City Weekly March 9, 2023

WEEKLY

Good Cap, Bad Cap

Utah lawmakers bury sensible investments under a pile of anti-“woke” posturing.

It's The Utah Way

By Benjamin Wood

SLC

By Benjamin Wood

Cover illustration by Derek Carlisle

S AP

BOX

“Practice What You Preach”

March 2 Opinion Feature

This bait-and-switch article is simply a catch-all rant about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The reality of the $5 million Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) fine is that the church was trying to be more transparent than required by statute.

Reporting 13 entities separately was certainly more costly, from an accounting perspective, than rolling the information up to a single line item.

When the SEC determined it only re-

quired the single report, the church changed its reporting approach immediately and has continued the prescribed practice for years now.

It’s really a non-issue—a clerical adjustment to which the SEC applied a fine that was paid for from investment profits, not sacred donations. End of story, unless your practice is to sensationalize anything LDS.

JACK STICKNEY Salt Lake City

Utah, Life Unwoken

Ordained by our Legislature, a new state flag promises to capture Utah’s beliefs and values. With one suggested change, I think it does.

A black sky—instead of blue—at the top of the new flag would represent the state’s support for pollution and the expunging of left-leaning political values. The white band in the middle validates clearly that racially, we are a very white state. And the red band along the bottom loudly announces the political color of this state. What may be a beehive also seems to re-

semble a pile of elephant dung. Added to this is a white asterisk of no clear meaning.

Missing from our new flag is the state motto, “Industry.” We all know Utah favors industry over people, and we will miss this reminder. We should update this motto to reflect the new dominant legislative campaign to fight wokeism by changing our motto to “the land of the unwoken.”

JAMES CATLIN Salt Lake City

Thank You for the Music

Highest praise for Gordon and Connie Hanks and Amanda Lufkin for their generous and selfless work in bringing the highest-quality jazz music to Salt Lake City for nearly 30 years.

From the stage, the artists they brought to the Sheraton—and then to the Capitol Theatre—expressed gratitude and appreciation for the kindness, warmth and respect the Hanks family gave them as artists, as individuals and ultimately, for many of them, as friends. The JazzSLC concert series went to great lengths to involve local

musicians, educators and music students in all aspects of these performances.

All of this was done out of a sincere love for jazz as an art form and for the musicians themselves, and a desire to do something positive for Salt Lake City. In a quiet, behind the scenes way, the Hanks family worked for many years to improve lives and institutions in the area. Watching from the wings, Gordon Hanks’ work and character have impressed and inspired me as a person and as a musician.

It is with considerable sorrow that I write this in the past tense. JazzSLC—a rare, refined and wonderful organization—is coming to an end due to a lack of financial support.

Praise and gratitude to those who gave so much of themselves to create something so beautiful and enriching for Salt Lake City.

JEFF WHITELY Sandy

Care to sound off on a feature in our pages or about a local concern? Write to comments@cityweekly.net or post your thoughts on our social media. We want to hear from you!

THE WATER COOLER

What’s the best, or worst, impulse purchase you made during the pandemic lockdown?

Christa Zaro

The worst is my Peloton. I’m not motivated to exercise at home. Does anyone want to buy it from me?

Bill Frost

The worst would be a light therapy lamp—writers don’t need sunlight, fake or otherwise.

Katharine Biele

I bought a used hot tub, with which I never bonded. It needs some fixin’ now, but if anyone wants one, let me know. You just have to haul it out.

Benjamin Wood

The lockdown gave me the push I needed to buy my ebike. Total gamechanger.

Kelly Boyce

A portable puzzle table with 4 drawers to separate the pieces. I’m arguably one of the best puzzlers in Utah.

Scott Renshaw

The worst is probably a set of cloth Disneyland-themed masks, before we knew a. when Disneyland would ever re-open again, and b. that cloth masks were kind of useless, especially in a place like Disneyland.

Divorce Me

One thing that no one can deny about our country is that it produces a spectacular number of great and deep thinkers. Men like former Utah Jazz gym trunks model John Stockton come to mind, a person who can deduce from ambiguous headlines, dubiously sourced tweets and fringe medical professionals what the true nature of viral disease is. Or there are women like Republican Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Opal Boebert, who has shared so many great and deep thoughts that she has her own hashtag: #laurenboebertissodumb.

It used to be that a great or deep thinker would be aligned with personages like Sigmund Freud, Carl Sagan, Martha Nussbaum, James Watson, Francis Crick or Neil deGrasse Tyson. Alas, that ship has sailed. A person considered to be a deep thinker these days is basically anyone who has over three followers on Twitter.

In former times, whole families would put their dinner plates away and head to the TV room lounge chairs to watch the nightly news. We weren’t at all consumed by what some third-rate actor, bankrupt businessman, washed-up politician or low-life provocateur had to say about anything at all, let alone their thoughts on medicine or current events.

Indeed, those folks never even made the nightly news, which was just fine and dandy because everyone seemed to be on the same page regarding just about any topic. Americans in the past just didn’t take the time to seek out random social media posts in order to get their daily news, nor to form opinions.

In that world, if John Stockton thought that people (especially athletes, where John is laser-focused on this matter) were “dying suddenly” after taking a COVID vaccine at some point in their lives, we would never have known.

BY JOHN SALTAS @johnsaltas

His thoughts would have been contained, wafting no farther than a locker-room fart. Same for Lauren Boebert. Her noisy pronouncements wouldn’t even make the social pages of her local hometown paper, let alone be fodder to embarrass every good citizen of the state of Colorado. It’s like she’s in a race to be the next Sen. Mike Lee or something.

This is who we are these days, a whole society that, if it is not tuned into the daily ramblings of every sort of wacky muse on social media, it’s nonetheless affected by them. For example, some people regard Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as some kind of MAGA moron. She’s not a moron—she just plays one in Congress. She’s probably quite bright, but in all the wrong ways, sort of like her hero Donald Trump. Such is the nature of good and evil, devils and angels.

Despite the flaws in our great American system, Greene is a duly elected official who represents the citizens of the 14th Congressional District in that great blue state of Georgia. Well, it may be too early to tell, but it looks like red Georgia is tipping blue, at least with President Joe Biden carrying the state in 2020 and with two Democratic senators. No matter—in either case, it presents a problem for Greene in that she has proclaimed that our red and blue states should divorce from each other and go their separate ways.

I presume she means that the United States may have an amicable divorce, but the lessons of history speak otherwise, notably in the 1860s when 620,000 Americans died fighting for either the North or South during the Civil War. Adjusting for better weaponry and deadlier battlegrounds, that’s about 12 million currently living Americans “dying suddenly” in order to fulfill Greene’s wishes. Seems like a steep price to me.

I wonder if John Stockton would rally behind the blue forces of his home state of Washington, or blend into the deep red machine that defines today’s “no conspiracy is too dumb for us” Idaho. And where will Boebert land in blue

Colorado? Can she find peace among the peaceniks?

This isn’t exactly a new topic, by the way. An article in The Atlantic from June 2022 discussed the pros and cons of separation of red and blue states. An example: Red states (with minor exceptions, Utah being one, luckily for us in the short term) produce less for the economy, have lower household incomes, shorter life expectancies and much higher incidence of opioid and alcohol addiction. But who wouldn’t want to live in Arkansas?

Conversely, blue states have lower poverty, spend more on education (by 50%), have more labor unions and union members, have expanded Medicaid, have protections for minorities and genders, have no “Stand Your Ground” laws and the residents benefit from typically higher-paying jobs. That, of course, accounts for blue states having higher taxes to pay, and who isn’t pissed about high taxes? Yeah, me, too, but not to the point of going to war over them or moving to a state where Ted Cruz is my Senator in order to avoid them. This separation is going to be tough since we’d certainly have to reshape our state maps. Most border changes result from disparity of resources or opportunity. Greene speaks of borders predicated on whim.

Parts of Oregon and Idaho might merge in favor of a red leaning, but so too might Southern California sweep into Phoenix or Tucson. Our borders would become fluid, adapting to the musings of a populace, drawn to either wine on one side or meth on the other. Sorta like Europe.

Meanwhile, the democracy once embraced as our national core becomes threatened and, ironically, along with it the religious tenets that were once protected by it as we traverse to ever more disparity of thought and belief. As sayeth the aforementioned philosopher Martha Nussbaum, “Democracy simply doesn’t work without love and compassion.”

From my blue county in a red state, that couldn’t be more true. Just waiting for the divorce papers.” CW

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.

MISS: Hear No Evil

As the public becomes more and more siloed into its self-perpetuating echochambers, you have to wonder if voters read or pay attention to real news. However, it’s no surprise that Utah’s majority Republicans fall in step with a religion-first doctrine. Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, went by the playbook when he refused to give a hearing to a bill requiring clergy to report sexual abuse. The bill began with bipartisan support following a horrific Associated Press report from Arizona, detailing the long-term abuse ignored by Latter-day Saint leadership. The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized after Adams said that “religious organizations do a great job” of reacting to reports of child abuse among their members. “Which suggests that Adams has neither read a newspaper or seen a movie in the last few decades,” the Tribune wrote. The GOP does not want its members to have to choose between following secular law or their religious calling. They don’t want them to make those hard decisions, like baking cakes or creating websites for non-adherents, either.

MISS: Not a Drop to Drink

Please bring back the Olympics if it will force the Utah Legislature to leave the liquor industry alone. It’s unlikely that the predominantly white, male, Mormon Legislature will open its collective mind, but it’s worth a try. Apparently, they think that anyone who sees an alcoholic drink being made will dash over and consume the whole bottle. So, in this past session, they decided that restaurants could host private parties—you know, with liquor!—if they hid the dirty deeds from other patrons. Welcome back, Zion Curtain, although they don’t want to call it that. It’s just an “opaque, floor-to-ceiling wall such that the inside of the room is not visible to a patron in the area within the restaurant for a patron’s consumption of food.” You won’t be able to buy minibottles or see liquor advertised on buses, either. The lengthy and “opaque” legislative bill included all kinds of definitions such as “spirituous liquor,” unlike “vinous, fermented, malt, or other liquid.” Be sure to order that way.

