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Battle Born Couture

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Apricot Lane Boutique

5000 Meadowood Mall Circle C112, Reno | (775) 824-9524 Apricot Lane Boutique offers women unique fashion choices not found in other stores. From boutique chic attire, to a fashionable shoe selection, fun and casual hats, and even home decore – we have it all. We believe that everyone is special and deserves to be treated as such, and pride ourselves on our customer care and personalized attention. Let us help you find the perfect piece.

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Dressed Boutique

18 Winter St, Reno | (775) 360-5008 10072 Donner Pass Rd, Truckee | (530) 582-1630 Dressed Boutique is an affordable, fun, stylish clothing store for women of all ages. We offer chic garments that are inspired by the desert and the big city. Our goal at Dressed is to provide classic styles partnered with killer trendy pieces. Stop by either of our locations and let us help you find the perfect outfit for any occasion!

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Savvy Boutique

13925 S Virginia St #216, Summit Mall, Reno | (775) 851-1001 At Savvy Boutique you’ll find beautiful clothing that is soft to the touch from top designers that can be found at Nordstroms. Repeat Cashmere and Ag Jeans are lines that put Savvy on the map. Savvy Boutique prides itself on customer service and exclusivity. Enjoy Savvy’s tailored selection of timeless clothing for women, plus all the jewelry and accessories you need to complete your look. Experience the possibilities that await you at Savvy Boutique today!

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Happy Trails!

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Guided by voices

Radiant letter

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Even if you’re not actively planning a wedding—even if you don’t ever want to get married, or if you were married once, but it was a long time ago, and the marriage either crumbled or turned from hot, wet honey to hardened amber—I’d still recommend taking the time to read the bridal guide inserted in this week’s edition.

“Why would I want to waste my time with frilly, lacy fluff like that?” you might well ask.

“We’re rounding the corner on one of the most divisive years in American history—I’m picking up this newspaper to gather bullet points for my next heated political argument—probably with my brain-dead uncle at a Super Bowl party in a couple of weeks.”

Even better, maybe you’re just here—a nose hovering above these pages—to get clued in on the art, music, theater, food and drink happening around town— and yeah, we’ve got you covered for that, too, of course. But you probably already knew that.

But, still, take a spin through the bridal guide. It’s not the typical Bridezilla Monthly-type fare. Special Projects Editor Jeri Chadwell did a great job organizing a bridal guide with alternative viewpoints, and the guide itself tackles some very au courant topics: Shaun Hunter writes about the traditions embraced and rejected in some same-sex weddings. Josie Glassberg writes candidly about the other side of marriage: divorce—and the need for couples to have honest conversations about it prior to getting hitched. And Matt Bieker wrote a fun piece about how to make an effective best-man speech. (Short answer: don’t be a dick.)

Anyway. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

It’s the sort of subject that can be tired or rote, but this guide is a hoot. All three of the feature stories made me laugh out loud.

It’s a nice demonstration that the key to a well-done bridal guide is the same as the key to everything else: good writing.

Re “The trail is cold” (Let Freedom Ring, Jan. 11): At least check your facts. The Little Ice Age and similar climate fluctuations have been directly linked to increased volcanic activity, including super volcanoes, unlike present times. And for the past four decades the sun’s irradiation has actually been declining (Yale University), yet global temperatures are still rising. Last year marked the third consecutive year of record global temperatures.

Marcial Reiley Reno

—Brad Bynum bradb@ ne wsrev i ew . com

Career choice Re “Consent matters ” (letters, Jan. 11): If you don’t see a certain connection between a culture that promotes and rates strip clubs for the male animal with the abhorrent behavior of those men who harass women then you probably miss the connection between clouds and rain.

Consent matters. So does common sense. I would expect your paper and editor to take a more responsible approach toward weighty matters. If the strip clubs are, let them be.

Must you rate them and, by such, glorify and approve of them?

Perhaps one day we can show “progress” in all areas of our society by letting women know that they are of greater value and worthy of more respect than we have shown them in the past. Continuing progress will be shuddered strip clubs for lack of patrons.

Take a stand! Perhaps in the future, strip clubs won’t appear in your “Best of.”

Thom Waters Reno

Ancestral spirit Re “School spirit” (cover story, Jan. 4): I “enjoyed” the article by Kris Vagner regarding the Stewart Indian School history.

Our Mission: To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages employees to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare.

To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live.

Editor Brad Bynum News Editor Dennis Myers Special Projects Editor Jeri Chadwell Arts Editor Kris Vagner Calendar Editor Kelley Lang Contributors Amy Alkon, Matt Bieker, Bob Grimm, Andrea Heerdt, Shaun Hunter, Holly

Hutchings, Kent Irwin, Shelia Leslie, Josie Glassberg, Eric Marks, Bailey Mecey, Jessica Santina, Todd South, Marc Tiar, Brendan Trainor, Bruce Van Dyke, Ashley Warren, Allison Young Design Manager Christopher Terrazas Creative Director Serene Lusano Art Director Margaret Larkin Marketing/Publications Designer Sarah Hansel Designers Kyle Shine, Maria Ratinova Web Design & Strategy Intern Elisabeth Bayard Arthur Sales Manager Emily Litt Office Manager Lisa Ryan RN&R Rainmaker Gina Odegard

januaRy 18, 2018 | Vol. 23, Issue 49

I qualify enjoyed because as one of NativeAmerican lineage it’s always a mixed bag to read anything about how my ancestors had their culture destroyed by “well-intentioned” Christian Europeans.

My paternal grandfather was 100 percent Cheyenne-Cherokee and my dad is a “halfbreed”—forgive the racist slur, but I only quote the nastiness of the white man—who was born and partly raised on a reservation.

My sister, my only sibling, received her PhD in Native-American mental health, and she’s one of the leading authorities in North America on issues of drug/alcohol abuse and suicide among all the tribes.

My sister bothered to secure her tribal registration but I never have because I was not raised in the Native-American culture, so I’ve always felt it would be disingenuous for me to seek a registration number. I don’t feel that way toward my sister because she’s been working with the tribes for over 20 years, and she’s a hero among them.

However, I am critical of how so many people with as much or less N-A lineage than I have—I’m one-fourth N-A—have jumped on the bandwagon and proclaim themselves to be Native-American when, like me, they were never raised N-A. Unless one is going to dedicate oneself to NativeAmericans in a real and meaningful way as my sister has done, to me it’s an abomination to think that one only need do sweat lodges and smoke raw tobacco from a peace pipe and that makes them a full-fledged Native-American!

In my 20s in the 1970s, I worked and lived with Hoopa, Paiute, Shoshone and Miwok under the auspices of the various government agencies I worked for. I was always fully embraced as one of them by virtue of my Native-American genes, and that was always an honor for me. Those experiences gave me a close-up look at how terrible my N-A brethren have been treated, and just how much their culture has been destroyed. Most Americans are clueless to how much Native-Americans are

Advertising Consultants Myranda Keeley, Kambrya Blake Distribution Director Greg Erwin Distribution Manager Bob Christensen Distribution Drivers Alex Barskyy, Brandi Palmer, Brittany Alas, Corey Sigafoos, Gary White, Lucas Proctor, Marty Troye, Patrick L’Angelle, Timothy Fisher, Tracy Breeden, Vicki Jewell, Brandi Palmer, Olga Barska, Rosie Martinez President/CEO Jeff VonKaenel Director of Nuts & Bolts Deborah Redmond Executive Coordinator Carlyn Asuncion Project Coordinator Natasha VonKaenel Director of People & Culture David Stogner

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the forgotten ethnic group in our country.

No other ethnicity in American—maybe global—history has experienced the genocidal magnitude of what my collective N-A ancestors endured. The estimates range from 30 million to 100 million Native-Americans killed off by various intentional means over a 300-year period.

I hope we can see more articles about the truth of what the white man did—and continues to do—to my ancestral people.

Jeff Middlebrook Truckee

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By JERI CHADWELL

The most dangerous street in reno? asked aT The corner of Virginia sTreeT and sainT LaWrence aVenue.

Juan Pedroza Dispensary employee

Well, I mean, this street is getting more cars all the time. And all of these little crosswalks are a little iffy because you’ve got to kind of step on the road and wait for people to see you and for them to stop. Maybe Virginia, or where I live—Wedekind always sucks.

People get hit there all the time.

L aureL Pine Business owner

I don’t really think of any of the streets as being dangerous particularly. I do know that there was a shooting around the corner. I don’t think of any of them as really dangerous.

Tim Woodside Teacher

One year of a president with no class We believe we now have an answer to why Donald Trump has never kept his promise to release his tax forms.

We think he deducted as a business expense the $130,000 he paid to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford for sex and/or silence.

Do we know for certain that this happened? We don’t know that he deducted it. But we know he paid it, and to know that is to be embarrassed. Think about that sentence for a moment. No one—journalist, lawyer, whoever—has ever had to write such a thing about a United States president. It fits everything we have learned about him in and out of public office. What is most difficult is that if he did deduct it, nothing about it would surprise us.

One year has passed since he took office and the nation is degraded. Among the qualities he lacks: altruism, amiability, benevolence, civility, class, conscientiousness, courtesy, decency, decorum, dignity, empathy, fitness, gentleness, goodness, manners, honesty, incorruptibility, kindness, modesty, openness, patience, seemliness, truthfulness, fairness, honor, integrity, loyalty, morality, openness, patience, principles, rectitude, sincerity, tact, tolerance, unselfishness, veracity.

Few world leaders embarrass their nations like Donald Trump does. They have gravitas. He has insignificance.

Only his power gives him relevance.

Each day our citizens reluctantly pick up their newspapers or tune in their newscasts, fearful of what they will read or hear. Lord, what has he done since yesterday? So many of our citizens have had to accustom themselves to a state of more or less perpetual outrage, because the impact

of one of his misdeeds hardly fades before another one comes along. One lie tumbles on top of another.

Not in our history has the term lie been used so often to apply to one person. No president, no matter how unredeemable—Nixon, Harding, Grant—has so routinely been untruthful. We used to rank our presidents by their skills and abilities, their intentions and goals, how many of their promises they were able to keep. Trump has broken most of his promises, but we hardly notice because what kind of a president he is seems almost beside the point of how terrible a man he is. And there are still three years to go.

The republic will survive Trump. It has survived other villains. But we will be changed. We are changed. We are more cynical. We suspect each other. The great Republican Party is diminished. The Democrats are still fumbling.

Many of our residents will march on Jan. 20, though it will likely be a less festive occasion than the first antiTrump march one year ago. Our sense of hope is reduced.

We know better now how awful a person he is, how little he is capable of as president. So we suspect that this year’s march will be more mournful than last year. But the march itself is important. We must be heard and seen in opposition to an administration that demeans us all, pits us against each other, limits our horizons.

The march begins at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 20 at the downtown federal building at Liberty and Virginia, followed by a short walk to First and Virginia.

Even by the benighted standards of appointed presidents over elected presidents, Trump is dreary and impossible.

We should march to say so. Ω

I’ll tell you, with the parking and the traffic on Wells, it’s—I don’t know if it’s dangerous, though, because they have crosswalks everywhere on Wells. But I would say this midtown area needs some redesigning with the influx of people.

angi Woodside Teacher

What was I thinking the other day? Wells Avenue. Also, by the university. I think that’s dangerous—on Virginia, by the university, all of the kids crossing.

skiP Parry Retiree

I think right in front of Reno Dodge on Kietzke Lane—because people cross back and forth there all the time to go from one car lot to another. You’ve got people that are still looking at a car, wandering across the street. I almost hit somebody there once, and that’s why it came to mind.

01.18.18 | RN&R | 5

by SHEILA LESLIE

One year lost under Trump It’s almost too easy to mock our president these days. All you have to do is use his description of himself as a “very stable genius” to elicit a smile or at least a grimace from the most casual acquaintance. Of course, his erratic behavior is nothing to joke about, especially because it appears to be getting worse as his grip on reality weakens by the day.

The president won’t be changing his personality and can’t acknowledge that the rest of the world sees him as a foolish, dangerous man on the brink of senility, incapable of fulfilling the most basic tasks of the presidency. But we must not let the Republican Congress lose its collective mind along with him.

Case in point: the multi-billion dollar wall on the Mexican border. Trump is asking Congress to approve a down payment of $18 billion to construct 316 miles of fencing and reinforce barriers along an additional 407 miles of the 2000mile border. The administration also wants $8 billion for new personnel and training,

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$5 billion for new border technology, and a billion dollars more for access roads, an unfathomable amount of money to waste.

Talk of forcing Mexico to pay for the wall has been abandoned, because we all know they never will. Instead, Trump’s GOP allies want to force the Democrats to support this tremendous squandering of our taxes in exchange for avoiding a government shutdown and fixing DACA—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields young people who arrived in the U.S. without documentation as children, known as Dreamers.

Trump also wants to expedite the deportation of unaccompanied minors, even though many of them fled unsafe political situations in their home countries and would be deported to places where they’d likely not survive. Last week, his administration decided to throw out 200,000 Salvadorans, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens. The Salvadorans have been allowed to live in

the United States during the last 20 years due to perilous political conditions in El Salvador.

Trump’s advisors, staff, and cabinet members reportedly refer to him as a moron, a dope, an idiot and a child who doesn’t like to read. In last week’s hourlong televised “negotiation” session with congressional leaders, Trump managed to take conflicting positions, including some in direct opposition to GOP policy.

But then we all know you can’t believe anything he says since he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He just wants to “win.”

Amid talk of invoking the 25th Amendment to rid the nation of its madman, the GOP continues to embrace Trump, desperate for his signature on their policy initiatives to make the rich richer while destroying health care for everyone else. Their rhetoric about Trump is reminiscent of “Dear Leader” worship previously unimaginable in our democracy. It’s embarrassing to watch

GOP leaders humiliate themselves so profoundly, not to mention the danger the precedent presents.

