City Weekly March 4, 2021

C I T Y W E E K LY. N E T

Actions speak louder than words when it comes to a gender discrimination lawsuit against the SLC Fire Department.

BY CHRISTOPHER SMART

MARCH 4, 2021 | VOL. 37

N0. 40

CONTENTS COVER STORY

NO WOMAN NEED APPLY Actions speak louder than words when it comes to a gender discrimination lawsuit against the SLC Fire Department.

By Christopher Smart Cover photography

by John Taylor

9

6 PRIVATE EYE 14 A&E 17 DINE 22 MUSIC 28 CINEMA 29 COMMUNITY

2 | MARCH 4, 2021

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STAFF Publisher PETE SALTAS Executive Editor JOHN SALTAS News Editor JERRE WROBLE Arts & Entertainment Editor SCOTT RENSHAW Music Editor ERIN MOORE Listings Desk KARA RHODES

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SOAP BOX “Happy Endings” Feb. 25 Conte de Fee dining review by Alex Springer

So honored to be mentioned in City Weekly! Thank you! @CONTEDEFEECAKES Via Instagram

“Making the Grade” Feb. 25 cover story by Benjamin Wood

Great article, Ben. I remember another “kumbaya” moment when we passed the Teacher Evaluations Law with then-Sen. Aaron Osmond.

Let’s hope this moment lasts a bit longer. We will see. @SHARONGF_NBCT Via Twitter

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Republican AG “War Games”

In case you missed it, as part of a report by a Missouri organization called “Take Back Missouri,” new emails released via a publicrecords request uncovered planning meetings by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), its policy arm the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) and Republican Attorneys General to attack our country’s democratic institutions.

According to reporting by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, there was a two-day summit in Atlanta, Georgia, at the end of September ahead of the 2020 election. The meeting, which occurred in person, consisted of more than 30 senior staff members from Republican Attorneys General office from across the country, 12 senior staffers attending virtually and high-ranking staff from RAGA. It was described by former RAGA executive director as, “War Games.”

In the first email to Republican AGs

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on September 24, RAGA’s then-executive director described the summit as, “War Games—32 AG Staff Members are huddled in Atlanta for a series of conversations planning for what could come if we lose the White House.”

In the second email to Republican AGs on Sept. 25—which noted an increase in attendance—RAGA’s then executive director wrote, “Thank you to the 30+ AG staff members who came the Atlanta and the other 12 who participated virtually. It was a fast paced, productive series of war games, which hopefully will not have to be utilized in November.”

This new information comes as Republican Attorneys General continue to deny that they, their senior staff or RAGA staff knew about the sponsorship of—and robocalls to promote—the Jan. 6th “rally,” that resulted in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and lives lost. In fact, once again, RAGA and RLDF

refused to answer questions when pressed by reporters.

What is becoming clear, though, is the Republican AGs defense of not knowing what RLDF/RAGA was up to regarding the attacks on the election—including the Jan. 6th rally turned deadly insurrection—is crumbling.

With more than 30 state Attorneys General races on the ballot in 2022, voters deserve to know the role their state’s Republican Attorney General played in attacking our democracy and undermining a free and fair election, including support of the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6th.

For a timeline on RAGA and Republican AGs’ involvement in the Jan. 6th rallyturned-deadly insurrection, visit: http://bit.ly/3b5lzLe Brandon Richards DEMOCRATIC ATTORNEYS GENERAL ASSOCIATION Washington, D.C.

THE BOX

What was the last thing you recorded on TV? Tony Caputo Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.

Joel Smith The final episode of M*A*S*H Chelsea Neider On VHS, probably a Britney Spears’ music video or concert. I used to always record everything with Britney in it so I could have my own mini concert in my living room later with myself and Britney. I mean, I still do without the VHS recording part lol.

Benjamin Wood Supermarket Sweep. The reboot is an absolute blast.

Paula Saltas Big Sky. It’s a bit predictable—OK, a lot. But now, I am hooked. (Spoiler alert ahead!) I loved seeing Legarski getting shot right in his forehead and then seeing his wife kill him deservedly. It comes on before This Is Us, which John Saltas absolutely has to watch.

Scott Renshaw Honestly, I can’t remember, to the point that it was probably something that required the use of an actual VCR and a physical tape, like in caveman times.

Eric Granato An Avalanche hockey game.

Patty Pecora American Idol Kelly Boyce I’m pretty sure it was Gangs of New York or Braveheart.

Way too long to watch those commercials

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6 | MARCH 4, 2021

PRIVATE EY

Freedom of Choice A

week ago, I got a call from a friend who works at our local pharmacy. They had a half-dozen doses of COVID-19 vaccine that, if not used by 6 p.m. that evening, would be tossed away due to expiration mandates.

“Do you want to come in for a shot?” I was asked. Is the sky blue? Is water wet? Is Mike Lee an arrogant ass? Is Sean Reyes a dangerous clown? Is Chris Stewart a fawning partisan? “Of course, I would!” I said, and the race was on. I fit the Gov. Cox criteria and was scheduled to get my first shot in a few weeks anyway. Now, someone else will get my shot, and the vax I got wasn’t wasted. It was luck, not efficiency.

A couple weeks earlier, my 93-year-old mother, after maneuvering through a maze of bureaucracy trying to get any appointment at all (finally slotted for mid-March), got a similar call from a health-care worker. She was rushed to the county facility, then waited in line for nearly four hours to get her first shot. I was expecting something similar but was in and out in less than five minutes. Waiting for the vaccine has been a trying experience for most of us, and the point of the above is to simply note that, despite it all— the naysayers, the non-maskers, the Trump-is-a-goldencalf worshippers—for most sane people, getting a vaccine is going to be a gamechanger. My mom got her second Pfizer shot yesterday—with only a 15-minute wait. For the first time in a year, thinking of the visits and hugs to come, she slept through the whole night. Such is the relief she felt.

We all felt it. Like nearly all families, ours has not been spared of COVID. Almost a dozen of us have gotten COVID, despite that each to a person has no idea how they con-

tracted it and each saying they were taking precautions.

This past year, we’ve each defined our own version of “precautions,” right? The range of our family’s COVID severity teeters from “I didn’t feel a thing” to weird extended symptoms and scary hospital stays. Anyone still thinking COVID is a hoax, a liberal plot or a “China Virus” conspiracy against Donald Trump (why would China kill Brazilians and Italians just to get at Trump?) can lustily kiss my Greek kolo.

For some reason, the loss of more than 500,000 Americans doesn’t register among us all as it ought to. Too many still say it isn’t real. They continue to cluster maskless in braindead Utah communities such as Saratoga Springs and St. George (hub of the crazy death-rate ratios in Washington County. What gives, Dixie?).

However, if you want to know how real COVID is, just look to Donald Trump. He and his wife, Melania, both had the virus back in October, but this January, each secretly got a COVID vaccine in the White House before he left office. Trump may be a wildly deceptive cynic when it comes to fleecing his delusional base, but like the coward he was with his bone spurs, dodging the 1960s’ draft, he remains a person fully involved in self-protection. For the first time in four years, I thus go on record as asking each of you to follow the example of Donald Trump: Get a shot.

The first vaccine I remember receiving was for polio, and I was more scared than happy to get it. But the images of kids inside their “iron lung” machines were enough to send any self-respecting 6-year-old to the doctor’s office.

We had vaccine shots for other diseases, too, a seeming litany of doctor visits that lasted most of my childhood. It’s funny, but I hardly remember any of my birthdays, ceremonies or rituals, but I remember all of those needles.

BY JOHN SALTAS

@JOHNSALTAS

For polio, though, there was also another method, the sugar cube. Kids were gathered in a hall and handed pink sugar cubes, the pink tone apparently derived of the vaccine to be ingested. While everyone hated the inoculations that drove most of us to tears, I never lost a friend or loved one to polio, smallpox, chicken pox, mumps or the measles.

Today, there is a large segment of anti-vaxxers out there.

Counted among them are persons with real and deeply personal reasons for fearing COVID or any other vaccination. I give those folks a hall pass. But the power of numbers don’t lie, and no passage is given by me to those who are anti-vaxxers predicated on obtuse theories spouted on late-night TV, noon-time AM talk radio or via cross-eyed secret messages on social media. To them, I simply say, JFK Jr. is indeed a dead Kennedy, pizza tastes better without a Hillary Clinton sex-scandal topping and on March 4, Joe Biden will still be president of the United States, so take your wild conspiracy theories to a safe place and be gone.

A friendly reminder, however: if that safe place is St. George or Saratoga Springs, you won’t be safe for long because coronavirus is out to get you, and it will get you if you keep up your silly ways.

I know of such things. Among the side effects of my own COVID vaccination—besides that my Bill Gates tracking device sets off car alarms of vehicles in the parking lot—is that I’ve become able to predict the future. And here’s it is: People who get the vaccine will freely return sooner to a normal life. Those who do not get the vaccine will die in greater ratios than those who do.

Freedom or death. Easy choice. CW Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.

HITS&MISSES

BY KATHARINE BIELE @kathybiele

MISS: Helping Is Hurting

Women. It was a good idea for The Salt Lake Tribune to ask legislators what they do to help women. The result was anything but good. Of the 104 lawmakers they asked, only 24 answered—and only eight of those were from the supermajority Republicans—you know, the ones who really make the laws.

Some of them think banning transgender girls from female K-12 sports “helps” women. Housing was a big issue, and equal pay got one vote as did the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment. While one mentioned access to family-planning services, no one mentioned making abortions still more difficult might not be helping women, who are, let’s face it, simply the vessels that carry a fetus in Utah. No one mentioned the unpopular and medically unsound do-it-yourself rape kits, either, although those may pass into law.

It might have been a better idea to ask legislators what they are doing to hurt women. Those roll off the tongue.

