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Wednesday, September 21, 2016
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Breaking Tradition
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A look at how nontraditional students navigate traditional campus spaces
Between three quarterbacks, four running backs and countless blitzes, Jim Harbaugh always manages to keep opponents on their toes
» Page 4B
» Page 7A ANN ARBOR
City reports overflow of sewage into Huron River ARNOLD ZHOU/Daily
Officials discovered Monday that 600,000 gallons had spilled into water
LSA Dean Andrew Martin speaks to students at a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Forum at the MLB Tuesday.
LSA holds first Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Strategic Plan forum
Administrators, faculty and students discuss implementation of DEI initiatives NEIL SCHWARTZ Daily Staff Reporter
After a year of planning, University of Michigan administrators are beginning to release and implement details in LSA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Strategic Plan. At the first LSA planning forum about the plan Tuesday, with about 40 students, faculty and staff were in attendance, Associate Dean Angela Dillard, highlighted the “Goals for Access” and the “Goals for Undergraduate Education” sections of the plan. These sections
focus on improving aspects of undergraduate student life, including maintaining diversity in learning communities, improving on-time graduation rates and making study abroad opportunities more publicized so that all students are able to reach their full potential. The full strategic plan will not be
released until Oct. 6. The plan, initiated in September 2015 by University President Mark Schlissel, aims to create a campus environment where every member of the University community feel welcome and had equal access to the resources and opportunities See LSA, Page 2A
LYDIA MURRAY Daily Staff Reporter
The city discovered Monday that a sewer overflow allowed an estimated 600,000 gallons of sewage to spill into the Huron River this weekend. The overflow was traced back to a construction site on Geddes Avenue near Gallup Park. According to a press release, debris from the site led to a blockage in a sanitary sewer, which then caused the overflow. The overflow is estimated to have occurred sometime between 3 p.m. on Saturday and 7 a.m Monday, when it was
discovered. The blockage was removed immediately after its discovery, allowing the normal flow of sewage to return. However, some amount of sewage had already reached the river. Geddes Pond stillwater paddles and Argo-Gallup canoe trips have been temporarily suspended by Gallup Park authorities until the water can be tested. The city has already informed the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality about the incident, according to the release. There are no communities downstream from the site who See SEWAGE, Page 2A
Panelists discuss causes, consequences Mich. and Joint open Wisconsin and future implications of Brexit vote house held
SCIENCE
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face off for fundraising
Professors talk referendum and current state of the European Union
C.S. Mott Children’s hospital competes to advance cancer research ALI SAFAWI For the Daily
While Michigan football fans eagerly await a showdown against No. 11 Wisconsin at Michigan Stadium on Oct. 1, another faceoff between the two storied universities is taking place this month. The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital has challenged the University of Wisconsin American Family Children’s Hospital to the Wolverine/Badger Challenge, a month-long fundraising competition to see who can raise more money for childhood cancer research. Valerie Opipari, chair of the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University, approached Wisconsin this year about the friendly competition as part of Mott’s larger Block Out Cancer campaign, which launched in 2013. “They loved the idea,” Opipari said. “The primary goal in the month of September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, is to raise awareness See WISCONSIN, Page 2A
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CALEB CHADWELL Daily Staff Reporter
University of Michigan faculty members convened Tuesday night at the School of Social Work to contextualize and discuss the implications of the United Kingdom’s recent referendum to leave the European Union. The referendum, commonly referred to as “Brexit,” took place on June 23, 2016, with 51.9 percent of Britain’s citizens voting to leave the EU and 48.1 percent voting to remain. The panel was moderated by Sociology Prof. Genevieve Zubrzycki and comprised of Law Prof. Daniel Halberstam, History Prof. Kali Israel, Political Science Prof. Pauline Jones Luong and History Prof. Joshua Cole, who discussed the causes and consequences of the referendum. Zubrzycki opened the panel by noting how the vote surprised voters in the UK and the United States as well as stakeholders internationally, citing reporting from The New York Times that said polls predicted the referendum had an 88-percent chance of failing. “We woke up the following morning on this side of the Atlantic surprised, shocked and with a great dose of disbelief,” Zubrzycki said Putting the Brexit vote in historical context, Israel said nostalgic visions and ideas of
a “British Empire” had some effect in swaying the vote. In particular, he said some proponents of Brexit invoked ideas of British imperialism and nationalism in their to influence citizens to cast their votes away from the EU. He cited a series of controversial bus ads run by the “leave” campaign in the UK, which contained false information about the amount of money the UK was required
to pay to the EU each week. “The historical amnesia about empire as well as the historical nostalgia for empire are a very important context, for which I think needs much more exploration than they got, during the debates leading up to the referendum itself,” Israel said. Halberstam, participating in the panel via webcam from Germany, also emphasized the
causes and legal implications of the vote to leave the EU. “You could sort of describe it as the populist awakening meets the European democratic deficit,” Halberstam said. Describing the EU as an “imbalanced federation,” Halberstam added that there is a power vacuum in Europe because member states have limited their own national See BREXIT, Page 2A
GRANT HARDY/Daily
History Prof. Joshua Cole discusses the inability of the European Union to withstand external conflict during a faculty panel discussion at the School of Social Work on Monday.
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INDEX
Vol. CXXV, No. 138 ©2016 The Michigan Daily
by MESA, Spectrum
Offices collaborate to welcome students at second annual event ANDREW HIYAMA Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan’s Spectrum Center and the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs hosted their second collaborative open house Tuesday to spread awareness about their activities and services for new students on campus. Program organizers Abby Chien, MESA program manager, and Mark Chung Kwan Fan, assistant director for the Spectrum Center, said they’ve started to realize more of the intersections of the two programs’ missions, with joint events serving as one expression of that. The Spectrum Center, founded in 1971, is an organization within Student Life that focuses on building community among the University’s LGBTQ students, offering support services like peer mentorship, educational workshops and free HIV testing. MESA also aims to create an inclusive space on campus, focusing on issues of race and ethnicity and offering services such as peer mentorship and See MESA, Page 2A
NEWS......................... 2A OPINION.....................4A S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7A
M I C H I G A N I N CO LO R . . 3 A ARTS...................5A S TAT E M E N T. . . . . . . . . .1 B
2A — Wednesday September 21, 2016
LSA From Page 1A that LSA offers. Units within the University were each tasked with individually developing plans, which have now been combined into one campus-wide plan. According to Dillard, parts of the plan have already been implemented. She cited administrators working to incorporate diversity criteria to justify faculty pay raises as one an example. She also said the LSA Opportunity Hub has established a laptop loan program, which has already loaned out 425 laptops to students from family incomes of less than $50,000, of which 40 percent are underrepresented minorities. During Tuesday’s forum, LSA Dean Andrew Martin spoke of the importance of implementing the DEI plan because of how a strong emphasis on diversity strengthens the community. “Now perhaps more than ever, we need to embrace that diversity makes us stronger and better,” he said. “ ‘Diversity, equity and inclusion’ must be more than a slogan.” Martin highlighted a part of the called “Goal for Inclusive Classrooms,” which involves overhauling LSA’s Race and Ethnicity requirement by creating smaller sections with more of an emphasis on clear discussions and dialogues. Currently, LSA students must take one class designed as R&E before graduation, though the requirement has faced criticism from students over broad criteria for that designation. The College of LSA initiated a review of the requirement earlier this year. Martin also emphasized that the implementation of the DEI
SEWAGE From Page 1A use the Huron River as a source of drinking water. Robert Kellar, communications specialist for the city of Ann Arbor, said the spill was relatively minor but the city cannot release more information to the public until it has submitted its report of the incident to City Council. Kellar said the report would likely be turned in Wednesday
WISCONSIN From Page 1A around the significant problem that certain childhood cancers have in causing death in children.” According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer is the leading cause of death past infancy among U.S. children. An estimated 10,380 new cases of childhood cancer will be diagnosed in 2016 and about 1,250 children ages 0 to 14 are expected to die from childhood cancer in the same period. Opipari also said there is a need for more funding in pediatric cancer research and treatment. “The second thing we wanted people to understand is how little funding goes to the study and research in childhood cancers,” Opipari said.
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plan will be effective only with the efforts of every member of the University. “This will require real mechanisms for creating a campus environment where all students, faculty and staff feel valued and where everyone is able to take full advantage of the resources and opportunities that make LSA the premier public liberal arts institution,” he said. Dillard also noted the importance of unity, saying a part of the plan responsible for connecting to various departments could use more detail. “I think it’s a big hole in the plan right now,” she said. “It will take a lot of work and a lot of time … LSA is huge. We have over 70 departments.” LSA senior Nicole Rutherford said that after consulting in a small group at the forum that while they were enthusiastic about opportunity housing and the positive impacts it could have for transfer students, they had concerns about some of the practical aspects of the plan. “Some questions that we had, that you identified it as a hole, is the partnerships with departments, what that will look like,” Rutherford said. Some parts of LSA are also choosing to launch their own efforts alongside the University’s strategic plan. Trelawny Boynton, director of the Office of MultiEthnic Student affairs, said at a different event Tuesday that MESA was in the process of creating a plan in order to reaffirm their place in the community. “You all have I’m sure heard of a strategic plan that’s happening campus-wide. Know that we’re doing something that is our own strategic plan in MESA, so it’s a good time to think about why we exist,” she said. “We think there’s
a compelling reason we just want to prove it to folks who still need to know and be reminded. So, I’m going to do a strategic process with a whole bunch of our staff involved, our student leaders, and a group of students that are going to guide me through that process.” LSA senior Eitan Katz, who attended the forum, said that he likes the plan’s emphasis on administration and faculty overhauls because of their lasting presence at the University. “To me, a lot of it really focused on faculty which I am really happy about,” he said. “Students come and go every four years, but faculty stay here for a lot longer and they can have a lot more of an effect on the University.” However, Katz said he is concerned about the lack of planned student education on the principles of the plan, especially for first-year students. “I didn’t see much of a focus on orientation,” he said. “And I think that’s a big thing because students are coming from all over the country and it’s a chance to have everyone together and understand what it means to have equity, diversity and inclusion on campus.” Rutherford, in response to administrator’s comments, cited questions she had about how the programs within the plan would be evaluated. “So I saw some of the measurables in terms of we know that this part has gotten off the ground if we receive this by this date, but I’m wondering about some of the back end,” Rutherford said. “Are we seeing this program have the effect that we are hoping to, maybe some of the climate effects that we’re hoping to see overall? And wondering at what point some of those evaluations might happen and in what way.”
morning. “The overflow was quite small, so there is not a significant impact,” he said. “But we are still taking tests out there.” This is the third overflow incident to occur this year, with previous incidents at Bird Hills Nature Area, where an estimated 36,000 gallons spilt over the course of 60 hours, and at Malletts Creek, where 400,000 of sewage overflow was generated across a two-week span. At the City Council
meeting Monday night, City Administrator Howard Lazarus said the city will be putting forth greater effort going forward to prevent such incidents. “It is always our intent to be protective of our natural environment,” he said. “When something like this occurs, we all feel that we have let the public down in protecting our natural resources, and we will be ever more diligent in making sure that, to the best of our abilities, it does not occur again.”
A majority of cancers are typically associated with advancing age. However, Steven Pipe, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist at Mott, said some of the most exciting advances in cancer research are occurring in the pediatric realm. Both the University and Wisconsin, which are ranked second and fourth, respectively, for total research and development expenditures in 2014 by the National Science Foundation, are at the leading edge of this fight against childhood cancer, he added. “I’ve been working (at Mott) for almost 25 years and I can see us for the first time really making major headway with some of the more difficult to treat pediatric malignancies,” Pipe said. He highlighted two breakthroughs in particular being pioneered at Mott: precision oncology and immunotherapy. In precision oncology, doctors comb through a patient’s DNA
to identify mutations in their tumor, which can then be matched to specific therapies. The immunotherapy approach, on the other hand, leverages the patient’s own immune system. Both of these methods are part of a larger movement away from nonspecific treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation, to methods tailored to the patient’s own unique cancer. A team of Mott researchers led by Rajen Mody, professor of pediatric oncology and hematology at the University, published a paper in late 2015 showing the results from the first 102 patients enrolled in a precision oncology study at the hospital. In 46 percent of the patients, genetic sequencing revealed new targets for therapies and several children were believed to have been cured of their cancers, according to Opipari. “We now have a clinic at Michigan, a personalized pediatric cancer clinic, where patients are coming from all over the country to participate in our sequencing trial,” Opipari said. The University has had a long history of participating in cross-campus partnerships to advance various health initiatives. The annual Ohio State-Michigan Blood Battle, for example, began in 1982, with last year’s battle bringing in a total of 4,770 blood donations. In 2003, students began another tradition, the Face-Off Blood Challenge, with in-state rival Michigan State University. Opipari saidif this year goes well, the hospital would like to explore expanding the competition. “The big goal is that if this works, what we’d like to do is to make this a Big Ten wide challenge,” Opipari said. “We’d like every one of the Big Ten teams to get onboard as Michigan and Wisconsin have started the charge.”
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BREXIT From Page 1A sovereignty while not giving the union enough authority to make up for a loss of strength at the national level. He said one example of the power vacuum was the European debt crisis, caused in part by a global economic downturn beginning in 2009. Because the EU has limited the powers of member states to regulate their own currency, countries like Greece were hit harder by the crisis, but the impact of the EU to help was muted. “The European Union eliminated Greece’s power to regulate its own currency and to react locally to pressures of a downturned economy,” Halberstam said. “At the same time, they did not give the European Union the corresponding powers to ship money into Greece.” Overall, Halberstam said he saw Brexit as Britain’s attempt to gain national power and distance itself from an
MESA From Page 1A student organization advising. “Both our offices focus on social identity as a core part of who we are and how we interact with students, so we decided that we wanted to partner together,” Chien said. “People often will visit both of our spaces in their journeys around learning about how they want to be involved on campus and who they are.” Chung Kwan Fan agreed, saying that working together has been beneficial for both organizations. “I think that we really want to address more the piece of intersectionality, of addressing different identities and multiple complexities of those identities as well, so we do already have great collaborations between the two offices so we decided to thrive
ineffectual EU that had little power to begin with. He noted, however, that the process is still far from done — the UK now needs to notify the EU Council of its intention to leave “That would set into place a two-year period, during which they can negotiate a ‘divorce agreement,’ ” Halberstam said. Once this two-year period begins, Britain must negotiate new trade deals and border agreements with the remaining 27 EU nations. As a result, politicians in Britain are currently debating how to swiftly go about with negotiations but also notify the EU of the country’s intention to leave. Panelists also discussed a number of other ramifications of Brexit, such as the resignation of former British Prime Minister David Cameron in June following the vote. “The UK might not be left anymore, all you might have is ‘little Britain,’ not ‘Great Britain anymore,” Halberstam said. “That’s going to be something that the UK doesn’t want and David Cameron certainly
doesn’t want to be remembered as the man who destroyed the United Kingdom.” The current prime minister of the UK is Theresa May, a member of the Conservative Party, selected after Cameron stepped down. May became the second female to occupy the role since Margaret Thatcher resigned in 1990. Looking beyond the UK, Jones also noted the the implication of Brexit for Russia, saying a weaker EU will lead to greater Russian strength in the long term. He said this could be a concern given Russia’s 2014 forceful annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, and plans it may have beyond that. “The UK was central to the EU’s strength, which really means the UK was central to the EU’s unity,” Jones said. “The UK was viewed as the biggest anti-Russia proponent within the EU, and the biggest problem for Russia when it came to negotiations with the EU.”
upon that,” he said. “So it’s not just for LGBT students of color, but it’s trying to address different identities at the same time as well.” He said the point of the open house was to usher in new students and offer them support through what can be a difficult transition, especially for LGBTQ and minority students. “Really to be aware of the resources that MESA and Spectrum offer, especially the support services, knowing that being part of the LGBTQ community brings all our challenges to somebody’s transition to the University, so knowing that those resources exist for them to be able to get to know more of their own identity, but also how to navigate the system, of U of M being such a large university,” Chung Kwan Fu said. “Knowing their resources about how to explore themselves, but also how to interact and connect with
others.” MESA Director Trelawny Boynton stressed that despite the amount of racial progress made in the last several decades, MESA still has a necessary role at the University, especially for incoming students. She noted that the organization is in the process of creating their own strategic plan, paralleling a University of Michigan-wide effort launched last year by University President Mark Schlissel to create a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion plan for campus. “We were created almost 50 years ago, and we want to make sure we’re answering relevant questions for why we still need to be here, why do we still need to do the work that we do and to what end,” she said. “And we think there’s a compelling reason, we just want to prove it to folks who still need to know and be reminded.”
