PRIVATE EYE

PRIVATE EY

Grass Menagerie

In the time of COVID, many people took up new hobbies, changed their careers or made lifestyle adjustments. Those are the folks I like—positive thinkers who tried to make the best use of their time when it looked like their time could end at any moment. They might even have recommitted themselves to any number of worthy ambitions, like finishing that surefire bestselling novel, losing weight or finding God.

Alas, a good number of folks took to none of that, looked science right in the eye, exclaimed they were strong as a Borax mule team and became assholes. Beside the time they spent missing work or attending COVID funerals of friends and family gone before their expiration dates (it’s verifiable worldwide that COVID preyed especially hard on the fatuous and obtuse), they spent much of COVID time finding fault in everything from mask-wearing to the way teenagers served their fast food at the local drive-in.

Such deportment caused a good number of us to fully disassociate from them. We all have friends we no longer care to see. We have work associates whom we hope never return to the home office. We have learned that some of our neighbors who politely wave when driving through the neighborhood become vicious witch hunters during formerly sanguine school board meetings. We have family members who are not welcome at the dinner table, at weddings and nor, of course, at funerals.

My own COVID death count now stands at 11. That’s the number of persons I’ve known, worked with or have close connections to who would still be living if not for COVID. No matter how I try, I cannot square that with the sentiment of some people that their dying of COVID—anyone’s dying of COVID—is what God intended. He could have called them home in a more peaceful way, it seems, not by drowning in their own spittle.

While I’m not without faith, neither can I be accused of being the most religious person around, despite a family lineage that until recently included bishops, priests, nuns and monks. But in November, my dad’s first cousin, a wellknown Greek Orthodox nun and the founder of the beautiful St. John’s Monastery in the hills above Megara, Greece, died of COVID. Fifty of the 70 nuns at her monastery caught COVID. I mean, what can you say?

So, as this has gone on and on, I say less to those I disagree with. We’re past the point of course correction, apparently, so I only pipe up when something fully egregious or factually wrong catches my eye. The only people I tell to mask up are close family members. If I go somewhere and feel uncomfortable, I just walk away.

That’s my protest now—to just let that booger-hanger over in the produce department have all the onions to himself until it’s safe to re-enter and grab a sweet Vidalia. By the way, there are fewer booger-hangers at Rancho Markets than any other grocery in town. In case you ever want to say hello, I’ll be somewhere near their excellent bakery.

I’m just stopping to smell the bread dough these days. That’s been a challenge following four surgeries in 2021, including a bastard of a prostate surgery in December that still has me wincing. As if COVID weren’t enough, I’m one of those people who endures depression through this time of year thanks to our daylight hours being shortened. It’s aptly named SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder. About all I can do is to find new things to engage in, like backyard birding.

I took up that amazeballs hobby in late 2020. My backyard is now a year-round home to chickadees, scrub jays, finches, quail, woodpeckers, magpies, sparrows and many others—plus the squirrels that eat the bird food, and the Cooper’s hawk that eats the birds. Birds bring humankind optimism and, as such, were immortalized in the words of Thomas Farley Foster in 1827’s The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomenon: “Songbirds begin to sing early in the primaveral season, the blackbird often in January and the thrush soon follows.” You might have learned that as, “If winter’s here, can spring be far behind?” Yes indeedy, I feel the days getting longer!

There’s probably a word for such a feeling. I’ve discovered many new terms via another COVID hobby, playing word games like Wordle and Quordle. They join other COVID hobbies like birdwatching, taking Greek language classes and searching for the perfect menudo, posole and birria taco. Playing Wordle (not to be confused with Worldle) and Quordle (not to be confused with Nerdle) has at last led me to a word that accurately describes me. I’m a muckspout—a person who swears too much.

I validate that description of myself every time throttlebottoms such as Mike Lee, Chris Stewart and Burgess Owens open their mouths. I can’t help it. I swear at them. I do the same with all of Utah’s GOP who bumfuzzle me at every turn, their latest by trying to yank seltzers from grocery stores despite no one bitching about them and which only hurts local business (instead of making a simple word change in the state’s arcane definitions of beer and alcohol). They’re all a bunch of ninnyhammers, who for 45 days each year degrade themselves into any manner of catawampus behaviors. It’s like they hate us.

