Word is, the lineup of the Twilight Concert Series in SLC this summer is shaping up to be pretty impressive. Better not plan any vacations for July.
July 9
Bon Iver
Jenny Lewis
July 16
Black Keys
July 23
M.Ward
July 30
Sonic Youth
August 6
Q-Tip
B.o.B.
August 13
Toots and the Maytals
Now if this snow would just die already.
Deep in our hearts, we knew this day would come. Yesterday it was announced that In-N-Out will be coming to northern Utah, first Draper and soon after more SLC locations. As early as late summer I could be watching Andy eat a 4 x 4. The proof.
YES! Glasvegas are coming to SLC on their tour. This year was looking pretty meager but finally some good shows are trickling into Utah.
Glasvegas played Letterman recently and I was getting such a Joe Strummer vibe from James Allan.
Been having some very traditional American-type escapades. That word just makes me think of Paula Abdul. Classic type, not mental type.
My first Utah State Fair!
I just love all bottled color.
This was the hugest fowl I've ever seen. Nearly stuck his head through the top of the cage when he stood up straight.
4-H crafts! Don't worry, Dirk and I are gonna make some doll-head pillows so you can have one too. Not a joke.
Eating fried stuff. This is my friend Erica who recently moved in. Every day she has a new story like about how Ando from Heroes is kind of a smarmy creep. Or about how she talked to Tilda Swinton on the phone days after winning her Oscar and she was totally delightful. I told her she needs to start a blog.
Every time I hang out with Adam it's an adventure.
Unfortunately my camera battery was dead this time.
Not capturing great moments on film just keeps them uncorrupted, right?
Tonight we tried to see Delta Spirit but got there too late.
Adam, you're right, they do make quite good music.
Found an aged, hand-carved wooden box full of old tiny teeth in his new old house.
And a locked door surely hiding some good secrets.
Drove through Midget Village.
It was more than I had imagined, a fanciful forest with fairy tale cottages, peacocks, and stone pillars adorned with adages.
Next time I'll charge my battery.
So much to blog about but it's a sicky type of day. So here's some photos from Cut Copy on Friday. Obviously they were fabuloso. Australia's got some secrets.
eMusic kinda sucks, huh? I can hardly find 25 songs I want and they're free. Really, you could repeatedly sign up with eMusic with different email addresses and get your free 25 or 50 mp3s again and again and again, but there's not much use. Anyway, haven't posted remixes for a while. Here's a few from bands who will be visiting SLC very soon.
mp3: Cut Copy - Saturdays (Future Chromeo Remix)
mp3: Ladytron - Ghosts (Toxic Avenger Mix)
mp3: The Presets - Down Down Down (Midnight Juggernauts Remix)
I want to vomit with horror this morning. Since last night, helicopters have been hovering low and circling my neighborhood searching for a 7-year old girl who went missing from the apartment complex across the street yesterday. Out my bedroom window I just watched volunteers and police search dumpsters and crawlspaces outside the buildings behind my house. One policeman was stomping the ground in the alleyway where the old train tracks lie, like he was checking to see if the dirt had been freshly upturned and was covering something. I want to say I'm hopeful, but I'd be lying.
Update: This was the heartbreaking outcome, for the non-locals or non-news watchers. The stupid thing is we used to always joke about that apartment complex being shady; it's called South Parc, and you know there's something questionable about a place that's spelled like that (speaking of misspelling). The complex houses many refugees from various countries, and the low-income community has always seemed a bit of a contrast from the gated lane of new condos across the street where I live. Friends have asked if it's safe to park on the street, which we assure them it is, though I admittedly only ever park on my side of the street and not the South Parc side. This was a little more superstitious than out of actual fear. I have always felt comfortable in this neighborhood, but now I might not be able to help but wonder, when I see people out and about on that street, whether they are the kind of people who could also murder. I'm sorry to be so morbid. ' partly the crazy emotions from watching this all play out, and partly my psychologist mind prone to think about the darker side of human nature. If I've ever asked you what it would take for you to kill someone, you know what I mean. Anyway. Praying for the family.
