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Friday, October 4, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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The story behind Detroit’s cornerback pipeline to Michigan that’s berthed numerous stars.

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Candidate for City Council hosts kickoff for campaign Former A 2 journalist prepares to challenge Ward 4’s Jack Eaton CLAIRE HAO

Daily Staff Reporter

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Schlissel discusses Center for Academic Innovation, research

Leadership Breakfast addresses new fund for climate neutrality, safe gun usage LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter

University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel announced a $50-million increase in funding for the Center for Academic Innovation, the creation of the Firearm Injury Prevention Research Initiative and a new fund dedicated to achieving

climate neutrality to a crowd of more than 200 faculty, staff and students at the annual Leadership Breakfast in the Ross School of Business Thursday morning. The funding for the Center for Academic Innovation, Schlissel said, would support the center as they develop strategies to make academic knowledge more accessible through technology and research.

According to Schlissel, the funds will be distributed over the course of five years, with $10 million given to the center every year. “Our innovations have already personalized learning to students from diverse backgrounds, they have identified potential biases in testing and empowered learners to make data-driven choices about how they allocate

their studying time,” Schlissel said. “They’re leveling the playing field and identifying opportunities that were previously unseen.” The first iteration of the center, the Office of Digital Education and Innovation, was founded in 2014 to bridge the gaps between digital platforms and academic learning. See SCHLISSEL, Page 3A

More than 40 Ann Arbor residents gathered for food and drink at the home of Ann and Steve Arbaugh on Thursday night in support of former journalist Jen Eyer’s candidacy for the Ward 4 city council position in Ann Arbor. Those in attendance included Mayor Christopher Taylor; state Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor; Washtenaw County Commissioner Katie Scott, D-District 9; and former state Sen. Mitch Irwin. Former City Councilmembers Kirk Westphal, D-Ward 2; Margie Teall, D-Ward 4; Graydon Krapohl, D-Ward 4; and Joan Lowenstein, D-Ward 2, were also present. During the event, Eyer said she wanted to continue working in public service after her time on the Board of Commissioners. After reflecting on where she could make the most difference, Eyer explained she was compelled to serve

at the local level, which she believes is often overlooked. To Eyer, one of the most important issues in the city is a housing crisis, which she said she believes is largely due to an affordable housing shortage. “We have 80,000 people who commute into our city every day, and we are a city of 120,000 people,” Eyer said. “Our population grows 75 percent every single day. How many of those people would like to live here? I would guess quite a few.” Eyer said she would like to address the city’s structural budget deficit. In addition, she said she wants to see the city pursue more aggressive action to address what she called the “existential threat of climate change.” “I don’t know about you, but I feel like Ann Arbor should be a leader among cities when it comes to climate action,” Eyer said. “And we are so far from that goal right now that we can’t even see it. We are not doing the work.” See KICKOFF, Page 3A

Hat designer shares personal Company Nurses: repurposes history at Penny Stamps lecture We need BUSINESS

wood from old arena

Basketball star Cazzie Russell comes to campus to promote local business REMY FARKAS Daily News Editor

When he arrived at the University of Michigan in 1962, Cazzie Russell didn’t expect to become engraved in the history of Michigan Basketball. Assistant coaches James Skala and Tom Jorgensen came to his neighborhood high school in the south side of Chicago to recruit him to the Michigan basketball team, telling him he would be guaranteed to play if he came to the University. Russell later came to the University for a visit before committing for basketball. During his visit, Coach Skala attempted to take him on a tour of Yost Arena to woo him. Skala lost the keys that day, so the pair couldn’t get into the arena. Russell committed regardless. This weekend, Russell will be coming back in honor of the homecoming game. “I ended up coming to Michigan, which was a real blessing because I was told by Coach Skala, he said, ‘If you come to Michigan you can play.’ I enjoyed his visit and enjoyed his honesty,” Russell said. See PEN, Page 3A

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Stephen Jones talks creating pieces for Lady Gaga, Meghan Markle JULIA FANZERES Daily Staff Reporter

In a packed Michigan Theater Thursday evening, students gathered for a Penny Stamps lecture featuring the man behind many of the hats displayed in fashion exhibits and donned by celebrities: Stephen Jones. Stephen Jones is the

fashion world’s leading milliner, or hatmaker. Having made a name for himself in the 1970s in London, Jones was a student of Saint Martin’s School of Art during the day and regularly attend the Blitz nightclub in the evenings, where he and his friends would wear outrageous outfits. By 1980, Jones had opened up his own store in Covent Garden.

Forty years later, Jones still attracts the biggest names in the industry, crafting hats for celebrities including Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Madonna and Meghan Markle. The lecture was hosted by the School of Art & Design as the first event in their yearly Penny Stamps Speaker Series. Onstage, several different headpieces were displayed, from berets and headbands

to more elaborate headpieces. Art & Design senior Sofia Zertuche found that the displays added an important visual element to the lecture. “Usually we don’t have things onstage,” Zetruche said. “Having the hats onstage, it provides an interesting outlook on what the show is about.” See HATS, Page 3A

KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily Stephen Jones, milliner and fashion designer, speaks to the audience about his life’s work of making and designing hats at the Penny Stamps Lecture in the Michigan Theater Thursday evening.

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parking solutions Hospital adds spots available for patients amid space shortage EMMA STEIN

Daily Staff Reporter

Earlier this year, more than 250 parking spots for hospital employees were converted to patient-only spaces, making it challenging for hospital staff to find parking and get to work on time. At the Board of Regents meeting on Sept. 18, dozens of nurses showed up wearing red shirts holding signs that read “Schlissel: Fix Parking Now!” At that same Regents meeting, the board approved a new $920 million hospital. Mary Masson, spokesperson for Michigan Medicine, wrote in an email to The Daily that the University of Michigan has been aware of parking concerns for a while now, for both patients and employees. Masson said in order to try to create a better experience for patients and their families, they converted employee spaces to patient spaces. “We recognize parking is currently a challenge for our employees and our patients,” Masson wrote. See PARKING, Page 3A

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 CLASSIFIEDS................6

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News

2A — Friday, October 4, 2019

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

TUESDAY: By Design

WEDNESDAY: This Week in History

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FRIDAY: Behind the Story

B EHIND THE STORY Every Friday, one Daily staffer will give a behind the scenes look at one of this week’s stories. This week, Public Policy junior Samantha Della Fera coordinated an oral history of The Michigan Daily. “The lede was a profile on The Daily itself. We interview a bunch of alumni, spanning back all the way to the ‘50s, so back when there was still a staff person that was in charge of The Daily and it wasn’t just student-run. We interviewed a lot of high profile people that wrote for The Daily and got their start here, like Adam Schefter, who is the NFL insider for ESPN. He was a sports editor here. Philip Power of the Power Center was also an editor here, so we got to talk to a lot of cool people who are connected to both Michigan history and the history of The Daily.”