But the damage they’ll do will be forgotten in future years when they move on to ever more fopdoodle antics. Every year they become the very face of rakefire.

So today, I’ll relax, fill this space, watch the birds, dance with the squirrel, stir the roux and enjoy another day of apricity. We’ve had lots of them. CW

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.

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MISS: Digital Tyranny

This week is dedicated to conspiracies, and how we love them. The U.S. Secretary General calls the time we live in a “misinfo-demic.” He should know, because so many of those conspiracies revolve around the United Nations. For those who remember Utah Sen. Margaret Dayton, you will also recall her disdain for the International Baccalaureate program in Utah high schools. To her, the program promoted antiAmerican ideals born in Switzerland— ideals like critical thinking. Today, we have state Reps. Phil Lyman and Mike Petersen, who see that specter looming in the form of a digital driver license. Utah fringe groups, The Salt Lake Tribune notes, think the U.N. is getting ready to “launch tyranny” in the state. There’s a long history of fear that a digital apocalypse is on the horizon. Maybe Lyman and Peterson launching a podcast proves their point.

HIT: Breaking Rank

Yet again, the conspiracists sink their talons into the Utah Legislature. This time it comes at the expense of a widely accepted and popular voting method. We don’t mean vote-by-mail, although they’re trying to eviscerate that, too. Rep. Mike Winder’s bill to expand ranked-choice voting was pulled before it got a hearing because of the right-wing echo chamber of voter fraud. Hey, a Tribune photo showed the opposition with printed stick-on “No ranked choice voting” labels, although there has been no evidence that RCV— or vote by mail—opens voting to fraud. It’s become really hard these days to fight falsehoods with truth, even after positive polling. Lyman pushed another bill to end mail voting, saying it was about electoral integrity. The lieutenant governor didn’t buy it, and it looks like most office-holders support this tried and trusted method. So for now, Utah voters are safe at home.

MISS: Lone Contrarian

Sen. Mike Lee—always the spoiler. Utah’s senior senator has a history of voting against issues that would otherwise be no-brainers to anyone with a soul. This time, on the 80th anniversary of the Japanese internment, it’s approval of the Amache National Historic Site Act. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators were ready to vote in favor of making the southeastern Colorado landmark a national historic site. The one remainder was Lee, according to PBS NewsHour, who can always find a reason to vote against a popular idea. His opposing vote wasn’t about the unjust imprisonment of Japanese Americans, he said, it was about federal lands. Specifically, he doesn’t want them expanded and instead wants to see them in state hands. Here, we’re talking about less than one square mile. But to Lee, it’s the anti-federal principle.

Save The Vote

Even in red Utah, the conspiracists have come out to attack the vote. The state’s universal vote-by-mail is easily one of the safest and most efficient in the nation, and voter turnout in Utah continues to increase. “Sadly, a small group completely out of step with Utahns want to add barriers to voting and take Utah backwards,” say the nonpartisan organizers of Let Utah Vote. By giving Utahns the opportunity to vote early, the state also allows voters to study their ballots, make informed decisions and cast their ballot even if they would otherwise be unable to make it to the polls on Election Day. “It’s made Utah’s elections cheaper and is just as secure as voting in person.” You can help preserve this trusted method of voting by signing a petition to tell your elected leaders that no “fix” is needed and to “defend voting by mail, early voting, Election Day voter registration and all other measures that make it easier for people to participate in our Democracy.” Online, before the Legisla-

ture ends March 4, free. https://www.letutahvote.org/

Say No To Gas Station

Remember the now-shuttered Sizzler at the corner of 1300 East and 2100 South? You knew that something would be going up there because Sugar House, of all Salt Lake neighborhoods, is experiencing explosive growth and development. While there’s no stopping that growth, you could stop the curious plan to build a gas station on the corner of an already high-traffic area. Residents are not happy, particularly because of its proximity to Sugar House Park and the high pedestrian traffic in the area. Vehicles enter the intersection from all sides and feed onto the nearby interstate. There are also underground water resources that could be at risk. Make your wishes known about Kum & Go Gas Station (Conditional Use) before it’s too late. Online, now before Monday, March 21, free. http://bit.ly/slc-openhouse00053

