City Weekly July 27, 2023

By Thomas Crone

By Thomas Crone

Cover

by Andre Ricardo Paes

“Accomodate This,” July 13 Soap Box

Letter-writer Thomas Knapp is a libertarian with an intolerance for people who believe in God. Instead of writing about this, he attacks a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (Groff v. DeJoy, Postmaster General) without any knowledge or understanding of it.

Knapp claims that a requirement for employers to accommodate an employee’s religion is unconstitutional, violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This argument had validity when Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was

first written. In 1972, in response to a court challenge in 1970, Congress amended Title VII to require an employer to “reasonably accommodate … an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice” unless the employer is “unable” to do so “without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.”

This amendment survived Establishment Clause scrutiny in 1972 and is well established. In Groff, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously clarified the meaning of “undue hardship” in vacating the lower court’s judgment and remanding it.

It is hardly an entitlement to ask for reasonable accommodations. Knapp, though, feels entitled to attack an innocent person’s beliefs and laws that respect them—laws that also protect Knapp’s right to spew claptrap.

KEN UY Murray

“Capital Offense,” July 14 Online News

More poorly constructed, high density housing for the “non affordables” is how

I interpret this erudite word salad. How about cleaning up our public parks and disastrous downtown first? And not tear down historic buildings when there is no funding for replacement!?

MANGIABENE801

Via Instagram

You can stack people to the sky but if there’s nothing for them to do, they won’t stay. And if you stack them to the sky, they will ruin our environment.

Who’s winning? Native Salt Lakers already can’t afford to live here.

SPACEANDFADERSSLC

Via Instagram

Gentrification, gentrification, blah blah blah gentrification.

JENNIFERKSLC

Via Instagram

I wonder how affordable it will be for the average-Joe citizen to live here and partake of the entertainment venues in the city?

PATRICIA GOURDIN

Via Facebook

Cold Insurrections

How about this recent Russian insurrection? We applaud Putin’s demise with affection. The neo-Nazi Wagner Group’s military coup, Failed, but dictatorship’s ultimate rendezvous?

How about our January Sixth insurrection? For we believe in democracy with affection. The MAGA extremist groups failed in their coup, With Freedom still our precious rendezvous. Two insurrections which are similar but different, In totalitarianism it is with ferment. In democracy it was the vote to prevent, Both with para-military force malcontent.

Perhaps a lesson in humanity for you and me, Democracy, if we can keep it, our destiny?

GEORGE KIBILDIS Sparta, New Jersey

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

How are you keeping cool in this summer heat?

Eric Granato

Getting as much outside manual labor done early in the morning before it gets too hot. I carry a cooler with ice packs and extra water.

Scott Renshaw

I basically go from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned store/movie theater/whatever. It’s the people whose lives don’t allow them that luxury that are going to deal with the worst of it, as tends to happen.

Katharine Biele

Pulling the shades and keeping the house dark. We’re lucky that the evenings—so far—are cool. Swimming helps.

Larry Carter

Never going out during the day. When I’m home, kicking back under the central air and enjoying a Loko with the fam.

Wes Long

Mountain air flow, AC, and not an insignificant amount of popsicles.

Benjamin Wood

Our window ACs units are far outmatched so we’ve resorted to putting up blinds and blocking out as much sunlight from our home as possible.

Bryan Bale

Cool showers, cold drinks and an evaporative cooler.

PRIVATE EYE

Fun Times Ahead

Today, I left our downtown office and drove east on my way to lunch at The Other Place Restaurant on 200 South. I did the same two weeks ago, an action that caused me to write my July 13 column about the stretch of 200 South extending from 900 East to 400 West, aka the “Burma Road.”

That column—basically a WTF screed wrought of fartoo-much confusion felt by anyone walking, biking or driving along the orange-cone zone—bemoaned the fact that 200 South has become a nightmare for nearly anyone entering downtown. Business owners along 200 South have made repeated claims that the construction project has negatively impacted their businesses and that the city has failed to listen to their complaints or to better inform people about what is going on, what the project even is or to meet expected construction deadlines.

The only folks happy that 200 South is getting so much attention are those who were equally discombobulated during two construction projects that seemed to last forever along both 300 West and 900 South. After their own streets recently returned to normal—and indeed with much needed aesthetic and safety improvements for pedestrians and bikers (with little effect on auto commuters)—they’re tickled to see a different city street get the negative attention. One hopes that the requisite business returns to 300 West and 900 South now that those streets are once again smooth. It’s always a trial for local business when construction projects impact operations. Street business is always the most impacted—mom & pops, the local retailer, restaurant or bar. But it’s equally a trial for anyone using those lanes as they enter or exit a city. For some, their new traffic patterns may never return to where they were, thus not only

BY JOHN SALTAS @johnsaltas

impacting the local businesses again, but also adding new pressures to other passageways through town.

It’s not well-known, but at no point in Salt Lake City history has it experienced this level of construction, not just downtown but also heavily into Sugar House and along any number of lesser projects on other streets in less publicized neighborhoods. Add in the extreme level of new construction for both office and living space, and you have the recipe for lots of big messes that occurred because little messes weren’t so artfully dealt with.

An example is back to 200 South and its intersection with State Street. Today I noticed that at the same location, construction crews are replacing pipes below 200 South while separate construction crews are building what will become the city’s tallest building. At street level, they compete for space to conduct work with their heavy equipment. Given just that single ill-coordinated John Deere standoff, it’s no wonder construction timelines and city promises go out the window.

When work slows, people start watching their pocketbooks, and businesses start watching their calendars. When the cold turns to heat, and summer turns to fall, most everyone is sick of it all and point fingers in every direction. Currently, most fingers point at the city, especially from a vocal group of local business owners who claim that Salt Lake City has not done well by them on either the communications nor the sympathy-meter front.

Our office is on 200 South, so it’s not like we haven’t been witness to it all—and as in the July 13 column, we equally remember the decades of hell spat upon Main Street during beautifications and Trax construction. Still, the impact on us only rises to the level of someone who must use our back door instead of our front or in situations like mine when I have a hankering for a Greek salad up the street, and I travel the gauntlet. But City Weekly isn’t a retailer, and we don’t sell sandwiches, but it will never be lost on us that local

businesses come first and that the bustle of Main Street on most nights these days takes place on the skeletons of Main Street businesses that were forced off of Main.

I don’t want to see that happen again on 200 South to places likes Johnny’s SLC, the Beer Bar, Bar X, Taqueria 27, La Cevicheria, Laziz Kitchen Downtown, Gallenson’s Gun Shop, Nacho Daddy, Carson Kitchen, Siegfried’s Delicatessen, Toasters—the whole lot of them and many more that can’t understand why it’s so goddamned hard and takes so long to lay a pipeline. That pipeline, chosen to route down 200 South as the best city alternative, plus replacing extremely old surface streets, are two reasons why construction began in the first place. Stapled onto the project are much needed bike- and mass-transit lanes.

Those transit lanes and some sundry water infrastructure builds are nearly the extent of the city side of the project. The rest of it—the major delays, the dirt and dust, the cones, the flashing barricades, the pipes laying all over— belongs to Dominion Energy. It’s their project. They are just as slow to build on 200 South as was Rocky Mountain Power along the 900 South project.

Both of those are behemoth outfits, utility monopolies with little motivation to move a molehill, much less a mountain. There’s no one else to call. So, it’s hardly surprising that it’s likely to get worse on 200 South and downtown generally.

The pipes being laid east to west must somehow traverse State Street which is under the authority of UDOT, not the city. Road closures there will be determined by a new boss. Same for Main Street—can you believe the organizations charged with laying those pipes did not plan sufficiently for the hole-boring that must be done beneath the TRAX lines to connect the pipeline? Well, they didn’t. Fun times ahead, folks. CW

Send comments to john@cityweekly.net

HITS & MISSES

BY KATHARINE BIELE | @kathybiele

MISS: Interstate Paperwork

The Axios headline read: “Utah AG opposes proposed HIPAA protections for out-of-state abortions.” Of course he does. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes is nothing if not predictable, as right-wing tools are. “Are we OK with the state reaching out to other states to grab our private medical records? Is everyone OK with this? Why am I not seeing more about this?” asks columnist and legal writer Michelle Quist. While the repercussions would be broad, the rationale is all about abortion. Reyes joined 18 other states objecting to a federal rule to expand HIPPA. That would mean that Reyes and other Supreme Court-enabled abortion vigilantes would be unable to get health information on women they want to prosecute for getting out-of-state abortions, even if those abortions are legal. One Twitter commenter had it right: “… Everybody that is crying ‘But HIPPA!’ seems to have memory-holed that Roe [Roe v. Wade] was a case about privacy rights. Hello, consequences.”

MISS: Happy Thoughts

It smacks of Melania Trump’s sweetyet-ineffective “Be Best” campaign— we in Utah just call it “Disagree Better.” This is Gov. Spencer Cox’s way of dealing with the inevitable political divisions in our polarized country, and it’s his focus as chair of the National Governors Association. Less bickering, less hostility—that’s what he wants, but you don’t have to be nice, he told the Washington Post. We wonder how that works in Utah, where Cox stood gleaming with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who claims Utah could be “like Florida.” Ostensibly, that means lying about history, banning books and restricting everything transgender. The Twitter sphere responds: “Supermajority of utleg, plus about all the statewide folks are not only happy with this, but extremely dismissive of anyone who disagrees with them. #disagreebetter means ‘shut up and smile.’” It might as well be Be Nice.

HIT: Down the Drain

It says something about Utah that the news media monitors “beverages” like we’re about to perform public executions. Fox 13’s Ben Winslow is often on the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services beat, recently noting that 120 businesses “passed” the covert kids drinking operation. Because of the Legislature, new bar licenses can only go to businesses “ready to open.” “The problem for bars is they spend a lot of money to build a business and hire staff with no guarantee of a license,” Winslow says. As he goes through the numbers, he reminds us that the Legislature set an arbitrary quota of 1 bar license per 10,200 people. “It’s made up,” he says. Meanwhile, the DABS is trying to process a state audit critical of its accounting. Good accounting is important because the agency reported more than $577 million in sales last year. The executive director insists there’s no missing money, but the problem is in integrating two technology systems. That’s one of the problems. The other is the Legislature’s continued dabbling in an area of which it has no real understanding.

Walkabout

The City Weekly offices are on 200 South and, like much of SLC, we’ve been mired in construction for what feels like a lifetime. Businesses are hurting, commuters are frustrated and residents … well, that’s trickier.

