City Weekly January 28, 2021

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The 2021 Sundance Film Festival goes virtual

By Scott Renshaw

CONTENTS COVER STORY

HOME MOVIES The 2021 Sundance Film Festival goes virtual.

By Scott Renshaw

7

Cover art by Derek Carlisle

5 PRIVATE EYE 12 CINEMA 13 A&E 17 MUSIC 23 DINE 29 COMMUNITY

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SOAP BOX Political ‘Unity’Is Not the Goal

“[T]o restore the soul and to secure the future of America,” President Joe Biden said in his inaugural speech, “requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity. ... This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”

The bad news: Where politics is concerned, “unity” is a pipe dream.

The good news: Where human flourishing is concerned, “unity” as hoped for by politicians like Joe Biden is neither necessary nor desirable.

There’s nothing wrong with unity as such. Unity is desirable when it’s voluntary, unanimous and based on shared values and

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interests. Otherwise, people should just do their own things.

Nor is politics as we know it about unity as such. It’s about ruling, and about making sure those who disagree with the rulers don’t get to do their own things. That produces unity of a sort, among those who support the rulers. It also produces polarization between those who do and those who don’t.

Carl von Clausewitz’s aphorism, “war is the continuation of politics by other means,” is equally applicable in reverse.

Politics does not bring an end to Hobbes’ “war of all against all.”

It merely recruits the fighters into competing armies, waving different flags and wearing different uniforms.

Such polarization might be ugly, but not as ugly as prospective political unity. Such unity

@SLCWEEKLY would look like George Orwell’s 1984: A society united under the rule of a single party dedicated to stamping out not only dissent but the very possibility and concept of dissent. Thankfully, that’s never happened (even with millions dead or dying behind barbed wire, the Third Reich’s “unity” was contested by its Hans and Sophie Scholls).

Polarization is not the opposite of unity. The two are simply complementary sides of one coin. One produces and requires the other. To transcend one, we must transcend both.

And we can, by trading them in for another coin, the two sides of which are freedom and peace.

How do we get there? Through de-escalation and decentralization.

To the extent that politics is war, and it is, the more things

government controls, the more things we have to fight about.

And the more things there are to fight about, the more we’re going to fight. Every new thing to fight about produces new internally unified, mutually polarized factions.

If we want freedom and peace, we have to reduce the power of government (anarchists and voluntaryists would eliminate that power entirely).

If we have less to fight about, we’ll fight less.

In addition to reducing the power of government as a whole, spreading that power out through devolution, secession, even panarchism (“competing governments” in overlapping geographies) would allow voluntarily “unified” groups to live their way without demanding that others do likewise. Less

to fight about. Less fighting. The first two have been done many times. The third is worth a try.

What’s not worth continued trying is coerced “unity” under Joe Biden or anyone else.

THOMAS L. KNAPP William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism

Bricks Corner Jan. 14 dining review by Alex Springer

That is some of the best pizza I’ve had in Utah. @NAT_HEPBURN Via Instagram Best deep-dish pizza I’ve ever had! @ALTAOPIE Via Instagram

THE BOX

What’s something you resented paying for?

Katharine Biele The so-called Good Landlord Program. It does nothing for landlords or renters but is a great way to secure fees for the city.

Kathy Mueller Every presidential privilege afforded to Trump and his family by the U.S. taxpayers.

Kelly Boyce Health care. It should be free.

Paula Saltas RCI timeshare exchange. A never-ending buyers’ remorse purchase. I’m supposed to know what I want to do in two years to get decent spots. I can’t live my life like that.

Jill Henry Paying the airlines for an extra suitcase. It seems like such a rip-off. Just disguise it in the purchase price of a ticket.

Derek Carlisle An ABBA album, Atlas Shrugged, one night at Econo Lodge in Vegas, first and second wedding rings, the Blu-ray of Battlefield Earth, a fish sandwich at Dairy Queen, extra cheese at The Pie, a back wax, draft beer from a bowling alley and a 2020 calendar.

HITS&MISSES

BY KATHARINE BIELE @kathybiele

MISS: COVID Marches on

In this time of global pandemic and universal conspiracies, it’s not surprising that a story about the death of a Utah sheriff became something different. Apparently, some still believe COVID-19 is just like the flu, and how dare The Salt Lake Tribune run a story about Utah County’s longest-serving sheriff who died of the virus. “I’m sorry but I’m not sure why COVID deaths are in the news. People die of all sorts of things. ... Obituary pages—that’s where death announcements go. We have never had stories of the yearly flu deaths among other deaths,” one Facebook commenter said. Meanwhile, the Trib’s Andy Larsen made the “no-duh” observation that philosophy (albeit ideology) trumps data in the virus battle. That became perfectly clear when the Salt Lake School District, fearing the fiscal wrath of the Legislature, voted to open schools. Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, was “thrilled” since he had sponsored a bill to punish Salt Lake because … he could? Since then, Weiler and several other lawmakers have tested positive for COVID. Still, a Deseret News poll showed that more than a third of Utahns aren’t very worried about the virus.

HIT: Utah Women Can Hope

BY JOHN SALTAS

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Utah’s Mexican Past

Utah’s history is not all Latter-day Saint pioneers. Before statehood, Utah was actually a Mexican territory. So much for nice neighbors: In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico and two years later took possession of northern Mexico including Utah, and that ended any claims Mexico had on Utah.

But even today, Mexico and its culture have had made a deep impression on the state. At Thrive 125: When Utah was Mexico, panelists and poets “will tackle the history of Utah before statehood, when it was Mexican territory, focusing on the significance of this history and what it means to Utah today.” Armando Solórzano, one of the most prominent Latino thinkers and activists in the state, will speak about the history of immigration in the state and the Dignity March. Virtual, Thursday, Jan. 28, 4:30 p.m., free. http://bit.ly/3sJUgNF

Police and the People

Whether you call it defunding or reforming the police, now is the time to dig into the culture and rationale of police work in the United States. Police Misconduct & Qualified Immunity: Reimagining “We the People” is an all-day national conference meant to shine light on the difficult issue that pits safety and humanity. “This conference provides a timely, relevant and much-needed discussion on the disproportionate use of force by police in interactions with black people and the disparate treatment of black protestors in the United States,” organizers say. Virtual, Thursday, Feb. 4, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., free. http://bit.ly/2LZtuQx

Why Poverty?

Poverty is not a single-pronged issue. There are “hidden rules” of different socioeconomic classes and major gaps between them. At Ally Bridges Out of Poverty Training, you will learn the language and how to recognize community and workplace practices, ideas and beliefs that create barriers for people experiencing situational and generational poverty. “You will be given tools to better understand those who are experiencing poverty, identify and implement practices that can reduce barriers for upward mobility, and help you become more effective in offering support to others,” organizers say. Virtual, Thursday, Jan. 28, 6 p.m., register 24 hours in advance. http://bit.ly/3p7SRxW

Abuse of Athletes

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JANUARY 28, 2021 | 5

—KATHARINE BIELE

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Some years ago, I was having lunch at a local café that was often frequented by NBA players. I knew the owner and liked his food. Catching a glimpse of the guys who were about to face the Utah Jazz a few hours later was just something that happened now and again. On one occasion, I was minding my own business when what looked to be an entire basketball team came in for some food goodies.

If not for the imposing mass of Shaquille O’Neal leading the way, I wouldn’t have really known nor cared who they were. But this was Shaq, a veritable superstar since he burst onto the NBA basketball scene at age 20. I paid my bill, walked over and said, “Good luck tonight, Shaq” and walked off.

“Good luck tonight,” is my go-to saying when I see players—or even fans of other teams when they walk our city streets dressed in their recognizable team garb— and I always give a friendly nod. I am doing the Lord’s work making people think Utah is full of nice and welcoming people. Which would be true if Utah were populated only by people like me, but it’s not. I’m surrounded by asshats.

I’ve always believed outsiders should be treated with respect and, if they ever moved here, they could figure it out for themselves if they liked the place. I more than like Utah—I love it—or I would’ve left, but I also have nuclear-grade pain tolerance. It doesn’t really matter because I can’t prove my saying, “Good luck tonight,” persuaded a single person to take up residence here. I said it to Danny Ainge once when he was sitting at the bar having lunch and a soft drink at Port O’Call. Danny didn’t need any persuading to move here; he already knew the place.

However, I’ve concluded that I had an impact on him since his son, Republican Utah County Commissioner Tanner Ainge, is saying all the right things about COVID-19, decency and accountability these days.

Danny must have heard my words as, “Go do what’s right” and passed that down to young Tanner—whom, I believe, is the ideal guy to knock off Burgess Owens or Mike Lee in 2022. Of course, he’d have to get past whoever becomes the Democratic candidate in that race, but as has been proven about a thousand times already in Utah politics, that’s not impossible.

Telling people, “Good luck tonight,” has positive impact. Just ask former Chicago Bulls guard Steve Kerr. He was walking blindly down a Salt Lake City street one day, probably admiring the local empty parking lots, when I nodded and said “Good luck tonight, Steve,” and kept on walking.

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Abuse is not only a legal issue—it has personal and financial implications, too. In this all-day conference, the S.J. Quinney College of Law will be examining assaults on athletes, including hearing the voices of the survivors. At Armies of Enablers: Deconstructing sexual abuse of athletes and bystanders who perpetuated a culture of turning a blind eye “represent a broad spectrum of expertise and experience who we are confident can shed important light on the many aspects of this issue and suggest ways to proactively address what has become an epidemic.” Virtual, Friday, Jan. 29, 8:45 a.m.-5 p.m., free. http://conta.cc/3iDewMf

Good Luck, Kera

He noticed that I not only knew his name but that I was carrying a City Weekly. It is not a stretch to assume he then picked one up at the corner, read it, and became reinforced in the notion that he’d not only be a championship head coach one day, but also a man who fervently speaks his mind on all matters related to racial equality, Black Lives Matter, decency and politics. He endorsed Joe Biden for president. ’Nuff said.

I’ve probably said, “Good luck tonight,” to 20 Utah Jazz players over time. The only person it never worked on was Karl Malone.

He’s way out there.

Any scientist can prove that in the years since I told Shaq, “Good luck tonight,” that my doing so aided his eventual evolution into a wise, articulate and loveable—in the ways that giant men are loveable—basketball commentator. After a big game last week, Shaq was seen by some to be dressing down our current favorite Utah Jazz son, Donovan Mitchell, in a post-game interview. There outta be a law!

So, of course, there will be a law—or at least a resolution. Old folks take what Shaq said as a challenge for Donovan to get even better, but you must remember the NBA was a tougher go 20 years ago, and even tougher 20 years before that. Today, it’s a playful shoot around. It appears to me that Shaq’s words are as powerful as my “Good luck tonight,” since Donovan has taken off, further cementing himself as one of the best players in the league.

