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The 2022 Booker Prize: Reviews and predictions by the Michigan Daily Book Review

MICHIGAN DAILY BOOK REVIEW

The Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in fiction. Getting the nomination at all is a feat in and of itself; getting onto the shortlist and winning cements an author’s place in literary history. This year, 13 books were longlisted for the prize, with only six making the shortlist — those under consideration for winning the overall prize.

Luckily for our readers, in keeping with tradition, the Michigan Daily Book Review has read and reviewed all of the nominated books. Among them are the youngest author ever nominated, the oldest author ever nominated, the shortest book ever nominated and a debut novel. Here are our thoughts on the finalists of 2022.

Our projected winner: “Glory” by NoViolet Bulawayo

Our longlisted underdog: “Nightcrawling” by Leila Mottley

THE SHORTLIST “Glory” by NoViolet Bulawayo

NoViolet Bulawayo’s “Glory” is nothing short of a masterpiece. It follows the downfall of a dictatorship in the fictional African country of Jidada, in which the 40-year reign of Old Horse comes to an end in a violent coup d’etat (inspired by an actual 2017 coup in Zimbabwe). Though every character in the novel is an animal, the struggles and conflicts in the novel feel as real as the events they’re inspired by. Bulawayo’s novel operates within its own vast mythos and cultural legacy, which is slowly built upon by various references to Jidada’s rich albeit complicated past as a former colony. The novel is a negotiation between this colonialist past and a future as an independent nation. Bulawayo communicates these themes in a multitude of ways, but her use of language throughout the novel is perhaps the most striking; words and phrases are repeated with a steady rhythm, until they gain an emotional resonance in the reader’s mind, reminiscent of poetry. Bulawayo unflinchingly examines the question of how we can overcome traumatic legacies and pick up the pieces to forge our own paths.

“Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan

At 116 pages, “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan is the shortest book ever nominated for the Booker Prize. Don’t let its size fool you; the book is quiet and contemplative but stands out with its exposure of a tragic reality that threatens to rock the Irish town of New Ross. Set in 1985, the book follows Bill Furlong, a coal merchant who lives a good life with his wife and five daughters.

“Small Things Like These” is the story of a hardworking man and a choice that could alter his life forever. In a way, the book is simple. Even Keegan’s prose is simple; the book is filled with descriptions of Furlong’s work and home environment and the coldness of Ireland around Christmastime. But that’s not to say it doesn’t pack an emotional punch.

“Small Things Like These” is a worthy Booker finalist, but it probably won’t win.

“The Trees” by Percival Everett

Grounded in mystery and intrigue, steeped in bitter dark humor, Percival Everett’s “The Trees” combines the Guggenheim- and Creative Capital fellowship-awarded author’s signature engaging and pleasurable prose with a side of scathing social commentary. “The Trees,” rife with twists and turns, takes place in the small town of Money, Mississippi. Sixty-seven years after the brutal murder of Emmett Till, a series of killings, eerily similar to Till’s, arise.

Gut-wrenching, acerbic and willing to go to the unseemly places we would rather ignore, “The Trees” is both highly deserving of its spot on the shortlist and a top contender for the Booker prize.

“The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Shehan Karunatilaka

“The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Shehan Karunatilaka delivers a biting satire on the human condition, rich with colorful visuals, cutting sardonic humor and existential contemplation. Set in 1990, as the ruthless decades-long Sri Lankan civil war rages, Karunatilaka introduces the readers to a protagonist whose lifestyle and behavior casts him as an outsider, an unrelatable deviant murdered for trying to uncover the truth. What unfolds is a familiar murder mystery whodunit but with a twist of magical realism that skews the line between real and fake. “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” offers what a good book should — a delicious page-turner that will keep you thinking even after the cover closes. “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” most assuredly deserves its spot on the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize.

“Treacle Walker” by Alan Garner

In “Treacle Walker,” an ordinary boy named Joe makes a bizarre transaction that enables him to see and experience the most peculiar things. It’s a surrealist novel, whimsical and full of oddities. Garner’s writing is incredibly spare, and its mysterious silences cause the reader to lean into the story, rapturously hanging onto every word and treasuring the dollops of pure wisdom and truth that make this novel compelling. There are certain phrases that are repeated throughout the novel, like “What sees is seen,” “I heal all things; save jealousy,” and “Can’t never did.” In this little book, Garner powerfully communicates his many insights about the world. “Treacle Walker” is a book you could read over and over again and still see something new every time.

“Oh William!” by Elizabeth Strout

In Elizabeth Strout’s third installation following Lucy Barton, the author’s ability to invigorate the complexities of life into her characters and narratives shines through better than ever before. Lucy, a writer softly in tune with the world’s emotions around her, is wrapped back into the world of her complicated ex-husband. He is perhaps the only aspect of the world she cannot unravel, and is an on-again, off-again friend for reasons she cannot explain; really, the two act as magnets of mysticism to each other despite the juxtaposition of their characters. As the most recent indulgence of the pair and central plot of the novel, William ropes Lucy into a long winded trip to co-investigate his discovery of a life-altering family secret.

