ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Friday, September 27, 2019
Ann Arbor, Michigan
michigandaily.com
FootballSaturday
The Michigan marching band created a special Mary Poppinsthemed show in honor of late administrator Maggie St. Clair.
» Page 1B
Cultural fraternal organizations talk challenges, support in ‘U’ community Students express concern over lack of recognition, publicity for events SONIA LEE
Daily Staff Reporter
RUCHITA IYER/Daily Musician and actor Common speaks on purpose and finding a vocie at the annual Ross School of Business Handleman Lecture in Hill Auditorium Thursday evening.
Common gives Handelman Lecture on progress, purpose
Entertainer highlights using business as force for positive change CLAIRE HAO
Daily Staff Reporter
Thousands of University of Michigan students and local community members filled Hill Auditorium to hear American rapper, actor, philanthropist and activist Common speak at the Handleman Lecture on Thursday night. Answering questions posed by Scott DeRue, dean of the Ross School of Business, Common discussed how he aims
to use his platform as a force for positive change. Hosted by the Business School and sponsored by the Joseph and Sally Handleman Charitable Foundation, the annual event invites a prominent figure to campus each year to speak on relevant business topics. As part of their curricular activities, all first- and second-year Business students were required to attend. Common opened the event by sharing how he found his voice through rap at the age of 12.
Seeing the love and joy his work brought, Common said he knew he wanted to become a rapper when he realized his work had impact. “When I found my voice, I started to figure out what I stood for and who I am,” Common said. “My voice really became something that I knew was mine when I found out it had purpose,” When asked about formative moments in his childhood, Common said learning the story of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-
old who was lynched after being accused of whistling at a white woman in 1955, has been the strongest influence in shaping who he is today. “Me seeing that as a little kid and knowing that he was just like me, from Chicago, it made me feel like I had to live for something greater,” Common said. “It made me realize, someone died just because he whistled at someone, so what am I going to do with this See COMMON, Page 3A
Before LSA senior Ashley Soto entered the University of Michigan, she knew she wanted to join a culturallybased sorority on campus. Soto, who is now president of the University’s Alpha chapter of Delta Tau Lambda Sorority, Inc., had an opportunity to visit the University through the sorority’s high school outreach program. After her first year, she decided to join the sorority. “I didn’t want to join a Panhel (Panhellenic) organization, just because I didn’t feel comfortable as a black Latina doing that,” Soto said. “That’s kind of the reality of things for some students of color. But, once I found out that there was a way of joining multicultural Greek life, I knew that I had seen a lot of people in my community be a part of it, and I wanted to be a part of that community.” Engineering senior Spencer Chen had a similar experience to Soto, saying though he did not intend to join Greek life before coming to the University, he was able to find a
community in the Iota chapter of Asian-American interest fraternity Pi Alpha Phi, which helped him open up to his identity. “I originally joined because I first met a few of the brothers, and they were very warm and welcoming,” Chen said. “And before I came to college … I wasn’t very accepting of my culture. They helped guide me to not only accept myself, but embrace it.” The National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Multicultural Greek Council oversee culturally based fraternal organizations (CBFOs). NPHC, also known as the “Divine Nine,” is made up of historically African-American sororities and fraternities founded during the early 1900s, when Black students were not permitted to join historically white fraternal organizations. MGC was founded in 2002 with the mission of embracing multiculturalism and providing a space for communities of color in Greek life. “We were founded based on the idea of inclusivity,” Chen said. See FRAT, Page 3A
Former Massachusetts governor Bob Dylan Provost’s to perform Deval Patrick talks climate change XR effort CULTURE
at Hill in November Student tickets sold out to see musician perform on campus FRANCESA DUONG Daily Staff Reporter
Inf luential singersongwriter Bob Dylan will be blowin’ in the wind all the way to Ann Arbor on Nov. 6 to play a concert at Hill Auditorium. Bob Dylan and his band are being brought to Ann Arbor by an organization called Live Nation, a live-entertainment company that produces concerts. Samantha Musil, manager for Student Services and Major Events at the Center for Campus Involvement, assisted Live Nation with the venue setup. “We rent the space to Live Nation,” Musil said. “We also provide event coordination for on-campus requirements... For example, hiring security, ambulance services and stage labor in order to set up the stage and bring up their equipment.” Many Bob Dylan fans on campus are excited for his arrival, as some have been growing up listening to his music since childhood. See DYLAN., Page 3A
GOT A NEWS TIP? Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
INNOVATION
Politician discusses regional greenhouse gas reduction, sustainability SONIA LEE
Daily Staff Reporter
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick spoke in a conversation-style event about climate change and the role of business and politics in environmental sustainability. The event was the first installment of the Environmental Law &
Policy Program’s 2019-2020 Lecture Series. Patrick, who served as governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015, first discussed the importance of encouraging innovation in businesses through the government, public policy and impact investing. “The kind of innovation that is happening in the clean
and alternative energy I think is just wildly exciting,” Patrick said. “How do you enable the folks who are doing this? We need to help catalyze the private sector with this kind of research. … We need to elevate that, which is a thing that people in senior public positions can do by showing up to events, understanding what’s
happening and encouraging.” According to Patrick, one of the key faults in governing and politics is the idea that there can only be a single solution for issues like climate change, when in reality these problems often have multiple angles and solutions. See GOVERNOR, Page 3A
ASHA LEWIS/Daily Deval Patrick, former Governor of Massachusetts, speaks about his state’s embrace of pro-environmental policy during the Great Recession as part of the Michigan Law Environmental Law & Policy Program Lecture Series in Jeffries Hall Thursday afternoon.
Follow The Daily on Instagram, @michigandaily
For more stories and coverage, visit
michigandaily.com
INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 142 ©2019 The Michigan Daily
integrates learning
Multi-year initiative brings technology to classes, coursework ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter
University of Michigan Provost Martin Philbert announced a campus-wide extended reality initiative — an umbrella term for augmented, mixed and virtual reality technology commonly referred to as XR — last week. XR Initiative Director and University alum, Jeremy Nelson, said the technology will enhance learning both on campus and online. “These are advanced technologies that allow you to experience different environments, different perspectives in a way that may be challenging to do if you’re not able to travel somewhere or to see inside of an atom,” Nelson said. “It opens up lots of opportunities for expanding the learning experience for students and learners around the world.” Nelson works in the Center for Academic Innovation, which is spearheading the three-year initiative. A new fund will support projects related to XR on campus. See REALITY, Page 3A
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 CLASSIFIEDS................6
SUDOKU.....................2 ARTS...................5 SPORTS.................7
News
2A — Friday, September 27, 2019
MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers
TUESDAY: By Design
WEDNESDAY: This Week in History
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
FRIDAY: Behind the Story
B EHIND THE STORY Every Friday, one Daily news staffer will give a behind the scenes look at one of this week’s stories. This week, Business senior Sonia Lee wrote about University support for culturally-based fraternal organizations. “This was my first time writing about Greek organizations. It’s interesting, I think that writing about Greek life, all of Greek life, they are a little bit more closed off sometimes, when it comes to talking about the Daily especially, and I don’t know if that’s why some people didn’t respond to me, but I definitely sense that some people wanted to be very careful about what they’re saying, which I get because it can be a bit of a hot topic at times. But I felt like at the same time, communicating with MGC and MPHC was easier than what it seems like what it seems like to be communicating with IFC and Panhel, and I think it’s just because they’ve had a lot more stories about them come out versus these organizations, and I think that’s how it is, basically.”
Sonia Lee: “Culturally-based fraternal organizations talk challenges regarding ‘U’ support” KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“
... Even just having things like Subways and 7-11’s right downtown seems kind of weird sometimes. I’m used to having a more localized feel to it, like when I was a kid… I wish it was the way it used to be. Ann Arbor definitely feels more pretentious than it used to be.”
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com
MAYA GOLDMAN
TOMMY DYE
Editor in Chief 734-418-4115 ext. 1251 mayagold@michigandaily.com
Business Manager 734-418-4115 ext. 1241 tomedye@michigandaily.com
NEWS TIPS
news@michigandaily.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Mitch Czechowicz, kitchen manager at the Detroit Street Filling Station
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
EDITORIAL PAGE
opinion@michigandaily.com
PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION
ARTS SECTION
photo@michigandaily.com
arts@michigandaily.com
NEWSROOM
SPORTS SECTION
734-418-4115 opt. 3
sports@michigandaily.com
CORRECTIONS
ADVERTISING
corrections@michigandaily.com
dailydisplay@gmail.com
Editorial Staff
Professor talks book on AmericanGreek artist Eva Palmer Sikelianos Author Artemis Leontis highlights biography of poet, composer at moderated discussion FRANCESCA DUONG Daily Staff Reporter
The Osterman Common Room was packed for a moderated discussion with author Artemis Leontis discussing her new book “Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins” on Thursday afternoon. The event was part of the Author’s Forum series presented by the LSA Institute for the Humanities. The conversation was moderated by Prof. Yopie Prins. Leontis’s book is the first biography about Eva Palmer Sikelianos (18741952), an American poet, composer and dancer
BURN SAGE
who extensively studied Ancient Greek history. Palmer recreated ancient art forms, staging Greek tragedy with her own choreography, costumes and even music. She was most famously known for reviving the Delphic Festivals in Delphi, Greece. The lecture began with Leontis discussing how she had been fascinated by Palmer’s body of work, but how research on her artistic process and life had been limited. Leontis recalls how after getting promoted to associate professor at the University of Michigan and having the resources of the Humanities Department
puzzle by sudokusyndication.com
backing her up, she was able to start embarking on cataloging the life of Palmer. In the early stages of her research, Leontis organized an event that brought a poet who had personally known Palmer to campus. Baldwin shared several personal anecdotes with Leontis and helped shape the framing of the narrative of Leontis’s biography. “This was not just a Greek story ... this is also a ladies’ Greek story,” Leontis said. “Those two pieces had never been brought together. The transnational movement, women who entered into classical studies sort of triangled and learned Greek and always presented themselves as amateurs, but had felt that their life was quite interconnected with their one in Greek.” Leontis said her research allowed her to travel to several parts of Greece, including Delphi. In these archives, Leontis describes finding fascinating love letters between Palmer and her husband in an archive. “Most interesting and challenging was an archive of love letters that were the center for Asia Minor studies in Greece,” Leontis said. “So just finding out the papers were there was an adventure.” When asked about Leontis’s feelings about Palmer, she was hesitant at first to
respond, as she purposely tried not to allow her personal feelings to ref lect in her book. “I worked very hard not to develop a relationship with the person, but it’s very hard to divorce her now,” Leontis said. “I think that she would be really quite unbearable sometimes. … I think I would really disagree with her fundamentally on almost everything … but I fell in love with her stuff.” LSA sophomore Dana Papandreadis said it was interesting that Leontis started off wanting to document Palmer’s life but was able to delve into so many other disciplines. “It’s really cool that she dove into … so many different angles,” Papandreadis said. “She just started writing a biography but it hit so many different categories.” LSA senior Tim Bennett said the lecture exposed him to a completely different aspect of Greek culture. “There’s a whole realm of Greek history that I just knew nothing about. That there were even these festivals, these Delphic festivals,” Bennett said. “That there were these people who were bringing aspects of American culture, Indian culture, to the costume design, choreography. There’s archives for choreography? That’s crazy.”