Republican Kera Birkeland, who represents the good people of Morgan, Utah, in the state Legislature, is a Donovan fan.

She’s also a sports official, so today, she donned a referee outfit and presented a resolution to her colleagues that can be distilled down to “Donovan is a good guy, and Shaq is a bad guy.” For all the silliness of taking legislative time to introduce such a bill, Birkeland deserves some slack.

Just over 37,000 people live in her district, with just 1% of them black. I think that’s a stretch. There are more black players in the NBA than live in her district.

Yet, last summer, it was Birkeland working closely with and listening to Black Lives Matter activists, and she is now sponsoring HB154 that would require police officers who witness other officers violating procedures to report such offenses and defines parameters for justification of using deadly force. I couldn’t care less about her Republican views on big government and lower taxes. She has plenty of company there. I do care that on this issue, though, and she has stepped on to center court and wants to play ball. Anyone fighting for equality on Utah’s stodgy Capitol Hill are welcome in my book, so much so in this case that I will plan a trip up to Morgan. I’ll have beers and a burger at Taggart’s Grill to show my support. Good luck tonight, Kera. CW

There is a glimmer of hope for women in Utah, although the jury’s still out because we are dealing with predominately white, male Mormon lawmakers.

We’ll start with HB168, which would prohibit the sale of at-home rape kits.

Even the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office believes the kits would be inadmissible in court, and health professionals think they give victims false hope. But Rep. Angela Romero’s bill still has no Senate co-sponsor and detractors want “more information,” according to The Salt Lake Tribune. A broader issue, however, is the long-sought Equal Rights Amendment, which Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, is hoping to revive with SJR008. While it is gaining traction again nationwide, Utah’s Eagle Forum is standing at the ready with its outdated talking points about the dangers of equality.

PRIVATE EY

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Remember the citizen initiative aimed at gerrymandering? Maybe you don’t because citizens voted for an independent redistricting commission but didn’t necessarily know that targeted gerrymandering. While the commission was advisory only, the Legislature still demanded “tweaks” to the law.

They don’t like to be told what to do, even by their constituents. One of the tweaks was a compromise on commission membership, and this is what we are stuck with: a person who is neither Republican nor Democrat and has never voted in a partisan primary—which is a primary. So, if you voted in an open Democratic primary, you’ll have to lie to be considered. Republicans probably have an exhaustive list of party members for their closed primaries. The requirements go on and on, but basically say if you have no interest or connection to the politics of your state, you qualify.

IN A WEEK, YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

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MISS: Apolitical? Please Apply

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DREAMSTIME

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival goes virtual Building the Platform

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JANUARY 28, 2021 | 7

When Tabitha Jackson was announced as the new festival director for Sundance near the end of the 2020 festival, she certainly had no idea that for her first year at the helm, she’d essentially be building a festival infrastructure from scratch. Yet according to her, there was actually a certain liberation in taking on this new role at a time when it was clear that everything would have to be different.

“In a sense, there were no expectations, which meant that was a kind of freedom to experiment that I otherwise may not have had,” Jackson says via email. “Although it is fair to say that I had not factored a global pandemic, an international reckoning around racial justice and an assault on democracy into how I envisioned my first year as the director of the Sundance Film Festival, what I did know was that in order to find the path forward, we had to remember where we came from.”

That “where we came from” was a focus on artists and their work— something that could be accomplished in a way that addressed what Jackson identified as the No. 1 priority for the year: “the safety of our artists, audiences, staff, volunteers and the local community.” While that focus meant a traditional in-person festival in Park City would not be practical, there was an opportunity to provide access to films in other ways. Twenty cities serve as “satellite” locations for in-person festival screenings at local art houses and pop-up drive-ins from San Francisco to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The primary “location” for Sundance 2021 would clearly have to be online, however—and in a sense, Sundance was the beneficiary of the timing of the pandemic. Several other international film festivals, including the New York Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, had already developed online platforms for their films in the fall

of 2020, allowing Sundance personnel the opportunity to network with those organizations and learn what was and wasn’t working.

“We’ve been in touch with pretty much all of our colleagues who have gone through this,” Sundance programming director Yutani says, “and it’s been a really important time for us to hear what their experiences are. Some of the festivals are going into their second year of being digital. So, I think the information-sharing has been very helpful.

“It’s been a lot of pivoting over the past several months,” she adds, “waiting and seeing, then pivoting to our next scenario.”

While the technology for showing films was a relatively easy part in a world where streaming content is an everyday part of life, the more challenging part for the Sundance staff was creating a format that could in some way replicate the experience of being at a film festival. When everyone is watching movies independently in their homes, how do you achieve the “buzz” of folks discovering new work and sharing that experience with others?

“The energy that comes out of Sundance was something we had to capture somehow,” Yutani says. “That’s why we’re having distinct three-hour Premiere windows, playing in kind of a live way [see Virtual Sundance: How to Do It, p. 10].

We’re telling people to press ‘play’ at this particular time, so you can experience the Q&A immediately after. … That kind of replicates how we act at festivals—somebody sees a film they love, they want to talk about it.”

The online platform “captures the festival’s energy and a sense of ‘urgency,’” Jackson adds. “Just as you would in Park City, you’ve got to make choices and build schedules. … We’ve made it our mission to preserve as much of that Park City magic as possible on this online platform, from the hustle and bustle of Main Street to the revelations of postscreening chats.”

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O

n January 23, 2020—the opening night of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival—the “novel coronavirus” outbreak in Wuhan, China, was still a secondary news story in the United States, with only one confirmed case in this country. While attendance was down a bit—approximately 4 percent less, according to Sundance Institute CFO Betsy Wallace—things still felt somewhat normal, with “normal” in late-January Park City being a crush of people in confined spaces, enjoying one of the preeminent international film festivals in the world.

Plenty has changed in the intervening year, as the pandemic raged through the U.S. and throughout the world. For film festivals like Sundance, that meant dealing with the realities of public-health needs, including cancellation of some 2020 festivals while others moved to a digital, virtual format. And it soon became clear in this tumult that Sundance 2021 probably wouldn’t look anything like Sundance 2020.

“Pretty early on, we realized that we would have to plan for a different festival,” says Sundance Film Festival’s director of programming Kim Yutani. “I remember, probably in April, end of March even, we started talking about how we conceived the festival.

The result is a Sundance 2021 experience that will take place almost exclusively online, with “attendees” experiencing festival films from their homes around the country. It promises to be a radically different kind of festival for audience members, for filmmakers and for festival organizers—and while everyone hopes that 2022 will see a return to a more conventional Sundance Film Festival, it could also be a harbinger of changes that might continue indefinitely.

By Scott Renshaw

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A Program for a New Scenario

Once the infrastructure was in place, the question became what the programming would look like. And coming on the heels of a pandemic year—with many productions having to be shut down for extended periods of time or postponed indefinitely—there was a question of what the pool of available films might be.

According to Yutani, however, the number of submissions for the 2021 festival was down only slightly compared to 2020.

“Early on, we just weren’t sure what we were going to get,” she says. “Last year, we got 10,000 shorts; this year, just under that number. The difference was negligible. That gave us a lot of confidence.”

Nevertheless, the decision was ultimately made to scale back the festival, both in terms of the time frame and the number of films that were programmed. The festival that usually runs 11 days will cover only seven in 2021; where Sundance 2020 included 118 feature films, Sundance 2021 has currently scheduled 74.

“We had really intense conversations about how we would scale the festival, took a really hard look at what was essential,” Yutani says. “And that’s represented in the shape of the program this year.”

Those elements of the 2021 festival that do look the same are in large part about recognizing what’s important to the filmmakers. It was always clear, for example, according to Yutani, that they would retain competition categories and awards, since those become an important tool for filmmakers attempting to secure distribution deals. And while she acknowledges that many filmmakers are disappointed there can’t be an in-person festival, there’s still an excitement that comes from being part of Sundance—even in this very different way.

“We just had our filmmaker orientations, when we introduce ourselves as programmers, and they introduce themselves to us,” Yutani says. “It’s usually an in-person event in Los Angeles and New York, but we did it by Zoom. I wasn’t certain how these events would go over, but I feel most people are so excited about creating that community feeling. Filmmakers are kind of moved by this moment of having to meet other filmmakers after working on their own projects in their own bubbles.

“I think everybody wishes we could be in Park City, as usual, seeing films with audiences, but everybody understands the moment we’re in,” she acknowledges.

And there is an opportunity in the challenge: “This is our chance to do something really different,” she says.

Virtual Festival, Real-World Losses

While a virtual Sundance is an opportunity for new ways of sharing films with audiences, it’s also an undeniable loss for local businesses. Every year, an economic impact report evaluates what the Sundance Film Festival contributes to the local economy. In 2020, that report estimated 44,000 out-of-state visitors attending the festival, contributing $135 million in spending.

Overall, the 2020 festival was estimated to support more than 2,700 jobs and contribute $17.8 million in state and local tax revenue.

The Sundance Institute itself has also seen an impact from the shift to a virtual festival, according to CFO Wallace. The festival is the nonprofit’s primary source of annual income, and ticket revenue is estimated to be down as much as 60 percent from 2020. Similarly, ancillary income like sales of merchandise will be down, simply because there aren’t in-person shops that festival-goers can stroll into and make an impulse buy.

Wallace also notes that while many nonprofits have been required to think creatively over the past year and seek out potential alternative income streams, that really hasn’t been possible for Sundance as the organization focused on building the infrastructure for the virtual festival. “I think the issue for us was, once we made the decision that we had to have a non-in-person event, our whole pivot was to focus on creating the online,” she says. “We don’t have that kind of manpower as a nonprofit; you have to focus on the big event. To create that magic, we had to make sure all eyes were on that.”

And as a Park City resident herself, Wallace feels the absence of the festival on an emotional level. “I moved here in 2002 and was able to experience Sundance for several years as a regular patron [before joining Sundance in 2015],” she says.

“It is really gut-wrenching to me. Park City is my home,” she says. “I really want people to enjoy the shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie of the festival. But the health of our residents or people coming in is truly of the utmost importance to us. Of course, we’re all sad that the financial impact of all the businesses here just won’t happen, but health is most important.”

COURTESY SUNDANCE INSTITUTE

Sundance Institute CFO Betsy Wallace

COURTESY SUNDANCE INSTITUTE

Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson

COURTESY SUNDANCE INSTITUTE

Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival director of programming

An Ear to the Ground

As the virtual festival gets underway, there is certainly a degree of uncertainty regarding whether everything will work the way festival organizers hope it does, from the technology itself to the question of whether audience members will feel a similar festival excitement. When you can’t be in a physical theater with all the people watching the movie, it also becomes harder to get a sense for what movies moved people.

