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Washtenaw community demands Warren visits change in Global Climate Strike striking auto Students walk out of class, call attention to threat of global warming workers in metro Detroit Presidential candidate joins state politicians in supporting UAW ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily University students, local high schoolers and community members participate in the climate strike that occurred worlwide Friday to support government action on climate change.
KATHERINA SOURINE Daily Staff Reporter
Naina Agrawal-Hardin, one of the lead organizers of the Washtenaw County Climate Strike and a junior at Washtenaw International High School, is worried for her future. “I’m here fighting for climate justice because I know that if we don’t fight for climate justice then we won’t have anything left to fight for,” Agrawal-Hardin said. Students, faculty and Ann Arbor residents gathered for the Washtenaw County Climate Strike on Ingalls Mall Friday afternoon. The strike included main-stage performances by activists, poets and musicians, as well as more than 25 workshops educating attendees on issues related to climate change such as “Green New Deal 101,”
“Addressing Climate Change at Home,” “The Importance of Water in Indigenous Communities” and more. According to a tweet from 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, the leading figure of the #FridaysForFuture movement, more than 4,638 youth climate strikes took place Friday in more than 139 nations. The movement began in August 2018 after Thunberg began protesting the lack of climate action from the Swedish government. Thunberg sat outside the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks and inspired a world-wide movement, led primarily by young people, to hold their nations accountable to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to maintain a below 2 degrees
BUSINESS
New Ross grad class to promote teamwork Interdisciplinary program centers around social consequences of business ANGELINA LITTLE Daily Staff Reporter
The Ross School of Business hosted an open house for its +Impact Studio, the latest installment of their Business+Impact initiative, this Friday. Located on the second floor of the Executive Learning and Conference Center, the +Impact Studio space is designed to be a collaborative space for crosscampus problem solving and home to a +Impact Studio Course. Business School Dean Scott Derue told The Daily the aim of the studio is to create a space for graduate students and faculty to work together to solve issues aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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Celsius pre-industrial levels, in alignment with the 2015 Paris Agreement. Last March’s Washtenaw County Climate Strike, which had an estimated turnout of 2,5003,000 people, led to the arrest of 10 students who participated in a 7.5-hour sit-in in the Fleming Administrative Building. The students refused to leave until President Mark Schlissel addressed their demand for a onehour public meeting about the University’s plan for combating climate change and attaining carbon neutrality without screening questions. Last week, the six demonstrators who were charged with trespassing appeared in court for a pretrial hearing in preparation for the official Oct. 10 trials. Efforts to combat climate
change are not only being taken on by students, but also by local communities. On Wednesday, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to endorse a climate emergency declaration, signalling the onset of regional efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions and calling on the state of Michigan and the federal government to declare a climate emergency. At Friday’s strike, Business senior and co-president of Net Impact Gillian Cobb, who attended the event, described the student organization’s goal to promote sustainable business models. She explained how climate activism intersects with with many academic disciplines.
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Hundreds of United Auto Workers picketers were met by presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren at the General Motors DetroitHamtramck Plant Sunday afternoon. Warren marched with workers at the plant who are striking because of contract negotiations. GM has announced the plant is expected to close in January 2020. “GM made billions of dollars in profits last year and closed five plants around the county,” Warren said at a press conference after picketing. “GM is demonstrating that it has no loyalty to the workers of America or to the people of America. Their only loyalty is to their own bottom line.” The decision to strike was made by UAW leaders last week after a 2015 collective bargaining agreement expired. Nearly 50,000 UAW members across the country are striking until the UAW and GM agree on a contract that preserves fair wages, affordable health care, profit sharing and job security for temporary and permanent workers. UAW’s strike is expected to
Students call for destigmatization of medical care for mental health Event seeks to break silence, highlights perspectives in communities of color JULIA FANZERES Daily Staff Reporter
A group of students gathered on the front steps of the Hatcher Graduate Library on Friday evening for Breaking the Silence of Stigma on Mental Health, an event meant to address how stigma surrounding mental health impacts communities of color. Live Love Fitness LLF and the University of Michigan’s Asian American Association co-hosted the event. Different representatives from organizations across campus also came to support including the Black Student Union, CAPS in Action, United Asian American Organizations and Hope for the Day. Tiffany Yoo, event organizer and the founder of Live Love Fitness LLF, spoke at the event about her struggles with mental health from middle school to college. Her speech centered around how she felt she couldn’t confide in anyone throughout high school and most of college. “During my senior year of high school, I was obese and that didn’t help with the depression, which I didn’t really understand because
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nobody would talk about it,” Yoo said. “Nowadays people know what depression is, even as a child. But back then I had no idea what it really was because I thought I didn’t know anyone who had it because no one would talk about it.”
Yoo explained the stigma surrounding anxiety and depression held her back from going out of her comfort zone and making new friends. “I was very afraid of people knowing what I was going through because I just wanted to make new
friends,” Yoo said. “I didn’t want people to gossip about me, to be mean, label me as like, ‘Oh, she’s like that depressed girl, she has issues.’”
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cost GM $50 million per day. The union last went on strike in 2007, though it ended after two days when the parties reached an agreement. Ahead of her visit, Warren met with state politicians, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, and UAW leaders at Legends Coney Island in Detroit to hear about workers’ experiences first hand. Warren said she has advocated for union rights while in the Senate and would continue to if elected president. “The workers of the UAW are here to say ‘no more,’” Warren said. “They want a fair wage. They want benefits. They want what it takes to be part of America’s middle class.” Warren, who was named the leading Democratic candidate in Iowa in a recent poll from the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom, refused to speculate about polls at this point in the race when speaking with the press. Other presidential hopefuls, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have also made or intend to make visits to the Detroit picketers.
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CAMPUS LIFE
Fundraiser helps fight leukemia, lymphoma Light the Night benefits individuals with cancer, their friends and family ALYSSA MCMURTRY Daily Staff Reporter
MICHAEL BAGAZINSKI/Daily
In Riverside Park along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, family and friends gathered Saturday night to celebrate the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s 20th anniversary of the Light the Night fundraiser. The night started with food and games, followed by an opening ceremony of lighting the lantern and a walk around Ann Arbor. LLS was founded by New York couple Rudolph and Antoinette Roesler de Villiers in 1949 after they lost their son to leukemia. Named after their late son, the Robert Roesler de Villiers Foundation started in a small Wall Street office.
Tiffany Yoo discusses the necessity of mental health awareness at Breaking the Silence of Stigma on Mental Health event on the Diag Friday evening.
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 138 ©2019 The Michigan Daily
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FUNDRAISER From Page 1A Ann Arbor resident Anne Bradley helped coordinate the event. She has been with LLS for two and a half years and believes Light the Night is a perfect example of LLS’s mission. “It’s an inspirational community event based on raising funds and awareness to end blood cancer,” Bradley said. “Our mission is to end leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Bradley explained how the funds from the fundraiser are distributed — the vast majority of goes to helping individuals and their families aff licted by cancer. “80 percent of all of our dollars go straight to mission and the funds we raise support research, patient support programs, things like co-pay assistance, travel
assistance, support groups and free education,” Bradley said. Bradley brought up the high cost of medicine, making note of the 5,000-percent increase in the price of the drug Daraprim, used to treat some cancers and other illnesses. “We also support advocacy,” Bradley said. “Our job is to make sure that when cures do happen, the patients are able to access those cures.” Bradley said the money is only a small part of LLS — the larger part of the group is to support families. “It’s about feeling that warmth and sense of community,” Bradley said. “I’ve talked to a lot of survivors and families and they talk often about how isolated they feel and how lonely they feel when they get that diagnosis. There’s something to be said for being part of a community and that’s what this is all about.”
Light the Night also featured sponsored families with cancer survivors, one of which was Team Lena, which consisted of parents William and Amanda Kaczur. William said Lena’s journey inspired them to give back to the LLS community. He said the family feels a sense of community at events like Light the Night. “Once you go through an experience like ours, one of the biggest things coming out of it is pretty much everybody wants to give back,” Kaczur said. “This is a way for us to give back, to help support, to help promote because in a lot of ways we’re the most comfortable at places and events like this. There are so many people here with a similar experience so it makes us feel very comfortable.” Lena was only 18 months old when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Amanda got a call from their daycare program that she needed to go home due to a rash on her legs and arms.
After taking her blood at their pediatrician’s office, they were worried about her high white blood cell count. “That was it. We went to [C.S.Mott Children’s Hospital’s] emergency room and we started a six-month long chemo treatment journey to attack her acute myeloid leukemia,” Kazcur said. “She went through intense chemotherapy for six months. We finished up at the end of November and she just finished up what they call maintenance where every three months she was getting a spinal tap. She had her last spinal tap two weeks ago and she was negative for cancer.” William said Lena was the strongest one of the trio and is amazed by the strength of their three-year-old daughter. “She was the strength, the glue that kept us all together, the one that’s going through it,” Kazcur said. “Kids are amazing.
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Michigan in Color
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Festival ELIZABETH LE MiC Columnist
Earthly bodies ravage moon cakes and warm their bellies with salted suns — evidence that the universe is eating itself. Outside, the trees strip raw. Children bruised with sidewalk clamor for pieces of redorange luck. Sticky hands close around stickier air. And then there are the stars, the aunts and their -ologies to explain away my future. What an auspicious match you’ll make! I tongue the carcass of a persimmon, yearning for youth left behind in hot summer haze.
The danger of the motherhood mandate MICHAELA MINNIS MiC Columnist
No matter your age or how you identify, you’re likely a huge Beyonce fan. This year she released her documentary, “Homecoming” on Netf lix that followed her rehearsals and ultimate performance at Coachella (renamed Beychella by the Hive) in April of 2018 as the headliner. She released her “Homecoming” album, which featured the remake of Maze and Frankie Beverley’s famous “Before I Let Go”, which was added to everyone’s playlists for family barbeques. Fast forward to now, there seems to be an obsession with picking apart celebrities’ Instagram photos, in particular Beyonce’s, to decide if she is “expecting” or not. The internet is pretty quick to turn little things into trending topics on Twitter, and recently, Beyonce’s
“weight gain” has caused speculation. Another Black woman that has once again taken over the industry is Rihanna. Her “Fenty Beauty” line continues to f ly off the shelves of cosmetic stores and her fashion-line “Fenty” is growing. As she is busy building an empire, she recently hosted her charity Diamond Ball, and the talk surrounding her success this year was unmatched with the Internet’s rave about the appearance of her stomach. Once again, the question of if Rihanna was expecting became a worldwide conversation on social media. But, there was not much talk around how both of these women’s privacy was being invaded, considering that much of the pregnancy rumors were due to both women appearing to have gained weight. These reactions made me think
Learning from our lineage: In conversation with Carlina Duan CARLY RYAN
Managing MiC Editor
As a freshman at the University of Michigan in 2011, Carlina Duan didn’t know what the term “person of color” meant. “I wasn’t keyed into that way of speaking as much. I’m not sure the campus was either.” Campus was pre-2016 election, and Michigan in Color, the section of The Michigan Daily that Duan would eventually manage, had just started as a column housed under the Opinion section. Maybe in part due to the political climate of the time, Duan said the conversations on campus about race felt more muted then compared to today. Those conversations also lacked a centralized platform –– a signal that
Monday, September 23, 2019— 3A
there was a space for Michigan in Color to fill. “I think there was a hunger for narratives that people had overlooked –– prior there was really no space for people to think about storytelling from that perspective.” Soon after Michigan in Color’s founding, the term “person of color” became a part of Duan’s daily lexicon, as she helped grow Michigan in Color from a column to a full-f ledged section of The Michigan Daily while also becoming of the Daily’s most prolific writers. Her piece “Our sacrifice, our shame,” which was written in 2014, remains the mostread MiC piece in its history. The piece garnered over 150 positive comments online –– a rarity for writers publishing radical words about race.