Meanwhile, many citizens worry and seethe. As a prelude to November 6, when we’ll be able to vote for change, there’s an opportunity to stand up and be counted this Saturday, when the second Women’s March takes place in Reno.

The event will stretch from the federal building on South Virginia Street to the Believe sculpture in front of City Hall, beginning at 11:30 a.m. The national Women’s March will take place on Sunday in Las Vegas.

While a march doesn’t change policy or rid us of Trump and his henchmen, it does send a message that the masses are mobilizing for change. It also inspires and comforts those who feel isolated and overwhelmed with despair at the direction our country is headed under Trumpist rule. Show up on Saturday and let your voice be heard. Ω

by Brendan Trainor

Licensed to work A disturbing report by the libertarian law firm Institute for Justice reveals that Nevada is second only to Hawaii in the number of occupational licenses needed to work in the state. Nevada demands a license for 75 lower income occupations, while Hawaii demands state licenses for 77 low income occupations.

Nevada also ranks second for the most burdensome, most broadly and most onerously applied occupational licensing regulations.

For example, Nevada is one of only four states that requires a state license to be an interior decorator. Nevada requires four years of education and two years of experience, or roughly 2,190 days of mandated training plus $1,215 in fees, plus an examination, all to help you decorate homes and businesses!

The right to earn a living in any of the harmless trades and businesses, known as occupations of common right, is an un-enumerated individual right that is recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court

in Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746 (1884).

The “Police Powers of the State” assigns to government the protection of the health, safety and morals of the community. The problem is that no one can really show where these police powers actually come from. The extent that the people accepted this role for the state has varied. The classical liberal framework the country was founded on held that individuals should have the rights of the English as they existed in 1791, as recognized in most of the colonies, and did not contradict the spirit of the American Revolution. The right to contract for labor or create a business is a long recognized fundamental right that predates the state. The classical liberal order holds that individuals are the best (not perfect) judge of what is best for them, so a contract would represent a choice that was good for the transactors, and therefore a win-win for society. Only the use of force or fraud

in a transaction should be prohibited and policed. Whatever harm a successful business causes its competitors because of consumer choice is more than offset by the gains to the parties and to consumers.

The role of government in a classical liberal economic order is to ensure that all can enter and exit a marketplace at will, without artificial barriers. Occupational licensing laws restricts free entry into an occupation.

Licensing boards are usually composed of stakeholders already in the market who have an interest in keeping new competition out. Occupational licensing harms the poor the most because they are usually the least able to pay for the education and licensing fees, or the time involved. They are already spending too much time trying to make ends meet.

Occupational licensing laws constitute an unnecessary regulatory burden imposed without a compelling public interest. They also discourage people

from migrating to another state to make a better living, because to practice their trade in another state would require them to pass the occupational licensing laws, this time in a new state. Violations of these arbitrary laws can result in harsh civil and even criminal penalties.

The good news is that removing most occupational licensing laws is a bi-partisan, in fact multi-partisan policy.

It’s hard to find anything that the Obama administration did, like its 2015 White House report suggesting a framework for Occupational Licensing, and what Republican Rep. Darrel Issa’s and Sen. Mike Lee’s bill to set licensing board guidelines, that occasion so much like agreement. Nevadans need to question all parties’ candidates on their plans to reform occupational licensing laws in the 2019 Legislature. Ω

01.18.18 | RN&R | 7

by Dennis Myers

Prayers and Players

The U.S. attorney general stumbled over something he didn’t expect when he tried to revive the old federal marijuana polipoli cies—Republicans.

The cover of the current issue of the New Yorker magazine carries a painting of Martin Luther King flanked by University of Nevada, Reno graduate Colin Kaepernick and Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett, recently detained by Las Vegas police. All three are kneeling, with the athletes arms’ linked with those of the praying King.

The painting, titled “In Creative Battle” after a phrase from King’s Nobel lecture in 1964, was done

by San Francisco artist and 49rs fan Mark Ulriksen, who told the magazine, “I’m glad that Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett are making it political. I’m sure that if King were around today, he’d be disappointed at the slow pace of progress—two steps forward, 20 steps back—or 10 yards back, as the metaphor may be.”

On Aug. 26 in Las Vegas, Bennett reported being accosted by two police officers following a prizefight, and that they used excessive force on him and threatened him. Police have said that three persons were detained, all minorities, and claimed that the body camera of the officer who detained Bennett was not functioning but that other cameras supported their denials of his charges. Bennett’s attorney says the peripheral videos do not support the police account, which is that Bennett was running at a time when they told the departing crowd to hit the ground because of a reported shooting. Bennett said he heard someone tell the crowd to run.

Pot tale of the week Prohibitionist lawyer Jim Hartman recently wrote in Utah’s St. George Daily Spectrum that “Douglas County keeps commercial marijuana away from their county’s young people, while we legitimize it and make it more accessible to at-risk youth in low income communities like North Las Vegas.”

Hartman does not explain how North Las Vegas is making marijuana “more accessible” to the young, since it remains illegal for the young there as everywhere in the state. But there is a way to reduce young pot use further: Legalize it. Since Colorado reduced the lure of the forbidden, marijuana use by the young in that state has declined steadily and is now at its lowest level in a decade, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

rosen votes for fIsa In a Jan. 11 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives approved reauthorization for the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program.

There was a surprise in the vote for Nevadans— Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen voted for reauthorization, joining Republican Rep. Mark Amodei. Democratic Reps. Ruben Kihuen and Dina Titus, voted no.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was set to expire this month. Section 702 lets the NSA gather intelligence on foreigners overseas without warrants, but it is an indiscriminate process. The process also gathers huge amounts of data from innumerable U.S. residents, who are technically exempt from warrantless surveillance.

The Senate has also passed the reauthorization, but without a roll call vote, so it is not known how Nevada’s senators voted.

—Dennis Myers

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Sessions stumbles Republicans lead charge on pot In the myths of marijuana, smoking it causes paranoia.

Of course, it never had that effect.

The paranoia came from prohibition.

And after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sought to reinstate the old punitive federal policy toward marijuana on Jan. 4, the paranoia returned on the part of many pot merchants and pot fans. But not all. Some were just amused. Others were angry.

Sessions’ words are having an impact. The Las Vegas Sun reports, “Officials representing the city of Las Vegas and Clark County said Monday that neither entity is immediately proceeding with previously discussed ideas to implement [pot] lounges after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued Department of Justice guidance to effectively remove internal memorandums to protect states’ rights to legalize marijuana.”

The share price of the company that makes Miracle-Gro dropped. Existing non-marijuana businesses that were considering getting into pot were shaken.

U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, in a talk with reporters, said he thinks Sessions is just blowing smoke.

“I think Sessions needed to check the box that said, As attorney general, I enforce all laws,’” Amodei said.

He added that there does not appear to have been movement of federal personnel preparatory to mounting an offensive against legal marijuana in the states.

That notion of Sessions’ behavior seems to have been supported by a report in the Washington Post that the attorney general has told aides he hopes media coverage of his recent moves will impress Trump, given divisions between the two men on other issues.

Sessions reportedly sought to get White House officials to make sure Trump is aware of Sessions’ activities and has also matched Justice Department investigations to topics the president has raised in his public appearances.

At the Entrepreneur site, it was reported, “In reacting to Sessions’ announcement, Nevada Gov. Brian

Sandoval—a Republican—essentially said, ‘Thanks for your input. We’ll read that over.’ Colorado officials made a stoner joke. California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom called Sessions’ decision an ‘ideological temper tantrum.’”

The stoner “joke” was from Colorado Senate Democrats, who posted this comment: “Our motto in 2018 is two simple words: For all.”

In an essay in the Reno GazetteJournal last week, Truckee Meadows Herbs owner Tom Stewart wrote, “Locally, the industry has shown few problems and industry actors have displayed a willingness to selfpolice, play by the rules and invest in adjoining neighborhoods.” He called for Republicans and Democrats to adopt a solid front against renewed prohibition. And there are signs that one of Sessions’ two big problems is Republicans. As a Bloomberg News headline put it, “Trump’s War on Pot Could Split Republicans in 2018.”

The anti-marijuana effort is not Trump’s war, but if that kind of approach to the story catches on, Trump may seek to separate himself from the stories, the war and Sessions. President Obama tolerated U.S. attorneys in California who breached his instructions to leave localities that were in compliance with state laws alone, but Trump has shown none of the forbearance of the former president.

Colorado U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, is leading the opposition to Sessions’ pot stance, claiming Sessions failed to keep a promise to him on the issue and pledging to halt every Department of Justice nomination in the Senate until Sessions backs off.

If he was expecting praise from the Republican base, it has been muted.

In the National Review, the conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr., Kevin Williamson argued that while the Obama administration ignored federal law, Congress should now get rid of punitive federal laws so Sessions cannot revert to earlier harsh policies: “The major problem is federal law, so change it. Having abandoned much of the Reagan way—the sunny disposition, free trade, the unshakeable commitment to America’s global leadership—the Trump administration

has now embraced the worst of the Reagan legacy: deficits, for one thing, and the so-called war on drugs, which Attorney General Jeff Sessions means to fight with atavistic rigor.”

Another conservative publication, the American Spectator, added its voice to the anti-Sessions drumbeat: “Why was this move so foreseeable? Because Sessions is the guy who has said, among other things, that ‘Good people don’t smoke marijuana,’ that marijuana is ‘only slightly less awful’ than heroin, and, in reference to the KKK, that ‘I thought those guys were OK until I learned they smoked pot.’ Yes, the last might be a joke, but it reveals his true mindset.”

The second big problem Sessions has is that he is threatening the financial stability of numerous state governments. Marijuana has become a golden goose at the state level faster than anyone expected, and few state legislators are amused at the notion of losing it. It is producing more than $60 million a year in tax revenue in Nevada and generating 7,000 jobs.

Many players believed Sessions was trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.

In California’s Eureka Times Standard, an editorial read, “Last week, Jeff Sessions [ended] the previous administration’s wise policy of essentially leaving marijuana enforcement to the states. … If you hate marijuana, outlawing the stuff brought us years of murder, thievery, environmental degradation and heavily armed trespassers

squatting in the woods, all on the taxpayer’s dime. Students of history know that Humboldt County already had more than enough of these things before prohibition.

Our situation has not improved. It is time.

It is long past time for California to have its say. And for Colorado. And Oregon, Washington state and Nevada. Alaska, too.”

One newspaper that knows Sessions best—Alabama’s Gadsen Times—put it this way: “[T]he response to Sessions so far has been bipartisan condemnation—we can’t suppress a big guffaw at this particular issue bridging the polarization in Washington— and a very loud, very clear ‘back off.’ …

Those who dismiss fears that having more stoned people out and about (and potentially driving) isn’t exactly a good thing need to get a grip. We do support states’ rights, however, unless invoking them involves the violation of a constitutional principle. We don’t think that caveat applies to states and their residents choosing, through the political process, to legalize pot in some fashion.

Sessions’ boss said the same thing during the 2016 campaign. Sessions is by himself on an ice floe here.”

The Gadsen paper calls marijuana a long time pebble in Sessions’ shoe, and that may in part be because he believes all those myths about pot, such as that it fosters sloth, delusions, weird food cravings, insecurity— all the Trump attributes. Ω

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01.18.18 | RN&R | 9

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by Jaquelyn Davis

Safe PaSSage Is Reno gettIng

mo R e da ng e Ro u s

foR pedestRIans?

Photo/Eric Marks

Jaquelyn Davis crosses the street near the University of Nevada, Reno, where she is a student.

Sometimes, when I drive, I imagine how it must have been for Maria that morning: It’s just before 7 a.m. on April 15, 2016.

Her breath is visible as she climbs into her gold 2004 Camry. She has already finished her first job of the day, scrubbing toilets and countertops in the Jacobsens’ five-bedroom in the hills of the East Bay. They were one of Maria’s very first clients, hiring her just weeks after she came from the Philippines to join her cousins in Oakland. (Maria, like other names in this story, is a psuedonym.)

Pulling down the long, steep driveway and into the neighborhood, Maria begins the mental inventory of houses she’ll clean today. The Nichols’, the DeAngelos’, the Petersons’, the Goodmans’. As she winds through the narrow neighborhood street toward town, she flicks her eyes to the radio dial and tunes in to the Catholic station. Porch lights glow orange, illuminating the well-kept lawns of homes that are just beginning to wake up. Oh, it’s Friday, she remembers. The Snyders’ place, too.

Maria coasts down the hill toward the main drag that runs through downtown, humming to the radio and occasionally reaching for her thermos of green tea, now lukewarm since

being steeped at four this morning. The pink morning light filters through the trees lining the road, casting the neighborhood in pastel. She sees that the light at the bottom of the hill, across from Trader Joe’s, is green. Braking slightly as she reaches the intersection, Maria instinctively glances across the road to look for oncoming traffic and, seeing nothing, pulls through the light.

Suddenly, there’s a flash and a thump on the front bumper.

Maria snaps her head back toward the intersection behind her to see a woman lying in the street, face down. Instantly, Maria’s face begins to tingle and burn. Sweat coats her palms as she swerves into the parking lot of a long-shuttered Mexican restaurant. Breath comes slow and jerking as she swings open her door and looks back toward the intersection. Police, their station just a block away, are already there, two officers lifting the woman out of the crosswalk and guiding her slowly to the curb. Her face is covered in blood, as are her bare legs. She’s alive, praise God. She’s alive. Maria grabs a towel from her trunk and rushes to them.

The officers begin talking to a witness, another driver who was at the intersection, and Maria approaches the woman, who is now sitting on the curb, her hand to her mouth in an attempt to keep blood from pouring down her front. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Maria stumbles over her words, touching the woman’s arm. She’s shaking, wearing long sleeves and running shorts, her fleece headband knocked from her head on impact.