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
FINNTAN STORER Managing Editor
frstorer@michigandaily.com
GRACE KAY and ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Managing News Editors
news@michigandaily.com
Senior News Editors: Sayali Amin, Rachel Cunningham, Remy Farkas, Leah Graham, Amara Shaikh Assistant News Editors: Barbara Collins, Julia Fanzeres, Claire Hao, Alex Harring, Angelina Little, Madeline McLaughlin, Ben Rosenfeld, Emma Stein, Zayna Syed, Liat Weinstein
JOEL DANILEWITZ and MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA
Editorial Page Editors tothedaily@michigandaily.com Senior Opinion Editors: Emily Considine, Krystal Hur, Ethan Kessler, Miles Stephenson, Erin White
MAX MARCOVITCH and ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editors sportseditors@michigandaily.com Senior Sports Editors: Anna Marcus, Aria Gerson, Ben Katz, Mark Calcagno, Theo Mackie, Tien Le Assistant Sports Editors: Bailey Johnson, Bennett Bramson, Connor Brennan, Jacob Kopnick, Jorge Cazares, Rian Ratnavale
ARYA NAIDU and VERITY STURM
Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com Senior Arts Editors: Clara Scott, Emma Chang, Cassandra Mansuetti, Sam Della Fera, Trina Pal Arts Beat Editors: John Decker, Sayan Ghosh, Mike Watkins, Ally Owens, Stephen Satarino, Izzy Hasslund, Margaret Sheridan
ROSEANNE CHAO and JACK SILBERMAN
Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com Senior Design Editor: Sherry Chen
ALEC COHEN and ALEXIS RANKIN Managing Photo Editors
photo@michigandaily.com
Senior Photo Editors: Alexandria Pompei, Natalie Stephens, Alice Liu, Allison Engkvist, Danyel Tharakan Assistant Photo Editors: Miles Macklin, Keemya Esmael, Madeline Hinkley, Ryan McLoughlin
ANDREA PÉREZ BALDERRAMA Statement Editor
statement@michigandaily.com
Deputy Editors: Matthew Harmon, Shannon Ors
SILAS LEE and EMILY STILLMAN Managing Copy Editors
copydesk@michigandaily.com
Senior Copy Editors: Sadia Jiban, Olivia Sedlacek, Reece Meyhoefer
CASEY TIN and HASSAAN ALI WATTOO
Managing Online Editors webteam@michigandaily.com Senior Web Developers: Jonathon Liu, Abha Panda, Rohan Prashant, Samantha Cohen
ELI SIDER
Managing Video Editor
video@michigandaily.com
NA’KIA CHANNEY and CARLY RYAN
Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Lorna Brown, Samuel So, Ana Maria Sanchez-Castillo, Efe Osagie, Danyel Tharakan Assistant Michigan in Color Editors: Harnoor Singh, Nada Eldawy, Maya Mokh
CATHERINE NOUHAN Managing Podcast Editor
MADALASA CHAUDHARI and HANNAH MESKIN Managing Social Media Editors
Business Staff MOLLY WU
Creative Director
RYAN KELLY
ZELJKO KOSPIC
Sales Manager
Special Projects Manager
ROBERT WAGMAN
ANITA MICHAUD
Marketing Consulting Manager
Brand Manager
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid.
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
REALITY From Page 1A The major academic goals of the project, he said, are to improve the quality of on-campus teaching through the use of XR and integrate XR into online curricula. Additionally, Nelson said the initiative was created in hopes of prompting public-private partnerships with the goal of developing new XR-related technologies. Nelson said he has been working with professors across disciplines to increase the quality of education through XR. As an example of this, he noted a School of Nursing course utilizing XR to give students the opportunity to experience high-risk hospital situations without the actual risk. “I would love to see really interdisciplinary engagement, so students from Engineering, students from Art & Design and architecture and humanities,” Nelson said. “It really brings different skill sets to the table to either build new content or curate these experiences. Building upon that expertise is what Michigan is known for. It’s really cross-discipline and interdisciplinary research and learning, and taking that to the next level in the student experience.” The interdisciplinary goals for the initiative span beyond STEM, Nelson said. While he noted XR is typically associated with the technological and scientific fields, he said he sees opportunities for all disciplines to benefit from XR.
FRATS From Page 1A “Our founding fathers, they were the first group of men to found an Asian-American fraternity because they wanted to join a traditional IFC fraternity but they weren’t allowed. This was back in 1929.” Like the Interfraternity Council and the National Panhellenic Conference, NPHC and MGC are supported primarily by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. In addition to helping organizations with operations and events, FSL has been trying to help raise awareness about CBFOs on campus and within the Greek life community. “FSL staff works with the councils and chapters to affirm the cultural significance and unique histories of their fraternities and sororities, and support their inter/ national and campus initiatives,” FSL wrote in a statement to The Daily. “The staff also helps to provide context and education about CBFOs to other campus partners who may interact with NPHC and MGC chapters during any of their various campus events and projects. Additionally, FSL consults with national speakers and experts to work with NPHC and MGC on topics through the specific lens of culturallybased fraternal organizations including recruiting and community-building strategies at predominantly white institutions, and risk management education.” LSA senior Chyanne Laldee, who is president of NPHC and a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.’s Iota Psi chapter said the council is grateful for the support they have received from FSL. “They have been a constant support system to help voice concerns of our communities and provide the efficient amount of support to help our community as well,” Laldee wrote in an email interview with The Daily. “They have been a constant advocate for the NPHC and we wouldn’t have gained a lot of the things we have without them advocating for us in different ways.” LSA senior Silan Fadlallah agreed, saying FSL offered a welcoming and encouraging support system during the founding of the Zeta chapter of sorority Epsilon Alpha Sigma, the first and only Arab sorority in the country, which started its chapter at the University in 2018. “MGC does a great job of supporting us, and especially our advisor, Courtney, and the larger MGC community,” Fadlallah said. “I could not have asked for more, especially from the organizations themselves.”
Specifically, Nelson said an English professor could use this technology to create a scene from a novel to show how the characters experience empathy. He pointed to this collaboration as one-way humanities scholars have used XR to improve education. Currently, a team of University professors led by the School of Information are working on creating a graduate certification for XR technology. Nelson said there will be a fellowship for both undergraduate and graduate students to work on projects involving XR at the University. Since 2018, the student-led Alternative Reality Initiative has been exposing students to XR. Nelson lauded the ongoing commitment of students already involved with this technology and said the initiative is building off their work. Business junior Michael Zhang, ARI president, said he is excited to see how XR technology will change how classes are taught. Zhang also serves as president of the Inter-Collegiate XR, a community of school XR student organization leaders in 20 North American universities. “Traditionally, students learn using 2-D outlets like textbooks and worksheets,” Zhang said. “Now, with XR technology, we’ll be able to learn not only with 2-D elements but also with 3-D representations of material that we’re learning in 2-D.” ARI Vice President Matthew Kosova, Engineering junior, said he hopes more people
will use XR as the technology becomes more accessible in terms of ease of use and cost. “The technology has reached a point where prices are becoming better and the hardware is becoming easier to use,” Kosova said. “Now, it’s up to a diverse group of talented creators to design new applications, design new use cases for this technology, and that’s why XR technology essentially relies on the fact that there is a diverse pool of people using their respective backgrounds and interests to discover what are the future uses of XR technology.” In the near future, Nelson said the initiative is planning an XR speaker series and hackathons to generate student interest. He said the new initiative supports the University’s role as a research institution as well as a commitment to enhancing the public good. With the student work done in the past, Nelson said much of his work at the beginning stages of the initiative is to gauge the work that has already been completed on campus in the field of XR and looking for ways to bolster that work with the new resources from the initiative. “I’’m spending this these early days understanding what work has already been done,” Nelson said. “Who are the people that are experimenting and experts in this space? What sort of resources do we have? What do we need? And helping pull that together and shine a light on all the great things already being done and how we take that to the next level as we go forward.”
According to some CBFO representatives, while support from FSL and fellow council members has been excellent and open-minded, support from the University’s administration has been lacking in areas like recognition. Additionally, CBFO representatives said they don’t have as much money as other Greek organizations. University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald clarified that no fraternal organizations receive funding from the University. “No fraternities or sororities in any of the councils receive any U-M funding,’ Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Daily. ‘The four councils all receive comprehensive advising and support from the U-M Office of Fraternity & Sorority Life.” LSA junior Dipita Das, a member of the Beta chapter of Sigma Lambda Gamma, said that because MGC and NPHC organizations were founded more recently, they lack the donors and funds many IFC and Panhel organizations have. Often, she said, MGC organizations will run small fundraisers or apply for grants to put on cultural events. She said financial restrictions and the limitations on grant applications make it even more difficult to put on these events. “The University claims, ‘Oh we’re so diverse,’” Das said. “Well, if you’re so diverse, why aren’t you allowing us to hold different events to express our cultures and identities? Why are there all these guidelines on how to be cultured?” One key issue CBFO representatives brought up was the publicity of their organizations. According to Soto, some students might not join CBFOs simply because they do not know of the organizations or that they are present at the University. “I would really love to see multicultural Greek life and the Divine Nine promoted more on campus. ... A lot of people don’t know we exist,” Soto said. “So, they end up either pushing off Greek life and not thinking about it, or joining Panhel and maybe realizing later that there are multicultural orgs and wishing they had known sooner. I think promotion is a big thing, because we do a lot of great things for the community, but with the smaller councils, not everyone gets to know about what we do.” Engineering senior Cryserica Jeter said the Nu chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Inc., of which she is a member, also receives less recognition for their community work from the University administration than IFC and Panhel organizations do. “If you asked the president if he knew about MGC and NPHC organizations, he probably doesn’’,” Jeter said. “But he probably knows a good amount of IFC and Panhel
organizations, just because it takes an extra effort to get to know minority groups on campus and to actually figure out what they stand for. ... I don’t feel like other people that don’t identify as minorities are actually trying to do that, or trying to fight for us to get space on campus, or even remember us as leaders.” Within Greek life, collaboration between the four councils has not always been the norm, not only because of their differing sizes but also because NPHC and MGC serve different purposes as CBFOs. But with a larger push for diversity, equity and inclusion within Greek life, some MGC and NPHC leaders have been noticing improved efforts for collaboration and understanding between the four councils. In addition to all prospective Greek life members having to complete a training module about each council’s history, Jeter said IFC and Panhel organizations are often open to hearing NPHC’s own concerns. “We have a lot of meetings as leaders with Panhel and IFC,” Jeter said. “So throughout those meetings we’re able to express our concerns, and they’re open to things that they probably didn’t even know about because they’re not a part of our communities. And within that we can collaborate more and invite them to more of our events so they can get to know more about what we’re struggling with, to help us in any way possible, and vice versa.” Soto, however, said it was sometimes difficult to bring up these concerns because of the difference in membership size in CBFO councils versus IFC and Panhel. “I know that our needs and our wants are very different from IFC and Panhel, and being much smaller — both of us are — it can be difficult to voice our concerns whenever we’re in spaces with all four councils, just because of the number of them when it comes to IFC and Panhel,” Soto said. “I know that we do things among the councils that are equal, but I don’t think they’re always equitable, because our needs are very different.” Das said similarly NPHC and MGC mainly collaborate with each other because of their shared experiences and their emphasis on multiculturalism. The organizations invite each other to their events and often share similar goals and values. “Just being people of color in both organizations, we have that bond, like, ‘Oh, I understand where you’re coming from, here is some support,’” Das said.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
DYLAN From Page 1A LSA freshman Nicholas Cemalovic was surrounded by Dylan’s music in his childhood. “(My parents) would play it, and there’s this psych phenomenon where the more you’re exposed to a stimulus, the more you’re likely to enjoy it,” Cemalovic said. Aside from his music, students are also intrigued by Dylan’s background and inf luence in music culture. His music was not only used for entertainment but also for social change. According
GOVERNOR From Page 1A “It does feel to me like we sometimes make a mistake in government in saying or arguing that there is this wonderful solution to solve all of these problems,” Patrick said. “And when we consider a challenge as profound as climate change, we need to be doing a lot of different things simultaneously.” Innovation, Patrick emphasized, needs to be fostered in such a way where failure is not penalized but instead seen as a step toward an improved world. “I think there is also an appetite for innovation in government,” Patrick said. “But successful innovation, I think, requires that you raise your tolerance for failure. And politics punishes failure.” One key area Patrick said needs to be improved upon was resource efficiency and waste. He highlighted infrastructure as oftentimes being outdated and therefore severely inefficient for cities. “If you think about something like water for example, we have water pipes under the city of Boston — wooden ones — not all of them, but wooden water pipes in active use,” Patrick said. “The amount of waste that happens in that piping … When we talk about massive investment in infrastructure, what comes to mind is roads and bridges. And that’s important. But there is an underground infrastructure that needs massive restructuring.” On the topic of raising more awareness about
COMMON From Page 1A life?” Common said much of his conviction to do good is also rooted in his spirituality. Pointing to his heart, he said he believes God gives everyone a purpose, a value he said keeps him grounded in all the decisions he makes. “I take my time to pray, I take my time to take it in,” Common said. “And if it don’t feel right for me right here, no matter what my manager says, what my agent says, what my mother says, knowing what my core purpose is and my function is, then I don’t do it. And I don’t let anything sway me away.” Speaking on the role of business in his work, Common compared business to an “amplifier” which gives his music a platform to have widespread impact. He also encouraged the audience to maintain integrity and pursue their passions regardless of monetary temptations. “It’s nothing to profit and get so much money but lose your soul for that,” Common said. “No matter how much money you gain, if you lose yourself in it, that’s a recipe for unhappiness.” DeRue then posed a question from a student to Common about how to navigate race relations in an increasingly divided United States. To much audience applause, Common said the country needs to first recognize the suffering of Black Americans. “America, white America, and especially the ones in government who hold a lot of the keys to what history, what the conversation is about, need to acknowledge the pain, enslavement, the dehumanizing of black people in America,” Common said.