Festival director Jackson says that she’ll be keeping an eye on social media and online press reactions as one way to know how people are responding to the films. Additionally, she says, “I’ll be hanging out in the incredible New Frontier space that we have built this year in which, by using some great social tools (avatars, webcams and proximity audio), I can bump into artists, festivalgoers and friends and have a genuinely social experience and learn what they make of it all.”

“I’m not a big Twitter person,” Yutani says, “but, this year, that’s going to be my version of eavesdropping on people in the Starbucks or at the Grub Steak or on the shuttle. Because I am curious to know just what’s resonating with audiences.”

This strange new festival experience will, however, allow for greater accessibility around the country to those who might never have been able to “attend” Sundance before—and like so many changes necessitated by the pandemic, it’s possible some virtual component of the festival might stick around.

“Everything is very specific to this year,” Yutani says, “but on the positive side, it’s giving us a chance to experiment, and seeing what changes we might continue going forward.”

“I’m hoping that we get feedback from the patrons who watch online, and that they give us their thoughts,” Wallace adds. “Were you able to watch with your family, and was that special? Were you able to talk about films with your friends? … This is just a new way of seeing it, and yes, we’re going to miss people in person. But did people see films, and were they able to experience joy or whatever takeaway they might have?

“The most important part I want people to know,” Wallace says, “is this has been our home, and we dreadfully miss it.” CW

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Virtual Sundance 2021: How to Do It

By Scott Renshaw

W

hether you’re a Sundance Film Festival veteran or a first-timer, we’re all in the same boat this year with a format that’s completely different. If you want to be part of this year’s festival—even as you stay at home and never have to worry about snow, traffic and ticket lines—here’s how to do it.

Get registered. Participating in Sundance 2021 requires online registration. Get started at festival. sundance.org by creating an account that will allow you to organize your schedule.

Choose your ticketing option. Attendees can select full festival passes ($350), single-day passes that allow for unlimited viewing for a single day ($75), individual film tickets ($15) and an Explorer Pass ($25) that allows access to content like the New Frontier, Short Films programs and Indie Series selections throughout the festival. Find your price point, and make your purchase.

Get acquainted with the movies. The number of films at Sundance 2021 is smaller than in recent years, but there’s still a lot to see. Take a look through the full program guide to make decisions about which titles look most appealing to you.

Understand the difference between premiere slots and on-demand slots. The major distinction in this year’s virtual festival is between films that

are premiering in a specific time slot—including filmmaker Q&As—and those that are showing for a 24-hour on-demand window. Each day Jan. 28Feb. 2 includes three-hour premiere blocs, when as many as five titles might be making their debut at the same time. Passholders are allowed to reserve a slot for only one film per three-hour bloc. Each film then has a 24-hour on-demand slot as well, usually two days after it premieres, beginning at 8 a.m. MT. Build your personal schedule. Those who buy individual tickets can find out on the film’s landing page at the festival website whether there’s still single-ticket availability remaining; there are no “wait list” options for the virtual festival. Passholders can make reservations for premiere and on-demand viewing, which will then show up on their account as “My Schedule.” Remember that if you want to switch a reservation for a specific three-hour premiere bloc, you need to delete the old selection before adding a new one.

Interact in non-movie ways. At Festival Village (village.festival.sundance.org), you can experience panels featuring film industry professionals, enjoy music performances and much more—and it’s all available for free, even if you don’t have any festival tickets or credentials, just like if you were wandering down Park City’s Main Street. CW

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CINEMA

FILM REVIEW

Caught in the Act

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

A trio of Oscar winners provide very different acting lessons in The Little Things.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

W

hen you’re promoting a serious movie about serious things like police investigating a serial killer, it’s not surprising if you choose to lean into serious movie awards. Thus, when your movie’s three lead actors are all Academy Award winners—as is the case with John Lee Hancock’s The Little Things—you’re absolutely going to promote it as starring “Academy Award winner Denzel Washington,” “Academy Award winner Rami Malek” and “Academy Award winner Jared Leto.” And this is true even though, as anyone who has watched more than a handful of movies in their life knows, it’s crazy to suggest that there is some standard of acting excellence shared by all such honorees.

Leaving aside for a moment the peculiarities of the kind of roles that win acting Oscars, and why, The Little Things provides a fascinating opportunity to look at the very different ways that people can approach the craft of acting such that it grabs people’s attention. Take a look at these three actors and their styles, and you’ve got a two-hour case study in what it looks like for an actor to immerse himself into a performance.

Set in 1990 California—for no clear reason other than other than thrillers now

need to turn into period pieces to explain the absence of cell phones which otherwise would gum up the plot—it opens with Kern County sheriff’s deputy “Deke” Deacon (Washington) sent on an assignment to retrieve evidence from Los Angeles. That happens to be where he was once a homicide detective, but bailed out several years earlier due to an unresolved case that still haunts him. A current string of murders being investigated by Det. Jim Baxter (Malek) could be connected to Deke’s old case, eventually leading Jim and Deke to work together as their investigation leads toward a strange fellow named Albert Sparma (Leto).

There’s more than a hint of Seven to Hancock’s script, which digs into the psychic scars resulting from being a law-enforcement officer seeing things you can’t unsee, and doing things you can’t undo. It’s one of those movies that pins its sense of importance on its grittiness, showing gruesome murder scenes and crawling around the dark corners of tortured minds. All of which makes it a shame that the final 20 minutes fall apart if you think about them for more than a second, the big revelations pinned on an act of generosity that might

provide only a few days of peace.

But the draw is, after all, that trio of names above the title, and it’s a truly odd mix of ingredients. Washington is a legend, and nothing he does for the rest of his career is going to change that, but he doesn’t always feel like the right choice here. The character is meant to be a sort of savant as an investigator—another character helpfully intones at one point that “Deke’s got his own style— while also showing us how he’s tormented by the events that drove him out of L.A. Unfortunately, Washington always seems more comfortable when playing in a lower key, and the result here is a jumble of emotional bullet points that too rarely come together.

Malek, on the other hand, feels dead on in his portrayal of Baxter, who seems to be drifting away from his family—and his faith, though Hancock keeps trying to insert that idea in the clumsiest manner possible—the deeper he gets into his worst cases. There’s a perpetual tension in his demeanor that feels just right, conveying a man whose sense of purpose could actually be his undoing.

Then there’s Leto, and here’s the tricky part. This is a place where the Seven com-

Rami Malek, Jared Leto and Denzel Washington in The Little Things

parison feels most relevant, as Leto seems to have watched a lot of Kevin Spacey’s John Doe as a way into performing a sociopath taunting those who think they can outsmart him. Leto generally marinates in the quirks of his performances, which here leads to something that’s showy, kind of nuts … and also one of the few things that’s actually fun to watch in this bleak landscape. Hancock serves up The Little Things as though it’s far more profound than it turns out to be, but if all else fails, at least there’s a chance to see what it looks like when capital-A Acting offers something that more conventionally “good” acting can’t. CW

THE LITTLE THINGS

BB½ Denzel Washington Rami Malek Jared Leto R Available Jan. 29 in theaters.

For centuries, bison dominated the landscape of North America, numbering between 30 and 60 million before European settlers came to the continent.

At first it was disease that was the threat to the herds, and then, in the 1800s, the westward expansion of white settlers that involved building railroads and gaining control over the Native American populations that depended on bison for food, housing and clothing. Millions of bison were slaughtered throughout the 1870s, and the number of bison in North America was estimated to have reached as few as 325, before conservation efforts gradually increased the numbers to approximately 500,000 today.

In his 2019 book Re-Bisoning the West: Restoring an American Icon to the Landscape, journalist and founder of the national parks news website National Parks Traveler Kurt Repanshek explores the history of the bison in North America, its importance to indigenous peoples and the dark history behind their near-extinction. Yet the focus is on what happens going forward: how we can continue to repopulate the west with this majestic creature, as well as the biological, political and cultural obstacles that such efforts continue to encounter.

On Thursday, Jan. 28 at noon,

According to Utah Arts Alliance executive director Derek Dyer, plans had been percolating to relocate the Dreamscapes space for some time. However, as is often the case, it took a bit of necessity as a kick in the pants to actually accomplish that relocation.

“It was partially because there was some other tenant moving into the previous space, but we were okay with that,” Dyer says.

“We were happy because the timing was good. No one was in the space across the street from us; it’s bigger, with more infrastructure. So it’s kind of a happy situation.”

After closing its original location on Dec. 4, Dreamscapes re-opens Jan. 29, with the interactive gallery space including both new spins on previously-existing experiences and brand new offerings. “Nothing is going to look exactly the same,” Dyer says. “The Enchanted Forest, The Mirror Maze, we still love those concepts, but we’re re-envisioning all of those.

So there will be some familiar things, but for example, the Enchanted Forest now is divided into daytime and nighttime. Then there are some entirely new rooms, like

TORREY HOUSE PRESS

Dreamscapes Gallery reopens

Repanshek discusses Re-Bisoning the West as part of the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law “Green Bag” series, in conjunction with The King’s English Bookshop. The one-hour virtual event is free with registration required at law.utah.edu/event/stegner-centergreen-bag-kurt-repanshek/. Join the author for an intriguing conversation about what it might look like to see bison once again roaming the American landscape. (Scott Renshaw)

TDK

enged and gleaned materials like newsprint, masking tape and photocopies, employing their pieces to dissolve the boundaries between homo sapiens and other denizens of the animal kingdom, as well as building the distinctions between the creatures monolithically referred to as “animals.” As part of the exhibition, materials will be provided to allow in-person visitors to create their own art in response to the show’s themes.

Works are available to view online, or by appointment only in person at the gallery (1340 E. 100 South) now through Feb. 26.

Visit saltlakearts.org/program/finch-lane-gallery/ to make an appointment or for additional exhibition information. (SR)

p.m. Discounted $5 tickets are available to the general public, though $15 “Champion” tickets to support the program are encouraged; high school students are being offered the opportunity to view shows for free. A talkback with the cast and creative team will be included after the Feb. 5 performance. (SR)

JANUARY 28, 2021 | 13

What are the qualities that make for a successful leader? It’s not that we never thought about that question before 2016, but over the past four years, it feels as though we’ve been thinking about it a lot. So as we watch the shift in America to a new leader, it is perhaps an ideal time for us to look at one of the ways William Shakespeare investigated that subject—through the story of a young king having to deal with those who question whether he’s up to the job.