Samathan Della Fara, Daily Arts Editor

ALEC COHEN/Daily

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“

I’m trying to be strong even though I don’t feel strong. I’m so weak. I’m tired. But I’m not going to quit fighting for my son as long as his heart is beating. I will be fighting for him to my last breath. And I said, whatever happens, it’s in God’s hands. If God takes my son while he’s on life support, you know, we’ll make peace with it, but I’ll never have peace with knowing that I consented to pulling the plug on my son when he’s still here.”

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Popular burger joint Frita Batidos expands to second location in Detroit

FINNTAN STORER

Cuban-inspired street food restaurant adds additional store outside of Ann Arbor

JOEL DANILEWITZ and MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA

DANIELLE PASEKOFF Daily Staff Reporter

Cuban-inspired street food restaurant Frita Batidos opened in Detroit Wednesday, marking their second location since the restaurant opened in Ann Arbor in 2010. Located downtown, the business is situated between the Fox Theatre and the Fillmore on West Columbia Street. Frita Batidos is the first of many businesses expected to open in the new Columbia Street development in District Detroit in the near future. The restaurant’s “fritas,” Cuban-style burgers and fries, and “batidos,” tropical fruit milkshakes, have garnered love and appreciation from University of Michigan students, some of whom were excited to hear about the new location in

HAPPY INTERVIEWING

downtown Detroit. LSA senior Peyton Sternfeld grew up in metro Detroit and recounted hearing about the new location from her mother, who saw the announcement in their local paper. Sternfeld praised the restaurant for its ability to accommodate her food allergies and expressed her excitement about the introduction of Frita Batidos to Detroit. “I think it’s great that (Frita Batidos is) expanding. … There’s so many fun and new restaurants coming up in Detroit,” Sternfeld said. Frita Batidos is “affordable and it’s great for most people to have a fun, different food option.” Frita Batidos is known for its customizable options, and the Detroit location will be no different. From black bean

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burgers topped with fried eggs and avocado spread to churros dusted with cinnamon and sugar, the menu in Detroit will be similar to the Ann Arbor original. Detroit’s location also boasts a full bar and seasonal drink options for customers. Eve Aronoff is the chef and owner of Frita Batidos and came up with the idea for the Cuban-infused restaurant based on her childhood experiences visiting her grandmother in Miami, as well as her love for the Latinx culture. Frita Batidos’s Detroit location opened after almost a decade of high demand and praises from the local community. Aronoff noted the positive customer reception of the new location’s opening thus far, especially because of the Detroit natives who now feel like Frita Batidos is closer to home. “It’s going great and better than we could have imagined, just super warm reception from people in the neighborhood, and the city, and people coming out from Ann Arbor,” Aronoff said. “We didn’t realize how many people used to come to Ann Arbor from Detroit that now are really happy that we’re closer to them, so that felt really good.” Business sophomore Owen Hill noted that because the restaurant does not solely imitate Cuban cuisine, there is more opportunity for Aronoff and her team to try out different recipes and create unique dishes for patrons. “It’ll be a completely different vibe in Detroit, obviously, because of the location, but also because it’s not taken from another culture concretely and moved here,” Hill said. “It’s

just the creator’s imagination, which opens up a lot of different avenues for her to go down when you open it in Detroit.” In its nine years, Frita Batidos has gained national recognition and earned its place as Ann Arbor’s go-to spot, receiving glowing reviews from publications including The New York Times, National Geographic and USA Today. The Daily has named Frita Batidos the “Best Burger” in their annual “Best of Ann Arbor” series every year since 2014. Aronoff and her team gravitated toward opening a location in Detroit “because of the unique character and energy of the city — not just in recent years, but through its rich and complex history” according to the restaurant website. Over the past four years, the Frita Batidos team came close to opening locations in Detroit, but ultimately signed their lease for the Columbia Street location a year and a half ago. LSA sophomore Courtney Fortin also noted the advantages of bringing Frita Batidos to Detroit as the city continues to develop and establish new homes and businesses. Fortin also explained that while young people go to Detroit for a sporting event or concert, they will be drawn to a unique restaurant atmosphere as opposed to typical chain restaurants. “It’s good to have a cultural identity for a restaurant, and then put it in a place like Detroit,” Fortin said. “A lot of people go to Detroit to eat, and they don’t want to see a bunch of chain restaurants … I feel like Detroit is the right environment for (Frita Batidos) to be in.”

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Opinion

4A — Friday, October 4, 2019

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CHAND RAJENDRA-NICOLUCCI | COLUMN

How digital “crumbs” can help us understand privacy

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CHLOE PLESCHER | COLUMN

Michigan’s negligence with mental health

n September 2019, the state of Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs released new revisions for licensed professional counselors. These revisions dictate that counselors will be barred from diagnosing and using psychotherapy techniques with their clients. The department is hoping to have these rules in effect by November 2019, approximately a month after their Oct. 4 public hearing on the proposal. While LARA claims these rules will help protect the public, they will actually do the opposite. Approximately 10,000 counseling jobs in Michigan will be affected, as diagnosing is necessary for insurance reimbursement. Furthermore, the mental health of clients will suffer. There are 150,000 Michigan residents who seek aid from professional counselors. Under LARA’s new rules, clients unable to afford the out-ofpocket cost will be forced to exit treatment, jeopardizing their mental health. The updates are wildly unnecessary. LPCs are the most accessible resource in mental health care, and their education trains them to treat a broad range of issues. They are clearly qualified to diagnose and use psychotherapy techniques. As LARA’s rules will not change counselors’ education and training, they will continue to be qualified. Therefore, making revisions is nothing more than adding unreasonable limitations. If someone goes through proper education and training, they should be able to use their skills, especially when it goes toward helping others. As someone who has received therapy for over a year, I can say it has been through the help of LPCs that I have found success in my recovery. Through counselors, I was able to understand my eating disorder and grasp my diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder. I was able to begin healing and learn new coping mechanisms. Counselors served as integral parts of my treatment team. Without them, my road to recovery would be more strenuous than it already is. When I was in a partial hospitalization program, the majority of my treatment team was counselors. The head coordinator of the eating

