ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Ann Arbor, Michigan
michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
CAMPUS LIFE
UMich students stage a walkout to call for University divestment Hundreds gathered on the Diag as part of a national walkout
MARISSA CORSI Daily Staff Reporter
Hundreds of University of Michigan students walked out of their classes and gathered on the Diag to call on the University to divest from companies profiting from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Organized by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality and the TAHRIR Coalition, the protest was part of a national walkout on campuses across the country. In her opening remarks, SAFE president Salma Hamamy said she believes American universities’ investments are directly contributing to the ongoing violence in Palestine. “Universities have refused to divest from companies that are complicit in human rights violations, to divest from companies that are sending weaponry to Israel that are massacring civilian population after civilian population, that are Students march down E University Ave during the National Walk-out for Gaza Thursday afternoon. causing an exponential death rate that we have never before seen in we’re all about.” current calls for divestment as you’ve already heard, I’m afraid modern history,” Hamamy said. Sepulveda said JVP’s from Israel to the University’s our university is very much tied up “Our universities are not too far involvement in Thursday’s protest divestment from apartheid in financially in all of that. So what distant from these war crimes.” demonstrates the importance of South Africa in 1983 and 1988. can we do?” In an interview with The solidarity among students of all Derek Peterson, U-M Ali Mazrui Las week, the Faculty Michigan Daily, LSA junior Alex backgrounds. collegiate professor of history and Senate passed two resolutions Sepulveda, activism chair of “There is an ever-growing African studies and a member of condemning the University Jewish Voice for Peace, said the narrative maintained by the the Faculty Senate, criticized the for canceling Central Student goal of the walkout was to increase University and all of the power University’s response to recent Government ballot proposals student awareness about how the players of this world that this is an calls for divestment in a speech at concerning the Israel-Hamas University’s investments fund Arab-Jewish conflict or a Muslim- the event. war and calling for University Israeli military violence. Jewish conflict,” Sepulveda said. “There’s a lot to be learned divestment. Peterson said he “The average student has “It couldn’t be further from the from the anti-apartheid struggle believes it is important for both absolutely no idea where their truth. It’s a Zionist versus anti- today,” Peterson said. “We can’t U-M students and faculty to speak tuition dollars are going, or how Zionist conflict, and it is the take eight years as a university to out against the violence in Gaza. the school has effectively used responsibility of Jewish people to get on the right side of history. We “For at least most of us who them as commodities to further stand arm-in-arm with their Arab need to act now … this is an urgent teach here, education is, among the American imperial agenda,” and Muslim brothers and sisters matter. There’s people dying at the other things, a moral undertaking,” Sepulveda said. “We come here to resist Zionism by any means cause of weapons that are supplied Peterson said. “It demands not to inform the entire student body necessary.” by American companies in the simply the imparting of knowledge and the whole world at large what Speakers at the event compared service of the Israeli military. And, and the training of skills, but it also
BUSINESS
‘Rooster’ lands in Ann Arbor: Actor Miles Teller makes appearances at South U bars
Miles Teller signed shirts and promoted a canned cocktail line at The Brown Jug and The Blue Leprechaun REBECCA LEWIS & CHRISTINA ZHANG Daily News Editor & Staff Reporter
Ann Arbor bars The Brown Jug and The Blue Leprechaun were packed Tuesday evening as actor Miles Teller stood behind the bar signing shirts and throwing merch to promote the canned cocktail line, The Finnish Long Drink, of which he is a minority owner. The lines started at 5 p.m. and stretched down South University Avenue as crowds surrounded the bars, hoping to get a glimpse of Teller, who visited The Brown Jug before ending the night at The Blue Leprechaun. Ann Arbor resident Richard Yurcak told The Michigan Daily that he was excited to be among the crowd with his friends after waiting since 5:20 p.m. “I came here to support my friends and just spend some time with them. We all have a similar liking for (Teller),” Yurcak said. “I only waited for about 20 minutes. We got in by 45 after 5. It’s exciting. I like being here. I like being in Ann Arbor. I like being with the energy. It makes me feel vibrant, it makes me feel young again and all that good stuff.” Before arriving in Ann Arbor, Teller had visited other bars in Michigan as part of his promotional tour. Julia Metis,
a student at Michigan State University, told The Daily she traveled to Ann Arbor after missing his event in East Lansing. “I drove here from East Lansing because I missed him because I was in class,” Metis said. “I wanted to come see him, so I went to Ann Arbor. I left right after my class ended at 4:20 p.m. I drove here as fast as possible. We’re having fun. It was so worth it because I love Miles Teller.” Inside The Brown Jug, patrons crowded around Teller, asking him to sign their belongings and standing on chairs in hopes of catching a glimpse of the actor. LSA junior Elizabeth Leppek, waitress at The Brown Jug, said while she knew Teller was coming ahead of time, it was still exciting to have him visit. “We knew he was coming,” Leppek said. “We knew it would be pretty busy. It’s definitely really exciting. I feel like we have a lot of Michigan athletes come in here, but to have a big actor like Miles Teller come in is a big deal.” Even once The Brown Jug hit full capacity, the line continued around down the street. Ann Arbor resident Alyssa Gilson said even after waiting for an hour and a half, she and her friends were still determined to see Teller. “We got here at 6:20,” Gilson said. “We were trying to get here earlier, but that didn’t work out. … We’ve been
GOT A NEWS TIP? E-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
Follow The Daily on Instagram, @michigandaily
standing in line for about like an hour and a half, maybe a little bit less than that, but we haven’t really made much progress, so we’re kind of feeling disappointed.” The Blue Leprechaun hit full capacity before Teller even made his entrance, but many University of Michigan students and Ann Arbor community members stayed in line, eager to see him. LSA senior Guneet Shah told The Daily that waiting outside was a bonding experience for her and her friends. “We’ve been waiting since 7 p.m.,” Shah said. “I just saw it on Instagram, and a few of my friends from my hometown were coming up so I just decided to join them and maybe see (Teller). We’re all just a little cold. It’s kind of a waiting game — we’re just waiting it out to see him.” Teller invested in the canned drink in January of last year. The beverage is a Finnish mixed drink with a gin base and typically has a citrus f lavor. LSA senior Chayla Gould said local businesses hosting events with celebrities is a smart business idea because it allows fans to meet celebrities they would have never met otherwise while supporting local businesses. “I think it’s really nice to be able to let celebrities interact with the public because it’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Gould said.
GEORGIA MCKAY/Daily
obliges us as teachers and students to engage in serious committed thought about what it means to be a citizen … in this instance, if we’re going to be the leaders and the best in athletics, then we ought to also be the leaders and the best in matters to do with ethics.” In a speech at the protest, Rackham student Nathan Kim, a member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization, said he believes the University should be held accountable for its investments in defense companies supplying weapons to the Israeli military, like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. “We already have concrete evidence, and have had for several years, that UMich supports the
genocide through its investment practices,” Kim said. “The darkest activities happen through fund managers who take U-M’s money and put it in volatile and dangerous places, a layer of separation meant to absolve U-M of its complicity, which in reality demonstrates how U-M colludes with many other endowments to fund even bigger deals to shadier companies.” After the walkout, students marched through the the Michigan Union, the Ross School of Business and to the front of the Ruthven Building while chanting, “Divestment is our demand, no peace on stolen land.” The protest was followed by a teach-in and dinner dedicated to explaining the specifics of the University’s endowment and the reasons behind students’ calls for divestment. In an interview with The Daily, Kim said he chose to speak at the protest to educate students on the divestment efforts’ background. “I think there are a lot of specifics about the endowment that most people don’t know,” Kim said. “That’s also some education that we’re hoping to distribute because it really does inform how we strategize and act.” In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen said while the University supports student activism, it is University policy to base investment decisions solely on financial factors. “As you may recall, the University has had a policy in place for nearly 20 years that shields the University’s investment from political pressures,” Broekhuizen said. “Much of the money invested through the University’s endowment, for example, is donor funding given to provide long-term financial support for designated purposes.”
ADMINISTRATION
UMich RAs plan to vote to unionize by late February
RAs plan to ask for higher pay stipends for Resstaff Coordinators, legal harassment protections and free laundry for residents SNEHA DHANDAPANI Daily News Editor
Resident Advisors at the University of Michigan plan to unionize for higher pay stipends for Resstaff Coordinators, legal harassment protections and free laundry for all residents. According to a resolution approved by the U-M Board of Regents in June 2020, RAs will be recognized as a labor union if the majority of employees support unionizing. The RAs plan to vote to unionize by late February. An investigation conducted in 2022 by The Michigan Daily found that RAs have faced multiple instances of harassment from residents, other RAs and U-M housing administration. The investigation found that there is no specific structural support system or legal mechanism in place for RAs’ safety. U-M RAs voted to strike against the University in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic on Sept. 8, 2020. The strike ended on Sept. 22, 2020 after residential staff met with University Housing and negotiated an agreement between both sides. In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Laila Kitchen — who has been an RA for three years, an RSC for one year and was a resident during the strike — said the RAs went on strike because they felt they were being asked to put residents’ safety before their own. Kitchen said she hopes this vote to unionize will channel this same collective motivation. “(The RAs) were the front
For more stories and coverage, visit
michigandaily.com
INDEX
people in the COVID pandemic, so if you weren’t wearing a mask you would be written up,” Kitchen said. “(RA’s) really had to enforce (protocol) regardless of their health and safety, and that was one of the main reasons why they went on strike. And they got a lot out of the strike. That’s why we’re kind of trying to get back to our roots. Because they got stuff done.” After the strike, Michigan Housing agreed to implement a Residential Experience Council as a way for RAs to directly engage with housing administration. In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Colleen Mastony said the council was initially created to uplift concerns from residential staff. “The Residential Experience Council was created in 2020 to provide Residential Staff members another dedicated space to raise concerns about situations or issues for Housing to address,” Mastony wrote. The council is not currently operating. Kitchen said she was told by Michigan Housing that the council had shifted to address resident concerns instead of RA concerns when she became an RA in 2021. “There was basically supposed to be a council of RAs … for housing to talk about their issues and whatnot,” Kitchen said. “Then like a year or two later, when I joined REC, they basically said, ‘No, this is a council for residents’ concerns, not RA concerns.’ So everybody who was on the REC last year was very frustrated and that led to the decline of our REC.”
Vol. CXXXIV No. 14 ©2024 The Michigan Daily
In a separate email to The Daily, Mastony said while the council is currently not meeting due to low participation, the University is committed to direct engagement with RAs and RSCs. “This culture of direct engagement has led to new collaborative efforts, such as the Residential Experience Council,” Mastony wrote. “The council was productive for a number of years, but is currently paused due to low participation. Michigan Housing remains committed to exploring the council and other avenues for staff to share their feedback.” A key piece of the RAs’ unionization platform includes higher pay stipends. Currently, room and board, which includes a dining hall meal plan, is compensation for the RA position. In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior John Lemelin, an RA, said the phrase, “Your housing is your compensation,” was repeated during training. “I’ve seen our ability to communicate with housing be torn down,” Lemelin said. “Or maybe that’s a bit dramatic. It’s just really scary as a worker who has heard (Michigan) Housing say, ‘My room is my compensation’ … since August, (we’ve been) trying to talk about changes in policies and being told pretty much from the start ‘Our room is our compensation.’ ” RSCs are currently paid a stipend of $1,500 for an extra eight hours of work per week in addition to the 20-hour-perweek responsibility of an RA.
N E W S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 ARTS........................4 MIC.........................6
ReadmoreatMichiganDaily.com OPINION................8 SPORTS....................10 S TAT E M E N T. . . . . . . . . . I N S E R T
News
2 — Wednesday, February 14, 2024
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
PHOTO OF THE WEEK
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 734-418-4115 www.michigandaily.com
DANA ELOBAID and SAMANTHA RICH Co-Editors in Chief eic@michigandaily.com
ELLA THOMPSON
Business Manager business@michigandaily.com
NEWS TIPS
tipline@michigandaily.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR tothedaily@michigandaily.com
KEITH MELONG/Daily The Arab Student Association celebrates Arab music, poetry, and dance at Arab Xpressions 2024 to raise money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund at the Michigan Theatre Saturday evening.
EDITORIAL PAGE
opinion@michigandaily.com
NEWS
UMich AEPi chapter suspended from national organization following alleged hazing incident
The U-M chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi was suspended and ordered to “Cease and Desist of all chapter activities” by the chapter headquarters CLAUDIA MINETTI Daily Staff Reporter
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. UPDATE 2/12: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Ann Arbor Police Department. The chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi at the University of Michigan was recently suspended from the national AEPi organization over an alleged hazing incident. According to the U-M Fraternity and Sorority Life webpage, the recognition of AEPi was updated Thursday to “Cease and Desist of all chapter activities” by the chapter headquarters. In an email to The Michigan Daily, Chris Page, Ann Arbor Police Department spokesperson, said no arrests have been made regarding a video of the hazing that was posted online. “There have been no arrests,” Page wrote. “The Ann Arbor Police Department is aware of the video circulating online. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact the AAPD tip line at 734.794.6939 or email tips@a2gov.org.” Jonathan Pierce, former international president of the national AEPi organization and current external communications and media relations spokesperson, wrote in an email to The Daily that all operations within the chapter at the University have ceased. Pierce said the organization is cooperating with ongoing investigations into the incident and will suspend any members found to have violated the University’s student Code of
Conduct and state of Michigan laws. “At this time, all operations of the Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter at the University of Michigan have been completely suspended,” Pierce wrote. “Alpha Epsilon Pi is supporting investigations by proper authorities. We hope that anyone found to have engaged in this behavior will be fully prosecuted under the laws of the State of Michigan and that the University of Michigan will take action against them for violations of its student code of conduct. Anyone found guilty of these activities, in any way condoning it, or failing to intervene, will be suspended from AEPi pending their expulsion from membership in accordance with our internal procedures.” Pierce said AEPi condemns any acts of hazing as a violation of the principles of the organization and takes reports of hazing seriously. “(AEPi) does not condone hazing in any way, shape or form. Such behavior is antithetical to our values and our mission: developing the future leaders of the Jewish community,” Pierce wrote. “Despite our best efforts to educate our undergraduates, it appears that these men decided to take on this aberrant behavior. When we learn of it, we act swiftly and decisively to end it.” Pierce also wrote that the national organization is in communication with individuals who were affected and is working to restructure the U-M chapter. “We are already working on plans to support victims and to reorganize our chapter at the University of Michigan with a group of men who will uphold our values and mission and be a credit to our fraternity,” Pierce wrote.
NEWS
Two cases of Hepatitis A found in Washtenaw County
The Washtenaw County Health Department say the cases are unrelated and the individuals were exposed during international travel
PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION
ARTS SECTION
photo@michigandaily.com
arts@michigandaily.com
NEWSROOM
SPORTS SECTION
news@michigandaily.com
sports@michigandaily.com
CORRECTIONS
ADVERTISING
corrections@michigandaily.com
wmg-contact@umich.edu
Editorial Staff SHANIA BAWEJA Managing Editor
shaniab@umich.edu
ABBY SCHRECK
Digital Managing Editor
schreck@umich.edu
RACHEL MINTZ and RILEY HODDER
Managing News Editors news@michigandaily.com Senior News Editors: Abigail VanderMolen, Astrid Code, Ji Hoon Choi, Mary Corey, Nadia Taeckens, Rebecca Lewis, Sneha Dhandapani
LINDSEY SPENCER and ZHANE YAMIN
Editorial Page Editors tothedaily@michigandaily.com Deputy Editorial Page Editor: Jack Brady Senior Opinion Editors: Audra Woehle, Jack Kapcar, Lila Dominus, Sophia Perrault
NOAH KINGSLEY and REKHA LEONARD
Managing Sports Editors sports@michigandaily.com Senior Sports Editors: John Tondora, Lindsay Budin, Liza Cushnir, Lys Goldman, Remi Williamson, Zach Edwards
JACK MOESER and ZACH LOVEALL
Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com Senior Arts Editors: Erin Evans, Graciela Batlle Cestero, Mina Tobya, Rami Mahdi, Rebecca Smith, Thejas Varma
EVELYN MOUSIGIAN and FIONA LACROIX
Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com Senior Layout Editors: Lys Goldman, Leyla Dumke Senior Illustrators: Sara Fang, Avery Nelson
GRACE LAHTI and LILA TURNER
Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com Senior Photo Editors: Emily Alberts, Jenna Hickey, Lucas Chen, Riley Nieboer, Sarah Boeke
REESE MARTIN
Managing Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com Deputy Editors: Darrin Zhou, Irena Tutunari, Liam Rappleye KATE HUA/Daily
NOOR KHANAFER Daily Staff Reporter
The Washtenaw County Health Department is currently investigating two local hepatitis A cases. The cases are unrelated, and the individuals are suspected to have been exposed to hepatitis A during international travel, according to the WCHD’s press release. This marks eight total cases of hepatitis A reported
in Washtenaw County since 2020. Ann Arbor’s wastewater surveillance signaled an increase in hepatitis A virus detection since Jan. 21. According to the press release, this spike may either be due to viral shedding from the already diagnosed individuals or from cases of hepatitis A that have not yet been identified. Because hepatitis A spreads through the feces of those infected, WCHD recommends that individuals wash their hands with warm water and soap before food handling and after using the bathroom. Symptoms typically appear two to six weeks after exposure and include fatigue, nausea, vomiting and dark urine. Those with symptoms are recommended to distance themselves from others. The two-dose hepatitis A vaccine is considered to be highly effective at preventing infections and is recommended for everyone, especially those in the food and health care industries. In the press release, Laura Bauman, the epidemiology program manager for the Washtenaw County Health Department, urged community members to get vaccinated to prevent infection. “The best way to prevent hepatitis A is to get vaccinated,” Bauman said. “This vaccine is highly effective and is now routinely recommended for children starting at one year old. If you’ve never been vaccinated, now is a great time to schedule a vaccine and make sure you’re protected.”
