The Countdown

I leave Utah on Monday. Except for one of my sisters visiting, Monday couldn't come soon enough.

But there are things about this place I will miss staring at, like the beautiful sunsets, the perfectly manicured mullets, or the fundamentalists who still think the word "damn" is using the Lord's name in vain, "darn" is pushing it, and hot chocolate isn't hot.

Really, I'm just looking forward to having something interesting to stand up for.

Scavenger hunt!

Here are some Utah photos, courtesy of my dropped-once-or-thrice-too-often camera.

And here's the scavenger hunt part: find evidence of live dog, nightclub, or God. Ten points for correct answers, twenty-five for funny ones.

Because things actually happen everywhere else.

-Don't stick stuff up your nose. It might not get removed for 55 years.

-Does the Transamerica Pyramid look like a Victorian home? Because the new Transbay Terminal design proposals look nothing like the pink ladies, either.

-People are socially and physically trapped in Utah.

-Something involving transportation made several of today's headlines.

Talking to Strangers

I met an Indian woman on the street last night, about mid-40s and traditionally dressed. I couldn't have been dressed more differently, in a tank top, skirt, and flip flops.

She had been walking ahead of me on the sidewalk until we came to a stoplight. She stared for a few moments, and though it appeared as if she were just another conservative woman giving me the evil eye for showing my ankles, there was something different about the way she stared. It was evident that we were not from Utah.

At this realization, Bibi, the Americanized version of her Indian name, began asking rapid-fire questions in thickly-accented English. I mentioned I was from California, and she immediately asked whether I knew her friend at UC Berkeley who had gotten a PhD in Comparative Literature three years ago. Of course not, but it was nevertheless impressive that she lucky-guessed my school in a state that's practically 1000 miles long.

In the course of our 1.5-mile walk, I find out that she is from India and came to the States to get her master's degree in Folklore at UPenn. In the course of her studies there, she came to work and study in the apparently prestigious Folklore program at Utah State University, where she is an archivist, curator, and English professor. Bibi's dissertation is on the relationship between Tennessee Williams and some other gay playwright who had a fat crush on Williams. Not exactly something to publish here in Utah.

She talked more than she breathed, like a toddler after an ice cream cone or an undergrad after forty-two sleepless hours finishing a mostly crack-induced thesis. Bibi complained about how uneducated her students are-- that they don't know, or think it's important to know, anything about the period during which an American novel was written. (Normally, I would argue that literary works can be appreciated differently outside their historical context, but I'm sorry, America is barely 200 years old. How hard is it to know at least something about the Depression? Like, that it happened?)

I was glad to have met Bibi. I hadn't expected to find a Fulbright Scholar in the entire state, let alone walking the same way home one hot August night. Hopefully, she finds an outlet that isn't her meticulously archived British theater history library with which to share her intellectual prowess.

I've said all along that road maintenance should be a political platform.

"They won't like, fall down or anything, but they'll blow your tires" is basically CalTrans' position after a slough of "our bridges are fine" press conferences held across the country following Minneapolis' bridge collapse.

CalTrans officials officially say of California's bridges:

The majority of bridges considered structurally deficient in the state are in that category because of potholes and paint issues, said Caltrans supervising bridge engineer Ken Brown.

Right. I guess it makes sense that paint isn't really a structural issue per se, but then how was that rating given in the first place? I'm sorry, you must have been looking at the foresight structural deficiency rating, where we included cosmetic deficiencies so that later we can disprove the necessity all of our salaries.

And, okay, the news?

The local 10 o'clock news:

The travesty-you-never-thought-of piece of the evening was about dog fighting. You know, that rampant and cruel sport where people's dogs die frequently and breed even more frequently, living in sin and often Latino. I'm sure it's truly tragic that dogs are so cruelly treated, but everyone important must be healthy and moral if this is their headlining "investigative report."

Reports of the clean-up camaraderie following flash flooding yesterday featured pictures of what once was flooded and interviews of neighbors helping neighbors, because they waited until the other station's evening news to find out about the actual flood in southern Utah. You see, they're the more human station.

-The "Summer Shot of the Night" feature-- a nightly winning photo submitted by viewers to the TV studio-- was of a Suburban driving through some flooding-aftermath puddles, creating a picturesque wave of water to drench a couple walking on the sidewalk. Another case of being at the right place at the right time-- for the photographer.

-Buying a European car may actually cost you more money, not only because they cost more money, but because they are un-American and don't sustain damage well in minor accidents or fender-benders. Duh.

-And Jim Maland, a larger, older and slightly affected man, "hoots" at minor league baseball games. His hooting is so loud, the opposing team often thinks there is actually an owl in the stadium. Of course, the home team's mascot is the Owls, so this guy's punny cheer has inspired a new rooting chant for baseball fans everywhere. His contribution to the Glossary of Hoots and Hollers Appropriate for Minor League Baseball Games is enthusiastically noted.

Another reason I strongly disagree with Utah.

Remember this lady?

Well, her polar opposite showed up today.

A couple, probably mid-thirties to early forties, stormed out of the theater not more than a half an hour after Porgy & Bess started. They approached the theater's box office (which was not staffed with Opera folk at the time) and demanded a refund because they were so grossly ashamed that such a well-respected leader in the Mormon community would allow such a vulgar and profane show to be presented. The theater people sent them over to us at our administrative building, then called us to warn us.

Both of my bosses reprinted our program's disclaimer about the show's language (which, by the way, is not especially profane or vulgar for most standards), but this made no difference to the self-righteous couple who clearly had no idea what the opera was about. They asked why it didn't have words in it (um, it is an opera...), why Michael Ballam's standards would stoop so low to allow people to use the Lord's name in vain, blah blah blah.

We gave them a refund and invited them to see the show Michael's starring in, but they huffed and puffed that they were never setting foot inside that heathen theater again.

This was the first time our general director wasn't apologetic to an unhappy customer. He refused to write them a letter because they had the gall to question his moral standards-- standards that one of the Apostles approved of enough to see all four shows. Go President Monson!

All I have to say is this: really? Really?