City Weekly January 26, 2023

By Eric S. Peterson Cover design by Derek Carlisle

“Buzz Off,” Jan. 17 online

Editor’s note: City Weekly readers had a lot to say about the recently announced decision to move the Salt Lake Bees baseball team from Salt Lake City’s Ballpark neighborhood to the Daybreak suburb in South Jordan. Here are some comments posted on social media.

I’m sure Daybreak will enjoy all the extra traffic that will come with the Salt Lake Bees move.

CARLOS DOS ROACHES

Via Facebook

It is so easy to take transit to the Ballpark

neighborhood. Why is the Larry H. Miller Company moving the team? Are they going to build a Sounders stadium like in Seattle, Washington?

CHRISTINE COHEN

Via Facebook

I’m not surprised with all the frequency of crimes and houses that are mysteriously burning up in that neighborhood. Time to put a homeless shelter there—something useful.

STACIE SCHOFIELD Via Facebook

Such a pointless waste of money having to build a whole new ballpark.

RICHARD GREBMUH Via Facebook

Boooooooooo RYAN HERRMAN Via Facebook

Let’s take a beloved team and move them from an extremely accessible location in the middle of the city to a far-flung com-

munity on the edge of the valley with zero culture and crappy public transit? Nice.

_THETRASHPILE Via Instagram

They done gentrified our baseball.

JAYJAYAMAYA Via Instagram

Will this area be completely converted to a crime sanctuary now?

MTGREENHEADS Via Instagram

So disappointing. A favorite venue with a view.

PAGEJULIANO Via Instagram

It is a beautiful field. I will miss this venue. I can hear the crowd roar from my place of work. This is a tough one for us in the Ballpark community.

CONDIESCANDIES

Via Instagram

I bet we can get five or six vape/tattoo

parlors crammed into that space once it’s demolished.

WREESE1848 Via Instagram

This kinda sucks. This park is fun because of the ability to be so close to downtown. Sad day.

EMILIOCAMARA_ Via Instagram

Not well thought out. Bad decision. PARKCITYCURT Via Instagram

They must have needed the corner for another crappy apartment building. So sad how all the charm and history of our city is being erased. Sorry Bees! I’ll miss you.

TINYBADNESS

Via Instagram

Great location for some five-story apartments and a drug testing lab. Super close to Adult Probation and Parole.

CURTIS_STRANGE

Via Instagram

THE WATER COOLER

How do you spend your free time?

Bill Frost

Making music and podcasts, highly profitable hobbies.

Paula Saltas

Wordles, duotrigordles, binge watching Yellowstone and playing Phase 10 with whomever will come over.

Katharine Biele

Free time? What’s that? When I have it, I walk my dog, play bridge or read. It’s mostly about dogs, coffee and wine..

Scott Renshaw

Reading, watching movies, going to theater, writing ... pretty much the same way I spend my work time.

Kelly Boyce

Puzzles, shaking my butt in nature and shaking my butt at all the concerts and festivals.

Benjamin Wood

I walk my dogs along the 9-Line and Jordan River trails, or I hop on my bike and explore the city.

Christa Zaro

Worrying about the future.

Bryan Bale

I hibernate with warm beverages, YouTube videos and Critical Role.

PRIVATE EYE

Legislating Under the Influence

Groundhog Day always comes early in Utah. The official celebration of the shadown-chasing woodchuck takes place on Thursday, Feb. 2, but in Utah, it annually begins when the Utah Legislature kicks off its session.

There can be no shadow where the sun doesn’t shine, so our legislators lack the guidance of Puncsutawney Phil, the notorious forecasting rodent made all the more famous by Bill Murray in the movie by the originally apt name of Groundhog Day. So the session repeats itself annually.

That’s how it is in Utah. Every year for as long as I can remember (I’m old but young at heart, so I date myself in millennial time, making me just 2.37 millennials old), it’s the same thing: A moralistic, God-fearing (not to be confused with God-loving, which they are not) band of election cheating, gerrymandered-into-office legislators, primarily of the Republican stripe, unfold all kinds of mayhem on Utah citizens while claiming to be doing good and worthy deeds in “his” name (his name is, of course, Bill, as in Dollar Bill).

When the powers in Utah don’t want something, they try to kill it. To them, all snakes are rattlesnakes, all spiders are poisonous, all non-practicing Latter-day-Saint Utahns and especially all out-of-state Utahns who dare live outside the bounds of Utah fantasy land are to be hectored and driven away. Just ask Robert Redford, with whom the Legislature took umbrage, targetting his Sundance ski resort enterprise in order to hurt him financially. Yep, the Utah Legislature is decades ahead of the vengeful John Dutton, the fictional governor of Montana in the hit series Yellowstone

It may be true that Utah has some smart and forwardthinking Republican legislators, but one thing they never

BY JOHN SALTAS @johnsaltas

seem to coalesce around in any positive way is liquor legislation. This year promises to be as hard on the liquor industry as ever, threatening once again an entire business community with onerous bills that do no good whatsoever when it comes to combating the overconsumption of alcohol.

HB247 is the package of liquor poison this year, sponsored in the house by West Jordan Republican Rep. Ken Ivory. But let’s be honest; Ivory—as perpetually misguided and ill-informed as he is—is just doing the bidding of one Mr. Art Brown, who is the head of the Utah chapter of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). I’ll buy Art a banana split for every new member of MADD that has joined his ranks in the last decade, because if I’m counting right, I’d only owe him one banana split.

Still, no mother is for drunk driving. When Mr. MADD convinces a woodchuck like Ivory to raise the insurance policy caps on any enterprise that serves liquor on-site, it soon becomes legislation. Brown erroneously believes that paying more money to the victims of drunk driving accidents leads to less consumption. It is the national charter goal of MADD to end drunk driving—fine, and we agree there—and Utah is already seeing decreased incidence of DUI due to education, ride sharing and other tactics.

So, why penalize the hospitality industry? Because Brown and Ivory see it as a spider. HB247 will more than double the insurance rates of clubs, restaurants, brewpubs and all the rest without decreasing consumption by one drop. One downtown club will see its insurance jump from around $50,000 annually to over $120,000 annually—and that operation has never had a DRAM shop incident. They must carry up to $3 million of insurance coverage.

Reputable insurance companies will no longer back the hospitality purveyors at those payout rates, leaving that industry at the mercy of high-cost insurance providers. How does Utah square that with being a business-friendly state? Easy—by forcing out the little independents in favor of na-

tional chains who will willingly fill the gaps.

Can you imagine Ivory sitting still if the Utah Legislature decided that he should pay double insurance costs in any category of law practice? He wouldn’t.

HB247 will also require so-called “spy cams” to be installed in places serving booze. Being forced to spy on your own customers is quite Orwellian—yet another piece of bullshit in the eye of a state that only pays lip service to privacy. It’s like they all went 360 degrees of dumb and want a COVID mask on the entire hospitality industry.

The authors of this bill are not concerned with drinking or consumption, but of whom is drinking and consuming. If every Saint quit drinking tomorrow, Utah would go broke.

But there’s one tool that would prevent repeat drunk drivers from doing so over and over. The state is already spying on drinkers by scanning their ID. Why not place within that barcode a message that the holder of that ID has two or more DUI convictions? A bar could be alerted to a problem drinker in their midst. That person could not be served a drink. My weight is already on my ID so, so much for privacy.

Despite all the thoughts and prayers to the contrary, it’s a rare bartender or waitress who can tell if a person is actually a drinking and driving hazard. For a state that cares so much about overconsumption, why does it put the burden on people who are just trying to get through college?

Make the state pay 100% of the insurance claims derived from a drunk-driving collision. Utah distributes and sells all the liquor here, so pay up and quit passing the buck.

It’s time the Browns and Ivorys of the world go after the big dogs or at least for them to cop to intellectual and moral dishonesty on this matter. Until then, they’re just helping to crater one of the primary engine drivers in the Utah economy, the Utah hospitality industry. CW

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net

HITS & MISSES

MISS: Speak for the Trees

It’s hard to know just how serious Utah legislators are about saving the Great Salt Lake. It’s not for lack of talking about it. They have lots of fun ideas, from the now-shelved plan to pump water from the Pacific Ocean to the latest notion that trees should go because they suck too much water. Let’s hope they don’t take that concept further to human beings. First, forest thinning— not to be confused with the former president’s call to sweep the forests. Rural lawmakers are backing a major logging initiative as a way to save the lake, according to The Salt Lake Tribune Admittedly, some trees should go—the non-native and noxious trees that line the lake, for instance. But this “initiative” is less about saving the lake than saving the alfalfa fields. And it’s more complicated than just thinning the forests. If they really want to attack the problem, they’d need to recognize climate change and take some steps to solve it long-term. A bill on idling would be good to pass, and recognizing that Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing would be wise.

HIT: Can’t Vouch for It

Talking about education in Utah is always steeped in politics and culture wars. This year is a case in point as conservative lawmakers try again to pass private school vouchers, which they hope are more popular now that parents have experienced COVID. How that makes sense is debatable, but it’s a talking point. Just to be sure they can pass it, they’ve tied teacher raises to vouchers, The Salt Lake Tribune reports. After all, it has been a continuing embarrassment to the state that our teacher pay is always near the bottom and our class sizes near the top. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers are passing around a map that shows the large number of ZIP codes without private schools. And in a hopeful and perhaps quixotic move, Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, has opened a bill file to increase teacher pay by $10,200—without the voucher hook.

MISS: Any Means Necessary

There’s nothing like abortion to get the far right riled up. But far be it from them to actually use the word or, in this case, be up front about squelching Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit holding up their trigger ban. Enter Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, with a clever yet opaque bill to, uh, do what? Called the Joint Resolution Amending Rules of Civil Procedure on Injunctions, this piece of work is a feeble attempt to kill an injunction “unless the case has a substantial likelihood of success,” The Salt Lake Tribune wrote. In other words, a judge would have to determine if a case could be won and, if it looks good, then an injunction couldn’t hold it up—or vice versa. There’s a lot of legalese in this bill, and it’s one that not even lawyers and legal experts seem to like. The unintended consequences are many. Speaking of many, there will be lots more anti-abortion bills coming this session because they care so much about the pre-born. Women and babies are on their own.