JACKSON KOBYLARCZ and PARINA PATEL
Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com Senior Copy Editors: Cyrus Soonavala, Ingrid Hofmann, Lily Cutler, Liz Guenther, Logan Brown, Natalie Wise, Sage Marmet, Sarah Cortez-De La Cruz, Sofi Mincy, Tess Beiter, Tim Kulawiak
ANUSHKA RAHEJA and JACOB KIM
Managing Online Editors Data Editors: Hasika Sridhar, Maya Mikelson Engineering Manager: Shin Lee Product Leads: Anca Fu, Jenny Do
webteam@michigandaily.com
Senior Software Engineer: Marie Yu
ANDREW HERMAN and JOVANNA GALLEGOS Managing Video Editors
video@michigandaily.com
Senior Video Editors: Darrin Zhou, Nick Lyskawa
AYA SHARABI and JOSEPH FISHER
Michigan in Color Managing Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com Senior MiC Editors: Maryam Shafie, Umaiyal Kogulan
RILEY STIPE and SNEHA DHANDAPANI
Managing Podcast Editors podeditors@michigandaily.com Senior Podcast Editors: Addiena Nicolaou, Clare Jones, Quinn Murphy
COLE MARTIN and TINA YU
Managing Audience Engagement Editors
socialmedia@michigandaily.com
Senior Audience Engagement Editors: Daniel Bernstein, Devon Silver, Emma LeFevre, Ingrid Halverson, Joanna Chait, Jonah Traub, Miles Anderson, Quinn Murphy, Sydney Lesnick
MEREDITH KNIGHT and NAZIM ALI Culture, Training, and Inclusion Chairs
accessandinclusion@michigandaily.com
SOPHIA LEHRBAUM
Managing Focal Point Editor Senior Focal Point Editor: Irena Li
PAVAN KANNAN
Managing Games Editor Senior Games Editor: Victor Schmitt
lehrbaum@umich.edu
pavkan@umich.edu
Business Staff SRISHTI BAGALKOTI Creative Director
ANNIKA CHINNAIYAN Sales Manager The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the Winter 2024 semester by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. If you would like a current copy of the paper mailed to you, please visit store.pub.umich.edu/michigan-daily-buy-this-edition to place your order.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 — 3
CAMPUS LIFE
New UMMA exhibit ‘Angkor Complex’ reflects on Cambodian cultural heritage
The exhibit, titled ‘Angkor Complex: Cultural Heritage and Post-Genocide Memory in Cambodia,’ boasts three sections and features more than 80 unique pieces ASTRID CODE Daily News Editor
The University of Michigan Museum of Art unveiled a new exhibition on Saturday titled “Angkor Complex: Cultural Heritage and Post-Genocide Memory in Cambodia.” The exhibit features more than 80 pieces ranging from 12th century artifacts to works by contemporary Cambodian artists such as Sopheap Pich. It was supported by a variety of grants including those awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Michigan Arts and Cultural Council and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Visitors can explore artifacts of the French protectorate in Cambodia, as well as artwork related to coping with trauma and healing from the Cambodian genocide, spirituality and cultural repatriation. A key focus of the exhibit is Angkor Wat, a state temple of the Khmer Empire
built in the 12th century and now regarded as a national symbol for Cambodians. The exhibit has three sections: the first focuses on the history of Cambodia and Angkor Wat, the second on the ways loss is experienced and understood today, and the third on cultural repatriation, the line of inquiry regarding returning cultural artifacts to their country of origin. Guest curator Nachiket Chanchani, associate professor of art history, told The Michigan Daily that the themes of this exhibit work together in complex ways. “One can encounter this exhibition in many different ways,” Chanchani said. “Many of the objects are then set so that we look at them as mirrors to each other, where they’re not exactly the same thing, but you understand one object better through comparison or contrast.” Chanchani also said the word “complex” in the title functions in multiple ways, such as an architectural complex,
a psychological complex or a complicated topic. “I wanted to kind of capture all of that, that Cambodia is all of those different things,” Chanchani said. “Angkor Wat, which is the central monument that we come back to repeatedly in the course of this exhibition … can be understood at multiple levels, and I want us to be sensitive and appreciative of those.” LSA junior Sophia Davis said she took a class with Chanchani about the exhibit for her museum studies minor. In an interview with The Daily, Davis said Chanchani invited her and her parents to see the opening of “Angkor Complex,” and the exhibit was a way for her to connect with her family and heritage. “Literally every day after I would go to that class last semester, I would call (my mom) and be like, ‘Mom, guess what I learned today?’ and it would be a really great way for us to connect culturally,” Davis said. “Showing up to the event and actually seeing
the exhibit for the first time, I didn’t mean to get emotional, but I most definitely teared up a little bit. It’s just not often that you see Southeast Asia in the limelight, and especially like a place like Cambodia. It means a lot to my people and my culture, to see just an entire exhibit on Cambodia.” Davis said looking at the artwork made her consider her place in the world and think of lives lost. “When you’re looking into the glass, sometimes you can see your own ref lection,” Davis said. “I think it’s important to think about where you fall in the grand scheme of these sort of bigger narratives.” A key element of the exhibit is Pich’s “Seated Buddha – Abhaya Mudra”, a large sculpture of Buddha made of bamboo and rattan, a vine-like palm native to tropical jungles in Asia. In an interview with The Daily, Pich described his connection to the materials and the team he works with. “Nowadays, I work with
assistants, I have eight or nine people and we all do different things, some shave rattan, some tie up the bamboo, some chisel the stone, some chisel the wood, so it’s all quite organic and we all work together on something,” Pich said. “I always go back to bamboo and return just because it’s so deep inside my blood, I can’t get it out.” Rackham student Meichen Liu, who is pursuing a doctoral degree in art history, also took Chanchani’s class last semester. Liu told The Daily one of the goals of the exhibit was for visitors to acknowledge Cambodia’s history of genocide. “I think acknowledging that part of (Cambodia’s) history is very important, and to also acknowledge how it happened very recently,” Liu said. “It happened in the ’70s, which means it still has a huge impact on people who are living today. So I really hope people can just mourn the death (and) also pray for the survivors, and to acknowledge how much they
went through.” Liu said some of the contemporary artists they studied in the class expressed a wish for their art to be appreciated on its own level and not tied to the genocide. “This exhibition is to kind of reorient that prejudgment or stereotype of Cambodian history to acknowledge that this is a beautiful country that has a very long lineage of rich material culture,” Liu said. “Also, although that trauma happened, it also produced many great contemporary artists.” Davis said she has been keeping her family and friends updated on the exhibit through social media, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. “It isn’t just something that means a lot to people here, it has ripples across the world,” Davis said. “I have people in California that were so happy to hear about it. I have family back at home that were so excited to hear about it. It’s monumental seeing something like this happening.”
SYDNEY HASTINGS WILKINS/Daily
ADMINISTRATION
2023 Salary Disclosure Report shows salary increases from 2022 The report states that faculty, staff, executive officer and dean salaries increased at the Ann Arbor campus in 2023 SACHI GOSAL Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan’s annual Salary Disclosure Report was released on Dec. 8, 2023. According to the report, faculty salaries increased by an average of 3.7% and staff salaries increased by 3.1% at the Ann Arbor campus in 2023. Merit increases averaged 4% for executive officers and 4.3% for deans. Student tuition and fees make up 75.2% of the General Fund, state funding makes up 12.9% and costs recovered from sponsored research activities makes up 11.6%. The General Fund pays for teaching and academic services across all U-M schools and colleges except for Michigan Medicine, central administration, academic and research facilities, utilities, operations, maintenance and public goods like the University Library. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Thomas Finholt, vice provost for academic and
budgetary affairs, said most faculty and staff salaries are paid from the General Fund. “In 2023, the General Fund budget for faculty salaries was $442.3 million and $630.3 million for staff salaries, which combined made up 45% of general fund expenses,” Finholt said. “The all funds budget for faculty salaries was $721.1 million, which is 14% of total expenses, and $1.3 billion for staff salaries, which is 24% of total expenses. In all, faculty and staff salaries were $2 billion, which is 37% of the University’s total expenses.” All University teaching faculty are either on the Clinical Track, Tenure Track, Research Track or are LEO Lecturers. The Tenure Track includes assistant professors, associate professors, and professors. Lecturers, meanwhile, are non-tenuretrack instructional faculty. They teach a wide range of courses and are eligible for the University’s benefits package for faculty and staff, but operate on contracts. There are approximately 1,700 lecturers across all U-M
campuses, all of whom are represented by the Lecturers’ Employee Organization. They are currently employed under a threeyear contract that expires in April 2024. The Office of Budget and Planning’s Faculty and Staff Headcount Detail found that in 2023, 38% of Tenure-Track faculty employed at the U-M Ann Arbor campus were women, an increase from 37% in 2022. While only 32% of professors were female, 43% of associate professors and 49% of assistant professors were female. Meanwhile, 56% of lecturers were women, a number that has stayed relatively constant since 2014. Forty-seven percent of total regular instructional faculty were women, a 6% increase from 2014. This includes faculty who are tenured, tenure-track and regular not on tenure-track, as well as lecturers and clinical faculty. In an interview with The Daily, School of Education freshman Kathryn Forberg said she found the higher proportion of male professors in the education field to be intimidating.
“Knowing more than half of professors (at the University) are males makes me feel that I will be at a disadvantage in the education field when I begin my career,” Forberg said. “There should definitely be more women teaching in higher education as they can give diverse perspectives to the classroom and act as role models for other females.” While faculty headcount by gender is updated every academic year, the most recent studies focused on gender pay disparities among U-M professors were commissioned by the Office of the Provost in 2011. The study included 1,955 faculty members and found that female faculty were paid 1.6% less than male faculty for rank and time in rank. The average salary for women was $110,578, while the average salary for their male counterparts was $127,847. The study also found that female faculty had been employed at the University for, on average, 11 years, while males had been employed for an average of 14 years. Forberg said that while gender pay disparities are prevalent today,
she believes they can be overcome. “I am optimistic that there will be a way to overcome these pay disparities in teaching,” Forberg said. “I think one of the best ways to do so is by the government enforcing laws that mandate equal pay for equal work.” In 2022, the schools with the highest-paid faculty were the Ross School of Business and the Law School, while the lowest-paid schools were the School of Music Theatre & Dance and the Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning. For the 2023-24 academic year, the Law School, the Business School and Michigan Medicine had the highest average salaries, with the average Law School salary being $259,800. The lowest average salaries were the Music, Theatre & Dance School, Taubman College, and Stamps School of Art & Design, and the average Art & Design School salary was $96,612. All schools within the university experienced salary cuts from the 2022-23 academic year to the 2023-24 academic year. The analysis found that the School
of Information experienced the smallest cut of 2.58% while the College of Pharmacy experienced the largest cut at 11.12%. Finholt told The Daily that salaries may fluctuate within the same position from department to department and year to year for many reasons. “Faculty and staff within the same positions may have different salaries due to seniority or merit, when individuals are judged to perform at a very high level,” Finholt said. “Salaries also fluctuate yearly due to promotion status, and from department to department based on market differences.” Education freshman Kaity Lee said she expected the average salary in the School of Education to be lower. “I was pleasantly surprised because I thought the average salaries were going to be much lower,” Lee said. “Educators go through a lot of training and anyone who works in education helps develop the next generation, shapes our futures and connects with us on a personal level.”
Arts
4 — Wednesday, February 14, 2024
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A night to be remembered: VUP wins 2024 Battle of the Bands JOSHUA MEDINTZ Daily Arts Writer
I was blown away by last Saturday night’s Battle of the Bands at The Blind Pig, hosted by MUSIC Matters. I go to The Blind Pig a lot. Probably too much. Definitely too much (I was in the Blind Pig 8 Ball building three nights last weekend). I go to all those bumping house shows and shitty open mics, the basement-bar metal concerts and co-op kumbayas. I’m a music writer for The Michigan Daily: This is what I love to do. But I have never seen anything quite like last Saturday’s Battle of the Bands. Four fantastic Michigan student bands — Tarps Off, VUP, Mahogany and The Third Degree — playing four full sets of bangers after bangers, covers and originals, vibe-alongs and scream-alongs in what ended up being my favorite display of student music in all my years at the University of Michigan. That’s all to say Battle of the Bands was an all-out war. Even though “VUP” deservedly took home the gold — and the whopping $550 prize — Saturday night was full of victors. In the spirit of Grammys week, I’ve decided to recap the night in
award show fashion, giving credit where credit is due. Without further ado, here are the winners of the (made-up) 2024 Battle of the Bands awards. Best Crowd Engagement – Tarps Off, “Tongue Tied” by Grouplove Opening a show is never easy, unless you’re Tarps Off. Ann Arbor’s premier rock cover band understood the assignment, cold-opening with Green Day’s “Basket Case” and “Life is a Highway” by Rascal Flatts. For the first 15 minutes of their set, there was not a single silent voice all the way from the stage to the bar in the back. But the highlight of Tarps Off’s set was “Tongue Tied.” “Take me to your best friend’s house …” the crowd chorus belted after following the band’s cue and mimicking the song’s intro swell. But they had jumped the gun! The verse was not supposed to start for another two loops. The hype was palpable and it held until the end: The audience didn’t leave a word of the track unsung. Best Song Performance: VUP, “Put Your Records On” by Corrine Bailey Rae VUP are not your average college cover band. They don’t perform pop-ballad sing-alongs that
everyone knows and loves. They don’t fill the room with enormous electric sound. Instead, they set the mood a little lower, with neosoul classics and extended jazzy R&B vibe-setters, leaving room for extended drum riffs and horn solos. I was a little worried as they walked out onto the Blind Pig battlefield. I was worried their sound would be too tight and pure for the faded lights and restless crowd. But there was nothing to worry about — nothing at all. VUP performed the best song of the night: Corrine Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On.” Backed by steady keys and welltimed horn inflections, Ariana Kertsman somehow added flair to Rae’s vocals, belting and riffing the last chorus to finish off the set with a bang. And everyone sang along. It was the best of both worlds. VUP put on an altogether amazing performance. But “Put Your Records On” sealed the win. Best Setlist and Rap Performance: Mahogany Mahogany walked onstage to speculation from the audience. Made up of horns, electric guitars, a fiddle and a bro-looking lead singer, no one in the crowd was quite sure what to expect. What we got was an impressive mix of
ARUSHI SANGHI/Daily
hip-hop, R&B and country rock alongside the Battle of the Bands’ best setlist of the night. These were not your average college band covers: Tom Misch’s “Disco Yes,” a Lauryn Hill-inspired rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” and “Dang!” by Mac Miller feat. Anderson.Paak. The latter performance was the best of the bunch, with lead singer Ethan Josefsberg flitting between Anderson.Paak’s soulful vocals and Mac’s speedy, syncopated bars. “Dang!” is one of my favorite songs
of all time and Mahogany more than did it justice. Best Individual Performer: Evan Beane, The Third Degree There was only one moment in the Battle of the Bands where it seemed someone might draw blood: when Third Degree guitarist Evan Beane unpromptedly jumped into the crowd for a surf. “It was a bit of a rough landing,” Beane told The Michigan Daily after the show. “But it just felt right.” Third Degree was the fourth band of the night. By the time
they took the stage, a third of the audience had already left. But those who stayed the night were in for a treat. Behind Abbey Byrne’s booming, passionate vocals, Beane pumped up the crowd with beattimed High School Musical-esque jumps, stringing solos while lying on the ground, feet kicked up, swirling in the air. “I feel like I express myself physically,” Beane said. “It just feels natural to jump around and get the crowd energized.” And we were all better for it.
Why I love copying celebrities CECILIA DORE Daily Arts Writer
When I was 8, my mom bought me a long-sleeved, purple sequined shirt from Target. It was oversized and bright and made me look like a glittery grape, but it was my favorite piece of clothing because it was from Disney’s “Shake It Up” collection, and it was totally something CeCe or Rocky would wear. The pure exhilaration that shirt gave me was something I hadn’t experienced before — it was the first time that I can remember seeing what I wore as something beyond just clothing.
