Desert Companion - April 2016

HOME DESIGN

Six style gurus show you how to dress up your digs inside and out

04 APRIL

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Spring FASHION

Sizzling swimsuits make a big splash for pool season +++ BASEBALL!

Sin City sluggers light up the big leagues

HOT DOGS!

Oscar Mayer wouldn’t recognize these fancy wieners

KIDS IN PERIL

These lawyers come to the aid of immigrant children

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Howard HugHes Parkway

dedicated to serving tHe Las vegas community witH more tHan 950 years of industry exPerience

morgan stanley gives Back Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, catholiccharities.com The ALS Association Nevada Chapter, webnv.alsa.org morganstanleyfa.com/brian.buckley

Brian Buckley and John Buckley proudly support our local community

Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, ccfa.org

Lance Horton

First Vice President, Branch Manager 3993 Howard Hughes Parkway, 8th Floor Las Vegas, Nevada 89169 702-737-8188 www.morganstanleybranch.com/las.vegas

Stellar academic programs, an emphasis on holistic education, and adaptability to student interests make Dawson a fantastic place to learn, explore, and grow. Dawson’s decision to be the first middle school in Las Vegas to offer Mandarin allowed me to establish a strong lingual foundation I continued to build through high school and college. Additionally, Dawson’s ability to accommodate my desire to attend a boarding high school made a daunting process much more approachable. I believe the academic preparation and opportunity I received at Dawson has been instrumental to my academic success.

Pascal Cevaer-Corey Dawson Class of 2010 Stanford University

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Month 2015

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The Dawson Difference At The Alexander Dawson School, we can’t predict the future, but we can teach children how to shape it.

Dawson gave me the room to be creative. For example, I wrote my first play in the eighth grade. It was a western melodrama we performed for the entire School. People thought it was funny and I loved that reaction.

Dawson’s performing arts teacher told me to take that feeling and try applying it to screenwriting. That must have stuck with me because I chose to major in screenwriting and directing at Boston University. I believe a lot of my confidence came from the creative opportunities I was given early on at Dawson, and from the people there that helped me realize my strengths.

As a Dawson student I developed a solid foundation in writing, study skills, and problem solving. While it has been over 15 years since I first attended Dawson, I still rely on those basic foundational skills to guide me through the challenges of my Ph.D. program at Wake Forest University Medical School. I know my experience at Dawson prepared me for success in high school and beyond.

Now, I am in my third year of graduate school studying the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Brenna Beckelman Dawson Class of 2004 Wake Forest University Medical School

Lida Nasseri Dawson Class of 2007 Boston University

(702) 949-3600

Whether it’s delivering a presentation or taking a test, there isn’t a single identifiable thing that has been more beneficial to me than my educational experience at Dawson. I was encouraged to be an independent thinker and I still use the tools I was given at Dawson to put forth 110 percent effort into whatever I am trying to accomplish. I was taught to question what was questionable, and to discover what was undiscovered. Dawson has not only made me the person I am today, but has made me the person I will be for the rest of my life.

Jonathan Walton Dawson Class of 2012 National Merit Scholarship Finalist 2016

www.alexanderdawsonschool.org

10845 W. Desert Inn Road | Las Vegas, Nevada | 89135 Month 2015

DesertCompanion.Com

3

There’s life. Then there’s Summerlin life – a lifestyle experience too big to be described. It has to be lived. It’s hundreds of miles of trails connecting breathtaking parks and outdoor spaces. It’s bustling city blocks of fashion, dining and entertainment. It’s visionary and inspiring architecture and design. It’s all here. In your Summerlin life.

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s e l d d a S g n i z a l B s t e e M ! a m toes.” o a t h o p a d l e h k s O f ma e o k e i d i l s a s ’ h t i w “It Laugh your spuds off and see IDAHO! The Comedy Musical at The Smith Center. It’s got songs and dances, like a musical. It’s got funny stuff, like a comedy. It’s got a love story, like….a love story.

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RANGE ROVER EVOQUE:

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. With its striking lines, muscular shoulder and tapered roof, Range Rover Evoque set itself apart from its contemporaries.

Whether discovering hidden parts of town or being seen in all the right places, it’s always ready for action. Striking the perfect balance between distinctive exterior design, a contoured cabin, capability and performance, the vehicle defines contemporary city life. To experience the 2016 Range Rover Evoque for yourself, visit Land Rover Las Vegas for a test drive today.

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EDiTOR’S Note

58

Home slice

I

f my stars had been aligned such that I lived in a community overseen by an HOA, I suspect my mailbox would be chokestuffed with shouty, all-caps warning letters right about now. Not that I live in a crackhouse or anything. But something is going on with my lawn.

Something. Definitely. Going on. What happened, see, was we let our weekly landscaping service lapse for a few months and, seemingly overnight — as though the spirit of Gaia herself detected some promising cosmic portal left ajar through which to vengefully re-establish her verdant dominion over our paved, strip-malled, skyscrapered, suburbanized earth — a goblin freak army of weeds pulled a Red Dawn on our yard.

Total domination. Not just dandelions and foxtails.

There are weeds jungling all up in my yard that I don’t even know the words for, weeds that sport xenomorphic blades and leaf-claws, very possibly dripping with molecular acid; weeds in rough hominid shapes, like they’re willing themselves to evolve; weeds with stalks so thick they might be better considered ambitious proto-trunks.

The totalized effect of the yard is now one of smug, taunting, self-congratulatory achievement on the part of a sentient biomass. Oh, sure, I’d call the landscaper and order an airstrike if something like momentary admiration tinged with animistic awe didn’t stay my hand. But anyway, yeah, just disclosing up front that I’m not introducing an issue with a feature about home and garden design with a huge amount of banked credibility. But I’ve got tons of cred when it comes to spring. I mean, my yard is (rawr!) spring incarnate.

Seriously, though: For some truly inspired home and garden Next designs, turn to p. 57, where we MOnth profile the work of designers of ROOOAADD TRIP! both indoor and outdoor spaces Desert Companion who’ve turned several valley brings you stories from around the Silver State

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homes into restorative places of comfort and style.

The season expresses itself in this issue in other ways: It’s baseball season, and here’s a head-turning fact: Since Major League Baseball began its first-year player draft in 1965, Southern Nevada has provided the organization with more than 300 players. Matt Jacob’s story on p. 44 explores that phenomenon and considers Vegas through the lens of being ... a baseball town? Yes. And what are a few sentences about baseball without their natural complement, a few sentences about hot dogs? On p. 50, Jason Scavone digs into the latest tastes in dogs, whether they’re revived classics or bold new gourmet flavorfurters™. If your tastes run to more sophisticated, less tubular fare, check out our review of Harvest (p. 54), a new restaurant that surely marks a disciplined reinvigoration of farm-to-table fine dining on the Strip.

Finally, let me jump ahead with some breathless hype for our May travel issue.

We’re taking the theme literally: We’ll be producing the issue from the road, as staff writer Heidi Kyser, art director Christopher Smith and I spend 10 days looping the state in an RV, sharing stories about the people and places of Nevada and eating lots and lots of beef jerky. But you don’t have to wait until May: Visit desertcompanion.vegas for dispatches from our adventures in the small towns and Andrew Kiraly big wilderness of beautiful rural Nevada. editor Jerky ho!

Follow Desert Companion www.facebook.com/DesertCompanion www.twitter.com/DesertCompanion

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April 2016

letters@desertcompanion.vegas

Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 4

1

‘I WOULD HAVE DONE IT FOR FREE’

“Long article, but worth the read!” That’s Heather Nickens O’Hara reacting on Facebook to Heidi Kyser’s March feature about Las Vegas production-show dancers. A deep examination of the complicated post-dance lives of that Sin City archetype, the showgirl, Kyser’s piece tallied such factors as injuries, insurance coverage and future career prospects. “It was the best job I ever had,” O’Hara writes, “and when I pulled my groin when dancing in New York they took care of me, and I didn’t pay a dime!” (That’s not always the case, as the piece shows.) A reader named Catherine wrote in to applaud the story, as well: “Thank you for giving these dancers a voice from beyond the center stage.” The situation is different in Europe, she says, where her boyfriend was a modern dancer. “At the time we thought about trying for Cirque du Soleil. However, the risk of being in the U.S. without insurance as a dancer wasn’t worth it. In Europe, dancers were covered.” Rachael Sellars, who appeared in Kyser’s story, had this to say: “So honored to be amongst these amazing women and sharing our stories of a life and career that we wouldn’t have changed for anything.” She concluded with some wise advice for dancers young and old: “Pick up a copy of Desert Companion at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf or Jamba Juice.”

Dance takes a serious toll on the human body. So why don’t Las Vegas’ most prevalent professional athletes get more help coping with the consequences?

by

E

vening sun seeped through the drawn blinds in a studio at Sherry Goldstein’s Yoga Sanctuary, highlighting the cheeks and shoulders of the dozen students who’d signed up for Rachael Sellars’ anatomy workshop in June 2015. Seated in a circle, they introduced themselves one by one, explaining why they were there.

“I’m a former dancer,” one woman said, “so I have a couple old injuries. I’m interested in learning more about how good alignment can help me deal with my low-back pain.” A person or two later, the line was repeated, “I’m a former dancer,” this time in relation to shoulder surgery. It soon became a joking refrain — “also a dancer,” “danced all my life” — to preface the litany of aches that had brought more than half of those present to yoga in search of relief, and to the workshop that day hoping to reassemble the pieces of their disjointed bodies.

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HEIDI K YS E R

Among the dozen current and former Las Vegas dancers who told Desert Companion their stories of injury and illness were (left to right, standing), Stephanie Smith, Jacky Pagone, Clare Tewalt, (seated) Linda Le Bourveau, Michele Chovan-Taylor and Rachael Sellars.

MARCH 2016

DESERTCOMPANION.VEGAS

Las Vegan Joe Silverman has had enough! “Your article in the February issue entitled ‘Goodbye, Review-Journal’ caught my attention,” he writes, referring to the piece Andrew Kiraly wrote after the family of Sheldon Adelson bought the morning paper. “I have been receiving a free issue of Desert Companion since 2012. I have enjoyed the content and most articles, particularly those highlighting the history of Las Vegas.

But throughout your article about the R-J you clearly expressed a caustic and a malicious hopefulness for the decline of the R-J. Why would anyone get joy out of the decline of another business, particularly in Southern Nevada? Do you dislike Mr. Adelson to that ex-

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tent? Or is it because you disagree with the long-standing mostly conservative views of the R-J? Are you upset because the R-J provides an exception to the liberal views of most of the mass media? …

“Well, I thought your February commentary was just an anomaly and I let it go … until your March issue arrived. It appears that I am going to be subjected to your ‘drip by drip’ torture castigating the R-J and Mr. Adelson, such as with the End Note, page 83, and Notes and Letters, page 12, in which an R-J reader cancelled her subscription to the R-J hoping, as you highlighted in bold, that the ‘paper folds.’ I wish no such ill will to Desert Companion, but I do wish to cancel my free subscription. As my Pappy once said, ‘Son, the things you get for nothin’ are worth nothin’.’”

Our take: Nowhere in his piece does Andrew Kiraly hope — caustically, maliciously or otherwise — for the decline of the Review-Journal. On the other hand, he is caustic about the paper’s decline, another matter entirely. Anyone interested in his logic can revisit the piece at desertcompanion.vegas. Meanwhile, we hope Mr. Silverman will come back to DC some day. There’s a lot of nonpolitical good stuff — including plenty of history — to come.

Silverman isn’t alone in his opinion. “At first glance,” Jennifer Fawzy writes, “I knew that this article was going to ruffle my conservative feathers. And I was right. … My interpretation of the material was that the R-J is now transforming into some ultraconservative medium that will brainwash everyone into believing a new agenda. That, of course, did not happen. ...

“Overall, here is my position: Every person is different, even if they belong to the same political party. Conservatives are not oneeyed monsters running around trying to hurt everybody, yet some of our liberal countrymen paint this picture of us. That simply isn’t true. The good part about your article is that it was written so colorfully that I was stirred into action to write this email. Just calm down a bit … there really isn’t a monster in the R-J’s closet.” photography A A R O N M AY E S

MARCH 2016

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Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 0 4

www.desertcompanion.vegas

Features 64 making a splash

57 an eye for home design

Meet six experts in home style — from kitchen to patio and back again — as we explore their ideas and methods

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Gu M o tdteelr: r Co RE bD er I Tt Ljeofhtn k l e y

Indoors or out, these pool fashions will make your summer even hotter

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April 2016

www.desertcompanion.vegas

Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 0 4

44

21

50

departments All Things

36 essay

49 Dining

75 The Guide

21 the law Two

The money-making ways of the charter-school industry

By Hugh Jackson

50 The Dish The

So many things to see, hear, do, experience

attorneys give their all for immigrant children 24 society Molodi

delivers moves with a message 26 Profile Building

quiet

44 sports Local sluggers make it to The Show

By Matt Jacob

28 zeit bites The

romance isn’t over 30 Object lesson

One stylish painter!

32 Open Topic Living

alone — or not

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A PRIL 2 0 1 6

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appeal of luxe weenies 53 Eat this now

Vegan delight on the border 53 cocktail of the month Adult iced tea at

Bin 702 54 at first Bite It’s

time for a great Harvest

80 End note Spring means cleaning, and cleaning means the advice of Marie Kondo, and the advice of Marie Kondo means ... well ...

By Stacy J. Willis

on the cover Elly shows off summer swim styles Photography Robert John Kley

a t t o r n e y s : b r e n t h o l m e s ; b a s e b a l l : p a u l r y d i n g ; h o t d o g : C h r i s t o p h e r Sm i t h ; Sc h o o l P i e : J o h n C o u lt e r

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䜀椀瘀攀 夀漀甀爀 䌀栀椀氀搀 䔀瘀攀爀礀 䄀搀瘀愀渀琀愀最攀

圀攀ᤠ氀氀 挀栀愀氀氀攀渀最攀 愀渀搀 椀渀猀瀀椀爀攀 礀漀甀爀 挀栀椀氀搀 椀渀 愀 挀愀爀椀渀最 攀渀瘀椀爀漀渀洀攀渀琀 眀椀琀栀 瀀爀漀最爀愀洀猀 琀栀愀琀 栀愀瘀攀 猀甀挀挀攀猀猀昀甀氀氀礀 攀搀甀挀愀琀攀搀 琀栀漀甀猀愀渀搀猀 漀昀 挀栀椀氀搀爀攀渀 椀渀 䰀愀猀 嘀攀最愀猀 昀漀爀 洀漀爀攀 琀栀愀渀 昀椀昀琀礀 礀攀愀爀猀⸀

䬀椀渀搀攀爀猀挀栀漀漀氀Ⰰ 䔀氀攀洀攀渀琀愀爀礀 ☀ 䴀椀搀搀氀攀 匀挀栀漀漀氀 匀琀愀琀攀ⴀ漀昀ⴀ琀栀攀ⴀ䄀爀琀 䌀愀洀瀀甀猀 䄀搀瘀愀渀挀攀搀 䤀渀渀漀瘀愀琀椀瘀攀 䌀甀爀爀椀挀甀氀甀洀 吀攀挀栀渀漀氀漀最礀 䌀漀洀瀀攀琀椀琀椀瘀攀 匀瀀漀爀琀猀 䔀砀琀爀愀 䌀甀爀爀椀挀甀氀愀爀 䄀挀琀椀瘀椀琀椀攀猀 匀琀愀琀攀 䰀椀挀攀渀猀攀搀 䄀搀瘀愀渀挀䔀䐀 一愀琀椀漀渀愀氀 䄀挀挀爀攀搀椀琀愀琀椀漀渀

氀瘀搀猀⸀挀漀洀

Keep Your Landscape Healthy …and Your Weekends Free

p u b l i s h e D B y n e va d a p u b l i c r a d i o

Mission Statement Desert Companion is the premier city magazine that celebrates the pursuits, passions and aspirations of Southern Nevadans. With awardwinning lifestyle journalism and design, Desert Companion does more than inform and entertain.

