Missionaries, Music and Pride

Salt Lake City is not an overwhelmingly Mormon city. In fact, when you sport an AIDS ride sweatshirt and an HRC cap, you meet a lot of very interesting people—like the Lesbian coffee shop owner in Vernal! And the walkers in the Pride March which occurs today, June 8.

But when you go to Temple Square the missionaries and the Mormon Church are more overwhelming than John had ever remembered from previous visits—granted the last one was about 40 years ago. It's probably true that the elderly sister at the Beehive House, Brigham Young's home, was probably a bit put off when John answered that he knew quite a bit about the church, and the missionary sisters, one from Spain and one from Arizona, learned that there are folk in his family who are related to strong Pioneer stock! In any case, cutting through the celestiality of it all, the visit to BY's old house and the brilliance of his management of a messy situation when the Pioneers moved to Utah, is a fascinating slice of Americana.

Ben privately wonders how these zealous missionaries would react if he told them he was an unrepenting homosexual and Jewish to boot.

The Tabernacle was smaller than Ben had expected. Of course, he had seen TV
performances from it. Unfortunately we were unable to hear the organ as planned because in summer performances are conducted from the Mormon Center across the street. This place has a capacity that must exceed 10,000 and the organ is just plain huge. The organist who gave the lunch time perforance managed to make it perform for us. From Bach's Tocatta and Fugue to a set of Grieg's piano pieces to Come Come ye Saints, to John Philip Sousa, the organ could do things only a very big organ could do, and even elegantly. Of course, with the Mormon organ, there are organs and there are size queens.

Replete with the message of the Latter Day Saints we headed off to Gay Pride. Unfortunately it was not open till 4pm, so we had a very good Thai lunch at the Thai Lotus on 5th South St, of pad thai, and then headed back to Jack Mormon Coffee Company for some liquid refreshment made from Celestial Beans. (Jack Mormons are LDSers who do not participate in church activities, taken from the jack rabbit that runs away and celestial beans are a pun on Celestial Beings, which Mormons are.)


We spent a long time at the coffee shop, Ben discussing the coffee with the barista, his talking about the roasting of only 2 lbs of coffee at a time (i assume the machine does 2.2 lbs, or a kilo, but they only measure pounds-worth), and then our trip. Then we ended talking with Kim and her friend Patrick. She, a vietnamienne, just graduated from Georgetown, and he is finishing the U of Utah. Both met in Washington last summer when he interned there for a political activist cause. They said they would be marching in the Pride March today.

We picked up a booklet at the shop which discussed SLC's neighborhoods. We couldn't
believe that it described the Capitol Hill-Marmalade district as similar to the best of Pittsburgh! We took a ride through it, and yes, it does look like Negley Hill! But it's the first time we'd ever seen anything llike it in print.

The brochure also had an ad for the Kennecott Copper open Bingham Canyon mine, which can be seen from space, and is only 30 miles away. We went. What a Pit! Huge. So deep that trucks as big as houses look like toys.
We watched as a shovel dug away the side of hill, which a guide said would be finished tomorrow and it would be the only change to see the machines close up. Great industrial movie. What great thing to do to finish up a full day.

We got back to the BnB and decided to go to Trolley Square for dinner, thinbking there would be a wide selection of restaurants. There weren't. So we went to a Brazilian BBQ place, and not being very hungry had a couple of salad bars, passing up the meat on skewers. Too full.