Henry V continues a cycle begun in the Henry IV plays, with the protagonist who was then the callow Prince Hal assuming the throne. The new king’s challenge becomes changing the narrative around himself, which includes placing a claim on the throne of France, an action which leads to war. It climaxes with the battle of Agincourt, including the celebrated St. Crispin’s Day speech in which Henry exhorts his troops with promises of glory, even as the outcome of the battle is very much in doubt.

The University of Utah Dept. of Theatre presents Henry V in a virtual production which will be performed live for each individual showtime, Jan. 29-30 and Feb. 4-6 at 7:30 p.m., and Jan. 31 and Feb. 6-7 at 2

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We humans too often think of ourselves as separate from the natural world, existing outside of it and able to control it. Two new exhibitions at Finch Lane Gallery dig into that notion from two very different perspectives, interrogating the intersection of the wild and the “civilized.”

Andrea Jensen’s solo exhibition Storms (pictured) explores the cultural disconnect that lies between understanding our relationship with the natural environment, and our drive toward perpetual economic growth. With a curious eye, Jensen connects seeming insatiable material desires to the consumption of resources in the world around us, and does so with a style that employs recycled materials, turning the very act of her painting into a kind of restorative process.

The works of Jacques Derrida provide the title inspiration for The Animal That Therefore I Am, a joint exhibition of collaborative collage works by Max Barnewitz and Joshua Graham. These artists also use scav-

University of Utah Dept. of Theatre: Henry V

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Finch Lane Gallery

a fully-immersive projection room. … I think people are really going to be able to see that it’s been really improved and elevated.”

Reservations are required at showclix. com/event/dreamscapesslc-org as part of the COVID restrictions, and other changes remain in place reducing high-touch surfaces. But according to Dyer, the new Dreamscapes offers even more chance to add a kind of story to your visit. “Depending on the level of interaction someone wants, they can sort of build their own adventure,” he says. (SR)

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Kurt Repanshek: Re-Bisoning the West

ALEX GREGORY

Complete listings online at cityweekly.net

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH DEPT OF THEATRE

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ENTERTAINMENT PICKS, JANUARY 28-FEBRUARY 3, 2020

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Utahns speak up on what they’re looking forward to in the months ahead.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

T

he new year arrived with hope for a variety of reasons, but the “New Normal” is still normal—at least for the time being. But those who love getting out and about in Utah are certainly thinking about returning to some of the things they love and have missed over the 10 months.

On Twitter, I asked locals what they were most looking forward to experiencing once they were vaccinated and COVID numbers dropped to manageable enough levels that activities we used to take for granted can once again take place. Here’s just a sampling of those who answered. @shireenghorbani (former Salt Lake County councilwoman): I can not wait to scream sing along with others at a packed Kilby Court or State Room show. @hill_scotti: I’m an SLC-based art critic and curator. I very much look forward to engaging in visual art exhibitions again.

Throughout the pandemic, I’ve seen shows online or by appointment, but there’s something so special about conversing with the artist and others in real time. @ro2b51: Go to a gallery opening and talk with other people about it! @melanieparis: I look forward to having an in-person audience at TEDxSaltLakeCity. Organizing the event with a virtual au-

dience just didn’t feel the same. @sharahmeservy: Taking live theatre to elementary schools across Utah with @ planbtheatreco. If you’ve never watched a child watch professional theatre for the first time, let me tell you it’s magical! @bi_thewayyy: I can’t wait to go to the arts festival again! I always find a new artist to support there @_brett_merritt_: Shows at Urban Lounge, movies at Broadway, drinks and food at breweries, and live theatre. @josswheelin: I can’t believe how much I miss going to Urban Lounge @dansmith_tweets: Returning to play in my community orchestra. @kellijfreshman: For me it is going to be @balletwest1! I’ve missed their beautiful productions. @rustin: I am so excited to get back to putting on shows for real, in-person crowds. Lights, lasers, pyro, chest-thumping music, and fans screaming their lungs out. I miss it so much. @katieboue: BIKE PROM!!!!!!! @dramaskunk: Attending conventions like FanX or [Anime Banzai] @lesliemeans: moviemoviemoviemoviemovie Seeing in theaters, and hosting with Utah Film Center. @psirensun: Utah Opera and [Salt Lake Acting Company]! @pricklypoppy: Red Butte Garden concert @AaronColborn: I’m shooting my next short film that we had to scrap last April.

Deep into pre-production already. @JessInUtah: @UtahSymphony’s movies with the score performed live. Deer Valley Music Festival. Anything at the @BalletWest1 @bourbongal: Not taking outings for granted again. It’s gonna be massive sundae-style nights out: cocktails, dinner; artsy local theatre/film/ballet! Galleries.

Concerts. Then more nightcap cocktails I bars. JUST BECAUSE. @saltlakeactingco

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Post-COVID Wishes

A&E

Looking forward to crowds again enjoying Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall @saltlakefilmsoc @UtahSymphony @BalletWest1 @Jessie_A_J: A movie at the Broadway Theater! @jonmiles: Taking my daughter to a concert. We love going to the symphony together. @GeraldEliasSays (musician and novelist Gerald Elias): I’ve got a historic #recording project on tap for May of the 1 st recording ever of the 12 #Violin #Sonatas Op.1 by Pietro Castrucci! With Pam Jones, #harpsichord, and Nori Kishi, #cello. Fingers crossed we’ll be #vaccinated by then! @eeide: Attending a masterworks concert by the @UtahSymphony. (FWIW, as I write this answer, I am listening to Beethoven #7.) @naomilemoyne: I cannot wait to go see a little show at Kilby. Also, SLCC community writing center meetups and Grid Zine Fest—in person!

@PhaedraLJohnson: I am really looking forward to seeing shows at @BwayAtTheEccles, @pioneertheatre, and @SaltLakeFilmSoc @CDComms: Attending a @UtahSymphony concert. I’ve only been able to listen to two live musical performances in the past year, both at small, socially distanced religious services. I was shocked by how much they touched my heart and how much my soul needs live music. @AaronPeck: Taking the kids to museums and other amenities downtown and around the valley. @gettsr: Live Theater at Eccles and PTC. I miss it immensely. Also movies at the Broadway & Tower Theaters. @fabdecor76: Enjoy a play, eat breakfast at our regular restaurant and taking my kids to see a play...and TR AVEL! My God list is so long and we were taking it for granted CW

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SPR3’s Online Design

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An SLC band of yore launches a time capsule of a website recalling the underground zine Chiaroscuro.

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ies, data mining, likes, favs, ads or other bullshit. We’ve never sold our writing or music, and we aren’t looking to turn this into a revenue stream either.”

Rather, he says, the site is a way to archive the body of work made over the past 20 years between himself and FZ—and also, just a way for the two to continue to have fun. “I don’t want to live in the past, but I do think it’s nice to bring those things with us into the present when possible,” he adds.

Besides indulging in the lost, pure joy of simply poking around on a website, thespr3.com keeps the DIY spirit of their music and zine alive. “I remember DL, when showing me some music that he’d made, proclaiming, ‘Why listen to somebody else’s music when you can make your own!’ Absurd and inspiring,” FZ says.

“He was The SPR3 at first. Once we started living together, I officially joined the band. We knew a few other people that made music and thought putting a CD in our twelfth issue would be fun.”

FZ eventually started making music, too, and joined The SPR3, debuting their second CD in Chiaroscuro’s 25th issue.

Since then, they’ve kept making their sample-heav y, experimental music—and its scattered existence on multiple SoundClouds was part of what spurred them to create a catch-all archival space. “I love weird noises. The shit that sounds like mistakes, but they decided to keep in. I also just love music and I think it’s borderline amazing that I’m allowed to make some. It’s almost magic and always more than the sum of its parts,” FZ says.

Though he and DL live in different states now, they still collect and swap samples from movies, TV, video games and even construction sites for their music.

“It was a hell of a project just getting all this content together,” FZ says. “We by no means spent the last 18 years being organized.”

But who among us has? In a world full of physical and now virtual decay as the internet itself ages, the idea of building an archival website from scratch, for both fun and posterity, sounds like a pretty good idea. On thespr3.com WinAmp is now WebAmp, the first issue of Chiaroscuro awaits as a PDF and the dream of DIY music, mags and customizable HTML lives on. CW

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

n the age of the internet, time moves fast, and things get forgotten. That makes the process of archiving a rather noble task, and one that’s especially necessary for those looking to preserve ways of life that are gone now.

That’s what’s happening over on thespr3.com, a new archival website dedicated to music that was something of a companion to SLC’s oldest, now-bygone zine, Chiaroscuro. And it’s not just old zines and music files they’re archiving, but indeed the sense of mirth and play that’s long since vacated most online spaces.

For anyone under the age of 30 in SLC, neither SPR3 or Chiaroscuro will likely ring a bell. But those who were around during the zine’s heyday will remember its popularity and ubiquity through the years it ran, from 2002 to 2013—making it the longest-running zine in SLC’s history. Once at the center of zine-making in SLC, Chiaroscuro now lives on in random scans you can find online, or in a few copies at the Salt Lake City Public Library.

But what of SPR3? Well, the mysterious band was kind enough to reach out to City Weekly to let us know that their music—“some of it listenable,” according to the email—now exists archived rather neatly at thespr3.com. But, once there, it becomes apparent that the ties between Chiaroscuro and SPR3 are more than just that of collaborators.

“You are correct in your suspicions that many of the names used in conjunction with the zine and band are the same people,” says FZ, member of SPR3 and admitted co-founder of Chiaroscuro. He and his co-founder DL are also the only members of the so-called “Samuel Powers Rhythm 3”—not much of a trio at all.

“Everything else is just a pseudonym,” he explains.

And although he also says that “FZ” stands for “Filthy Zinester,” these days the Chiaroscuro founders are less concerned with zine-making than they are with preserving their music— and in a way that references and uses depreciated parts of the internet that are as dated now as zines have become themselves.

Enter thespr3.com: a retro space that any millennial who grew up online will find delightfully nostalgic.

The homepage opens up to a web player based off of the old Microsoft media player WinAmp—which is the vehicle for listening to the archived SPR3 albums. Other links lead to cheekily-written “about” pages, FAQs, preserved games and music videos all echoing the absurdism of Chiaroscuro, which was a Xerox-ed chaos of poetry, prose, strange stories and other SLC underground minutiae.