Speed is the killer on streets. I’m sure there are bizarre anecdotes out there, but it’s safe to say that very few people are killed by parked cars. Moving cars, however, claim an average of two lives per month in Salt Lake, not counting freeway collisions.

Road work tends to slow cars to a human scale (highway construction zones are a different matter entirely and incredibly dangerous), meaning pedestrians and cyclists interact with traffic at less of a disadvantage. What drivers experience as a reduction in flow is also a leveling of the playing field for vulnerable street users. That’s not to say that construction is inherently good for walking—ADA compliance, goes down the toilet when heavy machinery shows up. But street work is also not the economic death knell it is often made out to be.

During construction, my wife and I have used 200 South to bike to concerts at Gallivan Center. I take 200 to work every day—it reaches the west side— and it’s where I enjoy my lunch breaks, at some of the best establishments in the city. I used one such lunch break last week to do a walking audit. From our offices, I went east on 200 South, south on Main, northeast through Gallivan Plaza, north on Regent Street, west on 100 South and, finally, south on West Temple. I considered each block individually in terms of its pedestrian safety, accessibility and comfort.

Main Street, Gallivan and Regent Street were near-perfect, benefiting from previous improvements and renewed programming (the skating rink is pickleball now). But 200 South was highly competitive—construction and all—due to its wide, shaded sidewalks, second-to-none transit services and attractive patio spaces. West Temple and 100 South were the worst of the bunch. Imposing, high-speed lanes roared with traffic and the wide open asphalt and minimal tree cover baked under the heat dome sun.

I’m as excited as the next guy for the work on 200 South to end. SLC will finally have a true bus-priority lane— a game-changer for high-frequency connections in the Free Fare Zone—delivering scores of car-free customers to businesses’ doors. While underhyped, 200 South is the most significant improvement to transit infrastructure since the creation of Trax and when it’s finished, it will only make an alreadygreat street all the better. CW

A driver turns west onto 200 South before two crossing pedestrians have cleared the intersection.

A&E Big Shiny Robot

Get Your Literary Geek On

A summer reading list of fantasy, horror and science-fiction

BY BRYAN YOUNG comments@cityweekly.net @swankmotron

In the summer, there’s nothing better than slathering on some sunscreen, finding a nice shady spot for a hammock and curling up with a good book to read—as long as the sun isn’t trying to directly kill you, and global warming hasn’t pushed the temperature from unbearable to EZ-Bake oven, as we’ve seen off and on for the last few weeks. So, if you’re looking for some light reading in the genre section of the library, I’ve got some suggestions for you to curl up with.

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland Books): This horror noir swept up a Bram Stoker Award and a Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, which is already saying something about its quality and readability. It’s a book that belongs to that summer reading heat, because even if you’re not in the sun, the book will make you squirm and sweat. It tells the story of a father who loses his daughter to cancer, and ends up taking increasingly dangerous and morally-dubious jobs to pay the bills and find a way to piece his relationship back together. It reads like very early Stephen King, and with Iglesias’s injection of diverse flavor, it’s perfect for you.

Iglesias is appearing in Salt Lake City next month as well, the Guest of Honor at the League of Utah Writers Quills Conference (Full disclosure: I am the current president of that organization.) Come see him speak and get a book signed. More info at leagueofutahwriters.com.

Star Wars: Inquisitor - Rise of the Red Blade by Delilah S. Dawson (Random House Worlds): If you have even half an interest in Star Wars, the new stand-alone installment from Delilah S. Dawson is going to be for you. It doesn’t require much knowledge of Star Wars beyond having watched the movies and maybe dabbled in the Disney+ series offerings. It tells the story of a Jedi who becomes disillusioned with the order, and after the great Jedi purge is offered a choice. Ultimately, Iskat Akaris chooses to pick up a red-bladed lightsaber and join the Inquisitorius, the Empire’s Force-sensitive enforcers who hunt down errant Jedi across the galaxy. It’s a fascinating look at the psychology of a person who would go from being a Jedi to hunting them down, and worth your time to read.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (Orbit Books): If fantasy books are more your jam, there is nothing more fun out there than Kings of Wyld. Imagine a fantasy setting based on metal-band culture, where bands of heroes go out adventuring with the same sort of renown as your favorite musical act. With that punk-rock attitude and a writing style that draws you in, Kings of the Wyld is some of the most fun I’ve ever had reading a book. It tells the tale of a mercenary who’s way past his prime, from an adventuring band that was once the best of the best. When an ex-bandmate shows up at his door with a desperate request for help, there’s really only one option: Get the band back together. There’s a sequel to this book already out as well, focusing on the next generation of bands called Bloody Rose, and both are mustreads in my view.

Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack (Versify/ HarperCollins) A local pick for this list, Sofiya Pasternack—an author who hails from Utah, and is also appearing at the Quills Conference—has mastered

the art of historical fantasy. Though it’s shelved as a middle-grade novel, it’s perfect for anyone of any age. It tells the story of two siblings, one of them plagued with leprosy. They’ve spent so much time seeking a cure, but one of the twins has a vision that the Angel of Death is coming for them on Rosh Hashannah, and they run away to find a cure. It’s a tearjerking book of magic and mourning, and reads like a breeze— until you suddenly have something in your eye. Grab it for yourself or for a kid, it’s perfect fodder for the summer.

Whatever it is you decide to read— whether it’s a classic like Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano or Ursula K. LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea, or something far more recent like the books I suggested above—be sure to tell people about it if you like it. There’s nothing more infectious than the unironic love of a story, and that’s something the world needs more of. Talk less about the stuff you don’t like, and enthusiastically overshare about the stuff you do. Wise words of advice, if I do say so myself. CW

A Greater Utah/Statewide Annual ’23 @ Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

The “Utah” in “Utah Museum of Contemporary Art” isn’t just an indication of where it’s located; it’s an indication of the extent to which the institution celebrates the work of Utah artists. What those artists are like, and what they present in their work, continues to evolve, and two new exhibitions at UMOCA bring that evolution to center stage.

A Greater Utah finds six curators offering an overview of the current Utah art scene, representing 27 living artists from every corner of the state. The title itself indicates a broadening of the sense of what “Utah art” is, moving beyond the population centers to cover the farther reaches of the state. Participating artists include Kelly Tapìa-Chuning (“sepultado, este coyote ya no ladra” is pictured), Art Morrill, Fazilat Soukhakian, Levi Jackson, Mitsu Salmon, Wren Ross, Xi Zhang, RJ Colorow, Chelsea Kaiah, Valentina Sireech, Makia Sharp, Brooklyn Johnson, Rachel Stallings-Thomander and Collin Bradford.

Also on display at UMOCA is the Utah Division of Art and Museums Statewide Annual, this year with the focus on mixed media and works on paper. That “works on paper” designation includes artist books, drawings, screenprints and collages, while “mixed media” includes found-object work, audio, lights and more. It’s yet another opportunity to appreciate the breadth of creativity captured under the umbrella of “Utah art.”

These two exhibitions—along with the solo shows Alexis Rausch: Nobody likes it here, Ben Sang: Gut Set and Steven Stalling: Left Time—will have an opening reception Friday, July 28 from 6 p.m. – 10 p.m., featuring performance by Rocio Cisneros-Vasquez and DJ music by AMEA. Tickets are free but registration is required; visit utahmoca.org for additional information. (Scott Renshaw)

Complete listings online at cityweekly.net

Great Salt Lake Fringe

The very nature of a “fringe festival” makes it a place that’s really about experimentation and discovery. With a history that goes back nearly 70 years to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it is a concept that has blossomed around the country and around the world, allowing performing artists to take chances on formats and subject matter that might be a much harder sell in conventional theatrical environments. Our own version—the Great Salt Lake Fringe—returns in 2023, with festival director Jay Perry noting, “Fringe is an unadjudicated, unrestricted and accessible way for artists to share their work, while supporting each other and making new connections.”

For the 2023 Great Salt Lake Fringe, 20 shows will be offered, running the gamut from dance to stand-up comedy, from experimental drama to classical Greek theater. Options include the oneperson musical monologue drag-queen show Roxie Hart Syndrome (pictured); The Advantageous Adventures of Mrs. Meddlesome, a comedic spin on Agatha Christiestyle amateur sleuths; Meaningless, a one-person interpretation of the Book of Ecclesiastes; David Isn’t Getting Into Heaven, the tale of a millennial’s unsettling post-death encounter with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates; Eurpides’ The Bacchae, presented by Classical Greek Theatre Festival; and Bedtime Stories, Interdisciplinary Arts Collective’s avant-garde exploration of myths and archetypes.

The Great Salt Lake Fringe takes place July 28 – Aug. 6 at the Alliance Theater in Trolley Square (602 E. 500 South). Tickets are $15 for individual performances, with packages of $35 for three shows, and $85 for 10 shows. Visit greatsaltlakefringe.org for tickets and additional event information (SR)

Springville World Folkfest

In 1986, BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble founder Mary Bee Jensen brought together a group of like-minded folks with a dream of creating a showcase for folk performers from around the world. More than 35 years later, that dream is still going strong, in a way that has inspired and enlightened thousands of visitors.

The 2023 Springville World Folkfest is scheduled to showcase seven international groups featuring nearly 250 dancers from 10 countries, including visitors from Bolivia, Mexico, Latvia, Serbia and the Czech Republic. All groups will be performing on the three main nights of the event in varying orders. Beyond the performances themselves, visitors are invited to meet the dancers at a new photo-op station, learn more about the participating cultures through booths and activities for all ages, and food truck options from around the world for a global culinary experience.

The event launches Tuesday, Aug. 1 with a Parade of Nations “Community Extravaganza” at University Place Mall in Orem (575 E. University Parkway) at 6 p.m., free to the public. Wednesday Aug. 2 brings the Opening Night “Storytelling from Around the World” hosted by Springville Library at the Springville Arts Park (700 S. 1300 East, Springville). The main festival takes place Aug. 3 – 5, with each night including special events like Indian rangoli art and African drumming. Tickets running $5-$14 for individual day passes, plus availability of group/family passes for $45 and individual full festival passes for $45. Visit worldfolkfest.org for tickets and additional event information. (Scott Renshaw)

COURTESY PHOTO

The ABCs of the UFC in Salt Lake City.

BY THOMAS CRONE comments@cityweekly.net

In the much-loved teen comedy Say Anything , John Cusack’s lead character of Lloyd Dobler is probably bestremembered for the iconic image captured in a million memes: Dobler standing in his ex-girlfriend’s driveway, boombox extended to the sky, Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” emanating.