Maria offers her the towel, but the woman pushes her away, her words unintelligible through broken teeth and heaving sobs.

An officer approaches Maria and begins asking her questions. They wash over her, a blur of details about her speed, whether she saw the woman in the crosswalk. The ringing in her ears drowns out the officer as she is instructed to hand over her license and insurance information.

What will they do? Her insurance can’t cover this. Mrs. Nichols will fire me for being late. Will she be OK? I can’t afford a lawsuit. I’ll lose the continued on page 12 house. I’ll lose everything.

“Safe PaSSage”

01.18.18 | RN&R | 11

“safe passage” continued from page 11

An ambulance arrives, and the woman is lifted onto a gurney by a team of firefight firefighters. The ambulance doors slam shut, the sirens wail, and it disappears up the road. The officer tells Maria that she’s free to go. They’ll be in touch. Numbly, Maria walks back to her car, which shows no sign of the impact. She nearly falls in, mechanically turning the key, and pulling out into the road. Maria feels nothing as she drives, sees nothing. Only the body lying in the street, the woman she hit.

The woman Maria hit was me.

Street SmartS Smart Growth America calls the rising occurrence of pedestrian death in the United States an “epidemic.” In 2016, the number of pedestrian deaths across the United States rose by 11 percent from the previous year, totaling nearly 6,000 deaths. That’s 16 people for every day of the year. An additional 70,000 non-fatal pedestrian accidents also occurred in 2016. You are reading this essay because I am accounted for in one set of statistics and not the other.

In Nevada, where I’ve lived for the past year for graduate school, the epidemic is about as bad as it gets: over 1,000 pedestrians have been killed or seriously injured in the last five years alone. As part of the ZeroFatalitiesNV campaign, a Nevada Department of Transportation initiative, decals have been affixed to sidewalks across the state to warn pedestrians of the dangers they face on the road. At the corner of Artemisia Way and North Virginia Street, where hundreds of students cross from the dorms to the central campus at the University of Nevada, Reno, a great white shark leaps from the sidewalk decal, its gaping mouth lined with rows of jagged teeth.

“Crossing distracted is just as deadly,” the shark says, its empty black eyes staring straight up to the sky.

Just down Virginia Street at 10th Street, a busy city street sprawls out far into the depths another sidewalk decal. Hanging on the ledge of the skyscraper are the words “crossing distracted is just as deadly.” Along Evans Avenue on the other side of campus, a swamp of alligators lurks in yet another pavement decal, their menacing snouts hanging open above the green water, telling pedestrians that “jaywalking is just as deadly.”

Other cities have employed similar tactics. Last year, actors dressed as the Grim Reaper patrolled the streets of Pittsburgh,

on hire by the city, tapping walkers on the shoulder with their scythes to warn them of the dangers of crossing the street without proper caution. In Maryland and Washington D.C., city buses feature giant faces of children streaked with black tire marks, staring down walkers and warning them, “Text and you’ll be next.”

Intellectually, I understand the intention behind these public safety campaigns. The shocking juxtaposition of things we know to fear with an everyday action as simple as crossing the street is meant to grab the attention of walkers and slow them down enough to look both ways—to associate the terror of the Jaws theme music and the swish of the Grim Reaper’s cloak with their daily on-foot commutes. Still, I can’t say I feel the impact of the decals or the bus posters or even the well-intentioned Grim Reapers. Despite their intended shock value, these campaigns are asking us to do the impossible: to be afraid, if not terrified, of the mundane, taken-for-granted places we move through every day, and worse, to realize that the world we’ve built is a deadly danger to us.

In the weeks following my accident, I was immersed in all that the public safety campaigns do not, and cannot, capture. I spent hours with my eyes closed, an ice pack wrapped in an old dish towel over my face to calm the swelling of my broken, and surgically re-broken, nose. I lay in a sick stupor, high on four different painkillers I’d been prescribed by the ER doctor.

In this forced, dark stillness, my memory of the accident played on endless, inescapable repeat, the way it does now any time I drive downtown or watch pedestrians at an intersection.

I didn’t see or hear the car. It came from behind me and turned into the crosswalk while I was already in it.

The driver’s side of the front bumper made contact with my left hip just enough to knock my feet out from under me and spin me 90 degrees, such that I landed parallel to the lanes of traffic. But I’ve pieced this together after the fact. In my memory, there is no sound, no pain. Just the thick, numb shock of looking up from the pavement, sunlight glistening off the pool of blood beneath me on the asphalt, a woman running toward me.

“I,” as I knew it, ruptured in that moment. I went for a run one morning, and I never came back.

New “I” is a person who’s had the remaining pieces of her broken teeth pushed back into place by the dextrous hands of an oral surgeon, her body CAT-scanned and X-rayed and pumped full of Vicodin. New “I” is a person who had wires strung through her gums and wrapped around her teeth for weeks.

A person who regularly visited a plastic surgeon’s office that’s painted soft lavender and decorated with displays of breast implants in ascending size and advertisements for two-for-one botox shots, a Mother’s Day special. New “I” had to learn to speak with a lisp, to stop smiling at strangers to prevent her dry, cracking lips from catching on the tangle of metal holding her mouth together.

In nevada, the epIdemIc Is about as bad as It gets: over

1,000

pedestrIans have been kIlled or serIously Injured In the last fIve years alone.

12 | RN&R | 01.18.18

In the narrative I’ve written for myself, I know I’m lucky.

Afterward, I comforted friends and family and co-workers with this: “It could have been so much worse,” I said to them again and again, playing down the horrible blunt impact of “I was hit by a car.” And I believe it. I was and am fortunate, and that helps me to cope with countless hours in a dentist’s chair, the unfamiliar nose I see in the mirror, and the dead, discolored teeth that stand out in my smile. But what it doesn’t help is the vivid, unshakeable sense that old “I” is out there somewhere, separated from me forever but not quite gone. She finished her run that morning, went out for a beer after work that night to watch the Giants game, and visited with her family in San Luis Obispo that weekend. She haunts me still. I wonder all the time about what she’s doing, about the future ahead of her that’s hers and not mine.

In the last year and a half, I’ve attended innumerable appointments with dentists, endodontists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, plastic surgeons and lawyers. I’ve endured reconstructive surgery, ingested countless prescriptions, and worn braces. I’ve moved to a new state, started grad school, fallen in love, taught dozens of first-year students, and run five half marathons. With time and distance, the surreal, horrible and wonderful have begun to blend, blurring the edges of old and new “I.” Sometimes, I go a day or more without acknowledging this split that lives deep in my core. I sense that I’m beginning to recognize a coherent, unified version of myself again. But I’m never going to escape the knowledge that my sense of self, or Maria’s or anyone else’s, is just that: a sense, an illusion that can be snatched away in a second.

My story is all I have. For all the data and public safety campaigns about the pedestrian death “epidemic,” there’s strikingly little to find in the record about actual people, about the lives taken or changed forever, even Maria’s. I never saw her again after that morning in the street. Police officers collected her information at the scene, which I then fought to obtain so that lawyers could shuttle details between us and facilitate insurance payments. Her real personhood, and our shared human trauma, is inaccessible.

The fact that actual people are missing from conversations about pedestrians seems to be an outgrowth of the way American roadways have been designed since the advent of cars themselves. At the dawn of the 20th century, American roadways were widely accepted as multiple-use public spaces, with horses, carriages, streetcars and walkers all swirling within and between them. As automobiles increasingly became the preferred mode of travel for those who could afford it, working class walkers were literally pushed out of the streets. The pejorative term “jaywalking” was coined in the early 1910s to paint walkers as uneducated, careless, country bumpkins who didn’t belong on city streets. A parallel term, “jay driver,” was used to describe the irresponsible automobile operators who were causing an increasingly alarming number of pedestrian fatalities. By the 1920s, however, car lobbies launched massive anti-jaywalking campaigns to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to walkers, campaigns that would look familiar to those of us living in the age of the pedestrian fatality epidemic: informational cards, posters and advocacy messages about the dangers of the road, the role of the responsible walker, and the need to cross only in a marked crosswalk, which was an entirely new cultural space in the early 1900s. By the 1930s, jaywalkers were firmly lodged in our cultural consciousness as criminals.

Pedestrians were from then on factored into roadway planning only as impediments to the steady flow of traffic. The right for human bodies to exist in the roadway disappeared.

In the current fever pitch of concern for pedestrian safety, we’re now scrambling to face the choices that have been made about how we use roadways, and nowhere is this more clear than at the corner of Plumb Lane and Krupp Circle, where a 15-year-old girl named Allie was killed last summer in the most recent of several pedestrian accidents that have occurred on this stretch of road. Laminated photos of Allie hugging her bulldog, playing volleyball, posing in front of a mountain vista are all tied to a street sign on the corner.

A massive pile of fake flowers, crosses and mementos lies at the base of the fence that lines the sidewalk. Left-behind candle wax is stuck in pink and purple swirls on the gray cement. A reflective sign at the center of the memorial reads, “Be Safe for Allie. Be Bright. Be Seen.”

Like any middle-class suburban street, the pavement at this corner is cracked with wear, homes line the road behind two-foot retaining walls and neatly-trimmed shrubs and lawns. Walkways up to front doors are bordered by vibrant potted flowers. The sidewalk is wide and walkable, and dips in the curb at each street corner suggest that the roadway was designed with pedestrians in mind. The lowered curb indicates that walkers or those using a wheelchair could cross over Krupp Circle, the residential dead-end street, or over Plumb Lane, the four-lane thoroughfare that runs across Reno from east to west, but it’s hard to tell. While the curb at this corner suggests that roadway was originally intended for use by people on foot, the actual place for human bodies is missing. No white stripes to enclose a protected space for walkers or runners or wheelchairs or strollers. No row of white rectangles to claim a place for pedestrians to be.

Photo/Eric Marks

Photos affixed to a street sign show a 15-year-old who was killed crossing the street at the corner of Plumb Lane and Krupp Circle in 2017.

News clips about Allie’s death report that she was crossing midblock when a truck hit her just before midnight on June 9. She should have known better, some say. She shouldn’t have crossed in a poorly lit area, or she should have gone down the block to a crosswalk. In fact, just about every pedestrian safety campaign does say this. But its also true to say that the road where Allie was killed made no place for her. What if, seeing that there were no safe places to cross in sight, Allie had looked both ways and run across the road as fast as she could when she didn’t see a car coming?

What if she made the best judgment call possible? And what about the driver? Was he preoccupied by his phone or by problems at work? Was he driving too fast to slow down when he saw Allie in the road? Does any of this matter?

Most popular discussions of the “epidemic” attribute the rise in pedestrian deaths to “a perfect storm” of factors. An economy in upswing and low gas prices have put more cars are on the road, and virtually everyone, drivers and pedestrians both, is plugged in to smartphones and earbuds. These factors compound the dangers of speeding and alcohol use, making roads increasingly more deadly for pedestrians. All of this is in play in each story—in Allie’s, in mine.

Irresponsible behavior, a lack of caution where caution is desperately due, a failure to appreciate the consequences of our actions—but is that all? Are we to accept the world as it is given to us? To agree that it’s only our tiny sphere of individual responsibility and agency that guides and protects us? A study by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies reports that a pedestrian’s risk of injury inside crosswalks is just as high as it is outside of them. In high-volume traffic areas and roadways with multiple lanes like Plumb Lane, the study finds, the crosswalk is even more dangerous than other areas of the street, and signalized crosswalks with flashing lights are not necessarily safer than their un-signalized counterparts. Other studies show that even the stories we tell about pedestrian accidents are framed selectively to feature the stock narrative of distraction and irresponsibility, a narrative far easier to write and to read than one about the human lives of pedestrians and drivers shaken to their core, or ripped from the world entirely, by a place as familiar and taken-for-granted as the road.

I was crossing the street in a crosswalk. I had the legal right of way. It was daylight. The woman who hit me was driving the speed limit. She had a green light. But somehow, “Old I” and “New I” were still torn from each other that day.

For me, for Maria, and maybe even for those who witnessed it. If, as always, we attribute pedestrian injury and death to a perfect storm of misbehavior and bad decision making, what can we say when all of the conditions of our roadways are working as they’re supposed to and a body still ends up bloody in the street?

In April 2017, a new crosswalk was installed on Plumb Lane, about a block west of the intersection with Krupp Circle where Allie was killed less than two months later. An oddly placed, shiny yellow traffic sign warns drivers to slow down, near where Allie’s memorial now

stands, and the fresh white stripes of the crosswalk stand out against the dark pavement. No dips in the curb allow pedestrians smooth transition from sidewalk to street. Just a coat of red paint warns drivers from stopping in the clearly out-of-place addition to the road. This crosswalk, and several others along Plumb Lane, are pieces of Reno’s $400,000 effort to protect the lives of pedestrians in the last year alone.

While it is too early to prove whether new crosswalks or sidewalk decals in Nevada have been effective, this particular crosswalk provides a striking case study. In Nevada, there were 99 pedestrian deaths in 2017, up from 80 in 2016.

At this point, I can’t help but believe that we are failing in our efforts to improve pedestrian safety because we have failed to fundamentally question the structure of the public places that make such an epidemic possible. Instead, we’re choosing to shabbily retrofit a world that wasn’t built for human bodies in the first place.

By the 1920s, Car LoBBies LaunChed massive anti-jaywaLKing CamPaigns to shift the BLame for aCCidents from drivers to waLKers.

On the rOad My alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. I groggily hit snooze, and then again at 5:35. Finally, on the third ring, I shut it off and kiss my boyfriend’s hair, the only part of him peeking out from the blankets, before crawling out of bed. In the dark, I fumble through the dresser and hastily pull on my running clothes. I have to get in a couple of miles before class—I’m meeting up with friends after work, and, tomorrow, I have an early 12-miler before my boyfriend and I go to Truckee.

