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Show A-10 The Park Record Saturday, January 12, 2002 DISS QIDiPCD? EWEKY 71 OFF ticketed price OPEN SUNDAYS itr-:rH nncM ciimhavc X Established 1939 Xy was HOW 279 89 1840 480 2450 640 6250 1890 DESCRIPTION SIZE 1) Fine Indian Kashan 2x3 2) Decorative Indo Persian 5x8 3) Fine Pakistani Bokhara 6x9 4) Persian Heriz 7x10 These ar ust a samp la of our low, low prices. BRING YOUR COLOR SAMPLES. YOUR MEASUREMENTS, YOUR PARTNER & YOUR CHECKBOOK! Rug iUm approximate, each rug subject to prior sale i I3ffl Mom More dogs on Main Street By Tom Clyde Legislature adopts new vehicle regulations With about 28 more toilet paper-hoarding days left until the Olympics, we are now dealing with Film Festival. Ordinarily this would be the' time to rant and rave about how Film Festival people can't drive and can't park and litter the streets with handbills and cigarette butts while yakking on their cell phones, all dressed like the Grim Reaper. But this is not an ordinary year. Sundance is, at best, the understudy this year. It's merely another pothole on the road to the larger chaos to come. People are upset that the Sundance Film Guide isn't readily available. Does it matter? When you come right down to it, all the Sundance films are alike anyway. Does it really matter which weird, depressing movie you see among the hun- dreds of nearly identical weird, depressing movies offered? Is one significantly more angst-ridden than another? I think not. Go skiing. But even more important than Film Festival, the criminal class has gathered in Salt Lake City again. Yes, that's right, the State Legislature is back in session. They are hot on the trail to making Utah a better bet-ter place by forcing every school classroom class-room to post a banner ban-ner that says, "In God We Trust." That will solve everything. The other issue before them is a little more difficult. The state budget is about $200 Does it really matter which weird, depressing movie you see among the hundreds hun-dreds of nearly identical weird, depressing movies offered? Is one significantly more angst-ridden than another? I think not. " Tom Clyde ill I JU 111 million dollars short. That's a lot of money, even in government terms. $200 million would buy a whole lot of stuff, or pay a lot of salaries, or even buy a dozen bus stops. The Legislature is in a panic about it, and has publicly asked our help in finding ways to economize in state government. They could start by not paying themselves while they are in recess during the Olympics. That's about as likely like-ly as the Tabernacle Choir taking up luge. My favorite suggestion for saving money in state government is to combine small, inefficient state regulatory agencies into larger inefficient state regulatory reg-ulatory agencies. For example, it has been proposed pro-posed to combine the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control with the Department of Motor Vehicles. The federal court recently held that many of Utah's liquor regulations were "irrational" and probably unconstitutional. The cost of rewriting the regulations has become burdensome. So in the spirit of economy, the decision was made to take the Motor Vehicle Code which has been tried and tested for years -- and replace the words "motor vehicle" with "alcoholic beverage" on the computer. In a matter of seconds the new regulations regula-tions are done. No need for messy hearings and rewrites. re-writes. Through the usual clerical errors, they got it slightly backwards, and the new motor vehicle code looks a lot like the old alcoholic beverage v.ri -code. For example the number of cars licensed in Utah will be based on the population, as determined deter-mined by the most recent census. All of the available avail-able licenses have been issued, so if you want to buy a new car, you have to trade in the old one which goes to the crusher. If you want to add an additional car to your household, for a newly licensed driver, for example, or say you just moved IF YOU'VE NEVER SUBSCRIBED TO THE PARK BECOBD THIS OFFER IS FOB YGUI BUYAGr:-YEsc:scsini::i ($32 vmm sk.""it cc::ity$3 C3TSi:i sit ccusto O GET TlVa TICKETS TO THE FLT CCHS SE0VJIX3 ! FEBEI1Y 2, 2032 T TCE ECCLES CENTER. ' The Orarff S. DnlarM Dor 4 ECCLES CENTER far the Performing Arts 11k ParkRecoid. Moscow Circus star, Gregory Popvich, returns with his collection of amazing performing cats & dogs (all rescued from animal shelters). The Siegfried & Roy of domestic felines (and canines), Popvich and his trained pets have jumped, balanced and juggled their way into the spotlight, With appearances on Letterman and Leno as well as on the stage at. Circus, Circus, this act not only amazes, but also provides plenty of laughter. Pet Circus is purrrrfect for the whole family! February 2, 2002 Shows at 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. Tl Vill AOYJUmCE Of THIS OFFEI COKE TO TIE PUI IECQIB UCATU XT 1670 10XANU BBNl RUSK CITY, MOROffY TEBOOGI FRIDAY BETWEEN 8:30 1 5:00 TO PSBCHASE Y031 HEW SOBSCRirnOX AMD PICK BP Y0OI TICKETS. GUI Sim IT (U51 MS-WrM FCI UEmSXJU IKFtlDUTlOU na mmim s uuuau m kew uiuiunts im mm tema ust TICarSftKHLHIITtM. into the state, you have to find somebody else with a license they are willing to give up. (That's actually actual-ly not such a bad idea in terms of traffic flow.) The end result has been a very attractive "gray" market in under-utilized licenses. Little old ladies who hardly drive anymore will be selling their licenses for big bucks and retiring to St. George in style. Assuming you are able to get a license for a car, you still need fuel. Under the new regulations, fuel will only be sold in measured, five gallon shots. You can't buy two at a time. Regular gas stations will only be able to sell ethanol. If you want regular regu-lar gas, you have to go to a gas station with a convenience con-venience store attached, and you can only buy gas if you also buy the 64-ounce Coke and a burrito at the same time. Certain private club gas stations will be able to sell premium fuel without requiring the purchase of the burrito, but you first have to join the club and pay a membership fee. Of course, the creepy truck driver at the diesel island might sponsor you, or you can. buy a temporary guest membership if you are just passing pass-ing through. Fuel sold at most places will be 88 octane. If you want higher octane gas, you need to go to a special State Gas Station. There will be several of Mmmmmmmmmmmmi