2019-01-11

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Friday, January 11, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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ANN ARBOR

Fourth year of deer cull controversy sparks debate Protests surround protecting local ecosystems and animal sterilization LEAH GRAHAM Daily News Editor

DESIGN BY WILLA HUA

Federal gov’t shutdown can affect University research, proposals Researchers say continued closure may result in larger, long term consequences ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Managing News Editor

The partial federal government shutdown is affecting a number of U.S. agencies, including ones that fund research at the University

of Michigan.

The shutdown, which began on December 22st, 2018, over a spending bill surrounding President Trump’s proposed border wall, has lasted 21 days with no clear end in sight. In the meantime, approximately 800,000 federal workers have

been furloughed or are working without pay.

National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, part of the Department of Commerce and the National

Endowment of Humanities are among the federal agencies funding University research that are being affected. Federal institutions funded over half of the University’s research spending money in fiscal year 2018. Alex Piazza, Senior See SHUTDOWN, Page 3

The last few winters have not been favorable for deer in Ann Arbor. Since City Council approved a deer management program in 2015 to reduce the size of the local population, 274 have been killed and 78 surgically sterilized. The city’s fourth deer cull began Jan. 2, closing parks across Ann Arbor with the aim of killing up to 150 deer by the end of the month.

Sharpshooters from White Buffalo Inc., the Connecticut-based company that has carried out the program for the last two years, will hunt deer on public and private property, including land owned by the University of Michigan, through Jan. 27.

Christopher Dick, a professor of ecology and

evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, said the cull is necessary to keep the deer population in check and protect the local ecosystem.

“They basically eat away at the forest understory, so there’s no regeneration of the forest,” Dick said.

“What happens when you have these deer take off is this destruction of their own habitat if there’s no kind of predation. If you want Ann Arbor to have healthy parks and vibrant forests that take up carbon and help mitigate climate change, if you want a safe environment for kids to grow up and not be worried about ticks and diseases associated with overabundance of deer, then we really have to think about managing this urban deer population.”

Deer management has cost the city more than half See DEER, Page 2

Professor addresses diversity issues in First Ross ‘U’ holds aerospace field during lecture series top online Bridge

ACADEMICS

ACADEMICS

Program graduates

Emphasis placed on implicit biases, stereotypes and aggregation of disadvantage

Faculty, participant discuss representation in academia as main goal of organization

Ken Powell, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion faculty liaison at the University of Michigan, held a lecture regarding the issue of diversity

CATHERINE NOUHAN

PARNIA MAZHAR Daily Staff Reporter

within the aerospace field, focusing on implicit biases, stereotype threats and the accumulation of disadvantage.

About 50 students and faculty attended the lecture Thursday afternoon.

Powell used social science research to discuss the hiring process of faculty within the

STEM fields, as well as statistics about the general diversity and its challenges within the U-M Aerospace Engineering Department.

He further encouraged students to properly respect professors and to also hold professors to the same standards.

“Each of your professors are

experts and there’s no question about that, trust me … so treat them accordingly and try to take them as experts in their fields first,” Powell said. “On the flip side, I think you need to hold us as faculty at a similarly high professional standard.”

Powell gave students further See LECTURE, Page 3

pre-med degrees

‘U’ freshman retention and graduation rates contribute to top rank AMARA SHAIKH

Daily Staff Reporter

The Ross School of Business Bridge program will graduate its first student, Rackham student Abram Ayala, this year in June. The Business Bridge program began last summer and is one of various bridge programs available to undergraduate and graduate students possessing different academic interests.

These bridge programs are transitional programs to doctoral study with an emphasis on attracting a diverse student body into the field of work.

In 2010, the Rackham Graduate School was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation titled “Building Bridges, Creating Community, and Wise Mentoring: Building Institutional Capacity to Enhance Diversity in STEM Disciplines” which allowed them to create and fund four STEM bridge programs.

Before the Business School program, there were programs for applied mathematics, applied physics, ecology See BRIDGE, Page 3

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Daily News Editor

DANYEL THARAKAN/Daily

Ken Powell, the Arthur F. Thurnau professor of aerospace engineering and DEI faculty liaison, speaks on implicit biases and their impacts in a lecture about the lack of diversity in the aerospace field Thursday in the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Building.

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INDEX

Vol. CXXVIII, No. 51 ©2019 The Michigan Daily

A recent article by Online College Plan named the University of Michigan as the best online college for pre-medicine degrees in the country, scoring 189 points out of the total 200 points.

There is no defined pre-med major at the University. However, according to Outline College plan, most students interested in medical school tend to pursue degrees in biology, chemistry, or physics. In order to be considered for the ranking list, the schools must have at least a partial online program in at least one of the three majors, have proper accreditation, be based in the United States and operate as a nonprofit institution.

The University qualified for the ranking system because even through students must attend campus part-time to complete a biology, chemistry or physics degree, the University also offers many online classes through Coursera. The first fully online degree programs offered at the University began in spring of 2018 and have continued to expand.

Though the University does offer some online programs, they See RANKING, Page 3

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

SUDOKU.....................2 ARTS...................5 SPORTS....................7

News

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MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

TUESDAY:

By Design

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SMTD Sophomore Sammy Sussman on his story “Former students bring 40 years of miscondcut allegations by SMTD professor”: “Initially I was a little freaked out because it was my first time writing a story for News...but as the school started taking i tmore seriously I felt much better about it. My initial reaction was one of fear because as a student in the school, it’s a very strange experience to be doing something that significantly harms the SMTD brand, like I know the school reached out to us because they were very concerned on how it would affect their investigations and kind of the whole image the music cultivaltes. But in terms of how seriously the school took it and how significant the action they took was, I was very proud and impressed by that.”

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“

This is important that Middle Eastern and North African individuals, be it staff, faculty or students, all have theopportunity to more accurately identify their own identity.

But it’s not the standard way of doing it. It means that it’s a little bit more complicated, and right now it’s still embedded within the white racial category, and we know that there’s a lot of complications that come with that.”

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CORRECTIONS

DEER From Page 1

landscaping. Between 2004 impact of deer browsing and in them.” and 2015, the number of deer- the impact to our natural Estimates of the size car collisions in Ann Arbor areas, so we’re talking about of Ann Arbor’s deevvr nearly tripled, going from 31 the sustainability of plants population vary due to a million dollars over the to 88. and animals and insects in our methodological difficulties last several years. Mayor Dick was previously the natural areas and whether or in getting an accurate count.

Christopher Taylor was director of the Edwin S. not the decrease in the deer A 2017 count indicated a the sole vote against the George Reserve, a wildlife population has contributed to 50 percent increase in the cull when it was originally preserve in Livingston that, that’s how we assess the number of deer spotted from passed in 2015. He said while County run by the University. program itself and whether or the previous year, but White he remains opposed to the He said he observed how the not we have to continue deer Buffalo admitted in March killing, he does not dispute forests there benefited from culling,” Wondrash said.

2018 it had significantly the ecological impact of deer regular deer culls dating back Ann Arbor is not alone in overestimated the size of overabundance. to the 1940s. its efforts to keep its deer the local population. In “I recognize that there “If you look at the George population in check. To cope that report, White Buffalo are costs that are associated Reserve, if you look at the with growing deer numbers, suggested the deer population with a deer population in an understory and just take other cities have turned to had grown in certain areas urban area like Ann Arbor,” a walk through the forest, lethal methods. Mt. Lebanon, while decreasing in others.

Taylor said. “At the same you can see all kinds of Pa., also contracted with Bernie Banet, a member time, however, I believe that regeneration, like up to your White Buffalo to pick off of Washtenaw Citizens the costs associated with the waist, of oaks and hickories deer using a combination for Ecological Balance, a cull exceed the benefits. The and other seedlings or of archers and gunmen. group that supports the costs are of course financial, hardwood and you just don’t Cincinnati residents credit management program, said substantial, but I also believe see that here in the Ann Arbor sharpshooters from the police it was essential for the city them to be values-driven. The parks,” Dick said. “There department and volunteer to combat what he called an notion of shooting animals can be some occasional bow hunters with helping to overabundance of deer. in Ann Arbor’s parks and regeneration, saplings and “sharply reduce” the number “Too many of them are natural areas degrades parks things, but for the most part, of deer in local parks. really destructive in many and natural areas. It degrades in many places in the city, it’s In Ann Arbor, the ways to the vegetation, and many residents’ sense of home just been way over browsed. program was met with legal they threaten people, too,” and I believe is inconsistent The forests just aren’t coming challenges from the outset. Banet said. “A few are nice to with our community values.” back.”

When the first cull was set have around, but it can quickly This is the final round of City Communications to begin in 2016, a group of get to be too much of a good the program adopted four Director Lisa Wondrash said residents sued, saying the thing. We have some people years ago in response to Ann Arbor was concerned sharpshooters would turn who are very concerned about complaints from residents, primarily with how the city into “killing fields” and killing deer and feel very who said there were too deer management program diminish their quality of protective toward them — many of the animals present helped to protect the local life. A federal judge allowed they feel toward the deer the the area, resulting in car ecosystem. the city to proceed with the way they would toward their Sudoku in Syndication http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ accidents and damage to “Part of the problem is the program, and the case was own pet dogs and cats. That’s eventually dismissed. A understandable, but it’s not second lawsuit contested helpful.” the validity of the cull Since the cull kicked permit issued by the off earlier this month, Michigan Department of protestors from Friends Natural Resources. It, too, of Ann Arbor Wildlife in HARD was thrown out.

Nature have demonstrated The Humane Society near sharpshooter perches of Huron Valley has around the city, holding been a vocal opponent signs and demanding an end of the cull. In an email to what they see as the city’s interview with The Daily, unethical and inefficient Tanya Hilgendorf, CEO attempts to reduce the size of and president of HSHV, the deer population. disputed the claim that City Councilmember Jane there are too many deer in Lumm, I-Ward 2, introduced Ann Arbor. a resolution Jan. 7 that “Ann Arbor’s deer would have directed the city cull is not just a waste attorney’s office to investigate of taxpayer money; it is the protesters’ actions. Lumm a waste of energy and said the demonstrators were time,” Hilgendorf wrote purposefully interfering with in an email to The Daily. White Buffalo’s ability to “There was never an effectively hunt deer. overpopulation, and “They have actually there was never a public stopped and prohibited our health or safety threat contractor White Buffalo necessitating closing from performing their down a dozen or more culling contracted work on neighborhood public properties that have been © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only.

TOO COLD puzzle by sudokusyndication.com parks, next to homes, identified for culling,” Lumm See DEER, Page 3 schools and bus stops, in order to put sharpshooters

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CONCERTO COMPETITION

SHUTDOWN From Page 1

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily Maria Fernanda Castillo on flute, Liz Ames on piano and Danielle Gonzalez on percussion play Concerto for Flute by Eduardo Gamboa in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance’s Concerto Competition in Hill Auditorium Thursday afternoon.

