I saw our lady approaching a long way off — ambling in fits and starts down an incline toward me. I noticed surrounding pedestrians in the distance snap their heads toward her, as if reacting to a loud noise; just as quickly they turned back to their own business. When our survivor-of-the-modern-world stopped, she stood as you see her now — feet spread and deeply planted — with fists clenched, fused to her hips impersonating a female Benito Mussolini

Our subject replicated this cracked-brain expression numerous times during her ramble along Salt Lake’s Main Street.

When she stopped in this manner, she spoke:

“I hate Utah!”

Farther along, and louder:

“I hate Provo!”

(Provo is a nearby city in Northern Utah.)

And then — so the entire street could hear — she screamed:

“I hate Salt Lake!”

(Referring not to the fast-evaporating lake, but to the Celestial City itself.)

Our full-length portrait-subject had ill feelings galore and no inhibition to restrain her expression of them; at the same time she seemed downright giddy in moments, as if she had been unstrung from restraints and subsequently had escaped her room at a psychiatric care facility.

Upon raising my camera, I said: “Can I see that again?”

Significantly she did not ask me to clarify what I meant.

Instead, she slid back forthwith into her well-practiced routine.