Fall Arts Preview

September 9-15, 2010

Artist Sush Machida Gaikotsu's homecoming is one of 28 events you'll want to put on your calendar this season Plus: Cole Smithey's fall movie forecast: hot!

Get in shape gracefully—try the ballet workout

Louis Vuitton tiffany & Co. ErmEnEgiLdo ZEgna robErto CaVaLLi tom ford Christian dior fEndi VErsaCE bVLgari CartiEr CaroLina hErrEra hErmÈs miu miu baLLy PauL smith bottEga VEnEta Kiton Van CLEEf & arPELs KiKi dE montParnassE marni nanEttE LEPorE assouLinE miKimoto brunELLo CuCinELLi LanVin h.stErn tourbiLLon PorsChE dEsign iLori dE grisogono thE gaLLEry fEaturing daLE ChihuLy thE art of riChard maCdonaLd PrEsEntEd by CirQuE du soLEiL ® rodnEy Lough Jr. CEntErPiECE gaLLEry bEso stEaKhousE EVE thE nightCLub mastro’s oCEan CLub todd EngLish P.u.b. soCiaL housE WoLfgang PuCK PiZZEria & CuCina

Introduce your sense of style to your sense of wonder.

Crystals, the Las Vegas fashion destination that is a journey through couture, cuisine and entertainment. crystalsatcitycenter.com

866.754.CITY

2011 SLS AMG

It has wings for a reason.

925 Auto Show Drive s In The Valley Auto Mall s Henderson, NV 89014 702.485.3000 s www.mbofhenderson.com

JAY LENO September 17 & 18

For tickets, please visit mirage.com or call

702.792.7777.

Performing in the Terry Fator Theatre.

Contents

This Week in Your CiTY 13

seveN Days

A delicious way to help shelter animals, a Pacific islands Festival in henderson and a discussion of unLV’s future.

By Patrick Moulin

14

37

local Newsroom

69

short sales are tricky propositions loaded with economic and moral implications, and why it seems every road in the Valley is being renovated. Plus: David G. Schwartz’s Green Felt Journal and Michael Green on Politics.

NatioNal Newsroom

operation iraqi Freedom awaits history’s judgment. Plus: The New York Observer crossword puzzle and the weekly column by personal finance guru Kathy Kristof.

arts & eNtertaiNmeNt

Cole Smithey notes which fall movies to put on your calendar, and Jarret Keene talks to The Cult’s ian Astbury.

93 DiNiNg

tHe latest

Biscayne sea & Wine is a worthy successor to Legends at the Tropicana.

By Max Jacobson Plus: Max Jacobson’s Diner’s Notebook, and Whisky Attic’s Adam Carmer devises a new way to taste.

entertainment perks up a slot tourney, a hot new coffee shop opens, and Fashion’s night out.

Plus: trends, Tweets, tech and gossip.

The Latest Thought: sweet new memories vanquish nostalgia.

By Greg Blake Miller

100

20

HealtH & FitNess

intense ballet workouts improve flexibility, cardiovascular fitness and posture.

By Ben Conmy

society

Wet republic hosts a fundraiser for Three square.

102

23

sPorts & leisure

style

A local photojournalist’s new book makes female boxers the focal point.

By Andreas Hale Plus: Matt Jacob likes the Cowboys to cover during the nFL’s opening weekend in Going for Broke.

This week’s Look, a few choice Enviables and why major retailers still tend to ignore Las Vegas.

45

110

NigHtliFe

Seven Nights ahead, fabulous parties past, and two shuttered clubs spark rampant speculation.

77

Above: Day of the Dead is among this fall’s colorful events.

On the Cover: Artist sush Machida Gaikotsu. Photo by Bryan Hainer

Features

seveN QuestioNs

Magician Lance Burton on his disappearance from the strip, how Las Vegas has changed and his legacy.

By Elizabeth Sewell

28

Fall arts Preview

Anticipating the best of this season’s performing arts, art, literature and music.

September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 9

Vegas seVen Publishers

Ryan T. Doherty | Justin Weniger AssociAte Publisher, Michael Skenandore

Editorial editoriAl director, Phil Hagen MAnAging editor, Bob Whitby senior editor, Greg Blake Miller AssociAte editor, Sean DeFrank A&e editor, Cindi Reed coPY editor, Paul Szydelko contributing editors

MJ Elstein, style; Michael Green, politics; Matt Jacob, betting; Max Jacobson, food; Jarret Keene, music; David G. Schwartz, gaming/hospitality; Xania Woodman, nightlife/beverage

N O T YO U R A V E R A G E

L A S V E GAS S TAY

ACROSS FROM: EL CORTEZ HOTEL & CASINO, DOWNTOWN COCKTAIL ROOM, THE BEAT COFFEE HOUSE AT THE EMERGENCY ARTS & THE FREMONT STREET EXPERIENCE.

contributing writers

Melissa Arseniuk, Eric Benderoff, Geoff Carter, Ben Conmy, Elizabeth Foyt, Mikey Francis, Jeanne Goodrich, Andreas Hale, Sharon Kehoe, M. Scott Krause, Patrick Moulin, Matt O’Brien, Kate Silver, Jason Scavone, Elizabeth Sewell, Cole Smithey, T.R. Witcher interns

Candice Anderson, Kelly Corcoran, Carla Ferreira, Jazmin Gelista, Natalie Holbrook, Charity Mainville, Nicole Mehrman, Alicia Moore, Jill Roth, Kathleen Wilson

art Art director, Lauren Stewart senior grAPhic designer, Marvin Lucas grAPhic designer, Thomas Speak stAff PhotogrAPher, Anthony Mair contributing PhotogrAPhers

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salEs sAles MAnAger, Sarah Goitz Account eXecutives, Christy Corda and Robyn Weiss

Comments or story ideas: comments@weeklyseven.com Advertising: sales@weeklyseven.com Distribution: distribution@weeklyseven.com Vegas Seven is distributed each thursday throughout southern nevada.