Friday, September 27, 2019 — 3A to Biography.com, in 1965, he introduced electronic music into his folk style, causing controversy in the music world. In 1989, Dylan was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. LSA junior Vincenzo Convertino started listening to Bob Dylan in high school and will be attending the concert. Convertino is particularly interested in Dylan’s inf luence on other artists. “He also wrote a lot of famous songs by other artists — I think that’s pretty cool about him,” Convertino said. Of the many songs he wrote, “All Along the Watchtower” has had a long history,
climate change, Patrick emphasized the idea of continuous improvement within companies. “We have to make the case that we have a better idea for how to fuel the kind of society we want to live in and frankly the expectations that we have,” he said. “Without having the only option be shaming the folks who — I’m not saying don’t use it, just not having it as the only option — shaming the folks who perpetuate what we have always done.” Patrick now works at Bain Capital in impact investing where capital is invested in organizations addressing societal and environmental issues. Through this, he can help provide the capital for forward-thinking companies to innovate and build their ideas out. “We invest in lower middle-market companies, so these are positive cash f low companies where we can generate both a financial and a measurable social or environmental impact,” he said. “We chose three of what we call ‘thematic purposes’: sustainability, health and wellness, and education. … We invest in companies where executive teams are trying to take their companies from where they are to where they need to be.” The end of the conversation focused on politics and activism, and how the two play a part in battling climate change. Though Patrick is glad to see younger people participating in activism, he also has doubts about how long they will continue advocating for people and purposes, he said.
In addition, Common shared he believes Black Americans should also strive to heal for themselves. “We owe it to ourselves to not carry the weight of oppression,” Common said. “We owe it to ourselves to not carry the weight of that hatred … I’ve got to forgive, because if I carry this with me, I’m not going to be the best human being I can be.” To close, Common urged students in the audience to pursue their dreams in ways that better other people. “Love for God, love for self, and love for others as self — if we can apply that each and every day, we will all be bettering the world,” Common said.
including immense success from the Jimi Hendrix Experience version. Cemalovic also expressed interest in Dylan’s music history and life. “You can pinpoint different things in American history,” Cemalovic said. “He was very anti-war and wrote a lot of music that centered around counter-culture.” Tickets for the concert went on sale on Sept. 20, including a select number of discounted student tickets, which sold out the same day they were released. However, full price tickets are still being sold through the Michigan Union Ticket Office.
“A whole lot of folks who haven’t been engaged a lot, a lot of them young, come out and show up — they’ve taken to the streets,” he said. “Now, I said at some risk at an earlier meeting … that a lot of those folks strike me as not having the longest attention span, or they’re caught up in the celebrity culture we have right now where you get a person elected, and once they’re elected you go back to what you were doing instead of organizing.” Following the event, Rackham student Rebecca Lowy said she agreed with Patrick’s push for innovation, emphasizing the issue of fossil fuels. “I really liked his comment that the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones,” Lowy said. “That’s very relevant to what we’re facing right now with fossil fuels. We don’t need to deplete them to move on to something bigger and better and better for our future.” Rackham student Shanea Condon said she came to the event because she was interested in hearing a political perspective on environmentalism. Condon agreed with Lowy, saying she appreciated Patrick’s perspective the government’s role in technolog y. “We need to have more patience and grace for failure, especially with planning for innovation and trying to understand how technolog y can improve,” Condon said. “How politics doesn’t really make space for that and how we need to have patience for each other. Not only with innovating, but also with getting people to jump on board with innovation.”
Norman Bishara, Business School associate dean for undergraduate programs, explained the school brought in Common as the speaker for the event as part of their focus on integrating the arts and humanities in business. “I think you can judge from the reactions of our students that they were engaged, that they learned a lot and also got a lot to think about,” Bishara said. “In classes, students are talking about the role of business in society, so it’s really important for students to appreciate how all these different things come together.”
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Opinion
4A — Friday, September 27, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
DIVYA GUMUDAVELLY | COLUMN
Reconciling feminism and multiculturalism
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com
MAYA GOLDMAN Editor in Chief
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
FINNTAN STORER Managing Editor
Editorial Page Editors
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Zack Blumberg Emily Considine Emma Chang Joel Danilewitz Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur Ethan Kessler Magdalena Mihaylova Max Mittleman Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson Finn Storer Nicholas Tomaino Joel Weiner Erin White
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
RILEY DEHR | COLUMN
Legalize mushrooms... and everything else
D
enver is famous for its drug culture. Whether it be the marijuana dispensaries lining almost every street or the microbreweries littering the city’s burgeoning “hip” (gentrified) neighborhoods, it’s certain that the Mile High City knows how to have a good time. This became obvious to me the summer before last after my mom and I moved there from Nebraska. On our way to see a band named BoomBox, my mom, my friend Nadezhda and I stood together outside of the Ogden Theatre, a famous concert venue off of the infamous Colfax Avenue. The sun had just set, bringing this particularly raunchy section of Colfax to life. Various shady characters stumbled up and down the street, past groups of raucous, bar-hopping tourists staying at the Ramada down the street. Two political canvassers surfed the sea of buzzed, soon-tobe concert-goers. One person signed their petition, followed by another and then another. What political issue was so urgent to inspire this gaggle of inebriated adults? One of the canvassers yelled out the answer. “Legalize mushrooms!” “Yeah, right,” my friend and I snickered before walking into the concert hall and forgetting about the comedic situation. That was my first experience with Denver’s burgeoning “mushroom movement.” Until this May, that is, when Denver citizens narrowly passed a measure decriminalizing the use of hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms. This significantly deprioritized the police’s enforcement of laws prohibiting their use. This shouldn’t have surprised me, given the almost constant smell of weed that hovers over the state of Colorado, where a thriving Deadhead culture has promoted the use of psychedelic drugs for over half a century — but it did. Being the child of a drugaddict father and an ex-hippie mom, my experiences with drugs varied greatly depending on which parent was doing them. One of my earliest memories is my parents fighting in the driveway after my father decided to pawn our VHS player (along with almost everything else not nailed down) to sustain his lifelong drug addiction. The sour memories of ruined Christmases, crashed cars and a frequently disappearing dad didn’t sour my view towards drug use, though, with my mother and her band of
hippie musician friends teaching me the importance of moderation and safe experimentation. During my childhood, it wasn’t uncommon to see my mom and her friends crowd into our small kitchen for midnight “jam-out” sessions, no doubt with a few joints floating about the room, as the other kids and I played hideand-go-seek in the basement. As I grew up, I heard many of these friends describe their spiritual experiences with mushrooms and heard funny stories involving various other “hippie” drugs.
It’s foolish to not entertain the idea of decriminalization
My parents met in Leadville, Colo., — literally the highest incorporated city in the continental U.S. — during the peak of its hippie/grunge phase. My first piece of clothing was a tie-dye onesie, so I was born into the hippie life. But decriminalizing shrooms?! It just felt odd to me, letting people trip out on hallucinogenic fungi with the government’s tacit approval. What got me out of this very un-Coloradan attitude were the same people I had scoffed at with my friend outside the Ogden. Kevin Matthews, the man who organized the Decriminalize Denver campaign, said of their victory, “A lot of people who signed our petition said they are tired to see (sic) people going to jail over what they choose to put in their body.” I couldn’t argue with his rationale. It’s the same argument used by pro-choice and assisted-suicide advocates: The government shouldn’t have a say in what one does with their own body. It’s a radical idea in the U.S.,that an organization corrupted by centuries of greed and ignorance shouldn’t be able to imprison someone for eating a mushroom. In Portugal and Uruguay, however, this is the reality. These countries, for reasons ranging from cultural preservation to trying to stifle the deadly and failing drug wars that ravaged their countries, have decriminalized all drugs for personal use. Not only has it made these nations much cooler Spring Break spots, but it has also
made most of them significantly safer, more economical and more humane. With our nation’s current prison occupancy at 103.9 percent due to the epic failure of the war on drugs, it’s foolish to not entertain the idea of decriminalization. After all, it saved Portugal from a similarly unwinnable, American-style war on drugs that overloaded prisons, stigmatized seeking treatment and exacerbated the problem. In 2001, after decades of failure, the Portuguese government desperately pulled a 180-degree turn and decriminalized all drugs for personal use, halting the costly and draconian policy of criminalizing drug users, and instead invested money toward taking care of the addicted. Eighteen years later, all of the nation’s drug-related issues have been greatly alleviated. This isn’t a guarantee the same would work here — nations are as unpredictable as the people that live in them — but other countries like Bolivia have followed suit, effectively fighting their nations’ drug problems through the humanity of decriminalization rather than the violence of criminalization. Mexico’s president even released a plan this May to follow Portugal’s lead and says he hopes the U.S. will eventually do the same. Michigan and other states have already embraced this idea, albeit on a smaller scale, with the legalization of marijuana. With the federal government seemingly hell-bent on maintaining its failing strategy, the process of drug decriminalization would most likely follow weed’s lead, becoming a state issue before a federal one. While I am almost certain that Denver’s decriminalization of mushrooms was more about tripping out than avenging the people caught using them, they seem to have discovered the coveted and elusive solution to a problem that has ravaged our nation, and my family, for generations. Decriminalization is by no means an endorsement of drugs. Rather, it’s an endorsement of allowing our government to treat its citizens, especially those who cannot stop using illegal substances without suffering through the terrible symptoms of withdrawal, with compassion rather than austerity. Riley Dehr can be reached at rdehr@umich.edu.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
SUBMIT TO SURVIVORS SPEAK The Opinion section has created a space in The Michigan Daily for first-person accounts of sexual assault and its corresponding personal, academic and legal implications. Submission information can be found at https://tinyurl.com/survivespeak.