It is not surprising that “Oh William!” is a Booker shortlist nominee: Strout offers a tender, intimate look into the angst, fears, insecurities and existential mysteries life has to offer, along with the lonely joys and beautiful imperfections that make it worthwhile.

THE LONGLIST “After Sappho” by Selby Wynn Schwartz

“After Sappho,” author Selby Wynn Schwartz’s debut novel, is the kind of book you can open to any page and find something beautiful: “scry the marvelous new thing that will grace and harrow your life,” “the world was made of threads humming into place,” “just outside time or subject, wistful in colour, its edges tinged with foreboding.” Written as a series of short vignettes of just a few paragraphs at a time, labeled by character and year, this book is best read like a collection of poetry: in small doses focused on language and unconcerned with plot. Schwartz loosely traces the lives of iconic Sapphic women, from the very famous Colette and Virginia Woolf to the lesser-known Lina Poletti and Sarah Bernhardt, as they loved other women and made strides in feminism and art. But the book is not a biography; Schwartz herself describes it in the bibliographic endnote as “a hybrid of imaginaries and intimate nonfictions.” She takes on the voice of a Greek chorus in a tragedy as they follow Queer women through time and offer interludes of Sappho’s poetic fragments.

While “After Sappho” deserves its place on the longlist for its attention to historic detail and poetic language, its sometimesconfusing timeline and narrative — clarity on which are often sacrificed to the altar of making the book sound pretty — mean it sits comfortably off of the shortlist.

“Trust” by Hernan Diaz

“Trust” has fantastic writing but is a disappointing concept novel. Composed of four chapters written as excerpts of other books, Diaz’s debut samples literature written in an alternate 20th century America. Each sample stacks neatly on top of each other in one conveniently-themed book jacket. They are written from a different perspective (with a corresponding new writing style and skill level) revolving around the topic of money and the life of one Wall Street tycoon. But the stories carry few points of continuity and, at its base construction, the book is a hamfisted consideration about how truth, myth and memory are formed — a tragically haphazard copy-and-paste of gorgeous short stories and gimmicky narratives. The second story, stylized as a half-complete manuscript, was written with no narrative purpose besides existing as a prolonged example of the many discarded biographies mentioned in a later story. Instead of being excited by the gimmick, I found it twee and embarrassing. Much like the “Bojack Horseman” character Vincent Adultman (the nom de plume of three kids masquerading in a trench coat), the novel wears the veneer of a cohesive story without being a unified treatise.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

‘Frozen,’ fairy tales and my fascination with tragedy

LOLA D’ONOFRIO Daily Arts Contributor

It was 2013. I was going to see “Frozen.”

At 10 years old, I had been brewing in a lukewarm stew of stories with true love and happy endings for as long as I could remember. I followed my family into the movie theater feeling like a total fairy tale movie expert.

The premise of “Frozen” is simple: Two princesses grow up as best friends but drift apart after Elsa (Idina Menzel, “Rent”) accidentally injures Anna (Kristen Bell, “The Good Place”) with her magical ice powers. Years later, during a tense confrontation, Elsa accidentally freezes Anna’s heart, a curse that will prove fatal if not broken by an act of true love. It’s an uncomplicated story about forgiveness and emotional vulnerability.

Watching “Frozen” in the theater for the first time, I settled comfortably into my seat as soon as the first musical number began. I knew how this was going to play out: Elsa would worry, Anna would hope and the curse would be broken by the end. I was enjoying myself, but I wasn’t thrilled.

The climax of the film reached its peak and I watched calmly as Anna raced through a blizzard toward her love interest, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff, “Glee”). A true love’s kiss was imminent, and the curse would be broken. Then, suddenly, just moments from salvation, Anna spots Elsa about to be struck by a sword. I remember the surprise I felt when she diverted her path to protect her sister.

As Anna reached toward the blade, the curse took effect. She froze.

The sword shattered against her hand. A final breath of air drifted from her frozen lips. Everything fell silent. I was stunned.

My decade of princess education had not prepared me for this. Anna was dead. All was lost.

I watched with terrific fascination as Elsa rose and stumbled to her sister, sobbing against her lifeless form. The snow hung in the air.

There was a vague shuffle from the audience. My younger sister’s small face was crumpled in confusion — this wasn’t supposed to happen. The princesses were always happy in the end. I was as lost as everyone else. But I loved it.

This was the first time a movie had made me feel something complicated. I wasn’t just scared or sad. I was stumped. I couldn’t think of a way the story could move forward.