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Michigan in Color
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 — 3A
Is this thing on: Why MiC matters As Michigan in Color returns to campus, we thought it would be a great time to reflect on why MiC has been and continues to be a transformative space of healing, growth and exploration for people of color. With countless tragedies, acts of violence and police brutality, as we look to each other in these times of pain and sorrow, as we struggle to make meaning for ourselves, we lean on the power of unity and we give ourselves and our communities space: space to grieve, space to process, to love, to be imperfect. Our stories don’t always have endings, our narratives aren’t linear, we’re sometimes cyclical, sometimes messy, but always our own. We wanted to introduce ourselves, faces new and old with the stage always set and the MiC still live. Michigan in Color is growing, the voices audible, our words visible. ASHLEY TJHUNG Senior MiC Editor
Hi, my name is Ashley and I’m a sophomore in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. On campus, I am involved in a number of social justice groups including the Michigan Community Scholars Program, the Program on Intergroup Relations and the Detroit Partnership. As a part of these organizations, I became frustrated with the lack of resources for students of color to voice their experiences, especially in the face of systemic discrimination. Joining MiC was my way to give back to communities of color at the
SABRINA BILIMORIA Senior MiC Editor
I’m a workaholic. I love to plan out my days to maximize productivity — no 15 minutes can go unused. People who have worked with me before know me for wanting to streamline everything so that I can pack more activities into each busy day. But between classes, meetings, readings, essays and exams, it’s often hard to both find peace of mind on campus while still being productive.
CHRISTIAN PANEDA Senior MiC Editor
Before college, back when I thought those times would be the most stressful part of my life, I would always call my friend who lived too far away and tell her that I needed to “find myself.” Her response would always be the same “Now what does that evenmean?” and my response would be the same “Well, um, I mean, I don’t know,” which I thought beautifully articulated the fact that I was completely lost on who I was as a person.
TONI WANG
Managing MiC Editor
I have a terrible memory. I often find it difficult to recall events that happened to me throughout a day, let alone over the course of a month or a year. This has been especially disheartening for me now that I’m a senior in college. These past two weeks I have found myself scribbling down every pleasant moment I experience with immense detail, a desperate attempt at documenting a year that I know will pass by all too quickly and one that I hope I can hold onto despite my record of forgetting. I feel as though some of
DE’MARIO LONGMIRE Managing MiC Editor
Not limited to the biological anatomy in the formal sense, our voices are the means through which we communicate our perspectives, our experiences, our beliefs. Our voices give weight to our thoughts, validity to our experiences and translate the intangibility of the complexity of the human experiences into narrative, reflection and wisdom. Our voices are our essence. What happens when you’re told you don’t have a voice? That your voice isn’t important? It doesn’t have the right timbre? It sounds “funny?” Not “smart enough?” I didn’t think my voice had any power. When it came to talking about race, I doubted myself. There was always someone more eloquent, more creative, more interesting than I was. My voice wasn’t important.
University of Michigan, while also expanding my reflections on how my social identities impact my outlook on life. As an Asian woman, my relationship with my racial identity has been somewhat complicated. For most of my life, I viewed race in the blackwhite binary. I struggled to understand if I was indeed a privileged member of the “Model Minority” or another recipient of oppression among communities of color. While microaggressions and discrimination were, and still are, daily rituals, I was afraid to rock the boat among my predominately white school and circle of friends. Before, I was afraid to
explore my racial identity for fear of the cognitive dissonance which would arise from questioning the system I lived my entire life in. Since coming to the University, however, the unease has begun to fade. I now identify as a proud person of color and being a part of the MiC community is a big reason why. Ideally, I believe MiC can become the main outlet for students of color to read and express their frustrations, experiences, culture and pride, while not being afraid to post “controversial” content. MiC is a place both students and student organizations can use to share their stories with the student body, with the goal
to spark conversation and dialogue around campus. Here, people of color can find others living similar experiences to their own, and in the process find clarity to their own questions on their identity and voice at this University, and raise their MiC. MiC isn’t just a section of a newspaper or another page to read. It is a living document of the struggles and triumphs people of color experience throughout campus and life. We are a community of strong and inspirational students, faculty and alumni who support and affirm each other through our shared experiences. Be ready to raise your voice. Be ready to raise your MiC.
Michigan in Color has been just that — the work we do is cathartic more than stressful. As a minority, I’ve spent a lot of my life looking for the right group — I’m a feminist, but not a white woman; Pakistani, but not Muslim; Parsi, but not Indian; American, but first generation. The contradictions never end. Navigating other people’s confusion about my identity — after all the “come to church with me” and “are you sure you’re Pakistani?” — ultimately left me with a stronger sense of self. It’s
not that I don’t fit anywhere, but rather that I fit into a number of different spaces. It taught me that identity is more than the logistics — where you’re from, what religion you follow — and more than what others (read: majority) ascribe to you, but rather being able to selfidentify. I currently serve as co-director of the South Asian Awareness Network, a South Asian social justice student organization. SAAN has been an outlet for South Asian American solidarity and a place
to understand my role in social change. My experience with SAAN ultimately led me to MiC as a space to engage with other communities of color. Michigan in Color has been the space to not only explore these many identities, but to be surrounded by a group of people who share the identity of being a frustrated person of color with too many experiences and feelings to unpack alone. For the first time, I’ve found a group of people who share my worldly angst. MiC makes the long hours worth it.
Narratives of Asian Americans in general, ran thin in the area I grew up in. I was only offered the stereotypes of what others told me; I was to accept them as truths, and I did. After all, my parents are super strict and my food is really weird, right? To accept these stereotypes was to ensure a (false) sense of safety and avoid ridicule in my mind. In a sense, I lost my voice. In hindsight, maybe that is why I would always complain about finding myself in one way. I didn’t know what it meant to celebrate myself as a person of color, and I didn’t want to fully
admit my shame as one too. But as time passed, my submission was more harmful than helpful. Little by little, I stood up to peers, teachers and strangers who wanted to dictate how I should think with no idea of the experiences of being marginalized because it definitely was way more than about getting my feelings hurt. I researched all I could to learn more about my cultural heritage as an antidote for poisonous stereotypes. Holding my ground felt much better than being metaphorically pinned down. In college, in the midst of
highly demanding academics, I was drawn to Michigan in Color because of how brave, honest and unapologetic each story every contributor had to offer as people of color. I loved, and still love, the freedom of allowing expression in all forms outside of written pieces like audio and visual art. I want to raise minority voices up, because I know how it is to be torn down. To make others heard, not silenced To make others strong, not shameful To make others find themselves, like MiC has made me is why I chose my role.
the challenges I have with remembering come from the fact that I have changed immensely over the past three years and continue to change almost every minute. I have a sense of dissociation with who I feel I am in this moment and who I used to be, even yesterday. At the same time, the moments I can remember are the ones that truly reflect this ever evolving self. One of my clearest memories of freshman year is when I first stumbled across a Michigan in Color article. I remember sitting at my dorm room desk and reading through theneditor Carlina Duan’s piece, “Our sacrifice, our shame” (one of the most read articles ever
published by the Daily). I was in awe of Carlina and her writing. She was able to articulate her experiences as a secondgeneration Chinese American woman in a way that I never could, and in reading her story I could better understand my own. Though I hadn’t written the piece, I felt that I had been given a voice. The feeling I had after reading Carlina’s article for the first time is something that will never escape my memory. Since then I have read almost every article published by MiC and each one has resonated with me in one way or another. They have brought me closer to myself and helped me navigate my experiences on this campus.
They have bonded me with communities of color at the University of Michigan and served as a constant reminder of our strength and resilience. In sum, MiC has played a transformative and integral role during my time here, which is why I wanted to become involved. I hope to continue the wonderful work that MiC has been doing — to amplify the voices and stories of people of color at Michigan, to make bold declarations of our existence and thriving here — so that even when my memories of this year become blurred and I forget the details of my last fleeting days in college, I know I will always remember the feeling of finally being heard and understood.
My story wasn’t inspirational, it was shameful. Coming from a poor Black family where struggle was normalized, I felt like more of a trope, a number, a stereotype than an actual person with experiences. When I tried to speak, it sounded robotic and foreign; I felt phony and restrained in the way I spoke about myself. I kept my past and home life a secret. People didn’t know about me because I didn’t want to know myself. Performance freed me of these insecurities and doubts. When I was on stage, I felt strong and sure. I could easily connect to a character. A person whose emotions and experiences were different than my own, even as I continued to disconnect myself from my own emotions and experience. Instead of liberation, performance, for me, was an escape. A survival tactic. Life at the University of Michigan as a person of color, especially in conversations about race, sometimes felt more like a like an
act than performing did. As a new student to the University, I joined the Educational Theatre Company, a theater troupe on campus that focused on peer education and explored topics of social justice and campus climate through performance. Through my work with ETC, the boundaries that society, structurally and I, personally, had placed on the way I allowed myself to think about my story started to blur. I realized my story and experiences were important. For the first time, my voice was developing and I could recognize it. It sounded real. Through performance, I found community and engaged in conversation with others who were feeling and experiencing similar and different things from myself. These conversations took place in sketches, monologues and theater sculptures. Performance was instrumental in my self-discovery and selfdevelopment. Theater is a tool to build and explore community.
For me, it is both a part of my activism and my self-care. It has helped me find a voice. It helped to give me the courage to start to tell my story and share myself with my community, especially with other people of color. It led me to see the importance of spaces on campus for students of color to connect and explore, criticize and create, and share and grow together. I hope to bring performance and other nontraditional mediums of expression to Michigan in Color. Students of color, despite the resounding noise of doubt, erasure and minimization of your experiences present here on campus, know that you have a voice. Think of Michigan in Color as a space for you to start or continue to find it. I leave you all with this: Voices of color loud and radiant amidst a sea of white noise. It’s easy to miss the rainbow when you’re not looking for it.
Demario Longmire Toni Wang Alyssa Brandon Sabrina Bilimoria Christian Paneda Ashley Tjhung
Managing Section Editors Senior Editors
ALYSSA BRANDON Senior MiC Editor
“Dipped in chocolate, bronzed in elegance, enameled with grace, toasted with beauty. My Lord, she’s a Black woman.” You may remember seeing this quote from Yosef A.A. BenJochannan in a piece I wrote last semester about my identity as a Black woman. In that piece, I am confident, I am poised and I am proud of who I am. But, it wasn’t always this way. I used to struggle to find things I liked about myself, and viewed my Blackness as a dark shadow that covered who I really am. But today, I know my identity as Black woman makes being me so much better. I’ve come to embrace who I am and all the other things I love to do, like traveling. This summer, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Tokyo, Japan. It was such an incredible experience; I even went spelunking 50 feet underneath Mt. Fuji. Being immersed in a foreign culture, pushing myself to reach new heights and taking risks helped me finally break out of the shell I used to hide in for so many years. I’m so humbled and honored to be one of the senior editors for Michigan in Color this semester. I’ve joined Michigan in Color after reporting for the news section at the Daily for three years. As a reporter, I was deeply impacted by the significant underrepresentation of minority voices on campus and a disregard for all the
wonderful stories students of color at the University of Michigan have to tell. I love Michigan in Color because it provides a space for minorities to feel empowered. My greatest hope is that my work with Michigan in Color allows me to help highlight amazing stories from students of color within our community. But as much as I want to provide a platform for my fellow PoC, I also want to find and strengthen my own voice. I’ve had many struggles at the University that have shaped me into the woman I am today, many of which were a direct result of my identity as a Black woman. I used to be ashamed of being a Black woman and spent so much time wishing I was someone else. But today, I’m proud of who I am and all the adversity I’ve overcome. Someone out there needs help. Somewhere, there’s a Black girl who despises her kinky hair. Somewhere, there’s someone who looks in the mirror and wishes they were someone else, just like I did. I believe my testimony and experiences can be used as medicine for others who are facing similar struggles. Expressing myself, discussing my struggles and telling my story has been hard, but I hope writing for MiC helps me find my voice and gives me the courage to finally talk about my journey with others. Cheers to a new start and to all the incredible stories I hope to tell and hear.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, September 21, 2016
MELISSA STRAUSS | COLUMN
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SHOHAM GEVA Editor in Chief
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and REGAN DETWILER Editorial Page Editors
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BRENT KIM | OP-ED
The fine print of for-profit schools Forced arbitration: It’s a tactic used by corporations to avoid being held accountable in a court of law for detrimental, and possibly illegal, activities against consumers. Over the past several years, it has become increasingly difficult to apply for necessities such as an auto loan, a cell phone contract or even cable and internet service without being subjected to a hidden arbitration clause. Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Wells Fargo and many others use this scheme to circumvent courts and prevent consumers from joining together in classaction lawsuits, undermining the consumer’s ability to seek justice in the wake of corporate wrongdoing. These insidious clauses bind consumers to unknowingly sign away their access to a court, leaving them to deal with disputes through private, secretive tribunals that favor the company over the consumer, instead of undergoing a fair judicial process. The typical consumer never glances at the mountain of text in the terms and conditions, but a surprising number of contracts hide these clauses in the fine print, preventing everyday consumers from challenging predatory practices such as hidden fees, fraud and other illegal behavior. For-profit colleges such as ITT Technical Insitute, University of Phoenix and Everest College are some of the largest household names
CJ MAYER | COLUMN
CJ MAYER
“A
nd you have to be smarter than they are. I hear so many times, ‘Oh, I want my people to be smarter than I am.’ It’s a lot of crap. You want to be smarter than your people, if possible.” — Donald Trump (2007) Throughout the election, you’ve heard the same argument when discussing Trump, his policy and how he’ll improve the country: He’s got the best guys and he’ll listen. Not only is this argument incredibly f lawed, it’s just plain wrong. If this is the default response in policy debates from Trump supporters, there’s no point in having in-depth debates without first dissecting this logic. First, what if Trump did have the best advisers? Is that enough to make him a good world leader? Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works. Contrary to what you’ll hear from either side, many policy issues are outstandingly complicated with no single clear-cut decision to be made. Experts in everything from economics to education, even though they know their topic more than anyone else in the world, still disagree with one another. It’s up to the president
that include forced arbitration clauses. The ads and jingles hide the fact that attending these schools means unwittingly signing away rights. Forprofit colleges are run by corporations and shareholders solely interested in profits, so as students shell out tens of thousands of dollars for school, prospective employers turn them down upon graduation, as many employers do not see their degrees from for-profit colleges as credible. Thus, when students attempt to sue these colleges, many of them discover their options are limited by forced arbitration clauses. Arbitration proceedings are shrouded in secrecy, do not use a jury and offer few grounds for court review. Even clear legal and factual errors by arbitrators may be an insufficient basis for overruling an arbitrator’s decision. Unable to take for-profit colleges to court, students may lose thousands of dollars and wind up in crippling debt. Yet students are not the only ones being thrown to the curb because of arbitration clauses. Obstetric patients, American Express cardholders and even cruise ship employees have had their rights stripped away for filing class-action lawsuits because of what has been hidden in fine print. In one not-uncommon case, a Wells Fargo employee opened up a fraudulent account without the customer’s knowledge in order to boost sales figures. Yet even then, the account holder
would be prevented from suing and taking it up to court and instead be forced to deal with an arbitrator behind closed doors. To combat these dangerous and illegitimate clauses, Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, petitioned the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to restrict pre-dispute arbitration clauses. Both agencies have proposed rules to limit arbitration clauses. While the proposed rules fall short of banning arbitration clauses outright — and both still need to be strengthened — they represent a critical step forward in the fight against these dangerous clauses and are expected to be finalized before the current president leaves office. If you are looking to become involved, get involved at Public Citizen and fight forced arbitration clauses on the floor by telling your members of Congress today. Forced arbitration is a scam that forces individuals into giving up their rights in exchange for the ability to participate in the modern American marketplace. Lawbreaking corporations should not simply be able to say “no thanks” to our system of justice by sneaking arbitration clauses into the fine print of everyday terms of service. Brent Kim is an LSA junior and was a communications intern for Public Citizen in summer 2016.