BRIDGE From Page 1 and evolutionary biology, and molecular, cellular, and developmental biology.

Rackham then approached the Business School to develop a business-oriented bridge program in 2016 after continual and successful bridge programs had been formed for other departments.

All of the bridge programs aim to support a diverse student body in doctoral education, and Graduate Coordinator Ashley Stauffer discussed how they are aiming for the same goals in the Business School program.

“The main mission of the program is to expand the pool of Ross PhD applicants who bring diverse experiences and ways of thinking about research, and who come from diverse educational, cultural, geographic, and familial backgrounds,” Stauffer said

RANKING From Page 1 aren’t necessarily well-known among students. LSA junior Sumrah Jilani was surprised to learn the University offered degrees students could complete partially online.

“It is surprising to find that out, mostly for the fact that it’s specifically online,” Jilani said.

“I think it would make sense if just the general coursework was considered to be at a higher standard, but to be honest, I didn’t even know U of M had an online program.”

Each of the eligible schools were scored out of a total 200 points and rankings were based on freshman retention rate and graduation rate. The University topped the ranking list with a freshman retention rate of 97

LECTURE From Page 1 advice about the interviewing process for jobs. He focused on how interviewers may ask personal questions at times, and those questions can sometimes negatively affect the interviewees and have unintended consequences. Thus, when students get interviewed, they have the right to politely decline to answer overly personal questions.

Powell also discussed the negative impact personal schemas can have in the job application process and how professors like himself are hoping to address these issues at the University.

“Schemas and lack of critical mass can lead to people, on one hand, not evaluating candidates fairly, and on another hand, can set the candidates in situations where they can’t show off their full chops because they’re not comfortable with the situation. … This can lead to a lower success rate,” Powell said. “So we are trying to work to get around and give these talks so people understand.”

Engineering senior Janera

in an email to The Daily.

“Another goal of the program is to provide additional paths to the PhD program at Ross for students who have strong potential for the degree, but would benefit from additional academic and professional preparation.”

As the program grows, Brian Jones, director of Ph.D. and research administration at the University, said in an email to The Daily they plan to keep the student pool small with only three students in order to sustain an individualized plan for each participant.

“This is an important new program for us, but the intent is to keep the program small, admitting up to three students each year, so that we can focus our time and resources to make sure all students succeed,” Jones said. “Working to provide research experience and appropriate quantitative skills to fully prepare bridge participants for PhD studies, we hope that graduates of the

program will then choose to pursue a PhD, and even apply and matriculate into the Ross PhD program.”

Ayala champions the bridge

percent and a graduation rate of 92 percent, beating out number two University of California, Berkeley, who had the same freshman retention rate but a graduation rate of 91 percent. It was noted by the individuals in charge of the ranking that no school evaluated was offered any sort of special treatment and the data collection process would allow anyone who conducted the study to come to the same conclusion.

Nishitha Malugari, an LSA and Business junior, is also pursuing the pre-med path at the University and explained why she continued on with the pre-med program after her freshman year.

“I’ve known from high school that I wanted to pursue medicine, and even though the classes I took freshman year were difficult, I still greatly enjoyed what I was learning,” Malugari wrote in an email interview with The Daily.

“I also had great experiences working in my research lab and volunteering in the hospital.

I knew I could see myself as a physician one day and knew that the pre-med route is right for me.”

Steven Clark, director of the U-M Program in Biology, also spoke about the first-year retention rate and how the biology program in particular encourages students to carry through the major by offering many resources.

“Our introductory courses have a lot of opportunities for students to get help,” Clark said.

“We’ve developed active learning modules, we’ve got undergraduate teaching assistants, we’re working with the Science Learning Center so there is drop in tutoring and study groups for the students.

We have a lot of material that gets them familiar with good study habits and to put in the kind of time to help them do well

This is an important new program for us.

program’s mission and said he feels very supported by the program and the experience he’s gotten so far.

“The doctoral students and candidates in the department have been very gracious and share valuable insights from their recent experiences in the program … Exposure to the academic research process and the doctoral experience will be highly beneficial for Bridge participants who choose to

Martinez said she was pleased with the University’s focus on its challenges with diversity.

“I think what really surprised me was to know that at such a high level of the University, they really care about the diversity issue, especially in a field that it is not represented as much with minorities and women,” Martinez said. “So that was really eye-opening for me because I thought, not that the University was ignoring it, but more just wasn’t really aware, so to hear that aerospace was involved with that was really encouraging for me.”

The lecture first focused on how everyone has implicit biases and how those biases can impact their actions in regards to interviewing and hiring people for jobs. For instance, according to Powell, white applicants receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than Black applicants.

Engineering senior Judson commented on how he’s noticed the presence of these biases in his various organizations and sectors on campus.

“Like the professor said, this department is very male-dominated

pursue careers in academia,” Ayala wrote in an email to The Daily.

Many of the bridge programs have had immense success, with a high percentage of participants enrolling in doctoral programs, according to Rackham. Jones added he has high hopes for the program, and stresses the advantage of sustaining it.

“Our desire is to grow the number and diversity of backgrounds of prospective students for our, and perhaps other top business schools’ PhD programs, by providing an additional pathway for students to prepare themselves for the rigors of a PhD program,” Jones wrote.

“We hope that students who complete the program will join and excel in the Ross PhD program, and add to our success in placing graduates in tenure track faculty positions at top tier business schools.”

and that’s kind of what keeps the students in the major.”

Jilani reflected on her own experience with the pre-med track at the University. Though she has not taken any online courses, she explained while courses can be demanding, some of them have helped her to learn a lot and bring her closer to her goal of becoming a physician.

“So far my experiences have mostly been good,” Jilani said. “I won’t lie; most pre-med classes are definitely a lot of work, and can be extremely challenging. However, one of my favorite classes I’ve taken is organic chemistry. ... I think having a genuine interest in the subject material definitely helped me do a lot better, but the big factors were just making sure I dedicated a lot of time to studying and I would work a lot with other people in the class to study and solidify the material together.”

and you see that in the kids who get elected in certain job interviews and leadership positions on teams I’ve been a part of, but it seems like it’s getting better, which is promising,” Judson said.

When discussing what she learned about the job application process from the lecture, Martinez said she realized the value of learning about how to approach personal questions during interviews.

“I think a big thing that I hadn’t thought about before was the answering of those personal questions,” Martinez said. “I never really thought about the fact that I really had a right to be like, ‘Oh I don’t want to answer that question,’ or that it was a formal disadvantage that someone may go through.”

Engineering graduate student Shashank Kedia said the lecture was important for international students like him, but also students in general, in regards to being more mindful of others and their preferences.

“Personally, I am also someone not from the U.S.,” Kedia said.

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Communications Director of the Research Office, cited these statistics, noting how helpful the federal funding has been to the University.

“We’re the number one public research university in the country in terms of research expenditures, at 1.55 billion dollars a year,” Piazza said. “About 55% of that stems from the federal government, so the partnerships we’ve created with the federal government have really been great over the years for us.”

Associate Vice President of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities Stephanie Rowley highlighted the importance of federal funding as well, bringing attention especially to research in the humanities.

Rowley wrote in an email how essential National Endowment of Humanities’ support is for humanities faculty members.

“I’d like to emphasize the potential for faculty in the humanities to be affected given the shutdown of the NEH,” Rowley wrote. “Our humanities faculty rely on NEH for fellowships that support humanities scholarship. Support from the federal government helps our researchers here at the University of Michigan spur advancements in a variety of areas ranging from the arts and humanities to medicine and mobility.”

Vice President of Research Jack Hu said the largest source of federal funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, which is operating normally during the shutdown.

According to Hu, the current situation is not dire, as ongoing research projects are not being immediately affected.

However, because of the shutdown, researchers cannot send in project proposals, and proposals submitted earlier are not being reviewed, he said.

“From the 22nd until earlier last week, many faculty and students were not here so the impact of the government shutdown on research was not very significant,” Hu said.

However, due to the shutdown, we could not submit proposals to the NSF and those agencies that are impacted by the government shutdown. Also, proposals that went in earlier are not being reviewed.”

This, Hu said, could have long-term effects that might halt future research, leaving research faculty in uncertainty.

The delay of proposals, proposal review may have a longer term impact,” Hu said. “As the shutdown drags on, then there will be gaps for research faculty who are expecting support or anticipating support from those agencies, and they will not know until the government reopens and proposal reviews restart.”

Bradford Orr, Associate Vice President of Research in Natural Sciences and Engineering, echoed Hu’s comments. He said as of yet,

DEER From Page 2 said. “They were yelling, they were using lights and other things to interfere with this work.”

Councilmember Jeff Hayner, D-Ward 1, opposed the measure. He said that because most of the program takes place in Wards 1 and 2, he had heard a lot about it from his constituents.

“I don’t feel that with a good conscience I can empower or encourage the city to engage with residents in a way that somehow interferes with their right to protest,” Hayner said, adding, “I’m not gonna sic the city on these residents.”

The measure was voted down 6-5. Wendy Welch, director of communications for the Humane Society of Huron Valley, said it was fortunate the resolution failed.

“Had it been passed, it would have made protesting the cull illegal,” Welch said.

“And whether someone is pro- or anti-cull, what an appalling assault on folks’ Constitutional right to free speech.”

Wondrash would not comment on how the protests affected the ongoing deer cull.

“The cull just began on Jan. 2, so it’s still underway and we’re not going to be talking about any logistical details related to the cull,” Wondrash said. “If there is any impact, that would be included in White Buffalo’s final report to City Council after the deer program is over and when the assessment is done.”

Hilgendorf said the city would be better off directing its resources to other issues, like crosswalk safety or affordable housing.

“There are so many more important issues that need the

no researcher has approached him with serious funding problems, but rather with grant deadline or review panel issues.

“There have been researchers that have come and said to me that they have been impacted in the sense that there was a review panel that was supposed to take place but now it’s not going to take place, or that a deadline for a grant is likely to be changed, or is likely to be postponed,” Orr said.

“There’s no one that’s come to me and said I haven’t received my money and therefore am not able to pay for this and this bill. We’re not at that spot yet.”

Orr noted this pause in research proposal acceptance and review panels will delay the start times of research projects. Mostly, Orr said, this will cause inconvenience, but if the shutdown continues, there could be more serious issues.

“What’s going to happen

If the shutdown continues... then we will be impacted much more.

for sure is that the start time and review time of proposals is going to be drawn out,” Orr said. “That will happen, it’s happening now. And that can be dealt with, it’s inconvenient.

But where it becomes serious is where payments to grants that already exist aren’t made and therefore bills such as salaries couldn’t be paid.”

LSA junior Yara El-Tawil works at the Rogel Cancer Center on the University’s medical campus. El-Tawil said while her research project is not being affected by the shutdown, she is concerned by what she’s heard about the shutdown affecting research grants.