Map Quest

One of the most distinctive features of Salt Lake City is its grid system. This orderly urban layout makes it so that anyone with just an introductory math education can figure out where exactly anything is and how to get there.

I recently gave a tutorial on how it works to some out-of-state visitors of mine, and they instantly became as much of a zealot for the grid as myself. I guess proselytizing of all types runs deep here in SLC.

Due to the ease of navigating around the city, there really isn’t much of a need for wayfinding signage (though more overtly pedestrian-oriented signage would be great!). Nevertheless, the city does a fairly good job with publicly identifying landmarks.

Downtown, near popular spots such as the Gallivan Center, there are multiple well-labeled maps emphasizing key nearby locations, and several community councils have spearheaded campaigns installing signage showcasing noteworthy sights within their boundaries.

But the public maps that I enjoy most are the more informal ones painted by local artists. Chris Peterson is responsible for the most extensive public Salt Lake City map I’ve seen, which is located on the now-defunct Crank SLC bike shop on State Street between 700 South and 800 South (above photo). This vividly colored, curved perspective piece shows the majority of the city north of 900 South, stretching from the far west to the east bench.

Peterson is also responsible for an incredible piece painted on the Sorenson Multi-Cultural Center at 900 West and California Avenue, which shows the topography of the Jordan River and what looks like neighboring housing tracts of adjacent west side communities (bottom left).

Another more playfully designed Jordan River map can be found on the ground at Poplar Grove Park at Emery Street and Indiana Avenue and is the creation of Miriam Gutierrez (bottom right). Public parks within the Glendale, Poplar Grove and Fairpark neighborhoods are highlighted in this piece and, although only relative locations are given, I have full confidence that even the most amateur of navigators will still be able to find them: that’s the power of the grid! CW

The now-closed Crank SLC building on State Street boasts Chris Peterson’s colorful map of the Salt Lake City street grid. On the

west side, two murals map the winding path of the Jordan River Parkway.

SUNDANCE

Watch, If You Dare

A love letter to the Sundance Film Festival’s Midnight category

BY CHASE HUTCHINSON comments@cityweekly.net

PARK CITY—When the lights went down on the opening night screening of birth/rebirth, kicking off the Midnight category programming at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, there was a sense of palpable excitement that can’t be found anywhere else. Across the festival, there’s nothing quite like seeing the visions that look deep into the darkness with a crowd ready and willing to take the plunge.

After all, even during an entire week built around taking in exciting works of cinema, it is a select few who will actively choose to brave the perilously cold evenings by venturing out to see horror and genre films galore into the early morning hours at the new festival venue The Ray Theatre. Yet, to this fellow maniac who couldn’t get enough of these moments— while also remaining taken by much of the other programming—there was no more consistently rewarding run of films than what I saw in the Midnight section.

The best of them managed to be both funny and frightful, utterly depraved and devastating, while still offering something sublime in their sinister visions. For those audiences willing to go with them, they will find some of the most thrilling works to premiere at Sundance this year as they tear through both flesh and form.

All, in one way or another, have a knowledge of history that they then use to craft reflective works all their own. Considering the history of horror at Sundance and Utah—with standouts like Ari Aster’s locally-shot Hereditary, which premiered there back in 2018—there is no better place for these films to have their premieres.

In birth/rebirth, the rich ideas explored by the mother of horror Mary Shelley are

given new life by writer-director Laura Moss in a goofy yet grim feature debut with a duo of distinctly outstanding performances by Judy Reyes and Marin Ireland. Though confined largely to a single apartment, the film’s ambitions are vast and its comedic timing unparalleled as this duo of characters undertake an experiment that will also fundamentally alter both of them as well. The way it makes punchlines out of a perilous situation is just good, clean fun for the whole family.

Speaking of families and horror films that have dark humor, Infinity Pool is the third feature from writer-director Brandon Cronenberg who, yes, is the son of director David Cronenberg, which brings with it a history of its own. However, the younger Cronenberg has a real command of the craft that is disquieting in its own way.

Starring a wonderfully chaotic Mia Goth and a dog-collared Alexander Skarsgård, Infinity Pool is set to get a wide release, having secured distribution ahead of the festival—that means even more people will be able to see it soon. While still very much embracing the body horror tradition, it carves out some striking moments that defy any and all expectations.

Then there is writer-director Kenneth Dagatan’s In My Mother’s Skin, a film about history in a quite literal way as it takes us back to the closing of World War II, a time that remains quite dangerous for a Filipino family living in a remote mansion whose wealth has spared them from most harm up until now. As dangers from our world begin to grow, the children discover a mysterious being of immense power lurking in the woods that can either mark their salvation or their doom. It is both magical and menacing that proves to be mesmerizing as the characters become taken over by otherworldly forces.

While these are all strong works of horror, there is also writer-director Nida Manzoor’s feature debut Polite Society that shows how the Midnight programming contains multitudes. Spanning a variety of genres across multiple chapters, it is held

together by a wicked sense of humor. Yes, this ends up encompassing some light elements of horror that will not be revealed here, but it also manages to be so many other things at the same time.

All of these works are the top of the top in a category defined by discovery and risk-taking. This is a real gift when you’ve seen dozens of films at a festival that can start to blend together for how downthe-middle they can be. In a world where many such stories play it safe to find broad appeal, Midnight films make for the cinematic experiences that unabashedly embrace eccentricity—and are all the better for it. They won’t be for everyone, but that makes them all the more joyous to take in for yourself.

So if you’re wanting to find some real festival gems that challenge, entertain and unsettle in equal measure, seeking out the Midnight movies is a good call. Even when our bodies have frozen over as we wander out in the darkness to see them, they will always hold a special place in our hearts as they invigorate us back to some semblance of warmth just as they can subsequently drag us back to cold cinematic depths.

They melt faces, cut through flesh and break through boundaries to craft experiences that remain etched in your memory when all else has faded. CW

For additional coverage of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, see page 28 in this issue or visit cityweekly.net.

In My Mother’s Skin , set during the end of World War II, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

Festival attendees prepare to enter a Midnight category screening, known for horror and genre fare.

CHASE HUTCHINSON

A still from Infinity Pool , a film by writer-director Brandon Cronenberg.

Alex Moffat

They say that overnight success in showbiz rarely occurs. Yet when you become a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live, it does bring instant recognition. Alex Moffat is a case in point. During his six seasons on SNL, he made his name—and his face—known through his impressions of Joe Biden, Richard Branson, Wilem Dafoe, Beto O’Rourke, Joe Scarborough, Hugh Grant, Eric Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, Anderson Cooper, Joe Scarborough and, of course, the snarky, penis-length-challenged character simply known as “Guy Who Just Bought A Boat” who regularly dropped in on “Weekend Update.”

Like many of the SNL regulars, past and present, he got his start as a member of Chicago’s Second City ensemble, also perfecting his skills as a member of the iO, ImprovOlympic and The Annoyance Theatre comedy troupes. However, few of his colleagues can claimed to have served as an official acro-dunker for the Chicago Bulls, which also earned him a place in the 2020 Celebrity All-Star game. As if that feat wasn’t impressive enough, he’s also appeared in films and series shown on Showtime, Netflix, Apple TV and the big screen. Including Disney’s animated feature Wreck-It Ralph 2. Given his success, he could become a guy who can actually afford to buy a boat—maybe without the need to gloat about it, though.

Alex Moffat appears at Wiseguys Jordan Landing (3763 W. Center Park Drive, West Jordan) on Fri., Jan. 27 and Sat., Jan. 28, at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. each night. Tickets for this 21 + show cost $25 and can be purchased at wiseguyscomedy. com. (Lee Zimmerman)

Pioneer Theatre Company: A Distinct Society

The people who work behind the scenes for theater productions often aren’t particularly wellknown in the local community, particularly if they’re not based in Utah. You’ve seen their work even if you don’t you know you have— like the work of Kareem Fahmy, who has directed local theater productions like Death of a Driver for Salt Lake Acting Company in 2018, and Fireflies for Pioneer Theatre Company in 2022. Now we get a chance to know him in a different capacity, as Pioneer Theatre Company shares worldpremiere status for Fahmy’s new play, A Distinct Society.

Set during the Trump Administration’s controversial “Muslim ban,” A Distinct Society finds the inspiration for its location in real-life a geographical oddity: the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which happens to sit on both sides of the U.S./Canadian border in Vermont and Quebec. As such, it becomes a possible location for a separated Iranian family to meet and take advantage of an immigration-law loophole. But others are involved in this action—including a Border Patrol agent and a librarian—in ways that force them to choose between humanity and the letter of the law.

A Distinct Society premieres at Pioneer Theatre Company’s Simmons Memorial Theater (300 S. 1400 East) Jan. 27 – Feb. 11. Performances are 7 p.m. Monday –Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Friday – Saturday and matinees Saturdays at 2 p.m. A town hall event discussing the play’s themes will follow the Jan. 28 matinee performance. Tickets are $35 - $46 advance purchase, $5 more at the door; visit pioneertheater.org for tickets and additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)

Joyce Chopra: Lady

Director: Adventures in Hollywood, Television and Beyond

It’s not exactly a controversial statement to suggest that certain roles in the movie industry have always been—and remain—a challenge for women to break into. That certainly applies to the role of director, where major accolades like Oscar nominations and oversight of blockbuster franchises continue to be overwhelmingly a boys’ club. So it’s always compelling to hear the insights of those who tried—and didn’t always succeed—to break into that club, as veteran director Joyce Chopra relates in her 2022 memoir Lady

Director: Adventures in Hollywood, Television and Beyond

The book relates Chopra’s history being inspired by the French New Wave of the 1960s to explore filmmaking, at a time when it seemed out of reach for a woman. She eventually found her way first into documentary filmmaking with the legendary D.A. Pennebaker, the autobiographical short film Joyce at 34, and didn’t release her first theatrical feature—Smooth Talk, which won the 1985 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize—until she was nearly 50 years old. Lady Director explores the challenges of film-industry sexism and the struggle to balance her career with life as a wife and mother.