I
We can’t leave refugees behind
n light of the recent we get it wrong, then we risk ceasefire agreement turning our backs on refugees, brokered between and thus turning our backs Secretary of State John Kerry on deeply rooted American and his Russian counterpart values. Sergey Lavrov in Syria, I Experts argue that began thinking again about admitting Syrian refugees into an issue that is our country will not close to my heart: only maintain and the Syrian refugee restore American crisis. During my credibility abroad, internship with the but is also essential Truman National in advancing our own Security Project national security this summer, interests. Ryan I conducted a Crocker, former research project U.S. ambassador focusing on to Syria, Iraq and MELISSA U.S. policy Lebanon, stated STRAUSS that toward refugee “increased resettlement. Throughout resettlement and aid helps my research, I found myself protect the stability of a region alarmed by the global response that is home to U.S. allies.” to the largest humanitarian Additionally, a bipartisan crisis the world has faced since group of former U.S. national World War II and extremely security advisers, CIA worried for the United States’s directors and department future response following secretaries sent a letter this important presidential to Congress in December election. stating that “resettlement The Syrian refugee crisis initiatives help advance U.S. is something we hear about national security interests almost daily — and often by supporting the stability of through the lens of highly our allies and partners that political rhetoric. We’ve all are struggling to host large heard of Donald Trump’s call numbers of refugees.” If we to ban Muslims from entering don’t help ensure the stability our country, the fact that of our allies, we risk these 31 governors have sworn to states breaking down and stop admitting refugees into giving rise to more extremist their states and numerous and hostile groups. politicians claim the refugee Demagogues would have crisis is a window for ISIS you believe that terrorists and other extremist groups will easily slip across our to enter our country in borders posing as refugees, “Trojan horse” fashion. In a but these statements are nation built on the premise of highly debatable. In our freedom and security for all, nation’s long history of this growing trend of fear and refugee resettlement, a hate is alarming. While the refugee has never successfully U.S. election in November will committed a single terrorist clearly affect our own lives at attack against us. Since 9/11, home, it will also be incredibly only three refugees have important for the 4.8 million been convicted for terrorSyrians who have f led their related activities — and none homes in search of safety. of them had any viable plans The United States has a for an attack within the U.S. long history of admitting Unlike European countries, refugees from all over the where refugees often show world. Providing a safe haven up on their borders without for vulnerable populations is the luxury of screening first, in our DNA. Since World War the U.S. refugee screening II, the United States has been process constitutes possibly a global leader on refugee the most difficult manner of resettlement, providing homes entering the country. Refugees for 3 million refugees since must endure a lengthy 181975. This year, President to 24-month-long process, Barack Obama and Secretary involving the UNHCR and Kerry have pledged to admit at multiple U.S. government least 10,000 Syrian refugees in departments. Of the 4.8 million 2016, and 100,000 total world registered Syrian refugees, refugees by 2017. While these only about 18,000 have been are important and meaningful referred by the UNHCR to be steps in the right direction, the resettled in the U.S. election this fall has enormous Once refugees arrive implications for our future in the United States, they policies regarding refugees. If are connected with nine
voluntary resettlement agencies that help them settle into their new communities and become economically self-sufficient. A great new student organization, the Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, has partnered with Jewish Family Services to help resettle refugees in the Ann Arbor area. The group is dedicated to raising awareness about the current refugee crisis, particularly by adding a student voice to this crisis while also humanizing refugees. LSA senior Nicole Khamis says she decided to start MRAP this semester because it is a time when local refugee resettlement agencies need assistance the most and students often feel helpless in the face of this incredible crisis. “I have little patience for any arguments against settling refugees in the United States for numerous reasons, but mainly because they are based in xenophobic fears and also reproduce the rhetoric of Arabs/Muslims as terrorists and violent in nature,” Khamis says. Additionally, if Donald Trump is elected in November, Khamis believes refugees will no longer be able to seek protection in the United States. Refugee policy is not a partisan issue. It is a moral one. As the situation in the Middle East worsens, the United States has an obligation to provide assistance to this vulnerable population and to our allies on the frontlines. If xenophobic rhetoric continues to f lourish in American political discourse, we risk alienating our Muslim and Arab-American populations — possibly leading some vulnerable people to seek support and community in overseas terror organizations. Electing the right person in November will determine whether or not we hold true to American values or succumb to fear and bigotry. A 1939 poll showed that three out of five Americans opposed the resettlement of 10,000 Jewish refugees f leeing from Nazi Germany. Imagine the devastation and imagine our nation’s current cultural fabric had these voices prevailed during that time of crisis. We cannot allow these same voices to triumph today’s context. Melissa Strauss can be reached at melistrau@umich.edu.
Who is Trump’s team, really? to take their factual arguments and disseminate them. Sitting in the dark residential office ‘til the sun rises, pouring over endless pages, wrestling with arguments that could lead to death of American soldiers or lead to poverty for millions and deciding what is best for the American people — that is the president’s job. It’s why a president’s judgments and policy opinions matter and why simply listening to advisers is not enough to lead the free world. Now let’s bring attention to his advisers, and let’s start with Roger Ailes, the man preparing Trump for his debates. He spent his past two decades creating, leading and turning Fox News into the right-wing bastion that it is now. Why’d he leave his successful time at Fox? More than 20 people, ranging from hosts like Gretchen Carlson and stars like Meg yn Kelly to employees like booker Laurie Luhn, have all come forward and accused Ailes of sexual harassment. Ailes started advising Trump after these accusations. Take Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first (and now fired) campaign manager who has re-emerged as one of his closest confidants. Lewandowski was the force behind the “let Trump be Trump” movement and encouraged him to never
apologize and to attack the Gold Star Khan family. Trump initially defended Lewandowski after he faced charges for battery of a female reporter. That’s not where the story ends. There’s so much division in the campaign that following Lewandowski’s firing, adviser Michael Caputo tweeted out “Ding dong the witch is dead!” (for which Caputo resigned the same day) and former state director Jim Baker texted Lewandowski, mocking him. Still think Trump hires the best guys and can run the United States, even though his campaign looks like a disaster? Campaign chair Paul Manafort became the No. 1 guy following Lewandowski. We’ll skip his controversial comments and go straight to his deal with Russia. Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin puppet running for prime minister in Ukraine in 2005, hired Manafort to help repair his image after the Orange Revolution, a mass protest in Ukraine after it became known that Yanukovych had rigged the election. Then The New York Times revealed that hidden in a secret ledger in Ukraine was $12.7 million listed for Manafort. Experts are unclear as to whether he still advises in Ukraine. To recap: The man in charge of Trump’s campaign helped
a Russian puppet dictator after rigging a democratic election and was paid secretly upward of $12 million to do so. Manafort was finally fired after The Times’ story. Can we top that? Trump’s newest leader, campaign CEO Steve Bannon, is the former head of far-right (and I mean far-right) Breitbart News. Under Bannon, Breitbart News authored articles such as “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” to “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech, They Just Suck at Interviews.” Former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella said of Bannon: “He made more off-color comments about minorities and homosexuals than I can recount,” and that if you were on their Brietbart News’s conference calls, it sounded “like a white supremacist rally.” This is all to contrast with Clinton, who has had a stable inner-circle since 2015, led by young, Democratic superstar campaign manager Robby Mook, who is known for “an aversion to the spotlight and an interest in data.” She has a team filled with veterans, including her chief strategist and pollster, and one of Obama’s closest allies, Joel Benenson. One of the four corner offices in her headquarters belongs to Elan Kriegel, Clinton’s
“invisible guiding hand,” an analytic genius who has stayed completely out of the spotlight — his full name had not been tweeted since October 2015 when a Politico Magazine profile was published about him in early September. Republicans, as noted in the Politico piece, are terrified that Trump’s campaign team is so lacking of talent that the next generation of Republican campaign operatives is nonexistent. Clinton’s campaign is very far from perfect, but her advisers are of the highest caliber and she trusts them enough to keep them through difficult times. Her campaign is competent. And then there’s Trump — Lewandowski, Manafort and now Bannon at the helm. Firings left and right. Disaster and division within the ranks, from cheering a firing to calling for a literal firing squad. A head spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, whose penchant for lying and ignoring facts can stack up pound to pound with anyone on TV. A campaign in such constant disarray that the only people he truly listens to are his own children. His closest ally in the Senate, Jeff Sessions, is most famous for joking about the KKK. According to a testimony by Thomas Figures, an assistant U.S. attorney in Alabama at the time, “Sessions was heard by
several colleagues commenting that he ‘used to think they (the Klan) were OK’ until he found out some of them were ‘pot smokers.’ ” His team of economic advisers just happen to be some of his biggest donors. When asked about who he consults concerning foreign policy on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump said, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” What about his campaign screams this guy can govern? The Republican National Convention, completely controllable by Trump’s campaign, is a free, four-day, nationally covered commercial. How’d he do in running that great opportunity? It was arguably the worst convention in political history. For the first time ever, people were less likely to vote for the candidate following the convention. This is the worst campaign in American history. This was Trump’s test, and he failed. Politics isn’t business, and his talents clearly do not translate. He doesn’t have the skills or the people to competently operate in the political arena, and he would make a disastrous president of unknown proportions. CJ Mayer can be reached at mayercj@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 — 5A
FILM COLUMN
TV REVIEW
DISNEY
Save a horse, ride an Italian backstabber. IFC
Looks like some mansplaining is going on here.
Irreverent ‘Documentary Now!’ season premiere IFC’s sleeper hit from SNL alumni rings in second season with parody of 1993 documentary “The War Room” MEGAN MITCHELL
discussions on character flaws, the mocking nature that comes Helen Mirren appears on from “Documentary Now!” is screen first, ready to introduce subtler — often coming from a the 51st season of “Documentary quick wink or raised eyebrow Now!” as VHS documentary- from Hader and Armisen, or esque music jokes that blend plays on in the seamlessly into background, the environment almost as if the duo has Documentary Now! to prepare transformed into the audience their stage. Hader Season 2 Premiere for an actual and Armison’s IFC production. choice to distance Unlike short, themselves from Wednesdays at 10 comedic skits their alma mater is that go for the a step in the right punchline almost direction, as the immediately, “Documentary hard work that goes into their Now!” is invested in low-key jibes clearly pays off in recreating scene-for-scene the the long run. documentaries that they’re As November fast approaches concurrently choosing to roast and election season looms over any given week. And because America, the obvious choice for of that, this IFC gem has been the premiere of “Documentary taking the world of comedic Now!” was a parody of the 1993 television by storm. documentary “The War Room,” Attention to detail is the most which followed Bill Clinton’s closely associated comment for ’92 campaign for presidency Fred Armisen (“Portlandia”) through two of his top staffers, and Bill Hader’s (“Trainwreck”) James Carville and George mockumentary series as it Stephanopoulos. This gives faithfully reconstructs some of Hader the chance to revisit his the most famous documentaries uncanny Carville impression, of the past several decades. a popular “Weekend Update” However, on this note, the character during his years as series creates its own spin on an “SNL” regular. Meanwhile, the original documentaries Armisen takes on the role of a by adding in absurd situations young George Stephanopoulos that could only arise from the persona, Alvin Panagoulis, creative minds of “Saturday who flaunts his presence in the Night Live” alumni. Recurring campaign. jokes, reminiscent of “SNL,” In the parody titled “The almost make it easy to forget Bunker,” Hader plays up the that “Documentary Now!” is ruthless Southerner and a separate entity from NBC’s Carville-inspired Teddy long-standing comedy beehive. Redbones, who agressively However, while “SNL” aims pushes his candidate in a to produce quick laughs gubernatorial election though from their viewers through the use of false accusations the use of obvious props and and placing racially insensitive Daily Arts Writer
A-
jockeys on the front lawns of their opponent’s supporters. It’s obvious that he’ll do just about anything to get his candidate elected, including taking a bullet to the leg and placing the blame on the opponent. In this respect, Armisen’s Panagoulious plays the same part, which is hilariously executed by comments regarding his attractiveness. “I feel like I’m shy….” Armisen dreamily recalls with a hand gracing his cheek, no doubt a silent reference to a young Stephanopoulos. Both Redbones and Panagoulious are sharply juxtaposed by their candidate, Ben Herndon (Van Epperson, “The Green Mile”), who refuses to exploit the secrets of his opponent for his own selfish gain after a moment of prayer and selfreflection. In fact, Herndon furthers his attempts at being the unpopular candidate through a general indifference in the election itself, being more concerned about taking one’s shoes off on his carpet than the polling numbers. In the end, it’s Hader’s character that’s filled to the brim with emotional outbursts — from weeping at an election speech to his impassioned persona in the election headquarters. Although there’s a missed opportunity in the lack of commentary on this year’s electoral campaign, it’s probably for the best to keep the world of mockumentaries separate from the pressures of modern politics. If there’s any takeaway message coming from “The Bunker,” it’s that “Documentary Now!” is back, and it’s bolder than ever.