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WenDOH MeDIa COMpanIes Ryan T. Doherty | Justin Weniger vice President, PUBLISHING, Michael Skenandore director, MARKETING, Jason Hancock entertAinMent director, Keith White creAtive director, Sherwin Yumul

FinancE director of finAnce, Gregg Hardin Accounts receivAble MAnAger, Rebecca Lahr generAl Accounting MAnAger, Erica Carpino credit MAnAger, Erin Tolen

PublisHEd in association WitH tHE obsErVEr MEdia GrouP Copyright 2010 Vegas Seven, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without the permission of Vegas Seven, LLC is prohibited.

Vegas Seven, 888-792-5877, 3070 West Post Road, Las Vegas, NV 89118 10

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

COntributOrs

Bryan Hainer Cover and “Fall Arts Preview” portraits Hainer is a young photographer who is expanding his reach on the West Coast.

He believes that the most successful photographs arise from a holistic (but often instantaneous) study of interesting people in their environments, and that producing an image of contemporary objects or people is a kind of ethnography that makes viewers more curious and knowledgeable about modern life.

Donald Hickey “Neon Reverberations,” Page 34 A rare native of downtown Las Vegas, Hickey caught his compulsive/obsessive fascination with music while DJing on KUNV 91.5 FM’s Rock Avenue from 1995 to 1998. When not obsessing about music, he works as a full-time airline pilot.

And when not flying, he’s hosting KUNV’s Neon Reverb Radio from 8-10 every Saturday night.

David Pagel “Opulent Pop,” Page 30 An avid cyclist and diorama builder, Pagel is also an associate professor of art theory and history at Claremont Graduate University in California; an art critic who writes regularly for the Los Angeles Times; and an adjunct curator at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, N.Y. On Sept. 10, soft-core HARD EDGE, a group exhibition he co-curated with Marianne Elder, opens at the Art Gallery of Calgary.

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Hickey photo by Anthony Mair

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S E X Y

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702.823.2210 • 8665 W. Flamingo, Suite129 • Las Vegas, NV 89147

Seven Days The highlights of this week in your city.

Compiled by Patrick Moulin

Thu. 9 Get a scoop and save a pooch from 4-8 p.m. today at Atomic #7 (605 Mall Ring Circle, Henderson) as it hosts a fundraiser for the Shelter Pet Rescue Network. With the purchase of a $25 ticket, you can build your own organic sundae, sample many delicious vegan treats and watch a dessert demonstration by local vegan advocate, Chef Mayra. If you’re planning to attend, consider bringing dog toys, washable beds, organic treats or nylon collars to donate. Visit ChefMayra.com for information.

Fri. 10 Redneck chick Gretchen Wilson brings her country/rock ’n’ roll thing to the Silverton hotelcasino tonight. Wilson debuted in 2004, when she won a Grammy and reached No. 1 on the Billboard country charts. Her in-your-face attitude is reflected in her newest album, I’ve Got Your Country Right Here. Tickets are $40, the music begins at 9 p.m., and the night will rock because Wilson’s “Here for the Party.”

MNF photo by Joe Faraoni

Sat. 11 If you spent high school sitting in calc class wondering when you’d ever use such seemingly worthless knowledge, tonight you may finally find an answer. Author Jennifer Ouellette will be signing copies of her new book, The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse (Penguin, $15) at 2 p.m. at Borders Town Square, (6521 Las Vegas Blvd South). Ouellette breaks down the complicated jargon and makes math entertaining by relating it to everyday applications such as playing craps and avoiding zombies.

And you thought math was silly.

Sun. 12 Want to get lei’d? You’ll have your chance at the 20th annual Prince Jonah Kuhio Ho’olaule’a Pacific Islands Festival this weekend at the Henderson Events Plaza, 200 S. Water St. At this celebration of all things Hawaiian, Polynesian and Tahitian, you’ll find more than 100 food and craft exhibitors, plus hula dancing, Taiko drumming and live performances on the two main stages.

Admission and parking are free, and a portion of the proceeds will go to the Las Vegas Hawaiian Civic Club.

Call 267-2171 for details.

Mon. 13 Are you ready for some football? The NFL season kicks off this weekend, culminating with a Monday night doubleheader as the Baltimore Ravens face the New York Jets at 4 p.m., followed by the San Diego Chargers-Kansas City Chiefs game (7:15 p.m.). McFadden’s Pub in the Rio is going all-out with a blitz of food and drink specials, including $1 sliders, 25-cent wings and 25-ounce beer for $10, along with raffles for T-shirts, hats and a chance to win tickets to the Super Bowl.

Tue. 14 What’s the state of UNLV? We’d say “in flux” right now, given the impending budget crisis.