disorder program was an LPC, as was my case manager. Outside of them, my team was made up of a dietitian, an activity therapist and a psychiatrist. More often than not, my counselors were more helpful than my psychiatrist. While my psychiatrist was able to confirm my diagnoses, prescribe medicine and occasionally offer advice, it was my counselors who unquestionably contributed to my recovery. I was able to express my emotions without judgment or pity, and they provided support during any difficult situations. In the hospital, these impromptu sessions were often during mealtimes. Depending on who was with me, my team would help me process my thoughts and would help make the situation seem less scary. In outpatient treatment, my counselor back home provided similar support in and outside of sessions. But she added another layer of support outside of sessions by texting me to check in and by allowing me to text her during panic attacks, if needed. Today, my counselor in Ann Arbor still serves as a vital part of my recovery. If LARA’s revisions are approved, I will no longer be able to attend counseling, and I will lose a needed service. Thousands more like me will suffer from the regulations. Mental health care will continue to deteriorate if counselors are barred from providing diagnoses and utilizing psychotherapy. Michigan already has a mental health crisis. The need for care continually increases, but there are not enough counselors to aid people suffering from mental illness. By limiting the help even more, Michigan will further the mental health crisis. As a result, mental health insurance will be rendered useless, as counselors will no longer be qualified for reimbursement and will have to charge clients full price. Consequently, only the rich can then afford counseling. If counselors are not able to diagnose or use psychotherapy anyway, the sessions would not be worth the money, and help will be sought only from psychologists. However, there are not nearly as many psychologists, and their higher education makes them more expensive. Poorer clients cannot

afford such a high financial change. Thus, LARA’s revisions will create a broken system, where qualified counselors are unable to treat, and the mental health of poorer patients will suffer. But it’s not a hopeless situation. Though LARA’s public hearing is already on Oct. 4, a Michigan House bill currently in committee can neutralize the changes. House Bill 4325 was introduced by state Rep. Aaron Miller, R-Sturgis, and its purpose is to clarify the state’s wording and requirements for LPCs. Unlike LARA’s revisions, HB 4325 will expand educational requirements while allowing counselors to continue to diagnose and treat. This bill is what would actually benefit the Michigan population, as it does not place practicing limitations on counselors. Expanding education does require more training to become a counselor, but it does not limit their treatment approach and diagnosing ability. No jobs will be lost and no clients will bear the consequences. If HB 4325 is passed before LARA’s revisions are accepted, then it will stop the revisions from happening. And yet, if the revisions are accepted, the bill will then be inapplicable. It is a fateful race against time, but it’s not entirely out of the public’s control. Residents must voice their support for counselors and inclusive mental health care. Michigan has a responsibility to represent and care for its residents, but the regulations are negligent and endangering. Therefore, we must fight back. Signing petitions and participating in letter-writing campaigns are good starting points. Taking the time out of your day to support counselors and mental health in Michigan is worth it and will benefit our society. Mental health is a personal issue affecting our communities, but mental health care will flounder if we silently allow unreasonable and unnecessary requirements for counselors. Access to mental health care is a human right, and we cannot allow our government to threaten the health of its residents. Chloe Plescher can be reached at chloebp@umich.edu.

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he philosopher Timothy Morton refers to concepts that are allencompassing yet difficult to see directly as “hyperobjects.” He points to global warming as an example of a hyperobject. Its enormous scale and amorphous nature often cause skepticism and despair. Digital privacy can be classified as a hyperobject, too: We know our data is tracked, packaged and traded on a massive scale, but we don’t often see it directly. We get glimpses when an oddly specific ad shows up on Instagram or Google, but stories about huge data brokers and detailed databases are tough to conceptualize when we have such a narrow window into the system. Just like climate change, this can lead to skepticism and despair. How can we avoid being overwhelmed by digital privacy? By interacting with the traces left behind by systems of big data. These digital “crumbs” can help make tangible that uneasy feeling we get from interacting with digital systems. Because the technology sector was allowed to operate with free reign for so long, untangling the breadth and depth of the surveillance economy will take years. However, confronting the evidence currently available to us can help clarify the realities of the system and overcome the powerlessness that can accompany it. Just as images of climate change can be an effective way to galvanize support for action, coming into contact with pieces of our digital world can help us understand the scope and power of the system, transforming the intangible into the tangible and despair into action. There are some tools that have emerged from the recent tech backlash that can help us look inside the black box of digital privacy. The website Have I Been Pwned?, created by a Microsoft web security expert, allows people to see accounts associated with their email that have been compromised in a data breach. Part of the reason the site exists is that companies in the United States are typically not required to notify people when their data is breached. When I put my personal email address into the site, I saw to my surprise that I had compromised accounts from

two separate breaches. Neither company had notified me, and I was able to link a recent hack of my Amazon account to one of the breaches, because I (stupidly) had reused a password from a compromised account. Seeing specific instances where my data was breached, as well as the fraudulent purchases that followed, made the implications of my data insecurity clearer. Another tool that can help us understand our digital existence is an ad personalization tool from Google that gives a glimpse of the predictions gleaned from our personal data. It lets people see the interests and preferences Google assigns them based off of data such as their search history, YouTube history and partner (third-party) data. I found the granularity of Google’s predictions about me unnerving.

How can we avoid being overwhelmed by digital privacy?

I counted 50 different inferences that Google made, including my estimated age, types of movies and music I like and the type of transportation I use. I’ve always been vaguely aware that my activities on the Internet are tracked, packaged and traded, but seeing how much was tracked and how accurate the packaging was reified that feeling. Finally, Facebook built a tool that gives users an idea of the breadth of organizations that have their data. The tool lists organizations that have run an ad using users’ personal information in the past seven days. The sheer size of my list was surprising, as was who was on it. There were some companies and organizations I directly and often use like Spotify and Netflix, but there were also many I had never interacted with and had no clear connection to. For example, my list included a lieutenant governor candidate from Mississippi, the Kansas City Grilled Cheese Festival

and the Arabic branch of Newchic and a Hong Kongbased retailer. How did these organizations I never gave my data to and have no clear connection with end up with my personal information? Why do they want it? The answers to these questions aren’t clear, but they demonstrate the tangled, Kafkaesque mess of online advertising and data collection. I will never go to the Kansas City Grilled Cheese Festival or shop in the Arabic branch of Newchic. Yet, they have my personal data and are using it (seemingly) mistakenly. Why does all this collection matter? What’s the harm in being served a few irrelevant ads? First, collecting and storing data puts it at risk of being breached. Your data is only as safe as the weakest organization that has it, and we often don’t get to choose who collects vast profiles on us (see the Equifax data breach). Second, it can be used to shape our behavior. All the data collected on us fuels behavioral predictions that can be used with nudges to influence our behavior. This can lead to a power dynamic where organizations with data and information can tune and herd the rest of us, undermining autonomy and potentially democracy. Proponents of surveillance capitalism often argue that people don’t care about privacy (see Facebook arguing there is no expectation of privacy on its platform). Yet, polls consistently show otherwise. So, where is the disconnect? Because digital privacy is a hyperobject, people often struggle to articulate their discomfort and frustrations with the system. This can make people seem apathetic when they actually feel helpless. We can overcome this by using tools like the ones listed above. They help us interact with the edges of our digital world, giving us a better understanding of the system and its implications. This is empowering — instead of feeling overwhelmed and aimless, we can demand specific changes and start to truly grasp our present and future in the digital age. Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci can be reached at chandrn@umich.edu.

