Searching for Culture in SLC

So why would anyone move home to SLC from New York, Boston, Seattle, or Chicago? Our museums are dinky, compared to the Met and Gugenheim. We have no Freedom Trail, Boston Pops, or JFK Library. Our Farmers Market lacks the fish throwers, brass pig, dozen flower stalls, and piroshkis of Pike Place Market. And the Church Office Building and Federal Heights can't compare, for architectural splendor, with the early 1900s skyscrapers of Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright's homes in Chicago.

But SLC does have some culture. Dave and I went searching for it this week. We started with three art films at our seedy but beloved Broadway Theater.

Our favorite was "Departures," a Japanese film which won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. The plot--young man learns to love his job tucking dead people into caskets--doesn't do it justice.

We also loved "Whatever Works," Woody Allen's witty homage to accepting diversity in our relationshps. As Dave and I welcome people of incresingly diverse nationalities, ages, and sexual preferences into our circle of friends, we identify with that film!

And we were fascinated by "The Hurt Locker," an action film about defusing bombs in Iraq which was also a subtle character study.

Next stop was the Farmer's Market at Pioneer Park. The Market has morphed over the years, from just sellers of produce to entertainers and a weekly arts fair. I stopped by a one-man band, by a stall selling bonsai trees, by Utah's own Nutty Guys, and I finally succumbed at Great Basin Shrubs, buying 15 perennials bearing purple flowers for our backyard.

The Farmer's Market is the place to see and be seen, not just for people, but for dogs, too!

What about SLC museums? I lingered at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts for its special exhibit on Native American (Indian) art.

It was beautifully presented with "hands one" activities like samples of buckskin and rawhide to finger, as well as signs describing the objects' artistic and cultural significance.

The Museum, skimpy by big city standards, still had many items in its regular collection to ponder.

The trick is to appreciate what's there, rather than what's not. There were even a few paintings by Old Masters (Foschi, if not Raphael)

and even one painting by John Copley, that icon of Boston colonial painters.

Saturday evening, Dave and I enjoyed the Salt Lake Jazz Festival, just one of the many music festivals in SLC and at the ski resorts this summer.

We listened to a saxophonist and torch singer,

and to a big band.

As I ran errands Saturday, I noticed other SLC bits of culture, such as the Gilded Age lobby of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building

and the glowing fresh flowers in downtown parks and along the streets.

I even noted that the Energy Solutions Center, which brings not only the JAZZ but big name national entertainers to SLC, has been spruced up with sculptures outside its doors!

In our continuing search for culture, Dave and I attended the Tabernacle Choir braodcast on Sunday morning.

We lingered afterwards at the Chruch art exhibition displayed in the halls of the Conference Center. The styles and media of the works were as diverse as thsoe of the global Church. There were traditional depictions of Christ and his apostles,

a brilliant tapestry expressing the glory of the heavens,

religious paintings from Itally and Eastern Europe created in the style of icons,

and even a Cubist Hong Kong temple!

Every great city has diverse ethnic neighborhoods and great restaurants. Dave and I didn't visit The New Yorker, Happy Sumo, or even Market Street Broiler this weekend, but I did tempt Jonny and Jenny with a fejoida dinner, to introduce Jenny to Brazilian cooking and to remind Jonny of his mission in Brazil. I passed Sudanese and Ethiopian restaurants on Redwood Road Saturday afternoon, as I sought my goal--the Brazilian grocery/cafe where I could buy teh essential meats for fejoida--linguisa and carne seca. The chef at the cafe showed me his own kettle of fejoida and said my dish would be even better if I stopped at SuperSavers for pig feet and pig ears.

My fejoida was fabulous, even without pig ears.

Dave and I weren't able to fit in performance of Ballet West, the Utah Symphony, Pioneer Memorial Theater, or Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company last weekend, but we still found enough nuggets of culture, way out here in the provinces, to keep us challenged and amused until we cna make it back to one of America's greater cities. And, of course, one aspect of culture is good food with good talk and good friends.

Party Time!

See my new apron! Dave and I are head of the activities committee for our ward (church), so I bought a new outfit to reflect that lofty position. The July 4th breakfast is an event which has been sponsored by one ward or another in the Upper Avenues for 30 years, so we were stewards of a grand tradition. We did the decorating, but the real stars of the event were the cooks. That is a job jealously guarded by the old-timers from year to year!The party was full of good friends--Annie and Ron Poelman, Karen Derrick with daughter Cindy and her twins, and Elaine Green, riding in on her daughter's motorcycle.
Our next door neighbor, Han Mu, attended the breakfast, along with lots of other new friends from all around the neighborhood (and from all over the world).

Some partyers were just too cute!
After the last trash bag was filled, the last flag tucked away for next year, Dave and I headed for an afternoon at the cabin. We passed through Oakley, all decorated for the 4th, and we wished we'd come early enough for the parade.
The biggest treat of the week was picking Jonny and Jenny up at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night, and then sharing Sunday dinner with them. We loved hearing about the two days they spent camping out in London in order to get center court tickets for the Wimbledon semi-finals!
Other family news: Michael spent the 4th in Washington, D.C., the heart of all the celebrations. Camille and Steve went to two swimming parties on the 4th, hosted by two different families in their ward. One of the parties was at the town "pond." "Swimming in ponds is not at all unusual in New England," Camille says. "Think Walden Pond." Lisa is finishing her last week of brush-up nursing classes at Renton Hospital in southern Seattle, and loving it. She is now applying for full-time jobs. Kyle is spending this week, as Scoutmaster, with Grant and Spencer at a Boy Scout camp on Puget Sound.