“Frozen” does have a happy ending. Anna’s block of the sword is the act of true love that saves her from the curse. She thaws shortly after my newfound favorite princess movie scene concludes and everything wraps up rather neatly. But I didn’t think about the gentle resolution as I walked out of the theater. What stuck with me was how I felt at the film’s darkest moment.

It was that feeling you get when you drop something and it shatters. A feeling of irreversible loss. That feeling has a name: tragedy.

After “Frozen,” I devoted myself to it.

I gravitated toward my family’s older DVDs, “kid” movies with moments of unabashed tragedy like “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Bambi.” I lost myself in books like “Little Women” and melodramatic musicals like “Les Misérables.” I was surprised and thrilled that so many disastrous stories existed.

I began to wonder why so many people are drawn to tragedy. Life is hard enough. Why would anyone ever want to compound that feeling? To me, kind-hearted characters who get much worse than they deserve are consistently fascinating; they make stories feel real. As much as we may love fairy tales and happy endings, real life tends to be messier. It’s thrilling to consume art as rich and textured and confusing as reality. I am drawn to a wide variety of tragedies these days.

Doomed romances leave me thinking hard about regret and melancholy. I often return to the sentimental first romantic encounter in “La La Land,” reveling in how the colors and music parallel the movie’s devastating final sequence.

Fantastical stories like “Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” also have a special place in my heart because of their fundamental themes of destruction and chaos. My favorite example of this is “Revenge of the Sith,” which essentially reads like a Shakespearean tragedy. I can spend hours talking about how director George Lucas (“Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope”) connects political and interpersonal machinations in such a way that our heroes are left to become the worst versions of themselves.

Slice-of-life movies that feel extremely rooted in reality are another one of my favorite vessels for tragedy. In “The Florida Project,” there is no villain. It is societal failure that sends our characters spiraling into poverty and despair. “Licorice Pizza” is another one of my villainless favorites, which focuses on how earnest desires for love and acceptance often erode morality.

Biopics and real-world stories also have a huge capacity for

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

This image is from the official trailer for “Frozen” distributed by Walt Disney Animation Studios.

‘Black Adam’ claims to be the dawn of a new day for DC — but can it deliver?

MAYA RUDER Daily Arts Contributor

I speak on behalf of all superhero movie fans when I say: We’re getting impatient. Recent storylines feel contrived, productions appear fatuous and characters lack their previous charm. It seems we’re on the verge of a breakup with the superhero craze. Perhaps we want different things — maybe it’s time we see other people.

But we haven’t given up yet. Enter “Black Adam,” the highly anticipated DC Extended Universe blockbuster that will debut Oct. 21. Starring Dwayne Johnson (“DC League of Super-Pets”) in the titular role, “Black Adam” is the first movie to tell the story of one of DC Comics’s most powerful antiheroes. Tapping into darker material has worked in DC’s favor before — “The Batman” (2022) was well-received by audiences and praised by critics for its psychological portrayal of Bruce Wayne in the form of a neo-noir thriller. Like “The Batman,” “Black Adam” walks the blurred line between good and evil without being anchored to the origin story of its eponym.

In a virtual college roundtable with The Michigan Daily on Oct. 6, Johnson, actors Pierce Brosnan (“Goldeneye”), Aldis Hodge (“Green Lantern: Beware My Power”), Noah Centineo (“To All the Boys” trilogy), Quintessa Swindell (“Master Gardener”), Sarah Shahi (“Sex/ Life”), Mohammed Amer (“Mo Amer: Mohammed in Texas”) and producers Hiram Garcia (“DC League of Super-Pets”) and Beau Flynn (“Red Notice”) discussed their new film.

Brosnan said with sincerity, “Every day was a joy to go to work with my fellow actors here, and we really did become a family.” The word “family” was thrown around numerous times during the panel as each member of the cast expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to be part of such a harmonious team. The cast’s playful camaraderie was impossible to miss — the actors were unable to contain their effusive laughter as Hodge explained the story of his animated reaction to receiving the news that he had gotten the role of Hawkman. The stars of “Black Adam” have undeniable chemistry off-screen, a promising indicator of the dynamics we may observe on-screen. Flynn shared, “You kind of have to cross your fingers when casting roles … (but) the minute we saw them together, we knew (it) was a home run.”

Johnson’s remarkably successful Hollywood career has spanned years, a rare feat given that his background is not in acting. But “Black Adam” stands out among his past projects as his first foray into the superhero subgenre, in a role he said was “truly an honor” to play.

Johnson spoke on the driving force behind this story: “We all wanted to make a film that was different and unique in this world of the superhero genre that has been so wildly successful for so many years.” Johnson added that the idea to finally bring Black Adam and the Justice Society to life was intended to usher in “a new era of The DC Universe.” Rather than creating a place for “Black Adam” within the existing hierarchy, the goal of this project was to “(design) a movie that was disruptive” to the patterns of its own genre. Garcia echoed this idea as he spoke on “(delivering something) special for the fans” while creating a film that felt “fresh and (allowed) us to elevate the genre that we’re playing in.” Whether “Black Adam” will make good on its promises of nonconformity remains to be seen.