Before stepping into the chill of the high desert morning, I slip my house key into my armband. Locking the door behind me, I press go on my workout app and begin jogging toward Wells Avenue. Just around Virginia Lake and back, I think, that’s all I’ll have time for.

The cold aches in my tight knees and hips. As I breathe in heavily, the air feels sharp in my lungs, pinching the insides of my ribs. On autopilot, I run west, passing the still-dark windows of Magpie and the old DeLuxe. I reach the corner of Virginia and Holcomb where I have to cross to get to the lake. I push the button for the crossing signal and wait impatiently for the light to change, feeling my muscles immediately begin to tighten in the cold. Hands resting on my hips to keep my lungs open and full, I shake out my ankles and stretch my calves. I look up at the light, and the walk symbol changes from a red hand to a man illuminated in white.

I breathe in and step into the street. Ω

01.18.18 | RN&R | 13

by Todd SouTh

RN& R 's food writer looks back at the best appetizers of 201 7

PHOTO/ALLISON YOUNG

original Thai Restaurant's "stuffed chicken wings" are a boneless twist on the old classic.

Through the course of the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of sampling a lot of great meals cooked up by local folks with a passion for food. Small plates and appetizers are sometimes overlooked.

Ordering several choices and sharing with a group is a great way to try new things and have a good time with friends. Here are just a few of the appetizers I enjoyed in 2017.

Pick a pickle

Though I always love a nice, crisp kosher dill pickle, the trend toward fresh pickled veggies has really taken off. The DeLuxe presented a rainbow plate of garlic smashed cucumber, citrus cabbage, shallot, ginger, daikon and carrot ($6). The colorful collection of sliced and julienned veggies lived up to its name, and each item had a distinct character—some sour, others a bit salty, and even a bit sweet. Kauboi Izakaya offered a plate 14 | RN&R | 01.18.18

of pickled cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy, cucumber, cherry, ginger and Thai basil garnish, blending bright colors with subtle, pleasant flavors ($5). The perfect use of seasoned rice vinegar and gorgeous plating made the dish.

Belly up

Speaking of trends, it seems you can’t go anywhere without running into yet another take on pork belly. Washoe Public House ensconced the fatty decadence in spring rolls ($8) stuffed with cilantro, pickled carrot, jalapeño, kimchi, hot and sweet mustard and an above-average peanut sauce. Every bite was a delight. A bit simpler but a total crowd pleaser, Creazian’s pork belly pops are not to be missed ($9). Cubes of braised, fatty meat on skewers were glazed in maple and ponzu sauce, the sweetness matched

with salt and spice. They’re lightly crisped, tender, and succulent.

Get your goat

There’s something rustic-yet-refined about goat cheese that defies explanation. It just works so well with so many other elements. At Hard Water House, I ordered crottin de chevre—pistachio-crusted goat cheese cakes drizzled with balsamic fig sauce, served with sliced Fuji apples and pine nuts ($12.95), and chased it with a plate of green, red and black Italian olives sprinkled with a bit of parmesan and rosemary ($5.95). It was a fantastic contrast of flavors and textures. Meanwhile, Sierra Street Kitchen & Cocktails introduced me to skewered, bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese ($7), served atop a spring mix salad, dressed with freshly grated parmesan and balsamic vinegar— savory, sweet and amazing.

By the sea

Back in the day, there were signs all over Las Vegas touting, “Shrimp cocktail, 99 cents.”

Um, no thanks. I’ll pay the extra 10 bucks at Sabrina’s West Street Kitchen for the giant Mexican gazpacho shrimp cocktail ($11) with pink bay shrimp, cucumber, tomato, avocado, sweet onion and cilantro, swimming in a picante lime gazpacho and served with housemade tostada chips. Or, if I’m really hungry, Si Amigos serves a campechana ($15.95) of sauteed shrimp, bay scallop and octopus, mixed with diced tomato, cilantro, onion, avocado, tomato sauce and a blend of citrus juice. The shrimp is tender and tasty, with the right blend of sweet and spice.

Wing it

Chicken wings used to be tossed aside or used for stock. Really. While I love me a plate of classic hot wings, finding different twists is nice as well. At Original Thai Restaurant the “stuffed chicken wings” ($9.95) are cylindrical meatloafs of ground chicken, clear noodle, carrot, cilantro and black pepper, deep-fried in panko bread crumbs and served with Thai sweet chili sauce.

Very tasty, but I really like to pull the meat off the bone. Noble Pie Parlor fries up wings that are moist and crispy, though the sauce is the real story ($11.99). They’re made “burg-style,” coated in a tangy, spicy sauce and topped with plenty of fresh garlic and scallion. These are not your average wings.

Pucks of indulgence

Crab cakes are usually pretty basic breadcrumb delivery vehicles, and I’m rarely impressed.

However, Morgan’s Lobster Shack & Fish Market serves up a sizeable pair of seafood pucks with both minced crab meat and chunks of crab claw, nicely browned and seasoned ($13). Not to be outdone, the Roundabout Grill killed it with blue fin crab cakes nestled atop a schmear of champagne sauce, topped with butter-poached lobster meat ($14). It was the sort of morsel I’d request for a last meal.

Indian morsels

Most think of curries with Indian food, but I love all the small nibbles such as samosas at Cafe Masala. Three fried vegetable pyramids were stuffed with curried potato and peas ($6.99), another trio with curried chicken ($7.99). Dipped in a pair of sauces—one lightly sweet and the other with plenty of cilantro and a spicy kick—they are full-on comfort food.

Likewise, Taste of India’s lentil papadum crisps served with tamarind, mint and garlic sauces, and a plate of aloo tikki ($4.95)—crispy potato patties stuffed with vegetables and spices, topped with chana masala of green pepper,

onion, garlic, cilantro, chickpea, tomato— served with dollops of tamarind, mint and garlic sauces—just made me smile.

Post- potsticker

I’ve certainly enjoyed a potsticker or 12, but the Korean mandoo at Bab Cafe stand apart ($2.99 for five). Made with ground pork and beef, Asian chives, mushroom, onion, tofu, scallion, egg, garlic, seasonings, sesame oil and fish sauce, they were very crispy and packed with zesty, herby flavor. But for something really different, I recommend the shishamo—five little smelts ($4) dredged in flour and salt, deep-fried and served with a drizzle of shoyu and a side of shichimi—done to perfection at Uchi Ramen. They might be a bit too “fishy” for some, but I loved every bite right down to their crispy little tails.

Start with sweets

Bleu Cafe does many things well, but I will always start with the lemon beignets ($4.99 for three). The New Orleans cousin to doughnuts, these pillows of crescent-shaped fried dough filled with lemon curd are served hot and copiously dusted in confectioner’s sugar. They’re every bit as good as they sound. Meanwhile, at Bazaar European Deli & Cafe you can enjoy authentic Russian crepes—blinchiki ($6)— which are a bit thicker and softer in texture than a French crepe. These sweets were topped with a raspberry spread while the farmer’s cheese pancakes ($6.50) were filled with something like ricotta, both sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with a dollop of sour cream—rustic yet refined.

Honorable mentions

Finally, I have to mention a couple items that stood out for sheer wow factor. Though I went to Smee’s Alaskan Fish Bar & Marketplace for the fish and chips, the scallop sliders ($15 with fries) took center stage. Three Hawaiian rolls were layered with lettuce, pickle, tomato, purple onion and sriracha mayonnaise, each topped with a lightly seared half dollar of shellfish.

The spiciness of the sauce cut the sweetness of the roll, veggies added crunch and flavor, and the scallops were buttery perfection. In a completely different turn, a pair of portabella mushroom caps ($8.29) at Great Full Gardens South were stuffed with a seasoned vegetarian boca mix, topped with melted mozzarella, vegetable shoots and sprouts. If you’re the sort who thinks vegetarian dishes are boring, I defy you to try this and not ask for more. Mushrooms are among my favorite things, and this recipe fully demonstrated that they aren’t just for side dishes and risotto. Ω

01.18.18 | RN&R | 15

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16 | RN&R | 01.18.18

Rafael Reyes points to graffiti on the warehouse that he hopes to run legally as a facility where street artists can practice their craft.

Spray on Graffiti City Art Park According to 48-year-old tattoo artist Rafael Reyes, “graffiti” is a dirty word around here. Spray painting on a wall can result in felony vandalism charges.

However, it’s not always easy to distinguish illegal graffiti from the 185 pieces of outdoor public art legally commissioned by the City of Reno, many of which are spray-painted.

Watching the community embrace street art got Reyes wondering how artists could improve as large-scale painters. As a tattoo artist, he knows the value of practice.

“Most of these guys work by themselves in the dark,” he said. “They hide it from their family. That’s so fucking sad.”

He and fellow tattoo artist and muralist Vaka opened a new art supply shop next door to Reyes’s tattoo parlor on Wells Avenue. The shop is called Graffiti City and sells all the necessities for making art on walls of all sizes. He said it’s an environment where artists are free to talk about their projects without feeling like vandals.

Not too long after the opening, Jonny Gama, a friend of Vaka and Reyes, suggested they needed a legal wall for artists to practice on. He mentioned a warehouse at the end of Dermody Way in Sparks. It’s part of a complex of structures on a five-acre property that backs up to the railroad tracks. The current owner is absent.

The City of Sparks is unable to contact him.

According to Reyes, graffiti artists have been tagging the inside of the warehouse for years.

In November, Reyes, Vaka and Gama began the process of acquiring the property through the Adverse Possession Law, under which legal ownership of an abandoned property can be transferred to another individual who maintains it for five years.

PHOTO/LUKA STARMER

The occupant also must pay the property taxes for that time. Reyes said the guys have already put down $48,000 for three years of back taxes.

Word went out on social media about the new “Graffiti City Art Park,” and artists showed up to hit the walls in broad daylight. Since November, dozens of new artworks have gone up outside the building.

“The graffiti community is real tight,” said Vaka. “We may not know each other, but we hear [about stuff] and we’re on it.” Vaka painted a piece next to other renowned local artists Joe C. Rock and Erik Burke, a.k.a. OverUnder.

However, what they are doing isn’t completely legal. According to Shirle Eiting, assistant city attorney for the City of Sparks, the Sparks Fire Department has condemned buildings on the property because of the hazardous glass, scrap metal and trash inside the structures. “Do not enter” signs have been posted.

“Having a graffiti park in the city of Sparks is not a legal business, nor is that area properly zoned for a graffiti park,” Eiting said, adding that Reyes cannot make a motion to change the zoning because he’s not the legal owner.

In their commitment to their cause, Reyes and the guys solicited help from artists to clean up the property. Over the weekend of Jan. 13, with heavy machinery donated from Herc Rentals, dozens of people removed trash and tires.

“I should have taken my time and taken the right steps,” said Reyes, “but shit like this is so cool—why not?”

Reyes, Vaka and Gama envision the future of Graffiti City Art Park as a safe place where artists paint, families hang out, food trucks are posted and everyone is comfortable being themselves. Ω

Graffiti City Art Park is crowdfunding to raise money for renovations and clean-up. For information, visit www.gofundme.com/graffiti-cause.

by BoB Grimm

b g ri m m @ne w s re v i e w . c o m

SHORT TAKES

4

“That’s right. Trump quoted National Enquirer as a legitimate news source. Let that sink in for minute.”

Good news Perhaps the most important journalistic battle in American history gets the Spielberg treatment in The Post, starring a stellar cast that includes Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.

The film explores the Washington Post’s decision to print the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam in 1971, a move that raised the ire of then President Richard Nixon, and put the careers of people like paper owner Kay Graham (Streep) and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) in major jeopardy. Hanks isn’t the first movie star to play Bradlee. Jason Robards also played him in All the President’s Men, the classic film that covered the Watergate scandal. Bradlee, who died in 2014, was a journalism giant.

The movie starts in 1966 with Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), a member of the State Department doing a study for then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), in South Vietnam.

Embedded with American troops, Ellsberg sees all sorts of atrocities and is a firsthand witness to the growing failure of American participation in the Vietnam War. His forecast about the war’s outcome is bleak, but McNamara and President Johnson—and two Presidents before him—share a rosier, false version with the American public where America is finding great success overseas.

In 1971, with Nixon now in The White House, Hanks and Streep get their first scene together in a restaurant having breakfast, discussing their big controversy of the day: The White House’s meddling with their ability to cover the wedding of Nixon’s daughter. Bradlee refuses to bend to Nixon’s will to restrict a certain reporter, while Graham wonders what the big deal is. Their first scene is a long, dialoguerich take, and it’s basically a school in great acting.

Things progress from troubles with weddings to the war with the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers by Ellsberg, and the New York Times printing a story about them. This move gets the Times in trouble with the U.S. attorney general and Nixon.

Bradlee and his team come into contact with Ellsberg and get the opportunity to go through thousands of

pages of classified documents. They have two options: print a deeper story on the classified documents and face charges of treason, or bury the story to help preserve the paper, which is going through a public offering and might not benefit from such controversy.

History has told us what Graham, Bradlee and their team of reporters did, but that doesn’t make The Post any less thrilling. Spielberg not only makes this an opportunity to put great actors in play, but makes The Post a grand testament to the golden age of printed journalism.

It’s not just the risk-taking of editors, owners and journalists that makes The Post such an absorbing piece of history. The mechanics of turning out a story to the masses in the ’70s were, let’s just say, a little complicated by today’s standards. Journalists seeking leads with rotary and pay phones, and hard deadlines that had to be hit because it took a lot of time to actually publish a day’s paper, play a big part in the storytelling.

Spielberg relishes the chance to show a story getting rolled up on typed paper, shot through an internal vacuum delivery system to an editor, have that editor go through the story with a pencil, and then have that story eventually placed on a costly template for publication.

The supporting cast includes Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, the legendary TV comedians of Mr. Show. It’s a trip to see them on screen together in a Spielberg production. Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Carrie Coon and Sarah Paulson round out the cast.