The King’s English Bookshop (1511 S. 1500 East) partners with Gibson’s Bookstore and Black Walnut Books to present a virtual conversation with Joyce Chopra, moderated by Washington Post reporter and Los Angeles Review of Books film editor Annie Berge. The Crowdcast event takes place on Friday, Jan. 27 at 6 p.m., and is free to the public but requires online registration. Visit kingsenglish.com to register and for other event details. (SR)

PAUL WAGNER

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It’s Dec. 28, 2022, and a white Christmas has come and gone.

On this morning, Salt Lake City is soaked from snow followed by freezing rain.

Behind the Rio Grande Depot on 500 West, a small cluster of people experiencing homelessness have set up tents and have taken a break from the numbing weather to dry out blankets and sleeping bags on a nearby chain link fence.

One individual, who gave his name as Chris, was dressed in the only warm clothes he had—a fulllength Santa Claus suit he borrowed from a friend.

Like others here, Chris avoids the shelters because they exacerbate his anxiety. When told that Salt Lake City had spent millions of dollars through a recent grant from a homeless fund to hire police officers, Chris said he was disappointed

Policing the Problem

BY ERIC S. PETERSON comments@cityweekly.net PHOTOGRAPHY BY BEN TECUMSEH DESOTO

and felt more should be put toward mental health services.

Police are a mixed bag in Chris’ view. Some homeless people are absolutely terrified of them. Often, he said, their experience with the police is that of being herded from one spot to another. “There’s been times I’ve literally woken up in the gutter to hear officers saying, ‘Hey bud, you got to go, you gotta keep on moving,’” Chris said.

Being homeless means always being in motion, beating sore feet across the pavement all day, sleeping where you can and, too frequently, waking up to an officer repeating one of their common sayings: “You’re allowed to be somewhere, you’re not allowed to stay somewhere.”

Still, Chris said he has noticed a shift recently.

“It’s a stark difference to being

woken up and yelled and screamed at and told you have to go, versus wak ing up and being told ‘Hey you gotta go’ and being handed a bottle of water and a granola bar,” Chris said. “You see those little differences. I see the little things they do that show their humanity.”

In 2022, the Utah Legislature more than doubled the amount in its Homeless Shelter Cities Mitigation Fund. The account distributes grants to cities where homeless shelters and resource centers are located to help them deal with the impacts on their communities.

The fund allows cities to spend their dollars either on police or on social services and other expenses to address the root causes of homelessness. And since more than $10 million was doled out in the summer of 2022, eight cities across the state— from Logan to St. George—have overwhelmingly spent the grant funding on police.

More than $8.6 million—or 91% of the funds—went to public safety

under half a million dollars, went to social services and another 4%, just under $400,000, went toward support services for communities and neighborhoods.

While the fund was geared to helping cities deal with the negative impacts of shelters, critics say solely trying to police the problem is a mistake, even with a fund that includes public safety along with social services and other programs.

Bill Tibbitts of the Crossroads Urban Center, an advocacy organization for low-income Utahns, said he understands the need and that crime does unfortunately linger around homeless shelters.

Still, he said, spending on police personnel amounts to a costly treatment for a symptom of homelessness that does nothing to address the underlying problem.

“I think it’s a sign the system is failing if you need more funds for first responders rather than services,” Tibbitts said.

The following story was funded by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly, KUER, the Standard Examiner and The Spectrum

A $10 million fund for mitigating the impact of homeless shelters went mostly toward hiring cops.

An emergency vehicle is called to attend to an individual who collapsed while waiting to enter a shelter for the night.

Police arrive near a homeless encampment on the evening of Jan. 2. Homeless advocates confirmed an “abatement,” or forced removal of tents, occurred after occupants picked sidewalks too close to the Utah State Archives.

The Thick Blue Line Item

A coalition of volunteers have converted the basement of First United Methodist Church into an informal shelter by hosting “movie nights” where guests can find refuge from the cold and a place to rest.

Dawn breaks over the Ogden Lantern House, located behind an auto dealership and the train track system. A 10-yearold shelter of 350 beds, it serves northern Utah and the overflow from smaller shelters in the region.

Cities lobbied the Legislature for the fund to help cover the costs of dispatching police and paramedics to respond to homelessness calls, Tibbitts said. So, it does make sense that public safety is the largest line item of spending from the cities.

“If you find someone passed out in the snow or in the extreme heat, then it’s exactly the first responders you want there,” Tibbits said. But attacking the root problem requires more. “It takes more creativity to come up with something that reduces the need for police to engage with people experiencing homelessness,” he said.

Ogden’s $1.7 million from the state fund was used to continue the employment of four new fulltime law enforcement officers, three emergency medical services providers and two homeless service advocates.

That brings the city’s numbers up to 12 officers and nine EMT’s focused on homeless response.

South Salt Lake City hired a homeless strategies director and a homeless strategies coordinator and continued funding 12 full-time firefighters/EMTs and 11 full-time law enforcement employees.

Midvale used the funds to continue paying for six full-time shelter resource officers, three fulltime patrol officers and set aside $630,000 for contract fees to the Unified Police Department.

In Midvale’s documentation to the Utah Homeless Council, which approves the grants, the city’s application notes that: “The half-mile radius around the [Midvale Family Resource Center] represents 13% of Midvale’s total area, but 25% the City’s public safety calls occur in this area. This shows a disproportionate impact on the surrounding community and is the basis for measuring the impact of the Midvale Family Resource Center.”

Salt Lake City used its $2.75 million grant to hire its “Rapid Response Team” of two outreach staffers who meet with the homeless, as well as two business and community liaisons through Volunteers of America and two housing case managers, also through the VOA. But the city spent 83% of its grant funding to not only hire 12 new police officers “dedicated to homeless response” but also to buy new uniforms and equipment for the officers, including ballistic vests, body cameras, duty weapons and even vehicles.

Andrew Johnston, director of Homeless Policy and Outreach in the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office, said it’s all about balancing different solutions to the problem. He notes that Salt Lake City funds Volunteers of America (VOA) street outreach teams, and that other outreach groups already operate in county libraries as well.

“We have a lot of those services, and we always need more,” Johnston said. “What we didn’t have, though, was enough physical folks in the locations around the resource centers.”

Feedback the city received from residents, businesses and homeless people themselves indicated a need for more law-enforcement presence to protect communities around the shelters and the clients using them, he said. Police were needed, Johnston said, “to build that sense of trust and safety for those who are coming in for services, that they’re not going to walk out the door and confront drug dealing or human trafficking or other issues that are not necessarily at the resource center but could come close to it.”

While it’s true that social services are key, those remedies don’t work with every individual, Johnston said. “We can social-work a lot of those folks. But for criminal behavior, it doesn’t always work well,” he said.

The Right Tools

What does it mean to have police “dedicated to homeless response”? When Salt Lake City spends over $1 million on equipment for new officers, what tools do they have for dealing with the homeless?

It’s an issue of concern even for groups not normally focused on homelessness, such as the libertarian think tank The Libertas Institute. Amy Pomeroy, the institute’s criminal justice policy analyst, said in a statement that the funds are poorly spent on officers who are ill-equipped to deal with a complicated problem.

“We do police officers a disservice when we expect them to address homelessness, especially when we haven’t given them the tools to do so,” Pomeroy said. “Really, all an officer can do is arrest someone, drive them to a homeless shelter, or tell them to move along. None of those options is a real solution. Funds would be better spent on addressing the persistent mental illness which is at the root of most chronic homelessness.”

Johnston, of Salt Lake City, acknowledged that there is no real training specific to dealing with homeless residents. He said he would hope the dedicated officers would at least undergo crisis intervention training—the kind that helps law enforcement deescalate situations, especially with individuals experiencing mental health crises. But even then, Salt Lake City did not stipulate that the officers would be required to take the training when seeking the grant funding from the state.

Wendy Garvin is an advocate and founder of Unsheltered Utah, a nonprofit that serves the homeless who refuse or are unable to use the shelters. Her organization has helped to set up informal “movie nights” at the First United Methodist Church to allow the homeless extra shelter in a safe space during severe weather.

Garvin has encouraged Salt Lake City to hire more outreach and caseworkers, a development she said has made a huge difference for her clients. She’s less enthusiastic about all the new officers hired by cities using the state money. While Garvin applauds the two officers recently hired by South Salt Lake as being very humane and focused on helping the homeless, overall, she feels police can only do so much and, in some settings, can be a problem.

“I think we spend far too much on police resources—for example, the Millcreek [shelter] has a police officer in the first two hours every night checking bags,” Garvin said. “That is a deterrent for our unsheltered population. People won’t go in there and feel safe.”

If a police officer finds a weapon, for example, he or she might fall back on their academy training and question or cite the individual. A private security guard would have more flexibility to just take something from the individual for the night and give it back in the morning.

“That’s not a police job, that’s a private security job,” she said.

Social workers, housing case workers and others can find solutions for the unsheltered. But she said, generally speaking, “police have one tool and that’s a hammer—they send them to jail.”

A Statewide Problem

Not every grant recipient has used the state funding for police. Logan and Richfield expanded services to domestic violence shelters.

The New Horizons Crisis Center in Richfield was converted from an old nursing home into a 45-bed domestic violence shelter—the only one of its kind in the five rural counties surrounding it, including Sevier, Piute, Millard, Sanpete and Wayne. In recent years, the shelter has had to accommodate more and more individuals experiencing homelessness.

New Horizons director Debbie Mayo said homelessness in rural counties is different than on the Wasatch Front, where the unsheltered congregate in parks and around shelters. “They’re kind of more quietly in the corners,” Mayo said.

Some individuals might live in run-down trailers with no heat or water, parked on public land. Their needs can be different as well, with one of Mayo’s big concerns being helping homeless individuals with gas money or buying them bikes so they can get to workplaces that are spread out far and wide among the small cities and towns.

“There’s no public transportation here,” she said. “So, there’s definitely different barriers in a rural area than in the city.”

Different issues, but sprouting from the same causes. Mayo, like her urban counterparts, said the rise in homelessness has been a direct result of a lack of affordable housing and a jump in home prices.

“The limited housing in our area along with everywhere else is the same way,” Mayo said. “If you have a job that makes $14 an hour, it’s really hard to afford $1,000 a month in rent.”