We spark dialogue, engage people and define the spirit of the Las Vegas Valley.

Publisher Melanie Cannon Associate Publisher Christine Kiely Editor Andrew Kiraly Art Director Christopher Smith deputy editor Scott Dickensheets senior designer Scott Lien staff writer Heidi Kyser Graphic Designer Brent Holmes Account executives Sharon Clifton, Parker McCoy, Favian Perez, Noelle Tokar, Markus Van’t Hul

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aintain your landscape and your social calendar throughout the year by allowing one of our dedicated maintenance teams to service your property on a regular basis.

• Sustainable Landscape Care • Emphasis on Hand Pruning • Irrigation Diagnostics

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Web administrator Danielle Branton print traffic manager Karen Wong ADVERTISING COPY EDITOR Carla J. Zvosec Contributing writers Chantal Corcoran, John Curtas, Cybele, John M. Glionna, Dan Hernandez, Mélanie Hope, Hugh Jackson, Matt Jacob, Christie Moeller, Jason Scavone, Geoff Schumacher, Mitchell Wilburn, Stacy J. Willis, Carla J. Zvosec

Mention this ad when scheduling your maintenance estimate for 10% off your initial service visit

Contributing artists Blair Baskin, John Coulter, Robert John Kley, Geri Kodey, Anthony Mair, Sabin Orr, Paul Ryding, Lucky Wenzel

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Editorial: Andrew Kiraly, (702) 259-7856; andrew@desertcompanion.vegas

(702) 452-5272

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Design | Installation | Renovation | Consultation | Maintenance Tree Care | Hardscapes | Small Jobs | Irrigation | Lighting

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Advertising: Christine Kiely (702) 259-7813; christine@desertcompanion.vegas

license 0057280

Call today to schedule your free maintenance estimate

Fax: (702) 258-5646

Subscriptions: (702) 258-9895; subscriptions@desertcompanion.vegas Website: www.desertcompanion.vegas Desert Companion is published 12 times a year by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos, artwork and ad designs printed are the sole property of Desert Companion and may not be duplicated or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The views of Desert Companion contributing writers are not necessarily the views of Desert Companion or Nevada Public Radio. Contact Tammy Willis for back issues, which are available for purchase for $7.95.

ISSN 2157-8389 (print) ISSN 2157-8397 (online)

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04 16

Empowering kids to step up page 24

helping k ids who are on the borders

Borderline A Community

Two poorly paid Las Vegas attorneys help immigrant children deal with America’s legal system — but the program may be doomed B y H e i d i K ys e r

P h oto g r a p h y B r e n t H o l m e s

ttorney-client privilege prevents Katelyn Leese from naming the El Salvadoran woman and children she meets at Las Vegas immigration court on a Friday in February, though she acknowledges that the transcript of the hearing is public record. The woman was one of nearly 22,000 worldwide Salvadoran asylum-seekers in the U.N. Refugee Agency’s most recent count. Leese, an immigration attorney in the Thomas & Mack Legal Clinic at UNLV, represents the woman's three daughters, ages 11, 12 and 13, who were among the 63,000 unaccompanied children taken into custody by U.S. Border Control between October 2013 and July 2014. The girls now face deportation.

Standing a few feet away from the mother, Leese says, “She has a good asylum claim.”

She doesn’t elaborate, but the implication is clear. The U.N. agency's October 2015 report about the crisis of women and children fleeing Central America and Mexico described armed gangs terrorizing populations in order to take control of territories, targeting women in particular. The exploitation that children face on every step of their

April 2016

DesertCompanion.vegas

21

ALL Things

community

Hear more lengthy treks has also been well-documented in the media, perhaps most notably in the 2010 documentary Train to Nowhere.

Sitting in the linoleum hall of the immigration court, though, Leese’s clients look hopeful. The mother, a friendly 30-something, seems eager to show that she speaks English. The girls are fidgety carbon copies of the same child at oneyear intervals: shiny black hair, jeans and knit tops, sweet smiles. Each wears one of the cartoon animal stickers that Leese handed out earlier and clutches a red folder full of paperwork for the hearing, which will decide whether they can be added to their mother’s asylum application, suspending the government’s removal case against them.

The five are summoned.

Just before they enter the courtroom, Leese hands the 11-year-old a teddy bear dressed in a black robe and spectacles. In Spanish, she tells the girl not to be afraid.

Inside, the judge, Munish Sharda, speaks gently to the girls through an interpreter, making sure they understand as best they can what’s happening. After administratively closing all three of their cases so that they can join their mother in seeking asylum, the judge tells them to keep in touch with Leese, follow her instructions, listen to their parents and stay out of trouble.

Outside the courtroom, there are relieved hugs, but the battle isn’t over.

The U.S. grants asylum to only a fraction of the Mexican and Central American refugees who apply. Still, Leese is optimistic.

The family pays nothing for her services. Justice AmeriCorps funds the immigration clinic at the Thomas & Mack Law Center. But Leese and her partner in the clinic, Alissa Cooley, are worried that if they don’t find other funding sources soon, they won’t be able to close this and the other 93 cases they’re working on — or, worse, the program could end.

“We’ve built relationships and trust with these kids, and a lot of times, we’re

“Who wouldn’t want a job where you’re fighting injustice and helping children?”

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Should

the only stable figure in their lives,” churches aid ginning. So, I was like, ‘Okay, Cooley says. “I’d feel bad walking I’ll stay for a second year and immigrants?

Hear a away, handing them off to someone try to finish as many cases as I discussion they don’t know.” can.’ But I don’t know if I can on “KNPR’s But she may have no choice; with stay another year.”

State of limited funds and massive need, Not that she — or Leese — Nevada” at desert the program is rapidly becoming wants to leave. companion. unsustainable.

“Who wouldn’t want a job com/hear It began in the late summer of where you’re fighting injustice more 2014, with rising awareness of the and helping children?” Leese brewing crisis over Latino immigrants says. “It’s a privilege to do fleeing dangerous circumstances, heading what we’re doing.” northward in search of safety. Law Privilege doesn’t pay the bills, professors Fatma Marouf and Michael however. Recently divorced, Leese is Kagan, who head the immigration clinic adapting to having full-time care of two at the Thomas & Mack Law Center, got dogs in a yardless townhouse and relying the Justice AmeriCorps grant to hire two on credit cards for emergencies, such as attorneys for a special program focused a $1,300 repair to her 18-year-old Honda. on unaccompanied immigrant children.

Cooley also drives an 18-year-old Honda They hired recent Boyd School of Law and says that, despite occasional side graduates Cooley and Leese, who started work writing criminal appeals for a local taking cases in October of that year. defense attorney, by the time her monthInitially, with zero cases and a steep ly check arrives, she sometimes has as learning curve ahead of them, Cooley little as $10 left in her bank account. and Leese thought the $24,000 annual But they’re both loath to complain. stipend per attorney seemed reasonable.

“It’s not that bad,” Leese says. “We’re They’d spend a year working in the not living below the poverty line. If you high-intensity laboratory and then want to talk about sacrifices, let’s talk take their skills to another job where about the sacrifices the children have the salary was more in line with their made to be here. They travel hundreds, education level. But they discovered that thousands of miles, get kidnapped, raped the cases, which have multiple parts inon the way. All so they can live in a place volving different courts, take a long time where their lives won’t be at risk.” to close. Meanwhile, the pent-up need In order for the program to continue, for their services led to an explosion in they say, they’d need enough funding clients, and the program operates on the to afford at least one more full-time principle of universal representation; no staffer (they have one, a multipurpose qualified applicant can be turned away, receptionist/secretary/translator) in regardless of the merits of his or her addition to higher pay for the attorneys. case. Having spent two years mastering Leese says she’s applied for a grant from the system and learning the delicate art the Soros Foundation and that she and of communicating with traumatized Cooley are researching other options, children, Cooley and Leese now realize but the heavy caseload and extensive that finding another newbie — who’d data reporting responsibilities required be the only likely candidate to take

by AmeriCorps leave time for little else. such a low-paying job — to take over They hope to find a solution soon, but the massive case load they’ve built up not primarily for their own sakes. is highly unlikely. And the program’s “We do this for the kids,” Cooley says. funding depends on at least one of them “It can be draining to sit in interviews remaining on board. and hear the horrible things they have “At the year mark, we hadn’t closed been through. But I’m able to help any cases,” Cooley says. “So, if I had left, them and make the best out of a terrible Kate’s caseload would have increased. situation. They really need help. If we And they weren’t her cases from the bedon’t do it, who’s going to?”

VEGAS WITH NO CEILING. B E T W E E N N E W YO R K- N E W YO R K & M O N T E C A R LO

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A step up With its rousing step percussion and themes of self-reliance, Molodi offers students moves with a message B y C a r l a J. Z v o s e c

A

rousing and keeping the interest of a roomful of third-graders is no easy task — even when they are as well-behaved and well-mannered as those at MJ Christensen Elementary School. But when it comes to reaching and engaging kids of all ages, the high-energy, interactive step-percussion group Molodi (pronounced Muh-laudee) doesn’t miss a beat.

Within moments of bursting onto the school’s gymnasium stage in a flurry of stepping moves, beatboxing sounds and infectious hip-hop music, the ensemble had heads bobbing, hands tapping and bodies dancing in place while seated on the floor.

As the first number ended, the room filled with oohs and aahs, then loud whoops, cheers and applause.

The 50-minute instructional presentation, featuring five of Molodi’s dozen or so Las Vegas members — Jason Nious, Antwan Davis, Malachi Durant, Angie Freeman and Micah Clark — was held in conjunction with The Smith Center's in-school performance program. “Helping kids has always been a part of Molodi. Always, always, always,” stressed Nious, founder and president. “That’s how I learned. I was a junior in high school when I started (stepping), and when I was inspired, I was fertile and looking for things to latch onto.

“When you have something, and a purpose, you have a fertile ground, a fertile mind, to actually start creating. ... So it’s always been a part (of Molodi) to teach and pass it down.”

Molodi makes percussion noises by clapping, finger-snapping and striking various body parts. It blends these sounds with collegiate stepping, tap, gumboots, beatbox, poetry and hip-hop dance, creating a dynamic and rhythmic experience. And

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Kids bop: Molodi's Angie Freeman teaches a student how to step.

now that they had captured the attention of ping at-attention pose: feet together, stand these third-graders, Nious took a few mo- up straight, fists clenched and touching at ments to talk about the origins of stepping. chest height, mouths quiet, eyes forward, Originating in African-American fraterni- grit on (or what they jokingly referred to as ties and sororities, he said, it’s made up of “making ugly faces”), muscles tight. intricate rhythms and sounds generated After guiding the crowd through the drill through footsteps, claps and spoken word. a few times, stepping instruction followed.

Body percussion, he added, is the umbrella With intense concentration, the students under which stepping falls. To demonstrate, followed Molodi through some simple stepthe Molodi crew led the kids in a clapping ping moves that included clapping, hitting exercise that included patting their chests, their chests and upper thighs and stomping. bellies, mouths and the tops of their heads.

They seemed to be having a great time.

Nious then shifted to a more serious Nious formed Molodi in 2000, while atnote. He discussed the essential require- tending the University of New Mexico in ments to be part of a stepping team — Albuquerque. He, along with the group’s rhythm, teamwork, discipline, high ener- co-founders and vice presidents Davis and gy — and explained that stepping requires Khalid Freeman, came to Las Vegas to hard work and a “love to be the best.” He perform in Stomp Out Loud at Planet Holalso had the students repeat a pledge rein- lywood. After it closed in January 2009, the forcing the need for self-control, self-dis- three stayed in Vegas to pursue their aspiracipline and perseverance: “Good, better, tions for Molodi and achieve their dream of best; never let it rest, until your good is helping kids. Since then they've performed better, and your better is best.” for approximately 6,000 students from 10 “I enjoy using body percussion as a tool Clark County schools and held workshops to pass on life skills to the kids; it’s like for both teachers and students, as their nasneaking vegetables into their lasagna,” he tional touring calendar allows. said. “Yes, they clap under their legs and When asked about the most importmake cool rhythms, but at the same time, ant message Molodi can convey to they are learning about teamwork, leader- kids, Nious said, “You’re here on purship and focus. It’s great because we can see pose, meaning it’s your job in life to ... their brains churning as they figure out the discover who you are for yourself, and complicated parts for themselves, and we then give it and spread it around the know we’ve inspired them to explore it even world. You can choose to be idle your more. So, in the end, we’ve done our job.” whole life and choose to be mediocre, Prompting everyone to their feet, includ- but you’re doing a disservice to yourself ing teachers, Molodi demonstrated the step- and to the world.”

P h oto g r a p h y G e r i Ko d e y

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Henry “CJ” Hoogland Architect

“W

e wanted all the materials to be quiet,” architect Henry “CJ” Hoogland says as he walks through the high-end home he designed for a couple in the Ridges neighborhood. Quiet isn’t one of usual attributes that leap to mind when you think of architecture. Form, space, scale, balance, materiality, flow — sure. But if you can afford a custom home, a space designed to answer the fundamental question How do I want to live?, then quiet can be an architectural element. Hoogland mentions it often: “This was an opportunity for us to keep the landscape really … quiet.”

“We tried to do away with the wall acne so that the architecture is quiet.”

(Wall acne: switches, plugs, etc.)