But among Dobler’s other, lasting offerings to the world of pop culture is his prediction that his chosen career path—professional kickboxing—was going to be “the sport of the future.” Director and screenwriter Cameron Crowe allllllmost got that right.

Kickboxing is one of the primary components of mixed martial arts, or MMA, a blended-discipline combat sport that’s exploded in popularity over the time since Dobler’s words were first spoken in 1989. And there’s no bigger promotion in the world than the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is coming to the Delta Center on Saturday, July 29, for a fight card that stood at 12 bouts as of press time.

Typically a fight—or two—may be added, dropped or switched during fight week due to injuries and missed weight cuts. But 12 fights is the baseline, and SLC is getting just that many.

What’s interesting and notable about this is the fact that Salt Lake City has gained the UFC’s attention in a big way in recent years. UFC 278 was held at the Delta Center in August 2022, featuring a welterweight title fight between challenger (and knockout winner) Leon Edwards and longtime champ Kamaru Usman.

Like the upcoming card, it featured 12 bouts that moved between ESPN properties for the preliminary contests, then moved to a pay-per-view format for the five fights at the top of the card. As these things go, UFC 278 was a pretty big deal, with a title defense and several longtime, name fighters in non-title bouts.

At this point, cities often wait years for the UFC to come to town, and many will never see the promotion arrive, as a large percentage of the fights take place in the league’s headquarter city of Las Vegas. That leaves a relatively small number of fights to spread out over the U.S., as the UFC also throws cards in cities, countries and continents around the world.

Salt Lake having two fight cards in less than a year shows that promoters anticipate an avid SLC fan base for July 29. In fact, at this point, the UFC doesn’t have to do much beyond announce a fight card for the tickets to sell. This writer’s many attempts to reach the UFC for comment on the Delta Center card were for naught. Alas!

But undeterred, City Weekly offers the following UFC explainer whether the promotion is on board or not, trading official comment for short bursts of pithy backgrounding and commentary. We’ll let the alphabet be our guide:

Afor Altitude: If you’re reading this, you’re probably well aware that Utah’s elevation is a real thing and athletes that regularly compete or train at altitude may have a bit of an advantage over flatlanders. There’s a healthy MMA scene in places like Colorado, precisely because of that edge in oxygen intake. Fighters for UFC 291 are almost certainly already here in town, acclimating to the elevation, while they cut pounds to make their divisional weight limits.

Bis for Bellator (and One Championship, and …): The UFC isn’t the only promotion that’s got a worldwide reach, though it may seem that way to even a casual fan of MMA, as the UFC chews up the lion’s share of MMA media attention. Other promotions exist, though, much to the UFC’s chagrin. Though it has the most star power, there are plenty of talented performers toiling in promotions such as: Bellator, birthed in 2008 and with direct ownership ties to Paramount; and the Singapore-based One Championship, which is well-represented with free content on YouTube. It features a number of fighters from Asia and the Pacific Rim, with worldwide broadcast partners. Fans of the various leagues have long wanted fighters from across the leagues to have a chance to face off, but super-fights haven’t materialized to any great degree, at least yet. And with the UFC’s insatiable desire to control the market, that’s unlikely to happen soon. Other secondary promotions do have various degrees of tie-in with the UFC (see: Fight Pass, below).

Cis for Championship Titles: Not every major fight card contains a championship fight, and UFC 291 suffers from a lack of titles on the line. The flip side is that the card’s headlined by two, hugely popular lightweight rivals in Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, with former light heavyweight champs Jan Blachowicz and Alex Pereira in the co-headline slot. Legit scraps dot the rest of the card.

Dis for Delta Center: The UFC hosts a number of its Saturday night fights at a venue and production studio in Las Vegas called The Apex. With dozens of fights each year, that micro-venue allows for the promotion to keep ESPN fed with near-weekly cards, while having an in-house studio. That city’s T-Mobile Arena also gobbles up some live events. So when the UFC

goes on the road, it only does so at major venues, those with a 10,000- to 20,000-seat capacity, and the Delta (nee: Vivint) has clearly shown itself a capable host, with airline flights from Vegas a relative hop/skip away.

Eis for ESPN: America’s leading sports broadcaster is the flagship for the UFC’s American TV audience, with most preliminary fights (and many full cards) appearing on ESPN live, either on cable or through espn.com. Its legacy network affiliate, ABC, frequently carries prime-time fights as well, with pay-perview options saved for one or two fight cards per month, in which fans pay a premium to watch the fights live. (They can also head to local bars, which pay a good chunk of change for live broadcast rights.)

Fis for Fight Pass: Never one to miss out on an opportunity to extend the value-add of fights that already exist, the UFC offers up Fight Pass, containing a massive catalog of the UFC’s archival bouts and reality-based shows as well as current, live fights from a variety of worldwide, smaller promotions. The online video platform is relatively cheap, around $10 a month for a subscription and can cause even a casual fight fan to travel down deep rabbit holes of historic fights from the UFC’s past and from the promotions that it snatched up along the way, like the mergers and deactivations of Pride FC and Strikeforce.

Gis for Grappling: If you want to create a fun drinking game and are watching the fights on ESPN, take a shot every time commentator Daniel Cormier mentions “grappling.” Prepare to be a bit tipsy by Fight 3 and solidly blackout drunk by the end of the prelims.

His for Holland, Kevin: Possibly the most brash and entertaining fighter on the card, Kevin Holland’s matched up against Michael Chiesa in a welterweight bout on this card could be the Fight of the Night or a true dud. He’s probably got a half-dozen, high-profile fights left on his physical clock, so here’s hoping that a focused and fit Holland is the one who appears at 291. (Caveat: Bobby Green could make a compelling case for the same description and outcomes.)

Iis for “ Iiiiiiit’s time”: Bruce Buffer, the “veteran voice of the Octagon,” is known for a set bit of patter before each bout and his “iiiiiiiiit’s time” chant just prior to the headlining bout is a big part of his shtick. The crowd eats it up, the fighters seem jazzed and everyone appears happy about it. Unpopular opinion: Here’s a vote for Joe Martinez, the UFC’s alternative ring announcer, as the more listenable of the two.

Jis for Just One: As in, “there’s just one women’s fight at UFC 291.” Oh sure, there was that time period when Dana White predicted that women’s MMA wouldn’t work. But then the promotion subsumed Strikeforce and its roster of women’s fighters and, soon enough, Ronda Rousey became one of the faces of the sport. Usually, at least a couple of women’s fights appear on any random UFC card, but this time out there’s but a single women’s bout, the opener between Miranda Maverick and Priscila Cachoeira.

Kis for Knockouts: While the knockout is always a crowd-pleaser, MMA is built on a foundation that also includes a healthy number of submission fighters, the kind of athletes that can end a fight with a heel hook, an arm bar or a rear naked choke.

On this bill, the primary winner of fistic firefights is heavyweight Derrick Lewis, whose boom-or-bust style typically ends with a KO win (or loss). A knockout is the likely outcome of his upcoming SLC fight with Brazilian slugger Marcos Rogerio de Lima. It doesn’t mean this will be the most-exciting fight of the night, but it does have the greatest chance for extreme violence and a first-round finish.

Lis for Losses: You can lose a fair number of fights in the UFC and still be much-loved as a fighter. It’s not just the W or the L, but the quality of competition you fight. Example—Kevin Holland has had an up/down record, with nine defeats against 24 wins. But the style he fights and his ability to mix it up with anyone on the roster keep him employed as a popular choice. Bobby Green? He’s 29-14-1, but remains a must-watch fighter. Fighters that hover around the .500 mark are generally cut from the promotion before dipping into that statistical territory, but a few fighters serve as valuable, tested gatekeepers and even a few losses won’t keep them from future bouts.

Light heavyweight champs Jan Blachowicz, left, and Alex Pereira are UFC 291 co-headliners at the Delta Center.

Lightweight rivals Dustin Poirier, left, and Justin Gaethje are the scheduled main card bout on July 29 at the Delta Center.

Iiiiiiit’s time!

Mis for McGee, Court: Arguably the fighter with the deepest ties binding him to Utah, Court “The Crusher” McGee has been fighting on the professional circuit since 2007, with his splash on the national scene coming through his win of The Ultimate Fighter in 2010. That UFC reality show kickstarted his career on a high-profile stage, though personal demons would eventually take him out of the sport for a time; he beat a heroin addiction in 2015, rekindling a run to topflight UFC competition. His last few fights, though, have been a challenge and, at age 38, McGee’s dropped seven of his last 10 bouts in the promotion. If not for a brutal May 2023 knockout at the hands of another ageless veteran, Matt Brown, McGee would likely have been one of the star attractions of UFC 291. The 38-year-old’s record stands at an accomplished 21-12 as of press time, with contests against many of the sport’s best competitors. Multiple attempts to reach McGree to discuss his time in the sport (and his recovery advocacy efforts) went unanswered. That said, we wish him luck going forward; he’s been a valiant competitor.

Nis for Nationalism: You could argue that people from a country’s diaspora enjoying themselves in celebration of their home nation is a positive thing, and there’s no argument here that there’s a place in life for national pride. But … the UFC is canny about placing fighters in situations where they’ll draw an enthusiastic, even heated fan base. (Fights in Europe, for example, are skewed with European talent, Australian fights with Aussies and Pacific Islanders, etc.) It appears that the promotion’s playing it a bit differently with UFC 291, not relying on nationalistic tricks, with most fighters coming from the U.S., Brazil and Russia, with a smattering of other nations represented. Do random skirmishes in the crowd ever occur? You won’t see that on the broadcasts, but a quick scan of YouTubes indicates that, yes, folks can (and do) take their fight fandom to the next level.

Ois for OnlyFans: At this point, the risque OnlyFans website is lightly populated with active fighters, who’re among the many athletes that appear as content creators on the platform. But that number is growing. And while female fighters are more-represented, male fighters (from the UFC and other promotions) are also getting in on the crowd-funded plat-

form. Also found there are ring girls, several of whom have been with the promotion for a time and have large fan bases of their own, developed by their one-minute walks around the Octagon.

Pis for PPV: Pay-per-view is a system in which fans buy the last five fights on a fight card, usually through cable suppliers or ESPN+, with costs around $80. Fans also head out to bars and restaurants, which buy the night’s fight rights, too. Those that show bootlegged feeds are subject to strict fines, and the UFC’s broadcast enforcement division is well-known for its seriousness in tracking down scofflaws.