The homeless mitigation grants are not restricted to police and can in fact be used for housing options. Salt Lake City, for example, could have used its grant money, to keep open the Ramada Inn for winter overflow shelter, as it did in 2021.

But Johnston said the city had already invested $26 million in 2022 into deeply affordable housing, and recently helped fund an affordable apartment project with 400 units that will be available in April. This grant, he said, was best used for public safety and outreach even though that’s only part of the overall solution.

“These are all things to try and Band-Aid the situation,” Johnston said. “I think ultimately this is a housing issue at its core, with some behavioral services attached to it.”

But that also means that if cities using the mitigation grant decide to move their funding around and shift it less toward police and more toward social services and outreach, they’ll still have police and first responders on the payroll that will have to then be funded by city taxpayers or let go.

For Tibbitts, another problem with the shelter mitigation funding is exactly that, that it tends to force cities to spend the money on police because they don’t have other viable alternatives. Smaller cities might not have good housing, rental assistance or social ser-

vices to expand on with the grant funding, but they already have police and fire departments. Directing the money just to individual cities misses the opportunity for addressing the bigger picture.

“Major homeless services should be at the county level or even a regional level,” Tibbits said. “It shouldn’t be that if you’re homeless in Davis County, you have to go to Salt Lake County to get help.”

Garvin, with Unsheltered Utah, agrees that funding needs to happen outside the city. If she had a magic wand, she would wave it to create a 24/7 regional or county mental resource center where individuals could get evaluated without getting locked up or having to go into an emergency room.

“We have so many people who have been really traumatized by institutions,” Garvin said. “Medical institutions, jails or prisons. So it can be very hard for people to go into a big hospital and know they have to go through an ER process when what they are having is a mental health emergency.”

Garvin said the Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT) or crisis workers from the Huntsman Mental Health Institute are other groups that could be expanded and given better training to deal with the unsheltered. Currently, Garvin said the team seems more trained to deal with housed populations. But if there were more crisis team members who were able to meet and treat the homeless on the street without having to first take them into a stressful inpatient setting, it would make a big difference.

People are able to dial 988 to request MCOT teams respond to someone in crisis, but they haven’t always been able to respond. In August of 2022, an employee at Fisher Brewery in Salt Lake City dialed 988 regarding a man who came into the business in his underwear and stole beer. Salt Lake City police responded instead, and the unarmed man was shot and killed by the responding officers.

While housing and behavioral health services are not always seen as readily available for smaller jurisdictions, Cedar City Police Chief Darin Adams said his city decided, nevertheless, to try and address root causes.

The city received $123,530 and directed that to rental deposits for individuals and households facing homelessness and emergency hotel and motel vouchers.

The city also wanted to address crime at and around the shelter but opted to leave police out of it. Instead, the grant paid to hire an employee of the Iron County Care and Share who would do both case management with clients and provide security as well.

“It just made sense that someone who could be stationed there doing security, doing outreach, would get to know every one of those individuals and then learn the others who are in the community and then be able to partner with us and our officers in trying to address this issue instead of it being, you know, like many communities being driven from the police department,” Adams said. “Because, as you know, homelessness is not illegal, just like being mentally ill is not illegal.” CW

Left: Darrell, seated, camps out of doors with defiance in Ogden. Facing several citations related to open-air camping within city limits, he is articulate and determined to have his day in court.

Right: Guadalupe, right, spends the afternoon sweeping standing water from his friends’ possessions, an ongoing task as rain falls throughout the afternoon.

Top Shelf Surf & Turf

From fresh sushi to high quality steak, Miyazaki aims to please.

BY ALEX SPRINGER comments@cityweekly.net @captainspringer

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of the sushi/ramen combo. It’s a perfect tag team of flavor intensity and subtlety, and there are always plenty of options to choose from. I’ve tried this combo enough to narrow down my favorites in the middleweight category, so now it’s time to move on up to the big leagues—which seems pertinent, since higher-end Japanese steak and sushi places are starting to proliferate along the Wasatch Front. I’ve had Miyazaki (6223 S. State Street, Ste. 4, 801-8777788, miyazakislc.com) on my list since it opened near Fashion Place Mall nearly a year ago, and I’ve wanted to visit ever since I peeked inside during a quick jaunt to the mall right before Christmas.

The space itself had a big impact on my desire to eat there. It’s sleek from top to bottom, and its faux cherry blossom trees that line the walls and its sushi bar murals set the perfect tone for the elegant food you’re going to get. As it’s a sushi “bar,” diners can check out a wellstocked drink menu that features several varieties of sake along with a few housemade craft cocktails to complement the meal.

My gameplan was to stick to the combination of “intense and nuanced” that I have come to rely on in my past sushi and

ramen ventures, but I wanted to take Miyazaki out for a bit of a spin at the same time. I decided that the bone marrow butter ribeye ($48) was the best way to test the waters; it’s right in the middle of the seven-ounce Wagyu sirloin ($29) and the A5 steaks that run from $109 to $159 a piece. The existence of these steaks on the menu should reveal all you need to know about Miyazaki’s chops as a steakhouse—understanding how to procure, cultivate and prepare meat of this caliber requires a huge amount of talent.

Even if you don’t splurge on the A5 cuts, the bone marrow butter ribeye is a hell of a steak. It arrives with a healthy dollop of bone marrow butter on top, which melts into luxurious ripples of meaty decadence. The ribeye itself is a 12-ouncer, so you get plenty of steak for your buck here. And what steak it is: just enough sear on the outside to create a thin crust that yields to the juicy steak itself. It also comes with some tasty roasted asparagus and wasabi mashed potatoes on the side, and both additions work very well with the steak. I especially liked the wasabi kick in the mashed potatoes. This ribeye is easily on my top five favorite steaks list—it’s cooked perfectly, given all kinds of love with the sides and did I mention bone marrow butter?

Those after something a bit less daunting than a 12-ounce steak swimming in bone marrow, but still packing those intense flavors, will want to try the ramen. Their tonkotsu ramen ($18) builds an excellent foundation of bone broth and works to elevate that flavor with each ingredient. The boiled eggs, tender chashu pork and thin slices of nori work together to impart their own unique flavors to the broth, all of which gets soaked up by the thin ramen noodles inside. If you want a ramen that speaks to the delicious excess of Miyazaki,

try the black garlic lobster ramen ($38), which takes advantage of the black garlic oil—can’t go wrong here—and lobster to impart some stronger flavors into the ramen. It’s excellent for ramen fans who want to get a little fancy.

With the intense flavors of the steak and ramen locked down, it was time to venture into the more subtle flavor notes of Miyazaki’s sushi. Though I am planning on taking a deeper dive into Miyazaki’s sushi menu, I think the Hayao ($19) and the Salmon Lemonade ($17) rolls are great options. The Hayao is for those who want to see how many ingredients can fit comfortably on top of a sushi roll; the triple sashimi salad and sliced lime really give this roll some fresh pops of flavor. The Salmon Lemonade roll comes topped with salmon and caramelized lemon, which is citrusy and delightful. I continue to be a fan of sushi as an accompaniment to something else, but these are definitely rolls that feel like meals unto themselves.

While the signature rolls are a great place to start, diners should keep in mind that Miyazaki is a full-service sushi bar—their selection of sashimi and nigiri is extensive, and it’s easy to perch at the bar and order anything from sea urchin to oysters. For $15, you can request some fresh wasabi that comes grated tableside, and you can even purchase your own sushi-grade fish from their market. If you’re a sushi fan in the Murray area and you’ve got some extra funds burning a hole in your pocket, Miyazaki will make you very happy.

CW

AT A GLANCE

Open: Mon.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun., 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Best bet: The Salmon Lemonade roll Can’t miss: The bone marrow butter ribeye

2 Row Brewing 6856 S. 300 West, Midvale

2RowBrewing.com

Avenues Proper 376 8th Ave, SLC avenuesproper.com

On Tap: Brunch BeerGrapefruit Wheat Ale

Bewilder Brewing 445 S. 400 West, SLC BewilderBrewing.com

On Tap: Gluten Reduced Kolsch

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

Bonneville Brewery 1641 N. Main, Tooele BonnevilleBrewery.com

On Tap: Peaches and Cream Ale

Craft by Proper 1053 E. 2100 So., SLC craftbyproper.com

On Tap: Whispers of the Primordial Sea - Smoked Pineapple Lager

Desert Edge Brewery 273 Trolley Square, SLC DesertEdgeBrewery.com

On Tap: Out of Office Pale Ale

Epic Brewing Co. 825 S. State, SLC EpicBrewing.com On Tap: Flower Power Sour

Fisher Brewing Co. 320 W. 800 South, SLC FisherBeer.com

On Tap: A rotation of up to 17 Fresh Beers!