That's what Mel said to me today when she cut my hair. We finally went for the bowl. Well, she called it a bowl boy because it's part bowl part page boy. I modeled the new hair and Dirk's new sunglasses and a banana laffy taffy for him.
Today's round of Sad or Sadcore is brought to you by the local businesses of middle America and their reckless cleverness. Here we see some intentionally misspelled business signs. Maybe these choices are just good business sense, weird spelling draws attention and therefore more patronage, right?
We missed Leslie & the Ly's last time they came through SLC, so last night was a pretty exciting event. If you haven't discovered the internet phenomenon of Leslie Hall, I'm not sure where to begin. Er, she collects gem sweaters, names them, sings about them, all while wearing as much gold and clip-in hair as possible. To really understand, begin your studies here. She has gone from an art student who needed a way to make some money, to an incredibly talented performer and one of the funniest spawn of internet celebrity.
It's the kind of thing you just have to see. In the middle of the show the music stops and audience members adorned with their own gem sweaters are pulled onstage for a naming ceremony, where Leslie channels the higher powers of bedazzlement to knight each sweater with it's own title. Then she leaps around the stage screaming in celebration, and finally presents a certificate of authenticity to the sweater owner. She's the kind of person who makes some people uncomfortable because they don't know when she's playing a character and when she's being real. I don't care, she can come to my slumber party and go on all night about villages, gracful kittens, and lady ticklers.
I had a tradition in New York of having a late night bologna sandwich after I got home from seeing a White Stripes show. It's been a while, but I'm having a bologna sandwich right now, at 2:50am, after two late nights of dancing. Tonight a local notorious, the Dance Bully (dances violently and self-obsessedly at shows), was the dj. During "Bulls on Parade" (please.) Dance Bully joined the crowd for some of his air punching and jumping, and my $5 cover was made worth it when I witnessed him get on his knees, grab one of the crutches of a conveniently nearby injured dude, and play his air guitar heart out. What made it more ridiculous is that Dance Bully's Father had joined the circle and was watching the whole thing. I refrain from including photos because I wouldn't want Dance Bully to realize I'm antagonizing him. I mean, he could hurt me! It's just another reminder that next time I should be exhaustedly eating bologna sandwiches after my own dj set. (Er, our own. Dirk?)
Um, I like commas. And parentheses. I'm just like Faulkner.
The Presets! Ladytron! The Breeders! Here in Saltvegas!
(see dates over there in Upcoming...)
Update: and Cut Copy! Freaking out.
Only made it to 3 Sundance movies all together this year. At least none of them were poo. Here's what I saw last weekend.
King of Ping Pong (Ping Pong Kingen)
A Swedish film about a chubby kid who domineers the ping pong club at the youth center, gets picked on at school, has a nutty mom and an absent deep sea diving dad, and sucks at driving stick. It was too weird for some in the audience. I enjoyed it, especially for the production design, but it did seem a bit lacking. The funny and touching moments were a bit too few and far between. But worth seeing if you like foreign and quirky.
Strangers 
Somehow all my screenings were foreign this year. No complaints. Strangers is an Israeli film and was my favorite of the bunch. It is the story of an Israeli man and Palestinian woman who meet by chance in Germany and the relationship that ensues. The interesting thing about this film, other than the politics inherent obviously, is that it was made without a script in "real time." Meaning, the 2 actors got background information about their characters, there was somewhat of a treatment, but then they just filmed the actors around Berlin and let the story develop. The filmmakers were at the screening, and when they told us this, I was a bit worried. But my doubts were gone immediately when I saw the visual beauty of the film and heard the music. The film was expertly scored by Eyal Kazav in a traditional turned moody sort of way. I can't find any of the music yet, but hopefully the soundtrack will come out. Politics stress me out, so the political backdrop and wartime events that occured at the time of filming that naturally became part of the film (that whole real time thing) could have kept me from getting into the movie, but the truth was far from it. Rather, the focus was on telling a love story and there was no message of bias. Oh and another great thing about it, the actors are gorgy. Liron Levo was there at the screening and afterwards there was a throng of women wanting to take their picture with him and I didn't blame them. But I took my shot from afar.