Though we have another week to wait for the movie to hit the big screen, one thing is certain: Those who made “Black Adam” are proud of it. In a genre that relies heavily on tradition, this film aims to preserve the thrill of a classic superhero story while reimagining the DC vision. With that in mind, I am ready to give “Black Adam” the chance it deserves.

MADDIE AGNE Daily Arts Writer

On Feb. 4, 2016, “Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime” premiered on BuzzfeedBlue. Originally hosted by Ryan Bergara, the show’s creator, and Brent Bennett until Shane Madej took over for Bennett in late 2016, the first season of “Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime” was closely followed by the premiere of “Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural.” Both shows became almost immediate sensations. Within two years the Buzzfeed Unsolved Network was established to house everything Unsolved, and as of 2021 the shows had pulled a combined 1.3 billion views and over 16.6 billion minutes of watch-time. While typically staged as an armchair detective show with a presentation of a case and evidence, Bergara and Madej would also venture to locations where the episode’s central event had occurred. Much of “Buzzfeed Unsolved”’s success is owed to the high production quality of the show, the entertaining and well-researched presentation of cases and the chemistry between Bergara and Madej, a supernatural believer and a skeptic, respectively.

However, all good things must come to an end. Recently, Bergara, Madej and Steven Lim — another now-ex-Buzzfeed employee — left Buzzfeed to found their digital production studio Watcher Entertainment. They exited on a wave of other creators in a Buzzfeed mass exodus, with Bergara citing a desire for “other creative opportunities” and “actual ownership of the content we make” that they would not have had with Buzzfeed. Bergara and Madej kept contracts with Buzzfeed to finish “Unsolved” in 2021, before leaving to produce content on the Watcher YouTube channel. At the time of writing, Watcher has amassed 2.27 million subscribers and has produced 15 shows, including “Dish Granted” in which Lim cooks lavish meals for friends, “Puppet History” in which a puppet host retells stories from history, “Too Many Spirits” where Bergara and Madej get increasingly drunk while reading audience-submitted ghost stories and, most recently, “Ghost Files.” “Ghost Files” is essentially Watcher’s version of “Buzzfeed Unsolved,” but it is the fully-fledged older brother of the original — it’s the show “that I (Ryan) wanted to make.” “Ghost Files” follows virtually the same format as “Buzzfeed Unsolved” — Bergara presents Madej with a supernatural case of some kind, and the two explore the evidence and explanations together in armchair detective fashion. Each episode since the show’s premiere on Sept. 23 has also seen Bergara and Madej explore the corresponding supernatural locations to attempt contacting whatever is haunting the sites. Where “Unsolved” was rooted mainly in history and folklore, however, “Ghost Files” pulls evidence and anecdotes from audience members and uses these to shape the investigation. In the first episode, Bergara and Madej visited Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the supposedly haunted tuberculosis hospital they also explored during their time at Buzzfeed. Revisiting the same location may seem like beating a dead horse, but it actually allows audiences to see where “Ghost Files” excels and shines in comparison to its predecessor.

The production quality of “Buzzfeed Unsolved” was always top notch for a YouTube show, but “Ghost Files” takes this quality to new heights. The office in which the presentation segments are filmed is industrially outfitted to truly resemble an underground bunker, whereas the “Unsolved” set looked more like a detective’s office from a noir film. During investigations on site, Bergara and Madej are still kitted with lights, camera and gimbals when not handling other equipment, but now they wear matching colors, green and orange, and “Watcher” branded clothes that offer the look of a cohesive team and production rather than two dudes in their plainclothes. There is also more team involvement in an episode of “Ghost Files” than in “Buzzfeed Unsolved” — the audience now catches glimpses of the team during on-site investigations, and they occasionally engage in dialogue with the hosts which adds to the feeling that this is a fully-fledged production. Of course these changes are largely aesthetic and surfacelevel, but even minute changes like matching clothes gives “Ghost Files” a sophistication that I didn’t even realize “Buzzfeed Unsolved” lacked. This time around, Bergara and Madej have produced something that feels like a real television show without the restrictions that a television show poses (namely being allowed to say “fuck”).

In the same vein, the investigation quality has also improved in “Ghost Files.” I mentioned before that “Buzzfeed Unsolved” took a slightly more historical approach to investigations where “Ghost Files” approaches things more anecdotally, but these elements aren’t necessarily comparable other than to say that “Ghost Files” is able to employ more audience engagement. Nevertheless, this audience engagement allows Bergara and Madej to go more in depth with their investigations on site as they recreate scenarios related by audience members, and the last approximately 10 minutes of each episode is now devoted to each of the hosts going on a solo adventure in their location, which also gives viewers a chance to get each of their unfiltered explorations of the investigation.

