ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Wednesday, January 27, 2016
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CAMPUS LIFE
Panel looks at injustices within the food system ANDREW COHEN/Daily
LSA senior Brittney Williams performs her monologue, F Words, for Body Monologues, a performance for members of the UM community to share stories focused on body image, embodiment, and acceptance at the Lydia Mendelssohn theater on Tuesday.
Body Monologues highlight experiences with self-image Community members share stories through spoken word performances By TANYA MADHANI Daily Staff Reporter
The Lydia Mendelssohn Theater was filled to capacity for the fifth annual Body Monologues
Tuesday night, featuring spoken word narratives from 12 performers. Inspired by the Vagina Monologues, the event featured stories by students about their sexuality and body image. The participants varied in age, gender identity, ethnicities and race, covering topics including lymphedema — a disease that causes blockage in the lymphatic system — and gender identity. LSA senior Brittney Williams shared her experiences with
online dating and how she was often exploited for her body. She received requests from men who would seek women fitting her height and build, she said, which made her feel uncomfortable. “I think that it’s a story that’s not really shared as often, at least where fat bodies are concerned,” Williams said. “There’s this idea that we don’t get a lot of attention. So, I wanted to talk specifically about receiving that attention and how it can be fetishized and how
that can get really frustrating at times.” Williams said she decided to take a humorous route with her narrative to engage the audience with the familiar experience of online dating, even if they don’t relate to all the aspects of her story. She said her journey was reflective of other college students’ in experimenting with dating apps such as Tinder, a site that touts more than 9 billion matches See BODY, Page 3A
Speakers discuss solutions to racial inequalities in the industry By BRANDON-SUMMERS MILLER Daily Staff Reporter
A coalition of University organizations examined inequalities in the food industry during a food justice panel Tuesday night. The discussion, which served as a part of the University’s Martin Luther King Jr. symposium, featured remarks from representatives with various campus organizations on current racial injustices within the food industry, as well as a brainstorm on innovative ways to solve them. The discussion was hosted by several organizations, including the Food Access in Michigan Project, the Residential Col-
STATE
ACADEMICS
Flint executives seek to address lasting effects of water crisis Officials say the city is shifting relief efforts to tackle health concerns By LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
Multiple individuals within state government, local government and the Flint community are leading initiatives to remedy the ongoing water crisis — and respond to the storm of media attention — the city faces. The crisis began in April 2014 after a water supply switch from Detroit city water to Flint River water. In the weeks and months following the switch, residents began reporting adverse health effects including hair loss and rotting teeth. Both Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and President Barack Obama have declared states of emergencies for the city. The long-term health effects,
especially on young children, are one of the largest concerns for the citizens of Flint. Sharon Swindell, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University, said the primary concern for young children is that lead poisoning will cause developmental issues, which can lead to poor academic outcomes. “There is no safe level of lead in a person’s body,” she said. “Children, who have a lot of brain growth and development in the first six years, are vulnerable to cognitive and developmental effects. The things we worry about long term include decreasing IQ, poor academic achievement and problems with attention.” In Flint itself and in the state legislature, local leaders have taken multiple steps to resolve the crisis. Earlier this month, Flint Mayor Karen Weaver met with Obama and White House advisers to discuss how to best handle the situation. See WATER, Page 2A
lege and the Michigan Community Scholars Program. Student Food Co., a group that aims to provide students with affordable produce, both helped organize the discussion and offered free produce to audience members. The discussion featured several speakers who represent leaders and members of foodthemed organizations within the Ann Arbor and greater Detroit areas. During the event, panelist Shane Bernardo, a representative from the Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit, told attendees that historical, institutionalized racism is the main reason for the racial inequities within the food industry. According to Bernardo, policies like redlining — a practice used by some banks to deny credit for individuals living in urban areas — have created current inequities in the food supply by dictating who could get credit based on where they live See FOOD, Page 3A
‘U’ faculty members to recieve seed grants Funding will sustain ongoing gender-related research projects By ALEXA ST. JOHN
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Daily Staff Reporter
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Muscatine High School in Muscatine, Iowa on Sunday, eight days before the Iowa Caucuses.
In lead-up to caucuses, Trump focuses on rhetoric
Protesters, supporters assembled outside rally site By SAM GRINGLAS Daily Staff Reporter
MUSCATINE, Iowa — The first thing you notice is the line. On Sunday, it stretched from the front doors of Muscatine High School down a sidewalk that
hugged the building’s front side. Like a lot of people who attend campaign rallies, many of the people in line arrived here clad in logoed shirts and hats. Some held signs. They clutched paper tickets printed on white computer paper and moved forward as the Secret Service funneled them through a bank of metal detectors set up in the lobby. For a campaign rally, this was all pretty normal. But only once you look past the line, and absorb the full spectacle that surrounds it, do you begin to comprehend all
that is a rally for GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. Alongside the line Sunday, vendors hawked buttons, T-shirts and Trump dolls. On a table with “Make America Great Again” hats for sale, a watercolor drawing of Trump rested next to a poster depicting Adolf Hitler holding a health care bill and saying, “Obama, you’ve gone too far.” In between the two, a foam finger touting the Second Amendment has a thumb drawn to look like a semi-autoSee TRUMP, Page 7A
Six University faculty members received Faculty Seed Grants from the Institute for Research on Women and Gender this month for their research projects focused on women, gender and sexuality. The grants ranged from $500 to $10,000. The Faculty Seed Grant program was established by IRWG in 1996 to support both disciplinary and interdisciplinary projects relating to women, gender and sexuality, according to the institute’s website. This year’s recipients ranged from projects on individuals with disabilities, to ones on social mobility and HIV testing. See GRANT, Page 3A
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2A — Wednesday, January 27, 2016
MONDAY: This Week in History
TUESDAY: Campus Voices
WEDNESDAY: In Other Ivory Towers
THURSDAY: Twitter Talk
Skeleton found near campus
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office received a call Sunday afternoon from the local man who found the skeleton. A press release announced the investigation Monday afternoon. Art Forgey, spokesman for the department, told the Alligator that the skeleton’s age, sex and cause of death are uncertain, and that the scene would be cleared by Monday night.
“The remains will be loaded up and taken to the medical examiner’s office,” Forgey said. Evidence was reportedly been found at the scene, according to the Alligator, but the search will continue until identification is obtained. UNC researchers create lung cancer treatment University of North Carolina researchers developed a method of treating drug-resistant lung cancer using 50 times less chemotherapy, The Daily Tarheel reported Sunday. Elena Batrokova, senior author of the study, said she wants to “load tumors with
anti-cancer drugs” so patients have higher chance of survival. “We are developing new drug formulations that will allow drugs to be more efficient and pass through barriers,” Batrokova told the Tarheel. “I’m taking potent drugs that may not be working and developing their drug delivery systems.” Batrokova had help from colleagues at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. If the drug is pharmaceutically accepted, it would mean fewer side effects and greater chance of recovery for lung cancer patients. — LAUREN LUKENS
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
“Savvy” talk series
Science Café Talk
Journalism discussion
WHAT: During the “Savvy Workshop Series,” students will watch TED-style talks from alumni about their transition between college life and career. WHO: Center for Campus Involvement WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. WHERE: The Union, Pendleton Room
WHAT: The Earth and Environmental Sciences department will host a discussion on the Bristle Mammoth that was found near Chelsea, MI. WHO: Earth and Environmental Sciences WHEN: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Conor O’Neill’s, 318 South Main Street
WHAT: The Department of Classical Studies will hold a lecture about the problems journalists faced when they were putting together narratives from the Mt. Everest Disaster. WHO: Department of Classical Studies WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. WHERE: Angell Hall, Classics Library
Film and discussion WHAT: Dr. Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof will lead the screening and discussion of the film Empire of Dreams. WHO: Latina/o Studies WHEN: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. WHERE: The Ann Arbor District Library, Multi-Purpose Room
Lisa Fischer concert
Orchestra performance
WHAT: Grammy Award winner Lisa Fischerwill perform with her band Ms. Lisa Fischer and Grand Baton. WHO: University Musical Society WHEN: 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. WHERE: Michigan Theater
WHAT: The University Symphony Orchestra will perform a collection of orchestral classics featuring a flute soloist. WHO: School of Music, Theatre and Dance WHEN: 8 p.m. WHERE: Hill Auditorium
WATER From Page 1A In a press release, Weaver said the most essential part of the process is getting the necessary supplies to those who need them. “We need help in the form of supplies including water, filters and water test kits,” she said. “We also need help distributing those supplies to get them in the hands of the people who need them most.” State Sen. Jim Ananich (D– Flint) said his team is working on addressing the issue at three levels: immediate, short-term and long-term responses. He said the immediate priority is ensuring citizens have access to bottled water and filtration systems, while the short- and longterm actions involve monitoring the health of affected individuals and repairing infrastructure. Peter Jacobson, professor of health law and policy, said it’s important for the government to take steps to provide follow-up health care for affected citizens, especially children exposed to lead, and pay for water costs. “The pressure should be from the state and federal govern-
ment, to provide Flint with the resources the city will need to monitor the children and to provide counseling and educational health therapy,” he said. “The state of Michigan should pay the water bills for Flint residents until the water is safe to drink.” This week, the state Senate will be reviewing a bill recently passed in the state House approving an emergency request from Snyder for $28 million in emergency funding for both short and long-term needs. Ananich said the city is now able to adequately supply residents with the water and filtration systems they need due to donations, meaning the focus moving forward should be on longer-term health monitoring. “All sorts of folks are now providing a really good amount of water to my community,” he said. “We’ve almost sort of turned the corner on the immediate need. The most important focus is to get these kids assessed to see what kind of issues they may have long-term and place them in programs to make sure they get the individualized help they need.” According to state Rep. Sheldon Neeley (D–Flint), the state
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ANDREW COHEN/Daily LSA and Art & Design freshman Gwen Burzinski practices the main theme from the video game “Xenoblade Chronicles”, on the carillon in Burton Tower on Tuesday.
Miro Quartet demo WHAT: A quartet group based in Austin, TX will be performing a demo on Beethoven Rassoumovsky Quartets. WHO: School of Music, Theatre and Dance WHEN: 7 p.m. WHERE: Earl V. Moore Building, Glenn E. Watkins Lecture Hall
Lecture on Korea WHAT: Guest speaker Jeong-Woo Koo will discuss South Korean media coverage of human rights during the 1990s-2010s. WHO: Human Rights Initiative WHEN: 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. WHERE: School of Social Work, Room 1636 • Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@
House is also preparing to consider a series of bills as part of the Water Quality and Affordability Package; however the bills have not yet been scheduled for hearings. Along with the legislative and executive actions, the U.S. Attorney’s office has also launched an investigation into the crisis, spearheaded by former Wayne County assistant prosecutor Todd Flood. However, Jacobson said it is unlikely that any individuals will be charged because of an emergency manager law enacted during Snyder’s first term as governor. The law allows the state to appoint an emergency manager at an earlier stage in the case of a serious financial emergency. Jacobson said this law provides the officials tasked with addressing the water crisis near immunity for the actions taken during an emergency situation. Jacobson said though he doubts residents’ ability to find legal justice for the crisis, he still believes the issue was the fault of the government. “The state failed here,” he said. “I’m not suggesting that the state is anything but culpable.” Amid the crisis, UM-Flint officials have also launched initiatives to aid the Flint community. Citing a campus fact sheet — which details that water on UM-Flint’s campus is filtered and regularly tested — UM-Flint Chancellor Susan Borrego issued aletter to students on Monday assuring them campus water was safe. According to Borrego, UM-Flint installed water filters across campus after the city advised residents to boil their water in the fall of 2014. Flint residents have also been advised by the state to use filtration systems in their homes, and various groups have donated filters and water bottles to citizens. Terese Olson, professor of civil and environmental engineering, said it is unclear how effective these filtration systems truly are, and they should be carefully monitored. “These filters are designed to treat water that’s been polished already,” she said. “It’s an uncertain question how well they will work or how long they will work, and there’s not a lot of guidance See WATER, Page 3A
FRIDAY: Photos of the Week
TOWER TUNES
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Human remains were found Sunday afternoon in a Gainesville, Fla., pine tree forest by the University of Florida’s campus, The Independent Florida Alligator reported Monday.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
THREE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW TODAY
1
The first case of the Zika virus in America was diagnosed Tuesday, CNN reported. The flavivirus was detected by the Arkansas Department of Health in a man who recently traveled to Brazil.
2
This week, The Statement examines the state of independent bookstores, like local Literati bookstore, in the face of stiff competition from online sellers and the rise of electronic readers. » FOR MORE, SEE THE STATEMENT
3
ISIS released a propaganda video regarding the Paris attacks early this week, The New York Times reported. The video shows the names of the terrorists involved in November along with a beheading of a prisoner.
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LSA junior David Schaffer speaks at a Central Student Government meeting in the Michigan Union on Nov. 10, 2015.
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
CSG talks enhancing race and ethnicity requirements Assembly members bring two resolutions to the floor for review at Tuesday’s meeting By CAMY METWALLY Daily Staff Reporter
At their Tuesday meeting, Central Student Government discussed resolutions that would aim to enhance and strengthen the University’s race and ethnicity requirements. CSG voted on two resolutions pertaining to the requirement. The first resolution supported the expansion of the R&E requirement to all University undergraduate schools and colleges. Currently, it only applies to Literature, Science and Arts students. Some other
colleges have similarly themed curriculum aspects, such as the Identity, Diversity and Organizations requirement in the Ross School of Business. “We think it’s important that all students are being taught this,” said LSA representative Micah Griggs, an LSA junior. “It provides students with the skills to work in a multi-ethnic environment.” Rackham student Trevis Harrold asked about expanding the requirement to graduate schools as well. However, Public Policy junior Lakshman Mulperi, a CSG representative, said this currently is not a feasible goal because CSG doesn’t have resources to expand it to all graduate colleges as well. Before referring the resolution to the review committee, representatives suggested a clarification be added to determine whether or not other schools would develop their
own requirement or adopt LSA’s current standard. LSA’s R&E requirement was established in 1990 in response to the 1987 Black Action Movement after a series of racist and discriminatory incidents against students of color that took place on campus. The resolution highlighted that such instances of discrimination and intolerance continue to ail students today. Expanding the requirement to all colleges was also one of the seven demands issued by the Black Student Union as part of the #BBUM movement in 2014. The second resolution considered by CSG called for the establishment of a support center for R&E courses, similar to other centers such as the Sweetland Writing Center, the Michigan Language Center and the Science Learning Center. Course support was discussed See CSG, Page 3A
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016 — 3A
CSG From Page 2A
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in two student forums in the fall aimed at gathering feedback on the R&E requirement. According to the resolution, the center would provide training and resources for graduate student instructors and professors to better facilitate sensitive discussions regarding race and ethnicity. It would also create a space for students to engage in further dialogue. Several members expressed confusion about the functionality of such a facility. LSA senior David Shafer, a CSG representative, said he appreciated the spirit of the resolution, but wanted to know more about the logistics of the center, such as who would work there and how it would operate. In response, LSA junior Sean Pitt, CSG chief of staff, stressed the intent of the resolution. He explained that it aims to serve as a sign of student support for the proposal to the University’s administration so that the LSA committee currently reviewing the R&E requirement will further entertain the creation of a support center for R&E courses. The committee could then work to strategize and develop specifics. The resolution was referred to the resolutions committee for further review. Shafer also suggested hosting a forum to gain feedback for such a center. Guest Speakers LSA senior Adam Waggoner, chair of the Student Organization Funding Commission, updated CSG on the commission’s activities at Tuesday’s meeting. SOFC is the branch of CSG that makes funding decisions to support student organizations on campus. Waggoner said SOFC’s budget was about $200,000 last semester, which represents about half of CSG’s. $198, 927 was reimbursed to student organizations by the end of the semester. Student groups requested nearly half a million dollars in funding total, and slightly over a quarter million dollars were awarded. He explained that demand for funding has been increasing both because of a rise in requests and easier accessibility due to the online application. This semester’s budget has been raised to $225,000; however, Waggoner said it’s not proportional to the increase in demand. Out of the nine periods of funding CSG divides the semester into, seven waves remain for this semester.