The Post is the best Spielberg offering since Munich, bringing to end one of the weaker stretches in his career that included the lackluster Lincoln, Bridge of Spies and The BFG. It’s an impressively staged account of a pivotal moment in our history and, at a time where freedom of the press is actively being challenged by a sitting president, an important movie for the present and future. Ω

The Post

12345

Darkest Hour

In what amounts to a much wordier companion piece to Dunkirk, Gary Oldman disappears into the role of Winston Churchill. The movie starts shortly before Churchill takes over as prime minister, with Churchill a controversial choice to lead and having much opposition, including a skeptical King George VI (brilliantly played by Ben Mendelsohn). The film chronicles Churchill’s speeches (transcribed by personal secretary Elizabeth Layton, played winningly by Lily James) and strategizing, leading up to his finally winning over Parliament’s support in not seeking peace with Hitler and pledging all-out war. Director Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna) always makes a great-looking movie, and this is no exception. Oldman is virtually guaranteed an Oscar nomination as Churchill, a role you wouldn’t think he was born to play, but excellent makeup prosthetics help to make his transformation completely convincing. And this isn’t just a gig with a guy working through a bunch of stuff on his face; he inhabits the role in a way that makes you forget that makeup.

Kristin Scott Thomas does career-best work in the small but pivotal role of Clemmie, Churchill’s extremely tolerant wife. It’s one of the better-acted films of 2017. Much of the running time deals with behind-the-scenes maneuvering regarding the events at Dunkirk.

It’s because of this that Darkest Hour plays great in a double feature with Christopher Nolan’s action pic take on the same event.

4

I, Tonya

Admit it—when Nancy Kerrigan got kneecapped by folks connected to Tonya Harding all those years ago, you just knew there would be a big Hollywood movie about it someday. Here it is, starring Margot Robbie as the Ice Queen, and it’s funny, funny, nasty stuff.

Allison Janney is a sinister hoot as Tonya’s nasty mom, while Robbie proves, oddly enough, that she was born to play Tonya Harding. The movie is picking up some controversy, accusing director Craig Gillespie and writer Steven Rogers of turning Harding into some kind of hero, an innocent in the scheme to take out Kerrigan and pave the way for Harding to become the world’s skating champion. Nah … Harding isn’t portrayed in a positive light here. It’s just that her mom is the greater villain, a manipulative, back-stabbing monster that Janney brings to hilarious fruition. Brow-beating Tonya from her first moments on ice through to her Olympic dreams, she’s a brash cinematic representation of bad parenting. Robbie embodies Harding’s whiny, headstrong persona that’s faithful to the glimpses we’ve gotten of her through the years, especially when she challenges some judges giving her bad scores. Gillespie and his crew also do a good job of making it look like Robbie is doing all of the skating. (She isn’t; it’s a combo of Robbie, stunt women, and CGI.) The whole Tonya Harding episode of sports history was surreal and strange and, thankfully, so is this movie.

4

Molly’s Game

Jessica Chastain takes the role of Molly Bloom, real-life infamous poker game organizer and former championship skier, and nails it. Molly’s Game takes a true story that seems too crazy to be real and makes it into a great movie about a woman’s struggle against the justice system and the perils of gambling outside the already dangerous realm of a casino. This is a great actress firing on all cylinders with an extra rocket booster on her back. Making the experience all the more enjoyable is screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) making a stylish, snappy directorial debut that shows he has a big future beyond the keyboard. Bloom found herself working high-stakes poker games populated by big gamblers and celebrities. Michael Cera shows up in the movie as one of the players, allegedly based upon notorious card player Tobey Maguire. Bloom graduates from working the games to organizing them. She works up to having the highest stakes game in New York before things go awry, eventually leading to massive legal problems. That’s where Idris Elba, playing Bloom’s lawyer, enters into the

fray and scorches the screen alongside Chastain. Both benefit from precisely written, fiery dialogue courtesy of Sorkin. The screenplay and direction are so good, the courtroom scenes in this film actually stand as some of the movie’s greater moments. That’s coming from a guy whose eyes often glaze over during courtroom dramas. Sorkin’s dialogue, adapted from Bloom’s autobiography, has the kinetic energy of the best David Mamet scripts. While there are quiet moments, the movie generally fires along at a high energy level that never becomes overbearing. That’s where Sorkin gets big kudos for his directing chops. He keeps a heavily worded, constantly moving movie tremendously entertaining and remarkably coherent.

4

The Shape of Water

3

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to direct 2017’s weirdest mainstream movie. The Shape of Water, for which he also co-wrote the screenplay, reminds us that this guy is a genius. He’s sick and twisted, but a genius nonetheless. The story, set in the 1960s, is—in some strange, backwards way—as close to a Disney movie as del Toro has gotten. It has a lot of violence, inter-species sex, nudity and cuss words in it, and yet it has a Disney kind of vibe to it. That del Toro—he’s a nut. Sally Hawkins plays mute cleaning woman Elisa Esposito. She lives in an old movie theater next to eccentric artist Giles (Richard Jenkins) and mostly keeps to herself. Elisa and Zelda (Octavia Spencer) clean for a freaky research facility that gets a new arrival—an Amphibian Man (Doug Jones, wonderfully obscured in practical and CGI makeup) to be housed in a water tank. The Amphibian Man, who looks an awfully lot like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, is accompanied by his keeper, Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), a menacing man brandishing a cattle prod. Shannon is his usual incredible self as the film’s baddie, a freaky narcissist who gets off on torturing his prisoner. The film goes into romance territory after Elisa facilitates the Amphibian Man’s escape. OK, I know there’s a good faction of you readers who draw the line at human characters getting down with alien/god-like/Creature from the Black Lagoon characters, so this is your warning. It all happens off screen but, still, this goes against the grain for more than a few religions, so there you go. Overall, this is one of 2017’s great visual wonders, and a terrific showcase for Hawkins, Spencer, Jenkins and Shannon.

In this film, we get our older Luke and Leia movie. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher get to do what Harrison Ford did in The Force Awakens by spending a little more time— in the case of Hamill, a lot more time—in their iconic roles. Both stars shine in their frankly incredible opportunity to play in the Star Wars sandbox 40 years after the original’s release.

When this film focuses on the saga of Luke and Rey (Daisy Ridley), it is nothing short of epic.

When the camera is fixed on the late Carrie Fisher, who gets more quality screen time than her glorified cameo in Force Awakens, it’s heartwarming and, yes, sad. The Leia stuff gets a little kooky at times, but I’m trying to make this a spoiler-free zone. When writer-director Rian Johnson takes the action to the characters of Poe (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and a new character named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the film falters. Poe, so engaging in Force Awakens, seems underdeveloped here. While the Resistance fights an oddly prolonged and bizarre space battle against the First Order, Poe just whines a lot—to the point where you are actually happy when Leia smacks him across his head. So, in short, this movie is part really good and part kind of bad. Johnson (Looper) seems determined to mess with the Star Wars formula —basically the opposite of what J.J. Abrams did when he rebooted the franchise with The Force Awakens. While some of his attempts at comedy are actually quite successful, his constant attempts to pull the rug out from under our expectations start to grate. The movie is still enjoyable overall, but it lacks a consistent tone.

01.18.18 | RN&R | 17

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18 | RN&R | 01.11.18

by Todd SouTh

Donate to ’s Independent Journalism Fund at www.independentjournalismfund.org

OLD SCHOOL

Well rounded Located adjacent to the University of Nevada, Reno, recently opened Rick’s Pizza keeps things simple and to the point.

They have pizza, they have beer, and they have a handful of appetizers. There are sandwiches and salads on the menu, but on this January evening my group focused on items hot from the oven.

We began with an order of garlic knots ($6 for six), twists of baked pizza dough tossed in garlic sauce—served with pizza sauce on the side—and potato skins ($7.50 for six) topped with cheese and bacon.

The spud skins were just a bit crunchy and filled with smooth, seasoned potato. The knots were both soft and crispy, slathered in a sauce that could ward off vampires.

The pizza sauce seemed unnecessary, but earned its keep with chunky texture and plenty of oregano and basil and a nice touch of black pepper.

Wings can be ordered plain or with barbecue or spicy sauce ($8.50 for 10); we ordered barbecue and spicy. The wings were big but oven-baked—not my favorite way to cook a chicken wing. However, I will say that, for roasted wings, they were about as good as you’re going to get. They weren’t rubbery and were just crispy enough to hold their own against the sauce. Speaking of, the barbecue was a little on the jammy side—though not too sweet—while the spicy sauce was about what I’d call mild to medium if compared to classic Buffalo wings. We all enjoyed a taste of both.

Though the small bites were good enough to satisfy on their own, pizza is the name of the game at Rick’s. The crust was crispy, and the edges were a bit bready

The Big Mackie pizza is made with white garlic sauce, honey smoked ham, red onion, pineapple and slow-cooked pork.

PHOTO/ALLISON YOUNG

with plenty of chew and flavor. We ordered a few 10-inch pies for variety, and it was really a toss-up which was the best.

Our first two pies were completely different, and completely delicious. The Little Dede ($12) was covered in red onion, bell pepper, black olive, zucchini, mushroom, tomato, parmesan, mozzarella and that tasty red sauce—a vegetarian pizza good enough to make everyone happy. This was followed by a Triple R ($12) featuring a robust pesto sauce, garlic chicken breast, artichoke heart and black olive. The pesto had a bit of kick to it, and the marinated artichoke added a nice tang that complemented the savory notes.

Rick’s Special ($13) was underlaid by a smokey barbecue sauce, topped with garlic chicken, red onion, bell pepper, parmesan and mozzarella. Barbecue pizza is not usually a notion I find appealing, but the sauce really worked with the flavorful chicken and other elements. A Big Mackie ($13) featured a really good white garlic sauce, honey smoked ham, red onion, pineapple and slow-cooked pork. The sauce and the pork really pulled this sucker together.

I’m generally in agreement with people who think pineapple and pizza don’t mix, but damn it, this combination did. It was perhaps the first time I’ve wanted a second slice of pineapple pie—and a third.

The service was remarkably fast for a young establishment, with appetizers to the table in perhaps 10 minutes, pizza less than 10 minutes later, and wings in another five.

There’s a lot of similar fare nearby, but I think these folks might have an edge in both quality and courtesy. Ω

Rick’s Pizza, Beer & More

1305 N. Virginia St., 420-5259

Rick’s Pizza, Beer & More is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Learn more at www.ricksreno.com.

by Marc Tiar

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Owner KJ Flippen pours a house specialty “Spiced Mule” at Z Bar.

To the letter The last time I went to the bar formerly known as the Zephyr, midtown wasn’t a thing, craft beer was virtually unknown, and the bar itself was dirty, sticky, loud and smelly. In other words, your basic rock ’n’ roll dive bar. I knew it had since been renovated, renamed the Z Bar and classed up a bit—now with a reputation for cocktails and whiskey rather than cheap beer and filthy restrooms.

The kids were staying with friends, giving my wife and me a midweek date night. I decided to head down early to have a drink before meeting her for Thai food, and Z Bar was a good nearby option.

It didn’t occur to me that immediately after New Year’s Eve, bars might suffer a brief dip in patronage as people swore off alcohol or tried to “new me” themselves into sobriety temporarily. Walking into Z Bar, though, I found not a soul but one lone bartender squeezing lemons. This was certainly not the old Zephyr, although its old neon sign makes a very cool wall decoration. Another wall featured embedded beer bottles as art. I liked this place already.

When I visit bars solo for the purposes of this column, my introverted self tends to keep conversation to a minimum—taking notes on my phone, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying my beverage in solitude. I sometimes go at off hours because of my schedule (and so the chaos of a busy bar doesn’t detract from my experience).

Still, I’ve never, ever been the one and only person in the bar for the entirety of my visit. I could have given signs that I wanted to be left alone, but for whatever reason, I was feeling gregarious and ended up having one of the most enjoyable times.

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I sized up my drink options first. A chalkboard laid out some seasonal and weekly specials, a nice range of choices from unique craft cocktails to basic shot-and-beer combos. A screen above the bar rotated through slides listing my draft beer options. I could barely process one list before the screen changed, and the bartender added to my difficulty by reading off ones that were unavailable thanks to the glut of New Year’s drinkers. Nothing stood out as a must-drink—a decent selection of craft beer but nothing I was really excited by. I wasn’t sure I even wanted beer at all.

I didn’t really want anything fancy and complicated either. I briefly pondered what simple, refreshing cocktails I might have. A greyhound perhaps? No, wait, what’s in a Moscow Mule again? My bartender rattled off the ingredients, and it sounded just right.

I love ginger and lime.

The drink ended up a bit limier and less gingery than I would have liked, but I’m no connoisseur—I just like what I like. Still, it fit the bill for refreshing and tasty, and that’s what mattered. No copper mug needed.

Over the next half hour, I enjoyed my drink and a simply wonderful conversation with my bartender Niki. A cynic might suspect a friendly bartender looking for tips on a slow night, but I feel like I can tell when someone’s friendliness is genuine.

We chatted about Reno, other cities, the desert, bartending and growing up. In the grand scheme of conversations, nothing that will change the world, just good, honest, friendly conversation between two people sharing the same space for a while.

For cocktails with friends, the fire pit on the back patio or in the cozy loft inside Z Bar would be a good choice next time. Ω

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Z Bar

1074 S. Virginia St., 348-1723

Learn more by visiting zbarreno.com.

01.18.18 | RN&R | 19

by HOwaRd HaRdee

Portland, Oregon indie-rock band STRFKR makes intricate and poppy dance music.

On the make STRFKR

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20 | RN&R | 01.18.18

Josh Hodges, frontman for the indie-rock band STRFKR, doesn’t like listening to his own music. When he hears one of his band’s popular songs, such as “Rawnald Gregory Erickson The Second,” playing in a bar or department store, he cringes. It’s not that he thinks they’re bad songs—he’s just finished with them.