Additionally, Bergara and Madej are now using more, and more sophisticated, technology in “Ghost Files.” “Buzzfeed Unsolved” always employed some kind of tech — the spirit box, motion detectors and infrared cameras, to name a few — but it seems that the “Ghost Files” budget is bigger when it comes to equipment. This time we’re playing with pieces like the spirit box-Honeytone combo, which better allows for spirits’ voices to be heard, with REM Pods that create an electromagnetic field and alert users when something enters it and with the Ovilus, which is able to take environmental readings that ghosts manipulate and translate them into words or phonetic sounds. All of these technological improvements add up to an investigation that not only feels more reliable, but far more professional, sophisticated and thought-out than past

This image is from the teaser for “Ghost Files” uploaded to YouTube by Watcher Entertainment. Read more at MichiganDaily.com

SUDOKU

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

Release Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2022 Release Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis Edited by Patti Varol and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS ACROSS 1 Homes in 1 Creature in the

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ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

10/26/22 10/19/22

By Baylee Devereaux By Doug Peterson & Christina Iverson ©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC ©2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 10/26/22 10/19/22

WHISPER WHISPER

“Why did Sally fall off the swing?” “She had no arms. Happy Halloween.”

Cover art for “Liberation Day” owned by Penguin Random House.

An interview with Booker Prize winner George Saunders, author of ‘Liberation Day’

JULIAN WRAY Books Beat Editor

In his new collection of short stories, “Liberation Day,” 2017 Booker Prize winner George Saunders flexes his talent for writing the human perspective. As readers, we’re often shown distorted, or at least incomplete, narratives — from wiped memories to multiple points of view, the narrators of Saunders’s latest work rarely tell the whole story. And they’re all the more human for it.

In an email interview with The Michigan Daily, Saunders wrote about his approach to these conceptual narratives. He pointed out one story in the collection, “Elliot Spencer,” which is written from the perspective of a man who has had his memory wiped.

“I just thought: I wonder what a person would sound like if you wiped out everything in their brain and made them start over,” Saunders wrote. “And that was challenging and fun, and as I tried to find and refine that voice, the world appeared and the story started getting told, in that voice.”

Saunders’s characters are often linked to or are even reflections of their environment. Like much of his work, the stories in this collection tend toward the speculative: In the titular story, we read of people known as “Speakers” who are bound to a wall and launch into vocal performances like a sort of sentient instrument when given prompts from a man at a computer.

But the tone of the collection is easy and light. One character tries to reassure the Speakers: “There are many of us who see this thing for the monstrous excess it is. You’re human beings. You are … help is coming. It is. Soon.”

They’re unfazed. “Lauren and Craig and I exchange looks of: Wow, thanks, adult son Mike, we did not know, until you just now told us, that we are human beings.”

That tone, and the personableness of the narrators, helps the reader ease into even the strangest settings. These worlds are so naturally constructed, with their exposition sprinkled through the narration of their characters.

“The main thing is to keep yourself in the mindset of the character — don’t let her tell the reader anything that feels unnatural for her to be thinking,” Saunders writes. “Just like now, we don’t think, ‘Clive took out his cellphone — a small digital communications device — and called Sally.’ So, the world gets built naturally when you try to think like a person in that time and space.”

Even in the most extreme situations — like an amusement park in an underground bunker, with a suspiciously rigid set of social codes — Saunders’s character-first world building never feels artificial. And while there are certainly political or cultural themes baked into these worlds, the author says these ideas arise naturally in his process.

“My method is to write, mostly by sound and humor, and then rewrite endlessly until something starts to take shape,” Saunders writes. “I do almost no pre-thinking or planning of the ‘What do I want to say?’ variety. I’m writing, really, to find out what I will say.”

In reading “Liberation Day,” you feel much of this spontaneity, and therefore closeness, with the characters. As the reader, we’re not living in an underground amusement park, we’re living in the head of the person assigned to play Squatting Ghoul #3 in that park. So of course we’d be served soup with a single KitKat for dinner. And of course we’d dutifully participate in the public beating of a coworker who misbehaved.

It’s this absorption that gives Saunders’s short stories such impact. And visceral effect is his intention.

“I’m guessing that something got into my head about the way social media is mastering us,” Saunders wrote, “injecting us with agendalaced opinions that we then mistake for our own, and so on — but if that’s all I wanted to say … I could’ve just said that, you know? So I see my goal as being similar to that of a roller-coaster designer: I am trying to make something that will give the reader such a thrill that, for a few minutes after, she’s just sort of happily stunned and quiet.”