Disney stars were my first style icons. Their outfits not only said something about who they were but they also made them who they were: cool teenage girls who weren’t afraid to dance in front of crowds and let their presences be known. I wanted my outfits to do the same. As a kid who grew up on “Gravity Falls” and “Sonny With a Chance,” I had always dreamt of embodying the comicality and confidence of my favorite characters; the way I had decided to do this was by adopting their eclectic clothing tastes. Wearing unique, funky clothes made me feel effortlessly individual. That style fostered (and then complemented)
my colorful childhood personality, which made me love my spaced-out teeth and tucking hooded sweatshirts into shorts (for some reason). It’s also why I find pictures of myself as a kid wearing three shirts and rollerskating to Rihanna songs from my Kidz Bop CDs. One day when I was 12, I realized I hadn’t worn my purple shirt in a while. Though I was stubbornly against caring what others thought, middle schoolers were ruthless, and it was a lot easier to not do — or wear — anything that would get attention. Anything that wasn’t plain or casual was subject to questioning, so I began to flip my lunchbox so the pink plaid
Design by Hailey Kim
side wasn’t visible and face my puffysticker covered Chromebook away from the girl in my French class who had laughed at it. Leggings and volleyball t-shirts were all that seemed safe, and they became my wardrobe. When I was 15, I stepped out of the theater after watching “The Grinch” (2018) and immediately looked up who had made the soundtrack, which had blown my mind. Thus began my love for Tyler, the Creator, whose profile I quickly saved on Spotify. His music was like nothing I had heard before. It was sometimes rap, but sometimes not. It was unconventional, and his lyrics ranged from “After bowling, I went home for some damn Adventure Time” to “Don’t kill a rose, before it could bloom.” Within a few months, I was following anything Tylerrelated: his clothing brand, his music videos, his episodes of “Loiter Squad.” My friends made fun of me for listening to Tyler, which made it the perfect ego trip for my teenage self. One of the things I loved most about him was how he made being different look cool. As a sophomore in high school, doing anything that drew attention to myself made me anxious, but watching him allowed me to part with those fears. He dyed his hair leopard print and wore bright, colorful outfits with pieces ranging from Supreme style box-logo tees to fur hats and Louis Vuitton scarves. His style played a role in his distinctive persona, a visual cue of his unabashed eccentricity
and confidence in experimenting creatively. It was one of a kind, and it inspired me to overcome the fear of individuality that middle school had programmed into me. I once again wanted to find my own fashion identity. I began with itty-bitty baby steps — wearing jeans or a skirt to school, despite my deep anxiety that somebody would ask me what I was so dressed up for. Once I overcame my fear of venturing beyond athleisure, I was ready to go a bit further. The bright orange and pink sneakers from Tyler’s brand, Golf Wang, were the perfect next step. They were loud. Some people hated them. I loved them, and they felt like me. So I wore them every single day. For the first time since I was 10, I was unaware of and uninterested in how others would perceive me. By the time I was 17, I was experimenting with different styles I liked. Still, I usually wore tighter, traditionally feminine outfits, even though I was more comfortable in baggier clothing fitted for men. The thing was, I was feminine, and I thought that outwardly feminine clothing was the only way that I could express this. That idea I held was dismantled by A$AP Rocky, the heartthrob and hip-hop artist from Harlem whom I had recently started following. Rocky’s style fascinated me. It was masculine: baggy streetwear, tailored suits, expensive chains and sunglasses. Yet, he was often referred to as “pretty.” He walked
that line in a way I didn’t know was possible, holding an aura of almost-feminine beauty with his fine jewelry and kempt appearance, all while maintaining masculinity. Rocky made it click for me: I could be “pretty” while wearing the masculine silhouettes I loved. If he could embody this stylistic androgyny, why couldn’t I? His style found its way into my closet — baggy pants, boxy tees, bandanas tied around my head “Babushka Boi” style. Wearing these clothes no longer made me feel less feminine or less confident. They made me feel the most teenage-girl (a concept I held synonymous with confidence and independence) I had ever felt. Now I’m 20, and I haven’t saved anyone new to my “outfit inspiration” Pinterest boards in a while. I have started to find my own style and have become less influenced by others as I try to build as much of a capsule wardrobe as I can. Though my tastes have shifted less as I get older, I know that I would never have the level of comfort and confidence in my style if it weren’t for the style icons I held so close to my heart throughout my childhood and adolescence. It’s easy to believe the ideas the media and society push: that imitation is inherently bad and that looking to others for inspiration is less valuable than thinking for yourself. But, often, I can’t think for myself without first looking to others. Sometimes, following someone else’s path can take me to a place where I find my own.
How ‘Poor Things’ became an absurdist feminist masterpiece MINA TOBYA
Senior Arts Editor In the realm of film criticism, the word “masterpiece” gets thrown around more often than it should. It’s difficult to pin down what makes a masterpiece; there is no krabbypatty secret formula to consistently achieve the rawest expression of human emotion. But if such a thing were to exist, Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favorite”) might be the mad scientist to invent it. There’s a magical quality to the parallel universe Lanthimos crafts in “Poor Things,” which immerses the viewer in its wonder from the first shot. Magical realist art, at its core, aims to elucidate truths about reality by going beyond it. The film uses these principles to mirror the rigid confines of women’s autonomy — in the 19th century and beyond — by taking it to an extreme that only sci-fi eccentricity can accomplish. The London that Lanthimos depicts is not the one you would read about in history books, though it is inspired by Victorian style and culture. Its inhabitants still use carriages and speak overly formally, but they also have the scientific capability to reanimate the dead and fly ships in the sky. This is a futuristic society stuck in the past, much like our present reality in many ways.
The feminist movement in the U.S. has grown significantly over the past five decades, but women continue to lose their rights over bodily autonomy in the fight for liberation. Two steps forward, one step back. This exact dynamic is explored through protagonist Bella Baxter’s (Emma Stone, “La La Land”) reanimation from the dead. In a “Frankenstein”-esque plot, mad scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, “Spider-Man”) steals Bella’s corpse from the river in which she tried to drown herself and implants her unborn child’s brain into her fully grown body. He has essentially stripped her of the choice to come back as herself — or to come back at all — by slicing her head open and playing God. It’s fitting, then, that Bella calls him “God” for most of the film. Godwin brought her into the world against her will, then repeated the process with another woman when Bella left the home he built for her. The parallels between these characters and the biblical story of creation are not lost on the audience. Lanthimos poses a question about the ethics of creation: Is it ethical for a God to create life without asking first if we want it? The answer is complicated and so is Bella’s relationship with Godwin. He cares for her as a father and teaches her right from wrong, but he does so
without her consent. Their dynamic subverts the “Frankenstein” archetype by making Bella the beautiful creation and Godwin the disfigured creator. We are forced to reckon with the idea that the unknowing, innocent creation is not the monster and question the morality of the creator instead. One complaint I refute is that this creation story for Bella Baxter is nonfeminist and in fact the “ultimate objectification of women.” With all due respect to this Letterboxd user, that’s exactly the point. This depiction of violation is the most feminist portrayal the movie could make. It’s the magical realist expression of the egregious attacks on women’s bodily autonomy that has persisted for centuries. In depicting these attacks, the movie does not endorse them; rather, it tangibly insists against them. The same can be said of the multiple men who attempt to trap Bella in their possession, from Godwin to her ex-lover Duncan (Mark Ruffalo, “13 Going on 30”) to her ex-husband Alfie (Christopher Abbott, “Sanctuary”). Bella’s evolution from essentially a baby in a woman’s body to a strong, independent thinker unwilling to be trapped by the men in her life is nothing short of inspirational. Bella, at the start, is the epitome of the misogynistic “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope that has plagued sci-fi for
years. It revolves around a character with the body of a conventionally attractive woman and the naivete of a toddler who relies entirely on an average man to navigate the world, in turn thinking of him as her savior for doing the bare minimum. The trope places average men in a deeply imbalanced power dynamic with near-total control over the woman. When Godwin’s assistant Max (Ramy Youssef, “Ramy”) comments on a mentally infantile Bella’s divine beauty, he epitomizes the trope. But, ever subversive, the film chooses that exact moment to depict the bumbling Bella peeing all over the floor like a baby. Lanthimos affirms how ridiculous it would be for anyone to be attracted to Bella simply because of her beauty; it would be exploitative and preposterously immoral to think such a thing. Even Bella’s costumes continuously reveal where she is in her admittedly accelerated personal development. In the aforementioned scene, she is shown barefoot in white linen skirts with puffy sleeves to mark the unique zeitgeist. The audience understands her as a blank slate with little control over her actions. As she gains control, she begins to wear shoes and longer skirts while maintaining openness to the world around her, shown by the sheerness of the fabrics she wears. As she explores her senses and begins to explore
the confines of her surroundings in Godwin’s opulent mansion, she dons more ornate clothing. It isn’t until she discovers her sexuality without the burden of externally-induced shame, after leaving the mansion, that her clothing (and the film itself) takes on color. Her palate consists mostly of bright spring tones denoting her curious, happy nature; Bella Baxter is ever the amiable optimist.
Her exploration of her senses is made even more viscerally wonderful by Stone’s masterful portrayal of Bella’s evolution, down to her tone of voice. The audience can see the ideas “banging around in Bella’s head like lights in a storm” (she becomes quite the articulate scholar). When Duncan attempts to trap her by kidnapping and imprisoning her on a boat, she takes it upon herself to learn philosophy, becoming more concerned with mental stimulation than physical as she matures. Upon learning about the horrors of human suffering for the first time, she refuses to languish in nihilism as the men around her do; rather, she jumps into action to try to help where she can. Her empathy is a guiding light, as is her innate curiosity. This curiosity leads her to run experiments, like the one that takes her to work in a brothel and discover her autonomy in the light
of her exploitation. She goes to the house where she lived before she was reborn to contend with the cruel person she once was, only to be trapped by her evil ex-husband. Here, she wears bright orange and purple and sharp collars — a stark contrast to her round, puffsleeved spring tones — marking the violence of her situation. This isn’t who she is but who her ex-husband imposes upon her. He is the one who insists she wear these constricting garments; he is the one trapping her in his house. However, in quintessential Bella manner, she escapes and employs her knowledge to transform into a more ethical surgeon in her own right. She becomes God(win). In its own delightfully outlandish way, “Poor Things” crafts a story of hope, inspiration and liberation in the context of a whole new world, waiting to be explored. It’s a visually stunning cinematic conquest and one of the most lovable characters ever created spearheads the journey. There’s no question as to why it has been lauded with praise and nominations from the academy. Hopefully, “Poor Things” will spark films to take more risks and leave audiences walking out into the world with a renewed sense of hope. What more could we ask for from a work of art?
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 — 5
‘The Bullet Swallower’ doesn’t capture the magic of magical realism GRACE SIELINSKI Daily Arts Writer
By definition, mediocrity isn’t bad. To be middling, passable or just okay does not signal failure. Typically, when we walk out of a movie, finish a TV show or flip the final pages of a book that was just okay, it’s no big deal. A flash of entertainment that fades immediately from memory is inoffensive and pleasant, even
if it doesn’t leave the greatest impact on us. Sometimes, though, mediocrity creates the opposite reaction; there are times when we experience art so tantalizingly close to greatness that it’s maddening when it falls short. You can see a vague shape of what could have been, the outline of something exceptional if only for a few different choices, a few missteps retreaded. Dwelling on these works doesn’t elicit the same
shrugs that normal mediocrity brings; instead, it’ll drive you crazy. This is why Elizabeth Gonzalez James’s “The Bullet Swallower” is so disappointing. So much of the book is good, starting with its synopsis: Here is a family saga of the Sonoros, purportedly a clan of evildoers going back to the days of Cain and Abel. The book follows two Sonoros who happen to be unaware of their ancestors’
Cover art for “The Bullet Swallower” owned by Simon & Schuster
reputations: 1895’s Antonio Sonoro, a desperate farmer turned bandit, and 1964’s Jamie Sonoro, Mexico’s most famous actor and singer. As the older Sonoro enacts an epic quest of revenge, the younger fights a less lethal battle — coming to terms with the sins of his family’s past. Add to this that much of the book is based on James’s great-grandfather, a bandito himself and the real-life El Tragabalas, and the potential seems limitless. This is what makes it so heartbreaking when impossible-to-ignore structural flaws neuter the impact of the book. The most obvious problem stems from the book’s pacing. The story is broken up into chapters that almost always alternate between Antonio’s and Jamie’s lives in their respective times. These narratives feel extremely disjointed, despite our protagonist’s shared last name. Antonio is off fighting for survival, and all Jamie has to do is meditate on a foulsmelling book containing the ignominious history of the Sonoro family given to him by a mysterious bookseller. Jamie’s story feels empty, with multiple unsatisfying subplots that feel, at best, half-baked. The only
glue keeping the two stories together is Remedio, who may or may not be Death incarnate. While he’s present in both men’s lives, he spends so much more time in Jamie’s half of the book that the through line is almost nonexistent. Remidio presence is by far the most interesting part of his narrative, but even so, Jamie’s story pales in comparison to Antonio’s. While this could be an intentional choice — i.e. the cushioned, rich actor can never experience the excitement of his rugged ancestor — this seems to go against what the book is saying about the inherent issues with a masculine romanticization of living by violence. Had the parts been told one after the other, perhaps each could have developed more thematic and narrative momentum. As it stands, though, the two feel unbalanced. But there’s a more oppressive issue with “The Bullet Swallower:” It’s in love with its influences — magical realism classics like Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s “100 Years of Solitude” and brutal Neo-Westerns like Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” — but isn’t able to capture what makes these books special. As a result, the book’s
prose is lovely, but its tone is off. Allegorical language describing the inner lives of our characters is interjected with dialogue more at home in a modern novel, creating a confusing account of our character’s motivation. Had James gone with a more direct style like in a McCarthy novel, the story would be less fantastical and more depressing but would make more sense in terms of how both Antonio and Jamie acted. Alternatively, she could have gone with the mysticism of Garcia Márquez’s works, implying that her characters were set in their destinies, and therefore must act this way. Antonio and Jamie may have acted nonsensically, but as in a fairytale, it really wouldn’t have mattered. In such a case, the rich thematic threads would supersede the by-the-book characterization. Instead, the novel opts for both at the same time, leaving the story feeling uneven and underdeveloped. Halfway through his story, Antonio is forced to fight against the Texas Rangers with British industrialist Peter Ainsley, who acts more like a cartoon representation of a rich man than a real person.
ReadmoreatMichiganDaily.com
On ‘Little Rope,’ Sleater-Kinney cuts no slack AMINA CATTAUI Music Beat Editor
When they hit the streets of Olympia, Sleater-Kinney defined what it meant to be a riot grrrl. Their prime lineup is tantamount to a local supergroup: a holy trinity of vocalist Corin Tucker, drummer Janet Weiss and “Portlandia” showrunner Carrie Brownstein. Even their more radio-friendly cuts are imbued with a certain bitterness; in its time, Dig Me Out caught onto the charts like barbed wire, delivering hook after wicked hook. From their overcast little corner of the Pacific Northwest, Sleater-Kinney seemed uniquely capable of channeling the angry, festering energy of their hometown grunge scene into a verse-chorus structure, spinning tunes that balanced the sonically angular and the structurally accessible. These days, the band drifts to a more pop sound, recast from riot grrrls to a girl group. Their hooks are still sharp; their songwriting is still kicking, still biting. And right up until Weiss’ departure, the band’s exuberant energy rode aloft on her frenetic bubblingover drum lines, the kind that would rattle your ears in a venue basement. Sleater-Kinney’s newest project feels the longtime drummer’s absence — it’s a hole that the album’s combination of touring band and studio magic can’t fill. Even so, Little Rope trades well on their style of black-comedy indie rock, mixing sardonic lyrics over the mangled bleats of an electric guitar. Harrowingly dark and utterly danceable, Little Rope has thoroughly outgrown its underground roots, shooting for ballad pop as much as indie rock. In its 10 short tracks, the album bottles the most sincere form
of desperation ever seen from the duo. Brownstein’s guitars wail like a banshee; Tucker’s not snarking anymore. There’s no pretension and no pretense: This album’s a teenybopper gaze into the abyss. Until you hit its flashbang chorus, the opening track is maddeningly quiet. With its clunky, low-ringing guitars, “Hell” lugs along like it’s dragging a flat tire down a back road; all the while, Tucker enumerates the things hell lives without — worries, past, future, doubt. At its boiling point, Tucker sings, “Hell is desperation / and a young man with a gun” — and it’s here all hell breaks loose. Under producer John Congleton’s touch, the strings that fill the song’s chorus are pushed to their breaking point, mangled into some infernal fiddle. Mixed with the thunder of drums, Tucker cries power. I would be remiss not to mention the tragedy that defined this album’s production. During the recording of Little Rope, Brownstein’s parents passed in a car crash during their getaway in Italy. It was this event that spurred her to write “Hunt You Down” — and for a song defined by the fear of predation, it’s pretty buttoned-up rock, like if Franz Ferdinand feared death. The drums are straightshooting; the guitar work is confident but measured. It’s not until Brownstein lets loose fullthroated strums, like a burst of light, that the verse takes on full animacy. Its signature line — “The thing you fear the most will hunt you down” — was taken from the mouth of an undertaker, who heard it from a grieving father as they were discussing burial arrangements for his son. The man never forgot it: This undertaker was also a poet.