“The enjoyment is in creating the thing,” he said. “It’s fun to make the song, but I’ll never listen to it again unless I’m relearning a part to play it live.”

In other words, Hodges makes music for the sake of the process. As the band’s primary creator, he’s responsible for the rich, intricate and densely layered arrangements that characterize the trio’s sound, as well as their dark lyrical themes of death and mortality. The total package is generally poppy and danceable. (See “While I’m Alive” off 2013’s Miracle Mile).

STRFKR is a live-oriented band known for its energetic stage shows and elaborate homemade set designs and light displays.

As such, Hodges wrote STRFKR’s last full-length album—2016’s Being No One, Going Nowhere—with live performances in mind, and believes he pulled it off OK. “I focused on the dancy stuff, and I think it was successful; the beats were driving,” he said. “Now we can have a longer dance bloc during our sets, because that’s become what people expect when they come to our shows.

And I also just love having a fun, reactive audience, you know?”

Even so, Hodges isn’t entirely satisfied with how the record turned out: “There are definitely things I would change about the album, but I’m just like, ‘I’ll do something better on the next one.’”

Despite being so self-critical, Hodges recently released a bunch of unfinished songs—the final volume of the Vault

Series, a three-part collection of rare and previously unreleased recordings. The tracks are mostly fragments of ideas, some of which were later fleshed out with the help of bassist Shawn Glassford and drummer Keil Corcoran.

Hodges explained that he’d stumbled on about 80 demos stored on a wheezing, 15-year-old computer, and thought it would be a shame not to salvage the material.

“It’s fun to start a song, but it’s difficult to finish it,” he said. “I was never going to finish those songs, and the computer was going to die, so I figured I might as well put them out.”

The collection offers an illuminating glimpse into the creative process of a prolific and eccentric songwriter. For Hodges, each song in the Vault Series serves as a milepost, a reminder of his life circumstances at the time of the recording, and he considers releasing the collection kind of embarrassing. It’s like putting his diary on an audiobook for everyone to hear.

“But, you know, at this point, even if just a few people appreciate these songs, then it’s worth whatever embarrassment I have over releasing unfinished shit,” he said. “I just thought it would be interesting for fans because it shows my writing process or whatever, and I think some people like the raw, unfinished vibe.”

As for future plans, Hodges is already writing the follow-up to Being No One, Going Nowhere, which he described as “white boy R&B.” And he recently broke his own rule and listened to STRFKR’s self-titled debut album, because the band is preparing to play it on tour, from start to finish, to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.

“It’s been enough time that I feel like I was a different person then,” he said. “So I was able to listen without feeling so much ownership of it.” Ω

STRFKR play Cargo Concert Hall on Jan. 21 at 8:30 p.m.

For more information, visit bit.ly/2DoJvqH.

THURSDAY 1/18

FRIDAY 1/19

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3rd Street Bar

Frank Perry Jazz Combo, 8pm, no cover

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Karaoke, 9pm, no cover

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Coney Dogs, 9pm, no cover Dance party, 10pm, $5

Lumbercat Music, 9:30pm, no cover

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Bass Camp’s Winter Whiteout 4 featuring NGHTMRE, 8pm, $32-$37

3rd Street Bar, 125 W. Third St., (775) 323-5005: Open Mic Comedy Competition with host with host Sam Corbin, Wed, 9:30pm, no cover The Improv at Harveys Lake Tahoe, 18 Highway 50, Stateline, (775) 588-6611: Ben Gleib, Joe Praino, Thu-Fri, Sun, 9pm, $25; Sat, 9pm, $30; Nick Guerra, Wed, 9pm, $25 Laugh Factory, Silver Legacy Resort Casino, 407 N. Virginia St., (775) 325-7401: J. Chris Newberg, Thu, Sun, 7:30pm, $21.95; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm, 9:30pm, $27.45; Dennis Blair, Tue-Wed, 7:30pm, $21.45 Pioneer Underground, 100 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-5233: Justin Rupple, Fri, 9pm, $14-$19; Sat, 6:30pm, 9:30pm, $14-$19

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BLOW! Party with Jon Pastor, Andrew Christian, Topher DiMaggio, 10pm, $TBA

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Line Dancing with Ms. Judy and DJ Trey Valentine, 6:30pm, no cover

Open Mic w/Lenny El Bajo, 7pm, Tu, Karaoke w/Bobby Dee, 7pm, W, no cover

Peter Pacyao, Hoaloha, 7pm, no cover

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STRFKR, Reptaliens, 8:30pm, $18.35

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Deadline is th e Friday before public ation.

Dance party, 10pm, $5

Skelevision, Ghost Friends, Plastic Caves, 8pm, donations

Bar Of america Jan. 20, 10 p.m.

10042 Donner Pass Rd., Truckee, (530) 587-2626 1up the BLueBird NightcLuB 214 W. Commercial Row 555 E. Fourth St., (775) 499-5549 813-6689 cargO cONcert haLL

Comedy

SUNDAY 1/21

Ardalan, 10pm, $5-$10

214 W. Commercial Row, (775) 813-6689 125 W. Third St., (775) 323-5005

SATURDAY 1/20

Rump—Bouncin’ Around w/Heidalicious, Monique, MoMatik, 8pm, $5

John Dawson Band, 8pm, no cover

DJ Trivia, 7pm, W, no cover

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THURSDAY 1/18

FRIDAY 1/19

The holland ProjecT

SATURDAY 1/20

140 Vesta St., (775) 742-1858

The jUnGle

1480 N. Carson St., Carson City, (775) 841-4663

Cedric Williams & Sunni Frost, 6pm, no cover

Ev Musselman, 6:30pm, no cover

The lofT

Magic Fusion, 7pm, 9pm, $21-$46

Magic Fusion, 7pm, $21-$46

Magic Fusion, 7pm, 9pm, $21-$46

MidTown wine bar

DJ Trivia, 7pm, no cover

Baker Street Band, 8pm, no cover

The Heidi Incident, 8:30pm, no cover

Los Canarios, Tamborazo Taxqueño, 10pm, $20

Ladies Night w/DeeJay Mario B, DJ Crave, 11pm, free for women before 11pm

Live music, 8:30pm, no cover

Live music, 8:30pm, no cover

1021 Heavenly Village Way, S.L. Tahoe, (530) 523-8024

Shlump

1527 S. Virginia St., (775) 800-1960

Jan. 20, 10 p.m.

The BlueBird 555 E. Fourth St. 499-5549

MillenniUM niGhTclUb

2100 Victorian Ave., Sparks, (775) 378-1643

MoodY’S biSTro bar & beaTS 10007 Bridge St., Truckee, (530) 587-8688

Live music, 8pm, no cover

PaddY & irene’S iriSh PUb

Acoustic Wonderland Sessions, 8pm, no cover

PiGnic PUb & PaTio

Failure Machine, Joan & The Rivers, 8pm, no cover

960-A Victorian Ave., Sparks, (775) 358-5484 235 Flint St., (775) 376-1948

Canyon Jam/Open Mic, 6:30pm, Tu, no cover

Magic Fusion, 4:30pm, 7pm, $15.50-$46

Wednesday Night Jam, 8pm, W, no cover Roxxy Collie, Gina Rose Waller, 9pm, no cover

1559 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-8864

Whiskey Preachers, 8pm, M, no cover Corkie Bennett, 7pm, W, no cover

red doG Saloon

Open mic, 7pm, W, no cover

76 N. C St., Virginia City, (775) 847-7474

The SainT

761 S. Virginia St., (775) 221-7451

Buffalo Moses, Jake Houston, Brendon Lund, 9pm, no cover

Calling Kings, Dusty Miles and The Crying Shame, RRL, 9pm, no cover

Shea’S Tavern

Castaway, Insvrgence, The Scattering, Pressure Drop, 8pm, $5-$6

715 S. Virginia St., (775) 786-4774

Jan. 20, 8 p.m.

Cargo Concert Hall 255 N. Virginia St. 398-5400

Magic Fusion, 7pm, 9pm, M, $16.80-$46 Garden Shartse Monks, 9pm, Tu, $10+ T-N-Keys, 4:30pm, Tu, no cover Dave Mensing, 7:30pm, W, no cover

The Polo loUnGe

NGHTMRE

MON-WED 1/22-1/24

Trenton Shmidt, Joshua Lynch, 10pm, no cover

246 W. First St., (775) 329-4484

livinG The Good life niGhTclUb

SUNDAY 1/21

Euro-Rave Dance Party with Octophonix, Sad Giants EP Release, Goldiehawn, 8pm, $3 Kyle Campbell, 8pm, $5

The Dodges, Viva Revenge, Basement Tapes, G.O.A, 8pm, $5-$6

Trivia Night, 8pm, no cover

SParkS loUnGe

Nigel’s Acoustic Madness Jam, 8pm, Tu, Electric Spark Jam, 8pm, W, no cover

1237 Baring Blvd., Sparks, (775) 409-3340

ST. jaMeS infirMarY

Third Thursdays with Max Volume and Boondoggle, 9:30pm, no cover

Saturday Night Dance Party, 9pm, no cover

Trivia Night, 8pm, Tu, no cover Open Mic Night, 8pm, W, no cover

STUdio on 4Th

’80s New Wave Dance Night, 9pm, $3

The Dirtball, 8pm, W, $15-$17

whiSkeY dick’S Saloon

Two Peace, 9pm, no cover

445 California Ave., (775) 657-8484

Guest DJs, 9pm, no cover

432 E. Fourth St., (775) 737-9776 2660 Lake Tahoe Blvd., S.L. Tahoe, (530) 544-3425

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Mayberry Landing (775) 787-3647 3892 Mayberry Dr #B, Reno, NV 89519

South Creek (775) 851-2287 55 Foothill Rd #3, Reno, NV 89511

www.healthytails.com

AtlAntis CAsino ResoRt spA 3800 S. Virginia St., (775) 825-4700 1) Grand Ballroom 2) Cabaret

Boomtown CAsino

2100 Garson Road, Verdi, (775) 345-6000 1) Events Center 2) Guitar Bar

CARson VAlley inn

1627 Hwy. 395, Minden, (775) 782-9711 1) Valley Ballroom 2) Cabaret Lounge

THURSDAY 1/18

FRIDAY 1/19

SATURDAY 1/20

SUNDAY 1/21

MON-WED 1/22-1/24

2) Melissa Dru, 8pm, no cover

1) Kalimba, The Spirit of Earth, Wind & Fire, 8pm, $35-$45 2) Melissa Dru, 8pm, no cover

2) Melissa Dru, 8pm, no cover Just Us, 10pm, no cover

2) Just Us, 8pm, no cover

2) Platinum, 8pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

2) Jason King, 6pm, no cover

2) The Starliters, 5pm, no cover The Look, 9pm, no cover

2) The Starliters, 5pm, no cover The Look, 9pm, no cover

2) The Deputys, 6pm, no cover

2) Tandymonium, 6pm, M, no cover Chihuahua Desert, 6pm, Tu, no cover Stephen Lord, 6pm, W, no cover

2) Reckless Envy, 7pm, no cover

2) Reckless Envy, 8pm, no cover

2) Reckless Envy, 8pm, no cover

2) Hunter & The Dirty Jacks, 10pm, no cover

2) Sneaky Creatures, 10pm, no cover

2) Garage Boys, 9pm, no cover 3) DJ Roni V, 10pm, no cover

2) Garage Boys, 9pm, no cover 3) DJ Roni V, 10pm, no cover

3) Grand County Nights with DJ Jeremy, 10pm, no cover

1) Michael Carbonaro, 8pm, $22-$68 3) Grand County Nights with DJ Jeremy, 10pm, no cover

CRystAl BAy CluB

14 Hwy. 28, Crystal Bay, (775) 833-6333 1) Crown Room 2) Red Room

eldoRAdo ResoRt CAsino 345 N. Virginia St., (775) 786-5700 1) Theater 2) Brew Brothers 3) NoVi

GRAnd sieRRA ResoRt

2500 E. Second St., (775) 789-2000 1) Grand Theatre 2) LEX 3) Race & Sports Bar

3) Grand County Nights with DJ Jeremy, 10pm, no cover

HARd RoCk lAke tAHoe HARRAH’s lAke tAHoe

1) The Magic of Eli Kerr, 7:30pm, $32-$42

montBleu ResoRt

55 Hwy. 50, Stateline, (775) 588-3515 1) Showroom 2) BLU 3) Opal Ultra Lounge

peppeRmill ResoRt spA CAsino

2707 S. Virginia St., (775) 826-2121 1) Tuscany Ballroom 2) Terrace Lounge 3) Edge

2) Second Sons, 7pm, no cover

silVeR leGACy ResoRt CAsino

407 N. Virginia St., (775) 325-7401 1) Grand Exposition Hall 2) Rum Bullions Island Bar 3) Aura Ultra Lounge 4) Silver Baron Lounge

if you have a business and would like to carry the paper for free, call 775.324.4440

Zion I

2) Live Band Karaoke, 10pm, M, no cover

Jan. 20, 11 p.m.