TV REVIEW
Film Column: Age 13, ripe for the screen MADELEINE GAUDIN
And perhaps I’m so hung up on adolescence because, in addition to it being such a formative age in my life, I know a lot of people that age. I’ve committed the past three summers of my life (and at least the next one) to working with kids that age. I’ve seen first hand what it looks and sounds and feels (and smells) like to be 13. And it looks a whole lot like what Sachs has created. And I think of all the 13-yearolds I know and I think of the representations of themselves they are being presented with — movies about romance and girl fights and bullying. The kind of movies I saw at 13 that made me wonder: why do I not look like that or feel like that or talk like that, why does my life not look like that? For example, “The Lizzie McGuire Movie” is supposed to take place after Lizzie’s middle school graduation. If anything is the opposite of the reality of middle school, it’s navigating a foreign city and seducing an older man in order to become an international pop star. That’s crazy. That’s not what 13 looks
like. (I acknowledge that “The Lizzie McGuire Movie” is a classic of American cinema and an all around great time, but come on.) In addition to Lizzie on the back of a Vespa, I want these kids to see these two boys, Jake and Tony, who, much like myself at that age, have not quite grown into their own bodies. The way they talk to each other and play with each other. The way they love each other in a way that only 13-year-olds can love each other. The realism that pumps through their every line and movement. I think it was the novelty of this realism that moved me so much. That’s why I found myself getting teary-eyed as Jake and Tony slung their outof-control arms around each other. It’s why I cried when they sat in the park and talked about the girls they liked, and when one of those girls ended up not liking Tony back, and also when Tony was sort of okay with that because he was, after all, only 13. The facts of the film were foreign to my life — I was never a boy living above a dress shop in Brooklyn and I was never his best friend — but watching it felt like watching a film adaptation of my own memories. “I feel like that kid was in my seventh grade English class,” my friend Jay commented on the stuttering poetry analyst. And he’s probably right. I knew that kid. And I’ve been that kid. That’s why 13 is an age so ripe for the screen. While the experiences are diverse, so much of the emotional makeup is universal. When I see that, I feel a nostalgic sort of empathy. When a 13-year-old sees that, they see themselves reflected. All of that combined is the rich emotional stew great movies are made of. So, why aren’t people making better movies about adolescence? I genuinely don’t know.
a scene will hit you with an emo- “Midsomer Murders”), her reticent tional gut punch and a new set of father (Bill Paterson, “The Killtears will begin flowing from your ing Fields”), her awful godmother eyeballs. (Olivia Colman, “Tyrannosaur”) Of course, this and her extremely isn’t to say that handsome hookup, “Fleabag” is tonwhom she simply ally inconsistent; in refers to as “Arsehole fact, all six episodes Guy” (Ben Aldridge, Fleabag immaculately bal“Toast”). ance poignant, And while the Season One thought-provoking comedic scope of All Episodes Now moments with “Fleabag” never Streaming darkly funny ones. seems to waver, Adapted from the there’s also a subtle Amazon Video award-winning melancholy under2013 play, “Flealying each major bag” is the story scene, especially of an unnamed during flashbacks woman (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, that pop up without warning. Even “Broadchurch”) and her daily in the quieter, more profound parts escapades as she deals with rocky of the show, like in one scene from romances, her troubled relation- episode four where Waller-Bridge’s ship with her family, her job at a character barely speaks, “Fleabag” dingy café and the death of her makes some compelling points best friend, all told through the about the harsh realities of loneliwoman’s perspective — her name ness, isolation and grief. The sadis never uttered on the show, but it’s der moments are hard to swallow, credited as Fleabag. but they don’t stagnate “Fleabag” At the center of it all is English ’s comic rhythm, nor do they bludactress Waller-Bridge, who is the geon the audience with their drashow’s creator, writer and titular matic undertones. star. Her performance on-screen “Fleabag” also stands out among and off drives the creative engine other television shows for its depicthat fuels the guffaw-inducing tion and treatment of sex. The one-liners and surprisingly hon- online premise of the show defines est exposition of “Fleabag,” which the main character as “sexushe does through gazing and talk- ally promiscuous,” which in most ing at the camera. She can’t help mediums is a generally stigmaherself, bluntly telling us about her tized characterization for a woman uptight sister Claire, (Sian Clifford, to have. However, in “Fleabag,”
Waller-Bridge’s titular protagonist is portrayed more as a sexual being than as a sexual object. Instead of resorting to the spectacle of gratuitous, graphic and nudity-heavy sex scenes — I’m looking at you, “Orange is the New Black” — the main character’s sexual forays are much more real and frank than you’d expect. Each of her sexual experiences with Arsehole Guy, ex-boyfriend Harry (Hugh Skinner, “Les Misérables”) and a buck-toothed bus passenger (Jamie Demetriou, “Rovers”) are awkward, bizarre and really uncomfortable, but they help ground the show. In terms of sex, “Fleabag” also highlights body image issues and other sexual insecurities with a sensitive and sharp eye. It’s a shame the first season of “Fleabag” is only a slim six episodes, but its brevity might also be its saving grace. The show is masterful in its succinctness, each episode getting straight to the point about who exactly this main character is, her quirks and faults and how they affect her romantic and familial relationships. It also features what is quite possibly the shortest, most minimalistic title sequence in TV history. But for all its great qualities, “Fleabag” ’s breaking of the fourth wall gives the show a distinctive edge, pulling us into Waller-Bridge’s imperfect and wholly entertaining world without ever feeling artificial or forced.
Daily Film Columnist
It’s not easy being 13. And that comes as a surprise to no one who has ever been that age. There is nothing as emotionally raw as being on the cusp of adulthood, fighting against the contrary instincts that tell you to simultaneously grow up and stay young. Few other years in my (admittedly short) life warrant such a strong reaction as 13. I can see myself so clearly at that age, wearing pink jeans, listening to Green Day and getting unwanted attention from eighth grade boys because I got boobs before everyone else. If the emotional content of time really is plastic, then I was 13 for a decade. The limbo between childhood and adulthood in my memory feels infinite. Thirteen holds my first kiss and my first period, my first boyfriend breakup and my first best friend breakup. Capturing all that is a lot to ask of a 90-minute movie. The range and intensity of emotions is unlike any other time in life. I’ve seen many movies that try to look like 13, and fewer that try to feel like 13. Almost none of them succeed in either quest. There is no other film in my memory that captures the inexplicable feeling of 13-ness as Ira Sach’s “Little Men.” No other film has been able to drive to the heart of youth with the same level of reverence and poignancy. The beauty of “Little Men” comes in its ability to recreate that age for an audience of people who are not 13, and does so respectfully. It would be, and is, so easy to mock adolescence — a age that is ripe with the sort of awkwardness and vulnerability that comedy thrives on. That’s not to say “Little Men” isn’t funny — it is — but its humor comes from its two young protagonists, not at them.
A
AMAZON
Tastes like breaking the fourth wall.
Devastating British tragicomedy ‘Fleabag’ is a delightful surprise Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote and stars in Amazon’s new comedy SAM ROSENBERG Daily Arts Writer
As a storytelling device in film and television, breaking the fourth wall can be very tricky. On the one hand, it becomes tiresome when it’s overused, shattering the illusion that what you’re watching isn’t real
life. Yet, having characters showcase their thoughts out loud can be an effective and even clever way to humanize them, such as in “Parks and Recreation,” “Malcolm in the Middle,” “The Office” and “House of Cards.” Fortunately for Amazon Video’s newest import “Fleabag,” the main character’s constant acknowledgment of the audience
is not only inviting, but also quite refreshing. Joining the ranks of other brilliant, nuanced Amazon comedies like “Catastrophe” and “Transparent,” “Fleabag” is a deeply layered character study that’s as hysterical as it is devastating. It’s the type of show where you’ll be crying from laughter and then, out of nowhere,
A scene in which a boy struggles to form a coherent answer to a question about poetry is especially moving. It’s so mundane, the way he trips over his words and how hard he tries to make sense of something (unrequited love) that he won’t understand for years — if ever. That grasping at adulthood that Sachs captures so gracefully is, for me, the key piece missing from other representations of this age.
I was never a boy living above a dress shop in Brooklyn.
Arts
6A — Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
BOOK REVIEW
‘The Wonder’ explores the virtues of sacrifice
Author of ‘Room’ returns with another compelling drama about a starving Irish girl with a resilient spirit SOPHIA KAUFMAN
over, but whilst meeting Anna, the child wins him over. He also begins to care about her Emma Donoghue’s well-being in spite of himself, bestseller “Room” captured angry that no one wants to the explosive desperation of admit what he can clearly a mother trying to get herself see — the girl is dying now, and her son out regardless if she of a room. Her was somehow The Wonder latest book, managing to Emma Donoghue “The Wonder,” get food before conveys the what people Little, Brown and urgency to get are calling “the Company into one. watch” started. 11-year-old Anna’s brother September 20 Anna O’Donnell has been dead has not had a for a while; bite of food or she is bent on a sip of anything other than getting her dead brother out water since her birthday, of purgatory and into Heaven, or so she and her family but it isn’t clear to anyone but claim. Lib Wright, a nurse Lib how far Anna will go to who served under Florence achieve this goal. There is a Nightingale in Crimea, has painful family secret involved been asked to watch the girl that breaks Lib’s heart; but around the clock. Not nurse when Lib discovers she’s not or diagnose her, but to see if the first person to learn about the girl is indeed a miracle in it, and that previous people the making. Lib is much more who knew have done nothing, inclined to believe she will her resolve is stiffened to discover subterfuge, not the break orders and help Anna, supernatural; she distrusts before it is too late. Anna’s parents, as well as the “The Wonder,” like “Room” Catholic nun who has also or “Slammerkin,” is impossible been asked to watch the girl. to put down. (I read it all in But the longer Lib stays with one sitting, crying for about Anna, increasingly bemused the last 30 pages). While the as to how the girl seems able novel is more simply crafted to survive without food, the than some of Donoghue’s more she wants to protect other work, her undecorated her — from her parents, from but elegant prose sears the those visiting their home in a image of a dying girl in a room tiny Irish village and leaving into your mind, Anna’s sweet gifts as if Anna really were raspy voice echos in your ear. a miracle in the f lesh, from The only aspect in the the town neighbors who are work that applies a little more suspicious too. Lib befriends pressure than it needs to is William Byrne, a journalist Lib’s struggle with navigating who has been charged with the differences between discovering the truth about watching Anna and nursing Anna as well. In his writing, her. It is abundantly clear that he utilizes sardonic wit in Lib, as a nurse, can’t help but place of information as Lib try to get Anna to a healthier won’t let him near Anna — at place. first. Eventually, he wins Lib Watching Lib lose her Daily Arts Writer
grasp on ideas she has held close to her heart for years, due to Anna’s extraordinary innocence, piety and self lessness would be sweet if it weren’t so raw. As Anna softens the blunt edges of Lib’s beliefs, Lib is forced to confront the capacity for cruelty in others.
Lib is forced to confront the capacity for cruelty in others.
CBS
Eyebrows fleeky
‘Spock’ doc is unexpected, pleasing Directed by subject’s son, the film explores Nimoy’s electric life Trek” to Leonard’s death in 2015. However, within this time frame, Daily Arts Writer the doc discusses Spock, Leonard and Adam in a seemingly random For 60 years, Mr. Spock has movement that feels fluid someremained a cultural icon, an alien times, while other times seems with an indescribable magnetism. abrupt. At one moment the film Behind the arched eyebrows, analyzes the role of Spock as a love Leonard Nimoy is interest with a equally influential magnetic attracas an actor and as an tion that subverts artistic Renaissance expectations of For the Love of man. With “For the manhood, and in Spock Love of Spock,” fans the next it sharply of “Star Trek,” Nimoy moves to discuss Michigan Theater or pop culture legahow Adam and his cies in general can sister dealt with Gravitas Ventures look to the screen for the celebrity of two hours of gratuthe Nimoy name. itous eyebrow raises Yet, the somewhat and perceptive analyses on the leg- jarring structure works, reading acies of these great men. God bless like a book with chapters rather that blunt-bang cut, that silky sto- than a continuous storyline. Adam icism and those delicately pointed does a spectacular job at making ears. each segment so wholly intriguing “For the Love of Spock” focuses that you forget to wonder how one on the creation, development and moves into the other. impact of the “Star Trek” characAdam’s creation is equal parts ter Spock, the life and impact of media texts and interviews, the latLeonard Nimoy himself and direc- ter composed of commentary from tor Adam Nimoy’s own tumultuous Leonard himself, his family memrelationship with his father. The bers and his costars. Retro clips film is an attempt to showcase the from the original “Star Trek” series multifaceted life of his father and as well as moments from the recent his monumental cultural legacy. cinematic remake, are sprinkled The documentary is structured throughout, supplemented by prochronologically, moving from the motional posters and fan art that beginning of Leonard’s career as together emphasizes the expansive an actor to the creation of “Star and enduring reach of Spock across SYDNEY COHEN
A
Donoghue has pinpointed and pulled apart a paradoxical issue in this novel; she’s offering us a story in which a woman’s professional opinion and knowledgeable position is questioned on the grounds of her maternal feelings. Just when her voice matters most, it is willfully tuned out by the men in power, who have decided Anna’s fate as if she has already become nothing more than a legend, a tourist attraction, a sinless, blameless, voiceless symbol. “The Wonder” may have a somewhat happy ending, but Donoghue refuses to let readers forget the weight that’s placed on a tiny girl’s shoulders, the power of the ghost of redemption, and the sobering necessity to speak truth of the dead for the sake of the living. The book is a reminder that hope itself isn’t golden, untouched by clouds; it is bittersweet; it is the acknowledgment of sacrifice for the potential of and the belief in something better.
popular culture. The interview testimony is especially interesting — “Star Trek” actors and directors act as experts in their field to provide analyses of Spock as a character while offering insight into the complex and influential life of Leonard. This technique also bridges the generational gap between those who watched the original series and new fans. Commentary from William Shatner (“Star Trek”) and George Takei (“Kubo and the Two Strings”) is intermingled with remarks from J.J. Abrams (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) and Simon Pegg (“Star Trek Beyond”). A balanced mix of media and interviews works to create an engaging, hilarious and insightful exploration of Spock and Nimoys. One of the most unexpected but nevertheless fascinating components of the film is its exposure of Leonard’s flaws. Through interviews with Leonard himself as well as his children, the film discusses Leonard’s relationship with alcohol as a coping mechanism that gradually turned abusive and put a strain on his family and career. The film also dives into the unexplored corners of Leonard’s personal life, specifically his role as a generally absent father figure. The film doesn’t shy away from the raw and the uncomfortable, but ultimately smooths the edges with a satisfyingly happy resolution.