There’s a sort of Mexican standoff going on, with the state’s Board of Regents wanting more money during the next fiscal period, and the state likely offering less. But don’t take our word for it. Hear about the state of UNLV from president Neal Smatresk himself at his annual address. Maybe he’ll say all is well. Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall, 10 a.m.

Wed. 15 Todd “T” Rexx is hosting a new comedy showcase to make hump day a little more bearable.

Every Wednesday at 9 p.m., Rexx and a group of fellow comedians will entertain guests at the Lounge inside the Palms. Rexx, a 17-year comedy veteran, rose through the ranks of the D.C. comedy scene, establishing a reputation for over-the-top celebrity impersonations and cynical looks at American culture. Sounds perfect for midweek. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $20 for booth seating, and to get them you can visit palms.com.

September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 13

THE LATEST

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Freak out: Rose (left) at the Palms.

White phtoto by Francis + Francis

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Star-studded parties, celebrity sightings, juicy rumors and other glitter.

Angelina Who?

Kim Kardashian hosts at Tao. The self-proclaimed “Kim Kardashian of Staten Island” hosts at a strip club.

That sounds about right.

Angelina Pivarnick learned her lesson from getting booted from the biggest pop culture phenomenon TV show of 2010. She stuck around this time just long enough so she could cash in on appearance fees before getting booted (or quitting, depending on who you ask) from Jersey Shore Season 3.

A night after she was spotted at Lavo inside Palazzo, Pivarnick brought her newfound star power all the way to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club on Sept. 5 where she was getting lessons in the proper way to shake one’s booty from one of the club’s cocktail servers. Feel free to draw your own conclusions as to whether or not it’ll be the last time she sees the inside of a strip club. Those Season 3 DVD royalties won’t last forever.

Pivarnick shakes her money maker.

Got a juicy tip? gossip@weeklyseven.com

Diddy’s Civil Rights Of all the myriad and sundry pool parties over Labor Day weekend, only one could lay claim to being the most Diddyrific.

Sean Combs was at MGM Grand’s Wet Republic on Sept. 4 to, among other things, talk about what a good party host he is. Because there ain’t no Diddy party like a selfpromoting Diddy party.

Naturally, he had to take a perfectly routine afternoon and make it weird. When a group of girls came out to dance in front of his cabana, Diddy announced to the crowd, “We’re gonna break the segregation line.” Then he threw out a bunch of Ciroc towels.

Apparently Diddy confused being at Wet Republic in 2010 with being on the Dodgers in the late ’40s. Really, though, if you squint your eyes, it always looks like Roy Campanella is hanging out at the pool. It’s probably the way the sun hits the water or something.

Combs desegregates the Labor Day party.

Tweets of the Week Compiled by @marseniuk

@iMIKEMARZ Behind every great man, there’s a woman rollin’ her eyes ... @sdunn360 Best stripper name so far tonight: Sexican.

It’s early, though, so stay tuned.

@TheKarla “My life is a movie and yours is just Tivo.” ha ha!

@Armstrongbeats Tweet me how to Dougie!!!

@GaryJBusey Has anyone seen @ParisHilton? She was supposed to be holding my purse for me. @thesulk “I’m gonna start doing more impressions on here.” tHiS iS mY sTePhEn hAwKiNg iMpReSsIon.

@jaymohr37 My son takes all his clothes off to poop. Cute at home, but funnier at the food court in the mall.

@cooperhefner I still have yet to beat Donkey Kong in the Game Room at my dad’s, but when I do I promise you will all know.

@FATJEW Anybody notice that the word bed looks like a bed?! (Who says smoking weed on a Thursday afternoon isn’t productive?) @Dolly_Parton: I hope

It’s His Life

Get a Job

As if Madonna residency rumors weren’t enough headlinemongering from across the pond, the latest scuttlebutt coming out of the United Kingdom is that Jon Bon Jovi has been offered a multi-million-dollar gig at a top Strip hotel.

Not for nothing, but at this point in their respective careers, Jon Bon Jovi looks more like a lady than Madge does; his guitarist, Richie Sambora, works cheaper, too. To be fair, Sambora works for Melrose Place set pictures of Heather Locklear, but still.

If there’s anyone who has the time to pick up a new hobby, it’s a former member of The Hills.

Lauren Bosworth started off her Labor Day weekend at Dos Caminos inside the Palazzo, where she had lunch with Stephanie Pratt on Sept. 3, then ducked into the kitchen at Lavo, where executive chef John DeLoach taught her how to make chicken marsala. It marks the first time anyone from The Hills has done anything productive, ever.

That night, LMFAO’s Redfoo was celebrating his 35th birthday at Lavo when Pratt swung over to give him a hug and a kiss, just about a month after the two of them were spotted hooking up at the same club. Guess it was just his birthday present coming early after all.

16 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

people realize that there is a brain underneath the hair and a heart underneath the boobs.

@CodiC WTF was I thinking, booking a 6 a.m. flight out of Vegas?!

@kanyewest I wrote a song for Taylor Swift that’s so beautiful and I want her to have it. If she won’t take it then I’ll perform it for her. @DearAnyone More holidays with rabbits, please. @WayneCrane Note To Bulletin: Hills cast member seen doing something.

Self: Don’t EVER date a famous socialite!!!