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: Irish Red

Kiitos Brewing 608 W. 700 South, SLC KiitosBrewing.com

Level Crossing Brewing Co. 2496 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake LevelCrossingBrewing.com

On Tap: Kolsch (it’s back!) Bingo: Wednesdays at 7pm

Moab Brewing 686 S. Main, Moab TheMoabBrewery.com

On Tap: Squeaky Bike Nut Brown

Mountain West Cider 425 N. 400 West, SLC MountainWestCider.com

On Tap: Wet Hopped Cider

Offset Bier Co 1755 Bonanza Dr Unit C, Park City offsetbier.com/ On Tap: DOPO IPA

Ogden River Brewing 358 Park Blvd, Ogden OgdenRiverBrewing.com On Tap: Injector Hazy IPA

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

Prodigy Brewing 25 W Center St. Logan prodigy-brewing.com/

Proper Brewing 857 S. Main, SLC ProperBrewingCo.com

On Tap: ThunderCougarFalconBirdAustralian Sparkling Ale

Red Rock Brewing 254 So. 200 West RedRockBrewing.com On Tap: Gypsy Scratch

Red Rock Fashion Place 6227 So. State Redrockbrewing.com On Tap: Munich Dunkel

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

Red Rock Kimball Junction

Redrockbrewing.com 1640 Redstone Center

On Tap: Bamberg Rauch Bier

RoHa Brewing Project 30 Kensington Ave, SLC RoHaBrewing.com

On Tap: Lone Ranger Mexican Lager

Roosters Brewing

Multiple Locations

RoostersBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Cosmic Autumn Rebellion

SaltFire Brewing 2199 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake SaltFireBrewing.com On Tap: Deep Dive Series Hefeweizen Draft

Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com On Tap: Delta 88 Porter

Scion Cider Bar 916 Jefferson St W, SLC Scionciderbar.com On Tap: Reverend Nat’s Abbey Spice 6.9% ABV

Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer On Tap: Prickly Pear Sour Ale

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

Squatters 147 W. Broadway, SLC Squatters.com

Strap Tank Brewery

Multiple Locations StrapTankBrewery.com

Springville On Tap: PB Rider, Peanut Butter Stout Lehi On Tap: 2-Stroke, Vanilla Mocha Porter

Stratford Proper 1588 Stratford Ave., SLC stratfordproper.com

On Tap: Yacht Rock Juice Box - Juicy IPA

TF Brewing 936 S. 300 West, SLC TFBrewing.com

On Tap: Edel Pils

Talisman Brewing Co. 1258 Gibson Ave, Ogden TalismanBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Udder ChaosChocolate Milk Stout on Nitro

Uinta Brewing 1722 S. Fremont Drive, SLC UintaBrewing.com

On Tap: Was Angeles Craft Beer

UTOG 2331 Grant Ave, Ogden UTOGBrewing.com On Tap: Lovely Lady Nitro Stout

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

OPENING SOON!

Helper Beer 159 N Main Street Helper, UT 84526

Apex Brewing 2285 S Main Street Salt Lake City, UT 84115

Proper Brewing Moab 1393 US-191 Moab, Utah 84532

Grand Opening February 10th!

Malt Sippers

Sweetness drives these decadent malt bombs

BY MIKE RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @utahbeer

Bewilder - Double ESB: Somewhat dense and rich to the eye, its hazy appearance allows for a soft, dimly-lit glow. As a patient sheet of ivory-white foam emerges, the froth is tightly woven as the ale speckles the glass with random lace. As with many strong ales, the foam eventually succumbs to its power, and reverts to a port-like appearances. Its aromas are caramel-sweet and backed by fruit flavors of apple, orange, cherry and grape. The bourbon influence piles on with unmistakable drunken vanilla and maple, giving the ale a candied scent of hard maple candy and marzipan.

Upon tasting, any notion of ESB is lost. However, more barleywine flavors coat the palate with shortbread and caramel. Hedging on toffee, its maple, honey and marmalade flavors saturate the sweet tooth, especially when the fruit flavors of orange, peach, apple and grape complement the mix. Its slowfading sweetness is sliced by all those barrel contributions of wood spice, vanilla and coconut. The beer’s rich body is unwavering as its dense confection texture lingers on. The absence of dryness extends indefinitely with butter rum, pecan, maple and bourbon. Warm in its finish, this 10.3 percent ale is a welcome after-dinner sipper.

Verdict: Where any beer of such immense alcohol content and malt balances would easily classify as a barleywine, the only glimmers of ESB are its biscuity sweetness and body, and its ester-y fruit contributions. I would like to see the ale back off to about eight percent, and better demonstrate those classic ESB flavors.

of honey up front are followed by toffee, caramel, brown sugar, fruit candy (like Gummi Bears), honeydew melon, orange peel, graham cracker, fresh floral hops and sweet malt. The toffee is incredibly strong yet not overly sweet, completely hiding the high ABV but also basically blocking out most of the hop fragrance. It gets much better and fruitier as it warms, with apricot and white wine notes coming through.

It tastes basically like it smells, but with more booze and malt influence in the flavor. Like the nose, it tastes of toffee up front, strong honey that’s meadlike, followed by toffee, caramel, maple syrup, brown sugar, Belgian sugar, fruity candy (again like Gummi Bears, or maybe Razzles), honeydew melon, orange, red grapefruit, graham cracker, toasted grains, fresh floral hops, booze like dark rum and sweet malt. It’s not cloying or overly sweet, but hides the ABV while also letting the toffee and caramel come through for that English barleywine essence. Like the aroma the barrel aging is trailing, and much like the finale, saving the best accents for last with a display of light, smoked malt or peat moss and cake notes with a whole bunch of earthiness.

After the smell and taste, the mouthfeel is about where I expected it: smooth and on the thin side as it slides down easily, with a medium body and mild carbonation. Surprisingly, this 15.6 percent ale has medium heat, a little bitterness and a solid malt base as advertised, which created a dynamic and interesting slow sipper.

Verdict: This beer seems just above average—until the cake-like flavors come through at the end of the aroma and flavor, like a superhero swooping in to save the day and make it really damn tasty. Obviously, that can be attributed to the warming of the brew, but the change as it warmed really made it very easy to drink and extremely enjoyable.

Sadly, big beers still come in big cans. Both of these ales are packaged in 16-ounce cans, so edit your travel intentions if you plan on going solo with these. As always, cheers! CW

Kiitos - Imperial Barleywine: Smells

the BACK BURNER

BY ALEX SPRINGER | @captainspringer

CHAMBER Sushi Pop-up at O.P. Rockwell

If you’re looking for a unique dining experience to punctuate your Sundance Film Festival experience, you can check out CHAMBER, a sushi pop-up presented by Chef Diego Zapata. This exclusive event will take over O.P. Rockwell (268 Main Street, 435-338-3322, oprockwell.com) in Park City on Jan. 26 - 28 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Diners can expect a ten-course meal prepared by Chef Zapata, a local chef who specializes in the omakase dining style, which means each night will unfold into a delicious surprise. Though Park City has no shortage of dining options during Sundance, this one sounds particularly badass. Tickets are available via O.P. Rockwell’s website.

The Robin’s Nest Reopens

I know I wasn’t the only one who missed popping in for a gourmet sandwich at The Robin’s Nest while they were in the midst of relocating, but now that wait is finally over. This seminal downtown lunch spot recently reopened at their new location (83 E. 300 South, 801-466-6378, robinsnestslc.com), and will be open on Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. If you happen to be new to The Robin’s Nest phenomenon, it’s time to check out their new digs and pick up one of their signature sandwiches—you can’t go wrong with the Gouda Smoker or the New Yorker.

Beard Papa’s Opens

The most recent addition to our niche-concept restaurant roster is a spot in Sugar House called Beard Papa’s, and gourmet cream puffs are their game of choice. It’s a franchise that has locations all over the country, and their strategy seems to be similar to a fast-casual dessert bar— you pick the cream puff choux shell along with the pastry cream filling and then they squirt it on up from there. While every new restaurant is full of unrealized potential, centering your concept around a cream puff seems like a risky move. Cream puffs are awesome, but they’re very much a sidekick on the Justice League of desserts.

Quote of the Week: “Food, for me, has always been an adventure.” –Anthony Bourdain

Fest Bests

A mid-point look at some of the highlights of Sundance 2023

BY SCOTT RENSHAW & CHASE HUTCHINSON scottr@cityweekly.net, comments@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw, @eclectichutch

Joonam BBB½

[U.S. Documentary]

There’s a deceptive simplicity to Sierra Urich’s film, but it’s also a textbook example of making all the right choices. The daughter of an Iranian-born mother and American father, Urich begins exploring her Iranian heritage—partly through time spent with her mother, Mitra, and grandmother, Behjat, and partly through taking lessons to learn Farsi. That kind of personal story easily could have gotten bogged down in narration whereby Urich informs us about feeling disconnected from both sides of her identity, but there’s not a moment of narration included. Mostly, she observes the interactions between these three generations of women, examining how each one thinks about Iran quite differently. Beyond all that, though, are many thoughtful moments of visual filmmaking: the subtitled Farsi of Behjat’s speech abruptly disappearing into Arabic characters when Mitra (Urich’s de facto translator) leaves the room; terrific use of family home movies; a simple, hilarious shot where the flop of a hand conveys Urich’s embarrassment at how little Farsi she’s actually learned. The final sequence feels a bit forced in its introduction of more conflict into the narrative, but it’s also a way of capturing the mix of love and frustration involved in these generational relationships, and the sheer confidence of the hand behind the camera. (SR)

Sometimes I Think About Dying

BBB½ [U.S. Dramatic]

Life, for all we try to believe otherwise, is often defined by a collection of mundane moments that all fade together. It can be

darkly funny, while also being terrifying as the time we have begins slipping through our fingers. It is this almost poetic predicament that Sometimes I Think About Dying captures so completely as we accompany the lonely Fran—played by Daisy Ridley of Star Wars in her best performance to date—throughout the confines of her life in a small coastal Oregon town. She largely keeps to herself as she goes to work, does her little office job and goes home, while frequently fixating on her own demise. Often short on dialogue yet still persistently mesmerizing as it dances around with darkness, it finds an honest humor in the rhythms and rituals of the everyday that accumulate into something oddly extraordinary. With a soaring score that is crossed with a patient pacing, it feels most like a fraught fairytale portrait of one person and the little discoveries they make where they thought there was none to be found. It isn’t flashy, by design, but it still emerges as an absolute standout of the festival.