To young writers, Saunders offers some advice: “It really is all about rewriting … Instead of thinking of rewriting as ‘fixing problems,’ I think of it as chance after chance to get more of myself into the story. I think of revising as being a little like that bit in ‘The Matrix’ where time slows down during a fight. We get a chance to look at the events of the story with more care and curiosity than in real life, where everything is always happening so fast.”

“Liberation Day” is now on sale. Saunders will be in Ann Arbor on Oct. 28 to speak at First United Methodist Church, in an event organized by Literati Bookstore.

Ann Arbor Eats brings local food to students and novelty to an oversaturated influencer scene

KAYA GINSKY Daily Arts Writer

The Instagram account Ann Arbor Eats pulled me from my complex distrust for food accounts into a new city’s food scene. As I continue to eat through Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor Eats guides me every step and bite of the way.

As shown by my long-defunct, pun-ridden Instagram, I was a pre-teen foodie. After years of proving that every meal I ate looked perfect, I realized I had lost some of the joy of tasting and sharing a meal. My cronut obsession and table-reorganization habit were not worth some hundred followers and a few friends commenting empty “yums.” I fell into a pit of shame. Food Instagrams democratized the exclusive world of food reviewing and reporting. They soon came to represent waiting in line for overhyped desserts, neglecting diverse local food for “trends” or advertising unattainable “clean” eating. Today, with the fear of being “cheugy” and trying too hard to be trendy, people aspire to an effortless yet effortful posting standard. “Foodie” pages thrive off of impossible aesthetics, long lines and yearning audiences that want their picture-perfect food (though it is just perfect in the picture).

In a cynical future, people think of Instagram hype rather than eating for the sake of eating. Yet, as I walked into Ann Arbor hungry for new experiences outside of the few standard recommendations and microwave college eats, I looked to Ann Arbor Eats. They showed me a diverse array of foods from every culture, not focused on aesthetics and cherishing the unique stories and offerings of each vendor. Their Instagram inspired me to explore Ann Arbor beyond the surface.

In 2018, five years after Ann Arbor Eats’ last post, Jordy Richman, a 2020 LSA graduate, took over the account for an alum cousin. At the time, the page had around 1,000 followers and nothing distinguishing it from the oversaturated world of food Instagram. Richman saw an opportunity to explore the Ann Arbor food world and take students along on her journey.

Inspired by her sister, the founder of now-massive Nashville Eats, Richman informed partnerships with local culinary businesses. These partnerships allowed Jordy to find new Ann Arbor favorites and learn from unique entrepreneurs.

Ann Arbor Eats shows off new finds and hidden (to students) local favorites: massive spreads at the new downtown Evergreen Modern Chinese and Bar, action-packed popups at YORK Food and Drink, glittering cocktails at The Last Word and fresh seasonal specialties at Juicy Kitchen. The account features Ann Arbor classics of all cuisines framed in a new, celebratory light. A recent TikTok takes viewers behind the scenes of Zingerman’s Bakehouse and rainbows of Bahn mi and pho or call us to Ginger Deli. Close-up shots make Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger look like fine dining and snaps of Blank Slate Creamery ice cream flight photos display unique local flavors.

The 2022 account administrators, LSA juniors Jenna Frieberg and Lila Rubenstein, now post daily and keep a “master calendar” of openings, events, festivals and meals with restaurant teams. Frieberg searches local websites to keep constant tabs on community happenings. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Frieberg discussed the world waiting for students to explore. “If you try for maybe 30 minutes, you can dig into a hole of … crazy local chefs (that) all follow each other,” Frieberg said. “Our main goal is … connecting students like us with the Ann Arbor community … switching up from … the typical restaurants everyone goes to.”

Starting in 2018, Richman contacted Ann Arbor businesses offering promotional packages of stories, posts and business-specific content. She provided follower demographics (with an estimated 90% of followers living in Ann Arbor) and an explanation of the account mission before requesting a comped meal. Especially during the pandemic, as small businesses fell behind, the comped meal concept grew increasingly controversial. However, this system allowed each Ann Arbor Eats influencer to explore the menu and showcase their and the chef’s favorite dishes. With the comped meal, they can capture a variety of content and get their classic full-spread aerial photos and close-up pictures of favorites. “At first … maybe half of the restaurants were interested, or maybe even less,” Richman said in a phone interview with The Daily. “As more and more time has gone on, and they’ve seen … the impacts of our account … Jenna and Lila have probably worked with a large majority,” Richman said.

Richman first spread the account through Facebook groups for each college class. “(Freshmen) were a big area where we’d get followers,” Richman said. “Because everyone was excited to see … where they can eat on campus when they arrive and all that fun stuff.” Since its revival in 2018, the account has gained over 22 thousand followers and a trusting fanbase. “It comes from … the consistent posting,” Rubenstein said. “We post daily. And we have a lot of content and we find new places that no one else has really heard of before, it makes people more intrigued to follow the account.”