Pivarnick photo by Scott Harrison / Retna; Combs photo by Wright / Retna; Bosworth photo by Al Powers / Retna

THE LaTEsT Gossip

THE LaTEsT THougHT

Back for More Coming to terms with Las Vegas, all over again

By Greg Blake Miller

I am not a stranger to this place. This is my home. My parents moved here in 1971, when I was 18 months old. In 1986 I moved away for school, and I wasn’t back for much more than visits until 1999. Those visits, though—two, three times a year—were unforgettable, a sort of time-lapse experience of the suburbanization of the 1990s. At fewer frames per second, the changes were all the more striking. When I think back to those days, I have the general impression of an animated Movietone News war map, with pale tan spreading across the screen to mark the advance of stucco subdivisions.

18 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

No municipality had actually banned other colors. It appears to have been a voluntary penalty. Clark County, meanwhile, had indeed prohibited further planting of the infinitely climbable fruitless mulberry, which was allergy inducing and nonindigenous and, for a child of the Vegas ’70s, as emblematic of the city as the old Frontier “F.” Steve Wynn blew up the Dunes, which was fine, and the Dunes sign, which was not fine. The Landmark fell down, not of natural causes, and was replaced in the skyline and the popular imagination by the far less imaginative, though equally functionless, Stratosphere.

My nostalgia for the lost world of pre-’90s Vegas, though, is not a longing for its return. A significant portion of my childhood consisted of drives up and down East Tropicana and Flamingo, and the experience was about what you would imagine. Yes, in the 1990s we blew an epochal opportunity for smart development and green construction and rapid transit and all the rest.

And, yes, I missed the desert lots they kept paving over.

But let’s face it: When I was in sixth grade, kids used to hang out at the 7-Eleven on Flamingo and Sandhill playing Galaga and bothering old ladies. So the mid’90s emergence of the Sunset corridor, with Mountasia Family Fun Center and the little water park outside Crocodile Café was something of a revelation, made sweeter still by the post-Pepcon disappearance of “The Henderson Smell.” Sometimes I’d visit town with a big stack of work and I’d tuck myself away in Café Sensations, where I’d get distracted by a copy of James Reza’s old Scope Magazine. My city wasn’t what it once was, but it seemed to be growing into something interesting.

That promise pulled me back in 1999, and for the next

seven years I watched my hometown driven mad by the lotus flower of easy money. We visited acquaintances in their big, beautiful houses and listened to their monologues on why now was the time for them to trade up.

My wife and I started our family during those Vegas boom years, and took long walks in brand-new parks, and presided over the opening and closing of a great little magazine, and built the kind of friendships that last.

When the time came to leave for the Northwest, it was a bittersweet departure. We had bought our first house in 2000. We sold it in 2006. The boom wasn’t so bad after all. We did not expect to return.

My son and I climb to the top of the playground slide.

There are no bugs up here, but there is a gray dove in a mesquite tree. The dove is an arm’s length away. It looks at us and does not leave. I feel that we are trusted. Truth be told, I do not mind the silence of these streets, or the emptiness of the sky, or the way the bugs have sequestered themselves for the day. As I stand up here I realize that it was the silence, the desert emptiness, that I loved most about my childhood Vegas. I loved the tumbleweed lots and deserted pioneer shacks and desolate sunscorched swimming pool decks. These were the images that stopped time and started dreams. This moment feels that way. My son and I shake hands over the empty bug canister and promise to keep the Oregon spirit alive within us. They were beautiful years.

We climb down from the jungle gym, strip a sycamore seed ball down to its fuzzy insides, and take it home in the canister. We will walk again in the evening. My son will see his first cicada. Everything will be fine.

Photo by Greg Blake Miller

The sky had emptied itself long ago, maybe in the early spring, maybe in prehistoric times. It was anyone’s guess. The blue was pale and endless, yellowed by midday glare. My son and I had gone out in search of bugs. Nobody was anywhere. When the sky had emptied itself, perhaps the world had, too. My son sensed, though, that there were eyes lurking behind narrow windows. It was the fifth day of July, the third day after our move to Las Vegas, and our sixth neighborhood stroll. My son looked around, tugged on his baseball cap, and said, “People must be wondering: Who are those people who always walk?”

On this day, we were People Who Look for Bugs.

My son was holding a clear plastic jar with a mesh lid.

We would catch a bug, look at it, let it go. We used to do this in the backyard in Oregon, and on sidewalks scattered with unswept oak leaves and pine needles.

There were no homeowners’ associations in our corner of the South Eugene hills. Not much besides tort law kept those sidewalks from getting buried altogether. As a side benefit, we had magnificent bugs—golden-green wood beetles and spiders the size of your hand. The houses in our neighborhood were middle-aged and so modified by do-it-yourselfers that they seemed homemade, a sort of artisanal clapboard, mildewed from the day it goes up. The clapboard itself seemed to generate spiders. We called our area Spiderburgh.

It is 112 degrees. The sun has frightened the bugs into hiding. We give up on the sidewalks. The little green park at the entrance to our neighborhood seems promising. We walk across the lawn. My son reaches down, brushes this way with his palm, then that. The lawn is dry but well mowed, immaculate, resistant to the buildup of fallen petals and sludge we had grown used to during the long, wet Oregon spring. There are no sow bugs. The grass is beetle-free.

Society

For more photos from society events in and around Las Vegas, visit weeklyseven.com/society.