(CH)

Polite Society BBB½ [Midnight]

Writer/director Nida Manzoor’s frisky feature feels destined to be compared to other movies—a little bit Everything Everywhere All At Once, a little bit Scott Pil-

grim vs. the World—which would overlook what’s uniquely fun and culturally specific about its worldview. Ria (Priya Kansara) and Lena Khan (Ritu Arya) are British-Pakistani sisters each with unconventional career goals—Ria as a stuntwoman, Lena as a visual artist—that helps unite them. But when Lena unexpectedly ends up engaged to wealthy Salim (Akshay Khanna) after a whirlwind romance, Ria suspects something sinister is afoot. Manzoor mixes up plenty of genre sensibilities, drawing on martial-arts epics, Bollywood musical, caper comedy and more. At the same time, she’s exploring familial expectations for Pakistani young women, both through Ria’s need to have a partner in outside-the-norm dreams and through the evolving arc of Salim’s mother (Ms. Marvel’s Nimra Bucha). It’s not particularly spectacular at nailing its genre elements, with fight sequences that are more functional than inspired, and some slackness in the pacing. With such solid character dynamics, though—and a thoroughly winning lead performance by Kansara—you wind up with 100 minutes of solid smiles and an entertaining delivery system for conveying a generational shift in gendered expectations. (SR)

Magazine Dreams BBB [U.S. Dramatic]

The experience of watching writer-director Elijah Bynum’s macabre yet mesmerizing Magazine Dreams is defined by an almost existential discomfort. A riveting reflection on how the quest for beauty can become defined by brutality, it places us in the lonely mind of aspiring bodybuilder Killian, who will do absolutely anything he can to be remembered. Played by the always incredible Jonathan Majors in rare form, Killian pushes closer and closer to oblivion in such a way that we hardly get a moment to breathe. The film unflinchingly uncovers how Killian is at risk of becoming completely lost, carrying with him a past of immense loss and increasingly less to look forward to in his present. This isn’t a story that you enter into lightly, as there are several extended sequences that alone would prove to be a low point for any other character in any other film. It all could easily be too much for some—especially when there are five different moments that all could be the end—but there remains something spellbinding to it. Much of this comes from how Majors inhabits the character, but it is also the synchronicity it finds with Bynum’s vision that crushes the very breath right out of you. (CH) CW

Embark on a Musical Adventure

SLC duo OrcaMind releases debut EP

BY EMILEE ATKINSON eatkinson@cityweekly.net @emileelovesvinyl

Music is important in many types of media, helping to set the mood and tone while taking you on a journey. Video games are no different; their soundscapes are there to lead you through all of the emotional highs and lows that the story takes you on. For SLC duo OrcaMind, their love of video-game music brought them together, and inspired them to create their own original compositions.

Starting out separately as YouTube creators, Michelle Heafy and Josiah Everhart bonded over their love of video-game music and began to collaborate. They didn’t begin creating original work together right away, instead taking their favorite game tunes that didn’t include lyrics and coming up with words they thought would fit with the track. “We write our own lyrics to [the songs], including ones from Zelda and Earthbound,” Heafy said. “But we ran into this thing where you can’t license covers that you wrote original lyrics to. You can’t add those to Spotify or anything.”

The duo has a passion for music, espe cially in video games, but they couldn’t release their covers due to licensing is sues. “A lot of times we were making the stuff sound so different from the origi nal,” Heafy said. Because the songs they were making lyrics for began to sound dif ferent from the originals, they figured it was time to create their own spellbinding

melodies. “We were both afraid to do that, because all of our audience was watching us for video-game music, but we did it anyway,” she said.

Things really began picking up for the two when they decided to stream on Twitch. In October 2021, they set up their equipment and jumped on—after a little hesitation. “We’d sit there with the go live button and we’re like, ‘Okay, we’ll just practice for today,’ and we did that for two weeks,” Everhart said. “We bullied each other into just going live,” Heafy added. “Because it’s something we had both wanted to do for maybe five years, and we were both too scared to do it alone.”

Because they had each other, they were able to put on a brave face and start performing for online fans. They began with their back catalog of video-game music, but it began to morph into something more. “He would do a riff on the guitar, and then I would sing a melody over it,” Heafy said. “Then it just developed, and we started writing our own songs on Twitch because we’re performing there every day.” And thus, OrcaMind was born.

Their songwriting style is collaborative and plays off of one another. Heafy said she writes lyrics quickly, while Everhart continuously riffs over her singing. “I pretty much write the first thing that comes to mind,” she said. “A lot of my melodies I wake up with in my head,” she said. “We’ll both dream up a melody, and then I record it on our phones. So our phones are filled with our voices tired singing melodies.”

This dreamlike quality comes through on OrcaMind’s tracks. Their self-titled EP takes listeners through a tracklist of ethe-

song builds with drums and guitar. Heafy and Everhart’s vocals complement each other in a way that’s calming and intriguing, while the subject matter of the songs makes you feel as if you’re embarking on a quest with the two as they serenade you about fantastical journeys.

Their songs make you feel like you’re booting up your favorite old-school classic on a GameBoy, and thanks to the duo’s love for video games from this era. They’ve generated a lot of lyrics to Leg-

ing their first EP—and they’re excited to do more in 2023. The main goal is to put out as much music as possible as the year goes on. While they love the video-game-inspired sound, they have many songs that fit into different genres. “We have so many songs that are a little grungy, and some that are a little poppy, so Josiah thought to have themed EPs,” Heafy said. “The one we’re working on now has more of an electronic sound, but so we’re going to organize and to try to come up with cool concepts and visu-

Orca Mind

COURTESY PHOTO

MELŌ, Sindar, Sun Puppy @ DLC 1/26

Since beginning their journey in the early aughts, members of MELŌ formed bands, left bands, went to school and generally went their separate ways. Now, 15 years later, the boys are back with a new project, ready to rock SLC again. The trio began writing music during the pandemic, completed a ton of new songs and are ready to unleash them to the world. Their two newest singles dropped on Jan 20, and are epic metal tracks that are meant for headbanging. They feature hardcore guitar tracks, screeching vocals and driving percussion—perfect for fans of the metal genre. Joining MELŌ are prog metal group Sindar, who have been pumping up their heavy tracks since 2020. Their newest track, “Protection,” is a beautiful yet still hardcore track that takes you on a journey that feels like riding waves, going up and down as the song swells before descending. It’s an epic six-minute journey that doesn’t overstay its welcome. The fantastical subject matter and range of instrumentation will keep you listening, and it’ll be over before you know it—before you’ll want to press play one more time. Rounding the show are jazzy newcomers Sun Puppy. They came onto the scene in 2022 and played weekly at Pizza Nono all summer. It’ll be cool to see the trio play a live show at DLC on Thursday, Jan 26 at 8 p.m. Tickets for the 21+ show are $10 and can be found at quartersslc.com. (Emilee Atkinson)

By Emilee Atkinson

Why Bonnie, Sun June, Drusky @ Kilby Court 1/26

Why Bonnie have had a whirlwind of success since their debut album 90 in December dropped last year, garnering praise for their earnest and often heartbreaking sound. The album is full of sparkling snapshots of lead singer/songwriter Blair Howerton’s hometown of Houston, especially on the album’s title track. “I wanted to capture the bittersweet feeling of saying goodbye to the landscape that shaped you, while still dealing with anxieties of what lies ahead,” said Howerton. “Nostalgia always hits with a flash of disjointed memories—like speeding down the highway or sweating in the Texas heat.” Songs for 90 were written in Brooklyn, where Howerton now resides, during the tumultuous quarantine days. Joining Why Bonnie are indie-pop quintet Sun June, coasting off of their 2021 release Somewhere. Their music is calming and beautiful, featuring vocals that are like someone singing you a lullaby, delicate and sweet. The group create chill vibes with their music, but also have a good sense of humor. “We used to be called ‘Jeff,’ which was a little jokey. Both of our sisters liked Sun June, so we felt sister-approved. So we went with it,” guitarist Stephen Salisbury told Issue last year. Rounding out the show is local angsty indie-rockers Drusky. Fans of indie pop and rock won’t want to miss this show on Thursday, Jan 26 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $16 before, and $20 at the door. Buy tickets at kilbycourt.com. (EA)

Adam Melchor @ Soundwell 1/27

“

Self-reflecting with the structure of a modern pop song has always done right by me,” Adam Melchor told Wonderland in December. The pop/folk artist detailed the inspirations behind his latest release, Here Goes Nothing! “I love being specific enough to capture humanity and general enough to relate to anyone. I think a lot of our love was distant these last couple years,” he said. “I’m specifically using a long-distance relationship as the vehicle, but the journey could be for anyone feeling like the things they love are far away.”

Relationship struggles are something most can relate with, and Melchor dives into the topic with dreamy vocals that accompany the intimate yet universal subject matter. Melchor has been touring like crazy over the past year, and this latest begins in SLC. He mentioned in Wonderland that touring can be tiring and a bit daunting, but remembering the joy of sharing music with fans across the country makes it all worth it. While the album features Melchor’s signature vulnerability and beautiful folk melodies, the singer was also able to collaborate with indie folk legends Fleet Foxes, who Melchor is a huge fan of. “Growing up, Fleet Foxes were my number one,” he said. Catch Adam Melchor performing his loving pop/folk bops on Friday, Jan 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $20 and can be found at soundwellslc.com (EA)

MUSIC PICK S

By

Frankie and the Witch Fingers @ DLC 1/28

Colorfully punky and distinctly psychedelic, Los Angeles-based Frankie and the Witch Fingers have got their magic working, and are bringing their glittery bag of tricks to the DLC on Saturday, Jan 28 at 8 p.m. Known for the 2017 alternative indie staple “Thinking About You,” the four-piece outfit has since been hard at work, bent over their burning cauldron located in the garage of rock revival. Their 2022 two-single release Electricide B/W Chalice and their 2020 album Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters… are just two of their latest concoctions that evidence the truth of the age-old (and now, newly reinvented) saying that the proof is in the potion. To revamp their newer releases, it seems that the band began by adding two parts urgent, elongated, and earenticing guitar riffs that hold whiffs reminiscent of the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. Next came a few cups of unfiltered vocals with a hefty sprinkling of charisma, producing a sound evocative of the Black Lips. Finally, Frankie and the Witch Fingers threw in one heaping spoonful of a drum and bass section nothing short of a powerhouse ensemble, which easily manages the sneaking, mischievous melodies, and places them within a pleasant pocket. Toss in the guaranteed eccentric stage presence unique to each band member, eye of newt, and hair of the dog, and you have yourself a mixture sophisticated enough to stand amongst some of the neo-psych rock greats. Arrive on time to catch SLC’s very own soft, star powered ensemble The Plastic Cherries followed by Seattle’s hard-edged punk provocateurs MONSTERWATCH before you fall under the spell of the evening’s headlining act. Tickets for the 21+ show are $15 and can be found at quartersslc.com. (Sophie Caligiuri)

Number One Babe Team @ Urban Lounge 2/1

Number One Babe Team are taking the stage again after months of silent treatment, and even though they took a short break from performances, they have been anything but idle.