Susan Ernst, director of University Health Services gynecology department and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, earned a grant for a proposal pertaining to medical care in Ethopia. Ernst runs a gynecology clinic at the University for adolescents and women with disabilities, and has been working to offer similar services at the St. Paul’s Hospital and Millennium Medical Center in Ethiopia. Ernst said the Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development and the Ethiopian Women Disabilities National Organization both acknowledged there were barriers preventing adolescents and women with disabilities from receiving reproductive health services. Because of this, she began working on a proposal with the aim of creating focus groups with these demographics to gather information about the obstacles to receiving medical care. Ernst plans to survey the administrators, faculty and nurses at the hospital about their difficulties in providing care for their patients, such as the physical barriers patients with severe disabilities face from hospitals not being properly equipped to assist them. “Our ultimate goal is to try to improve those services that are not only offered at St. Paul’s, but throughout other reproductive health care clinics in Ethiopia,” Ernst said. “In the United States we have code and all of the buildings have to be built to code for patients with disabilities, but there, some of the clinics may not have a ramp to get up into the clinic area, or even if the patients can get up into the clinic area, the doorways might not be accessible for somebody in a wheelchair.” Ernst said she appreciates the award because it has allowed her to collaborate with individuals from Ethiopia, the University of Michigan and University of Central Florida. “This money allows the research team to not only go back to Ethiopia and do this work, but to actually hire women with disabilities in Ethiopia to help us as study coordinators and to pay the adolescents and women with disabilities to be a part of our focus group and just to work in a collaborative manner to address this problem,” Ernst said. Other recipients included Nancy Fleischer, an assistant professor of epidemiology and Elizabeth King, assistant professor in health behavior and health education. Fleischer said her project is focused on the role of social mobility in racial and ethnic disparities and infant health. With the grant, Fleischer said she will be constructing a multi-generational data set to link birth certificate data across multiple generations to understand cross-
WATER From Page 2A we can give people except to be conservative.” Neeley said one of the most important steps for the community to take is restoring trust in the government. “We have to go back and rebuild the trust and confidence of those in the geographical area who were severely impacted so they can feel comfortable living
GREG GOSS/Daily
Montana Stevenson, graduate student in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, speaks on issues ranging from food scarcity to racial injustices during the Food Justice Panel at the Dana Building on Tuesday.
FOOD From Page 1A within cities like Detroit. “This is legal segregation,” Bernardo said. “This is what it looks like.” Another panelist, Mama Hanifa Adjuman, who is the Education and Outreach Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, said the city of Detroit doesn’t need missionaries, but rather needs allies. While working with DBCFSN, Adjuman said the organization noticed a new phenomenon in the city of Detroit: Young, suburban white people were coming to the city to teach members of the Black community how to garden. “To come into the city and begin to garden was not the issue, it wasn’t even the problem,” Adjuman said. “To disrespect the traditions, to disrespect the residents in the city of Detroit — residents who have for thousands of years been engaged with agriculture — was the problem.” Adjuman said the most effective movements happen organically by the people who will be most affected by the decisions. “This is a grassroots community organization that came out of the people in Detroit — the
BODY From Page 1A since its start in 2012. “I think that resonated with a lot of people who use social media for dating purposes and have been really frustrated with the way they’ve been approached,” she said. Kellie Carbone, a health educator at Wolverine Wellness and director of the event, said the evening’s theme was “surrender,” because everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong, in each student’s story. “That was half-joking,” she said. “But it does seem like each time the performer went to perform, their pieces constellated around some type of theme, some similarity that they can draw from each piece.” Public Health graduate student Kristen Harden said she found the storytelling format of the event engaging and powerful. “It’s a really awesome way to
Black community in Detroit, first identifying a very real problem and then coming together collectively to create a solution to that problem,” she said. Panelists Whitney Smith and Montana Stevenson, both graduate students in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, focused their presentation on the Ypsilanti food system. Their research examined food accessibility for impoverished areas of Ypsilanti by examining the public transportation system to those areas of the city. Smith and Stevenson first identified where residents in or near Ypsilanti could buy food, including both traditional food stores as well as pharmacies, farmers markets and food banks. Their results concluded that some of Ypsilanti’s most impoverished areas do not have access to bus lines, and therefore don’t have access to affordable and nutritious food. “Access is still a critical part of food justice, and it is very important to this conversation,” Smith said. Panelist Carla Dhillon discussed what she described as the unjust appropriation of native communities’ food systems through government treaties, highlighting how colonists arrived in the United States
and erased native people and their culture and have therefore greatly altered their food systems. She also said native food systems, such as sacred wild rice, have become more difficult to cultivate since native populations have been relocated to reservations. “The many ways that settler America disrupts collective food relations represent forms of food injustice,” Dhillon said. LSA senior Claire Roos, who was also one of the event’s organizers, said the event was created to recognize that while food sustainability is an often-discussed topic, food justice is not. “Oftentimes we forget to address the social justice side,” Roos said. “You can’t have sustainable food without social justice.” Business junior Courtney Maliszewski, who attended the event, said it particularly interested her because of current health and nutrition concerns addressed in the media in Flint and Detroit. “I really took away how it affects so many different groups,” Maliszewski said. “And I definitely think that is something more people need to be aware of.”
put out messages about things like positive body image and promoting health and wellness on campus,” Harden said. “I think this is really great and wanted to come and see that. It’s a really nice sign of solidarity and support.” Harden said she thought the night’s theme resonated with her the most. “Surrendering to self-love and to support and just being you is wonderful,” she said. “Just surrendering to being comfortable with yourself and loving who you are. Public Health graduate student Kathleen Koviak said she learned not to be afraid of herself by listening to the monologues at the event. “It’s all just to be yourself and love yourself for who you are and to share your story and what makes you, you,” she said. It’s important students attend the event and experience the performer and their stories, Carbone said, because of what she described as a campus-wide obsession with attaining perfec-
tion. “They’re used to being the best, the brightest,” she said. “A lot of the research we’ve done on campus shows that the student population as a whole is also really reluctant to ask for help or admit that anything is wrong.” Carbone said the storytelling format has encouraged students to craft their own narratives and share them with an audience. “What we have found when we started doing workshops and events like this, is that when you give people an opportunity to say what’s going on, the light bulb goes off for other people,” Carbone said. “Our goal is to challenge some of the stigmas that exist on our campus, especially around appearance and perfection and attractiveness and weight.”
generational social mobility and to see if that is related to adverse birth outcomes such as premature birth. As part of the grant, Fleischer said she has been able to hire a graduate student who has been doing work on Institutional Review Board applications and data request applications. She also said the award has allowed her to work with colleagues in South Carolina, as well as at Michigan State University. “It has been helpful for making connections across campus, since I started my faculty position just in September of 2015, and don’t have the research linkages already,” Fleischer said. “I am very grateful to have received it and I look forward to doing the work.” King said she’s planning on working with collaborators in Russia to do a qualitative research study on why women who test positive for HIV during pregnancy do or do not stay in HIV care. “This Seed Grant is allowing us to do this project, which hopefully will be the foundation for designing an intervention to improve women’s outcomes related to getting enrolled in, and staying on, HIV treatment services,” King said. “We’re hoping to use our findings from this project to design a program to help women.” Other beneficiaries include Shobita Parthasarathy, associate professor of public policy, Musicology prof. Louise Stein and Ruth Tsoffar, associate professor of women’s studies and comparative literature. Stein is planning to utilize the funding she received from the IRWG to pay for travel to Italy. Her research focuses on famous 17th century alto castrato singer Giovanni. She said this is an important component to traditional Italian gender roles because Grossi seems to represent the emergence of a new kind of masculinity. In particular, Stein said she’s interested in understanding how Grossi succeeded in the competitive operatic marketplace, as well as how he executed different kinds of masculinity on stage. “(The grant) will provide me the funding to be able to travel to the libraries and archives in Italy that have the materials I need,” she said. “I also appreciate this because gender study is a new area for me ... I look forward to also collaborating, getting advice from scholars here at U of M.” Applications for the grants, which are annual, opened in the fall. They were scored based on multiple criteria regarding the project, including its quality and importance, its relation to IRWG’s central focus on women, gender and sexuality, and its inclusion of issues regarding race, sexual orientation or culture. The significance of the project to its field as well as the contribution to the University was also taken into account.
Opinion
4A — Wednesday, January 27, 2016
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I
Lessons in balance
was bulimic in high school. Before writing this, the only person I had ever told was my cousin Marissa. We were sharing secrets around a campfire, unhinged by one too many bottles of wine. Even under the influence of alcohol and emotions, I knew she would understand. I don’t exactly remember the first time I stuck my hand in my mouth, fingers stretching toward the back of my throat to activate my gag reflex. For months, I tried not eating, and run- AARICA ning as much as I could with MARSH little to no results. Eventually, I began to think about alternative options. April 17, 2009 — I need to figure out how to throw up and get better self-discipline. Or I’m going to be huge. Two months later, I apparently figured it out. June 15, 2009 — I barely eat. When I do, I throw it up. But I’m in control, so it’s ok. Twice I thought I was going to be caught, but no one ever figured it out. As the months passed, I became increasingly concerned with my behavior. Aug. 26, 2009 — Sometimes when I throw up, it worries me. What if it ruins my body? I don’t know. It just freaks me out. But it’s hard to stop. Food just smells too good. And tastes too good. It’s just hard. And NOBODY at all has noticed. In my senior year of high school, though my home life was still hectic, I made some incredible friends and never returned to that familiar position above the toilet. I felt selfish for what I was doing to my body and knew the people I love would be concerned if they knew. I stopped throwing up before enrolling at the University in 2011, yet my diet remained destructive. When trying to eat healthy in the dining halls during my first two years in college, I reverted to the salad bar; it was all I had ever known. Eventually, I began to familiarize myself with different foods and how they support the human body. I watched documentaries and surrounded myself with people who had positive relationships with food. At nearly 23 years old, I’m the most confident I’ve ever been in my life. I eat food that I love — cheese, pasta, chips, bread, chocolate — but I also consider the moral, environmental and health implications before making a purchase. It took a long time, and a lot of education, but I’m finally able to understand my teenaged behavior. While I now feel confident enough to admit that I suffer from disordered eating, there are many University students who struggle in silence. In 2012, Ph.D. student Sarah Ketchen-Lipson initiated the University Study of Habits, Attitudes, and Perceptions Around Eating
“Y
student survey. With the help of Suzanne Dooley-Hash, an assistant professor of emergency medicine, and an interdisciplinary team, U-SHAPE was published at the 2013 Student Life Research Symposium, formerly the Division of Student Affairs Research Symposium. According to the survey, 28 percent of female and 12 percent of male undergraduate students, and 21 percent of female and 10 percent of male graduate students, screened positive for disordered eating. Additionally, 18 percent of females and 6 percent of males indicated that food and weight dominates their life. Among those with disordered eating, international students, sorority members, LGBTQ students and students who experienced abuse are disproportionately affected. Disordered eating is also correlated with mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. In a conversation about why students decide not to seek help, Julie Stocks, University Health Services registered dietician nutritionist, said, “It’s important if you feel that it’s an issue in your life to seek treatment. And it’s a great opportunity when you’re here to find wonderful, highly skilled treatment.” Stocks affirmed that there’s plenty of information available to University students about ways to maintain a balanced diet — online webinars and nutritional information, dining hall dieticians, the UHS Nutrition Clinic, support groups at Counseling and Psychological Services, etc. But people struggling with disordered eating cannot be forced to use these resources. Overall, Stocks noted that students — and people in general — need to be realistic when it comes to weight, diet and exercise. Though the media constantly bombards us with images of how we should look, comparing ourselves to a chart or another person tends to lead to more destructive behaviors. Instead, Stocks recommended we focus on being healthful and eating foods that are good for our bodies. We need to seek help when faced with irrational thoughts. We need to be vocal about our anxieties, our depression and our body image. When that happens, Stocks assured me, natural weight will go where it needs to be. It’s not an easy road, to say the least; some people will never recover from disordered eating. But there’s always hope. In the past three years, I’ve internalized a lot of the advice Stocks gave me during our conversation in my own time. I’m at a healthy weight, I eat nutritional food and I’m constantly on the move. I recognize that I have certain anxieties, and I work proactively to combat them. Sometimes though, the past still haunts me.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com Aarica Marsh can be reached at aaricama@umich.edu.