Not In My ‘Hood

Just like everywhere in the United States, there were concerted efforts to segregate neighborhoods in Salt Lake and Ogden. People like Lucille Perkins Bankhead, a descendant of Black Mormon pioneers, helped to defeat one such bid, and her family has carried on her legacy of community involvement. At Race and Housing, “two members of the Perkins and Bankhead families, Nichol Bordeaux and Kellen Perkins, will join Tonya Reiter, author of Not in My Neighborhood: The Controversy Over Segregated Housing in Salt Lake City published in the winter 2022 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly, to share their views on housing problems among people of color in the state.” Virtual, Wednesday, Feb.

23, 7 p.m., free/register. https://bit.ly/3HJr9kv

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Complete listings online at cityweekly.net Information is correct at press time; visit event websites for updates on possible COVID-related cancellations or re-scheduling

Van Gogh 360⁰ @ The Leonardo

Technology has changed the world of visual art forever—not just in terms of the tools artists now have at their disposal to create new work, but in terms of the way people can experience art that has existed for centuries. Images of great works are now at our digital fingertips, true, but technology has also provided opportunities to get up close and personal with classic art in entirely new ways.

Following on the heels of its popular From Monet to Kandinsky exhibition, which launched the new IDEA virtual exhibition space, The Leonardo now presents Van Gogh 360⁰, an immersive experience featuring more than 300 celebrated works by the legendary Vincent Van Gogh. While projected images of Van Gogh paintings are part of the exhibition, this is much more than a simple “slide show” of the greatest hits. Instead, it’s a multi-media presentation that incorporates the words and ideas of the artist. “In this experience you are guided through the work by the artist himself as the show shares excerpts from letters he wrote to his brother Theo,” says The Leonardo’s executive director, Alexandra Hesse. “Throughout the show, you will learn about Van Gogh’s passions, inspirations, suffering, and ambitions to express his creative vision on canvas.”

Van Gogh 360⁰ is currently scheduled to run through Feb. 26 at The Leonardo (209 E. 500 South). Reservations are required for specific showtimes, with tickets $17 - $30 and including full museum admission along with the immersive presentation. Visit theleonardo.org for tickets and current health & safety protocols. (Scott Renshaw)

COURTESY PHOTO

Margaret Cho

It’s the little things that can startle you about the passage of time—like the realization that Margaret Cho’s professional career now stands at 30 years and counting. It seems like only yesterday that Cho was breaking out as a rare example of an Asian-American female stand-up comedian, with a distinct enough voice that she landed her own sitcom in 1994, All-American Girl. That experience, unfortunately, turned out to be more of a nightmare than a dream-come-true, as network interference and expectations for her physical appearance sabotaged both the show itself and Cho’s health, leading to a spiral into substance abuse.

For some performers, that might have been the end. But for Cho, it provided the raw material—emphasis on “raw”—for her 1999 one-woman show (and subsequent bestselling book and concert film) I’m the One That I Want, chronicling the struggles related to her ethnicity and body image. She’s barely slowed down in the two decades since, becoming a vocal activist for a variety of causes, launching a podcast and continuing to tour as a standup comic, including being named as one of the 50 Best Standup Comics by Rolling Stone in 2017. Her comedic voice remains distinctly her own, no matter how much she has changed and grown over the years.

Cho visits Salt Lake City for four performances at Wiseguys Gateway (194 S. 400 West), Feb. 18-19 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. nightly. Tickets are $35; face coverings are recommended for all audience members except while actively eating and drinking, but not required. Visit wiseguyscomedy.com for tickets and additional event information. (SR)

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