“I don’t like that the government is holding funding hostage from people who need it, especially because right now climate change and all the research that’s being done right now is really important,” El-Tawil said. “For people whose job it is to do research or any type of work that is funded by the government agency, it’s completely unfair for them since the government doesn’t want to keep moving.”

Hu said he was confident in the University’s ability to fund research in the shortterm, but if the shutdown carries on, there will be bigger consequences.

“Overall, I think Michigan’s financial position is strong,” Hu said. “Our research funding is strong. So in the short term, we managed well. But if the shutdown continues, drags on, then we will be impacted much more.”

city’s attention,” Hilgendorf said. “Even if the ongoing cull costs do not make you f linch, when you have men with guns in parks all over the city and on campus it’s going to cause a lot of controversy and demand a lot attention. There is no room for error.”

The city also relies on nonlethal methods of population control.

In November, White Buffalo neutered six female deer in Wards 1 and 2, removing their ovaries and releasing them back into the wild with ear tags. A total of 78 deer have been sterilized to date.

Taylor said he thought sterilization could function as a compromise between critics and supporters of the deer management program.

“I think sterilization is really the only method that reduces deer population and does not result in the violent death of deer,” Taylor said.

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Opinion

4A — Friday, January 11, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

TIMOTHY SPURLIN | COLUMN

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CAROLINE LLANES | COLUMN

W

hen I heard about the leaked audio from Louis C.K.’s big comeback set (or second comeback, if showing up unannounced at New York’s Comedy Cellar is considered a comeback), I labeled it in my brain as one more thing not to interact with.

Comics like Louis C.K. are intentionally inf lammatory, aiming to provoke with comments ranging from blatant transphobia and racism to digs at millennials and their obsession with “PC culture,” a term I did not realize meant “political correctness” rather than “personal computer” until embarrassingly recently.

Not only is paying attention to comics and instigators giving them exactly what they want; it’s downright exhausting.

Every day, the news cycle churns out some fresh hell, and you have to prioritize what’s going to get your emotional attention that day.

Louis C.K. did not even crack my top five list of News Items to be Upset About. Sadly, these things are unavoidable, as people post screenshots of transcripts and write think pieces and generally make it impossible not to interact with this god-awful set. So I found what I could of the bootlegged audio and listened to it. It was so…not funny. Even for comics who like to walk the line between what’s acceptable and what’s not — who claim to occupy an edg y space — it was just completely devoid of humor.

Judd Apatow called it “hacky, unfunny, shallow” and he’s right. Not only is it all of these things, it’s also tired.

C.K. brings absolutely nothing fresh with transphobic and racist comments about Asian men, especially when there are so many Asian comics.

Gay Asian men like Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang, as well as trans Asian women like Patti Harrison, are able to deliver comedy that is actually funny while addressing their identity cogently and genuinely, bringing empathy to their sets. C.K.’s return also got

Not so open mic me thinking about how openly hostile comedy is to those who aren’t straight white men.

Gilda Radner was an iconic comedian, one of the original seven cast members on Saturday Night Live. So many comics today, male and female, cite her as an inspiration.

Watching clips of her perform as wacky reporter Roseanne Roseannadanna on Weekend Update still makes me laugh.

She absolutely steals whatever scene she is in and exudes a hilariously chaotic blend energ y and charisma. Radner also famously struggled with an eating disorder. She says it best: “Because I’m not a perfect example of my gender, I decided to be funny about what I didn’t have, instead of worrying about it.”

Comedy can be openly hostile to those who aren’t straight white men

So much of comedy depends on subversion of norms in order to get laughs, which leaves women in comedy w it h t he qua nda r y of eit her at tempt i ng to per for m wom a n ho od a s t hey ’re supposed to w it hout m a k i ng waves or eschew i ng t he por t ra it of t rad it ion a l wom a n ho od , upset t i ng pe ople a long t he way.

R ad ner f aced enor mou s obst acles . D u r i ng Nat ion a l La mpo on R ad io Hou r, m a le ca st member s a nd m a le w r iter s wou ld col la borate on sketches w it hout t he help or presence of t he fem a le ca st member s .

R ad ner wou ld t hen volu nte er to be on t he t y pew r iter i n order to t ra n scr i be t he idea s , i n ser t i ng her ow n idea s a nd bit s whenever she cou ld She wa s a t ra i lbla zer i n t he comedy world , a world where “A n i m a l Hou se ” wa s t he st a nda rd for how women were

t reated . Joh n B elu sh i a sked her to move to New York to be a pa r t of t he Nat ion a l La mpo on R ad io Hou r, say i ng t h at he wa nted her to be “ t he g i rl” — a s i n , t he on ly g i rl .

Th i s wa s a l l h appen i ng i n t he ea rly day s of SN L i n t he 1970 s .

H a s a ny t h i ng ch a ng ed? C . K .’s ret u r n sug g est s no, t h i ng s h ave not ch a ng ed .

D u r i ng h i s set , L ou i s C . K . bla med t he los s of $35 m i l l ion on t he ca ncel lat ion of h i s for t hcom i ng T V spe cia l a nd mov ie. I n add it ion , he la mented t h at he h ad be en out of t he comedy scene for so long (1 1 mont h s). Wh at i s $35 m i l l ion to L ou i s C . K ., a m a n whose comedy ca re er i s long a nd i l lu st r iou s , who h a s be en a producer on m a ny succes sf u l telev i sion shows a nd h a s h ad m a ny a st a nd-up spe cia l on H BO? Wh at a bout t he women who were subje c ted to C . K .’s beh av ior, h av i ng to endu re hu m i l iat i ng d i splay s of power, u n ne ces sa r i ly sex ua l sit uat ion s a nd host i le work env i ron ment s? These women’s ca re er s h ave be en sidel i ned a nd sh at tered be cau se t hey da red to spea k up. Wh at d id Gi lda R ad ner a nd her co -st a r s Ja ne Cu r t i n a nd La ra i ne New m a n h ave to dea l w it h du r i ng t hei r t i me on SN L? Wh at d rove Gi lda R ad ner to so closely cont rol her d iet be cau se she felt it wa s t he on ly t h i ng she cou ld cont rol? L o ok i ng at t hese pat ter n s , it be comes clea r why women mu st st r ug g le to be represented i n a po ol of comed ia n s crowded by men .

Women h ave to g et a leg up i n t he world of comedy, wh i le L ou i s C . K . g et s a st a nd i ng ovat ion a f ter dest roy i ng mu lt iple women’s ca re er s .

Is it wor t h $35 m i l l ion? I’m cer t a i n ly not t he one who g et s to m a ke t h at ca l l , but I’d take even f ive more female comedians over another ang r y, bitter, hacky white man lashing out because he can’t get away with his bad behavior anymore.

Caroline Llanes can be reached at cmllanes@umich.edu.

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F

State of the Great Lakes

or a state known as the “Great Lakes State,” the current state of water in Michigan is terribly concerning.

Growing up in Grand Rapids, some of my favorite memories are from when my family and I would pack up chairs, snacks, books and toys.

We would drive west until we reached towns like Holland or Grand Haven and spend the whole day on the white sands of Lake Michigan. This was probably the setting where my interest in the environment was planted inside me. It is an emotional sentiment that has grown over the years and I always feel happy thinking about looking out onto the expanse of blue waves along the shore.

The Great Lakes — consisting of Lakes Michigan, Huron, Superior, Ontario and Erie — are the largest bodies of water in the entire world, making up one fifth of the Earth’s total surface freshwater supply. The lakes were formed more than 10,000 years ago from enormous glaciers that melted and molded the landscape into the familiar mitten shape we all know and love. Their size and beauty have earned them nicknames like “the nation’s fourth coast” or “the fresh coast, best coast.”

Our entire tourism campaign is based on these images — we’ve all heard the calming voice of Tim Allen on the radio give a picturesque description of our landscape followed by the soothing tagline: “Pure Michigan.” Pristine water is woven into the very fabric of Michigan’s identity.

However, a quick Google search about Michigan water would have any reader believe the Great Lakes State is anything but pure. The Flint water crisis, Asian carp and other invasive species, the Line 5 oil pipeline debate, the Nestle bottling plant controversy, or the recent frenzy about the PFAS contamination statewide

are but a few examples of how environmental issues surrounding our water over the past decade have been less than ideal, and frankly, disheartening.

We need to start taking the cultural weight of water into consideration when having these debates in order to save what has become our most historically significant icon.

A future with cleaner water is something everyone from this state should support

Now, these crises are mostly independent of one another and would be tragic no matter where they occur (Minnesota is running into their own pipeline issues with Line 3, and PFAS contaminations are a developing story nationwide).

However, there is something uniquely troubling about the bombardment of bad news in association with the state of Michigan water. How can Michigan be the Great Lakes State if we cannot get a handle on our own water?

Take the recent debate about the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline, for example. For those unfamiliar with the story, the abridged version is about how an old pipeline, Line 5, carries large amounts of oil underneath the Mackinac Bridge, through the Upper Peninsula, and then the Straits of Mackinac to Canada, putting the Great Lakes, and our economy, at major risk if there is a spill. This topic was on the front lines of the 2018 Michigan gubernatorial debate, with newly-elected Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vowing to take measures to shut down Line 5 on her first day in office. It

should be noted that as of Jan. 2 Governor Whitmer announced on Twitter she is honoring this promise and has formally asked Attorney General Dana Nessel for legal options moving forward to shut down Line 5.

Proponents of the pipeline, such as Enbridge and former Gov. Rick Snyder, however, claim that actions such as this would be drastic, and have set up plans to build a tunnel around the pipeline to ease the risk of a potential spill. In the debate over the pipeline, figures and statistics are often thrown around about the economy, cleanup times and insurance plans, all of which are extremely important to consider.

But what if we took into account the cultural significance of a spill as well?

Michigan’s blossoming tourism industry would be dealt a fatal blow and thousands would lose their jobs. Furthermore, it would say a great deal about us that we would leave such possibilities up to chance. I find it hard to imagine we could, in good faith, listen to another Pure Michigan ad and pretend the idealistic vision presented is anything close to reality. Is that something we are willing to accept as Michiganders?

2018 was one of the most divisive and contentious years in modern history. The left and the right seem to be slipping farther apart than ever before, and finding issues that can bring us together is more critical than ever in 2019. Water could be one of those issues. While there may be disagreements on how exactly to get there, a future with cleaner water is something everyone from this state should support. If we don’t start standing up for what is truly important to our collective identity now, we may no longer have anything worth championing in the future.

Timothy Spurlin can be reached at timrspur@umich.edu.

SAMANTHA SZUHAJ | COLUMN

H

A necessary hiatus

ome from college, I walked into my shared room to see my sister and her friends seated among a strewn lot of clothing on our shag-carpet-covered floor. They seemed to be in an incredibly heated argument about what to wear for their impending “photoshoot” and needed outfit advice.

“Ugh,” my sister let out with a sigh of familiar frustration.