HIT: Small Victories

There were too many bad bills that passed the Legislature to give them all justice. A Taliban-friendly abortion bill is only one. But there was some good news. DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) was considered socialistic and white-discriminatory, and garnered several bills to get rid of admissions or employment statements related to it. North Ogden Republican Sen. John Johnson—of “anti-racism is racism” fame—withdrew his DEI bill, but it will probably come back at a later date. After some wrangling, lawmakers codified a ban on conversion therapy. And among the 48 election bills considered, one to eliminate ranked choice voting failed … for now. Officials needed to consider the definition of “pilot program” and give the optional initiative time to produce data. As the Tribune suggested in its aforementioned editorial: More people need to follow legislation—“before it is too late.”

There’s No Place Like Dome

With our heads buried in our phones while walking or concentrating hard on the bumper in front of us while driving, we don’t often get a chance to look around when we’re out and about.

If you do happen to get a few fleeting moments to steal a glance at your surroundings, I suggest looking up as you might catch one of the many impressive domed roofs in our city.

I’d imagine most will have a vague recollection of where some of the major ones are located. There’s the Matheson Courthouse on State Street across from the City & County building, the Huntsman Center arena on the U of U’s campus and, of course, the Tabernacle in Temple Square. But for every grandiose dome that exists in Salt Lake, there are dozens of smaller ones that go unrecognized.

The Shiners Children’s building on 1275 E. Fairfax Road in Federal Heights has one of the most distinct domes I’ve seen due to its aquamarine color and precise lines emitting from the center like rays of light (above left). Another one of my personal favorites is situated atop the Salt Lake Acting Co.’s theater at 168 W. 500 North (above right). The historic building was the former home of the 19th Ward and is believed to be the only Latter-day Saint meeting house built with an onion dome.

The valley’s love of domes also extends out into the surrounding suburbs. I particularly enjoy the golden one at the Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church on 5335 S. Highland Drive in Holladay (below left). From the street level, the main dome has a low profile and is relatively flat, so it is a bit obscured from view. But when viewed from above, seeing the gilded roof glistening in the sunlight is quite impressive.

Although religious buildings have a bit of a monopoly on domes, there are secular ones too. My all-time favorites are the ones located at The Shops at South Town, near 10450 S. State Street in Sandy (below right). There, you can find several abstract looking ones with jagged lines and geometric construction. Absolutely dome-founding! CW

Distinctive colors and shapes top the Shiners Children’s building, left, and the Salt Lake Acting Co. theater, right.

Domes atop Holladay’s Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church, left, and at Sandy’s The Shops at South Town.

Good Cap, Bad Cap

Utah lawmakers bury sensible investments under a pile of anti“woke” posturing.

By Benjamin Wood bwood@cityweekly.net

CAPITOL HILL—Flush with cash, rebounding from pandemic upheaval and facing generational challenges around housing, transportation and environmental decline, Utah lawmakers sprinted in January to enact their most deeply held priorities: banning transgender health care and creating a voucher program for private- and home-schooling families.

With those tasks achieved, the annual legislative session—which ended Friday—shifted to a scattered blast of culture war grievances: “divisive concepts” in schools; “pornographic material” in libraries; “manipulation” of the financial market through subjective investments; whether to count the unborn in traffic management; the differences between “racism” and “anti-racism;” and of course, the relentless pursuit of the most restrictive legislation possible on abortion.

But under the surface of those fights, the currents were relatively calm. A budget came together with little public squabbling between the two chambers, and lawmakers paired tax cuts—decreasing the levies on income and gasoline and boosting the dependent exemption for young children—with considerable increases in the funding for public education, transportation, water conservation, housing and other areas of critical government spending.

“I think it’s been a phenomenal session,” said Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton. “The number of bills, tax cuts, funding—record breaking in every regard.”

The state also paid down some of its debts, retiring bonds related to highway construction and university and college facilities, and going one step further by establishing reserve accounts and funding formulas to avoid the need to borrow in the future.

“With what we’ve done the last two years, on top of this year, we should never have to bond again in this state for roads,” said Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper. “We really wanted to make generational investments that benefit us today, but really benefit our kids and our grandkids.”

Schools Rush In

On paper, the 2023 legislative session looks pretty good for the Utah Education Association.

The teachers union asked for a 6.5% increase in per-pupil spending; lawmakers approved 6% with additional line-item appropriations that add up to the equivalent of an 18% increase. The union asked for $25 million in funding for at-risk students; lawmakers approved $25.9 million.

For years, educators have touted the need for optional full-day kindergarten to be expanded statewide. Not only did that finally pass in 2023, lawmakers funded it above the levels sought by the UEA.

A portion of teacher salaries was tied to automatic inflationary adjustments for the first time, and school grading—opposed from Day 1 by educators—finally met its end after an ignominious run that saw nearannual attempts to fix the law into something useful.

“It is very validating to have that off the table,” said UEA President Renée Pinkney. “That [letter grade] is so demoralizing. We only control what happens in our classroom. We can’t control all of the other compounding variables that our society brings.”

But then there were the two “bookends” of the session, as described by Pinkney.

The first week saw lawmakers holding teacher raises hostage in order to pass a school voucher program. The final week produced a convoluted scheme that in 2024 will ask voters to choose whether to end the state sales tax on food in exchange for diluting constitutional language that restricts income tax revenue to spending on education.

“That has overshadowed everything,” Pinkney said. Education groups also had to spend another year swatting down and negotiating changes to a host of bills ostensibly aimed at school and curriculum “transparency,” which to varying degrees insert parents, law enforcement and the heavy hand of the state into classroom-level materials and discussions.

Pinkney said the combined weight of those efforts carry an implication that teachers, broadly, are doing unacceptable things. She said it’s a drain on morale and stands in contrast to how the state treats private

schools and homeschooling, of which families can now apply for taxpayer rebates with little oversight over how those funds are spent.

“Those message bills are sowing seeds of doubt in public education and public educators,” Pinkney said. “The micromanaging and the overregulation—in light of the fact that the voucher bill does not have any of that—is frustrating.”

Currently, the UEA has taken no position on the food tax/constitutional amendment package after opposing its original version. While they and most education groups have opposed previous attempts to weaken the income tax earmark (Pinkney prefers the term “mandate”), negotiations with legislative leadership led to new amendment language that would enshrine the prioritization—but not exclusivity—of public schools.

“You look at the last four or five years, and education has been a big winner in this state,” Adams, the Senate president, said. “It hasn’t been because of the constitutional earmark, it’s been because of the legislative effort to fund education.”

Lawmakers have chipped away at the income tax earmark over time, first by adding higher education in the ’90s and, more recently, expanding the permissible uses of the Education Fund to include services for children and individuals with disabilities. But recent years have also seen the development of a stabilization account, with the intent of buffering schools from the economic volatility that can see feast one year and famine the next.

It’s that process being held up as a compromise solution, essentially trading a guarantee of all income tax revenue in a particular year (be it large or small) with a promise of predictable, reliable investment over time.

“This is a slow, steady increase in money,” said Sen. Ann Millner, R-Ogden. “I think that’s what brings the stability to public education that it needs.”

With the public vote almost two years away, Pinkney said the teachers union will continue to negotiate with lawmakers on the precise wording of the constitutional amendment.

“We will still have an opportunity in the interim and during the next legislative session to make the language stronger,” she said.

Workin’ on the Railroad

Lawmakers approved roughly $2 billion in transportation spending, with the bulk of that going to highway projects but a significant cut directed at commuter rail and the buildout of a statewide trails network.

A $200 million line item will pay for the construction of a new FrontRunner station near the former State Prison site in Draper—set to become a so-called “15-minute” community where cars are not required for daily needs—and the ongoing double-tracking of the FrontRunner line.

Over 2022 and now 2023, the state has directed more than $500 million toward the double-tracking of FrontRunner, which could be completed in 2029 if the state is awarded matching grant funding from the federal government. And John Gleason, spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) said that “complete” refers to when trains would be able to run on a 15-minute frequency during peak hours, instead of the 30- and even 60-minute intervals currently in use.

“We’re about 25% double-tracked right now and this would take it to 50% double-tracked in those strategic locations,” Gleason said.

But a proposal by Gov. Spencer Cox to fund free transit fares for a year was dead on arrival, made all the more glaring by 2022’s Free Fare February experiment being reduced in 2023 to only a 10-day stretch that coincided with the NBA All-Star Game.

Cox argued that removing the cost of transit fares would help families struggling with inflation and the high costs of gasoline, help to clean up the state’s poor air quality and, potentially, help to reduce the need for perpetual highway expansion.

“We need to get more people off of the roads and onto transit, and there sometimes needs to be some incentives for people to change behavior,” Cox said. “We saw it during Free Fare February last year—a significant increase in ridership. If we could do that for a year, we could change behavior, potentially, and get people used to transit for a longer period of time.”

Schultz, the House majority leader, is a vocal critic of free transit fares. But he agreed with the need for transit to be more competitive with the private automobile.

“The way FrontRunner currently operates, I don’t get on it, I wouldn’t get on it,” Schultz said. “But you

start talking about [moving] 150 mph and getting from Ogden to Salt Lake in 10 minutes and Provo to Salt Lake in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, that’s what’s going to get people on FrontRunner.”

The Legislature also appropriated $150 million for transportation in the Cottonwood canyons, which will kick off Phase 1 of what will eventually become the controversial gondola to Alta and Snowbird. Schultz said that money will fund the construction of the planned “intermodal hub” at the mouth of the canyon—an artful UDOT phrase that means, in essence, a park-andride garage—to serve the “enhanced busing” that will run up to the ski resorts until the gondola is built.

Schultz said he would prefer to build a train up Little Cottonwood instead of a gondola, and joked that “we can’t have good things because of environmentalists.”

