Category: Best of the Week
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Twenty Three Week Five
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kara Eaker on the beam. Media: The 1976 climbing tragedy of Nanda Devi Unsoeld (longform), more on MILF Manor from Cody Ko (video), the Hunt for Russian Collaborators in Ukraine (longform), Russia’s Convict Fighters are Heading Home (longform), and this must see on Netflix:
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Twenty Three Week Four
It took 79 months to get to that screen.
Media: Much needed winter comedy from Paul T. Goldman (TV), Detroiters, S1 (TV), You People (film). Couldn’t bring myself to actually watch Milf Manor (TV) so I watched Cody Ko’s recap. Most disturbing forest encounters (youtube). That is a lot of fluff, compared to this horrific tale: The Escape Artist – The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (book), which is an important read and very well done. Alex Hollings talking about Highly Classified Aerospace Programs on The Team House (podcast) was a great listen.
from the notebook: Back in 1988 I photographed some kids playing with guns outside our apartment. This week one of the kid’s kids found the photos and reached out. Love that.
He is the one with the fluffy hair and mullet…
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Twenty Three Week Three
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, as the Senate gives final passage to a bill aiming to crack down on the ability of doctors to prescribe hormone therapy for minors who are transgender, at the Capitol building in Salt Lake City on Friday January 20, 2023. At right is intern Ari Webb, whose statement Blouin read during the vote. Many moments fly by. This one hit. I was photographing from the Senate gallery as Sen. Nate Blouin read a statement by Ari Webb during the voting on and passing of another anti-transgender bill in the Utah Senate. A quote from Bryan Schott’s article in The Salt Lake Tribune:
“This is a reminder of the fact that people like me are not accepted by the majority of this body. This is not a partisan issue. No one is trying to indoctrinate your kids into the trans community that would welcome them with open arms. I would not be alive if I had not been able to transition, and I am lucky that my attempts to take my life before that time failed,” Webb wrote.
Media: How Eric Adams Started Mentoring a Con Man (longform). How “Battle Royale” took over video games (longform). Overreach (book):
The people are not stupid. They watch and laugh nervously and see how low the actors will go
The PEZ Outlaw (film) treats its quirky characters with a loving hand. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (film), something I should have seen last year.
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Twenty Three Week Two
The archives say the week was this:
- basketball game
- public meeting
- night photos along state street
- patch of land
- basketball game
- rally
Media: Landlocked (film) was the kind of film you can’t forget (in the best way). Sick (film) takes you back to early COVID-19 quarantine and adds a human killer. Saw Avatar: The Way of Water (film) in the theater. And to catch the backstory of a MySpace outsider influencer, My Name is Jonah (film)
From the notebook: Watching Sicario (film) again. There’s this brilliant exchange, something like this:
“Tell me how the cartels work.”
“You’re asking me to describe how a watch works. Better to focus on what time it is.”
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Twenty Three Week One
We started off the year in Moab. Always beautiful. More so when no one is around. We took advantage and spent every day in Arches National Park, where we fell in love back in January 1989.
Media: Loved The Menu (film) and luckily watched You Should See This (film) just before the guy got canceled. Great to see Avail (music) back onstage via hate5six. And does Shapka translate to HAT? Russkaja (music) knows.
From the notebook: We hiked into Delicate Arch. On the hike up the rocks a lone hiker is wandering way off course to the right, lost despite the obvious signs. We round the bend into the arch’s presence and it feels so crowded. Even though it’s only around twenty people. A guy is flying a buzzing drone (they’re banned in the park). An influencer is filming a video. The guy who was lost on the trail is yelling at a couple, who is yelling back at him. An older couple is walking slowly towards us, clutching each other in terror, as if they’re going to slip to their deaths on the sandpaper-like redrock.
I can only imagine what it looks like in the summer.
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Week Thirty-Five
Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Nancy Watson blows a kiss at a vigil at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City for Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021.. Hoover was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan. 
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) A vigil at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City for Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. Hoover was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan. 
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Family members at a vigil at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City for Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. Hoover was killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Utah v Weber
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Lightning flashes over Rice-Eccles Stadium as a storm blew through as the Utah Utes host the Weber State Wildcats in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. 
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Family members of Ty Jordan react at the unveiling of a memorial in Rice-Eccles Stadium as the Utah Utes host the Weber State Wildcats in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021.