“None of these outfits will photograph well. I need a good picture for my Instagram.”

The obstacle my sister and her friends faced is not unfamiliar territory for millennials and younger generations, that have been exposed to social media in various forms since middle school or even earlier. The desire to appear a certain way on the social media platform of their choosing has evolved from a way to share one’s interests and whereabouts with others to a societal norm. An event can no longer occur without the importance of getting a “post-worthy” picture or sharing a video of whatever we are attending to prove we have been there or done that. What becomes of the self and selfworth in this age of sharing one fine-tuned, filtered perspective of our lives with others?

Coming to college last fall, this pressure loomed over me.

There was this inherent need to share with everyone back home what I was up to, and to indicate how much fun I was having in this new chapter of my life. Despite the pressures I was facing — struggling to figure out where I fit in at a school 30 times the size of my high school over halfway across the country, or to determine who my friends were — I could hide behind a manufactured Instagram post or Snapchat story. Social media allows for us to display this altered reality to fit a mold society has shaped for us. My persona online did

not demonstrate the difficulties I faced in the classroom, the tears I shed over stressful nights or friendship issues.

No, my social media upheld an expected façade of someone constantly happy, surrounded by friends, adventuring, and living only the best life a college student at a such a renowned university could.

We smile regardless of what may be happening in the background

This is not just a surfacelevel, adolescent issue, but rather a deeply rooted problem with larger societal implications. Individuals of all ages, gender identities, nationalities, ethnicities and economic statuses are faced with this dual identity crisis.

With the maturation of social media has come the implication we must dedicate time and energy to keep an image of ourselves that may be entirely inauthentic. So many of us are guilty of buying into this idea.

We sacrifice our opinions, feelings and beliefs to show we are doing “the next coolest thing.” We smile regardless of what may be happening in the background. In maintaining this image, we lose a sense of who we are off-screen.

We become caricatures of ourselves in the pictures we share with others. Ultimately, we sometimes forget to show we are not that person, even though it may seem that way to our hundreds of followers.

Yes, there is no issue in taking a picture for the memory, and there are some who use their media platforms for voicing their opinions or

advocating for causes, but they are not the majority. Most of us — many of us subconsciously — find the need to demonstrate we are living an enviable version of our lives.

Would you ever post a picture of yourself without makeup or an aesthetically pleasing outfit? Or post a Snapchat story about how you actually are not happy or having a good time? At the risk of sounding bold or oversimplifying the issue, what would happen if we were to try and step away? Perhaps we would have a grand realization that the amount of energ y and time allotted to social media is absurd, and that in this time wasted, we have missed out on the opportunities life has presented us. But realistically, we won’t do this.

I am not suggesting there is a blanket solution for this, or even that it is a problem for everyone. Rather, I am stating my personal goal to ease away from this version of myself and the tendency to give into the pressure to maintain an inauthentic persona for all of my “closest” friends on my Instagram or Facebook. Yes, there may be the chance I disappoint my lab partner from the seventh grade with my social media hiatus or realism, but I think at the root of it all, I will be able to get in touch with a truer version of myself. With that, I am pledging to spend more time in conversation, and not on my phone. More time dancing to the music, instead of filming from the corner of the party to post another one of those Snapchat stories. I pledge to live in the moment and continue to work on myself in the present, instead of worrying about how my life will appear in perfectly edited squares.

Samantha Szuhaj can be reached at szuhajs@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Friday, January 11, 2019 — 5

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

Don’t let it slip away: ‘Hide’ by Rainbow Kitten Surprise SAMANTHA CANTIE For the Daily

“It’s not worth being a partial person or worth having an identity that’s incomplete.” — Sam Melo of Rainbow Kitten Surprise Google will tell you identity is “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.”

Deceptively simple? You bet. Identity is one of the most complicated concepts we face every day, especially if we consider ourselves to hold a hybrid identity, a mix of contradictory and diverse facets. If you’re looking for the living embodiment of multi-dimensionality, turn to Sam Melo, lead singer of the band Rainbow Kitten Surprise. As a son of missionary parents, Melo spent seven years of his childhood in the Dominican Republic before moving back to the United States, ultimately attending Appalachian State University in N.C.. He grew up in a family who not only spread a Christian message in a foreign country, but preached strong Southern values. In his song “Hide,” released in Aug. of 2018, Melo details his emotions behind discovering that he was gay and subsequently feeling like he had to hide his sexuality.

“Hide” is a clear nod to the LGBTQ+ community, detailing the freedom that comes with being unapologetically yourself. But “Hide” doesn’t stop there — it pushes this

unrestrained existence a step further. The magic of “Hide” resides in its ability to subvert how we approach the idea of identity and the communities that inf luence our existence.

“Hide” provided affirmation when I needed it most, drastically altering how I view my own identity, and it did this for me in a three step process.

STEP #1: Conf lict in Identity

of the 21st century. Constantly feeling torn between the pursuit of practicality and the pursuit of expressiveness. What is considered “artistically masterful” in one category of my life can easily be considered “impractical and uncanny” in another. Melo tugs on my heart in this way — he screams out about the dichotomy of identity and the utter helplessness it creates.

STEP #2: Community Inf luence on Identity

Melo is masterful in his depiction of contradicting worlds. He makes a clear nod to the conf lict between his sexuality and the religious community he grew up in with the lyrics, “The Son of Man held me in his clutches, the sons of men pulled me to the touch and I loved it.”

With these lines, Melo launched me into the intensity of his internal division — when the divine harshly conf licts with a dimension of who we inherently are. I could physically feel the sense of disapproval from the community he’d been bred in, held in the clutches of religion while drawn to the “sons of men.”

Although nowhere close to the difficulties Melo depicts of his sexuality conf licting with Southern values and religious upbringing, I instantaneously internalized “Hide,” feeling solace in its nod to my battle with the creative versus the practical, the most epic conf lict

AUDIOTREE

FILM PREVIEW

Melo sings over and over, “Hide your love, don’t let it slip away.”

We’ve all experienced it before — walking into a room and feeling like you have to hide a part of yourself, as it doesn’t quite fit in with the community at hand. In these lines, Melo speaks to the constant battle between feeling like you have to hide who you are in certain communities, yet not wanting this hidden part of yourself to “slip away.” The communities we reside in and draw comfort from provide us with the critical feeling of belongings; however, what happens when that community leans towards only one category, only one checkbox?

Melo speaks to wanting the support of the communities you are in, but not wanting the true parts of your identity to be stripped away from you. I began to ponder the trade-offs between embracing the support a community provides and conforming to the identity that community encourages “Hide” comments on feeling like certain worlds outcast and write-off the way you exist, but the “feeling of belongingness” that community provides is enough to make you stay: “Running from a place where they don’t make, people like me / I keep my bags packed, I keep my car running, I don’t wanna leave, just don’t wanna leave last.”

When you reveal a dimension of yourself and it doesn’t fit into the “traditional identity” that community holds, you repress it, for the support of those people is too valuable to lose.

Melo keeps his bags packed, noting the second these repressed aspects of himself come to the surface, he has to be ready to leave. It’s scary to f lee. Once again, in no way close to the intensity of Sam Melo’s situation, I lost the feeling of “wantedness” when I deviated from the mindsets my respective communities hold. When I conform to the identity my Business major provides, I feel comfort in those friendships, and vice versa with my English major. “Hide” speaks to that — “Hide” speaks to how my communities inf luence my existence.

STEP # 3: DO NOT Box Identity Into One Category!

Ultimately, “Hide” brings me to the realization that our identities shouldn’t, and don’t have to, fit into one box.

Our communities today need to be increasingly aware of the realization that humans will never be one thing. Melo preaches against being limited to one identity — Melo has southern pride and he is also gay. Melo’s music is inf luenced

by Schoolboy Q, Kings of Leon and Frank Ocean — a diverse set of inf luences from contemporary music.

Melo contradicts himself, and that’s okay.

I, just like Melo, will never be one thing. I will walk through the halls of Ross all day long and preach about the latest novel I’m annotating.

Simply put, that shouldn’t be a problem. We are all multifaceted humans, and the communities we reside in must learn not to back away or shame someone who deviates from what is “traditional” in that particular community, but rather to embrace the fact that our identities are never meant to be boxed into one category.

I’m not a partial person, and I refuse to have an identity that is incomplete.

I’m done with consistently hiding facets of my life, and I’m done fitting into the easier parts of my identity. I’m done with the pursuit to “Hide” — and that’s thanks to you, Sam Melo.

As a son of missionary parents, Melo spent seven years of his childhood in the Dominican Republic before moving back to the United States, ultimately attending Appalachian State

NEW MEDIA

‘Roma’ renders radical 2018’s top video games JULIANNA MORANNO Daily Arts Writer

In “Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón endeavors to render the intimacy and introspection of the memoir in three dimensions. The results are as stunning and moving as they are profoundly sad.

Cuarón selects a thoughtful angle from which to approach his personal history, focusing the camera on Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio in a breakout debut performance), the fictive counterpart of Lido, his family’s housekeeper who played a significant role in his upbringing in late 20th-century Mexico City.

And when I say “focus,” I mean the unwavering, intense kind that a person devotes to someone they love. This love guides the camerawork in compounding sequences as Cuarón slowly scans a site, be it the house Cleo takes care of, or the city block in which it’s nestled. The camera may very well visit other characters and objects, but once it stops, we wait with bated breath for a return. Every time, that awaited gravitational figure is Cleo.

In this respect and several others, Cuarón’s visual memoir doubles as a love letter to Lido, he even signs it “For Lido,” in the closing scene.

This love letter hardly ever errs, crossing the divides of gender-based, socioeconomic and other privileges with grace and respect. Cuarón navigates these tensions

There’s a hero, a saint, a miracle, right by your side

adeptly, juxtaposing scenes that emphasize Cleo’s beloved status in the eyes of her employer’s children with reality-checks maintaining the family is not immune to seeing Cleo as their servant.

In one scene, we are f loored by breathtaking love as Cleo’s employer Ms. Sofia (played by Marina de Tavira, “Efectos Secundarios”) and her youngest child take turns holding Cleo as she cries for fear of an unexpected pregnancy. In the next scene, however, when her employer takes her to the family’s doctor to test for pregnancy, we watch Ms. Sofia speak for and infantilize Cleo — we sigh, and we ache for Cleo.

In Cuarón’s deep, matchless regard for his characters lies the distinct mode of realism that permeates “Roma.”

With a keen eye for both the staggering tragedies that sideswipe us and the subtle ironies of life that mock us, Cuarón does not waste any time in fruitless pursuit of their source or rationalization for their inevitable occurrence.

Instead, he pays homage to the women expected to suffer all of these in silence by telling of Ms. Sofia’s anguish and even more extensively of Cleo’s.

Each abandoned by the men who were supposed to love and support them in large and small ways, these sufferings are palpable, at once resonant and incomprehensible.

And oh yes, “Roma” is sad.