Not surprisingly, the house reflects its designer: restrained, intelligent, modern, with an element of, yes, quiet drama. (That may also describe the clients, who aren’t here.) On a street of custom homes that, for the most part, look like conventional visions of residential opulence, this one stands out for its hushed poise. But there are different volumes of quiet. Check the copper element that rises to define the front roofline before flowing around back. Dramatic, in its way. Inside, in the living room, where floor-to-ceiling windows frame a distant vista, the copper flows from outside to inside to brighten an interior wall. “You read this as an architectural element,” he says — that is, as crucial to the gestalt of the house — “not as an appliqué material” — that is, as a simple décor choice.

The effect is to feel embraced, wrapped in the home. Precisely what he wanted.

This house is a series of such moments, from the front courtyard to the vanishing-edge pool, painstakingly conceived, designed and engineered to look not like a pool at all, but like a water feature — a sheet of dark, wet glass. He runs his fingers along its edge. “It can be very hard to make something deliberately quiet and simple.”

Two weeks ago, the owners lived in a pseudo-Tuscan place. “When they came to us," he says, "they said, we want to do something, quote-unquote, ‘a little different.’ We said, we don’t really do a little different from where you are now.

We do modern architecture.” So began the long process of tweezing out the clients’ true needs — their kids gone, they wanted more of the house devoted

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to their own daily uses — and matching that with a design vision. It started with the courtyard and eventually became the serene, minimalist and, indeed, quiet home he's standing in now.

“I think he’s going to be an architect.”

That was Hoogland’s mother, gifted with foresight, back when he was 5 or 6. “My mother observed how I would take things apart to figure out how to put them back together,” he says. This was in East Las Vegas, where he grew up in a household in which, if something was broken, you fixed it. Good with his hands, CJ was. “I always loved building things. I was into drawing, and building models, Legos. Before I went to college, I knew how to frame a house,

how to reroof a house, how to rebuild an engine — I knew how to problem-solve.”

Four years of drafting and architecture classes at the old Las Vegas High School, an undergraduate degree at Arizona State and a postgraduate degree at Rice proved his mother right. Back in Vegas, he interned with several firms, including Eric Strain’s Assemblage Studio, before striking out on his own a few years ago. His firm is small: two architects and a computer-modeling specialist. At any time, they have three to five projects in the works, from a modern cabin on Mount Charleston to homes in Blue Diamond.

“CJ is one of the best talents to come out of Las Vegas,” Strain says. “He is going to have to search for his own way to interpret this valley, from its geology to its entertainment icons. I believe he will find his own voice, a voice that will create some amazing architecture for this valley.”

On the high-end Ascaya development in Henderson: “We’re one of six architects selected to design an ‘inspiration home,’ one that the developer is paying to have built to set the tone for the neighborhood.

We were the only local architects selected.”

Gotta ask, CJ: What kind of house do you live in? He smiles, fidgets a minute.

It’s a trick question, of course, but he fields it pretty well: a suburban house, he says, stucco, red tile, all that. But, he points out, it suits his family (five children!) just fine ... for now. “They’re in the schools they need to be in,” he says. Still, as he stands in the embrace of his own luxe handiwork, the muted flair of a copper wall on one side, a pool like glass on the other, the question behind the question beckons: How do I want to live? “I wish I lived in something as nice as this,” he says, smile intact.

“Someday,” he adds, “maybe I will.”

P h oto g r a p h y C h r i sto p h e r S m i t h

You got me, copper: "When the sun is rising or setting, it's amazing how much that changes the color of the copper," says architect Henry Hoogland.

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zeit bites

Five things about the big romance book convention

Romance Times Booklovers Convention April 12-17, Rio Suites Hotel, rtconvention.com 1

3

2

More than 2,500 people are registered for the full convention

There will be workshops devoted to readers, business, craft, specialty fiction and genres

Fifteen literary genres will be represented

(Plus 1,500 for the Fantastic and Teen Day events)

Come On Down: Romance Reader Game Show Mashup 10% will be men

Bad Boy Bingo!

Burning Tax Issues for Authors: Basic and Beyond How to Buzz Your Books

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5

Some 1,000 authors will be present

Dress up for nightly themed parties!

including ...

Wednesday, April 13 Vintage Vegas Romance Casino Thursday, April 14 Race Through the Shadows with Christine Feehan Thursday, April 14 A Night with the Bad Boy Friday, April 15 Cirque du Punk

From left: Heather Graham, Sylvia Day, Victoria Aveyar, Cherry Adair, Lauren Oliver, Colleen Houck, Christine Feehan, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Robyn Carr (not pictured: Janet Evanovich)

Saturday, April 16 An Evening with the Bat Pack

Wonder Twins!

Co-Writing a Novel and/or Series Churn It Out: Write Fast and Publish Frequently Erotica: Unskimmable Sex Scenes: Writing Sex That Affects the Story YA: Who Runs the World? Girls!

Writing Multicultural Romances

leaving the building

Returned to sender For a good, long time, Elvis Presley was as big a cultural icon in death as he was in life. Maybe bigger. But The King’s charmed afterlife finally may be going the way of phone booths, pet rocks and wood-paneled station wagons.

Last month, we saw the abrupt closure of Graceland Presents: The Elvis Exhibition, a 28,000-square-foot museum space at the Westgate. The exhibition had a 10-year contract, but it lasted less than a year before financial difficulties erupted between the resort

and its tenant. The exhibition was not drawing enough people to cover expenses.

Back in 2012, Cirque du Soleil’s Viva Elvis at the Aria closed after just two years. Most Cirque shows are wildly popular and do not close — consider the 22-years-and-counting run of Mystére. But Viva Elvis suffered from negative reviews and low attendance.

As for the once-ubiquitous Elvis impersonators and tribute acts, they’re a dwindling species as well. Once upon a time, young

brides and grooms may have relished having a costumed Elvis officiate their Las Vegas wedding, but The King’s kitsch appeal is struggling to transcend generations.

Someday, perhaps, there will be an Elvis revival, akin to the sudden stardom of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who’s the unlikely subject of a popular Broadway musical.

But it probably will require something more innovative than the sanitized storylines backed

by Presley’s estate.

THE BOTTOM LINE >> Casinos opened in April, in ascending order of coolness: Stratosphere (1996), Aladdin (1966), El Rancho (1941), SLS (2012),

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I L LU STRAT I O N B r e n t H o l m e s

A Mother’s Day Tradition POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Dress to ingest 1. Show some respect, slob!

Your cargo shorts shouldn't ruin my dinner Ralph Waldo Emerson said that the sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility that religion is powerless to bestow. True enough, but the main reason to look good when you dine out is that your right to look like crap ends where my appetite and line of sight begins.

When I go to good restaurants — which is, like, all the time — my desire for good food and a lovely evening is constantly under siege from fat guys in cargo shorts, and misshapen feet in open-toed shoes.

(I’m talking about men. Rarely have I seen women looking as disgusting as men do in fine dining establishments.) Yes, you have a constitutional right to “have it your way” when it comes to how you dress, but not when your bad taste inserts itself into my sense of enjoyment. And when you’re in a nice place, it’s a matter of respect, to the restaurant and the patrons, to present yourself in a manner that reflects the surroundings. If you want to look like a slob while you’re eating out, well, that’s what food trucks and Applebee’s are for.

John Curtas

2. Don’t mind me, I’m just joining simple comfort and fancy food — why does that bother you?

Do my old jeans ruin your osso bucco?

Do my sneakers erode your wine’s clean, woodsy finish? Does my Ed Hardy shirt deflate your scallop soufflé? Okay, I’ll give you that one — those shirts leave a bad taste in my mouth, too. Otherwise, that just sounds silly. It’s hard to see how my louche attire should affect anyone else’s dinner.

I mean, why are you looking over here, anyway? (btw, I mean the general “you,” not Mr. Curtas specifically.) I know what you’re thinking: It’s about respect — to the chef, the food, other guests. Fair enough.

On the other hand, paying $$$ to dine among snobs also shows plenty of respect.

Anyway, unless he’s a king, nothing entitles a guy to control everything his eyes might fall upon — not in a restaurant, not in life.

If you require that level of jurisdiction, perhaps you should eat at home, where you can preserve the exquisiteness of your experience from the blight of the unattractive.

Scott Dickensheets

Art Festival OF HENDERSON

May 7 & 8 9am - 4pm

COMPLIMENTARY ADMISSION

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And what of an increasingly Elvis-free Las Vegas? Are we losing something special if The King is no longer synonymous with a Vegas vacation? It may trigger a nostalgic regret for some baby boomers, but let’s face it: Baby boomers are getting old (51 to 70), and the most passionate Elvis fans among them are in the more ramshackle half of that range.

Every generation creates its own icons.

Las Vegas thrives by adapting to what’s next.

Geoff Schumacher Red Rock Casino (2006), Wynn Las Vegas (2005), Tropicana (1957), Riviera (1955), Desert Inn (1950)

cityofhenderson.com 702-267-4050 Schedule is subject to change or cancellation without prior notice. Management reserves all rights. april 2 0 1 6

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object lesson

trendsetter

Brad Wilkinson The action painter on inspiration, style and THE POWWWERRR!

By Christie Moeller

B

rad Wilkinson calls himself Brad the Painter, but that nickname sells the energetic live-painting artist short. To see Wilkinson (wilkinsonartendeavor.com), brush in hand, slashing and spattering one of his outsized canvases is to realize that he’s as much a performer as he is a painter. Better yet, he creates these vibrant, dynamic paintings while dressed to the nines, often in a bespoke suit and signature velvet loafers.

How can you paint an entire mural and not get a drop of paint on your suit?

I’ve been on a roll so far, but I do carry an emergency bottle of club soda.

How do you describe your personal style?

Functionality. During the day, I’m wearing board shorts and personally designed T-shirts; when I perform, a suit or tuxedo. Tom Ford suits serve me well in my painting endeavors. The jackets are a work of art. The interior padding and stitchwork create an armor-like sensation that grabs you and you get that THE POWWWERRR! feeling. Also, the fabrics used are just ridiculous. The 3-D textiles of the ties, the use of raw silk for a smoking jacket! The dress shirts are really edgy too, with their unusual collar height, the point and the length that the tips of the collars have, and especially the finishing detail of the tie collar pin feature. The French cuffs are also a great

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touch to creating a solid dress shirt.

As far as dress shoes: black velvet slippers. No shoelaces, no socks, they slip right on! I can also wear them with jeans, so I’m good to go with one set of dress shoes. I like not having to think about what to wear and not having too many options. I also wear a lot of board shorts and personal T’s. I grew up in beach towns and always loved that board shorts were acceptable for social occasions, and that I could always be ready to jump in the ocean (and you don’t have to wear underwear with them).

What do you like about live painting?

Every successful painting performance is always rewarding. When you’re putting all this immense pressure on yourself as well as having an extremely skeptical crowd staring at you while you paint, you can feel very vulnerable (because you might blow it!). I’ve now come to realize that that’s the most beautiful part of this experience, facing the vulnerability. There’s a quote from Nietzsche that really hits on this: “The most fulfilling human

P h oto g r a p h y a n t h o n y M a i r

5 things he can't live without projects appear inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains.”

1

What inspired you to become a painter?

2

Ultimately, I think, women, freedom and needing a righteous struggle. As a kid, I was always painting women on things (my walls, my friends' walls, surfboards, etc.). Then, after college and the military not going as planned, the Wilkinson Art Endeavor was born.

I’m still painting women, but now in casinos, nightclubs, lounges and exotic hotels. Even though painting as a profession can be extremely difficult at times, when the gods grace you with opportunities, it can be a superb lifestyle. It’s unpredictable, it’s wild and it keeps opening up new opportunities, each of them thrilling and challenging.

What is your best advice to a guy buying a suit off the rack?

3

You should never have to be sold on a suit. It should sell itself. You should see yourself in the dressing room mirror, going, “YES!” Do you collect any clothing pieces?

I don’t. At this time, I like to limit all my clothing to one suitcase. I have held onto my own clothing creations, though (an evening dress and a kimono I made using silk fabric that I printed one of my paintings on).

5

What is the first item of designer clothing you bought for yourself?

A Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo jacket.

(I couldn’t afford the pants.) It’s held up for three years and hasn’t been used gently. (Feel free to Google “Paint Brush Man” and see its versatility.)

What’s on your spring reading list?

Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, Vagabonding and Zorba the Greek

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1

Tom Ford wild patterned tuxedos Tom Ford O’Connor Base Houndstooth Jacquard dinner jacket, $4,520, Neiman Marcus in the Fashion Show Mall

2

Fremont and Friends ball caps These caps make a statement, and they're a great way to support local business.

Fremont East cap in heather gray, $32, fremontandfriends. com

3

. Paul Smith cufflinks are always unique and edgy.

Paul Smith men’s tiny toy robot cufflinks, $130, Paul Smith in the Shops at Crystals

4

RVCA Board shorts are great for athletic activities and double as day-to-day shorts. $50-$55, rvca.com

5

I’ve had OluKai sandals last me for four years. They’re supercomfortable, and many are made without animal products. Polena sandal, $100, olukai.com

April 2016

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ALL Things

open topic

trending

Home alone Like many people described by statistics, I live by myself — it’s a thing. But when it comes to Las Vegas, the numbers may surprise you B y L au n c e R a k e

L

iving alone: National media report that more and more Americans are living without roommates, spouses, family members or houseguests who refuse to move on. Living alone can be liberating, and not just because home life becomes clothing-optional. No one cares if you leave dishes in the sink, bills get missed, televisions are left on, cats are accumulated.

That’s more or less my story, complete with cats, for the last 30 years. I lived with a young lady for the better part of a decade, had roommates for a couple of years (and in some cases, a couple of weeks), but mostly, I have enjoyed the freedom to be me. To live in squalor or to go on a 3 a.m. cleaning binge, to sleep late or rise early, to allow my alimentary system to work on its own schedule: This, for me, is a freedom I can surrender for a few days or weeks, but it is a much more comfortable life for me.

Sure, there can be downsides to it. There’s no one else to help clean the house or feed the cats when you’re feeling lazy. Worse, an accident can leave you unable to get help. In the Chicago heat wave of 1995, about 750 people died, many of them people without air conditioning who simply did not have anyone to check up on them.

I’ll risk it. And so, it appears, will a growing number of people. Between 1970 and 2012,

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the number of one-person households in the United States grew by 59 percent.

In 2011, there were 56 million married-couple households — but 32 million single-person households. This despite the simultaneous trend of young and notso-young adults continuing to live with their parents into their 20s and even 30s, an option, outside of the Bates Motel, that doesn’t work when parents are no longer living. According to U.S. Census data, more than a quarter of American households are now one-person, not counting the cats.

Many of my friends are in this cohort, once considered weird, now not so much.

Some are older folks whose spouses have died, but most are like me, people who simply like living alone.