To be ashamed of home
our neighborhood actually looks kind of nice in the summer,” my friend remarked from the passenger’s seat as we turned from the service drive onto my street. It was a particularly sunny day in June, and all of the windows in my shabby 2003 Saturn L200 were lowered to usher in the warm breeze. The trees LAUREN that lined the road SCHANDEVEL were beginning to bud — the epilogue of another prolonged winter. I rarely ever brought friends to my house (it was a 40-minute commute from school and back) and my hometown did not offer much in the way of entertainment. Forsaking the journey home would mean we would have access to nice restaurants, bookstores, movie theaters and shops — a simple costbenefit analysis revealed that it was probably advisable not to bother at all — and yet there we were, tourists among the factories and the lawns peppered with fast food wrappers. As her passive words hung in the air for what felt like an eternity, mingling with the sounds of chirping birds and droning lawn mowers, I became acutely aware of my surroundings. The cracks in the pavement became a little deeper, the white shingles a little dirtier. I wondered how the street on which I grew up looked from the outside, a patch of ramshackle suburbia. My hands tightened on the wheel as I felt the blood leave my face and slowly drain — boiling hot — into my ears. This embarrassment was more than familiar to me; my go-to defense mechanism against people who scrutinize my background
has always been self-deprecation. When I switched schools after my freshman year of high school, it only intensified as I made a point of complaining about my hometown to my well-to-do friends, and as a result, they considered it acceptable to make similar comments, which sounded colder and more malicious coming from them than they did from me. I figured if I pointed and laughed with them, then I could alleviate some of the burden of not being one of them. “Yeah, a lot of people drop out or end up pregnant,” was how I described my former high school to peers at my new school. “It’s just a working- class suburb,” is how I have come to describe my hometown to friends in college. But there is so much more to it than that, and I know that all too well. Through my window, I scanned the rows of tiny houses that twinkled in the winter and emitted an overbearing glow in the summer. I idly traced the ribbon of sidewalk that once guided my bike as it drifted toward the humming interstate and facilitated the journey of a green wagon that kept my brother and me under the watchful eye of our mother. This was home. This was all I knew of the world in the first 15 years or so of my life — this street, these people, this town. Why couldn’t I admit that to myself? Why was I so eager to distance myself from it? There is absolutely no shame in coming from a modest background, a sub-par school district, or a neighborhood that only looks “kind of nice” in certain seasons, damn it. Wanting more than anything to convey this notion to my friend, I paused for a second and searched for an appropriate response, but all I could muster was a quiet: “Thanks.” Lauren Schandevel can be reached at schandla@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A misplaced luxury
W
hen one of your best friends is a guy, there are some conversations that arise over and over again. Our recurrent discussions often turned into a lighthearted, odd and almost subverted “battle of the sexes,” in which we’d MELISSA debate about who SCHOLKE had it “worse” — me or him. He’d complain about constricting and seriously flawed measurements of masculinity and about the discrimination he faced in a heteronormative society. I’d complain about sexism, inequality and the wage gap. We’d eventually both concede we both had to deal with society placing unrealistic body expectations upon us. These “debates” started when we were teenagers with worldviews just beginning to expand beyond the borders of our tiny, rural hometown. Now, while we still both joke about individual challenges, our conversations hopefully include a better understanding of intersectionality and our own particular sets of privilege. When we were still both just stubborn kids trying to understand the unfamiliar worlds we were about to enter, the earlier versions of these discussions were all about winning the argument. I tended to, as the argument escalated, bring up the topic that silenced every other man in my life — from my dad to my brothers to the rest of my male friends. Experience taught me that once you bring up anything minutely menstrual, most men get uncomfortable and desperately want to switch the topic. So, there I was, aggressively pointing out that, in this debate, I was the only one dealing with bleeding, bloating and cramping monthly. My best friend, who has an older sister, was completely unfazed. This was also typically the cue for a teacher, a classmate, a neighbor or a waiter to interrupt our conversation and overhear me mid-rant. Then they’d leave and I’d be embarrassed, and my friend would laugh hysterically. Amid the laughter, he’d agree with me and acknowledge that his understanding of the subject was probably lacking. Today, the same scenario is still at play, except on a larger
scale. Menstration is still a taboo discussion topic. If you’re an individual who experiences this biologically driven red mess every month, you’re expected to deal with it as discreetly as possible. You don’t talk about it, and you certainly don’t let there be any visible evidence. Yet, the individuals who decide how much it’s going to cost to ensure this discretion are most likely men who don’t understand the experience. They treat the products women use to manage and hide this bothersome natural process as “luxury items” that deserve to be taxed. Numerous states provide exemptions for products that are deemed necessities, such as food, prescriptions, a selection of over-the-counter medicines and prosthetics. There are even some states that have removed the sales tax on clothing purchases. However, Michigan is currently one of roughly 40 states that impose a “tampon tax.” Feminine hygiene products, such as tampons, sanitary pads and other similar products are subject to Michigan’s 6-percent sales tax, simply due to being labeled in legislation as “luxury items.” Anyone who’s actually ever experienced a menstrual cycle would find this terminology ironic. The absolute last thing someone would describe using these products as is as a “luxury.” Even President Obama, in an interview last Friday, displayed some confusion regarding both the classification and the tax by stating: “I have no idea why states would tax these as ‘luxury items’ ... I suspect it’s because men were making the laws when those taxes were passed.” Obama encouraged citizens and states to make “local level” changes to address the highly gendered tax. In particular, he mentioned a recent bill in California that seeks to remove the sales tax from feminine hygiene products, such as pads and tampons. Doing so would alleviate the financial burden, in a myriad of states, on a population of individuals who are already subject to a substantial wage gap. Even the tiniest of additional costs tacked onto a purchase can add up, especially for women of lower socioeconomic backgrounds. A news release stated that Californian women pay roughly $7 each month for 40 years of tampons and pads. These purchases accrue to “over $20 million annually in taxes.”
The United States certainly isn’t the only country disputing a “tampon tax.” Canada recently removed the tax on feminine hygiene products this past summer. The initiative was followed this past fall by protests in Britain to follow Canada’s example and abolish the tax. Women wore white pants and no form of hygiene product while they were on their periods. Some may argue that tampons and sanitary pads are akin to other everyday products. However, these products are a necessity — one that’s also heavily insisted upon by society. Cultural standards strongly stigmatize the idea of women bleeding in public and view it as unsanitary. Women and girls rely upon these products to continue leading their normal lifestyle — whether that involves working, going to classes, playing sports or just generally being in public. These products also protect women’s clothing and ensure their hygiene. Additionally, if one is going to argue against removing the “tampon tax,” they must also consider that women are most likely already paying inflated prices for grooming products, such as shampoo and deodorant. Thanks to a highly gendered price discrepancy known commonly as the “pink tax,” a product designed for women, even when there’s an identical product intended for men, may cost more simply because of its pink or purple packaging or its particularly “feminine” fragrance. While women may avoid unfair gendered pricing by buying the cheaper men’s alternative, there’s no male equivalent for tampons and sanitary pads. Women have instead been expected to pay an extra tax for decades on a necessity that’s mistakenly referred to as a “luxury item,” in addition to extra fees on grooming products. State governments and businesses must stop treating the gender and biological processes of their consumers as something they can take advantage of for financial gain, especially when the wage gap still remains a prevalent issue. Perhaps we can remedy the pricing discrepancies by creating more gender-neutral products, but until then, state legislators can ease women’s financial burdens by removing an unnecessary tax on a monthly necessity. Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna PolumboLevy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe, Hunter Zhao
FRANNIE MILLER
E-mail Frannie at frmiller@umich.edu
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILM COLUMN
Spike Lee’s cinematic activism
A
s I sat in my seat at the State Theater this weekend, I had the unfortunate experience of seeing the trailer for Michael Moore’s new movie, “Where to Invade Next.” When the trailer finally ended after twoand-a-half minutes of JAMIE self-aggranBIRCOLL dizement, I shook my head and softly muttered under my breath, “God, I hate Michael Moore.” You can still subscribe to the same ideology as Moore while flatly loathing him, his films or what he stands for. Whatever purpose or original intent Moore has when he concocts his so-called documentaries, the final cuts never seem to show it — whatever points or opinions he happens to raise, they play second fiddle to his own ego inflation. The most blaring instance of his agenda setting that comes to my mind gets played out in his 2002 film “Bowling for Columbine,” where he “explores” guns and gun culture in America. He asserts that we as a nation are gun obsessed, that war mongering is engrained in our public consciousness. “That’s an interesting opinion, Mr. Moore. Please provide your evidence.” Moore goes to a bank in Michigan where they have a special offer: open a specific bank account, get a gun. Moore opens a bank account, and, minutes later, he walks out with a gun. He says this demonstrates the lax standards by which we hand out guns — no waiting period from this bank/apparent arms dealer. Clearly we live in a messed up country. Except that scene is completely fabricated. Yes, that bank with that deal exists, but it mandatorily institutes background checks and three day waiting periods, per the law. Moore convinced the bank to give him the gun immediately because of “time constraints” with filming, but that caveat obviously didn’t make it into his film. Michael Moore lied, he fixed the rules to meet his agenda so that he could walk out of this bank with a gun held high
and declare, “I, Michael Moore, am smarter than the system, and for that I am wiser, even better, than you.” I don’t appreciate being lied to. And I don’t appreciate Moore flaunting his self-importance, especially because he disguises it under a mask of so-called “truth” that would otherwise inspire social change. And yes it’s possible to view his films as an impetus for discussion, but because it’s a documentary, a genre associated (falsely) with neutrality, people will likely accept it at face value as truth. Spreading false information is dangerous, no matter how good your cause, and empty practices in narcissism are a waste of time. Which is why viewing “ChiRaq” last week was so refreshing. This was the first Spike Lee film I had seen, not including the various snippets of “Inside Man” that get replayed on cable, and I knew little about him beyond the following: his film “Do the Right Thing” is considered a masterpiece, he is prone to making provocative statements and he is boycotting the Academy Awards this year. Here is a film that explores the same grim topic as Moore, guns in America, but explodes with vibrancy, color and emotion. It follows the same premise as the play it’s based on, Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, where a group of women withhold sex from bloodthirsty men until they agree to put down their arms. It is, above all else, a satire: in Lee’s world, the withholding of sex enacts global social change and ends gang violence, police brutality, war, etc. Of course, sex strikes are not the real, achievable solution the film proposes but the mechanism by which Lee delivers his message. Instilled in this comic narrative are incredibly powerful images that are sure to resonate, most notably a wrenching two minute scene during which a grieving mother desperately tries to clean the sidewalk of her daughter’s blood, spilled in a gang-related shooting the night before. Lee tackles this topic of gun violence (gang-related, policerelated, military, etc.) with grace and the occasional challenging comment. His mission is not to preach (though he does, more on that momentarily) but to get the dialogue rolling — he offers no
practical solution except to get people talking. The centerpiece of the film is the rousing eulogy for the aforementioned daughter, delivered by John Cusack’s Father Corridan. In it, Cusack blasts the gangs, the police, the public’s indifference and lack of motivation, racism, all of these core societal issues. It’s supposed to raise questions, to get us thinking. But what struck me the most was not the speech itself: why does Lee have the only substantial white character in a film otherwise occupied by black characters give the most direct condemnation of the American way of thinking? Is it because Cusack is the most visible of the cast? Is it because the real-life priest he’s based on is also white and Lee was staying factual? Or is it because Lee believes white people will only listen to a white man? I don’t know the answer to this question, nor any question the film proposes. But I read a wealth of information on Lee and the reception of “Chi-Raq,” the criticisms it draws, and I thought on its reflection of America as a whole, which I imagine was Lee’s goal. The beauty of the film stems from its absurdity. To quote from my favorite graphic novel, “Watchmen”: “He saw the cracks in society … he saw the true face of the twentieth century and chose to become a reflection of it, a parody of it.” And from the parody of “Chi-Raq”— the hypersexualized women, the hyperviolent men, the frequent breaking of the fourth wall, the music video moments, the outrageous practicality of a sex strike — we find the truth of ourselves. The punchline should be just that: a punch. That is effective cinematic activism; that grabs and holds the attention. Instead of basing his film on his own self-importance, his self-sacrifice in the name of “truth,” Spike Lee offers us a fantastical but equally salient portrait of America. I imagine had “Chi-Raq” received a larger distribution, and if more people saw it instead of Michael Moore’s latest (or any film of his), the dialogue “Chi-Raq” wants us to have, that the film very literally ends with, might actually occur. Bircoll is starting fights in movie theatres. To provoke or diffuse, e-mail jbircoll@umich.edu.
TV REVIEW
Clownin’ in ‘Baskets’ By MATT BARNAUSKAS Daily TV/New Media Editor
TV comedy has grown increasingly diverse in an era of unmatched choice in television, a time that FX President John Landgraf B has referred to as “peak Baskets TV”. From Series Premiere traditional Thursdays multi-camera at 10 p.m. fare, commonly seen FX on networks like CBS in the form of shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two Broke Girls,” to the insanely twisted buddy dynamics explored by the likes of “Broad City” and “Workaholics,” television comedy is a vast landscape with shows that blur the lines between the comedic and dramatic (“Jane the Virgin” and “Shameless”) or completely dip into the absurd (“Man Seeking Woman” and “Review”). “Baskets” is a beneficiary of this broad comedic spectrum. With its odd subject matter, off-putting protagonist and occasionally deliberate slow pacing, “Baskets” is a show that very well, might not have existed in any other time of television — presenting an alternative comedic choice for audiences. Co-created by Louis C.K.
(“Louie”), Zach Galifianakis (“The Hangover”) and Jonathan Krisel (“Portlandia”), “Baskets” follows failed clown Chip Baskets (Galifianakis) as he returns to Bakersfield, California after dropping out of a French clown academy, due to the fact that he can’t speak French. Best viewed with a raised eyebrow, Chip isn’t the most approachable figure. Portrayed with simultaneous deadpan and boiling volatility by Galifianakis, the character is funny but also incredibly pathetic. Failing in his artistic ambition, the poor guy clings to any hope of achieving his dream as he becomes a completely out-of-place rodeo clown, marries an unloving French woman (Sabina Sciubba, “Stop Here”) and struggles to pull together $40 so his new wife can get HBO. It’s a sad, pitiable existence, but Galifianakis sells it, defiantly saying, “I am a clown. I always will be a clown!” Chip is the definition of a sad clown, yet no one (except the audience) is laughing at him. If you placed him in the famous Pagliacci joke, the doctor would still recommend Pagliacci. Chip would bring up that he is a clown as well and the doctor would say that he’s never heard of him. That is the existence of Chip, trapped in unhappy anonymity. Directed by Krisel, the first episode, “Renoir,” effectively captures Chip’s washed out existence.