MISS: Lambasting the Left

No, Utah isn’t any Flint, Michigan, but the state’s water resources are at risk in a different way. Utah Water Watch, a waterquality education and data collection program, will be answering your questions about the importance of water quality and how to promote stewardship of the state’s resources. If you take drinking water for granted, maybe you shouldn’t. And how do we handle scarcity in our desert environment? At Utah Water Watch Q&A, you’ll learn how to be a part of the solution and monitor our vital waterways and infrastructure. Virtual, Tuesday, March 9, 12 p.m., free. http://bit.ly/2P1qG6D

Police Reform in Utah

The Legislature may be adjourning, but there’s still much to do. And you might be wondering what lawmakers did to effect good policy around police reform. Coming Together on Police Reform: Legislative Wrap-up is the final panel in the series, moderated by Emily Means, KUER reporter and co-host of the 45 Days podcast. Panelists including Lex Scott of Black Lives Matter Utah, Unified Police Department Chief of Police Services Ret. Steve Anjewierden, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, and Rep. Mark Archuleta Wheatley, D-Murray, will discuss what happened during the 2021 session of the Utah Legislature and where reform-minded citizens should go from here. You’ll get action tips, too. Virtual, Monday, March 8, 7 p.m., free. http://bit.ly/37N0ZgB.

Social Justice in Jail

If you’ve read about COVID outbreaks in New York’s nursing homes, you may understand the risks of close quarters during the pandemic. At Social Justice in Our State and COVID in Our Jails, Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera will address the Women’s Democratic Club of Utah and explain the challenges of keeping inmates safe from exposure. Greg Skordas, who ran unsuccessfully against Attorney General Sean Reyes, will be addressing social justice and the petition to impeach the AG following his efforts to overturn the presidential election by lobbying in other states. Virtual, Saturday, March 6, 11:30 a.m., free. http://bit.ly/2NW8ivw.

Amber Ruffin on Equity

—KATHARINE BIELE

Send tips to revolt@cityweekly.net

MARCH 4, 2021 | 7

If you’ve ever watched Late Night With Seth Meyers, you’ll know how comedian Amber Ruffin gets her digs in about equality, racism and sexism in our everyday lives. Now, Utah gets a taste of her wit at 2021 Women’s Week Keynote: Amber Ruffin. “It’s important for people to speak on what has happened in their lives,” she says. Besides her comedy sketches and acting gigs, Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar co-authored You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism. She is also host of The Amber Ruffin Show. Virtual, Monday, March 8, 12 p.m. Free/ register: http://bit.ly/3kmszqa

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As we approach the inevitability of redistricting, San Juan County and the Navajo Nation are hoping for the best. The courts required politically gerrymandered lines to be redrawn, but that could change with new population figures.

There are still good things happening in Utah’s only minority-majority county, so let’s start with voting. The Salt Lake Tribune reported the County Commission just voted to extend a voting rights settlement to 2024. The settlement allows both mailed ballots and in-person voting—important for those without home postal service. Also, while the Navajo Nation had the highest per-capita COVID infection rate in the country, a collaboration with public health nurses has ramped up vaccination efforts and has even provided home health-care services, according to the Farmington Daily Times. Equal rights for this underserved county may still be in the cards.

Water Resources

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HIT: Seeing the Light (Maybe)

IN A WEEK, YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

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These days, electing someone to Congress is less about legislation and more about the bully pulpit. Deseret News opinion writer Brian Ericson hit on the subject, targeting Twitter and the shenanigans of Georgia’s far-right conspiracy-loving Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Illinois’ Democrat Rep. Marie Newman, whose offices are across the hall from each other. Their dueling antics over transgender rights blew up on Twitter. Then, The Salt Lake Tribune gave Rep. Burgess Owens what he wanted—a forum to spew hate against the “left,” which the 4th District Republican claims is destroying the nuclear family and taking away “manhood.”

The left, he said while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, wants to “devalue womanhood, devalue manhood and destroy our kids.” Men apparently are supposed to sacrifice everything for the family, but they can’t do that anymore. No one’s sure why, but we’ll await whatever legislation he is proposing on the issue.

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BY CHRISTOPHER SMART

MARCH 4, 2021 | 9

apparent manufactured allegations in Ellis’ demotion to captain.

It also found that then-Assistant Fire Chief Robert McMicken was “looking for reasons” to discipline Ellis. The 49-page document said the seven allegations brought against her “appear as an attempt to manufacture misconduct and alleged failure of performance to justify disciplinary action, when there were no performance issues.”

after sexual harassment charges surfaced in the police department.

On several occasions during the campaign, Biskupski derided Becker on gender equality issues and referred to a female firefighter (Martha Ellis) who had filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging gender discrimination. Biskupski’s campaign promised a safe and fair work environment for women. But actions speak louder than words.

SLC Mayor Erin Mendenhall, like her predecessor, has been silent on Ellis’ claims of gender discrimination as her case remains mired in litigation.

Mendenhall’s administration says they take gender discrimination claims very seriously. But in the case of Martha Ellis, those words disappear into thin air.

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feel insecure. The 22-year fire department veteran was passed over for promotion several times despite her superior qualifications, then was demoted after filing a discrimination claim and ultimately fired.

Salt Lake City’s Civil Service Commission found that Ellis was wrongly demoted and should be reinstated. The commission’s report scolded fire department brass regarding the lack of evidence and

Ellis holds a master’s degree in homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School and has a graduate certificate in conflict resolution and mediation from the University of Utah. She also was one of four recipients of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government fire service fellowship awards in 2012.

But despite the Civil Service Commission’s findings, former Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski did not intervene as Ellis was demoted, fired and then mired in litigation, after she sued the city for gender discrimination and retaliation.

Biskupski, however, did make use of Ellis’ predicament in her 2014 campaign against former SLC Mayor Ralph Becker, who was vulnerable

he executive team at the Salt Lake City Fire Department is a good old boys club and Martha Ellis didn’t fit in. When push came to shove, there was no one at City Hall to protect her from trumped up allegations.

Ellis’ education, training and hard work led her to become the first—and only—female fire marshal at the SLCFD. But her energy and attention to detail apparently made the top brass

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Actions speak louder than words when it comes to a gender discrimination lawsuit against the SLC Fire Department.

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JOHN TAYLOR

Demoted and later fired from the Salt Lake City Fire Department, Martha Ellis is still fighting a gender discrimination lawsuit dating back to 2014.

COURTESY OHOTO

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10 | MARCH 4, 2018

Martha Ellis sworn in as battalion chief

Meanwhile, the City Attorney’s Office continues to drag out Ellis’ complaint in U.S. District Court for Utah.

Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who is a civil rights attorney, said City Hall’s treatment of Ellis is “fundamentally unethical.”

“Nobody (at the city) is asking, what’s the right thing to do,” Anderson said in a City Weekly interview. What’s just as bad, he noted, is that taxpayers are picking up the bill so the city attorney can continue to make Ellis’ life difficult.

“Who’s paying Martha Ellis’ legal bill?” he asked. “She’s a total hero and she’s being treated like shit by the city.”

At the center of the dispute, according to Ellis, was her criticism of some on the department’s executive team for allegedly engaging in personal, for-profit activities on the city’s time, along with her complaints about the design of Fire Station 2 that lacked smoke detectors and caught fire, as well as the installation of bicycle lanes on 300 South that yielded a roadway narrower than required by the state and city fire code.

She was demoted on May 3, 2016. Adding to the humiliation, Ellis said, was on the day of her demotion, she was escorted out of the Public Safety Building as her peers looked on, in what she described as something of a “perp walk.”

The difficult working conditions, discipline and demotion took a toll on Ellis. “I can’t begin to explain the despair,” she said.

A psychologist provided by the city told her to take an extended period of time off because she was suffering from anxiety and depression after the demotion. After four months of disability leave and six months of unpaid leave, Ellis was fired.

She lost her livelihood and the career she had dedicated her life to.

“I was sitting there in the twilight zone with no exit,” she said of the aftermath.

“I was not available to my daughter or my husband because I was so consumed.”

The one-time fire marshal said she experienced cascading adverse impacts. “It’s this cloud that’s so pervasive in your life. I’m still experiencing the ramifications of it,” Ellis said. “Thank God I have a family that loves me and a good psychologist.”

What sticks in her craw is that the men whom she alleges ran her out based on superfluous claims, McMicken and Fire Chief Karl Lieb—who was deputy chief at the time—were left in top positions at the fire department. Former Chief Bryan Dale has since retired. Both Dale and Lieb were hired to the chief’s position from within the ranks of the SLCFD.

Inside City Hall Politics

Among the dynamics at play, according to insiders, is that it is much easier for the mayor to do nothing, rather than upset the fire department management by following the Civil Service Commission’s recommendations and reinstating Ellis to her former rank.

“It looks like they circled the wagons,” said a source close to City Hall, who wished to remain unnamed. The Biskupski administration determined to support its fire department executive team at the expense of Ellis, who became collateral damage, the source said.

But in January 2020, Salt Lake City’s elected a new mayor who was not part of the fiasco. And the city attorney works at the pleasure of the mayor who is solely responsible for review of the office’s legal work (with the exception of City Council matters).

In an email response to City Weekly, Mayor Mendenhall’s office said it could not respond to questions concerning any case it litigation, including that of Martha Ellis.

Beyond that, the mayor’s office would not say when the city attorney’s case load had been reviewed by the mayor to weed out cases that should be settled. The mayor’s office also did not respond when asked if there had been any recent performance audit of the City Attorney’s Office nor did it respond to a second request

by City Weekly for an interview with Mayor Mendenhall regarding the functions of the City Attorney’s Office. (The first request was denied.)

Deeda Seed, a former chief of staff for Mayor Anderson, as well as a former member of the Salt Lake City Council, said people who are not lawyers can be finessed or managed by the City Attorney’s Office. Although Anderson reviewed cases being litigated by the City Attorney, Seed said most mayors do not.

“It’s a bit of a fiefdom,” she said of the City Attorney’s Office. “They can be selective on how they present information to elected officials—and that does sway how things unfold.”

But Seed added that it’s possible that during Mendenhall’s first year in office, which was marked by an earthquake, a storm with hurricane-force winds that toppled hundreds of trees and the pandemic, Ellis’ case might not be on the mayor’s radar.

“It’s like juggling plates,” Seed said of myriad matters the mayor must address.

“There are a thousand issues that need attention. Things like (the Ellis case) can easily get cast aside.”