‘Secret’ revels in detail and suspense PBS film focuses on British prime minister Winston Churchill’s health
Classifieds RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Pour love (on) 5 Sledding spot 10 Work the aisles, slangily 13 Very familiar with 14 Not spontaneous 15 Howe’er 16 “Good Guys Wear Black” star 18 Haul to the shop 19 Sailor’s pronoun 20 Full of energy 21 Stereotypical Geek Squad employee 22 Mass-mailing tool 24 Postperformance celebration 27 Went astray 29 Pupil’s cover 30 Drawn-out account 31 Not as demanding 35 USN clerk 36 Stroke with a wedge 39 Take steps 42 Defiant retort 43 __-Seltzer 47 Touchdown spot 49 Log-shaped pastry 51 Display for lecture illustrations 55 “Siddhartha” author 56 Charitable gift 57 Instagram upload 59 “__ matter of fact ... ” 60 Young __: tykes, in dialect 61 Sofa decor 64 Shear (off) 65 Residences 66 __ Romeo 67 Onetime rival of Delta 68 Having a key, in music 69 Go against DOWN 1 Title for Prince William’s wife 2 The “thee” in “Get thee to a nunnery” 3 Seeing the sights 4 Letter-bottom letters
5 Dispassionate 6 Cocoon contents 7 Ungentle giants 8 Shar-__: wrinkly dog 9 Paper staff, briefly 10 Downright 11 Skimpy nightgown 12 Folksy greeting 14 NBC skit show broadcast from 30 Rock 17 Prince William’s wife 21 Scottish isle denial 23 Finger-clicking sound 25 A little laughter 26 Prefix with technic 28 Unhook, say 32 “Crikey!” 33 Sailor’s pronoun 34 Doctrinal suffix 37 Desktop with an AppleCare option 38 “Canterbury” story 39 Guilty 40 “Operators are standing by!” 41 Bygone weightloss pills
44 French explorer who named Louisiana 45 Rude dismissal, in slang 46 Passage between buildings 48 AWOL seekers 50 Kenneth __, portrayer of Judge Lance Ito in “The People v. O.J. Simpson”
52 Baker’s protection 53 Valerie Harper sitcom 54 Item draped on a rack 58 Scout gps. 61 Skin pic 62 “True Detective” network 63 Stripling
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By Don Gagliardo and C.C. Burnikel ©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
Lady Churchill (Lindsay Duncan, “Birdman”) and pressure from government party officials, is executed poignantly by Gambon. Aside from Biographical stories, while com- Gambon’s stellar performance as pelling in nature, inherently lack an aging PM, still full of life and one of the specific qualities that love for his country and his mismakes film narratives attractive to sion as its leader, Duncan’s Clemenaudiences — suspense. Intrinsically, tine Churchill meets Gambon with stories true to reality automatically equal emotional prowess. possess a built-in character arc and Clementine fulfills her role WWW.CARLSONPROPERTIES.- narrative structure as dutiful wife to COM that makes renderChurchill, while 734‑332‑6000 ing them on screen also providing natural. Audiences the audience with Churchill’s Secret familiar with events insight into the and figures popumore sentimental Aired September 11 lar in history are wounds inflicted PBS already attuned to by her husband’s the trajectory of the career. Though the story and its ending, primary source of requiring that their the film’s conflict interest be captured in a different is Churchill’s stroke, it awakens a way. That’s where the details come host of unborn animosity within in: the nitty-gritty of telling a story, his family. Churchill must deal with a new perspective. old family strife, now instilled with “Churchill’s Secret,” which fresh life by the concentrated efforts aired Sunday night as part of PBS’s to rehabilitate him, while continu“Masterpiece” series, concerns ing to exert all his efforts into his itself with just that — every painful, career. Old wounds opened under tense moment following the stroke new circumstances are poignantly suffered by British prime minister portrayed by the film’s outstanding Winston Churchill in 1953. Based cast and conveyed through subtle on the novel “The Churchill Secret: cues in the movie’s execution. At KBO” by Jonathan Smith, the tele- one point, the tension erupts at a vision drama addresses a lesser- dinner scene between Clementine known event in the PM’s life, kept and her children, who unburden secret from the world — delving into themselves of years of emotional what made Churchill the leader and pain inflicted by their father’s man that he was. demanding career. And suddenly, From the moment Churchill Clementine is transformed from (Michael Gambon, the “Harry Pot- the loyal wife to an obsessive, overter” series) stutters mid-sentence ly solicitous shell of a mother whose while hosting a group of prominent devotion to her husband cost, her guests, including the Italian prime her relationships with her children. minister, it’s apparent that someThough a poignant and extremething’s not right. The look of panic ly taxing scene, the argument over on his face, cross-cut with his wife’s dinner feels like an ambitious culstrained composure, indicates the mination of processing years of tense scenes to follow. The stroke, complex emotions in one scene which incapacitated Churchill, — and an early emotional climax was kept secret in an effort to help at that. Just halfway through the the bedridden PM return to power film, the family’s discord is revealed HAPPY once recovered. His determina- almost all at once, with little closure WEDNESDAY! tion to make his last achievement following the scene. as PM “one of peace” before retirThe second half of the film focusing, against the evident wishes of es on Churchill’s recovery, facili-
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09/21/16
09/21/16
SHIR AVINADAV Daily Arts Writer
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tated by his nurse Millie Appleyard (Romola Garai, “The Last Days on Mars”). Though her strength in character in caring for Churchill as if he were any other patient shows throughout the movie, Millie’s own character arc is given sporadic acknowledgement. Through Clementine’s prodding, the movie reveals little spurts of information about Millie that don’t tell us much about her at all. It’s her dedication to Churchill’s recovery and composure in the face of the conflict surrounding her that makes her an appealing, albeit somewhat flat, character. Equally as static is the execution of the film. Though the camerawork and editing waste no time in telling the story, the film leaves little room for variation or discord that could have energized the otherwise somber piece. The seamless pans and cuts smoothly transition us from one scene to the next, mirroring the contained efficiency of Churchill’s recovery and the story itself. However, close-ups reveal Churchill’s struggle. After he is rushed to his country home to receive care, Churchill’s condition takes a turn for the worse. When they finally arrive at the estate and Churchill’s helped out of the car, the camera cuts to a close perspective of his foot dragging behind him up the stairs of his home. In this simple shot, the PM’s helplessness is underscored –– quickly and effectively conveying the significance of his illness. Moments like these draw the audience deeper into the story with subtlety and emotion. These minutiae, interspersed throughout a story full of earnest emotion, make this “Masterpiece” drama a truly compelling film. “Churchill’s Secret” provides us a window into the inner life of one of the most powerful and skilled leaders in our history without much redundant effort. The simplicity of the telling of the story, combined with the adept work of its actors, provides an intriguing look into a great man’s life.
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
T E A M
S T A T S MICH 53.0 23.0 197.7 4.9 9 254.3 65.9% 8.4 8 1 70.7 452.0 48.8% 75.0% 3.7 19.0 22.9 41.2 4-6 4/1 31.3 31:18
Points/Game First Downs/Game Rush Yards/Game Yards/Rush Rushing TDs Passing Yards/Game Completion % Yards/Pass Passing TDs Interceptions Offensive Plays/Game Total Offense 3rd-down Conversions 4th-down Conversions Sacks/Game Kick return average Punt return average Punting average Field Goals-Attempts Fumbles/Lost Penalty Yards/Game Time of Poss
OPP 15.0 15.3 140.0 3.6 2 156.0 45.6% 5.9 3 2 65.0 296.0 10.5% 37.5% 1.7 19.5 17.5 35.8 1-4 6/2 60.7 28:42
I N D I V I D U A L S PASSING Player Speight O’Korn Morris TOTALS
Cmp 51 5 4 60
Att 80 7 4 91
Yds 686 32 45 763
TD 8 0 0 8
INT 1 0 0 1
Att 21 27 22 13 5 5 2 2 7 1 1 3 1 1 1 1 8 121
Yds Avg 157 7.5 152 5.6 76 3.5 64 4.9 55 11.0 36 7.2 24 12.0 17 8.5 15 2.1 14 14.0 11 11.0 7 2.3 2 2.0 1 1.0 -1 -1.0 -11 -11.0 -26 -3.2 593 4.9
Lg 43 42 12 19 19 17 17 10 4 14 11 3 2 1 0 0 3 43
TD 2 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9
No. 10 15 7 2 5 1 1 3 1 1 3 1 2 2 2 4 60
Yds 204 192 127 66 32 22 21 20 18 15 13 12 10 6 5 0 763
Avg 20.4 12.8 18.1 33.0 6.4 22.0 21.0 6.7 18.0 15.0 4.3 12.0 5.0 3.0 2.5 0.0 12.7
Lg 45 25 35 54 9 22 21 8 18 15 8 12 5 4 3 8 54
TD 4 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8
No. 8 1 0 9
Yds 173 27 6 206
Avg. Long 21.6 54 27.0 0 -6 22.9 54
RUSHING Player C. Evans Smith, D. Isaac Higdon McDoom Chesson Peppers Davis Hill Morris Crawford O’Korn Hirsch Beneducci Hewlett Allen Speight TOTALS RECEIVING Player Darboh Butt Chesson Perry Hill Ways Isaac McDoom Crawford Hirsch Poggi Jocz McKeon Bunting Evans Smith, D. TOTALS
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 — 7A
Harbaugh keeps opponents guessing JAKE LOURIM
Managing Sports Editor
It’s clear by now that Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is always looking for even the slightest edge on his opponent. As early as his first spring practice at Michigan, he talked about trying to get one mile per hour faster, one percent better. That competitive drive spreads to his game plans, where the one thing opponents can expect is the unexpected. The Wolverines picked redshirt sophomore Wilton Speight to start at quarterback in Week 1 and stuck with him for the first two games until the outcome was well in hand. Then, on the third play from scrimmage Saturday against Colorado, Harbaugh inserted third-string quarterback Shane Morris for a single play, with redshirt sophomore linebacker Jabrill Peppers at running back — and used Morris as the lead blocker on Peppers’ 7-yard carry. Why? The short answer is because he could, just to throw off the Buffaloes’ strategy. “I think people expected us maybe that we might rotate quarterbacks in the first game, but we didn’t, or the second game, so (I) didn’t think they’d be expecting it as much the third game,” Harbaugh said. “There’s some things that Shane does well, some things that (backup) John O’Korn does well. We wanted to highlight them and give them a chance to do some of those things.” A few moments later in the first quarter, Harbaugh reached up his sleeve again. On Michigan’s third series of the game, the Wolverines already trailed Colorado, 14-0, and faced second-and-10 on the Buffaloes’ 48-yard line. Perhaps because Speight was still feeling
a hit from the previous drive, Harbaugh put in O’Korn at quarterback for one play. O’Korn handed off to fullback Khalid Hill and then jogged off the field. Even after playing 17 ball carriers and 16 pass catchers this season, Michigan’s coach still has more in his bag of tricks. “We always have those options going forward, and it’s good for your opponent to know that you have those options going forward,” Harbaugh said. “(I) like them to think that all things are possible.” Michigan’s next opponent — Penn State, which visits Michigan Stadium on Saturday — must now account for all of them in its game-week preparation. Harbaugh often tries to throw curveballs leading up to games. In each of his two years at Michigan, he did not announce a starting quarterback until the first snap of the season opener, and he said he expected his opponent to do the same. This year, he has not yet released a depth chart before any of the four games. And then game day comes, and he always seems to have an extra wrinkle — like, for instance, using a third-string quarterback as a lead blocker. “I’ve never seen a team switch three quarterbacks in during a game,” said redshirt junior defensive tackle Maurice Hurst. “That’s different. I’ve seen two quarterback systems — I’ve never seen three, and especially one lead blocking for one of our plays. “But it’s interesting. I like his methods. I like what he does. It’s really cool to watch to see how our offense executes at times. It’s really unique, and I don’t think a lot of people are doing it like we are.” Most of Harbaugh’s alterations
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh likes his opponents to think “all things are possible” when they play Michigan.
require corresponding adjustments. If he changes running backs, the opponent must prepare for different plays. If he changes formations — which he does on almost every play — the opponent must put in new personnel. If he changes defenses, the opponent must block differently or run plays differently. “It’s hard to prepare against because there’s such a wide variety of things, so you have to predict each week what’s going to happen almost, like, ‘All right, they did this, but I could easily see them doing this this week versus us,’” Hurst said. “And there’s stuff that we obviously haven’t shown yet, and stuff that the offense hasn’t shown yet, so it’s just confusing for a team. It’s something they have to prepare for every week.” On offense, the Wolverines can play any one of four running
backs, five wide receivers, three tight ends and two fullbacks. On defense, Harbaugh has chosen a defensive coordinator whose tendencies seem to match his own — the players say that Don Brown, nicknamed “Dr. Blitz,” can deploy a new blitz seemingly every third down. In the coming weeks, Michigan could roll out even more tricks. Peppers, who can play almost anywhere on the field, still has not played significant offensive snaps (which he did not do until the Michigan State game in Week 7 last season). Senior cornerback Jourdan Lewis could return as soon as this week and be another two-way player. And Harbaugh could have any number of other gimmicks in mind to fluster opponents. “We’ll probably install 15 or 20 different new plays a week or have some different twists to
plays that we already run,” said senior tight end Jake Butt. “But that’s all just to make sure that we will succeed on Saturdays.” This week, Harbaugh matches up against an opponent that will have the same goal of keeping its opponent off balance. The Nittany Lions have unveiled a no-huddle spread offense this season to try to jumpstart their productivity, one Michigan hasn’t seen before. And while Harbaugh acknowledged the difficulty of stopping such an attack, he hinted that he might have some changes in place as well. “Those are real options for us, to change things up,” Harbaugh said. “You like to do that. You don’t like to just go out and show the same alignment and assignments and techniques game after game after game. You can count on changes, adjustments being made.”
PUNT RETURNS Player Peppers Jocz Perry TOTALS
TD 1 0 1 2
JACOB GASE
INTERCEPTIONS Player Stribling Hill, D. TOTALS
Daily Sports Editor No. 1 1 2
Yds Avg. Long 51 51.0 51 27 27.0 27 78 39.0 51
TD 1 1 2
Yds Avg. Long 81 40.5 55 28 14.0 15 5 2.5 5 114 19.0 55
TD 0 0 0 0
KICKOFF RETURNS Player Peppers Henderson Hill, K. TOTALS
No. 2 2 2 6
KICKOFFS Player Allen Foug TOTALS
No. 21 7 20
Yds 1354 403 1243
Avg. 64.5 57.6 62.2
TB 12 2 10
No. 10 10
Yds 412 412
Avg. 41.2 41.2
Lg 55 55
PUNTING Player Allen TOTALS FIELD GOALS Player Allen
FG Pct. 1-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50+ Lg 4-6 66.7% 0-0 1-1 3-4 0-1 0-0 39
DEFENSE Player Peppers Gedeon McCray Thomas Winovich Gary Hill, D. Glasgow, R. Wormley Godin Clark Stribling Kinnel Bush Hurst Watson Wroblewski Glasgow, J. Marshall, L. Uche Dwumfour Jones Allen Charlton Hudson Pearson McDoom Crawford Smith, D. Miller Hill, L. TOTALS
Chesson not satisfied with performance
Solo Ast Tot 19 9 28 8 17 25 10 9 19 8 8 16 4 11 15 5 8 13 6 5 11 11 11 4 5 9 3 6 9 6 3 9 3 5 8 4 3 7 2 3 5 2 3 5 2 3 5 3 3 3 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 100 122 222
TFL 9.5 4.0 4.5 3.0 3.5 2.0 1.0 1.5 1.0 1.0 1.0 32.0
SK PBU 2.5 2.0 2.5 3 1 1.5 1.0 1 0.5 1.0 2 1 1.0 1 11.0 9
2016 SCHEDULE
After lighting up Central Florida for a combined 195 receiving yards and two touchdowns in their second game of the season, Michigan fifth-year senior wide receivers Amara Darboh and Jehu Chesson looked right on their way to becoming the best passcatching duo in the Big Ten. But it was a different story Saturday against Colorado. Chesson finished the game with no catches, and Darboh had just two. Each managed to score touchdowns using their feet — Chesson turning on the jets for a 17-yard end-around and Darboh riding some great blocks to turn a dump-off pass into a 45-yard score — but both struggled to find success downfield against the Buffaloes’ talented cornerbacks. “Offensively, they tested us,” Chesson said. “They blitzed us really good. Also in the secondary, they tested us. But we didn’t respond as well as I’d like us to respond, and I think I can speak for the other leader of the receivers, Darboh.” Colorado cornerback Chidobe Awuzie was a known threat coming in, but the added bonus of strong play from fellow defensive back Ahkello Witherspoon helped the Buffaloes shut down the Wolverines’ downfield attack for most of the game. Darboh’s touchdown and sophomore wide receiver Grant Perry’s 54-yard reception in the third quarter were the two longest passes of the day for Michigan, and both receivers did the bulk of their work after the catch. Luckily for Michigan, redshirt sophomore quarterback Wilton Speight had a reliable safety net: senior All-American tight end
9/3
9/10
9/17
9/24
HAWAII (1-3)
UCF (1-2)
COLORADO (2-1)
PENN ST. (2-1)
W, 63-3 (1-0) W, 51-14 (2-0) W, 45-28 (3-0)
3:30, Michigan Stadium, ABC
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Fifth-year senior receiver Jehu Chesson had zero catches against Colorado, the first time since he was shutout against Ohio State in Nov. 2014.