Hard Rock Lake Tahoe 50 Highway 50 Stateline (844) 588-7625

Karaoke 3) Buddy Emmer and guest, 8pm, Tu, no cover

1) Saved By The ’90s, 7:30pm, $22-$51

15 Hwy. 50, Stateline, (775) 588-6611 1) South Shore Room 2) Casino Center Stage 219 N. Center St., (775) 786-3232 1) Showroom 2) Sapphire Lounge

2) Garage Boys, 9pm, no cover

1) Electrify: Rock N Roll Burlesque Show, 1) Electrify: Rock N Roll Burlesque Show, 9pm, $15-$20 9pm, $15-$20 2) DJ/dancing, 10pm, no cover Zion I, Z-Man, True Justice, 11pm, $25

50 Hwy. 50, Stateline, (844) 588-7625 1) Vinyl 2) Center Bar

HARRAH’s Reno

2) Jonathon “JB” Barton, 6pm, Tu, W, no cover

1) The Magic of Eli Kerr, 7:30pm, $32-$42 1) The Magic of Eli Kerr, 7:30pm, $32-$42 Essence, 10pm, $30.04 Essence, 10pm, $30.04 2) Take 2, 8:30pm, no cover 2) Take 2, 8:30pm, no cover 1) Railroad Earth, 7pm, $27-$30

1) Men Next Door, 9pm, $25

2) Second Sons, 8pm, no cover

2) Second Sons, 8pm, no cover 3) DJ Ikon, 10pm, $20

2) Baldo Bobadilla, 6pm, no cover

2) Rock ’N’ Roll Experience, 9pm, no cover 4) MIke Furlong, 9pm, no cover

1) 3 Doors Down, 8pm, $57.50-$74.50 3) Seduction Saturdays, 9pm, $5 4) MIke Furlong, 9pm, no cover

4) Clint “DJ Kronik” Davidson, 9pm, no cover

2) Baldo Bobadilla, 6pm, M, Tu, W, no cover

Jimmy B’s Bar & Grill, 180 W. Peckham Lane, Ste 1070, (775) 686-6737: Karaoke, Sat, 9:30pm, no cover The Point, 1601 S. Virginia St., (775) 322-3001: Karaoke, Thu-Sat, 8:30pm, no cover Spiro’s Sports Bar & Grille, 1475 E. Prater Way, Ste.103, Sparks, (775) 356-6000: Karaoke, Fri-Sat, 9pm, no cover West 2nd Street Bar, 118 W. Second St., (775) 348-7976: Karaoke, Mon-Sun, 9pm, no cover

reno’s news and entertainment weekly. on stands every thursday.

You should be

getting it once a week. n e w s r e v i e w.c o m

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FOR THE WEEK OF januaRy 18, 2018 For a complete listing of this week’s events or to post events to our online calendar, visit www.newsreview.com.

KNITTING GROUP: Learn to knit at the library every first and third Sunday. Yarn and needles will be available. Sun, 1/21, 1pm. Free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100 Pyramid Way, Sparks, (775) 424-1800.

MEMORY—HOW THE BRAIN REMEMBERS AND HOW TO MAKE MEMORIES STICK: Charan Ranganath, director of the Memory and Plasticity Program at the University of California, Davis, discusses cuttingedge human memory research. Recent discoveries in neuroscience have revealed insights into how we remember and how we can remember better. Thu, 1/18, 5:30pm. $5 suggested donation.

Tahoe Environmental Research Center, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village, (775) 881-7560, tahoe.ucdavis.edu.

MIND-BODY WELLNESS WORKSHOPS FOR ADULTS: Instructor Colleen Caminesch

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

1/20:

Apex Concerts at the University of Nevada, Reno brings the chamber music ensemble to the campus for an evening highlighting the work of 19th century composers Antonin Dvorak and Johannes Brahms, who were contemporaries and friends and often drew mutual inspiration from each other. Pianists Wu Han and Michael Brown, violinists Paul Huang and Chad Hoopes, violist Matthew Lipman and cellist Dmitri Atapine will play several selections by the composers, including Dvorak’s Selected Slavonic Dances for Piano Four Hands and Quintet for Piano and Strings in A-Major, Op. 81, as well as Brahms’ Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in C-Minor, Op. 101 and Selected Hungarian Dances for Piano, Four Hands. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 20, at Nightingale Concert Hall in the Church Fine Arts Building, 1335 N. Virginia St. Tickets are $30 for general admission and $5 for students. Call 784-4278 or visit www.apexconcerts.org.

EVEnTS

CROCHET CONECTION: Crochet enthusiasts of all levels are invited join this group, which meets every Thursday. Bring your own project or start a new one. Thu, 1/18, 3pm. Free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100 Pyramid Way, Sparks, (775) 424-1800.

2ND ANNUAL WOMEN’S MARCH: The march is a celebration and rededication to core principles that “women’s rights are human rights” regardless of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, disability or age. The march will begin at the Bruce R. Thompson Federal Building and proceed to City Plaza. Sat, 1/20, 11:30am. Free.

Bruce R. Thompson Federal Building, 400 S. Virginia St., www.facebook.com/ NorthernNevadaMarchesForward.

HEALING HEARTS: Express emotions and relax through painting. Find solace and enjoy the company of other caregivers, family members and loved ones with memory loss. No artistic skills are required and all supplies are provided. Tue, 1/23, 1:30pm. Free. South Valleys Library, 15650-A Wedge Parkway, (775) 851-5190.

AIGA PRESENTS LOUISE SANDHAUS: The graphic designer and author talks about her book Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California and Graphic Design.

Doors open at 5pm for social hour and cash bar inside chez louie. The program begins at 6pm. Thu, 1/18, 6pm. $8-$12.

Nevada Museum of Art, 160 W. Liberty St., (775) 329-3333, www.nevadaart.org.

BRIDGE GROUP: Have fun learning and

HIGH SIERRA WRITERS: Submit your written work for critiquing with published and unpublished writers. Wed, 1/24, 7pm. Free. Barnes & Noble Bookstore, 5555 S. Virginia St., (775) 826-8882, www.highsierrawriters.org.

KNITTING & CROCHET CLUB: This group

playing bridge with this group of bridge players. All skill levels are welcome. Fri, 1/19, 1pm. Free. South Valleys Library, 15650-A Wedge Parkway, (775) 851-5190.

24 | RN&R | 01.18.18

meets on the second and third Saturday of the month and is open to anyone who enjoys knitting or crocheting. Sat, 1/20, 1pm. Free. Northwest Reno Library, 2325 Robb Drive, (775) 787-4100.

leads this one-hour workshop that will help attendees understand what mindfulness is and how it can be cultivated. Wed, 1/24, 6pm. Free. South Valleys Library, 15650-A Wedge Parkway, (775) 851-5190.

MYSTERY BOOK CLUB: The book club will

discuss Fiddlers by Ed McBain. Sun, 1/21, 1pm. Free. Spanish Springs Library, 7100 Pyramid Way, Sparks, (775) 424-1800.

NEVADA HUMANITIES SALON—THE POLITICS OF PROTEST IN NEVADA: Emily K. Hobson, assistant professor of history and gender, race and identity at the University of Nevada, Reno will serve as moderator of this salon, which will feature panelists Aria Overli, economic justice community organizer; John L. Smith, journalist; and Autumn Harry, environmental steward and activist. Fri, 1/19, 6pm. Free. Sundance Books and Music, 121 California Ave., (775) 786-1188.

SO VERY LITERARY BOOK CLUB: The book club

meets every third Thursday. Thu, 1/18, 2pm. Free. South Valleys Library, 15650-A Wedge Parkway, (775) 851-5190.

aRT CLASSROOM GALLERY, OATS PARK ART CENTER: pressplay—Recent Works.

Ceramic artwork by Karl Schwiesow. The show runs through March 24. Gallery walk-through reception for the artist, Jan. 20, 5-7pm. Thu, 1/18-Wed, 1/24. Free.

Classroom Gallery, Oats Park Art Center, 151 E. Park St., Fallon, (775) 423-1440.

E.L. WIEGAND GALLERY, OATS PARK ART CENTER: Contingent Lands—Place in the Contemporary West. Paintings of the new American West by Kevin Bell. The show runs through March 24. Thu, 1/18-Wed, 1/24. Free. E.L. Wiegand Gallery, Oats Park Art Center, 151 E. Park St., Fallon, (775) 423-1440.

THE HOLLAND PROJECT GALLERY: Authentic Aliens. The group show features work

by Teal Francis, Nikki Bracco, Scott Coops, DePaul Vera, Mark Combs, Mahedi Anjuman, Paul Baker Prindle and Shakhawat Hossain Razib. Thu 1/18, 3-6pm. Free. The Holland, 140 Vesta St., (775) 742-1858.

MCKINLEY ARTS & CULTURE CENTER: Empty Frontier Narrative. Jessica Gengenbach’s drawings wrestle with an idealized perception of the American West instilled by popular culture and the harm that was caused in its settling. The show runs through Jan. 26. Thu, 1/18-Fri, 1/19, Mon, 1/22-Wed, 1/24, 9am-5pm. Free. McKinley Arts & Culture Center, 925 Riverside Drive, (775) 334-6264, renoculture.com.

SHEPPARD CONTEMPORARY, UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO: Joan Arrizabalaga— Reflexions. See new work by University of Nevada, Reno alumna Joan Arrizabalaga and treasures from Sheppard Contemporary and University Galleries’ permanent collection. The show runs through Feb. 23. Gallery hours are noon-4pm, Tuesday-Wednesday; noon8pm Thursday-Friday; and 10am-8pm Saturday. Thu, 1/18-Sat, 1/20, Tue, 1/23Wed, 1/24. Free. Sheppard Contemporary, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N. Virginia St., (775) 784-6658.

MuSEuMS NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART: Andrea Zittel: Wallsprawl. On view through Dec. 31; Trevor Paglen: Orbital Reflector. On view through Sept. 30; Unsettled. On view through Jan. 21; View from the Playa: Photographs by Eleanor Preger. The show runs through Feb. 18. Thu, 1/18-Sun, 1/21, Wed, 1/24, 10am. $1-$10. Nevada Museum of Art, 160 W. Liberty St., (775) 329-3333, www.nevadaart.org.

THE TERRY LEE WELLS NEVADA DISCOVERY MUSEUM (THE DISCOVERY): A T. rex Named Sue. At 42 feet long and 12 feet high at the hips, Sue is the largest, most complete, and best-preserved T. rex ever discovered. A dramatic, life-sized skeleton cast of Sue is the centerpiece of this exhibition that also features digital and hands-on interactive exhibits that help you uncover Sue’s past and explore the field of paleontology. A T. rex Named Sue will be on exhibit at The Discovery through May 13. Museum hours are 10am to 5pm on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, 10am to 8pm on Wednesday, 10am to 2pm on Thursday and noon to 5pm on Sunday. Thu, 1/18-Wed, 1/24. $10$12. The Terry Lee Wells Nevada Discovery Museum (The Discovery), 490 S. Center St., (775) 786-1000, nvdm.org.

WILBUR D. MAY CENTER, RANCHO SAN RAFAEL REGIONAL PARK: Hall of Heroes. Learn about the history of superheroes with props and memorabilia from comics, movies and television. See a recreation of the iconic 1960s Batmobile and Batcave, a life-size replica of the TARDIS from Dr. Who, life-size statues of the Incredible Hulk, Ironman, Batman and Superman and more. Discover your own super abilities at interactive challenge stations that test agility, memory, reflexes, endurance, strength, speed and mental power.

Members of the Science Fiction Coalition (Reno Chapter) will roam the exhibit in costume to interact with visitors and provide photo ops on Jan. 20-21. Museum hours are 10am-4pm WednesdaySaturday, noon-4pm on Sunday. Sat, 1/20-Sun 1/21, Wed, 1/24. $8-$9. Wilbur D. May Center, Rancho San Rafael Regional Park, 1595 N. Sierra St., (775) 785-5961.

MuSIC ALOHA UKULELE CLUB: The club is open to ukulele players of all ages. Participants will need to know basic chords. The group meets on the first and third Thursday of the month. Donations requested. Thu, 1/18, 6pm. Free.

Mountain Music Parlor, 735 S. Center St., (775) 843-5500.

BEATLES FLASHBACK CONCERT: The tribute band celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sat, 1/20, 7pm. $15$25. Brewery Arts Center, 449 W. King St., Carson City, (775) 883-1976.

COME IN FROM THE COLD FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT SERIES: The series continues with a performance by Chris Wessel’s Jazz-Dixie Review. Sat, 1/20, 7pm. Free. Western Heritage Interpretive Center, Bartley Ranch Regional Park, 6000 Bartley Ranch Road, (775) 828-6612.

PAVLO IN CONCERT: The award-winning recording artist, performer and songwriter performs his brand of “Mediterranean music”—a blend of Greek, flamenco, Latin and even Balkan flavors, wrapped in contemporary pop. Wed, 1/24, 8pm. $45. Nightingale Concert Hall, Church Fine Arts Building, University of Nevada, Reno, 1335 N. Virginia St., (775) 784-4278.

TOUGH AGE: The Canadian indie band performs with support from Okay Urge and Slow Wow. Thu, 1/18, 7pm. $3. KWNK, 1717 S. Wells Ave., www.hollandreno.org.

OnSTaGE SMALL ENGINE REPAIR: Restless Artists Theatre Company presents this dark comedy written by John Pollono. Former high school buddies Frank, Swaino and Packie—now past their prime—meet off-hours one night in Frank’s outof-the-way repair shop under cloudy circumstances that only Frank seems to have a handle on. Enter Chad, a pluggedin, preppy college jock, whose arrival ignites a long-simmering resentment that sets this taut, twisty, comic thriller on its breathless course. Performances are Thursday-Sunday through Jan. 21. Thu, 1/18-Sat, 1/20, 7:30pm; Sun, 1/21, 2pm. $12$15. Restless Artists Theatre Company, 295 20th St., Sparks, (775) 525-3074, rattheatre.org.

STEEL MAGNOLIAS: Reno Little Theater presents Robert Harling’s drama that centers on the bond a group of women share in a small-town Southern community and how they cope with the death of one of their own. Performances are Thursday-Sunday through Feb. 11. Fri, 1/19, 7:30pm, Sat, 1/20, 2pm & 7:30pm; Sun, 1/21, 2pm. $15-$25. Reno Little Theater, 147 E. Pueblo St., (775) 813-8900, renolittletheater.org.

by AMY ALKON

Guess pains I got dumped four months ago, and I’m still not sure what happened.

All of my boyfriend’s explanations seemed vague, and the breakup really came out of nowhere. I don’t want to contact him. How do I sort this out so I can move on?