Qis for Quickness: The UFC (and MMA generally) is a sport in which weight classes are the rule. For men, the lightest weight class is the 126-pound flyweight division. The women’s strawweight division caps out at 116 pounds. Almost needless to say, the lighter the weight class, the more intense the fighting, at least in terms of sheer quickness. For UFC 291, the fight card is somewhat-tilted toward fights at mid-to-heavier weight classes.

Ris for Rogan, Joe: The extremely popular standup comedian, podcaster and all-around scarecrow of the zeitgeist, Joe Rogan is an announcer for the UFC and has been for quite some time. These days, he doesn’t appear as a color analyst in every UFC fight; that time has long passed. With his ever-growing portfolio of businesses, Rogan’s apt to appear on the mostpopular PPV cards, usually appearing alongside former two-weight-class champion Daniel Cormier and primary commentator/ad pitchman Jon Anik. It’s impossible to say how much of UFC’s growth might mirror Rogan’s spike in popularity, though the argument can easily be flipped, with the sport’s continued rise adding to Rogan’s decades-long rise in pop-culture momentum.

Sis for Sponsorships: These days, UFC fighters aren’t allowed to sell advertising on their trunks, instead only being allowed colorful fight gear from the current equipment supplier, Venum. Back in the day, combatants were able to sell space along the lines of NASCAR drivers, with multiple patches competing for the

small amount of material on their minimal gear. The mostinventive fighters even sold space on their (literal) backs, with temporary tattoos, frequently advertising casinos and other gaming interests. While the promotion may argue that the current look is more classy, it does mean that fighters, with limited athletic shelf lives, have to find other ways to augment their incomes. (See above, re: OnlyFans.)

Tis for Trump, Donald: America’s 45th president has been an avid supporter of the UFC, largely due to his ties to the UFC’s boss, Dana White. That said, massive, arena-size audiences of 10,000 to 20,000 also speak to Trump’s wants and needs, and he’s been seen ringside, alongside White, at multiple cards over the years, including in his home state of Florida for UFC 287 earlier this year. High-profile fighters in the promotion, like Sean Strickland, Jorge Masvidal, Colby Covington, Derrick Lewis and 291’s headliner Gaethje have been linked as advocates during Trump’s multiple runs for president. And while it’s an anecdotal guess, at best, it’s quite likely that large swaths of UFC crowds would tend to line up politically with the former president.

Ufor the UFC public relations staff: Folks, I tried. Check deep in your DMs and, I guess, feel free to get back to us before the UFC’s next trip to Utah?

Vis for Vivint: As noted, the Delta Center, then Vivint Arena, played host to a fab card in 2022, with Leon Edwards’ victory over Kamaru Usman considered among the top fights of the year. The rest of the card had some real highlights, too. The UFC has not cheated SLC with off-brand pairings of late, that’s for sure.

Wis for White, Dana: The face of the UFC for years, White is a polarizing figure. He’s clearly guided the promotion—and thus the sport—into the major leagues of U.S. sporting entertainment, the UFC (in which he has a stake) drawing a $4 billion sale price in 2016. His ability to mix and match pop culture influences has worked, with the UFC drawing on reality show elements for several different shows over the years, often featuring White at the center of the action. He’s had personal dust-ups that haven’t impacted his business,

but White’s appearance at the 2016 Republican National Convention—where he gave full-throated support to Donald Trump’s candidacy—ruffled some feathers. Within the world of the UFC, though, this wasn’t necessarily the kind of thing to bring on a wide-spread “cancellation” of White or the promotion; Trump has appeared cageside since, with White still a supporter. Perhaps the larger complaint should be his handling of fighter salaries, which has led to some high-profile departures from the promotion, though it still maintains a hold as the juggernaut of the sport. It’s fair to say that you can enjoy the sport on a level or two, or 10, but still see the promotion’s boss as a thorny figure, one who fans will find either winningly outspoken and brash or abrasive and abusive, with not a lot of opinions falling between. Inarguable is his run of success with the promotion.

Yis for Yellow: Brazilian fighters, of which there are a whopping seven on this card, tend to wear yellow gear. Champs wear black-and-gold, colors “befitting a champion” as Anik intones. Polish fighters are usually clad in red. And it’s often green for Mexican nationals.

Zis for Zero: This is the amount of f—ks given by the UFC about our opinion on any of this. The fight card’s going to sell out, is going to have millions of viewers worldwide, is going to energize the bars and clubs near the host venue on Saturday night. It’s gonna be a time, you know? If you’re not tuned into the whole UFC phenomena, that’s cool,

Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship

Stand-up comedian, podcaster and UFC announcer Joe Rogan

Bruce Buffer, the “veteran voice of the Octagon.”

Welterweight/ middleweight fighter Kevin Holland

Miranda Maverick, left, and Priscila Cachoeira will fight in the women’s flyweight bout

Hot Taco Summer

Midvale’s Del Barrio Cafe will give you something to taco-bout with your friends.

BY ALEX SPRINGER comments@cityweekly.net @captainspringer

Our local temperatures have finally broken that 100-degree ceiling, so it’s officially time to call it a hot taco summer. Yes, I understand that eating hot tacos in the hot summer may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s just not the case. Tacos are the sustenance of summer: They’re always there for you when you need them, they have the chemical components required to keep your ass moving through the shimmering heat outside and when you set a taco on a table, it kind of looks like a sunset. Or sunrise, if you’re one of those deranged “morning people.”

My own personal hot taco summer recently led me to Del Barrio Cafe, and this place is special. It’s been a Midvale destination since 2021, yet it only recently popped up on my radar. It occupies the same drag of State Street where you can find Bumblebee’s, Moochie’s and B&D Burgers, which puts it in great company for fans of local flavor with a bit of an edge. I remember this space as home to the now-closed Midvale Thai legend Mekong Cafe, so the cozy confines and tight rear parking lot brought back a few massaman memories—but I am delighted with what Del Barrio has done with the place.

The open counter space that offers a

peek into the kitchen hasn’t changed, and they’ve updated the walls with some stylized paintings of La Catrina-inspired ladies. The place is small, but not uncomfortable, and the service is quick and friendly. Their menu consists of the Mexican fare one would expect by the decor and the name, but this is one of those rare taco joints that tries to slap you around a bit with their taco offerings. Some highquality stuff is going on here, but the prices remain reasonable.

I began my odyssey to Del Barrio with a plate of veggie nachos ($10.99) in the vain hope that the veggies would provide some balance for the large amount of tacos I was about to order. The veggie nachos include roast zucchini and sauteed mushrooms tossed with cheese, refried beans and some sliced jalapeño peppers, which are delightful. I don’t think I’ve experienced mushrooms on top of nachos before, but that’s an absolute must-add for me going forward. These nachos are a big, beautiful heap that comes with liberal slatherings of guacamole, sour cream and pico de gallo, all of which are arranged to form the Mexican flag right on top of your dish. Whether you go with the veggie nachos, or opt for the breakfast-y Nachos Del Sol ($10.99) that include two eggs and bacon paired with Del Barrio’s signature almond chorizo, an appetizer of nachos is a showstopper here.

I ordered four tacos a la carte: birria ($4.50), al pastor ($3.99), chicken tinga ($3.99), and the Baja fish tacos ($4.99). Don’t feel obligated to commit to a la carte once you’ve found the taco that suits you, as Del Barrio’s tacos also come in trios. However, if it’s your first visit, you may want to mix and match.

Of the four that I ordered, it was tough to pick a favorite. As fish tacos are a summer staple for me, I tried this one first. It comes with an excellent array of gar-

nishes; pickled onions, a nice spicy slaw, some crema and a lime wedge all show up to the party, and it’s a fun challenge to get as much of this stuff as possible onto the taco proper. Then, you take a bite that zaps you to a beachside cantina like an exceptional fish taco should. It’s a lovely fried mahi-mahi that goes a little heavier on the breading which I really enjoyed. The al pastor was overflowing with grilled pork and pineapple; the birria and chicken tinga were piping hot, and filled with melty cheese and meaty jus. They all come packing green and red salsa, onions and other signature accouterment from the street taco realm.

Del Barrio’s list of vegetarian tacos are also excellent—the mushroom tacos ($3.49) are the best bet, as you can’t beat the filling of cremini mushrooms sauteed with some butter, coriander and white wine. They also have zucchini ($3.49) and poblano pepper ($3.49) tacos that can definitely hang with their meatier cousins. All of their tacos are available in burrito, enchilada and tostada versions, as well—perfect for those who want to take their taco relationship to the next level.

I have had a long time to envision my version of a perfect taco, and so far in my exploits, Del Barrio has come closest to replicating that version. They’re the kind of tacos that burn your fingers and leave your hands, wrists and forearms glistening with overflowing meat juices. They’re the kind of tacos that demonstrate simple delivery of nuanced flavors, capturing the beautiful legacy of Mexican cooking. There is something unrepentant, unchained and unflinching in these tacos, and they’ve secured my undying affection. CW

2 Row Brewing 6856 S. 300 West, Midvale

Avenues

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

On Tap: Nitro Look Up!

Level Crossing Brewing Co., POST 550 So. 300 West #100, SLC LevelCrossingBrewing.com

On Tap: Kolsch

Moab Brewing 686 S. Main, Moab TheMoabBrewery.com

RoHa Brewing Project 30 Kensington Ave, SLC RoHaBrewing.com

On Tap: Lone Ranger Mexican Lager

Roosters Brewing

Multiple Locations RoostersBrewingCo.com

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

Strap Tank Brewery, Lehi 3661 Outlet Pkwy, Lehi, UT StrapTankBrewery.com

On Tap: Spirit World Saison - Grid City Collaboration Sour Saison/ Wine Hybrid

Strap Tank Brewery, Springville 596 S 1750 W, Springville, UT

StrapTankBrewery.com

On Tap: Mango Goze

Bohemian Brewery 94 E. Fort Union Blvd, Midvale

Bonneville Brewery 1641 N. Main, Tooele

On Tap: Peaches and Cream Ale

Chappell Brewing

S Main Street Salt Lake City, UT 84115

On Tap: Climax Cream Ale - nitro

On Tap: Golden Sproket Wit Mountain West Cider 425 N. 400 West, SLC MountainWestCider.com

On Tap: Tropical Crush–POG–Passionfruit, Orange & Guava!