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MARCH 4, 2021 | 11

Litany of Discrimination

Her disputes with top managers go back to 2014. On Sept. 30 of that year, according to Ellis’ lawsuit, Dale and Lieb passed over her to promote a less-experienced, lesseducated male counterpart: McMicken—the same person who was later dressed down by the Civil Service Commission for “manufacturing” evidence against Ellis.

On Nov. 25, 2014, Ellis filed a charge of discrimination and retaliation based on gender with the EEOC (the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission).

Immediately after that, Ellis was removed from her position as the fire marshal—a position she had held since 2009—and reassigned to division chief of logistics. Ellis saw it as a demotion, but she retained her battalion chief rank.

In June 2016, several weeks after her demotion, Ellis filed a notice of claim at City Hall alleging fraud, state fire code violations, cover-ups and retaliation by top brass in the department. Ellis alleged she was demoted after raising concerns, including allegations aimed at members of the department’s executive team engaging in personal activities on city time.

On March 16, 2016, The Salt Lake Tribune ran a story highlighting then-Chief Dale’s affiliation with the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch (IAED). While he was deputy chief, Dale said he taught classes at IAED conferences, earning $20,000 to $30,000 annually. As deputy chief, the city paid him a salary of $110,116 and benefits worth $11,116.

On May 28, 2016—three months after the Tribune story on his affiliation with IAED— Dale said he would retire in October of that year after serving 16 months as chief.

Looking back, Ellis said filing complaints against the fire department and Salt Lake City was her last option after years of attempting to work through the municipality’s system.

“Every effort was made to resolve these matters at the lowest possible level,” she said.

“Having exhausted all other options, I felt obligated to make my concerns public, because not doing so would be in direct conflict with my responsibilities as a public servant.”

There are well over 300 firefighters in the SLCFD. Only seven of them are women.

None are in executive management positions.

COURTESY PHOTO

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“I felt obligated to make my concerns public, as not doing so would be in direct conflict with my responsibilities as a public servant.”

—Martha Ellis

And so, the former fire marshal’s case remains floundering somewhere in the sausage grinder of legal actions at the whim of an attorney who works in the City Attorney’s Office or who is under contract and may have little incentive or motivation to settle, short of complete victory for the municipality.

In court documents, the city attorney argues that Ellis’ claim should be dismissed because it contains no facts, only conclusions. In other words, the Civil Service Commission’s findings should not be evidence of wrongdoing.

“While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations,” wrote John E. Delaney for the City Attorney’s Office.

“Thus, threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.”

Pushing that argument aside, Ellis’ attorneys recently filed a motion for partial summary judgment asking the court to accept the Civil Service Commission’s findings as factual. If the court were to agree, a future jury would be instructed that “it may conclude without considering additional evidence that Salt Lake City discriminated against Ellis in violation of her Equal Protection Rights when it demoted her because the city did not have a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason to support its actions.”

After Dale demoted Ellis on May 3, 2016, he determined she could no longer work in an administrative position and ordered her to return as a firefighter. Because she had not seen action on firetrucks for more than 13 years, Ellis requested a training refresher and a physical, as outlined in the department union’s directive. She also asked for a gradual break-in period before she went full time, as recommended by psychologist.

Those requests were denied by Lieb, according to documents.

On Feb. 17, 2017, Ellis applied for a third 90-day leave, accompanied by a letter from her health-care provider. Lieb denied that request, noting that in 2016, from May 3 to Aug. 27—before her unpaid leave—she had been on disability leave. If she didn’t return

by March 1, 2017, Lieb said, she would be fired. At the point, she had taken a total of 10 months’ leave, partly because she had severely injured her hand.

Ellis attempted to negotiate with the city’s human resources manager, Melissa Green, seeking accommodations through the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding her mental state. On March 6, 2017, Green sent an email explaining that she would have to take a position outside the fire department. Ellis balked and asked for more details.

On March 14, 2017, Green wrote to Ellis: “[B]ased on your current work restrictions, the fire department is unable to provide a reasonable accommodation that would enable you to return to work in your position of fire captain.”

On March 17, 2017, Ellis again expressed her frustration regarding the suggestion that she work elsewhere. Options included golf course groundskeeper and Youth City teen specialist. Later that day, Lieb fired her.

The Slow Burn of Martha Ellis’ lawsuit • November 2014—Ellis files a complaint with the EEOC alleging gender discrimination after being passed over the third time for promotion.

• May 2016—Ellis is demoted to captain.

• June 2016—Ellis files notice of claim with Salt Lake City, signaling her intention to file suit.

• October 2016—Ellis files suit in federal court claiming gender discrimination and retaliation.

• March 2017—Ellis is fired.

• May 2017—The Salt Lake City Civil Service Commission rules that Ellis’ demotion was unwarranted and she should be returned to the rank of battalion chief. Its formal report came out in November. Mayor Jackie Biskupski does not act on the ruling.

• October 2020—Ellis’ attorneys file for partial summary judgment that would direct a jury to consider the Civil Service Commission’s ruling as factual and that it could conclude Salt Lake City discriminated against Ellis in violation of her Equal Protection Rights.

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native and instructor at the Kaladharaa Dance School, Sonali Loomba, shares the Indian classical dance form of kathak and its role in continuing the stories of Indian culture.

Other upcoming installments scheduled to have been dropped by now feature the Venezuelan music performance of Venezuela Cantando, and Pacific Islander traditions from Kahealani Ohumukini Blackmon and Keola Ohmukini. Drop in every Wednesday for an engaging new reminder of our state’s rich landscape of multicultural arts. (Scott Renshaw)

The American space program has received renewed interest in the past few years, from the 50th anniversary of the moon landing to new popular-culture stories of the Mercury astronauts and even the recent scientific mission to Mars. Yet as familiar as so many of these stories are to those who grew up with them, it’s not always easy to convey to a new generation how earth-shaking those events were, and how tied up they were to global politics and our sense of national security.

In her new young-adult focused nonfiction book In the Shadow of the Moon: America, Russia, and the Hidden History of the Space Race, North Carolina-based author Amy Cherrix digs into the story behind that crucial part of our history, with a focus on two of its most important figures: Wernher von Braun, the ex-Nazi who became the driving force behind America’s space program, and Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev. In the Shadow of the Moon looks at how these two men who never met were forever connected by their respective roles in putting humans into space, and how their scientific breakthroughs changed science, the nature of modern warfare and indeed the entire world.

Cherrix will appear in conversation with The King’s English’s own Mackenzi

BALZER & BRAY PUBLISHING

SALT LAKE ARTS COUNCIL

Among the many annual Salt Lake City events lost to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was the Living Traditions Festival, which kicks off the summer festival season with performances by a wide range of groups representing ethnic and cultural artistry from around the world. While fingers remain crossed that the 2021 installment can take place, in the meantime, you can get a weekly virtual reminder of the people and places that Living Traditions brings to life for local audiences.

Launched in February, Living Legacy is a weekly video series that offers not just a chance to watch performances of music, dance and more, but to hear the stories of those who practice these arts, and what they mean to them culturally. At press time, two videos had been made available. The first finds Brazilian capoeira artists Mestre Jamaika (pictured) and Amenzinho displaying the athletic, acrobatic skills of the traditional dance form, as well as sharing their own personal histories with capoeira and the connection of taking a performance “alias” to Brazil’s history of racial oppression. In the other, India

ENTERTAINMENT PICKS, MARCH 4-10, 2021

Amy Cherrix: In the Shadow of the Moon

Living Traditions Presents: Living Legacy

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Lee, author of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. This free virtual Crowdcast event takes place Thursday, March 4 from 6-7 p.m., with registration required via kingsenglish. com. Order a copy of the book through King’s English, and receive an autographed bookplate while supplies last. (SR)

FELD ENTERTAINMENT

Odyssey Dance: Romeo & Juliet

Disney On Ice: Dream Big It wouldn’t be surprising if you spent a lot of the past year dreaming—dreaming of the development of a vaccine, dreaming of leadership that wouldn’t leave us scrambling to figure things out, dreaming of the “after” time when we could return to some of our favorite activities. Among those activities might be enjoying entertainment with the family, the kind of big arena spectacle that Disney on Ice shows have been providing for years.

The latest touring event, Dream Big, focuses on some of the more recent beloved additions to the Disney cast of characters, with visits from a few long-standing favorites. The fiery heroine of Moana and the demigod Maui take an action-packed voyage to restore

the stolen heart of Te Fiti; Coco’s Miguel enters the Land of the Dead and brings the festivities of Día de los Muertos to the ice. You can get Tangled up in Rapunzel’s quest to see the floating lights, and travel to Arendelle with Anna, Elsa and Olaf and the cast of Frozen in a dramatic retelling of the sisterly love that saved a kingdom.

Dream Big runs through March 7 at Vivint Arena (301 S. Temple), with ticketing available at disneyonice.com. Tickets start at $20, with “pod seating” of a minimum of four tickets required at time of purchase to comply with safety recommendations. Other health and safety requirements, including face covering requirements, can also be found at disneyonice.com, along with information about pre-ordering souvenirs for touchless pickup at the event. (SR)

William Shakespeare’s tale of star-cross’d young lovers— divided by the long-standing feud between their respective families—has been told and re-told in what might seem to be every possible form. From ballet to opera, from multiple film adaptations to the contemporary updating of West Side Story, it’s a story that allows infinite creative possibilities for finding drama in romance, passion, violence and tragedy. So it’s exactly the kind of raw material that allows for Odyssey Dance to show how it takes the raw material of popular culture and re-shape it into the stuff of vibrant dance theater.

Romeo + Juliet – One Funky Tale puts the kind of spin on this story that you’d expect from the company that turned cinematic serial killers and monsters into Thriller’s traditional Halloween showcase of entertaining chills.

Odyssey Principal Dancer Eldon Johnson, So You Think You Can Dance veterans Ashleigh and Ryan Di Lello, and

ANNIE VAN ALSTYNE

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ESSENTIALS

the

company founder Derryl Yeager provide the choreography that transforms the well-known tale of the Verona teenagers into a highenergy demonstration of hip-hop, Latin and contemporary dance. And as a special piece of audience participation, those in attendance even get to help decide if Romeo and Juliet live or die. Tragedy or happily ever after—the choice is yours.