Trapped in Bakersfield, Chip is cast against the flat browns and tans of the desert area as he reaches for any sort of relevancy, or even dignity for that matter. As insurance agent and possibly only friend Martha (Martha Kelly, “Ladies Night Out”) drives Chip to his motel, the clown mutters, “It’s only permanent.” With its dead end town, “Baskets” touches on the fear of failure and what might happen if we don’t accomplish what we initially set out for. Lightening up this somewhat depressing reality is the usually absurd humor, often provided by the residents of Bakersfield. Particular standouts are Chip’s mom (Louie Anderson, “Life with Louie”) who expresses her disappointment with her son, all with a smile on her face, and Chip’s twin brother Dale (also played by Galifianakis), “dean, student, and janitor” of Baskets Career College. With so many choices in TV today, “Baskets” presents an alternative experience for a niche audience, with an almost depressing premise that successfully doesn’t fall into misery by the graces of its mix of deadpan and ridiculous sensibilities. In fact, underneath the entire struggle is a sense of hope at the end of the episode. The appearance of a new title card signals a new beginning for Chip as he begins his journey. This clown may just get the last laugh yet.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 — 5A
COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
Lisicky to read in A2 By MARIA ROBINS-SOMERVILLE Daily Arts Writer
“Find out what you love. Those books are your greatest teachers,” author Paul Lisicky said, offering his advice to aspiring writers in a phone interview with The Michigan Daily. Lisicky is the author of five books and currently teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Paul Lisicky Rutgers Uni- Literati versity. His most recent Friday, Jan. publication is 29 7 p.m. The Narrow Door, from Free which he’ll be reading on Friday at Literati. The Narrow Door, according to Lisicky, is a memoir that explores the process of mourning in honor of his dear friend and fellow writer Denise Guess who passed away six years ago. It also tracks the decline of his relationship with his husband, Mark Doty. “In part it’s an investigation of our friendship but it also wants to think about what the loss of her unkenneled in me,” Lisicky said. “It’s about our friendship; it’s also about the breakup of my long relationship. It’s about Joni Mitchell. It’s about storms. It’s about Vincent Van Gogh. There are a lot of side pieces that I hope activate the main story lines.” Lisicky defined his arrival in the writing world as an amalgamation of his early identities as a musician and an introvert — two
factors that have allowed him to explore the way an inner voice is translated into art. “I think I probably started writing because I sensed that I was smarter inside than I was able to express to other people,” Lisicky said. “I was so shy that I rarely talked in the classroom, never raised my hand, and would fumble if someone called on me. I think I had a low level fear that I might have just seemed a little bit dim and it was important for me to develop my language at least on the page.” Although he identifies as an introvert, the candor and enthusiasm with which he spoke suggested otherwise. He expressed a passion for his work as a creative writing instructor and anticipation for the travels that will allow him to share his works with a larger audience. That being said, he also clarified the inherent introversion of the creative process. “I think every writer has to be in large part an introvert because so much of what we do is about the investigation of the inner life and we’re thinking about privacy and hiddenness. It just goes with the territory I think,” he said. Lisicky said his experiences as a musician have allowed him to explore the way his inner voice manifests itself in a public way. He joked that his singing voice is “not terribly distinguished” in the way that his expression through his prose is. “There’s not that much subtlety and nuance in my singing voice but weirdly I feel like I know how to go after shadows and nuances
and complicated sounds in my written voice,” he said. Having achieved a level of prestige as writer, it was surprising to hear that Lisicky’s early ambition was to pursue music; writing was something that came serendipitously. “I was a musician, and I was very serious about it through my mid-20s,” Lisicky said. “It was really hard to turn my energy away from that world initially. I ended up taking a creative writing workshop on a whim and it was just out of a sense of play.” His musical experience is inseparable from his writing — although Lisicky writes mostly prose, his grasp of sound gives his work a poetic quality. “I still think of music in relation to what I do,” he said. “I think about music in relationship to how I phrase a sentence, where I pause and where I put commas so I always start with a voice before I start with image. I believe that has to do with my origins as a musician or a frustrated singer.” Lisicky identified the work of another Joy Williams as writing that he’s always admired. “That work still nourishes me, still teaches me, still reveals facets of itself every time I come back to it,” he said. He seeks to embody the reflective, that which amplifies itself in a way that generates surprise and evolution with each encounter. These themes prove increasingly relevant in The Narrow Door, which presents an exploration of loss and the nuances of emotional vulnerability that grow and change with age.
FILM NOTEBOOK
COURTESY OF FOCUS FEATURES
“Lemme hear you say haaaaaay Ms. Carter.”
Race in ‘Translation’ By VANESSA WONG Daily Arts Writer
I first watched “Lost in Translation” in high school. I got 15 minutes in and stopped because it made me feel so disgusted — like I was disgusting. At the time, I didn’t know why. That was before I learned anything about Asian American activism, before I even realized that Asian Americans were discriminated against. But after seeing the title on the State Theater’s board of features while walking home last week and remembering that there’s a famous movie with actors I love and by a director I love that I hadn’t gotten through yet, I watched it again and I finally understood — it’s grossly offensive. There is a repeating motif of Bob (Bill Murray, “St. Vincent”) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson, “Under the Skin”) being the only ones awake at night, mindlessly clicking through TV channels until the time difference loses its hold on them. It’s framed as a moment of cultural alienation, but since the content of the shows — over-the-top aggression in action movies, ditzy looking reality TV girls — is typical, the only thing engineering the feeling of being “lost in translation” is the Japanese voice itself. It’s quiet, but the incomprehensible, loud Japanese are the cackling cacophony that interrupts the silence, jarring these poor white people out of their element. Universal behavior is reinterpreted with a Westerner’s self-conceit, racialized and portrayed as “bizarre” interactions with a foreign culture. Furthermore, it otherizes Asians, exaggerating negative stereotypes as its source of humor. A simpering, high-pitched pros-
titute begs Bob to “Lip my stockings! Preas! Preas!,” and when he goes along with it out of amusement and derision, she rolls around on the floor kicking her feet up absurdly, “Don’t touch me! Hep preas! No! No!” It’s the peak of the hypersexualized, submissive and morally strange Asian woman stereotype. Murray constantly mocks the Japanese for their accented English by repeating them the “right” way and questioning his Japanese director’s vision as if it’s stupid just because of the way he conveys it. The Japanese are portrayed as flat, hollow characters with no thoughts of their own, as if they’re just there for the white people to laugh at. We don’t laugh because we are confused, or because we are embarrassed at our own sense of cultural misunderstanding. We laugh because all these Asian people are just so weird. All these stereotypes are true, but are purposely exploited for cheap jokes, like an elevator scene where Bob towers at least a foot over a horde of tiny Asian men while in other scenes, there are clearly Asian actors his height. Even the aspects of Japanese culture that are portrayed positively are done through a stereotypical lens. The first time Charlotte genuinely smiles, it’s observing monks chanting prayers in a Buddhist temple, approaching women in kimonos arranging flowers while tender, serene background music drifts quietly in the background. Japanese culture is only used for the white protagonist to find herself, and even the speaker introducing her to Buddhism is another white woman, not a Japanese person who carries that history. “I know I’m not racist,” director Sofia Coppola insisted in an inter-
view with the Independent, and I believe it. People may say that I’m being too sensitive, too politically correct. After all, 60 years ago, Katherine Hepburn was prancing around in yellowface for “Dragon Seed.” I get that the point of the film is to show how alienating it is to be alone in a different world, to feel like no one understands you. I get that all of these characters are flawed. They project their own insecurities onto their surroundings, so we shouldn’t take their opinion as fact. The one-dimensionality of the Japanese characters, portraying the mundane as different — I understand the value, even the necessity, of these artistic decisions. This is where things get a little muddy. Having grown up in the West, even I view some of the same things the film mentioned as something weird, or different from what I’m used to. So these feelings are perfectly valid, and pointing out these differences is how Coppola gets us to connect with her characters. But emphasizing the difference taps into our base instincts of xenophobia — encouraging the intended Western audience to draw on that point of twisted personal empathy in order to propel the film forward. I really wish this film could have succeeded in another universe. It might have felt a little less exploitative if a white girl from a privileged family hadn’t directed it. Maybe it would have worked well if an Asian had portrayed the same feeling of isolation in America. But because there are so few films featuring Asians, the rare ones that do must work to undo centuries of stereotyping. Unfortunately, the thematic premise of “Lost in Translation” makes it inherently impossible to maintain sensitivity.
Arts
6A — Wednesday, January 27, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MUSIC INTERVIEW
TV REVIEW
COURTESY OF ABC
“Are you wearing the Chanel boots?”
Stronger ‘Carter’ By SOPHIA KAUFMAN Daily Arts Writer
“Agent Carter” had a strong first season. The premiere and finale were solid, and the overall story was intelligently Acrafted and skillfully executed. Agent The second sea- Carter son’s premiere, Season 2 “The Lady in the Lake,” carries Premiere over all the compelling elements Thursdays of the first, while at 9 p.m. also establishing some new, even ABC stronger storylines. In its beginning season, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell, “Captain America: The First Avenger”) had to struggle with overt and covert sexist behavior from her superiors and co-workers, constantly needing to prove that she was just as capable as the men. In the first few minutes of the premiere, we see the men’s shifted perspective. Her current chief, Jack Thompson (Chad Michael Murray, “One Tree Hill”), trusts her to begin the interrogation of Dottie (Bridget Regan, “Jane the Virgin”) as others watch from behind a mirror, commenting on how impressed they are with her technique. When Thompson sends Peggy to Los Angeles per Daniel Sousa’s (Enver Gjokaj, “Dollhouse”) request for a talented agent, Murray and Atwell convey that the tension between them isn’t predicated
upon a lack of respect — but rather a desire on Thompson’s part to move ahead in his career. When Carter arrives in California, there is some uneasiness between Sousa, now the chief of the S.S.R.’s West Coast branch, and Peggy, but the romantic subplot exposition doesn’t derail from the actual plot — solving a strange murder case involving a woman’s body encased in a block of frozen lake water. Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy, “Broadchurch”), Peggy’s ally from the first season, introduces her to his wife, who is a little too wideeyed to seem real. It’s the only scene in the episode that feels forced, but Mrs. Jarvis (Lotte Verbeek, “The Fault in Our Stars”) makes up for the awkwardness when she gives Peggy the kind of present every woman truly wants — a garter that also functions as a holster. A new villain, Whitney Frost (Wynn Everett, “The Newsroom”) is introduced, ill will simmering under the polite conversations she holds with other characters, and there’s also a new romantic interest for Peggy, Dr. Jason Wilkes (Reggie Austin, “The Omen”), who may or may not be in cahoots with Frost. With the inclusion of Wilkes’s character, the writing of the premiere sets up conversations about the racial discrimination of the time period. Wilkes and Carter have an understanding look in their eyes when they speak to one another; their chemistry feels natural. As always in “Agent Carter,” the
dialogue is organic, and the actors deliver it well. There’s even a cute nod to today’s popular jargon — when Jarvis is injured, and Peggy reassures him that he’ll live, he replies crossly, “Of course I’ll live. I’m worried about the aesthetic.” The elegance of the shots of 1940s New York in the first season is echoed in the second season’s glamorous shots of Old Hollywood, in setting, costuming and makeup. Subtly chic details, like the color of Peggy’s sunglasses matching her lipstick, create an aesthetically rich viewing experience. The first shot of “The Lady in the Lake”— a perky red hat bobbing along in a sea of grey suits — is beautifully framed and reminiscent of the contrasts between Peggy and her male coworkers in the first season, but the differences of the power structures this season are emphasized when it is revealed that the red hat belongs to Dottie, not Peggy. The beauty of “Agent Carter” never detracts from the story, nor from the themes that organically arise from it. Neither Carter nor the female antagonists are weaker for their femininity, nor do they apologize for it. Peggy Carter and co. are continuing a conversation that they helped start with the first season, which was followed by the likes of “Supergirl” and more recently (and successfully) “Jessica Jones” about whether there’s space and/or interest for female superheros. Peggy might not have powers, but she doesn’t need them. As she proves over and over, she can still kick anyone’s ass.
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle DOWN 1 Big show 2 Beg, borrow or steal 3 “My bed is calling me” 4 Kid 5 Country music? 6 Climbs aboard 7 Distract the security guards for, say 8 Actor Somerhalder of “The Vampire Diaries” 9 LBJ successor 10 Agrees 11 Winning 12 Art form with buffa and seria styles 13 Emancipates 18 Meditative practice 23 Flavor intensifier 25 Bugs a lot 26 Smear 27 Some Full Sail brews 28 Basics 29 “Forget it” 30 Country inflection 33 Noble act, in Nantes
34 Forsaken 35 “My treat” 37 Thick carpet 38 Grimm story 39 Ski resort near Salt Lake City 41 Kissed noisily 42 Gallery event 43 Day light 44 They haven’t been done before 45 Frankfurt’s river
46 Hardly a miniature gulf 47 Smooth and stylish 48 Blitzen’s boss 51 “Young Frankenstein” role 53 Ill-humored 54 World Series field sextet 57 Wall St. debut 58 Sgt. or cpl. 59 Fresh
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
01/27/16
Detroit-based Protomartyr, a post-punk foursome with a sound that’s mellow yet explorative, but still angry, released in October The Agent Intellect, their third and without a doubt their best, album in four years. Frontman Joe Casey, guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer Alex Leonard and bassist Scott Davidson are alumni of the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, and who have been playing local gigs for years. The funny thing is, Casey is a whole 10 years older than the others. With their upcoming tour including a stop at the Blind Pig on Jan. 29, I had a chance to sit down for a chat with the group’s dark-humored and semi-fatalistic front man and talk about the tour, the albums and the emotions thus far.
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have had three albums in four years, which is very impressive. What were some of the driving forces behind this latest release? JC: Well, we wanted to kind of keep recording as fast as we could. We had a bunch of songs ready to go, so our second album pretty much started with our new stuff right away. We tried to keep working as much as we could ... We decided to go back, for this record, back to the same studio. We felt like we wanted to record in the same studio just to see what it would be like to go back to a place where we now feel comfortable, whereas the first time we were kind of like in awe of being in a studio for three days ... it was amazing, whereas the first record, we recorded in a day. Now we have a whole week! We really wanted to kind of use the studio as much as possible.
TMD: I know you guys
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Daily Arts Writer
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xwordeditor@aol.com
Exclusive interview with Protomartyr
Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Musical with the song “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” 6 Petty distinctions, metaphorically 11 Midriff punch reaction 14 Noble gas 15 Former Illinois senator 16 “Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me!” network 17 Tidy sum, to a coin collector? 19 Golf prop 20 “Most Excellent” U.K. award 21 Emcee 22 Gooey treat 24 Muralist Rivera 26 Places for rejuvenation 28 Tidy sum, to a chairmaker? 31 Clobbers 32 Regrets 33 Rain-__: gum brand 36 Financial pros 37 Tries 39 Many millennia 40 Fall mo. 41 Only person to win both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize 42 Clock button 43 Tidy sum, to a soothsayer? 46 Alleviate 49 Baggage carousel aid 50 Color in une cave à vin 51 Angers 52 Kin of org 55 Japanese capital 56 Tidy sum, to a chess player? 60 Ready, or ready follower 61 Theme park with a geodesic sphere 62 Slacken 63 Calypso cousin 64 They may be Dutch 65 Potters’ pitchers
COURTESY OF PROTOMARTYR
You know what the Midwest is? Young and restless.