“The trend of people living alone has been going on for decades and can be attributed to economic and social factors, particularly increasing autonomy for women and more social acceptance of people living outside traditional marriages and

I L LU S TRAT I O N B l a i r B a s k i n

Hear more

N E VA DA B A L L E T T H E AT R E ’ S

Why do

family life,” says Jennifer Keene, a Park neighborhood for the better many Las sociologist and associate dean of part of 30 years,” he says. “I’ve Vegans live alone? liberal arts at UNLV. been cohabitating almost the Hear a But here’s the count-on-Vegasentire time. I couldn’t have done it discussion to-buck-the-trend twist in this economically otherwise.” on “KNPR’s story: We’re less likely to live alone Chandler Levrich, 59, moved State of than you might imagine.

Nevada” to the Las Vegas area in the early at desert About 62 percent of Las 1980s. His parents, including a companion.

Vegans live in family households, father with cancer, moved here com/hear according to 2014 Census data. shortly afterward, and the family more Another 8 percent live with other shared a house. His mother, at 86, is people who aren’t spouses or family, for a still going strong. “It’s weird,” Levrich says. total of about 70 percent of us shacking up, “Being a gay man living with his mother, stuck with a crazy roommate or otherwise it’s an incredible stereotype, but she is kind sharing living space. The national average of my best friend and my major supporter.” for people living with others is about 72 Recently, Levrich found himself stranded percent, and Nevada statewide is 71 perin a job he did not like. His mom — who cent, but that includes all the fly-over areas didn’t want to be featured in Desert where people are much more likely to live Companion but who I can attest is adorable with others than in the cold-hearted urban — said to Levrich, “Sweetie, you are too old areas that in no way resemble Las Vegas. to be unhappy.” With his mom’s support, Turns out we’re about 6 percent more he’s been able to leave the unhappy job and likely to cohabitate, as the sociologists search for other opportunities. say, than people in Portland, Oregon, Time for some sociology: and almost 10 percent more likely to live “One of the reasons that people in Las with someone else than our neighbors Vegas may be more likely to live with in Salt Lake City. This surprises some, other people is that a significant portion because Utah is kind of famous for of our population is Hispanic/Latino,” family and group activities.

UNLV’s Keene says. “Hispanics often live The numbers are more striking when within traditional and extended family one considers “householders,” that is, relationships — adult children co-rethose people who own or rent property, siding with their parents, for example. outside families. About 36 percent of Of course, there are other social and non-family householders in Salt Lake and economic factors. The recession hit our 35 percent in Portland are living alone, city very hard, and it is likely that people compared to 28 percent in Las Vegas. moved in together for economic reasons But numbers are boring. Why, I wonder, and perhaps haven’t recovered enough do people live with other people? People yet to move back out.” being, you know, people, warts and all?

Anyway, why not Las Vegas? Keene asks.

A lot of reasons. Like economics.

“People bring a lot of stereotypes when “I have cohabitated the majority of they think about Las Vegas. One of the my life,” says Las Vegan Brian Weiss, dominant narratives is that no one is from who is not a sociologist, but manages a here, and that people don’t know their secondhand store. “There are a number neighbors and aren’t investing in their of factors, I guess, but I would say the neighborhoods. My own and others’ resocial and economic reasons are large.” search has found that people are actually Weiss, who is 49, has had as many as much more invested in this city and in 10 roommates, who may or may not have their neighborhoods than we would be led had steady jobs. Some of them just don’t to believe. … Living with family and having fit in with corporate culture, he says. “On long-term relationships is another indicatheir own, they would starve to death.” tor that we are a normal community.”

Living with others, for Weiss, also means Good to hear — though I’m not ready to a better quality of life. “I have lived in the post a roommate-wanted ad just yet. Now, Huntridge neighborhood or the John S. excuse me while I ignore the dishes.

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On March 10th, Nevada Public Radio invited its major donors, Board of Directors, Community Advisory Board, corporate supporters, and community dignitaries to our premiere annual event, Bids, Bites & Beverages.

In addition to enjoying signature beverages and gourmet bites, guests participated in both silent and live auctions. The event raised over $50,000 and we welcomed more than 400 guests to the Donald W. Reynolds Broadcast Center. Check out more photos at facebook.com/desertcompanion.

Parker McCoy, Tiffany James & Andrew Hatherley

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Jonathan Bernstein, Flo Rogers & Jerry Metellus

Staci Linklater & James Reza

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Missy Young, Gavin Isaacs & Lauralyn McCarthy

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Essay

Chartered cruise A guided tour of the biggest education issue in Nevada — and one of the state’s fastest-growing industries B y H u g h Ja c k s o n

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efore a state judge put Nevada’s high-profile and hotly contested school-voucher program on hold (the ruling is being appealed), fewer than 5,000 families had applied to spend public money on private schools via what are officially called “education savings accounts.”

Meanwhile, more than 35,000 Nevada students are enrolled in charter schools in the current school year — a 21 percent increase over just last year. Over the past five years, charter enrollment has more than doubled, increasing by 133 percent.

As in the voucher program, state per-student spending follows students to charter schools, too, albeit under more varied and often more generous calculations. If those 5,000 families ever get their on-average $5,100 vouchers, about $25 million in public money will be spent on some form of private school. That’s about a 10th of the $254 million that, according to data compiled by the state Department of Education, Nevada taxpayers spent on 39 charter schools, some

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with multiple campuses, operating in the state in 2014-15.

Public spending on charters is only going to grow. New charter schools, and new campuses for existing schools, opened last fall (helping to account for the aforementioned 21 percent year-over-year increase in enrollment), and still more charters are scheduled to open by the 2016-17 school year … and, presumably, beyond.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately operated. The result is a charter-school industry, encompassing what can be a dizzying array of arrangements and contracts between the schools, their unelected boards, state agencies, property developers, for-profit management companies, nonprofit arms of private companies, hedge funds and investment firms, and myriad consultants, contractors and education-industry vendors. Virtually every dollar everyone in the charter-school industry makes is provided by the taxpaying public.

I L LU ST R AT I O N j o h n c o u lt e r

Nevada’s market leader

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f the quarter-billion dollars Nevada taxpayers provided to charter schools in 2014-15, more than a fifth of it — $54 million, according to state data — went to schools managed by a single for-profit company, a Florida-based firm called Academica. Established in 1996 and boasting close ties to then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Academica has been the center of numerous controversies in that state, particularly after the Miami Herald reported that the firm used public money to lease real estate from development companies owned by the same people who own Academica, brothers Fernando and Ignacio Zulueta. Academica has also come under fire in Florida for, among other things, setting up a separate “college” in one of its charter high schools and charging taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide students with two-year “degrees” of dubious worth.

Academica is not a publicly traded company, and any financial information about the firm is difficult to come by, let alone the type of granular financial reporting that might indicate how much of Academica’s Nevada revenue stays in Nevada, as opposed to flying out of the state as profit.

Meanwhile, there is no doubt whatsoever that the firm’s revenue from Nevada is going to grow. The company opened two schools last fall, and Academica is in the process of creating at least four more schools in Southern Nevada. The company is also expanding into Washoe County.

Technically, Academica is just the management company, and doesn’t build new schools. Technically, to open a charter school, a group of citizens must form a charter school board and then apply to a sponsoring institution for approval (since its establishment by the state Legislature a few years ago, that institution is almost always the State Public Charter School Authority). It’s not Academica, but the school itself and its board that would ultimately have to ask for state money to build or buy a school.

As a practical matter, Academica is not only relied upon every step of the way, but the instigator. No doubt some charter schools are the result of concerned citizens and parents banding

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Essay together, from the bottom up, as it were, to fill what they perceive to be a particular educational niche or void. With a new Academica school, the far more likely scenario involves a for-profit company making market-based decisions on location, timing, demographics and such, not unlike Walmart deter-

mining where to open a new Sam’s Club.

Upon determining that a new project pencils out, Academica finds the statutorily requisite citizen’s charter school board. (The state does not require a charter school board to take competitive bids before selecting a management firm, and such a bidding process

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would be unthinkable in schools being spearheaded by Academica.)

Even then, it still isn’t the management company or the charter or its board that is building new charter schools.

Enter the investment funds

T

o be eligible for state funding to build or improve a charter school facility, the school has to have been opened for three years. So it needs financing to bridge the gap between the school’s opening and its eligibility for state facility financing (it’s already receiving operating funds from the state).

The Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund is one of several for-profit investment funds in the nation that have attracted capital from a) foundations, institutional investors and individuals who are “for” education; and b) hedge funds, investment banks and other investors drawn to generous federal tax credits on income earned from the public through charter-school profits.

Started by Southern California financier Bobby Turner in partnership with long-time Las Vegas charter-school champion Andre Agassi, Turner-Agassi has provided bridge financing for at least four Academica building projects in Nevada and is doing the same for most of Academica’s aggressive expansion in the state.

Here’s more or less how it works: Turner-Agassi puts up money to develop property for a charter school. After three years, during which time the school, which is to say the public, rents the property from the investment fund, the charter is eligible for state financing to buy the property from Turner-Agassi.

The school is purchased from the investment fund with money raised by revenue bonds issued through the state Division of Business and Industry — public debt. Charter-school bonds in Nevada are so-called limited-obligation bonds, backed by the school’s revenue (which comes from the state education budget), as opposed to general obligation bonds, backed by revenue from a tax increase. Limited obligation bonds typically pay higher interest rates than general obligation bonds, which translates into higher interest payments for the public when it pays off the debt.

As for charter schools being the cradle of innovation, the pedagogical emphasis for which charters are perhaps most renowned is “teaching to the test” even more intensely than testing-obsessed public schools.

In 2012, Clark County voters rejected a tax increase to build new schools and improve older ones. But those voters are paying for new schools anyway, and since limited-obligation bonds typically promise higher returns to investors than general obligation bonds, the public is likely paying higher interest rates to pay down charter school debt than it would have paid to build and improve traditional public schools.

Project dates listed on Turner-Agassi’s portfolio online indicate Academica will be eligible for a first batch of state loans to purchase the investment fund’s developments in 2017.

Meanwhile, regardless of who owns the property the charter school is in, the

management company is charging the school, which is to say the public, for management/professional fees on top of salaries, insurance, energy and other operating costs. Those fees can be spread through various categories of school balance sheets provided to the state, but those reports show that in Academica’s case, management fees totaled, at the very least, $3 million in the 2014-15 school year.

The arrangement between Turner-Agassi and Academica is only one model that might be used to finance construction in the charter-school industry.

For instance, a few years ago, Imagine Schools, one of the nation’s largest charter firms, made national headlines at its 100 Academy of Excellence in North Las

Vegas when 40 percent of the school’s state-provided revenue was spent on lease payments to a real-estate investment trust. As a Nevada Education Department official told the New York Times in 2010, “After paying for real estate and management, 100 Academy has very little left over for education.”

Shenanigans and accountability

A

cademica is the undisputed heavyweight of Nevada’s charter-school industry and has the most aggressive expansion plans in the state. But practices at other charter operations have been attracting more — or at least more critical — official scrutiny.

The state of Nevada provided Silver State High School in Carson City nearly $5 million in the 2014-15 school year.

Along with all the ways a school might spend the public’s money, Silver State

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Essay decided one of them was investing in the Wall Street derivatives market.

When a member of the school’s board brought the investment to the attention of the State Public School Charter Authority (SPSCA), the authority ruled the investment a no-no and ordered the school closed at the end of the current school year.

Quest Academy, with four campuses in Southern Nevada, received more than $10 million from the state in 2014-15. In October the SPSCA documented how members of the school’s board had hired family members in violation of nepotism regulations. The SPSCA has subsequently dissolved the board, appointed a receiver to oversee school finances, and the SPSCA could ultimately revoke or refuse to renew the school’s charter.

This comes three years after the SPSCA forced Quest to restructure its board and fire a principal upon discovering

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staff was paid thousands of dollars in unauthorized bonuses, and the principal was spending a bunch of unauthorized money on travel and shopping.

And then there are the cyber schools.

Yes, in Nevada, online schools are charter schools, too. The largest, Nevada Virtual Academy, operated by the corporate giant K12 Inc., received nearly $30 million in public funds in 2014-15 to provide online education to 2,600 students, a per-student cost of $11,500. Per-student spending at Academica schools averaged, by contrast, less than $8,000.

Higher per-student spending at an online school seems counterintuitive. After all, there is no property to develop, no classrooms or desks. But as cyber schools have emerged as one of the largest segments of the charter-school industry, they’ve become renowned not only for poor performance, but also for frenetic enrollment churn. Online schools mar-

ket heavily to attract students, but online learning isn’t for everyone, and many students withdraw to return to brick-andmortar schools. That churn could manifest itself as higher costs in lots of ways.

The state can be charged for students who are no longer in the schools (as was found in a Colorado audit of K12 a few years ago). Or the state gets saddled for up-front student costs even if those students leave later. Or in K12’s case, maybe the company just isn’t very good at holding down costs: Nevada Virtual Academy spent more than $2 million for textbooks last year. Academica, with nearly three times as many students, spent $219,000.

State data indicates K12’s management fees, at least $4 million, were also larger than Academica’s.

Proposed rules would effectively give the SPCSA additional authority to force a charter school to fire its management organization and make it eas-

ier for the authority to deny a charter school’s renewal.

The most adamant objections to those rules have been filed by Nevada Virtual Academy and the state’s second largest cyber charter school, Nevada Connections, owned by the international corporate education giant Pierson Inc. The cases of Silver State and Quest, as well as the proposed regulations, appear to reflect a commitment of the SPCSA and its executive director, Patrick Gavin, to try to hold charter schools accountable.

It might be a tall order. Although Nevada’s charter-accountability regulations were hailed as improved in a recent national report, that report noted that the SPSCA does not have the requisite staff to conduct consistent monitoring crucial to effective regulation. The standard recommended staff is roughly one monitor for every 1,000 charter-school students.

In Nevada, Gavin estimates it is closer to

one for every 5,000. The SPSCA is funded by fees charged to authority-sponsored schools, currently about one percent of a school’s operating budget. Boosting those fees will be a top SPCSA priority when the Legislature meets next year.

Why are we doing this, anyway?

I

t’s a seductive argument in an era when identity and self-worth are often shaped by where one shops.

And charters are breaking down barriers erected by decades of entrenched education bureaucracy, thus reinvigorating education with a spirit and dedication that just can’t be found in tired public schools lumbering along under the weight of oppressive administrative bloat. Indeed, charter schools are the heart of education innovation.

Or so the argument goes.

Independent analysis suggests oth-

erwise. Assessments conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University are frequently cited by the media and charter-school supporters. Yet even the results of CREDO’s most recent national study were mixed at best, finding charter schools performing slightly, if at all, better than traditional schools at reading, and performing, if anything, worse than traditional schools in math. Critics charge that even CREDO’s modest findings overstate the performance of charter schools.

