On Sunday, Aug. 1, the University of Utah campus was soaked by the storm that reached much of northern Utah, causing flooding in various places around campus.

One of many buildings on campus affected by flooding was the U Hospital.

“I don’t think any of us were expecting [the storm],” said the Executive Director for the U Hospital Allison Flynn Gaffney. “We had minor to medium issues [Sunday] night and through to Monday morning; at no time was patient care disrupted.”

According to PR and Strategic Communications Specialist of Campus Facilities Wes Mangum, as many as 20 buildings sustained water damage caused by flooding.

“Restoration work [on these buildings] has already started,” Mangum said. “In addition, landscaped areas throughout campus were flooded and [will also need] restoration.”

Campus Facilities worked to respond to the many incidents of flooding that occurred around campus and successfully kept all campus operations from being interrupted during the storm.

“In a situation like this, a large part of the situation is responding as soon as it happens and as it develops,” Mangum said. “As soon as we became aware of the floods, we had members of our facilities team on site.”

The Campus Store was also among the many buildings affected by Sunday’s storm, despite already having precautionary measures in place.

“The store has seen heavy rain like this before, but not often,” said Campus Store Marketing Coordinator Nikayla Spriggs. “We have implemented more advanced drainage systems, [however] this was unique because of the amount of debris in the area. [It] ended up clogging our drainage systems.”

The clogged drainage systems resulted in flooding, causing minimal damage to the building, merchandise and fixtures within the building.

“We will have to spend some time cleaning up all of the water and silt,” Spriggs said. “As well as shampoo and steam clean some areas of the store.”

The A. Ray Olpin Student Union was another building impacted by the storm.

According to the Facilities & Operations Manager of the Union, Ben Crookston, it was faced with flooding in the basement, leaving behind mud and water but no serious damage. Crookston estimated that at least two days of clean-up would be needed until the building was fully recovered.

After Sunday’s storm, the Union is working to better prepare for future storms of this nature.

“[We] hope to fully seal the foundation from outside water,” Crookston said. “How this can be done, [we are] not sure at this time.”

Moving forward, Campus Facilities intends to set up more preventative measures around campus to help better prepare for storms such as this one while continuing what they already have in place.

According to Chief Facilities Officer Robin Burr, the U will be using multiple sump pumps around campus, even installing them permanently in certain areas.

A sump pump is a device, often found in basements, used to remove water after incidents of flooding. Water is collected through a building’s drainage system and deposited in the basin of the building’s sump pump, where it is then pumped out.

Facilities will also be updating some landscaped areas around campus.

“We learned that wood chips can travel a long distance in a flood, and they clog up storm drains,” Burr said. “Small rocks do a better job of staying in place.”

For future flood prevention, the Campus Facilities will be further evaluating campus’ stormwater infrastructure.

To learn more about these preventative measures, visit the Campus Facilities website.

d.oldroyd@dailyutahchronicle.com

@oldroyd_devin

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I’m not an experiment

I had a hookup late Saturday night with a man I had just messaged over Grindr half an hour before.

I was inspired by my friend to finally make a move — partially because I was hanging out with her before two of her hookups, and we were trying to have a “twinning” moment by hooking up with someone in the same night. I realized that my Tinder matches of 30 or more miles away would not cut it; I needed someone quick and accessible.

Even though I did not end up hooking up with someone the same night as my friend, I finally found someone the very next night. It was around midnight and I was heading home from my other friend’s going away party when I stopped in a dark neighborhood close to my house and decided to give Grindr one more chance. And to my surprise, it worked.

I messaged a man around 12:30 a.m. and got to his apartment at around 1:00 a.m. On the way over, my body was shaking uncontrollably. My past hookups have always come to me, and this was the first time I was entering someone else’s place and doing anything this late at night. Before I came over, he mentioned that this would be his first time doing anything with a man, which in some ways worried me.

The sex only lasted around half an hour, but I didn’t really do much of anything beyond giving him head until he came.

We tried anal, but he quickly became soft, which is why I resorted to giving head. And while I know that it was not necessarily because of me, I still felt as though I failed. I failed at giving him the experience he wanted, or perhaps wanted to try. Queer sex did not seem like something that enticed him, and I felt somewhat ashamed.

Normally, I don’t think sexual attraction is necessary for a hookup, but there is something incredibly validating if someone wants to have sex with me even if they are desperate. But this man was not desperate, and from the moment we started talking, I realized that there was no attraction between us in the slightest. The hotness of the moment was completely drained as I realized the gap between us.