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We do put in a lot of work and effort. TMD: It really seems like you guys are just constantly creating music. How can you describe your creative process, if you want to use that terminology? JC: Laughs. I don’t! You know, it’s unfortunate because we work pretty hard ... We’re about to go out on this tour where we’re gonna be gone until the end of July. That’s the first time that’s ever happened. And I don’t think we’re necessarily a band who can come up with new stuff on the road. You hear stories about somebody recording something in a hotel room or something but ... we’re still a band who can’t stay in a hotel room — we have to sleep on some floors. So yeah, I don’t know how people can record on the road. I don’t think there’ll be another album coming out this year. TMD: So what is this urgency behind creating? Why the four albums in three years? JC: Well, I feel like there are two drastic extremes for putting music out: one is to spend a long time working on it, like three or four years, and another is to record it really fast and put it up online. I like to think we’re somewhere in the middle. Putting out an album, especially nowadays where you can just throw it up online, you can come up with an idea and record it and put it online. So there are people that have released a lot more stuff than we have, but I think we’re actually somewhere in the middle
where we take a little bit of time, work on it, and then we move on to the next thing. And we do put in a lot of work and effort, especially into the last two records ... but then after a while you just kind of have to let it go. And also, a band itself ... most bands don’t last more than five years. On average, some bands only last a couple weeks. You know, you can’t find a drummer or something. There are few bands who have that creative spark. TMD: Definitely, definitely. A little fatalistic. JC: Laughs. TMD: Going off of what you were saying about that perfect piece, I think what fans love about what Protomartyr has done is that it does have that kind of raw feel. Now we have so much music that’s recorded and then edited, so you end up with that perfect product at the end. But I think people like that raw sound that you guys have. Some people have even described you as giving this kind of musical realism. Comments? JC: Well, you know, you can live in a world where you listen to very smooth, perfectly constructed music and enjoy it. If you think music is kind of like visual art, some very raw things are still considered art. There are some things that are sculpted out of marble and took decades to make. And a world can exist where both of those things are going on. There’s a book that just came out about the Swedes or whatever who make pretty much every hit song that all have the same things in them. There’s really only one or two people writing the Top 40. That happens and people get sick of it. They want something raw. I don’t know if we’re very musical-realistic but you know ... we want to sound better but I guess we sound as good as we are. Laughs. The band is getting better but we play at our level. TMD: No, you guys sound great. It’s a realistic response. JC: Laughs. TMD: People are describing Agent Intellect as your best work. Do you think this album is a departure from what you’ve done in the past? JC: No, I’d call it a continuation. And, you know, it’s always a good sign when people tell you it’s the best. What’s interesting is understanding that people respond. I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, I can take that bad review’ because I can’t. You’re responding to it. So it’s good to see people are thinking that we’re developing or getting better or changing. That’s good.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports & News
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 — 7A
Behind enemy lines: Eddie Jordan Behind the mask Rutgers coach WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
talks recruiting, transitioning to the Big Ten
Freshman guard’s protective gear dates back to high school
By LEV FACHER Daily Sports Writer
By CHRIS CROWDER The Michigan men’s basketball team plays host Wednesday to Rutgers, a program that, in its second season in the Big Ten, is still struggling to gain traction in its new conference. The Scarlet Knights won just two Big Ten games last season and are currently 0-7 in the league. Rutgers’ roster rebuild is very much a work in progress, making the Wolverines heavy favorites in the teams’ only meeting of the year. The Michigan Daily sat down with Scarlet Knights coach Eddie Jordan — formerly the head coach of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers — at Big Ten Media Day in October to talk about the difficulties of breaking into the Big Ten and Rutgers’ recruiting philosophy within the geography of its new conference. The Michigan Daily: How tough has it been seeing so little success in your first two years as a Big Ten team and how has it affected your recruiting outlook? Eddie Jordan: I was taught (that) you either sell winning or you sell hope. If you aren’t winning, have a future in front of you. Develop your future. And we’ve got a great future. Our kids are great kids. They work hard. Our talent base is much better, although they’re young. In a three-hour practice, we don’t fall off so much, and we have eight
Daily Sports Writer
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
TRUMP From Page 1A matic weapon. Buttons for sale displayed sayings like, “Jail Hillary” and “BOMB the SHIT out of ISIS.” Another button trumpeted Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Andrew Jackson as “the original right wing extremists.” When Trump told the country in June he planned to run for president, a number of pundits deemed his candidacy a grab for the spotlight. And with rhetoric as brash and controversial as Trump’s has been, he certainly got it. But now, as he leads the polls in Iowa amid a crowded field of Republican candidates, it’s clear not only that Trump is playing to win but that for many, the message he has spent the last six months peddling has resonated in a huge way. Trump has consistently painted himself as the only candidate willing to say what others will not — the only person with the business acumen and, more importantly, the balls to take on everything a sizable chunk of voters find scary — immigrants, radical Islamic terrorism, China, Iran, you name it. A handful of protesters on Muscatine High’s front lawn were trying to counter that narrative when I arrived. They, too, held signs. “Donald’s economy is no good for working Iowans,” one read. Another: “Love Trumps Hate.” When cars drove by on their way to the parking area, the group chanted, “What do we want? No hate. When do we want it? Now.” A five-year-old girl in a Hello Kitty hat and pink gloves held a “Dump Trump” sign, clearly written in her own shaky script. Two cars on the way to the rally slowed long enough to roll down their windows and brandish middle fingers. Others, clearly not Trump supporters but apparently interested in seeing the Trump show for themselves, obliged a sign asking rally-goers to honk if they condemned the candidate’s rhetoric. On the way in, another woman told me she wasn’t a supporter, but wanted to see the guy in person. Jean Clark, a retired teacher who taught for 30 years at Muscatine High, was on the lawn with a “Fear + Hate = Trump” sign. She said Trump’s language would not
COURTESY OF THE DAILY TARGUM
Rutgers coach Eddie Jordan used to coach the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers.
guys who could possibly start. I just think that it keeps everybody excited. You’ve got to deal with their mistakes as the season goes along. As I’ve said before, in June, July and August, everybody says, ‘We’re young, let’s take some time.’ In December and January, when they’re making youthful mistakes, people are saying, ‘What the heck’s going on, Coach?’ You have to expect that. You have to have some patience. TMD: Is it tough, cyclically, to lose so many scholarship players as you continue to try to break into the conference? Does it feel like you need to take a step back before you can take a step forward? EJ: Well, I don’t want to take a step back. We had two wins in the conference last year, and I would love to be more successful in the conference. We’re just going to have to rely on some of our youthfulness to maybe surprise some people and stay in games and be exciting. But you know what? Our talent is good, our talent base is good. But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that
talent just doesn’t win itself. You have to have experience along with talent, you’ve got to have toughness along with the talent, you’ve got to have good kids with good character. Toughness alone doesn’t win. Experience alone doesn’t win. Talent always has to be involved, along with the previous two. TMD: Some coaches might try to take advantage of the new geographical footprint when their team switches conferences. If and when you find yourself in Iowa or Michigan, are there selling points for the Rutgers brand that might lure an athlete from a Midwestern area? EJ: Well, we don’t go to Iowa and Michigan to recruit. What happens in recruiting is, with all the AAU tournaments, everything is in Vegas. Everything is in Florida. Everything is in Texas or New York or California, wherever. So if there’s a kid who’s on an Illinois AAU team, we’ll obviously make some contact if he has interest. But look — our hotbed is New York through northern Virginia,
have been tolerated in her classroom, let alone in a presidential campaign. “We want a president that our students and our young can children can look up to, and I don’t think this is it,” she said. “I think people oftentimes do vote their fears, and that’s why people vote for extremes, but I think my message would be that this kind of fear, intolerance, hatred really isn’t acceptable and it doesn’t represent our country.” Inside the school’s yellow gymnasium, where a crowd of about 1,000 people stood bunched around a stage set up below a large “Muskies” logo painted on the wall, I wandered around the gym floor with the aim of asking supporters why exactly they’re in Trump’s camp. Some told me they were only leaning toward Trump, while others, like Judith Knuthson and Rod Treimer, said they were committed to caucusing for Trump. Knuthson, a 72-year-old who owns a real estate business in Muscatine, explained it this way: “I think he is the only one that can save the country at this moment.” Treimer had just met Knuthson a few minutes before and was chatting with her about Trump when I interrupted. “He is big on everything,” Treimer told me. “He says it like it is. I believe in the borders. I believe in the security. I don’t believe in lying to people. I’d rather have him say something bluntly and that’s the way it is, not lie. I don’t want him to be two-faced. I think Obama has done a terrible, terrible job.” Knuthson agreed with that assessment, noting she has been forced to work 72-hour weeks to make ends meet. I asked her which of the president’s policies have posed the greatest challenges for her business. She told me I shouldn’t really be asking her that. However, she did agree that Trump’s business experience could not be matched by anyone else in the Republican field. For Treimer, a corn farmer who told me I probably eat his corn if I eat Cap’n Crunch cereal, national security was his biggest priority, especially in light of ISIS’s rise and what he deemed a bad Obama administration deal with Iran. So I asked: Why Trump, the guy with virtually no traditional background in foreign affairs? “He’s got so much security and national background,” Treimer
told me, raising his voice slightly and speaking more quickly. “Look at all his businesses. He has to have security in all his buildings he’s built, he oversees business he does, the contacts he’s got, he has more than all the other politicians together. He knows more people, he knows how business works in the world, world economics, everything about the monetary, on the Wall Street, how they manipulate the currencies across the world.” Derek Wolfe, a columnist for The Michigan Daily who accompanied me to Iowa, asked about Trump’s stance on immigration. Did they support his proposal to ban the entry of all Muslims into the United States? Treimer said he would go further. “Our founding fathers got separation of church and state because they knew how Islam religion would not work in this country,” he said, as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” played in the background. “That’s why we have separation of church and state as much as we can possibly get it. Anyone who says they want Islam in the United States, they need to get out.” Both Knuthson and Treimer said they plan to caucus on Monday. Treimer said his goal is to get as many supporters of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is currently polling second in Iowa, to switch over to Trump. That’s because in a caucus, part of the process entails supporters trying to convert caucus-goers to their camp before the official numbers are tallied. “I had never been to a caucus,” Knuthson told me. “I vote, but I have never been to a caucus, and I would never dream of not going to that caucus (this year). I would never vote for any candidate beside Trump, and if he doesn’t make it, I will write his name in. He is the only one that can pull us out of this mess.” When Donald Trump took the stage, he told the crowd he had just come from church. The sermon, he said, focused on humility. “I don’t know if that was aimed at me — perhaps — but the church I don’t think knew I was coming, so maybe it was just by luck,” he said. The crowd loved it. Trump wasted little time before ticking off his poll numbers. According to an aggregate from Real Clear Politics, Trump
and we’ve recently gone to Florida and Carolina, because my assistants are really good in those areas. So our top kids are from Carolina and Florida. Although we want to recruit New Jersey as hard as any other place, it’s just that’s the way life is. TMD: So the intent, longterm, isn’t necessarily to compete in Indiana for recruits with offers, for example, from Indiana and Purdue? EJ: I wouldn’t say that, not necessarily. We want to go after the best kids — that’s number one. Number two is (we want to go after) the best kids that we have a chance at getting. We’re not going after the best kids when we know they’ll go to a top-10 program. Corey Sanders (a freshman from Lakeland, Fla.) has been one of our highly rated recruits, and we had a connection there, we recruited him hard, he had great interest in me being an ex-NBA coach. So again, you’ve got to connect the dots that will help you form the picture of what this kid is about, and do you have a chance?
