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Contributors On the Road with Your Trusted Host

July 2, 2010 - 10:47 am

Road trips: the great, trusty pastime of the poor and the restless. Me, I’ve journeyed across this land more times than I can count. Before I was even old enough to drive, I traversed state after state with the aid of the cheap, but terrifying Greyhound, and now I can do it for realsies. For those of us in the States, few experiences compare to the mind-boggling variety of beef jerky, fireworks, truck-stop stimulants, and the rest of the endearing roadside oddities one encounters while driving cross-country.

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Event Featured Gallery Stuffing Face at the Dark Arts Festival

by Zoetica Ebb

June 30, 2010 - 2:15 pm

Today had to begin a very specific way before I sat down to write this piece: I had to eat cake for breakfast. That’s because the the Dark Arts Festival entertained their guests with a real-life cake-eating contest, in the spirit of the event’s second night’s theme: “Let Them Eat Cake: The French Revolution” Inspiration is important, after all.

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Event Mummy-Wrapping Contest at the Dark Arts Festival

by Zoetica Ebb

June 28, 2010 - 3:27 pm

True to form, the shadowy masterminds of the Dark Arts Festival had all sorts of excitement planned for the ten-year anniversary, beyond live music and DJs. Every night of the event had a theme, and Friday’s was “Ancient Egypt”. We really didn’t know what to expect when we got to Area 31, a two-story nightclub that keeps SLC’s alternative party people out of trouble with nights of 80s, Electro, Pop and everything in between. Would there be sphinxes? Mummies? Sophisticated irrigation systems everywhere? What wonders awaited these weary travelers?

Though I was a little sad to find no pyramids and few attendees dressed in white linen, there was no shortage of wigs, eyeliner, or mummies. That’s right, mummies. One the night’s scheduled events was a mummy-wrapping contest. This too, of course, could have meant anything. Having never been to Salt Lake City I didn’t know how hardcore this was going to be.

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Contributors Impromptu Fashion Show at Deseret Industries

by Zoetica Ebb

June 25, 2010 - 2:24 pm

After absorbing all that the Dark Arts Festival’s first night had to offer, I got the most out of our hotel’s in-room hot tub and slept a luxurious four hours while the men spent the night’s end plotting. In the morning, it was time to explore Salt Lake City. We had just a few hours before the Festival’s fashion show began and wanted to make the most of our day. As mentioned before, I’d never been to SLC and wanted to see the namesake attraction. We followed the “Salt Lake” signs in good faith, only to be led into a maze of highway stretches, half-empty amusement parks and a pocket of foul weather. With time running out we scrapped the ill-conceived idea entirely and headed for the nearest Deseret Industries outlet.

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Art/Design A Decade of Dark Arts in Salt Lake City

by Zoetica Ebb

June 22, 2010 - 10:45 am

It’s always a little sad when good things come to an end, even when that end signals new beginnings.

Last weekend, Salt Lake City’s Dark Arts Festival celebrated a decade of operation with its final installment, the three-day Alumni Festival that featured performers who’ve appeared at the event over the past ten years. Clint Catalyst, a good friend and man of many hats, hosted the DAF back in 2002 and was invited to join the party. He recruited goth-rock veteran Paris Sadonis [Premature Ejaculation, EXP, etc.] and me along for the ride. We cooked up a very special, butoh-inspired performance piece, piled into Clint’s hatchback, and set out for the land of goths and mormons to help The Dark Arts festival commemorate ten years of all things dark and arty.

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