But its sadness is not the senseless, manipulative kind, buttressed by the logic that, on the one hand, you earn your audience’s sympathies by eliciting their tears, and, on the other hand, that you can justify this approach to sadness by calling it realism.

“Roma” instead is distinguished by a fresh realism, for Cuarón refuses to narrate tragedy aimlessly or callously in a way that would justify drowning a character

ELI LUSTIG For the Daily

“Roma” The Michigan Theater Participant Media, Esperanto Filmoj

just to make a more convincing sea. Instead, he invests foremost and most deeply in his characters, romanticizing neither their suffering nor their triumphs.

The chief return on this cumbersome but worthwhile investment in a more authentic realism is a world in which extraordinary love appears just as possible as extraordinary evil, a world in which we each have the choice to act in the name of either.

That might explain one of Cuarón’s visual motifs: airplanes. In the opening scene, one streaks across a patch of sky ref lected in Cleo’s soapy water while she scrubs the family’s driveway; another airplane completes a parallel route in the closing scene, the camera aimed upwards this time, after having tracked Cleo laboring up a f light of stairs. As if to say, why do you still crane your neck? Why do you look to the sky for your heroes?

There’s a hero, a saint, a miracle, right by your side.

She sings to you softly in the morning to ensure you get to school on time. She calls you by your name. She doesn’t walk on water, but she would drown before she’d let you go under. Whether biological or surrogate, she’s your mother, and she loves you.

Could you imagine anything more extraordinary than that?

When thinking about video games in 2018, one thing probably comes to mind: “Fortnite.” The addictive game took over talk shows, Twitter and teenagers across the globe, but there was a lot more to this year in games than just dancing, armor-clad avatars. Here is Daily New Media’s picks for the five best video games of 2018.

just seems beefier: hits pack more punch, characters are more responsive and the music is enticingly epic. It always makes me want to play another round. I’ve been playing “Super Smash Bros” all my life, and I’ll admit that I probably haven’t even begun to master an eighth of all the characters “Smash Ultimate” offers. It just might be the new gold standard for fighting games.

1. “Red Dead 3.

“Detroit: Redemption 2” Become Human” “Red Dead Redemption 2” has the most detail I’ve ever seen in a game. Rockstar’s rendition of the American Old West is impeccable. Every action has an accompanying animation. I’ll be honest and say I haven’t even completed the story yet because I get lost in the realism of the world. The map is a gradient from modern industrialized cities on one side to untamed badlands on the other, and riding through it feels like a microcosm of America’s development into the nation we know today. That’s the beauty of “Red Dead Redemption 2”: it gives you senseless murder and destruction, but it also provides political commentary on par with the highest and most pretentious of the arts because it, too, is a masterpiece.

“Detroit: Become Human” is a game everyone should play. A departure from the usual shoot ‘em up violence that is ubiquitous in the game industry, “Detroit” is a narrative-based choice game in a class of its own. Set in a futurist version of Detroit where androids have become common, the player navigates the lives of three androids who find themselves in situations that test their morality, blurring the lines between human and machine. The best aspect of this game is that each story can be played differently.

Due to multiple dialogue and action options for each decision, the player can inject as much personality into the characters as the developers can. “Detroit: Become Human” is an emotional rollercoaster and a model for what the game industry has the potential to be in the future.

is ultimate. This iteration of “Super Smash Bros” has quickly proved itself to be the best in the franchise. Not only does “Smash Ultimate” include an impressive 76 characters (with more to come via DLC), many of the older characters have been updated with new moves and abilities. On top of that, “Smash Ultimate”

Like my newfound taste for mushrooms, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed “SpiderMan.” Swinging between the beautiful and astoundingly accurate skyscrapers of Manhattan is a euphoric feeling few games can create.

Despite a slight learning curve with the movement and combat, after an hour “Spider-

Man” becomes a game of f luid finesse. The story is heartfelt, the villains are a real threat and the characters are dynamic. I could play “SpiderMan” for hours only swinging around the city — that’s how fun it is.

5. “Fortnite” You can say what you will about “Fortnite,” but one thing is true: The game dominated 2018. “Fortnite”’s Battle Royale mode united gamers young and old to bask in user-friendly, lighthearted, cartoon murder. In 2018, I personally devoted an embarrassing number of hours to the game. However, I also used “Fortnite” as a way to connect. As I enter my adult life, keeping in touch with old friends and relatives is difficult. Luckily “Fortnite” allows me to maintain these long-distance relationships while also letting me blow off steam after a long day. As an emerging international esport, I hope “Fortnite” continues to grow, and I’m eager to see the future content Epic Games releases this year.

There was a lot more to this year 2. “Super Smash in games than just Bros. Ultimate” 4.

“Marvel’s dancing, armorThe best word to describe Spider-Man” “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” clad avatars

6-Arts

Arts

6 — Friday, January 11, 2019

BOOKS DIALOGUE

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

A conversation, in decay Seeking beauty and chaos VERITY STURM

Daily Book Review Editor

EMILY YANG

Daily Arts Writer

It came up in conversation a short while ago that Verity and I were reading the same book — “Paradise Rot,” the debut novel of the Norwegian musician Jenny Hval. I asked Verity if she was interested in co-writing about Hval’s work, which is equally split between her writing and her musical projects, and would thus match our respective backgrounds in literature and music.

“Paradise Rot” is an enigmatic novel: It seems to sprawl beyond its 148 pages, extending its tendrils into all sorts of aesthetic and conceptual quandaries. Hval’s music is no less complex, both sonically and lyrically. It resists immediate comparison in no small part because of its variety.

She’s capable of everything from drone metal to twangy folk, and frequently inhabits an in-between space all her own.

Additionally, Hval’s creative energies strain at the very boundaries of the media she uses: Her songs have a capital-P poetic dimension as well as a narrative and thematic thrust, and her prose writing can have the amorphous nature of her music, flitting and shifting between tropes, forms, and references and sometimes just dissolving into a network of sensuality and instinct.

I think we settled on publishing a kind of longform conversation (rather than a standard essay) in part because of Hval’s insistence of working on several levels at once. It’s difficult to draw only one conclusion from her work — really, it pulls in all directions, slipping out of the critical grasp right where it seems most solidified. I think the format of correspondence allows us to explore her artistic output from many angles at once, unbounded by definite conclusions or single threads to follow. We were also inspired by the “Slow Burn” series at Yale’s Post45 collective, which takes the form of correspondence between critics grappling with complex works of art.

I’ve always loved talking to people about what I’m reading or listening to, and I almost always find that it teaches me to think of the work in a new way. For an artist like Hval, fresh perspectives and unsettledness seem uniquely suited for providing insight in a way a more linear argument wouldn’t.

— Emily 11/30/18 Espresso Royale State Street, by the windows Rainy Dear Emily, I tend to salivate over structure, which has never felt like a particularly popular or pleasant obsession (albeit useful). Jack Brandon will say “Capricorn,” but I massage my individuality by calling it a sort of personal interest in world building (Jack Brandon will repeat “Capricorn”). The person I am in the School of Information is not the one wandering the English Department, and walking on the street felt different when I got my haircut. You know? The delta in those experiences is so curious.

Same person, different person.

There, not there.

Structure is a pretty hot take in the literary world, especially right now. We hate it. Poetry challenges prose, which is in

turn challenged by prose poetry.

Creative nonfiction is a thing, arguably the thing of the moment.

Genre-bending is a movement.

MFA programs are branding as “experimental” and “nontracking.” Literati arranges such texts on a round table between fiction, poetry and pens. They don’t label it.

— Daily Arts Desk, next to a mason jar of cranberry Red Bull Fluorescent I picked up “Paradise Rot” because of its millennial bait cover design and bought it for the Chris Kraus endorsement on the back.

Millennials bend genres, Chris Kraus bends genres, bending

I think we settled on doing a kind of long-form conversation ... in part because of Hval’s insistence of working on several levels at once

genres turn me on (so sinuous).

Marketing did a precise job.

Except for the fact that “Paradise Rot” is not a genrebender. It presents as a novel, identifying as “fiction” on the flyleaf. And it checks the boxes: written in prose, organized into chapters and arranged around a classic storyline: Girl studies abroad, is awakened sexually.

Formally, Hval isn’t all that bendy.

I felt like I went into “Paradise Rot” all jazzed up for a circle and got a square.

This initially effected my reading. I actively despise feeling duped, even if I’m not actually being duped (spoiler). So the first impression I got from “Paradise Rot” was that of its structural failure. The plot is honestly weak, which leaves room for the characters to shine, but their development seems both halfbaked and disproportionate.

(Why does the unremarkable, third-string Pym take up so much space?) For a square, it’s a pretty bad one.

Once my geometry metaphor angst wore off, though, I realized this “novel” was hitting me like a poem. While its structure fails to deliver, Hval’s language slowly and consistently designs a certain atmosphere. Her highly sensual descriptions (“my nails break, opening up like clams and in the finger flesh there are sticky little fruit pearls”) and consistent references to plant decay, moisture and general stickiness subtly adjusted my emotional thermostat. At the end of “Paradise Rot,” the environment in my brain, like the apartment that Jo and Carral share, had transformed. I was too distracted by lines and corners to notice it happening.

If Jenny Hval wanted to write a poem, she would have written a poem. If she wanted to write a

piece that resisted the distinctions of prose and poetry, she would have marketed “Paradise Rot” as a genre-bender. She carefully incorporated all the necessary infrastructure to categorize “Paradise Rot” as Very Much Fiction, which is no casual effort.

You don’t just “do it as a novel” for fun.

My lame brain wants the impossible — an answer — and I’m tempted to frame this novel as a structural coup d’état. Jenny Hval has written something that glaringly meets all the qualifications of a novel yet operates like a poem. It’s like a genre bending-genre bender … rather than creating something outside the system, she hijacks the system’s own machinery to unveil its categorization as construct.

My brain hurts. Write me back.

Xo. Verity — 12/3/18, a bedroom in Kerrytown Dear Verity, I have to admit that I’m much less attuned to narrative structure than you are. While I totally agree with your assessment of the novel’s plot, most of what I got out of “Paradise Rot” was the exhilarating rush of Hval’s language, her poetics and fixations. I think every good book changes, if temporarily, the reader’s relationship with the world. Accordingly, I found myself paying closer attention to the muddy patch of leaves in the front doorway to my house, to the tangle of plants in my backyard, to the echoes of dreams as I get ready in the morning. Jo’s porousness, her inability to keep the world from her mind, translated into a sticky awareness of the world around me as I read. I became attuned to the forces of growth and decay happening around me, all the time; I felt the wind go through me like a paper bag.

That having been said, my largest complaint about the novel is that the structure didn’t let the content be as windy, as continuous, as it seemed like it wanted to be. Its pacing and especially its organization into short chapters was at odds with the subject matter and the style of the prose. Jo’s narration felt so interior and reliant on sensation that I found myself wanting the formal boundaries to dissolve, for everything to mix together like paint in a sink. Chapters truncate, and there’s no truncating decay, which is an inexorable downward (and outward) flow. Hval seems to be emulating that organic structure without committing to making her novel resemble it on the macro scale.