Whet Appetites An under-the-stars party at MGM Grand on Aug. 30, “Wet Your Appetite at Wet Republic,” was a fundraiser for Three Square. Food stations were manned by celebrity chefs including Matt Seeber (Craftsteak), Richard Camarota (Sage), Massimiliano Campanari (Circo), Rob Moore ( Jean Georges Steakhouse), Martin Heierling (Silk Road, Sensi) and Kamel Guechida ( Joël Robuchon). Chef Hubert Keller of Fleur de Lys and Burger Bar took a spin as the DJ.

Photography by Sullivan Charles

20 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Nike • Adidas • Elwood Stussy • New Balance New Era Emperial Nation G-Shock • Converse Travis Mathews Creative Recreation Kidrobot • Sneaktip Mandalay Bay Shops 3950 Las Vegas Blvd South 702.304.2513 Summerlin 9350 W Sahara Ave 702.562.6136 suite160.com

ENVIABLES

Feather FabulouS

Alice + Olivia wants you to dance the night away, preferably on a tabletop, in its Francesca Feather Skirt. $330, available at Saks Fifth Avenue, Fashion Show.

burton loveS Paul, again

Burton Snowboards and Paul Smith once again team up for the winter 2011 season with the Vapor snowboard. The top is black and glossy and features Paul Smith’s signature and Burton branding, and the base displays the iconic multicolor palette of the British designer. $1,200, burton.com.

Yoga in the StreetS

Take your workout outfit into the streets with meSheeky, a line of progressive loungewear. And new for this season, the company takes on denim with a yoga skirt that is as comfortable in the studio as it is in the supermarket. Working out in denim— who would have thought! $58-$88, mesheeky.com.

Style The Look

Photographed by Tomas Muscionico

YVEttE ANd BrAd MAStErSoN Principals, Y Public Relations; ages 43 and 32, respectively.

Yvette’s style icons: Demi Moore, Jennifer Lopez and Ali McGraw.

Brad’s style icons: Cary Grant, Tom Ford and Dean Martin.

What she’s wearing now: Nanette Lepore dress, Marni shoes, Darby Scott Brazilian quartz and gold cocktail ring, vintage 18-karat gold bracelet.

What he’s wearing now: Banana Republic jacket and boots, Tom Ford pocket square, Joe’s jeans.

As public relations executives, the Mastersons recognize the importance of looking good all the time. “We are an extension of the brands we work with, and it’s important that we complement them but never outshine,” Brad says. And they take pride not only in their personal appearance but also in their environment. “Our new offices are done in 99 percent IKEA,” Yvette says.

“From flooring to fixtures, they have really stepped up their design elements and allow you to create a space that complements your own sense of style, without it screaming, ‘This is from IKEA!’”

September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 23

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What We Wouldnโ t Give for a New Poรคng Chair If only Las Vegas had its own IKEA! A search for answers to the long-lingering shopping question: Why are certain stores (Crate Barrel!) still not in our market?

By Kate Silver

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Crozers photo by Anthony Mair

IKEA’s Poäng chair, one of the retailer’s best-selling items, available in many styles.

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The Crozers offer an IKEA delivery service in Las Vegas.

;MX\MUJMZ ! 9HJDV 6HYHQ

Style

Seven Very Nice Things 1

Write On

2

It’s time for a new implement

1. Sharpie Liquid Pencil Available at Office Depot, $5, pack of two.

2. Sterling silver T-clip fountain pen Available at Tiffany & Co., Crystals, inside CityCenter, $95.

3. Jonathan Adler ink pen Available at JonathanAdler.com, $19.

4. Ticonderoga black pencil Available at DixonuSA.com, $8, box of 24.

5

5. La Cupola pen, designed by Aldo Rossi for Alessi Available at unicahome, $160.

6. Mark Twain fountain pen Available at Montblanc, the Shoppes at the Palazzo, $960.

7. Anna pen, designed

by Alessandro Mendini for Alessi Available at unicahome, $19.

6

7 26 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

4

3

Emanuelle Mirabal, a member of the Las Vegas Contemporary Dance Theater.

PERFORMING ARTS

Dramatic Steps Dance Theater director driven to build an arts legacy in Las Vegas

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Photo by Jason James Skinner

By Sharon Kehoe

LVCDT photo by Anthony Mair; NVBT photo by Brooks Ayola; Macbeth photo by Andrei Mignea

Bernard Gaddis (seated) in the studio with LVCDT dancers.

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Clockwise from above: Nevada Ballet Theatre, a Karnival contortionist and actor Ken Lally, the guest star of Shakespeare in the Park.

7 Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tMiss Events SOAP ON HIS HANDS

MY FAIR MUSICAL

General Hospital alum Ken Lally (more recently of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) joins the Las Vegas Shakespeare Companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production of Macbeth for this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Shakespeare in the Park, which takes place at various outdoor venues in Henderson.

7 p.m. Oct. 2, River Mountain Park (1941 Appaloosa Dr.); 7 p.m. Oct. 9, Lake Las Vegas, in The Village; 7 p.m. Oct. 16, Discovery Park (2011 Paseo Verde Parkway); 7 p.m. Oct. 23, Sonata Park (1550 Seven Hills Dr.). Free.

In legendary musicals such as Camelot and Brigadoon, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe discovered the perfect alchemy of melody and lyrics. At A Loverly Afternoon of Lerner & Loewe, performers from the Strip will sing the pairâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enduring hits. The show beneďŹ ts Family Promise of Las Vegas and the College of Southern Nevada Performing Arts Center. 2 p.m.