Odyssey Dance brings a special engagement of this full-length piece to Tuacahn Amphitheater (1100 Tuacahn Dr., Ivins, tuacahn.org) for a pair of outdoor, sociallydistanced performances on March 9-10, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $21-$32; visit the venue website for purchasing information and safety protocols for performances, including required mask-wearing for all attendees. (SR)

Sorting Out Race finds in a thrift store the stereotypical imagery that has surrounded Americans for decades.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

A

Exhibits from Sorting Out Race at The Leonardo hiatus during the pandemic—Jackson does believe that there’s a particular power to an exhibition like this coming in the wake of last year’s social unrest addressing systemic racism. And he believes that there is a connection between that activism and recent high-profile actions like the changing of the Aunt Jemima brand, or the elimination of racially-based mascots for professional sports franchises.

“Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a crisis to build character, to grow us,” Jackson says. “It seems to be the way that America has always been built: In the midst of dire circumstances is when we finally learn.

Now that you’re listening, let’s share with you what we’ve been trying to say all this time.” CW

SORTING OUT RACE

The Leonardo 209 E. 500 South Through April 14 theleonardo.org for health & safety and ticketing info

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but not necessarily part of the conversation,” Jackson says. “Here are things that still exist today, but we’ve kind of swept under the rug, and not had a conversation about.”

As part of the exhibition locally, that conversation will also include a series of community panels led by Jackson and the Utah Black Chamber. Among the remaining topic areas are “Stereotypes and Pop Culture” (March 16), “White Privilege Explained” (March 20) and “Systemic Racism: Healthcare, Housing, Education, and the Corporate World” (April 13).

Marissa Day, creative director for The Leonardo, says that what surprised her most about the exhibition is how many of the items included were of relatively recent vintage. “A lot of the artifacts are not from decades ago,” she says. “They’re from the ’80s, ’90s or even more recently. This isn’t representing some bygone era. … Most of us assume we are aware of what kind of representations we’re consuming, and this is a good reminder that we always need to be thinking critically about what we’re seeing.”

While Sorting Out Race has been touring for more than five years—including a

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merican culture has been steeped in racism since the nation’s inception, manifesting over the decades in myriad harmful ways. Among them are cultural and racial representations in consumer products, which have only recently started to see changes in areas like professional sports team mascots and brand names. Yet items representing this legacy still exist, making their way from homes into places like thrift stores—which unexpectedly led to a traveling exhibition now making a stop in Salt Lake City.

Sorting Out Race was developed by the Kauffman Museum at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, in 2014, but it was born initially out of one individual’s discomfort. According to David Kreider—museum technician for the Kauffman, and the fabricator who installed the exhibition for its current visit to The Leonardo—the manager of a North Newton non-profit thrift store had begun to identify objects coming through the store that she felt uncomfortable selling. They were items that traded on stereotypes, like Halloween costumes built around racial or ethnic identity, or clothing and housewares that included problematic representations of race and ethnicity.

“She started pulling those [items from

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Second-Hand Information

their shelves],” Kreider says. “She knew that we developed traveling exhibits, so she came to our director and said, ‘This is what I’ve been doing. What should I do with them?’”

Rachel Pannabecker—the director of the Kauffman Museum at the time that the exhibition was developed, now retired—notes that while the exhibition began with and still largely represents the inventory from one small-town thrift store, it was possible to develop a narrative that spoke to the country as a whole. “It’s true that all artifacts in the exhibition were sourced locally,” Pannabecker says. “But all the artifacts represent the mass manufacture, mass distribution and mass marketing of American material culture that took off in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Even ‘homemade’ items … were likely created from patterns published in national magazines or purchased at five-and-dime stores.

The exhibit team hoped that gathering these artifacts together would enable visitors to acknowledge the pervasiveness of racial stereotypes and to ask, ‘What do I have in my home that perpetuates racial stereotyping?’”

Pannabecker adds that while curators for the exhibition did expand their search for artifacts beyond that one initial thrift store, the exhibition’s items do in some way speak to the specifics of the local demographics. Since the museum is located on the Great Plains, Native American representations like the “noble savage” or “Indian princess” are more likely to be present, with fewer items dealing with Asian or Middle Eastern stereotypes.

Sorting Out Race has been touring since 2015, and comes to Utah as the result of a new partnership between The Leonardo and the Utah Black Chamber. James Jackson III, founder of the Utah Black Chamber, notes that the exhibition stood out for him in the way that it encourages discussion about areas that aren’t often openly addressed, despite their pervasiveness.

“When you think about the imagery, particularly in the marketplace—Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben—it’s been around forever,

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MARCH 4, 2021 | 15

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AT A GLANCE

Open: Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Best bet: If it’s poultry, it’s awesmoe Can’t miss: I dare you to make it Africa hot

A

s we approach the one-year anniversary of going into socially distanced lockdown, I’ve found myself reflecting on the stuff I was doing before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Back then, my family and I had gotten into a sickeningly wholesome habit of visiting the attractions at Thanksgiving Point; my three-year-old daughter has been in love with the Butterfly Biosphere ever since she got to pet a millipede on its weird Lovecraftian noggin.

One of the best parts of our visits to the Silicon Slopes of Utah County was a pit stop at Zulu Piri Piri Chicken Grille (2951 Club House Drive, Lehi, 801-901-6492, zulugrille.com). There’s no shortage of eateries in that area, but this fast-casual joint was the one that always seemed to call us back.

The concept began when co-owner Jared Turner visited Africa on safari. During his travels, he encountered piri piri, a sauce or marinade usually applied to protein like chicken before getting grilled over an open flame. Piri piri itself is a popular condiment in Southern Africa and Portugal alike, made from a blend of chili peppers, vinegar, garlic and citrus. It’s a condiment and cooking style that represents sev-

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Lehi’s Zulu Piri Piri Chicken Grille serves up hot birds for a good cause.

getting a slew of fresh veggies and piri piri ranch or aioli, respectively. Stick with these if you’re after flavors that will smack you around without leaving you overly stuffed.

A new addition to the menu is Zulu’s chicken sandwich or wrap ($9.99 for grilled, $10.99 for crispy), which is a no-brainer when the chicken sammy wars are still raging. Zulu has a bit of an edge when it comes to its flavorful birds, but the decision to add Muenster cheese, caramelized onions and avocado speaks to some next-level sandwich mastery—plus you can add bacon for a buck more.

Another thing I like about Zulu is the attention they’ve paid to their side dishes. They’ve taken sides that you’d expect to see at a fast-casual place and tweaked them just enough to become unique complements to the main dishes. The tri-colored potatoes ($3.49) are essentially potato wedges, but their vibrant colors and yielding texture make them ideal compadres to anything on the menu. It’s also hard not to order up a side of street corn ($3.99)—a bowl of buttery grilled corn kernels topped with pili pili aioli and crumbly queso fresco.

Not only is the food flavorful and satisfying, but eating at Zulu contributes to their Meal for a Meal program which donates a portion of each meal to Home of Hope (homeofhopeforgirls.org.za), a partner organization in South Africa that helps feed hungry children and fights human trafficking. Revisiting this place has me ready to start planning a few trips to Thanksgiving Point, followed by some tasty grilled chicken, once things start readjusting to the world as it was a year ago. Here’s hoping that’s sooner rather than later. CW

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Here’s Lookin’ at Zulu

eral different cultures and maintains hundreds of culinary dialects, depending on where you get it.

At Zulu Piri Piri, you get something with a good balance of peppery overtones and acidic citrus, which always manages to be the star of the show. That said, their grilled chicken more than performs—it’s consistently tender and juicy no matter how it arrives on your plate. You can get it grilled or fried, along with a decent squad of sides. The signature dishes at Zulu are their three chicken plates: halved or quartered bonein chicken ($9.99-$13.99), boneless chicken breasts ($9.99$10.99) or a la carte piri piri wings ($7.99). Each protein comes with a heap of African yellow rice, East African cucumber mango salad and a few cups of piri piri with which to douse that sweet, sweet meat.

Once you order, you’ll need to decide how hot you’d like your sauce from a spectrum that starts with savory lemongarlic and ends with Africa hot, which is beyond regular hot for good reason; believe me, there is quite a leap between the two. When I tried the regular hot sauce, I thought it was spicy yet totally bearable—so, like a dumbass, I decided to level up.

After only a few bites, the lower half of my head was consumed by relentless heat that a river of free refills could not extinguish. I know some places around town will shortchange you on heat when you order something spicy, but Zulu has no qualms about immolating your taste buds if you ask for it.

After you choose the spice level that will dictate how painless—or painful—your meal will be, it’s clear that there’s no wrong way to get your piri piri chicken on. I tend to stick with the grilled chicken breast, but all of their chicken plates are excellent, colorful and fresh-tasting meals that add a welcome bit of variety to the area’s restaurant mosh pit.

For something a bit lighter, the piri piri chicken salad ($10.99) and the chicken bowl ($9.99) are great ways to experience the restaurant’s flavors in smaller packages. Each comes with grilled chicken and piri piri, but you’re also

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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: Wolpertinger German Pilsner

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

Squatters 147 W. Broadway, SLC Squatters.com

Bohemian Brewery 94 E. Fort Union Blvd, Midvale BohemianBrewery.com Bonneville Brewery 1641 N. Main, Tooele BonnevilleBrewery.com On Tap: Peaches and Cream Ale Desert Edge Brewery 273 Trolley Square, SLC DesertEdgeBrewery.com On Tap: Fresh Brewed UPA Epic Brewing Co. 825 S. State, SLC EpicBrewing.com On Tap: Hopulent IPA

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

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: Solstice Lager 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: Belgian Wit - brewed with lemon zest, orange and corriander

Ogden River Brewing 358 Park Blvd, Ogden OgdenRiverBrewing.com Policy Kings Brewery 223 N. 100 West, Cedar City PolicyKingsBrewery.com Proper Brewing 857 S. Main, SLC ProperBrewingCo.com On Tap: Lemon Shandy Red Rock Brewing Multiple Locations RedRockBrewing.com On Tap: Chocolate Chili Porter RoHa Brewing Project 30 Kensington Ave, SLC RoHaBrewing.com On Tap: Pink ‘Limited’ Transom Dark Pale 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: A Series of Singularities with Mandarina Bavaria Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com On Tap: Luau Rider Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer On Tap: Pina Colada Sour Ale

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: Coconut Guava Berliner Weisse Talisman Brewing Co. 1258 Gibson Ave, Ogden TalismanBrewingCo.com On Tap: German Kiss 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

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level that was rather average overall. The thicker body was quite nice for the roasted and darker flavors of the brew, giving it a slightly creamier texture on the whole.