Her writing career was only beginning. Since her graduation in 2015, Duan has written a book of poetry, received her MFA from Vanderbilt, and is now teaching an English 125 class at the University while pursuing her PhD –– successes she attributes largely to the community she created at the Daily. “I think that I was really excited about the possibilities that MiC showed me –– that writing can kind of transform others and myself.” Duan’s research concerns pedagogical strategies for using creative writing as activism –– a topic that in turn examines the role people of color play in teaching an audience about identity. While Duan said she hopes she can instill a sense of activism in her
about the motherhood mandate, specifically in Rihanna’s case. The mandate consists of the idea that bearing children is essential to a female’s life; not having children would challenge her womanhood, thus feeling less like a woman. Motherhood is special to those who choose to and are able to bear children, but it can limit those who do not want children due to societal pressures through social media, for instance. Both Rihanna and Beyonce have surpassed the peak of their careers, but people still questioned the ultimate thing that would make their lives (or the lives of fans) complete: having a child. It’s almost as if society wants to see celebrities have children for their pleasure and for the aesthetic, but it isn’t that simple, nor should it be. With the rise of the trend of posting pictures of babies online and the struggles new
moms go through, it can be a virtual support system for aspiring mothers. But simply using a “woman’s instinct” to claim that a woman is pregnant is close-minded and dangerous; this is an example of a reaction on social media to both Rihanna and Beyonce’s recent photos. Women can experience miscarriages and difficult pregnancies that affects their mind, body, and soul mentally and physically, which is why they often do not announce they’re expecting until months into their pregnancy. Additionally, why is weight gain automatically correlated with pregnancy? Experiencing weight gain can come from numerous reasons, and it does not have to be explained to anyone. It isn’t fair to expect any woman to look a certain way their entire life. Pictures do not give away all the answers. Celebrities are in the spotlight all the
time, but society should be careful not to assume that any woman is pregnant (or ask) due to weight gain and deceiving photos that can be manipulated. I appreciate all mothers; my own mother has balanced work life with raising my brother and I in ways I still don’t fully understand, but will forever be grateful for. But, it is important to recognize that those who are not mothers are visible in society, and are not mothers for personal reasons like focusing on their career. Let’s celebrate mothers and non-mothers and not put down one over the other for the decisions they make. Recognize the beauty in both lives. Be careful when picking apart photos, or simply making assumptions about one’s body because words can be harmful.
world that might ask certain questions that can help them think about activism.” But in teaching her lived experiences became a vulnerability to tokenizing as well as a partial release in ownership of her own personal experiences. As a minority in the English department, Duan said it is important for herself to balance her desire to teach about identity with the protection of her own experiences. Though she is now a teacher, it is not her responsibility to use her experiences to teach people about race. “It can be frustrating to be looked at as the only one of the experts in the room, but I feel very strongly about PHOTO COURTESY OF AUTHOR kind of keeping for myself a certain set students, she knows there is of experiences to protect no way for them to embody myself from feeling used and her own lived experiences, a tokenized,” Duan said. “It’s limit to teaching impossible not my personal obligation educate everyone on specific to cross. Coupled with the lived experience.” Being a PoC writer complexity of being one of the few Asian Americans doesn’t only run the risk of in the creative writing tokenization, Duan said. It PhD program, identity can also take a toll on mental has become one of the health. The process of first more salient aspects of her exploring and then sharing deeply personal experiences teaching career thus far. “I think a lot about how can be draining and difficult, there are experiences so much so that it’s a “radical my students will never and super revolutionary understand. But I think act,” Duan said. But she about the classroom as stressed that to help remedy a space in which I can these difficulties, a sense incorporate different of community is important. questions in literature that By actively remembering many students might have the women who paved the never encountered,” Duan way for her to be able to said. “We think a lot about write about race, Duan said language as ideology and the sense of solidarity she language as action. I try and feels helps her remember introduce text and writers the radical importance of and thinkers into their writing.
“I try and keep a kernel of why I began to write in the first place,” Duan said. “So much of that for me is about community and I think there are a lot of narratives that come from the fairly westernized and fairly white cannon of literature that writers should be solitary figures who exist to produce and produce. I feel really accountable to writing with other people.” Despite these practices, the act of writing about race continues to be very difficult, especially for those who choose to make writing their career in a society that doesn’t reward writers in the same way it rewards other professions. This stigma is one of the main reasons Duan decided to become a teacher –– she entered the field through empowering teachers and she wants to do the same for others. “Our society doesn’t really believe in writers as being able to make it and be “productive” –– whatever that means. Yet, writing exists as a way for me to chisel away at different questions that have to do with how I want to be generative and generous and productive.” And for the current students who also want writing to be their mechanism for productivity and generosity? “Know your stories don’t exist in a vacuum. What MiC is doing is building its own cannon and letting people write alongside a lineage to which they can feel a sense of duty and gratitude. Each story is a part of a community.” Maybe this story is a part of that community, too.
So Ariel is Black CHINWEOKE EZEOKOLI MiC Columnist
Okay, I’m gonna be honest here: I used to be such a Disney fangirl. I think most girls were. I lived for Disney Princess movies more than anything, though. And when The Princess and The Frog came out, I was ecstatic. A Black Disney Princess. Finally. And though Disney has entered a new phase of princess movies with the goal of making them f leshedout, independent female characters (actually make them the heroines of their own story), I’ll always love
the older ones. And Disney knows I’m not the only one, so they’re remaking them in live-action knowing people will come out to watch them. Which brings me to the point of this piece: The new liveaction Ariel is going to be Black. Not gonna lie, my first reaction was more exasperation than anything. At that time, I’d been a little tired of the idea of making an originally white character, seemingly on a whim, a different ethnicity. It just looked like a money grab to me, which it probably is to an extent. They know that Black
people will come out to see grew up with this character well as asking people for this movie for the single fact and this image of them that their opinions, I came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t what I was making it out to be. In the Tale of the Little Mermaid, her race has absolutely nothing to do with the story. It would be one thing to make Merida from “Brave” Black, because she’s a Scottish princess. Not to say there aren’t Scottish Black people now, there are, but I doubt there were in the time period Brave took place that the lead is going to be you hold in your mind. And in, so it would be completely Black. Yes, it’s representation, now they’re changing things inaccurate and offensive at that point. Being Scottish is but it didn’t feel right to me. about this character. But after thinking about essential to Merida’s story I could understand why some people were upset by it. You it and its implications as and the way it’s told. From
In the Tale of the Little Mermaid, her race has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
the accents to the way people dress, Brave is a story that can only be told the way it is. Ariel’s story, on the other hand, is not tied to the color of her skin nor is the plot tied to a specific period in time the way Brave is. It’s about her curiosity and desire to be human. Once people can get past their initial reactions to the race change, they’ll be able to enjoy the new take on the old tale and the positive impact another Black princess will have on young Black girls everywhere.
Opinion
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TIMOTHY SPURLIN | COLUMN
Yang and UBI — possible even if not probable
T
In reality, funding UBI may he 2020 presidential election is over a year not be as simple as Yang makes away, and it’s already it out to be. According to the UBI Center, a think running at full tank researching speed. A field of more universal basic than 20 Democratic income policies, candidates has when factoring in already been all forms of revenue cut in half, and generation that the remaining would occur on top of candidates are laser all the separate costs, focused on setting Yang’s Freedom themselves apart from the rest of the TIMOTHY Dividend would add pack. The spectrum SPURLIN about $1.4 trillion to the budget deficit ranges from ultraprogressives such as Sen. annually. The Tax Foundation Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., published their own calculations and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that put the net effect at just to more moderate candidates under $1.5 trillion. That is not like former Vice President Joe to say that implementing UBI Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg necessarily increases the deficit. of South Bend, Ind. The most Those same reports conclude a recent Democratic debate version of UBI can be revenue saw the presidential hopefuls neutral but only with different discuss the most pressing issues variables plugged in. For to voters for the 2020 election: example, the VAT rate would health care, gun violence, have to be closer to 22 percent and the freedom dividend would immigration and trade. The one thing all the have to be reduced from $1,000 candidates have in common: to $750 — as opposed to Yang’s political experience in one form 10 percent proposal — according or another. Except, that is, for to the Tax Foundation. Andrew Yang. Yang, an Ivy League lawyer turned entrepreneur then nonprofit founder, is running on a central platform surrounding universal basic income, labeled by Yang and his campaign as the “Freedom Dividend.” The Freedom Dividend is a proposed governmental social program that gives every U.S. adult $1,000 a month for the rest of their lives. On the surface, this might seem to be The sticker cost is not the only the first step toward a socialist utopia and not something concern in regard to UBI. Other feasible in America. However, worries include that of inflation: when weighing the costs and If every American is receiving benefits of such a program, $1,000 guaranteed each month, it becomes more complicated won’t prices just increase at than labeling it simply as the same rate? In short, not really. Inflation tends to arise “socialist” or “impossible.” The economics of Yang’s from the supply of money, or Freedom Dividend are governments’ printing of new anything but straightforward, money, and Yang’s UBI plan is as there are different estimates funded through “established” on the exact costs and benefits money (taxes on money already associated with his policy. in circulation). We could expect According to Yang’s website, prices to increase marginally, the cost of UBI will be offset but only as a result of taxes through a variety of new taxes increasing production costs. and reduction in government Yang’s main argument is that spending. First of all, Yang plans for the average consumer the to fund the Freedom Dividend net benefits would outweigh through something called a these marginal price increases. Value Added Tax, or VAT. This Another common concern is is a type of consumption tax that cash transfer systems people from that taxes products whenever discourage value is added, at any point working. However, $12,000 a in its supply chain — from year is not enough to live off production to the final sale. of, so naturally people will still Almost all industrialized need to work. In fact, a report countries employ some form of published by MIT researchers VATs and it is most commonly that looks at cash transfer found among countries in the programs in six developing European Union (the only major countries found “no systematic industrial country who does evidence that cash transfer not use a VAT is the U.S.). In programs discourage work.” For those who claim UBI could addition to a new VAT, Yang says funding for UBI would come never work in the United States from a reduction in current and is only possible in wealthy government expenditures, new Scandinavian countries, there revenue generated by economic is already one U.S. state that growth as a result of the policy has been practicing UBI since and increasing taxes on things the ‘70s: Alaska. Alaska set up such as financial transactions, the Alaskan Permanent Fund in capital gains and carbon 1976 which generates revenue from oil and mineral leases to pollution.