Jake Butt. After taking a number of hits early on, including a strip sack that led to a defensive touchdown for the Buffaloes, a rattled Speight was finally able to recover in the second quarter by targeting Butt on short passes that ultimately set up two touchdown drives. Butt later downplayed his role in the momentum swing, saying that the offense was simply taking the opportunities the opposing defense gave it. “That’s just kind of the way the shots were called on Saturday,” Butt said. “I don’t look at it like we were trying to get me the ball to spark the team — we were just calling
10/1
10/8
WISCONSIN (3-0) at RUTGERS (2-1) 3:30, Michigan Stadium
7 or 8 p.m., Piscataway, N.J.
the plays and I guess I would just pop open and Wilton just kind of found me underneath. … It’s always good when you can help your quarterback get into rhythm a little bit, especially when he’s getting hit or guys aren’t getting open as much as they would have liked.” The Wolverines have the luxury of multiple weapons on offense if players are having an off day, and Speight has said previously that he would trust any one of his three favorite targets in a one-on-one matchup, no matter who is playing in the secondary. Chesson knows he still has that trust, but neither he nor Darboh were satisfied with their personal performances
10/22 ILLINOIS (1-2) 3:30 p.m., Michigan Stadium
10/29
Saturday. It wasn’t so much an issue of Michigan’s receivers being unable to create separation, he said, but rather not doing their part to make plays in single coverage. “See ball, get ball,” Chesson said. “It’s frustrating for (Speight), I know, when he trusts us to make a play and we don’t make a play. It’s also frustrating for us, but whenever we get the opportunity when it’s a one-on-one or whatever it is, when the ball’s up in the air, that’s the mentality you have to have.” The Wolverines’ concern at the receiver position can’t be very high — Darboh and
11/5
at MICH. ST. (2-0) MARYLAND (3-0) East Lansing, Mich.
Michigan Stadium
Chesson were the third-best receiving in the Big Ten last year in terms of yardage, and that was with Chesson not really taking off until the second half of the season. Still, Michigan will need all of its receivers — not just Butt — to be firing on all cylinders against tougher opponents down the road, and that fact isn’t lost on Chesson. In fact, he’s glad there’s still room for the offense to develop. “You don’t want to say this is the best it can be, right?” he said. “Because if it is, you have lots of games to go. ... It’s growing, it’s gonna continue to grow, and we have no option but to get better.”
11/12
11/19
11/26
at IOWA (2-1)
INDIANA (2-0)
at OHIO ST. (3-0)
8 p.m., Iowa City, Iowa
Michigan Stadium
Columbus, Ohio
8A — Wednesday, September, 21, 2016
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wolverines find bearings too late MATTHEW KENNEDY
Elmore returns golden PAIGE VOEFFRAY
Daily Sports Writer
Last season, the Michigan women’s golf team far exceeded expectations. The Wolverines finished 18th at the NCAA Championships despite barely being ranked in the top 50. And with four of five golfers returning from last season, this year’s Wolverines seemed poised to have another good season. But Sunday, Michigan faced the reality that this year isn’t last season. Competing at the East & West Challenge at Radrick Farms Golf Course — one of the two courses owned by the University — the Wolverines got off to a slow start, finishing fifth out of eight teams on Day 1. Michigan shot a first-day total of 598, 15 strokes behind fourth-place Oregon. The three-day tournament was structured so that the first day consisted of 36 holes of team-stroke play, with the top four teams and the bottom four teams competing in a matchplay winners and consolation bracket, respectively. By placing fifth, the Wolverines went to the consolation bracket to face off against eighth-place UC Davis. Michigan’s struggles only continued Monday, as the team fell to UC Davis, 3-2, in the consolation bracket semifinal. Junior Megan Kim, senior Grace Choi and sophomore Elodie Van Dievoet — all veterans from last year’s NCAA tournament — faltered in their matches. “We had a couple of rough stretches on the 36-hole day, which kept us out of the championship bracket,” said Michigan coach Jan Dowling. “And we hit a UC Davis team that putted really well and got us thinking about needing to improve our putting.” Even though the Wolverines couldn’t find their sense of direction Day 1 and Day 2, there
ROWING
Daily Sports Writer
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
The Michigan women’s golf team finished seventh out of eight teams at the East & West Challenge this week.
was still another day to get on course against Big Ten foe Nebraska. And as if Michigan were using the sextant for the first time after sailing blind, get on course is what they did. All of the Wolverines finally put a complete round together, beating the Cornhuskers, 5-0, to secure seventh place in the tournament. Choi and Kim won their matches 1-up, while juniors Kathy Lim and Emily White — the only Wolverines to win their matches against UC Davis — won commandingly, 4-and-3 and 3-and-2, respectively. “We played really well today; we finished the tournament on a high note,” Dowling said about Tuesday’s match. “We certainly have some work to do
and exposed some weaknesses, but we’re ready to work.” A bright spot for Michigan, though, was freshman Alisa Snyder, who was competing in her first collegiate tournament. Snyder took part in the individual competition comprising of players that are not part of each team’s fiveperson lineup. Snyder shot 157 on Day 1 to qualify as the No. 3 individual golfer. In Monday’s semifinal, Snyder defeated No. 2 seed Kate Granahan from Penn State, before falling to the No. 1 seed from Kentucky in the Individual Match Play championship. “She’s gaining some confidence and some experience as a collegiate
golfer, and it’s a big step from junior golf to collegiate golf,” Dowling said. “I’m thankful she got the experience and got a tournament under her belt.” Dowling also said she realizes one of the difficult parts of a new season is keeping up the momentum from the last one. Since the golf season is made up of both a fall and spring season, the fall season can be used to identify weaknesses and develop the players. “I don’t think there is a team in any sport that plays their best every single week,” Dowling said. “It’s a great motivation how you react to it. I wouldn’t say we’re thrilled with our finish, but at the same time we have to learn what didn’t go well and get better.”
Amanda Elmore isn’t exactly sure what her future holds. She’s just excited to finally be back in the lab. But this time around, she has a gold medal to her name. Elmore, a Michigan graduate student, was selected to represent Team USA at the Rio Olympics for the women’s eight rowing team. After years of training, for which she put her education on hold, Elmore came home with the gold. Elmore’s doctoral thesis adviser, Patrick Schloss, threw a party to welcome her home and allow her research team to celebrate her Olympic journey. Elmore wasn’t shy about sharing her medal with her peers, allowing anyone the opportunity to hold or get a picture with her hardware. “It was an amazing experience competing at the Olympics for Team USA,” Elmore said. “I’ve been working with the national team training center for over two years now, and to get to be apart of the women’s eight — (which) hasn’t lost a race in 11 years now — was the most amazing experience of my life.” Elmore wasn’t always a rower, though. She started rowing during her sophomore year at Purdue. She walked on to the team and quickly learned that she could have a future in the sport. Some of her many accolades include Purdue’s Most Valuable Oarswoman in 2012 and 2013 and ACRA First Boat All-American honors in 2011, 2012 and 2013. After graduating from Purdue, Elmore arrived at Michigan to join the graduate program in biomedical sciences in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. With a season of eligibility left, she looked to see if she could compete as a Wolverine. As it turned out, she could. During her time rowing for Michigan, she helped the team to a second-place finish at the Big Ten Championships and earned All-
Big Ten First Team recognition. “I remember asking her, ‘So are you good?’” Schloss said. “She said, ‘Well, I’m OK,’ and here she is now years later and she’s the best in the world. So, is she good? Come on.” Once her college rowing days were over, Elmore thought it was finally time for her to focus solely on her graduate studies. That was until she received a phone call from the national team coordinator asking her to come train at the national team training center. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit disappointed because she’s an amazing student and person, and we wanted her a part of our research group,” Schloss said. “But, how could I say no? That’s my job, I think, to help my students do well in life, whether it’s in science or on a boat.” Elmore decided it wasn’t an opportunity she could pass up. She moved to Princeton, N.J., where the national team training center is located, and set her sights on the Olympics. But, she didn’t abandon her studies completely. She kept in touch with her lab through Skype phone calls and e-mails and did work on her laptop anytime she could — all while competing against 30 other women for the nine spots in the boat that would compete in Rio. Now that the Olympics are over, Elmore has to make the transition from athlete back to scientist. Though, she doesn’t think it will be a tough one. “My education has always been my priority,” Elmore said. “Growing up, I always did sports, but I always put my academics first and then that was a side hobby to keep me fit and competing and having fun.” That balance was never more difficult than when she was training for the Olympics while working toward a Ph.D. But Elmore seemed to manage just fine.
Evenson making another splash Wolverines third MEN’S GOLF
NATHANIEL CLARK Daily sports writer
Before she joined USA Triathlon, Avery Evenson had ridden a road bike maybe twice in her life. But that didn’t stop her from making a huge splash at her debut race. On June 29, 2013, just five months after she joined USA Triathlon, she competed in the Vila Velha PATCO Triathlon Pan American Championships. Evenson notched sixth place and completed the grueling course in 1:06:38, only one minute behind the winner — her teammate Tamara Gorman. “It was definitely a huge adjustment just learning how to clip in. Learning how to go on an hour ride and not tip over at a stoplight,” Evenson said. Now, Evenson is a junior on the No. 10 women’s cross-country team, and despite suffering an injury last spring that kept her from running until mid-July this year, Evenson has made a similar early impact at Michigan. *** Much has been written about Wolverine senior Erin Finn, and justifiably so. A three-time AllAmerican runner, Finn has looked better than ever this season, rocketing her way to victories at both of the Wolverines’ 5,000meter races, finishing 45 seconds ahead of the runner-up each time. Evenson’s statement at Michigan’s first two meets, though, shows that she may share some of the spotlight with Finn. Just like at her first triathlon, Evenson made a huge splash for the Wolverines at the Michigan Open on Sept. 2 and the Sycamore Invitational on Sept. 10, finishing third at both. Evenson posted times of 17:43.6 and 18:01.0, respectively. “Even though she’s a newcomer, she seems like one of the veterans,” said Michigan coach Mike McGuire. “She’s very businesslike, very mature with a businesslike approach to what she’s doing. It’s been a
really seamless transition in my opinion.” Making an immediate impact has been a staple for Evenson since she was at Hartland High School. In her first ever high school meet on Aug. 25, 2009, Evenson won the 5,000-meter race with a time of 19:15.04. She finished 1:37.08 ahead of her nearest competition, teammate Anna Pasternak, who was two years older than Evenson and had finished 62nd out of 242 runners at the Michigan Division I State Championships the year before. “I honestly just love to race,” Evenson said. “I don’t think about it. I just show up on the line and and give it all I have. I think that feeling after my first race back in high school was just like, ‘Wow! I didn’t know that was going to happen!’ I just toed the line. I’m just a racer I guess.” Evenson then proved that her breakout performance was no flash in the pan. She ran to a runner-up finish at the 2009 State Championships in 18:10.3, leading the Eagles to 15th place out of 28 teams. She placed 11th in her sophomore year with a time of 18:01.7 and 5th in her junior year at 17:57.2. Still, her best time in high school was 17:40.6 — a school record — against Brighton on Oct. 28, 2011. At the same time, she excelled at long-distance track running, breaking (and still holding) Hartland’s records in every race greater than 800 meters except for the 2,400-meter race. But during her senior year, Evenson made the decision to train with USA Triathlon, as she had been on the swim team at Hartland and was skilled at cycling. She graduated high school one semester early and would forego her last year of eligibility in cross country and track for the Eagles. *** After her spectacular 2013 triathlon debut, Evenson never slowed down. She finished fifth at the 2014 Junior World Triathlon
after strong finish
Michigan comes back from rough first day with record-setting final round. MIKE PERSAK
Daily Sports Writer
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Avery Evenson has made an early impact for the Wolverines.
Championship and took fourth place at the 2015 Under-23 World Triathlon Championship. Evenson’s success had her preparing for triathlon tryouts for the 2016 Summer Olympics. “I think I really grew in those three years as a triathlete,” Evenson said. “I learned how to be successful when you’re not training. So recovering right, eating right, doing all of the little things that I can control.” Unfortunately for Evenson, her injury prevented her from competing in the tryouts as well as competing for the Big TenChampion Michigan women’s track team in 2016, but she still has her eyes set on 2020. “After I’m all done with my eligibility, I plan to go back to training for triathlon,” Evenson said. “It’s one of the reasons I went to NCAA running. I knew that my run needed work if I ever wanted to be on an Olympic team, if I ever wanted to stand on a podium at the Olympics. My run needed to
be faster.” *** Evenson’s injury last spring only hardened her desire to be a part of a Big Ten title team, whether in cross country, track or both. “It’s honestly the most motivating thing ever,” Evenson said. “We want that feeling again. Coach says it’s all about the process. We’re ranked pretty high up, but he’s like, ‘We have to earn it every day.’ ” And for Evenson, her triathlon experience might prove to be a unique asset in achieving that goal. “It makes a cross country race look like a sprint,” McGuire said. “She’s so aerobically strong and fit from everything that she’s done in the pool, on the bike over the years. I think if we continue to keep her healthy, I think she’s just starting to scratch the surface.”
When the first day of the Inverness Intercollegiate wrapped up for the Michigan men’s golf team, the Wolverines weren’t where they wanted to be. After shooting a team score of 592, Michigan found itself in ninth place out of 13 teams. But Tuesday, the second and final day of the tournament, the Wolverines changed that. Shooting a school and tournament record of 270, Michigan catapulted itself up the leaderboard to a third-place finish. “I told them (Monday) night that attitude is one of the few things that we’re able to control on the golf course,” said Michigan coach Chris Whitten. “The execution and the bounce of the ball is something where you hope for the best and want the best, but it’s out of your control sometimes. So we just had to have an A+ attitude and hope that it would bleed into the scores, and it did (Tuesday).” The Wolverines were led by sophomore Nick Carlson. The righty, who finished fourth place in the U.S. Amateur Championship in August, carried his summer momentum to a firstplace tie with a score of 209. Carlson didn’t stop there, though. On the first hole of the playoff to decide the tournament’s overall winner, Carlson hit his approach shot to about 15 feet and two-putted for a par. His opponent, Jake Shuman from Duke, missed the green to the right and couldn’t recover,
finishing with a bogey. The victory was the first of Carlson’s career. “I think he’s hitting the same shots that he always has,” Whitten said. “The difference is that he believes he can win, and he’s expecting to play well. I think a lot of people know that golf is mostly a mental game, and I think (Carlson) is starting to figure that piece out. He’s got a lot of confidence.” Carlson wasn’t the only Wolverine who improved on Tuesday. Senior Tom Swanson tied Carlson’s final round with a 67, while junior Kyle Mueller and senior Bryce Evon each shot 68 to fuel the team’s comeback. The tournament was the first in a long season for Michigan, which enters the year with a mostly returning cast. But in the 2016-17 season, the Wolverines expect even more. Michigan will now face a quick turnaround, when it travels to Windon, Ill., for the Windon Memorial Classic on Sunday. But if Carlson and the rest of the team can maintain thir momentum, they stand a good chance of living up to their lofty expectations. “We’ve gone to (the NCAA Regionals) the past two years,” Whitten said. “I know that the Big Ten Tournament is a really important one for (the team) — and going back to the regionals and then going to the national championship, which our team hasn’t done in a couple of years. But that’s a very realistic expectation, and we’ll work toward that.”