“The website is an intentional rejection of the modern-day online experience. Not just in terms of style, but also the notion of a commodified internet controlled by corporations for profit,” says DL, who built the site from scratch. “There are no tracking cook-

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

Division of Doubt

A specific pre-pandemic image comes to mind when listening to the two recently-dropped singles by SLC post-punk shoegazers Division of Doubt—blue light bracing against the drift of fog machine mist, three figures barely visible within the fog. This memory could come from any number of their past performances, whether it was at the last-minute Loading Dock gig in late 2019 opening for Ceremony, up high on the Metro Music Hall stage, or their opening for dark electronica legends The KVB. Division of Doubt has since their inception relied on aesthetic flair to build on their dour, dramatic music, some of which they are finally digitizing. Anyone who’s been to one of their blue-hued shows would recognize the first of the two singles they released on Jan. 15, “Chalkine.” Opening with a soft siren-like guitar part and the wolfish cries of vocalist Isaiah Michael, the track perfectly displays the band’s penchant for mixing the angst of post-punk and goth with the pretty guitars of shoegaze music. Though originally mainly a three-piece filled out by Jordon Strang and Cobia Goddard, the band has recently added a rhythm guitarist in Sophie Day, which means perhaps that the February singles will find something new coming from DOD. But as for the singles we have so far, “Chalkine” and its fellow track “Trespasses” are both full of Michael’s anguished vocals, a style likely perfected in his past work as half of the synth goth duo Civil Lust.

But Division of Doubt’s guitar-driven way of doing things is likely thanks to Strang’s experience within the hardcore and shoegaze realms (Strang fronts SLC shoegaze band No Sun).

Altogether, Division of Doubt paints stark, dark musical landscapes, and since seeing them play live anytime soon isn’t an option, it’s a good thing their music is now making its way onto the internet. Find “Chalkine” and “Trespasses” up on their Bandcamp (divisionofdoubt.bandcamp.com), and keep an eye out there and on their Instagram (@divisionofdoubt) for the February releases.

FLOW at Urban Lounge

BRADY PERRON

AMBER ROSE DWYER

Division of Doubt

Flow

JRC Events is bringing the hip hop flow to the Urban Lounge this Saturday, Jan. 30. As many recent JRC events have been lately, this local hip hop showcase will be hosted by the fabulous drag artist Kay Bye, who will be introducing the roster for the night. At the top of the list is Courtney Kelly, a local rap diva who will appeal to fans of the sugary spunk characteristic of artists like Doja Cat or Saweetie, and probably with tracks from TNDR, the album she put out against all of 2020’s wild odds. That recent album finds Kelly shifting into a smoother, more mature direction than her earlier, more pop-oriented tracks from the 2019 EP Flirt. The opening track, “Violet Blue,” is filled out by silky R&B backing beats and measured raps from Kelly—setting the tone for the rest of the vibey, noir album. She’ll be joined on stage by powerhouse songstress Freida, another local who released work this past year by way of her debut EP Out of 7. The EP is mostly made up of dramatic, glitched-out and bass-heavy beats, which though they’re bold, don’t outdo Freida’s surging vocals, whether on the troubled tracks “Supposed to Be” and “Karma” or on the brighter, jazzier takes, like “No Way.” The drum-driven “Good Enough” shows Freida’s strengths as an experimentalist within familiar themes like soul and R&B, and among the other tracks from the EP, ensures that seeing her live will surely be electrifying. Fellow solid rappers in the scene will join these two, including local-via-Cali Spit, “queer rap assassin” Icky Rogers, rapper and hula-hoop aficionado Phoenix Child, Mana (FKA Secret of Mana) of the local hip hop collective Hip Hop Organics and, last but not least, Lavi$h. Lavi$h spent 2020 releasing a handful of singles, most on the hard themes of romance, relationships and lost love (“Far From You,” “One More Night” and the 2021-released “2 Long”). For only $10, this is one stacked night of local talent. This 21+ show has doors at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m. Visit theurbanloungeslc.com for ticket info and COVID protocols.

Sculpture Club Returns With Just One More

Sculpture Club is one of SLC’s finest examples of a post-punk rock band, made up of members who have been making names for themselves across the music and culture spectrums in SLC and beyond for quite some time now. But it’s also partially because of that success that Sculpture Club allowed themselves a short hiatus in recent years—one that ends this spring when the band will release their second full-length album, Worth, via Funeral Party Records. What have they been doing with their time off? Around the time original bassist Chris Copelin moved away, drummer Madison Donnelly took time off to pursue a (very successful thus far) sculpture career, and Chaz Costello toured extensively with one of his other bands, Choir Boy, where he plays bass. SC’s 2016 release A Place to Stand was a bombastic album, guitar-driven and noisy, and now as Donnelly and Costello resume playing, they add two new members and a new measure of restraint that shifts Sculpture Club away from their garage-rock roots and closer to the silky smooth goth revival that seems to be ever-gaining speed in the indie world.

Bret Meisenbach (of Baby Ghosts) and Halee Jean (of Hoofless) join the lineup with their own musical expertise and experience, which is on display all over the new album. But it isn’t time for a review yet, though City Weekly’s got the means. Rather, get a glimpse at the polished new Sculpture Club via their new video for “Just One More” when it comes out on Jan. 27 on the Sculpture Club YouTube page. It’s a modest video, but one that highlights Costello’s penchant for drama and romance and seems to introduce each member formally. The band will also be featured in a Queer Charity Live Stream in benefit of The Trevor Project and the Martha P. Johnson Institute on Jan. 31, so there’s another chance to see this new lineup in action, surely with some of their new songs, too. Follow the band on Instagram @sculptureclub and visit their Bandcamp to check out the singles and covers they released in 2020 at sculptureclub.bandcamp.com

18 | JANUARY 28, 2021

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Beach Death

Beach Death’s Beach Death

In 2019, SLC band Beach Death was putting on a holiday show aptly called Beachmas— which obviously couldn’t happen for Christmas 2020, though they’d intended to start an annual tradition. Instead, they, like every other band, had a quiet year, but one which still culminated with the Christmas release of their self-titled debut album that was two years in the making. One of their 2020 singles, “We Can Swim,” previewed a fiery verve in the vein of Modest Mouse’s wilier stuff, but with a punch of something modern and fresh—this isn’t just a band hung up on the indie of the 2010s. The 10-track album turns out to be quite eclectic, with the other single, “Sleeping Season” recalling early indie rock in a more lighthearted way, balancing hammering guitar parts and frontman Ian Stewart’s snarky voice with soft acoustic breaks. Acoustics open the album, too, with the angst-ridden “Washing Up,” that builds with drums as Stewart practically murmurs to himself on themes of ghosts and coasts. The whole album, really, sticks to the broad themes of “beach” and “death,” and it’d be hokey if the songs had even a hint of surf-rock jangle or grimy garage, but they don’t. Instead, Beach Death is full of tight little indie numbers, catchy as hell and hooky thanks to Stewart’s squirrely, smirking vocals. On songs like “Holy Ghost,” he sings like he’s navigating whitewater rapids as he details an encounter with a floating apparition, one that prompts ruminations on mortality that also send the song tumbling as though in existential crisis along with him. His tight-mouthed way of singing at times recalls alt-J, but with a mean, desperate glint to it that recedes entirely on the album’s only instrumental title-track, a well-timed break for jamming. Beach Death concludes with “No One’s Savior,” a shifty track that wraps up the album nicely, if only because it’s so much like the other songs—as in solid, catchy, fun. With songs like these, Beach Death won’t be having a quiet year post-pandemic—I’d wager they’ll find their way to beachier climes and ritzy stages as soon as they’re able to tour this impressive debut album. Stream it wherever you stream, or buy at beachdeathband.bandcamp.com.

WhySound Reopens for Shows

@LUNAD12

BRUNCH! SATURDAYS AND SUNDAYS

BY ERIN MOORE

After a tumultuous fall and winter of closure and uncertainty, Logan’s chief indie-kid venue WhySound is back open for business—and they’re doing anything they can to make the show accessible to those comfortable being indoors despite COVID, those who want to watch outside and those who don’t want to or can’t leave home. Shows kicked back off with a double-bill of local solo act Sorry Mom, supported by Just Nervous and Nicholas James on Jan. 22, and by Sweet Tangerine and Nora Barlow on Jan. 23. The next upcoming shows are also full of Northern Utah gems, starting with a set this Friday on Jan. 29 with the good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll Anderson Safre Trio, who will be supported by the similarly inclined Shua Taylor. Taylor’s modest indie-guy vocals give his vintage riffs a charming modern update to balance out the jams of the trio. To follow that evening, a different Anderson will be on the lineup on Saturday, Jan. 30, this time by way of young local soloist Branson Anderson, who will be opening for The Painted Roses. For his part, Anderson has been making a sure name for himself in Northern Utah and SLC alike, catching up quickly to older folk staples in the city in the two-ish short years he’s been active on the scene. His weary-cowboy aesthetic will contrast a bit with the more contemporary sound of The Painted Roses—a blend of dusty folk, ’70s rock riffs and modern indie warmth. While closed, WhySound was heavily advertising their recording studio services, and if anyone needs evidence of the kind of product they put out, The Painted Roses’ two 2020 singles—“Tired Eyes” and “Dirty Dreams”—were recorded there. WhySound is playing it safe, as mentioned above, by offering a livestream link to both shows, outdoor viewing options and limited indoor seating (it will be curious how they navigate letting people from outside see in). The show is $10, and tickets can be purchased via Venmo or PayPal with a note in the details about which show one wants to attend. Masks are required, and the show starts at 7 p.m. both nights. Visit @the. whysound on Instagram for more details and updates on future shows.

ALEX SPRINGER

Award Winning Donuts

705 S. 700 E. | (801) 537-1433

The Cotton Bottom sticks to tradition in all the right ways.

W

COME ON IN OR CURBSIDE IT! HAND CRAFTED BURGERS. All natural and homemade products from proteins to sodas

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Mon-Thur 11am to 8pm Fri - Sat 11am to 10pm Sun: 12pm to 8pm

JANUARY 28, 2021 | 23

30 E BROADWAY, SLC UT

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AT A GLANCE

Open: Mon.-Tues., 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Wed.-Fri., 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sat., 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun., 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m.

Best bet: The garlic cheeseburger Can’t miss: Also the garlic cheeseburger

BURGERS AS BIG AS YOUR HEAD!

hen I first started my journey to map out the latitudes and longitudes of Utah’s food scene, it wasn’t long before I got to the intersection of Holladay Boulevard and 6200 South.

Despite the other developments that have emerged closer to the canyon itself, something about this cozy, arboreal section of Holladay has always felt like a true gateway to Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Though this part of town is home to Franck’s and Tuscany, two heavy hitters in Utah’s fine dining scene, I couldn’t help but be attracted to The Cotton Bottom (2820 E. 6200 South, 801-849-8847, thecottonbottom.com). Because garlic burgers.