ReadmoreatMichiganDaily.com
This image is from the official album cover for ‘Little Rope’
MiC
6 — Wednesday, February 14, 2024
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Love is abundant, and I can prove it SARA WONG
MiC Assistant Editor
I’ve been taught to view love’s scarcity as the basis of its value. Romcoms, young adult novels, fanfiction, songs by The Cure and other drugs I can’t quit — they all taught me to idolize the kind of romantic love that consumes your entire being. So when my former lover broke off our yearlong partnership a week before my birthday, claiming she needed to focus on herself by being single for a long time, but proceeded to enter a relationship with one of our shared friends (one that I wasn’t supposed to worry about) a few weeks later, I cried. A lot. I pleaded for another chance, and I would’ve done anything for clarity on what else she had been keeping from me. Like an idiot, or maybe a girl in love for the first time, I believed the perpetrator of my pain could also be the source of my healing. In the first few months of heartbreak, the words of advice I received from others were like vitamins. I didn’t believe they did anything. I was actually deficient in just about every category of them. I forgot to take them anyway. A part of me refused to believe I deserved better, or trust my friends again, or ever pick myself up after she walked away. What if she was my soulmate? It’s delusional and naive, I know, but I’m a writer, remember? What else did you expect? From the Western perspective,
SARA WONG/MiC
the concept of a soulmate dates back to Plato’s “The Symposium”, a collection of philosophical dialogue given in appreciation for Eros, the Greek god of love and desire, in 385 B.C.E. A recurring argument prevails throughout the philosopher’s speeches — counter to previous notions of love as a physical connection, love is a form in which humans
share ideas. They asserted love transcends the body in order to connect our spirits. Aristophanes’ speech in “The Symposium” describes a myth in which humans originally had two heads, four arms and four legs. Zeus felt threatened by their power, but did not want to destroy them and lose the sacrifices humans offered to the gods. As a compromise, Zeus split each
A god made of poetry
human in half, but humans longed for their former form. From then on, humans searched for their other half in hopes they could embrace, reunite, reproduce and other activities the ancient Greeks were fond of. The origin story of love as a result of a punishment always felt strange to me. Then, I fell in love, and the image of Eros blindly shooting arrows, possessing
humans to hunt other humans to complete them, felt rather fitting for once. I thought of the story we would tell years down the line and how perfect it would be, how others would envy us. A writer meets a writer in a creative writing class, and the euphonic clash of their ideas sets the room ablaze. In spite of my claims to value independence, being wanted
by someone, even if only as a temporary distraction to the other souls she couldn’t have, made me feel whole. Someone wanted a piece of my soul. Wasn’t this my purpose? To fall in love, to be an artist and a writer and a future wife and a lover? This idealization of romantic love is part of a longer tradition of the Neoplatonism movement, in which European scholars used Plato’s ideas to spread Christian ideology. Catholic priest Marsilio Ficino wrote a commentary on “The Symposium” during the Italian Renaissance of the early 15th century, “De Amore”, in which he proclaimed love as a means by which one soul connects with another in an unbreakable lasting bond. By increasing focus on souls instead of bodies, the Catholic Church could ensure the union of bodies would be reserved until marriage vows were exchanged. Romanticizing a soul connection acted as a form of cultural birth control, of sorts. If this sounds familiar, it’s because this tradition of states weaponizing love to further their religious or economic goals is still haunting us in the modern day. Our government incentivizes the institution of marriage with better rates on health insurance, tax benefits, hospital visitation rights and more — and in my years of idolizing the type of soulintertwining love promoted by every form of media under the sun, I never stopped to ask why. Read more at michigandaily.com
I love the mundane.
are not yet ready to fall in love JAMES SCARBOROUGH MiC Assistant Editor
I have an expansive history of writing love poems You could kiss me under moonlight’s matrimony and earn a starring role in your very own love poem You could disco ball dance with me for one night only and get a stanza all to yourself You could sink fangs into the veins of my heart and force me to reread the love poems you don’t deserve any more And ain’t that miserable? Ain’t there a sorrow in always giving your words away? Birthing so much beauty and never keeping none of it for myself? I scrawl love letters like scripture write mortals into my God Pen bibles for men and run out of ink when it comes to my reflection This is a self-love poem for a man with tired hands and a weary heart Here is a line for a boy with constellations on his back, a crater in his chest, jagged skeletons in his mouth This is figurative language for the boy still figuring things out Simile for a man uprooted like casket sycamores alliteration for a boy baptizing his being in bondage Maybe if I metamorphose into a metaphor I won’t feel so weighed down by this body Fleshy tendons and ligaments that have been shattered and mended too many times to count Footprints left by lovers and leavers tattoo me Every person I invite forgets pieces of themselves inside me I am a lost and found for lovers who
I must remember that I am something worth
falling for
believing in praying to How can I expect the world to glorify my church when this god doesn’t even believe in himself? Hallelujah to me call for a deity and I will tell you to keep my name out your mouth A man must say thank you and amen if he wants to finish me like a prayer You better alter all dark intentions before I let you on your knees at my altar I am tired of knowing heartbreak songs by heart, so your heartstrings better play gospel music Does the healing ever end? Or is healing a symphony with unceasing sheet music? A book with burnt last pages? A skyscraper reaching out to hold hands with Jesus? Healing is never ending like the number of love poems I deserve SHARRA KUTTY/MiC
I am the newest testament I am the famine that fell upon fuckboys I am the 8th wonder of the world I am water and wine in a desertbarren throat This is a love poem for me This is an ode to me This is mine
ANONYMOUS MIC CONTRIBUTOR
I don’t know how to write about love. I realized this when I put off writing this piece for two weeks. Every time I started, I would stare blankly at my computer screen. To clarify, There is plenty of love in my life. I do not lack love in my life. I have friends who stand by me and family who love me. The love in my life is one that transcends time, distance, and space. I just don’t know how to write about love. I never did.
AYA SHARABI/MiC
It is always easier to write in times of sorrow than in times of joy. Perhaps because, as is human nature, we take it for granted. Joy is the default. It is expected. Which is why we fixate on the sorrow. It is probably why I have notebooks upon notebooks of sad poetry. We think we do not deserve pain, so we write. And even if we think we do, it stands in strict contrast with joy– we deserve sorrow because we do not deserve joy. But as much as we deserve love and joy. There must be space to appreciate. In an effort to do so, I write about home. Home brings me joy. In true immigrant fashion, in the tropiest way possible really, home
is not a place to me. Home is where the people I can sit beside without any need to fill the air reside. Home is mundane. I love the mundane. Home is the ordinary that I cling to with the utmost hope. It is my brother’s school schedule latched onto the fridge with my mom’s old magnets. It’s my dad’s notebooks filled with hopes and ideas for the future. Home is my mother’s spice cabinet. It is my brothers arguing about who did more homework. Home is the small prayer corner with mats and beads. It is a long dinner table conversation, about anything and everything. Home is chaotic It is loud laughs and quiet comfortable silence.
Home is the sound of my partner’s voice. It is waking up next to him. Watching movies we’ve already watched, just because. Home is hot chaa and paratha in the morning. It is early jetlagged mornings. It is pitha and badminton in the wintertime. Home is going through memory boxes and old letters. Home is hours of conversations. Coffee dates with friends. And dinner with grandparents. Home is getting older. Home is the heavy feeling in your throat when you realize time waits for no one. That everything is fleeting. That love is the only thing we have.
MiC
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 — 7
Dreaming of bliss KARIS RIVERS MiC Columnist
I am cold all of the time. The winter is depressing and while I love looking at snow, walking through it is a pain. So I bundle up. Donning a thick coat, scarf and earmuffs just to cope. Despite this, I’m always cold. Not just on the surface, but also deep in my veins. Sometimes it feels like the very blood that is keeping me alive is frozen inside of me. Like my bones are made of ice, and I could shatter at any moment. For the past three years, this is how it’s felt to be here. Like a long harsh winter where the cold is my only company. And for the past three years, I have felt my worst. Here, I have never felt so unwanted. I have never wanted to run away so badly. I have never missed summer so much. Sometimes I wish the sun would shine bright enough to seep into my skin and cause my blood to stir and my bones to thaw. But I can’t seem to perceive a life where winter ends. Where I feel wanted. Where I am needed. Where my presence is important. Where I could go missing and it would mean something. Where someone knows I am here. Where every day has meaning, and I live for my tomorrows. But deep in my dreams, the sun is finally shining. Here lies paradise. I wonder if this is the place I’ve been searching for. Is this the
place where my unraveled life will begin to stitch itself together? Is this the place I long to love? Is this the place I find you? And when I’m with you at last, will the world finally stop spinning? Will the silence become so loud, that it drowns my thoughts and gives
me rest? Eventually, I hope your silence is the only sound I’ll ever hear. A sweet sweet melody made to soothe my own heart, for which I could dance for eternity. Your melody plays as you trace your fingers across my own. Planting kisses on my hairline,
the bridge of my nose, the crook of my neck, the ends of my shoulders. You sing me glorious praises that beat louder than the sun. You love the parts of me I can never seem to accept. You find me where no one else can. When I feel invisible, you know that I
am here. You look at my pain and wash it all away. How could this be? That you could walk into the eye of the storm just to be with me? That you could endure all this wreckage just to hold me? How can it be that you could love someone like me?
RENEE THOMAS/MiC
You love me … and it’s warm, but not hot. It couldn’t ever be with you. When I am with you, a fire ignites that is cool enough to hold and carry with me always. I can huddle close content with the knowledge that you would never burn me. With you, I am safe to lighten my load, unwind, and feel the breeze. The air is cold, so much so that it should hurt to breathe in, but I suppose it couldn’t with you. When you’re around, the air turns smooth. Smooth enough to soothe my worries and grant me peace for just one more day. And in this dream, I love you. This feeling, which I never knew I was capable of, is overwhelming. It’s enough to make me love life, at least the life with you in it. To make you smile is my greatest gift. To wipe your tears is my greatest blessing. To hold your hand is my greatest delight. And how the days pass. For you, the world is spontaneous. We feel and so we do. Reality is suspended, and our wildest dreams come true. We welcome spring’s arrival and winter’s end. The sun is burning, the ice is melting and I am finally warm. When the morning comes, the sun bites at our faces and beckons us to join her, and then I see. Our paradise is written in the waves, so close I could touch them and soak it all in. It’s written in the sand, I could dip my toe in and sink. And when I do, at last, I revel in the promise of a brand new day. Here lies our paradise, where we and the strings of red tethered to our fingers are the only constant. Here, I yearn for every tomorrow.
Boyhood NOAH MOHAMED MiC Columnist
One of my good friends once asked me what it meant to me to be a man. My first instinct was to scour my earliest memories but I struggled to find anything of substance, anything more meaningful than toy trucks and Legos. I tried to cobble together an answer but all the words that came to mind seemed hollow and cliche. I’ve been thinking about it since then – of being a man, of boyhood – and rather than words, memories come to me, memories of my last summer in Texas before college, of the person I used to be, of the first boy I was in love with. That night I answered her question with a joke and it hasn’t come up since, but this is my answer now, this is what I wish I had told her:
boyhood is
boyhood was
boy and everything makes sense
dust and mud caked onto my sneakers and short hair being soaked with sweat and boyhood is waking up to salt crusted around my eyes because last night, last night he made me laugh until I cried and cry until I laughed and
pretending to be someone I wasn’t boyhood was pretending to be someone I would never be boyhood was closing my eyes and seeing my timeline end at 18 boyhood was feeling like I could die and nothing would happen
Boyhood
boyhood is our fingers sticky with bug spray curled together boyhood is being damp all the time because the temperature and humidity have both been over 95 for a week
boyhood is being with him and driving around the city and feeling dirty but free boyhood is putting on the clothes from Goodwill without washing them because we had to go to a party and make an impression boyhood is weed crumbs underneath my fingernails and scented hand sanitizer (Passionfruit Sunrise) before I get home
boyhood is fogged up windows in his car and us breathing the same and me saying “I love you” first and boyhood is hearing the guitar riff that he calls “pure sex” boyhood was being thirteen years old and looking at myself in the mirror and hating what I saw boyhood was the feeling I could never have enough pride to be a man
boyhood is a half deflated air mattress and tent that smells sweet like skin and sour like sweat. boyhood is the Sonic drive-in stall and a large ice water and two cherry limeades, boyhood is an ice cream cone melting onto the dashboard boyhood is when you kiss another
boyhood is sometimes the eyes on us in a gas station further out of the city and boyhood is getting separate dressing rooms and “oh yeah he’s just my friend” and boyhood is feeling like Earth’s strongest magnetic field pulling us together when we’re sitting two feet apart on the couch because his mom’s home. boyhood is sleeping next to him naked and feeling whole like there has never ever been anything wrong with me ever and boyhood is bringing him home and holding his hand in front of my parents and their friends and boyhood is realizing that maybe my mother does still love me but maybe she is ashamed of me too. NOAH MOHAMED/MiC
Embracing the sonder of human connection ANKITHA DONEPUDI MiC Columnist
I first began to grasp the profound notion of sonder during my childhood in India. I began to realize that each individual was a universe of experiences, emotions and stories; I found myself painting intricate narratives onto their canvases, exploring the depths of their lives. A young woman jogging, a surgeon enjoying their day off in
the park, a filmmaker capturing the sun sinking behind the horizon, blessing us with hues of red, orange and crimson. A single glimpse outside the car window turned into an exciting phenomenon: people were always in a constant flux of change. Though I knew I could never fully understand the complexities of these strangers’ experiences, they provided a realm for me to fantasize. With every transition in my own life, from one continent to another, from one chapter to the next, the stories I
crafted in my mind evolved. The tapestry of human experiences shifted, reflecting the changing landscapes of my own journey. As humans, we tend to be incredibly anthropocentric, viewing the world through the lens of our own experiences and perceptions. Many philosophers, like Aristotle, emphasized the centrality of human beings in the cosmos. This inherent ego shapes our reality, leading us to believe that we are the focal point of the universe—the one in a million rather than a million ones.
ANKITHA DONEPUDI/MiC.
Motivated by self-interest and selfishness, we’ve constructed societal, political and cultural frameworks that reinforce this belief, emphasizing our cognitive abilities and biases as evidence of our centrality. This selfcentered perspective fortifies the idea that we are all the protagonists of our own stories, oblivious to the diverse narratives unfolding around us. But amidst these transitions, one theme remained constant: the profound interconnectedness of our lives, the shared humanity that binds us together. Yet, amidst this egocentrism, there exists a notable exception: sonder. The slightly dramatic definition of sonder, according to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, is the “realization that each seemingly random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own with … elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway”. Aristotle, contrary to the ethos of egoism, advocated for eudaimonia, which transcends mere self-interest. His philosophy emphasizes the cultivation of virtuous character and the pursuit of a meaningful life within the broader community. By acknowledging the inherent value
and complexity of others, Aristotle invites us to cultivate empathy and compassion, recognizing the interconnectedness of humanity. And it is within this interconnectedness that I discovered the true essence of love. Love transcends the narrow confines of anthropocentrism and our egocentric tendencies, inviting us to see beyond ourselves. Each person we love becomes a universe unto themselves — a celestial tapestry interlaced with dreams, fears, vulnerabilities and aspirations that echo the tales of countless souls. Loving someone means extending our empathy and compassion beyond ourselves, embracing the entirety of another’s being and marveling at the depth and richness of their inner world. Through love, we glimpse the delicate mosaic of human existence, each relationship adding a new hue of depth and meaning to our own narrative. Each person we love becomes a mirror reflecting back the complexities and beauty of existence. Love teaches us to celebrate the uniqueness of each individual while acknowledging the shared threads of experience that weave us together. It is illuminated in the tender moments of understanding, the shared laughter and the silent comfort. However, love is not completely
immune to the sway of ego. Many times, I’ve found myself drawn into patterns of acting out of self-interest, viewing a relationship or friendship through the prism of my own desires and needs. I don’t perceive this as a manifestation of true selfishness; rather, a reflection of the societal conditioning that I’ve encountered, particularly in spending my adult life in American culture that champions individualism and places great emphasis on prioritizing one’s self-interest above all else. I’ve been actively working to break free from this pattern. While I’m still exploring what dismantling it means to me, I’ve focused on introspection. I’m examining how my personal experiences and traumas shape my interactions and influence those around me. It involves learning to respond with wisdom from experience rather than being controlled by past events. I’m also confronting the conditioning I’ve undergone and embracing what I’ve learned about community culture as a child in India, engaging in deep reflection and shadow work to transcend it. I know that I’m being contradictory here by speaking on my individual experience, but I do believe to love others purely, we have to undergo a certain degree of healing and understanding of ourselves first. Read more at michigandaily.com
Opinion
8 — Wednesday, February 14, 2024
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
From The Daily: ‘Don’t stop believin” in Michigan THE MICHIGAN DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD
On Jan. 24, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivered her annual State of the State address. Whitmer, with her quirky ‘80s references and fiercely Michigander attitude, has been a stalwart advocate of social justice, environmental protection and affordable housing. Despite these positives, she has been largely unable to reverse the state’s economic and educational decline relative to the rest of the country. It will take Whitmer more than just a few legislative wins to revitalize Michigan and overcome broader trends, like the outflow of young people, pushing the state continually lower in the national rankings. Whitmer does have plenty to boast about, especially pertaining to social justice issues and the environment. She has codified reproductive rights, championed LGBTQ+ rights and invested heavily in protecting Michigan’s lakes and reducing the state’s carbon footprint. Whitmer has also responded to the numerous mass shootings across the country by signing legislation requiring universal background checks for buyers of firearms and allowing for the temporary removal of weapons from dangerous owners. These successes are undeniably impressive and have resulted in high praise for the state and its legislature. Still, Michigan finds itself at a critical juncture. While the state is improving educationally and economically compared to itself, it’s falling behind the rest of the country. Education is one of Whitmer’s top priorities, and she made a point
of it in her address. Among other initiatives, she promised to work toward free pre-K schooling for all and laid out Michigan’s policies to support teachers. These are important initiatives and come at a time in which Michigan students are struggling. Michigan M-STEP scores did generally increase from 2022 to 2023, but they remained below their pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, less than half of elementary school students are proficient in any given subject. Michigan fourth graders ranked 32nd nationally in reading in 2019, but fell to the 43rd position by 2022. Additionally, math scores for fourth-grade students in 2022 were three points below the national average. Similarly, Michigan’s economy, though showing signs of improvement, still lags behind those of other states. Michigan is ranked 39th in personal income per capita — down 23 spots in the span of 25 years. This problem is worsened by the departure of young professional talent, draining Michigan of the individuals crucial to driving innovation and economic growth. Young people are leaving Michigan in alarming numbers, and this trend poses an existential threat to the state’s future. Michigan’s population only grew by 2% from 2010 to 2020, the 46th worst percentage in the country. The numbers from 2020 to 2023 were equally grim — 46th again. One of Whitmer’s primary strategies to reach this younger audience has been to utilize social media. Informational Instagram reels, trendy TikTok videos and posts on X bursting with popculture references are all attempts by the governor to connect with this demographic and excite them about the state’s future.