Vocalist/guitarist Austin Michael has been busy at Archive Recordings crafting the band’s debut album, See You Later, releasing May 19. Featuring 11 original songs including a complete overhaul on their classic, “Fever American Dream,” See You Later is set to etch Number One Babe Team as a premier up-and-comer in Salt Lake City, as well as the entire alternative genre. Michael describes the album as the biggest project he or the team has ever taken on. Written during the pandemic, the album has been produced across the last 12 months. Michael explains that the tone of the album features “the push and pull of intimacy,” heavily focused on the lessons we were all forced to live through during the pandemic, including loss of loved ones, close friendships, and the fear of what may lie ahead when we finally do discover commitment. The recording process for the album also sets it apart from previous work.

Generally, Michael explained, their songs were written and arranged before recording ever began. This time around, each track was painstakingly crafted in the studio, which Michael promises to deliver an entirely new level of quality, compared to their already immaculate work. Number One Babe Team is showcasing songs from the upcoming album alongside The Cancers Wednesday, Feb 1 at The Urban Lounge at 7 p.m. The show is 21+ and tickets are $5 at 24tix.com. (Caleb Daniel)

Adam Melchor

Frankie and the Witch Fingers

Emilee Atkinson

Won’t Let Me Get Off The Pills

By Cole Fullmer - Salt Baked City

There are 14 different medical conditions a Utah resident can qualify under to legally use medical cannabis in the state. Utah County resident, Chirine Touati, suffers from four of them.

Touati is a 42 year-old mother who has been using cannabis to help alleviate symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis for over 25 years in Utah. Additionally to MS, she also suffers from Fibromyalgia and Intracranial Hypertension –causing her excruciating pain most days of her life.

“I’ve had MS symptoms most of my life, which has caused me to suffer a lot of pain, and anxiety comes along with those kinds of issues,” Touati said during an interview with Salt Baked City. “When I first tried cannabis and felt the effects for the first time, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is how normal people feel?’ This experience has been a miracle, and I’ve used the plant for medicine ever since.”

Touati explains she mostly uses cannabis for a pain mitigator, and without it she would feel a burning sensation in her extremities regularly –drastically affecting her quality of life.

Because of her illnesses, Touati is a prime candidate for the state’s new medical cannabis program and can finally use the medicine legally. She received her state issued medical cannabis card in January 2021 after visiting Terra Health and Wellness – a clinic located in Millcreek known for helping residents with medical cannabis card applications and other homeopathic remedies.

In the past, like many cannabis consumers in the Behave State, the young mother was forced to consume her medicine secretly for years in fear law enforcement, or even worse, child protective custody would find out.

Although medical cannabis is legal in Utah, state laws regarding the possession and sale of the plant still have hefty fines – especially those not registered in the state’s medical cannabis program.

Possession of less than one ounce is a class B misdemeanor punishable by a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment and a maximum fine of $1,000. Possession of one ounce to one pound is a class A misdemeanor punishable by a maximum sentence of one year imprisonment and a maximum fine of $2,500.

During 2016 when Touati and other state’s residents were medicating illegally, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reported Utah law enforcement

“People shouldn’t be in fear of feeling better, but [in the past] you needed to be careful when using cannabis in a state like Utah, especially when you’re a parent,” Touati said. “You need to know your neighbors, know your friends, know your rights, and be very careful who you talk to about cannabis. Luckily, I was successful at staying out of trouble and I was also able to educate my son about the many benefits of cannabis at the same time.”

Touati has a long list of pharmaceuticals she’s required to take daily ranging from Gabapentin, Morphine, and Percocet. Even though these medications are effective, and very powerful, she says cannabis works the best when improving her daily life and alleviating the pain she experiences. So much so, she claims she could completely remove the opioids from her medical plan if she could afford the amount of cannabis she needs.

So, why doesn’t she?

Scan the QR code to continue reading this Salt Baked City article.

arrested 5,752 residents for cannabis possession, while another 330 were apprehended for cannabis sales.

free will ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Noah Webster (1758–1843) worked for years to create the first definitive American dictionary. It became a cornucopia of revelation for poet Emily Dickinson (18301886). She said that for many years it was her “only companion.” One biographer wrote, “The dictionary was no mere reference book to her; she read it as a priest his breviary—over and over, page by page, with utter absorption.” Now would be a favorable time for you to get intimate with a comparable mother lode, Aries. I would love to see you find or identify a resource that will continually inspire you for the rest of 2023.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

“The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.”

So declared Taurus philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his book Philosophical Investigations . Luckily for you Tauruses, you have a knack for making sure important things don’t get neglected, no matter how simple and familiar they are. You’ll be exceptionally skilled at this superpower during the next four weeks. I hope you will be gracious as you wield it to enhance the lives of everyone you care about. All of us non-Bulls will benefit from the nudges as we make our course corrections.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

Poet Carolyn Kizer said the main subject of her work was: “You cannot meet someone for a moment, or even cast eyes on someone in the street, without changing.” I agree. The people we encounter and the influences they exert make it hard to stay fixed in our attitudes and behavior. The people we know well have even more transformative effects. I encourage you to celebrate this truth in the coming weeks. Thrive on it. Be extra hungry for and appreciative of all the prods you get to transcend who you used to be and become who you need to be.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

If you have any interest in impersonating a Scorpio, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to play around. Encounters with good, spooky magic will be available. More easily than usual, you could enjoy altered states that tickle your soul with provocative insights. Are you curious about the mysteries of intense, almost obsessive passion? Have you wondered if there might be ways to deal creatively and constructively with your personal darkness? All these perks could be yours—and more. Here’s another exotic pleasure you may want to explore: that half-forbidden zone where dazzling heights overlap with the churning depths. You are hereby invited to tap into the erotic pleasures of spiritual experiments and the spiritual pleasures of erotic experiments.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

The circle can and will be complete—if you’re willing to let it find its own way of completing itself. But I’m a bit worried that an outdated part of you may cling to the hope of a perfection that’s neither desirable nor possible. To that outdated part of you, I say this: Trust that the Future You will thrive on the seeming imperfections that arise. Trust that the imperfections will be like the lead that the Future You will alchemically transmute into gold. The completed circle can’t be and shouldn’t be immaculate and flawless.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Shakespeare’s work has been translated into many languages. But the books of Virgo detective novelist Agatha Christie have been translated far more than the Bard’s. (More info: tinyurl.com/ChristieTranslations.) Let’s make Christie your inspirational role model for the next four weeks. In my astrological estimation, you will have an extraordinary capacity to communicate with a wide variety of people. Your ability to serve as a mediator and go-between and translator will be at a peak. Use your superpower wisely and with glee!

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Libran musician Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was a prolific, influential genius who created music with deep feeling. He was also physically attractive and charismatic. When he performed, some people in the audience swooned and sighed loudly as they threw their clothes and jewelry on stage. But there was another side of Liszt. He was a generous and attentive teacher for hundreds of piano students, and always offered his lessons free of charge. He also served as a mentor and benefactor for many renowned composers, including Wagner, Chopin and Berlioz. I propose we make Liszt your inspirational role model for the next 11 months. May he rouse you to express yourself with flair and excellence, even as you shower your blessings on worthy recipients.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

This may risk being controversial, but in the coming weeks, I’m giving you cosmic authorization to engage in what might appear to be cultural appropriation. Blame it on the planets! They are telling me that to expand your mind and heart in just the right ways, you should seek inspiration and teaching from an array of cultures and traditions. So I encourage you to listen to West African music and read Chinese poetry in translation and gaze at the art of Indigenous Australians. Sing Kabbalistic songs and say Lakota prayers and intone Buddhist chants. These are just suggestions. I will leave it to your imagination as you absorb a host of fascinating influences that amaze and delight and educate you.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

“All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare wrote, “and all the men and women merely players.” That’s always true, but it will be even more accurate for you in the coming weeks. High-level pretending and performing will be happening. The plot twists may revolve around clandestine machinations and secret agendas. It will be vital to listen for what people are not saying as well as the symbolic meanings behind what they are saying. But beyond those cautionary reminders, I predict the stories you witness will often be interesting and fun.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

In this horoscope, I offer you wisdom from Capricorn storyteller Michael Meade. It’s a rousing meditation the coming months. “The genius inside a person wants activity. It’s connected to the stars; it wants to burn and it wants to create and it has gifts to give. That is the nature of inner genius.” For your homework, Capricorn, write a page of ideas about what your genius consists of. I believe you will express your unique talents and blessings and gifts more than you ever have before.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) was nominated nine times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but never won. He almost broke through in the last year of his life, but French author Albert Camus beat him by one vote. Camus said Kazantzakis was “a hundred times more” deserving of the award than himself. I will make a wild prediction about you in the coming months, Aquarius. If there has been anything about your destiny that resembles Kazantzakis’, chances are good that it will finally shift. Are you ready to embrace the gratification and responsibility of prime appreciation?

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

Piscean educator Parker Palmer has a message for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. “Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people—it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other.”

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.

songbird

blocking device 11. HQ of the LDS church 14. Olympia ____, three-term U.S. senator from Maine 15. Come to light 16. “You’re squeezing my udder’s teats too hard!” 17. Nonvegetarian egg dish you might see on a 60-Across restaurant menu? 19. URL ending for a charity 20. Snake in ancient Egyptian art 21. Nudge 22. Author with a tombstone that reads “Quoth the raven, nevermore” 23. Cry 25. Fruity dessert you might see on a 60-Across restaurant menu? 30. Nickname used by Shaggy 32. Pound and others 33. Chest muscle, for short 35. Italian automaker 36. Suffix with different or confident 37. MSG, coloring and other nutritional info you might see on a 60-Across restaurant menu? 41. “I pity the fool” speaker 42. Shades 43. Yoko whose Twitter account features a peace symbol emoji 44. Yoga asana done on one’s hands and knees 46. Secures, as scrapbook photos 50. Sugarless soft drinks you might see on a 60-Across restaurant menu? 54. Alternative to -ess or -ette 55. OB-GYNs, e.g. 56. Felipe, Matty or Jesus of MLB fame 58. Broadband inits. 59. Econ. measure 60. Casual dining restaurant option ... and this puzzle’s theme 64. Promise-to-pay letters 65. G-U-M rival 66. Fuss in front of a mirror 67. Brand seen at speedways

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

Greatest Pow

O

ur home faces north, and with the snowfall we’ve received this year, I’m looking at 2½ feet of the white stuff that hasn’t melted—and may not melt until summer at the rate Mother Nature is going. Skiers and boarders are in seventh heaven, as are snowshoers, cross-country skiers, tubers and snowmobilers.