Oct. 23-24, Nicholas J. Horn Theatre, 3200 E. Cheyenne Ave., $20-$25, 651-5483.

TRIBUTE TO THE MASTER James CanďŹ eld, artistic director of the Nevada Ballet Theatre, got his big break when he was invited to join the famed Joffrey Ballet in New York. Now he honors the legacy of the late Robert Joffrey at NBTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fall series. NBT has invited three national ballet companies and alumni dancers who studied under Joffrey to perform in what promises to be a grand tribute. 8 p.m. Oct. 15-16, 2 p.m. Oct. 17, UNLVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Judy Bayley Theatre, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, $10-$75, 895-2787.

GOT FRIGHT? Insurgo Theater Movement, our new favorite local alt-theater company, puts its own twist on the famous French theater of macabre with Bloody Mary. Dates vary throughout October. Erotic Heritage Museum, 3275 Industrial Road, 369-6442, $25.

TIME WARP, AGAIN Richard Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brienâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deathless musical play The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with its renowned tendency to stimulate audience participa-

tion, opens at the Onyx Theater.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s taken a while to get the rights for a Las Vegas production, but then again, this show never gets old. 8 p.m. Thu-Sat, Oct. 14-30, Onyx Theatre, 953 E. Sahara Ave., Suite 16. 732-7225, $25.

POETRY IN MOTION The Las Vegas Contemporary Dance Theater has become a local haven for modern dance training, choreography and performance.

Its Fall Concert Series features new works by theater founder (and former Alvin Ailey principal dancer) Bernard Gaddis, the legendary Judith Jamison and more. 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 5, 1:30 p.m. Nov. 6-7, West Las Vegas Library Theatre, 951 W. Lake Mead Blvd., $30-$40.

EVERYTHING BUT THE FERRIS WHEEL The Onyx Theaterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cabaret show, Karnival, is subtitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Collection of Oddities.â&#x20AC;? The show promises to showcase Las Vegasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x153;most unique talents.â&#x20AC;? It also promises to both entertain and disturb us. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re disturbed already! See you there.

8 p.m. Oct. 6, 27 and Nov. 3, $20. ;MX\MUJMZ ! 9HJDV 6HYHQ

ART

Sush Machida Gaikotsu (below right) and his body-surfing whale, “Chrome” (above).

Opulent Pop

Las Vegas artist finally gets a solo showing of the latest—and perhaps greatest—of his luxurious cross-cultural works

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Gaikotsu photo by Bryan Hainer

By David Pagel

LIFE OF THE DEAD PARTY

Clockwise from far left: the Day of the Dead festival, an Emily Silver painting from Periphery, a new work by Biscuit Street Preacher, “Valet”

by Linda Alterwitz from Concrete and Sparkle, and Art in the Park in Boulder City.

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7 Don’t-Miss Events DREAM FACTORY

THE BEST FIRST EVER

Marty Walsh’s tiny Trifecta Gallery has long been a big part of the Arts Factory, and now she has a new 1,200-square-foot space to match her impact. Her upcoming exhibition program, featuring works by Suzanne Hackett-Morgan and Cirque du Soleil this month and Biscuit Street Preacher in October, offer great excuses to visit. In the Arts Factory, 107 E. Charleston Blvd., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon, Wed-Fri, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Sat-Sun, 366-7001.

Once a month, at the end of the workweek, locals gather in the Art District to marvel at art and other creations, listen to local bands and drink to the festivities. October’s First Friday promises to be better than ever, because it marks the event’s eighth anniversary.

This month’s shindig will feature more artists, outdoor exhibition spaces and bands, including performances by the Las Vegas Youth Orchestra, the Billy Martini band, and Fallen Grace. 6-10 p.m. Oct. 1, firstfriday-lasvegas.org/ index.html, free.

POLYCHROME FANTASY Centerpiece Gallery celebrates Las Vegas artists with its new “Locals Only” series, and next up is one of our favorite contemporary painters, UNLV M.F.A. Sush Machida Gaikotsu. This will be his first solo gallery show here.

In the Mandarin Oriental, opening with an artist’s reception at 6 p.m.

Sept. 16 and running through Nov. 7, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. daily, 739-3314, free.

THE TRADITION CONTINUES For nearly a half century, Boulder City’s Art in the Park has been a favorite in Southern Nevada, delighting flocks of visitors each fall with its fine arts, creative crafts, live music, family activities, and food and drinks.

And don’t forget that the festival benefits the Boulder City Hospital Foundation. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 2-3, Wilbur, Bicentennial and Escalante parks, 293-0214, free.

With all due respect to the county’s annual Day of the Dead festival as a whole, the best part is always the art show, which, following the Mexican “El Dia de los Muertos” tradition, consists of memorial altars (ofrendas) decorated in honor of our dearly departed with the stuff they loved in life.

And we love how the county reminds the artists that the stuff should not include weapons. Nov. 1-2, Winchester Park, 3130 S. McLeod Dr., free.

REINTERPRETING EXUBERANCE From the old cylindrical Sands tower to the late, great Stardust sign, Las Vegas built an identity around the art of the resort. At the Historic Fifth Street School’s new exhibit, Concrete & Sparkle: Influences of Las Vegas Signs and Architecture, artists will riff on this identity, with artists’ multimedia interpretations of Las Vegas signs and architecture.