Design by Abby Schreck
But social media can only go so far, and Whitmer knows that. In terms of actual policy, the Governor is making it easier for high-school graduates to pursue higher education by lowering the cost of community college and trade school. She’s also increasing funding for the University of Michigan. However, Whitmer needs to expand her scope. Educating young people isn’t enough; she needs to keep them here, too. A driving factor of the state’s current net population loss is the lack of high-paying career opportunities in Michigan. Additionally, large Michigan cities such as Detroit and Grand Rapids don’t have the same reputation as the metropolises on the coasts and
in the South, and public transit and innovative work environments are not nearly as common in Michigan as they are in other states. Cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco are just as socially progressive as Michigan, but outperform in job availability and attractiveness. New professionals are flocking to states where innovation, technology and entrepreneurial growth are top of mind, leaving Michigan behind. In order to encourage the creation of high-paying jobs like those in the tech-sector, Michigan must keep diversifying beyond the auto industry. Alongside Whitmer, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist has pushed for the funding of highpaying tech jobs. At the beginning of 2024, Gilchrist announced
$5 million had been awarded to the University of Michigan’s Innovation Partnerships team. The money will be used to establish the Michigan University Innovation Capital Fund and the Michigan University Innovation Capital Consortium, both designed to support research and technology transfer from public universities in Michigan. Gilchrist is adamant on continuing to transition Michigan into an entrepreneurial hub where the tech industry and others will be supported. Whitmer also needs to market Michigan cities’ progress and opportunities better. Detroit, home to over 600,000, has recovered faster than most outof-staters seem to believe. The
city has even been recognized by Purpose Jobs as the bestemerging tech hub in the country. Grand Rapids, with its cheap cost of living and low unemployment, was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the 20th best city to live in America. These are culturally vibrant and economically promising urban centers, but tend to go under-recognized by recent graduates and young people. Ultimately, Whitmer has largely been a successful governor, but only time will tell if she is the visionary Michigan needs to reverse its decline relative to the rest of the country. Starting by meeting the needs of younger generations could be the best step toward making Michigan competitive in a high-tech world.
Mcards are more than an ID JULIAN BARNARD Opinion Columnist
The University of Michigan has been using essentially the same Mcard design since before I was born. The current graphic design that graces every U-M community member’s ID card was introduced in 2001. But you didn’t need me to tell you that the design was a product of the 2000s — just look at the card, ’90s bubble-lettering, lowresolution picture and all. Your initial response to this might be some version of “who cares?” It was certainly the response I was met with when I pitched this idea to one of my friends. It’s a fair question. But the Mcard isn’t just a tool that helps U-M students buy lattes at the Michigan Union Sweetwaters or enter campus buildings. It’s an important part of how we conceive of ourselves as Wolverines and how the outside world thinks of the
University — and by extension, us. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one who thinks the Mcard’s design is a little out there. Design choices matter, and even the University’s own branding style guide discourages many of the design choices seen on the Mcard. Marketing is a trillion-dollar industry for a reason; even minor design choices that are imperceptible to your average viewer make huge differences in how people perceive a company and have tangible effects on consumer behavior. So even if you are personally immune to the charms of a well-designed piece of plastic, most people aren’t. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Engineering sophomore Rachel Smith described how she thought the Mcards compare to IDs at other institutions. “(Other colleges’ IDs) look more professional … the Mcard graphic itself above the IDs looks very much like a cartoon. I feel
like it’s just kind of hard to take it seriously,” Smith said. In an interview with The Daily, LSA sophomore Ella Hedberg expressed similar thoughts. “I was a little underwhelmed,” Hedberg said. “When I first got it freshman year, I kind of just saw, like, somebody learning how to do Photoshop really quickly off of their computer.” If bubble letters and off-hue coloring are unappealing to current Wolverines, how do they appear to prospective ones? How do donors feel when their grandchild comes home and plops this wonky piece of plastic on the dining room table? The outdated design is especially concerning because the University actually has a good brand to stand on. In the past few months, the University weathered consecutive scandals and came out the other side with a National Championship trophy. Just a few weeks ago, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers joked that Harvard University’s reputation had been so poisoned
that he spotted Colin Jost — host of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update and a notable Harvard alum — in the hall “wearing a Michigan hoodie.” Referring to the Block ‘M,’ the style guide cautions users to “ensure no other graphic becomes visually attached to the official identity.” “Official identity” is strong language, and that makes sense. The Block ‘M’ represents our school much better and more often than our mascot does, so obscuring part of the Block ‘M’ with some silly bubble lettering borders on sacrilegious. It goes without saying that the University’s graphic design guidelines are just that: guidelines. I, and the University, shouldn’t be trapped in a straitjacket of its own bureaucracy every time it makes a design decision. But these standards exist for a reason. The University of Michigan is defined by symbolism more than most universities. “Go Blue” is the phrase we use to
acknowledge block ‘M’-wearing strangers on the street. The fact that the yellow and blue on the Mcard aren’t even the standard hues for our prolific maize and blue makes me question my campus experience. Am I a U-M student, engaging in a rich campus tradition of living, learning and winning, or am I just being handed a piece of plastic, an interchangeable education for an interchangeable consumer? My language, as I’ve been informed by my various editors, is often cataclysmic. Sure, the Mcard design doesn’t matter that much. But we cannot discount the marginal effect, the people at the margins of our sample, the people most affected by branding. For some subset of people, this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. If I am a prospective student deciding between schools, the gleaming Spartan Card might draw me just a little closer to Michigan State University. If I’m a prospective alum donor, my
memories of having to swipe eight times to enter a building after the magnetic strip wears thin (or stops working) might put me in a more fiscally-conservative mood. Hedberg mentioned that her Mcard — like many — has worn out pretty quickly. “I know there’s like the CAPS after hours number that’s meant to be on there,” Hedberg said. “I can’t read it anymore. Just from holding it, the numbers have been wiped away.” There’s no perfect university ID. But Mcards have a long way to go. Take MSU’s ID: They feature the Beaumont Memorial Tower on their Spartan Card, a campus staple. I don’t know what our university’s best symbol would be, but a diagram of the Diag and the intersecting paths that join our various departments and University, or any design that represents our campus with pride and skill, strikes me as a preferable backdrop to the off-hue piece of plastic we have been left with by some long-retired U-M administrators.
Your current class schedule sucks: Here’s why it’s not your fault MAX FELDMAN Opinion Columnist
As of Jan. 30, you can no longer drop a class without it appearing on your transcript. That means, as far as the University of Michigan is concerned, that class schedule you chose way back in November is going to leave a mark. But the impact of our courses goes far beyond academic records. The classes we choose and the schedules we create have a major effect on the people we interact with and the rhythm of our weeks. Our daily lives, and largely our college experience, are dependent on the process of choosing these classes. Yet, we barely ever stop to consider if the current registration process is fair, beneficial or efficient. In the waning days of the fall semester, I found myself anxiously awaiting my registration date. I had scoured the LSA Course Guide for hours, traversed the labyrinth that is Wolverine Access and managed to build a schedule on the Atlas Schedule Builder that miraculously contained a three-day weekend. However, when the time finally came for me to register, this dream schedule quickly faded from my
computer screen. Half my desired classes were full and I was forced back onto the endless websites we depend on during registration season. I eventually crafted a schedule I felt comfortable with — albeit without the three-day weekend — but I couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied with the convoluted process I had just endured. Most glaringly, the infrastructure behind our class registration system is far too disjointed and intricate. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed while navigating the endless array of platforms the University has compiled to supposedly make registration easier. Students must flip-flop between the course guide, Atlas, Wolverine Access and department websites, each of which contains a staggering amount of information. When considered individually, the breadth and depth of these resources appear to offer significant benefits to the student body during the course selection process. But students don’t have all the time in the world to scour these sites. It’s crucial to consider the specific timeframe in which students are engaging with these websites to craft their schedules. November is a month plagued
by midterms, papers, problem sets and readings. Students are still wrestling with the woes of the first semester;yet, the University expects us to start planning out next semester’s classes. Adding the stress of class registration to this already stressful period only makes it harder for students to traverse the ocean of class information and resources that can be found on the University websites. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find any students complaining about the month registration starts. Their complaints instead tend to revolve around the registration date they’re assigned. In my view, these issues are simply two sides of the same coin, ultimately leading us to a pivotal question: Who really benefits from this system? To answer this, we can look at how enrollment dates are determined. According to the Office of the Registrar, students are assigned to a certain registration block based on their Credit Toward Program and in-progress credits. That means you add up all the credits you’ve already earned and add on how many you’re taking this term. Registration times are then assigned from first block to last block. As it stands now, students
who are further along in their academic programs, specifically upperclassmen, are the ones who take priority during class registration. I can recognize the importance of prioritizing these individuals who pay increased tuition after they reach 55 credits and who are under more stress to find the classes they need to graduate on time. But we shouldn’t pit upperclassmen who want to complete their academic discipline against underclassmen who are trying to figure out their academic discipline. These two student groups have different educational needs and desires, and we shouldn’t simply be helping one by hindering the other. This current method inevitably favors students who have already figured out their academic trajectory and who are less in need of varied course exploration. If you’re an underclassmen or someone questioning your chosen area of study, sorry; you’re at a disadvantage. You might spend hours combing through campus websites to plan a diverse schedule, only to discover that the new areas of study you’re interested in are full by the time you go to register. When students are most in need of academic exploration, our class
registration system limits their ability to explore. What we need is a class registration system that works for all students, not just some — a system that guarantees equity and easy accessibility to the student body. We can start by combining Wolverine Access, Atlas and the LSA Course Guide into a singular U-M registration platform. By consolidating these resources into a revamped interface, the University can guarantee easier access to all students, whether they’re looking for a completely new discipline or have already chosen a major. Furthermore, the time when students are selecting courses also needs amending. It might be better for registration dates to occur over Winter Break rather than during the fall semester so that students can carefully select their courses and thoroughly examine campus resources at a time free from the pressures of college work. Lastly, upperclassmen securing classes essential for their majors and underclassmen exploring new areas of study need not be mutually exclusive occurrences. The University should implement an enrollment date process that takes into account the individual needs of the student body. This
might mean reserving a certain portion of seats in different classes for those students who have later registration dates, similar to the University’s policy for students in specific programs. Or, it might mean offering more unique advising opportunities to students looking to diversify their schedules. Regardless of what the University comes up with to combat these issues, the timescale in which change will happen can be a point of contention. Traversing the bureaucracy of the University administration can prove daunting, particularly when there are probably many in the administration who see improving this longstanding system as unnecessary or impossible. Granted, the University has been doing class registration this way for years, and to them it might seem like they’ve constructed the best possible system. Platforms like the course guide or Atlas do provide a ton of great information and resources to help students select their courses. And the University does offer advising to help students navigate the daunting process, but even here they fall short. Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 — 9
Social media and social stratification
RACHELLE EVANS Opinion Columnist
If you have a conversation with three new people every day for 73 years, you will meet 80,000 people throughout your lifetime — only 0.001% of the world’s population. With the creation of popular social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly known as Twitter) and more, measurements of human interaction get increasingly complicated. With 4.8 billion social media users worldwide, our social networks now seem limitless. This phenomenon, however, is paradoxical — with increased connection comes increased division. Social media platforms have largely removed layers of anonymity, making users’ socioeconomic status more visible and subject to scrutiny. What’s shown through the content people post reveals and reinforces divisions in almost
irreversible ways. Social media is also a tool for personal branding, especially when it comes to displaying their wealth and validating their social status. There are unspoken expectations surrounding posting on social media. On LinkedIn, we brag about accolades and internship acceptances. On TikTok, we highlight our personalities through humorous and relatable content. On Instagram, we post the highlights of our lives to formulate the image of our ideal lifestyle. We curate our feeds to simultaneously be aesthetically pleasing while displaying — consciously or subconsciously — our wealth through daily activities and adventures. Our posts depict where we went to high school, our graduations, our extravagant beach vacations, our summers in Europe and even the amount of friends we have. For the most part, it seems harmless. However, unintentionally publicizing
our financial situations creates a digital divide, as it is now easier than ever to identify one’s socioeconomic status by glancing at their social media accounts. Our instinct to categorize those around us is not our fault, nor is it necessarily harmful. In the past, categorization helped us determine safety. It allowed us to quickly identify family versus strangers. Now, this categorization can be dangerous. When we instinctively put people in boxes, we inadvertently affect their access to social and professional opportunities. Think back to your last interview. Did you spend extra time doing your hair? Putting on makeup? Picking out an outfit? Practicing your diction and word choice skills? We adopt these techniques to avoid being categorized. To a certain extent, we try to reach a standard of professionalism that tends to be rooted in classism. Social media has made this process more complicated.
Seventy percent of employers screen applicants’ social media profiles. While their goal is to check for illegal activities or possible public relations issues, social categorization occurs in the background of their minds. An applicant may seem more desirable if they have connections and a lifestyle that can benefit the company, which is representative of the already discriminatory hiring practices by jobs along the lines of socioeconomic status. Social and economic divisions have existed as long as societies have. However, social media is unique in that it accelerates and deepens these divisions. A collective thought process — if you post nothing, you obviously have nothing to post — forces many to broadcast their current socioeconomic statuses and thus endure public judgment. Initially, if a person of high socioeconomic status was to bump into someone they like on the street or in class, they might exchange phone numbers and
become friends. Now however, surveying socials often comes before friendship. If a potential friend portrays themself with high class and social status, others might view them as an attractive friendship option. If they portray themselves to be of lower status on the other hand, they might be viewed as a waste of time. While social media upholds social stratification, it can also bridge gaps by popularizing activities originally associated with people of lower socioeconomic status. Thrifting is one major example: What was once primarily viewed as an option to purchase cheap clothing is now viewed as a creative, unique and adventurous way to build a closet. Social media has the power to make uncool things cool. When communities discuss collective experiences and habits, they strengthen their bonds: people create and access content that feels relatable, bonds can be formed quickly
and people feel seen. So, should we favor reduced exposure on social media? Or, should we go forth with our overly-published lifestyles and accept negative consequences as they come? Sharing personally fulfilling moments with a greater network of people can be a deeply valuable experience, and it is not ethically wrong to do so. You should, however, value your privacy, value traits in others that are not posted on feeds and devalue how much other’s social media presence can impact the potential of relationship building and professional outreach. Take a more privacy-conscious approach to social media. You can minimize its divisive effects on class categorization and further stratification. Reconsider your social media habits in the interest of our world community that lacks inclusivity. Do it for greater society, or do it for yourself, do it for your future. This year, I am challenging myself to learn to do it as well.