T
he origins of Western feminist thought in the early 1900s were rooted in political and sociological theories of gender differences, a certain angst that came with the patriarchal institutions that dictated day-to-day lives. The movement that emerged from this struggle became intent on altering the prominent perspectives on where women stand in Western society. While the movement maintains its objective to advocate for equality on the grounds of gender identity, its members are often ignorant of the other intersections that characterize an individual, namely culture and ethnicity. In the era of Western feminist imperialism, we must critically examine our discourse and actions and how they’ve created a new conflict between multiculturalism and feminism. Surely both can coexist. But do they? Historically, Western colonialism has systematically subdued people of color through action and intent. Currently, Western ideologies are establishing the notion of gendered orientalism, a misrepresentation of “other women” and their rights through incomplete dialogues and stereotyped viewpoints on a global, national and local scale. The central tenets of Western feminism typically, though not always, revolve around shared and accepted beliefs: a world without misogynistic violence, where pay parity is the norm and women have the freedom of choice. The context in which these are explored, however, needs to be one of cultural humility, which means understanding how certain cultural ideas compare and contrast with what people consider “expertise.” As evolved from colonial thought, there is a ubiquitous, unacknowledged notion that Western philosophies present other cultures through a pitied, stereotypical viewpoint — which is also evidenced in the global feminist movement. For instance, the 2015 documentary “India’s Daughter,” directed by British filmmaker Leslee Udwin, offers a detailed and sobering
account of the 2012 gang rape and murder incident of a young woman in India. While shedding light onto the cultural divide that galvanized a new movement in an image-conscious country, the film’s portrayal of the victim, Jyoti Singh, as a daughter propagates a rather dangerous notion as to who Indian women are and when their rights are worth fighting for. The film’s Western gaze constructs a narrow, almost twodimensional image of who Indian women are. Jyoti is reduced to a cultural stereotype — a virtuous, pure and hard-working student who needed protection. The film casts her as an abstract symbol exploited by those who knew and wronged her. Hence, she is reduced to these people’s thoughts of her, which is further muddled by the direction of a Western filmmaker. Her memory and existence in the history of the world are completely defined by one aspect of her identity — an Indian daughter — and her gruesome fate is misrepresented as a consequence of a culture that subjugates women. While these cultural tropes are not necessarily untrue, it is important to note that the crime was heinous because it was committed, not because it was committed against a pious Indian woman. Apart from globally reducing culturally-charged, feminist narratives to mere stereotypes, on a national level, Western feminism is ruptured in that advocacy is rooted in fulfilling Caucasian agendas that do not necessarily apply to minority populations. As Chandra Mohanty writes in her essay “Under the Western Eyes,” white feminism often overshadows without encompassing the complexities of colored experiences. A common topic of discussion, especially in today’s sociopolitical climate, is the income inequality that exists between men and women. The narrative that women make 82 cents for every dollar that a man makes is incomplete and ignorant of broader systemic problems. Yet the full, racialized picture rarely receives as much attention as the fragmented one does. The startlingly large wage gap in the U.S. between women
of color and white women is a discussion that is limited to political debate but little ground level recognition and action. The onset of new age feminism, dubbed the Fourth Wave of Feminism, carries the successes of the legacies created before it — voter equality, governmental representation, etc. — but compounds on the faults of the eras before it as well. It lacks intersectionality. Just like how women of color received the right to vote much later than white women, the war for equal pay seems to be serving only a portion of the population. The majority of the advocacy surrounding this issue is changing perceptions to lead to systemic changes. The perception becomes that women choose jobs that pay less, thus women deserve less pay when they choose to have children, hence women are not as professionally capable as men. Perceptions, however, are multilayered. The schema for a Black or brown woman is very different from the schema for a white woman, and so there must be room in the feminist movement for women of all intersecting identities to speak for and represent their experiences. The Western feminist framework must expand to value minority experiences as much as it values white ones and must find place in the collective consciousness of society and not just in political debates. On a local level, feminist discourse must translate to actions — ones that are inclusive, intersectional and champions of multiculturalism. Protests like the national Women’s March or even campus-wide ones must emphasize the experiences of both minority and white women, so that these experiences are woven into an overarching narrative rooted in multiculturalism. All women, regardless of whether they fit stereotypical Western images, deviate from Westernized agendas or otherwise, deserve representation and equal rights. Divya Gumudavelly can be reached at gumudadi@umich.edu.
DESI DIKOVA | OP-ED
T
Considerations on clean energy
he apparent abundance and efficiency of fossil fuels revolutionized our energy systems. Research had yet to confirm environmental, health and economic risks, and even when it had, communication was poor. This lack of foresight has led us to the current, established system that resists change despite confirmed harm — sacrificial zones, energy poverty, ecological catastrophe, global warming and climate crisis. Fossil fuels catalyzed the Second Industrial Revolution at the expense of countless communities and regions around the world. Unsurprisingly, it was the threat of scarcity rather than environmental and ethical issues that started pushing us away from fossil fuels. Research into alternative energy accelerated, with solar as one of the most attractive candidates due to abundant solar irradiance, though this can be limited as there are only so many hours in a day. Moreover, the process of fabricating a solar cell is incredibly material and energy intensive, and there are limited resources on Earth. What do we do once we’ve extracted it all? What do we do when we’re left with nonfunctional solar cells? Experts predict that we would generate 78 million metric tons of photovoltaic waste by 2050 under our current system. It is critical that we consider the full lifetime of a solar cell — from the harvesting of raw materials to methods of waste management. There are limited natural resources on Earth. Confronting this unsettling reality demands the development of more efficient and widely applicable methods to repurpose, remanufacture and recycle materials necessary to renewable energy sources. Namely, a circular economy of energy. The circular economy model first became popular in the 1970s and has since been championed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK-based charity that promotes
and funds circular economy advancements. The current global economy runs in a linear fashion: production, use, waste. A linear economy depletes Earth’s raw resources and generates massive waste, a model that is no longer sustainable. In contrast, a circular economy keeps all raw materials within the economy through repair, refurbishment, remanufacture and recycling. Consider a cell phone in a circular economy: Repair would constitute customer care such as replacing the battery; refurbishment would require the manufacturer to replace parts like the screen or camera; remanufacture would take the phone apart to install new hardware; recycling would take the phone apart completely to extract individual materials, such as precious metals, wiring and plastics. Our current economy does not significantly include any of these pathways except recycling. But taking apart products completely is wasteful, needless and energy intensive. Furthermore, recycling in the U.S. is declining since exporting waste is no longer an option and no costeffective domestic alternatives exist. Radical action is needed to establish a true circular economy. It’s the only way to sustainably minimize waste. These same principles must be applied to energy systems. Currently, silicon solar cells dominate 90 percent of the solar cell industry. Yet, while silicon is the second most abundant element on Earth, it remains a limited and problematic candidate for solar cell materials. Modern solar cell advancements rely on new materials with better electronic properties but potentially more hazardous materials. Perovskite solar cells, for example, have skyrocketed in efficiencies but often contain lead and other potentially hazardous materials. These hazardous materials demand multiple extractions,
refinement and a lengthy period of transportation. These processes elevate the initial carbon footprint of producing solar cells. Furthermore, relying on trace materials has the potential to make us vulnerable to scarcity. Regardless of what material is used for our solar cells, circular economy principles will be key to designing a system that lasts. Fossil fuels are an empire built on unethical, unsustainable practices that become impossible to correct as the empire grows. Thus, it is critical to investigate sourcing and waste management before committing to a new system. Our desperation to escape disastrous climate change by ditching fossil fuels has the potential to make us reckless and vulnerable. We must hold our industries, scientists, policymakers and energy companies accountable for answering the following questions: How are we mitigating exploitation, emissions and waste? Where will the energy be produced and maintained? How will it affect and support all communities? These are not trivial questions we can ignore while consuming seemingly limitless, cheap, consequence-free energy. Solar irradiance may be infinite, but the raw materials needed to capture it are not. We cannot continue down a linear economy model, consuming raw materials and producing solar cell waste. There is no future in a linear economy. We must confront resource scarcity and waste generation by demanding a circular economy. Solar cells could make up a sustainable energy system, but they could also become the next fossil fuel disaster. No energy system under a linear economy can succeed.
Desi Dikova is a senior studying chemistry and minoring in energy science and policy.
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Friday, September 27, 2019 — 5A
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN
How the ending of ‘LOST’ explains most endings
MUSIC REVIEW
IAN HARRIS
Daily Entertainment Columnist
YOUTUBE
Blink’s ‘NINE’ is just shitty JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer
Former member and heart and soul of Blink182 Tom DeLonge is often found at the buttend of jokes. How could he not be, though? He originally left the band so he could attempt to “change the world” with his influence and his various business ventures. Now, he claims to be the military’s chosen vessel to share information regarding UFOs and is the executive producer and star of a mini-series on the subject. On the outside, DeLonge appears to be completely delusional. The same goes for the rest of Blink-182. Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker and newest member Matt Skiba are all in their mid-to-upper 40s, and they’re still singing about the same shit. Blink used to be all about youth culture, toilet humor, the endless pursuit of girls and the struggles that go along with it, and unfortunately, that’s still the band’s main focus on their ninth album, the cleverly titled NINE. Just look at a recent promotional video starring Travis Barker and pornstar Riley Reid as she attempts to recreate the near-iconic “What’s My Age Again?” video. The band feels they have an image to maintain, and on NINE, they’re trying their very best to maintain it. Lead single “Blame It on My Youth” tells listeners everything they need to know about NINE. On the song, Hoppus and Skiba explain a little bit about their upbringings, with Hoppus stating that he “started off with plenty of nothing at all” and Skiba belts on the chorus, “You could never kill my high / I’m the ink and you’re the headline / Blame it, blame it on my youth / Blame it, blame it on my youth / You could never block my shine.” It bears repeating that these men are in their 40s and, somehow, they still feel the need to justify how they became the men that they are. The rest of the album follows a similar trajectory. The songs are largely uninspired, riffing on the usual tropes, and there isn’t much musical range between them. The one song that deviates from the norm is “Generational Divide,” a fast-paced barnburner, especially when stacked up against the rest of the album. It is a quick rumination on the cultural division between generations,
specifically between Hoppus and his son. It feels a bit like a return to form that was stopped short for some reason. This glance backwards is especially depressing as the album moves forward. For some reason, Blink’s members decided it would be a good idea to start playing with elements of electronic music and vocal processing techniques like autotune. The biggest offender of this crime is “Ransom.” It starts off questionably with some glittering keys, and then turns to shit as soon Hoppus’s autotune drench voice comes in. It’s sprinkled in sporadically throughout the song, and it’s wince-inducing every time. The song soon bursts into typical Blink fare, but by that point, the damage has already been done. On NINE, the members are beyond disillusioned with themselves. They seem to think that they’re still the tastemakers of the pop-punk world. But alas, they are not. They are grown men who are still bitter about the women that spurned them (see “Hungover You” for further elaboration). Had the band taken a darker turn and explored the downfalls of their lives, perhaps NINE would have
This week, ABC’s “LOST” celebrated the 15th anniversary of its pilot. Originally pitched as a cross between “Survivor” and “Gilligan’s Island,” “LOST” at one time boasted the most expensive pilot in television history and was one of the first shows to capitalize on the burgeoning internetperson desire to intensely dissect every last frame of every episode that ever aired. The show featured a diverse ensemble cast, and, through the use of its f lashback structure, could go from a cop drama to a hospital soap opera to a sci-fi thriller episode to episode. It also took place on a mystical island with polar bears and smoke monsters and hatches buried underground. It was crazy and it was beautiful; there hasn’t been anything remotely like it since it ended. When “LOST” originally came to a close in May of 2010, its end was met with an intense amount of scrutiny and criticism not unlike the ending of our current decade’s cultural juggernaut, “Game of Thrones.” Both shows captured the imaginations of million of people. Both had long-running serialized stories that relied on cliff hangers and shocking twists to keep the audience engaged. And while both ended in finales that are not always thought of highly, the endings themselves were criticized for very different reasons. “Game of Thrones” was critically savaged for turning its characters into cardboard cutouts of themselves and racing to an ending that didn’t feel earned. “LOST” ending-haters tended to focus more on the mysteries that were left unanswered and the decision by show runners Damon
Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to focus their ending almost exclusively on the character arcs at the expense of the sprawling mytholog y they had created. A lot of a show’s legacy is tied up in its end. Over the past nine or so years since “LOST” ended, whenever the show is brought up its ending is almost always brought up as well. They say that time heals all wounds, and that is certainly the case in terms of the “LOST” finale. As the years have gone on, the decision to focus the ending on the characters instead of the plot has proven prescient. As peak TV has become more and more character focused in the decade since “LOST,” audiences have come to expect satisfying endings to character’s journeys. The wrap-ups of “Breaking Bad” and “Avengers: Endgame,” widely regarded as solid for their respective stories, both choose to focus their ending around their central characters. The ending of “Game of Thrones” was torn apart by fans, critics and audiences alike. It was compared to the ending of “LOST” and this comparison was used as a sign of scorn. But time has been kind to “LOST”s finale, and it’s possible that time will be kind to “Game of Thrones” as well. As people forget the immediate pain and disappointment of a favorite series coming to an end, the good memories that they have of the show begin to take precedence in their mind. Humanity as a species tends to look more fondly on the past as a way to justify the present. Everything looks better when you’re comparing it to what’s going on now. The ending of “LOST” looks great in comparison to the ending of “Game of Thrones,” and the ending of “Game of Thrones” could look great compared to the ending of whatever the next big thing is.