A canyon “ski train” was considered—it would better allow for additional stops beyond the ski resorts and would make car-free skiing considerably more practical—but wasn’t pursued due, in part, to objections over the assumed need for road widening in some recreationally and environmentally sensitive locations.

“Sooner or later the gondola has to happen; buses aren’t going to solve the problem,” Schultz said. “The goal, long-term, is to be able to get off of a plane at the airport and get to skiing and never have to get in a car.”

Cox was similarly critical of the way that pro-environment barriers make it difficult to build the kinds of projects that would get cars off of roads. He said it’s an increasingly bipartisan challenge that goes beyond Utah and one that he’s raised in conversation with federal officials, including President Joe Biden.

“These laws that were put in place to clean up our environment are making it hard for us to clean up our environment,” Cox said. “We now know what we need to do, and so I am hopeful we can get some [federal] permitting reform.”

In addition to passenger rail, legislators debated and passed several pieces of legislation related to freight operations, including the creation of a new, state-level Office of Rail Safety. Schultz said there’s a need for better communication between the railroads and Utah cities, many of which have seen growth and development projects stalled, if not prevented entirely, by intractable freight rights-of-way.

“Transportation is crucial,” Schultz said. “That’s

why you saw such a big investment in every mode of transportation—certainly roads, [but also] transit and active transportation.”

Schultz said he understands why Utahns are skeptical about transit. But he said it’s necessary to look beyond the bus and train network as it exists today and toward the network that Utah hopes to build.

“You have to be looking 10 years into the future—because it’s going to take 10 years to get high-speed rail on the FrontRunner—so it’s important that we start making investments,” he said. “That’s what leaders do, they look into the future and set us up for good.”

Lake It to the Limit

Lawmakers made a splash early in the session by designating and celebrating “Water Week,” focusing on water-related bills in committee and making a point to wear blue clothing. But the much-hyped week became something of a punchline on Capitol Hill after many of those bills—and particularly a non-binding resolution to set a target level for the Great Salt Lake—failed to move forward.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t get any traction,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, adding that she was generally “underwhelmed” by the state’s work on water conservation and management.

The Great Salt Lake has been dropping for years under persistent drought conditions, exposing large tracts of mineral-laden shoreline and raising the specter of toxic dust storms along the Wasatch Front. Researchers have suggested the state could have as little as five years to reverse the lake’s decline, and Mendenhall said there’s a feeling of insecurity born from the scale of the problem and the need for immediate action.

“I haven’t seen the bridge that connects the preponderance of scientific evidence to the [state’s] recent policies and funding,” she said. “I hope that it presents itself rather quickly.”

Mendenhall said she was encouraged by incentives to replace grass lawns and funding for wetlands preservation. She was also happy about some of the bills that did not pass, like an effort to overturn local regulations around mining and a late-arriving bill that would have given developers the power to levy taxes, issue bonds and exercise eminent domain.

BENJAMIN WOOD

WIKICOMMONS

Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, left, and Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, take questions from reporters on the final day of the 2023 legislative session.

Utah lawmakers appropriated roughly $500 million toward efforts to preserve the shrinking Great Salt Lake but were criticized for rejecting a non-binding lake level target.

“It’s taxation and land use without representation,” Mendenhall said. “There were some good and bad and ugly bills—as there are every year.”

Cox disagreed, praising lawmakers for their efforts on water management and saying he has never been more optimistic about the Great Salt Lake after the 2022 and 2023 session saw more than $1 billion combined directed at various programs and with the benefit of an aboveaverage snowpack last winter. The state was already in the process of buying back private water rights, he said, and will now be in a better position to shepherd spring runoff into the lake and other bodies of water.

“I really do think people should be excited about Water Week, gimmicks aside,” Cox said. “There’s going to be even more water going into the lake than we had hoped for and planned for.”

The Legislature also approved the creation of a new water commissioner, to be appointed by the governor, who will coordinate various wa ter conservation efforts into a unified strategy.

“That’s not just a token thing,” Cox said. “This person is going to have the ability to work with all de partments and agencies in the state and really get water to the end of the row.”

But do you have a flag?

Mendenhall was more encouraged on the topics of housing and homeless ness. The Legislature directed funding toward both deeply afford able housing and a new lending program for first-time homebuyers, and approved legislation that permits Salt Lake County to use a small portion—a “fifth-fifth” of a per cent—of its local option sales tax for mental health services.

“I trust the county,” Mendenhall said. “I trust Mayor [Jenny] Wilson in

analyzing what those opportunities are, and I agree that the mental health needs of the people in this country have been woefully underfunded, both federally and from other sources.”

Mendenhall said she’s grateful that state leaders are continuing to take a more active role in homelessness, a statewide issue that for too long was expected to be addressed by Salt Lake City alone.

“Our city is less of a direct target of the Legislature,” Mendenhall said. “We have a functional, even productive, relationship with state leadership. We are not in a perpetually defensive mode.”

Utah is facing a statewide housing shortage, which drives up the prices of existing housing stock. And while Salt Lake and other cities have loosened zoning restrictions and looked at incentives for tiny homes, accessory dwelling units and other smaller-scale infill housing, others have largely refused to allow density of any kind, preferring instead to maintain single-family plots and pushing new development outward in a perpetual suburban expansion.

Cox and other state leaders are increasingly vocal about the challenge to overcome NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) attitudes toward new— and particularly affordable—housing. And while bills that would have superseded municipal zoning were shelved this year, others were approved that incentivize construction of new housing stock and that make it harder for residents to delay or repeal city council-approved developments.

“Trying to find that balance—of local control versus the NIMBYism piece—every state is dealing with it,” Cox said. “I’m ecstatic about where we ended up. Every session is a mixed bag, but this one is by far the most positive I’ve had.” CW

Fans of the NBA All-Star Game were warned to take Utah’s anti-abortion laws seriously.

Odds and Ends

With hundreds of bills proposed, debated and passed each year, it’s impossible to keep track of every law that comes out of the Utah Legislature. Here’s some of the highlights—and lowlights—of the 2023 session.

■ Utah’s abortion ban is held up in court, but that didn’t stop lawmakers from going further this year, effectively banning the existance of abortion clinics and requiring that the few procedures permitted by law be performed in a hospital. The Alliance for a Better Utah knew the fix was in and used the festivities around the NBA All-Star Game to draw attention to the creeping loss of bodily autonomy, releasing ads and custom-made condoms urging folks to “Control your J*zz.” Planned Parenthood says it is exploring all options in response to the new ban.

■ Four years after being broadly laughed out of the rooms of the Capitol, Utah’s vexillological community saw its dream of a well-designed state flag come true. The prior, seal-on-a-bedsheet version remains codified as Utah’s “historic” flag. But the real, official banner is now the so-called Beehive Flag, a combination of blue skies, snowy white mountains, red rock canyons and, of course, the state’s most enduring symbol.

■ The air-quality war has a new big bad: US Magnesium. Its Tooele facility was found to contribute as much as 25% of the Wasatch Front’s air pollution due to bromine, which acts like fertilizer for ozone and noxious particulate matter. A unanimous bill will see the Division of Environmental Quality take a formal inventory of bromine and other halogen emissions, and then create a plan to reduce them.

■ Utahns were not disenfranchised (beyond the degree that they already are) despite attempts to roll back mail-in voting, ranked-choice voting and the signature route to party primaries. But don’t relax quite yet, a powerful contingent within the Republican supermajorities remains committed to making voting as hard as possible for anyone outside their clique.

■ Porcini is now the official state mushroom, joining other august Utah symbols like the California gull, the Dutch oven, the Bonneville cutthroat trout, the sego lily and—never forget—the Browning M1911, Utah’s official state gun. In other fungus news, a bill to legalize a difference kind of mushroom (you know ... that one) failed to gain support. CW

BENJAMIN WOOD

Senate President Stuart Adams, left, looks at the new Utah state flag with Sens. Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, center, and Daniel McCay, R-Riverton.

A&E Big Shiny Robot

The Never Ending Story

Serialized narratives can be their own reward, whether or not a clear finish is in sight.

BY BRYAN YOUNG comments@cityweekly.net

When we talk about stories that run on television, one thing we hear a lot about lately is whether or not the showrunners stick the landing of the end, like they’re Simone Biles performing her Olympic floor exercise. Endings are important to stories—but the journey is important, too.

Recently, a reporter from Total Film asked Jon Favreau, the man behind Star Wars: The Mandalorian, about whether or not he and co-creator Dave Filoni are building to an ending on that show—and he was up front that they weren’t. “I think the beauty of this,” he told them, “is that it’s a middle chapter of a much larger story. And though we’ll have resolution over time with these characters, I think that’s how these characters fit into the larger scope and scale, but it’s not like there’s a finale we’re building to that I have in mind. Quite the contrary, I love for these stories to go on and on. And so these characters potentially could be with us for a while, and I really love telling stories in their voice, and I love the way the adventures unfold and I’m looking forward to doing much more.”

And really, who can argue with such enthusiasm? Why does there need to be a destination in mind? When the show comes to an end, they should be more

than able to craft one that feels satisfying. But sometimes those middle chapters can feel equally satisfying, because that’s the nature of serialized storytelling. With hindsight, would anyone complain about the ending of The Empire Strikes Back lacking satisfaction? George Lucas had only a vague idea of how Return of the Jedi might end at that point, but we got one of the most thrilling endings ever put to film despite that lack of planning.

Do you have to have a TV series building to a specific ending? Plenty of TV shows we hail as classics didn’t. In fact, this idea of “ending” a show feels relatively new.

That’s why I still love Lost so much. I think the ending to Lost was fine; I believe the most vocal opponents of it didn’t pay close enough attention to it. But the real excitement of Lost was the journey we took week-to-week in the storytelling, season after season unravelling the mysteries. Whatever the eventual solution to those mysteries were, it did not in any way diminish the enjoyment I had watching the show as it aired in the first place.

Many were incensed that the creative team didn’t have an ending in mind when they started. Others felt cheated.