The economics of Yang’s Freedom Dividend are anything but straightforward
fund an annual stipend. Not only do Alaskans now receive more than $2,000 a month, a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the implementation of Alaska’s UBI did not decrease work in the state — a clear reinforcement of UBI’s benefits. There are other somewhat intangible, yet incredibly attractive, benefits to UBI as well. An example that Yang often speaks of is compensation for work that is currently undervalued, such as a stay-athome mom taking care of young children or people putting more resources into creative projects. It could also help small businesses compete with larger retailers, something incredibly important to local communities and cultures. It’s impossible to calculate the exact economic benefit from these examples, but they are invaluable to our society. UBI is one way to support them. Universal basic income is a mixed bag that comes with clear benefits and setbacks. While the economics show it is technically feasible, and has even been successful in the U.S., it seems Americans are still hesitant to embrace UBI with open arms. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 48 percent of Americans support UBI as a way to help Americans who lost their jobs because of advances in artificial intelligence, and the data suggests a major split between pro-UBI younger voters and anti-UBI older voters. Essentially, the argument over UBI boils down to political will. On one hand, the benefits it would generate both abstractly and in real terms are genuinely exciting and theoretically possible. On the other hand, Yang’s current plan would be a massive economic burden on the system as it stands today. Would the benefits be worth the increased debt? Or the increased taxes needed to make it revenue neutral? I’m not yet convinced it would be. Ultimately, I find myself torn on UBI and Yang as a candidate. He seems to be the Democratic Party’s ultimate wild card: breaking away from the traditional progressive policies supported by other candidates while also avoiding the typical anti-Trump rhetoric found in the rest of the field. Many people like to throw around the word “electability” when talking about who deserves support, but I’m cautious of such ideas. After all, an entrepreneur with no name recognition has no business being tied in the polls with the likes of Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., yet here we are. Even if Yang does not become the Democratic nominee, his ideas are refreshing and worth talking about. Whether you are a moderate Democrat, a strong progressive or a curious conservative, you should give Andrew Yang and UBI deserve more attention. Timothy Spurlin can be reached at timrspur@umich.edu.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.
I
The Wing’s feminist work expands online
n a world so androcentric, The Wing exists as a feminist utopia and organization whose mission is to connect “a growing community of women across the country and globe, gathering together to work, connect, and thrive.” It provides a range of services, like child care, temperatures set for women’s bodies, a women-focused lending library, conference rooms, showers, a calendar of events ranging from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to feminst icon Gloria Steinem to actress Kerry Washington, pump rooms, chairs ergonomically designed for a range of women’s bodies, podcast studios and a café. And the female-oriented work and community space just got better. The Wing recently announced an online networking platform for members. One of the most important aspects of the platform is a LinkedIn-like job board where members can post and hire for jobs, as well as post their own resumes and availability for freelance projects. Members can also message each other and connect online. With their online expansion, The Wing is broadening their feminist work into online spaces beyond their physical spaces in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C. and London. In a time when fourth-wave feminist ideals finally started to hit mainstream America in the #MeToo Movement but ultimately ended in the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was credibly accused of sexual assault, the work The Wing is doing is critically important. Audrey Gelman, one of the co-founders of The Wing, recently told Kara Swisher of the “Recode Decode” podcast, “(The company is) about building a community … (Our members) use it as a place, as a community, as a network, as a place to meet people.” Gelman also noted how The Wing was developed in the fashion of women’s clubs in the early 20th century. “We were very
inspired to create something that was obviously more modern and progressive and diverse, but that had some of the spirit of those clubs,” she said. While some have pushed back on the company for centering women, The Wing’s website states, “The Wing is a diverse community open to all.” And if men were to enter the premises, in Gelman’s words, “No, we don’t taze them or anything.” Additionally, Gelman discussed how their new online jobs network eliminates some of the bias that hinders women on broader platforms like LinkedIn. “Women are less likely to apply for jobs if they don’t have exactly the number of years of experience, so we coach people about the right way to post jobs to discourage that and to encourage people who may have untraditional backgrounds, etc., to apply,” she
They are helping women promote each other in the workplace in order to disrupt the “old boys club” said. “And just, obviously, making sure that we’re building in safety and moderation from the very beginning, rather than having to add it after a scandal.” Gelman went on to tell Swisher the company does not receive profit from their new online platform as it is just another tool to improve women’s lives. The title page of The Wing’s website brands itself as “advancing women by gathering them together.” In many ways this is true, but The Wing is doing so much more. It is giving their members the tools to hire from — and be hired by — an incredible community of women for jobs that may have fallen victim to gender bias on other job-posting sites. In doing so, The Wing is engaging in the actual work of feminism. They are helping
women promote each other in the workplace in order to disrupt the “old boys club” that has allowed men to maintain their systematic dominance for so long. This work continues to be desperately needed. In early September, Forbes released their list of the 100 most innovative leaders. It included just one woman, Ross Stores CEO Barbara Rentler, whose picture they did not even bother to include. In fact, there were more men named Stanley (and Michael and Mark and John and David and Jeffrey and Robert and Brian separately) than women on this list. And while Forbes could have included innovators like Susan Wojcicki, Indra Nooyi, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Hyman or The Wing co-founder Audrey Gelman herself, it is true that women lead just 5.4 percent of S&P 500 companies — just 0.4 percent of which are women of color. The Wing’s platform enables women to uplift and amplify other women, which is a step in the right direction for improving these disparities. In the past, I have been critical of sorority-like feminism found in Instagram posts and T-shirts emblazoned with feminist mantras like “The Future is Female.” Too often, this type of feminism does not include any work, as poet bell hooks says, to “end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression.” It stops short of work and settles for individual feel-good actions that do nothing to actually dismantle funadmentally white supremacist and patriarchal systems of oppression. But I applaud The Wing for its efforts to create spaces for women to thrive and uplift each other by taking, as Gelman says, “iterative steps forward to make life easier for women.” The word “empowerment” is tossed around so much that is has almost lost all meaning, but in this case, The Wing is truly empowering women in significant, structural ways. Marisa Wright can be reached at marisadw@umich.edu.
VARNA KODOTH | COLUMN
“
Writing from a rich place
I’m already discredited, I’m already politicized, before I get out of the gate,” The late author Toni Morrison said in an interview with Hilton Als from The New Yorker Magazine. Morrison went on: “‘I can accept the labels’ — the adjectives like ‘black’ and ‘female’ that are often attached to her work — ‘because being a black woman writer is not a shallow place but a rich place to write from. It doesn’t limit my imagination — it expands it. It’s richer than being a white male writer because I know more and I’ve experienced more.’” Morrison beautifully vocalizes the process by which our identities are internalized and subconsciously influence what we produce. While this idea applies to a diverse range of disciplines and is not limited to writing by any means, it actually prompts a particularly introspective question to grapple with: to what extent do our identities contribute to “good” writing and also in a way, inform our writing? On the flip side, how do our identities impact how our audiences’ view and understand our writing? While “good” writing is a social construct at its core, for exploration let’s follow Morrison’s working definition to say “good” writing signifies richness in content. I’ll start: I am a liberal, IndianAmerican woman and daughter to immigrants. Now that you know this about me, does your perception change as you read the rest of this column? It absolutely does, and you’re lying to yourself if you object. It is the blatant truth that our core identities such as race, gender and political affiliations affect the way we interpret the world just as much as it affects the way the world views us and our work. Most writers are opposed to labels, but I wholeheartedly disagree and side with Morrison that they actually expand the richness of our writing. Morrison has never shied away from
being a “black woman writer.” In fact, it’s essential to take into account race, gender and political affiliations of any author, lecturer or instructor. Productive dialogue results from confronting different opinions, and our viewpoints are reflections of our values and belief systems. In order to properly engage with a text, it’s necessary to look beyond the superficial and instead take into account the factors that play a role in the creation of the text.
To what extent do our identities contribute to “good” writing?
It’s important to view the characteristics that make us unique, whether it be cultural, spiritual or political, as a shared experience. Learning together is arguably the most successful method by which to expand our understanding of humanity. It’s important to force ourselves and others into uncomfortable spaces and, paradoxically, to grow comfortable with the uncomfortable. That being said, Morrison’s being a “black woman writer” does not automatically make it her “responsibility to be a teaching tool for white people” about Black culture, in the same way that Malcolm Gladwell isn’t writing to an audience consisting of 21-year old Indian-American women like myself. Morrison’s work and lasting legacy is defined by her ability to create a new space for women like herself. Her writing founded new perspectives on “Blackness” and beautifully exposed deeply personal and moving stories of Black women. A personal favorite of mine, Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” tells
the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young Black girl who prays every single day for the beauty of blue eyes. This story addresses society’s obsession with beauty and beauty standards set forth by whiteness. Through Pecola’s idolization of “beauty,” the reader witnesses the way in which this toxic, normalized precedent of beauty operates from a young age and persists into adulthood. Morrison explains her purpose in the forward of “The Bluest Eye.” This text serves as a medium through which to reclaim racial beauty. There are elements to Pecola’s story that resonate within Morrison and are intended to ignite a fire within Black females to enact change. Her stories must be understood within the context of her life experiences as a Black woman in order to receive the level of attention and response that her writing demands. It’d be a disservice to the author, their experiences and ourselves to tip-toe around discussing a writer’s text with regards to their identities. What comprises our identity is meant to be displayed proudly to our audiences. Sharing our innermost traits and ideologies with those who are open-minded will benefit the masses by creating an open and inclusive learning environment. This is my final request: In an attempt to not be racist, don’t go so far as to be “color-blind” as plenty of colleagues and friends joke. Excluding and confronting race as if it is a taboo subject only further contributes to ingraining the racist rhetoric that exists within society. Here’s a general rule of thumb: If it makes you uncomfortable to talk about social and personal identities, then that’s a clear sign to use these formative years to educate, engage and encourage yourself. Become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Varna Kodoth can be reached at vkodoth@umich.edu.
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Monday, September 23, 2019 — 5A
TV NOTEBOOK
BOOK REVIEW
Tonight, doing the cha-cha: ‘Lanny’ is a lot, positively The worst spice on the rack VERITY STURM
“Lanny”
Managing Arts Editor
ALLY OWENS Daily TV Editor
When Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews, the hosts of “Dancing with the Stars,” take to the fabled ballroom staircase to introduce the cast of “stars” each season, it’s pretty safe to assume that viewers are not expecting the best, brightest and up-andcoming to appear on their screen. With alumni including Master P, Kate Gosselin and Nancy Grace over its 28-season run, “DWTS” has amassed a reputation for being an anti-Met Gala of sorts: You can pretty much expect everyone who isn’t anyone to turn up eventually. And while the show has had its share of bizarre seasons, this past Monday’s season premiere felt particularly absurd. Almost too absurd. Of course, there were the usual suspects: The former athletes (murderer Ray Lewis and sentient skyscraper Lamar Odom), the ringer (Ally Brooke of girl group Fifth Harmony) and the shameless ABC plug (former “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown). Then came the questionable: Meredith from “The Office” belting “She Works Hard for the Money” on live television. And of course, the downright confusing: Kel Mitchell attempting to prove to America why we were wrong to choose Kenan over him. But, of all of the casting decisions born out of a fever dream, none seemed as surreal or as irresponsible as the decision to cast former White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, as a star. No, not Melissa McCarthy reprising her “Saturday Night Live” spoof — the real Sean Spicer, stuffed like a Hillshire Farm sausage into an ill-fitting, electric green flamenco blouse and skin-tight white pants. Yum. From the first minutes of the season premiere, it became apparent to me that during the show’s year-long hiatus it underwent more upgrades than a Real Housewife — new graphics, sharper camera quality, improved props and possibly most irritating of all, new lengthy bits that precede every couple’s performance. According to Deadline, changes to the show’s classic format were implemented this year as a means to maintain audience interest in the show as it racks up more seasons. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Enter the Spice Rack. Despite the outpouring of criticism from the Internet when Spicer was first announced as a part of Season 28, ABC remained steadfast in the decision to televise the middle-aged white man’s powerful journey towards redemption and attaining rhythm.