Overall: A rather tasty milk stout with just enough toasted coconut flavor to give it a little something different in the flavor without being too overpowering. The lactose is a bit bold, and with the sweetness of the coconut could be dialed back a bit for my palate. Note: This one is not veganfriendly.

Bewilder - Dos Hazy Boi: Pours a cloudy golden-yellow color, opaque due to sediment. One finger of head is initially generated, lasting nearly five minutes and eventually giving way to some goodlooking splashes of seafoam lacing and a bubbly, filmy cap bordered by the modest, foamy collar. It’s not particularly pungent on the nose, but still reasonably hoppy; I’m getting grapefruit, orange and maybe a bit of pine, with suggestions of wheaty malts and tropical fruit.

Tasty stuff, with a fruity, juicy flavor profile. The malts provide a nice base sweetness, with notes of pineapple, nectarine and possibly mango, leading into a citrusy back end with big notes of mandarin orange and grapefruit rind. It finishes off moderately bitter, with the fruitiness giving way to a more floral, piney astringency that hangs on into the aftertaste. Medium in body, with assertive, crisp, pin-prickly carbonation. The drinkability factor is quite high given the sturdy 8.0 ABV, but this one’s appealing flavor, smooth texture and tempered bitterness are the main reasons for it.

Overall: This is probably Bewilder’s best IPAs to date, if not the absolute best. My beer was gone quickly, and if this becomes commonplace with beer nerds around the state, it will certainly become a staple of this brewery’s portfolio. I totally encourage Utah hopheads to give this one a try.

Dos Hazy Boi is a very limited batch, available in 16-oz. cans. Luau Rider is a slightly larger small batch and is available in 12-oz. cans at Salt Flats and the Garage Grill in Draper. As always, cheers! CW

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S

touts and IPAs are big in the month of March. To start things off, we have two excellent examples to help you get things rolling.

Salt Flats - Luau Rider: Served a deep brown color bordering on black, with nice saffron highlights. Upon serving, there was no head whatsoever. I attribute this to a very gentle pour from the bartender, plus the high oil content from the coconut.

I always prefer to pour my own beer when given the opportunity, and most establishments are happy to comply when asked, so I’m not going to knock the lack of foam. The aroma is of a sweet milk chocolate mixed with a moderate amount of toasted coconut. The toastiness really comes through, and is a nice touch. Combined with these aromas are some nice notes of vanilla and a bit of a coffee.

The flavor begins with a nice roasted malt base with hints of milk chocolate. The chocolate grows stronger and seems to pick up coconut milk and vanilla taste as the flavor advances. All the while, a light coffee taste lingers with the other flavors, getting slightly stronger at the end. While the coffee brings a bit of bitterness to the back end of the taste, the coconut counters and brings with it a nice bit of sweetness as it surges, leaving a nice roasted and moderately sweet milk chocolate/coconut combo flavor to linger on the tongue. The body of this 7.5 percent beer was on the slightly thicker side, with a carbonation

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One of the latest additions to the rising trend of small-batch eateries that operate almost entirely via Instagram is Cinderpig (@cinderpigslc), a whole-hog barbecue outfit operated by local chef Jerry Pacheco.

He’s a consummate professional, and I couldn’t be more excited to see what he’ll be doing with Cinderpig. At the moment, Pacheco and crew are preparing weekly barbecue dishes and sides that can be ordered via their Instagram page. Cinderpig currently operates out of Oquirrh Restaurant (368 E. 100 South), which is where you can pick up your orders. Pro tiph: Hop on the mailing list to make sure you get first crack at Cinderpig’s weekly menus.

Bartolo’s Expands to SLC

Wasatch Front fans of the Park City Italian kitchen Bartolo’s (1241 Center Drive, Ste. 100, 435-6040608, bartolos.com) will be pleased to visit their new Sugar House location (1270 S. 1100 East, 801-4104606). This versatile cucina is complete with a breakfast menu that includes fritattas, smoked trout benedicts and blueberry Dutch baby pancakes; Bartolo’s is a local favorite when it comes to brunch, which is served from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every day. For dinner, Bartolo’s serves up traditional Italian favorites like lamb campanelle and rigatoni Bolognese. It’s nice to have a local Italian place that keeps us covered for three meals a day. Welcome to SLC, Bartolo’s.

New Sweetaly in Holladay

In more news of Italian eats, the team at Sweetaly (1527 S. 1500 East, 801-410-4192, sweetaly.com) recently announced the arrival of their second store in Holladay (2245 Murray-Holladay Road, 801-4676808). This locavore haunt has made quite a name for themselves with their traditional gelato recipes and expanded menu of Italian sweets like tiramisu, cantucci and the famous, pistachio cream-filled torta della nonna. Gelato is the name of the game at Sweetaly, but it’s also a perfectly charming coffee shop for those after something piping hot and caffeinated. For a stellar mix of these two worlds, and order of Sweetaly’s affogato is delicious morning, noon and night.

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Café Niche Initially just a coffee shop, Café Niche has evolved into a full-on restaurant offering brunch and dinner with the menu to back it up. Start out your day with the wild mushroom scramble or the cinnamon French toast. If you don’t wake up early enough, don’t worry. Niche serves brunch until 4 p.m., complete with a lineup of sandwiches and salads. For dinner, try the Morgan Valley lamb, the Thai salad or the steak medallions with asparagus and blue cheese mashed potatoes, and you’ll soon find your niche. 779 E. 300 South, 801-433-3380, caffeniche.com

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HSL Salt Lake City’s HSL is the latest offering from partners Melissa Gray and Meagan Nash, the same proprietors behind Handle in Park City.

The concept behind HSL—which has since burst onto the robust downtown dining scene—is to incorporate locally grown and produced food into a dining experience second to none. Choose from savory options like steelhead trout, a beef cheek burger and grilled flap steak. 418 E. 200 South, 801-539-9999, hslrestaurant.com

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Takashi Owner and chef Takashi Gibo’s eclectic and everchanging list of sushi rolls and dishes traditional to his native Japan makes you wonder if sushi is appropriate for all three meals of the day. For the mild palate, try the crunch ebi roll with shrimp tempura, and for the adventurous, order a round of citrusy mussel shooters with a quail-egg yolk.

There’s no such thing as a bad meal at Takashi. 18 W. Market St., 801-519-9595

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A Beehive’s True Collective

A restaurant and a live music venue collaborate on a vision for a radical future.

BY ERIN MOORE music@cityweekly.net @errrands_

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or many, the pandemic has been something of an incubator for innovation.

That much is certainly true for the occupants of 666 S. State Street, where the dual DIY forces of The Beehive music venue and The Mark of the Beastro restaurant live together. The venue and restaurant duo have done about as much as any other venue or restaurant—they haven’t had shows, and the vegan restaurant is only open for takeout. But a number of developments have kept them both afloat, and are setting them up for an even more radical future.

While some local music venues have converted to socially-distant shows, backyard shows or have simply not re-opened, The Beehive has utilized their space for community-oriented purposes. “During the pandemic we’ve done a ton of classes,” says Mark of the Beastro owner Andrew Early. “We’ve done a concealed carry class, we’ve done a banner making class.

Things that are kind of all over the spectrum, that needed a space and it worked out [here].

“We kind of want to reprioritize, to where we’re actively seeking those things out so that this becomes more of a hub for those workshops and skill-shares,” he continues. “We’ve talked about everything from hosting a Stop The Bleed class next month, to even doing a workshop on how to get your music out there, on social media and Spotify for free or cheap, whatever the sliding scale is, along with how to get recorded for cheap. So, everything from DIY project stuff to straight-up activist street medic training, outon-the-ground stuff.” The venue has also served as a drop-off center for homeless outreach supplies, coordinating with new groups like the Open Air Shelter.

For anyone familiar with the kind of DIY culture that The Beehive and Beastro are part of, the cross-over of art-fostering and activism shouldn’t seem strange. And for those who were out on the streets this past summer, The Beehive wouldn’t be unfamiliar as a safe harbor. One infamous July night found protesters gingerly working their way down State to the venue, police bordering to the North and South, to get water after many were battered outside the DA building. “It’s kind of just how we both are,” quips venue manager Kale Morse.

Of his own activist past, Early explains, “We’d go to protests all day, be exhausted and then go to shows that night. And it was kind of this reminder of ‘hey, we’re all in this together, today was really hard, but there’s a passion there.’ Which is one of the hardest things about the pandemic, is that the revitalization you get from that arts community has been really hard to seek out.”

Enter The Beehive’s pandemic-Patreon, launched in January to support the venue and give opportunity for music engagement, featuring in-venue video recordings of local artists. Morse says the recording process itself has felt like old times.

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“We filmed three months of content in one day: three different bands doing live sets, of which we’ve only been able to release one so far,” Morse says, referencing the Breakfast in Silence video that’s currently out. “But that one day, even though I was running around and fixing sound, it was one of the most important days to me in the last year. Just experiencing loud music in a big room again, even though there were only seven of us here.”

Early concurs that it was a bittersweet flashback to the past: “There was one point where one band had finished up and the next band had shown up, but we didn’t want to cross over and have two groups inside, so we were all hanging out, out front, while the music was playing inside and just talking, and it just felt so … normal again.”

As for things at Mark of the Beastro, the vegan diner-style joint has kept their dining room closed, which proved rough at first, though they’ve since bounced back just fine. With smooth sailing there, Early is taking on a new leadership role. The old owner is backing out, leaving Early owner of both establishments, and for he and Morse to ponder yet another change—that of becoming a non-profit.

