find myself gravitating toward their songs, not because I agree with their lyrical approach, but because of how easily they manage to sneak in their unseemly desires within their intriguing blend of emo, electro, rave and rap. Unlike most artists, who learn to evolve and grow with every record they make, 3OH!3 have pretty much
stayed committed to their dude-bro sensibility since they arrived in the mainstream. It might not have benefitted Foreman and Motte in the long run — their most recent efforts, 2013’s OMENS and 2016’s NIGHT SPORTS sound like god-awful, overproduced parodies of their earlier work — but they possess a strangely unique ability in toeing the line between satire and sincerity, subverting the “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” element of fame and celebrity while simultaneously embracing it. In the end, 3OH!3’s songs are light, harmless and cheesy fun that, even in today’s socially conscious climate, shouldn’t be taken too seriously. There’s a reason why most people have a guilty pleasure. Sometimes, we just need a quick and easy relief from the constraints of everyday life: a trashy song, a bad movie, a lowtier TV show that’s palpable enough to consume and keep our tiny attention spans entertained, if only for a few f leeting minutes. For me, that guilty pleasure is 3OH!3. Their music may not be the most intellectually or creatively stimulating, but they sure can make a hit that sticks like grits.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, April 11, 2019 — 6B
B-SIDE: NEW MEDIA
Idiomatic uses of three JACK BRANDON Managing Arts Editor
I’ve always found idiomatic language to be more useful and fun than direct speech. My grandmother, when I would visit her as a kid, would often announce that she was “going to spend a penny” after dinner, meaning that she was excusing herself to the restroom. I never understood what she meant when I was really young, but after I grew up, and developed my own code of idioms and phrases, I asked my mom. My grandmother is from Kent, England, where public restrooms formerly had coinoperated locks. In order to use them, one had to drop a penny into the slot. My mother told me that idiomatic and rhyming language was commonly used in that area of England, where Cockney rhyming slang took hold. Once, my grandmother used the phrase “apples and pears” for “stairs.” I never really understood that one. My father, an N.J. native, has his own set of idioms and phrases. He and I like to make fun of common business jargon, like “to put something on the parking lot,” meaning to save the idea for a later day, or “to put a pin in something,” which means about the same. Growing up, I was told to “hold my horses” when I was impatient and to “take my lumps” when something got the better of me. When I got a little heady, he would tell me to stop being a “smartmouth” when I was out of turn, or to “stop busting his chops” when I was in the right. As they were such a mystery in earlier parts of my life, idioms became increasingly interesting modes of
communication, carrying their own histories and contexts. They reveal as much about the speaker’s thoughts and feelings as they do the speaker’s personal background. I’ve never heard anyone in the United States utter the phrase “spend a penny”; if anything, I’ve heard the crude “take a piss” from guys my age. By the same token, I’ve only heard business jargon from my parents, corporate presentations and Ross students. (Language can be an insidious tool.) Each idiom carries a history and a basic truth, and those that we employ tell others about where we come from. One of my favorites, one that I return to time and time again, is the phrase “two is company, three is a crowd.” The phrase finds its origins in the notion that the symmetry and parity of two is “right.” Between two things, there is a clear thing-one-thing-two, self-and-other relationship, but as soon as you introduce a third object, the system grows in complexity. No longer are you dealing with one relationship — you’re dealing with three, unique relationships, between one and two, two and three and one and three. The paragon of this idiom is the love triangle, depicted in countless works of art and culture: Betty, Veronica and Archie in “Archie Comics”; Bella, Edward and Jacob in “The Twilight Saga”; Katniss, Peeta and Gale in “The Hunger Games”; I could go on. A relationship between two people is cool, I guess, but you want to know what’s really cool? Making things complex by adding another player. It’s easy to have a presumptive harmony when you have one or two things: The beauty of singularity and unity
of one object, the symmetry or diametric opposition of two things. But with three, it’s easy to unbalance. How far apart are these things? Which two elements of the system are closer, more alike, and how does that affect the third thing? There is a whole field of mathematics devoted to the relationship between three points: trigonometry. Since you’re reading the Arts section, I’ll just give you the meat and potatoes of the subject. Trigonometry reveals that there is a method to the madness of the lengths and angles between these three points. Trigonometry can be applied to countless subjects, and it’s always funny to remember that locating the apparent positions of stars in astronomy is possible because of triangles. In art, too, the tension of three finds usefulness in the “rule of thirds.” A centered single object or two objects in any relationship are boring to the eye. Offsetting the presumed harmony of unity or symmetry makes the eye look a little harder at a painting or a photography. Perhaps there is beauty in the tension of three. Let’s return to the idiom, though. Three is a crowd, sure, as the chance for exclusion and “a loser” always exists in a love triangle, yet three is also complex and beautiful. Within three, there’s a productive friction that leads to great works of art and science — the same friction produces tension and hard feelings in relationships. It’s easy to feel behind the eight ball in love and life ( just look at the crazy things that Bella, Edward and Jacob do competing for one another’s affections), but remember that two — er, three — can play at that game.
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: ‘COOL’
UMG, DOWNTOWN MUSIC PUBLISHING
Even the sweet embrace of nostalgia can’t save the cringe-inducing mess of the Jonas Brothers’s latest music video, “Cool.” As a product of Disney Channel’s proclaimed “Golden Age,” I felt an obligation to join the Jonas Brothers’s comeback party. Maturity be damned — I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit excited to hear of the trumpeted return of childhood idols. Unfortunately, “Cool” is everything one would expect it to be when blind optimism is thrown away: boring. In fact, not only is it boring, but it’s unoriginal, awkward and (again) vividly cringey. The video is uncomfortable and semi-heartbreaking for anyone with even the lowest expectations. It’s just plain bad. That’s not to say they didn’t try — in fact, it’s painfully apparent just how hard the brothers tried to be “cool.” Sadly for them, a bad mustache (like, ew, Joe), name-dropping actual talents (like James Dean) and singing “Dammit, I’m
so cool” (please, calm down) can’t do much when you’re already beyond saving. In the video the three Jonas Brothers — Nick,
‘Cool’ Jonas Brothers UMG, Downtown Music Publishing
Joe and Kevin — play a hired boy-band at a skeezy beachside hotel, set in an ambiguously vintage era. The majority of the video spotlights Nick — most likely a nod to his recent rapid rise in popularity. It seems the reign of Joe Jonas as the fan favorite is over. The brothers (very ambitiously) compare themselves to James Dean, which instead of suave comes off as a biting wince. Nick’s awkward lip syncing is an inescapable horror. Watching him strut on the screen and repeatedly do
fist pumps is a performance no one ever wanted, or ever will. There’s a lingering irony, too, as the lyrics “Cool” repeat over and over while the brothers grow considerably less cool with every second. And, beyond all these pitfalls, there looms a far bigger, more painful misstep: Kevin. Or rather, the lack of Kevin. Once again, the third brother is forgotten. It’s like that awful mix of amusement and sharp second-hand embarrassment when in the film “Home Alone,” the family realizes they forgot their son. So, save yourself the pain, and skip “Cool” this week, no matter how dedicated a fan you may be. Instead, remember the Jonas Brothers in their ’00s boy-band glory. It’s better to mourn the memory than suffer through their skincrawling grab to reclaim lost fame. — Madeleine Daily Arts Writer
Gannon,