Although it would be irrational to believe for a moment that ABC would opt for integrity over ratings gold, it was not the mere decision to cast Spicer that drove me to the edge. What irked me to the point of near-insanity while watching live on Monday night was the show’s blatant and, frankly, condescending attempts at normalizing the former White House staffer as a sort of screwball sitcom antagonist, and not a political tool who has downplayed the Holocaust, lied on several occassions to the American public and continued to defend the fascist who tossed him out of D.C. like yesterday’s trash. To save you the ire, I’ll recount the most infuriating example of this. “What one word describes you?” Spicer is prompted, to which he smugly replies, “Beyoncé.” For future reference, ABC, Beyoncé is infallible, not people who simply co-opt her fame to dupe The Youth™. Spicer stumbles through both interactions with others and his dance — a salsa to the Spice Girls’ “Spice Up Your Life.” Yes, that really happened. Although the entire viewing audience deserves an apology (and maybe compensation) for bearing witness to the ungodly pressure of Spicer’s slacks on his crotch, who truly deserves an apology is the Latinx population of America who had to watch a man partially responsible for their ongoing disenfranchisement essentially take a steaming dump on their culture. Because that’s who we forget, right? The real people affected by Spicer, his political cronies and his supporters who chant “Build the Wall” one day and celebrate Cinco de Mayo the next. In the rush by some moderates to absolve Spicer of his “minor” sins and see him as a man separate from — oh yeah — the career decisions he’s made as an autonomous adult, we don’t create a harmonious society or even “begin a conversation.” We are just complicit. Almost more importantly, we ruin the sanctity of escapist reality television. No longer can “Dancing with the Stars” merely be a place where America retreats from the pain of the real world to watch old has-beens break bones and dance the Foxtrot. With Mike Huckabee mobilizing Ford F-150 Twitter, panhandling online for prayers and votes to keep Spicer on the show for another week, the sustained blurring of lines between politics and entertainment continues and “Dancing with the Stars” becomes some sort of battleground for conservatives to “own libs.” I beg of you, before it gets too dystopian in here, vote this man off. If not for me, then at least so we can focus on the true underdog of this season, America’s sweetheart, James Van der Beek. The electoral college is not on their side this time.
No longer can “Dancing with the Stars” merely be a place where America retreats from the pain of the real world to watch old has-beens break bones and dance the Foxtrot
Max Porter Words in Max Porter’s “Lanny” refuse to stay in their lane. I mean this in the most literal sense: They stack on top of one another, expand and contract at random and bend into and about the margins, as if drunk on their very impression. And they grow more belligerent with every page. By the end of Part 1, they don’t even land sequentially, opting instead to splatter the page in haphazard handfuls. The verb for interacting with words flattened between the pages like bugmush feels more like “look” than “read.” Similarly, “Lanny” feels more like an experience than a text. To that point, it’s the most exhausting thing I’ve read this year. Max Porter’s sophomore novel, longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, floats around a jaded artist, her yuppie husband and their peculiar-yet-brilliant young son, the titular Lanny, as they move from urban London to an ostentatiously creepy village. The trope is painfully rich: There are batty old neighbors (including “Mad Pete,” a once-artist who may or may not have dabbled in porn), secret bunkers dug into the earth and a local folk-spirit known as Dead Papa Toothwort that stalks villagers from the trees and whispers cynically about their microwave dinners. Between the “spooky village” camp and the words sporadically sliding off the goddamn page, it’s within reason to sow a few first-glance doubts about “Lanny.” There are a lot of moving stylistic pieces that thwart its access, and Porter goes forth confidently in the direction of instability by dividing the project into narrative thirds. Part 1 vacillates between the subjective perspectives of four major characters before fragmenting into disembodied snippets of direct, blunt thought from anonymous villagers in Part 2. And then Part 3 is all up in the ether, slipping between first and third person, theater and novel, dreamscape and “reality” … I had to read the section three times to feel done, forcing the book to end through brute repetition, like some performed conclusion. It’s intense. There is a plot somewhere beneath all these informal devices, though, and a surprisingly
In its own peculiarity, Porter’s bizarre little book deconstructs the myths we create to survive those moments when there is no rational explanation
Graywolf Press March 5, 2019
simple one at that: Lanny goes missing. But when you run that story through Porter’s neurotic narrative machine, its components are yoked apart and magnified into a pulsing array of issues. The biggest yokefest takes place in that gulf of perspective between parts 1 and 2, a deft move on Porter’s behalf that contrasts what we tell ourselves with what the rest of the community — a single character, at this point — sees, warps and spreads. For instance, the villagers in Part 2 are the ones that imply Mad Pete’s lascivious tastes, which complicates the wholesome art lessons he gave Lanny in Part 1; conversely, Lanny’s mum writes grisly thrillers to make a living, which is easy to understand from her own perspective, but now looks nothing but suspicious. With every new piece of information, paranoia builds, backs turn and credibility plummets. Despite the fact that all are represented and speak directly, this voice rings no more “true” than the subjectivity of Part 1. In an earlier anecdote, Lanny’s mum unknowingly captures a tense sort of triangle between data, fiction and truth. She once found baby Lanny in a tree house nine feet off the ground and, despite his repeated denial and airtight alibi, subscribes to the story that her father had snuck off and placed him there as a joke. “It was easier to accept that Dad was lying,” she explains, “than it was to have no rational explanation.” Such transparent storymaking is the inventive, exhausting work of “Lanny.” In its own peculiarity, Porter’s bizarre little book deconstructs the myths we create to survive those moments when there is no rational explanation, everything from Dead Papa Toothwort to media coverage to the critical literary things I tell myself about the words falling off the page — whatever makes you feel better. Most impressively, though, “Lanny” refuses to elevate one sort of myth over the other. Lanny’s mum is a creative hippie type and his father a (satirically hilarious) capitalist cog in the machine and, although the book’s very existence gravitates towards the purview of the former, both are depicted as violent: Lanny’s dad displaces his labor malaise and masculine anxiety onto the family and his Mum stabs rodents in the sink for release. It’s impossible to imagine these two together, but, somehow, they still bone. “Lanny” is a lot for its 210 generously margined pages, and its ambition leaves loose ends that you will have to do work with. If you’re into the sort of reading experience that feels like wrestling, “Lanny” will be a very satisfying project. But it is the token experiment on the Booker menu that’s a little too left-of-center to progress to the shortlist, inheriting the 2018 seat of Nick Drnaso’s “Sabrina.” Until the Foundation catches up, though, it’s up to us to read the longlist, to keep the scene weird.
WORLD MUSIC COLUMN
‘Artaud’ is ever-revealing SAYAN GHOSH
Daily World Music Columnist
ABC
As under-recognized as he is outside of his home country, Luis Alberto Spinetta is considered one of Argentina’s greatest ever musicians. Similar to Victor Jara in neighboring Chile, his work played a stark contrast against the authoritarian junta government of Juan Carlos Onganía, heavily influenced musically by jazz and pscychedelia and lyrically from poets and philosophers from Nietzche to French playwright Antonin Artaud, whose name is used as the title of one of Spinetta’s best albums, Artaud. Pescado Rabioso itself was a short-lived project of Spinetta’s conception from 1971 to 1973, but for all intents and purposes, Artaud is a solo Spinetta project. Listening to Spinetta’s works, one can see the direct influences from the musical movements burgeoning in the Anglophone world at the time. Still, they feel much more ahead of their time. Echoes of Radiohead can be heard from decades before the English group even started recording. “Cementerio Club,” an early standout, is a slow ballad with nothing especially musically interesting happening except a few neat licks here and there. Spinetta’s vocals, while slightly nasal and high-pitched, are nonetheless soothing and are a conduit for the lyrics which give Spinetta the reputation as a poet in addition to just a singer-songwriter. He sings to a lover, “Qué solo y triste voya estar en este cementerio / Qué calor hará sin vos en verano,” (“How lonely and sad I’ll be in this graveyard / How scorching the summer will be without you”) using the idea of death introduced in the first lines in which he sings, “Justo que pensaba en vos, nina, caí muerto” (“Baby when you entered my mind, I died”). “Bajan” is another track where Spinetta flexes his
lyrical gifts. His vocals are never really measured, tending to meander around with a flair for melodrama, and this is put to great effect in the powerful choruses, in which he sings, “Nena, nena, qué bien te ves / Cuando en tus ojos no importa si las horas / Bajan, el día se sienta a morir / Bajan, la noche se nubla sin fin / Y además vos sos el Sol / Despacio, también podés ser la luna,” (“Girl you look so beautiful / When your eyes don’t care if the hours / go down and the day awaits its death / and the night is endlessly cloudy / And either way, you’re the sun / And you can slowly become the moon”). Artaud himself was a figure lightly associated with the surrealist movement in the early 20th century, famous for conceptualizing the “theater of cruelty,” where “cruelty” refers to the action of shocking the audience through more than just the words of the characters and the plot of the play, but also with gesture, lighting and sound. It is interesting, however, that Spinetta seems to reject the unfettered anarchism of his album’s namesake in many ways, except for the album’s masterpiece “A Starosta, el Idiota.” Over a powerful yet fragmented piano, Spinetta croons, “Bocas del aire del mar / Beban la sal de esta luz” (“Mouths of sea air / Drink this light’s salt”). In the middle, the concept falls apart and features a cacaphony of sounds, from a sped-up Beatles sample to a woman sobbing, before returning with an exotic, distorted guitar and a hopeful “No llores más ya no tengas frío / No creas que ya no hay mas tinieblas / Tan solo debes comprenderla / Es como la luz en primavera” (“Don’t cry anymore, don’t be cold anymore / Don’t think there’s any more darkness / You just have to understand it / It’s like light in spring”). Artaud is an album that reveals more and more after each listen. Even for non-Spanish speakers, the musical richness and complexity is readily apparent, and the way it is mixed, it is also rather intimate and comforting. Even if none of that sounds interesting as well, it might be worth just trying to collect one of the coolest looking vinyls there is out there.