In some ways, it felt as though I were having sex with a straight man; I was his experiment — a body for him to use. And it’s not that I mind being a body, but I felt a certain level of indifference from him toward me but not the same indifference of my other hookups. I do not want to say that he isn’t queer or that he was just bicurious because no one can ever truly know another person’s sexuality, but I will say that his queerness and my queerness were not the same.

Whereas my other hookups were already established within their queerness, he was new to everything and surprised by my use of sex toys, but not in a way that indicated attraction. Rather, he was unknowledgeable of anal play and queer sex and had an aversion to sex toys and jockstraps, whereas I was entrenched in these things.

Queerness — or more specifically in my case, gayness — was always something that was attached to me. I walked throughout my life as a gay boy, whether I wanted to be labeled that way or not, but he had just newly emerged or perhaps was just experimenting with queerness. Hooking up with this guy made me realize how alone I actually am in my experiences, and how queerness failed to unite us. The gap was too obvious for me that it ripped me from my hookup fantasy and again reminded me of my own position as an outsider.

This is not to place blame on my hookup nor is it to say that he was a bad person; the situation just happened at the wrong moment. He was actually pretty nice and understanding when we were talking and was curious about the “gay scene,” as he had called it. Still, when talking about queerness with him, he seemed to talk about it as if it were not a part of himself, and while I appreciated the short conversation, I realized that we were incompatible at that moment in time.

He still needed to figure out his own sexuality and attraction, and he needed to view himself as queer before I could ever relate to him. Of course, I am not saying that he has to do anything, but rather, I wish him luck in his journey. I do believe that if we had met at a different time in his sexual exploration, our experience would have been better and there would have been more of a mutual understanding.

In the future, I don’t want to be someone’s experiment. But this is not to say that I discourage people to experiment with queerness; rather, I think it’s necessary to explore one’s sexuality and I encourage more people to learn about themselves. I just don’t want to be constantly reminded of my own isolation as a gay man and the struggles I experienced coming into queerness when all I wanted was some fun.

Joaquin Najera writes the Tuesday column on sex. Contact him at sex@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

JUSTIN HALL AT THE MOVIES

This week on “Justin Hall At The Movies,” I’ll be reviewing director M. Night Shyamalan as he places a group of people on a mysterious beach where they become “Old.”

“Old” is writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, but it might as well be called his latest disappointment. He once again crafts an intriguing premise, but it’s let down by being in the usual trappings of pretentiousness, ludicrous payoffs, and especially unintentionally hilarious.

The movie stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps as a married couple who are about to be divorced and they take their kids on a last vacation. Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie costar as their kids.

They go to a tropical resort with a private beach as recommended by the resort’s manager and while they’re visiting, they encounter other people also exploring the beach including a doctor (Rufus Sewell) and his wife (Abby Lee) and their daughter (Eliza Scanlen). Others include another physician (Ken Luang) and his epileptic wife (Nikki Amuka-Bird).

Soon after they’re on the beach, strange occurrences take place such as the married couples’ two kids rapidly aging into teens. The rest of the party tries to make sense out of the predicament, but oftentimes, they’re left with more questions than answers. So are we.

Other nonsensical moments including an increasing amount of disturbing behavior that leads to the party trying to kill off one another and one character’s revelations are so ridiculous that we don’t even care when it’s revealed. That’s how I felt about a lot of Old.

As I mentioned, Old is filled with moments of unintentional hilarity and seems to be a specialty of Shyamalan’s. Idiotic dialogue and plot twists around in a way that only either make us howl with laughter or roll our eyes. No sense of shock or amazement is to be found. Here’s another example of a good cast and a great production put under the services of a lame script.

Old is appropriately named because we feel like a lot of moments are lethargic in nature and when it’s not that, it’s odd, scare-free, silly, and just when we hope there’s a method to the madness, we realize there’s only madness.

Grade: C-

(Rated PG-13 for strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language.)

Cameron Burrell shined for the UH track and field program from 2013-2018, setting school records and winning multiple NCAA Outdoor championships. | Courtesy of UH athletics

Cameron Burrell, a former UH track and field star and son of head coach Leroy Burrell, died Monday at 26.

“My family is extremely saddened with the loss of our son, Cameron, last night. We are going through profound sorrow and ask that all of our friends, extended University of Houston family and the track and field community in the U.S. and abroad allow us to gather with our closest family and friends,” Leroy Burrell said.  “We are profoundly grief stricken, and thank everyone for the outpouring of prayers and support. We will forward more information when it is available.”