Success! Monday we were able to see the German film Die Welle (The Wave) that we didn't get into Sunday. It tells the story of a high school lesson on autocracy gettting way out of control, exploring group behavior and politics in a modern interpretation of a true story. The movie is based on a novel that is required reading in German schools, about a teacher in Palo Alto in 1967 who taught the students about fascism by starting a movement. The true story is fascinating and the movie was incredibly well done, with great performances from the high school kids. According to the director they were very true to the actual events, other than to make it realistic for current times and the German context. Telling much more would be too much because I recommend seeing this movie. They have distribution in several countries and hopefully this will include the U.S. by the end of Sundance.
As I mentioned before, the story of this film brought to mind the Stanford Prison Experiment, mostly in the way they both expose a frightening aspect of human behavior: that you and I are capable of doing baser things than we ever would have thought possible. The prison experiment happened just a few years after the historical events that inspired The Wave, in the same city actually, and also got TOTALLY out of control. Stanford students volunteered and were assigned the role of either prison guard or prisoner to take on for two weeks. They totally embodied these roles and within just a few days this had done so much harm to them that the experiment was cancelled, though participants dealt with the effects for a long time. (That's the uberabbreviated summary. Learn more at the official site or trust wiki.) Because this story has also been made into a film in Germany, I had to ask the director of The Wave, Dennis Gansel, about it after the screening. He seemed to think it wasn't coincidental, but that in Germany they are especially interested in group behavior/social psychology particularly because of political implications. Given the history of their country this makes sense. So Das Experiment will be coming on my Netflix soon. The historical footage of the experiment, which many of us have probably seen in college, can be purchased for $100, which I may have to do one day since as a psychologist it should probably be part of my library....
And a big anyway, this is the producer and director during the Q&A after the screening.
Apparently if you are a young foreign filmmaker you have to be adorable (the financiers are excempt from this rule). As we also saw later this week. More on that to come.
Oh my oh my oh my. A bunch of new tours have been announced and some of them are even coming through Utah. There are some pretty exciting ones over there to the right. With all that, we might even be able to overlook the fact that Justice and Jens Lekman left Salt Lake off their lists.
Thanks to my friend Adam's curiosity and my Googling skills, on Friday we ended up at the only Masonic event other than funerals that are open to the public, the annual Installation of Officers, at the Salt Lake City Masonic Temple. I don't really understand the whole Freemason thing, so I was pretty excited to get a peek at it and see the inside of the building I've always wondered about when I drive by. Here it is, as stolen from the Wasatch Lodge website. 
I was a bit nervous when we in our jeans walked into a half full auditorium of gowns, tuxes, and those Masonic loincloths. In fact, I think I whispered, "I'm scared" which they all probably heard with the acoustics of the vaulted fake night sky ceiling. I mean, the website said "open to the public" but clearly, everyone there was either a Mason, the wife/girlfriend of a Mason, or a good friend of a Mason who was told to wear a suit. For all I knew they would think we were Gormagons and would defend themselves with a sacrificial ritual. Turns out the only two people who talked to us the whole night were a guy I'd guess was the janitor who was real suspicious of us, and an awesome old mustachioed man who tried to recruit Beau--Adam's roommate who came for provide moral support. The ceremony itself was full of flowery language and rituals of the not so scandalous variety and now I understand Freemasonry slightly more than before. The inside of the temple was amazing, and I would have taken more photos if I hadn't been so scared, but this one of Beau and Adam was all I got.
This sort of makes up for all those times growing up that Adam's dad promised but never did take us to visit to the Jehovas Witness' Kingdom Hall on a Sunday.