NINE Blink-182 Columbia been more interesting. Instead, the album feels repetitive and out of touch, with no new ground broken. On the other hand, things are beginning to look up for Tom DeLonge. His show Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation has been well received by viewers. What is even more notable, however, is the US Navy’s verification that videos released by DeLonge on his television show are indeed real. This, honestly, is a very big deal for him. It legitimizes his previous claims and validates DeLonge’s research group, To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, as the leaders of the field of UFO identification and research. Who’s the delusional one now?
YOUTUBE
‘Hustlers’ is precise, powerful and psychotically good ASIF BECHER Daily Arts Writer
There’s this moment, about halfway through “Hustlers,” when Ramona (Jennifer Lopez, “Second Act”) is taking a photo of her young mentee Annabelle (Lili Reinhart, “Riverdale”) to lure a Wall Street guy to meet them. “Turn around baby,” she tells Annabelle. “You know what he wants.” Annabelle turns around, looks over her shoulder, and touches her index finger to her lip, smiling coyly. Ramona snaps the picture and within seconds, the guy asks her when and where she wants to meet.
YOUTUBE
It’s not a particularly important moment in the grand scheme of the movie, but it’s emblematic of a sense in “Hustlers” that women are experts of their own bodies. They know exactly how to calibrate the shape of their hips and the curves of their smiles to get what they want. They understand intimately the currency their bodies provide, and exactly how volatile that value exchange can be. “Hustlers” is a complicated story that navigates friendship, stripping, the financial crisis of 2008, sex and power. But if there’s a central conceit at the heart of the film, it’s about how women navigate that tricky, constantly moving target that is the intersection between their bodies and the profit they can extract from them. It’s a singularly American story, about how women shoved to the margins of society claw and fight their
way to make it in a world that sees them as disposable. It would be a disservice to the complexity of the film to call it “empowering,” but it gives a voice to a group of women who are usually denied space or agency in Hollywood. Their story is remarkable. Based on the real life exploits of a group of ex-strippers, “Hustlers” is centered on the perspective of young stripper Destiny (Constance Wu, “Crazy Rich Asians”), who joins with seasoned veteran Ramona to build a crew of fellow strippers who steal money from the high-roller finance guys who frequent their club. Ramona is a force of nature — charismatic and brilliant, sexy and sharp as all hell — and Destiny is entranced by her from the moment she lays eyes on her, working the pole to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” as the stage under Ramona’s feet becomes awash with bills. Ramona wraps Destiny in her lush fur coat and takes her under her wing. She teaches Destiny how to give a proper lap dance, how to hoist herself up the pole, how to spot the men who will pay well. Mostly, she shows Destiny how to make real money in the exploitative system of New York City strip clubs, where the girls are the draw but all the profit ends up in the pockets of scummy managers who take 40% cuts of all the dancers’ earnings. Ramona has a daughter to take care of, Destiny has a grandmother. They bond over the ferocity of their protectiveness over their dependents and over their need to be self-sufficient. Destiny starts making good money under Ramona’s tutelage, and she finds community among her fellow dancers who have a warm, familial banter in the club’s dressing room. Then Destiny gets pregnant, and she leaves the club. A couple years pass, and suddenly it’s 2008. The market has crashed, her baby’s father leaves her, and Destiny starts dancing again. Except now the rules have changed, the clubs are empty of clients and the warmth among the dancers is gone. Ramona and Destiny have to start getting creative. “The game is rigged,” Ramona says. “And it does not reward people who play by the rules.” So they recruit a couple of other girls, Annabelle (Reinhart) and Mercedes (Keke Palmer, “Pimp”), to help them “go fishing,” or find rich men at high end New York bars to lure back to the strip clubs. Once they get them to the clubs, they get the men as intoxicated as possible, and start racking up the credit card charges. Destiny becomes the CFO to Ramona’s CEO, or the Kobe to her Shaq, as the women themselves put it in the film. It doesn’t take long for them to up the stakes. They concoct a new drug cocktail to slip into the men’s drinks to make them more malleable
and willing to give up their cards. They graduate from taking $5,000 a night from one of their marks to $50,000. Together, they’re absolutely ruthless in the influence they exert over the other girls in their crew, and over the men they steal from. It’s modeled off of classic mob cinema, but this mob is a matriarchy, specifically run by and for
Hustlers Gloria Sanchez Productions Quality 16 women of color. Like any pair of good mob bosses, Destiny and Ramona’s relationship builds to a Shakespearean intensity in a swirl of designer clothes, money, blood and sweat. The highs are intoxicating. The lows will gut you. It’s difficult to overstate how deeply excellent this story is. Watching it feels like a zap of electricity, like you’re made privy to the very best of what entertainment can do. Granted, it would be very difficult to make a bad, or at the very least non-entertaining movie based off of a story this intrinsically strong. But everybody involved in “Hustlers” knocks it out of the fucking park, and every aspect of production is as brilliant and careful as it possibly could be — from the pitch perfect casting, to the rhinestoned costumes, to the legitimately transcendent soundtrack.
Make no mistake, this movie is a masterpiece. There isn’t a wasted second or a dramatic beat that’s not earned. “Hustlers” is already a huge commercial success, which is unsurprising given how much unadulterated fun it is to watch, with all its delicious sleaze and sparkle, punctuated by a slew of sexy dances and shopping montages set to early 2000s pop and rap. This accessibility as a piece of pop art is crucial to the film’s urgent, glittery genius. The legibility, the sleaze, the sheer joy of watching “Hustlers” allows it to act like a Trojan horse for one of the sharpest commentaries on the postrecession economy to ever hit the theaters. In that way, “Hustlers” is a lot like the women themselves, hiding their incisive intellect and business acumen under layers of fake lashes and contoured cleavage. But then, maybe they prefer it that way. Maybe it’s in their best interest to be underestimated, because after all, these are powerful men they’re targeting. Executives. Hedge fund managers. The high rollers at the tops of skyscrapers directly responsible for the poverty and desperation of the people below. But it doesn’t matter how weighty his gold watch is, or how diverse his stock portfolio. Each man they choose is utterly leveled, not only by the women’s bodies, or the sprinkled drug cocktail, but by the precision with which they expertly construct a fantasy that reduces him to a lolling, drooling mess at their feet. They’re too smart, too hot, too good at what they do — experts in the politics of money and the body. He never stood a chance.
June 1, 19,2017 2016
Arts
6A — Friday, September 27, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
University Phil Orchestra Ten ways of looking at impresses at Hill opener ‘Ducks, Newburyport’ SAMMY SUSSMAN Daily Arts Writer
Few collegiate orchestras have the dexterity to maintain a stylistically disparate repertoire. And fewer still are capable of performing Beethoven symphonies alongside lesser-known mid-20th-century American orchestral works. But the University Philharmonia Orchestra proved they were capable of this and much more at their year-opening concert this past Monday night at Hill Auditorium. This was the University Philharmonia Orchestra’s first concert since the departure of former conductor Oriel Sans. Adrian Slywotzky, the ensemble’s new conductor, proved that he is more than capable of continuing the adventurous programming and occasional classic repertoire of Sans’s tenure. The concert began with Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 2 in D Major,” a turbulent piece that repeatedly fluctuates between simple, light material and loud, dark, complex material. The orchestra handled these shifts in the first movement with great dexterity, building towards a clear peak before falling back down. The lower string sound, in particular, blew me away in this movement. Unfortunately, as with many performances of this work, the orchestra struggled slightly at the beginning of movement two — the energy of the first movement gives way to a slow, lyrical second movement, and many orchestras struggle to give this movement equal emotional weight. By the middle of the movement, however, the orchestra seemed to have found their stride again. I was particularly impressed with the length of the crescendi and decresendi that the orchestra was able to maintain, as they stretched these musical events over ten to twenty seconds worth of music. While the orchestra had a few problems maintaining their blistering tempo at the beginning of the third movement, they recovered after a couple of measures and stuck together throughout the remainder of the movement. By its end, they had found their stride and were well within their element. The fourth movement was thus a tourde-force in early-Beethovenian orchestral performance, as short motivic figures jumped around the orchestra and tension built before a final loud thematic recapitulation. Slywotzky decided to begin this movement with minimal pause, and I, for one, was taken aback by the confident, strident texture — and the movement only built from there. Melodic fragments jumped from bassoon to violin, for example, while the underlying accompanimental figures continued unrelentingly. By the end of the piece, I was exhausted for the orchestra. They had made a valiant effort in tackling this staple of the repertoire, and though it wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t have been more impressed with their attempt. After a brief intermission, the concert continued with two works by lesser-known mid20th-century American composers, William Grant Still and Walter Piston. The first piece, Still’s “Poem,” was an interesting juxtaposition of jazz harmonies and orchestral compositional techniques. The fast writing in the beginning, for example, was not particularly memorable to my ears. Though there were some interesting
surface-level ideas, the basic musical content never evolved past repetition and slight transformation. The second half of the piece, however, consisted of a simple yet beautiful melody accompanied by slowly-evolving orchestral chords. It made the whole piece, if not the whole concert, worth it, and even as I sit and try to write this review a day later, I can’t quite get it out of my head. The last piece on the program, Piston’s “The Incredible Flutist Suite,” was an interesting coalescence of various musical styles and genres:
The second half of the piece consisted of a simple yet beautiful melody accompanied by slowly-evolving orchestral chords. It made the whole piece, if not the whole concert, worth it, and even as I sit and try to write this review a day later, I can’t quite get it out of my head.
a “siesta,” a minuet, a waltz, a march and a polka. It was a fun, light ending to the program, a good balance to the complexity of the Beethoven and the simple beauty of the Still. One aspect of the Piston that caught me off guard was the “Circus March,” in which members of the orchestra screamed as though they were attending a circus while the brass and percussion sections played traditional circusesque music. “The Flutist” was also impressive, the flute soloist’s impressive concerto-like playing easily earning the “Incredible Flutist” portion of the title. The large orchestral forces at work in this piece stood in stark contrast to the smaller ranks of the other two pieces. (This was the only piece on the program that included a piano part, and I was quite impressed with the pianist’s ability to blend with the sound of the larger). My one complaint, if any, was that Piston’s orchestrations tended towards the percussion heavy ends of the orchestral spectrum, particularly in his use of bass drum and snare. But after two lighter pieces, this was an interesting change in flavor. If this concert was a sign of what’s to come for the University Philharmonia Orchestra under Adrian Slywotzky this coming year, I can’t help but be excited. While doubts frequently accompany changes in faculty such as this one, it is obvious that the orchestra remains in good hands.
Release Date: Friday, September 27, 2019
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Doing something 5 Infatuated, old-style 9 “The Goldbergs” actor George 14 Corner 15 First-rate 16 Hardly in the dark 17 Really terrible wine? 20 Master’s degree seeker’s assignment 21 Evaluate 22 Hosp. area for critical cases 24 Truck unit 25 PreCheck org. 26 Focus word in a Scripps logo 27 Dad jokes? 30 Extensive periods 31 “See ya” 32 Pork cuts 34 Beethoven wrote just one 35 Academic growth 36 Indian silk region 40 Trumpet sound 42 Mrs. King on “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” 43 HUD financing gp. 46 Hardware store window feature? 48 Tanning line 49 Mag. listing 50 Some PCs 51 Kitty alternative 52 Pertaining to a heart chamber 54 Facial feature named after an animal 56 Power nap? 60 Location 61 Innocent, for one 62 Keypad predecessor, in some cases 63 Rent-a-car choice 64 Cabs and the like 65 Multinational range DOWN 1 A/C measure 2 Caterer’s item
3 35 to 5, say 4 Slangy assent 5 “Teen Angel” or “Leader of the Pack” 6 Sounds from the pasture 7 Holiday places 8 English cuppa 9 Spicy condiment 10 Farm moms 11 Summerhouse 12 Out of bed 13 They can make things clearer 18 __ scan: ID method 19 Soprani opposites 22 __ facto 23 Farm home 25 Helen’s home 28 Kazantzakis title hero 29 Fabled mischiefmakers 30 Montaigne work 33 Yoga class greeting 35 Greek rainbow goddess
37 Charlatan’s curative 38 “__ pinch ... ”: recipe direction 39 Labyrinthine 41 Disorient 42 Andean animals 43 Dad’s dad 44 Italian Christmas 45 Many 47 Contacted, in a way
49 Gobbled up 53 Ancient Peruvian 54 Wind warning indicated by two red flags 55 Icelandic poetic work 57 “Morning Edition” airer 58 Nuke 59 Little League leaders?