JOSHUA KIM | COLUMN

“Varsity Blues” and the failure in the fallout

n March 12, one of the greatest — if not the greatest — scandals in academia was unceremoniously unveiled to the world after a federal indictment, confirming a suspicion many people had regarding the American college system. Despite their championing of merit, selective colleges at their core are subservient to corruption, privilege and wealth. At the time, 50 people were implicated in the scandal ranging from coaches, college prep executives and actors. Now, the fallout is finally being seen, and it’s a slap in the face in the name of justice. Felicity Huffman paid $15,000 to artificially alter her daughter’s SAT score. Undoubtedly, her actions are morally abhorrent. Thousands of students every year dedicate themselves to studying and preparing for these standardized tests, sacrificing their already small amount of free time in the hopes of raising their scores. Huffman rooted her actions in a familiar sense of desperation to secure a better score for her daughter, to which prosecutors hit back stating that “all parents want to help their kids get ahead...yet most manage to steer clear of conspiracy, bribery and fraud. By means of her privilege and wealth, Huffman was almost able to completely bypass this dedication and hard-earned merit. Her actions undoubtedly undermine the integrity of the college preparatory system as something that genuinely prepares students for college. On May 13, Huffman pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.” Now, according to 2019 federal guidelines, her charges would entail a

punishment spanning four to 10 months in prison. Huffman’s bribe was marginally smaller than others implicated in the scandal including Lori Loughlin’s alleged $500,000 bribe to the University of Southern California. So, what is the punishment? Five months? Maybe even the bare minimum — let’s say four months? 14 days. Felicity Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Fourteen days in prison, one year of probation, 250 hours of community service and a $30,000 fine. The government asked for one to 15 months of imprisonment, but Huffman was still able to pass by with just a slap on the wrist. Sure,

Let us not forget the accomplices in this entire scandal: the colleges themselves probation is commonplace for those who plead guilty. But, for a woman worth nearly $20 million, a $30,000 fine is nothing. Fourteen days is nothing compared to what the federal guidelines suggest. Two hundred and fifty hours of community service when it comes to celebrities has become so menial that it’s hard to even gauge if it’s a punishment. At first, the college admissions scandal served as a hallmark, reminding the American public that privilege will continue to overrule the hard work of those with true dedication and merit. However, let us not forget

the accomplices in this entire scandal: the colleges themselves. Though all of these colleges should be ashamed to even have their names mentioned in this scandal, these specific shameful colleges are the University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego and the University of Texas at Austin — all public schools. These schools have been funded by the government, and under that pretense, they are supposed to be different from the elitist snobbery of private schools. But, of course, private schools are equally guilty in the scandal. When the scandal broke, I hardly blinked an eye when the University of Southern California was implicated in the bribery scandal, seeing that they’re already comfortable taking upwards of $77,000 a year from their students. For private schools, this scandal was merely a confirmation that the system was designed for the over-privileged and underqualified cowards bred by America’s richest and most famous. Seeing these public schools proclaim themselves separate from the bureaucratic corruption many assumed was present within private schools is sickening. With Huffman as the first indicted celebrity in the case, there is hope that the other highprofile offenders like Loughlin suffer a greater punishment than Huffman’s. However, now it has also become a mockery of the punitive aspect of criminal justice and an embarrassing slap in the face to those who actually believed the wealthy and the privileged would be subjected to the hard hand of justice. Joshua Kim can be reached at joshica@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Friday, October 4, 2019 — 5A

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN

Lil Ugly Mane: Almost legend You don’t need to know JONAH MENDELSON Daily Arts Writer

How long must Travis Miller wait for the recognition he deserves? Will he ever receive it? Travis Miller has made music under numerous stage names, but his most impactful work has come under the pseudonym Lil Ugly Mane. Despite his lack of recognition outside of the underground scene (as well as certain corners of the internet), Lil Ugly Mane is responsible for the best Memphis rap by anyone not named Three 6 Mafia. His most well-known work, Mista Thug Isolation, is a hazy homage to early Memphis rap, but it’s far from a rote reproduction: Miller imbues the album with a dreamlike and colorful flavor that marks the project as distinctly his own. His final album under the Lil Ugly Mane moniker, Oblivion Access, is a bolder and experimental, if less accessible, project. Not as directly influenced by the Memphis style, Oblivion Access is much more frustrated and toxic. At times he can get a little preachy, especially on “Columns,” but overall he pulls off his progression to a more industrial, noisy sound quite well. However, his best work is not to be found on this, or any, album, but instead on two of his singles: “On Doing An Evil Deed Blues” and “Uneven Compromise.” The former is a plunderphonic collage of old-school East Coast hip hop, which segues into a beautiful cloud-rap reflection on the creative process and Travis’s relationship to his own output. The beat itself, produced by Travis, is gorgeous and kaleidoscopic. During the bridge, Travis states plainly one of the main points he makes in “On Doing An Evil Deed Blues”: “The blues weren’t born in a bunker.” This line has two points of significance: the first is that the emotional resonance behind blues music (and, by implication, all music) is inseparable from the artist’s actual life — no one can write the blues if they’ve never had them. The second and more interesting point is that creativity is a dialectic process; that is, all creative works are borne out of an artist’s reaction to and engagement with the

artistic expression and ideas that they have encountered before. The intro is an overt expression of this idea, a sonic collage assembled out of fragments of older works that creates a coherent and new statement. “Art is imitation, creation is forever,” he claims. The other thematic aspect of the track is Travis’s relationship to rap, and how it has changed over time. “I used to like to rhyme when it was all about linguistics / When Big L verses was like decoding hieroglyphics,” he says; rap, for Travis, was always about his love for music, and, as he reveals elsewhere in the song, while he once dreamed of fame, he realizes that that was never his true goal. These two themes are connected. In recalling his early influences, Lil Ugly Mane comes to the broader conclusion that no artist escapes the shadow of those who initially turned on their passion. Lil Ugly Mane’s other magnum opus is the 2014 track “Uneven Compromise.” The first few minutes are dissonant, a near-satanic depiction of violence and misery. Just when the darkness feels like it’s about to overwhelm you, when the sickness is creeping in at the borders of the listener’s mind, the floor falls out into a short-lived, oddly-pastoral interlude. About five minutes in, the track launches into one of the best examples of boom-bap storytelling ever put on wax, a story of an old friend who is hopelessly and permanently lost to drug addiction and mental deterioration. “Your homeboys change sometimes / The thoughts rearrange in their brains sometimes / It’s too hard dealing with the pain sometimes / But you gotta let go, you can’t save their lives.” Lil Ugly Mane’s nihilism here is convincing and painful. There is an overabundance of dark hip hop, but there are very few songs that manage to make darkness feel like such a powerful and all-encompassing force (as opposed to a cheap trick designed to provoke, or lend the artist a sense of gravitas). Lil Ugly Mane’s ability to challenge the listener while integrating such disparate influences into a raw yet cohesive work is that of a creative master. His lack of mainstream recognition accentuates the themes of his music — he is a forgotten legend who never was, living in the dark and damp trenches of hip hop. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Art is imitation, creation is forever,” he claims.