I visited Cotton Bottom a few times when I was dating my wife, and the juxtaposition of a dive bar and Franck’s was not lost on me. Over the years, I grew to see Tuscany, Franck’s and Cotton Bottom as representative of the diverse group of people that hold Big Cottonwood Canyon dear to their hearts. The former two catered to the après-ski fine dining crowd, and The Cotton Bottom was there for the droves of bikers who took in the mountain air on the backs of their motorcycles.

Like most of our fellow patrons, my wife and I were there for their famous garlic

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BY ALEX SPRINGER comments@cityweekly.net @captainspringer

possible, so I drove to a nearby park and dug in. Once I opened the takeout box, the familiar aroma of garlicky goodness wafted upward—so far, so good. The two-patty burger is still housed on a square bun of grilled French bread, and it is dressed up with lettuce, tomato, onions and mayo. You can get them with and without cheese, but I have to suggest getting a layer of melted American cheese for the full effect. After bite one, I knew Cotton Bottom was in good hands.

I’ve had several people ask me what sets the garlic burger at Cotton Bottom apart from others, and I’ve even had a few blasphemers snarkily opine that burgers aren’t nuanced enough to be truly great food. My answer is, as it was in the days before Bar X took over, harmony. Even though it’s called the garlic burger, garlic is not front and center. It’s there, mind you, but it exists in perfect harmony with the other flavors lovingly packed within.

I’m not the biggest fan of onion or mayo on a burger, but these are crucial layers to the garlic burger’s overall foundation. The combo of onion and garlic on a perfectly grilled burger is a no brainer, and the mayo exists to keep those big flavors from going rogue and wrecking the party. Lettuce and tomato are there for a bit of crisp freshness to cut through the fat, and melted cheese just makes everything better. If you don’t think burgers can transcend their humble spot in American cuisine, get thee to Cotton Bottom. CW

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Bottoms Up

burgers. Cotton Bottom was doing the specialized menu long before it became on-trend—their menu was so specialized, in fact, that it only included the one item.

Their garlic burgers arrived on a square bun, teeming with that savory aroma of roasted garlic, and were big enough for the two of us to split. A bag of Lay’s potato chips was the side du jour, and we spent many nights devouring these perfect burgers while enjoying the brisk mountain air as the sun set around us.

When the Bar X Group acquired of this local treasure, those of us with a soft spot for Cotton Bottom crossed our fingers. This local restaurant confab—whose luminaries include Bar X, Beer Bar in Downtown Salt Lake and The Eating Establishment in Park City—seemed like a good fit to carry on the Cotton Bottom legacy. Based on the other restaurants in the Bar X Group’s portfolio, they knew how to cultivate a gastropub that could successfully juggle a great food and drink menu, while creating a distinctly Utah atmosphere.

Cotton Bottom reopened under the Bar X banner around two months ago, and I was eager to see what they had done with the place and their signature garlic burgers. I ordered a garlic cheeseburger ($12) online, and noticed a few additions to the menu, such as the Skier’s Chili ($8) and BLT ($9). Vegetarian diners can also get an Impossible Burger ($14), which is always nice to see on a menu.

When I arrived onsite, the place looked as charming as I remember. I was pleased to see newly painted parking stalls for motorcycles—the place will always be a biker bar to me—and a convenient walk-up window for takeout orders. On the outside, Cotton Bottom looks pretty much the same in all the right ways, and I was hopeful that the garlic burgers would receive the same treatment.

I wanted to destroy this thing as quickly as

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onTAP BEER TO-GO AVAILABLE! SUN - THU: 11AM – 9PM FRI - SAT: 11AM – 10PM

2 Row Brewing 6856 S. 300 West, Midvale 2RowBrewing.com On Tap: Feelin’ Hazy

Moab Brewing 686 S. Main, Moab TheMoabBrewery.com On Tap: Bougie Johnny’s

Silver Reef 4391 S. Enterprise Drive, St. George StGeorgeBev.com

Bewilder Brewing 445 S. 400 West, SLC BewilderBrewing.com On Tap: Oat Pale Lager

Mountain West Cider 425 N. 400 West, SLC MountainWestCider.com On Tap: GULB 2020

Squatters 147 W. Broadway, SLC Squatters.com

Bohemian Brewery 94 E. Fort Union Blvd, Midvale BohemianBrewery.com

Ogden River Brewing 358 Park Blvd, Ogden OgdenRiverBrewing.com

Bonneville Brewery 1641 N. Main, Tooele BonnevilleBrewery.com On Tap: Peaches and Cream Ale

Policy Kings Brewery 223 N. 100 West, Cedar City PolicyKingsBrewery.com

Desert Edge Brewery 273 Trolley Square, SLC DesertEdgeBrewery.com On Tap: Fresh Brewed UPA

2496 S. WEST TEMPLE, SLC LEVELCROSSINGBREWING.COM @LEVELCROSSINGBREWING

A list of what local craft breweries and cider houses have on tap this week

Epic Brewing Co. 825 S. State, SLC EpicBrewing.com On Tap: Midnight Munchies Peanut Butter Stout Fisher Brewing Co. 320 W. 800 South, SLC FisherBeer.com On Tap: Red Ale Grid City Beer Works 333 W. 2100 South, SLC GridCityBeerWorks.com On Tap: Extra Pale Ale Hopkins Brewing Co. 1048 E. 2100 South, SLC HopkinsBrewingCompany.com On Tap: Black Sesame Stout Hoppers Grill and Brewing 890 E. Fort Union Blvd, Midvale HoppersBrewPub.com Kiitos Brewing 608 W. 700 South, SLC KiitosBrewing.com Level Crossing Brewing Co. 2496 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake LevelCrossingBrewing.com On Tap: Oat Slayer Milk Stout

Proper Brewing 857 S. Main, SLC ProperBrewingCo.com On Tap: Brunch Beer Grapefruit Wheat Ale Red Rock Brewing Multiple Locations RedRockBrewing.com On Tap: Secale RoHa Brewing Project 30 Kensington Ave, SLC RoHaBrewing.com On Tap: Flanders Red Ale Roosters Brewing Multiple Locations RoostersBrewingCo.com On Tap: Cosmic Autumn Rebellion SaltFire Brewing 2199 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake SaltFireBrewing.com On Tap: Frankky Mr Shankly NEIPA Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com On Tap: P1 Pilsner Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer On Tap: Peach Cobbler

Strap Tank Brewery Multiple Locations StrapTankBrewery.com Springville On Tap: PB Rider, Peanut Butter Stout Lehi On Tap: 2-Stroke, Vanilla Mocha Porter TF Brewing 936 S. 300 West, SLC TFBrewing.com On Tap: Fluffier Nuts Pastry StoutDunkel Lager Talisman Brewing Co. 1258 Gibson Ave, Ogden TalismanBrewingCo.com On Tap: Udder Chaos Chocolate Milk Stout Toasted Barrel Brewery 412 W. 600 North, SLC ToastedBarrelBrewery.com Uinta Brewing 1722 S. Fremont Drive, SLC UintaBrewing.com On Tap: Was Angeles Craft Beer UTOG 2331 Grant Ave, Ogden UTOGBrewing.com On Tap: Son of a Peach Vernal Brewing 55 S. 500 East, Vernal VernalBrewing.com Wasatch 2110 S. Highland Drive, SLC WasatchBeers.com Zion Brewery 95 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale ZionBrewery.com Zolupez 205 W. 29th Street #2, Ogden Zolupez.com

BEER NERD

Funk and Nuts

BY MIKE RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @utahbeer

LIVE JAZZ Thursdays 8-11 PM

MIKE RIEDEL

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JANUARY 28, 2021 | 25

PROJECT PORTER AVAILABLE!

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keep it from becoming another doughnut in a glass. This style of beer is certainly not my top pick when it comes to styles, but you can’t deny its appeal.

Fisher - Valley of Gold: This one has that highly saturated sunrise orange body which glows and borders on red but doesn’t quite get there. The head is impressive and could rival some of the best looking Belgian saisons, dense enough that it rises meringue-like an inch higher than the rim without spilling over.

As I popped the tab on this 5.0 percent beer, Brettanomyces funk hit me immediately. It’s medicinal, doughy floral and barnyard funky. Wildflower pollen and horse blanket brett yeast characteristics are the highlight, but they’re well balanced.

Whispers of the dry hopping remain, with orange marmalade and grapefruit pith all over a doughy malt base.

Interesting, the flavor doesn’t have nearly the same wild intensity as the nose, and actually leans more toward pale ale.

Of course, the funk is still present, but it’s much softer. Doughy malt with a drizzle of caramel lays down the base for a jammy orange and grapefruit hop profile. Undercurrents of brett run throughout, a little horsey up front followed by a floral ending.

Overall: They did a good job with this beer. I’m happy that many of the smaller local breweries are giving brett beers a shot.

Brettanomyces is a highly invasive yeast, and it can infect other non-brett beers if safeguards aren’t put in place. If you’re looking to get familiar with the funk, this would be a good starting off point.

These are boty seasonals, but there’s plenty to go around. Drink Valley of Gold fresh, as the funky yeast will begin to sour this beer over time—and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s not the flavor profile the brewers were shooting for. Midnight Munchie can go either way; it will work fresh or old, as the 8.5 percent alcohol will give you a solid two years in your cellar. As always, cheers. CW

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T

his week we have a mix of new and old. Peanut butter is the hot adjunct for beer and even whiskeys right now, and one of our offerings builds on that trend. The other reaches back to a time when beer was more raw and less refined.

Which one will you choose? Hopefully, these descriptions will help you decide.

Epic - Midnight Munchies: The beer pours a cola-black color with a moderate amount of tan foam. The aroma is a massive mix of caramel and cocoa mixed with plum, prune and raisin. Along with these smells come some nice strong notes of Nutella and a whole bunch of roasted peanuts, producing a nice roasty and sweet peanut buttery aroma overall.

The taste begins with a dark and toasty malt flavor that has a great level of sweetness of molasses, caramel and brown sugar. There is a bit of peanut butter right from the start, which grows stronger in nature toward the middle of the taste only to fade a bit later on. Some lighter cocoa notes develop as the taste advances, and are joined by a little bit of the fruit that was detected in the nose. With some char and a moderate hit of a boozy flavor that develops at the end, one is left with a somewhat sweet and more moderate lightly roasted malt taste (at least for an imperial stout) that holds within it a hit of peanut butter flavor.

Overall: Quite nice, like a Nutella-enhanced PB&J sandwich. I enjoyed the flavor and the smell of the brew; moderation and a light hand in the brewing process helped

TUESDAY TRIVIA! 7-9 PM

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Nope, not a buddy cop show—this is all about beer.

