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Last Friday, the Michigan Daily hosted a ‘Story Slam.’ Students, both Daily writers and non-Daily students, submitted their poems, stories, and essays beforehand, and a dozen were able to share their pieces in front of a newsroom full of people. It was the first ever Daily Story Slam, but it was a definite success.

I’ve always loved hearing the random stories of people I barely know. There’s something fascinating about hearing a brief anecdote from a stranger that you’ll probably never really become friends with. It’s the same kind of fascination I get from reading the short ‘Humans of New York’ posts. Every stranger has a rich life of their own that I’ll never know about, but sometimes hearing just a little can make them feel real.

Most of my favorite stories at the Story Slam had a similar tone: wistful and light, with some laughs along the way, but with a strong emotional center. Sam, a guy I remembered from middle school, shared his story about not being traditionally masculine and sucking at sports, but it ended on a note of simple joy as his friend taught him to throw a football. Michael, a very short guy from the Daily, read an essay about how he’d never minded being short despite society’s insistence that it was a shameful thing. And Will shared a story about his late grandfather, who he’d always felt bad about never being close with. He eventually came to realize, though, that since he was close with his own father, he had more than enough paternal love in his life.

Also surprisingly heartwarming was the story of a girl who found out that her frequent friend with benefits, Alex, was gay. She’d brought Alex to the Story Slam, and as she read about him, it was hilarious to see him laughing and blushing. At the story’s conclusion, she walked back to their spot and hugged him tightly. It was so sweet.

There were serious stories. One girl, an editor of the Daily’s great Michigan in Color, shared some of the societal disadvantages being a black woman, and one guy shared a poem about the young black male’s fear of the police. These were strong, too, and in many ways, they’re the stories that are most important for society to hear. In fact, the story that won the prize at the end of the night was about a girl whose friend was killed in a car accident right after high school graduation.

My friend Matt leaned over to me and commented that it’d been his least favorite story of the night, and I agreed. There was something pretentious about how she began; she prefaced her story with a long intro explaining that it wasn’t going to make us laugh or teach us anything. It was real, and it happened to her, and it sucked, and she would never get over it. It was like the girl wanted to convey this image of herself as the blunt, honest girl who took no shit and didn’t try to milk simplistic lessons out of her own experiences. But really, as personal as the story was, what made it inherently ‘more honest’ than Derek’s rambling tale of accidentally being stabbed with an EpiPen?

I think that I might’ve still liked the story the least even if it hadn’t contained those off-putting elements, though. For me personally, no racially charged tirade, no tragic story of loss (as important as it may be) will carry the same simple power as the wistful anecdote, the story that lures you in with self-deprecating jokes and surprises you with its emotional candor. That’s what I came to Story Slam for, and I left more than satisfied.

Last week, I wrote an article praising the show Pushing Daisies. Since I wasn’t able to go into too great depth and since I’m rewatching the show anyways; I figured I could turn it into a series of articles. So every week, I will be watching an episode of Pushing Daisies and reviewing it for the blog. This week is the pilot, “Pie-Lette”. (Clever, right?)

*Spoilers*

Summary:

Since this is the pilot, most of the time of the episode is spent on universe building and exposition. It opens with an explanation of Ned’s (The Piemaker) powers. Ned first learns of his power, at age 9, when his dog, Digby, is hit by car. With one touch, Digby is back to life. He later learns the price of his gift when his mother dies of an aneurysm while baking pies. He brings her back to life and a minute later, his neighbor dies in her place. Unfortunately, this isn’t any neighbor, this is his childhood sweetheart’s, Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, father. More tragedy strikes, though, when his mother tucks him into bed and gives him a kiss on the forehead. This second touch kills her and Ned is no longer able to bring her back to life. After this incident, Ned gets placed into a boarding school and Chuck moves in with her aunts. their separation marked with Ned’s first kiss.

We then fast forward to Ned’s adulthood, where he is the owner and head baker of the Pie Hole, a pie bakery where he brings rotten fruit back to life and uses them for pie filling. Here, we are also introduced to Emerson Codd and Olive Snook. Emerson Codd is a private detective who learns of Ned’s power after he sees Ned accidentally bring back a thief he was chasing. Emerson decides to bring Ned into his business as it is much easier to solve crimes if you can speak to the victim. Olive Snook is a waitress and only other worker at the Pie Hole. She is in love with Ned, but can’t bring herself to make a move.

After our introductions, we see Ned and Emerson in action as they solve a murder. Immediately after, Ned learns of the death of sweetheart Chuck after she was suffocated to death on a cruise ship. This becomes their new case. They meet the thieving funeral director and enter the room that Chuck’s body lies in. After Ned wakes her and find out all he can, he comes to find that he can not touch her a second time and the funeral director dies in her place.

Ned and Chuck head back to Pie Hole and she learns of the new rules of her life, including not being able to touch Ned, not being able to see her aunts, and having to use a pseudonym in public. Chuck becomes disturbed by her new celebrity through her death, but also comes to learn of the $50,000 reward for her killer. This is her first step into the murder-solving business and becoming Emerson and Ned’s new business partner.