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

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

On Tap: Deep Dive Series: Juicy Pale Ale

Salt Flats Brewing 2020 Industrial Circle, SLC SaltFlatsBeer.com

On Tap: Kiss Whoever You WantPride Month IPL

Scion Cider Bar 916 Jefferson St W, SLC

Scionciderbar.com

On Tap: Scion Rosé Ruckus7.7% ABV

Second Summit Cider 4010 So. Main, Millcreek https://secondsummitcider.com

On Tap: Spirit World Saison - Grid City Collaboration Sour Saison/ Wine Hybrid

Stratford Proper 1588 Stratford Ave., SLC stratfordproper.com

On Tap: Yacht Rock Juice BoxJuicy IPA

TF Brewing 936 S. 300 West, SLC

TFBrewing.com

On Tap: Noční Czech Dark Lager (NABA ‘23 Silver Medal Winner)

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

On Tap: King Slayer-Pilsner

Uinta Brewing

Desert Edge Brewery

On Tap: Munich Lager

On Tap: Pie n Beer Day Sour 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: Cask Nitro CO2

Helper Beer

159 N Main Street, Helper, UT helperbeer.com/

Hopkins Brewing Co.

1048 E. 2100 South, SLC HopkinsBrewingCompany.com

On Tap: Guava Sour

Kiitos Brewing

608 W. 700 South, SLC KiitosBrewing.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: Whispers from Krakatoa - Helles Lager with Habanero and Mango

Proper Burger: Sour RangerBlackberry and Lemon Sour

Proper Brewing Moab 1393 US-191 Moab, Utah 84532

On Tap: Angus McCloud- Scottish 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

Red Rock Kimball Junction Redrockbrewing.com

1640 Redstone Center

On Tap: Bamberg Rauch Bier

Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia Ave, South Salt Lake ShadesBrewing.beer

On Tap: Hellion Huckelberry

Sour Ale

Live Music: Thursdays

Shades On State 366 S. State Street SLC Shadesonstate.com

On Tap: Hellion Blond Ale, an ode to Ellie, manager at Shades on State

Karaoke: Wednesdays

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

Squatters Pub Brewery / Salt Lake Brewing Co. 147 W. Broadway, SLC saltlakebrewingco.com/squatters

On Tap: Thorny Pucker Raspberry Sour

Squatters and Wasatch Brewery 1763 So 300 West SLC UT 84115 Utahbeers.com

On Tap: Squatters & Kiitos Collab: Ginger Rye Lime Sour, 5%

1722 S. Fremont Drive, SLC UintaBrewing.com

On Tap: Was Angeles Craft Beer UTOG 2331 Grant Ave, Ogden UTOGBrewing.com

On Tap: Golden Grant 5% ABV. Vernal Brewing 55 S. 500 East, Vernal VernalBrewing.com

Wasatch 2110 S. Highland Drive, SLC saltlakebrewingco.com/wasatch

On Tap: Wasatch Apricot Hefeweizen Zion Brewery 95 Zion Park Blvd, Springdale ZionBrewery.com

Zolupez 205 W. 29th Street #2, Ogden Zolupez.com

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

Going West

Two new ales in the West Coast style

BY MIKE RIEDEL comments@cityweekly.net @utahbeer

The West Coast style of pale ales are traditionally known for their bold hop aroma, high bitterness and citrus/piney notes and flavors. This week’s selections tend to follow this flavor philosophy.

Fisher - Crest Express: With the high-elevation snow finally pulling back, it’s almost time for a crest lap or two. In honor of this legendary biking trail, Fisher Brewing has partnered up with Level Nine Sports to make this special American pale ale that features Amarillo and Zappa hops.

This beer pours a mostly clear, medium copper/amber color, with a nearteeming tower of puffy, loosely foamy and bubbly ecru head, which leaves some broadly rendered sudsy cloud pattern lace around the glass as it gently sinks out of sight. It smells of grainy and doughy caramel malt, muddled tropical fruit notes, some further domestic orange and white grapefruit citrus rind, plus a hard-water flintiness and more leafy, weedy and piney green hop bitters.

The taste is grainy caramel malt, a touch of biscuity toffee, some guava, pineapple and mango exotic fruitiness (which comes at the expense of the citrus notes), more wet stone essences and some understated leafy, soapy and musky floral verdant hoppiness. The carbonation is adequate in its palatesupporting frothiness, the 5.0 percent body a solid middleweight and generally smooth. It finishes off-dry, the malt not yet giving up the ghost, while the lingering hops, er, set up camp.

Verdict: This is a rather engaging and highly enjoyable version of the style, and the varied hops are more flavorful than bitter, as proclaimed. It’s easy to drink,

and yeah, it is inspiring in me the desire to, well, hit the trails!

Bewilder - Chick Flip: This Pink Boots Society Double IPA features the sixth annual blend of hops that feature Loral, Ekuanot and HBC 586 cones. The pour here is super nice, with a straw-yellow, golden-ish colored beer holding up a couple fingers of bone-white head that laces incredibly well. The nose displays some of the most desirable elements of this year’s Pink Boots hop blend. The bright citrus (particularly lime) is definitely amplified here by the supportive citrus element, followed by some catty funk along with notes of grapefruit, lychee and grassiness. There’s even a little essence of white wine, with kind of a tropical/stone fruit/mineral notes.

On the tongue, this has a lot of chewy oat-like malt combined with dank and grassy hoppiness, melding notes of light tropical fruit cocktail with some bright citrus and herbal elements. Pineapplelike intensity combines with lime, tangerine, passion fruit and mango. A bit of chalkiness mid-palate gets a little indefinite here and there, but I really like the complex hop elements up front and in the finish.

Verdict: I wish this were a little bit crisper, but it really does drink pretty nicely for its 9.0 percent ABV, and it brings out the hops in a pretty balanced and representative manner.

Chick Flip has only been for sale in the market for six days as of this writing; beers like these benefit well from their freshness. Sometimes you’ll run across an IPA that features double dry-hopping to accentuate the already big hop flavors. The hop burn can sometimes be present in the freshest batches. The near week-long rest in the can has this one drinking at its optimal freshness, so hit up Bewilder sooner rather than later. Thanks to Fisher’s new bar license, you can now enjoy high-ABV beers at the brewery. Though Crest Express is at 5.0 percent, it gives you the opportunity to get familiar with Fisher’s portfolio all in one stop. Both of these beers come in 16-ounce cans. As always, cheers! CW

MIKE RIEDEL

MIKE RIEDEL

BACK BURNER

BY ALEX SPRINGER | @captainspringer

Bambara’s New Groove

The crew at Bambara is back in business after being closed for renovations—and the place looks great. The new space brings a lighter, more modern feel to the classic restaurant, and it’s been a good excuse for Executive Chef Patrick LeBeau to play around with the menu. Some favorites like the whipped goat cheese tartine and the coffee-crusted elk remain, but the absolute treasure of the menu is their epic bison Wellington, which is large enough to share. The nearby Vault bar space is currently undergoing renovations and should be reopened later this year, but based on Bambara’s new look, we’ve got a lot to be excited about.

Sugar High Fest Tix on Sale

This year’s Sugar High Festival takes place on Sept. 23 at the Mountain America Expo Center, and VIP tickets recently went on sale. Those who have attended this event in the past know how crazy this thing can get, so securing early VIP tickets is a great way to beat the crowd and get the most sweets and goodies from this year’s roster of participants. For those unfamiliar with the Sugar High Festival, it’s a roundup of Utah’s most prominent and talented chocolatiers, bakers and candy makers that provide plenty of eats for ticket holders. It’s always a good time, but those who want a more exclusive experience will want to snag VIP tickets before they sell out.

First Annual Halal Fest

For anyone adhering to a halal diet, dining out can be a tricky endeavor. To help raise awareness and provide some tasty eats to our community, the Utah Muslim Civic League has organized the first annual Halal Fest. This festival will gather a wide range of local halal food trucks, restaurants and shops all in one location. The event will also have a cricket match and plenty of other familyfriendly activities. It promises to be a unique event where food fans of all stripes can get together and enjoy some of our local halal offerings and spend an afternoon with the community. The event takes place on July 29 at Rosewood Park (1400 North 1200 West) from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Quote of the Week: “I’ve never met a problem a proper cupcake couldn’t fix.” –Sarah Ockler

Summertime Chills

Three new July releases with different approaches to offering creepy material.

BY SCOTT RENSHAW scottr@cityweekly.net @scottrenshaw

HAUNTED MANSION BB ½

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl looks more and more like a unicorn with every other attempt to reverse-engineer theme-park ideas into movies. This second stab at a Haunted Mansion feature—following, but not in any way related to, the 2003 Eddie Murphy comedy—follows a grieving New Orleans-based physicist named Ben (LaKeith Stanfield) who helps a single mom (Rosario Dawson) and her 9-year-old son (Chase W. Dillon) deal with the spooks inhabiting their creepy new house. They’re joined in their efforts by a priest (Owen Wilson), a spiritualist (Tiffany Haddish) and a local historian (Danny DeVito), and the cast helps provide some laughs. But while director Justin Simien’s 2000 feature Bad Hair showed his facility for mixing horror with humor, that mix just doesn’t quite work here, especially with Katie Dippold’s script also trying to wrangle genuine human emotion out of the characters’ reaction to loss. And all of that is on top of the obligatory (even if often creative) nods to the Disneyland attraction, including Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), The Hatbox Ghost (Jared Leto), the stretching room, etc. The Haunted Mansion ride itself went through years of re-imagining to find the right balance between spooky and fun, between a full-fledged narrative and a collection of individually appealing elements. This movie shows just how hard it is to catch that lighting in a bottle, or a head in a crystal ball. Available July 28 in theaters. (PG-13)

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL BBB

Sometimes you just have to admit to yourself, “It doesn’t entirely matter that this movie isn’t particularly good, because it’s giving me Nicolas Cage at his quintessentially Nicolas Cage-iest.” This mostly-two-hander thriller casts Joel Kinnaman as David Chamberlain, who is on his way to a Las

Vegas hospital where his wife is giving birth when he’s carjacked by an unnamed man (Cage). And it soon becomes clear that—at least as far as Cage’s character is concerned—his choice of targets was far from random. What follows from a plot standpoint is fairly familiar, including the various ways David tries to get help from his predicament, like instigating a roadside police stop. But the bottom line is that from the moment Cage appears on screen, in a cardinal-red jacket with hair dyed to match, it’s clear that director Yuval Adler was most likely giving him exactly one direction: “You do you, Nic.” Thus we get Cage strutting in a diner to the jukebox playing Alicia Bridges’ “I Love the Nightlife,” or laying into a story about childhood visits from the Mucus Man where even Kinnaman’s reaction takes suggest “what in the actual fuck is happening right now.” The gunfire and head-butting and Molotov cocktails amp up the gritty vibe, but nothing is more engrossing than the turned-to-11 dynamics of Peak Cage. Available July 28 in theaters and via VOD. (NR)

