Local Color

Nov042005

Why Do I Stay Here?

From time to time, well-meaning friends who have escaped the protective dome that seals off my home state from the rest of our sinful planet ask me why I stay in Utah. Their implied suggestion is that I, with my unorthodox (for Utah) interests and attitudes (not to mention my somewhat scruffy looks), might be happier if I lived in some place a bit more… cosmopolitan. I don’t deny that they could be right. After all, I am an unmarried, childless, socially liberal, anti-authoritarian agnostic who enjoys the occasional distilled beverage and generally doesn’t care what people do (or don’t do) with their genitalia. My out-of-state friends are not misguided to wonder what could possibly keep me living in a place that is notoriously conservative, religious, provincial, family-oriented, and hostile to dissenters — in short, about as opposite from everything that defines my life as you can get. Nevertheless, my response to their concern is usually just a shrug and the somewhat lame proclamation that, “this is home.”

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Oct062005

Utah Episode of Extreme Makeover This Weekend

It’s not really my thing, but if you enjoy Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or you just want to see ol’ Bennion’s home state on TV, tune in this Sunday night for an episode of the popular show that was shot in Bountiful, Utah. (For you out-of-staters, Bountiful is a bedroom community just north of Salt Lake.) You may recall that I wrote about this subject earlier this summer, while the TV folks were actually here. There’s an article in today’s Trib about the family featured in the episode, if you’re interested.

Here locally, the show airs at 7 p.m. Sunday on KTVX Channel 4. Okay, commercial over; we now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging…

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Jul282005

Of Local Interest…

For my local (or formerly local) readers, as well as anyone who may want a taste of the Utah action, here are a few interesting tidbits you may not have heard about:

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Jul252005

Assorted Thoughts on Pioneer Day

Just in case you don’t know, today is a holiday in Utah. Well, technically speaking, yesterday was the holiday, but since that was a Sunday and nothing much is allowed to happen here on Sundays, the festivities were bumped to today.
This isn’t news to the locals who read this blog and who probably have the day off and won’t even see this entry until tomorrow. But if you live somewhere else and are not of The Body — apologies for the obscure Star Trek reference — let me explain:

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Jul012005

The Demolition of the Hand-Me-Down World

I see in the paper this morning that another local landmark, the old Geneva Steel mill, has fallen in the name of progress.
Now, before you start thinking my unquenchable sense of nostalgia has finally gotten the better of me and caused me to abandon all sense of perspective, let me state for the record that I’m not especially sentimental about decaying old industrial sites. Geneva was ugly when it was in operation, filling the skies of Utah County with orange haze and dumping god-only-knows into Utah Lake, and it was twice as ugly after it ceased operation and commenced to rotting. In addition, it was located in the next valley south of mine, so it’s not like I was seeing it every day and acquiring the affection that comes through constant familiarity. Still, it was familiar, if not intimately so, and its demolition is just one more step in the on-going process that is erasing the landscape I grew up with.

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Apr052005

Coffee in Sugarhouse

This past weekend found me enjoying the springtime weather in Salt Lake’s Sugarhouse area, which, for you out-of-towners, is the closest thing to a Bohemian district we have in these parts. Back when I was a student at the nearby University of Utah, it was a run-down pit: eight or ten square blocks of decaying bungalows, boarded-up storefronts, seedy coffeehouses, and leftover head-shops run by guys who hadn’t gotten the memo about the ’60s being over. It was the place you went if you wanted to have your fortune told or your nose pierced. It was probably also the place you went if you wanted to score some weed, although I personally wouldn’t know about that. That was never my thing.

I loved Sugarhouse back then. I loved the mildly disreputable atmosphere, and the heady smells of patchouli and tobacco and old-building mustiness that wafted from open doors. I loved to shop in the weird little holes-in-the-wall where you could buy a statue of Ganesh or a cheap “pre-owned” paperback of On the Road. And I loved to watch all the exotic people: punks, metalheads, flower children, gypsies, derelicts. To a kid from the white-bread suburban frontier of the straightest city in America, it was deliriously cool.

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Mar202005

Springtime in Utah

According to the calendar, it was still winter on Saturday. I spent the afternoon crusing around with the top down on my Mustang. I was perfectly comfortable in a thin Levi’s jacket, and I got my cheeks nicely sunburned.

This morning — the first official day of spring — I woke up to three inches of snow and a blustery wind that had me reaching for the parka. Weather is like that in Utah.

I can only surmise that Mother Nature is actually a family of sisters, and my home state got assigned to the one who drinks too much Frangelico and likes to knit little scarves for weenie dogs…

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Sep262004

Movie Review: Fahrenheit 9/11, Plus a Couple of Vital Links

Up to now, I haven’t had much interest in seeing the film that earned Michael Moore the ever-lasting enmity of political conservatives, namely his anti-Bush polemic Fahrenheit 9/11. I figured there was little point, since my opinions of the incumbent president and his administration are already well-developed and, I believe, well-informed. I had a pretty good idea of what charges Moore would level against Bush in this film, and they’re all issues I’ve learned about through other sources, so I didn’t need to see F9/11 for educational purposes. Nor did I need the film to stir up my political passions, because the daily headlines are usually sufficient for that. Finally, there was the deterrant effect produced by Moore himself. If he was a typical documentarian who stayed safely behind the camera, there wouldn’t be a problem in that regard, but one of the valid criticisms of Moore is that he likes to take center-stage in his films. In short, it often seems that Michael Moore’s movies are less about the subject matter than they are about Michael Moore.

However, after thinking and writing so much about the UVSC controversy over the past few days, my curiosity was aroused. And so, with Anne away on her Church history tour and nothing better to do on a fine early-autumn Saturday, I decided to go ahead and have a look at what it is that has everyone’s panties in a bunch.

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Sep242004

More on Moore

[Ed. Note: Political rant ahead. You’ve been warned.]

Forget what I said about UVSC student Sean Vreeland in yesterday’s comments on the Michael Moore controversy. If you’ll recall, I complimented Vreeland on his statement that student fees would’ve been better spent on people from the presidential campaigns than on a celebrity like Moore. When I said that, I believed that Vreeland was simply a “guy on the street” who had voiced a reasonable-sounding opinion to a reporter and been quoted in the article I linked to. Apparently I didn’t read the article closely enough. Today’s article on this whole Moore-at-UVSC imbroglio clarified the situation for me. It turns out that Vreeland is in large part responsible for the stink that’s being raised over this event. He is the mastermind of a petition to “recall” (i.e. cancel) Moore’s appearance and oust Jim Bassi and Joe Vogel, the student body officers who invited Moore to speak.

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Sep232004

Hurricane Michael

I tuned out the local news last week while I was doing so much running around, so it’s only now come to my attention that liberal firebrand Michael Moore has been hired to speak at Utah Valley State College on October 20. Interesting. That means the grinding sound I’ve been hearing for the past few days is either the gnashing of teeth or villagers sharpening the points on their pitchforks. Anyone call Home Depot recently to check on the availability of torch oil?

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