Listening to Spinetta’s works, once can see the direct influences from the musical movements burgeoning in the Anglophone world at the time
Arts
6A — Monday, September 23, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW
‘Ad Astra’ reaches Nirvana the moon. (I wouldn’t have minded if this part became the whole movie.) Many more of these Daily Arts Writer details emerge in the film’s bracing, enigmatic final act that must be discovered for oneself. But Roy’s journey is a marvel in storytelling, suffused Among my many complaints about with operatic momentum. Every obstacle feels Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” is how like a necessary sidestep, contributing a valuable muddled it is in scope. Is it a movie about space spoke to the film’s narrative wheels. Pitt’s performance is nothing short of time travel? About the future of humanity? About a scientist and her cosmos-wandering remarkable. The movie places him in the center father? I’m not sure and neither is anyone of its every scene, and even in long cosmic else. What’s clear is that any film would have stretches without dialogue or voiceover, his trouble being all those things simultaneously, thoughts, confusions and anxieties seem successfully. “Interstellar” tries, and the result is tangible. He rides the line between conveying just enough to keep our claustrophobically awkward. eyes fixed on his and clearly An equally grand movie holding back something that gracefully dodges these vulnerable. Indeed, Roy’s complications is “Ad Astra.” vulnerability is a cagey and To call James Gray’s (“The “Ad Astra” fleeting thing, appearing in Lost City of Z”) latest work the twitch of a cheek muscle a space drama would be The State Theatre here, a momentary pause almost wrong. It’s probably Walt Disney Studios before mentioning his dad’s better classified as a drama Motion Pictures name there. But whenever Pitt that happens to take place brings this quality out, it’s as in space. While the hazards, much a relief from the pain as lessons, and implications of it is a foray into it. interplanetary travel compose Between Roy McBride and the film’s backdrop, “Ad Cliff Booth, Pitt’s recent role Astra” is purely the story of as a quirky, violent stuntman a broken man’s relationship with his father. When strange power surges in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” he’s threaten all life on Earth in the near future demonstrated how varied two quiet characters Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt, “Deadpool 2”) can be. Where Roy is an aching, convincing embarks on a journey for their origin — the last sympath, Cliff is wry and detached and wantless. But neither character speaks much. The known location of his disappeared father. One element common between “Ad Astra” space between these laconic poles is, and has and “Interstellar” is cinematographer Hoyte always been, the essence of Brad Pitt’s charisma. A compelling choice by Gray was to surround Van Hoytema (“Dunkirk”). His experience with space imagery is vividly apparent here, taking Roy with death. Death is the consequence for so advantage of a serene camera and eerie solar many fellow astronauts Roy encounters, and the lens flares. He expertly contrasts the slate gray gravitas of that reality is unbearable for some. interiors of human buildings with the literally What makes a career marked by death different otherworldly hues of the galaxy. Nearly every for him is not that he’s immune to emotion, but frame, whether simple aerial shots of the Earth that he feels like he must be. Roy’s understanding surface or a windowed corridor on Mars, is of that ultimate price is messy, and watching this internal grapple is a genuinely affecting picturesque. As aesthetically beautiful as it is, the wistful experience. It’s safe to say that “Ad Astra” is my favorite charm of “Ad Astra” comes from the details of its narrative. Among them are a harrowing rescue movie of the year so far. I found every moment of operation of a medical research ship, a freefall the film as captivating as the last, and I left the from the International Space Satellite near the theater a little more optimistic about the future film’s start and a spectacular chase sequence of both movies and human civilization. What that can only be characterized as “Mad Max” on else could one want? ANISH TAMHANEY
WALT DISNEY STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
DOWN 1 Snow glider 2 Lima is its capital
3 Fictional reporter Lois 4 “The doctor __” 5 “God” prefix 6 Film in which Streisand plays a yeshiva boy 7 Japanese rolls 8 Before, in verse 9 Mythical big bird 10 Usage measurer 11 French farewell 12 Ice show venues 13 Baker’s dough raiser 21 Sac fly stat 22 “The Simpsons” disco guy 24 Geeky-sounding candy 25 Knight’s lady 26 “Smooth Operator” singer 27 Kerfuffles 28 Lummox 29 __ The Museum: Stockholm exhibit honoring a pop group 30 Singer Tormé 33 Sunken ship explorer 34 __ of a kind 35 Peevish state 36 Verdi opera
37 Editor’s “never mind that change” 38 Jekyll’s alter ego 40 Gateway Arch designer Saarinen 41 More, for Miguel 45 Rearward at sea 46 Many “Star Trek” extras 47 Mars explorer 48 Friend of Maria in “West Side Story”
‘Jaime’ is a lovely life force MADELEINE VIRGINIA GANNON Daily Arts Writer
Jaime Brittany Howard’s debut solo album, Jaime, marks a distinct artistic shift from her previous work with the Alabama Shakes. Jaime, in all its glory, is an experimental masterpiece. In these eleven tracks, Howard leads the audience through a medley of emotions and poignant life experiences, sourced directly from her own memories. Named for her sister, who passed away from cancer in her youth, Jaime is a journey through Howard’s life. Exploring a variety of themes — from racism to faith to the tribulations of love — Howard presents an authentic, powerful statement on the labors of our lives and how they shape us. The album opens with “History Repeats,” an upbeat, f lowing song with hints of jazz inf luence and welcome doses of R&B, hip-hop f lair. The song is an energetic opening to an album that is blunt and honest about the labors of Howard’s life. The song has an element of chaos — a reference to Howard’s artistic “breaking free” as she embraces the opportunity to branch out beyond her Alabama Shakes roots. The sounds of the song seem scrambled, but repetitive lyrics work to ground the track. Howard sings, “Hoo, I don’t want to go back there again” — as the ages-old lesson goes, we must learn from our mistakes, lest the past repeat itself. Howard’s lyrics go deeper, however, suggesting that personal growth is found in moving forward; The past can hold pain of trials overcome, and the false safety of slipping back to bad habits. Howard wastes no time or effort in her debut album, embracing from the get-go experimentation and pushing her music to the far-f lung corners of constricting “genre.” The song “13th Century Metal” is one of the more adventurous tracks in Jaime, structured as a speech or chant in the form of a protest. Howard repeats over and over, “I repeat, we are all brothers and sisters,” evoking a sense of power and urgency one would find in the midst of a rally. “He Loves Me” is similar in its lyrical form, its religious undertones turning to the song into an “alternative sermon.” Howard sings of her God loving her regardless of her life choices, “I know he still loves me when / I’m smoking blunts / Loves me when I’m drinking too much.” A contrast to organized religion’s historic campaign against so-called “sinners,” in a world where the sin of the church, and the sins of reality, have reached a radical dichotomy. What is most notable in the album, however,
Brittany Howard AOT Records / Fantana North
is how Howard approaches the concept of struggle in her songs. “Georgia” spins a tale of a young girl exploring her sexuality, having a crush on another young girl. As Howard sings “And I can’t help the way I was born to be / I ain’t no little boy,” what is emphasized is how normal the experience is. Howard doesn’t attempt to turn the song into anything more than a tale of a girlhood crush — it’s not about the fact that this girl is gay, but more so about the pivotal experience of growing up, and the pain of unrequited emotion. The “struggle” isn’t defining: It’s present, it’s there, but Howard’s music suggests that life is more than the struggle. It’s the experiences that count. People aren’t defined about all the bad in their life, and not all the good either — it’s how they have lived in totality that crafts a person from the murky clay into the person they are now. Jaime’s many moving parts come together at the album’s climax: “Short and Sweet.” Slow, beautiful and vulnerable, Howard sings of a blooming relationship muddled by the pain of reason and pesky logic. “I may be a fool to dream of you” croons Howard, notes reminiscent of jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald, “But, God, it feels so good to dream at all.” It’s easy to get bogged down by worries of the future, and anxiety is a familiar foe of the day-to-day. But, Howard reminds us how important it is to stay in the moment. We can’t let the lingerings of past pain, or the fear of future mistakes, bar us from living the life we have. While simple in its mechanics, the unbridled beauty of song is a beacon in an album that twists and turns through multiple experiences, styles, and structures. In the end, Howard’s Jaime is an undoubted success, both as a debut solo work, and for it’s incredibly poignancy and emotional authenticity. Listen to Jaime first for “Short and Sweet,” a song not easily forgotten. Then again, to enjoy Howard’s masterful writing and soul-rocking tunes. It ain’t easy handling what life throws at you, but with Howard by our side, things don’t seem so dismal after all.
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
Release Date: Monday, September 23, 2019
ACROSS 1 Bowler’s challenge 6 River in western Belgium 10 “Quite contrary” gardener 14 Dog guide 15 Paris currency 16 Singer Adams 17 Bert’s Muppet roommate 18 Tiny bit of a min. 19 “Bob’s Burgers” daughter 20 *Zero degrees, on a compass 22 Looks for 23 *Fiduciary entity whose holdings are unknown to its beneficiaries 26 Deli hanger 31 Rivière contents 32 Sun-dried brick 33 Campus housing 35 Ceremonial shoulder-to-hip band 39 *Life insurance clause specifying twice the payment for certain situations 42 “¿Cómo __ usted?” 43 Pre-holiday nights 44 Helped 45 Exist 46 Opulent home 47 *Wet wooded region 53 Early stage 54 “I’m there!” ... and hint to the first part of the answers to starred clues 60 Lab vessel 61 Therefore 63 Radamès in 36-Down, e.g. 64 And others, in Lat. 65 Author Roald 66 Wild West film 67 Provocative 68 French “head” 69 Newspapers, collectively
AOT RECORDS / FANTANA NORTH / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
49 Author Asimov 50 Singer Furtado 51 Octet count 52 Swiped 55 Resting upon 56 Honey alternative 57 Pot starter 58 Ballerinas dance on them 59 Makes a mistake 61 NYC summer hrs. 62 Actress Charlotte
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
09/23/19
‘She Would Be King’ shines bright NATALIE KASTNER Daily Arts Writer
This past Thursday, the University of Michigan’s Museum of Art and the Zell Visiting Writers Series hosted author Wayetu Moore to discuss her debut novel, “She Would Be King.” She started off the evening by discussing her dedication for the book. She spoke about the importance of her Liberian family, having moved to the U.S. from Liberia at the age of five. These roots were the inspiration for her novel. She did not return to the country until after she finished her novel. To write the book, she relied heavily on research and her earliest memories. The novel is set during the liberation of Liberia. In the mid-19th century, Liberia was the very first independent African country to form during the time of colonization. Moore’s three central characters have drastically different backgrounds; however, they all seem to utilize their differences to help them. I found the reading to be especially riveting, as Moore is a natural storyteller. The excerpt she read depicted a pregnant young woman attempting to hide the birth of her child because the child was
cursed. Moore read with a refreshing passion, usually found more in performers than writers. The story follows three people all from different backgrounds, all deemed cursed by society. They all meet in the new nation of Liberia. The novel explores the African diaspora, community and the meaning of family. “The most profound thing I heard in this reading was just the way that she sought to honor her family as well as the narratives that were a part of her childhood,” Julia McDaniel, a graduate student in the Zell Writers’ Program, said. Moore’s writing style is packed with magical realism. Throughout the book, a magical wind guides the story along. It softens and personifies the harsh realities of life in tumultuous political times. After the event, Moore entered the UMMA atrium with grace and confidence far beyond her young age. She greeted the modest line of those wanting their book signed with eager and open kindness. Even though this is Moore’s debut novel, she is no stranger to activism — she has a nonprofit organization that publishes and distributes literature about underrepresented people to underprivileged areas. Her generosity was apparent in her tenacity of spirit during her reading. She was excited to share her culture with fellow writers.