“The difference is that he believes he can win.”
statement T H E M I CH I G A N DA I LY | S E P T E M B E R 2 1 , 20 1 6
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Wednesday, September 21, 2016 / The Statement
t h e s t at e m e n t
the tangent
Magazine Editor: Karl Williams
Editor in Chief: Shoham Geva
Deputy Editors: Nabeel Chollampat Lara Moehlman
Managing Editor: Laura Schinagle
Design Editor: Shane Achenbach Photo Editor: Zoey Holmstrom
THOUGHT BUBBLE: CHALLENGES
Copy Editors: Emily Campbell Alexis Nowicki Taylor Grandinetti
Creative Director: Emilie Farrugia
Copy That: My Stylebook BY MARISA FREY
A
t The Michigan Daily copy desk, we contour articles before they’re presented to the public — or, rather, the Daily Stylebook does. We comb through each article, checking for everything as obvious as getting the facts right and as seemingly insignificant as the use of a semi-colon, pausing repeatedly to consult the Stylebook. The final product stands alone, though stripped of Oxford commas and laced with abbreviated titles, and almost always at least slightly different from how it came in. Between the reliance on the style guide and the precision of the end product, I’ve realized copyediting an article isn’t so different from copyediting yourself. Think before you speak, check yourself before you wreck yourself — however you want to say it, everyone has a method for filtering their actions and words. We work hard to create and maintain an image for ourselves, constantly building from and referring back to our own personal style guides. What makes up a style guide, though? Clearly, not everyone follows the same one. And it’s not possible for everyone to follow the same one, since different backgrounds and opportunities determine what different people have been exposed to. But we build onto these when we start to choose our own experiences and communities,
and we adjust the way we filter. One of my chosen communities was the Residential College. My first semester there, I had a nagging worry that the things I was doing and saying weren’t quirky or progressive or eco-conscious enough. These traits, which the people around me seemed to have in abundance, worked themselves into an RC Style Guide, which I worked into my own. I started tailoring specific actions to it, and they’ve become ingrained in me the same way rules regarding when a certain hyphen is appropriate or when to write out numbers have become ingrained in me at the copy desk — I don’t look it up, I just fix it. Individuality, forward thinking and creativity are all characteristics I found in the RC that I valued highly before college. By purposefully putting myself in a setting where those traits became part of my filter, I’ve been able to strengthen them. In turn, being aware of the way they’ve affected me has allowed me to challenge and deviate from certain ones. Likewise, the Daily uses the AP Style Guide as a base, and though we revere it, it’s been necessary to make certain changes and additions to fit our own Stylebook. We have different guides, specific to the University of Michigan setting, playing into the equation. The importance of realizing the
guidelines we choose for ourselves is not a new idea, and neither is the importance of finding ourselves within them. But they’re both ideas I tend to forget. When I think about why I present and filter myself the way I do, I remember to make adjustments, to pick and choose for my own style guide instead of completely adapting to another. So think about it. What makes up your Stylebook?
EMILIE FARRUGIA/DAILY
“I’d say the biggest challenge this year will be managing all of the different things I need to do before I graduate, like making an awesome thesis, getting a job for post-grad (a girl can wish), earning decent grades, the list goes on. All this while still having fun in final year of college!” – Art & Design Senior Jacqui Frey
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 / The Statement
3B
on the record: emmy awards 2016 “I would not be unhappy if I were the last cisgender male to play a female transgender on television.”
“Asian parents out there, if you could just do me a favor: if just a couple of you can get your kids cameras instead of violins, we’ll be all good.”
“I, along with the rest of the world, had been superficial in my judgment, and I’m glad that I’m able to stand here and say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
— JEFFREY TAMBOR, who won the Emmy for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for “Transparent.”
—ALAN YANG, who won the Emmy for Writing for a Comedy Series for the “Parents” episode of “Master of None.”
—SARAH PAULSON, who won the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Limited Series for portraying Marcia Clark on “The People vs. O.J. Simpson.”
“I feel so lucky to be on a show that puts women in the center.”
“I haven’t alaways been a great man, but I make an amazing woman.”
—TATIANA MASLANY, who won the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Drama Series for “Orphan Black.”
—Louie Anderson, who won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his portrayal of a mother in “Baskets.”
“I would like to dedicate this to my father, who passed away on Friday. And I’m so glad that he liked “Veep,” because his opinion was the one that really mattered.” — Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who won the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for “Veep.”
Life is a Mixtape: Some Girls Like Rock BY MELINA GLUSAC
S
ometimes I call myself a “sonic youth.” It’s become a bit of a pet name this first month of school — a pep name, if you will — that reminds me I am still a crisp young gun, traipsing the sunny streets of Ann Arbor with as much musicality as possible. But also, I’ve been into Sonic Youth lately. Teenage Riot – Sonic Youth “Yeah, you’re it,” Kim Gordon begins the song whispering, in that weird I’mKermit-the-Frog-but-also-your-fantasy tone of voice — hers, and only hers. And somehow, I can’t help but believe her; I could be walking down the street, feeling the farthest thing from “it,” yet she always reassures me that I am. A sonic youth, full of vitae and a healthy balance of useful and useless knowledge, I am. Gordon doesn’t know any of this, of course, but if she did I’d like to think she’d approve and start a teenage riot with me. Bulls on Parade – Rage Against The Machine At my core, in the teeny tiny crevice of my heart noir, I’ve always been in love with rock music. Ever since I learned to listen, I’ve had this insatiable craving for it, two ears that perk up like an eager German Shepard’s at the slightest strum of a Fender. Many humans, like Gordon, don’t know this about me — I have a generally perky demeanor, so when I glow up at the mention of Rage Against the Machine in public, forced smiles of latent confusion
tend to manifest. What Ever Happened? – The Strokes But I listen on, as I always have. In psychology, there’s this thing called a flashbulb memory: a moment from the storage bin of your life you remember in sharp detail — the smells, the sounds, what you did, what you said. The only flashbulb memory I can summon involves tiny Melina nuzzled on her black leather living room couch circa 2006, watching “Marie Antoinette” for the first time and hearing The Strokes’ “What Ever Happened?” play during a pivotal scene. I felt instantly more alive when Julian Casablancas wailed, when the guitar pounced forward. “This is everything my ears have been looking for” is the feeling I had. “This is what I like.”
future and the puzzles of the past nipping at my heels — I have needed a dose of it. Rock injects me. It reminds me that I can do it. I don’t need yoga (well, maybe) and I don’t need to whine about it. Instead, I can listen to the great musical trailblazers of yesteryear whine about it and squash my own silly fears along the way. That’s what a sonic youth would do.
So, lately, when I step out of my apartment building every morning, I’ve got the Misfits crawling into my eardrums. The fresh air is always a little jarring, and the door is always a little harder to push open than anticipated, but I’ll be OK. Hell, I’ll thrive. Because “I ain’t no goddamn son of a bitch. You better think about it, baby.”
Some Girls – The Rolling Stones I still feel like this when I listen to any kind of rock. Almost love-struck, I feel in-tune to my surroundings and myself simultaneously. All of my senses are heightened by that harmony, and my mental state is mollified — where some girls need a kiss, I need Mick Jagger telling me I’m under his thumb. Alas, at the risk of veering into un-punk, Parmesan cheese territory: I feel ready to take on the world when I’m plugged in, no matter the circumstance. And invincibility is a hell of a drug. Lately — with new classes, work, 5,000 readings, the nagging thought of the ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILIE FARRUGIA COVER DESIGN BY SHANE ACHENBACH
4B
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
D
ressed in a black cap and gown, walking across a stage in front of thousands of their colleagues with a sash over their heads and diplomas in their hands — people dream of their college graduation from the days of their youth. It is a day held in the highest esteem. The ensuing party, full of thoughtful gifts and congratulatory gestures, is often also anticipated — but while being the subject of praise and adoration for a day is nice, the reason graduating from college is such a momentous and meaningful occasion is much more layered. Society hails the importance of a college education as a ticket to upward mobility and a new kind of necessity for a prosperous life. Since the turn of the century, college enrollment has risen dramatically, as high school diplomas and, more recently, even bachelor’s degrees, have lost their clout. A college degree has become almost an assumption, a taken-forgranted symbol of accomplishment, because contemporary culture claims that everyone should — and does — attend college and earn one. But that viewpoint fails to include an important, and significantly rising, segment of the population. Nontraditional students, often defined as adult students over the age of 25, have taken over college campuses yet are still overshadowed by their more typically aged counterparts. According to the National Center of Education Statistics, 38 percent of the 18 million students enrolled in college in 2007 were classified as nontraditional. However, despite their growing presence in the classroom, nontraditional students across the higher education landscape lead largely invisible lives. Often overlooked by college administrators and fellow students alike, nontraditional students tend to be lost in a sea of youth. *** Helen Maynard graduated from the University of Michigan this past April, but she wasn’t part of the incoming freshman class in the fall of 2012. When Maynard took her first steps on campus, the year was 1983.
A Cleveland native, Maynard faced financial troubles from the outset, as out-of-state tuition costs roughly double that of in-state tuition, and they didn’t subside as time went on. By the time her senior year rolled around, she worked three jobs simultaneously — an ice cream parlor, a retail clothing store and the campus recreational sports department — and held an unpaid internship position at the Community Television Network, the local TV station in Ann Arbor. As could be expected, Maynard struggled to handle the balancing act, eventually burning out and being placed on academic probation. The chips were heavily stacked against her, but then, seemingly out of nowhere, a production opportunity that paid reasonably well came up and she had to make a decision. So, a few credits shy of graduating, Maynard dropped out. Time passed, but still facing an uphill climb to pay back her student debt, Maynard decided to move back to Ohio and put her retail background to use while attempting to catch the attention of local TV crews. One day, on her way home from work, one of the videographers she knew from the local ABC station was passing by in a truck. When he saw her, he yelled out the window, telling her to call the head of the station. They had an opening on the desk. With a salary and benefits, she thought she would be able to pay off her debts and finally go back to school. But then her professional life took off, and those plans had to be put on hold. After moving up the ladder with promotion after promotion, working her way from producer to assignment editor to assignment manager, Maynard began to realize that the idea of finishing her degree had faded away. “You stop thinking about it,” she said. “And it’s just not on your mind anymore.” When Maynard did finally return to the University in 2014, it wasn’t as a student. She came because she had been selected for a KnightWallace Fellowship, a program for mid-career journalists to complete a self-directed program of study, participate in professional workshops and travel abroad within a single academic year. It was that experience that brought the
idea of earning her degree back to the forefront of her mind. “I hadn’t thought about it in years, and being here on campus made me think about it again,” she said. “I was so struck by all the great work that young people were doing and the enthusiasm and that feeling of you can go do anything and there’s every opportunity, and I had lost some of that. “It’s an amazing environment being on campus, the amount of energy that you have, the variety of viewpoints, this unlimited opportunity to learn. It just re-kindled something.” So Maynard reached out to the Center for the Education of Women, a University organization that provides various services and financial support to women and nontraditional students in an effort to empower them to achieve educational success and degree completion. After applying and sharing her story with them, Maynard earned a spot as a CEW Scholar. It was that scholarship that enabled her to enroll as a student again for the 20152016 academic year. Through fellowship events and professional workshops held by the CEW, Maynard found a community of contemporaries that could relate to her experience as a nontraditional student and its inherent challenges. While some of her coworkers were amused or confused by her decision to return to school in her early fifties, her colleagues in the CEW understood her reasoning and encouraged her to carry on. She knew it was the right decision for her, and their support eased her transition back into the world of academia.