is leading Cruz, widely seen as the anti-establishment alternative to Trump, by 16.9 points nationally and 5.7 points in Iowa. Trump and Cruz have ramped up the intensity of their attacks against one another in the last week as both try to secure a first-place finish in Iowa. Over the weekend, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), currently polling in third place in Iowa and vying for the state’s comparatively moderate Republican voters, secured the endorsement of the Des Moines Register. Trump has not shied away from sparring directly with the opposition, and spent much of the early portion of his stump bashing other contenders — both Democrat and Republican. “We’ll talk about individual candidates for a while,” Trump began. “Should we do that?” The crowd responded with cheers. “I thought so.” Trump started in. He hit U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), the Democratic candidate who has also tapped into populist fervor and is consistently hammering a message centered on the economics of income and wealth inequality. Trump said his attacks on Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who by the way, as Trump told the crowd, might be in jail by the time she takes office, were solely responsible for Sander’s surge in the polls. “This guy Bernie Sanders, give me a break, how does he figure into this whole thing?” he said, adding that the Vermont senator is probably a communist. “I could hit him so hard, he’s too easy, he’s really too easy.” The insults kept rolling from there: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (“It’s time to give up, Jeb.”), Cruz (“He has no principles.”) and Obama (“Just a bad guy.”) all received their share of the Trump treatment. As he finished the introductory takedowns, which as it turns out, never really end in a Trump speech, he began to roll out a vision for America that largely relied on projecting his own strength in making deals and standing up for the country in the face of China, Mexico and even fiscally-related interests like big oil. He told the crowd he would be “the greatest jobs president God ever created” and that he is “the most militaristic person.” At one point, he explained that his previous interactions with Chinese
Sunday, in the Michigan women’s basketball team’s matchup against Nebraska, freshman guard Boogie Brozoski entered the game with 5:10 left in the first quarter. Multiple players on the floor were sporting headbands, but Brozoski’s headwear was different. She was wearing a clear, plastic mask. It was her first time donning the face-protecting accessory as a Wolverine, but Brozoski has worn it in the past. During her high school days in New York, Brozoski broke her nose twice. Injuries are nothing new to her — she also fractured her hip in eighth grade. But despite the two nose injuries, she never missed a game in high school. Brozoski was able to play through the injury and after-effects of the pain because of the mask. Playing with it on wasn’t simple, though, and she had to get used to it. “I had to get used to sweating a lot, keeping it on when it’s sweaty, and taking it off really quick and wiping it off,” Brozoski said. “Visibility was something I had to get used to as well, but it was a smooth adjustment (this week).” In practice Friday, Brozoski was hit in the face by as inadvertent elbow. She describes her current injury to her nose as a small fracture, and she chose to wear the mask for protection from further injury on the court. Her mother had the mask she
firms provide proof of his aptitude for winning. “I do great with China,” he said. “Where I win, I win, that’s how I got them. I beat China.” At this point, chants of “We love Trump” roared through the gym. “We’ve got to have wins,” Trump said. “We got to have wins. Our country doesn’t win anymore.” Trump kept emphasizing that he would help the country win again, particularly in the context of the only concrete policy proposal he presented during the course of his speech: approving the Keystone oil pipeline. “I want 25 percent of the deal for the United States,” he said. “When they do this pipeline, it’s going to be a very profitable thing … I want the developers of the pipeline to give the United States a big, big chunk of the profits or even ownership rights like I do in business. That’s what I do. That’s what I do … They will give us a lot… I don’t want to be too greedy, but if I’m greedy, I’m greedy for the country. I want to be greedy for the country. I want a piece of the deal? Doesn’t that make sense?” And to the crowd gathered here in Muscatine, it totally did. Sometime after a Sikh protester wearing a red turban and unfolding a cloth “Stop Hate” banner was escorted out by security staff and the wild applause of the gymnasium, he lamented what he said were the media’s continued efforts to downplay the size of his rallies. At one point, he told the thousand or more people gathered in the gym to turn toward the “sleazebags” in the media risers as he explained the press would likely misrepresent the one empty portion of the bleachers closed for safety concerns as evidence that the rally was really not that widely attended. “What sleaze, what sleaze, they’re disgusting,” he said. In doing so, Trump was driving home a message articulated by Jeff Kaufmann, the Iowa Republican Party chair, when he introduced Trump at the beginning of the event. And it’s a message that’s been internalized by so many of the people who had come to see Trump in Muscatine. Every day, Kaufmann said he wakes up to headlines trumpeting civil war in the Republican Party. That’s
wore in high school shipped to Ann Arbor in time for Sunday’s contest. Though the mask is the same, Brozoski has no sentimental value attached to it. By this point, she’s used to playing with it on, and the routine that comes with it, but she would rather play with no obstructions to her comfort or visibility. Some well-known NBA players have sported many different styles of the mask after facial injuries. Long time Pistons shooting guard Richard Hamilton wore one after breaking his nose in Detroit’s 2003-04 championship season. And even after Hamilton’s nose healed, he wore the mask until he retired nine seasons later. Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and many other players have had to wear it for shorter time spans. LeBron James even wore a black, carbon-fiber one, different than the more common clear one Brozoski wears. Brozoski has no plans to wear the mask after her nose heals, but she found the transition to wear it for the meantime easy because of her previous experiences playing with the mask on. “I don’t really like it that much,” Brozoski said. “But if I have to wear it for protection, I will. It’s not something I would prefer to wear.” In Sunday’s contest, Brozoski recorded five points, an assist and two steals — not far off from her season averages of 6.4 points, 2.1 assists and 1.1 steals — proving the mask doesn’t affect her play too much. No matter how long she has to wear the mask, Brozoski will continue her role as a budding backup freshman point guard. And if Brozoski’s past is proof, it shouldn’t slow her down.
not so, he told the crowd. “We’re having a vigorous debate because the last eight years has made us mad, made us angry,” he said, voice cracking as he spoke, talking about his short meeting with Trump prior to the event. “Most of our conversation was about how to give voices again to the people that don’t believe they have a voice. I can’t think of anything more Republican than that.” Campaign observers say Trump has capitalized on some of the same kind of feelings that Bernie Sanders has tapped into — frustration with the political system, a desire for political revolution. “I’m angry and the American people are angry,” Sanders said at a Saturday rally in Clinton, about an hour away. “What Trump is doing with the anger he sees, is he is using it to scapegoat minorities. What he is doing is trying to divide us up. And what we are saying, which is profoundly different, is that when we stand together as a people, Black and Latino and Asian American, when we stand together, gay and straight, male and female, people born in this country and people who have come from another country, when we stand together there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.” “This is a movement folks,” Trump said on Sunday. “This is not like a normal situation. There’s never been anything like this. They’re going to study it … Our country is divided, and it’s divided very badly. And we have to bring it back. And if we don’t bring it back, we’re going to have a problem. But we’re going to bring it back. I’m going to bring it back.” As Trump shook hands and posed for pictures after the speech, I asked people still standing around in the gym what policies of Trump’s they supported. Most referred abstractly to his business experience or his willingness to tell it like it is, his ability to keep the country safe or create new jobs, but very few could pinpoint a specific, tangible policy item. I thought about what Knuthson told me earlier in the afternoon when I asked her whether the people she knows are as angry and fearful as many pundits say. “Oh they’re scared, period,” she said. “Everywhere.”
Sports
8A — Wednesday, January 27, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wolverines prepare for winless Scarlet Knights By KELLY HALL Daily Sports Editor
Wednesday, the Michigan men’s basketball team will play its second game against a winless Big Ten team, this time Rutgers at in the form of Rutgers. While Michigan the Wolverines Matchup: (5-2 Big Ten, Rutgers 6-14; 15-5 overall) Michigan 15-5 have played When: teams at both Wednesday the top and 7 P.M. bottom of the Where: Crisler conference, Center they’ve had TV/Radio: close games BTN against teams from both ends of the spectrum: They hung in the game before falling to No. 3 Iowa and, more recently, barely hung on to beat 0-8 Minnesota. The Scarlet Knights (0-7, 6-14) will look to replicate the Golden Gophers’ scrappy play, seeking a better result. Michigan coach John Beilein, in typical fashion, said regardless of Rutgers’ undesirable record, the Scarlet Knights will still be a challenge for the Wolverines. “They may beat us,” Beilein said. “Our hope is that if they beat us, it’s only because they played great and we didn’t overlook anyone. That’s the message. Everyone’s a Division I player, everybody can run and dunk and (make a) 3-pointer and (with) foul trouble, anyone can win a game.” The Scarlet Knights have played down to the wire against No. 17 Indiana, which has lost only one game in the Big Ten, but they don’t have very many other notable performances. Jan. 18, they were crushed by No. 21 Purdue, allowing the Boilermakers to score 107 points. Guard Corey Sanders leads Rutgers with 14.1 points per game on 40.4 percent shooting, but the freshman is also averaging 3.5
assists per game. Sanders has two teammates who also average double-digit scoring, guard Mike Williams and forward Deshawn Freeman. Rutgers has lost 22 straight games to Big Ten opponents, and it’s not likely that the streak will stop on Wednesday. Michigan should be able to catch its breath during its next two games against Rutgers and Penn State before it returns home for a two-game homestand against Indiana and No. 12 Michigan State. BEILEIN USES TWITTER FOR A CAUSE Beilein helped raise funds for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma research through the ChadTough Foundation, the rare form of pediatric brain cancer that Chad Carr passed away from in November. Now, through ESPN’s Infiniti Coaches’ Charity Challenge, Beilein is raising money for the ChadTough Foundation again. “We had a great first round,” Beilein said. “I did a little video message today, however, that they don’t give trophies after the end of the first quarter. We have three more quarters to play here to be able to win this. “I personally tweeted it today as well — I’m going to tweet it, I haven’t actually tweeted it yet. I haven’t hit the send button yet. I had never heard the letters DIPG before in my life, until about a year ago. … Every week I’m hearing more. It’s something that I really want to support.” When asked about his Twitter usage further, the 62-year-old Beilein responded that he usually drafts his own tweets, albeit with some uneasiness thanks to his
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Junior forward Mark Donnal has surged to the forefront of the Wolverines’ center rotation since Big Ten play began, averaging 12 points per game since.
Catholic-school upbringing. “I do (tweet by myself ) most of the time,” Beilein said. “Every now and then, (Associate Basketball Director Tom Wywrot) tries to do one and I end up redrafting it anyhow, so I just said, ‘I’ll just do it by myself.’ But I don’t like doing it because I’m just worried about one grammatical error, which the nuns and priests would be mad at me for, 30, 40 years later, or I’m just going to say something stupid. I’ve gotta look it over and look it over and
“Everyone’s a Division I player, everybody can run and dunk.”
look it over. I wish I could be like some people and send out more.” DONNAL GETS PUMPED As most Michigan fans are aware, forward Mark Donnal has had a breakout junior season since Big Ten play began. Before his impressive performance against Illinois on Dec. 30, Donnal was averaging 3.9 points and 2.1 boards per game. Now, the big man is shooting 57 percent and grabbing 3.8 boards per game. “If you look at (Donnal’s) offensive rebounding numbers right now, they’d be at the top of the league … in limited minutes,” Beilein said. “He is just working his tail off for the dirty rebounds, just for the ball that nobody else can get. He is controlling what he can control.
I think he probably came in here thinking he was going to shoot a bunch of 3s, and that’s the way he was going to get on the court. Defense was just something you had to play. He likes playing defense and for a center, that is not an easy task.” His teammates have seen a change in his play over the past year, so they aren’t surprised when they see him produce on the court. But according to sophomore forward Aubrey Dawkins, they’re still taken aback when he diverges from his usual reserved self. “It catches me off guard when he does (get fired up),” Dawkins said. “He’s usually really calm and just quiet, but when he gets going, you’re like, ‘Oh, OK, let’s do this.’ ”
LEVERT ALERT Senior guard Caris LeVert, who is a midseason Wooden Award finalist, has missed the last six games following an injury to his lower-left leg, but it appears that the end to his time on the sideline is near. Though he won’t play Wednesday against Rutgers, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him suit up as early as Saturday for Michigan’s matchup with Penn State at Madison Square Garden. “Caris has had more testing,” Beilein said. “Things continue to go in the right direction, but he is not ready to play yet. We hope he is very soon, but he’s moving in the right direction. … For the first time, we have a timeline that we’ve established. When you see him on the court, you’ll know what that timeline will look like.”
East Coast natives looking forward to New York game By KEVIN SANTO Daily Sports Writer
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Boo Nieves will get to play in his home state of New York when Michigan plays at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
The game itself has enough hype around it already. The Michigan hockey team will battle the Nittany Lions for a crucial position in the Big Ten standings, as both teams are currently tied for second place in the conference. But this weekend, the city that never sleeps will play host to Wolverines, adding even more of an aura around Michigan’s matchup. The Wolverines will complete their series against Penn State in Madison Square Garden for the Big Ten Super Saturday — an event in which the two schools’ basketball teams will also square off. To add more drama to the contest, Penn State has been largely responsible for keeping the Wolverines out of the NCAA Tournament for the past two years. The Nittany Lions handed Michigan two ugly losses just before the Big Ten Tournament last year, knocking them out of the conference tournament in the first round with a 2-1 overtime win the year before that. The stage can’t get much bigger, as the Wolverines will take the ice in one of the most historic arenas in sports. But for a number of Michigan’s players, the opportunity will be a little more special. “Some of the guys, it’ll be a good homecoming-type event for them, going back out east,” said junior forward Tyler Motte. “I’ve never been there. I know our class and the guys under us haven’t played in many events quite like this. It’s a new thing for the Big Ten as well, having the back-toback here with basketball and hockey, which I think will be good for the conference. “I think it’ll be something that (the Big Ten will) be able to turn to in the next couple years — playing two sports in
the same day. I think that’s something that really could separate the Big Ten from other conferences.” Five Wolverines are among the group that will be returning home. Senior forward Justin Selman — an Upper Saddle River, N.J., native — isn’t far off from the Empire State. Senior goaltender Steve Racine is from Williamsville, N.Y., and spent the summer interning on Wall Street. Freshman defenseman Joseph Cecconi calls Youngstown, N.Y., his home, and junior defenseman Kevin Lohan hails from Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. Though Lohan grew up a fan of the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders, he is still looking forward to playing in the Garden, which houses the Islanders’ chief rival, the New York Rangers. Senior forward Cristoval ‘Boo’ Nieves is from Baldwinsville, but the contest will hold even more weight given that he has been in the New York Rangers’ system since being selected 59th overall in the 2012 draft. Even Michigan coach Red Berenson has spent his fair share of time in the Big Apple, playing 49 games for the Rangers in 1966 and 1967. But the Wolverines’ seasoned leader is more enthusiastic about the opportunity it provides his players. To him, it’s more important for the team to gain experience in rinks that foster environments similar to what they may face in the future, whether it be in the National Hockey League or NCAA Championship games. “The game in New York will be important for (Selman and Nieves),” Berenson said. “But they had that when they were freshmen, too. When you have these games, you really need to take advantage of them. Hopefully, it really jumpstarts
both of them. They’ve both played well, but I’d like to see this be like a coming-out game for them.” The last time Michigan entered the Garden was Nov. 24, 2012, when the Wolverines suffered a 5-1 dismantling at the hands of then-No. 13 Cornell. The crowd favored the locally favorited Big Red that day, but that advantage may sway in Michigan’s favor this go around — at least according to the East Coast players. “I think my parents ended up buying — on my mom’s side — almost like 50 tickets,” Selman said. “My family has a suite at (Madison Square Garden), so I think they filled that up, and then probably bought a couple more too, so it should be close to 100 people.” Added Lohan: “There will be a lot of people — friends, family, family friends. It should be a good weekend.” No one was willing to claim the title of team tour guide for the little, if any, downtime the Wolverines will get in the city, but Nieves suggested splitting the team into four between himself, Selman, Lohan and Racine. Lohan echoed the sentiment, explaining that each New York native has their own go-to spots. But Nieves couldn’t pinpoint the one place he would take his group if given the time. “I can’t name one,” Nieves said. “There’s just too many good brunch and bagel places to name one.” And on fitting the New York bagel snob stereotype: “Oh yeah, you have to be.” So while Michigan will miss the Children of Yost during Thursday’s matchup in State College, the Wolverines may have a different fan section to fill the role Saturday. And with a warm welcome expected, the Wolverines have a chance to make a statement against Penn State.