OUTDOOR SEATING ON THE PATIO

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BY ALEX SPRINGER @captainspringer

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Tacoland Opens

Though it’s not the taco-based theme park I was hoping for, Tacoland (499 E. 2700 South, 801-953-0421) is shaping up to be one of South Salt Lake’s hottest new taquerias. They’ve got their traditional bases covered with carne asada and al pastor, in addition to some fish and shrimp tacos—all of which look amazing. I’m particularly intrigued to check out their tacos especiales menu, which features tacos made with 16-hour smoked brisket and tacos made with marinated portobello mushrooms. With a diverse menu of tacos that all cost less than five bucks, I’m looking forward to adding Tacoland to my rotation.

Celebrat i

26

year

s!

Slim Chickens Expands

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26 | JANUARY 28, 2021

AVAILABLE THROUGH

Stratford Proper (stratfordproper.com) announced the lineup for its Cellar Dinner, a food and beer pairing that sounds off the charts. This four-course meal will feature bone marrow, burnt citrus salad, dry aged duck breast and goat cheese cheesecake, paired with craft beers from Talisman, Squatters, Epic and Uinta brewers. It’s a celebration of local brewing and gastronomic talent, and shouldn’t be missed by food and beer lovers. The Cellar Dinner takes place on Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. at 865 S. Main Street, near Proper Burger and Proper Brewing Company. Interested parties can make reservations by calling or visiting any Proper location.

ng

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Cellar Dinner at Stratford Proper

TEXAS ORIGINAL RECIPES 100% Wood Smoked Bar-B-Que Tue-Wed 7-3pm | Thu-Sat 7-7pm 962 S. 300 West, Salt Lake City

An Arkansas-based fried chicken franchise known as Slim Chickens (slimchickens.com) recently opened its second Utah location in Herriman (5167 W. Anthem Park Boulevard). It joins the Lehi location (1250 E. State Street) in spreading the word of fast food fried chicken to those of us along the Wasatch Front. While we have no shortage of fried chicken to keep us satiated, I have to say I’m curious to try their chicken and waffles—the company that successfully adapts this legendary team to a fast-food setting will have my respect for years to come. Outside of that, Slim Chickens specializes in chicken tenders, wings, wraps and sandwiches.

Quote of the Week: “He was a wise man who invented beer.” –Plato

Call your order in for curbside delivery!

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Stay warm with your friends at

20 W. 200 S. SLC | (801) 355-3891 AS SEEN ON “ DINERS, DRIVEINS AND DIVES”

Serving American Comfort Food Since 1930

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$2 off all 10” pizza

TACO TUESDAY

Your choice of any 2+ Tacos $2.50 ea.

WING WEDNESDAY

75¢ Wings Minimum order of 5

THIRSTY THURSDAY

Pint of Beer or Tall Boy w/shot $5.00

535 N 300 W, SLC (across from Marmalade Library) | diversioneatery.com |

SATURDAY & SUNDAY BRUNCH

Food menu Available from 11am to 3pm $3 Mimosas | $6 Boozie Coffees | NEW $6 Boneyard Bloodys

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JANUARY 28, 2021 | 27

IT’S A MONDAY

Ask about Catering! low-carb and gluten free options along with a kid-friendly mini menu

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Spicy mustard, pickles, carnitas, ham, cheddar cheese, and jalapenos on a pretzel bun!

Burger Bowls | Pizza | Tacos | Filled Portabellas Full Bar | Big Screen TVs | Board Games

ORDER AHEAD FOR DEAL 50 WINGS, 2 SAUCES, CARROTS & CELERY: $45 2 LARGE PIZZAS, 20 WINGS (2 SAUCES): $45 1 LARGE PIZZA, 10 WINGS, BIG GREEN SALAD: $30

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4160 EMIGRATION CANYON ROAD | 801 582-5807 | WWW.RUTHSDINER.COM

28 | JANUARY 28, 2021

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SOCIAL DISTANCE WITH YOUR FIVE WIVES

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Go to realastrology.com for Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes and daily text-message horoscopes.

Audio horoscopes also available by phone at 877-873-4888 or 900-950-7700.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) All of us go through phases when our brains work at a higher level than usual. I’m guessing that you’re about to enjoy one of these times. In fact, I won’t be shocked if you string together a series of ingenious thoughts and actions. I hope you use your enhanced intelligence for important matters—like making practical improvements in your life! Please don’t waste it on trivial matters like arguments on Facebook or Twitter.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Virgo actor Ingrid Bergman appeared in three movies directed

by Alfred Hitchcock. In Notorious, set after the end of World War II, she played the daughter of a Nazi spy. During the filming, Bergman had trouble with a particular scene. She explained her doubts to Hitchcock, saying, “I don’t think I can do that naturally.” Hitchcock seemed receptive to her input, but in the end had an unexpected response: “All right,” he told her.

“If you can’t do it naturally, then fake it.” I’m going to suggest that you follow Hitchcock’s advice during the next two weeks,

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Don’ts: Don’t keep scratching an old wound until it bleeds. Don’t try to snatch away the teddy bear that belongs to the 800pound gorilla. Don’t try to relieve your tension by pounding your head against a wall. Don’t try to convince a stone idol to show you some tenderness. Dos: Do ask supposedly naive questions that may yield liberating revelations. Do keep in mind that sometimes things need to be a bit broken before you’ll be motivated to give them all the care they need and deserve. Do extinguish the fire on a burning bridge, and then repair the bridge.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Today the Capricorn artist Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) is regarded as an important and influential painter. Early in his career, though, he was rejected and even ridiculed by critics. One reason was that he loved making still-life paintings, which were considCANCER (June 21-July 22) William Shakespeare worked with another playwright in creat- ered low art. Of his 584 works, about 200 of them were of inaniing three plays: Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Cardenio. mate, commonplace objects. Fruit was his specialty. Typically, The lucky collaborator was John Fletcher, who was popular and he might spend 100 separate sessions in perfecting a particular influential in his era. I propose that we name him one of your bowl of apples. “Don’t you want to take a vacation from painting role models in 2021. Here’s why: You will have an enhanced fruit?” he was asked. In response, he said that simply shifting the potential to engage in fertile partnerships with allies who are location of his easel in relation to his subject matter was almost quite worthy of you. I encourage you to be on the lookout for more excitement than he could bear. That’s the kind of focused, detailed attitude I hope you’ll cultivate toward your own labors of opportunities to thrive on symbiosis and synergy. love during the coming weeks, Capricorn.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Canadian journalist Nick Ashdown is amazed that white people AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) in North America are so inhibited about revealing their real “We all want everything to be OK,” writes author David feelings. He writes, “How bizarre that in English, the word Levithan. “We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvel‘emotional’ is used pejoratively, as though passion implies some ous or outstanding. We will happily settle for OK, because most sort of weakness.” He marvels that the culture seems to “wor- of the time, OK is enough.” To that mediocre manifesto, I reply, ship nonchalance” and regard intense expressiveness as uncool OK. I accept that it’s true for many people. But I don’t think it will or unprofessional. I’m going to encourage you to embody a apply to you Aquarians in the coming weeks. According to my different approach in the coming days. I don’t mean to suggest assessment of your astrological potentials, you can, if you want, that you should be an out-of-control maniac constantly explod- have a series of appointments with the fantastic, the marvelous ing with intensity. But I do hope you will take extra measures to and the outstanding. Please keep those appointments! Don’t respect and explore and reveal the spirited truth about yourself. skip them out of timidity or excess humility.

JANUARY 28, 2021 | 29

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) In 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard had the great privilege of landing on the moon in a spacecraft, then walking on the lunar surface. How did he celebrate this epic holy adventure? By reciting a stirring passage from Shakespeare or the Talmud? By placing a framed photo of Amelia Earhart or a statue of Icarus in the dirt?

By saying a prayer to his God or thoughtfully thanking the people who helped put him there? No. Shepard used this sublime one-ofa-kind moment to hit a golf ball with a golf club. I’ll ask you not to regard him as a role model in the coming weeks. When your sacred or lofty moments arrive, offer proper homage and honor. Be righteously appreciative of your blessings.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) The 17th-century Libran polymath Thomas Browne had a brilliant, well-educated mind. He authored many books on various subjects, from science to religion, and was second only to Shakespeare in the art of coining new words. He did have a blind spot, however. He referred to sex as the “trivial and vulgar way of union” and “the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life.” Most of us have pockets of ignorance like that—aspects that qualify as learning disabilities or intellectual black holes.

And now and then there come times when we benefit from TAURUS (April 20-May 20) The light of the North Star takes a long time to reach us, even checking in with these deficiencies and deciding whether to take though it’s traveling 186,000 miles per second. The beams it any fresh steps to wisen them up. Now is such a time for you. shows us tonight first embarked when Shakespeare was alive on Earth. And yet that glow seems so fresh and pure. Are SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) there any other phenomena in your life that are metaphorically “There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up comparable? Perhaps an experience you had months ago that is to see it,” declares actor and comedian Mindy Kaling. Is that an only now revealing its complete meaning? Or a seed you planted unromantic sentiment? Maybe. But more importantly, it’s eviyears ago that is finally ripening into its mature expression? The dence that she treasures her sleep. And that’s admirable! She is coming weeks will be an excellent time to take inventory of such devoted to giving her body the nurturing it needs to be healthy. things, Taurus. It will also be a favorable phase to initiate inno- Let’s make Kaling your patron saint for now. It’s a favorable time vations that will take some time to become fully useful for you. to upgrade your strategies for taking very good care of yourself.

| COMMUNITY |

Virgo. “Fake it till you make it” is an acceptable—probably preferable—approach.

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ARIES (March 21-April 19) In the 1950 film Harvey, James Stewart plays a middle-age man named Elwood whose best friend is a tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. The relationship causes problems with the people in Elwood’s life. At one point a psychiatrist tries to convince him to “struggle with reality.” Elwood replies, “I wrestled with reality for 40 years, and I am happy to state that I finally won.” I’m happy to tell you this story, Aries, because it’s a good lead in to my counsel for you: I suspect that one of your long wrestles with reality will yield at least a partial victory in the coming weeks. And it will be completely real, as opposed to Elwood’s Harvey. Congratulations!

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© 2021

FAIR’S FAIR

BY DAVID LEVINSON WILK

ACROSS

G

Let Us Pray!

48. Opposite NNW 49. Most like Gandalf 50. Take in the groceries?

52. Sarcastic “Great!”

53. Ronald : Nancy :: Mikhail : ____ 56. Threadbare 57. NYPD figures 58. Do a pre-Christmas task 61. Pasture sound

Last week’s answers

No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.