Give me back my snow days LARA TINAWI Opinion Columnist
By choosing to attend the University of Michigan, students can expect some terrible winter weather conditions. Looking out your window at a beautiful snowfall has its perks, but having to trudge through that snow to make it to your mandatory 10 a.m. class is where that beauty quickly fades. It’s ridiculous how many times I have risked breaking a bone while sliding down the makeshift ice rink that is Ann Arbor sidewalks in order to make it to class. No grade is worth risking my life for; yet here I am, looking like a buffoon as I do an interpretative dance trying to regain my footing on State Street. The University needs to close when the weather conditions are dangerous, and the city of Ann Arbor needs to keep the sidewalks danger-free. From Jan. 12 -13, a major winter storm impacted Ann Arbor — with about 6.3 inches of snow within 18 hours. The Ann Arbor Police Department responded to more than 50 vehicle crashes between 1 p.m and 10 p.m. Despite Michigan State Police asking people to stay home in the dangerous conditions, the University remained open through the storm. No class is worth risking bodily harm to get to. The University’s policy in the event of severe weather states that “Students, faculty and staff members are expected to make every reasonable effort to get to campus so that services can be maintained.” It is completely unreasonable to expect community members to make every effort possible to come to campus in these conditions, when being on campus poses a number of risks beyond just a car crash. In 2020, an Ann Arbor resident
named Richard Derick slipped and fell due to the ice on the sidewalks, and later died. While Derick’s death led to discussions at Ann Arbor City Council about the importance of keeping the sidewalks clear, anyone who has walked in Ann Arbor the past few weeks knows these discussions have not done much. The sidewalks on the outskirts of Central Campus were thick with ice for several days before warmer weather finally caused them to melt. Just because these sidewalks were not on the University’s property does not mean that students weren’t walking on them. On the contrary, nearly 73% of students live off campus, and most had to walk on these ice-block sidewalks. Even living on campus in a residence hall does not ensure a worry-free commute to class. One of my many qualms with living in Oxford Residence Halls freshman year was that due to the limited bussing and it being separated from campus by multiple residential areas, I would often have to walk to class on unshoveled sidewalks. It would take me longer to get to class, and I had my share of bone bruises and embarrassing falls because of it. Ann Arbor law requires that residents shovel snow accumulations greater than once inch within 24 hours from sidewalks, concrete bus stop walks and crosswalk ramps. Ice accumulations also must be treated within 18 hours of forming. Residents and property owners will receive one warning per season before incurring fines, and you can report locations where a violation has occurred to encourage enforcement. Reporting such a thing might seem extremely petty — and I know the last thing a college student needs is fines to pay —
Design by Natasha Eliya
but residential properties should shovel the sidewalks. Not only is it the law, but it is also just a decent thing to do. Report these locations when conditions are dangerous, and the city will be more likely to encourage residential properties to take care of their sidewalks and enforce the law. Additionally, many students, faculty and staff have to commute to campus in their own personal vehicles or on public transportation. University of Michigan-Dearborn’s policy allows the campus to close in the event of dangerous weather conditions and for students to be informed prior to the start of classes either by 11 p.m. the night prior, or 6 a.m. the morning of. In comparison, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor is so set on their standards
to remain open that it has only seen four snow days since 1978. Other universities in Michigan have closed due to inclement weather, even without having the status of being “commuter schools” like the University of MichiganDearborn. In the Jan. 12-13 snowstorm, Grand Valley State University, Ferris State University and Western Michigan University all canceled classes. Conditions were dangerous for students, so the schools decided to close —it was that easy. The University of Michigan needs to do better. The University does not even need to resort to completely canceling classes in the event of inclement weather, as canceling class every time the weather is inconvenient is not realistic.
However, recent years have shown us that traditional education now has reliable alternatives for online or asynchronous learning that still allows students to partake in class activities. By encouraging faculty to move to Zoom or asynchronous learning during bad weather, students can remain safe inside without having to venture through the terrible conditions to go to class. Faculty should also take it upon themselves to move their classes online when it is dangerous to go to class. I don’t want to hear about how my professor thinks the University should’ve canceled class, even though you still made me show up to your lecture for my attendance points. Growing up in Michigan, I
had my fair share of snow days, and there was nothing like them. As I watched my former school district cancel several times in the last month due to the weather, I couldn’t help but experience the painful sting of jealousy. Is this what growing up is supposed to feel like? “No wonder other countries are disturbed by the American work ethic,” I thought as I ice-skated to class. But enough is enough. It is time to abandon this unmoving dedication to keeping the University open at the risk of its community, and action needs to be taken against those who put the community in danger. Close campus when the weather sucks, and shovel your damn sidewalks.
New high rises are causing Ann Arbor to lose its college-town charm ETHAN BITTNER Opinion Columnist
In his 1989 book “The Great Good Place,” sociologist Ray Oldenberg coined the term “third place,” which refers to anywhere people spend time away from home (first place) and work (second place). These can be coffee shops, restaurants, gyms, bars or barber shops — any place where people go to spend their free time and enjoy themselves. The societal impact of third places is enormous. They facilitate social interaction and are spaces where people can connect with others, make casual conversation and exchange ideas. They are fundamental to maintaining vibrant and happy communities. Without third places, it’s possible for people to live in close proximity without ever interacting, causing feelings of social isolation — feelings that have contributed to the
“loneliness epidemic” that has been on the rise in the U.S. since the 1970s. Third places have been disappearing for decades across the U.S., and Ann Arbor is no exception. When I visited Ann Arbor as a child with my parents, both of whom are University of Michigan alumni, they pointed out the shops and watering holes that had existed when they attended the University, like The Brown Jug, Scorekeepers, Fleetwood Diner and Angelo’s. These Ann Arbor staples are a central component of University tradition and a quintessential part of the Michigan student experience. In recent years, however, the construction of new high-rise apartments and U-M buildings have threatened Ann Arbor’s third places, jeopardizing the charm of one of America’s best college towns. New students may be unaware that Vic Village South’s building site, 1110 S. University Avenue, was once home to South U Pizza, an Ann Arbor favorite that opened in 2009. Last year,
the University purchased the building that housed Angelo’s, a brunch mainstay that opened in the 1950s. It will be demolished to accommodate new U-M buildings. More recently, Landmark Properties Management Group has proposed a new 17-story tower at the site of the Galleria Mall, the building currently home to Pinball Pete’s and a number of other businesses. Developing new high rises diminishes the sense of community that brings life to both Ann Arbor’s streets and a U-M student’s college experience. Ann Arbor has long been known for the strong spirit that surrounds the University’s academic and athletic programs. Think about the U-M emblems and memorabilia that decorate places like The Brown Jug and Coach & Four Barber Shop. Going inside these establishments, or even just walking by, is a reminder that you are part of a rich history that dates to 1817 and a family more than 600,000 strong. The University is central
to the identities of these Ann Arbor staples and they give back by making Ann Arbor feel unique. These businesses help create an atmosphere that attracts students from around the world. Constructing more sterile and architecturally bland high-rise apartment buildings undermines this appeal. These changes to the Ann Arbor community will have a negative impact on student wellbeing. More than 60% of college students reported feelings of loneliness in a study conducted in 2018, a nationwide statistic that is likely reflected in the U-M campus. This number has likely risen in the last two decades due to increased technology use and the COVID-19 pandemic. Losing more social gathering spaces will only exacerbate the loneliness and social isolation felt by students. Without places to come together over shared interests or activities, young people may feel more inclined to spend time alone or involve themselves more deeply with social media.
Despite negative social and cultural effects, the proponents of high-rise construction claim it’s a step toward solving a housing crisis that has priced students and families out of Ann Arbor. In reality, however, high rent makes these new buildings inaccessible to many U-M students, benefiting only those who could already afford desirable housing close to campus. If the University wants to maintain Ann Arbor’s college-town charm, then there needs to be a balance between preserving third places and creating affordable housing for students. The University could invest in more on-campus housing, which would mitigate demand for off-campus arrangements that drive up prices. In order to preserve third places and Ann Arbor’s culture, developers of new high rises could carve out space for small businesses — not large chain restaurants or stores, —on the ground floors of new buildings. Then, they could build housing units directly
overhead, similar to the layout of the Landmark building at 1300 S. University Ave. Students can get involved as well by protesting and speaking out against the demolition of third places at city council meetings. When news broke that Pinball Pete’s was going to be removed to make room for a new high rise, more than 100 community members gathered at the Ann Arbor District Library to protest. Their attempts have been unsuccessful so far, but the outpour of support encouraged co-owner Ted Arnold to seek a relocation spot downtown to stay close to the campus community. While more affordable housing options are necessary in Ann Arbor, removing the gathering places ingrained into Ann Arbor’s historic streetscape and U-M culture is not a good approach. Doing so only harms Ann Arbor’s charm and the unique spaces that are essential to the University of Michigan community.
10 — Wednesday, February 14, 2024 ICE HOCKEY
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Lys Goldman: Michigan doesn’t have anyone to turn to
DETROIT — Game on the line. Season-altering momentum on the line. Iron “D” trophy on the line. With less than one second left LYS on the overtime GOLDMAN clock in last year’s ‘Duel in the D,’ former Michigan defenseman Luke Hughes took matters into his own hands. He ripped the puck into the back of the net a mere blink before the buzzer rang, securing the Wolverines’ sixth straight victory in Detroit. And although the buzzer-beating goal left the crowd in Little Caesars Arena stunned, the stick it came off of wasn’t a shock to those familiar with the 2022-23 Michigan hockey team. Hughes and former forward Adam Fantilli had been doing that all season, stepping up for the Wolverines in almost every moment of need. Flash forward to Saturday in Detroit, one year later. Game on the line. Season-altering momentum on the line. Iron “D” trophy on the line. But this time, Michigan had no one to turn to. Down 3-2 with 30 seconds left, the Wolverines tried calling on junior forward Dylan Duke at the net front. He has cemented himself as a force to be reckoned with at the net, and he already had a goal to
his name on Saturday. His chance looked promising, but one unlucky bounce later and Michigan was back to square one. With an empty net behind them and 27 ticks remaining on the clock, the Wolverines tried turning to someone else. They fed the puck to sophomore forward Gavin Brindley, who had already scored two goals on the weekend. One blocked and one missed shot later, though, and No. 11 Michigan watched No. 9 Michigan State bask in the glory of its first Iron “D” trophy since the inaugural event in 2016. Sure, one lucky bounce and the game could’ve completely changed course. But there comes a point when you can’t let a single bounce determine whether you leave with three points or zero, and Saturday night wasn’t an isolated incident. Put simply, the Wolverines have struggled to win winnable games all season. They’ve struggled to play a full 60 minutes, and they’ve struggled to find consistency in any aspect of their game. Michigan currently sits at 14-11-3 overall with a losing Big Ten record. But you could count on one hand the number of games in which the Wolverines thoroughly deserved to lose. They were right there against Ohio State, against Wisconsin, against Minnesota, against Wisconsin again, against the Spartans on Friday. Last weekend, beating the Buckeyes two nights in a row for their first conference sweep, it looked
like they might’ve finally broken through. “(The game) wasn’t our best,” graduate defenseman Marshall Warren said after Friday’s win over Ohio State. “But I think a weakness of us this year is finding a way to win those games, so it’s a positive that we took that win.” But from sweep to swept in just seven days, Michigan couldn’t sustain it. The Wolverines succumbed to inconsistencies once again, with nothing constant to rely on. It doesn’t even have to be a player (or two). Michigan knew coming into this season that it didn’t
Michigan goes 4-1 in opening weekend despite slow-starting offense Daily Sports Writer
In just the first chapter of the Michigan softball team’s 2024 season, the Wolverines found a few storybook endings. Playing into extra innings scoreless against No. 17 Florida (4-1 overall) and trailing Oregon State (3-2) in the bottom of the 7th, Michigan (4-1) pulled out wins against both teams with late offensive surges. The Wolverines also picked up narrow victories over Illinois State (0-5) and Bethune-Cookman (1-4), while falling short against South Florida (3-2) in their opening weekend at the USF-Rawlings Tournament. Michigan came out on top of the five-team field, notching four wins, but it didn’t make its success look easy. While veteran right-handers junior Lauren Derkowski and senior Jessica LeBeau kept the opposing offenses at bay, the Wolverines’ bats were quiet early in games, accumulating just two total runs in the first five innings of all five games. “Historically, (hitting) has been the slowest to catch up,” Michigan coach Bonnie Tholl said. “Defense and pitching seem to lead us and then we catch up offensively.” When Michigan’s offense finally did catch up, though, it caught fire, scoring 10 combined runs in the last two innings of its games. This trend was established from the Wolverines’ very first game Friday when they scored three runs in the sixth inning and two in the seventh, albeit with the help of two critical Illinois
State errors, en route to a 5-3 victory. The weekend’s finale, Sunday against Oregon State, saw a similar pattern. One of many dramatic endings, a two-run final inning propelled Michigan past the Beavers, 2-1. Redshirt freshman utility player Lilly Vallimont epitomized the Wolverines’ offensive crescendos, going hitless throughout the entire weekend before finally connecting for the walk-off single. “(My mentality) was the same throughout the weekend,” Vallimont said. “Just keep it simple, you know? See ball, hit ball.” In Michigan’s penultimate game of the tournament, Saturday night against the Gators, though, its reliance on late offense was pushed near its limit. With the Wolverines’ bats going hit-less from the first inning to the game’s end in extras, Derkowski kept them even with a 139-pitch, six-hit, zero-earnedrun performance – on her birthday nonetheless. Derkowski’s confidence and experience were on display with her back against the wall more than once in the eighth inning. First with the bases loaded and no one out, and later with the bases loaded and a 3-0 count – meaning an inaccurate pitch would lose the game – the right-hander delivered twice, keeping the game scoreless. “I’ve been in that situation and I knew that my defense was behind me,” Derkowski said. “(I was) trusting my pitches, taking a lot of deep breaths and just not letting the moment get too big.” Again overcoming a slow start,
from their defense to their goaltending to their offense. Their topranked power play might be an exception, but there’s one problem with leaning too heavily on a power play unit: the other team has to commit a penalty first. “We had all talked as teammates, just trying to stay disciplined,” Michigan State forward Tanner Kelly said. “They obviously have a really good power play over there. … So we all just kind of talked as a collective group and just were trying to be disciplined out there.” With special teams out of the spotlight and backs against the
LILA TURNER/Daily
SOFTBALL
GRAHAM BARKER
have any starpower equivalent to Hughes or Fantilli. So it could’ve focused on building a formidable team defense, or locking down between the pipes, or sustaining offensive pressure. And yet to this point, the Wolverines can’t depend on any of those areas to show up every night. Take secondary scoring, for example. Last weekend, Michigan’s top line contributed just one of eight goals across both games. This weekend, the Wolverines’ lack of depth was one of their detriments. They have nowhere to turn for routinely reliable contributions,
Michigan scored once in both the ninth and tenth innings, on a ground-out and yet another error. It found a way to beat the tournament’s only ranked team by doing barely enough – just one hit and zero earned runs. Against USF Friday afternoon, however, barely enough wasn’t enough, as the Wolverines recorded just three hits the entire game, resulting in zero runs. Foreshadowing the next day’s Florida game, Michigan had a great pitching performance – this time by LeBeau – but its offense was completely silent. The next morning, in Saturday’s contest with Bethune-Cookman, the Wolverines broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth inning to eke out a win. The result looks unimpressive, though, when considering the combined 35 runs the Wildcats allowed to USF, Oregon State and the Gators. In a weekend full of pitching duels and dramatic finishes, Michigan found success and some momentum to take with it. But issues at the plate, especially early in games, loom large as the Wolverines reflect on the transition from offseason training into the regular season. “Now you’re hitting outside (in) uncontrolled environments,” Tholl said. “Oftentimes in practice, you’re in a controlled environment.” As Michigan closes the book on its first chapter of the new season, it will look to bring with it the stellar pitching of Derkowski and LeBeau, and hope that the inconsistent, slow-starting offense isn’t a recurring character.
wall, Michigan can’t win winnable games because it doesn’t know where to turn. Of course, no single player or unit is ever going to be perfect. But the Wolverines’ path has been especially rocky. They’ve seen flashes of greatness, and they’ve proven that they can keep up with some of the best of the best. But at the end of the day, those flashes have only been flashes, and keeping up with the best of the best means nothing if you can’t beat them. On Saturday, Michigan was in it until the final buzzer once again. Game planning to counteract the Wolverines’ final push during a timeout with 27 seconds to go, Spartans coach Adam Nightingale reminded his team of a few key components. “Five on six, you gotta keep it cool,” Nightingale said. “You gotta play with poise, but in front of the net, you gotta play with your stick on the ice. “… Just little details, but we’re in February now. Our guys know what they gotta do.” Michigan is in February now, too. The Wolverines have three regular season series left on their schedule. A lot can change in six games, but as of Sunday, they wouldn’t make the NCAA Tournament without winning the Big Ten Tournament. And yet they don’t “know what they gotta do,” because they don’t have anyone — or anything — to consistently produce game-defining moments.