CLARA SCOTT

Daily Gender & Media Columnist

When I was around 10 or 11, I begged my mom over and over again for a copy of Tiger Beat magazine. You know the type — they’re hard to miss, with a neon cover, an obtrusive face of a teenage heartthrob and headlines like “Take a quiz to find out what color your birthday cake will be” plastered across their glossy surfaces. Tiger Beat and other teen magazines like it were more than just sugardrenched literary beginnings for preteen girls and boys. For me the full-size poster of Zac Efron that hung on the back of my door was a constant companion, keeping me company from the moment I pulled him out of a magazine until a friend who slept over said it was creepy. May he rest in peace. There’s nothing wrong with a shrine to your celebrity crush, especially in that hormonal hell we affectionately call tweenagehood. But in the modern age, the flashy quizzes and posters and kissing tips that don’t actually work are no longer relegated to the pages of magazines like Tiger Beat and Seventeen — instead, they’re very, very online. Somehow, in the last 10 years the tabloid media and its tried-and-true tropes of sensationalism have merged with teen media to create something of an amorphous monster, constantly hungry for bits of personal information left by careful (or not-so-careful) celebrities. It’s invasive, but not in the cute way it used to be. We all had our Zac Efrons at age 13, but should we really still care about the girlfriend of a famous young man? His favorite food? Colors he likes girls to wear? I woke up one day during the summer, rolled over and found on my Twitter feed the same Seventeen Magazine article posted seven times in a row. The headline read “Everything You Need to Know About Tom Holland’s Girlfriend Olivia Bolton.” Tom Holland of “Spider-Man” fame apparently had a new girlfriend. But the comments left alongside the article expressed outrage. “Do we really need

to know this much about a normal woman?” one asked. “Leave her alone,” another echoed. I hesitated, then clicked on the link, which took me to a pretty standard list of websleuthed information about poor Olivia. I can’t even imagine the lengths to which the reporter searched for some of the facts noted, which dive deeply into her education, age and everywhere she had been seen with Holland in the past few months. “Tomdaya stans everywhere thoroughly freaked out, horrified at the fact that Tom and Zendaya may not actually be an item,” the author wrote. I rolled my eyes. Seventeen Magazine isn’t just for 17-yearolds anymore. Really, nothing is. The loss of those neon covers and the glossy pages in our hands has made it easier to fall into a clickbait trap. No tween is going to beg her mother for a copy of Tiger Beat because all she has to do is look up her questions, her quizzes, her deepest darkest loves on Google. The tween mentality is no longer just for tweens; it’s for everyone and their mothers, literally. And for people like Olivia Bolton, that is a big problem. We don’t need to know everything about her. No selfrespecting adult person does. The teen media industry used to sugarcoat it, to wonder where her clothes were from and where to get them. Now, people on the internet send her nasty messages trying to find out more, mixing the worlds of fiction, media and reality beyond recognition. Our hunger for information isn’t surface-level, isn’t cute, isn’t a phase anymore. That’s what it used to be, a phase. But as the Tom Hollands and Olivia Boltons of the world continue to proliferate in celebrity gossip, it’s clearer and clearer to see how this aspect of our culture has changed. The introduction of the internet into the equation has spun it out of control, allowing everyone to go deeper than the pages of a poppy magazine. There are no limits or ethics. There is only opportunity to go deeper, and sometimes too deep. No, we don’t need to know everything about Tom Holland’s new girlfriend. As adults, with our own interests and relationships and responsibilities, do we really need to know the personal lives of celebrities at all?

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

‘Testaments’ disappoints ‘Bob Hearts Abishola’ is well intentioned but lacks laughs ELISE GODFRYD Daily Arts Writer

As I read “The Testaments,” Margaret Atwood’s latest Booker Prize-nominated novel, I was reminded of a case study of Darwin’s finches I learned about in an anthropology class I took last year. Throughout the 1970s, biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant observed the finch population of the Galápogos Islands. As a result of a severe drought that radically changed the food supply available to the finches, natural selection worked to alter the makeup of the population in response to the demands of this new environment, resulting in the production of a completely different species of bird. The Grants disproved Darwin’s belief that evolution needed hundreds or thousands of years to significantly change a population — in some cases, it only needs a few years to create astounding change. When it comes to Atwood’s “The Testaments,” it’s arguable that things line up with the Grants’s story quite well — only the novel’s characters are the finches, and Gilead is the drought. In “The Testaments,” we learn that Gilead, the apocalyptic and theocratic dystopia of Atwood’s modern classic “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has continued its reign of terror well after the events of the latter novel. However, while “The Handmaid’s Tale” chronicled the very first years of Gilead, readers of “The Testaments” get to witness what has become of this regime — how it has evolved in its cruelty and, more poignantly, how the women who have grown up inside it hardly even resemble the women who lived before them just decades ago. The young girls who have grown up inside Gilead might as well be a different species — feminism is a foreign concept to them, heinous crimes like murder and sexual assault are everyday occurrences and they don’t even know how to read. Just as Darwin’s finches were products of a drought that reshaped their environment, the

The Testaments Margaret Atwood Sept. 10, 2019 Nan A. Talese

women of “The Testaments” are products of Gilead and its culture of hate and shame and oppression. The prospect of centuries upon centuries of human advancement crumbling within just a few decades is genuinely terrifying and truly fascinating to read about, and Atwood’s talent for visualizing this creatively is without a doubt the novel’s greatest asset. The haunting and frightening world of Gilead introduced in “The Handmaid’s Tale” has made its mark on our culture, spawning its own Emmywinning Hulu adaptation. There are many reasons why “The Handmaid’s Tale” has had the cultural impact it’s had — the parallels Atwood draws between her fictional Gilead and our own society’s internalized patriarchy are biting, deeply disturbing and impossible to forget. Aside from any political and social resonance the book might have, though, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is simply a great work of literature, a beautifully written and fully realized account of one woman’s journey as she’s forced to go through a living hell. Given all of this, it’s clear that “The Testaments” has a lot to live up to. You could say that the book should be read as its own entity, independent from its predecessor, but I don’t think this is what Atwood wants from her readers at all — she refers back to “The Handmaid’s Tale” constantly. And although “The Testaments” is written from the perspective of a different narrator (three narrators, in fact), all three of the women it gives voice to are intricately and permanently bonded to Offred, and this bond is a central catalyst for the decisions they end up making. So, I’m going to compare “The Testaments” to “The Handmaid’s Tale.” I think I have to. And, as I contemplate their differences, I’m more and more aware of the inferiority of “The Testaments” in nearly every respect. For one, its prose, in relation to “The Handmaid’s Tale” at least, is unrefined and often unconvincing. One narrator in particular utters lines so unnatural, so cringeworthy I could hardly stomach them (“I am fucking sorry, but we are in a hot mess emergency here!”). At certain points it reads like a young adult novel, which certainly isn’t detrimental in and of itself but feels completely out of place in the context of its predecessor. Simply put, this kind of writing belongs nowhere near a Booker Prize, and it certainly wouldn’t be in the running for the award if it weren’t the brainchild of Margaret Atwood. A more glaring and upsetting criticism, though, and what may just be the book’s fatal flaw, is the superficial and stereotypical characterization of its narrators Atwood opts for. All three narrators are two-dimensional, archetypal embodiments of the cultures they come from, and there simply aren’t enough pages in this plot-heavy novel to flesh them out further. These women deserve more. They each deserve a novel of their own. I don’t want to sound like I despise this book. I don’t in the slightest. “The Testaments” is an addictive read with an uplifting (albeit slightly unearned) resolution. I admire its ambition, its aspiration to give voice to as many women as possible. Most importantly, it doesn’t make me love “The Handmaid’s Tale” any less. Ultimately, though, if I do decide to return to Gilead, it won’t be by way of “The Testaments.”

