There may have been a period when time crept by on tiptoes, but, of late, it appears to be quite comfortable at full gallop. And “annual” happenings, and the rapidity with which they come and go, have somehow acquired the responsibility of rubbing our noses in it.
A case in point would be the 13th Annual Utah Humanities Book Festival, which last week peppered the state from Park City to Ephraim and Tremonton to Moab with satellite events before culminating with its usual all-day-Saturday affair at the Main Library in Salt Lake City.
I swear, this specific gathering, which I’ve been attending since its early days at Westminster College, returns to the scene of its crimes seemingly quicker than the earth could possibly orbit the sun. It shows absolutely no respect for the yearly interval as we have come to know it.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. I wouldn’t mind it a bit if they put it on monthly, or even weekly. It’s easily one of my favorite festivals, if not my most favorite. The problem I have is with the “annual” designation. It’s as if, under its current configuration, it somehow prods time, causing it to accelerate.
Well, this past Saturday, there it was again, hot on the heels of its predecessor, the 12th Annual. And, I must say, this year’s Saturday bookfest rocked!
Once the schedule of readings and book signings by the various authors had been announced, it was the inclusion of Montana novelist Thomas McGuane that got me instantly on board. The hook was set!
Whoever else showed up, I knew I wouldn’t leave disappointed. The Utah Humanities Council has always proven itself a rather hip outfit when dealing with such matters. And then there was the rumor of a “surprise guest” that was being floated about. I was ready! Let the wild rumpus begin!
Back in the early ’70s, McGuane had written the screenplay to one of my all-time favorite westerns, “Rancho Deluxe.” In the ensuing years, of course, he had knocked off such cult-classic novels as “The Bushwhacked Piano” and “Ninety-two in the Shade,” among many others. His latest, “Riding on the Rim,” just hit bookshops.
McGuane, a longtime rancher and cutting-horse enthusiast, hangs out with novelist Jim Harrison and neighbor Tom Brokaw, among other wordsmiths and observers of the contemporary scene, in their “hood” just south of Livingston, Montana.
His storytelling, augmented by a clean, quirky, and oftentimes tragically-hip prose style, showcases people within their landscape adjusting to circumstances not always of their own making and not always successfully.
And his characters, so acutely drawn as to stick to the literary ribs of his readers long after his books have been returned to the shelf, are fashioned in earth tones from the stuff of the real, not imagined, though intermittently hallucinogenic, West.
Quite comfortable in his skin and with the setting onstage in the library auditorium, McGuane casually conversed with both the audience and an interviewer on topics ranging from his writings to ranch life to his interaction with Wallace Stegner as a fellowship student at Stanford.
McGuane, along with such future American literary notables as Ken Kesey, Larry McMurtry, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, William Kittredge, Harriet Doerr, Jeffrey Eugenides, Raymond Carver, Scott Turow, and a hundred or so others, studied under the master at Stanford as a “Stegner Fellow.”
This brings us to the previously mentioned “surprise guest.” One of the other scheduled readers, author and former investigative reporter Ted Gup, was set to discuss his new book, which concerns a box of Depression-era letters found in a family attic, with Utah composer Phillip Bimstein who was setting the letters to music.
Bimstein, the ringleader of Utah chamber-folk group Red Rock Rondo, as it turned out, had the entire ensemble onstage to perform tunes specifically written for individual letters from the book. Gup would tell the story of the letter, read it, and then have it performed by Red Rock Rondo.
The entire production was brilliant and was easily the most well received part of the entire day’s program. Here’s a heads-up for you: Ted Gup’s book “A Secret Gift: How One Act of Kindness and a Trove of Letters Revealed the Hidden Lives of the Great Depression,” along with its collaboration with Red Rock Rondo is going to be a very big deal! The CBS Sunday Morning show is already on board. Keep an eye out!
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.