Open to the public by appointment through Oct. 24, 401 S. Fourth St., 229-1012, free.

THE PLACE WHERE WE LIVE The city needs the desert. Whether the desert needs the city is another matter. But the intersection of the two makes for an impressive Periphery Exhibit (36 12’N x 115 19’W) at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve. Using layers of paint and mixed-media designs, artist Emily Silver creates a visual learning experience of Las Vegas’ geography, erosion, flow, sedimentation and topography. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sept. 18-Jan. 16, the Springs Preserve Gallery, 333 S. Valley View Blvd., 822-7705. Free for members or included with general admission.

;MX\MUJMZ ! 9HJDV 6HYHQ

LITERATURE

Bumper Crop Autumn brings a bounty of fresh Las Vegas literary efforts

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Matthew Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien at the Blue Angel Motel.

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Hal K. Rothman

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A sampling of books coming out this fall, including a page from Mr. Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Lucky (below left), Barret Thomsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s contribution to Tales From the Boneyard. .

7 Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t-Miss Events TALE-WAGGING

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Dogs. Mystery. Nevada water rights. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not to like about the works of Rita Mae Brown, author of A Nose for Justice and Animal Magnetism? Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have a chance to meet Brown on Sept. 21 at the Clark County Library. 7 p.m., 1401 E. Flamingo Road, free.

UNSINKABLE HUCK What do Harry Potter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye and Toni Morrisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Beloved have in common? They are all books that somebody has tried to ban. In celebration of Banned Book Week (Sept. 25-Oct. 2), the Clark County Library will host Uncensored Voices: Celebrating Literary Freedom.

The Valleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literatiâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Dayvid Figler, Moniro Ravanipour and many moreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; will read excerpts from challenged books. 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30, 1401 E. Flamingo Road. Free.

A GENTEEL AND MANNERED AUTHOR Famous for getting frat boys to read, Tucker Max, the blogger and author of the outrageous memoir I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Citadel, 2006) will hit the stacks at Borders Town Square to promote the Sept. 28 release of his new book, Assholes Finish First (Simon

Spotlight). 7 p.m. Oct. 22, Borders Town Square, 6521 Las Vegas Blvd.

South, 383-6734.

and a childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book festival. Nov. 3-7, various locations, 229-5431, vegasvalleybookfestival.org. Free.

CEREBRAL MOUNTAINEERING

LOCAL LITERARY HOTBED

UNLVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Black Mountain Institute offers the smartest readings and panel discussions this side of the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. This fall there are three events not to miss: At 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16, Swedish poet Malena MĂśrling will read at the UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum Auditorium; at 7 p.m. Sept.

22, journalist Jim Lehrer, Pulitzer Prize-winner Alex Jones, and Las Vegas Sun editor Brian Greenspun discuss the state of the media; and at 7 p.m. Nov. 30, Alissa Nutting, author and editor of BMIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Witness magazine, will give a reading in the UNLV Greenspun Hall Auditorium.

Free, 895-5542.

It should be no surprise by now that our land of lights is also a land of letters. This fall, there are several noteworthy books by local writers, and a few other books of special interest to Las Vegas. Most notable among them, local author and occasional Vegas Seven contributor Matthew Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien debuts his second book, My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories From the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas (Huntington Press).

TAKE THAT, COASTAL CULTURE SNOBS! Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good one: Once upon a time, some crazy people had the idea of putting on a Vegas Valley Book Festival. That was nine years ago, and the festival not only lives on, it keeps getting better. This year T.C. Boyle and Dennis Lehane will be among the more than 100 authors to take part in the ďŹ ve-day celebration of letters. The event includes readings, workshops, panel discussions, a comic book festival

A LITTLE QUALITY COMIC TIME They say the best way to get to know a writer or artist is to read or see their work. That may be true, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a lot of fun to hang out with them, get something signed and maybe even take a peek at their sketches. Comic fans will get their chance in November when Batman Beyond writer Adam Beechen and talented artists Sean Galloway and Ryan â&#x20AC;&#x153;Art Pimpnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Benjamin come to town. 3-7 p.m. (with drinks to follow) Nov. 5, Comic Oasis, 3121 N. Rainbow Blvd., 212-8885; and all day Nov. 6, Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.

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Neon Reverb stars: the Skooners live at the Bunkhouse, Pan De Sal (above right) and LoveLikeFire (right).

MUSIC

Neon Reverberations From the bands to the vibe, our homegrown music festival just keeps getting better

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Photos by Corlene Byrd

By Donald Hickey

7 Don’t-Miss Events DOWNTOWN ROCKS Since it first shook Fremont in 2008, the Neon Reverb Music Festival has become a staple of the Las Vegas music scene. More than 35 homegrown bands join forces with touring acts to dominate downtown for the weekend at nine intimate venues. 7 p.m. Sept. 16-19 (visit NeonReverb.com for lineup), allfestival pass $55.

Chromeo photo by Timothy Saccenti; Slayer photo by Mark Seliger

BULLISH BIRTHDAY The New York City indie rock label Matador celebrates its 21st anniversary with a three-day bash headlined by 1990s rockers Pavement, Sonic Youth, Belle and Sebastian and Guided By Voices. Spoon, Yo La Tengo and Cat Power. Good luck getting tickets! Oct. 1-3, The Pearl in the Palms, 4321 W. Flamingo Road, MatadorRecords.com/21.

