Local Color

Sep252006

An Interesting Question

Film critic Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune asks an interesting question while commenting on the weekend box-office victory of that instant classic, Jackass Number Two:

One of those attending [Jackass Number Two] was a coworker here at the Tribune, who was stunned by the amount of anal-related humor and the movie’s undercurrent of homoeroticism. Apparently Mr. Knoxville and Co. think it’s really, really funny to have objects inserted in people’s butts.
And still the question persists: Why did Larry Miller’s theaters – all four of them – find this movie suitable for its customers, but not “Brokeback Mountain”?

Miller, you may recall, had Brokeback pulled from the schedule of his Megaplex Theater chain when he found out it was about gay cowboys.

You ask a lot of questions like this when you live in Utah…

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Aug312006

Quick, Mr. President, Name That Smell!

Being on the edge of what is essentially a dead sea, Salt Lake City is frequently subject to a phenomenon we locals call “lake stink.” It occurs when the wind blows across the Great Salt Lake from the northwest, churning up all the decaying gunk at the bottom of the lake and carrying the resulting odors straight into the city and its surrounding ‘burbs. I kind of like the smell myself, at least in small concentrations; it smells like home to me. But in higher concentrations, it can be rather… disconcerting.

I bring this up because last night, as a weather front moved through the area, there was an unusually powerful lake stink in the air, the strongest I’ve experienced in several years. As it so happens, President Bush was also in town last night, staying overnight in downtown SLC so he could speak to the American Legion convention this morning. I wonder if Dear Leader, safely ensconsed in the marble-floored penthouse of the fanciest hotel in town after his thrilling five-minute ride in from the airport, noticed the stench, and whether he thought someone was playing a prank on him…

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Jun192006

Scene from the Urban Landscape

Walking along Salt Lake’s Main Street here in the heart of downtown, you pass a planter box about every twenty or thirty feet. These things are huge, roughly the size of the bed on a half-ton pickup truck; they each contain a mature tree and usually a nice arrangement of petunias or some other colorful but relatively low-maintenance flower. They’re also capped around their perimeters with a marble ledge about a foot wide, and those ledges are at just about the perfect height for the average-height person to rest their hindquarters. So, let’s review: you’ve got a nice, comfortable, flat surface under a shady tree in the middle of an urban area. What does that get you? That’s right, a perfect invitation for those members of society who are, shall we say, less obligated to be anyplace during the day to park their behinds and watch the world go by. My lunchtime constitutional is not complete unless I get hit up for pocket change at least three times between my office and the next block up. On the days when I’m feeling generous, I pass out whatever coins and small bills I may have; other days, it annoys the hell out of me to be seeing the same old grubby hands attached to the same old pleading faces. And then there are other days…

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Jun012006

You Know You’re From Utah If…

Someone e-mailed the following list of Utah-centricities to me this afternoon and I found it sufficiently amusing to repeat here. Unfortunately for my non-Utah-native readers, it’s pretty esoteric, so I’ve done my best to annotate the really obscure stuff. If you do live outside the Protective Dome that shields Zion from the rest of the world and you want to know what the heck a specific item is all about, just ask in the comments or e-mail me…

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Mar162006

The Last Moviehouse

According to Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune, the old Avalon Theater in South Salt Lake is being converted into a live-music venue. I haven’t been to the Avalon in years — I think the last film I saw there was a documentary called Microcosmos about a decade back — and I didn’t even realize it had closed, which, apparently, it did some time ago. Still, I mourn its passing. If I’m not mistaken, the Avalon’s repurposing leaves the Tower as the only single-screen theater still operating in the Salt Lake Valley. And I find that terribly sad.

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Jan172006

Larry Miller: The People’s Censor?

A couple of things came up in the comment-area discussion on my previous entry that inspired me to go back and re-read the Tribune‘s coverage of this whole Brokeback Mountain mess. For the record, let’s take note of something from the Trib‘s very first article about the cancellation:

In an interview with KCPW-FM reporter Jonathan Brown, which was taped Thursday afternoon and aired Friday, Miller said booking a movie like “Brokeback Mountain” was a business decision.
“It’s something that I have to let the market speak to some degree,” Miller told Brown. “I don’t think I’m qualified to be the community censor.”

 

However, Brown said Friday that Miller was unaware of the storyline of “Brokeback Mountain” – about two Wyoming cowboys who maintain a hidden romance for two decades – until Brown described it to him Thursday, less than two hours before the schedule change was announced.

So Larry doesn’t think he’s qualified to be the community censor… until he hears that the movie is about fags. Then suddenly, for reasons that still remain unexplained, he acquires whatever qualification one needs to assume the role he just said he wouldn’t take. Interesting. I think we can all safely guess at what that qualification happens to be; it begins with an “h” and ends with “phobia.”

I think Bugs Bunny said it best: what a maroon.

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Jan172006

Miller’s Folly

Sometimes it’s not easy, living in Utah.

My home state is scenically beautiful, it has an interesting history and a pleasantly varied climate, and for a relatively small city, Salt Lake actually boasts a disproportionately (and surprisingly) large number of cultural amenities. But the rest of the world never seems to talk about these things. No, when you hear about Utah in the national press or popular culture, it’s always something to do with polygamy or green Jello or the eccentricities of the predominant local faith. Or it’s something ugly and embarassing like the current flap over Larry H. Miller yanking the acclaimed film Brokeback Mountain from the schedule of his Megaplex theaters because it was too gay for his tastes.

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Jan012006

Random Observations on the Cusp of the New Year

You know, for all the build-up the holiday season receives, it certainly always seems to end on an abrupt note. Think about it — for weeks and weeks and weeks, people are decorating, shopping, cooking, and otherwise preparing, and then, come New Year’s Eve, it all ends in just a matter of seconds. The clock strikes twelve, the ball drops, somebody kisses Dick Clark, and it’s all over with. If you’re lucky enough to be at a good party, the festivities may continue for a couple of hours, but that’s just inertia and wishful thinking, right? The genuine propulsive energy of the season all evaporates at midnight and, come first light, the tinsel looks as outdated as muttonchop sideburns. I don’t know about you guys out there in the InternetLand, but the end of the holidays strikes me as a huge anti-climax.

Not that I’m especially bummed to see the holiday season end this year. As I mentioned the other day, I’ve had a hard time catching the Christmas Spirit this year. Even though I sound like a colossal grinch for saying so, it really is a relief to have it finished for another eleven months. Still… I will miss the lights. I always do when the Christmas season ends. I love driving around and seeing all the houses and trees and lampposts wrapped and illuminated by strands of red, blue, and green bulbs. It makes everything seem… quaint. And it makes me a little sad when those lights aren’t there anymore. There’s always a few die-hards, of course, who leave their lights burning until March or April, but the overall effect will be drastically diminished by tomorrow night. Sigh…

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