Salt City Sinner

posted 7/5/2012 by the Salt City Sinner WARNING: Lunatics, Hippies, Idiots, Mystics And P ractitioners And/Or Enthusiasts Of The Occult Only Beyond This Point. First, let's get the formalities out of the way: hope everyone is having a great summer (HAGS)! Now, let me set the scene a little bit. Salt City is a big enough town that it has the standard features that to me define Civilization: adult book and novelty stores, a muckraking local weekly, a public transit train system (TRAX in our case), multiple, enormous and successful arts festivals and farmer's markets, and at least TWO occult/magick stores. For a while now, the two of these have fought a quiet battle for my loyalty. One is Golden Braid Books , located more or less downtown at 151 S. 500 E., is more staid and stately, with fountains, an attached restaurant (the Oasis Cafe, where I had my most bizarre job interview ever). The Golden Braid is what I would call "respectable" in occult circles, mea...

Posted on 6/13/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Here in Salt City, temperatures are on the rise, and the sun is aggressively radiant - so much so that driving East in the morning or West in the evening is an exercise in driving blind. Things are popping up everywhere (both in terms of greenery and continued political discontent )! Not long ago, I posted about my plot in Sugar House Community Gardens. When I planted and added my first soil amendment (coconut husks, which absorb and re-release water in an almost magical way), my plot looked like this: Well, brothers and sisters, feast your eyes: Thai basil, radishes, beets, onions, bok choi, mystery beans, peppers, Swiss chard, amaranth - you name it, I'm growing it. My bok choi, which I have had to pinch five or six generations of flowers off of to encourage leafy growth, is going NUTS (as are my onions): I even have one winter squash plant that I might have to trellis eventually. I also have the mystery bean...

posted on 4/15/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Spring! Spring is here, and it's time to plant cold weather crops . I garden for a living (more on that some other time), and this time of year I eat, sleep, breathe and dream gardening. In addition to refugee gardens at eight community garden sites throughout the Salt Lake City area - with our most far-flung garden located in the misty, legendary Kingdom of Magna - I have my own plot at the newly minted Sugar House Community Gardens , near my parents' place, located on what used to be a decrepit tennis court near Fairmont Park. Yes sir, I am Loyal to my Soil: That's after a light watering and a turning of the first six inches of topsoil. Despite what some garden guides say, and what some gardeners believe, I have heard frequently enough from enough Master Gardeners (yes, that's a technical title you have to earn) that only the top six inches of soil needs serious cultivation / tampering. That soil right ...

From every college kid's favorite toe-dip into Chuck Palahniuk: Tyler Durden: The salt balance has to be just right, so the best fat for making soap comes from humans. Narrator: Wait, what is this place? Tyler Durden: A liposuction clinic. NO, NO, NO, Tyler Durden! That is not how you make soap. I respect your combination of dumpster-diving and artisan production, but that is not how good soap is made. One the members of my Maoist hive-marriage, Stephanie, has struck out boldly into the soap-making business, and you know what? Doctor Bronner's can go take a flying f*** at a rolling donut. Steph's stuff is the bomb. When I first happened upon her operation (hidden deep in the countryside that constitutes the border between Salt Lake's Downtown and West Side - more about that some other time), I was sold: Those were made for me based on scents I wanted and shapes available. I cannot express the enthusiasm I feel now every morning to run a train-shap...