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
09/27/19
EMILY YANG
Daily Arts Writer
Statement Lucy Ellmann’s seventh novel “Ducks, Newburyport” was rejected by Bloomsbury, which published the previous six. It’s not hard to see why: the novel is nearly a thousand pages, and most of that length is taken up by one continuous sentence narrating the internal monologue of a Midwestern American homemaker, something like the “Penelope” section in “Ulysses” extended to the length of the whole book. The sentence’s units of construction are lists of alliterative or conceptually related words (“bento box, incense sticks, joss sticks, josser, equestrian acts, Patricia Highsmith,”) and statements, questions and speculations prefaced with the plaintive, grammatically-questionable phrase “the fact that.” It’s a texture that lends itself to a rumination/ free-association/referential chaos narrative made entirely of loose ends. The novel has gotten a lot of critical attention since its release. Justifiably so — it’s a wildly ambitious and totally unique masterpiece of the kind that doesn’t frequently appear in contemporary fiction. This also means the novel stands out in the current literary landscape like an octopus on a sidewalk, a standing challenge to a literary culture that tends to produce quiet novels in the 19th-century mold. Formal experimentation suddenly seems like the appropriate way to depict a character who might just be a passing presence in another novel — Ellmann doesn’t highlight a marginalized voice, she makes that voice the general case, makes it stand in for the anxiety of the moment. I’m reminded of Amitav Ghosh’s argument in “The Great Derangement” about literature ignoring climate change and societal catastrophe. Ellmann doesn’t just bring these themes to the forefront, she makes them scream. The book’s standing rebuke also makes the conventional book review look a little ridiculous. The general structure that reviews of “Ducks” tend to are comments on the length, calling it immersive or dazzling or important or worth it, or saying something about consciousness or subjectivity. Book reviews can at times resemble publisher’s lists: they never really do the work justice, they tell you what you already know about the book, they are vapid and sterile and hardly useful. This laughable piece on “Ducks” in the Chicago Tribune that is mostly a yuppie-scented meditation on not reading long books (“It’s not that I’m quick to give up if a book doesn’t immediately invite me in, but I find that I’m less eager to test my mettle.”) is just the worst example of a genre that is defined, in part, by its cursoriness. This is true for any even remotely complex work of fiction, but it’s doubly true for anything ambitious or unconventional. For my part, I’m not really interested in writing another “review.” I’m responding to Ellmann’s provocation with a list of my own — of ways into the book, ways that one could try to get around this unusual work of immense force. Stream Ellmann’s father is a notable Joyce scholar, something she seems to have distanced herself from. In an interview with the Washington Post, she says she “tuned out” all the Joyce talk her father
that the protagonist never stops trying to grasp hold of something solid. The constant references to books, films and other fragments of culture are footholds of sorts, the smallest unit of meaning in a world saturated with objects. The book’s stream of consciousness, then, is less of an unbroken flow of thought and more a kind of thought that gets caught up in everything, like a river flowing over rocks. Cognition More than one review has mentioned that “Ducks”’s aim is to create a more visceral, immediate representation of thought. It does do this very well. After reading the novel for a while, I noticed that I would emerge from an hour or two of it suddenly dazed at my surroundings. The narrator’s thoughts tend to take over those of the reader. Ellmann has reproduced the messy details of a wandering mind with surprising verisimilitude. Thoughts recur with no specific reason to, earworms float in and out of the frame, anecdotes get unpredictably broken down and used as jumping-off points for new ideas and threads. “Ducks” reminds me that the mind is a prismatic, unpredictable space. However, it’s probably more accurate to say that Ellmann has less reproduced thought than created something that takes the outline of thought as a literary model.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
‘A Little Late’ shows early promise SOPHIA YOON Daily Arts Writer
In the new age of mixed media, sometimes it’s hard to tell if there are any boundaries between platforms. Will Smith is on YouTube, you can watch YouTube on television and now YouTuber Lilly Singh (IISuperwomanII) has taken over “Last Call with Carson Daly” with a late-night talk show of her own, “A Little Late with Lilly Singh.” As the first bisexual woman of color on lineup to host late-night television, Singh comes in with fervent energy and a new perspective. The transition from YouTube skits to latenight TV is slightly awkward, but it’s a start nonetheless, and with a bit more time to hit her stride, Singh can rise through the ranks and easily find her niche in the late-night space. The pilot starts off with a musical skit that reflects her peak YouTube days, and she doesn’t hesitate to call out the lack of diversity in Hollywood production and late-night television. The skit transitions to a rap dedicated to her workplace’s diversity and inclusivity standards, which can’t help but make political commentary on the nation’s current state. Whether this move brought in or expelled viewers is hard to tell, but her words were intentional and it likely had exactly the effect she intended. She first brings on Rainn Wilson (“Mom”) in a forced but clever bit about white noise machines, wherein the machine would make noises of white girls at brunch and the sound of Birkenstocks when they step. It’s a refreshing introduction to a late-night show that doesn’t consist of a
Pilot NBC Mon -Thurs @ 1:30 a.m.
09/27/19
COURTESY OF TRINA PAL
TV REVIEW
A Little Late with Lilly Singh
By David Alfred Bywaters ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
would bring home “when my mother didn’t put her foot down.” One thing that sets “Ducks” apart from Joyce is all the commas. “Penelope” uses very little punctuation and seems to rely on a consistent sense of grammatical ambiguity that gives the thoughts a flickering quality. “Ducks” moves the unit of the stream from the clause or phrase to the thought or statement, thoughts that are usually fairly bounded. Ellmann’s protagonist even stops to correct herself when she creates ambiguity — a frequent move is to make a statement where a pronoun could refer to more than one person, whereafter the protagonist stops to clarify. There’s a turbulent quality to the book, a sense
rundown of the stupidest Trump tweets that week (although he does give comedy a lot of material to work with), and with Singh’s energy and sketch comedy background, there’s potential to get into some good material in the future. The scripted “surprise” guests are a classic and familiar device in late-night television, but on this particular episode it feels less surprising
YOUTUBE
and more trying on the audience’s humor. But again, it’s a pilot and there’s plenty of time to improve. Her one and only interviewed guest was Wilson’s “The Office” co-star, Mindy Kaling (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). Singh began with recognizing and thanking Kaling for paving the way for minorities like her, something that other late-night hosts don’t have the prerogative to talk about. It made the environment feel more natural, and Singh could smoothly transition from making jokes to making sure all necessary questions were answered. She can easily maintain this tone in her future interviews without it going sour. She might have been able to interview Kaling for a little longer, but she instead jumped right into two minigames. One was a “Euphoria” makeup inspired game, and the other an Urban Dictionary-type game where Kaling guesses the meaning of modern slang terms. They’re entertaining enough, but given the half-hour time slot NBC gave her, it felt rushed. There’s little else to say. It’s irrational to be harsh toward a pilot of a late-night talk show, a flexible platform that can spin and adapt in any direction. It’ll be interesting to see how much Singh can improve from here on out, and especially interesting to see her fresh perspective given the current political and social climate. For now though, she’s definitely made an impression as a new host in this space and will likely continue to do so as the season goes on.
FOOTBALL
SATURDAY
September 27, 2019
‘Everybody’s questioning us? We’ve just got to prove it’ Michigan defense eager to respond after dismal performance in last week’s loss at Wisconsin MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor
For the Michigan defense, this weekend’s game will likely offer little in the way of conclusive answers. Rutgers comes into this weekend’s bout in Ann Arbor ranked 107th in the nation in total offense (one spot shy of Tennessee). It hasn’t finished better than 127th of 130 teams in a full season since 201516. Starting quarterback McLane Carter is out for Saturday’s game with a concussion, and the backup, Artur Sitkowski, threw for just 40 yards and registered a negative adjusted passing yards per attempt, according to Sports Reference, in last year’s 42-7 loss to Michigan. All of this is to say, this weekend likely won’t be a banner one for the Scarlet Knights. Conversely, this is far from the game to provide a litmus test for a defense suddenly on thin ice. That doesn’t leave this game devoid of meaning on the defensive end. Last week, the Wolverines
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
The Michigan defense gave up 359 rushing yards in last week’s 35-14 loss to Wisconsin, prompting introspection this week.
allowed 359 rushing yards in a revealing loss at Wisconsin. They have spent this week, as would be expected, touting a desire to improve and the will to do so. Players and coaches admonished their effort from a week ago and noted a revamped energy in practice.
Buzzwords like “physicality” and “execution” flew around the building like popcorn in a microwave. “We didn’t play physical enough,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh on Monday. “We were out-hustled. I take responsibility for that. In any ways that we were out-schemed, I
“Best on Campus Bar” - The Michigan Daily
Start your pre-game at Ashley’s! Open at 9:30 for Noon Home Games Bloody Mary’s, Breakfast Pizza Specials
338 S State Street Across from the Diag ashleys.com bundle.indd 1 2Bdaily FootballSaturday, September 27, 2019
Michigan’s Original Craft Beer Bar Since 1983 9/24/2019 4:19:40 PM
take responsibility for that. It’s my job to make sure we are completely sound, in all offenses and defenses that we’re running.” Added senior linebacker Josh Uche: “You’ve got to respond to adversity. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson said, ‘You got punched in the mouth, what are you going to do about it?’ Am I going to lay down? Hell no. I’m going to get up, I’m going to keep fighting, keep swinging. That’s what this team is going to do.” Swing, it presumably will, at a particularly feeble target Saturday. Though players would never entertain the idea, Rutgers might just be the ideal opponent coming off such a comprehensive drubbing. As such, the nature of the loss seemingly required a fullscale breakdown — an effort to re-establish the fundamentals and start anew. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that we can’t get that back,” said senior defensive end Michael Danna on Tuesday. “So we’ve got high expectations no matter what the outcome was last Saturday or whatever. Like I said, we still have high expectations. We still have a lot of hope. “We were all surprised. We didn’t want to have that outcome. It is what it is now. That was four days ago, so we’ll move past it. It’s a new week, it’s a new challenge ahead.” The questions this week — and subsequent answers — understandably focused on schematic and personal improvement. How does this get
better? This is a unit that frequently touts its desire to be the best in the nation. It’s not an unsubstantiated expectation; all of Michigan’s defenses in the Don Brown era have finished top-3 in total defense, with the 2016 squad finishing No. 1 in the nation. That’s the standard at Michigan these days, and rightfully so. Last week’s performance, though, surfaced real questions about whether this roster’s personnel can live up to its internal expectations. It wasn’t simply the result that raised alarm bells, but how it came to be. Wisconsin was unambiguous about its intention to run the ball down the defense’s throat. Then it went out and did so. The Badgers’ offensive line had its way with Michigan’s front. The result was a performance Harbaugh described succinctly: “It was thorough.” The players, many of whom have been part of nationally elite defenses in their Wolverines careers, would scoff at any such notions of decline. They believe they have the group in place to reach a different level. And they don’t have much interest in entertaining the alternative. “A lot of people outside of the program have a lot to say, but we’re worried about what’s going on inside the program,” Danna said. “We’re all family here, we’re a brotherhood here. We don’t condone none of the outside opinions, we stick together no matter what everybody has to say.” There is caution against overreacting to any one result, no matter how revealing. This week will likely alleviate some existential concerns, though far from all. The defense can only prove so much about their aptitude for big games against a decidedly subpar opponent in Week 4 — that is, obviously, assuming the Wolverines win. For now, the defense, and the team writ large, is treating Saturday as a stepping stone. Eventually it could reach a desired end. But not without taking that first step. “I think we’re a physical, hardnosed defense,” Danna said. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that. I spent all camp being here, seeing it. There’s no doubt in my mind we’re a hard-nosed defense. We’ve just got to put in on tape now. “Everybody’s questioning us? We’ve just got to prove it.”