Freak breakups—unexpected, inexplicable endings to relationships— are really tough because our mind doesn’t do well with unfinished business. It ends up bugging us to get “closure”—and by “bugging,” I mean like some maniacal game show host in hell, shouting at us for all eternity, “Answer the question!

Answer the question!”

This psychological spin cycle we go into is called “the Zeigarnik effect,” after Russian psychologist and psychiatrist Bluma Zeigarnik. In the 1920s, Zeigarnik observed that waiters at a busy Vienna restaurant were pretty remarkable at remembering food orders they had taken but had yet to deliver. However, once they’d brought the food to the patrons, they had little memory of what the orders were.

Zeigarnik’s research and subsequent modern research suggests that the mind remains in a “state of tension” until we complete whatever we’ve left incomplete—finishing the task we’ve started or finally answering some nagging question.

This might seem like bad news for you, considering the mystery you’ve got on your hands. However, you can make use of psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s research. He explains that our brains are “expensive” to run. Basically, it takes a ton of energy to keep the lights on up there. So our mind is programmed to take mental shortcuts whenever it can—believing stuff that has even a veneer of plausibility.

As for how this plays out, essentially, your mind assumes that you’re smart—that you don’t believe things for no reason. The upshot of this for you is that you can probably just decide on a story—your best guess for why your now-ex-boyfriend bolted—and write yourself an ending that gets you off the mental hamster wheel.

Should any of those old intrusive thoughts drop by for a visit, review the ending you’ve written, and then distract yourself until they go away.

Mommy dreariest I’m a woman in my early 40s, married for 12 years. I gave up my career as a dancer to be a mom. I can afford not to work, as my husband makes great money. However, my kids are now 12 and 13 and don’t need me like they did when they were little. I feel as if I don’t have any purpose in my life, and it’s getting me down. I can’t go back to dancing now. What do I do?

In these modern times, it can feel like much of your job as a mother could be done by a stern-voiced Uber driver. This is a problem. As social psychologist Todd Kashdan explains, “Years of research on the psychology of well-being have demonstrated that often human beings are happiest when they are engaged in” activities that bring meaning to their lives.

Living meaningfully means being bigger than just yourself.

It means making a difference— making the world a better place because you were here. You do that by, for example, easing people’s suffering—and you don’t have to be a hospice nurse to do that.

You can do what my wonderfully cranky Venice neighbor does as an adult literacy volunteer— teach people how to read. I always get a little misty-eyed when I see her tweets about taking people she’s tutored to apply for their first library card.

Because doing kind acts for others appears to boost general life satisfaction, doing volunteer work should lead you to feel more fulfilled. This is especially important in a world where daily hardships involve things like struggling to remember your new PIN to get milk delivered from the online supermarket—as opposed to trekking through a snowstorm to the freezing-cold barn so you can get friendly with the downthere on a bitchy cow. Ω

ERIK HOLLAND

Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., No. 280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com).

01.18.18 | RN&R | 25

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by ROb bRezsny

For the week oF January 18, 2018 ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many American women

did not have the right to vote until August 18, 1920. On that day, the Tennessee General Assembly became the 36th state legislature to approve the Nineteenth Amendment, thus sealing the legal requirements to change the U.S. Constitution and ensure women’s suffrage.

The ballot in Tennessee was close. At the last minute, 24-year-old legislator Harry T. Burns changed his mind from no to yes, thanks to a letter from his mother, who asked him to “be a good boy” and vote in favor. I suspect that in the coming weeks, Aries, you will be in a pivotal position not unlike Burns’. Your decision could affect more people than you know. Be a good boy or good girl.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In the coming weeks,

Destiny will be calling you and calling you and calling you, inviting you to answer its summons.

If you do indeed answer, it will provide you with clear instructions about what you will need to do expedite your ass in the direction of the future. If on the other hand you refuse to listen to Destiny’s call, or hear it and refuse to respond, then Destiny will take a different tack. It won’t provide any instructions, but will simply yank your ass in the direction of the future.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Looks like the Season

of a Thousand and One Emotions hasn’t drained and frazzled you. Yes, there may be a pool of tears next to your bed. Your altar might be filled with heaps of ashes, marking your burnt offerings. But you have somehow managed to extract a host of useful lessons from your tests and trials. You have surprised yourself with the resilience and resourcefulness you’ve been able to summon. And so the energy you’ve gained through these gritty triumphs is well worth the price you’ve had to pay.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Every relationship is

unique. The way you connect with another person – whether it’s through friendship, romance, family, or collaborative projects – should be free to find the distinctive identity that best suits its special chemistry. Therefore, it’s a mistake to compare any of your alliances to some supposedly perfect ideal. Luckily, you’re in an astrological period when you have extra savvy about cultivating unique models of togetherness. So I recommend that you devote the coming weeks to deepening and refining your most important bonds.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): During recent weeks,

your main tasks have centered around themes often associated with strain and struggle: repair, workaround, reassessment, jury-rigging, adjustment, compromise. Amazingly, Leo, you have kept your suffering to a minimum as you have smartly done your hard work. In some cases you have even thrived.

Congratulations on being so industrious and steadfast! Beginning soon, you will glide into a smoother stage of your cycle. Be alert for the inviting signs. Don’t assume you’ve got to keep grunting and grinding.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Norwegian artist

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) created four versions of his iconic artwork The Scream. Each depicts a person who seems terribly upset, holding his head in his hands and opening his mouth wide as if unleashing a loud shriek.

In 2012, one of these images of despair was sold for almost $120 million. The money went to the son of a man who had been Munch’s friend and patron. Can you think of a way that you and yours might also be able to extract value or get benefits from a negative emotion or a difficult experience? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to do just that.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “I think I like my brain

best in a bar fight with my heart,” says poet Clementine von Radics. While I appreciate that perspective, I advise you to do the opposite in the coming weeks. This will be a phase of your astrological cycle when you should definitely support your heart over your brain in bar fights, wrestling matches, shadow boxing contests, tugs of war, battles of wits, and messy arguments. Here’s one of the most important reasons why I say this: Your brain would be inclined to keep the conflict going until one party or the other suffers ignominious defeat,

whereas your heart is much more likely to work toward a win-win conclusion.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): When he was 24

years old, Scorpio-born Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398) was a novice monk with little money who had just learned to read and write.

He had spent years as a wandering beggar.

By the time he was 40 years old, he was the emperor of China and founder of the Ming Dynasty, which ruled for 276 years. What happened in between? That’s a long story. Zhu’s adventurousness was a key asset, and so was his ability as an audacious and crafty tactician.

His masterful devotion to detailed practical matters was also indispensable. If you are ever in your life going to begin an ascent even remotely comparable to Zhu’s, Scorpio, it will be in the coming ten months. Being brave and enterprising won’t be enough. You must be disciplined and dogged, as well.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In 1892, the

influential Atlantic Monthly magazine criticized Sagittarian poet Emily Dickinson, saying she “possessed an extremely unconventional and grotesque fancy.” It dismissed her poetry as incoherent, and declared that an “eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse” like her “cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar.” This dire diss turned out to be laughably wrong. Dickinson is now regarded as one of the most original American poets. I offer this story up as a pep talk for you, Sagittarius. In the coming months, I suspect you’ll be reinventing yourself. You’ll be researching new approaches to living your life.

In the course of these experiments, others may see you as being in the grip of unconventional or grotesque fantasy. They may consider you dreamy and eccentric. I hope you won’t allow their misunderstandings to interfere with your playful yet serious work.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Bubble gum is more

elastic and less sticky than regular chewing gum. That’s why you can blow bubbles with it.

A Capricorn accountant named Walter Diemer invented it in 1928 while working for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company. At the time he finally perfected the recipe, the only food dye he had on hand was pink. His early batches were all that color, and a tradition was born. That’s why even today, most bubble gum is pink. I suspect a similar theme may unfold soon in your life. The conditions present at the beginning of a new project may deeply imprint the future evolution of the project. So try to make sure those are conditions you like!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “When one door

closes, another opens,” said inventor Alexander Graham Bell. “But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened.”

Heed his advice, Aquarius. Take the time you need to mourn the lost opportunity. But don’t take MORE than the time you need. The replacement or alternative to what’s gone will show up sooner than you think.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Gilbert Stuart painted

the most famous portrait of America’s first president, George Washington. It’s the image on the U.S. one-dollar bill. And yet Stuart never finished the masterpiece. Begun in 1796, it was still a work-in-progress when Stuart died in 1828. Leonardo da Vinci had a similar type of success. His incomplete painting The Virgin and Child with St. Anne hangs in the Louvre in Paris, and his unfinished The Adoration of the Magi has been in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery since 1671. I propose that Stuart and da Vinci serve as your role models in the coming weeks. Maybe it’s not merely OK if a certain project of yours remains unfinished; maybe that’s actually the preferred outcome.

You can call Rob Brezsny for your Expanded Weekly Horoscope: (900) 950-7700. $1.99 per minute. Must be 18+. Touchtone phone required. Customer service (612) 373-9785. And don’t forget to check out Rob’s website at www.realastrology.com.

by JERi ChADwEll

Leading man

up to about 95-98, in the future. So we still will have a little more room to grow—hopefully. We’re planning to build a stage down here. This floor is all brand new. … The landlords very kindly put in a new floor for us, which is beautiful.

Joe Atack is the producing artistic director for Good Luck Macbeth Theatre Company, which recently moved to a new space at 124 W. Taylor St. GLM will be hosting an open house in its new space from 5 to 9 p.m. on Jan. 20.

Well else is on the horizon for GLM?

PHOTO/JERI CHADWELL

What’s new?

In our current space, which is a lot smaller than this, we only really have our theater area—and we don’t really have a lot of other space. Here, we have two offices. This office is ours, and we’re sharing this space with the Reno Jazz Orchestra. They’re joining us on this voyage. They’re using this as a rehearsal hall and, occasionally, as a performance hall. The front office is being rented by Brian Egan, who’s a property broker here. So that helps us.

So you guys are sharing the lease?

Yes, it makes it affordable. Actually, we have the lease, and they’re subleasing from us.

Why the move in the first place?

A few different reasons. One, the space was very small—and there were issues that we had with the power for the kind of things we were doing. And, of course, Shea’s is very loud at certain times.

I’ve been at GLM and had the band at Shea’s fire up before the final curtain. Sometimes it kind of works.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. We love those guys, but not an ideal location for us really. And, on top of that, because the space was small, we couldn’t really grow in it. And we got to an average of 80 percent occupancy over the last couple of years. We really needed a bit more room, so here we are.

What kind of building needs to be done in the theater space?

We’re building a bar area and lobby area down here. It’ll be about 12 feet from this end wall and about 30 feet across. And then we’re building risers.

And we’re going to have 75 seats. We’ve got all new seats, which are sort of movie-theater-style.

There were way fewer at the old place, yes?

Yes, it was 49. So we’re about 50 percent bigger, with the option of going

We’re going to be doing some building stuff in here on the 13th and 14th. Then, next Saturday, we’re having a little open house, showing where we’re at so far.

People can see the new space, get excited about it—give us some generous donations, hopefully.

When’s the next production?

The first production is Feb. 2.

You guys are on a deadline.

We are on a deadline. But, you know, it’s a fantastic play. It’s being directed

by John Frederick and co-directed by Jesse Briggs. It’s a play we’ve wanted to do for years. It’s called The Royale.

It’s by Marco Ramirez, who is famous for his work on House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Daredevil. This play is based on the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion, who won his title in—I might be getting the date wrong—something like 1905. But it was here in Reno. Jack Johnson was his name. … It’s based on that story. …

We’re really excited about it because it’s a predominantly African-American driven story, so the characters in it are AfricanAmericans, as opposed to Caucasian actors, which is very unusual for Reno or, well, anywhere, really. Ω

by BRUCE VAN DYKE

That’s not all he’s not The Phony President’s inspirational message to America on Martin Luther King Day, 2018: “I am not a racist. I’m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”

Thank you, Dum Dum, for this very freshest of lies. (One thing you can say about Trump—his lies are always Da Freshest!) And here, with this “I am not a racist” kneeslapper, we see how effortlessly he can roll out a truly solid. But this is news? Sorry, Donny, mah man, but BOR-ING! Of course he’s a racist.

He firmly sealed that deal years ago, as he picked at that flesheating Birther scab. (No matter, for by the time you read this, he’ll have moved on to fresher dope.)

So, time to review the one year anniversary of this mess.

Pathological liar—check. Racist pig—check. Adulterer who pays porn babe sex partners six figures to shut up—check. Total fucking moron who barely has a clue as to

how the hell all this goddamn government works—check. Completely evil prick who will say anything to cover for his Russian boyfriends, including oligarchs, mobsters and politicians—check.

Remember, just two years ago, we had a professional, reasonable president who was not a racist, not a liar, not an adulterer, not a moron and not a flaming jerk of an asshole. We are on the road to Idiocracy, brothers and sisters, and it appears, I’m sorry to report, that we’re in the fast lane.

(And just to refresh your memory, if it’s been a while since you’ve seen that Mike Judge classic flick of a future moronic America, Terry Crews played the President in that one, and his full name was President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.)

Speaking of the POTUS and porn, some columnist somewhere nailed it—“Normally, a sex scan-

dal like the president buying the silence of a porn star would very likely be the scandal that would take that president down.” Now? Ho hum. No biggie. Just another day in Trumpland. Just another day that ends in “y.”

In just one year, the office of the presidency has been degraded, and degraded hard. This hasn’t been a subtle operation.

And if it turns out that Trump and the kids are the biggest money launderers in history, would you be at all surprised?

Even one tiny bit? Remember Eric’s line to that golf writer, about how they don’t need to deal with American banks anymore, because they’ve got money coming in from Russia? And really, at this point, why would even one democratic senator/congressperson show up to Dum Dum’s SOTU speech on the 30th? Ω

01.18.18 | RN&R | 27

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