It may sound like a very un-punk thing to do, especially considering the ways in which many non-profits pander to rich benefactors to get their funds. The Beehive, though, isn’t interested in being used by rich folks as a tax write-off. “We just want to find the right level of not having to sell out too much, but getting money from the state to train people to fight against the state,” says Morse with a wry laugh. The two are looking to orgs like the Berkeley-based Alternative Music Foundation (Gilman, to fans) as an example of a DIY punk venue that went non-profit, and now operates as an all-ages, true-collective music club.

With all this to keep them busy, re-opening the venue isn’t much on their minds. Early says that following the CDC guidelines has worked out well for the Beastro so far, and they plan to keep it up.

Morse remarks, “I don’t feel safe until everybody feels safe.”

That’s a sentiment that could go for a lot of the community work The Beehive and Beastro are doing. Keep up with them on Instagram at @beehiveslc and find their Patreon link at beehivecollectiveslc.com. CW

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In the Bandcamp page liner notes on her newest album, Peachy Fingernail (AKA Polly Llewellyn) writes, “I wanted to make songs that sounded like water pouring on concrete, nests of noise, etc. And then suddenly I wanted to make pop songs as well. It both sounds a lot sleepier and a lot more like something boiling up than I meant.” This is an apt description of this second fulllength album by the SLC artist, after her sonically similar early 2020 album Radishes.

Released Feb. 22, i’m nothing if not a silly girl is a unique handful, though—of crunched together instrumentals and Llewellyn’s brilliant, distinct lyrical style that even makes the song titles a delight to read. Among the rich back-and-forth between uppity pop (“i’m ocean foam, let me die.,” “quilt pearls of cum”) and loopy, droopy sleepy instrumentals, poetic lyrics read sweet like honey, and sharp like the tiniest bee sting. Llewellyn tries to square introspective obsessions and fear with the desire to connect and do good, singing in her soft murmur of a voice on “garden is a pretty word (commie logic),” “I need to think logically: if I throw myself into my community / I’ll think less about my body / and the terror in my heart / I’m scared to start gardening / I can never stay on top of things / I need someone to work with me / to lend me their trowel.” As that song winds down, Llewellyn sings in a faltering voice the vivid lines, “If I hadn’t braced and been there for me / I’d be chainmail bleeding by the lake / ‘cause you killed me with the engine brake.” Though often Llewellyn’s soft voice is too syrupy—like someone talking off-handedly to themselves—for it to be clear what she’s saying, it all contributes to the general soothing lull of i’m nothing.

It is a gentle work, but surprising; “praise song” and “paper spider” have the kind of jarring, discordant undertones that make you pause the song to look out the window, suspecting that a big truck is rumbling by.

These parts add delicious texture among the crumbly twee of guitar plucks and bubbling synths that are the meat of the work.

“You’re Sleeping Somewhere, I Know It” concludes the album, a heavy-eyed, jostling track where Llewellyn’s glitched out, uncertain voice declares “the album is over now,” sounding like my Bluetooth device when it announces in its nasally, robotic voice that my MacBook is “dis-conn-ected.” It’s hard to not go on and on about all of the songs on i’m nothing if not a silly girl, but that’s why you should go spend some time with it yourself. Visit peachyfingernail.bandcamp.com for the album and other Peachy Fingernail works.

POLLY LLEWELLYN

Peachy Fingernail is “Nothing If Not a Silly Girl”

| CITY WEEKLY |

24 | MARCH 4, 2021

Peachy Fingernail

BY ERIN MOORE

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MUSIC PICKS

Union of Musicians Advances on Spotify Demands

A few months back, City Weekly reported lightly on the advent of the Justice at Spotify campaign, spearheaded by the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers, who were petitioning at the time for a number of demands aimed at Spotify. The streaming behemoth—which has a pretty firm hold on the title of most-used streamer on the internet—has, in the 10-ish years that it’s been dominating the ears of listeners the world over, faced many hiccups of its own, which have in turn reflected on how they’ve been able to pay artists. This was brought to my attention recently in talks with the co-founder of a new local label, who’s seen the ways the big labels work from behind the scenes. Held for many years in binding contracts like that with Sony Music—which found the streaming company paying out most of their yearly income outside of ads to Sony, plus providing them with many other perks like free ad-space—the streamer was not actually as powerful as some thought. They were beholden as a growing company to draining contracts with the big labels—who of course, held all the cards by way of popular mainstream artists.

However, things are a bit different these days, with the advent of a “two-sided marketplace” that Spotify has just introduced, which finds them hoping to start making money off labels instead of the other way around. It seems that the new program is aimed at the kind of larger labels who have the money to pay for more artist-featured space on the streaming service’s homepages and such. But with this new income, Spotify surely has the funds to finally find a way to pay smaller artists on less powerful, indie labels. So, getting back to the Union of Musicians—they’ve got a global in-person

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Brown Bag Concert Series Opens for Submissions

Song of the Week: “Mannequin,”

by Wire

A band I return to again and again is Wire, who are, in my decent opinion, one of postpunk’s best bands. Most of the people I know in bands today love Wire, whether the person in question makes grungey, slacker rock, psych rock or some reverb-ridden contemporary take on post-punk tradition.

While I hedge towards their creepier, spookier stuff, like the songs found on 1978’s Chairs Missing or 1979’s 154 (on which lives my favorite song by them, the tragically short “Single K.O.”), it is their first album, 1977’s Pink Flag that is most people’s unequivocal favorite, the one on which most of their wellknown songs live. I don’t spend that much time with it usually, but at 21 songs long, it is an album worth spending time with. It rep-

resents what would become classic Wire—a masterful band wonderful at crafting hooky, explosive, inventive songs that at times feel more like art-rock than post-punk, if not for their gritty, unforgettable guitar parts.

The song that sticks out, for me though, is “Mannequin.” The seventeenth song on the record, it shimmies with a pop rhythm that recalls the kind of punk rock that Wire came up around and out of—like the Ramones, or the Stooges. But on top of its aloof, jammy little guitar lines, the song is flippant about maybe just those kinds of contemporaries, or at least the ones “selling out” and buying into a punk rock that was at the time becoming less about one’s social stances and more about looking the punk part. And while others theorize that it could also very well be about simply, in today’s terms, the boring normies of society, the lyrics “well, you’re an energy void, a black hole to avoid, no style, no heart, you don’t even start to interest me,” indicate that maybe it’s the former. But meaning aside, Wire stood out and still stands out as a band who fused wacky, quick songwriting style with melody, groove and the sheen of outsider genius. If I ever got to see them play live, I would die, even in their aged (but still putting out an album a year) forms. Until then, I will relive memories of putting them on the jukebox at the Twilite Lounge pre-pandemic, letting songs like “Mannequin” wash over the bar rabble—a sound cocktail worth missing.

| CITY WEEKLY |

MARCH 4, 2021 | 27

A young staple of Salt Lake’s live music scene, the SLC Arts Council’s Brown Bag series was a fun little idea back before the pandemic—it found the council pairing local artists with local businesses, and public parks and plazas for free mini-showcase events. Around this time last year, City Weekly chose one as a live pick, featuring the local artist Night Marcher at the local bar Purgatory. The shows were not only meant to make SLC streets and businesses more vibrant, but to provide support for local artists and opportunity for their professional development. Obviously during the pandemic, that’s been a hard relationship to bring back. But, perhaps inspired by others now engaging in the “hybrid” event model, the council is presenting a new round of Brown Bag shows for 2021, which will be both virtual/live-streamed, and performed live and IRL at outdoor locations around SLC. If there’s any safe way to view shows, it’s outdoors or from home. So as the warm weather rolls around, Salt Lakers can look forward to that, but in the meantime, artists need to apply! The call for entries started on Feb. 23, but runs until March 15 at 5 p.m. While in the past, the spring-

time series happened all around the city—at lunchtime in large spaces like Exchange Place, The Gateway, City Creek and Library Square—live-streamed events will make use of Salt Lake’s many large, currently-empty event spaces, with IRL locations TBD. All performances will take place through April and the beginning of May. This is also a rare opportunity for artists to find some payment these days, with a base rate per artist at $250 that increases $100 per head-inthe-band. So head over to saltlakearts.org/ brownbagconcertseries for more info and for interested artists, the submission form.

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If you’re looking for some good news when it feels like every historic lot in Salt Lake City seems destined for tear-downs and new-builds, then I give you some here. It’s no secret that Utah has many ties to the bigtime entertainment and music industries, but one that seems to have been forgotten, or perhaps is just lesser known, is that of L.A. East Studios. Housed in a Victorian Gothic revival LDS church built in 1900, L.A. East Studios came about 20 years after the building was no longer home to 15th Ward services in the area. The charming little ex-church was purchased by L.A. East Studios owner Brian Hofheins and his partners in the 1980s, whose business mainly dealt with television music production—they made music for shows, for organizations like the NBA and ABC and for big-budget Disney films. But the studio also hosted the likes of Carol King, Dolly Parton, Elton John, Demi Lovato, the Backstreet Boys and Eminem, among others. In 2020, Hofheins finally put the building up for sale though, ending a decades-long business partnership that involved Universal Music, and opening it up to the likes of developers interested in its position in a prime-development area.

You can guess what they wanted to do with the place. A deal that would have seen the building felled for apartment buildings fell through, though, just in time for the Utah Arts Alliance to spy the spot. Advocates and

sponsors of much of the great public art that happens in this city, the UAA was obviously of a mind to hold onto the building and its musical legacy by turning it into a community arts space, dubbing it the Art Castle.

There’s currently a GoFundMe online, created by UAA’s Derek Dyer, to support their goal of renovating the building to be used for accessible, affordable artist studio spaces and venue rentals. They also hope to make the Art Castle a general home for public art by way of a sculpture garden, immersive art experiences featuring local artists, and of course, concerts. Plans also include creating an outdoor amphitheater and wheelchairaccessible bathrooms, as well as opening the space up for school-children’s field trips during the day. Learn more about the plans at gofundme.com/f/artcastle and if you’re excited about the idea of a new arts venue opening up in SLC, hit the donate button.