UH athletic director Chris Pezman expressed his sympathy for the Burrell family as they navigate through this difficult point in their life.

“Words cannot express how we feel for Leroy, Michelle and their family. Cameron grew up around the Houston Athletics Department, worked hard and developed himself into one of our greatest Track and Field stars,” Pezman added. “To lose him so suddenly is tragic. We ask all University of Houston and track and field fans to keep Coach Burrell and his family in their thoughts and prayers”

Burrell, who was a part of the Cougar program from 2013-2018, quickly emerged as a standout sprinter during his freshman season and was named an All-American by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

Burrell burst onto the national scene as a junior, finishing runner-up in the 2016 NCAA indoor 60-meter dash and earned NCAA First-Team All-American honors.

Burrell continued to pile up runner-up honors in the 60-meter as well as the 100-meter in 2017 and earned additional NCAA First-Team All-American honors.

Burrell’s UH career culminated with him becoming the NCAA Outdoor champion in the 100-meter and 4×100-meter relay in 2018, capping off a legendary career as a Cougar.

The cause of death has yet to be reported.

sports@thedailycougar.com

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The University of Minnesota announced Monday plans to require the COVID-19 vaccine for its campus community upon formal approval of the shots by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

The announcement comes one week after the University reinstated a campus-wide mask mandate.

“Upon formal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of any COVID-19 vaccine (anticipated in the coming weeks), the University will add the COVID-19 vaccine to those immunizations already required for students, with appropriate exemptions,” University President Joan Gabel said in an email to the campus community. 

Minnesota law currently requires all students attending a college in the state and born after 1956 to be vaccinated against tetanus, measles, mumps and rubella. 

“With the comfort associated with FDA approval, we will join a growing list of public colleges and universities across the country that are taking a similar approach, including, but not limited to, Michigan State University, Purdue University, the University of Florida, and many of the nation’s leading private colleges, including many in Minnesota,” Gabel said.

Details regarding how to report vaccinations and consequences from non-compliance are forthcoming, Gabel added.

She also encouraged those with questions to attend an upcoming virtual town hall with herself and other University leaders on Aug. 18.

GradGuard’s tuition insurance first and only program to cover COVID-19 and mental health conditions nationwide; provides financial safety net when schools don’t

PHOENIX (August 10, 2021):  Nationwide, college families are once again finding themselves evaluating the ever-changing updates on how schools will protect students from Coronavirus as the Delta variant becomes a growing concern. As parents prepare to pay their final tuition bill before arriving on campus, among the many questions they are smart to ask is: What will happen to my tuition payment if my student is forced to withdraw from college due to becoming ill with COVID or other illnesses and unable to continue their term?

For many families, college is one of the largest investments they will ever make. As a result, it’s a smart move for anyone paying tuition to understand their school’s refund policy and to consider protecting their investment with tuition insurance.

“The thousands of dollars students and families are paying for college tuition, housing and academic fees are often at risk,” said John Fees, parent of a college student and the co-founder of GradGuard, one of the largest providers of student insurance programs in the country with partnerships at more than 400 colleges and universities. “The idea of losing money can create even more financial stress for students and their parents. GradGuard enables students and families to make the decision on whether to withdraw is based on the well-being of their student and not just the money at risk.”

The coronavirus pandemic and its surging Delta variant has brought important attention to the risk of investing in college and particularly, how schools manage refunds.

While neither schools or tuition insurance provide refunds for a change in the form of instruction (such as the move to online classes), families may be surprised that they will likely lose thousands of dollars if their student’s semester is disrupted by a health event and forced to withdraw.

In fact, only 6% of schools surveyed in 2019 provided 100% refunds for tuition and virtually none provide refunds for academic fees or housing. Many universities may refund a portion of tuition through the first few weeks of school, but most schools will not provide a refund after the fifth week of classes. Academic fees, deposits and housing are usually not eligible for a refund.

The risk can often surprise college parents. Less than a quarter of parents surveyed in a 2019 College Parents of America report indicated that their student’s college refund policy was disclosed to them during the enrollment process.

Families are also often unaware that their college student may be vulnerable to the stress of college life. The National College Health Assessment produced by the American College Health Association demonstrates the frequency of incidents such as illnesses, accidents, and injuries that can require a student to complete a medical withdrawal. This data also reveals a growth in chronic illnesses and rapid growth in serious mental health incidents during the past five years.