8. Painter Mondrian 9. Greek letter shaped like a cross 10. Harry Potter, e.g.

11. 1996 Pauly Shore comedy 12. First, second, or third, e.g.

13. Makes tidy 21. “Impractical Jokers” network ____TV 23. Exclamations of regret 26. Crunchable numbers 28. Image file type with a much-debated pronunciation 29. Cape Canaveral’s locale: Abbr.

30. Botch 32. The Jonas Brothers, e.g.

33. Abbr. on a returned check 36. Texter’s “As I see it ...”

37. Like the planet Hoth in “The Empire Strikes Back” 38. Baseball scoreboard letters DOWN 39. Cost of a shave and a 1. In jeopardy haircut, once 2. Lacking 40. Top 10 hit for Neil Sedaka 3. 1992 David Mamet play 41. Helps finance, say 4. English county closest to Continental Europe 44. Kabul native 5. Ice cream brand known as Dreyer’s west of 45. Early TV star with a biogthe Rockies raphy titled “Schnozzola” 6. ____ yoga 46. On the schedule 7. Troy story

URBAN L I V I N

WITH BABS DELAY Broker, Urban Utah Homes & Estates, urbanutah.com

Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers 1 to 9.

1. Stirred 6. In the know about 11. “____ appétit!”

14. Like most bathrooms 15. “Are you calling me ____?”

16. Fury 17. Hoyer who became House Majority Leader in 2019 18. Gridlock consequence 19. ____ Mae (Whoopi’s “Ghost” role) 20. “End of discussion” 22. Seen enough 24. Chicago’s ____ Center 25. Cool, in the ‘80s 26. The beginning 27. Literally, “skill” 30. Exemplar of masculinity 31. Online business 32. Letter-shaped fastener 34. Windy City trains 35. “Them’s the rules” 39. “My mama done ____ me” 42. Vex 43. “Hanging” problems in the 2000 election 47. Reference work on notable people published since 1899 50. Quite a sight 51. The “O” of AOC 52. British pop star Rita 54. Miracle-____ 55. Causes of ruin 56. The skinny 59. Org. that collects 1099s 60. Face With Tears of Joy, for one 62. POTUS #18 63. Tater ____ 64. Hedge fund titan nicknamed “The Palindrome” 65. Woman with une nièce 66. ____-pitch softball 67. Warrin’ Harding?

68. Invaded someone’s privacy

SUDOKU

| COMMUNITY | | CITYWEEKLY.NET |

30 | JANUARY 28, 2021

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

A new year, and a new president and VP. I can’t imagine leading the country in challenging times such as these. Sure, there’s a pandemic that we need to get under control, but there’s also a huge economic problem facing us due to the virus. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed across the nation, and the numbers will be grim this year as many file for bankruptcy.

Let’s step back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the country’s 44th president. The economy had nearly collapsed due to bank fraud and a recession that had boiled up the previous year, and Obama needed to rescue the country from bankruptcy. Working both sides of the aisle, he got the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—the biggest economic stimulus package this country had ever seen—passed and signed a month after he took office. By the time he left office eight years later, the U.S. economy had gained 11.6 million jobs and home prices rose 20% (but the home-ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century).

When people lost their homes in the aftermath of the Great Recession, a number of full-time Realtors became experts in short sales—a way of selling a home when the homeowner is behind in their payments and facing foreclosure. The home is sold, with the bank’s permission, for less than what they owe on their mortgage. It was a nightmare for us professionals as well as homeowners in financial distress because there was no guarantee you’d be able to speak to someone at the bank holding the note on the home. And when you did track a representative down, they’d be gone a week later. We had to be skilled to get a homeowner through the process before the sheriff came knocking at their door demanding they leave because the bank had taken back the home in the formal foreclosure process.

Once a homeowner completed a successful short sale of their property, there was a bad after effect: They’d have a big stain on their credit rating for a long time, which would make it impossible for them to buy a home again. Time passed and several years later, we saw lenders changing credit requirements and rules to bring in new customers for home mortgage loans. A bad economy and people’s bad credit records were why home ownership hit such a low rate during Obama’s tenure in the White House. According to chicagofed.org, there were approximately 3.8 million foreclosures from 2007-2010 in this country.

Biden and Harris are facing COVIDcaused economic chaos as they sit in their newly sanitized offices with their plans to help us all see our way to national prosperity again. My prayers are with them. n Content is prepared expressly for Community and is not endorsed by City Weekly staff.

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n Residents of Chikuzen Town, Fukuoka Prefecture, in Japan, have constructed a towering, 23-foot-tall gorilla scarecrow as a symbol of power and strength to scare away COVID-19.

SoraNews24 reported construction of the gorilla, made of a steel frame covered with rice straw resembling gorilla fur, took two months and was finished in early December. Its open mouth reveals terrifying fangs, and at night its red eyes light up. “Proud Gorilla 2020” is the sixth in a series of giant scarecrows the town constructs each year.

Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.

Babs De Lay

| COMMUNITY |

nA couple in Sherbrooke, Quebec, were each fined $1,500 on Jan. 9, when police spotted the pair walking outside about an hour after the city’s 8 p.m. curfew, with the husband wearing a leash, CTV News reported. The city’s curfew allows for dog-walking after 8 p.m., but police rejected the couple’s claim they were following the rules. It was the first weekend under new provincewide restrictions imposed by Premier Francois Legault, and officers throughout Quebec handed out more than 750 tickets.

Police Report Police in the Japanese community of Funabashi City have arrested Ryusei Takada, 26, for allegedly stealing more than a dozen toilets from houses under construction. The Daily Mail reported the thefts began in October and continued, with local media dubbing the elusive thief the God of Toilets, until Takata flushed himself out by selling a brand-new fixture to a secondhand store in the city. Takada, a construction company office worker, admitted to the thefts and said he did it “to cover my living expenses.”

Inexplicable An armed man wearing camouflage tactical gear approached a 23-year-old worker as she was leaving the Cranbourne West Lost Dogs Home in Melbourne, Australia, about 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 11 and demanded she turn over her cellphone, Detective Senior Sergeant Glen Cruse told the media. Victoria police said the man pointed his gun at the woman, then took her inside the shelter, tied her up and “asked where the cats were before he left the room and didn’t return,” the Daily Star reported. The woman freed herself and called for help; police are still looking for the man, and a motive.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time Veronica Gutierrez, 36, was arrested in Palm Springs, California, on Jan. 5 after allegedly carjacking an SUV that afternoon in Rosemead, an incident that was complicated by the fact that the car owner’s 84-year-old mother was in the passenger seat at the time, according to authorities. Police Sgt. Richard Lewis said the owner had left the SUV’s motor running with the heater on for her mother when the suspect drove off, eventually letting the mother go in Desert Hot Springs, more than 100 miles away. The East Bay Times reported the mother was unharmed, and Gutierrez was being held on suspicion of kidnapping for carjacking.

New Food The European Food Safety Agency on Jan. 13 approved yellow grubs, aka mealworms, as its first insect “novel food,” to be used whole and dried in curries and as flour to make pastas and breads, Reuters reported. Mealworms are rich in protein, fat and fiber, according to agency food scientist Ermolaos Ververis, and “there is great interest ... in the edible insect sector.” But sociologists point out that “the so-called ‘yuck factor’ (may) make the thought of eating insects repellent to many Europeans,” said consumer researcher Giovanni Sogari of the University of Parma in Italy. “With time and exposure, such attitudes can change,” he added.

News That Sounds Like a Joke An unidentified man, who authorities said appeared to be intoxicated, was taken into custody on Jan. 13 by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after local U.S. Coast Guard crews found him onboard a stolen floating tiki hut near Hawk’s Channel in Key West, WTVJ-TV reported. The man was charged with grand theft and resisting an officer without violence. The Coast Guard posted photos of the tiki hut and warned, “Don’t drink and boat!”

Least Competent Criminals Aasim J. Hilts, 26, of Albany, New York, and Shariff A. Frasier of Schenectady returned their rental car on Jan. 13, leaving behind an impressive amount of drugs and paraphernalia, The Daily Gazette reported. Albany County Sheriff’s deputies were called and arrived about the same time Hilts and Frasier returned to pick up their forgotten items, authorities said, which included heroin, oxycodone pills pressed with fentanyl, marijuana and almost $6,000 in cash. Both men were arrested and face drug charges.

Awesome!

Joe the Pigeon, named after the new U.S. president, has become world-famous after being found in a Melbourne, Australia, backyard on Dec. 26 with a band around his leg that suggested he was a racing pigeon from Oregon, 8,000 miles away.

Australian authorities declared the bird a biosecurity risk and announced they would have to euthanize him, the Associated Press reported, but Joe received a last-minute reprieve when Deone Roberts of the American Racing Pigeon Union declared on Jan. 15 that the band around Joe’s leg is “counterfeit and not traceable.” Australia’s Agriculture Department agreed, saying in a statement that Joe “is highly likely to be Australian,” and it would take no further action against him.

| CITYWEEKLY.NET |

The Continuing Crisis Two Florida residents, Brian Montalvo Tolentino, 43, of Davenport and Juan Burgos-Lopez, 39, of Lake Wales, admitted to police they had removed four human skulls from tombs they had robbed in Mount Dora, WKMG-TV reported. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told local media on Jan. 8 that detectives serving a search warrant on Burgos-Lopez’s property found a shed containing a ritualistic shrine and seven skulls the men told authorities they used in the practice of the Palo Mayombe religion. Three of the four graves robbed were of members of the armed forces because, Judd said, Lopez told authorities “the spirit is much stronger in a hero” and “it can protect you from evil.” Before vandalizing the graves, Judd added, the men drank rum and spit it on the ground, then smoked a cigar and exhaled the smoke “to protect them from the spirits.” DNA on the cigars led authorities to the suspects.

When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best Romney Christopher Ellis, 57, of Indianapolis, was sentenced to four years and 10 months in prison on Jan. 5 by a federal court in Tampa, Florida, after waging a four-year-long campaign to harass and threaten his ex-wife, including at one point sending a package with a dead rat and a black rose to her home, according to court records. Ellis also threatened to decapitate her and set her on fire. Postal inspectors searched Ellis’ home in February, reported the Associate Press, uncovering evidence, and he pleaded guilty in April.

People and Their Pets The South Korean startup Petpuls Lab has announced it developed an AI dog collar that can help owners discern what emotions their pets are feeling based on how they bark. “This device gives a dog a voice so that humans can understand,” the company’s director of global marketing, Andrew Gil, told Reuters. The collar detects five emotions, and owners can find out through a smartphone app if their pets are happy, relaxed, anxious, angry or sad. Seoul National University tested the device and declared it has a 90% average accuracy rate. The collar sells for $99.

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