I had to give up skiing in my early 30s due to a birth defect that came back to haunt my right leg, so all I can do is listen to how “fire the pow was!” from my friends who enjoy the winter sports. I also hear that the Ikon ski pass has caused a tremendous boost in skiers here, with the downside being congested traffic and long lift lines.

A full Ikon pass for the ’22-23 season is more than $1,000, and you can’t buy any more for this record-breaking season. The pass is owned and operated by Alterra Mountain Co., a group of 15 unique resorts with partners.

This international ski pass has no blackout dates, includes over a dozen unlimited skiing and riding destinations and up to seven days at 39 destinations. You can ski at certain resorts in Utah or adventure to Chamonix Mont-Blanc in France, Red Mountain in Canada or Lotte Arai Resort in Japan if you like. With this pass, you can go directly from the parking lot to the chair or gondola—no need to stop at the ticket window. Interestingly, if you ski in the Dolomiti Superski area in Italy, you must have liability insurance in order to ski or ride there (hmmm, now there’s a concept … insurance to ski?).

In Utah, Deer Valley Resort, Solitude Mountain Resort, Brighton, Snowbasin, Alta Ski Area and Snowbird all accept the Ikon pass (note that Alta and Deer Valley resorts are for skiers only).

But for those who ski by the day: Adult day passes at Snowbird and Alta are generally around $150 per day (higher on weekends). Brighton (established 1936 as Utah’s oldest ski resort) and Solitude are just over $100 per day and also higher on weekends. Deer Valley is around $225 to $250 depending on the day, and they limit the amount of passes sold each day. Down south, Sundance is, on the average, $129 per day and Brian Head resort is $61 to $96 depending on what day of the week you want to hit their slopes.

Near Ogden, Powder Mountain’s tickets are based on non-peak or peak times. A low would be $119 and a high at peak is $159. Snowbasin’s weekday/ weekend rates range from $155-$195.

We are blessed with 10 world-class resorts here within a one-hour radius of the Salt Lake airport and a total of 15 resorts in the state. Ziprecruiter.com reports that the average annual pay in the ski industry here is $45,326 per year, with a resort manager averaging $51,110 per year. Skiutah.com reported that out-of-state skiers accounted for 82% of all money spent here on skiing and snowboarding. It’s a billion dollar business that’s having a banner year! n

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NEWS of the WEIRD

Cavity Sam Lives

On Jan. 9 in Kyiv, Ukraine, a surgeon removed an unexploded grenade from the chest cavity of a 28-year-old Ukrainian soldier, The Guardian reported. The weapon lay just below the man’s heart, and two “sappers” (military engineering soldiers) were on hand during the delicate operation to neutralize the device after it was removed. Doctors were unable to use electrocoagulation, a method that controls bleeding, because of fear that the grenade might detonate. “I think this case will go down in medical textbooks,” said Anton Gerashchenko, Ukraine’s internal affairs ministerial adviser. No word about how the grenade ended up in the soldier’s chest cavity to begin with. He will now undergo rehabilitation.

Least Competent Criminals

Two arsonists were in the hot seat—and they hadn’t even been caught—after they set fire to a Bakersfield, California, immigration services building on Jan. 2, Fox News reported. Footage from a Ring security camera captured the masked individuals as they spread gasoline around the building’s base. But when one bent to light the fire, the flames spread to both people’s clothes, causing them to run away screaming. The suspects are still at large.

Eyewitness News

Riders on the MAX light rail system in Gresham, Oregon, witnessed a brutal assault around 2 a.m. on Jan. 3, KPTV reported. A 78-year-old man on the train platform was attacked by another man, who “chewed off the victim’s ear and part of his face,” police said. “The injury was so severe that responders could see the victim’s skull.”

The suspect did not provide investigators with a real name, but through fingerprints he was identified as Koryn Kraemer, 25, who had recently moved to the area from Georgia. He was charged with assault in the second degree.

Aero-naughty-cal News

Passengers aboard a charter flight on Jan. 8 from the Siberian city of Magan, Russia (where it was 41 degrees below zero), had to brave even more extreme temperatures when the rear door of the plane flew open in midflight, the New York Post reported. “People had their hats blown off,” said Sergei Lidrik, 33, a passenger headed to Magadan on Russia’s Pacific coast. One man had just unfastened his seatbelt when the door blew open, and he was nearly sucked out, along with luggage and other personal belongings. The plane, an Antonov An-26, was manufactured between 1970 and 1986. The pilot turned back to Magan and made an emergency landing, and there were no injuries.

It’s Baaaacckkk

The atmospheric river battering California has another weird consequence, SFGate reported on Jan. 10. The storms are making the Golden Gate bridge eerily “sing.” Nearby residents first noticed the phenomenon during summer storms in 2020, when they heard a “screeching that sounded like torture.” A Building and Operating Committee report from 2020 said the cause was the retrofit of 12,000 slats on the west side of the bridge. The cost to add clips that would stop the noise is $450,000; officials said installation is due in the coming months.

Inexplicable

In Coventry, England, someone dubbed the Cat Shaver is catching cats and shaving a square into their fur, Metro News reported on Jan. 11. Not just a small patch, either: 6-year-old Tallulah had a large bald spot on her stomach that owner Bonnie Towe noticed when her daughter picked the cat up. “Did someone take her and bring her back? Or did they do it in a car?” Towe wondered. “We did notice she wasn’t going out quite as much. She mostly sits at home and looks out the window.”

Other victims’ owners have discovered one another on Facebook, speculating that the cats are being marked as targets. But no other harm has come to any of them.

Mistaken Identity

A walker out for a stroll in Wickham, Australia, in early January came across what they thought was a dead body clothed in a tracksuit, according to ABC News. Police cordoned off the area and began an investigation, but later concluded that the remains belonged to a cow.

Roeburne Police Sgt. Dale Harmer voiced his frustration: “It has caused police to use an entire day and three police officers guarding a scene for something which was never a human in the first place.” And what a waste of a perfectly fine tracksuit.

Check Twice, Engrave Once

The Washington, D.C., Korean War Wall of Remembrance pays tribute to more than 36,000 American service members who were killed in that conflict. But according to The New York Times , it’s also rife with misspellings and omissions. Historians Hal Barker and Edward Barker Jr. of Texas, who run the Korean War Project, call the monument “a damn mess” and say it displays more than 1,000 spelling errors, and 500 names are missing altogether. The National Park Service passed the buck to the Defense Department, which supplied the names.

DOD said compiling the list was “challenging.” “No one bothered to check it before they set it in stone,” said Ted Barker. “But now that it has been done, we need to get it right.”

Compelling Explanation

Fans of romance writer Susan Meachen were devastated in September 2020 when they read on her Facebook page, titled “The Ward,” that she had taken her life in response to online bullying, CNN reported. So imagine their surprise in early January when they read a new post there, claiming to be from Meachen herself. “I debated on how to do this a million times and still not sure if it’s right or not,” the post read. “There’s going to be tons of questions. ... My family did what they thought was best for me and I can’t fault them for it. ... I am in a good place now and I am hoping to write again. Let the fun begin.” When a fellow romance writer asked for an explanation, Meachen responded, “I simply want my life back.” Her former assistant, Connie Ortiz, told CNN she was “devastated” by Meachen’s acts. “I did not know what Susan was doing, even though we were close.”

Break Out the Crab Legs

Firefighters were called to the Associated Milk Producers Inc. plant in Portage, Wisconsin, on Jan. 2 after flames broke out there, WMTV reported. But they were hampered by melted butter: “Butter was running down like 3 inches thick on the steps, so our guys were ... trying to drag the hose line. The hose line got so full of butter they couldn’t hang onto it anymore,” said fire Chief Troy Haase. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was called in after the fire was contained to assess the butter runoff, some of which went to a water treatment plant. But about 20 gallons ended up in a nearby canal; booms were used to contain the buttery mess. Officials say the environmental impact appears to be low.

What’s in a Name?

Someone bought a winning $15.1 million Megabucks ticket at—wait for it—Wayne’s Food Plus in Luck, Wisconsin, WISN-TV reported on Jan. 5. “We could not be happier for the winner,” said the store’s manager Paul Wondra (also a great name). “They truly got lucky in Luck.”

Send your weird news items to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

Development Manager for Outbox Systems, Inc. dba Simplus in Salt Lake City, UT generate qualified leads; analyze customer requirements; drive contract negotiation; act as primary sales liaison Option to workfrom home/telecommute available Employer will accept 3 or 4 year Bachelor’s degree Bachelor’s in Science + 2 yrs exp in job off’d req’d Respond DP/ Simplus PO Bx 4241 NYC 10163

Business Intelligence Analyst (Job# BA1228) sought by Christopherson Andavo Travel, L.P. in Salt Lake City, UT: Dvlp & manage business intelligence solutions & systems (e.g. database dsgn & mgmt) for the organization using Domo & SQL; Provide reports through office applications to improve business processes; Collaborate w/ team members for the purpose of collecting data & executing the company’s mission; Analyze business reqmts & processes & recommending them to the mgmt & executives for implmtn; Create & maintain documentation that incl the dsgn, reqmts & user manuals for the organization; Identify the dvlpmt needs for the purpose of streamlining & improving the operations of the organization for efficiency & profitability.

Rqmts: Master’s deg in Data Analytics, Business Analytics, Information Systems, or related field; 1 yr work exp in project mgmt, database system dsgn, data analysis & prgmg skills to work w/ APIs to retrieve & organize data; Knowledge of SQL, Data Science prgmg languages of Python & R for data wrangling & visualization, & business intelligence reporting platforms of Tableau & PowerBI; Familiar w/ Statistics concepts, in particular: frequency distributions, correlation, linear regression, & computer applications. Apply, Mail CV w/ Job# to Ethan, 5588 South Green St, Salt Lake City, UT 84123.