them scattered around the state, usually in hard-to-find locations and open at strange hours. No high-octane fuel will be sold on Sunday, holidays, or Brigham Young's wedding anniversaries. If you want to buy something really special, like a winter-blend diesel, you have to get it at the specialty fuel store in Trolley Square. Cars entering the state from Wyoming will be required to drain their tanks at the border and fill up with Utah-approved fuel. Persons engaged in the business of selling gasoline, gaso-line, regardless of what kind of gas station license they have, must always wear their name tags. The penalty for buying gas from somebody not wearing a name tag is that you lose your right to drive for 90 days. It's not clear what the name of the cashier selling the gasoline and burrito has to do with anything, any-thing, but it says right there in the code that the name tag must be worn, and there's no getting around it. It carries the same penalty as pumping 50,000 gallons of gasoline into the creek. The most important part of the new combined DABCDMV regulations is that from now on, it will be illegal to park a car within 600 feet of a church or school. I've heard more rumors about who will light the Olympic caldron in the Opening Ceremonies. One is the liquor control enforcement prosecutor, Earl Dorius. He's OK, though personally, I think he would be more appropriate to throw the wet blanket blan-ket on the flame at the end of the Games. The other one was State Porn Czar Paula Houston, who would be able to both light the flame and affix the official fig leaf on the figure skaters. Tom Clyde is a former city attorney and author of "More Dogs on Main Street. " He has been a columnist for The Park Record for more than a decade. V ""SI Don't get me started By Gary Weiss E' Movies: the sequel TITiv should people go out and pay good VV money to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing? " Such was the philosophy of the Old School Movie Mogul Samuel Goldwyn, who was making great movies before there was television. Last week I mentioned that movies have always been important in my life. I also mentioned that, being 50 now, I thought my experience of films was probably very different than that of younger people. peo-ple. The culture, after all, is substantially different. But thinking about it later, I'm not so sure anymore. any-more. While the meaning of movies may be different for each of us, the experience of them probably hasn't has-n't changed all that mucn. Meaning is altogether personal, but the experience -the context of that meaning -- is ingrained so deeply in us, so conditioned, that their impact is more or less common to us all. We've all come to approach movies with a similar ' set of expectations. ammmmi"''m This, I think, is what separates the movies from television, which comes with a very different set of expectations. To one degree or another, movies rely on our experience experi-ence of other movies. A kind of living tradition, that's evolved on the same timeline as our society. This movie tradition generally concerns romantic roman-tic comedy, scary thrillers, coming-of-age pieces, techno-action, "caper" movies, the rogue cop who kicks ass and affliction dramas, among a very few others. But there is a tradition. As we sit in a theater, the-ater, we have in our heads a sense of all the films we've seen before; a range of common reference, like the spelling and arithmetic of our school-bound education. This is true even though that "spelling and arithmetic" arith-metic" generally isn't. As the wonderful American author, Kurt Vonnegut, once wrote: "Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more enter-tainingly enter-tainingly than people really talk... making paltry human enterprises seem important. " The art of snappy patter. But the experience is more than that, and so is the tradition. Say the word "popcorn," and most people think of the movies. And movies are as much a part of early dating ritu- it Say the word "popcorn," and most people think of the movies. And movies are as much a part of early dating ritual as alcohol. They allow an illusion of closeness close-ness between people who are essentially strangers." Gary Weiss al as alcohol. They allow an illusion of closeness between people who are essentially strangers. They kill a substantial block of time, and create a conversation con-versation platform for later on. And this has been true ever since 1903, with the opening in New York of The Great Train Robbery - the first motion picture pic-ture to tell a complete story. Although, like reading, the act of watching movies is among the most physically passive things we do; they require an active engagement of our emotions and intellect. That's what makes them fun. And like our own dreams, films involve us in a world whose course we can't control. But although dreams may speak to us of the deep, deep parts of our psyche, we rarely take those messages as direct keys to behavior. Movies, on the other hand, can have a great deal of impact. Especially when we're young, and still in the process of inventing invent-ing ourselves. And especially for those whose key gender models - parents -- may not be around enough to serve that function. When I said earlier that movies rely on our experience expe-rience of other movies, this is what I meant. Over the decades, a primary set of hero models has been established and, consciously or subconsciously, many of us tend to see ourselves in some of those models. From them, we tend to take behavioral cues of those traits we think will help us be more successful. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, y Of course, too literal a reading of those models can be damaging and dangerous. After alt, Vonnegut was right -- they're basically fraudulent But then, it's also a dangerous world, full of damaged dam-aged people. As the director Sam Peckinpah said: "I'm a student of violence because I'm a student of the human heart. " Now, by no means am I saying that we should take movies all that seriously; they're just movie9, primarily entertainment vehicles. And, I've found, the more seriously they take themselves, the less entertaining they are. Just as important, as all that other stuff is Alfred Hitchcock's summation Of his theory of motion pictures: i "The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder. " Gary Weiss is the former owner of Dolly 's Bookstore and has served on the Summit County Planning Commission. |