As for charter schools being the cradle of innovation, the pedagogical emphasis for which charters are perhaps most renowned is “teaching to the test” even more intensely than testing-obsessed public schools — test scores being the key, if not the only, means of assessing educational outcomes in a publicly funded but privately run school.

(Standardized tests, by the way, are

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Essay

Nevada Public radio

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produced, marketed and sold by a for-profit testing industry that may be growing as quickly as the charter industry, and some testing firms and charter firms are co-owned affiliates. Standardized tests are also frequently criticized for failing to credibly gauge student mastery of standards that tests are purportedly measuring.)

A good portion of the public acceptance of charters is attributed to what is sometimes called “sector agnosticism” — the view that how a school is managed, or who makes money from it, is irrelevant so long as the results are good.

But charter companies and pro-charter politicians and advocates are anything but agnostic. The rapid growth of the charter-school industry has been accompanied by relentless and disingenuous attacks on public schools and the people who work in them. The interest groups, ideologues and politicians who most zealously promote “school choice” are often the most eager to malign public institutions.

Charter schools emerged on the scene more than a quarter century ago as laboratories where public-school systems could test methods, and the most promising results could be implemented elsewhere in public schools. Some charter supporters, parents and charter-industry executives and investors obviously mean well and still view charters as an overall benefit to the public good.

But today’s charter industry, much like Nevada’s voucher plan, reflects a chronic civic defeatism. Echoing the perverse social Darwinism of more than a century ago, faith in free-market education is a surrender to pessimism. Society really isn’t incapable of providing a fair educational opportunity to every citizen. Some people are doomed to fail, that’s just the way it is, so best to segregate those with promise, the achievers, in separate schools. As for everyone else, well, too bad for them.

In the meantime, capitalizing on politically correct disdain for public institutions and a consumer culture’s visceral embrace of “choice,” and truly impressed by the steady flow of public money through the public-education revenue stream, the private sector is working feverishly … maybe to create quality schools, but definitely to drain more and more money from that stream.

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Sports

Homers As two of baseball’s brightest stars, Bryce Harper and Kris Bryant, lead a pack of Vegas-bred majorleaguers, a consideration of Sin City as a baseball town B y M at t Ja c o b

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pen that window and take a big whiff. Spring sure smells good around these parts, doesn’t it?

No more so than at the dozens of Little League baseball fields that dot our desert valley. There you’ll find that distinctive aroma of freshly cut grass. Of well-oiled leather. Of hot dogs and burgers on the grill.

Of youth, and its dreams. Big-league dreams.

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On these fields, over the next few months, wide-eyed 10-year-old kids will catch (and drop) fly balls, field (and bobble) groundballs and swing for (and usually miss) the fences.

Many will do all this while hoping that their futures will mirror that of two of Major League Baseball’s brightest young stars. Two young stars whose cleats left footprints in some of the same dirt where those wide-eyed 10-year-olds now play.

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* * *

he refrain has remained the same for decades: Insiders want to show the world that the Las Vegas Valley is much more than its Sin City image; outsiders can’t, or don’t care to, believe it.

Oh, sure, the insiders have made progress. Had you told me when I arrived in 1994 that The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health would

be within spitting distance of each other in the city’s core, I’d have driven you straight to the nearest detox center.

Still, for every Smith Center-like boost to our cultural image, there are a thousand Monday morning Instagram posts of ATM receipts tagged #AnotherVegasHangover. It’s not exactly the kind of civic identity parents want their impressionable — and social-media savvy — offspring to absorb.

Which brings me back to baseball, and specifically, to those two bright young stars: 23-year-old Bryce Harper and 24-year-old Kris Bryant.

Late last May, in the midst of torrid starts to their respective seasons, Harper, then a fourth-year major-league outfielder, and Bryant, a rookie third baseman, sat down in a Wrigley Field dugout for an eight-minute interview with ESPN. Harper’s Washington Nationals were in Chicago to play Bryant’s Cubs, and with the live cameras rolling, the Las Vegas natives chatted about their days growing up and playing youth ball here.

As Harper and Bryant joyfully reminisced about their ordinary Vegas upbringing, one couldn’t help but envision the reaction from ESPN’s viewers across the country: Those dudes are from Las Vegas? Like, that Las Vegas?

Not long after the interview, Harper and Bryant took the field and did their hometown proud, as each hit home runs in the Cubs’ 3-2 victory. In fact, in a three-game series in which there were a total of just 10 runs scored, the Vegas kids — Harper went to Las Vegas High school and then College of Southern Nevada; Bryant graduated from Bonanza High — hit a combined four home runs.

Then on June 2, four days after the Nationals-Cubs series concluded, a rookie named Joey Gallo made his debut for the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, going 3-for-4 with a home run, three runs scored and four runs batted in.

The next day, Gallo homered again.

That same night, across the Lone Star State, Chris Carter belted two home runs for the Houston Astros.

Gallo was born in Henderson and went to Bishop Gorman High. Carter graduated from Sierra Vista High in Las Vegas.

Throw in a long ball that Carter hit on May 30, and the quartet of Southern Ne-

i l lu st r at i o n pau l ry d i n g

vada major leaguers combined to crush nine homers from May 25-June 3.

Gallo was shipped back to Triple A before the end of June (he returned in September and played a total of 36 games with the Rangers), while Carter finished 2015 with 24 home runs (giving him 109 in his six-year big-league career). But Harper and Bryant went on to have historic seasons.

The 6-foot-5, 215-pound Bryant finished with 26 home runs, 99 RBIs and 13 stolen bases, despite missing the Cubs’ first 11 games. (The organization, looking to delay Bryant’s free-agent clock, intentionally kept him in the minors until mid-April.)

Meanwhile, the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Harper finished in MLB’s top five in almost every meaningful offensive category, batting .330 (third) with 42 home runs (tied for third) and 118 runs scored (second), while matching Bryant with 99 RBIs. In addition to both players making the National League’s All-Star team — Harper doing so for a third time — Bryant was named the NL Rookie of the Year, while Harper ended up as the league’s MVP. Even more impressive: Each won by unanimous vote.

Turns out Las Vegas can indeed produce something other than hangovers.

T

* * *

o be clear, this isn’t the first time ballplayers from Las Vegas have hit it big in the major leagues. Some three decades ago, a slight, professorial-looking pitcher by the name of Greg Maddux graduated Valley High School and went on to become one of the greatest right-handed hurlers in history. In a Hall of Fame career that spanned 23 years, Maddux recorded 355 victories (eighth on the all-time list) and 3,371 strikeouts (10th all time).

Given the potential of Bryant and, in particular, Harper, it’s not a stretch to wonder if Las Vegas might wind up producing one of the greatest pitchers and one of the greatest hitters to ever play Major League Baseball.

Of course, Southern Nevada’s baseball roots run much deeper than these once-in-a-generation talents. Since the advent of MLB’s first-year player draft in 1965, 371 players from the area — be they high school graduates or products of UNLV or College of Southern Nevada —

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45

SPORTS have been selected, according to Baseball-Reference.com. (And this number doesn’t include dozens of local players, such as Bryant, who were drafted after attending colleges outside the valley.)

Speaking to our population boom that started in the 1990s, 86 of those 371 players have been drafted just since 2008. That includes Harper, the first player taken overall in 2010, when he was 17 years old.

And while we continue to await the arrival of our first major professional sports franchise — be it an NHL club lured by multimillionaire Bill Foley or an NFL team lured by a pipe dream of a stadium that billionaire Sheldon Adelson clearly has no intention of paying for — it’s interesting to note that only one pro sport has proven to work here: On April 7, the Las Vegas 51s (who began as the Stars) kick off their 33rd season of Triple-A baseball at Cashman Field.

Since the first pitch was thrown at Cashman back in 1982, we’ve seen nearly a dozen pro sports organizations come and go,

including multiple soccer teams (indoor and outdoor), multiple hockey teams and multiple football teams (who can forget the Canadian Football League’s Las Vegas Posse? Or the XFL’s Las Vegas Outlaws?).

Yet head to Cashman on a hot a summer Saturday night, and you’ll still find thousands of fans, young and old, enjoying a hot dog and a beverage as they watch what just might be the next Bryce Harper or Kris Bryant working his way up to the big leagues.

True, baseball may no longer be America’s pastime, but it clearly remains Southern Nevada’s. * * *

This month, Harper and Bryant will begin the monumental task of trying to upstage their remarkable 2015 campaigns. They’ll do so under a national media spotlight that will shine brighter and hotter than the mid-July Vegas sun.

To be sure, they don’t just belong to us anymore. Baseball fans everywhere

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have fallen in love with our hometown sluggers — Bryant’s No. 17 Cubs jersey was the top-seller in all of MLB last year, while Harper’s No. 34 Nationals jersey ranked sixth.

The best part about these Las Vegans?

They seem to be genuinely good guys, the kind of increasingly rare pro athletes who play the right way on the field and behave themselves off of it. The kind you want your kids to root for and follow on Twitter.

This explains why Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman honored Harper and Bryant with keys to the city in December.

On the surface, the mayor’s gesture looked like your typical media grab and photo op.

Really, it was a little more than that.

Here were two budding superstar ballplayers — both barely old enough to legally partake in the shenanigans for which their city is most identified — being fêted by their community and sincerely appreciating the moment.

Following the ceremony, Harper, a devoted UNLV basketball fan, posted a photo with Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian on his Instagram and gushed, “I met the amazing woman behind the legend! She is seriously the sweetest.” Bryant tweeted his thanks, along with the message “Proud to be born & raised in this city!”

It’s enough to give you hope that, even as their success continues and the money piles up, both young men will always remember where they came from.

Oh, and speaking of the money piling up: Six weeks after being honored

by Goodman, Harper landed at spring training and was bombarded with questions from the media about the jackpot he’s destined to hit. Assuming he stays healthy, Harper, who will earn $5 million this season, will likely sign the richest contract in the history of professional team sports when he becomes a free agent after the 2019 season.

When asked if that contract’s value might surpass the $400 million mark, Harper replied: “You can’t put a limit on players. You can’t put a limit on what they do. … Everybody says the sky’s the limit. But we’ve been on the moon.”

Cut to those local ball fields and those wide-eyed 10-year-old kids running around the freshly cut grass, playing catch with their well-oiled gloves, dreaming their big-league dreams …

On February 25, more than 175 guests came out to honor the Desert Companion 2016 Best of the City winners at Land Rover Las Vegas. Guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres, beverages and snagged raffle prizes galore. With so much awesomeness in our city’s confines, we look forward to another round of ‘bests’ next year.

More photos on

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The Dish 50

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Eat this now 53

16

Cocktail of the month 53 At FirST BITE 54

Our c i ty's be st spots to eat & drink

Fresh wave: Harvest by Roy Ellamar's New England diver scallops with brown butter and Delicata squash

P hoto g ra p h y By sabin orr

April 2016

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Dining out

Haute diggity dog The new wave of decadent, loaded, gourmet hot dogs is, frankly, amazing B y Ja s o n S c av o n e

T

here are two narratives surrounding hot dogs, which is inherently weird when you think about it. Hot dogs shouldn’t have narratives. Hot dogs should have mustard, maybe some onions. (Not ketchup, though.

What are you, six? Good lord, are you watching My Little Pony and wearing mismatched socks? You’re 37, for God’s sake. Put mustard on your dog like a grown-up.)

Back to the narratives: The dog is at times either a populist statement against bourgeois food encroachment — an American menudo, or haggis, or whatever “authentic” cuisine your foodie friends are currently championing that you’re pretty sure is just mud stuffed in a pita — or else it’s an object of revulsion, some terrifying mélange of pig

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faces, hoof scrapings and the shattered dreams of Oscar Mayer employees.

Which is really overthinking things. Hot dogs are perfectly fine! Maybe better at the ballpark than at some Michelin-starred restaurant trying to pass them off as upscale comfort food, but perfectly fine nonetheless.

They’re also having a moment. Two new dog-purveyors are setting up outposts in Las Vegas this spring. DogHaus opened at 4480 Paradise Road last month, and Dirt Dog is expected at 8310 Rainbow Blvd. in April. Heck, even Burger King is in the game with a pair of hot dogs on its menu. Why don’t more fast food joints offer a layup like that? Is it because Sonic has the market cornered? Is it because every shady gas

P h oto g r a p h y c h r i sto p h e r s m i t h

Let's be frank: Opposite top, the Bulgogi at Buldogis; bottom, the Panchero from Cheffini's; above, the PBB&JJ at Steamie Weenie

station in America beat them to it?

It’s probably that.

Anyway, where should you go for frankfurter bliss when Yankee Stadium is too far a drive? Oh, we have a few ideas.

The Wiener’s Circle: Hailing originally from Chicago, The Wiener’s Circle set up an outpost between Red Rock’s sports book and poker room. The Wiener’s Circle offers bettors a Chicago-style dog, with hot peppers, pickles and tomatoes. The dog itself is the star here. We tried the Cheddar Char Dog and the char is as advertised. Shades of your uncle leaving them on the grill a little too long while he went fishing in the cooler for another High Life. But it gives the dog more heft to carry over the vegetables. Word of warning: Stick to the original. Radioactive-yellow nacho-cheese gloop is our jam, but the “cheddar” doesn’t work here.

It’s like inviting Jennifer Lawrence to an all-Christina Hendricks slumber party.

Delightful on her own, but probably not needed at this one. (In the Red Rock hotel-casino, the wienerscirclelv.com) The Stage Door: This. This is the kind of joint that should specialize in hot dogs. It’s grimy, unabashedly populist, and vaguely menacing, just like hot dogs

Food purchases only. Gratuity and tax not included. One-time use only, one offer per check. No cash value. Not valid with the other offers, promotions, or rewards. Valid for dinner only at Brio Summerlin location. Not valid on holidays. Valid through 4/24/16

DMO1002

Get Your Science On

Celebrate everything science, technology, engineering and math in Southern Nevada at the 6th annual Las Vegas Science & Technology Festival. It’s nine jam-packed days of science fun for all ages featuring the behind-thescenes science that happens every day in our community.

April 29 – May 7 · Free Admission Presented by · The Las Vegas Natural History Museum www.scifest.vegas.com · #lvscifest ·

April 2016

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Dining out R

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themselves. Let’s just say not a lot of bars in Vegas still sport “No Weapons Allowed” signs over the door. The dogs here come served up from a Mad Max torture rack/carnival ride contraption that keeps ponderous beef franks rotating in individual cages until a half-annoyed bartender can fish one out, slap it on a bun and shove it in front of you with a few mustard packets, for two bucks. The dog itself is burly, but oddly light on salt. By hot dog standards, not normal food standards. It will still desiccate you like a slug.