TALK TO ME BB ½

Creating a clear, understandable set of “rules” may not be the most important thing when you’re fashioning a supernatural horror story, but you can certainly feel the loss of impact when those rules aren’t clear. Australian filmmaking brothers Danny and Michael Philippou introduce us to Mia (Sophie Wilde), one of a group of teenage friends who become fascinated with an embalmed hand that appears to have the ability to invite the spirits of dead souls into a host—with, not surprisingly, potentially terrible consequences. The early scenes are perhaps the most effective, emphasizing the flippancy with which these kids treat their occult dabblings, right up until the point where things go dreadfully wrong. It’s also clear that the Philippous want to connect their premise with— say it all together with me now, horror fans— trauma, more specifically Mia’s ongoing grief over the loss of her mother, possibly to suicide. The problem with Talk to Me as the creepy scenes unfold is that, rather than revealing more about the nature of these possessions, the film actually gets murkier about them. What exactly are these spirits trying to accomplish? Are they deliberately deceiving Mia in the messages they deliver to her, and if so, to what end? There are some fun, unsettling scares throughout the running time, but the notion that it’s heading towards some particular payoff from a character standpoint remains much harder to grab on to than that embalmed hand. Available July 28 in theaters. (R) CW

for the Devil

No Cover Charge

In defense of the bands that play the hits

BY SOPHIE CALIGIURI comments@cityweekly.net

The modern cover band stands within society as a textbook case of the classic Shakespearean conundrum. While you’re probably thinking, “Don’t you dare quote Shakespeare!”, cover bands everywhere are ripe with the scent of Romeo’s monologue, a little ditty that goes like this: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” When removed from the constraints of iambic pentameter, Romeo’s mournful under-the-balcony chant brilliantly encapsulates the idea that simple things such as name or category do not define content. Which inspires the question: Then what does?

Enter Rylee McDonald, local musician extraordinaire, who offers his personal philosophy of the cover band: why he’s in them, why they often find themselves in the hot seat, and why, in spite of the scorch, cover bands can transcend the “spectacle” categorization and become spectacular in their own right.

McDonald stands as a mammoth in the Salt Lake City music scene, playing in numerous original and cover bands spanning genres and eras. Mostly acting as lead guitarist and frequently as lead vocalist, (as well as songwriter, mixer and master-er for his original band, Advent Horizon), McDonald’s keeps his hands full (and most likely calloused) given the hours he has spent exploring a slew of different guitar techniques to properly encapsulate anything from 2000’s pop punk, classic R&B, or prog-esque original licks.

Even after touring endlessly—including opening for big names in the rock world such as Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd— Advent Horizon was faced with the real-

ity that many talented, local bands find inescapable: Originality does not necessarily mean financial success. “We tried every way that we could to figure out how to make money from music, but there was really no money to be made,” McDonald says. “And, eventually, we realized if we don’t find some way to make money off of music, the band is going to have to break up. So, we decided: Let’s start a cover band.”

Hence, the birth of Shuffle, founded with the original members of Advent Horizon and a few welcome additions, to become a cover band focused on “all things rock.” Yet, McDonald’s dabbling doesn’t stop at Shuffle. He is also part of aweinspiring, 13-member Pink Floyd cover band The Great Gig, as well as “10-piece party band” Modern Retrospect, who drive home modern pop and classic R&B at corporate parties and weddings.

Despite demonstrating unimaginable range, admirable musicianship and intense dedication to the craft, McDonald recognizes the schism that exists between original and cover music in terms of public perception, which often ousts the cover band from claiming a sense of honor in the realm of originality. “Just like any other art form, there will be a way to capitalize off of [music] and make money, but oftentimes that comes at the cost of your own artistic integrity,” he says. “There’s the thing that you want to do, and then the thing that makes money, and sometimes you’ve gotta do both if you want to succeed.” Yet McDonald also notes that “a lot of musicians tend to frown upon capitalizing off of other people’s music instead of making their own. Which is totally understandable, but in my opinion, maybe a little bit misguided.”

Not only does completely shredding in a cover band provide steady income to musicians who might otherwise not find the dimes that they deserve, it’s also a fun— yes, fun!—way to keep your chops sharp as a musician while engaging and creating an entirely new aura of showmanship. “Playing a show as an original musician, you are an artist playing that music on the stage,” McDonald says. “In a cover band, you are less an artist and more a performer. You’re

MUSIC

not speaking from your soul per se, but that doesn’t mean what you’re doing doesn’t have value. You are an actor, playing a part that you’ve been hired to play, and if you do it well, there is a lot of art in that.”

Encased carefully within that art of performance lies the crux of nostalgic recollection and present, intense memorymaking. “It seems to me that the general public, people who don’t play music all the time but enjoy music, get really excited when they see a band playing songs that they can relate to, and I think that’s the big thing. It’s music that you have memories tied to,” McDonald says. “If we as a band can play those songs and do them faithfully enough and with enough energy that it brings back those memories to those people, we’re not just playing a song to them. We’re literally recreating an ex-

perience from earlier in their lives.”

And it’s not just the audience that can experience something special when a cover band plays. “As you can imagine, as an original artist, it’s very rare for me to go play an hour of my original music and see everybody singing along to every word, right? But it’s the opposite when I’m playing covers.” McDonald says. “When I’m up on stage and I’m playing, say, [Bon Jovi’s] “Living On a Prayer,” everybody knows every word. They’re all screaming it back in my face while I’m singing it, and that is an undeniable energy.

“It’s so much fun to be in that environment and to be singing, even if I didn’t write the song and have no artistic skin in the game. I’m recreating something that they already love, and we are all having fun in the meantime.” CW

Rylee McDonald TRAVIS SKENE

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

MUSIC PICK S

By Emilee Atkinson

ABBAFab: ABBA Tribute @ SoDa Row 7/28

ABBA was never the kind of group that most people considered cool. In fact, they weren’t even the kind of group most would even admit to actually enjoying. They were considered a guilty pleasure, even though their seemingly endless string of hits—“Dancing Queen,”

“Waterloo,” “Fernando,”

“Mama Mia,” “Voulez-Vous” and the like—pretty much dominated the airwaves throughout the ’70s. As a result, many fans were forced to come clean and own up to their admiration. Then again, why not? The music was so damn infectious, making it all but impossible to refrain from singing along. The group recently released a reunion LP, but for the most part, it’s left to tribute acts like ABBAFAB to rekindle the music and memories in concert, making for an entertaining evening of pure unapologetic pop. The costumes and choreography embellish their efforts and ensure both a visual and vocal appeal that can sustain maximum ABBA enjoyment. The group calls itself the premier ABBA tribute act on the scene today, and they’ve taken their show to sell-out crowds across the U.S. and around the world. Considering the fact that Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid are all in their 70s now, it’s fair to say that this particular Fabba foursome will fill out those tight trousers and skimpy skirts with far better flare. Mama Mia, indeed! ABBAFAB performs Friday, July 28 at 8 p.m. at SoDa Row (11274 S. Kestrel Rise Rd, South Jordan). (NOTE: Concerts are for Daybreak residents and their guests only.) For further information, phone 801-866-4677. (Lee Zimmerman)

By Emilee Atkinson

Magic Sword @ Metro Music Hall 7/30

As someone who rarely leaves the house without taking the scores of John Carpenter and tons of Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Moroder and their ilk, I feel like Magic Sword is a retro-’80s rabbit-hole delight. The Boise based synthwave trio consists of The Keeper, The Seer and The Weaver. Magic Sword has had music featured in the video game Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number and the trailer for the Taika Waititi directed Marvel blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok. Now, while they have found success with their multi-layered electronic cinematic soundscapes, they have yet to achieve their final form. “I’d say currently the music is more prominent than the visual,” Magic Sword told At The Barrier in 2020. “Only because our vision has yet to be fully realized. In the years to come you will see a shift in that.” Their latest LP, Badlands, was released earlier this year, and was conceived as a soundtrack album in which The Keeper embarks on a righteous quest to navigate a corrupt world where the sword has been abducted by an evil most foul. Amid the conflict, he seeks to find himself and reclaim what are rightfully his Badlands. I love how personal the work is for these artists; It’s about a feeling and of loving analog tech. Magic Sword is what my youth sounded like. Divorce Court and Mooninite open. Catch these acts at Metro Music Hall Sunday, July 30, doors at 7 p.m. Tickets for the 21+ show are $20 and can be found at 24tix.com (Mark Dago)

Paramore @ Delta Center 7/27

Paramore is still going strong on their massive North American tour, taking them to all corners of the country including our own SLC. They’ll be back at the newlyredubbed Delta Center, bringing their hot setlist and high-energy performance for our viewing pleasure. It’s been a busy year for the band: They released their sixth studio album in February, and have been on the road sharing the new with old favorites almost constantly since then. Many have gotten to see the double whammy of Paramore and Taylor Swift, as they have joined her on many of her big stadium dates. Vocalist Hayley Williams also made a cameo with the Foo Fighters at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee back in June; helping Dave Grohl bust out “My Hero” for the huge crowd was a massive success. The song always brings up a lot of emotion from the crowd, but they went absolutely wild the night Williams jumped on stage as a surprise. Whether you’re a new fan of Paramore, or have been listening to them for years, you’re not going to want to miss this show. The trio play their new and old material with such energy and dynamism that it makes each performance a unique experience. Catch Paramore at the Delta Center on Thursday, July 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show range from $64-150 and can be found at ticketmaster.com. (Emilee

Atkinson)

7/27

Hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids are venturing down from their hometown of Kitamaat Village, British Columbia to share dope music blending trap beats with intricate lyrics. According to their bio on Jazz Winnipeg, their music features lyrics that “challenge Indigenous stereotypes painting their people as ill-mannered savages. Their music is best described as thought-provoking, but slamming, club beats. Audiences dance and sweat to their songs, but leave with new knowledge. Formed by Yung Trybez and Young D in 2016, Snotty Nose Rez Kids was born out of a life-long friendship between the two emcees, who were drawn to music as an outlet for expression.”

