The Skepbitch

I’ve just arrived home from a trip to Salt Lake City. For my Australian readers, Salt Lake City is the Canberra of the United States (but with added religious lunacy). Awful ’souvenir’ shot glasses and t-shirts throughout the state proclaim - “Eat, drink, be merry - for tomorrow you may be in Utah”…

No, I didn’t go there for the skiing, I attended a conference, but I also had the opportunity to see Sylvia Browne live during her Farewell Lecture Tour. This will be the subject of an upcoming article for the Skeptic magazine.  

It was more of a comedy routine than the advertised seminar about ‘Temples on the Other Side’. In fact, reading the flyer that accompanied my ticket, she didn’t treat any of the promised themes at all! But she did do a generous 30 (brief) readings…with an audience of 3000…

Who said that skeptics are the cantankerous ones?! During the two-hour lecture she griped, whinged, whined and bitched about people’s bad attitudes, intermingled with her cherry-picking of religious philosophies.

Nowadays, she is so cynical and jaded, I’m surprised that she believes herself…

Salt Lake City wasn’t so bad, after all. A slower pace, friendly people, good food. Alright, there are some wowsers there; one must purchase a ‘membership’ from a ‘club’ or ‘house’, and a food item, to secure an alcoholic beverage (indeed Sydney’s Corso at Manly Beach pulls this same revenue earner, but without the religious sentiment).

Salt Lake City has some impressive galleries and museums, including the North American Museum of Ancient Life. I don’t know why I was so surprised, after all, this is Utah, not Kansas or Kentucky. Actually, Utah is rich in paleontological finds (even after Sylvia left…).

As the wikipedia entry for Salt Lake City claims, the name is a metonym for Mormonism. Persecuted members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints founded the city, which grew around the magnificent architecture and gardens of Temple Square.

Although the city is only 50% Mormon, it is infused with the presence of Mormonism. (I know you’re all keen to hear about Polygamy, but that’s for a chapter of my book. Besides, most polygamy is confined to compounds in Southern Utah.)

By day one I was adept at identifying the Mormons; the children with children, the Sisters in their long skirts talking wistfully about marriage, and the Elders in suits and ironed shirts, sitting in cafes, drinking glasses of milk.

Everyone was dying of boredom (presumably to get to heaven). Everything is closed on Sundays, like Australia until the 1980s.  I witnessed three bored kids sharing a cigarette and the following conversation…

#1: “I’m so bored. What’re we gonna do?”

#2: “I dunno.”

#3: “Let’s go to church to see Mark!”

And off they went! I can only assume that poor Mark was dragged along to church by his parents, but this further roped in his friends, in the end. Therein lies the successful religious socialization…

The most memorable part of my trip was attending a performance of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. That is, after I was subjected to a handbag search. Before I could find the atheist badge that exposed me, I noted that all bags were being searched, including those owned by the faithful, such as the highly suspicious looking Grandmother before me…

Surrounded by the splendid acoustics of the Tabernacle building, the orchestra was powerful and skilled, and the choir was, excuse the punning, heavenly and angelic.

A choral performance beats church any Sunday!

Religion has wrought the horrors of war, ignorance and intolerance, but this music is a rare inspiration of belief.

And so, episode 4103 of Music & The Spoken Word  was recorded with The Skepbitch in the audience!