I wonder sometimes, though, if we get too hung up on the meaning of the ending, rather than the meaning we derive from the journey. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote in his book Breakfast of Champions that “the proper ending for any story about people it seems to me, since life is now a polymer in which the Earth is wrapped so tightly, should be the same abbreviation, which I now write large because I feel like it, which is this one: ETC.”

Some of the best stories end with that big etcetera, and that’s not a bad thing. When we look at The Mandalorian, it’s important to ask why we’d even be hung up on an ending. As the story has unfolded across its seasons, and in spinoffs like The Book of Boba Fett, we’ve been given plenty of satisfying endings, both in individual episodes and at the ends of the seasons. We’ve been able to derive meaning and enjoyment every step of the way.

So how could an ending—or a lack of

one, or one that somehow missteps—take any of that away from us as we look back on the lessons we’ve already learned from the show, or the in-the-moment pleasures we experienced?

Besides, I’m enjoying the show so much, I don’t want it to end either. Why would I enforce an artificial timeline or horizon on someone like Jon Favreau, who is bringing so much cool stuff to a universe I love, just because I need a so-called “ending?”

Roger Ebert once said that movies (and I think he’d agree television counts, too) are machines for generating empathy. That’s what they’re supposed to do: show us things about ourselves and the world around us. An ongoing, serialized story doesn’t need one final, definitive ending to do that. It has a different one every week, leaving us an opportunity to learn lots of lessons, and leave us after each installment with that feeling of “etcetera” that Vonnegut talked about.

Really, a TV show with no ends in sight is the best of both worlds—and I’m okay with that. CW

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Reel Rock/Fly-Fishing Film Festival

Utah is well-known throughout the world as both a film-festival destination (thanks to the Sundance Film Festival every January) and an outdoor-recreation destination (thanks to its diverse terrain). Every once in a while, however, those two worlds come together. That happens in multiple venues this week, as creative filmmakers capture the beauty and splendor of recreational activities.

The annual Reel Rock tour—marking its 17th installment in 2023—shares fascinating stories from the world of climbing, presenting thrilling images of daring achievements, and the people behind those achievements. This year brings three world-premiere films:

DNA, showcasing 29-year-old French climber Seb Bouin as he tackles the risky sport climb of Verdon Gorge; Resistance Climbing, telling the story of Palestinian climbers using the sport as a place for community and solace; and Burning the Flame, presenting Austrian climbers Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher free-climbing Pakistan’s Nameless Tower. The program comes to Salt Lake City’s Rose Wagner Center (138 W. 300 South) on Sunday, March 12 at 7 p.m., with tickets $25 at arttix.org.

Up the road in Ogden, we have films representing a sport that’s a bit less deathdefying, but just as full of beautiful settings. The 2023 International Fly-Fishing Film Festival brings a lineup of nine films, spanning the globe to discover a range of different arenas for the fly-fisher, from the Snake River to the Appalachians to the Amazon Basin. The event takes place at Union Center’s Browning Theater (2501 Wall Ave., Ogden) on Friday, March 10 at 7 p.m., with tickets $12 advance/$15 door. Visit ogdencity.com for additional information. (Scott Renshaw)

Brian Regan

When Vanity Fair dubs you “the funniest stand-up alive,” that’s high praise to live up to. Fortunately, that doesn’t faze Brian Regan; given a threedecade career that finds him performing in nearly 100 cities a year, he’s had ample opportunity to hone his comedic chops, whether making observations about everyday encounters, sharing some hints of sarcasm or delivering his self-deprecating humor. Likewise, he can claim two Netflix stand-up specials and a four-episode Netflix series, “Stand Up And Away! With Brian Regan” which, it so happens, was executive produced by some guy named Jerry Seinfeld. (We hear he’s pretty good, too!) His 2015 Comedy Central special Brian Regan: Live From Radio City Music Hall made history as that network’s firstever live stand-up special broadcast. He made his dramatic debut as a recovering addict on Amazon Prime’s series Loudermilk, and can claim frequent appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and, prior to that, some 28 appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman. And let’s not forget his two appearances on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, also alongside that Jerry Seinfeld guy. When you’re frequently referred to as “a comedian’s comedian,” ya gotta take your humor seriously. A Utah favorite for many years, Brian Regan performs at Delta Performance Hall in the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater for a multi-show run beginning at 8 pm, Friday, March 10, and continuing Wednesday, March 15 and Thursday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, March 17 at 8 p.m.; and Saturday, March 18 at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $59.50 - $172; visit arttix.org for tickets and event information. (Lee Zimmerman)

COURTESY PHOTO

St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Siamsa

We rarely appreciate what we have until we’re without it, and that’s certainly the way it was with so many beloved parades and festivals taking a hiatus during the height of the COVID pandemic. St. Patrick’s Day events were among the first cancellations in 2020, but the Hibernian Society of Utah’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Siamsa made a grat return in 2022 at its Gateway venue, according to Hibernian Society President Sean Clark: “Last year’s return to The Gateway was a tremendous success. ... It’s a festive atmosphere with spectators able to view the parade from both upper and lower levels.”

With St. Patrick’s Day itself falling on a Friday in 2023, the parade and accompanying events take place the preceding Saturday. The parade itself begins at 11 a.m., with a route beginning at 200 S. 600 West and proceeding east towards Rio Grande. Once the parade is done, guests can enjoy the siamsa (Gaelic for “amusement” or “entertainment”) on the Olympic Plaza, featuring live music by bands including Shanahy, Pladdohg and Murphy and the Giant; traditional Irish dance entertainment from Scariff, Smith Irish Dance, Harp Irish Dance and Rinceoiri Don Spraoi; vendors; food and adult libations. An additional indoor area will be featured behind the stage, with an additional entertainment stage.

The 2023 St. Patrick’s Day Parade & Siamsa comes to The Gateway (400 W. 200 South) on Saturday, March 11, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.; all events are free, open to the public and family-friendly (not counting those adult libations). Visit irishinutah.org for additional event information. (SR)

Utah Opera: Verdi’s Rigoletto

The notion of fate has always been a popular one in classic storytelling—the notion of how much of one’s life is in one’s own hands, as opposed to the hands of Destiny or some other supernatural force. According to director Stephanie Havey—who oversees Utah Opera’s production of Giuseppe

Verdi’s 1851 masterpiece Rigoletto, based on a story by Victor Hugo—the idea of believing that something terrible is destined to befall you becomes a kind of self-fulling prophecy within the structure of the narrative.

“The curse sets the parameters for each of the characters in this story,” Havey says via press release. “But they each have their own way of interacting with it and in doing so, they’re able to almost determine their fate—or lack thereof—based on this half-real, half-imaginative relationship.”

In Rigoletto, that curse involves the powerful Duke of Mantua (Matthew White) and his jester Rigoletto (Scott Hendricks), who are on the receiving end of a curse as the result of the Duke’s wanton seduction of any woman he desires, and Rigoletto’s mockery of the men humiliated by this behavior. The set design full of boxes and the lighting cues supervised by Havey emphasize the sense of characters feeling trapped by the expectations built into a curse.

Utah Opera’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto—including live accompaniment by the Utah Symphony visits the Capitol Theatre (50 W. 200 South) for five performances only beginning Saturday, March 11. Tickets pricing begins at $30; visit arttix.org for tickets and additional event information. (SR)

HILARY REITER COURTESY PHOTO

The Rules of the Game

Scream VI succeeds by again showing these movies are really about themselves.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

It took a recent marathon viewing of the Scream franchise to lock on to something I’d never really realized previously: The Scream movies are not slasher movies, at least not the kind about which all the characters make meta-references. While the original 1996 Scream established a paradigm of acknowledging tropes from vintage teens-vs.-killers movies like Halloween, Friday the 13th and director Wes Craven’s own A Nightmare on Elm St., the Scream movies themselves were not built around an iconic single killer; they were suspense whodunnits.

In fact, it took last year’s “legacy-quel” from new series directors Matt BettinelliOlpin & Tyler Gillett and the screenwriting team of James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick for the series to acknowledge the reality that the Scream movies have always been about themselves more than about other scary movies—and if that particular installment also managed to skewer a certain type of insufferable genre-movie buff along the way, so much the better.

So now, more than 25 years into the franchise’s history, as the same creative team returns for Scream VI, it feels like these movies have slipped into a kind of comfort zone with exploiting the expectations surrounding not horror movies in general, but these particular horror movies. We’re going to get a “first attack” set piece—here involving Samara Weaving,

from Bettinelli-Olpin & Gillett’s Ready or Not—most likely featuring a phone call from our now-familiar voice of the killer (Roger L. Jackson). There will be a laboriously drawn-out climactic monologue explaining the murderous motivations.

In between, we’ll get at least one lengthy discourse on the “rules” of whatever place we find ourselves in the franchise, and probably at least one needle-drop of Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand,” ideally with some creatively tense Ghostface carnage along the way.

By those standards, Scream VI gives the audience 100 percent of what it came for (although minus Neve Campbell, the absence of whose resilient heroine Sidney Prescott is explained away early on by Courteney Cox’s equally resilient journalist Gale Weathers). The surviving “core four” of the previous movie—sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), and twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding)—have moved from Woodsboro to New York City, the latter three for college and Sam to keep an eye on Tara.

Not surprisingly, though, their trauma follows them across the country, first in the form of online rumors that Sam her-

self might have orchestrated the murders she survived, and eventually in the form of yet another copycat masked killer.

It was considered a bit of a violation by purists that the series continued after the death of Wes Craven, but 2022’s Scream showed that Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett have their own particular talent for delivering the goods while sticking to the formula. In the absence of Campbell, they bring back surprise Scream 4 survivor Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), now an FBI agent. They round up a new group of suspects, including Sam’s new romantic interest (Josh Segarra), Chad’s roommate (Jack Champion), Mindy’s girlfriend (Devyn Nekoda) and an investigating police officer (Dermot Mulroney). And they’ve made their central protagonists tough and engaging, with Barrera improving on her work from last year and Ortega remaining ferociously committed to conveying pain and terror.