One of the duo’s most popular tracks, “Boujee Natives,” details the importance of cultural riches and connections while still being a fun and lighthearted listen. “When we talk about rich kids, we talk about the seafood that comes from their territory,” the duo told Native News Online in 2020. “When we say boujee Native, we’re not talking about glitz and glamor. We’re talking about land defenders, chiefs that we respect, elders… We’re talking about knowledge people.”

SNRK are joined by SLC’s own Stella Standingbear, another talented Native creator who brings a unique blend of alt-rap which “carries an uplifting and empowering message that resonates with listeners,” according to her website. Come enjoy some incredible hip-hop at Kilby Court on Thursday, July 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $20 in advance and $22.50 day-of. Grab tickets at kilbycourt.com. (EA)

Greta Van Fleet @ Delta Center 8/2

When you press play on any of Greta Van Fleet’s songs, you’ll find yourself asking, “Wait, am I listening to Led Zeppelin?” The young rock band have heavily modeled themselves after bands like Zeppelin, a throwback to an age of great rock ‘n roll. Frontman Robert Plant even commented on Greta Van Fleet in 2018 about the likeness, saying, “They are Led Zeppelin I.” Formed in 2012, Greta Van Fleet have been sharing their version of resurrected rock with fans, climbing steadily in popularity, and growing bolder as the years go by. The group have just released their fourth studio album, Starcatcher, and are out on a massive world tour in celebration of the new release. This album is one of the least-preconceived albums they’ve put together, according to an interview with Vogue in July. “So much of it came to life in the studio, and it was very lively in that sense. A lot of the things that were happening and recorded on the final take only happened once,” said vocalist Josh Kiszka.

“I had to embrace this philosophy that the only thing we have to hold onto is letting go, because typically I’m very neurotic and want to have things exact.” If you’re in the mood to experience classic rock vibes with a fresh twist, this is the show for you. Greta Van Fleet play the Delta Center on Wednesday, August 2 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show range from $45-$120, and can be found at ticketmaster.com. (EA)

Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Stella Standingbear @ Kilby Court

Greta Van Fleet

By Emilee Atkinson

free will ASTROLOGY

BY ROB BREZSNY

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

You are about to read a thunderbolt of sublime prophecies. It’s guaranteed to nurture the genius in your soul’s underground cave. Are you ready? 1. Your higher self will prod you to compose a bold prayer in which you ask for stuff you thought you weren’t supposed to ask for. 2. Your higher self will know what to do to enhance your love life by at least 20%, possibly more. 3. Your higher self will give you extra access to creativity and imaginative powers, enabling you to make two practical improvements in your life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

In 1991, John Kilcullen began publishing books with “for Dummies” in the title: for example, Sex for Dummies Time Management for Dummies , Personal Finance for Dummies and my favorite, Stress Management for Dummies . There are now over 300 books in this series. They aren’t truly for stupid people, of course. They’re designed to be robust introductions to interesting and useful subjects. I invite you to emulate Kilcullen’s mindset, Taurus. Be innocent, curious and eager to learn. Adopt a beginner’s mind that’s receptive to being educated and influenced.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

“I could be converted to a religion of grass,” says Indigenous author Louise Erdrich in her book Heart of the Land . “Sink deep roots. Conserve water. Respect and nourish your neighbors. Such are the tenets. As for practice—grow lush in order to be devoured or caressed, stiffen in sweet elegance, invent startling seeds. Connect underground. Provide. Provide. Be lovely and do no harm.” I advocate a similar approach to life for you in the coming weeks. Be earthy, sensual and lush. (PS: Erdrich is a Gemini.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

I hereby appoint myself as your temporary social director. My first action is to let you know that from an astrological perspective, the next nine months will be an excellent time to expand and deepen your network of connections and your web of allies. I invite you to cultivate a vigorous grapevine that keeps you up-to-date about the latest trends affecting your work and play. Refine your gossip skills. Be friendlier than you’ve ever been. Are you the best ally and collaborator you could possibly be? If not, make that one of your assignments.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

There are two kinds of holidays: those created by humans and those arising from the relationship between the sun and earth. In the former category are various independence days: July 4 in the U.S., July 1 in Canada, July 14 in France and June 2 in Italy. Japan observes Foundation Day on Feb. 11. Among the second kind of holiday is Lammas on Aug. 1, a pagan festival that in the Northern Hemisphere marks the halfway point between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. In pre-industrial cultures, Lammas celebrated the grain harvest and featured outpourings of gratitude for the crops that provide essential food. Modern revelers give thanks for not only the grain, but all the nourishing bounties provided by the sun’s and earth’s collaborations. I believe you Leos are smart to make Lammas one of your main holidays. What’s ready to be harvested in your world. What are your prime sources of gratitude?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

For many of us, a disposal company regularly comes to our homes to haul away the garbage we have generated. Wouldn’t it be great if there was also a reliable service that purged our minds and hearts of the psychic gunk that naturally accumulates? Psychotherapists provide this blessing for some of us, and I know people who derive similar benefits from spiritual rituals. Getting drunk or intoxicated may work, too, although those states often generate their own dreck. With these thoughts in mind, Virgo, meditate on how you might cleanse your soul with a steady, ennobling practice. Now is an excellent time to establish or deepen this tradition.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

I’m wondering if there is a beloved person to whom you could say these words by Rumi: “You are the sky my spirit circles in, the love inside love, the resurrection-place.” If you have no such an ally, Libra, the coming months will be a favorable time to attract them into your life. If there is such a companion, I hope you will share Rumi’s lyrics with them, then go further. Say the words Leonard Cohen spoke: “When I’m with you, I want to be the kind of hero I wanted to be when I was 7 years old.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Your theme for the coming weeks is “pleasurable gooseflesh.” I expect and hope you’ll experience it in abundance. You need it and deserve it! Editor Corrie Evanoff describes “pleasurable gooseflesh” as “the primal response we experience when something suddenly violates our expectations in a good way.” It can also be called frisson —a French word meaning “a sudden feeling or sensation of excitement, emotion or thrill.” One way this joy may occur is when we listen to a playlist of songs sequenced in unpredictable ways—say Mozart followed by Johnny Cash, then Edith Piaf, Led Zeppelin, Blondie, Queen, Luciano Pavarotti and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Here’s your homework: Imagine three ways you can stimulate pleasurable gooseflesh and frisson then go out and make them happen.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

“Fire rests by changing,” wrote ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. In accordance with astrological omens, I ask you to meditate on that riddle. Here are some preliminary thoughts: The flames rising from a burning substance are always moving, always active, never the same shape. Yet they comprise the same fire. As long as they keep shifting and dancing, they are alive and vital. If they stop changing, they die out and disappear. The fire needs to keep changing to thrive! Dear Sagittarius, here’s your assignment: Be like the fire; rest by changing.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

There’s ample scientific evidence that smelling cucumbers can diminisha person’s feelings of claustrophobia. For example, some people become anxious when they are crammed inside a narrow metal tube to get an MRI. But numerous imaging facilities have reduced that discomfort with the help of cucumber oil applied to cotton pads and brought into proximity to patients’ noses. I would love it if there were also natural ways to help you break free of any and all claustrophobic situations, Capricorn. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to hone and practice the arts of liberation.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

“Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone,” said Aquarian author Gertrude Stein. She was often quirky and even downright weird, but as you can see, she also had a heartful attitude about her alliances. Stein delivered another pithy quote that revealed her tender approach to relationships. She said that love requires a skillful audacity about sharing one’s inner world. I hope you will put these two gems of advice at the center of your attention, Aquarius. You are ready for a strong, sustained dose of deeply expressive interpersonal action.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

According to the International Center for Academic Integrity, 95% of high school students acknowledge they have participated in academic cheating. We can conclude that just one of 20 students have never cheated—a percentage that probably matches how many non-cheaters there are in every area of life. I mention this because I believe it’s a favorable time to atone for any deceptions you have engaged in, whether in school or elsewhere. I’m not necessarily urging you to confess, but I encourage you to make amends and corrections to the extent you can. Also: Have a long talk with yourself about what you can learn from your past cons and swindles.

Global Benefits Management Account Manager

- Mercer Health & Benefits LLC (FT; Salt Lake City, UT - Remote work may be permitted w/ in commutable dist. from work site) Play a critical role within the organization’s strategy to grow Global Benefits Management (GBM) book & retain future GBM clients. RQTS: Must have Bachelor’s deg or foreign equiv in Bus Admin, Mgmt, or a related field plus 5 yrs of progressive post-baccalaureate exp in the position offd, International Benefits Manager, or a related position. Must have 5 yrs of exp with: Supporting & contributing to the strategic global benefits selling process including participating in finalist meetings & other sales presentations as the Subject Matter Expert; Assisting with monitoring employee benefit prgms around the world by providing aggregated reporting with a view to ensuring a level of governance & consistency with business objectives while offering optimal cost-effective solutions. Travel reqt: 5% national & int’l travel is reqd to various & unanticipated company & client sites. APPLY: https://careers.marshmclennan.com using Keyword R_237660. EOE

Pamper Yourself

Data Engineering Manager. West Jordan, UT. Wk. w/ stakeholders to oversee proj. deliverables & free up roadblocks for engr’g. teams. Dsgn. & architect scalable data sys. & pipelines. Utilize var. data arch. & modeling methodologies w/ best fit solutions. Utilize key tech. like AWS, Python, Snowflake, Airflow. Mng. & implmnt. data governance prgms. to ensure data quality. Oversee Datawarehouse, Dvlpr., & DevOps teams to align on long term arch. & deliverables. Understand future of data prgm. & implmnt. CICD to improve on existing. Req. Master’s or foreign equiv. in Data Engr’g., Info Sys. or closely rltd. field & 3 yrs. exp. in Data Engr’g. or rltd. field. Min. 1 yr. exp. in fllwg. s/wares & langs.: Python, Sql, AWS, OLAP dtbases., Kubernetes, Linux sys., Apache Airflow, Kimbal data modeling. Some remote/hybrid wk. avail. per co. policy. Must commute to office for meetings/collab as necces. $142,189/yr. Send resume to: Walker Edison Furniture Company, eddielynn@walkeredison.com

ACROSS

1. Cozy lodgings

6. “I’m Every Woman” singer Chaka

10. Work without ____ (take risks)

14. Optimal

15. French bread?

16. Memorization style

17. “Get outta here, you annoying buzzing insect!”?