The account is never monotonous, with thousands of posts, hundreds of dishes, dozens of local business features and creative photos with clever captions. Ann Arbor Eats attends every popup, grand opening and special event in the Ann Arbor scene. They have expanded beyond restaurants into the interconnected world of local food vendors, including farmers at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, chefs at the traveling Bao Boys food truck and artisan entrepreneurs at Bon Bon Bon Chocolates. “It’s a whole world,” Frieberg said. “We’re just starting to even scratch the surface.”

Photos courtesy of Ann Arbor Eats

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Food Column: Baking Taylor Swift’s chai cookies is a Swiftie rite of passage

HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI & SABRIYA IMAMI Senior Arts Editor and Managing Arts Editor

Expectations Hannah Carapellotti, Senior Arts Editor

As a self-professed Swiftie, I can’t believe I haven’t tried Taylor’s chai cookies before now. I constantly see TikTok videos of people making them and have had the recipe bookmarked on my phone for several weeks, but I haven’t had a true opportunity until today. One thing I’m nervous about is the chai. I’m not a big tea drinker — I don’t understand the hype, if I’m being honest — so I’ll be curious to see how strongly the tea leaves will come through in the recipe. Baking is one of those things I do when I’m either looking for something to do with a friend or really in the mood to experiment with a new recipe, and in this case, I’ve got both of those opportunities! I’m ready to jump (then fall) into making these cookies.

Sabriya Imami, Managing Arts Editor

As a self-professed amateur baker, it seems crazy that I haven’t made these cookies yet. I’ve been wanting to for such a long time, but for some reason, I just never went through with it. I think it’s because I was so afraid that I wouldn’t like them — maybe the chai flavor would be too overwhelming, or they wouldn’t be the sugar cookie consistency I’m used to. I just couldn’t bear the idea of not loving Taylor Swift’s recipe … so I just never made them. Ignorance is bliss, right? That being said, I’m finally ready to take this leap (and jump head first, fearless) and make these cookies. It’s Red (Taylor’s Version) season (or as non-Swifties call it, fall), so it only seems right.

The Process

SI: So, the process itself, what happened? I feel like, considering the fact that we made these cookies in your apartment kitchen, with materials that you had in your apartment or that your roommates were letting us use, this went about as well as I could have expected it to go.

HC: The way you just said that makes it sound like this was so not put together well; I bought the flour and sugars that we needed!

SI: I think I was worried that we were going to be scrambling, especially with the chai, so I was thinking, “Oh no, what if this doesn’t turn out well?” But you know what, it did! And they were very good.

HC: Yeah, one of my roommates had a one-pound bag of chai tea that she said I was more than welcome to use. So that was really good because I did not want to spend money on a whole box of tea that I certainly wasn’t going to drink. But the recipe called for us to cut open a tea bag and dump the leaves in there, and we didn’t have that. We just had this one-pound bag. I remember I tried looking up, “how much is in a typical tea bag?” and I couldn’t find a single thing. We also spilled a bunch of powdered sugar.

SI: It happens. That’s life. That’s the life of a baker. Have you seen “Bake Off?” Anyway, I feel like the actual baking was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from baking. We just Taylor Swift-ified it by listening to her music the whole time, and while waiting for the cookie dough to chill, obviously we watched the Reputation Stadium Tour, because why would we not? I think that really enhanced our experience. Wouldn’t you agree?

HC: I would 100% agree. And I mean, it was a perfect excuse to watch the Reputation Stadium Tour again.

SI: Not that we need an excuse to watch it again.

HC: Correct. We also burned the bottoms of the cookies.

SI: Oh, I forgot about that. I think it’s because there was no parchment paper.

HC: Probably. I didn’t even think about that! That was the one thing we didn’t have.

SI: The bottoms looked so burnt that I was wondering, “oh no, are these going to taste burnt on the bottom and raw otherwise?” But they didn’t even taste burnt; the consistency was right. It’s basically just a sugar cookie recipe, and they tasted how sugar cookies are supposed to taste.

HC: The recipe said to bake the cookies for, what, 10 or 12 minutes? So we took them out and they still looked like the balls that we’d rolled them into.

SI : Raw. Yeah, and you almost burned yourself.

HC: Oh my god, I did! I was flattening them with the spatula and almost touched the side of the super-hot tray.

SI: So I guess that’s one thing I’d make sure to do next time, is to flatten them into little discs before putting them in the oven so that you don’t almost burn yourself.

HC: Or just take them out when you’re supposed to take them out. We put them back in for another, like, five minutes because we thought they weren’t done, and then we flattened them and they were fine.

SI: And they tasted very much like fall, which I think was exactly what we were hoping for.

HC: Yeah, I agree.