More significantly, these filmmakers are just damned good at crafting crawlout-of-your skin tension. There are at least two corkers on display here: one with our protagonists split up on two different subway trains on Halloween night, with Ghostface masks everywhere; and an-

other involving an escape from the killer between buildings across a suspended ladder, which might be the series’ best sequence since Scream 2’s escape from the police car. Again, these are suspense movies rather than slasher movies, so they need to deliver on that count—and mission accomplished.

Is it still a little bit of an obligatory bummer every time these movies need to stop dead in their tracks for villain speeches? Yeah. Is the ongoing presence of Cox’s Gale, even across multiple time zones, something that now feels like it has to be justified self-referentially? Totally. All that stuff, though, is just part of the package that you sign up for when you watch a Scream movie. They keep telling us exactly what to expect from them, and kind of surprisingly, they keep delivering, built on the notion that this franchise doesn’t just comment on a genre. It created one.

CW

SCREAM VI BBB

Melissa Barrera Jenna Ortega Courtney Cox Rated R Available March 10 in theaters

Ghostface in Scream VI PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Let the Good Times Roll

Chef Jacqueline Siao helps us fall in love with Adelaide

BY ALEX SPRINGER comments@cityweekly.net @captainspringer

Iknow the post-All-Star-Game discourse between Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal left many locals in a tizzy, but I’m not going to comment on that; if you’re bored when you travel, it’s your own damn fault. What did stick with me, however, was Shaq’s comment about only eating room service.

As I’ve been visiting more hotel restaurants, I realized that they’ve got a pretty important job to do. If a high-profile guest visits our city and doesn’t have the wherewithal to sniff out a good local restaurant—perhaps by snagging a free altweekly and reading the dining column by its dashing and tasteful food writer—the hotel restaurant becomes an ambassador for Utah’s entire culinary identity. With that said, I’d like to talk about Adelaide (131 S. 300 West, 801-658-4600, adelaidesaltlake.com) within the new downtown SLC dual-pad space that includes hotels Le Méridien and Element.

When considering a hotel restaurant, you’ve got to take into account the hotel itself. A hip-but-accessible space like Le Méridien and Element requires a hip-butaccessible restaurant. Under the direction of Chef Jacqueline Siao, that is exactly what Adelaide has set out to do. Before assuming her role as executive chef at Adelaide, Chef Siao spent time overseeing food and beverage for the Hyatt Centric in Park City as well as W in Aspen, Colo. and the Lodge/Spruce Peak in Stowe, Vt. “Ev-

ery place has its own personality,” Siao says over a Zoom call. “But I think Adelaide might be my favorite of all of them.”

Siao’s approach with Adelaide comes from an affection for New Orleans by way of French Canada and the West Indies. “The name Adelaide comes from a socialite in New Orleans,” Siao say. “Each menu item was heavily influenced by her as a person and by New Orleans itself. When you walk in, we want you to feel like you’re going to New Orleans.”

Located just left of the reception desk at Le Méridien, Adelaide succeeds at transporting the diner into Chef Siao’s wonderland of sophisticated, Southern-inspired dining. The fun thing about Adelaide’s menu is that it lends itself to a culinary journey. You want a seafood-centric dinner? Start off with the Dungeness crab cake croquettes ($19) and move promptly into the bounty that is simply known as plateaux de fruits de mer ($84), which combines citrus-poached shrimp, oysters on the half shell, Alaskan king crab legs and tuna crudo. Feeling more vegetarian? Check out the warm cauliflower vichyssoise ($12) with its white truffle and poached d’anjou pears and wrap up with the honey roasted squash ($15).

As far as the journey that my wife and I took with Adelaide, we just listened to our hearts. Though the immense fruits de mer platter was appealing, we decided to mix up some starters and entrees. To begin, we tried the tuna crudo ($18) and the mushroom al ajillo—two diametrically opposed dishes on the flavor spectrum, but my wife and I are all about eating dangerously. The tuna crudo is a lovely way to kick things off—it’s a plate of thinly sliced tuna topped with a citrusy starburst vinaigrette, along with some cucumber gratinee and a few slivers of Fresno chili for a spicy kick. This starter simply wakes up your palate and gets it psyched for the upcoming meal.

Where the crudo celebrates the vibrant,

sharp and acidic, the mushroom al ajillo is all about warmth, richness and depth. It’s the celery root crema that really ties the savory mushrooms and blistered garlic together; this eats like pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, so don’t let its modestly arboreal presentation fool you.

For entrees, we leaned into the savory richness that the mushrooms kicked off for us and got the Sea and Grits ($28) and the lacquered short ribs ($36). I think the latter slightly edged out the former; it’s a decadent cut of short rib that gets its signature “lacquer” from an hours-long cooking process that results in a savory delight that melts in your mouth. I opted to add a side of andouille mac and cheese ($9), which is exactly what you’d expect from a Southern-inspired menu—gooey, cheesy and filled with buttery love.

The Sea and Grits is a take on the classic shrimp and grits that sees our familiar crustaceans fried to a golden brown and served on top of grits made with Beehive cheddar. Conceptually, I’m here for the dish—fried shrimp that you can dip into some cheesy grits is an excellent idea. While I thought the shrimp batter needed a bit more seasoning to liven things up, I remain impressed with this fresh take on a classic.

After visiting a few hotel restaurants since 2023 began, I’m quite confident that they can rep for Utah’s culinary scene, and Adelaide is no exception. Even if some former NBA star is in town and doesn’t take advantage of our own unique dining culture, they can at least get something local and delicious from spots like Adelaide. CW

ADELAIDE

2 Row Brewing 6856 S. 300 West, Midvale 2RowBrewing.com

Avenues Proper 376 8th Ave, SLC avenuesproper.com

On Tap: Blizzard Wizard - Hazy Pale 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: That’s a KnifeAustralian Cold IPA

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: Imperial Red Ale

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: Aroma Therapy - DDH Blonde

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

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

On Tap: Vienna-Style Lager Trivia: Mondays at 6pm

Moab Brewing 686 S. Main, Moab TheMoabBrewery.com

On Tap: Bourbon & Blonde (Bulleit Bourbon Barrel-aged Blonde Stout)

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 Beer Company 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

On Tap: It’s Complicated Sour

Proper Brewing 857 S. Main, SLC

ProperBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Cloud ChaserKölsch with Strawberry and Watermelon

Proper Brewing Moab 1393 US-191 Moab, Utah 84532

On Tap: Angus McCloudScottish 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: Hoomba Bus Fruited IPA

Roosters Brewing

Multiple Locations RoostersBrewingCo.com

On Tap: Identity Crisis Session West Coast Hazy Cold IPA – the name says it all!

SaltFire Brewing 2199 S. West Temple, South Salt Lake SaltFireBrewing.com

On Tap: Fury Kolsch

Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com

On Tap: Deep Dive SeriesDry Irish Stout

Scion Cider Bar 916 Jefferson St W, SLC Scionciderbar.com

On Tap: 3 Taps: Scion House Release!

Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake

ShadesBrewing.beer

On Tap: Tap & Tarot

Live Music: Thursdays

Shades On State 366 S. State Street SLC

Shadesonstate.com

On Tap: Mexican Lager

Karaoke: Wednesdays

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: Tropical StormMango Passionfruit Sour

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

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

Heavy Hitters

Two

barley-intensive beers pack a big punch

BY MIKE RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @utahbeer

Bewilder/Strap Tank - Barrel-Aged

Wee Heavy: This collaboration between Strap Tank Brewing and Bewilder Brewing started last year with the release of the two breweries’ Wee Heavy Scottish Ale. The big malty beer proved to have depth, and was a perfect candidate for barrel aging. Now, both versions are available for us all to dissect.

It pours a deep crimson color; the foam appeared to be dissolving on pour, but it actually did form a tight, spongy pad of off-white foam. Initial aromas are more the base beer than the barrel aging—dark fruits (prune), brown bread— but hints of vanilla and spicy booze soon emerge. It reminds me of my favorite aromatic candle.

Though not aggressive, the char and booze of the barrel leap out right away, with the candy sugar-ish malts rushing up behind to push everything through the finish. A delicate essence of dark fruit and an almost cinnamon-like phenolic note pervade the aftertaste. Flavors do balance out over a few sips, though the malty underbelly remains, at least for a while, a little on the dry side, with not much unique character to give it depth/dimension. Some cookie and caramel do slowly poke through, but there is no edge, no warts at all, just clean with subtly smooth viscosity.

Verdict: Solid but rather textbook take on a Scotch ale. The barrel-aging adds some color—while likely eliminating other subtle shades—without dominating. While delicious, this barrel-aged Scotch ale covers up some of the more subtle qualities of the original non-barrel-aged version.

Uinta - Anniversary Barleywine: This beer first made its appearance in 1998,

and it was one of Utah first production beers that well-exceeded the state’s 3.2 draft limit. This is a limited run of the original recipe American Style Barleywine, much more aggressively hopped than its English cousins, with a dark amber color that is unfiltered with medium foam.

It smells of dank hops and deep alcohol, with noticeable overtones of licorice, toffee, cocoa, candied fruits, strawberry and alcohol. This one already promises to be a world-class brew just from the nose.

The taste is bold and arrogant. Alcohol dominates at first, which is to be expected with 10.5 percent alcohol content. Most barleywines bring the alcohol heat at the end, but by that point you’ve lost interest, because of your senses being accosted by too many flavors. This barleywine, however, has a strong malt base founded on orange peel zest, nutmeg, eucalyptus juice, tangerine, bourbon barrel oak, smoked cedar and caramel. The hops are citrusy, earthy and redolent of bitter melon. It has a noted smokiness that mixes very well with the aforementioned flavors. The carbonation is medium, which was to be expected since the head vanished so quickly. This is a medium-bodied yet thick and chewy barleywine. The hops leave a noticeable resinous coating on the tongue like other IPAs, but this one is accompanied by oak barrel smokiness and a fruity zest.