Abishola, and notably, their conversations are entirely in subtitled Yoruba. Daily Arts Writer The conversations between the various Nigerian characters are also illuminating about the West African and also broader immigrant experience. I was as prepared as I could be going into the series Examples include a contentious conversation between premiere of Chuck Lorre’s new series “Bob Hearts Abishola and her son in which she discourages him Abishola” to cringe as much as humanly possible. from joining the track team in order to further After all, the premise begs it. Middle-aged white man encourage him to study to become a doctor. While courts Nigerian immigrant nurse? Nope, nothing cliché to an extent, these sentiments are familiar good can come of this. Yet I was pleasantly surprised to many other immigrant children. In addition to these more substantive at the end to discover discussions, the small that while the show isn’t discussions about food particularly funny, it and other cultural tidbits handles its subjects with a are equally important and surprising amount of grace informative. and nuance. Even more thankfully, Bob (Billy Gardell, “Mike Bob’s interest in Abishola and Molly”) is a successful Series Premiere is sweet (if a bit sad) and Detroit-based workaholic respectful and doesn’t ever sock salesman who is CBS veer into creepy, fetishizing introduced in the midst of Mondays @ 8:30 p.m. stalker territory. While having a heart attack. In Abishola isn’t quite as his overnight stay at the hospital, he is taken care interested (and much more of a Nigerian nurse named focused on establishing Abishola (Folake Olowofoyeku, “Transparent”) to herself in the country), she is certainly slightly whom he takes an immediate liking. When she sings charmed by the incredibly Midwestern Bob. All things being said, the unfortunate part of the him a Yoruba lullaby while he tries to relieve himself, show is that it’s just not particularly funny. The he’s a goner. There was a lot of potential here to make the fact that first five minutes themselves include some yawnAbishola is Nigerian the butt of the joke. Likely due to inducing fat and fart jokes, and it doesn’t get much the influence of one of the show’s creators, British- better at all. The few bright spots are the interactions Nigerian comedian Gina Yashere, the day-to-day between Abishola and her relatives, with the latter’s aspects of the Nigerian immigrant experience are at melodrama contrasting with the steelier pragmatism the forefront and are the most interesting parts of the of the former. “Bob Hearts Abishola” is ultimately a mildly show. Abishola lives with her young son and relatives Olu (Shola Adewusi, “Family Affairs”) and Tunde funny yet quite sweet story of a courtship between (Barry Shabaka Henley, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) two different, equally lonely people. It treats its in a cramped apartment and lives a life worlds immigrant subjects with much more nuance than away from Bob. Yashere herself shows up as Kemi, I imagined, and that in and of itself might make it another Nigerian woman who is good friends with worth a watch. SAYAN GHOSH