Moore read with a refreshing passion, usually found more in performers than writers
By Seth Bisen-Hersh ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/23/19
SPORTSMONDAY The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | September 23, 2019
Wisconsin 35, Michigan 14
Max Marcovitch Managing Sports Editor MADISON —As Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor galloped free late in the first quarter, shifting left, then speeding into the free terrain of the secondary, it all began to come into focus. It was one play after Michigan punted the ball back, two plays after a wayward pass floated over the head of junior receiver Tarik Black and three plays after an acrobatic catch by sophomore Ronnie Bell was inexplicably nullified. Taylor cruised into the end zone for a 72-yard score, extending the Wisconsin lead to 14-0, and effectively pulling the plug on a lifeless Wolverines squad. At the time, the sequence appeared to be a momentous swing. In hindsight, it only expedited
Alexis Rankin / Daily
Design by Jack Silberman
the inevitable: a beatdown which will linger for the weeks and months to come. The Badgers followed Taylor’s lead, riding 203 yards from the All-American running back, and 359 rushing yards overall, to a 35-14 drubbing on Saturday afternoon. “We just can’t play like this again, cause we’re gonna get our butts kicked every week,” said senior left tackle Jon Runyan after the game. “We just gotta be better.” To attempt to pin down where it all went wrong would be to descend aimlessly into a black hole. Wisconsin opened the game with an 11-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, and never let off the gas. The Badgers scored touchdowns on three of their next five drives, going without a single three-and-out the entire first half. The Michigan offense countered with just 126 yards and two turnovers in the first half. That was all she wrote. As the half mercifully came to a close,
Wisconsin players paraded into the tunnel, while the two teams barked at each other. One side evoked swagger; the other reeked of frustration. One side owned the football field; the other belonged anywhere but. Both knew the second half served as nothing more than a formality. “When we went down 14, I looked around at a couple players dropping their heads and stuff,” said senior tight end Nick Eubanks. “We’re going to face adversity. It’s either going to knock us down and keep us there or we’re going to face it and tell it what’s good.” An offense that supposedly spent the bye week reflecting and rebounding from a disappointing start to the season showed little evidence of the sort. Michigan’s 0-for-10 showing on third down marked the first time the Wolverines failed to convert on third down since at least 1995. After two inconsistent performances to start the year, Patterson completed just 6-of-16 passes in the first half for 96 yards and an interception before being replaced by junior Dylan McCaffery to start the second half. The latter had to leave the game with a concussion late in the quarter. Neither evoked any sense of command. “I think of it, as a whole group, we don’t have an identity yet,” Eubanks said. “It’s up to us to find our identity even though we’ve got a game coming up next Saturday. We’ve got to find it quick. We know the type of season, this is a long season. It’s a gut check.” The statistical outcomes paint a picture bleak enough. The defense allowed 359 rushing yards, its worst since a 42-13 loss to Ohio State in 2015. Prior to two late garbage-time touchdowns, the offense mustered one drive over 21 yards — and it ended in a fumble by junior Ben Mason near the goal line on his first carry of the season. Still, the numbers cannot fully encapsulate the scar this loss will leave. Michigan has now lost its last 15 games on the road at top-15 opponents. It is 1-6 on the road against ranked teams in the Jim Harbaugh era, with Saturday’s just the most recent in the line of lackluster performances in big games. And that the problems Saturday were so frequent and pervasive means the ultimate blame must be thrust at the hands of one man. As that figure — once larger than life, now a shell of that — sat at the table facing the media after the game, he looked around for a moment, waiting for someone to break the silence. Finally, provoked by a question, he said the only thing he could. “We were outplayed. Out-prepared and outcoached,” Harbaugh said. “Outplayed. The whole thing. Both offensively and defensively. “It was thorough.”
SportsMonday
2B — Monday, September 23, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday Column: Identity fraud
M
ADISON — Among the many platitudes uttered after one of the worst losses Michigan has suffered in the Jim Harbaugh era was a prevailing echo that this was not the end. One loss in the Big Ten does not doom anybody, ETHAN especially SEARS one to an outof-division opponent. There is still time to turn things around and meet whatever goals the Wolverines harbor. “Everyone’s really determined and focused,” senior left tackle Jon Runyan Jr. said. “Our season’s not over.” And technically speaking, he’s right. Michigan’s season is not over, at least not in the literal sense. Its goals of a Big Ten title, and even a College Football Playoff berth, are still in play. The team will not spend the next 10 weeks on a slow death march, waiting for the season to end and for a free trip to somewhere warm. But after Saturday, and Wisconsin’s 35-14 beatdown of the Wolverines, it’s hard to believe it won’t end that way. Not because anyone is consigned to anything. But because of what we saw on the field — a team that, right now, can’t hang with the class of the Big Ten and isn’t particularly close to being able to do so. It’s not that Michigan lost. It’s the way Michigan lost. Josh Gattis’ offense, advertised with #SpeedinSpace, looked overwhelmed, the only points coming in garbage time. Michigan’s defense was physically outmatched as Wisconsin ran for a collective 359 yards. Jonathan Taylor alone went
for 203, more than any Michigan player has run for over the entire season to this point. The Wolverines lost by three scores and the margin could have been larger had Wisconsin not taken its foot off the gas or had Taylor not missed some time with an injury. After the game, there was talk of identity and improvement. It meant about as much as the talk beforehand about making a statement. “It’s up to us to find an identity,” senior tight end Nick Eubanks said. “We got a game coming up next Saturday. We gotta find it quick.” The bottom line is this: If you haven’t figured out your
identity three games into the season, that problem can’t be solved with a press conference soundbyte. It’s been six months since spring practice opened. It’s hard to believe six more days will make the ultimate difference. An identity, it turns out, cannot be reduced to a hashtag. Jim Harbaugh, Josh Gattis and Michigan have learned that lesson the hard way. As for the other side of the ball, the Wolverines at least seem to know what they want to be. The problem is, they’re nowhere near it. “I think we pride ourselves on being the best defense in
college football,” senior safety Josh Metellus said. “And these last couple weeks, we haven’t shown that.” On Saturday, they showed the opposite. It’s easy to look at the stats and assume this was the Jonathan Taylor show. And to be sure, Taylor played as well as you’d expect, bouncing out of trouble for big gains more than once. But the Badgers ran the ball as well as they did because they dominated in the trenches. As much as the offseason focus centered on losing defensive ends Chase Winovich and Rashan Gary, losing Lawrence Marshall and Bryan Mone might have caused the most noticeable drop-off.
The Wolverines don’t have the depth, size or strength to compete on the interior against a team like Wisconsin. “We got our backs against the wall,” sophomore defensive end Aidan Hutchinson said. “We just gotta fight.” On Saturday, there was no fight. No willpower and no physicality. The Wolverines got pushed around and bullied. Their 14 points came because Wisconsin decided not to kick
them when they were down. This team is talented — talented enough to live up to the hype that surrounded them for six months. But it showed nothing on Saturday to indicate it can go to Penn State and win. It showed nothing to prove it can move the ball against a defense like Michigan State’s. Good luck beating Notre Dame or Ohio State playing like it did against Wisconsin. This doesn’t look like a Big Ten contender. It looks like a group on the fast track to 7-5. In the past, winning games against ranked teams has been the difference between a consolation bowl and title contention. This year, it might be the difference between a consolation bowl and a flaming disaster — five of their remaining games are against top-25 teams. There’s time to fix it, but there’s a lot to fix and an unforgiving schedule. “You guys weren’t in our huddle,” sophomore defensive end Aidan Hutchinson told the media at large. “You guys weren’t on the sideline with us. You guys don’t know what goes on in our defense.” It’s true — Michigan doesn’t let the media into practice. We don’t know what’s said in the locker room and we’re nowhere near the sideline or huddle. But we do see the end product every Saturday. And that’s where the Wolverines have fallen woefully short. If that doesn’t change, it’ll be a long 10 weeks ahead.
We got our backs against the wall. We just gotta fight.
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has consistently struggled to beat ranked teams on the road, as exemplified by the Wolverines’ 35-14 loss at Wisconsin.
Sears can be reached at searseth@umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears.
Running game absent in ugly loss Amid loss, WRs show their talent ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor
MADISON — On its first drive Saturday, Wisconsin rode its Heisman-candidate running back all the way down the field. On Michigan’s, it handed the ball to a converted defensive lineman who didn’t have a carry this year. Jonathan Taylor scored a touchdown. Ben Mason lost a fumble. And that one drive was a perfect microcosm of the game as a whole. The Wolverines came into Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday and got embarrassed, 35-14. The reason for that can be summed up many ways, but one stat was particularly telling: Michigan had 40 yards rushing, Wisconsin had 359. Two weeks ago against Army, the Wolverines averaged 2.4 yards per carry. This week, they had 2.1. And suddenly, a team once known for its propensity to run the ball couldn’t run the ball. “First three games, we haven’t been able to dictate the game and how we wanted, being able to throw the ball when we want, being able to run the ball,” said fifth-year senior offensive tackle Jon Runyan. “We got into tough situations.” Junior quarterback Dylan McCaffrey was the Wolverines’ leading rusher. He ran for a game-high nine yards in a meaningless drive right before halftime before leaving with a concussion in the third quarter. Taylor, meanwhile, gained more yards — 72 — on a touchdown run in the first quarter than Michigan did all game. “When you play against us, we’re gonna stop the run,” said Wisconsin linebacker Chris Orr. “We’re gonna force you to play a one-dimensional offense, we’re gonna get after your quarterback and create turnovers.” That’s exactly what the Badgers did. When you think of the Wolverines having a one-
dimensional offense, you’re probably thinking of one of the many big games in past years where Michigan ran the ball and ran it again, eschewing downfield passing and getting nowhere. Saturday, it was the exact opposite. The Wolverines did have some success passing — actually finishing with 259 yards to Wisconsin’s 128. Senior quarterback Shea Patterson had five completions of over 20 yards, including a 68-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver Ronnie Bell, and another that was originally ruled a catch but controversially overturned. Instead, the Badgers stopped the run in its tracks and forced Michigan into passing downs. After Mason’s red-zone fumble, the running game was feeble, all semblance of confidence gone. The offensive line struggled to open up holes against Wisconsin’s stout defensive front. And the fact that freshman running back Zach Charbonnet, was “limited,” according to Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, only made matters worse. The Wolverines turned to sophomore Christian Turner. But unlike Wisconsin, which kept up the ground-andpound even after Taylor briefly left the game due to cramps in the second quarter, Turner was quiet. “It’s tough in those second and long, third and long
situations when we’re not on the path we want to be on,” said fifth-year senior offensive tackle Jon Runyan. “And you get those second and long, third and longs it’s tough because you’re thrown off track and you’re gonna have to throw the ball.” After the game, the Badgers talked about their gameplan, how they were confident they would dominate the line of scrimmage, how they rallied around the other running backs when Taylor left. They used words like “dynamic” and “explosive.” Harbaugh, meanwhile? “Things they did really well, we were unable to do as far as establishing a running game, having the play-action come off of that,” he said. “They blocked better, they tackled better, they had a better plan and executed it extremely well today.” Last year, a Michigan team with the same All-Big Ten offensive linemen ran for 353 yards — and ran Wisconsin off the field. A year later, it was the polar opposite. When Harbaugh was asked what he wanted his team’s offensive identity to be, he answered: “To be able to run the ball and be able to throw the ball, both equally and effective and efficient.” This time, it was the running game that was inexplicably absent.
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Christian Turner had just six carries for 17 yards in Saturday’s loss at Wisconsin.
THEO MACKIE Daily Sports Editor
MADISON — Tarik Black stopped on a dime, situated himself between two defensive backs and spotted Shea Patterson’s high-arching long ball. As it fell, he leapt to wrestle the ball from both defenders, securing a 32-yard gain and moving Michigan into Wisconsin territory. It was exactly what the Wolverines had envisioned all offseason, using their physical, talented receiving corps to invigorate a dangerous downfield passing game. One problem: Michigan trailed 35-8 with seven minutes left, and any hope of escaping Madison with a respectable result had long since dissipated. On the worst day of his Michigan career, Shea Patterson’s passes were rarely where Black or Nico Collins or Donovan PeoplesJones would have wanted them, but it didn’t matter. They went up to pinpoint them anyway, out-jumping overmatched defenders and finding gaps in coverage where it seemed impossible to do so. “(Made) some plays downfield,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “Both Nico, Tarik. Shea got the ball — we threw some deep balls and made some plays. Guys kept fighting.” None of it mattered. Because in the first half — back when there was some supposition Michigan might play decently — the Wolverines’ three star receivers combined for one catch and five yards on three targets. Sophomore Ronnie Bell had a 68-yard breakaway catch on Michigan’s first play. Good for him. But the Wolverines’ passing attack isn’t
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Wide receiver Nico Collins played well towards the end of Michigan’s loss.
supposed to be built around a sophomore who finished as the 212th-ranked wide receiver in his class and nearly played college basketball. Not when it has three NFL-caliber receivers, each of whom has proven his mettle when given the opportunity. And yet, through three quarters, Bell had nine targets. The other three had five combined. Between Bell’s opening 68-yard catch and the start of the fourth quarter, Michigan’s passing offense — labeled as the backbone of an offensive revolution in the offseason — managed 2.95 yards per pass attempt on 22 tries. In the fourth quarter, when it targeted Black, Collins and Peoples-Jones 11 times, that number rose to a respectable 7.41 before two late incompletions from thirdstring quarterback Joe Milton. “Yeah, most definitely,” said senior tight end Nick Eubanks, when asked whether the late-game explosiveness would impact the offense going forward. “We’ll see it on film and I believe the coaches will see it as well and we’ll go from there, in terms of who needs to
I think of it, as a whole group, we don’t have an identity yet.