(4000 Audrie St., 702-733-0124) Haute Doggery: A short stroll past Batista’s and into another socio-economic world is the Haute Doggery at The Linq, with its reclaimed wood and faux-Warhol wall art. The Longhorn here offers brisket, coleslaw and onion rings on top of a dog, for four flavors that don’t play together at all. Individually, they’re all decent-to-great. But the dog itself gets lost, and that’s a shame. Of all the dogs on the list, this one had the best snap, and the most interesting spices. Was that paprika? Cardamom? Whatever it was, it was intoxicating. (In The Linq Promenade, hautedoggerylv.com) Cheffini’s: The Panchero piles on caramelized onions, a pepper aioli, chimichurri sauce and grilled chorizo chunks onto a relatively mild wiener. But doctor, if you didn’t think you needed chorizo on your hot dog, you were grade-A, capital “W” and also capital “RONG” WRONG. Between the smoke from the chorizo and the tang from the chimichurri, you’ve got one of the best-balanced street meats on this list. Our only quibble is that the lightly toasted bun offers the only texture here. There’s no snap to the frank itself.

But there is chorizo so you’re coming out on a net positive. (In Container Park, 702527-7599)

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Steamie Weenie: When we ordered the PBB&JJ (that’s peanut butter, bacon and jalapeño jelly), the guy behind the counter told us it would “change our life.” If by “life-changing” you mean “discovering there’s a way peanut butter can work on a

T e x - M e x V e g a n W r a p : C h r i s t o p h e r SMI T H ; T a r y n ' s B * T C HFA C E : B r e n t H o l m e s

hot dog,” then yes. This one shoots for the moon like a precocious child in a world full of naysaying adults. Yes, PBB&JJ, you really can grow up to be a big movie star, because not everyone has your gently spicy jalapeño jelly, or your secret-weapon crunch of a protective layer of bacon before hitting frankfurter pay dirt. Nor your honest-to-god bun that doesn’t taste like it was wood pulp and discarded Mondale/Ferraro ’84 bumper stickers pressed into bun shape. (1500 Green Valley Parkway #130, 702-333-1383) Buldogis: And here we end up at Las Vegas hot dog nirvana. The Bulgogi is Buldogi’s flagship dog, with good reason. The naturally hefty sausage gets a healthy dose of beef bulgogi, a smattering of Asian slaw, green onions and a bit of mayo. It’s a teriyaki bomb of muscular, meaty goodness that makes you want to relocate Korea to the middle of the country (like maybe just replace Iowa with Korea — we haven’t thought this through) just so the two countries could work in even more perfect harmony to keep on pumping out these clearly meant-for-each-other foodstuffs. Even the substantial sesame bun can’t hold the heft of all this meat. You don’t eat it so much as you crawl inside the Bulgogi and give way to its smothery, artery-wrecking embrace.

There are worse ways to go. (2291 S. Fort Apache Road, 702-570-7560) DogHaus: Yet if there’s any place that might be Omar Little to knock off Buldogis’ Stringer Bell, it’s newcomer DogHaus.

Just like Omar, DogHaus knows that if you come at the king, you best not miss.

Enter buns that are actually just grilled King’s Hawaiian rolls, which may be made entirely of flour, sugar, and the preserved memories of little girls who actually met unicorns. An immutable life rule is that when you have the opportunity to order cured meat named for Chachi, you take it. The Scott Baoli gives you a tremendous, spice-rich dog topped with melted white American cheese — the good, fresh, deli kind — caramelized onions, crisp bacon and garlic aioli. It’s so good you want them to do one for Willie Aames next. (4480 Paradise Road, 702435-4287)

HOT PLATE

Eat this now!

Tex-Mex vegan wrap At Divine Café at Springs Preserve

333 S. Valley View Blvd., 702-822-7700, springspreserve.org The best vegetarian and vegan food happens when a chef is thinking up something new to do with plant-based ingredients, rather than trying to imitate a meat-based dish. That’s what seems to have happened here, where a staple Southern side, succotash, is Southwestified with black beans, Spanish rice and cumin vinaigrette, and then rolled up with crunchy Romaine in a sun-dried tomato tortilla. It’s hard to get excited about a wrap, but the creator of this one managed to layer a nice variety of flavors and textures in a nifty, handheld form. Divine also does fast-casual right: plating handmade food on pretty dishes, delivered within minutes of ordering. At $9.50 for, essentially, a fancy burrito, it’s the least you can expect. That price does include a choice of sides, though; this one calls for the sweet potato tots. Heidi Kyser

Cocktail of the month

Taryn’s B*tchface

Sure, a cup of Earl Grey is great for cozying up on your divan, covered in afghans and cats and crosswords as you ponder the fog-shrouded winter countryside. But add some ice cubes and booze, and [transportive timewarp harp glissando] voilà, you’re chilling poolside with smoldering cabana boys. Bin 702’s Taryn’s B*tchface does that kind of magic. But this drink is much more than a mere sleight-of-hand booze bomb. The base, fig-infused vodka, is made in-house; the fruit’s earthy sweetness, brightened with tangerine juice, plays well with the notes of bergamot, making this adult iced tea — handsomely served in a tall glass — perfect for spring sipping on the patio. Andrew Kiraly 707 Fremont St. (in Container Park), 702-826-2702, bin702.com

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Dining out

at first bite

Radical bounty With uncompromising quality and earnest innovation, Harvest by Roy Ellamar is the farm-fresh restaurant we’ve been waiting for B y M i t c h e l l W i l b u r n

Y

ou never know where the next culinary celebrity is going to come from. Who would have thought that some hotel chef in Santa Barbara would become a Croc-wearing media darling and a restaurant mogul in a few short years? Who knew in the opening days of Babbo, or Emeril’s in New Orleans, or Boulud’s reign over Le Cirque, that those would each be a pilot episode for a culture-defining run in the spotlight? Then again, maybe there are early signs. From what I’ve tasted so far, I think Chef Roy is on the verge of much-deserved renown with Harvest by Roy Ellamar.

The pan-Asian restaurant Sensi, which Ellamar ran for years in the same location, had quietly been one of the most interesting spots in town, but had missed the wave that pushed a few other Bellagio restaurants into acclaim. At Sensi,

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the concept got old, and the place was due for a change. I don’t know who to thank for not turning the former Sensi space into some half-baked Food Network Star fast-casual spot or some place with ahi tuna tacos by that androgynous guy with the white glasses who stands next to Gordon Ramsay but, whoever it is, we owe them a debt of gratitude. They pulled back some of the walls that darkened the cavernous dining room, brightened up the kitchen into a beehive of efficiency, and most importantly, gave Roy Ellamar a blank checkbook and no strings.

We’ve all seen places calling themselves “farm-to-table.” The phrase has become so watered down that it hardly describes what Harvest is doing. At Harvest, they aren’t just squeezing a local-ish lemon over the same industrially fished salmon, or using the “craft” repackaged brand of herbs from the same old factory farm. Rather, in the

run-up to Harvest’s launch, Chef Roy had secretly been traveling the country, building relationships with small-catch fishermen (not fisheries) on the East Coast, ordering directly. He’d been investing in local farmers so they could stay in business profitably enough for him to continue using their lovingly grown produce and tapping movers and shakers in the Vegas food business to get the absolute honest-to-goodness best ingredients for his dishes.

One look at the menu shows the depth of and passion for this sourcing. Nearly every ingredient has a location or, better yet, a farm name to it. Herbs by Diane and Prime Color Growers in Nevada, Life’s a Choke and Weiser Family Farms in California, Painted Hills Beef in Oregon, Beehive Cheese in Utah — the list goes on. This is the kind of farm-to-table stuff that makes Michael Pollan swoon.

The cuisine itself is a love letter to New

P h oto g r a p h y s a b i n o r r

Locavore hero: Opposite page, steak tartare and other items from Harvest's "snack wagon"; left, duck confit sliders; below, Brussels sprouts

red onion jam and a slice of foie. Absolute heaven. The rest of the menu generally comprises restrained, ingredient-focused recipes, with a few deft, fancy moves here and there. For instance, the New England diver scallops, sourced from the fishermen Chef Roy befriended, are prepared with brown butter, winter chanterelles and Delicata squash. I thought I was done being impressed by a scallop, writing them off as squishy pillows of blah, but this one had so much of the sweet flavor of the sea, and such a firm, consistent texture, I could have been tricked into thinking it was something like a langoustine. The menu also has a section on rotisserie, with spinning porchettas and the “bird of the day,” and a section of items from their stone oven, featuring roasted fish, stews and lamb.

There’s another interesting part of the menu you don’t notice right away: Two carts meandering through the dining American dining, using part internationroom. One is a dessert cart, loaded with al classics and part modern tropes. And pastries, gelato, marshmallows and other yet, everything has a spark of genius to it. sweets. The other is a “snack wagon,” feaFor example, the roasted baby beet salad turing small plates you can order at a set (from County Line Harvest) uses the green price (around $7 each). It has items such beet tops to make a pesto; it also features as a steak tartare with oyster aioli, Bina spiced yogurt and a finely diced, pickled chotan hanger-steak skewers and smoked Asian pear garnish. (When was the last salmon belly. These are Chef Roy’s spur-ofthe moment creations, a chance for him to time you’ve seen a beet salad that wasn’t play around and beta-test what people like. dollops of goat cheese and arugula?) The Brussels sprouts dish is charred and tossed Harvest by Roy Ellamar is the place with Blis barrel-aged maple syrup, mustard we’ve been waiting for. I’m measured in my seeds, and bourbon soy — and no bacon. enthusiasm, but only because there’s always (I’m over people constantly throwing bathat X factor — even good restaurants can con in Brussels sprouts. You could almost succumb to a rut, or a bad location or, for imagine Chef Roy brainstorming this recwhatever reason, poor public reception. But ipe and quickly erasing the word “bacon,” talent is clearly on Chef Roy's side. If luck is, thinking, No, I can do better.) too, Harvest will be the kind of restaurant that influences restaurants to The duck confit sliders are a rare show of decadence. Small open in the next decade — and Harve st brioche buns are hollowed out draw the nation’s eye to Vegas In the Bellagio and filled with duck confit, in a profound way.

702-693-8865 HOURS Daily 5-10p

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WWW.HENDERSONLIBRARIES.COM April 2016

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Behind style the

These home-design creatives share their tips for making the most of the spaces we live in

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Utilizing a custom-mixed smoke-gray paint on both the kitchen island and the entertainment center in the family room helps to tie both spaces together.

Kitchen design

Laura Sullivan My Favorite Designs

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Wallpaper above the upper cabinets adds some dimension, texture and a touch of glimmer and interest.

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Gray and white is a timeless and beautiful pairing that complements both contemporary and traditional styles.

In 1992, Laura Sullivan purchased her first house, a 1927

portfolio includes islands of deep red shades, blacks and

Spanish-influenced Glendale, California home, complete

grays, creating rich drama in otherwise neutral rooms.

with crystal doorknobs, wrought-iron elements and a tra-

By incorporating unique designs, exceptional materials

ditional red clay roof. “All the architectural features that I’m

and custom colors into her novel creations, Sullivan ensures

drawn to,” says Sullivan. It was the first of several homes

that her kitchen projects are always special — but also classic.

of that era that she would buy, restore, furnish and resell; it was also the beginning of her career in interior design.

Sullivan has relocated to Las Vegas, where, for nine years,

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Cherry cabinets refinished with a white stain make this kitchen appear larger than it is.

April 2016

Think classic lines, refined tones.

she’s been catering to local clients who also prefer classic,

When faced with a smaller kitchen, Sullivan has several

timeless, elegant décor. As the owner of My Favorite De-

tricks up her sleeve: “If you don’t have the width to work with,

signs, she’s tackled countless Southern Nevada decorating

you focus on height,” she says. For instance, a chic white-tiled

projects, including more than 30 kitchens.

backsplash beneath white cupboards creates the illusion of a

“Budget, appliances, the layout of the kitchen.” These

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“Nothing too trendy,” she says, since she aspires to create rooms her clients will still be happy with a decade later.

larger and grander kitchen, when every square foot counts.

are her initial considerations when remodeling a kitchen.

Other small-kitchen solutions include knocking down

“And I love designing islands,” she says. “Everybody gath-

walls, installing compact appliances or paneling the refrigera-

ers around the kitchen island.”

tor to appear to be part of the cabinetry. “Glass doors on the

Generally a focal point, this center-stage feature can really

uppers also achieves an open feel in a tight space,” she says.

set the tone for the rest of the room. “It’s the shape of the is-

Oh, and that whole triangle business that we’re always hear-

land; the intricacies,” Sullivan says, “and it doesn’t necessarily

ing about when redoing kitchens? Sullivan says it’s nothing to

have to be the same color as the rest of the room.” Sullivan’s

worry about if the kitchen is small. Chantal Corcoran

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Interior design

Jane Cunningham Room Resolutions

Designers always say they get their inspiration by listen-

dining nook from the meditation space that greets guests

ing to their clients, but you can believe Jane Cunningham’s

as they enter the home.

ear is better honed than most people’s. Pre-interior design,

“We want to bring in who they are immediately when you

Cunningham earned a master’s degree in music and was the

walk in the house,” Cunningham says. “How people project

principal clarinetist in the Honolulu Symphony.

themselves is huge in how I think about doing their home.”

“Knowing how you sound as a musician helps connect

Modern Zen earned her the multiple residential spaces

with your audience,” she says, “so I think I have that give-

project award in the 2015 ANDYZ, given by the California

and-take with my audience, which, in this case, would be

Central/Nevada Chapter of the American Society of Inte-

my clients.”

rior Designers.

For instance: While getting to know the couple whose

Besides getting an award-winning designer, hiring Room

project Cunningham named “Modern Zen,” she learned

Resolutions also means getting two Cunninghams for the

that they loved to travel, meditate and practice tai chi —

price of one. Jane’s daughter, Amanda Cunningham, is the

hobbies that influenced the project in ways both obvious

firm’s design manager.

and subtle, from the large Buddha statue in the meditation

“She’s really good at finding the most expensive fabric

space to the natural colors and wood finishes. Probing fur-

— or the one that’s discontinued,” Amanda jokes about

ther, Cunningham also got the clients to pull their exten-

her mom. Then she adds, “She’s also good at pulling

sive teapot collection out of a closet and show it to her.

things out of people without them even realizing she’s

The pots are now integrated into a partial wall dividing the

doing it.” Heidi Kyser

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Cunningham filled the dining area with furniture and collectibles from her clients’ European travels.

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She looks for opportunities to integrate personal items, such as these teapots.

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A large Buddha statue greets visitors from the clients’ meditation area, setting the tone of the home.