Verdict: This beer is quite delicious and, thankfully, not syrupy. It is well mixed, integrated and approachable, not neglecting the well-timed release of its attributes It is confident and soothing. If you do not respect this elixir of joy, then it will chew you up and spit you out. And drink with your eyes open, or you’ll miss the best that this has to offer.

You can find the Barrel-Aged Wee Heavy at both Strap Tank locations in Utah County, including Bewilder’s brewery in SLC. Anniversary Barleywine appears under Uinta’s Pro-Line Series of beers (in cans for the first time); it will likely be popping up around town, but your best bet is, of course, at the brewery. As always, cheers! CW

MIKE RIEDEL

MIKE RIEDEL

BY ALEX SPRINGER | @captainspringer

The Local Opens

An eagerly-awaited entry in Salt Lake’s food hall pantheon, The Local Market & Bar (310 E. 400 South, 801-413-1360, thelocalsaltlakecity.com) has officially opened its doors to the public. The gorgeous space right near the walkable Library Square area includes seven local restaurants and a full-service bar. On the spectrum of available eats, you’ve got burgers at Pop’s Burgers, Mexican at Green Chile House, wood-fired pizza at Luna Pizza, Greek fare at Lamb & Feta, Carolina barbecue at Hog & Tradition, breakfast faves at Crave and cereal-based desserts at The Cereal Killerz Kitchen. Once you’ve got your meal in hand, you can check out Good Bar for your cocktails and craft beer. It’s got everything a local foodie’s heart desires.

Italian Romance Date Night

Going on a date to a restaurant is great and all, but cooking a meal together is guaranteed to get you laid. To that end, the folks at the Salt Lake Culinary Education (2233 S. 300 East, 801-797-2921, sliceutah.com) have a few romantic, Italian-themed date nights planned for March 10 and 11 at 6 p.m. The event walks couples through the process of cooking a five-course meal featuring bangers like a white bean truffle oil puree, seared scallops with orange beurre blanc and a citrus olive oil cake. The class has all the ingredients on-hand, so all you need to do is bring a date and try not to do anything stupid to mess up your chances of nookie later on.

Craft Chocolate 101 at Caputo’s

Chocolate tasting and appreciation is arguably just as sexy as cooking a meal together, so checking out Caputo’s (314 W. Broadway, 801-531-8669, caputos.com) Craft Chocolate 101 class isn’t a bad way to get some action either. At the very least, you’ll leave this class with a greater appreciation of chocolate’s delicacy and nuance; there is no going back to Hershey’s kisses after you spend some time with Caputo’s chocolate experts. The class takes place on March 9 at 7:30 p.m., and all of the tasty study materials are included with the price of admission. If you’re looking for an in-depth look at food and wine, Caputo’s classes are not to be missed.

Quote of the Week: “It’s in the nature of Italians to live life with a positive tone. Italian food is so conducive to all of that.” –Lidia

Bastianich

What’s Next for Leetham

SLC pop artist talks new music, videos and more

BY EMILEE ATKINSON eatkinson@cityweekly.net @emileelovesvinyl

When we last caught up with Leetham, they were gearing up to release their self-titled debut album, and shared the inspiration for what became one of their most popular tracks, “Patience.” Since that time, Leetham has shared their music at exciting shows, but is ready to embark on some new journeys as the year progresses.

“Things have been going pretty great. I released an album, and a music video to accompany the album, and then I did my own headliner show,” Leetham said. “We almost sold out Kilby Court. “After the album came out, I think it got 15,000 streams in the first 24 hours,which was kind of mind-blowing, because I didn’t think people would listen.”

The journey to get Leetham out to the public was a long one. Starting during the pandemic, the album took a lot of time and money to put together, but Leetham had a lot of help from producers, engineers and friends during the process. “I think I wrote a good 30 songs, and I was like, ‘I need to weed out the bad ones,’ the ones that wouldn’t stick. So, out of 30 songs I picked seven to release.” Which is good news for listeners, knowing Leetham has some additional material on the backburner waiting to be released.

Leetham the album is a lively journey that reflects their equally quirky and enjoyable personality. It’s a perfect album to

throw on for a house party full of friends, especially because it starts out with a track called “Mai Tais,” which goes on to set the tone for the album. It’s all about having a good time and living life to the fullest, boasting a steady beat with Leetham’s lovely voice in the forefront, and an epic chorus fit for singing as loud as you can with your pals. Each track tells its own story, but ultimately they all fit together as a whole. All of the time, money and energy required for the creation of this body of work was well-spent.

Having a self-titled project was important for Leetham, because it’s a good way to make an introduction. “I’ve been active in the scene since I was in high school, but under this project I’ve been doing it only for a year, and kind of flying under the radar, not getting any press, not really playing shows,” they said. “It’s nothing superinspiring. It’s just kind of like, ‘Hey, this is me. I’m Leetham. This is my music.’”

It was also important to create this new project because Leetham quit music for a time. Mental health struggles get the best of many of us, and Leetham is no exception. “I needed serious help,” they said. The pop singer had undiagnosed conditions that made life difficult in many ways. “I didn’t even know that I had any of these things, and I had hurt my band mates in my previous band, broke a lot of connections, burned a lot of bridges and it ended up costing me quite a bit. A lot of friendships.”

Now that things are looking up, and the introduction has been made, Leetham is able to look to the future and explore other avenues. “I’ve been signed to a talent agency to be represented as an actor,” they shared. “I auditioned for my first movie in December, and I’ve been taking classes to kind of hone my abilities as an actor.”

In addition to branching out into acting, Leetham is starting to focus more on video as well. They wanted to do more projects that are showy and fun, so they recruited their film student kid brother to help out

with video production. For these, Leetham is recording their versions of current trending songs. To kick off the series they started with a remix of “As It Was” by Harry Styles. The remix is more electronic, and Leetham’s vocals lend themselves well to the popular song. The video is equal parts fun, camp and cute. Leetham’s personality shines through, and the video effects are lively, making you want to watch on a loop.

While the pop singer is involved in some fun and exciting new things, there’s still new music coming as well, hopefully in March or April. “The plan is to put out a single every month or two. I just want to stay fresh and just explore new ideas,” they said. “On a lot of my new stuff, I’ve

actually taken an emo route with some of my music. So, it’s a complete 180. It’s really different. It still kind of has that pop feel, but one that I have been working on is more of a slow punk emo ballad with trap beats.”

Keep up with Leetham’s exciting music videos on their Instagram @lukeleetham, and TikTok under the same handle. As we wait for more music from Leetham, keep in mind that their work is meant for you to have fun while listening to it. “Don’t think about it too much,” they said. “My music isn’t revolutionary. It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I think it’s good music, but it’s meant for you to have a good time with and say, ‘Okay, let’s dance, let’s reminisce on fun times that we’ve had in life.’” CW

THURSDAYS

FRIDAYS DJ FRESH(NESS)

SATURDAYS POKER @ 2PM DJ DELMAGGIO

SHARK SUNDAYS POOL TOURNEY HOSTED BY JARED AND TANNER

MONDAYS REGGAE MONDAY WITH DJ NAPO

TUESDAYS

WEDNESDAYS KARAOKE

By Emilee Atkinson

Punk Isn’t Dead @ Boardwalk Sound 3/10

Punk is not dead; it has never been dead, and will never die, especially in Utah. If you need a dose of the legendary and storied genre, you won’t want to miss this show, as some great local acts lead the charge on what’s sure to be an exciting evening. As described by the band themselves, Slick Daddies are a “reggae dub rock group with punk on top.” At one moment the guys are giving you a steady, smooth reggae beat, before cranking the distortion and speeding up punk style. The band has a great chemistry, and each performance from them is a fun time. Joining in are SLC favorites The Band Gooch, lending their lively punk rock style to this epic show. They write typical rock songs, but have also started dabbling in reggae with their latest single, “Unwind”—a departure from what the band normally produces, but very well done. Rounding out the show is newcomer group Victory Lungs. They posted for the first time on their Instagram back in November that they’re “just a couple pals playing some punk,” and they’ve continued to post about what seem to be productive practice sessions, including some clips of songs that sound like they’re ready to head bang to. Victory Lungs have been hard at work putting together a special setlist for this special show, so you’ll have to go out and see what the hype is all about. Punk will reign on Friday, March 10 at 6 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $5 and can be found at theboardwalksound.com. (Emilee Atkinson)

LINDSEY BYRNES

King Tuff @ Urban Lounge 3/10-Mark

Incredible music just flows out of King Tuff. So much of what Kyle Thomas does is superb and it’s all worth listening to. The fifth full-length solo release for Kyle Thomas as King Tuff—Smalltown Stardust, released earlier this year—is a bold step in his prolific discography. This album is a big headphones type of album that you play loud. King Tuff really impresses with this dark, seedy world that manifests through previous efforts. However, Thomas’ first new King Tuff LP in five years (written and produced with Sasami Ashworth) is a sublime personal album. “If you were to ask me what my religion is, I would say three things: music, art and nature. Those are the things I’ve dedicated my life to and which bring me the purest of joy,” Thomas told UPROXX

The departure from the buzzsaw-like heavy rocking riffs to an evolution of smoother melodic harmonies is just enough of a left turn for him at this point in his career, and every song on the new record has at least one great surprise in it. Smalltown Stardust is a view into one’s simpler youthful mind state, but the songwriting—which seems to be a lost art in the “indie rock scene” nowadays—is immaculate. It’s a showcase for his nostalgic, punky energy and masterful musicianship. Tchotchke and local luminaries Cool Banana open. Catch this show on Friday, Mar 10 at 7 p.m. General admission tickets for the 21 and over show are $20. Booth Reservations are $100 and can be found at 24tix.com (Mark Dago)

Resource Engineer (RE41) needed by Raser Technologies Operating Company, LLC (dba Cyrq Energy) in Salt Lake City, UT to monitor geothermal production behavior and wellbore scale tendencies and forecast well workover using geothermal power plant/injection well data. Travel required 1-2x/month to production sites within the US. Mail resumes to Human Resources, 15 W South Temple St., Ste. 1900, Salt Lake City, UT 84101. Reference code in response.