statement THE MICHIGAN DAILY JAN UARY 27, 2016
2B
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 // The Statement
A Filtered Life: How to Date the Cool Girl of Your Sad, Sad Dreams BY R ACHEL PREMACK
T
here exists a male fantasy of the low-maintenance girlfriend — recently, she’s been known as the Cool Girl. She doesn’t need you to text her ever and never causes “drama” (AKA calling you out on your own bullshit). She also loves eating triple bacon cheeseburgers, while staying skinny and hot and giving you blow jobs. You can text her at 2 a.m. after smoking with your friends all night to hook up — and she’ll come over! Then you can ignore her for a week, or you can watch the game with her or some other boring activity she’ll purportedly enjoy. It doesn’t matter, she’s chill and cool with anything. She’s essentially you and your friends but in the body of a really sexy girl. Many recent think pieces have denounced and made fun of the idea of the Cool Girl — but even more advice columns by men and women alike have praised it. It’s been established that the Cool Girl trope forces women to mold their personalities and needs to what men want, but the idea of being universally attractive to men or having a girlfriend who requires literally no effort remains enticing. Herewith, a guide on how to find a Cool Girl: 1. Identify what you want in your low-maintenance relationship. Have you ever found yourself saying you “hate girls” or find them “too complicated?” Sick of having to listen and empathize with women? Unsure of how to make a girl orgasm? You might be a good candidate for dating a Cool Girl. Low-maintenance is a great idea for cars, pets and apartments. And now, you want to stretch the concept to humans. Excellent! Trolling Skeeps for women is getting exhausting. You want female company that’s a little more constant and predictable, but you also don’t want someone who, like, challenges your opinions or calls you out on being an ass. 2. Now, let’s find her. There are several variations of this girl whose existence is solely for your benefit, and thus a few different places you might find her. Luckily, she has all of your exact interests so you don’t really have to go somewhere new or change your behavior at all to meet her. Maybe you like the one who eats wings with you while watching the game — she’s at Charley’s or Blue Lep. Maybe you like the one who doesn’t wear makeup and hikes and frolics in the mud, but still manages to be a beautiful fairy. Try the Arb. The bottom line is, this girl is “not like all the other girls” (even though girls are awesome and it’s just you who sucks). 3. Approach her. She’s ~chill~ so she doesn’t need a major conversation starter. Try coughing on her. And, unlike those other fucking teases, she sees what a nice guy you are and the most basic polite gesture really makes her swoon. Buy her a $1 well drink at Rick’s, and you’re in. If only all girls saw what a generous person you are. 4. Your first date: coffee is fine. You obviously don’t have to pay for her, despite the fact that you asked her out. And, wow, she doesn’t even get one of those girly frappuccinos! Having sugar in your caffeinated beverage is such a disgustingly female trait, but she’s a Cool Girl and manages to contort her behavior to act masculine in every way. Or she drinks beer. Or burgers! She’ll eat burgers! Nothing worse than a girl who eats a salad. (Somehow she looks like she only eats salad though. You do not want someone who looks like you, who lives off Jimmy John’s glopped with mayonnaise and barbecue chips. Also, just saying, her internal organs are not going to be chill in a few decades if she really never eats vegetables.) 5. Wow, that was easy! You’re dating now, or whatever. Get ready for months of … doing exactly what you were doing anyways, but with a female and with more sex. Eating pizza, with a female. Talking about poop, but with a female. Sex is so easy and fun too. She likes everything you like! She never needs to orgasm! She loves giving head! You love when your sexual partners reaffirm everything you watched in porn! She never causes fights or seems upset about anything, ever. She doesn’t care about the relationship’s label or anything because she’s so low-key. This is great, because you really just want a woman who has a sack of rice in lieu of a brain. I hope this helped you in your low-maintenance girl endeavors. If you cannot find a girl who meets your criteria, try your male friend (who also does not wear makeup and consumes pizza) or your left hand.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
ON THE RECORD
SUPER BOWL
“It was going to be a long process like long cooked collard greens.” — NFL quarterback CAM NEWTON on the Carolina Panthers’ journey to the Super Bowl. ***
“Hey, listen, this might be my last rodeo. So, it sure has been a pleasure.” —NFL quarterback PEYTON MANNING to New England Patriots head coach BILL BELICHICK following the AFC Championship game.
*** “It’s not about getting there. It’s not about being a part of it. It’s about winning it. And that will be our main focus.” —Panthers head coach RON RIVERA on his Super Bowl goals.
L I T E R AT U R E
THOUGHT BUBBLE
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/DAILY
“My favorite book would probably be 1984 by George Orwell. I like it because although it is fiction, it shows us the harsh realities that we deal with every day with “Big Brother.” It exemplifies our government in a very enticing way that is both interesting and terrifying.” – LSA sophomore SHANNON SMITH
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 // The Statement 3B
THE Magazine Editor:
statement
Photo Editor:
Karl Williams
Zoey Holmstrom
Deputy Editor:
Creative Director:
Nabeel Chollampat Design Editor: Shane Achenbach
Emilie Farrugia Editor in Chief: Shoham Geva
Managing Editor: Laura Schinagle Copy Editors: Emily Campbell Alexis Nowicki Jose Rosales
Zooming In: For Aunt Paula BY L AR A MOEHLMAN The summer before my senior year of high school, I began interning at a local newspaper. In addition to making copies and transcribing interviews, I spent much of my time proofreading and formatting pages and pages of obituaries. Common reactions to my position would include: “Why would you willingly do that, Lara?” or “I would get too depressed!” And I did at first. But aside from my willingness to endure anything that took me one step closer to my dreams of becoming a professional journalist, I eventually told people the job was growing on me. And it was. Over time, the sometimes morbid and monotonous task became an opportunity to sift through war stories, academic and professional paths, passions and activist causes. I learned about the many lives people touched and the impacts they left behind. I remember telling myself that summer that I would one day write an obituary for someone who left an immeasurable impact on my own life. Now seems like the right time. For Aunt Paula: I’ve always worried too much. My best friends nicknamed me “mom” sometime between seventh and eighth grade for my general tendency to overthink things, and as I grew older, my worries took the form of grade anxiety. I became the second semester senior in high school who couldn’t stop thinking about an exam until after I’d received my grade because what if I failed, and what if Michigan post-rejected me? Anyone who shares similar stress knows that a decent amount of worry stems from the inability to accept stress itself. Is it normal for me to worry this much? Am I worrying about this enough? And so on. One day when I was 11 or 12, my mom asked me: “Do you know who worries as much as you? Your Aunt Paula.” She had no idea at the time just how much that comment would affect me, but it really did. It was as if knowing that someone I had always looked up to shared similar challenges somehow made my own anxiety acceptable. Aunt Paula, my mom’s older sister, lost an eight-year battle with breast cancer at the age of 51 in 2013. The end of her life broke my family in so many ways it’s hard to put into words, so I won’t attempt to do that here. I will instead try to capture her genuine beauty and strength as best I can. Aunt Paula was a fast-talking, analytical perfectionist whose electric smile brightened any room — or mood — I was in. She attended New York City Public Schools’ hyper-competitive Stuyvesant High School before graduating near the top of her class at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. After
earning her MBA from Columbia, she led a long and successful career in banking and software development. But Aunt Paula was so much more to me than an inspiration; she was a mix between my second mother, my best friend and my guidance counselor. When girls were mean and boys were weird, Aunt Paula would relate, sympathize and encourage me to push through the awkward years. She took me clothes shopping and tutored me in math at her kitchen table. Together we would obsess over our favorite episodes of “Gilmore Girls” and then read through the 2013 “Fiske Guide to Colleges.” I still struggle to come to terms with her death because, for so long, it seemed to me that she was never sick. I now realize that for so many years she masked her own stress and fear and nausea to protect those around her from feeling even a fraction of the pain she did. Despite a severe diagnosis at the age of 43, my aunt continued to get dressed for work, travel the world and make it to every family dinner, birthday party, band concert and even field hockey game that she physically could. Maybe my Aunt Paula was a superhero. But then again maybe she was just worried; worried that she would miss out on things — worried that she would upset those around her if she let her inner-anxieties show. I’d like to think my aunt’s anxious perfectionism is what allowed her to fight such a scary disease and live life to its fullest for eight years. Over time, I’ve come to accept that my own anxiety is what drives me toward my personal goals. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt I’ll ever stop worrying about the small things. Then again, I never want to.
COURTESY OF LARA MOEHLMAN
PHOTO COVER BY ZOEY HOLMSTROM/PHOTO COVER ILLUSTRATION BY SHANE ACHENBACH
4B
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 // The Statement
Literati and the renaissance of independent bookselling By Maria RobinsSomerville, Daily Arts Writer
I
n an era where you can have a banana slicer, glow in the dark toilet paper, sugar-free gummi bears, pajamas and the textbook you need for class dropped on your doorstep in two days via Amazon, it’s hard to believe that the company started as a warehouse only able to hold a couple hundred books at a time. Considering that book sales currently make up only 7 percent of the company’s revenue annually, how is it possible that a business that can only in a small part identify as a “bookseller” has, for many people, replaced the need for physical bookstores? The answer may life in the fact that, although the origins of Amazon were in book distribution, CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos’ initiative was never a seed planted by belief in the inherent value of the written word. In an article for The New Yorker, George Packer writes that Bezos “quit his job at a Manhattan Hedge fund and moved to Seattle to found a company that could ride the exponential growth of the early commercial internet.” I’ve never been a stranger to the independent bookstore. As the daughter of two writers and a Brooklyn, N.Y. native it was a seemingly unavoidable encounter. From pulling “Cat in the Hat” and “The Snowy Day” off the bottom shelves of Book Court in Carroll Gardens to spending hours tucked away in the cozy back corner, or in the backyard garden of Park Slope’s Community Book Store inhaling anything from “Captain Underpants” to “The Princess Diaries” — these were sure signs of early literary promise. My teen angst led me to the better-known Strand bookstore. My twin brother Jack and I would narrowly avoid Union Square in midDecember and slip into Strand in pursuit of reasonably priced and thoughtful holiday gifts for our bookworm family members. We’d end up
splitting off to our respective sections — he into music biographies or world records books, and I into the poetry section or scrounging through the hodge-podge of $1 gently used gems. Although I spend very little time in New York these days, I’ll still return to Strand to stumble upon a secondhand copy of some classic that still smells the way books should. This is not to say, I, as a 21-year-old on a college-student budget, with a deep love for the written word, buy all my books at cute mom n’ pop shops that carry the best writers you’ve never heard of without ever lurking into the behemoth that is the world of Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I spent a good portion of my childhood in Barnes & Noble, too, but in retrospect these moments were different. There weren’t really any comfy chairs, and every B & N I’d been to had the same aesthetic of light colored wood, dark green and neutral-colored woodland animals painted onto the walls of the kids’ section. Barnes & Noble was where I’d pull out a stack of teen magazines that I wasn’t really supposed to be reading, or wonder why it seemed that so many of the books on display bore the same titles as the multiplex cinema marquees with images of their conventionally attractive protagonists gracing the covers. In my humble opinion, the covers had looked just as good the way the illustrators had first printed them. I will still, shamefully, admit that I bought or rented all of my books on Amazon this semester and last semester even purchased a book for $2.99 that I needed for class as an e-book. Amid the threats I hear about the perishing of the physical book and the worldwide takeover of Amazon and e-readers galore, I decided to investigate a successful independent bookstore in my current stomping grounds.
Ann Arbor’s own Literati, located on East Washington Street, has come to characterize this phase of my life the way Book Court did my toddlerhood and Strand my adolescence. I can often be found studying in The Espresso Bar, a café that rests above the bookstore. Studying might mean nursing a latte and choosing to read what my roommate has lovingly coined “one of those skinny poetry books” pulled from a shelf downstairs while I use my PSYCH 240 textbook as a glorified paperweight/armrest. Literati is one of those bookstores that feels alive. From the steady stream of readings to the corner location with a big window to let light in to the handwritten book recommendations punctuating the shelves to the click-clack of the available typewriter downstairs, the nearly 3-year-old book haven buzzes. I chatted over coffee with Hilary Lowe Gustafson and Michael Gustafson, the young married couple who own Literati. I asked them to look back and reflect on the bookstore’s origin story. In 2011, before opening Literati, they were living in Brooklyn where Hilary worked at Simon & Schuster Publishing house and parttime at independent Green Light Bookstore. Michael was working as a video artist and freelance writer, and the two bonded over a love of literary culture, which included independent bookstores as a cornerstone of their social lives and courtship. Hilary and Michael saw Green Light as one of their inspirations for opening Literati. “They started in 2009, after the Kindle and after all that and still thrived regardless, so they were kind of our model community center bookstore,” Hilary said. Both owners are Michigan natives. Hilary is from Ann Arbor and Michael from Lowell,
Michigan. When Borders closed both in Ann Arbor and nationally in 2011, the couple saw an opportunity to fill the gap in Ann Arbor’s independent bookselling community, specializing in new books. “As part of our social life in New York, we would go to bookstores,” Hilary said. “It just seemed like a good community space … we always talked about what it would be like to own a store ourselves.” When asked about the place of independent booksellers in the wake of retailers like Amazon and the advent of e-readers, Hilary and Michael shared insight into the integrity and unparalleled experience of independent bookstores. “There are more bookstores in the last three years opening than closing so we view that as a trend, a return to independent bookstores after many closed throughout the 2000s,” Michael said, identifying the notion that the indie bookstore is on the decline as something of a fallacy. The owners defended their bookstore wholeheartedly, standing by the integrity of books, suggesting that a megastore like Amazon is unable to recognize the inherent value of a book the way an independent business that carefully handpicks its contents and creates a holistic book-buying experience does. “We don’t view Amazon as a competitor because the product they’re offering is different,” Hilary said. “Yeah, they offer a book, but they don’t offer a space to explore and browse and have whimsy in the same way you have in our store.” “I think that people purchase things online that they know that they want, but bookstores allow customers to browse and find things they didn’t necessarily know that they wanted and allow customers a chance to surprise
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 // The Statement
themselves,” Michael said. Whimsy, surprise, chance — the owners spoke almost as if the bookstore is an enchanted forest or arcade of sorts. What I think they were getting at is a space that engages actively with the community, that it’s part of something that Hilary doesn’t believe larger booksellers get the opportunity to do. “You can read reviews of a million people you don’t know, or you can come to a bookstore and get to know the staff and find someone on the staff that you really love the reading tastes of and have a dialogue about that,” Hilary said. I silently admited that reading the handwritten staff recommendations in the store is less daunting than scanning through the seemingly infinite reviews on Amazon — it doesn’t seem like too many internet trolls frequent the store, but I could be mistaken. Hilary and Michael also highlighted the longevity and novelty of the physical book, speaking with a reverence that is not necessarily felt toward multi-decade-old e-readers or laptops. We discussed the value of electronics when compared to books. “They (electronics) lose their value and their purpose in a way that a book doesn’t over time,” Hilary said. “Yet they’re so expensive,” Michael added. Michael also touched on the bookstore’s logo — a typewriter. “Our logo is a typewriter that was based on a model my grandmother gave me and it was my grandfather’s typewriter from the 1930s; it still works,” he said. “I inherently don’t believe that many of the e-reading devices in 80 years from now will work. I can browse her bookshelves and find books from 100 years ago and still read them. I inherently believe in physical paper books being long-lasting, durable products that will be around for hundreds of years.” Keeping with the typewriter anecdote, it’s important to note that in the basement section of Literati, where nonfiction books are housed, there is a maroon Olympia typewriter available for anyone to use. It wears a typewritten sign that says, “Please be gentle with me. I’m old.” It’s clear that there are emotional values and family histories tied up in the business. Belief in the book is sustained with fervor. “I have a book that was given to me on my 21st birthday and the little inscriptions are handwritten in there,” Michael said. “That’s meaningful to me, more than receiving a gift certificate to Amazon. I think it’s just inherently believing in the future of that, that made us both want to start the store and made us want to keep going.”