Bob Hearts Abishola

CBS

6A — Friday, October 4, 2019

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

FILM LONGFORM NOTEBOOK

Rethinking ‘Breaking Bad’ (before you watch the film) I’m afraid we’re too enamored with Walt’s story and the show’s glory to question it at all, including when we look to what this film will have to offer. The untouchability of the show and the untouchability of Walter White are so This article contains spoilers from the series “Breaking entangled that the inner workings of the show, at times problematic and overly romantic, are hidden. My aim is Bad.” The first acquaintance Walter White ever killed almost to begin to untwine them, to bring them to light, so that escaped with his life, twice. Walt (Bryan Cranston, we might assess whether “El Camino” is being used as “Sneaky Pete”) strangled New Mexico-based, Latino an opportunity to revel in these fantasies further, or to methamphetamine distributor Krazy-8 (Max Arciniega, outgrow them. The Suburbs: How to hide in plain sight “Bosch”) three episodes into the five-season run of “I’m supporting my community. I hide in plain sight, “Breaking Bad.” Over the next several seasons, Walt gets much more practice eliminating his opposition in same as you,” says Gustavo “Gus” Fring (Giancarlo the drug trade and his murder methods becoming more Esposito, “The Get Down”) to Walt in a crowded hospital laissez-faire, but at the time Krazy-8 posed a legitimate wing, in an episode of Season 3 titled “I See You.” Both challenge to the nascent drug lord. His second, nearly men are waiting to hear about the condition of Walt’s successful attempt to convince his captor that he deserved brother-in-law, Hank Schaffer (Dean Norris, “Scandal”), to live was lengthy, involved. Life stories were exchanged a DEA agent who has just barely survived a violent and morals were appealed to over the piss-bucket and altercation with two men from the Mexican drug cartel, the meals Walt would bring to his prisoner, who was twins Leonel (Daniel Moncada, “Justified”) and Marco bike-locked by the neck to a pole in Walt’s partner Jesse Salamanca (Luis Moncada, “Queen of the South”). To no Pinkman’s (Aaron Paul, “BoJack Horseman”) basement. one else’s knowledge, however, Gus is also there to assess the condition of the other survivor, Leonel, who was not supposed to come out of it alive. Gus knows that because he orchestrated the whole thing. But let’s back up. Because, while it is true that Gus was the man behind the attack, both Walt and Gus share responsibility for the violence that almost claimed three lives. Several episodes prior, Leonel and Marco’s cousin Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz, “Major Crimes”) was Walt and Jesse’s distributor. Later kidnapped by the violent, volatile, drug-addicted Tuco, Walt and Jesse try (unsuccessfully) to poison him to save their own lives. In the end, though, they don’t have to. Hank, who was tracking Jesse’s car as part of an investigation of Walt’s disappearance, ends up on the right side of a shootout with Tuco. To avenge his death, the Salamanca family at first turns their attention to Walt. But Gus, dependent on Walt for his product of unrivaled purity, first warns the Salamancas to wait until his business with Walt has concluded, then redirects their attention toward Hank, the man who actually pulled the trigger. All that and yet there the two of them stand, conversing in a sea of cops. Wearing clean buttondowns, untouched by the carnage of the battles they mechanized. Hiding in plain sight. How do they do it? Where does their camouflage come from? It has something to do with their button-downs. Something to do with the houses they drove from Krazy-8’s first escape attempt was much simpler, though, to get there, the homes they will return to when they as he merely limped down the road outside the suburban leave, that won’t have cops parked in their driveways house, illegitimately claimed by Jesse from his late aunt, when they get back. Not everyone can hide in plain on foot. It is that scene — Walt driving down the road and sight, can they? Could a Mexican-American man have depositing Krazy-8’s body into the trunk of his Pontiac inhabited that same space in the hospital free of attention, suspicion? Could Jesse — in his baggy, ever-oversized Aztek — that haunts me. How is that? In a show that includes shots of a man’s sweatshirts and jeans, with his designation as resident face, half-intact, half-skeletal, after a bomb detonates, a methhead? Hiding in plain sight requires a particular set show with sequences inside a neo-Nazi torture chamber, of conditions.The camouflaged must satisfy a number of how did Krazy-8 getting caught and dumped in the invisible checkboxes before their surroundings cooperate, protagonist’s trunk get its staying power in my brain? before they fade into the landscape. One of the foremost While the shock and vulgarity of the latter scene is much checkboxes Gus and Walt fill (but Walt most readily) is less obvious, it is more affecting for its insidiousness, its that of suburban existence, and the status that comes absurdity. Because one man plucked the other man he with it. The suburbs have a hand in protecting these two hadn’t finished killing yet right off the street. A suburban participants in the drug trade. Let me be clear: I’m not talking about merely physical neighborhood in Albuquerque, by no means unpopulous, had nothing to say in response. He got away with it plots of land on the outskirts of a city, or implying that a picket fence will fend off the DEA. I’m talking about the without the added stress of hiding it. More than 11 years have passed since that episode ideology and social constructions that are as foundational aired, just under six since the series finale, and now the to suburbia as the cement and steel upon which the makers of “Breaking Bad” have another episode in store. suburban homes rest. I’m talking about the suburbs as The film sequel, “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,” is set a narrative about its inhabitants, which subsumes their for limited theatrical and digital release on Netflix Oct. 11, individual narratives and tells an incorrigible story of a week from today. The only concern expectant fans seem good citizenship and clean records. I’m talking about the to have for “El Camino” is whether or not it will live up people who are rarely cast for the narrative — particularly to the original incarnation’s dramatic caliber, reminiscent people of color and unmarried folks. I’m talking about a of the fanatic intellectual gridlock that blesses revered myth, but a powerful, historical, lasting one, with wordly stories’ adaptations into other mediums. Aren’t there implications. Historian Elaine Tyler May has written at length better questions we might hazard to pose? about the distinct effects of postwar suburbanization on the American Release Date: Friday, October 4, 2019 family. In “Containment at Home,” first chapter of her book Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle the “Homeward Bound,” May evaluates Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis the role the suburbs were supposed to 34 Low cards 55 Dagwood 69 With 68-Across, ACROSS play during the Cold War. They were studied 35 Relief providers neighbor 1 Crossed the mob, 56 Saloon __ 70 Army installation 37 To whom Rick in a way envisioned as a “bulwark” against the 71 Loch with a says, “We’ll 57 Third of four 5 Insignificant always have canonical legend points most prominent political concern of Paris” gospels 9 When repeated, the day — that is, communism and 38 Orderly 58 Thus DOWN Second British 42 Divided land 59 Fixes on the sly 1 Baseball Cards: Invasion band class relations. (It is not difficult to see 44 Put a stop to 60 Wander Abbr. 14 Second person how this stolid bulwark might remain 45 Least spicy 61 Part of YSL 2 Melville captain of old? 3 1960s-’80s Chevy 47 Tidied the garden 65 April 15 org., or, 15 “No problems in place even as the political climate as a plural, a 4 Bank employee 51 A lot to pay here” changes, deflecting our evolving 5 Words to a 53 Tangy mustard hint to four long 16 “... the __ of 54 Filing tool puzzle answers growler defeat”: “Wide concerns.) The latter portion of the 6 Apple on a desk World of Sports” ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: chapter May devotes to analyzing 7 Vegan staple phrase 8 Sport with disks 17 Steaming flow survey data from suburban-American 9 Togged out 18 Casual eatery 10 Not-cute fruit husbands and wives from the Cold 19 One spun by a 11 Large chorus of juggler War Era. Unsurprisingly, these cheers 20 Deity worshiped 12 Opposition prefix by backyard firsthand accounts of the costs and 13 Duma “Don’t chefs? benefits of suburban life suggest that think so!” 23 July 4th show 21 Uses for warmth, failure suburbanites maintained a good deal as wood 24 Attach, in a way of faith, however unrealistic, in the 22 Dainty drinks 25 NFL scores 25 Cops as a unit 28 Underground pacifying effect of the suburbs. One 26 Marvelous support 27 Get around man in particular, Joseph, husband 31 “ASAP!” 29 Eye-related prefix 36 7-10 split, to a of fellow interviewee Emily, was 30 Layers bowler? 32 Father of Thor recorded going on a jaded rant in 39 Exploring toon 33 French 40 Conceals which he remarks, “Love of neighbor possessive 10/04/19 41 Support for driving and … get him before he gets you.” May kicking follows with an interpretation of how 42 Flying toys 43 Dumbo’s flying Joseph’s outlook on the world affects aids what he expects from the suburbs in 44 Distiller Walker’s treatise about a turn: “Joseph’s cynicism toward the whisky grain? wider world made him place even 46 Home of the Senators higher hopes on the family to be a 48 Ruckus buffer.” 49 Double curve 50 Two-time U.S. I think May’s term buffer might Open champ be a more precise representation of 52 Played the first card what suburban status offers. What 54 Hester Prynne’s trademark milkbuffer accounts for that camouflage producing farm? doesn’t is that the protection goes 62 So it could be heard in two directions. The protective 63 Where I-90 and sphere of the suburbs absorbs the I-79 meet 64 Rock’s Bon __ shock of social ills, but also deflects 66 Fire sign accusations of complicity in those 67 With 68-Across, words before ills. The suburbs are presumed “safe” “easy” from the outside world, so it follows 68 See 67- or By Mark McClain 10/04/19 69-Across ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC that the outside world has nothing to JULIANNA MORANO Daily Arts Writer

It has something to do with their button-downs. Something to do with the houses they drove from to get there, the homes they will return to when they leave, that won’t have cops parked in their driveways when they get back.

fear from them. This cycle of mutual protection is only sustainable, however, when it’s left untouched, unspoken of. Don’t let in anyone new, anyone who doesn’t look the same, and no flags will be raised. Jesse Pinkman may have grown up in the suburbs, but he loses that source of protection four episodes into the series. His parents have no tolerance for his drug addiction and selling and will not let him inhabit their sanctum. The irony is that their younger, high-achieving

large, obvious, somatic manifestations in the physical violence different bodies are susceptible to, even though many of them operate within the same economy; I could compare Walt’s wound log to those of many other characters, and the results would be similar, if not more dramatic. But there are also subtler manifestations of this insidious determinism, equally worth noting, in the violence others’ stories and ethnic identities sustain. Revoking the power of a disenfranchised people

I’m afraid we’re too enamored with Walt’s story and the show’s glory to question it all, including when we look to what this film will have to offer.