I might give Hval more credit for bending genre than you do, though, or at least I think she plays with genre expectations in interesting ways. Even though the novel often works like a poem, it makes sense to me why it was “done” as a novel. The promise of a plot set me up to interact with her writing differently than I might if “Paradise Rot” had been done as a long poem or a film. The novelistic “infrastructure” is a signal for the reader to experience the text a certain way: We are to assume that all of this is happening, not as a metaphor or a stand-in for something else, but literally.

Poems are slippery as to their literal meaning, prose is concrete, or at least seems so ...

Read more online at

michigandaily.com

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

ALIX CURNOW Daily Arts Writer

Artists’ Instagram pages are riddled with their beautiful finished photographs, drawings, paintings, etc. I rarely ever come across photos of the countless canvases thrown in the trash or the numerous photographs where the lighting was too low or the model wasn’t posed the correct way. I sit on chairs every day of my life, but seldom do I think about the engineering and logistical work it took to create those chairs. We are hardly ever exposed to the progress of a final piece of work. Most of the time, we only see the final piece of work itself. Yet, we must realize that through analyzing progress, we can learn a great deal about not only final pieces of work but the process of creation itself. The value in this examination is largely what inspired the Ann Arbor Arts Center’s upcoming exhibit: “Works in Progress.”

“I think the act of bringing an idea into its physical manifestation is beautiful,” said Sophie Yan, a curator for the event. “Works in Progress” is a celebration of the process of bringing functional works to life. This free exhibit features fashion, graphic design, furniture, architecture, industrial design and more.

The 25 selected participants include working professionals, students and internationally exhibited designers.

The “Works in Progress” exhibit’s opening party is an event for any one who values the beauty found in “the process.”

Yan has been making things since she was a little kid.

Studying interior design in college and going on to study 3D graphic design in graduate

school, Yan now works as a hybrid interior/furniture designer and fabricator at Synecdoche, a design/ architecture studio in Ann Arbor. It is through Synecdoche that she became involved with the Ann Arbor Arts Center and “Works in Progress.” “‘Works in Progress’ started when I met up with Matt Rosner, a fellow designer in Ann Arbor, and we talked about organizing a show as a way of getting local designers talking to each other and fostering a community,” Yan said. “I got my partner, Chris Czub, involved since he has experience organizing events.

I pitched the idea to the Art Center and they had an opening in their exhibition schedule so it kind of all worked out perfectly.”

“I liked the idea of showing process materials and unfinished work as a way of gaining insight into the artist or designer’s practice,” Yan said. “The original purpose of the show was to foster a community, so I thought that this would be a good way to get folks talking to each other.

Besides, I feel that we as audiences always see only the finished result and often the developmental work that went into it goes unnoticed. I wanted to celebrate that for once.”

The show is intended to be a discussion space for creators and designers as well as to showcase the progress of works of art. Yan will be showing some textile samples that she has been accumulating in her studio over the years.

A large part of the show focuses on both the beauty and the chaos in creation.

While Yan believes the act of bringing an idea into a physical manifestation is beautiful, she said “The process of getting

there, however, is sometimes chaotic. Ideas have a tendency to bounce off of each other and grow exponentially. Not every idea deserves to be fully realized, and the hard part is often knowing when to move on from something and when to push through and commit. I like to experiment openly with different materials without thinking about the end result. I

“Works in Progress” Opening Night Jan. 11, 2019 @ 6-9 p.m.

Ann Arbor Arts Center Free

end up with lots of half-baked ideas waiting for the perfect application.”

As creators, it is important to see the process of other creators and how that process can or cannot apply to your own work. “Works in Progress” is an exhibit for anyone interested in the behind-thescenes of creation. The opening party is an event for creators to network with one another and discuss the design process as well. For a Friday night filled with creative thinking and discussion, I’d suggest heading over to Ann Arbor Arts Center.

You may leave wanting to scrap some of your old ideas or bring a brand new idea to life. “Works in Progress” will be on display at the Arts Center from Jan. 11 to Feb. 9.

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

Release Date: Friday, January 11, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Old gas station freebie 4 One holding all the cards?

10 “__ run!”

15 Texter’s cautioning letters 16 Take to the skies 17 “The Phantom of the Opera” setting 18 Indigent ones hiding among bales?

21 Like much ordinary history 22 Japanese volcano 23 Long walk 24 Author Jong 25 Ascended 28 Stark in “Game of Thrones” 29 Holders of poortaste gifts?

31 Must 33 Presidential nickname 34 Type of pitcher 35 Result of smashing a piñata during a hurricane?

41 Food industry headgear 42 Barrel contents 43 __ cuisine 44 Script for an absurdist play?

51 PHL stat 52 Calls 54 Lavender asset 55 Gillette brand 57 Like Dorothy Parker’s humor 58 Pollen site 59 Concept for creating difficult crossword puzzles?

63 Gaucho’s tool 64 Gift to an audience 65 “Road to __”: Hope/Crosby film 66 Wee, jocularly 67 Ancient eponymous advisor 68 Ernie with irons DOWN 1 Stately dance 2 Ancient Egyptian deity

3 How one might wax, but not wane 4 Ambush 5 Passionate 6 Architect Maya __ 7 2002 W.S. champs, nowadays 8 Hydrocarbon gas 9 Kids 10 Traveler’s aid, briefly 11 Censor’s target 12 Prepares for, as a profession 13 Cited on the road 14 Required from 19 Harbor sight 20 The Gershwins’ “Embraceable __” 25 Arid Asian region 26 Pair in a field 27 “Is it ever hot today!”

30 Hudson and James 32 3-Down pugilist 34 Count (on) 35 Foyer convenience 36 Winter birth, perhaps

37 Commonly hexagonal hardware 38 Not superficial 39 Purse relative 40 Pop radio fodder 41 London’s Old Vic, for one 44 Corporate source of the Elmer’s Glue logo 45 Random individual

46 Agitation metaphor 47 Wrath, in a hymn 48 “When!”

49 “Bam!” chef 50 Some HDTVs 53 1-Acr. marking 56 Book after John 58 Minute Maid Park player, to fans 60 Jewelry giant 61 Lavs 62 “Just kidding!”

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

By Jeffrey Wechsler ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

01/11/19

01/11/19

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sports

Friday, January 11, 2019 — 7A

An outdoor mirage

T

he win at Notre Dame was supposed to be a turning point.

Senior defenseman and captain Joseph Cecconi said as much after the Michigan hockey team beat the Fighting Irish, 4-2, at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday.

“We all know that it’s time to turn this ship around, and all it takes is one win,” CecBAILEY coni said. “It’s JOHNSON three points for us, and we’re going to play Tuesday and just going to continue (to) go on. It doesn’t matter if it’s a league game or not, and we’re just excited that we got the win and it’s going to turn us around a bit.”

But when Merrimack — ranked 52nd of 60 teams in the Pairwise before Tuesday’s game against the Wolverines — came to Ann Arbor, Michigan found itself failing to build on the momentum from Saturday’s win.

To put it simply, the Wolverines fell on their faces in the 4-2 loss.

The Warriors average just 1.81 goals per game. Michigan gave up more than double that, including two in a span of less than five minutes.

In many ways, the performance mirrored the Wolverines’ season-opening loss to Vermont.

Both losses were riddled with defensive lapses and an overall lack of respect for the opponent.

But in that game against the Catamounts, Michigan had the excuse of being a young team still trying to come together and find chemistry.

“I thought we weren’t ready to play tonight,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson after falling to Vermont. “We weren’t really ready to play. We came in today with the mindset that it was going to be easy.”

But nothing has been easy for the Wolverines thus far.

Michigan skidded through the first half of the season. The Wolverines won a weekend series only once in the first half, when they swept St. Lawrence — which has a 3-14-1 on the season and rank 59th in Pairwise — in late October.

Michigan has also tied six times in the first 19 games.

All of that was supposed to change with the win over the Fighting Irish — a victory over one of the nation’s top teams on the road. The win snapped a ninegame winless streak that dated to mid-November — and the Wolverines won without sophomore forward Josh Norris and sophomore defenseman Quinn Hughes, arguably their two best players.

The cards seemed to be set for Michigan to get back on track and make a run through the second half of the season, just as it did last year, when the Wolverines swept No. 9 Minnesota in the second weekend of the second half and ended up in the Frozen Four.

And then Merrimack happened.

“Not prepared to play, and that’s up to each player to be ready to play,” Pearson said after the loss. “We were worried as coaches, you go from playing Notre

Dame and you got Ohio State on the back end and you got this midweek game.

“Couple comments from our team, ‘We didn’t take them serious’ or whatever. I don’t know how you can, because we’re not that good. We have to take every team serious to have a chance to win.”

Michigan didn’t take the Warriors seriously, and now its chance to build on the momentum of the win at Notre Dame is gone.

Once again, just like in the Vermont game, the Wolverines weren’t ready and ended up losing to an opponent they should’ve handily beaten.

There are no more excuses.

Michigan has had 21 games and over three months to get ready to play. Now, with the second half of the Big Ten season looming, the Wolverines are running out of time to figure things out.

This weekend, Michigan will visit No. 4 Ohio State, which leads the Big Ten with 20 points and a 5-2-3 conference record. The Wolverines sit third with 15 points, and a sweep of the Buckeyes could put them in first place.

But that’s a tall order for a team that just lost to bottom-dwelling

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

At midpoint, Michigan

Merrimack and fell to Ohio State all five times the two programs met last season.

“They had our number last year,” said junior forward Jake Slaker Tuesday after the loss.

“We played them five times and they beat us five times. We’re not happy with that, and we know how — they have a strong team.

“We’re going to go in there and we got to throw the whole kitchen sink at them. We got to really go at them and try to grab as many points as we can, because the Big Ten’s tight right now and these are huge games for us.”

Slaker is right. This weekend is a huge series for Michigan.

There isn’t any more time for talk of turning points or springboards or any other cliché about how a struggling team can save a season.

It’s time for the Wolverines to turn talk into action.

If they don’t, the win over Notre Dame will become simply one good win in a lost season.

Johnson can be reached at bajohn@umich.edu or on Twitter @BaileyAJohnson_

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily

Junior forward Jake Slaker said that Michigan will have to throw the kitchen sink at Ohio State this weekend.

remains up and down BENNETT BRAMSON Daily Sports Writer

The ball danced around the rim for a few moments before falling out of the cylinder and landing harmlessly on the floor as the final buzzer sounded.

The game had been decided by only one point. This was the scenario that played out for the Michigan women’s basketball team in each of its last two games, against Purdue and Northwestern, respectively.