Much of Literati’s success has depended on their engagement with other small businesses and nonprofit groups in the area, as well as their robust events calendar. For example, The Espresso Bar subleases the second floor of the building from Literati. It provides both businesses with larger space for people to read, chat and work. It also serves as a spot for the bookstore to seat audiences during readings and other literary events. “They needed more space and we needed more space and we don’t know coffee,” Michael said. “We know books and we wanted a coffee shop but we didn’t have the expertise to do it so we partnered with some of the best coffee baristas in town. It’s been successful thus far.” The coffee shop and bookstore work in healthy symbiosis. The relaxing atmosphere of browsing the shelves is well supplemented by a caffeine fix, and for coffee lovers who come to The Espresso Bar, the spattering of signed new releases upstairs might be a happy accident. Hilary and Michael have also collaborated with organizations such as Wolverine Press, a printing press run out of the University, as well as other local and independent publishers, furthering a commitment to community involvement and building healthy relationships with local retailers. They also collaborate with the University’s English department through the Zell Fellows Reading Series. “We try to work with a lot of University folks who have their own books out, especially in the poetry department,” Michael said. Literati even collaborated with a group of Engineering students on a project, an example of one of the ways the store seeks to build a relationship with the University. “We had a group of Engineering students use us for one of their projects to help us figure out ways to better make our store more efficient because as bookstore people we’re not the most efficient people sometimes. That was awesome because it allowed them to get some insight into how a small business works and we got the expertise of them as students,” Hilary said. Hilary and Michael started Literati out of a love for the town and a desire to contribute to its ethos of successful independent businesses. “We do it because we love this town and we want to make it more vibrant,” Hilary said. “By partnering with other people you reach a broader base. People can do something creative that may not have been done before.” “It takes a village to raise a bookstore,” Michael added. He continued this with an analogy that compares the
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cultivation of the Literati community to the experience of raising a child. It seems fitting, as the bookstore was born shortly before the owners got married. “In the first six months, you’re just trying to make sure that the child survives,” he said. “It’s a lot of sleepless and long nights and worry and kinda freakin’ out and then it gets easier, and right now this bookstore is sort of walking and talking and it’s getting there and now instead of survival, we’re getting more into the personality stage, doing more with the community and becoming better community members.” I left with an admiration for the ambition and integrity of the store, and believe in the magic and importance of independent bookstores, but I am still left with questions, reluctant to reduce my interest in the economics of the bookselling to a polarizing debate that pits the Amazons of the world against the Literatis. Having a friendly and familiar local bookstore like Literati to linger and explore is a treasure, but what about communities that are limited in this respect and must rely on Amazon to read books they want to read? Maybe putting books alongside video games or hard-to-find snack foods can draw in an audience that otherwise wouldn’t have much of an interest, but what does the commodification of a book do for writers who, as Packer puts it, are put “under pressure to prove that their work produced sales?” Maybe the world of commercial book sales is not even in the same ballpark as the independent bookstore model. According to Business Insider, Amazone tends to pursue detail-oriented introverts who generally lacked well-developed interpersonal skills as employees, a personality type that would most likely not facilitate success in a social and community-based institution like Literati. Navigating the book world is complicated. It can force readers, writers, business owners, artists, educators and editors to question the benefits or obstacles in the evolution of bookselling. It asks us to wonder what these changes suggest about the way we value the creation and production of books. I am grateful to attend school in a place where great literary culture is accessible. There are bookstores that have allowed me to feel like the excitement and spontaneity of discovering books and sharing that with other people is alive and well. It gives me hope for those who lead lives as artists, writers and educators who depend on the power of the printed word and know what I mean when I talk about that nice “old book” smell.
PHOTOS BY ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
LEFT: LSA sophomore Shannon Smith pulls “To Kill a Mockingbird” off the shelf at Literati Bookstore. RIGHT: LSA freshman Owen Hurley opens a pop-up book in the children’s section upstairs in Literati Bookstore.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016 // The Statement
Illustration by Emilie Farrugia
MONEYBALL: University professor studies the intersection between sports and finance by Karl Williams, Managing Statement Editor
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rom the standpoint of an economist, it’s often difficult to measure the financial performance of a company in relation to the quality of its product. But sports offer a remarkably clear competitive market — there’s no ambiguity whether a team wins or loses. While the performance of the players on the field determines a team’s success, thousands of economic factors determine how those teams get their players. Unlike in the American sports industry — with the exception of Major League Baseball — where teams share revenue through a salary cap, European soccer clubs lack such a system. The system, inevitably, leads to inequalities among teams — only a handful of teams dominate their respective leagues. These teams, in turn, dominate the most prestigious European competition, the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League. Research into what makes teams succeed and fail — both on and off the field — continues to grow. Various factors, such as players, stadiums, revenue, debt, taxation, regulation and so on, all determine whether or not a team will be able to compete. Kinesiology prof. Stefan Szymanski has been one of the leading researchers in this growing field. His research, which can be seen in books such as “Soccernomics” and his latest book “Money and Soccer,” attempts to explain onfield performance through the lens of finance. Though born in Nigeria to a Polish father and English mother, Szymanski has spent most of his life in London, with the exception of his college days in Oxford, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics, and his time as a professor at the University. Growing up in England, Stefan Szymanski has always been a soccer fan (his favorite team is Scunthorpe United), but it wasn’t until he began graduate school at the London Business School that he began to seri-
ously study the economics of the game. “What I was really doing was research about markets and industries, so really understanding how firms relate to each other in an industry, how competition works between firms, what makes for better outcomes or worse outcomes, how to evaluate policy and those kind of things,” Szymanski said. “And I really got into it through a group of us who were trying to find out how certain groups were successful. Soccer, he added, seemed like a good example because there were many clubs, but few with continous success. “We were trying to understand that,” he said. “With sports though it’s actually crystal clear — you know who won the league, how many people went to watch the game, so in that sense it’s actually much easier to tie in financial performance with visible metrics of performance which reflect consumer interest.” Szymanski began his research into the industry’s economics right when things were beginning to change within it, especially in the U.K. During the 1980s, soccer was not a particularly profitable sport, and Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, even considered banning the sport because of hooliganism and stadium collapses. Many believed the industry was one of decay, not growth. Since then, profits have soared, and the industry has become incredibly lucrative. How did such a drastic change occur? According to Szymanski, because of a collection of fortunate circumstances. First of all, the broadcasting environment changed — Premier League clubs’ revenue increased through deals with television broadcasters. “The Premier League was able to generate very large increases in revenues from domestic viewers who wanted to watch this as the rights were given to cable TV,” Szymanski said. Furthermore, over the last 20 years or so,
international broadcasting, which is distributed equally among teams, has become an increasingly important part of revenue, approaching nearly half of the total. But the change in broadcasting was not the only factor to change the game’s financial landscape. “Other factors are that there was a lot of interest from overseas in investing in English soccer clubs, and partly that had to do with the fact that the U.K. is a relatively easy place for foreigners to invest in,” Szymanski said. “It’s been a relatively welcoming environment for that.” He added that the clubs’ global recognition also played a role. “It’s also to do with that the U.K. soccer clubs have global recognition. That’s partly because of the old empire, and people knew about soccer going back a hundred years. And the other thing is the time zone — people can follow English soccer games because the times they’re played at make them accessible both in the Far East and the United States. And, again, that’s a real advantage if you’re trying to sell a sport.” While in America one can expect a certain level of parity among teams in most leagues — which is mostly due to the salary cap that most leagues employ — European soccer leagues are almost shockingly unequal. For example, over the last 25 years in Spain, either Barcelona or Real Madrid has won La Liga, the Spanish soccer league, 21 times. No American league — not even the MLB — features such dominance by a few teams. Although there are many giants of their sports, such as the Yankees and Lakers, there are no clubs that win with such little competition. While the best teams succeed with little to stop them, those near the bottom face the threat of capitulation. Such disparity, according to Szymanski, forms a model of dominance and distress.
But perhaps, as Szymanski notes in his latest book “Money and Soccer: A Soccernomics Guide,” relative equality among teams is not a necessity. In fact, Szymanski argues that “It is simply not clear that fans want a balanced competition.” In other words, inequality is not a problem. The dominance of a few teams has done nothing to discourage fans from watching. In fact, soccer has been more successful than ever in generating revenue and interest in the game. As Szymanski writes, it’s almost paradoxical how this works. “It may seem counterintuitive at first, but open competition with unlimited freedom of entry has created a system in which only a few clubs can win consistently. The market works relatively efficiently, in the sense that money buys success, and improving teams generate increasing revenues because they attract new fans.” Yet many still believe that inequality is bad for the game. “There is this common folk wisdom that unless a league is balanced, unless all the teams have a reasonable chance of winning, the league will become predictable and people will lose interest, so the league will die,” Szymanski said. “That folk myth is clung to by an enormous amount of people, probably most people in the world think that’s true, but it just factually is not the case. Leagues can be attractive even if they have massive amounts of inequality.” Recently, Szymanski has worked with FIFPro, the world soccer players’ union, on antitrust litigation that challenges the transfer system, a system in which teams buy the rights to players and currently gives players little agency. A successful suit would change the way the game is run financially and, thus, how the product comes together on the field. But no matter how the game changes, Szymanski will be there to explain it.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016// The Statement
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Personal Statement: Invisible Identity by Isobel Futter, Daily Staff Reporter
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veryone knows what the dreaded first day of class is like — usually in a small discussion room, surrounded by 20 people you don’t know. We all stare at the clock, passing awkward smiles at our neighbors and waiting for the minute hand to hit 10 and for the professor to start talking. Unfortunately, the class almost always begins with this: Let’s go around the room and say your name and an interesting fact about yourself. For some reason, it’s really hard to look at yourself and imagine something interesting. That’s not intended to sound self-deprecating, as we’re all interesting people in some way, shape or form! But it is hard to look into yourself, and choose a fact that both you and the crowd will find intriguing. You also ride the fine line of being boastful or being uninteresting, with neither option appealing in this situation. I usually end up going for, “I ride for the equestrian team,” or “I am a writer for The Michigan Daily.” It never occurs to me to tell my peers probably the most interesting and defining fact about myself: I’m an international. I began the privilege of travelling and seeing different parts of the world at a very young age. I spent my first six years living in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. I grew up surrounded by good food, different types of people and the ability to travel whenever a holiday came around. I spoke French at school and when playing with my sister but English with my parents. We visited most of Western Europe in my childhood, and I grew up with a passion for language and culture. When I was six, my family moved to Ireland for my dad’s job. I remember the excitement and anticipation that filled my small body after my parents sat my sister and I down to tell us the big news. “We’re moving to a town called Cork, in a country called Ireland,” my mother said to us, gauging our reactions with hope. “There’ll be a big garden and the school is just down the road, so you won’t have to take the bus anymore.” When we moved to Cork, not much changed. As is apropos for a six-year-old, I was dismayed with the idea of a Catholic private school uniform. But I adjusted quickly and made friends in no time. I even developed an Irish accent and hid my foreign status almost immediately.
After roughly 18 months in Cork, my family relocated once more to the United States. I lived in Midland, Michigan from the ages of eight to 18. Despite living in all these different countries and having these different cultural experiences, I am not from any of the
lived, a place that is only connected to me through my family? My parents are both British and met after university in Birmingham, England. They moved to Belgium, got married and had me there. We visited both sets of grandparents in England on a regular basis
never imagine it as my home. After all, I’d never even lived there. It was a place where I went to kiss my grandparents, be told how tall I’d gotten and spend far too much time in a tiny rental car on the crowded M25. I’d spent my whole life blending into places that I didn’t really belong. I changed my accent, the clothes I wore, the games I played to fit in and become a part of the surrounding way of life. It boggles my mind a little to believe that, although I spent so much energy relating to these foreign cultures, they can be no part of my formal identity. I am restricted to one nationality, one passport. As I’ve gotten older and my trips to Europe continue, I’ve started receiving a series of strange questions. Since I rarely bring it up, and surely not during the interesting fact exercise, my peers at school are often shocked to learn that I’m not American. “Why don’t you get citizenship?” I’m often asked. My answer is I don’t know, because I don’t feel American. After traveling around so often when I was younger, the possibility of relocating again, this time for a job of my own, is highly plausible. Similar to the former question, I also get a, “Do you feel more English or American?” when visiting my family. These complex questions have racked my brain for a majority of my adult life (which, to be fair, isn’t that long). But recently, I’ve come to a solution — I feel that I represent a small part of every place I’ve lived and visited. I feel equally connected to my British heritage as I do to my American upbringing. I am as Belgian as I am Irish. The words on a passport, a green card or visa don’t define your personal nationality; you do. The conclusion to this longwinding search of identity comes down to the person you want to be, and the identity you want to have. I want to take small pieces from each of my experiences and credit them to the person I am today. Without the time I spent in each of those places, and without the connecIllustration by Shane Achenbach tions I made with those people, my life would be completely different. when living in Europe. Now that we’re in So, when people ask me, “Where are the States, we make the leap across the you from?”, I’ll probably still crack a smile, pond once a year to do the rounds. How- laugh and answer, “Well, that’s compliever, as often as I visited the UK, I could cated.”
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places I know so well. I am not Belgian. Or Irish. Or American. I’m English. As you can imagine, this is confusing to me. How could I be from a place that I’ve never
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016 // The Statement
V I S UA L S TAT E M E N T:
TEST DRIVERS Though the annual North American International Auto Show in Detroit is catered primarily to adults and car fanatics, the massive halls were also full of shiny new rides and children scrambling in, around, and over them, waiting for their doting parents to snap a picture. By EMILIE FARRUGIA
Lead vocalist Tyler Joseph performs “Holding On To You.