Mel Sundquist’s portfolio

July doldrums and a poll to make my job easier

Originally published in the UVU Review at 7/28/2008.

Sometimes the editor of a section in a newspaper is lucky enough to get his or her own column. And sometimes editors make their own luck. After two years of Cool Beans by Luke Hickman (the retired life-editor), we’re moving on to something new.

This is where you come in. As a reader of the Life section, you’re entitled to some control over what we write about — after all, we do this all for you.

By suggesting a title for a new weekly editor’s column, you can influence what type of topics the column will focus on. You can see a copy of the poll here, but to answer it, you’ll have to go to uvureview.com If you want to suggest your own ideas, just leave a comment on this article on the website.

Now on to what’s important this week: summer entertainment schedules. Particularly in Utah County, they make no sense. Typically, during the summer, the general public’s schedule is more open to local entertainment. Sure, we go on vacations, but that takes up only one or two of the twelve weeks of summer.

For the weeks spent at home, we’re abandoned by the local entertainment industry — summer television is a bomb, and quality live theater is practically nonexistent. There is usually at least one good concert a week in Utah and Salt Lake Counties, but that can get expensive quick.

Terrible summer television almost makes sense. Television means staying at home. Concerts, movies and the theater could get us out of the house a few nights a week — an activity as much a part of summer as corn on the cob or mosquito bites. Staying home to watch television on a summer evening is about as unAmerican as not being afraid of the IRS. And that doesn’t make for good ratings.

But why do local live theaters leave us high and dry between June and August? In most large cities, there are theaters that do a rolling repertoire in the summer, which makes for at least three well-crafted productions. But the closest theater of this species is in Logan, which means it might as well be out of state.

It’s difficult to think of a logical reason for this trend. There is money to be made in the summer, the audience is willing to get into an air-conditioned theater, and vivacious, young actors usually busy with school are free to dedicate their time to rehearsal.

In the end, this problem most likely arises because the actors don’t want to work in the summer. This issue leads to an underlying flaw in the local theater community: 80% of the art is created for selfish reasons. They’re willing to let you see how great they are, but only on their time.

But really, summer is the perfect time for whimsy — the perfect time to listen to a story. So it bites when our only options are Beauty and the Beast and Pride and Prejudice, the Musical.

Published in The College Times on April 14, 2008.

1. Take a vacation. Even if you just spend a day or two in Salt Lake or buy a hotel room in downtown Provo for a couple nights, it is absolutely necessary that this summer, you take yourself to someplace new. Do not allow yourself to stagnate.

2. Figure out what you want to do. Find the best way to do it, and then go to! This may seem to get more and more complicated in real life. Try not to let it be.

3. Learn to do something new. Take knitting classes at Heindselmann’s yarn store in Provo. Learn to swim at your local rec center. Take a look at who you are now, figure out who you want to be, study the difference between the two, and learn something to make that deficit smaller.

4. Surprise yourself. Never been to Vegas? Drive down there and dance all night. Afraid of heights? Go bungee jumping. Find something that you might want to do but would never see yourself doing. Shake things up.

5. Embrace the clichés. Check out a self-help book from the library, with the words “happiness” or “better you” in the title. Take a couple words of advice from the book. And don’t be embarrassed to drown yourself in chocolate and kittens.

6. Make friends with someone with a boat, because sometimes, money (or the lack thereof) gets in the way of happiness. Sometimes it’s OK to become a hanger-on. Just contribute to the relationship in any way you know how to even things out.

7. River rafting is sure to be wonderful this year. All of that snow will make the rivers swollen by July, and that’s when rafting is the most fun.

8. Take lots of happy pictures, and write the date on the back of the print. Even if you don’t have much fun this summer, the pictures will make it seem like you did.

9. If none of this floats your boat, here’s some broader advice: Decide what you want to do with the day when you wake up. Then proceed to do it until you have to go to sleep. Repeat.