So why would anyone move home to SLC from New York, Boston, Seattle, or Chicago? Our museums are dinky, compared to the Met and Guggenheim. 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 relationships. As Dave and I welcome people of increasingly diverse nationalities, ages, and sexual preferences into our circle of friends, we identify with that film!
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 relationships. As Dave and I welcome people of increasingly 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 on" 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)
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 on" 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 broadcast on Sunday morning.
We lingered afterwards at the Church art exhibition displayed in the halls of the Conference Center. The styles and media of the works were as diverse as those 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 Italy 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 the 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 performances 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 can 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. 
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