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action coming up on March 15. Well-aware of the sway major labels hold over Spotify, the union is not only asking for a promise of one cent per stream, but for public transparency about the deals between big labels and the streamer. The union is also demanding that Spotify cease legal battles against artists gaining more royalties, and that they add more detailed credits, in the vein of streamers like Tidal, and invest in a user-centric streaming model. Musicians, industry workers and allies will gather on Monday, March 15 at Spotify offices all over the world for an in-person, socially distanced action. Though no local offices exist here, it’s worth keeping an eye on the news to see how they’re met.

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Preaching Across the Aisle

Raya and the Last Dragon offers a unity fable with more optimism than wisdom.

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BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

F

or the first time in a long time, it feels like a moment for optimism. The pandemic seems to be abating, with vaccinations increasing; national leadership is suddenly considerably less insane. As we try to heal from so many societal wounds, mostly self-inflicted, it’s understandable to long also for a healing of schisms. When we remain broken into fragments of mutual distrust and anger, what hope can we have?

That’s the question posed by Raya and the Last Dragon, an animated fable that feels like it was developed with an eerie prescience: It’s about a plague that can only be overcome by people refusing to stay stuck in ancient divisive grudges. But as well-intentioned as Raya’s tale might be, it feels trapped by a kind of family-friendly simplicity. Reducing its moral to the equivalent of “can’t we all just get along” winds up sacrificing any chance at truly insightful storytelling.

The mythology behind the story is so dense it requires multiple prologues before we get to the narrative proper.

Long story short: Once upon a time, in the land of Kumandra, a plague called The Drune in the form of swirling purple clouds started turning people to stone, until a dragon named Sisu dispelled it with a magical stone. Five hundred years later, Kumandra is now split into five rival kingdoms, with the Heart kingdom and its royal family—Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) and his daughter Raya (Kelly Marie Tran)—tasked with protecting the stone. But when a quarrel over the stone results in it fracturing, The Drune returns, sending Raya on a years-long journey to find and awaken Sisu (Awkwafina), and attempt to rejoin the fragments of the stone.

The quest structure allows for the gradual accumulation of traveling companions for Raya—an orphaned boy (Izaac

Wang), a toddler being raised by thieving monkeys—until one character refers to them as a “fellowship of Drune butt-kickery.” It makes for a lot of potential for characters to stand out, except that none of them really do, beyond a few moments for the monkey/toddler quartet that turn them into this movie’s equivalent of the Madagascar penguins. Sisu proves particularly disappointing, with Awkwafina never finding a hook in the dragon who describes herself early on in a way that makes it seem she’ll be kind of incompetent, though that personality—or necessary character arc—never really emerges.

That leaves a lot of weight on the shoulders of Raya herself, as well as her rival princess, Namaari (Gemma Chan). There’s a solid center in that conflict, built on a personal betrayal that feels resonant whenever the screenplay leans into it. The animation in the battles between Raya and Namaari boasts an impressive physicality, growing ever more intense as the history between them grows more complicated.

It’s here that the message of Raya and the Last Dragon should wind up delivering its knockout punch, except that it never evolves into anything deeper than what it looks like in the first act. Yes, it’s clear that Benja’s dream of reuniting Kumandra’s warring factions—his preferred metaphor is a bowl of soup rather than a melting pot—collides with generations of jealousy and misunderstanding. And there’s no question that victory over the Drune will ultimately require setting aside that history to work together. The process for getting from Point A to Point B, however, doesn’t make a lot

of sense, nor does the theoretical connection between the dragons’ long-ago actions and the heroic actions required in this story’s present. Raya takes it for granted that the right choice for a bright future is trusting those who have repeatedly acted out of selfishness—a notion that, in this historical moment, feels more than a little dicey.

There is, not surprisingly, a lot of lovely animation here, including geographical settings ranging from a desert of mushroom-shaped hoodoos to an ocean village, and fanciful scenes of the dragons dancing on raindrops. Also not surprisingly, that inventiveness often bumps up against the Disney-formulaic need for cute marketing-friendly characters, like the aforementioned monkey creatures or Raya’s hybrid pill-bug/gopher sidekick Tuk Tuk. The real challenge in Raya and the Last Dragon is whether its vision for setting aside differences and coming together feels like a balm for the soul, or a misguided lecture. “Unity above all else” isn’t quite the noble goal it’s cracked up to be. CW

RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON

BB½ Kelly Marie Tran Awkwafina Benedict Wong Rated PG Available March 5 in theaters and via Disney+ premium purchase

0F

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY B Y R O B

B R E Z S N Y

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.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) In late April of 1969, Cambridgeshire, UK, hosted the first-ever Thriplow Daffodil Weekend: a flower show highlighting 80 varieties of narcissus. In the intervening years, climate change has raised the average temperature 3.24 degrees Fahrenheit. So, the flowers have been blooming progressively earlier each year, which has necessitated moving the festival back. The last pre-COVID show in 2019 was on March 23-24, a month earlier than the original. Let’s use this as a metaphor for shifting conditions in your world. I invite you to take an inventory of how your environment has been changing, and what you could do to ensure you’re adapting to new conditions.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Author Leo Buscaglia told us that among ancient Egyptians, two specific questions were key in evaluating whether a human life was well-lived. They were “Did you bring joy?” and “Did you find joy?” In accordance with your current astrological potentials, I’m inviting you to meditate on those queries. And if you discover there’s anything lacking in the joy you bring and the joy you find, now is a very favorable time to make corrections.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) At age 11, the future first president of the United States, George Washington, became the “owner” of 10 slaves. A few years later, he “bought” 15 more. By the time he was president, 123 men, women and children were struggling in miserable bondage under his control. Finally, in his will, he authorized them to be freed after he and his wife died. Magnanimous? Hell, no. He should have freed those people decades earlier—or better yet, never “owned” them in the first place. Another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, not only freed his slaves but became an abolitionist. By my count, at least 11 of the other Founding Fathers never owned slaves. Now, here’s the lesson I’d like us to apply to your life right now: Don’t procrastinate in doing the right thing. Do it now.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) “How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) What are your edges, Capricorn? What aspects of your identity straddle two different categories? Which of your beliefs embrace seemingly opposed positions? In your relations with other people, what are the taboo subjects? Where are the boundaries that you can sometimes cross and other times can’t cross? I hope you’ll meditate on these questions in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you’re primed to explore edges, deepen your relationship with your edges and use your edges for healing and education and cultivating intimacy with your allies. As author Ali Smith says, “Edges are magic; there’s a kind of forbidden magic on the borders of things, always a ceremony of crossing over, even if we ignore it or are unaware of it.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) According to intermedia artist Sidney Pink, “The idea of divine inspiration and an aha moment is largely a fantasy.” What the hell is he talking about?! That’s fake news, in my view. In the course of my creative career, I’ve been blessed with thousands of divine inspirations and aha moments. But I do acknowledge that my breakthroughs have been made possible by “hard work and unwavering dedication,” which Sidney Pink extols. Now, here’s the climax of your oracle: You Aquarians are in a phase when you should be doing the hard work and unwavering dedication that will pave the way for divine inspirations and aha moments later this year.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) For you Pisceans, March is Love Yourself Bigger and Better and Bolder Month. To prepare you for this festival, I’m providing two inspirational quotes. 1. “If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.” —Barbara De Angelis 2. “Loving yourself does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion.” —Margo Anand

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MARCH 4, 2021 | 29

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) According to novelist Doris Lessing, “Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me.” She implied that hardly anyone ever gets such an experience—or that it’s so rare as to be always tugging on our minds, forever a source of unquenched longing. But I’m more optimistic than Lessing. In my view, the treasured exchange she describes is not so impossible. And I think it will especially possible for you in the coming weeks. I suspect you’re entering a grace period of being listened to, understood and treated kindly. Here’s the catch: For best results, you should be forthright in seeking it out.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) “What damages a person most,” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “is to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty.” Once a year, I think every one of us, including me, should meditate on that quote. Once a year, we should evaluate whether we are living according to our soul’s code; whether we’re following the path with heart; whether we’re doing what we came to earth to accomplish. In my astrological opinion, the next two weeks will be your special time to engage in this exploration.

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LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) “Scars speak for you,” writes author Gena Showalter. “They say you’re strong, and you’ve survived something that might have killed others.” In that spirit, dear Leo, and in accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to authorize your scars to express interesting truths about you in the coming weeks. Allow them to demonstrate how resilient you’ve been, and how well you’ve mastered the lessons that your past suffering has made available. Give your scars permission to be wildly eloquent about the transformations you’ve been so courageous in achieving.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You may never wander out alone into a dark forest or camp all night on a remote beach or encounter a mountain lion as you climb to a glacier near the peak of a rugged mountain. But there will always be a primeval wilderness within you—uncivilized lands and untamed creatures and elemental forces that are beyond your rational understanding. That’s mostly a good thing! To be healthy and wise, you need to be in regular contact with raw nature, even if it’s just the kind that’s inside you. The only time it may be a hindrance is if you try to deny its existence, whereupon it may turn unruly and inimical. So, don’t deny it! Especially now. (PS: To help carry out this assignment, try to remember the dreams you have at night. Keep a recorder or notebook and pen near your bed.)

HELP WANTED

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CANCER (June 21-July 22) During World War II, the Japanese island of Ōkunoshima housed a factory that manufactured poison gas for use in chemical warfare against China. These days, it is a tourist attraction famous for its thousands of feral but friendly bunnies. I’d love to see you initiate a comparable transmutation in the coming months, dear Cancerian: changing bad news into good news, twisted darkness into interesting light, soullessness into soulfulness. Now is a good time to ramp up your efforts.

the naked flesh of feeling,” wrote composer Claude Debussy.

In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll regard his words as an incitement to do everything you can to reach the naked flesh of your feelings. Your ideas are fine. Your rational mind is a blessing. But for the foreseeable future, what you need most is to deepen your relationship with your emotions. Study them, please. Encourage them to express themselves. Respect their messages as gifts, even if you don’t necessarily act upon them.