get the ball and what we do on offense.” Whenever players are posed with gameplan-related questions postgame, there’s a common theme to their responses. The gameplan, they say, is above their pay grade. They need to watch the film, they’ll tell you, before pinpointing the root of any struggles. And it’s a fair response — mid-season strategic changes are typically nuanced and require more than a few minutes worth of reflection. So amid a sea of pre-packaged quotes about continuing to fight and keeping your head up and believing in your brothers, it stands out when Eubanks says change is needed. Saturday evening, as the scar of Michigan’s loss began to form, the question shifted to its offensive identity. Fifth-year senior left tackle Jon Runyan said it’s “fair to say” they don’t have one. Harbaugh, after a start in which the Wolverines have rushed for 3.5 yards per carry, said, “To be able to run the ball, to be able to throw the ball both equally, effective and efficient.” Eubanks, again notable for his candor, said, “I think of it, as a whole group, we don’t have an identity yet.” Deep in the fourth quarter, it may have been sitting right in front of them.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
Monday, September 23, 2019 — 3B
MEN’S TENNIS
Pearson not expecting another slow start Wolverines rebound in TIEN LE
Daily Sports Editor
Mel Pearson sat down casually and focused on his next few words. He gestured with the flat of his hands, raising one inches from his chest area and the other to his eye level. “You don’t want to take it from here,” the Michigan coach said, indicating the level of play with his hands’ positioning. “And all of a sudden, you play a game to here.” Pearson was preparing his team for the start of the season. In a game, every aspect of hockey is ramped up — speed, strength, skill. The standards for a game could not be easily mimicked in practice. But that’s what the Michigan hockey team is striving for. “We want the intensity,” Pearson said. “We want the pace. We want the speed up, and then hopefully, because if we get there, then the execution will stay there.” High-octane practices. Stricter conditioning. Countless repetitions. The team did everything in its power to get as close to in-game conditions and as in shape as possible — for the sake of getting off to a strong start to the season. And that reason being, the last two seasons, the Wolverines have begun the year poorly. The previous two seasons under Pearson, Michigan amassed an 8-8-1-1 record with a loss to Bowling Green on New Year’s two years ago, and a 6-7-23 in the same stretch of time last year. Even in years prior, dating back to Pearson’s tenure at Michigan Tech, his teams have struggled to start a season successfully. In 2016-17, the year before Pearson departed for the Wolverines, the Huskies lost their first four games, starting the season 1-5-2 — though they eventually turned
the season around to get an NCAA Tournament bid. It’s a problem Pearson’s aware of. But this year, he anticipates a different result. “The first year, I can understand why with new systems and new coaches and a lot of different things going on,” Pearson said. “And last year, I can’t put my finger on it. I could give you a couple of my thoughts, but I don’t know if they’re correct or not. But having said that, I think I don’t anticipate that same issue this year. “Now, if you look at my record and the coaching record, we probably always got off a little bit slower and stronger as we go on.”
His first year, Pearson had to juggle coaching with learning new players, roles and teaching a completely new scheme. That meant experimenting early games to figure out which role fits whom best. “Part of it, too, is just finding out what you have and who your team is, and trying to play guys, maybe in some situations you don’t know yet,” Pearson said. “And I’m a proponent of trying to see what we have in games and go from there, give every chance so to speak. “So, I don’t know if we will this year. I think we know a lot more about our team, and our players now when I first came in.” The second year, the team
chose to prioritize even strength play in practice early — but special teams would later come back to bite them. The Wolverines weren’t concerned with the power play and penalty kill early, because “it’s hard to get those things right off the get go.” In addition to answering the special team concerns early this year, Pearson has gotten to know the team’s ins and outs. Time will tell if that will translate to live play in Pearson’s third season. “I think it’s going to be a lot smoother transition in the start of season this year,” said senior forward Nick Pastujov, “as compared to maybe some other ones.”
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Michigan coach Mel Pearson’s teams have struggled at the beginning of the season throughout his career.
weekend tournaments JARED GREENSPAN For The Daily
After last weekend’s disappointing season-opening tournament at the Napa Valley Tennis Classic, the Michigan men’s tennis team made a concerted effort to press the reset button. In two weekend tournaments — the Battle in the Bay Classic in San Francisco and the Farnsworth-Ivy Plus in Princeton — it showed. “We went back and met as a team and had to really recharge and restart, get back to who we are as a team and what tennis is all about,” said Michigan coach Adam Steinberg. “The guys performed well this weekend, and it was a step forward for us, for sure.” Across the two tournaments, Michigan singles players won 13 of 23 matches and doubles pairs won 4 of 7, through midday on Sunday. Three additional singles matches went unreported. Such were the positive results that Steinberg was looking for in his team. No player made a bigger statement than freshman Ondrej Styler. Playing in his first collegiate tournament, Styler advanced through four rounds, all the way to the finals. “For Ondrej to play as well as he did was a terrific effort,” Steinberg said. “It was something we needed to jumpstart us. To do that in a tough, big environment with a lot of great teams — USC, TCU, Stanford, Cal — beating those guys, he did tremendous.” The highly-touted recruit out of Prague showed both skill and determination on the court. In his first match, Styler persevered through two tiebreakers, winning, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4). He later advanced to the finals on the heels of another dramatic tiebreaker before ultimately falling to USC’s Brandon Holt, 6-2, 6-4.
Across the country at the Farnsworth-Ivy Plus in Princeton, the duo of juniors Harrison Brown and Kristofer Siimar won their doubles tournament, posting a 3-0 record. After winning their opening match, 8-3, the pair never looked back. “We came out with a lot of energy and enthusiasm,” Brown said. “For me, I’ve really improved my mental game. I feel as if this tournament wasn’t as tough for me compared to the others from last year.” While the official collegiate season doesn’t kick off until January, participating in tournaments offers several benefits for the Wolverines, among them competitive gameplay and an opportunity to work on certain skills. Specifically, Steinberg wants his players to come together as a team, buying into the importance of coherence and collectivity. When it comes to formulating a team culture, Brown can already sense a notable difference in this year’s coming faster than that of yesteryear. “I have a really good feeling about this group of guys,” Brown said. “We’ve come out of the summer a lot stronger compared to last summer. We have the ability to make a big impact on the national stage.” Making such an impact and winning championships is certainly the end goal for Michigan. Steinberg insists that winning is inevitable so long as a strong team foundation is first in place. “Right now, we’re trying to just develop,” Steinberg said. “We talk about it everyday. It’s not the most exciting thing, but trying to develop a championship culture in our program in every way is our goal. We don’t talk about rankings and championships right now. Just a big culture, because now we’re just trying to get better.”
‘M’ starts strong, ends in 1-1 draw Offense can’t capitalize on potential CLAIRE BRADY For The Daily
Imagine a textbook giveand-go around a Rutgers defender, a hard pass into the middle of the box, and an easy tap-in by the Wolverines and that’s the Michigan men’s soccer team only goal no more than 120 seconds into the game. In a combination of deadly passes, Michigan sliced easily through the right side of the Rutgers defense and seemed poised to continue that momentum into the rest of the game. Michigan (3-2-2) struck early during its first Big Ten matchup against No. 24 Rutgers, yet fell victim to a penalty kick and then lightning as weather forced the game into an early ending, 70 minutes in at 1-1. Michigan’s only goalscorer of the night was fifth-year senior forward Nebojsa Popovic, who now has five goals on the season. Popovic led the Michigan attack in keeping a high press against the Rutgers defense from the very beginning of the game, and eventually transformed that pressure into his secondminute goal. Fellow forwards Jack Hallahan and Christian Pulselli, were both credited with assists. “We want to see if we can be aggressive early and get after teams and make them uncomfortable and its been successful for us,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley. “We want to state our intentions by our approach and I think we’ve done that.” The Wolverines kept a strong hold on the midfield and limited the Scarlet Knights to only a few offensive chances in the first 20 minutes. But while defending a Rutgers corner in the 24th minute, senior defenseman Abdou Samake committed a foul inside the box and senior goalkeeper Andrew Verdi could do nothing to stop the penalty from sailing into the right side of the net. The Rutgers goal changed
the flow of the game and successfully slowed the momentum Michigan had built in the opening minutes to a 1-1 halftime score. The Wolverine defense was increasingly under attack, while the midfield struggled to keep possession of the ball due to sloppy passes and frequent turnovers all over the field. The teams entered the locker rooms even and needing to come out strong. “While they had more possession in the first half, I don’t think we were uncomfortable in any shape or form,” Daley said. Michigan seemed to rise to the challenge, and four minutes into the second half sophomore forward Derick Broche managed to put the ball into the goal but it was called back as he had kicked the ball out of the goalkeeper’s hands. However, soon after that chance the game settled into what it was in the first half- an even battle with close chances
and scares for both teams. In the 60th minute, Popovic re-entered the game and re-energized the Michigan attack, pressing the defense and quickly creating two opportunities for Broche and junior forward Umar Farouk Osman. But, by the 70th minute, lightning and rain in the area stopped any more offensive chances when officials stopped play. A thirty minute weather delay led to play resuming for about two minutes before storms initiated a second weather delay that saw the match called 1-1. “Both teams really wanted to finish the game,” Daley said. “I think we really wanted to a little bit more because we were kind of responding to a sluggish first half. But we weren’t poor by any stretch because in reality their only shot on goal was a PK, ... We gotta live with what we have, we are who we are, and just keep rolling through the season.”
NICHOLAS STOLL For The Daily
It was textbook team play that allowed the Michigan men’s soccer team an early lead. From inside his own box, senior forward Jack Hallahan set up junior midfielder Marc Ybarra, starting a chain of beautiful passes between Hallahan, Ybarra and freshman forward Christian Pulselli. The flawless build-up ended with a cross to fifth-year senior Nebojsa Popovic who buried the ball in the back of the net on the opposite end. Only two minutes after kickoff, the pitch-length run and resulting goal gave the Wolverines an early one-goal lead. But that was the only offensive production that Michigan (0-0-1 Big Ten, 3-2-2 Overall) could muster in a rainshortened 1-1 draw to Rutgers (0-0-1 Big Ten, 5-0-2 Overall). “We want to see if we can be aggressive early and get
after teams and make them uncomfortable,” said Michigan coach Chaka Daley. “We want to state our intentions by our approach.” The early game success wasn’t unusual for the Wolverines, who have scored a goal in the first 15 minutes in both of their past two matches. That much, the team has done, but sustained success has been lacking through seven games. The opportunities are there, just not the goals. Michigan finished the game with nine shots, five of which were on target. “We had some really really great chances and I wish one of them snuck in,” Daley said. “One’s in the goalie’s hands, is it over the line, ref protects him a
little bit. Two one (versus) ones inside the box, keeper makes an amazing, amazing two saves, seems to happen to us a lot.” Retaining momentum after the goal was an issue for the Wolverines, who seemed sluggish after their initial push. It took until after the half for them to reapply pressure on the Scarlet Knights’ defense. Just as the chemistry between Hallahan, Popovic and sophomore forward Derick Broche was heating up again, the game was delayed by severe weather and then called outright, leaving 18 minutes on the clock and the trio without a much-needed goal. Despite the disappointment of not finding a go-ahead goal, Daley had largely positive takeaways from a tie in the first Big Ten matchup of the year. “We’re still creating chances and we’re off to a good start,” Daley said. “We are what we are.” As Daley knows, though, Michigan is going to have to capitalize on these chances to have success this year. The team was controlling the game against a strong Rutgers squad, and a win would have been a boost going into conference play. It all comes down to what the team can do with those chances. “When we look at big moments, when we think about the game we always talk about there’s big moments in every half” Daley said. “There’s probably three or four big moments in every half. Do you win those moments?” In this matchup, the Wolverines were only able to win one of these moments. The team has talent and their head coach is pushing the right mentality, but the question remains — can they turn these moments into points on the scoreboard?