“If a student has a controlled pre-existing condition like serious anxiety or mental health conditions, and they are medically cleared to attend school, GradGuard’s tuition insurance can cover them,” said Fees. “If they must withdraw under the recommendation of a licensed professional in their state, tuition insurance can reimburse the out of pocket costs associated with their housing, tuition, and student fees .  GradGuard’s tuition insurance can help reduce the stress students face in these situations and help everyone focus on the well-being of the student.”

It’s important for families to note that even prior to COVID-19, student health conditions force thousands of students to withdraw from classes each year, without the ability to recover the thousands of dollars paid for classes, fees and housing.

The Top Three Reasons GradGuard’s Tuition Insurance Is A Smart Decision:

• If the school does not provide a 100% refund – Ask your school about their refund policy.

• If the student has more than $1,000 of academic expenses – Even if the school provides a 100% refund for tuition, most do not refund academic fees or student housing costs.

• If the student or family is taking out a student loan – Student and parent loans must be repaid even if a student must take a medical withdrawal. Tuition insurance can be used to repay the balance of these loans.

“GradGuard’s tuition insurance provides affordable coverage up to 100% of the cost of college including student housing, tuition and academic charges,” said Fees. “In addition, each policy also includes Student Life Assistance that helps families through the logistics that may accompany an unexpected student withdrawal. ”

Despite the stress and changes caused by Coronavirus to higher education, the good news is that college families can protect both their student and their investment by purchasing GradGuard’s tuition insurance, with rates as low as $106 for $10,000 of tuition insurance coverage at participating schools. Coverage must be purchased prior to the first day of school.

“Students and their families can take confidence in schools that provide GradGuard’s insurance programs to help protect their investment in college and are prepared to overcome the unexpected events that may otherwise disrupt their semester,” said Fees.

About GradGuard: GradGuard is a technology-enabled pioneer in developing innovative protections designed to reduce the financial risks of college life. Since 2009, GradGuard is trusted by more than 400 colleges and universities and since its founding has protected nearly one million students and families. Visit GradGuard.com to use its college insurance search tool to find the insurance programs that are right for your college student or recommended by their college or university.

Contact:
Natalie Tarangioli
480-485-6138
ntarangioli@gradguard.com

Guilty pleasures we shouldn’t feel guilty about

Next Entertainment/Courtesy

There are socially acceptable things that people can enjoy, such as video games and ice cream. And then there are the less socially acceptable things. Everyone has guilty pleasures, whether you’ll admit it or not. Guilty pleasures such as the Twilight series and superhero films have been normalized in our society because people aren’t ashamed of watching them. But there are a few guilty pleasures that aren’t so accepted — even still, we shouldn’t feel guilty about them. The following are some things that we shouldn’t hide our love for.

Pop music

There’s a common idea that if you listen to obscure indie music, you’re vastly superior to the sheep that listen to pop. These people call the genre manufactured, diluted and repetitive — but you have to admit that pop music gets too much hate. The goal of pop songs is having catchy choruses and melodies because it’s meant to be pop-ular. Listening only to underground music may actually restrict the variety of your music taste. Denying yourself from the bright, catchy tunes of pop won’t make you better than fans of the genre. When you truly learn to appreciate the art of the genre, you’ll be the biggest Dua Lipa and Ariana Grande fan in no time.

Reality TV

There are Emmy award-winning shows like “Game of Thrones” and “Breaking Bad,” which are considered the best series of all time. Then there is reality television, known for drama and catfights. Everyone knows that reality shows are manufactured by producers and don’t depict the actual lives of their casts. But it’s fun to turn off your brain and watch these larger-than-life personalities hash it out. Watching Beverly Hills socialites fighting over the pettiest reason isn’t the highest form of art, but it sure is entertaining. There are also reality TV competitions, where you can cheer on your favorite contestants. Although the contestants are trying to get to the top, they are also competing with who has the saddest backstories for the audience to love them. 

Taco Bell

Fast food already has a bad reputation: cheap, processed and unhealthy. But people usually reserve the lowest tier of the fast food pyramid for Taco Bell. It’s not 5-star Michelin-rated cuisine, but the food is consistent. Whenever I eat Taco Bell, it always hits the spot and makes me want more. From the value menu to all the combos, it’s got no shortage of affordable foods. You can practically buy every menu item for under $20. The cherry on top is the variety of sauces, my favorite being the sweet mild sauce. We need to normalize liking Taco Bell so we don’t have to wear disguises when picking up our orders.

