First Impressions - Tim Slover

My first truly panoramic view of Salt Lake City was seen from the top of Rice Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah. Before that, my experiences were limited to that of the pedestrian, walking around and assimilating small bits of city blocks, parks and stores. Although I find that kind of guerrilla experience equally useful (and far more intimate and personal), it's not the same as seeing the whole of the city spread out before you. It feels like I'm a tick living on an elephant's back, completely sure I know and understand the whole of my environment, and then I suddenly become aware of the entire elephant, realize that it's alive and moving and enormous, and occupies yet another much larger world it doesn't really understand either. In this case, Salt Lake/the elephant, swarming with cars, insects, and people, sits in a remarkably barren desert. You can trace almost definitively the line where the suburbs end and the desert begins. And, strangely, this makes me feel both important and insignificant all at once. Important because I'm a piece in a larger puzzle, and insignificant because I'm only one piece of trillions.