The Wolverines (11-5 overall, 2-2 Big Ten), though, were on different ends of the spectrum in each of those games. Against the Boilermakers, Michigan watched as its final shot failed to fall while, against the Wildcats, the Wolverines watched with the same helpless feeling as, this time, their opponent’s shot rolled out of the rim.

Despite being picked to finish third in the Big Ten in the coaches’ preseason vote, Michigan now sits in a three-team tie for sixth place through the first four games of conference play. One reason for its current record is because of trends like this one: One day the ball rolls the way of the Wolverines while the next day it goes the opposite direction.

With two conference home wins and a pair of losses at Purdue and Nebraska, Michigan’s play in the Big Ten has so far been a microcosm for their season performance as a whole.

There have been flashes of brilliance, like its thrashing of Missouri and No. 18 Minnesota, and moments of disappointment, like the Wolverines’ back-to-back losses against No. 8 NC State and No. 15 Marquette as well as that heartbreaking loss to the Boilermakers last Saturday.

Yet, one thing that Michigan

has consistently done well is defend its home court. The Wolverines are 7-0 at home this season compared to just 4-5 when they are away from the Crisler Center.

“We really challenged ourselves in the offseason against some great competition,” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “We went on the road and we’ve been on the road, we’ve had a lot more road games than home contests, in preparation for the long haul; in preparation for the Big Ten Tournament; in preparation for the NCAA Tournament.

“What we have found is that taking those bumps and losing those games (is) tough, but now we came out with a couple of really good wins. So those games have prepared us and are (continuing to) prepare us.”

Of the Wolverines’ 14 games remaining, half are on the road while the other half will take place in Ann Arbor.

If its current trajectory continues — winning its remaining home games and losing its remaining road games —Michigan will finish 18-12. That will almost certainly not be enough come NCAA Tournament time, barring a Big Ten Tournament championship.

Midway through the season, Barnes Arico has taken away the positives from her squad’s road performances thus far and is hopeful they can turn it around.

“I think the way our league has gone so far has kind of showed us that, ‘Hey, we can have a night where we’re not happy with the outcome, but we can’t put everything on the outcome of the game,’ ” Barnes Arico said. “If we are continuing to improve, then we are going to be a great program down the stretch.”

Five keys to the Wolverines upsetting ninth-ranked Terrapins on the road CONNOR BRENNAN Daily Sports Writer

Last season, the Michigan women’s basketball team all but saved its season with a 71-65 win over then-No. 13 Maryland, which went a long way in ensuring the Wolverines a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Though it is just over halfway through the season, the importance of Michigan (11-5 overall, 2-2 Big Ten) visiting College Park to take on the 9th-ranked Terrapins (14-1, 3-1) cannot be overstated. Just like last year, a positive result for the Wolverines could push them over the line come the end of the season. A loss, on the other hand, could cripple their already tenuous position on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

Michigan enters the contest off the back of a hardfought overtime win against Northwestern, while Maryland will also be riding high following an 18-point demolition of Nebraska.

The Daily breaks down the keys to Saturday’s Big Ten clash.

Michigan’s struggles away from home It is safe to say that Crisler Center has been friendly to Michigan. All five of the Wolverines’ losses this season have been away from home and they have averaged just over 61 points and 17.4 turnovers in these road losses.

In contrast, Michigan is averaging 81 points per game and 15.05 turnovers at home.

The Wolverines notched a home upset over No. 12 Minnesota, but have struggled to defeat even mediocre teams away from Crisler.

In addition, with freshmen Amy Dilk and Naz Hillmon in the rotation, and only a few upperclassmen playing significant minutes, Michigan has lacked the experience

needed to beat ranked teams on their turf.

“I think our message has been ‘Continue to improve, continue to improve,’ ” said Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico. “We’re trying not to look at the outcomes but to look at the process. Hopefully, our improvement in practice will result in victories. But it’s more of a focus on improvement than just results.”

Still, results matter and a win against the Terrapins would be the Wolverines’ best result to this point of the season.

Controlling the boards The rebounding battle will also be a major factor in Saturday’s outcome.

“Maryland does a tremendous job of rebounding the basketball,” Barnes Arico said.

“We have to make sure we block and hold them to one shot.”

Rebounding has been a strength for both squads throughout the first half of the season. Both Michigan and Maryland are in the top10 nationally in total team rebounds and rebounding margin — though the Terrapins have a slight advantage in both categories.

Maryland’s only loss this season came at home to Rutgers.

It is no coincidence that game is one of only two in which the Terrapins were outrebounded, giving up a season-high 19 offensive rebounds to the Scarlet Knights.

“They are big, long and athletic,” Barnes Arico said.

“They really have a motor to the basketball, so we have to make contact with them. It’s going to be key for us to make sure they don’t have multiple chances.”

Kaila Charles There are only three Big Ten players on the midseason John R. Wooden Award watch list: Minnesota guard Kenisha Bell, Iowa forward Megan Gustafson

“It helps not to pack the paint against Hallie and Naz inside.”

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily

Freshman guard Amy Dilk will match up against Maryland’s Taylor Mikesell, who averages 14.8 points per game, when Michigan goes to College Park on Saturday.

and Maryland’s do-it-all guard Kaila Charles.

At 6-foot-1, Charles possesses unique size for the guard position.

“She is an incredible player,” Barnes Arico said. “She’s really a tough matchup for anyone. She can go off the bounce, she can elevate over you, can go left or right, pull-up in front of you. She is really just an incredible scorer.

We’re just going to have to keep the basketball out of her hands.”

Even though Charles’s offensive production has fallen off slightly from last season — when she was an All-Big Ten First team selection — she still leads the Terrapins in scoring and has lit up the scoresheet on multiple occasions already this season, reaching double figures in all but one game this season.

It’s no small task, but if the Wolverines are able to limit Charles’ offensive opportunities, they will have a chance to pull off the upset.

The point guard matchup It has been an inconsistent season for Dilk. The heralded recruit has undoubtedly shown signs of brilliance in her short time at the helm of the Wolverines’ offense. And yet, as with most young players, there have been growing pains.

In recent games, her confidence and decision making have been on the rise. She had solid offensive outputs against both Minnesota and Purdue, scoring 14 and 16 points, respectively, with just three combined turnovers.

Though the offensive burden does not fall squarely on Dilk’s shoulders, there appears a clear

“It’s more of a focus on improvement than ... results.”

improvement in Michigan’s offense when she looks to score.

“Her ability to score the basketball really gives us a different dimension,” Barnes Arico said. “It helps to not pack the paint against (senior center) Hallie (Thome) and Naz inside.

So she has the green light on offense and is getting more and more comfortable. She has done really well for us recently.”

Dilk’s counterpart on the Maryland sideline is freshman Taylor Mikesell. Mikesell is the Terrapins’ second-leading scorer behind Charles, averaging 14.8 points per game. Dilk’s best offensive asset is her three-point shot — hitting a 42.3 percent rate beyond the arc.

Dilk will be tasked with guarding Mikesell. Job number one will be minimizing Mikesell’s opportunities from deep, an area where Dilk is quite capable. Her size and athleticism were one of the reasons she was a five-star recruit out of high school. In order to win the matchup against Mikesell, and

put Michigan in a position to leave College Park with a win, Dilk will have to play smart and aggressive on offense and be mindful of Mikesell’s movements when the Terrapins are in possession.

Last word The odds don’t favor Michigan in this matchup — especially against Maryland in its home arena. Charles and Mikesell are potent offensively, but the Terrapins run deeper than that duo. With that said, there have been a number of surprising results in the Big Ten so far this season, and the Wolverines have already pulled an upset of their own against the Golden Gophers. Despite its youth and struggles on the road, a Michigan victory against Maryland would not necessarily be the most surprising. Controlling the boards, containing Kaila Charles as much as possible and winning the point guard matchup will be pivotal if the Wolverines hope to beat the Terrapins in consecutive seasons.

Sports

8A — Friday, January 11, 2019

FOOTBALL

Gattis picked to be OC ETHAN SEARS

Managing Sports Editor

After a season of ambiguity, the Michigan football team has an offensive coordinator, and a designated play-caller.

The Wolverines have hired Josh Gattis — Alabama’s co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach — to fill the job, the team announced in a statement. Bruce Feldman and Chris Vannini of The Athletic first reported the news. Gattis is expected to call plays, according to Feldman. A spokesperson for the team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The offense and passing games under Josh’s direction have achieved at a very high level throughout his coaching career,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said in a statement. “Josh will provide leadership to our offense while being a great mentor to our student-athletes and an outstanding addition to our coaching staff. Michigan football looks forward to having Josh, Tesa, and their children, Jace and Reece, join our University family.”

The news comes as a shock, not just because it means Harbaugh cedes control of the offense, but because Harbaugh said after the Wolverines lost in the Peach Bowl that he didn’t anticipate any changes to his coaching staff.

There had already been two — Greg Mattison and Al Washington leaving for Ohio State — but those departures seemed out of Harbaugh’s control. Moreover, both were defensive coaches. An offensive hire, at a time when Harbaugh is under fire for the way his offense performed in big games against Ohio State and Florida, could represent a deliberate shift.

Designating a play-caller certainly does just that.

Harbaugh had previously refused to say who was calling

plays when asked, though it seemed to be a mix of himself and passing game coordinator Pep Hamilton.

Gattis, who had a one-year NFL playing career, played college football at Wake Forest and has been a coach since 2010.

Most notably, he coached wide receivers at Penn State before going to Tuscaloosa.

“Josh is a very good coach,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said of Gattis in October, per AL.com. “He’s a very bright guy.

He’s been in some good systems.

He has a good understanding of the big picture offensively.

He’s very technical in terms of how he coaches and teaches his players and they have a good understanding.

“He has a really good personality. But he’s also demanding. He can confront and demand guys when they’re not doing things the way they’re supposed to do them and I think that’s created a lot of consistency in our receivers and it’s also improved their toughness and their mental toughness to sustain.”

In Gattis’ lone year with the Crimson Tide, Alabama led the nation in passing S&P+, thanks in large part to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Gattis also helped receiver Jerry Jeudy to a 1,315yard season in which he won the Fred Biletnikoff Award for the nation’s best wideout.

After a week in which things seemed to be falling apart for the Wolverines, this hire seems like an attempt to start righting the ship.

“I am deeply humbled by the opportunity to serve as your offensive coordinator,” Gattis said in a statement. “This is the leadership challenge I’ve coveted. The football tradition at the University of Michigan is among the very best in college athletics. My family and I couldn’t be more excited to arrive in Ann Arbor.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

New hire shows Harbaugh willing to evolve

T

implemented more zone-read here are lots of myths This is all, of course, continthat information on Twitter, Gatlooks and more run-pass options. tis provided a response sure to be gent on Harbaugh truly handing about Jim Harbaugh.

There were new formations and music to Wolverines fans’ ears. the keys over. Any team coached One such myth, a sentiment that has gained traction an emphasis on getting Patterson “Well we sure do see who is

by Harbaugh is going to maintain following the tumultuous end to on the move to best utilize his on this list and not! “ he tweeted. some elements of the pro-style Michigan’s season, is that he is athleticism.