Celebrity gossip

Keeping up with the Kardashians and other famous people is considered frivolous and shallow. However, it’s like keeping tabs on sports or current events: another form of news. Celebrity gossip isn’t the highest form of journalism, thanks to tabloids. But like reality TV, it’s entertaining to look at which famous person is dating who and who is currently in a feud. It also leads to funny memes flooding the internet whenever a major event involving a celebrity occurs. Instead of looking at celebrity gossip as trivial, look at it from an anthropological perspective and study these famous people’s histories, relationships and behavior.

The items above are only a few examples of what we shouldn’t be guilty about. If a person likes something and it doesn’t hurt anybody, we shouldn’t judge others because we see it as worthless or lowly. Hopefully, this list shows that liking these things is normal and that we shouldn’t be hiding our interests from other people.

Contact Nicholas Clark at nclark@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Georgia Southern officials reported a 143% increase in positive COVID-19 cases since last week’s report, reporting 73 cases the Monday before classes.

Case numbers haven’t topped 70 since February 1, almost a month before GS first started administering the vaccine.

“As we prepare for the first day of Fall 2021 classes this week, the report below indicates 16 confirmed and 57 self-reported cases last week,” said a disclaimer on GS’ website. “Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to take advantage of our on-going on-campus opportunities to get a COVID-19 vaccination.”

16 cases were reported from employees. 60 cases were reported on Statesboro’s campus, 13 on Armstrong’s campus and zero on Liberty’s campus.

COVID-19 Analysis

• Total positive cases: 73
• University confirmed: 16
• Self reported:57
• Students: 57
• Employees: 16
• Statesboro campus: 60
• Armstrong campus: 13

Liberty campus: zero

Four women filed a federal class action complaint Aug. 6 against the University, claiming that it not only neglected to protect its students from sexual harassment and sexual abuse, but also “actively prevented the reporting of such harm.” 

The class of the suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island,  includes every female-identifying student at the University from 2018 to present, which a press release estimated at 4,000 students. The four plaintiffs listed — Chloe Burns ’19, Taja Hirata-Epstein ’20, Katiana Soenen ’24 and Carter Woodruff ’22 — are all current University students or recent alums.

The suit represents the latest development in student activism to curb sexual assault on campus and reform the University’s response to sexual and gender-based violence — a decades-long campaign that saw a resurgence in the last year spearheaded by groups such as End Sexual Violence and the Instagram account Voices of Brown.

The suit details all four women’s experiences of sexual assault while attending the University, including unsolicited recording, abusive relationships, assault and rape. When they brought their allegations to the University’s attention, they claim in the suit, employees “discouraged or even overtly prevented the proper reporting.” In addition, the plaintiffs claim that the complaints that were filed went “ignored and inadequately investigated or addressed.”

“Brown is not even doing the bare minimum here,” Kimberly Evans of Grant & Eisenhofer, which is representing the plaintiffs in the suit, told The Herald. “This isn’t a one-off situation — it’s a pervasive and widespread problem where the University is not even following its own policies, let alone the Title IX policies that are required by federal law.”

Student activism such as the End Sexual Violence movement also encountered resistance from the University, the suit claims: Administrators only met with student activists after “repeated requests” and implemented no “material” changes.

“Survivors at Brown are silenced, harmed and discouraged from seeking justice by the University,” the four plaintiffs said in a joint statement in a press release. “Brown’s recent history has been punctuated by numerous student uprisings led by survivors and their allies; however, the University has never responded to these pleas for justice with anything but begrudging, minor changes to policy and procedure.”

Senior Vice President for Communications Cass Cliatt wrote in an email to The Herald that the University has made it an “institutional priority” to create a zero-tolerance environment regarding sexual violence. The University has not yet been served with the lawsuit.

“Brown has taken a strategic and sustained approach to confronting sexual harassment and gender-based violence on campus dating back to transformative recommendations from the University’s Sexual Assault Task Force in 2015,” Cliatt wrote. “The increase in students reporting sexual violence, the greater confidence in the adjudication process, the data for students reporting they feel safer at Brown, as well as the ongoing partnership between students and the University around these critical issues, all reflect Brown’s aggressive actions to confront sexual violence.”

On March 2, the Title IX Office launched a new sexual and gender-based misconduct policy, which added to existing regulations to create a broader definition of sexual harassment, to categorize sexual exploitation and to include voyeurism, prostitution, disseminating sexual images of a person, exposing genitals and purposely exposing someone to a sexually transmitted infection as prohibited conduct. 