Beautiful Blue Ball (Family Reunion Day Seven)

We finally spent a whole afternoon with the Eberts, after just saying "hi" in the parks, eating supper together, and seeing each other at reunion parties. We visited Kennedy Space Center to get new perspectives on both space and on earth, that "beautiful blue ball," as one of the astronauts described it.But first things first. We girded ourselves for the rigors of sightseeing with pretzels and mustard.We rode a bus to see the launch sites and the "loaders," which carry the shuttles, at 1 mph, to the launch site. The top picture shows a launch site. The bottom picture shows a loader in the foreground and the huge shuttle silo, tall as a 40 story building, in the background.We peered at a space suit, touched a moon rock, and appreciated the immensity and complexity of the equipment for the shuttles.




We also admired the patience, judgment, and sheer grit Steve and Camille showed in maneuvering their six children through the Space Center. "Does Ezra resent the new baby?" I asked Camille. "No, he seems fine with her," she replied. No wonder. Whenever Ezra wants to be babied, Camille picks him up and carries Ezra, as well as Mia!The Eberts lingered to see a rocket launch, with its plumes of smoke spiraling through the Florida sky. Dave and I arrived back at Orlando just in time to join the reunion crowd in celebrating the birthday of Ira, Josh and Jodi's six-year-old son. Josh made a cake. Josh also let us try some of the homemade cheese he learned to make while working as a physics professor in Wisconsin. We all hugged goodbye and agreed to reconvene, in the summer of 2011--probably at a beach resort on the Gulf Coast. Jeanine, who is in charge of the reunion in 2011, lives in Alabama.

Where the Money Is (Family Reunion Day Six)

Years ago, when Dave and I drove down the east coast of Florida to Miami, I remember blitzing through a wealthy, elegant town on the beach. Later, I learned that the relatives of President John Kennedy own a compound in Palm Beach, and this is still the town where rich New Yorkers come to spend the winter. Dad and I were weary of theme parks, and drove south to explore.

Our first stop was Henry Flagler's Gilded Age winter home. Flagler was a partner with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, and he was convinced that Florida could be the next Monte Carlo. He had the money and friends to make that dream happen. The same crowd that summered in the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, wintered in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Breakers dates back to the Gilded Age of the 1880s and 1890s, but it is still an elegant resort hotel today. The Atlantic surf literally breaks at the back door of The Breakers.

Next stop was the Norton Museum, a jewel box of an art museum, so far from New York, Boston, or other major U.S. cities.

I discovered works by my very favorite artists. Bougereau was a Frenchman who painted breathtakingly beautiful, realistic portraits during the 1860s and 1870s. He is notorious as the authority who kept the Impressionists out of the big art shows of the time. His style was waning, but I don't care--I absolutely love his works.

This is a portrait by George Romney, our relative who was one of the "big four" portrait painters in England during the 1700s. The others in the "big four" were Sir Joshua Reynolds, T.E. Lawrence, and Gainsborough.

I love the way Renoir softens and brightens all his portraits with a touch of red. Notice his loose brush strokes and casual finish, compared to Bougereau.

You've all heard how Van Gogh cut off his ear, after a fight with his friend, Gauguin. Gauguin was so horrified that he left Van Gogh and never came back. Van Gogh retired to a home for the mentally ill. This picture was painted by Gauguin soon after leaving Van Gogh. As the critics explain, Gauguin combines, in the face and red hair of Jesus, aspects of both Van Gogh and himself. Gaugin is expressing his pain, love, and complicated feelings for Van Gogh.

After all the man-made beauty and sophistication of the museum, Dave and I loosened up at Lupita's, a mom and pop Mexican restaurant near the beach. The tamarind juice and cheese enchiladas were great.

The Palm Beach beach was glorious. Dave and I strolled along it, passing children playing in the sand, picturesque rocks, and a surf empty except for a lone swimmer.

Epcot (Family Reunion Day Five)

The temperature was down, the crowds were smaller--it was a great day for Epcot! Dave spent the day taking Grandma Spendlove on the Epcot rides, and I made my own circle through the theme park. My favorite of all the rides was Mission Space. Somehow, Epcot created the sensation of blastng off in a rocket for Mars--the heavy pressure during lift-off, the release and weightlessness. The physical sensations were accompanied by dramatic video so I really felt I was there.I enjoyed the other science rides, too, from the General Motors Test Track to the Nemo fanatasy at the Living Sea pavilion.

I also enjoyed the Land ride, where we rode through a greenhouse growing tomato trees, pumpkin trees, and other foods of the future.Another favorite was the "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!" performance in the Imagination pavilion. All of a sudden, we were tiny and the actor's dog was huge! I loved the country pavilions, and I watched giant screen movies about China, Norway, Canada, and France.In the evening, we watched the Newlywed Game with four teams competing--Steve and Camille, Jill and Brent, Josh and Jodi, and Jeanine and Todd. Some of the guesses were wild--Josh thought Jodi's hip measurement was 27 inches! Surprisingly, the couples who could answer the most accurately were the ones who were just married, rather than old-timers like Steve and Camille and Jeanine and Todd. "I just have a lot more experiences and information to remember," Steve said.