AMC

son Jake (Benjamin Petry) uses drugs as well — he just hides it better. In Season One, Jesse asks to stay with his parents for a couple of days, but when their housekeeper finds a marijuana cigarette in his bedroom, they kick him out. Before he leaves their house for the last time, Jake runs outside and thanks his big brother for covering for him — the cigarette that lost Jesse his suburban family life was actually Jake’s. Walt’s role in his suburban household is more gridlocked. He’s the provider, the father of two children. Even when his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn, “Shades of Blue”) figures out where Walt’s additional money comes from, she does not turn him in. She tries multiple times to divorce him, but he almost always finds a way back into their home, to the point where it seems inevitable, or at least by social design. Walt does not go on the run until the third-to-last episode of the series, after his wife and son find out that Walt’s actions led to his own brother-inlaw’s death. Whereas Jesse loses the protection of suburban existence almost instantly, Walt never quite does until the very end. And it shows. Selective silences in “Breaking Bad” (after Langston Hughes) Héctor Salamanca (Mark Margolis, “The Affair”) doesn’t speak. He appears to have suffered a debilitating stroke sometime before Walt entered the drug trade; he lives in a nursing home and uses a wheelchair. Instead of speaking, he communicates primarily through the use of a bell: a ding means yes, silence means no. The only time we hear his voice is in flashbacks, in which he speaks his native Spanish. When characters confront him about his past as a member of the cartel in Mexico, or to inform him of the repercussions from his fraught past that his family members now have to bear — I’m thinking of a scene when Gus shares that he just murdered the last of Don Salamanca’s descendents, terminating the Salamanca line for good — all the elderly man can do in response is breathe more vigorously, curl up his lip and dart his eyes around the room in a wild fury, not unspeakable, but unspoken. Echo: Why are Only white drug dealers Allowed to speak? Don Salamanca’s twin nephews Leonel and Marco do not speak, either. That is never explained. They communicate through nods, glances and choreographed acts of violence. We hear their voices in one flashback, speaking Spanish, and perhaps one other scene. Aside from that, we never hear why they do the horrific things they do. Echo: Will we ever Listen To Latinx voices? The perimeter of Walt’s drug empire is always quiet, untouched until he and his associates arrive. It made for some beautiful, disarming cinematography: open desert, terracotta-tinged landscape, the lone vehicle coughing out its cloud of dust as it makes its way across the screen, uncontested. It is with shame that I admit it did not hit me that these supposedly empty lands are actually reservations until Walt says the title of Season 5, episode 13 — “To’hajiilee” — aloud and adds that it’s the name of a Native American settlement. The random Native American character, usually performing a Good Samaritan function, showed up here and there, but not enough to make their existence felt or relevant, to the purposes of the show. Echo: How many people Did “Breaking Bad” Silence? In “Breaking Bad,” identity and place of origin quietly dictate not only what you are able to get away with, but also how much of a story you get to have. This reality has

to tell their own story is an injustice. To continue this disenfranchisement in today’s political climate, however, would move from unsettling to outrageous, to corroboration in today’s more concerted destruction of immigrant and indigenous peoples. “El Camino” would do well to begin the work of refusing these silencings. To start, perhaps it should remember its very title comes from the language of the characters it tried to silence for five seasons. The other Heisenberg effect “I think the reason why viewers, myself included, continue to root for Walt, even in this tough final season, is that he continues to serve as a fantasy figure,” said Dr. David Pierson, a professor of media studies at the University of Southern Maine, in an interview published by Pacific Standard two days before the “Breaking Bad” series finale “Felina” aired in 2013. “By living a doublelife and identity as Heisenberg, he is able to take charge of his life, to become more assertive and to become a selfsufficient entrepreneur. For the first time in his life, he is able to effectively use his talents as a chemist to build an empire. He also does it for the right reasons, to secure his family’s future for a couple of generations.” Contrast Pierson’s latter assessment with one of the final confessions Walt makes to his wife Skylar in “Felina.” He begins, “All the things that I did, you need to understand — ” She cuts him off: “If I have to hear, one more time, that you did this for the family … ” He interjects. “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really … ” After a long pause: “I was really alive.” So yes, there were times, thankfully, when the show wrested awake from the fantasy Pierson describes, moments of consciousness, of reflexivity. A lot of these moments were clustered in the final two seasons of the show — which are also arguably the best two. I believe it happened every time something forced Walt to lose his illusion of control, of invincibility; these moments seem to coincide with times when the writers also remembered Walt’s situation was a cautionary tale, rather than a fantasy for viewers to crave. There were of course, other times, when Walt’s invincibility high was so potent, we got a secondhand high. The finale of Season Four embodies this, when Walt finally outsmarts Gus, leveraging Jesse’s loyalty and Don Salamanca’s revenge wish in the process, and kills his biggest rival to date — he then declares over the phone to a suspicious Skyler, “I won.” These were the moments that engendered Walt’s aspirational quality, as well as irrational hatred for characters who disrupted his fantasy. We might call the sum of these moments the other Heisenberg effect: Writing that made Walt’s invincibility seem the result of his intellect alone changes the nature of his reception by audiences. At any point, “Breaking Bad” was in flux between reveling in Walt’s fantastical double-life and exposing the dramatic moral compromising and social positioning that granted Walt the ability to lead those two lives in turns. While the show may be a combination of both, what is the net effect? I’m not positive the moments of reflexivity sufficed to force its audience into the same consciousness, the same awakeness. Fantasies have an inertia that is difficult to overcome. It seems to be the inertia that rests on the minds of the sizable proportion of audience members who expressed severe hatred for Skyler White — likely on the basis of her continual resistance against Walt’s manipulation. Among these fans are Facebook users who created a “I Hate Skyler White” page on the site, and a man who expressed a desire to kill Anna Gunn — the actress who plays Skyler — online, as Gunn herself noted in an op-ed for The New York Times. I think it’s safe to say that it will take more than two seasons and a handful of lucid moments to undo these kinds of illusions.