Glenden Brown“It’s hard to believe this is Salt Lake!”
Last night I attended the Utah Arts Festival with a friend as two of Becker’s Bumblebees (more on this later!).
When we first arrived at about 6:15 or so the crowd was a bit thin but lively and fun. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the crowd grew amazingly. By 10 o’clock I’d guess there were three times as many people there as when we arrived and the joint was hopping. I’m terrible at estimating numbers but watching Angelique Kidjo perform there wasn’t an empty chair and there were crowds of people dancing in the aisles and around the seats. The other bands had lively crowds (though not quite as large).
Everywhere we turned, we saw more evidence of Salt Lake’s growing diversity. Everywhere we turned, we saw more evidence that Salt Lake City is at long last joining the ranks of mature American cities - we’re not Seattle yet, but I think people in Salt Lake look to Seattle as our model - a walkable city with vital communities and a downtown filled with the arts.
More than once, I heard someone say, “It’s hard to believe this is Salt Lake!”
I think there’s a palpable yearning in Salt Lakers to become a truly world-class city, to leave behind the staid provincialism of Salt Lake’s past and create a vital and cosmopolitan city. At the risk of offending, Salt Lakers don’t want to be Provo and Orem or Sandy. We want to see our city join the ranks of Great American Cities.
Salt Lake has long held a reputation as a boring, colorless city. The Britcom Red Dwarf used Salt Lake as a punch line in one episode. While fighting a zombie, one of the crew members said, “She’s deader than a saturday night in Salt Lake City.” The irony being that Red Dwarf is on PBS in Salt Lake on Saturday nights.
For years, the arts festival to attend was Park City’s. UAF has grown up - not only do Washington Square and Library Plaza provide an ideal physical space for the festival, UAF has matured. I’m not convinced Park City can offer anything better than what I’ve found at UAF the last couple years. As Salt Lake City has become more diverse, more cosmopolitan (and with all due respect to my Pioneer ancestors) less Mormon it has become a more vibrant community reflected in the summer festivals - Living Traditions, Utah Pride, UAF, and Salt Lake Jazz. Not without its virtues, Mormon culture does not tend toward the energy, diversity and dynamism that I saw last night. (I have a feeling there’s a separate post in this idea - Mormon culture tends toward the radically sanitized and kid focused while the Arts Festival experience was appropriate for all ages it wasn’t kid focused.)
When people said, “It’s hard to believe this is Salt Lake” they were complimenting our city and reflecting on its history. Uttered with amazement, awe and a bit of wonderment, the phrase expressed a delight in a city at long last maturing.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:10 am
Using Seattle as a model, you may hope for global warming. During the last melt off, 12,900 years ago, super computer modeling describes that huge slugs of cold water into the North Atlantic spun weather that ultimately led to torrential downpours in the Great Basin. These moisture blooms from the Gulf apparently filled the entire SLC valley rather quickly. So to emulate Seattle you are going to need one key ingredient, that Utah does not yet have in abundance. Rain.
And SLC has its’ days, though they are sparingly few. Keep dreaming.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:35 am
I detected a modicum of Venice Beach, Calif. last nite myself. Rather enjoyed it. Loves me some Arts Festival.