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Landscape architecture

Cecilia Schafler Lage Design Cecilia

Schafler

marked

go-

ing out on her own — after a couple of decades working as a landscape architect in the public sector and then in other people’s firms — by naming her private practice after her grandmother, who taught her about gardening and plants and the importance of the environment. When Schafler looks at a yard, it’s personal. She believes her mandate is to straddle the dual responsibilities of, on one hand, creating a space where her clients will feel comfortable having their coffee in the morning or playing with the kids after work and, on the other, minimizing the burden of that space on a delicate desert ecosystem.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, and drought-tolerant landscaping has always been my focus,” she says.

Standing

on

a

reputation

cemented over 30 years in the field, Schafler can afford to be picky today. She won’t take on just anyone as a client, only those who share her values.

But she’s also doing her part to cultivate a world in which her high standards are the norm.

Besides running Lage Design, she teaches in the landscape architecture program at UNLV and volunteers for the Nevada

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chapter of the American Society for Landscape Architects.

Schafler is also a role model for young women coming up in

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Schafler had contractors mix different sizes of rock to mimic the natural gravel found in nearby Red Rock.

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en-in-design panel discussion held at the Amanda Harris Art Gallery, she told about once be-

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The curved retaining wall on the formerly sloped lawn follows the shape of the cul-desac in front of the house and creates terrace levels to hold flowering desert plants. Schafler matched the stone to that of the fireplace in the background.

her field. During a 2013 wom-

ing asked by a contractor if she shouldn’t be home baking cookies instead of out on a project site. After earning his trust over the course of the project, Schafler showed up with a package

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of store-bought cookies as a gift for him.

“I’ve always thought that hu-

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Even in leafless winter, the native mesquite tree adds sculptural drama to the front yard.

mor is the best way to deal with prejudice,” she says. “That and being really good at what you do.” Heidi Kyser

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Extending the hardscape around the existing pool into the new outdoor kitchen and utilizing the same stone that wraps around the raised hot tub in the focal wall creates a pleasant continuity of design.

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An aluminum pergola, fabricated to look like dark wood, lends style and shade to outdoor dining, while the lattice design enables airflow.

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A customdesigned TV wall has built-in and illuminated niche shelving for decorative displays.

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A dramatic black granite countertop contrasts with warm daffodil stucco of both the outdoor room and the house’s exterior paint, creating a rich and inviting gathering space.

Pat i o d e s i g n

Matthew Lane Proficient Patios

Matthew (Matt) Lane began building patio covers at age 18. Four years

Matt strives for seamlessness in his designs, and this can be difficult to

later, he and his wife opened their own business out of their home. While

achieve when people want to incorporate too many different colors or mix mul-

the economy collapsed around them, Lane continued to expand on his

tiple hardscapes (walking surfaces like pavers and concrete). This hardscape

expertise — adding landscaping, concrete, masonry, stucco, horticulture

hodgepodging, he explains, is the layperson’s most common patio faux pas.

and more to his résumé — and their business continued to flourish.

“There are certain things you want to do to make it flow together,” he

Today, Proficient Patios boasts 50 employees and a 20,000-square-

explains. Often this means removing the concrete slab already in place

foot showroom consisting of eight creative patio samples that look al-

and starting from scratch or overlaying another material atop it. Other-

most like complete backyards. These vignettes, as Lane calls them, help

wise, “it looks too mismatched, you know?”

him to understand his customers’ tastes, even when they, themselves, don’t know what they want.

Once Lane has inspected a backyard to assess the feasibility of his customer’s outdoor living wish list — including kitchens, barbecues, seat-

“Typically, what we try to do is grab a style, whether that be Mediter-

ing areas, furniture, spas, fire pits, grass, artificial grass and plants — he

ranean or Tuscan, traditional or contemporary. From there, we just run

creates an elaborate three-dimensional model of the prospective patio

with it,” he says.

project to ensure everything really does flow just right in terms of design.

But, of course, it isn’t that simple.

Chantal Corcoran April 2016

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Schmidt installed a pond and desert plants to foster native wildlife. Vines and shrubs shade walls for natural cooling. The site is graded to capture rainwater, which is used to water plants.

S u s ta i n a b i l i t y/ e n e r g y e f f i c i e n c y

David F. Schmidt Architect

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Enhanced insulation in the walls and attic, a radiant barrier under the rafters, and seals around windows and doors create a climate-controlled envelope.

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Hollow-frame window shutters and a canopy extending from the south-facing wall moderate heat and light inside the house.

— including the one that led to the creation of Desert Sol,

grid — the solar panels on his roof storing energy in batter-

which won second place in the 2013 international competi-

ies and in his electric car, with a generator serving as back-

tion. He’s signed on for the next solar decathlon in 2017, too.

up power supply. Until his wife is okay with that, however,

“The day is coming,” he says, “when our homes will no

he’ll have to settle for the ongoing tweaks and upgrades

longer need to house little power plants in order to be

that get their home ever closer to being as eco-friendly

comfortable.”

and energy-efficient as a natural cave.

Installed by Bombard Renewable in 2010, Schmidt’s 4.8 kilowatt, 22-panel solar array powers his home and his car, a Chevy Volt.

April 2016

Instead, he envisions a Thermos bottle-like dwelling,

“I’ve always had an interest in high-performance build-

with a super-efficient envelope to keep temperature and

ings,” he says. “I read and attend conferences and study

air quality constant inside, and an energy recovery unit to

the latest developments, and sometimes I apply what I

deliver fresh air that’s preheated or cooled.

learn here. This house is kind of my laboratory.”

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If David Schmidt had his way, he’d be completely off the

Although technically retired from a 50-year career, Schmidt keeps himself busy on more than his own home.

For now, he’s content with a home that, according to a recent test, is 70 percent more efficient than one officially considered energy compliant.

A registered architect, the former urban- and land-planner

“I feel great about everything we’ve done,” he says. “All

has earned certification as a LEED consultant, is active in

these technologies add about 10 percent to the cost of

the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council and has

a home, but they reduce the power consumption by way

helped guide UNLV students through two solar decathlons

more than that.” Heidi Kyser

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Pops of color and earthy features complement whiteon-white designs to achieve a relaxed contemporary bohemian fusion feel.

DIY

Nicole Holt

Elevate Design Studio

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It wasn’t until a two-year stint as the visual manager for West Elm, in 2013 and 2014, that Nicole Holt became intrigued with interior design. For her first project, the selftaught artist and hobbyist took a sledgehammer to the outdated Italian tile floor in her 1,300-square-foot Green Valley home.

Then, by refinishing the underlying cement

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A West Elm dining table of reclaimed wood complements the clean lines and minimalist flavor of the kitchen and makes for an appealing gathering spot. (The piece also inspired Holt to learn to fabricate similar tables from pallet wood for her new clients.)

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Holt invests in quality items to layer in with pieces that are personal and have sentimental value, such as her children’s artwork. A colorful wall hanging her daughter created of yarn, twigs and feathers resembles a dream catcher.

with a slate-colored stain; removing window curtains; and painting the interior walls a clean white, she created an open, lofty, industrial vibe in this otherwise small space she shares with her two children.

“My sense of style is definitely mid-century meets bohemian, natural, light,” she says. “I like things very airy, very minimal,

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Easy-to-maintain indigenous plant installations make lovely spring and summer artwork — as well as improved air quality.

but also sentimental to where I’m living and what’s important to me.”

That’s why she’ll often venture into Calico Basin to find the raw materials — gems, she calls them — that inevitably grace her white walls.

“I found a beautiful piece of teak wood, really weathered, really raw, very desert,” she says explaining the origins of one par-

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ticular piece. After sanding and bleaching it for an even more weathered effect, Holt accentuated it with live, gnarly-figured air plants (which need not be potted).

Indigenous plants are a favorite raw material for this New York City native, “since I’m living in the desert now.” She also freelances what she calls succulent wall frames: shadow boxes that she fashions out of

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frames or old drawers then fills with soil and succulents to create live art pieces.

As well as wood and plants, Holt favors acrylic paints and natural fibers, like the yarn and string she uses in her dream catcher-like wall pieces or others that look like large macramé rugs. “I’ll make a really big pattern and then crochet something and hang it as an art piece instead of purchasing something,” says Holt, who six months ago decided to make a go at going pro.

“It’s so new, and it’s so organic,” she says of Elevate Design Studio, the business that’s evolved from her passions. Thus far, Holt’s done work for C2 Lofts in Summerlin, a Henderson yoga studio, and she’s taken on a handful of residential projects. “It all just kind of flowed.” Chantal Corcoran April 2016

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m i w S et e m t i u s m i w s , k s ’ e n e l o s s a e e c s n s a y i l t h a r T b o p s s k loo xy and se

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t ler oel M ls e ode isti r M h NG t C lis of T y l l St y E y el od Kle M n ol h ll l Po t Jo a a r d p e i Rob le Ran Munic er t s h n ry ap io gr p K c at to eu o o k L a Ph & M Ha

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Vitamin A “Double Agent” reversible bralette, $115, Molly Brown’s in the Cosmopolitan Vitamin A “Double Agent” reversible hipster, $92, Molly Brown’s in the Cosmopolitan

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Speedo women’s “Vanquisher” swim goggles, $21.99, Big 5 Sports KORE Swim “Hollywood” bikini, $241, korewear.com

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Speedo solid latex swim cap, $5.99, Big 5 Sports Sauvage sporty color block one-piece, $185, Pearl Moon in Mandalay Bay

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Speedo solid latex swim cap, $5.99, Big 5 Sports Oakley sport mesh racerback high-neck top, $54, swimspot.com Oakley sport mesh bikini bottom, $48, swimspot.com

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your Arts+Entertainment calendar for april

18 2-10 Becky Shaw Art Square Theatre Becky Shaw, Gina Gionfriddo’s sharp-edged comedy — about a date that goes horribly awry, and all the damage in its blast radius — was a Pulitzer finalist in 2009; features strong female characters; is directed

by Ann-Marie Pereth (a 2015 Desert Companion “one to watch”); and presented by A Public Fit, one of our best theater companies. If you need more convincing, the New York Times called it “a corker.” 2p and 8p, $20-$25, apublicfit.org

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Understanding Organized 28 Michael Hate, Violence McClure & Political Memories: A 9 Extremism Mother and in the Generation Daughter 21st Century Axe Remember City Hall Chamber Gallery Mother and daughter Miriam Shavit and Vered Galor, both Holocaust survivors, address the past. Through her paintings, the mother, Shavit, recalls the past. Her daughter, Galor, too young to remember, tries to evoke the past in her collages. A third artist, photographer Cole Thompson, presents images he took while visiting the death camps in 2006.

Reception 5p, free, artslasvegas.org

Winchester Cultural Center April is Poetry Month, and the county cultural affairs folks are The Joint taking it seriously, Okay, the title is suas evidenced by the per-group cheese. But if appearance of this you want a shredtacular, OG Beat poet — shredtastic shred-a-thon, one of the movecomplete with shredded ment mainstays, shred, then this is your who appears in two night. Five shredilicious Kerouac novels, guitarists — Steve Vai, On the Road and Zakk Wylde, Yngwie The Dharma Bums.

Malmsteen, Nuno BetApril is the coolest tencourt (Extreme) and month. 7p, free, 702Tosin Abasi (Animals as 455-7340 Leaders) — rip it up, singly and together, in holy shredlock. 7p, $40-$175,

hardrockhotel.com

Barrick Museum, UNLV Wonder why they picked this topic for a lecture in 2016? Some resonance with current events, perhaps? For this talk, Pete Simi, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, will employ some two decades’ worth of research into the white-supremacy movement. Where does violent extremism come from? How can it be countered? 7:30p, free,

unlv.edu/calendar

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THE GUIDE ART

FORCE OF NATURE THROUGH APRIL 20

Artists Elizabeth Blau, Rossitiza Todorova and Orlando Montenegro Cruz explore similar topics having to do with nature, movement relating to travel through space, and human effect on the environment. Free. Charleston Heights Arts Center, 800 S. Brush St., artslasvegas.org

THE MIDCENTURY LAS VEGAS STAGE EXHIBITION THROUGH APRIL 21

This installation is a special photo exhibition in collaboration with the Las Vegas News Bureau and Nevada State Museum. Free. Las Vegas City Hall Chamber Gallery, 495 S. Main St., second floor, artslasvegas.org

INFRARED

THROUGH APRIL 24 Artist Sean Russell’s quiet, still and ghostly photo transfers of lake homes, docks and shorelines in Big Lake, Minnesota were created using a digital camera modified to exclude all light under 680 nanometers; capturing only deep red, magenta and infrared light. Free. Art Gallery at West Charleston Library, lvccld.org

MUSIC

JULIE BUDD: REMEMBERING MR. SINATRA APRIL 15–16, 7P Renowned Broadway actress and singer Julie Budd performs a tribute to Ol’ Blue Eyes by singing his hits. $39–$55.

Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center,

thesmithcenter.com

LAS VEGAS YOUTH ORCHESTRAS — THE MUSIC LIVES ON APRIL 22, 6:30P

Some of the best young musicians in the valley perform classical favorites. $10–$40. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

ARTURO SANDOVAL

APRIL 22, 7P; APRIL 23, 6P AND 9P Sandoval and his band will play his originals as well as a tribute to jazz great Dizzy Gillespie. $42–65. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

ing the recording of the album, Visconti went on to produce 14 of Bowie’s albums.

Holy Holy’s lineup features Woodmansey on drums, Visconti on bass, guitarists James Stevenson and Paul Cuddeford, vocalists Glenn Gregory and Jessica Morgan, keyboardist Berenice Scott and sax player Terry Edwards. $30–$55. The Pearl at Palms casino-resort, palms.com

LAS VEGAS PHILHARMONIC SPOTLIGHT SERIES APRIL 26 AND MAY 3, 7:30P

Get up close and personal in this new series as members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic perform some of their most cherished pieces composed for small ensembles in the intimate venue. $65. Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

ERICH BERGEN LIVE!

APRIL 29, 7P; APRIL 30, 3P AND 7P Known for his portrayal of Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons in the hit show and film Jersey Boys as well as his role as Blake Moran on the CBS TV show Madam Secretary, Erich Bergen sings and tells stories of his career. $39–$65, Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center,

thesmithcenter.com

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORM AND COLOR

THE MUSIC OF ALAN LAWSON

JAZZ AND WINE TASTING ON THE PATIO

Originally from Ethiopia, Eyob Mergia is a painter, filmmaker and photographer.