2019 Schedule
After two uneasy wins to start the year, Michigan traveled to Wisconsin and was dished a dose of reality last week, falling 35-14. This week, the tenor has been both downtrodden and eager. Saturday, the Wolverines step back on the field for the first time, set to take on Rutgers after last week’s drubbing required a season-wide recalibration. The spotlight will be on the offense suddenly dealing with an identity crisis, and a defense with a growing number of skeptics.
2 4 6 8
Penn State (Oct. 19): Hey, Mike.
Middle Tennessee State (Aug. 31): Look man, the middle of Tennessee is decidedly not a state.
TABLE OF CONTENTS The defense will look to rebound from a historically poor performance. The Marching Band will perform a special show for Maggie St. Clair, the former director of operations who passed away last year. The Daily breaks down what to watch for, in what should be a comfortable win.
The Wolverines can’t make up for last week. But it can show an increased relentlessness.
Army (Sept. 7): The Army football team: The only time running behind enemy lines is a good idea.
Notre Dame (Oct. 26): You think beating Michigan is special? Everyone’s doing it these days!
Wisconsin (Sept. 21): Sure, your town is sick and your beer is elite and your football team is dominant, but do you have a sculpture that says “Art” from every angle?
Maryland (Nov. 2): Maryland has crabs.
Rutgers (Sept. 28): My grandma’s New Jersey retirement home mahjong group could beat Rutgers in football ... basketball would be close, too.
Michigan State (Nov. 16): The Michigan Daily has beaten The State News 14 years in a row.
Iowa (Oct. 5): The year is 2080. Aliens have taken over. Iowa capped off a 7-5 season with a five-year extension for Kirk Ferentz. All is well.
Indiana (Nov. 23): Hoosier favorite to be the next head coach of this supremely mediocre program?
Illinois (Oct. 12): Someone go over there and make sure Lovie Smith still has a pulse.
Ohio State (Nov. 30): Do you think Justin Fields can play the game online, too?
STAFF PICKS The Daily football writers pick against the spread for the weekend’s best games.
Ethan Sears
Max Marcovitch
Theo Mackie
Benjamin Katz,
Aria Gerson
Senior Sports Editor
No. 1 Clemson (-27) at North Carolina
North Carolina
Clemson
Clemson
Clemson
Clemson
Ole Miss at No. 2 Alabama (-38)
Alabama
Alabama
Alabama
Alabama
Alabama
No. 5 Ohio State (-17) at Nebraska
Nebraska
Ohio State
Ohio State
Nebraska
Ohio State
Texas Tech at No. 6 Oklahoma (-27.5)
Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Texas Tech
Oklahoma
Mississippi at No. 7 Auburn (-10)
Mississippi
Auburn
Auburn
Auburn
Auburn
Northwestern at No. 8 Wisconsin (-24.5)
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Towson at No. 9 Florida (-36.5)
Florida
Florida
Florida
Florida
Florida
No. 18 Virginia at No. 10 Notre Dame (-12.5)
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Virginia
Notre Dame
No. 12 Penn State (-6.5) at Maryland
Maryland
Penn State
Maryland
Penn State
Penn State
Middle Tennessee at No. 14 Iowa (-23)
Iowa
Middle Tennessee
Iowa
Iowa
Iowa
Arizona State at No. 15 Cal (-5.5)
Arizona State
Cal
Cal
Cal
Cal
No. 21 USC at No. 17 Washington (-10.5)
USC
Washington
Washington
USC
USC
Washington State at No. 19 Utah (-6)
Washington State
Utah
Utah
Washington State
Washington State
Rutgers at No. 20 Michigan (-27.5)
Rutgers
Michigan
Michigan
Rutgers
Michigan
UConn at No. 22 UCF (-43.5)
UCF
UConn
UCF
UConn
UConn
No. 23 Texas A&M (-23.5) at Arkansas
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Arkansas
Texas A&M
Texas A&M
No. 24 Kansas State at Oklahoma State (-4)
Oklahoma State
Kansas State
Kansas State
Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State
Indiana at No. 25 Michigan State (-14)
Michigan State
Michigan State
Indiana
Michigan State
Indiana
Minnesota (-1.5) at Purdue
Minnesota
Minnesota
Purdue
Purdue
Purdue
NC State at Florida State (-6.5)
NC State
Florida State
NC State
Florida State
Florida State
Kentucky at South Carolina (-2.5)
Kentucky
South Carolina
South Carolina
Kentucky
Kentucky
UCLA at Arizona (-6.5)
Arizona
UCLA
Arizona
UCLA
UCLA
Central Michigan at Western Michigan (-17)
Central Michigan
Western Michigan
Western Michigan
Western Michigan
Western Michigan
New Mexico at Liberty (-7)
New Mexico
Liberty
Liberty
New Mexico
Liberty
Duke at Virginia Tech (-3)
Duke
Virginia Tech
Duke
Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech
Overall
7-14-1
9-12-1
14-7-1
9-12-1
N/A
3B
FootballSaturday, September 27, 2019
THE SHOW GOES ON
MARCHING BAND TO HONOR LATE ADMINISTRATOR WITH SPECIAL TRIBUTE
Ten months later, Kelly Bertoni still remembers the conversation. The drum major for the Michigan marching band stood at the doors of Revelli Hall, the band’s rehearsal space, helping then-Director of Operations Maggie St. Clair bag up bananas and bagels and granola bars for their trip to Ohio State last Nov. 24. St. Clair, decked out in maize and blue, turned to Bertoni. “Kelly, make sure you have your breakfast, too.” They embraced, then parted to load the buses. Bertoni didn’t know that simple early-morning conversation would be their last. She didn’t know that tragedy was about to strike. And she didn’t know that soon, she would be sitting in that same Revelli lobby, figuring out how best to honor St. Clair’s memory. St. Clair was the de facto mom of the band. She organized everything — from coordinating trips to ordering uniform accessories to securing building access. More than that, she made herself available to anyone who needed her. For over 30 years, band members knew that if something was wrong,
4B
they could talk to her and she would listen. She would know. Senior cymbals player Erin Sickrey remembers goofing around with her friends once in Revelli when the handle of a door broke off. Worried, Sickrey walked in holding the handle — and ran right into St. Clair. With her usual grace, St. Clair let Sickrey know it wasn’t a big deal, it could be fixed. St. Clair took the time to get to know band members, even keeping in touch with alumni and asking about their families. She was always there to say hi or offer a hug. And at 64, it seemed like she wouldn’t be stopping any time soon. But shortly after loading the buses that November day, the students realized something was wrong. In the middle of attendance, they were told that there had been a medical emergency. Eventually, administrators confirmed it had been St. Clair, but there was little information from the hospital or her husband at first. And after the three-hour bus ride to Columbus, the students got lunch, then were told St. Clair had died. “That was the worst day of my life,” said marching band
FootballSaturday, September 27, 2019
director John Pasquale, one of the administrators tasked with bearing the bad news. Shortly after, the band had to go out and perform a show in front of fans of their most hated rival, knowing they were in a hostile environment. Ohio State held a moment of silence for St. Clair in the Horseshoe and all things considered, the fans were pretty respectful. But that couldn’t possibly numb the pain in that moment. To senior Lexi Willison, a trumpet player, the actual show that day was a blur. But she remembers all the other details. She, too, says it was one of the worst days of her life. “Being there with everybody else, all of us going through the same thing, helped,” Willison said. “But nothing really could ever make up for the fact, what had happened, what we just experienced, us still having to go out there and do our jobs.” When the band traveled to Atlanta for the Peach Bowl, it was clear just how much they had lost. Not only was St. Clair the emotional heartbeat of the band, she was also the one who organized the logistics of a bowl trip — scouting the venue beforehand, making
sure everything was ready to go — and there was an element of disorganization that wasn’t there before. Everyone could feel it. In April, Bertoni and the rest of the show design committee met in the lobby of Revelli. Their undertaking was, in some ways, normal. After all, the student-run committee meets every year, brainstorming show ideas for the next season. But this time, one loomed over the rest: a show to honor St. Clair. St. Clair loved Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. The committee discussed the merits of all those shows, but eventually landed on her favorite — Mary Poppins. The student committee doesn’t have the final say in what shows make the schedule. They present their ideas to Pasquale, and he decides which ones to run based on target demographics, difficulty and how easy it is to secure the rights, among other things. Pasquale then announces the lineup at the beginning of band week — a two-week boot camp of sorts before school starts each year. This year during band week,
the members found out that not only were they doing Mary Poppins in honor of St. Clair, but they could go all out. The marching band operates in show cycles based on how long they have to prepare for a given game. If there was a show the week before, it’s a one-week cycle — usually simpler shows that are easy to learn in less time. Because the band travels just to Michigan State, Notre Dame and Ohio State, the Big Ten season often operates in two-week show cycles, with an extra week to prepare when the team is away. But this season, there was a quirk in Michigan’s schedule — an early season bye week, followed by an away game at Wisconsin, then a home tilt with Rutgers. That presented a rare opportunity: a threeweek show cycle. The longer the show cycle, the more intricate the shows could be, and a three-week cycle — in which the band has three weeks to learn and prepare for one show — is a rare luxury. The decision to use the Mary Poppins show for the Rutgers game was obvious. Mary Poppins will be one of the longest and most difficult shows
the band has ever done, and throughout rehearsals, the section leaders have made it clear that a show that means so much needs to be perfect. “This is probably the most seriously people have ever taken a show,” Sickrey said. “ … In other shows, you can goof off a little bit. It’s more fun. But for these ones, the rank leaders are very much emphasizing, ‘There’s no excuses on this show, this has to be perfect, because this is the reason that we’re doing it.’ ” There’s a story Willison tells some of the new members who didn’t know St. Clair or her impact on the band. Her dad was in the marching band during his time at Michigan in the late 1980s, and St. Clair was his director of operations, too. They’d stayed in touch, and near 2011, St. Clair invited the Willison family to tour Revelli during a rehearsal. St. Clair showed Lexi — a budding trumpet player in her middle school band — the trumpet lockers, pictures of past sections and a mural with a visual representation of the music for “The Victors.” The trip played a small role in Willison coming to Michigan, and when she
TheMichiganDaily, www.michigandaily.com
got there, St. Clair remembered her and asked about her parents and her younger siblings. St. Clair wasn’t known as the band mom for nothing. It was almost as if the St. Clair family and three decades of the Michigan marching band family were one and the same, and nothing demonstrated that like St. Clair reaching out to Willison’s long-graduated dad and treating his entire family like it was her own. When Willison was told of St. Clair’s death, she came to terms not only with what had happened, but the fact that she’d have to tell her dad — until she paraded into the stadium and a fellow band member pointed out that her parents were there in the audience. They’d come down to Columbus to surprise her. When the stadium PA announced a moment of silence for St. Clair, the secret was out. After the game, as the band trekked back to its buses, Willison ran into her dad. They had a good cry together — two generations of marching band members touched by St. Clair and everything she did for the program. There are different ways to drive home St. Clair’s impact
for those who didn’t know her. Some people, like Bertoni — who grew up in St. Clair’s hometown of Chelsea, Mich., went to the same church as her family and worked as an assis-
“You think of the smallest details and that’s what Maggie did,” Bertoni said. “Ordering the ties for some of the GSIs and the scarves. She helped me get my uniform and just the dry
tant to St. Clair for a semester — tell touching personal stories. Others only have to mention her job description. Even the freshmen realize how much goes into running a marching band, and that St. Clair did a lot of the dirty work you only see once you’ve been inside the Revelli doors.
cleaning, the bills and the management. … And I think a lot of people didn’t realize what that was until unfortunately with her passing, trying to analyze the situation, how we were going to move forward and best prepare moving forward, it was like, ‘Oh, Maggie was doing the job of like five people, that’s
crazy.’ ” Of course, the marching band has a new director of operations now, Kimberly Smith, and Pasquale has taken the time to emphasize that she’s not St. Clair’s replacement: “She’s not filling in Maggie’s shoes, she’s making her own shoes,” as Sickrey recalls Pasquale’s message. That alone is telling. Smith could do everything perfectly, but it would be nearly impossible for anyone to match St. Clair’s impact. When the marching band parades out of the tunnel Saturday against the Scarlet Knights, it will all mean more. It’s not just that they’re performing St. Clair’s favorite music, or that the show is in honor of her, but that some of her family will be in the stands, along with countless alumni. On Sunday, the marching band is hosting a celebration of life, and many former members are coming back for it. The band will perform there, too — both their traditional repertoire like the fight song and alma mater, and selections from Mary Poppins. The whole weekend will be dedicated to remembering St. Clair and gaining closure.