MEN’S TENNIS
No. 13 Michigan prevails in hard-fought 6-1 win over Notre Dame
match.” Young wasn’t the only MichiFor The Daily gan player who faced challenges during his singles matchup. After While the final score of the No. getting swept in doubles, Han13 Michigan men’s tennis team’s chaikul was met with a partial matchup against Notre Dame may rematch against a now familiar appear as though it wasn’t troubleopponent, Thompson. Hanchaisome, the reality was closer than it kul took a few games to get comseems. fortable. After a dominant win against “(Thompson) had a good Washington on Feb. 4, the Wolverstart the first three games, and I ines were tasked with continuing wasn’t sure what the game plan their dominance on their home was supposed to be,” Hanchaikul court. On Friday, Michigan (5-2 said. “I started getting a better overall) did just that, read on the serve, knowing conquering the Fighting where to hit on his weaker Irish (3-2) with a 6-1 vicside.” tory. Hanchaikul was able to The Wolverines hope the energy The Wolverines’ keep the matchup to two created from this two-game win doubles duo of juniors sets, adequately winning streak at home will be enough to Will Cooksey and the first and dominating in Patorn Hanchaikul had the second set after makpropel them forward. no problem with their ing adjustments to how he last matchup against answered his opponent’s the Huskies, but Notre attacks. Dame’s Evan Lee and Chase opponent, Sebastian Dominko, The lone point by Notre Dame Thompson proved just too much with the matchup extending to a was scored by Yu Zhang against for them to handle. Some crucial third set. Young struggled to put Michigan sophomore Nicholas mistakes from the Michigan part- points on the board in the first set, Steiglehner, a singles matchup ners allowed their opponents to but found his footing in the sec- that was also forced into a tiesweep the set, 6-0. ond, answering with a 6-1 win. The breaking third set. Although “We were a bit shaky, miss- third set boiled down to a scoring it was a scoring battle on both ing routine shots that we usually battle between the two players, ends, Steiglehner ultimately fell make,” Hanchaikul said. “We’re with Young ultimately being able to Zhang in the third set. going to review the film of the to pull through with the victory. The Wolverines hope the match with the coaches and try “It was really hard for me to energy created from this twoto figure out where things went get into any rhythm whatsoever,” game win streak at home will be wrong.” Young said. “After that first set, enough to propel them forward. The two other doubles match- I just made a few adjustments on If Michigan can learn from its ups didn’t struggle quite as much, where my position was, and that mistakes and improve its returns, securing the doubles point for really gave me a good opportunity it is primed to take on even steepthe Wolverines. Still, neither duo to get into more of a serves game er competition at the ITA Indoor won their sets with ease. Some and give me a chance to win the National Championships. HAYLIE TOTH
strategy between Michigan coach Sean Maymi and the doubles pair of Gavin Young and Jacob Bickersteth was needed in order to help them through their tough matchup. “As the serving team, you want to take the first strike and be offensive as quickly as possible,” Maymi said. “I thought they did that really well, and obviously it was difficult.” During the singles portion, Young’s skills seemed to be evenly matched against his Notre Dame
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Nebraska steamrolls Michigan with dominant first-half run, 79-59
NOAH KINGSLEY
Managing Sports Editor
LINCOLN — The Michigan men’s basketball team is no stranger to giving up double-digit runs to its opponents, typically in the second half. But on Saturday, that run was a little bit earlier — and a little bit larger — than expected. Giving up a 29-3 run to Nebraska over 8:19 in the first half, the Wolverines (8-16 overall, 3-10 Big Ten) were annihilated by the Cornhuskers (17-8, 7-7), 79-59. Guard Keisei Tominaga led a relentless first-half barrage from beyond the arc with 19 points, and Nebraska handed Michigan its most gutting loss yet. “Obviously, that was demoralizing,” graduate guard Nimari Burnett said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Any run with a 26-point advantage is demoralizing. It was a tough stretch of a run.” Even before the run, when the Wolverines briefly kept it close, all signs pointed to Cornhusker dominance. Down just 9-7, 4:28 into
the game, Michigan had already turned the ball over twice and allowed four second-chance points, hinting at even greater struggles. And to turn those signs of dominance into tangible results on the scoreboard, all it took was Tomi-
naga getting to work. Drilling a fading stepback three over graduate guard Jaelin Llewellyn, Tominaga opened the floodgates for Nebraska. Starting with that shot, the Cornhuskers quickly turned their
slim two-point lead into 28. Over that stretch, the Wolverines took punch after punch, failing to deliver even a single jab in return. If Nebraska drove in oneon-one, Michigan fouled, sending the Cornhuskers to the line. If the
EMILY ALBERTS/Daily
Wolverines collapsed in to help, Nebraska kicked the ball out, finding its shooters without a defender in sight. And even if a Michigan defender managed to close out on the shooter, he dished it back inside, resulting in an easy slam. No matter where the Cornhuskers were on the court, the Wolverines were nowhere to be found. “They did a really good job of moving the ball well, and then a big part of that is also ball pressure,” Burnett said. “You don’t want to give up the dribble drive, which causes the shooters to get more active as our defense collapses.” When Michigan’s defense attempted to collapse inside during those eight-plus minutes, Nebraska made it pay. The Cornhuskers shot 5-for-7 from deep, with four different players connecting from beyond the arc. The Wolverines, meanwhile, shot 1-for-9 from the field. As Tominaga accentuated the 26-point run with another fading jumper, he put an early exclamation point on a game already firmly
in hand — even with 26 minutes left to play. Entirely in control, Nebraska soon rested its starters. Tominaga, in particular, didn’t touch the floor for the first 12-plus minutes of the second half. And though Michigan never let the deficit get any larger in the final frame, its efforts to make a small dent served as nothing more than a reminder of just how bad that first-half run was. “We gave up that deficit, and once we were into (the game), it was too late,” Burnett said. “We were down 30. It’s hard to come back from that on any level. We gotta do a better job of paying attention to the game plan on the court” After the dreadful start, the Wolverines returned to their game plan and treaded water, preventing an abysmal loss from getting even worse in the second half. But it had little impact on anything other than the final margin. Because during that 29-3 run, each shot that Nebraska sank sent the Wolverines sinking too far down to recover.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsWednesday
MICHIGAN STATE 3 | MICHIGAN 2
Daily Sports Writer
D
OU
ETROIT — Following the No. 11 Michigan hockey team’s loss to No. 9 Michigan State on Friday, sophomore forward Gavin Brindley expressed the expectations for Saturday’s game: “(The Spartans) are going to be hungry, but we’re going to be hungrier.” Yet, even with the ‘Duel in the D’ trophy on the line and the opportunity to extend the win streak to seven wins in Detroit, the Wolverines clearly didn’t skate into Little Caesars Arena hungrier than their opponent. In the rival teams’ 341st matchup, the Wolverines (14-11-3 overall, 7-9-2 Big Ten) lack of urgency when it mattered most led to them being swept on the weekend and their third straight loss to Michigan State (20-7-3, 14-4-2), 3-2. “It was a great event and could’ve gone either way,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said. “ … They’re a rival and a really good team and this league is really deep. It’s tough to win every night and it’s tough to sweep in this league so credit to them. But we feel good about our team. … I thought we pushed all night and some bounces go their way instead of ours.” Although the Wolverines started the first period strong, tallying near double the Spartans’ shot count at the time, they didn’t put anything on the scoreboard as a result. Instead, Michigan State forward Tanner Kelly — who potted the Spartans first goal on Friday — collected the puck, pulled a spin move and sent the puck directly into the goal. Michigan may have had more shots on goal in the frame, but it was Michigan State who went into the locker room with the lead. The Wolverines showed off their top power play unit in the second period when Spartan forward Nash Nienhuis got called for an interference. Sophomore forward T.J. Hughes quickly sent the puck behind the goal, where Brindley chased after it. He passed the puck off the boards to junior forward Dylan Duke waiting at the net front, and Duke sent it cross crease and into the goal. Just like Friday, Michigan’s celebration of its goal was short-lived, as Michigan State forward
Tiernan Shoudy got his own netfront goal. Then, with five minutes left in the second period and graduate goaltender Jake Barczewski out of position, Spartan forward Karsen Dorwart found himself with an empty net and ideal placement to give Michigan State a two-goal lead. And for the remainder of the second period, the Wolverines were forced into submission. A lack of urgency didn’t provide them any chance to cut the deficit heading into the third period. In the third period, Michigan found itself in a familiar position to one day prior — down 3-1 with ample time to make up the deficit. Yet instead of treating the first ten minutes as life or death, the Wolverines took no solid shots on goal and provided Michigan State with space to create opportunities of its own. The lack of urgency in the time it mattered most put Michigan in a worse position, and something needed to change. And for a split second, the Wolverines appeared as if they were gaining signs of life. Senior defenseman Steven Holtz passed to sophomore forward Rutger McGroarty from the back of the offensive zone and McGroarty sent a pass from the right faceoff circle to Brindley, waiting on the left side of the goal to tap the puck in and make the score 3-2. While this goal displayed some much-needed urgency in the final minutes for Michigan, it ultimately wasn’t enough. Despite the final 30 seconds being all Wolverines, with Duke almost tying up the game, the inability to capitalize and lack of
PHOTOS: LILA TURNER/Daily Design by Lys Goldman
offensive pressure from earlier in the game cost them. And now, Brindley is feeling different about the future than he did on Friday. “Our season is on the line now,” Brindley said Saturday. “If that’s not motivation then I don’t know what is.” With their season on the line following the loss, sitting on the outside of the NCAA Tournament looking in, the Wolverines need to go into every game hungrier and more motivated from now on. Otherwise, their season will end earlier than they hoped. And unlike Friday, they can’t just say they’ll be the hungrier team. They’ll need to actually prove it.
TD U
ANNA MILLER
EL ED
Michigan’s lack of urgency in ‘Duel in the D’ leads to 3-2 nail-biter loss to Michigan State
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 — 11
The Michigan Daily —michigandaily.com
12 — Wednesday, February 14, 2024
$ 6 months for 0.
Streaming, savings, and free delivery. New members only. Terms apply.
y Sara ted b a r t s u l Il umke eyla D L y b ne d Desig
Fang
2 — The Statement // Wednesday, February 14 , 2024
I ‘bi-erased’ myself:
Adventures in Queer imposter syndrome
CYDNEY HEED
Statement Correspondent
The first time I brought a girlfriend home was on my 25th birthday. When we walked in, my uncle introduced her as “Cydney’s, uh … buddy.” My cousin’s girlfriend, knowing better, laughed and mockingly repeated, “buddy.” By then, at least some people knew. Some months prior, I’d passive-aggressively posted a pansexuality meme on National Coming Out Day with the hashtag #IfYouDontKnowYouWerentPayingAttention — though honestly, I hadn’t given people much to pay attention to. In actuality, the first time I came out was when I was 14. I was in boarding school at Interlochen Arts Academy. My gay awakening happened when my classmate sang “Confrontation” from the “Jekyll & Hyde” musical. That infatuation blew over by the end of class, but more consuming crushes came in quick succession in the following weeks. Shortly after that, I called my mom. Me: “I’m bisexual.” Her: “Oh, you’ve decided that now?” Then I called my dad.
Me: “I’m bisexual.” Him: “Oh … I still love—” My phone died. In the years immediately following, I joined high school Queer-straight alliances and had awkward crushes across gender identities. My Queer friends and I lovingly teased each other about celebrity crushes and took part in the annual Day of Silence. For the first few years, at least, I felt relatively comfortable with my Queerness and accepted by my friends, both Queer and straight. I started questioning things in the first few years after high school. I’d opted out of college at the time, for reasons ranging from money to general disillusionment. Being out of school took away my access to clubs and other institutional extracurriculars for young adults, which meant no more QSAs. I met a few cool Queer people through theatre, and I took part in debates about Queer inclusion at the church I was attending at the time. But even so, such limited exposure to other Queer folks and a lack of community meant that part of myself was falling into the background, drowning somewhat in the transition to adulthood. Outside of a circle of other Queer folks, it became nearly impossible to envision where I could fit in that community.
When I started using dating apps, the Queer selection was pretty limited. Cis men seeking women were simply more available: more choices and more dates. Simple math. In my early 20s, about six or seven years after I’d come out, I realized that I had never dated somebody who wasn’t a cis guy. But did I want to? Honestly, it was hard for me to envision what a Queer relationship would look like. Depictions in the media were, and in many ways still are, limited. I saw heterosexual relationships all around me, but I couldn’t paint a picture in my head of what I might feel like in a Queer relationship. There was also another piece: I wanted to have kids. In the last few years, a chronic-illness rollercoaster has changed my feelings on this, but at the time, it was something I really wanted someday. And I knew that options like adoption and in vitro fertilization were — are — expensive. Having grown up in a family where the bank account hitting zero was not uncommon, biology seemed like a much more reliable bet. So where could a Queer relationship fit into that equation? Even when the Obergefell v. Hodges decision came out, and I knew that the possibilities for Queer families were only expanding, it felt like a half-formed dream, not something I might actually have someday. I was starting to question how Queer I actually was. In a world full of amazing, beautiful people who were expanding our collective understanding of what things like sexuality and gender can mean, there I was: assigned female at birth, femme-presenting, somewhere in the bi/pan realm and possessing an exclusively heterosexual dating record. I started to worry — maybe I shouldn’t take part in Queer discussions. Was I taking space away from those who had genuinely struggled because of their identities? Less
than a lifetime ago, people had to riot to go to the bar in peace. Some people’s families still disown them. What did it mean that the cringiest part of my coming out story was my phone dying? People could (and frequently did) look at me and think I was straight. Should I step back to make space for those “more Queer” than me? I stopped telling people I was bisexual. I was worried that if I claimed the label without any hard evidence (i.e. a dating history), people would think I was just doing it for attention or merely “bi-curious” — perhaps just looking to experiment or lead people on. Then, I started to question if I was ever Queer to begin with. I started to occasionally tell people I was straight when asked, and I slowly started to think it might be true. It didn’t last forever. I eventually developed a huge crush on somebody who was decidedly not a cis-man, and it became abundantly clear, once again, that I am not straight. As the dating world slowly and cautiously reactivated amid the pandemic, I started looking at Queer profiles on Tinder, eventually joining Queer dating apps like Her. Then something else happened: I decided to take an indefinite break from dating cis-men. There were a lot of reasons for this. First of all, the sex was frequently disappointing — and I tried more than just once or twice. I often wasn’t happy with how I was being treated on dates, or even just in general. I also didn’t want to go my whole life without exploring my Queer side, and I was worried about getting distracted before I got the chance. There was something else, too. The more my image of myself evolved, the more I loved the view. Read more at michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 // The Statement — 3
At the dinner table PHILIP (SOOYOUNG) HAM Statement Columnist
Arriving in Korea over Winter Break, I was greeted by warm hugs and happy tears. Traveling down vaguely familiar roads and buildings, I realized I had nearly forgotten what my neighborhood was like. And, sipping my mother’s piping hot 된장찌개 (Korean miso soup) at the dinner table surrounded by family, I was home. “So, you got a girlfriend?” my twin brother Andrew asked. Splitting my kimchi in half, I silently nodded. “Is she Korean?” my other brother Collin chimed in. “No,” I simply responded, and a part of me knew what was coming. She’s white, and I’m Korean — something that wasn’t out of the ordinary for my American life, but a subject of mystique for my family back home. “오, 진짜?” (Oh, really?) my dad asked,“어떻게생겼어?보여줘봐.” (What does she look like? Show me.) I took out my phone and gradually watched a game of hot potato unfold, my brothers each taking noticeably extra time before tossing my phone back to me. “착하게 생겼네,” (She looks nice) my dad commented. “Damn bro,” Andrew teased. “How did you even talk to her?” Ten times out of 10, friend or family, I was always asked how I managed to even talk to her — a white girl — in the first place. The awfully vague comments that neither approved or disapproved our relationship worried me, but I knew where it was coming from. Spoken or unspoken, the narrative has been that you’re not supposed to date someone who’s not Korean — you’re not supposed to date the white girl. Korea is a very ethnically-homogeneous country. All of my friends and family knew Korean faces at every turn and corner, a Korean culture and solely-Korean love interests. As a result, xenophobia tacitly runs rampant: Some businesses refuse to accept foreign customers, leaving empty seats next to them in the bus or subway. Interracial couples always drew judgmental eyes from passersby. Even
a conversation in English with my brothers attracted disapproving eyes. So, naturally, the course of my conversations with other Koreans ranged from smooth and simple, “Aw, that’s cute. How did you guys meet?” to the bumpy and jarring, “Bro got reverse Oxford studied” or, “Me, personally, I could never do that” and, “What’s it like dating a white girl?” (what is that even supposed to mean?). But given the rather consistent negative reviews, I presumed that everyone expected I’d encounter some kind of immovable cultural barrier, undermining our relationship — I wouldn’t be able to wrap my head around her “white quirks and interests” or I was some kind of victim to Asian fetishization from a “Koreaboo.” But that has been far from the case. So bringing it up with my family was rather difficult. “어떻게 만났어?” (How did you guys meet?) my mom asked. She crossed h e r arms, leaning back into her chair. “We were in the same writing class over the semester,” I answered. I couldn’t help but notice three different teams slowly forming at the table: My brothers were giddy and nosy, my dad was indifferent and my mom looked serious.