COMMUNITY CLASSIFIEDS

© 2021

MRS. FIRE

BY DAVID LEVINSON WILK

ACROSS

1. Skin pic 2. 2020 Zoom event: Abbr.

3. Writer Tolstoy 4. Film ____ 5. “And therefore ...”

6. Canny 7. Zipper part

G

Containing It

8. Chemist’s workplace 9. Lacto-____ vegetarian 10. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” director Anderson 11. Present from birth 12. Brunch order 13. Anago, at a sushi restaurant 18. Female hip-hopper 21. Riyadh resident 23. Combat vet’s affliction 24. Words said with a sigh 25. Shepherd’s pie morsels 27. “Oy, vey!” cause 28. Places to be marooned 29. Cardinals, on scoreboards 31. Pre-Columbian Mexicans 32. Part of a bedroom set 35. Military branches: Abbr.

38. Banana ____ 39. Butter alternative 40. Bank claim 41. Some stay-at-home parents 42. Word after press or mess 44. Make ____ (clench) 45. High-ranking noncom: Abbr.

46. Gibson of “2 Fast 2 Furious” 47. Colorful quartz varieties 48. Didn’t just criticize 50. Quid pro quo

54. Duplicate 55. Otolaryngologists, briefly 57. Lines for RNs 58. Capital of Canada?

59. Workplaces for RNs 61. Company with the most U.S. patents per year since 1993 62. “Precious” director Daniels 63. Streaming delay

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.

DOWN

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. Up to 4. Tidy 8. They keep people out of Mensa 14. One way to go 15. Thereabouts 16. One of 17 in Monopoly 17. Financial crisis mantra that was, without fail, the most memorable from 2008?

19. ____ and Herzegovina 20. Fills, as cracks between tiles 22. Pro 23. Big ____, nickname for slugger David Ortiz 26. Most notable Shakespeare quote, without question?

30. First film in CinemaScope, 1953 33. Company whose headquarters were built from its own product 34. Start to unify?

35. “Never ____ moment!”

36. ____ Moines 37. Funniest Robin Williams movie, without a doubt?

39. Bygone 42. Stays fresh 43. Lago di Como locale 45. Showing no emotion 48. Source of updated news and blog postings 49. Edvard Grieg work that is without peer?

51. Na+ and Cl52. Handle in court 53. Tiny amounts 56. Arizona neighbor 60. And without further ado ... a Spanish sherry?

64. “Yours truly” alternative 65. Co. division 66. Sitcom costar of Rue, Betty and Estelle 67. James and Owens 68. Brand with “Scooping since 1928” on its cartons 69. Emma Watson’s role in 2019’s “Little Women”

SUDOKU

| COMMUNITY | | CITYWEEKLY.NET |

30 | MARCH 4, 2021

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

I’m not an expert when it comes to shipping products around the world. Stuff I need gets magically stocked on store shelves or available on a website. Frankly, talking about containers doesn’t float my retail boat. Yet, we’re getting plenty of news these days about Utah’s desire to establish an “inland port” west of the new prison and of the new airport.

What does an inland port do? It’s a stop for containers to be loaded and unloaded, where items can be shipped off again to thousands of destinations after being repackaged into lots. In theory, it makes Utah a very cost-effective global trade port that allows for Customs to open and inspect the containers before the inventory moves elsewhere. Proponents here, like Derek Miller, who heads up the Salt Lake Chamber and Downtown Alliance while also serving on the Utah Inland Port Authority board of directors, sees Salt Lake as a hub for international business. To my pea brain, making Salt Lake a dry port seems silly since the ports along the coast do the same things.

Ah, but talking to my friends who own small businesses and who try to get goods these days casts a different light on the subject. Apparently, container-ship congestion at all North American ports is crazy right now. Visit the Marine Traffic website (marinetraffic.com) and you’ll see the massive shipping traffic in real time around the world.

Look to West Coasts ports like San Diego, Los Angeles/Long Beach and Oakland, and you can view the bottlenecks for yourself. When I checked, I saw at least 30 ships waiting to unload in the LA/Long Beach harbor.

According to the website Expeditiors. com, this situation is being driven by the “unprecedented surge in demand” and “vessels are experiencing severe delays for berth windows once they arrive at the terminal for discharge.” The lack of laborers, warehouses, delivery trucks and rail cars—not to mention effects of COVID closures in California over the past year—are stressing out the system.

The Journal of Commerce writes that they see no relief in sight, especially for LA-Long Beach congestion but predicts that there will be “double-digit trans-Pacific volume growth projected through the first half of the year and at ports around the world.”

Locally, I don’t know how our proposed inland port can help if you can’t get the damned containers off ships. While we sit at home during COVID-time, we’re browsing the web and ordering too much stuff—which explains some delays in packages. My friends in retail can’t stock their shelves like they used to, and worse, my friends in the building trades are seeing massive shortages in tile, carpet, lumber, steel products and more.

Even the cost of old containers to use for tiny homes has gone up—that is, if you can find one. n Content is prepared expressly for Community and is not endorsed by City Weekly staff.

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seriously injuring his stepfather, made the call in order to get the road in front of his house cleared of snow. Police spokeswoman Yulia Kovtun told the BBC the man insisted that officers would need special equipment to get to him because of the snow, but when police arrived, they found no assault or murder, and the road had already been cleared by a tractor. The man was charged with filing a false report and fined.

Least Competent Criminal Robert Joseph Hallick of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was arrested Feb. 11 and charged with perjury, forgery and identity theft after applying for a handgun permit using former President Barack Obama’s name, according to court documents. The arrest report also said his application included a letter with a United States of America seal and U.S. Department of State letterhead, along with a $50 check, WTVC-TV reported. In November, Hallick had been denied a handgun permit under his own name due to an active warrant for his arrest in Michigan.

Weird History In an auction in Chesapeake City, Maryland, that closed on Feb. 8, a white wooden toilet seat pilfered from Adolf Hitler’s retreat in the Bavarian Alps sold for about $18,750, The Sun reported.

Ragnvald C. Borch, a U.S. soldier who spoke German and French, was one of the first to arrive at the Berghof at the end of World War II. His senior officers told him to “get what you want” from the damaged property, so Borch grabbed a toilet seat and shipped it home to New Jersey, where he displayed it in his basement. Bill Panagopulos of Alexander Auctions said, “This was as close to a ‘throne’ as the dictator would ever get.” Borch’s son put the “trophy” up for auction; the buyer was not identified.

Family Values Joanna Zielinski, 62, of Naples, Florida, was arrested Feb. 11 after stabbing her sister, Laura, 64, multiple times with an EpiPen, according to authorities. Investigators said the two had spent the evening drinking and taking drugs, and Laura fell asleep on the couch. “At some point,” said police, “Joanna went crazy and attacked Laura with an EpiPen,” because “I’m allergic to drunks,” she told officers, and she wanted to sober her sister up.

The Smoking Gun reported the EpiPen was prescribed to Joanna, but Laura wasn’t affected by the medicine because it wasn’t actually injected. Joanna was charged with domestic battery.

What’s Old Is New Again The Boston Globe reported on Feb. 15 about the newest hipster craze: typewriters. Manual, heavy, clunky “typers.” Tom Furrier, the owner of Cambridge Typewriter, Boston’s only remaining typewriter repair shop, first noticed the upward sales trend in April 2020. “I was busy beforehand, but COVID raised my business by 40%.” While typewriters can’t take the place of digital communications devices, they’re attractive to young people for creative endeavors that have become popular during the lockdowns: “My customers use it for journaling, poetry, creative writing,” Furrier said. “It’s all about writing without internet distractions, about getting into a zone.” With pandemic restrictions in place, Furrier brings typewriters out onto the sidewalk for customers to inspect, then disinfects them and returns them to the window. Customers “instantly get the typewriter bug,” he said.

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

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It’s a Dog’s Life Bill Dorris, a successful Nashville, Tennessee, businessman, was 84 years old when he passed away late last year, WTVF-TV reported, leaving $5 million to his beloved 8-year-old border collie, Lulu. Dorris, who was unmarried and traveled frequently, often left Lulu in the care of his friend Martha Burton, 88, who will continue to keep the dog and will be reimbursed for reasonable monthly expenses from the trust established for Lulu by the will. Burton was chill about the whole thing: “I don’t really know what to think about it, to tell you the truth,” she said. “He just really loved that dog.”

Annals of Education Concordia University student Aaron Asuini wanted to ask a question in the online art history class he was taking, but when he tried to reach out to the lecturer, Francois-Marc Gagnon, he couldn’t find any contact information in the school’s portal.

So he Googled the professor’s name—and found an obituary.

The Verge reported Gagnon passed away in March 2019, and although the course syllabus listed someone else as the class’ official instructor, it also noted that Gagnon would be the lecturer. A Concordia spokesperson expressed regret at the misunderstanding, but Asuini is still unsettled about it: “I don’t really even want to watch the lectures anymore. ... I think it lacked tact and respect for this teacher’s life.”

Awesome!

Appalachian Bear Rescue is on the lookout for a wild mother bear to foster three newborn cubs found in the crawl space under a home in Sevier County, Tennessee, according to United Press International. Utility workers called to the home on Feb. 13 to repair a gas leak found the “ample caboose of a very large snoozing bear” when they entered the crawl space under the house, the wildlife agency said. “There was no way to safely repair the gas line while the bear was in residence,” so wildlife officials tempted the bear out of her den but found three babies had been left behind. They will remain with Appalachian Bear Rescue until a foster mom is found.

Neighborhood Watch Homeowners in the Quail Hollow neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, have been frustrated by a mail thief since late 2020, so when Lacy Hayes spotted a car lurking near his mailbox on Feb. 11 and saw the driver, who appeared to be an elderly woman, reach inside it, he took action. Hayes reached through the driver’s window and removed the keys from the ignition. The woman hit him with her cellphone, so he took that too, called 911, then took a picture of the driver and the tags, The Charlotte Observer reported. The driver got away, but neighbor Nicole Kern got online and, using Hayes’ photo and facial recognition software, soon found a match—a man, wanted in Greenville, South Carolina. Neighbors rejoiced when a man with the same name was booked into the Mecklenburg County jail on Feb. 13 on a fugitive extradition warrant and a charge of resisting a law enforcement officer. Police declined to comment on whether the man is also a suspect in the mail thefts. The unnamed criminal was held on $2 million bail.

Desperate Times Police in the Ukrainian village of Hrybova Rudnya determined that the unnamed man who called them Feb. 13 and confessed to

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