Several weeks later, the Title IX Office launched a new online reporting form that allows students to report sexual harassment anonymously. The form, designed by former Title IX Program Officer Rene Davis, was created in response to a 2019 survey which revealed that 31.2 percent of University students surveyed had “little or no knowledge” about where to make a report of sexual violence or gender harassment whereas 30.4 percent were “very or extremely knowledgeable.”

But according to Evans and the suit, the University has failed to comply both with its own policies and legally mandated policies — by, among other things, failing to provide adequate training for students and employees regarding sexual misconduct and not pursuing cases involving graduated students, despite the University’s policy stating that there is no “time limit on submitting a Formal Complaint.”

The University’s failure to adequately address sexual assault and harassment meets the definition of sex and gender-based discrimination under federal Title IX law, the suit argues. Plaintiffs, it says, are owed damages for emotional distress, pain, suffering, medical expenses and the loss of employment, among a number of other problems encountered.

In addition to financial damages, the suit calls for a permanent injunction ensuring due process, new steps for investigating reports of discrimination and discipline for students who violate the Title IX Policy.

“The goal of this litigation is to effectuate real and meaningful and long-lasting change at Brown in the way it’s handling its Title IX sexual assault allegations,” said Elizabeth Bailey of Saltz Mongeluzzi & Bendesky, the second firm representing the plaintiffs. 

“There have been cases around the country that have been successful in enacting the change that we are seeking at Brown,” Evans added.

Evans said the legal path forward is unclear at the moment: The University could settle with the plaintiffs out of court, or the case could reach trial.

“What happens next,” Bailey said, “is dependent on Brown.”

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

“The Not Broken Monologues” explores seen and unseen disabilities, giving voice to the ways that joy, grief, heartache and transformation connect to the social narratives of “disability” and “broken.” Through hundreds of hours of research, interviews and writing, the film centers on voices of those “not broken,” their journeys and ways that disabilities and illness can affect every aspect of life. 

The world premiere virtual screenings, as part of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival 2021, offered accessibility and accommodation as well as closed captioning and ASL interpretation.

More Than Just a Single Story

Playwright and director Ash Goodwin masterfully created this film through a lens of inclusivity and lived experience, weaving her own relationship with her disabilities with other disabled and chronically ill voices to create a vivid tapestry of unique journeys and reflections. Through single frame monolog-driven interviews, by actors who are also disabled or ill, the piece explores the complexities of different narratives while presenting a singular theme that those who are disabled are not broken. 

In the time of Zoom calls and virtual conversations, the stark backgrounds and single faces on screen felt familiar and the closed captioning and sign language interpreter felt poignant and inclusive. As each voice spoke, telling their stories, sharing their fears and detailing their experiences, I felt compelled to listen closer and understand more than I ever had before. It’s easy to live in a state of complacent privilege, never having to even think about disability, wonder if you are “disabled enough,” and pushed “out of everyone’s way.” The actors expertly brought life to each story they told through only their vocal nuances and body language.

There were no fancy sets or ambient melodies. There were no camera tricks or special effects. Each actor spoke and let their words fill every corner and pixel of the screen. Each story begged, without decoration or celebration, to be heard and to be seen as more than “inspiration” but as a life lived. Goodwin’s vision and direction made sure that the request was given space.

“How Many Spoons do we Need to Spend?”

In a stellar move by Goodwin’s team, spoons appear throughout the interviews, held in the hands of each speaker, connecting a thread of “spoon theory,” explained by the opening speaker, and making a subtle nod to the efforts it can take to be heard. Spoon Theory, a metaphor developed by Christine Miserandino in her 2003 essay as a way to better explain her lupus diagnosis, describes the amount of energy, both physically and mentally, a person can ration for daily tasks and activities. The theory has spread throughout disability communities to describe the exhaustion of certain situations. 

Each spoon I noticed made me think about how few spoons I use to be heard in the same way. The shiny silver props, the only props used in this film, made a significant statement in the spaces beside the stories told. Each spoon made me wonder how many spoons are spent for every moment shared, every doubt, every reflection or every reach for space at the table in conversation or social narrative. 

Goodwin and her crew didn’t ask to be inspirational. They didn’t demand solutions. They simply shared their journey and added their voices to the conversation in a way that leaves viewers to consider their own spaces in the discussion and their own understanding of “not broken.”

h.graham@dailyutahchronicle.com

@_HeatherGraham_

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