“It’s … difficult to imagine that this happened less than a year ago, in some ways, so it’s still kind of fresh,” Bertoni said. “And I think that that is something, sometimes I’m like, ‘Wow, a lot has happened in that time,’ but at the same time, it’s still fairly recent.” Nobody who was there will soon forget that morning in Columbus, but there’s no better way to honor someone who gave her all to the Michigan marching band than putting on one of the most ambitious shows they’ve ever done — and approaching it with St. Clair’s enthusiasm and zeal. When she was alive, knowledge of St. Clair’s
of Revelli Hall. But on Saturday, in front of 100,000 people, the band will have an opportunity to convey a slice of who she was and what she meant to 30 years of marching band members. “We’re all very much aware of why we’re doing this, who we’re doing this for,” Willison said. “And it’s an honor to be able to be one of the people who can honor her.”
impact was largely confined inside the doors
5
What to watch for on Saturday: No. 20 Michigan vs. Rutgers In first game since the loss in Madison, the Wolverines will look to rebound on both sides of the ball THEO MACKIE Daily Sports Editor
ALLISON ENGVISKT/Daily
The Michigan football team will get its first shot to move forward from last week’s loss on Saturday against Rutgers.
All week, an introspective air enveloped Schembechler Hall. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh began the week by taking the blame for the Wolverines’ 35-14 loss to Wisconsin on Saturday. His players followed up by criticizing their lack of effort and physicality. Both coaches who spoke Wednesday — linebackers coach Anthony Campanile and offensive coordinator Josh Gattis — agreed the performance was unacceptable. None of that will change Saturday when Rutgers comes to town. ESPN’s Power Index ranks the Scarlet Knights last among power conference teams. In the Harbaugh era, Michigan has beaten them by an average of 41.8 points per game. So with victory not in much doubt despite the Wolverines’ lackluster start, here are five things to watch for Saturday that will impact the trajectory of Michigan’s season: The final score Yes, the final score does matter. Obviously, Michigan needs to win. A loss would be the undisputed worst result of the Harbaugh era and legitimize concern over his future. But with the Wolverines favored by 27.5, that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. What is an issue is the margin of victory. A repeat of week one’s 19-point win over Middle Tennessee would amplify concerns that this is the same uninspiring team that has slogged through its first three games. A look at Michigan’s margins of victory over the past two years shows how much blowing out inferior opposition means. In the Wolverines’ 10-win season a year ago, they won four games by at least 35. The year before, their biggest margin of victory was 25, en route to an
8-5 finish. No opponent has better exemplified this difference than Rutgers. In the best year of the Harbaugh era, Michigan beat the Scarlet Knights, 78-0. Ten-win seasons in 2015 and 2018 saw the Wolverines win by 33 and 35, respectively. In that lackluster 2017 season, they won by just 21 at home. How Michigan uses its receivers If there was a positive to take away from Michigan’s demolition in Madison last weekend, it came from its receivers’ performances in the dying minutes. All offseason, the assumption was that new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis’ offense would emphasize junior receivers Donovan PeoplesJones, Nico Collins and Tarik Black. Instead, those three have just 33 targets combined so far (Peoples-Jones missed the first two weeks with injury). Saturday, they finally became a major part of the gameplan, but only once the game was well out of reach. “We’re not where we need to be in that room,” Gattis said of his receivers. “That falls on me. I gotta continue to get those guys better. We gotta continue to play with great detail and execute the fundamentals properly on each play that is important. When their level of play increases, it’ll also help everyone else.” While Gattis’ hire was never about games like Rutgers, it will take a step toward what was promised with an increased emphasis on those three receivers. Zach Charbonnet’s usage In week two against Army, it seemed Michigan had its solution at running back. Freshman Zach Charbonnet saw 33 carries and turned them into 100 yards and a touchdown. For all the early concern about the Wolverines’ offense, running back wasn’t one of them.
We’re not where we need to be in that room.
223 North Main Street Ann Arbor, Michigan
734-665-5340
6B
FootballSaturday, September 27, 2019
What to watch for, continued from page 6 Then rumors began to swirl over Charbonnet’s health. Against Wisconsin, he had just six yards on two carries, leading Harbaugh to explain that he was “limited” after the game. The result was a woefully inefficient run game. On the first carry of the day, fullbackturned-defensivetackle Ben Mason picked up three yards before fumbling. Backup quarterback Dylan McCaffrey led Michigan with 21 yards, as the Wolverines finished with 40 yards on 19 attempts. Both Gattis and Harbaugh remained mum on Charbonnet’s health this week, but a repeat of his showing against Army would help quell concerns over the run game. Patterson looking for bounceback game While the Wolverines gained just 2.1 yards per carry against Wisconsin, their performance through the air wasn’t much better. Patterson posted the lowest regular-season passer rating of his Michigan career, while completing just 14-of-32 passes. He repeatedly made the wrong reads, eschewing open receivers to throw into coverage and missing multiple ordinarily routine throws. “Shea’s been out there in practice, and I think he’s preparing,” Gattis said. “There’s a level of remorse that he has. As far as some of the pressure that’s been applied to him, as well as some of the pressure that he’s put himself under. I believe in Shea. I believe in every one of our players. Shea has 100 percent of my support just like anyone else does.” Part of the concern with Patterson has been his health. He suffered an oblique injury early in the season opener, before hurting his shoulder against Wisconsin, while the offensive line struggled to protect him. But with McCaffrey out with a concussion,
Michigan has little choice but to keep Patterson under center. Last year against Rutgers, he completed 18-of-27 passes for 260 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. A repeat of that performance would go a long way toward proving he can be the quarterback Michigan thought it had coming into the season. How the interior defensive line bounces back Of all the mishaps the Wolverines had against Wisconsin, their defensive line stood out. While the offseason concern was over Michigan’s losses at defensive end and linebacker, the graduations of Bryan Mone and Lawrence Marshall loomed large against the Badgers. Each of the last two seasons, Wisconsin’s offense has centered around All-American running back Jonathan Taylor. Last year, anchored by Mone and Marshall, the Wolverines held Taylor to a respectable 101 yards on 17 carries. Saturday, he doubled that total, rushing for 203 yards on 23 tries. With Michael Dwumfour and Donovan Jeter both limited by injury, Michigan has tried to replace Mone and Marshall’s production in a myriad of ways. Senior Carlo Kemp has been a stalwart at one spot, but both Mason and defensive end Aidan Hutchinson have seen heavy usage next to him, each to limited success. Both Dwumfour and Jeter should be healthy, though, and strong performances from either player alongside Kemp would help solidify Michigan’s troublesome run defense going forward. Score prediction Michigan’s going to win, and it won’t be close. That much is a given. But with the offense and defense both searching for their identities, it’ll be a lot closer — and less inspiring — than the Wolverines want. Prediction: Michigan, 38-13
There’s a level of remorse that (Shea Patterson) has.
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
The Michigan offense has said that it is lacking an offensive identity, after touting its “speed in space” mantra all offseason.
I believe in Shea. I believe in every one of our players.
TheMichiganDaily www.michigandaily.com
7B
In easy matchup, Michigan can rediscover a killer mentality
I
t has become easy to forget there is a football game to play this weekend. That’s in part because of the panic surrounding Michigan right now, after every ETHAN SEARS problem came to a nadir at once last Saturday. The resulting fallout from a blowout loss at Wisconsin has yet to settle. It’s also because the next opponent, Rutgers, can do little to settle it. The Scarlet Knights are the worst program in the Big Ten and one of the worst in the country. The annual iteration of this game is usually a slow procession towards the clock striking zero, and to boot, Rutgers’ starting quarterback, McLane Carter, will miss this edition with a concussion. It’s hard to quell doubters in the way Michigan wants against this team. But not impossible.
Three years ago in the lead-up to a trip to Piscataway, Jim Harbaugh was asked the inevitable question when an inevitable win awaits — one that dismissed the cliche of preparing for each opponent and tried to get at what the Wolverines could actually take away from the impending 60-minute formality. “We’ll treat it as a big game,” Harbaugh said. “We will treat it as a championship game.” Five days later, Michigan walked off the field with a 78-0 win. The Wolverines went for 605 total yards and held Rutgers to 39. When they were up 27-0, they went for two. Not only that, but they did so by faking the extra point. They played ruthlessly, but as close to perfect as you can play a game of football. They showed a killer instinct to the point of bad sportsmanship. It’s not just the only time this century the Wolverines have won a game by 70, it’s one of just two they’ve won by 60 or more. The other was just weeks earlier in the same season, against Hawaii. It was hard not to be thinking about the unyielding style of
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh took his share of the blame for the disappointing 35-14 loss at Wisconsin last week.
football Michigan used to play this week when, in the equivalent press conference five days before playing Rutgers, Harbaugh brought up questions of effort and hustle. He wasn’t alluding to Rutgers, an opponent where effort and hustle might naturally stray, either. He was alluding to Wisconsin — which
HANDCRAFTED
Bowls • Bubble Tea • Bao Buns
208 W. Liberty (between Ashley St. and 1st St.) 734-369-6942 • www.ChowAnnArbor.com
Present this coupon for $1 off your next purchase! Expires May 2020.
8B
FootballSaturday, September 27, 2019
Michigan should have been amped up to play, a game where it wanted to prove something. “Players have to focus. Always have to play with focus,” Harbaugh said. “That has to be coached, too. That’s not getting done.” That’s a far cry from treating every game like a championship. So is the rest of the conversation around Schembechler Hall this week. “Not trying to call out anyone,” said fifth-year senior tackle Jon Runyan Jr., “but I feel like there were some plays (against Wisconsin) where the effort could’ve been better.” “We’ve really faced some tough adversity — and not really necessarily faced some tough adversity,” said offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. “We’ve really kind of put ourselves in some tough adversity.” “We didn’t want to put that on national TV,” said graduate transfer defensive end Mike Danna. “We didn’t want that on our record or on our label or whatever. Because that’s not our identity and that’s not how we play football.” Right now, though, it is how Michigan has played. It’s in the numbers, and it’s on the tape. The Wolverines have never been further removed from that identityaffirming 78-0 demolition than they are now. It’s not much of a question as to whether Michigan will actually win this Saturday. It’s a 27.5-point favorite. But in their last six games against the spread, the Wolverines have failed to cover. All by at least two touchdowns. Even under normal circumstances, just beating Rutgers wouldn’t be particularly notable.
Here, it would be cause to keep the alarm bells ringing as Iowa, a real opponent with a chance of winning, comes to Ann Arbor next week. To convince anyone of anything, covering the spread is a bare minimum. Want to get some confidence around this program again? Want to get everyone to shut up about what Michigan can’t do and open up some room for belief? Treat this the way this team treated this game three years ago. Like a championship game. Play with a killer instinct. Don’t step off the pedal. Show everyone what this offense’s ceiling is — how three NFL-level receivers can dominate, how a senior quarterback can lead, how this offensive line can plow open holes for its vaunted freshman running back. Show everyone how this defense can dominate like Michigan has throughout Don Brown’s tenure as coordinator — everyone swarming the ball, the quarterback running for his life. There won’t be a better chance. It won’t fix every problem, and being unable to kick the hell out of Rutgers isn’t one of the existential crises of the Jim Harbaugh era. But Rutgers is the opponent in front of the Wolverines this week, and doing that would at least be a start. “You look through the game, you really don’t need to look at the stats,” Gattis said. He was talking about last week. He should be able to say the same about this week. Sears can be reached at searseth@umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears.