A&E

HIT: Not So Fascist

“You Know Who Else Opposed Vaccine Mandates? Hitler.” That was the headline in a Jacobin magazine article, one of many hoping to educate the public about vaccine history and its ties to Nazi Germany. And now, finally, it was the Deseret News that came out against the curious correlation between vaccine mandates and the Nazi regime. It has been almost a month since antivaxxers stood outside the governor’s mansion, waving flags at passing cars. Pictured on the flags were vaccine needles in the shape of swastikas. Yeah, here are the facts: “Contrary to claims about ‘fascist’ vaccine mandates currently circulating on the Right, the Nazis actually relaxed German vaccine mandates—and hoped doing the same for people they conquered would kill them faster.” Get it? The anti-vaxxer movement is inextricably tied to antisemitism. Even in Utah.

HIT: Electile Dysfunction

That’ll show him not to mess with … something. When Rep. Steve Christiansen, R-West Jordan, resigned from the Legislature and his position with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, he did so after a very public maligning of the state’s popular and nationally acclaimed vote-by-mail system. Murky as his rationale was, Christiansen sought a forensic audit of Utah’s 2020 election, the Deseret News reported. You know, the same election that Donald Trump—along with the presumptive gaggle of Republican officeholders—won. Even the Democratic “losers” like the mailed-ballot system here, but Christiansen persisted. When Lt. Gov. Diedre Henderson spoke out, you knew he was done for. His church position was less clear, although many of the faith say he must have been “counseled out.” Christiansen indicated he’s just gathering steam for something later because of our “constitutional crisis.” For now, that crisis has been averted.

MISS: Let the Sunshine in

One story this week shows why news organizations are needed—and why, as they wither away, it won’t really matter. The Salt Lake Tribune “sought an explanation” for what was clearly an excessive fee for video of Gabby Petito’s Moab traffic stop. The city had charged almost $3,000 to various news organizations for bodycam footage. Turns out, it charged $98 to each of 30 organizations, but should have charged the cost of preparing the records only once. Open government advocates fought hard to enact the Government Records Access and Management Act in 1991, but it’s been attacked almost yearly since then. “Sunshine laws are vital to a democratic form of government. They keep government accessible and accountable to those whom it serves—we, the people,” media attorney Jeff Hunt wrote in the Deseret News. Someone has to be watching all the time, but with fewer reporters on the ground the public should get used to being in the dark.

Got Racism?

You may have read The Warmth of Other Suns, but did you really read it? Did it make a mark on your soul? Americans were more concerned about the European wars in the early 1900s than they were about The Great Migration of Blacks from the South to Chicago. And we are still debating systemic racism in the misunderstood realm of Critical Race Theory. Author Isabel Wilkerson talks about the Social Ethics of Caste and Hierarchy at the Tanner Forum on Social Ethics. “She is an impassioned voice for harnessing history to help us understand ourselves, our country and our current era of upheaval.”

Virtual, Thursday, Nov. 4, 7 p.m. Free/ register at https://bit.ly/3vV1gJx

Mike Lee at the Mic

We know you want to hear Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee address the issues of the day, like why he is fighting vaccine mandates, why he opposes the Build Back Better plan, why he thinks the attorney general is overreaching his authority by “bullying” parents, and more. Lee will be on the hot seat in A Conversation with Senator Mike Lee at the Hinckley Institute of Politics. Institute director Jason Perry and Lee “will discuss Senator Lee’s policy agenda, his legislative goals and his vision for the future of Utah.” Because he is up for re-election next year, now might be a great time to check out that vision of his.

Virtual, Thursday, Nov. 4, 12 p.m., free. https://bit.ly/3bjAuRj

Who Are the Unknown?

When you think of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you probably think of one. In fact, there are many individual unknown burials related to the Civil War as well as the remains of 2,111 Union and Confederate soldiers interred beneath the Tomb of the Civil War Unknowns—all at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s estimated that half of the Civil War dead were never identified. In honor of Veterans Day, the University of Utah will present Identifying America’s Unknown Soldiers, a somber and patriotic task, not unlike the work of identifying the victims of 9-11. Virtual, Wednesday, Nov. 10, 12 p.m.,

free. https://bit.ly/3jJ2iDc

Utah Shakespeare: Gold Mountain

For 50 years, Utah Shakespeare Festival has brought Tony Award-winning excellence to its productions in Southern Utah of both Shakespeare classics and great contemporary theater. But for those who don’t venture much farther south than Utah County, there has never been an opportunity to experience a full Utah Shakespeare production in the Wasatch Front. That changes this week, as Utah Shakespeare offers the new musical Gold Mountain in West Valley City.

In 2019, Gold Mountain playwright Jason Ma (pictured) spoke to City Weekly about the work then in development, which involves a romance between a Chinese immigrant railroad worker and a brothel worker during the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1866. Regarding the need for representation of the Asian and Asian-American experience in the musical theater canon, Ma said, “our representation is very limited. But one of the things that has started to happen is that people are writing their own stories. Instead of depending on Rodgers and Hammerstein or Miss Saigon to tell our stories for us, there’s been this wave of Asian-American writers who have decided it’s time to take back our own narratives, and maybe fill in some of the gaps in stories we’ve been telling over and over again.”

Utah Shakespeare’s Gold Mountain plays Nov. 4-20 at the West Valley Performing Arts Center (3333 S. Decker Lake Dr., West Valley City). General admission tickets are $59, and face coverings will be required throughout the performance. Visit bard.org for tickets and additional information. (Scott Renshaw)

COURTESY PHOTO

SALT Contemporary Dance Fall Concert

Like many performing arts companies, SALT Contemporary Dance has dealt with a long layoff before being able to get back to the stage in front of live audiences. For the company’s artistic director, Joni McDonald, it was inevitable that the artists would reflect that experience, even if the work isn’t specifically about the pandemic. “[The performance is] definitely is more of an escape from this time,” McDonald shares via email, “but the dancers bring their growth from the past year to the stage.”

SALT’s Fall Concert showcases three pieces: Salt Lake City native Garrett Smith’s 2015 work If We Linger, a depiction of overcoming trial and hardship; Ihsan Rustem’s 2014 creation Long Story Short; and After Discussing, created by McDonald herself. She describes the piece as something that was born out of a year-long sabbatical, unrelated to the pandemic. “Taking the time off to focus on family was important for perspective,” she says. “I think it is important to distance yourself from your work to take a critical look at your creations. So the time off gave me a lot of clarity on how I wanted to approach creating dance again. I felt excited to explore in new ways and create more limitations for myself.”

The concert takes place at the Midvalley Performing Arts Center (2525 Taylorsville Blvd., Taylorsville) on Nov. 5-6 at 7:30 p.m. nightly. Tickets are $25; masks are recommended but not required, and seating may be at capacity. Visit arttix.org to purchase tickets, and saltdance.com for additional event information. (SR)

MYLES WOOLSTENHULME

An Evening with Ira Glass: 7 Things I’ve Learned

As his celebrated NPR program This American Life celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2021, which itself is only part of a 40-year career in radio, you’d think that host Ira Glass might have learned more than seven things. After all his, he has featured great storytellers like Michael Chabon, Sarah Vowell and Tobias Wolff, and has even expanded into feature films like Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk With Me.

Still, Glass chooses to narrow things down with 7 Things I’ve Learned, a live multimedia presentation that he brings to Utah this week. He discusses his ideas about narrative theory, and what makes something a great story. He addresses realizations particular to the enterprise of radio journalism, like how to sound “normal” on the radio, and how to interview children. There’s also information about how to “fail productively,” and how to take multiple hours of interview tapes and whittle them down into an efficient story. And he does it all in the conversational style that millions of regular listeners have come to love. “You will be fierce,” Glass says of his professional mantra. “You will be fearless. And you will make work you know in your heart is not as good as you want it to be.”

Glass visits BYU’s de Jong Concert Hall (800 E. Campus Dr., Provo) Saturday, Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15-$47; masks are required for all attendees, as well as proof of vaccination or negative test within 72 hours of the event. Visit arts.byu.edu for tickets and additional event information. (SR)

Medicare Open Enrollment October 15th-December 7th

The phrase “social media star” can feel like a pejorative, as though the person in question really hasn’t done anything more to warrant their celebrity than make YouTube videos. But don’t apply that dismissive notion to Blake Lynch, the popular YouTuber know familiarly to his fans as “Nurse Blake.” Long before he was garnering 12 million monthly views for his perspectives on the experiences of being a nurse, Lynch and his husband founded Banned4Life, a movement to rescind the federal government’s policy of not accepting blood donations from gay men, which succeeded in getting the policy changed in 2015. And beyond that, he founded a free social media platform, NurseCon, for nurses to support one another around the world and take continuing education courses.

When it comes to his live appearances, however, Nurse Blake brings things to a much more conventionally entertaining level. The

“PTO Comedy Tour” finds him looking for both the humor and the emotion in the frequently chaotic world of being a professional nurse—and, especially relevant under the current circumstances, celebrating the amazing work that those nurses do every day.

Nurse Blake hits the Eccles Center (131 S. Main St.) on Wednesday, Nov. 10 for two shows; the 6:30 p.m. show is sold out at press time, but tickets still remain available at $35-$55 for the 9:30 p.m. show, and for the pre-show VIP opportunity. Proof of vaccination or recent (72 hour) negative COVID test is required for this event; visit arttix.org for tickets and additional information. (SR)