SI: And the icing really made them look good. Very cinnamon-y, very nutmeg-y. I could have eaten a bowl of just that, even though that would have been probably disgusting because of all the powdered sugar.

HC: No, that was me cleaning up! We had started by just drizzling the cookies with frosting, and then I dipped them all instead and we had the perfect amount for all two dozen cookies. And then there was still a little bit for me to scoop out and eat on a spoon.

SI: I don’t even think there were any big mishaps besides the bottoms burning, and even that wasn’t that big of a deal.

HC: Yeah, I don’t think so.

SI: I think this is absolutely something that college kids can replicate in their apartment kitchen.

HC: Yeah, highly recommend it. I think it’s a Swiftie rite of passage.

SI: Agreed! And they’re really easy. It didn’t take us that long. We were making a TikTok at the same time, which maybe extended our actual prep time. But I think if you were to just focus on the cookies, maybe not get distracted by the Taylor Swift songs you’re inevitably listening to in the background, yeah, it would only take you a few minutes.

HC: I still have to edit that TikTok and post it.

Results

HC: All of my roommates tried the cookies, and they said they were “very autumnal.” You and I didn’t really taste the chai when we first tried them, but my roommate, who let us use her chai, said she could.

SI: Oh, so maybe we did it right! Yeah, I think (the chai) added a little bit of like, a lingering flavor in the back, but it wasn’t as at the forefront as I thought it would be. Honestly, you could also make these without the chai and just have it be cinnamon and nutmeg icing, and it’d be just fine.

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‘Barbarian’ is more suspense than spooky

LAURA MILLAR Daily Arts Writer

Almost one month into spooky season, I’ve watched my fair share of horror movies, both new and old. With a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a cast including Bill Skarsgård (a.k.a. Pennywise the dancing clown from the “It” series), “Barbarian” has been on my list since its release in early September.

“Barbarian” follows Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell, “Suspicion”), a young 20-something who rents an Airbnb for a job interview in Detroit. When she arrives, she finds the house occupied by Keith (Skarsgård). The rental is double-booked, and with no other houses or hotels available in the not-so-safe neighborhood, Tess reluctantly decides to stay with stranger Keith after seeing proof of reservation.

As a conscious horror movie viewer, I was immediately skeptical of Keith, as I assumed everyone else in the theater was as well. The context of Skarsgård as Pennywise contributes to this distrust. Will he play another creepy villain? The suspense built from the question of whether Keith has ill intentions drives the first act of the film. His nervous mumbling, in addition to what seems like a repetitive forced display of concern for a young woman in an unsafe neighborhood, seems off, almost as if he’s feigning a show of distress. But his warm demeanor is calming. Skarsgård’s performance is on point — he’s mysterious, concerning and charming all at once. His intentions are later revealed in the film’s best scene.

“Barbarian” is a wild ride unlike most traditional horror films. New characters are introduced midway through, helping to maintain a quick yet suspenseful pace, and the transitions between these new introductions are jarring in a perfect horror movie way. AJ’s (Justin Long, “Dodgeball”) introduction, when he speeds down a California road in a convertible while screamsinging, adds humor to the film at a much-need time, and his role effectively sets in motion a new story arc explored for the remainder of the film.

AJ is an interesting character, one that should be considered the villain of “Barbarian,” even if he’s not technically the “monster.” He’s accused of sexual assault yet seems to take this notice lightly until he realizes it might affect his acting career. He’s wealthy yet blows enough of his money so that hiring a lawyer brings him close to bankruptcy. He sets out to explore the possibility of selling one of his properties — the Airbnb in Detroit. It’s difficult to properly discuss his character without spoiling the story. However, I will say that AJ’s exploration of his so-called guilt is well done. Would AJ reach redemption? There were moments that made me question whether or not I was supposed to feel sorry for him. The way “Barbarian” investigates his wrong-doings adds another layer of suspense — are we supposed to feel sympathy for an awful character like AJ? The film answers that loud and clear in another one of my favorite scenes.

“Barbarian” is a lot of fun, but there are moments where it gets a little dumb. There’s a fine line when it comes to “monsters” in horror. One step too far, and the creature that was supposed to scare you just doesn’t do the job, like the half shark half octopus thing in “Sharktopus.” That’s how I felt about the monster in “Barbarian.” Whenever it was on-screen, I couldn’t help but laugh and feel as though I wasn’t supposed to be laughing. I felt more anxious and scared in moments that involved the typical people in the film, like the reveal of Keith’s intentions and AJ’s potential redemption, than I did in the dark basement of the Airbnb, and that just doesn’t seem right.

I enjoyed “Barbarian” for its humor and suspense more than for its jump scares and dark basement scenes. The film has a strong mix of complex characters that make for a refreshing horror movie, one I would recommend to those looking to get in the Spooky Season spirit without too much of a scare.