We want to state our intentions by our approach.
MILES MACKLIN/Daily
Senior forward Jack Hallahan had an assist in Michigan’s 1-1 draw against Rutgers on Sunday afternoon, which was suspended due to lightning with 20 minutes left.
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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Monday, September 23, 2019 — 4B
Answers elude Michigan’s offense
Identity makes difference for Badgers ARIA GERSON
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
Daily Sports Editor
MADISON — For a fleeting moment on Saturday, as Ronnie Bell streaked across an open field and into an unmanned secondary with only green grass ahead of him, it seemed like everything might be OK. Bell eyed the end zone and all those concerns about senior quarterback Shea Patterson ameliorated. He ran towards it, and the noise around offensive coordinator Josh Gattis dissipated. He got pushed out of bounds at Wisconsin’s 7-yard line and it didn’t matter, because this was speed in space, the kind of up-tempo juggernaut that can go into a place like Madison and throw a defense like the Badgers off their game. Two plays later, Ben Mason fumbled. Wisconsin recovered and the Wolverines snapped out of their haze — falling into an ugly reality that engulfed them for the game’s next 53 minutes. Patterson left the game at halftime after an abominable start. He came back in later on and finished by completing less than half of his passes. Backup quarterback Dylan McCaffrey was lucky not to be intercepted numerous times, then left the game himself with a concussion. Receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones, in his muchanticipated return from injury, got hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty early that took away more yards than his lone catch gained. Collectively, eight rushers combined for 40 yards on 19 carries. Take out the negative-9 yards Jon Runyan Jr. got on an ill-fated Patterson decision under pressure and it balanced out to 49 on 18, or 2.72 per carry. Michigan scored 14 points and had 299 total yards. All 14 of those points came once Wisconsin had gone up 35-0 and 128 of those yards came in the fourth quarter, well after the student section had started to flood out, getting an early start on celebrating a statement win. “We just can’t play like this again, cause we’re gonna get our butts kicked every week,” Runyan said, and it doesn’t take a football expert to see that he’s right. Call it a result of changing schemes — and senior tight end Nick Eubanks did — but the Wolverines had all spring, fall camp, two games and a bye week to get used to Gattis’ offense, which was advertised as simple. At this point, the learning curve is barely a valid excuse. Call it a result of personnel or not having enough talent, but this is a group that returned a senior quarterback, four starters on a good offensive line and three NFL-caliber receivers (all of whom were healthy on Saturday). There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Call it a result of Gattis, a first-time play caller, walking into a situation in which he may not be ready for and struggling at the first sign of trouble. But the tape of the first two games showed open passes left on the field, and Eubanks alluded Saturday to “things we missed and opportunities we had.” Or you could do what Jim Harbaugh did, and acknowledge that this is not one problem. On every level, Wisconsin was just better, and on every level, Michigan must improve. “We were outplayed,” Harbaugh said. “Out-prepared, outcoached, outplayed.” Patterson has yet to look himself in three games. The offensive line has repeatedly struggled, leaving Patterson out to dry and putting running back Zach Charbonnet into situations where a two-yard gain constitutes success. Those three NFL-caliber receivers — Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins and Tarik Black — combined for three targets and five yards through Michigan’s opening drive of the second half on Saturday. When the Wolverines lined up to punt after that drive, down 28-0, the TV camera cut to Harbaugh uttering an expletive. What else could he do? A couple hours later, a reporter asked Harbaugh about the identity he wants for the offense. “To be able to run the ball, to be able to throw the ball both equally, effective and efficient,” Harbaugh said. “Definitely little things that we gotta do and we gotta do better.” Thus far, all the offense has been able to show is short glimpses of what it could be. Like Bell’s on Saturday, those don’t amount to much in the long run.
MADISON — No matter who you asked, there was a phrase that reverberated through the Wisconsin press room Saturday afternoon. “We just played Wisconsin football.” There’s a very specific style the Badgers are known for. It’s physical, bruising football, with a stout running game, a steady stream of overpowering offensive linemen and a lockdown defense. Done right, every opponent slowly has the life sucked out of it. For years, they haven’t deviated, and there’s a reason: it works. It certainly worked Saturday. The linemen opened up gaping holes for Jonathan Taylor to burst through. Wisconsin ran three times as much as Michigan and gained 319 more yards on the ground. The defense pitched a shutout through the third quarter and wound up with a blowout, 35-14. As the Wolverines were on the other side of the stadium, talking about how they didn’t yet have an identity, the Badgers made one thing clear: they know exactly who they are. Last year, in a 38-13 Michigan win, the Wolverines did their thing and it showed. This time, it was Wisconsin’s turn to return the favor. “Last year is not who we was,” said Wisconsin safety Reggie Pearson. “And coming in this year, every opponent that we get, break them down from first quarter to fourth.” This was a team assured of itself from beginning to end, a team that noticed from the first drive — when the Badgers went for it on fourth down at their own 34 — that the guys on the other side weren’t quite the same way. Back on Tuesday, senior quarterback Shea Patterson tried to make people feel the same way about Michigan. “We’re gonna go out there and make a statement,” he said, and Wisconsin was listening. The Badgers had something of their own to say. Linebacker Chris Orr told his team about Patterson’s proclamation all week, preparing to give him a test he didn’t see coming. When asked after the game who made a statement, Orr’s response went without saying: “We did.” “We were just trying to make a statement that we were gonna dominate in the line of scrimmage up front and you prepare for that,” Taylor said. “You know coming in here, the University of Wisconsin, they’re gonna run the ball.” Wisconsin proved that what Patterson had so confidently said was just a bunch of empty words, that you can’t make a statement without knowing exactly what that statement is going to be. After the Badgers converted that first fourth down, they marched down the field, bludgeoning the Wolverines’ defense with Taylor, scoring a touchdown and eating clock. Wisconsin put Michigan on watch, showed the Wolverines this was its identity. Then it went back to that, again and again. When Taylor went down with cramps in the second quarter, it didn’t matter. There were other running backs waiting in the wings, and Michigan couldn’t stop them, either. The Badgers went all-in on their offensive line, sometimes putting seven or eight linemen in on short yardage, daring the Wolverines to stop the run and knowing they wouldn’t. The defense knew it could force an offense to be onedimensional, and it did that, too. This time, it was by stopping the run and forcing Michigan to pass, knowing that on third- and fourth-and-long, it could only do so much. Wisconsin fans chanted “overrated” two separate times, knowing fully that the Wolverines weren’t what they said they were. But the Badgers like to think it was more than just that. “I’m sure people would say that Michigan lost the game instead of us winning the game, so we don’t care about that,” Orr said. “We’re gonna have the same goal next week and the week after that until the end of the season, just dominating whoever we line up against.” Michigan didn’t have an identity Saturday. Wisconsin did. The difference has never been more clear.
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Defensive coordinator Don Brown’s unit gave up 359 rushing yards in an embarrassing performance against the Badgers on Saturday,
Jumped
Michigan outplayed in all facets, loses 35-14
M
ADISON — Ten days ago, Don Brown stood in front of reporters, flashing his trademark energy and easily consumable sound bites to appease an apprehensive fanbase. Amid his playful acts and positive reinforcement, the criticism came. Michigan had given up 21 points to a pair of unranked teams at home so the question THEO naturally folMACKIE lowed: How are you going to stop Wisconsin? Brown’s response was not to worry. Sure, Michigan struggled for stretches against a pair of teams that finished 79th and 62nd in yards per game a year ago. But Wisconsin — 31st in that category — ran a familiar offense, so the Wolverines shouldn’t have any trouble stopping them. “I’ve been writing Wisconsin cards and I’ve kinda been ‘Woohoowoo!’ because I can whip them out like that!” Brown said at the time. “Because it’s all the stuff our guys know and are comfortable with. And we’ll jump in at a high level, without question.” So, about that. For two and a half quarters Saturday afternoon, before the Badgers elected in favor of empathy, Michigan had to count any play that didn’t end in a first down as a revelatory success. At that media availability last week, Brown was asked to address the concern that the Wolverines couldn’t handle Wisconsin’s vaunted run game, led by All-American back Jonathan Taylor. Brown’s response: “Bunch of crap.” Wisconsin finished with 57 carries for 359 yards and five touch-
downs. Where, then, was the preparation that Brown talked about before the game? Ask those on the field and the answer’s clear — not on Michigan’s sideline. When senior safety Josh Metellus was asked how the Wolverines let Taylor romp for 203 yards, his response, before a pause, was one word: “Scheme.” “They came in with a different type of scheme than they did last year,” Metellus continued. “… They ran more of a double-counter (guard-tackle) type of scheme, trying to get the cutback lanes. Say
We knew the pressures that were coming. ... We got to shut those things down early. they’d try to run to the left, we’d overflow it, try to get their cutback through the A-gap or something like that.” Metellus wouldn’t outright say that Michigan failed to adjust, but when you give up five rushing touchdowns in the first seven drives, the implication is clear. In the Wisconsin locker room, candor was in greater supply. “We knew the pressures that were coming,” said Badgers left tackle Cole Van Lanen. “We watched a lot of film and we got to shut those things down early so they stopped running them and then they’re getting a lot of base defense.” All of this, about the defense that’s regarded as the hallmark
of the Jim Harbaugh-Don Brown era. The defense that’s ranked top three nationally in yards allowed per game since Harbaugh arrived in 2015, sure. But also the defense that has played 10 games at top-20 teams or home vs. top-10 teams under Don Brown and given up an average of 31.9 points. So when the Wolverines describe this as an uncharacteristic performance, they’re not wrong, they’re just off by 3.1 points. Still, there’s optimism in the Michigan locker room. “You look at the defense, we have a lot of good guys,” said sophomore defensive end Aidan Hutchinson. Hutchinson isn’t wrong. He’s one of those good guys, a disruptive force whether he lines up at tackle or end. Josh Uche and Kwity Paye are dynamic threats off the end. Lavert Hill and Josh Metellus are NFL players in the secondary. Running down the roster, though, misses the point. No one on this defense is a likely first round pick. You know who was? Jabrill Peppers, Taco Charlton, Devin Bush and Rashan Gary. Jourdan Lewis, Delano Hill, Chase Winovich and David Long were all selected in the first three rounds. And yet, all of those players have walked out the doors of Schembechler Hall without a win against Ohio State or in a New Years’ Six bowl. They walked out without even notching a top-20 road win, members of a defense that failed to hold up its end of the bargain when it mattered most. So, with Michigan down 28-0 after two quarters and yet another big-game loss looming, what was Don Brown’s message? “We treated the game 0-0 at halftime,” Hutchinson said. Not with this defense. Mackie can be reached at tmackie@ umich.edu or on Twitter @theo_mackie.
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Wisconsin running back Jonathan Taylor rushed for 203 yards against a listless Michigan defense in Wisconsin’s 35-14 win.