didn’t even exist. Even desktop computers were a rarity. To access the Internet, students had to wait in line at the Michigan Union to use the small computer lab in the basement. Now, there are computer labs in most academic buildings on campus. But they often sit untouched, as students nowadays often prefer to use their laptops in their dorm rooms. For Maynard, the power to choose the life you want to lead is a sentiment she’s found common among her younger peers, and it’s one that resonates with her. She hasn’t always had the choice to determine how her life would pan out, so she understands its value. But she did decide to come back to the University and finish her degree, and it’s a choice that has paid off. “I didn’t realize that there was a hole,” she said. “It gives me a new confidence to say, ‘OK, I don’t have to figure out an answer to that question if it comes up.’ It gives me pride to say I’m a graduate of the University of Michigan. It’s like hitting a giant reset button. I have the same issue as everyone else who graduated this year: ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life?’ I’ve got a lot of life left.” ***
The University she found upon her arrival was starkly different than the one she left three decades ago. The technological revolution at the turn of the century, for example, made it harder for her to keep up with her technically-skilled classmates who had grown up in the digital age. On her first day, she showed up to class without her laptop because she had read a CTools notification the night before from the professor that told the class not to bring them. But when she looked around the room, all of the other students had their laptops out. As it turned out, the professor had told them not to bring them, except on the first day in order to complete an online assessment. “(Before) if you didn’t know by the end of the day or the class, you weren’t going to find out,” Maynard said. “No one was calling your dorm (saying) they wanted you to read X instead of Y. Now I’m getting emails and notifications on CTools at 11 o’clock at night.” When she started school at UM, laptops
Leslie Barroso graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a minor in sociology when she was in her late twenties. Though she was on track to graduate in four years, she dropped out of college during her senior year to join her family’s insurance business. But after an experience filled with more lows than highs, Barroso decided to switch course. After she earned her degree, she bypassed the workforce and chose to start a family instead. She got married and moved to a small island in Maine, where she spent the majority of her adult life raising her children as a stayat-home mom. It wasn’t until three years ago that Barroso returned to Ann Arbor, but college wasn’t part of her plans initially. She had always considered continuing her education and earning a master’s degree, but since she could never figure out what to study, the idea fizzled out. Living in Ann Arbor again, the allure of the University was hard to resist. So, fate stepped in. Volunteer work has always been important to Barroso, and moving to a new place didn’t stop her from getting involved in the community. She spends a considerable amount of time at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, and she also works with young women in recovery to help ease their troubles. Then,
she met a few social workers in her circle of acquaintances, and that’s when it hit her. She wanted to pursue a master’s degree in social work. So she enrolled in the School of Social Work in the fall of 2016, which means she is only two weeks into her 16-month long program; however, she is already learning how to navigate the classroom environment. In one of her classes a few nights ago, the professor told the class to partner up on their own, and she had a sense that she would be the odd one out because of her older age. “I just knew I was going to let everyone else pair off and I would take who was left because nobody flocked over to me,” she said. “And I didn’t take it personally. I understood it. They’re forming friendships in their own group.” While it might seem like it would be hard for her to find a sense of belonging, Barroso says that it’s quite the opposite. Her email inbox is loaded with offers to join various student groups and attend certain organized activities. But she has openly chosen to opt out of those opportunities — a choice frequently made by nontraditional students — because she simply doesn’t have enough time in the day. “To be honest, I don’t expect to find a sense of community here,” she said. “I have such a busy and full life outside of this — and I put a lot of that on hold to go to school. I really need the information they can teach me, so that I can do what I want to do afterwards.” Barroso wants to work for an agency as a therapist in direct practice, hopefully at the University Health System, while also developing a private practice on the Internet to provide herself with more flexibility. While it may have taken her a while to figure out the next phase of her career and life, she said she knows now that it has all worked out for the best. “You only get one lifetime, so it took me this long but, oh well,” she said. “All these things converged to say, ‘This is what you want to do,’ and I think I made the right decision. I do have those feelings that I wish I had done it 10, 20 years ago, but not much further than that because I really loved the life that I lived between then and now. I’ve been really lucky.” *** Brittney Williams also graduated from the University this past April, but her road back to college was considerably shorter than those of many nontraditional students. She left origi-
nally during her junior year after her mother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, and she had to go home to Alabama to serve as her mother’s primary caretaker and help take care of her younger siblings. She came back five years later, in the summer of 2015, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sociology, along with minors in Afroamerican and African studies and community action and social change through the School of Social Work, where she is now a master’s student. Though Williams was in her late twenties by the time of her return, her undergraduate classmates seemingly couldn’t tell the difference. She said until she actually disclosed her age, many people just figured she was a fifth or sixth year senior. But they responded well when they did eventually find out the truth. “I think that people looked at me in a class mom sort of way, and so they were like, ‘You’re so wise,’ ‘You’ve experienced so much life,’ and I kind of embraced that,” she said. “And so much of my nature, because of my caregiving experience, is about loving on people and making them feel supported, so it was fine with me.” While Williams felt accepted by her fellow classmates, it wasn’t the same as having people who could fully understand her situation. It wasn’t until she participated in a focus group of nontraditional students at the Center for the Education of Women that she felt a sense of comfort. The experience made her openly wonder if there were any student organizations where these dialogues about the trials and tribulations of nontraditional students existed. When there were none to be found, she resolved to take matters into her own hands. So she founded the Michigan Organization of Non-Traditional Students, her selfdescribed “brainchild,” through the Center for Campus Involvement. She convinced the CEW to become its sponsor, so it became a sponsored student organization, and she served as president. Initially, the organization struggled to find its footing and recruit members, for several reasons. Williams noted there are many logistical issues that can prevent nontraditional students from participating in student groups, such as having busy schedules, raising children or commuting to class. On top of that, there is often a mentality that nontraditional students are supposed to focus solely on academics, not engage in social activities. To combat these issues and get the organization off the ground, Williams reached out
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to the CEW for help. Together, they shifted the mission from a social gathering place to an educational resource center, implementing workshops about dealing with being the same age as the professor, doing group work with younger peers and finding resources that aren’t as socially accessible to them, and they resonated strongly with many nontraditional students. As an example of how the group helps connect nontraditional students, Williams said if UM’s Counseling and Psychological Services utilized social media as a key outreach strategy to connect to the digital generation, a nontraditional student in his or her late fifties would have a much less active presence online, if at all. Therefore, an older student would have less access to resources and support from the administration, a fundamental problem Williams noticed across the college landscape. “How you think about age is that at certain points in life you have different levels of selfsufficiency,” she said. “I think half of it is making assumptions about what people know and what people need who are older students and half of it is about not wanting to come off as condescending.” While Williams has since stepped down as president to concentrate on life as a graduate student, MONTS will continue to carry on its mission to create a safe space for nontraditional students with a new executive board and a budding membership. “It’s really exciting,” she said. “It’s nice to have something that you conceptualized and worked so hard to establish continue to grow. It’s great.” *** Oftentimes, when we talk about college, we see something specific — the typical experience of someone 18-24, navigating their first years away from home. But for a growing number of non-traditional students on campuses, that isn’t the case. Though they take the road less traveled, they reach the same ultimate destination, and if these three women are any indication, the journey is worth the wait.
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Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
All Roads Lead to Ann Arbor by Maggie Kolcon, Daily Sports Writer
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y parents both graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990. My dad was an outside linebacker on the varsity football team in 1988, under legendary coach Bo Schembechler. My mom choreographed multiple productions each year for the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. They can both share anecdotes about working multiple jobs on campus and being involved in clubs. Each of them went on to complete master’s programs. They met in class — the jock fell in love with the bookish girl who never went to a single football game. Yes, I know: It’s unbearably cheesy. Their daughter, on the other hand, is from upstate New York. From the age of 8 all the way until my senior year of high school, I only considered attending a university that boasted a Division I women’s hockey program. The University, sadly, does not offer that particular varsity sport (though it would undoubtedly help to grow women’s hockey in Michigan if it did). The vague dream I had of being a Wolverine faded during my freshman year of high school when I found out the school didn’t meet my one requirement: Division I women’s hockey. Despite being raised by two enthusiastic University graduates, I had only visited Ann Arbor once or twice, so this news was not exactly crushing. As I entered my senior year I was being recruited for hockey by some decently wellknown academic schools, but in the end I was lured by low tuition and promises of winning a national championship. SUNY Plattsburgh, a Division III school located somewhere in the northernmost corner of New York, is known for having strong hockey teams and a decent childhood education program. I was not there to become a teacher, so my program of choice — entrepreneurship — was not particularly challenging. I tested out of my foreign language requirement despite not taking a language my senior year and barely being able to hold a basic conversation in French. I put minimal effort into my 100-level calculus class and did fairly well, even though my efforts in high school pre-calculus class had been far less successful. School-wise, my classmates thought they were being challenged, but no one spent long nights at the library or Sunday afternoons cramming in a coffee shop. In my management class, I was one of the few people that turned in homework. My professor told me, “Don’t bother showing up to the final, you already have an A.” So, college hockey was my focus. The daily grueling practices, led by a coach whose only goal was winning, felt less and less worthwhile. Eventually, we won the NCAA Nation-
al Championship, crushing our opposition 9-2 in the final game of the tournament. Almost every game of the year had been a blowout. We won 6-0, 8-0, 10-1 … our season became boring and predictable, exactly the opposite of what college hockey should be. Winning nationals left me uneasy, in the same way the perfect score in my management class left me feeling like I had cheated. I hadn’t earned anything and was being rewarded just for meeting expectations, not for taking initiative or pushing myself. It was becoming clear that Plattsburgh was not my home. It took a broken back to veer my path toward Michigan. I left Plattsburgh after one year, clinging to my sport. I moved to Cambridge, Ontario, and played junior hockey there for half a year. In November, my skates were swept out from under me and my neck was snapped backwards onto cold, solid ice. The cheap shot behind the referee left me with multiple herniated discs, and six months later I went in for surgery. By the time I went to the hospital to have them remove
to clarify to Michiganders. People in New York do not care about college football as much as Midwesterners. In CBS Sports’ college football rankings from this week, they list our state’s largest Division I schools — Syracuse University and the University at Buffalo — at 113 and 121 respectively, out of 128 total teams. Michigan is currently number four on that list. Football is a huge reason that the University of Michigan is known as a great school nationally, but when your home state schools typically perform dismally, you try to avoid the rankings. Because of that, we don’t have the same understanding of large state schools that seems to be inherent across the rest of the country. To me, Big Ten schools just meant wild parties. Before I started researching, my parents’ intense love of the school was the only reason I applied to be a Wolverine. For months in high school, I panicked about what school to attend. After my first college experience, I was even more nervous about making the wrong choice. I confided in one of my best friends, David, with my enrollment decision due shortly and a looming choice between the University and two much smaller liberal arts schools. He knows me quite well, and his advice was simple. “Michigan seems like a Maggie school.” Thank goodness I listened to him. I started attending the University in fall 2015. My classes are challenging, but I’ve never been more excited to attend them. My dismal placement test last year can confirm that I most definitely was not qualified to place out of French. With some help from my advisor, I changed my major to English and never have to struggle through a math class again. I took up writing about sports ILLUSTRATION BY ELISE HAADSMA for The Michigan Daily — something I never ruptured disc material from my spinal cord, I had been would’ve had time for as an athlete. I found a new identity through four different sets of very painful and unsuccessful here. If this is starting to sound like an ad for attending the injections. I had switched doctors, convinced that the first University, I’m sorry: I’m also a tour guide these days. I’m hadn’t given me the best medications or treatment options not on the football team like dear ol’ dad, but I just accepted available. I was taking too many painkillers each day, ter- a job at the Natural History Museum — my mom’s former rified of becoming addicted, but not being able to function employer. I even won an intramural soccer championship without them. Pain had become a way of life. A risky sur- last fall, venturing into post-surgery athletics. Sometimes gery could fix me, but it would cost me my hockey career. the balancing act of a heavy class load and extracurriculars Hockey player was the only identity I had left, and without gets tough, as it does for every student. Looking back helps it I didn’t know who I was. me to realize how lucky I am to attend the best university in I had never considered attending a school where I the world, even if it took me a while to get here. wouldn’t be a varsity athlete, clad in school colors and surrounded by teammates. My recovery prognosis had all along been hazy at best. My mother urged me to apply to other schools besides the ones I’d visited for hockey. Michigan was on the list, but, to me, it still was a fallback. I’d never even been on an official campus visit. Before I go any further, there’s one thing that I feel I have
Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
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A World Rosier Than Mine by Matt Gallatin, Daily Arts Writer
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e’ll be born in March. March is undoubtedly the best month for him to be born, because he can still be included in the elementary school calendar of class birthdays, he’ll share an astrological sign with Kurt Cobain and he’ll be mentioned in the same breath as both a lion and a lamb. His ears will be of equal size, rather than uneven and with a single, pointed side. This will help with his insecurity, but mostly avoid the cognitive dissonance of, as a Jew, being asked incessantly if he knows Santa Claus. Because, yes, a pointed ear must mean he is an elf. And OK, sure, he’ll tell Santa you want a Nintendo DS. His voice will drop early, so he won’t sound like Timmy Turner while the rest of his friends sound somewhere between Thom Yorke and Ghostface Killah. He won’t be asked tirelessly where his Fairly Oddparents are, or his pink hat, or his pink shirt. He doesn’t even like pink. He’ll decide that if he really isn’t into this girl in his math class, he really shouldn’t date this girl in his math class. Screw the homecoming dance and its 1950s need for fertile couplets. This will allow him to avoid the uncomfortable hand-holding and awkward teeth kissing in the basement of her parents’ home. And then he won’t have to break up with her in the hallway before math class. Because then she will cry over integral functions and her friends will, rightly, hate him. He’ll turn off the volume on his computer the first time he visits the silent library. Or else Future’s “Freak Hoe” will play with full vigor thanks to an accidental slip of the hand, to his personal horror and the room’s collective confusion as to why this slight white kid is listening to Future. He’ll always manage his time and he’ll never be late. He’ll know that if class starts at 9 a.m., he should not exit the shower at 9:15 a.m. Or 9:30. Or 9:45. He won’t forget to text his friends for two, three months; OK, maybe it was longer. Because he does actually care about them — and how in the hell is he going to explain the reasons he couldn’t remember? Because he really should have remembered, instead of being too preoccupied by the way he just said “Hey, what’s up?” on the street, or whether this or that person actually likes him or is just pretending, or if he shouldn’t have said that thing that he said last Friday, or how he ended up in the middle of an intersection
with his face against a Ford Taurus while thinking about it all. And so he will never forget to text his friends. And they won’t get upset at him for failing to do so, thinking he has better things to do, like run into a Ford Taurus. He’ll decide that any message sent after 2:30 a.m. will inevitably lead to regret, in one of its billion jaded forms. He will refrain from them altogether. He’ll be direct. He won’t drag his I-Mean-I-Guess-
words and the pictures no longer make sense. He won’t stand around, assuming it’s the world’s job to make him friends, not his own. He won’t then walk out unannounced, so everyone thinks he died or, worse, threw up in someone’s bathroom. He won’t like boys. Like boys in the way he thought — he was told — he should only like girls. It will be clearer, simple, easy: perfect. He can avoid having to, when the subject is reached, laugh nervously and say something inconsequential about last Saturday or the weather. He can just smile when an ex tells him her greatest fear is dating a boy who “turns.” He won’t sit on the floor of the shower for hours, holding his head because he thinks this is a sentence for solitude for the rest of his life — that wastes water. He won’t be afraid everyone would think, for God knows why, him more Chér than Cuban Linx. ***
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA
We’re-Dating along for a month without contact because he’s too afraid to tell her that he wants to end it and simply hopes that she will come to the understanding on her own, without confrontation. He won’t have a tequila-driven argument with her on her birthday, denying said strategy, saying “Oh, I was just busy.” Because that’s shitty. And he knows it. He’ll be outgoing at parties. He won’t feel so awkward that he resorts to rereading the most useless corners and memes on his small screen until the
He’ll be born in June. June is undoubtedly the best month for him to be born, for summer is his favorite season anyway, he’ll share an astrological sign with Tupac and he’ll be mentioned in the same breath as Jeeps and the sand. He won’t wish his ears were smaller and rounded because they’re different, which is good. He’ll know his voice will eventually drop and he won’t be Timmy Turner forever. He’ll see the first girl he royally screwed over is with someone better. And she’s happy. And so is the second. And the others, he guesses. And he’ll figure out how to turn off the sound on his computer and he’ll try his best to be punctual and he’ll try even harder to remember the people who care about him and he probably won’t stop sending texts after 2:30 a.m. but damn will he try, and he’ll work on introducing himself and asking people’s names and remembering people’s names and remembering the things they tell him, and he won’t fucking wish he wasn’t bent because there’s so much other shit that he could be worried about and he might be alone forever and live with a husky in the mountains of Colorado, but he also might not and it might not be what he always thought it would be or what he always wanted it to be, but he’s getting used to it and he just needs some time and damn he can even marry and maybe not even be hated and maybe just fucking maybe even be happy. And so he won’t care if everyone thinks him more Chér than Cuban Linx. And he wouldn’t change a thing.
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Wednesday, September 21, 2016 // The Statement
V I S UA L S TAT E M E N T:
PAY N O M I N D
TRYING TO CAPTURE AND LIVE IN THE MOMENT
Father John Misty performs at Mo Pop Festival in Detroit on July 25.
M83 closes out Mo Pop Festival in Detroit on July 25.
This summer, I photographed about 20 or so concerts of everyone from The 1975 to Johnny Depp, and yet I don’t think any of them I would consider a favorite among all I have seen. Not because the performances were bad, or I wasn’t close enough, but because when you photograph a concert, the experience becomes something different. Talking with other photographers after a show, no one is talking about the artist. It’s always “look at this shot” or “I wish the lighting was different here.” It’s because, to a concert photographer, it’s not about the performance, but how the performance will look through the viewfinder. BY ZACH MOORE
Louis the Child relax backstage after playing to a massive crowd on day two of Governors Ball in New York on June 4.
The 1975 perform at Meadowbrook Music Theatre on May 21.
Florence + the Machine perform at DTE Energy Music Theatre on June 11.
G-Eazy closes out day one of Mo Pop Festival in Detroit on July 24. Festival goers relax after a long festival weekend before the final performance from M83 at Mo Pop Festival on July 25.