His large drawings; colorful, multi-panel paintings and murals borrow from many different artistic styles — from the emotional realism of the Baroque period to cubism and expressionistic abstraction of the early 20th century. Free. Sahara West Library, lvccld.org

The longtime Las Vegas clarinetist, flutist and saxophonist brings twelve outstanding musicians to perform his classical and jazz compositions. $10 advance; $12 concert day. Free. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, 702-455-7340

The Shapiro Project, featuring Eugene Shapiro, guitar; Boris Shapiro, drums; Brian Triola, keyboards; and Marc Solis, saxophones, will perform compositions by Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Wes Montgomery and Eugene Shapiro as the audience tastes varieties of wine. $15 admission; $10 for six wine-tasting tickets. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, 702-455-7340

FIRST FRIDAY

APRIL 23, 7:30P

THROUGH APRIL 2

APRIL 1, 6–11P

The local arts celebration features the work of more than 100 artists, including paintings, ceramics, mixed media, photography, jewelry, textile arts and sculpture.

More than 80 indoor arts, food, drink and shop venues open their doors while 50 outdoor artists, artisans and entertainers provide endless amusement. Free. Downtown Las Vegas Arts District, ffflv.org

IMAGINE!

APRIL 2–3, 10A–3P; AWARDS CEREMONY APRIL 2, 11A The Sun City Summerlin Art Club proudly presents their fine art juried show. The

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show will highlight the talent and creativity of the members of the Sun City Art Club.

Artwork will be up for sale, as well. Free.

Desert Vista Community Center, 10338 Sun City Blvd., suncity-summerlin.com

April 2016

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APRIL 23, 2P

CHICK COREA AND BELA FLECK Two legendary musicians team up for an evening of jazz and pop classics as well as music from their album, The Enchantment. $29–$59. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

HOLY HOLY PERFORMING “THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD” FEATURING WOODY WOODMANSEY AND TONY VISCONTI APRIL 23, 8P

Woodmansey and Visconti, along with David Bowie and Mick Ronson, wrote The Man Who Sold the World album, but never had the chance to perform it live. Follow-

APRIL 29, 7P

THE BEACH BOYS APRIL 30, 7:30P

One of the most iconic and influential rock groups in history. Join Mike Love, Bruce Johnson and the others for a night of “Fun, Fun, Fun.” $29–$89.

Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center,

thesmithcenter.com DANCE

ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER APRIL 19–20, 7:30P The legendary dance troupe performs an evening of modern dance including

THE GUIDE

Channel 10

Jackie Robinson Monday and Tuesday, April 11 and 12 at 9 p.m.

Ailey’s masterpiece “Revelations.” $2679. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center,

thesmithcenter.com.

LECTURES, SPEAKERS AND PANELS

FISHNETS AND FEATHERS — DONN ARDEN AND THE LAS VEGAS PRODUCTION SHOW APRIL 7, 7P With the closing of Jubilee!, the era of the classic Las Vegas production has come to an end. Explore the history of these showgirl spectaculars and learn more about the man who created them, the legendary Donn Arden, by reminiscing with a panel of performers who spent thousands of hours onstage in Hallelujah Hollywood, Jubilee! and other classic Las Vegas production shows. Free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

TEDX UNLV

APRIL 8, 8:30A More than 14 speakers will highlight this year’s TEDxUNLV focusing on the theme, “Living in the Extreme.” This all-day event includes entertainment, opportunities for conversation and lunch. $100. Black Box Theater at UNLV, tedxunlv.com

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH CELEBRATION APRIL 15, 7:30P

Call the Midwife

Trust Me, I’m a Doctor

Sundays at 8 p.m., premiering April 3

Thursdays, March 31, April 7 and 14 at 10 p.m.

Keith Brantley and LaBlaque host this poetry super sampler featuring some of the best in local talent. This diverse group of poets will present their various works in a mini-feature format. Free. West Las Vegas Library Theatre, artslasvegas.org

THE EVOLUTION OF GAMING REVENUE IN NEVADA APRIL 20, 3P

Scott Boylan, a professor at Washington and Lee University, will investigate how casino revenue generated from table games and slots has evolved over time.

Free. Lied Library, Goldfield Room at UNLV, unlv.edu

CHILDREN’S AUTHOR KATE DICAMILLO APRIL 26, 6:30P

10 That Changed America Tuesdays, April 5, 12 and 19 at 8 p.m.

Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea Monday – Saturday, April 25 – 30 at 9 p.m.

VegasPBS.org | 3050 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89121 • 702.799.1010

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DiCamillo will read from her works, answer questions and sign her books. Perhaps best known for Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, this award-winning author is recognized for weaving universal themes of hope and belief into her works.

Writer’s Block will have her new book available for sale. Free. Historic Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth St., artslasvegas.org

POET MICHAEL MCCLURE READS HIS WORK

Theater at The Smith Center,

McClure is internationally famous as a San Francisco poet who also worked with musicians such as The Doors and wrote songs such as “Mercedes Benz,” made famous by Janis Joplin.

Free. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, 702-455-7340

A TASTE OF SHAKESPEARE

thesmithcenter.com

APRIL 30, 7P

THEATER

DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

APRIL 8–17, 7:30P; SAT–SUN 2P

The Disney classic based on the beloved fairy tale comes to life as Beauty and the Beast returns to Las Vegas for a limited engagement. $24–$135. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

SILENT WATERFALLS: A GOSPEL STAGE PLAY

APRIL 9, 6P; APRIL 10, 3P In this backstory to the highly acclaimed gospel stage play Troubled Waters, flash to the year 1994 when secrets and temptations severed ties in the Waters Family.

Written by playwright Frances Hall, Black Gospel Play Association’s 2013 GrandPrize Winner. Produced by Upstage Repertory and directed by Antonio Fargas.

Co-sponsored by the Las Vegas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Committee. Free. West Las Vegas Library, lvccld.org

APRIL 23, 12-6P

Enjoy this day-long outdoor festival of theatre, food and fun as Dan Decker and The Shakespeare Institute of Nevada will highlight performances from Shakespeare classics, including Othello, Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Macbeth and Twelfth Night. Performances will be scheduled throughout the day at various locations around the park with impromptu scenes and speeches by costumed performers mixed in. $5. Downtown Container Park, shakespeare.vegas

FAMILY & FESTIVALS

LAS VEGAS CELTIC FESTIVAL AND HIGHLAND GAMES APRIL 16–17, 9A-5P

Enjoy live music, taste traditional food and check out the athletics, dance and bagpiping competitions! Your kids will have a blast in the Children’s Glen area with bounce houses, reenactors and other kid-friendly activities. $15–$30. Floyd Lamb Park, lasvegascelticsociety.org

23RD ANNUAL CLARK COUNTY CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL

shots of all your favorites. $75; $60 Nevada locals/seniors/students/military.

The Neon Museum, neonmuseum.org

DIA DEL NINO

APRIL 30, 12–5P Honor childhood with the annual event celebrated worldwide. There will be hours of fun for children of all ages, including clowns and magicians, cooking demos, face painting, a petting zoo, traditional Mexican food and drink, hands-on arts and crafts and much more. Come see an exhibition of the winners of the Second International Art Contest and Exhibition for Children by Hispanic Artists. $6; ages 2 and under, free. Springs Preserve,

springspreserve.org FUNDRAISERS

SPRING PRESERVE FOUNDATION SPRING SHOW APRIL 14, 5P

Enjoy an evening of fashion, cocktails, raffle prizes and live auction bidding for a good cause that supports educational and programming activities. The beautiful runway will feature looks from fashion designers, constructed from sustainable fabrics, locally produced wares or repurposed materials. $150; $25 for fashion students and accompanied minors. Springs Preserve, springs

preserve.org

APRIL 16, 10A–3P

ROMEO AND JULIET

APRIL 15, 7P; APRIL 16, 12p AND 5P; APRIL 17, 12P The Winchester Headliners present Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The play is set in Verona during a long feud between the Montague and Capulet families, which creates tragic results for the main characters. Hatred and revenge stand against love and a secret marriage, forcing the young star-crossed lovers to grow up quickly and die in tragic despair. $7. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, 702-455-7340

MY MOTHER’S ITALIAN, MY FATHER’S JEWISH AND I’M STILL IN THERAPY … THE CHAOS CONTINUES! APRIL 21–24, THU–SUN 7P, SAT–SUN 3P

Steve Solomon returns with a prequel to his hit one-man show. The show features myriad characters brought to life with Solomon’s gift for voices, dialects and sound effects. $35–$40. Troesh Studio

Children’s Art Experiences is the theme and will be highlighted with dance, music, arts and crafts, clown workshops, percussion workshops, storytelling and carnival games while performers stroll the park. Vendors include a rock climbing wall, historic battles, food and drink.

Free. Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 McLeod Drive, 702-455-7340

DIAMONDFEST 2016 APRIL 21–24

Celebrate 50 years of Neil Diamond with your fellow “Diamondheads” and nearly a dozen of the best impersonators and tribute artists. See a sneak preview of the upcoming documentary Diamond Mountain. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the charity Our Military Kids. $19.95–$49.95; VIP $295. Suncoast Hotel, diamondfest2016.com

NIGHT PHOTO TOUR APRIL 27, 10P

See the old signs the way they were meant to be seen: after dark. Bring your camera for some once-in-a-lifetime

12TH ANNUAL RUNNIN’ FOR THE HOUSE 5K RUN AND 1-MILE WALK APRIL 16, 7A

Ronald McDonald will lead the warm-ups and get things started for participants.

Afterwards, runners and walkers can enjoy a pancake breakfast, kids’ activities, music, tours of the house and more. Proceeds help families stay together when a child is undergoing treatment at a local hospital. Visit your nearest McDonald’s for a brochure or register online. $20$30. The Ronald McDonald House, 2323 Potosi St., rmhlv.org

INAUGURAL FREE TO BREATHE 5K RUN/WALK AND 1-MILE WALK APRIL 23, 7A

The lung cancer community is on a mission: to make surviving lung cancer the expectation, not the exception. Hundreds of local residents will join in that mission by participating in this event! $30–$35. Sunset Park, Area F,

freetobreathe.org/lasvegas

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END NOTE that’s life

Kondo project

Just in time for spring cleaning, I follow the advice of the best-selling tidiness guru. It doesn’t go as planned b y S ta c y J. W i l l i s

I

wish I had a lighter, I think. That would spark joy. I’m standing in my living room, sweating, knee-deep in a mile-wide pile of crumpled clothes. I’m exhausted. Disgusted. Freaked out. So much stuff, so little interest in sorting through it. And short of felonious fire-starting, I cannot see how this excruciating experiment in spring cleaning is going to result in the promise of the book that prompted it: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by cleaning consultant and TED talker Marie Kondo.

“Take each item in one’s hand,” Kondo wrote, “and ask: ‘Does it spark joy?’ If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it.” Now surrounded by every item of clothing I own, because Kondo instructs you to attack your clutter by category, not by room, I’m buried not only in cotton-poly blends but in shame: excessive consumerism, horrendous style choices, unwelcome evidence of size changes, the works.

Days before, in a semi-hallucinatory state, I envisioned spring cleaning with the songbird and wildflower metaphors associated with the season: renewal, revitalization, even spiritual resurrection. I imagined a fresh breeze wafting through open windows, a few trash bags stacked on the curb, and the halfway decent feeling of marginally earned accomplishment. I would tuck stuff out of sight, stack other stuff in straighter piles and wipe down the baseboards with a damp rag — the final mark of a truly mediocre spring cleaning. I’d wrap up the whole affair by noon and retire to the sofa for a self-satisfied nap.

I was so enchanted by the notion, in fact, that I decided to take advice from Kondo’s book, a best seller lauded by people attuned to the union of self-help and housework.

Kondo says she is a lifelong obsessive-compulsive discarder who cleaned her siblings’ rooms for fun. Although I could

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not relate at all, not even a little, I found it charming, so I was lured through more pages, where I ignored red-flag subtitles like “Why You Should Aim For Perfection” and “Don’t Let Your Family See.” Next thing you know, I was poring over counterintuitive passages that explain how you’re supposed to pick up each item, feel its energy, decide if it sparks joy, then either thank it for its service and “free (it) from the prison to which you have relegated (it)” or roll it neatly for storage “as an expression of love and appreciation for the way (it) supports your lifestyle.”

And you’re supposed to do it all in one day.

I decided to start with the clothes category, then tackle books, documents and my most massive category: miscellany. I guess I knew it would be a Gilligan’s Island expedition — if not because it would last way longer than the three hours I wanted to set aside, then because I knew it would end in disaster.

It was an eerily quiet morning because Kondo suggests not playing music while cleaning, so as to have moments of unfettered dialogue with your surroundings, your belongings and yourself. Tidying will “reset your life,” if done right, the book asserts. You will have life-changing realizations.

Two hours into the magical process of piling and sorting, I had Realization No. 1: I am a hoarder. But because I’m a clever hoarder who tucks things out of sight or in stacks left so long in the corner they appear decorative, I enjoyed the luxury of not caring. I was fine with that!

Really! Two hours and three minutes in, I had Realization No. 2: I’m a denier.

Thus the process went — dreadfully slowly — until, about three hours in, standing in a sea of crap trying to feel the energy of a pair of ridiculously small, ultra-low-waist, flareleg, acid-wash, rhinestone-pocketed jeans, I have my biggest realization: “Does tidying this slowly really spark joy?”

While I know I should be having a profound moment about the power of simplifying, of rejecting the mental and material clutter of our meta-post-postmodern lives, and perhaps even a spiritual moment rooted in appreciation for key objects and their purposes, I have a different epiphany: Embrace the collage of living, reject the latest trend that has me deep-talking with my jeans, and enjoy the festive part of spring cleaning. Perhaps not as profound, but a joyful moment for a life-long lover of the art of the arbitrary — and a firm believer that this project has a time limit.

I turn on music. I shovel the whole pile of jeans into a donation bag, no questions asked. I eyeball stacks of books — skipping ahead to category No. 2! — and let my mind wander, bouncing from book title to sock texture to jeans memory to classic rock lyric to lunch daydreams. This is magical tidying for me, nestled in chaos, in random ideas, in rambling trains of thought from one category to the next, room to room, clearing some stuff out, keeping some, rearranging, blending old with new, occasionally reflecting on the life that collected it all.

So I don’t get the damp rag to the baseboards before sundown, nor adopt an ascetic lifestyle. The house is cleaner, if not stark, and the process felt creative, refreshing, revitalizing. Like spring.

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Legacy. It’s not just a sedan. It’s a Subaru. Well-equipped at $21,745 ** Subaru of Las Vegas 5385 West Sahara Avenue (702) 495-2100 Subaruoflasvegas.com Subaru, Legacy, and EyeSight are registered trademarks. *EPA-estimated hwy fuel economy for 2016 Subaru Legacy 2.5i models. Actual mileage may vary. †Based on IHS Automotive, Polk U.S. Total Registrations for all-wheel drive sedans for January 2005 – October 2014. **MSRP excludes destination and delivery charges, tax, title, and registration fees. Retailer sets actual price. 2016 Subaru Legacy 2.5i Limited pictured has an MSRP of $29,935.

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