A little too serious. I grabbed another piece of kimchi. I wouldn’t have known about Isla without crossing the fabled lecture friend “line” and a pinch of wingwomanship. It all began in Honors Core Writing in Social Science, after the classic sequence of an awkward “hi” and “hello” the first day of class. After that, nothing happened. Isla and I never talked to each other outside of class for months. Only after a group essay (literally the final assignment for the class) did we ever meet outside of class, organizing a time and place all to ironically write about how to improve the richness of campus friendships. So perhaps this casual classmate origin story helped out with avoiding this alleged barrier. Because from then on, we had Markley Dining Hall dinners with a friend ritualistically after discussion sections, gradually tearing down this barrier I hardly noticed in the first place. “So, what is she majoring in?” my dad then asked. “BCN, or, I mean, biopsychology, cognition and neuroscience,” I replied. My broth-
ers nodded their heads, impressed, while my mom’s stern expression hadn’t faltered one bit. “Ooh, medical school,” my dad shuddered. I knew what my family didn’t know about Isla: She can recite all of “Hamilton” and a good portion of Harry Potter (go Hufflepuff!); she will laugh at literally anything far from remotely funny (a literal picture of a hamburger would work wonders); she’s cracked at any kind of word game (Wordle and Connections especially); she’s also cracked at jump rope, performing at the classic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and representing Team USA (I did not know jump rope was such a competitive event, and Korea is ranked near the top — very unsurprising). And equally, she knows that I have an unnecessary knack for useless history facts, will also laugh at the unfunniest meme ever, will always get the Wordle in four and will never remember all the different kinds of jump roping events. I assume that nothing about what I’ve learned about Isla screams “white,” or nothing about what she knows about me screams “Asian,” (the jump rope might give it away, though) so neither of us seem to be “too white” or “too Asian” for each other. I know that Korea holds a strong national identity, built and reinforced by thousands of years of purely Korean bloodlines, traditions and customs that have been especially pronounced following Japanese occupation. And with an aging population, vestiges of these conservative values remain intact — it’s difficult to see anything else not plastered with a Korean label. So, I can’t necessarily blame my own country’s history for hardwiring inherently xenophobic or racist points of view, but at the same time, I knew my dad and brothers were curious and interested and had no malice in their eyes, while my mom only thought no one will ever be good enough for me because I’m her son and no one can apparently match that. And I knew that’s what she thought: My mom has always been protective, ambitious and openly judgmental for as long as I remember. Read more at michigandaily.com
4 — The Statement // Wednesday, February 14 , 2024 Photos courtesy of Joshua Nicholson
Why I love photographing Ann Arbor JOSHUA NICHOLSON Statement Correspondent
Art is about love. Whether it be love of a person, a place or just the way the light glides through an open window on a cup of coffee, I’d argue that any painting, photograph, poem or piece of literature stems from some kind of love. This is especially true in the visual arts, where seeing is vital to the craft. By seeing, you’re already exerting a form of love, telling someone else, impassionate as it might be, that you see them. A painter depicting an open meadow, a poet describing the ways in which the sun reflects off a lover’s hair or even a photographer capturing a coffee cup illuminated by a ray of light are equally loving their subjects, looking beyond the superficial characteristics that most see and pointing toward a personal connection. Even art driven by other emotions — sadness, anger or humor — finds a connection to love. Art driven by sorrow is often tied to grief or love lost. Art which is motivated by hate can be tied to a hatred for love denied. Driven by humor, art is expressing a love for the joyous things in the world.
I find the same thing to be true in street photography. As expressed by experts in the craft, unlike landscape or portrait photographers, street photographers have no equivalent in past art forms. While a photographer could capture a mountain in the same way as the Hudson Valley Painting School or immortalize someone’s likeness like any of the Renaissance masters, the slowness of painting and other art forms prevented easy or popular capturing of the streets in the same way possible in 1/2000th of a second. In my ability to capture the transience of the sidewalk ecosystem, I believe I express my love for the world as it is. I first picked up a camera in February 2023, starting with a rented Canon Rebel T8i from the University of Michigan media center. Armed with a basic 50 millimeter lens, I had my mom, herself a photographer, give me a crash course during her parents’ weekend visit. On full auto, I roamed the empty campus, capturing squirrels and my then-girlfriend in the poor light of East Quad Residence Hall’s lounges. From the start, I became interested in photographing one of my favorite plac-
es: the intersection of State and Liberty streets. My Canon Rebel armed with aperture priority, an automatic setting that only allows you to change the depth of field, I perched myself near the intersection, first in front of Nickels Arcade and later by Michigan Theater. Even then, which seems so long ago, I was trying to capture people. I wasn’t shying away from the busyness of the sidewalk or the traffic obstructing my view; I was trying to absorb them. When I reflect on my decisions then, I remember actively choosing to wait until a crowd walked in front of me. Still nervous about capturing individual subjects, I resorted to landscape images of my adopted city adorned by casual crowds, trying to romanticize the place where I would live for another three years. In the early days of my photography journey, on those afternoons by The State Theatre, I was motivated not by the “coolness” of using a proper camera, but by the way the photos made me feel. Seeing the sun set through the paned windows of Nickels Arcade made me fall in love with a place I had initially viewed as a glorified alleyway. Standing on a street corner, not as just a pedestrian but as a spectator to a world going by, I was struck by the feeling of power I seemed to have. I was seeing the world as it was, rather than rushing through it. Students and residents moved about in the short-lived remnants of summer heat, while I fell in love with the movements they made along the sidewalk, as if I was a fisherman putting away my rod to admire the river flow in front of him. Street photography, as a concept, has existed since the first ray of light sliced
through an open shutter. In fact, the first ever photograph was taken of the French commune Saint-Loup-de-Varennes by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. Although portraits would follow within the decade, I think it’s telling that of all the things someone could choose to capture, to permanently preserve for posterity, it was the view of the street beneath their window. From that first image, street photography remained stagnant, like much of the genre, until technological and societal innovations made it possible to capture images on faster and more portable cameras. Beginning in the 1930s, French photographers such as Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson pioneered the concept of capturing the street with
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 // The Statement — 5
such photographs as Un petit endroit discret and Hyères, France. Without being in their heads, it’s impossible to say what drove these photographers, alongside Diane Arbus, Saul Leiter, Elliott Erwitt and others to turn the camera not on a mountain or sitting model but to the moving world itself. However, I can guess. In his book “The Decisive Moment,” Cartier-Bresson made a statement which I believe can only denote a love for observing the world: “There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.” The decisive moment is not something that can be taken off the cuff by shooting hundreds of photographs in a short period of time. Rather, it’s something that can only be found through virtue of patience, by watching the world run by and taking note of the movements of passersby. As I once had it explained to me, a decisive moment is like a delicate bird that takes flight at the first sight of trouble. If you don’t approach it carefully, the moment will disappear as quickly as it came, leaving you without a unique and epic shot in your camera. In contrast with a simple shot, the decisive moment is the frozen piece of time between the beginning and end of an action. Cartier-Bresson’s “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare” is an oft-cited example, showing a man mere milliseconds before his feet touch the water, creating a sense of heightened anticipation. When looking at street photography, I’m often struck by the incredibleness that some of the compositions managed to be caught on camera, especially in such a fastpaced environment as the streets, where people don’t behave in the way you want and cars strive to obstruct camera shots from across the road. One of my favorite pho-
tographers, Saul Leiter, seems to make perfect use of capturing these decisive moments. His photographs “Blue Skirt,” “Snow” and “Red Umbrella” hold a single subject in a perfect spot. Whether it be through a foggy window or fence, Leiter managed to capture the world in such a way that every moment was art. He didn’t do this by shooting wildly with his camera and hoping that a moment stuck. In a way I try to imitate, he observed an interesting frame, or location, and locked in on it. His photograph, “Snow,” was probably taken after a long time of waiting, staring at the clear gap in the otherwise foggy window. “Blue Skirt” probably saw him staring through his viewfinder until a flash of color appeared through the miniature gap. Often, in my photowalks, I find myself doing the same. I stare into a reflection, waiting for an interesting person to cast their shadow on the glass. Seeing an interesting frame, two red columns in front of some abandoned booth, I set my exposure and strain my back to see the world through my lens, taking the shot only when I’m satisfied with the moment. Last Christmas, I was given a camera and 50 millimeter prime lens, the same focal length I had been borrowing from the school. At the same time, I religiously poured over photography content, watching street photographers’ point-of-view videos and analyses of famous photographers, including Leiter. From the moment I arrived back in Ann Arbor, I began to carry my camera everywhere I went, intent on capturing the perfect moment. In January, I estimate that I took more than 3,000 photos, most of which weren’t good enough to edit. Of the ones I did edit, only one-in-100 was really any good. But I kept
searching, wasting my camera’s resale value with endless shutter counts. In spite of my efforts, only a handful of photos have left me with the impression that I “did” that. The first photo I felt a personal connection to was coincidentally on my very first photo walk in Ann Arbor with my new camera. The photo, which I titled “Woman reflected,” shows a woman walking into the red reflection of Van Boven Clothing’s display window. She’s holding an umbrella and looking into the reflection, whether at me or the display, I can’t tell. It’s hard for me to say what it is about this photograph that has led me back to it, meticulously poring over the details, printing it out and shamelessly posting it on photography threads. Maybe it’s the look on her face, which in my interpretation holds a sense of annoyance. Likely it’s directed toward the short bundled up guy staring through a viewfinder into a window, but what if it’s at something else? What story has caused her to don that expression and walk to State and Liberty, that strange intersection which seems to bring out all the unique people of this city? Looking back over my photos from this month, I notice that most of them are still based around State Street, even as I’ve gotten better at photography.
Rather than spreading my wings and moving closer to Main Street or Kerrytown, or getting on a bus and traveling to Detroit, I’ve stayed tied to the last-of-its-kind neon sign overlooking students and Ann Arborites alike, visible from blocks away once the sun sets. Read more at michigandaily.com
6 — The Statement // Wednesday, February 14 , 2024
On wanting to be loved, on loving to be wanted EVELYN BRODEUR Statement Columnist
It’s a stale day in late November. I’m trapped, having convinced myself that I’ve done nothing all month but wait for myself to be myself again. I’m walking with one of my close friends, someone who I just met in August upon moving into the dorms, and we’re talking about how much we like living in South Quad Residence Hall, where we’ve all become friends. Stepping off the curb to cross the street, we bump shoulders, and I smile to myself as we separate then drift back together again. She tells me, “I love you guys; you make me feel so wanted.” I nod in agreement, and she continues: “You make me feel so loved.” Although both of the things she said resonated with me, they seemed different in some way, but I couldn’t figure out exactly how. I briefly wondered what feeling wanted meant in comparison to feeling loved, and how feeling loved related to actually being loved. We walked on. Initially, I was worried that the long days piling up would
stultify our relationship — our separate schedules keeping us just a little further apart than I would like. I was worried I’d feel like I was lacking so much without her and without my other friends, too. By her side, things felt less somber, and even if all the worry was still there it was like we shared it — less for one of us to carry alone. Months later, we still say we love each other, she and I. Our attention to one another, as expressed, meant one sort of love. I’m thinking now of “Lady Bird,” where Sister Sarah Joan, a nun, lofted a question that has sat with me for quite some time: “Don’t you think maybe they’re the same thing, love and attention?” In the film, love and attention were presented as two concepts that could be intertwined, like loving and wanting. Being wanted and having someone’s attention doesn’t necessitate love, but it would be hard to find the two separately. This overlap is evident in media, where love and want are constantly paired even when it’s not directly expressed. But what need is there to separate love from want, and what purpose would it serve to pull them apart? How would we go about doing so? Arguably, love may
have to be far from blind. But the base for longing and wanting are innate, unruly and insatiable. Nonetheless, I would vehemently defend that love without want does not make love any less genuine or real. It is possible — and sometimes easy — to love deeply without much want or desire. He wants me, he wants me not My lips burn from the too-hot tea as hot tears streak my cheeks. Sitting at my desk, I told my roommate about a boy I was friends with that I really liked, certain that he didn’t like me the same way. She sighed heavily — she’d heard this story before. She wasn’t fond of this guy, and I wasn’t sure if I really had reason to be, either. I told her I had no idea if I actually liked him, or if I just wanted him to want me. Perhaps this is a familiar dilemma, or perhaps it just sounds painfully girlish. I was upset with myself, practically shaking my head, thinking of how all-consuming this little crush became, feeling so stupid for how it affected me. I tell myself it’s possible I loved him the way I told her I do. At the same time, it was plain to me that I was in love with the idea
of him wanting me, not even having to love me. I was obsessed with this idea, I think, not him. Fixations like this, I have found, tend to be the product of needing to feel wanted, to be seen as desirable, wanting to shift one’s own position from being the musician to the muse — from being the one wanting to the one wanted. I would do my best to take care of him, I told her, because I’d want him to do the same for me. I’d want him to want to do the same for me. I would say, I love love. And I do, but I have come to realize this relates to a need to be seen and cared about. Some relationships seem to serve as an exchange, a sort of mutualism of wanting and needing; but wanting and loving don’t require reciprocity, though it may be an underlying plea. I would rather have something to hold on to, never myself being held, than be left clinging to nothing. I suppose I’m open to the idea of someone growing to love me, but it’s much harder to believe in someone really wanting me. Read more at michigandaily.com
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 // The Statement — 7
Emily Henry and the merits of romance books CHARLOTTE PARENT Statement Columnist
s a self-professed bibliophile, my life revolved around the little moments I could steal away to read. In elementary school, I figured out how fast I could appropriately finish my multiplication test to dive right back into “Anne of Green Gables.” I perfected the art of sneaking “Julie and the Wolves” by Jean Craighead George into loud Italian restaurants to read it under the table. Most often, though, I knew exactly when at night I could sit on the cold bathroom tile and read “Mockingjay” by Suzanne Collins with the moonlight filtering through the half-cracked window. On my frequent library runs, I’d give half of my stack of books to my brother and I’d carry the remaining seven, made up of mysteries, fairy-tale retellings and, of course, the latest Percy Jackson installment. I would read everything; that is, everything except for romance. The edges of my teal library card were peeling, plastic film turning up at the corners from overuse. Those 14 digits were sacred — I memorized them before either of my parent’s phone numbers. In fifth grade, when my family rented a vacation house in Northport, I begged my dad for a borrower’s card. Even during my first family vacation, spending a week without a prepared slate of books to rip through seemed like a fate worse than death. Never mind that my Vera Bradley duffle bag was weighed down by six of my current reads. I needed to roam the dusty, one-and-a-half-room town library in between the hours of swimming in Lake Michigan and walking to Barb’s Bakery for a white paper bag crammed with sticky cinnamon twists. Though it was technically the family’s library card, I took the liberty of signing it with just my first name in my closest approximation to cursive, a little heart connected to the “e” at the end of “Charlotte.”
With all the books I read (and reread), I was certain that I was a “good” reader. And I thought being a good reader meant reading “good” books. As my reading level grew from middle grade to young adult, one thing stayed constant — romance books were not “good” books. They were cop-outs, I thought. They were just stories about relationships and people talking and crying (a lot) and maybe kissing. Other books had so much more for me to learn besides how to best deal with breakups. Literary fiction, historical novels and mysteries had a degree of intellectual stimulation — complex conflict exploration not centered around someone not returning your texts. Whether it was how the romance display was stuffed near the back of the local library or how my more bookish friends scoffed at the very being of the genre, I quickly internalized — even in elementary school — that romance wasn’t a respectable genre. “Love is gross,” they’d say in line as we waited for our turn in the ongoing Four square game at recess, and I’d nod in agreement. Why waste time with something so boring when you could just travel with Jack and Annie to experience King Arthur’s reign in Mary Pope Osborne’s “The Magic Treehouse?” I carried this romance-book aversion throughout the years. Whether it was losing the Snapstreak with the cute boy from my eighth-grade Catechism group or the surprise girlfriend of the guy in the environmental club my sophomore year of college, I grew (even) more disillusioned with the genre. As my friends and even siblings found fulfilling, heartwarming romantic relationships, I was left in a Sisyphean cycle of downloading and deleting dating apps. I had never even so much as held hands — I didn’t need the constant reminders from books professing the joys of deep, emotional connections. My jaded perspective wasn’t the only thing preventing me from giving this genre a chance. The societal
stigma around romance novels was stifling, and I encountered it everywhere. From the fellow English majors in my Shakespeare class to the online mockery of the “Colleen Hoover” cults, I felt an inordinate pressure to continue being a “good” reader, to read “good” books about real, serious topics. There had to be a reason these kinds of books didn’t warrant serious literary analysis — why there were only six classes in the LSA course guide that mentioned “romance” in a non-Romance language context somewhere in their descriptions. I tried as long as I could to avoid Emily Henry, the newly dubbed “queen of romcom.” I tried to scroll past all videos on my TikTok feed that mentioned her, to avoid the handwritten note cards singing her praises on display shelves in Barnes & Noble. I felt a little bad that all my distaste for a genre I’d never even tried was inflicted upon this poor woman. And, though it stood for everything I disliked with the genre, when one of my best friend’s eyes lit up after I asked for her opinion on “Book Lovers,” I begrudgingly agreed to try it. On the sandy shore of the Northport Harbor this past July, I steeled myself for a mind-numbing, emotional snoozefest and opened to the first page. I spent nearly three hours lying on the sand, flipping through the pages as the local sailing school sloughed their boats out into the lake. Against my wildest, deeply-held expectations, I was enjoying this book. Read more at michigandaily.com
I MISS YOU.
FRANKENWALNUT FOREVERRR!! FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRERER)
YOU ARE RELENTLESSLY MEAN TO ME AND SOMETIMES I QUESTION IF YOU EVEN KNOW MY LAST NAME, BUT I AM GLAD TO HAVE MET YOU AND TO HAVE YOU IN MY LIFE
“CUAL ES TU TELEFONO”
TO THE MOST WONDERFUL MNES AND SNEDS
DEAR MATTHEW, ROSES ARE RED VIOLETS ARE BLUE POEMS ARE HARD AND I AM TOO.
THANK YOU FOR RUNNING THE NEWS DESK WITH SUCH GRACE AND KINDNESS. I LOVE YOU ALL
XOXO - ME
I LOVE YOU MY PRINCESS THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING MAMAS
I’M SO SO HAPPY WE GOT CLOSER THIS YEAR !!! LOVE YOU MY QUEEN
LETS GET WASTED AT CANTINA LIKE FRESHMEN
BIRD. GYM. CHEESE. REPEAT.
YOU ARE FOR REAL MY BETTER HALF —
COULDN’T ASK FOR A BETTER ROOMIE.
IT IS SUCH A JOY TO DO THIS JOB WITH YOU <3
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY GIRLY <3
THANKS FOR BEING THE BEST SISTER, UR THE BEST. HAPPY V-DAY!
TO THE ORIGINAL BIG CHEESES: WE LOVE YOU, WE MISS YOU, PLEASE HANG OUT WITH US SOON <3