SATURDAY, MAR. 11

HARDWOOD HEART

WEDNESDAY, MAR. 15 MATT CALDER THURSDAY, MAR. 16 REGGAE THURSDAY

WEDNESDAY, MAR. 8 CHIP JENKINS

FRIDAY, MAR. 10 SLOW POTION

THURSDAY, MAR. 9 VOODOO CACTUS

WYNDHAM GARNETT

Show Me the Body @ Soundwell 3/11-Sophie

Show Me the Body frightened and enthralled once again with their October (of course!) 2022 release of Trouble The Water. Now, likely hailing from rattling coffins, morgues and graveyards galore, they plan to make an early spring pit stop in our very own still-freezing SLC as part of the album’s tour. Hell itself hardly knows how to describe the multifarious triad that is Show Me the Body—for starters, what other hardcore band can you name that features a banjo-strumming front man? Trouble The Water represents a classic case of Dr. Frankenstein’s fearful task: a conglomerate made whole by the sum of its stitched-together, diverse yet symbiotic parts. Vocals on the album flip-flop from the classic raw-throated punk bellows to neo-hip-hop enunciation to poetry-slam-superstar to straightup guttural growling. Instrumentation spans the likes of ’80s hair-guitar riffs, synthesizer, quick banjo licks, crashing symbols, spurting electronic notations and slow reverb bass. The overwhelming feeling one is left with after finishing the album is “WTF?”—in an exhilarating way that only a nice, classic grime album can provide. Toss those noisecanceling headphones to the side and turn off your car radio; this is the kind of music that was made not for studio production or spinning vinyl, but to lose your absolute mind to live amongst a crowd of the sweat-drenched undead. Fans of Black Flag, Death Grips and Gulth, please gather: Let’s see what Show Me the Body has in store to show us on Saturday, Mar 11. Doors for the all-ages show open at 6:30 p.m., tickets range from $25-29 and can be found at soundwellslc.com. (Sophie

Caligiuri)

Meet Me @ The Altar, Young Culture, Daisy Grenade @ Kilby Court 3/14

Pop punk is alive and well with young trio Meet Me @ The Altar. The group was signed to the legendary Fueled By Ramen record label in 2020, and have just released their debut album Past // Present // Future. In addition to the new album, this is their first headlining tour, and their performances are highly anticipated, as many publications have dubbed the trio ones to watch. A big goal for these ladies is to create a space for women and people of color in alternative music. “It’s really important for us to be able to make people feel comfortable in a space that they normally wouldn’t have, and to be able to actually see the diversity in the crowd,” guitarist/bassist Téa Campbell told NME in January. “When we went to [rock] shows [as teenagers], we never experienced that. So for us to be bringing these people together is so cool. It just drives us to keep going.” Listening to this trio is an exciting experience for kids growing up in the early aughts who loved emo/alternative bands like Paramore, Avril Lavigne and Tonight Alive. Meet Me @ The Altar are breathing new life into the genre and are off to a very promising start. Supporting the trio are rockers

By Emilee Atkinson

Young Culture and Daisy Grenade. Both groups have similar alternative influences and will be complementary to the headlining act. Catch this exciting show on Tuesday, March 14 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $19 before, and $22 at the door. Tickets can be found at kilbycourt.com. (EA)

Eluveitie @ The Depot 3/15

It’s always fun when bands take opportunities to blend different genres to create their own signature sound. For Eluveitie, they’ve taken it to a whole new level. This Swiss group is known for blending elements of folk and metal—two genres you may not think to pair initially, but listening to how this band does it is a treat. The group was founded two decades ago, and like many bands in the game that long, they’ve gone through many lineup changes. Having a consistently large lineup also lends itself to members coming and going. Currently there are nine members making up the folk-metal group, and they seem to be making a great stride. Pressing play on one of Eluveitie’s songs, you’re greeted with fast heavy metal instrumentation intertwined with traditional folk instruments like the hurdy gurdy, bagpipes, violins, harps and sitars to name a few.

Amidst the hard metal there’s screaming vocals intermixed with softer, ethereal vocals from some of the women in the group. It creates an interesting atmosphere, something that would appeal to people who used to be goth kids in school, or for someone who is looking for something unique to try out.

Eluveitie is out on an extensive North American tour with several cities selling out. The unique nature of their music, on top of their boisterous showmanship, draws crowds as they play around the world. Don’t miss your chance to see them on Wednesday, March 15 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $30, and can be found at livenation.com. (EA)

free will ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Repressed feelings and dormant passions are rising to the surface. I bet they will soon be rattling your brain and illuminating your heart, unleashing a soothing turbulence of uncanny glee. Will you get crazy and wise enough to coax the Great Mystery into blessing you with an inspirational revelation or two? I believe you will. I hope you will! The more skillful you are at generating rowdy breakthroughs, the less likely you are to experience a breakdown. Be as unruly as you need to be to liberate the very best healings.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

You finally have all you need to finish an incomplete mission or resolve a mess of unsettled karma. The courage and determination you couldn’t quite summon before are now fully available as you invoke a climax that will prepare the way for your awe-inspiring rebirth. Gaze into the future, dear Taurus, and scan for radiant beacons that will be your guides in the coming months. You have more help than you know, and now is the time to identify it and move toward it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

Our sun is an average star in a galaxy of 100 billion stars. In comparison to some of its compatriots, it’s mediocre. Over 860 light years away is a blue-white supergiant called Rigel, which is twice as hot as our sun and 40,000 times brighter. The red supergiant Antares, over 600 light years away, has 12 times more mass. Yet if those show-offs had human attitudes, they might be jealous of our star, which is the source of energy for a planet teeming with 8.7 million forms of life. I propose we make the sun your role model for now, Gemini. It’s an excellent time to glory in your unique strengths and to exuberantly avoid comparing yourself to anyone else.

CANCER

(June

21-July 22)

The philosophical principle known as Occam’s razor asserts that when trying to understand a problem, we should favor the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions. While that’s often a useful approach, I don’t recommend it in the coming weeks. For you, nuances and subtleties will abound in every situation. Mere simplicity is unlikely to lead to a valid understanding. You will be wise to relish the complications and thrive on the paradoxes. Try to see at least three sides of every story. Further tips: 1. Mysteries may be truer than mere facts. 2. If you’re willing to honor your confusion, the full, rich story will eventually emerge.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

“There are no unsacred places,” wrote Leo poet Wendell Berry. “There are only sacred places and desecrated places.” Poet Allen Ginsberg agreed. “Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!” he wrote. “Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeteria! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the sea, holy the desert, holy the railroad.” With Berry’s and Ginsberg’s prompts as your inspiration, and in accordance with current astrological imperatives, I invite you to invigorate your relationship with sacredness. If nothing is sacred for you, do what it takes to find and commune with sacred things, places, animals, humans and phenomena. If you are already a lover of sacred wonders, give them extra love and care. To expand your thinking and tenderize your mood, give your adoration to these related themes: consecration, sublimity, veneration, devotion, reverence, awe and splendor.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

My favorite Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote the following: “In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by and disappears.” I bring this meditation to your attention, Virgo, because I hope you will do it daily during the next two weeks. Now is an excellent time to cultivate an intense awareness of your feelings—to exult in their rich meanings, to value their spiritual power, to feel gratitude for educating and entertaining you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

How might your life come into clearer focus when you uncover secrets that inspire your initiative and ingenuity? What happens when resources that had been inaccessible become available for your enjoyment and use? How will you respond if neglected truths spring into view and point the way toward improvements in your job situation? I suspect you will soon be able to tell me stories about all this good stuff. PS: Don’t waste time feeling doubtful about whether the magic is real. Just welcome it and make it work for you!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

It’s not the best time to tattoo a lover’s likeness on your abdomen. Maybe in May, but not now. On the other hand, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to see if your paramour might be willing to tattoo your name on their thigh. Similarly, this is a favorable period to investigate which of your allies would wake up at 5 am to drive you to the airport, and which of your acquaintances and friends would stop others from spreading malicious gossip about you, and which authorities would reward you if you spoke up with constructive critiques.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. They may grow as high as 350 feet. Their roots are shallow, though, reaching down just six to 12 feet before spreading out 60 to 100 feet horizontally. And yet the trees are sturdy, rarely susceptible to being toppled by high winds and floods. What’s their secret? Their root systems are interwoven with those of other nearby redwoods. Together, they form networks of allies, supporting each other and literally sharing nutrients. I endorse this model for you to emulate in your efforts to create additional stability and security in your life, Sagittarius.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

What’s the best way to be fulfilled? Hard work and discipline? Are we most likely to flourish if we indulge only moderately in life’s sweet pleasures and mostly focus on the difficult tasks that build our skills and clout? Or is it more accurate to say that 90% of success is just showing up: being patient and persistent as we carry out the small dayto-day sacrifices and devotions that incrementally make us indispensable? Mythologist Joseph Campbell described a third variation to consider: to “follow our bliss.” We find out what activities give us the greatest joy and install those activities at the center of our lives. As a Capricorn, you are already naturally skilled at the first two approaches. In the coming months, I encourage you to increase your proficiency at the third.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Mackerels are unusual fish in that they must keep swimming nonstop. If they don’t, they die. Do they ever sleep? Scientists haven’t found any evidence that they do. I bring them up now because many of you Aquarians have resemblances to mackerels—and I think it’s especially crucial that you not act like them in the coming weeks. I promise you that nothing bad will happen if you slow way down and indulge in prolonged periods of relaxing stillness. Just the opposite, in fact: Your mental and physical health will thrive as you give your internal batteries time and space to recharge.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

A financial adviser once told me I could adopt one of three approaches to running my business: 1. Ignore change; 2. always struggle with change, half-immobilized by mixed feelings about whether to change or stay put; 3. learn to love and thrive on change. The adviser said that if I chose either of the first two options, I would always be forced to change by circumstances beyond my control. The third approach is ultimately the only one that works. Now is an excellent time for you Pisceans to commit yourself fully to No. 3—for both your business and your life.