“No dink and dunk offense here!” offense he’s run his entire life. unwilling to Harbaugh adapted in 2018, no No dink-and-dunk offense, The working marriage of Harbaugh and Gattis now serves adapt. This doubt, just as he has his entire you say? as perhaps the most important caricature of career. But hiring Gattis and And while to an extent Alabama is Alabama, and Michigan offseason development. If the Harbaugh’s relinquishing all play-calling offensive collaboration remains offensive duties isn’t mere adaptation. It’s a is decidedly not, the Wolverines would be wise to take lessons the convoluted bureaucratic philosophy complete offensive overhaul, and from the Crimson Tide’s offensive entanglement it has been the past — a relic of a a welcome one at that. evolution in the last five years. few years, criticism will rightly bygone era, From 2012 to 2017, Gattis Michigan will bring back follow. too proud worked under James Franklin at MAX Patterson, along with talented But Harbaugh had no choice to conform both Vanderbilt and Penn State, MARCOVITCH where he quickly developed a rep- sophomore wide receivers Donoto broadly evaluate the shortto modern utation for his recruiting prowess. van Peoples-Jones, Tarik Black comings of last season. He, too, football, too In his lone season at Alabama, and Nico Collins next season. It watched his offense wilt at Notre stubborn to retains most of its offensive line Dame in the season opener. He adapt to his personnel — is largely Gattis led an offense that averaged 522 yards over 45 points and brings in a talented runsaw it thoroughly outpaced and unfounded. But it persists and ning back, Zach Charbonnet, to per game. Quarterback Tua outclassed at Ohio State. He had is only amplified with every loss an already versatile group. The Tagovailoa averaged 11.17 yards a front-row seat to the 26-point in a big game — every lackluster group has the potential to be the per attempt, narrowly behind Peach Bowl drubbing. offensive performance.

Wolverines’ most talented offense Heisman Trophy-winner Kyler To his credit, it now appears, The hiring of former Alabama in years. And with Gattis, it has Murray for tops in the nation.

Harbaugh adapted. co-offensive coordinator Josh added the most important ingreTagovailoa also finished with an Gattis to become the offensive dient: a fresh, forward-thinking adjusted completion percentage Marcovitch can be reached coordinator (yes, the sole offensive coordinator) at Michigan is of 63.4 on throws of 20-plus yards offensive mind necessary to at maxmarco@umich.edu or on the latest and most discernible downfield. When presented with reaching new heights.

Twitter @Max_Marcovitch. proof of Harbaugh’s willingness to evolve.

Gattis is going to run the offense. He’s going to be calling plays. And the subtext isn’t hard to see here: He’s coming to change the entire offense. Harbaugh’s offense.

To say Michigan’s offense didn’t change in 2018 would be wrong. After 2017, a year in which Michigan’s three quarterbacks combined for just nine touchdown passes and less than 2,300 passing yards, the offense reflected and rebounded. This past season, junior quarterback Shea Patterson threw for 2,600 yards and 22 touchdowns. The Wolverines had three wide receivers exceed 500 yards. While that figure might seem uninspiring, it comes after a year in which no receiver exceeded 307 yards.

And it wasn’t just that the offense opened up, but the way it did so. Harbaugh ostensibly ceded run-game responsibilities to offensive line coach Ed WarinKATELYN MULCAHY/Daily ner this season. In turn, the team Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh adapted his offense by hiring Josh Gattis away from Alabama to be offensive coordinator.

Pop Champaign!

Michigan takes care of Illinois, 79-69, winning 16th-straight game to tie school record for undefeated start to the season JACOB SHAMES Daily Sports Editor

CHAMPAIGN — Almost exactly two years ago to the day, the Michigan men’s basketball team lost 85-69 at Illinois, allowing the Fighting Illini to shoot a scorching 65 percent from the field and the 3-point line.

But in the eyes of Wolverines fans, Jan. 11, 2017 is more notable for Illinois center Maverick Morgan dumping a truckload of salt into the wound with his postgame comments, in which he called Michigan a traditionally “white-collar” team.

At the time, Morgan’s statement marked a nadir for the Wolverines. But since then, Michigan’s gone 64-14, with two Big Ten Tournament titles and a Final Four appearance.

Thursday night, the Wolverines returned to the State Farm Center for the first time in two years. They left with a 79-69 win over the Illini and a 16-0 record — tied for the best start in program history.

At the same time, though, it wasn’t a dominant win. Illinois (4-12 overall, 0-5 Big Ten) outshot Michigan and forced 14 turnovers, never letting the game get out of hand as the records would suggest.

If there was a time where it could have gotten out of hand, it was right after tip-off. The Wolverines (16-0, 5-0) came out of the gate looking every bit the second-best team in the nation, scoring the game’s first eight points.

Sophomore forward Isaiah Livers missed the previous two games with back spasms, but if one was watching Michigan for the first time Thursday night, they would have no idea. The

sophomore forward scored an early seven points with a soft turnaround jumper, a lefthanded and-one layup and a leaping offensive rebound and putback, helping the Wolverines go up 20-10 after eight minutes.

“We obviously missed him,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “ … Having Isaiah come over to defend, do different things and just have him coming off the bench is huge for us.”

But Illinois, thanks to its signature high-pressure defense, hung around throughout the first half. The Wolverines coughed it up 11 times, and Ayo Dosunmu — who scored 19 firsthalf points — banked home a deep 3-pointer to cut the Illini deficit to 39-34 at the half.

“Our coaches got on us about our turnovers,” said junior point guard Zavier Simpson. “ …

Just told us to pivot better, find the open guy, make the extra pass and just stay disciplined.

With them pressuring, they’re going to try to wear us down.

You’re going to get tired as the game goes on, but it’s important that you just stay mentally disciplined.”

Michigan heeded these words in the second half.

Despite being unable to pull away entirely, the final 20 minutes were a different story, as Dosunmu scored just two points, the Wolverines turned it over just twice and scored 10 points in transition.

They have Simpson — who had 16 points, eight assists, five rebounds and two steals — to thank. In the second half, he hit two key fast-break layups and a 3-pointer with five minutes to play, a crucial stiff-arm after an Illinois three sliced the lead to 63-56.

Beilein stated that Simpson’s

“I got as good a point guard as there is in the country.”

firm hand on the steering wheel allowed Michigan to adapt to the Illini pressure, in spite of most of the Wolverines’ normal offensive sets breaking down.

“The way that Illinois plays, you’re not going to be able to run a lot of plays anyhow, you gotta just get guys in formations and attack,” Beilein said. “As a result, when we did settle down I thought they got the message.

Any other time that they got close — I look at Zavier, and I got as good a point guard as there is in the country running our team.”

Illinois didn’t seriously threaten again.

Michigan, hitting just 65 percent of its foul shots coming into the game, nailed six free throws in the final minute as the Illini resorted to fouling — icing the contest away.

When the buzzer sounded, the Wolverines equaled a historic start at the site of one of the biggest embarrassments of the Beilein era.

And the fashion they did it in — responding to adversity with clutch plays down the stretch — was decidedly not white collar.

THEO MACKIE

Daily Sports Writer

CHAMPAIGN — For 35 minutes on Thursday night at the State Farm Center, Illinois would not go away.

Every time the Michigan men’s basketball team threatened to silence the Fighting Illini, they responded with a pair of stubborn baskets, serving solely to prolong a game with a seemingly inevitable outcome.

Thanks to junior point guard Zavier Simpson, the last of these insurgencies culminated at the 5:26 mark, when a fastbreak basket cut the Illinois deficit to seven. Simpson collected the ball off the ensuing inbounds, calmly dribbling up the court as he typically does before running the Wolverines’ offense.

Only this time, his trip up the court ended just beyond the 3-point line, where he stopped on a dime and fired up an ambitious 3-pointer.

A 26.5 percent 3-point shooter on the season, it seemed like an uncharacteristic mental mistake from Simpson — until the ball splashed through the hoop, grazing nothing but net on its way in and silencing the Illini crowd one last time.

“Any time you hit a three when a team’s chipping back at the lead, I feel

like it’s good,” Simpson said. “I just wanted to step in and just knock it down.”

On a team with five rotation players shooting over 33 percent from deep, Simpson might have been the last player expected to ice the game with a three. But that ability to get contributions no matter who it turned to is what allowed Michigan to overcome a strong Illinois performance and win, 79-69.

Just 36 seconds into the game, redshirt junior forward Charles Matthews bowled into an Illini defender, committing his first foul of the evening. Wolverines coach John Beilein responded by turning to his bench, glancing over his options, and summoning sophomore forward Isaiah Livers.

It’s a luxury that Beilein hasn’t had in nearly two weeks, but Livers took full advantage on Thursday, opening the scoring with a jumper from the elbow and scoring seven of Michigan’s first 17 points.

“We obviously missed him (when he was injured),” Beilein said.

“Especially when Charles (fouled) like 50 seconds into this game. So having Isaiah come over, defend, do different things, and just have him coming off the bench is huge for us. …

NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily

Junior point guard Zavier Simpson was one of five Michigan starters to score in double-digits in a win over Illinois.

We need him on this team, he’s been a real secret to our success.”

After Livers’ initial spurt, Illinois adapted, holding him scoreless for the next 30 minutes. In his stead, Matthews returned with 11 secondhalf points — one of five Wolverines to finish in double figures.

Junior center Jon Teske was Michigan’s most impressive player for much of the evening, finishing with 13 points and 11 rebounds. When the Illini got within four points early in the second half, Teske — a 21 percent 3-point shooter — was the one who replenished the Wolverines’ advantage with a pick-and-pop three.

Three minutes later, he used a threepoint play to stymie a mini-Illinois run.

Even freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis — flummoxed by the Illini’s high pressure defense early on — finished with 15 points, including six in a four-minute stretch midway through the second half. After an early three, his last three field goals all came inside the paint, as did 42 of Michigan’s 79 points.

“This team has four or five guys that just scare the tar out of you with dribble drive,” said Illinois coach Brad Underwood. “And that causes matchup problems.”

As usual, though, it all ran through Simpson, who added eight assists and just two turnovers to his 16 points.

“Yeah, they didn’t take the ball out of Zavier’s hands,” Underwood said, when asked to explain the Wolverines’ second half offensive improvement.

“Find the open man,” Simpson added. “If they’re personal like that, they’re definitely gonna try to wear you down, get in the gaps. It’s important that your decision making is precise. But at the same time, teams like this, you gotta just go, you gotta just play. … And I feel like we’re a very unselfish team, so if everyone just plays the right way, finds the open man, we’ll get quality shots.”

Ask Beilein and he’ll tell you that it doesn’t matter who those open shots fall to. But the answer from the other sideline might be more revealing.

“I think they showed tonight why they’re such a good basketball team,” Underwood said. “They had everybody in double figures.”