With this new partnership, Chuck shares the information that she was only able to pay for the cruise ship by agreeing to smuggle two monkey statuettes in her luggage. When they cross paths with the travel agent that Chuck smuggled for, they find her dead, but bringing her back to life proves futile as she prematurely touches Ned’s cheek and dies again. This leads the detectives to Chuck’s aunt’s house as her luggage (with the monkeys) was sent to her next-of-kin. This is where we are introduced to the aunts for the first time and learn of their history as famous synchronized swimmers, known as The Darling Mermaid Darlings. The murderer knows of the luggage as well and finds Chuck’s aunt, Lily, with the (empty) suitcase after he sneaks into the upstairs. Meanwhile, Ned is busy talking with the other aunt, Vivien, and Chuck attempts to sneak into and out of the house with the monkeys. This all comes to head as Ned heads upstairs, finds the killer, and a seemingly dead Lily. Ned is saved as Lily springs up with a shotgun and takes out the killer.

Pros:

– Everything in this episode is beautiful. The universe is bright and colorful and the settings are amazingly unique.

– The storytelling is engaging and the exposition dumps are enjoyable as it follows the rule of “show don’t tell”.

– The humor still works after multiple viewings.

– The characters are incredibly interesting and their interactions feel natural while also being fun to watch.

Cons:

– This is clearly a pilot that was made to convince producers of the marketability, not made for the television.

– This episode is largely expositional, so it can be dragging to watch if you’re not engaged by the nature of the show.

– This episode does create some small, inconsequential plot holes since this episode was not necessarily created for TV.

– The introductions to characters seem rushed. It would’ve been nice to make the show into a two-parter and only introduced Chuck at the end of the first part. This would have allowed us to better understand the relationships between Ned, Emerson, and Olive.

Overall:

While this episode is great and a wonderful introduction to the series, it does have many problems that make it less than perfect. This mostly comes from the previously mentioned fact that this is clearly a pilot that was created to convince producers. If you do not know, often a show will be asked to create a pilot that will be viewed by producers. From this pilot, they judge if they want to put the show on the network. Often times, this pilot becomes the first episode of the series. This damages the episode as Bryan Fuller had to explain too much of the universe’s rules in under half-an-hour. In addition to this, Fuller tried to create a completely self-contained narrative in the single episode, which only separates it from the rest of the series and creates plot holes. While this episode is great, it cannot be considered one of the best of the series.

Rating:

7/10 Daisies

 

Do you remember that guy who in seventh grade you had the biggest crush on? He was older and way out your league. He was friends with your brother, so you’d seen him at your house a couple of times. Each time you were terrified that he might notice you and you would have to talk to him, yet, in those casual glances where his eyes accidentally met yours, the butterflies in your stomach made you feel things that you were ill equipped to understand or describe. Each fleeting glance you shared made you long to grow older and into a woman who could hold her own against such an unfathomable force. And you did. You caught his attention and for a brief moment you held it, but before it ever truly began it was over. The world seemed to play out in front of you in shades of gray, dull and dreary in comparison to the world of color that he alone could show you. You were devastated because for a moment, you had the man of your dreams, but were left with nothing.

For me, that man was André Previn.

At this point, I expect everyone that is reading this blog to be thoroughly confused. For those who know who André Previn is, you have correctly assumed that he was not friends with my brother, we did not go to middle school together and that I have never met him. For everyone else: André Previn is an eighty-six year old German-American composer that I quickly became enamored with four years ago during my freshman year of college. After hearing Ariel Halt win the Concerto Competition by singing Previn’s Honey and Rue, I was obsessed. I downloaded every CD of his music and sat for hours in the music library pouring over scores, feeling and loving the music he created because it touched me in a way that no other composer had. I flipped through the pages of the scores, never daring to check one out of the library, because I knew that I was not ready to sing his music – I was not a mature enough artist or technically skilled musician to turn the notes on the page into the music he desired – and so I waited.

Finally, I was ready. I learned every piece, except for one, that he wrote for soprano – knowing full well I would not have the opportunity to perform them. I reveled in the time I spent learning the strange intervals and negotiating the tuneful melodies barraged by an accompaniment determined to corrupt them. Yet I saved one, my favorite, for my final performance on the Hill Auditorium stage and my final shot at the Concerto Competition: The Magic Number.

Two months ago I dared to begin learning the notes which filled the twenty some pages of the piano-vocal score. I began to memorize, section by section, the 17 minute long piece. With no recording to prepare me for the sounds that the piano would make or how desperately it would try to pull me off pitch, I entered each coaching terrified and left with stars and circles covering my music but with a lightness and joy in my head and heart. For the first time in my life I had fallen in love with a piece of music.

Monday this world was shattered. I discovered that Previn had pulled all copies of the published orchestral score and so that performing The Magic Number with orchestra would be impossible. I was devastated. It was more than the stress of having to find, memorize and perfect another twenty minute piece with less than a month before the concerto competition, it was losing a piece of music that had become such a part of my life that I couldn’t imagine carrying on without it.

I am aware of how incredibly melodramatic I am being. Yet, there is a part of me that cannot help but long to hear the colors and textures of an orchestra playing The Magic Number, summoning up feelings that I do not know how to express other than by singing. But it’s over – the piece has been pulled from publishing and I have no choice but to move on. Previn broke up with me, so it’s time to start a new love affair.