19. Scored 100% on

20. Actor McGregor

21. Clever and calculating 2004 Best Actor winner?

23. Fresh-squeezed drinks, for short

26. Like some histories

28. Kiln for drying hops

29. Apology after hurting a rear end’s feelings?

33. Lift operator?

34. Gucci rival

35. One’s partner?

36. Longtime Bears coach nicknamed Iron Mike

38. Assess, with “up”

42. Tolkien series, to fans

43. Redder, perhaps

44. Taking photos of one of the Fab Four?

48. “Beat it!”

49. Potpie tidbits

50. Bobs and weaves

51. Bleat heard from a famed cellist?

54. “____ Hit Talk Show” (2004 series hosted by an ‘80s TV character)

56. “Put ___ on it!”

57. News alert of old ... or what’s represented by this grid’s circled letters

62. Filmmaker Riefenstahl

63. Hilarious sort

64. County bordering London

65. Rim 66. ____ buco

67. Reside (in)

DOWN

1. “The Family Circus” cartoonist Keane

2. Suffix with “Gator” or “Power”

3. “Read Across America” org.

4. Bautista of “Guardians of the Galaxy”

5. Failed to show up for 6. Wynn of “Dr. Strangelove”

7. Center of activity 8. Greek god of war 9. Christmas carol

urban LIVING

Paddle Time

When it’s hot as hell, we all like to find cool water. From Utah’s myriad lakes and reservoirs to our many creeks and rivers, people love to swim, boat, paddleboard and kayak.

There’s one waterway many take for granted: the Jordan River, with its 45-mile parkway connecting Utah Lake to the Legacy Parkway. Yet, the earliest known people in the state— from Native tribes to Mormon pioneers—knew the river intimately as a source for irrigation.

Engineering: Pluralsight LLC seeks the following positions in Draper, UT: SOFTWARE ENGINEER (Job Code UT1113). Own and maintain Pluralsight’s Identity solution.

May work from home up

10. 1994 Peace co-Nobelist with Rabin and Peres

11. Free

12. Digital book format

13. ____ Talks (independent “ideas worth spreading” events)

18. Female horse

22. “In ____ dreams!”

23. Not deceived by 24. Civil rights leader Lewis 25. Make dirty 27. ‘60s “journey” 30. “Mean Girls” screenwriter Tina

Last week’s answers SUDOKU X

Complete the grid so that each row, column, diagonal and 3x3 square contain all of the numbers 1 to 9. No math is involved. The grid has numbers, but nothing has to add up to anything else. Solve the puzzle with reasoning and logic. Solving time is typically 10 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill and experience.

The Jordan began as a cold-water fishery with 13 native species, including the Bonneville cutthroat trout. It later turned into a warm-water fishery with mostly the common carp swimming in its waters. It’s the only outlet for the waters of Utah Lake.

Sadly, the river became a catchall for sewage and industrial waste, like that from the Geneva Steel smelter where the town of Vineyard in Utah County is now located.

In the 1960s, Utah Lake and the river were a stinking mess. Citizens cried out, and sewage treatment was undertaken with help from the feds’ Clean Water Act and monies from the Superfund.

Nowadays, with its boat ramps and riverside parks as well as a paved pathway stretching the length of the Salt Lake Valley, the Jordan River has become a destination for many.

The Jordan River Commission’s website (jordanrivercommission.com) shows all the current boat ramps, helpful river paddling videos, hints for self-guided and group paddle trips and a sign-up for Utah Outdoors bicycle trips alongside the waterway as well as river paddle trips. The commission also plans to lead guided paddles weekly in September as part of the “Get to the River Festival.”

The most recent boat-ramp opening took place in July 2023 at Pioneer Crossing Park in West Valley at 1272 W. 3300 South (just east of the Utah Cultural Celebration Center). Those suffering from the July heatwave can find relief paddling on the river where they enjoy cooler temps along the banks and under the trees and brush alongside it. Near the new ramp is a park with a small playground and places to sit. It will soon be expanded to an even larger park.

I have to laugh at those who look at the Jordan River as a “no-go” because the water looks polluted. The water in Utah Lake sits over a white/ gray clay bed, which makes the river waters murky. Although no one is encouraged to swim in Jordan, you can rent kayaks through the commission to enjoy this wonderful waterway. n

5 days/wk. DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING (Job Code UT1007). Lead a dev team to deliver product features. Req: MS+3 yrs. May work from home. To apply: email to Pluralsight LLC, Attn: People Operations, peopleops@pluralsight.com. Must ref job code.

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

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

The Way the World Works

In 1973, Nissim Kahlon was living in a tent on a beach north of Tel Aviv, Israel, the Associated Press reported. He started scratching into a sandstone cliff wall along the beach, and eventually excavated a cave and moved in. Fifty years later, his created home is a sandcastle, with multiple floors, staircases, detailed mosaic floors and plumbing. But now Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry is moving to evict Kahlon, saying the structure is illegal and threatens the coastline. He said he first got a demolition order in 1974, but since then the government has left him alone, even connecting his home to the electrical grid. “I am not leaving here,” Kahlon, 77, said. “I am ready for them to bury me here. I have no other home.”

But Why?

French President Emmanuel Macron now has the singular distinction of being the first French head of state to receive a body part in the mail, the Evening Standard reported.

On July 10, a severed finger belonging to a “living human being” arrived at the Elysee Palace, where it was “initially put in a fridge where the police put their snacks,” a source said. “This was to make sure it was preserved and could be analyzed as quickly as possible.” The former owner of the digit was identified and given “full medical support,” but it was unclear what the meaning behind the delivery was.

The Tech Revolution

The Toronto Zoo has a favor to ask of visitors to Nassir the gorilla: Please don’t show him photos or videos on your phone. Like any other 24-year-old primate, Nassir is “fascinated by videos, and screen time would dominate his life if he had it his way,” according to the zoo’s website. The Toronto Star reported that Maria Franke, director of wildlife conservation and welfare, is noticing the effect of visitors sharing their content. “It was causing him to be distracted and not interacting with the other gorillas ... He was just so enthralled with gadgets and phones and the videos.” A sign now warns visitors: “Some content can be upsetting and affect their relationships and behavior within their family.” Phones down, humans.

Precocious

An 8-year-old boy faces multiple charges, including firstdegree robbery, after he carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint on July 11 in Montgomery, Alabama, WSFA-TV reported. Officers tried to stop the car, but the little driver wouldn’t stop and later crashed into another car. A witness, “Snake” Knapp, said he saw the kid pick up two adults along the way. “I think parents just really need to know where their kids are, what their kids are doing,” Knapp mused.

Ewwww

Doctors at the Wright-Patterson Medical Center near Dayton, Ohio, presented a case in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 6 that detailed a man whom they diagnosed with “hairy tongue.” Gizmodo reported that the 64-year-old consulted with doctors when he developed a green, fuzzy layer on his tongue. He was prescribed antifungals, but they didn’t help. Hairy tongue occurs when keratin causes a buildup of papillae, the tiny projections on the tongue. The man was directed to scrub his tongue with a toothbrush four times a day and stop smoking, and the green fuzz disappeared.

Welcome to My Fetish

Lakewood, Colorado, police are searching for a serial panty thief, The Denver Gazette posted on July 6. The unknown suspect, described as having short black hair, a black goatee, dark eyes and a muscular build, allegedly lifts women’s underwear from laundry rooms at the Lakewood Towers at Belmar apartments. Over the course of at least 26 incidents, he “has taken approximately $4,881 worth of items,” Lakewood police said.

Animal Antics

n People living in the Travis Heights neighborhood of Austin, Texas, are thinking twice about venturing outdoors—and it’s not because of the heat. A red-shouldered hawk is terrorizing pedestrians—to the point that U.S. mail delivery has been suspended in the area indefinitely, KTBC-TV reported. “Imagine walking out of your house and knowing that you’re going to get punched in the back of the head by an animal with large talons,” said Alfred Del Barrio. He said he avoided the hawk on a run because he saw its shadow. Nicole Netherton of the Travis Audubon Society said the hawk is protecting its young. “Trying to ignore them so that they can get their business and breeding done is probably the best advice,” she said. State and federal laws protect migratory birds. Meanwhile, residents are asked to pick up their mail at a local post office until further notice.

n A wedding at Maison Albion in Albion, New York, recently sported an extra member of the wedding party, People reported. J, a llama, was hired to be a surprise groomsman by the bride’s mother, who knew her daughter wants to own a llama farm one day. Llama Adventures provided J and outfitted him in a tux that made him look as if he was wearing white gloves and standing on two legs, and he gamely stood with the other groomsmen as the nuptials took place. “The bride was absolutely delighted,” said photographer Cathy Craft, “and the guests thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Police Report

Quincy, Illinois, police are hunting for a rabbit, NBC Chicago reported. Early on July 6, someone wearing a full bunny suit entered a laundromat and rifled through drawers, stuffing several items into a backpack. Surveillance video caught the fuzzy culprit, who has not been identified. Quincy police are hopping mad and seeking leads.

Least Competent Criminal

KLKN-TV reported that on July 11, an unnamed 20-year-old man from Lincoln, Nebraska, was pulled over near Norfolk as he drove his motorcycle at speeds up to 106 mph. The driver had a suspended license and, in fact, had just left the Stanton County Courthouse, where he had been sentenced for ... driving with a suspended license and speeding. The judge had ordered him to pay fines for both offenses. He was charged again and bonded out of jail.

The Continuing Crisis

The Nikko Japanese Steak and Sushi Bar in Pace, Florida, has closed after an incident in June, WSB-TV reported. The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office investigated after seven people were hospitalized following meals at the restaurant, finding that bottles and packets of soy sauce tested positive for methamphetamine. But no charges were filed, as detectives could not determine who contaminated the food “due to lack of witness observations and surveillance footage.” On July 7, the restaurant’s owners announced on Facebook that they would be closing: “Today, a familyowned and operated business is closed, and 20 employees are out of work, all because of the power of social media,” the post read.

Seems Like a Bad Idea

The crater of the inactive Teoca volcano outside Mexico City is home to a football pitch where 10 teams play each weekend, Yahoo! News reported on July 10. “It’s a unique pitch,” said player Adrian Garcia. A league representative said the field is about 70 years old; before it was converted to a sports venue, it was a ceremonial site. Goalkeeper Daniel Mancilla Pena called it a “very nice setting to play football.” Yeah, well, Mexico sits on the Ring of Fire, a seismically and volcanically active zone, so make sure you don’t have much stoppage time.

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