ACROSS

1. Desert crossed by the ancient Silk Road

5. Killer of the Night King on “Game of Thrones”

9. Hidden drawback

14. Height: Prefix

15. G

16. Actor Davis who says “Always do the right thing” in “Do the Right Thing”

17. Ask for Friskies, maybe

18. Sondheim’s “Sweeney ____”

19. Hurdles for aspiring D.A.s

20. Tropical cocktail

23. End of a co. name

24. Chill

25. Unconfident utterances

26. “This being the case ...”

28. Plush fabric

33. Org. with ties to Sinn Fein

35. Batteries for some flashlights

36. “My pleasure!”

42. Peace activist Yoko

43. Jogging wear

44. Almond confection

48. Sounding sheepish?

52. “Force Behind the Forces” grp.

53. Belarus, once: Abbr.

54. Sky safety org.

55. Driving condition in a blizzard (or what this puzzle’s circles offer)

60. Snake venom, e.g.

61. Liu who plays the superhero Shang-Chi

62. One-named Somali-American model 63. Put up 64. “Like ____ not ...” 65. Opposite of bueno 66. Cheesy chip 67. Like some numbers?

68. Watchful person

DOWN

1. Smallest country in mainland Africa

2. Hurricanes form over them

3. Some rodeo rides

4. “Field of Dreams” state

5. Stuck on

6. ____ Island

7. “Anger, fear, aggression: the dark side of the Force are they” speaker

8. Car with a four-ring logo

9. Op-ed offering

10. Town with the Basilica of St. Francis

11. Ivan the Terrible, for one

It’s Melting!

Isn’t everyone along the Wasatch Front exclaiming, “Enough snow!”? Well, everyone except for very happy skiers, I guess.

What I’m grinding my teeth about is not the weather, but what is surely coming this spring—floods! In May of 1983, Salt Lake County declared a water emergency after a crazy wet winter both the year before and in ’83. The county had to divert rising waters from Red Butte, Emigration and Parley’s creeks as temperatures warmed up all at once and snow melted even faster.

12. New York’s ____ Field

13. “For ____ a jolly ...”

21. Hardly mainstream

22. Hernando’s “Huh?”

27. Rocky Mountains tribe

28. Dentist’s insertion

29. Abhor

30. Calif. NHL team, on scoreboards

31. On the ____ (fleeing)

32. Direction opposite WNW

34. “____ jungle out there”

36. Chance at an award, for short

37. Words with tear or dare

38. Neither’s partner

39. Dynasty that was the driving force behind the AustroHungarian Empire

40. “Space Invaders” maker

41. Org. tracking metadata

45. Largest city in Switzerland

46. Doesn’t get fooled by

47. First-person or thirdperson, briefly

49. “Please allow me ...”

50. Christmas in Rome

51. “I Will Survive” singer

53. ____ Says (kids game)

55. First name in the Harlem Renaissance

56. Wall St. figure

57. Egyptian fertility goddess

58. In ____ (as found)

59. Pad Thai garnish

60. Midmorning hour

Last week’s answers

Unfortunately, city officials kinda overlooked City Creek in Memory Grove Park below the State Capitol Building and … well … the “State Street River” was born. City officials reached out to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints to call on its members to help fill sandbags along State Street during the 90-degree Memorial Day weekend. Those not sandbagging became kayakers and sidewalk fishermen (yes, they caught trout on the watery street) or helped build makeshift pedestrian bridges to get over the floodwaters.

Folks ask me if we’re going to see main roads under water in our big cities and my answer is simple: yes. There will be stormwater/snowmelt, and hopefully the remediations that cities put in place back in the ’80s will hold this spring and early summer.

Flood prevention has seen cities and towns add bigger culverts and storage ponds—many of which look like pocket parks that are lower than street level. These bioretention areas (aka “rain gardens” in desert climes) help slow the flow so hopefully it will infiltrate to the ground. Smaller versions are found in parking islands and street medians.

1 to

SUDOKU X

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

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.

We want snowmelt to get to the Great Salt Lake and other reservoirs in the state. We all can help in our everyday activities to make a huge difference in getting the water to where it needs to go and to help with water quality. Homeowners and businesses can collect trash around their properties weekly, making sure that cigarette butts and trash, and fall’s leftover leaves and grass clippings don’t end up in the gutters but rather in dumpsters and appropriate trash receptacles.

It’s illegal to wash your sidewalks into the gutters, because oils, industrial wastes, human and animal feces, detergents, fertilizer and pesticides will contaminate the runoff. Sadly, I’ve seen many businesses that regularly power wash sidewalks into gutters when the temperatures are warmer.

If you see or suspect anyone or any business illegally dumping or spilling into the storm drains, gutters or the sewer system, call the stormwater hotlines/departments in Salt Lake City— 801-483-6729; South Salt Lake—801412-3245; Utah County—801-851-7873; Ogden—801-622-2900; and St. George—435-627-4142.

It is so important that we try to maintain the quality and flow of stormwater and snowmelt for the health of our waterways, reservoirs and lakes. n

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

NEWS of the WEIRD

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

Can’t Possibly Be True

A newly released report from the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch has determined that an inflight incident on June 29, 2022, could have turned out “very different,” CNN reported. On that day, a flying instructor slumped over on a pilot’s shoulder as they flew a small plane above Lancashire, England. The pilot, who had asked the instructor to accompany him because of wind conditions that day, thought his cohort was “just pretending to take a nap” as a joke, but after landing the plane, he realized the instructor had died. The report noted that the instructor likely “suffered a cardiac arrest as the aircraft took off.”

Unclear

on the Concept

Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, 65, appeared before Australia’s Health Care Complaints Commission in February to defend himself against charges relating to a brain tumor surgery he performed on a woman, ABC News reported. “I took out too much. I took out the wrong bit of the frontal lobe,” Teo said. “I actually didn’t know at the time. I’m learning from this case. It wasn’t negligence. Maybe some ignorance on my behalf.” The woman was left in a vegetative state and died several weeks later. Teo said one of the complainants against him had been “hoodwinked” and “coerced” into filing the charge by Teo’s “enemies.” “I did the wrong thing. Was that my intention? Absolutely not,” he said.

Least Competent Criminal

Quanisha Manago, 28, of Kershaw, South Carolina, got a special delivery on Feb. 13, but it wasn’t from Amazon. WHNS-TV reported that Lancaster County Sheriff’s officers were tipped off about a package coming Manago’s way with valuable contents: two large bricks of cocaine, weighing over 6 pounds. Working with other agencies, an undercover agent delivered the box to Manago’s home, then watched as she stored it in her car and started to drive away. That’s when she was arrested. Sheriff Barry Faile said the cocaine had a street value of more than $180,000. “Thanks to all who participated, it will never hit the street,” he said, adding the package was shipped from outside the United States.

Government in Action

On Jan. 19 in Austin, Texas, Chris Newby was sleeping when “the whole house shook,” he said. “It sounds like a plane hit the house.” Instead, according to KXAN-TV, it was a car—an impaired driver barreled through Newby’s spare bedroom wall. “The entire room was just crunched,” he said. Ten days later, Newby received a letter from the city informing him that he was in violation of two codes: “One for having a hole in my house and one for having no window,” Newby said. The letter was dated the day of the crash and stipulated that he had 30 days to get repairs completed or face fines of up to $4,000 per day. “It felt tone-deaf to me,” he said. “I’m in violation for being a victim.” But Matthew Noriega, a division manager at the code department, said Newby

has time: “If an extension is needed, we will give them that extension,” he clarified. Still, Newby said Austin “feels a little less like home every day.” Sad emoji.

■ In Florida, the state Senate Democratic leader and canine fun-ruiner Lauren Book filed a piece of legislation that would make it illegal to let a dog “extend its head or any other body part outside” a moving car window, WTSP-TV reported on Feb. 21. The bill has other pet-related provisions relating to animal safety, including prohibiting pets riding in the open beds of pickups and drivers holding a dog in their lap. If passed, the bill will become law on July 1.

Weird Science

Just looking for a few minutes of peace and quiet? You might be tempted to step inside the anechoic chamber at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Oddity Central reported. However, even if you were allowed to try it, you might find it unbearable—it is the world’s quietest place, at -20.3 decibels. (Calm breathing clocks in at 10 decibels.) “As soon as one enters the room, one immediately feels a strange and unique sensation which is hard to describe,” said Hundraj Gopal, a speech and hearing scientist who helped design the chamber. “When you turn your head, you can hear that motion. The longest continuous time anyone has spent inside the chamber is 55 minutes,” Gopal said. Microsoft uses the room to test microphones, receivers, headphones and speakers.

Awesome!

When friends presented tattoo artist Karen Green with a brand-new iPhone in 2007, she never even opened the box, CNN reported. She had recently upgraded her unsmart phone and didn’t want to switch carriers, “and I figured it’s an iPhone, so it’ll never go out of date,” Green said. On Feb. 19, Green’s still-shrink-wrapped first-edition iPhone sold for more than $63,000 through an online auction with Louisiana-based LCG Auctions. Featuring a 2-megapixel camera and “sharp corners front and back,” the phone sold originally for $599. Green will use the funds to support her tattoo business.

(Not a) Fetish

Don’t call Aakash Majumdar’s attraction to balloons a fetish. The 28-year-old resident of Mumbai, India, identifies as “objectum sexual,” meaning he’s attracted to inanimate objects—but not just sexually. News.com.au reported on Feb. 16 that Majumdar wakes up every morning and “makes out” with his balloons, which he sleeps beside. “I like their presence and warmth, and share intimate feelings with my balloons and vice versa,” he said. “When you’re in love, you spend a lot of time together and accept all kinds of flaws.” Of course, being balloons, they’re vulnerable: “One day while inflating a few balloons with a pump, a balloon got popped,” he said. “I cried for the loss and after that, I became more careful.”

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