SINATRA LIVES Vincent Falcone played piano and conducted the orchestra for the Chairman of the Board’s legendary shows; now he teams up with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and former

Strip headliner Clint Holmes for A Tribute to Frank Sinatra. It’s the first concert in the Philharmonic’s Pop Series. 7 p.m. Oct. 2, UNLV’s Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall, 895-2787, $35-$75.

BANG THE HEAD SLOWLY The aging godfathers of thrash, Anthrax, Megadeath and Slayer come together to compare battle scars and make beautiful noise when The American Carnage Tour lands in Las Vegas. 7 p.m. Oct. 20, The Pearl in the Palms, 944-3200, $67 and $87.

THEY SAY THE NEON LIGHTS ARE BRIGHT Norm Lewis (The Little Mermaid), Brian Lane Green (Big River) and Las Vegas’ Brent Barrett (Phantom—The Las Vegas Spectacular) come together as The Broadway Tenors take you to the Great White Way for show tunes from West Side Story, Annie Get Your Gun, Brigadoon and other classic musicals. 8 p.m. Nov. 5, UNLV’s Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall, 895-2787, $40-$85.

Fall music acts, clockwise from above: Chromeo, Belle and Sebastian, Slayer and Yo La Tengo.

HITTING THE ARMSTRONGS The late 1990s brought the strange spectacle of college kids swingdancing to howling horns. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy deserves a good deal of the credit, or blame, for this wholesome craze, and they’re coming to Las Vegas with cymbal crashing, rug-cutting hits such as “Go Daddy-O,” along with their latest release, “How Big Can You Get? ” a tribute to Cab Calloway.

10 p.m. Nov. 6, Red Rock Casino, 11011 W. Charleston Blvd., 7977777, $22 and $41.

BROTHERHOOD OF THE DANCE FLOOR The musical masterminds/producers/ remixers Chromeo describe themselves as “the only successful Arab/ Jewish partnership since the dawn of human culture.” We can forgive the Canadian power-duo for glossing over the history of Moorish Spain because, well, they really know how to make us dance. Opening sets by DJs Flosstradamus and “chillwave” act Neon Indian. 6 p.m. Oct. 14, House of Blues in Mandalay Bay, 632–7600, $18 ($23 at the door). ;MX\MUJMZ ! 9HJDV 6HYHQ

THe LocaL Newsroom Should You or Shouldn’t You? short sales offer a way out of underwater mortgages, for some

By T.R. Witcher

One less car: RTC employees, including general manager Jacob Snow, use electric bikes to get around downtown.

Nobody Bikes in Las Vegas That’s the traditional wisdom in our car-centric city. But it may be changing

Photo by Anthony Mair

By Kate Silver Solar power and wind power have always made sense in Las Vegas. Lately, pedal power is making inroads, too.

In a month, cyclists will be the first segment of the public welcomed across the yet-to-be-opened Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge (a.k.a. the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge) during the Viva Bike Vegas Ride, on Oct. 9. That takes place a full week before the bridge is opened to pedestrians for a day on Oct. 16—and even that takes place before opening to motor traffic in early November.

More sightings of human-powered, healthy, eco-friendly transportation abound around town, and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada is behind some of them. For the past three years, RTC employees have had access to two electric bikes (which can be pedaled manually or powered by an electric motor), and use them to get around downtown. Jacob Snow, general manager of the RTC and an avid cyclist, uses the bikes a couple times a week to get to meetings at City Hall and other places that are close to the RTC’s downtown office.

“I think that we’re part of a growing group of organizations and individuals who see the value of another mode of transportation, especially in a climate where it’s very favorable to getting out and cycling most of the year,” Snow says. “It’s certainly, we think, an alternative mode of transportation that can and should be more effectively developed in everything that we do, and we’re looking for opportunities to do that. We’ve found a number of partners out in the community who really are embracing that approach.”

The RTC will soon get 25 more electric bikes that it will distribute to other public entities for employee use. The city of Las Vegas has signed on for the bike-share program, and will be getting four bikes from the RTC beginning in October. The RTC is also in talks with Clark County, the Southern Nevada Water District and the Southern Nevada Health District about starting similar programs.

“We feel like we’re providing incentives to people to get out there and do this, and we’re instructing people about how safe and how beneficial it can be if

you do it in the right way,” says Snow, who often cycles 19 miles to work from his home in Henderson.

The RTC has also been focusing on making roads more bike-friendly. Street projects in the works include installing a number of bike lanes downtown.

In addition, the Bonneville Transit Center, which is scheduled to open next month, won’t just be a hub for buses. It will also have bike storage, bike rental, bike repair and even lockers and showers for bike commuters. Cyclists can bike to the transit center and then walk to their destination or hop on a bus.

But it’s not just the public sector that’s making the leap. For years, Red Rock hotel-casino’s Adventure Spa has offered bike trips to the Red Rock National Conservation Area, Bootleg Canyon and the River Mountain Trail at Lake Mead. More recently, Panorama Tower North, on Dean Martin Drive across from City Center, offered four electric bikes for its residents to use. Management says they will evaluate residents’ use of the bikes and hope to add to the fleet if the demand is there.

If Las Vegas’ lousy housing market has achieved one good, it’s that people are more forthcoming about their financial difficulties. The stigma of unemployment or foreclosure—of failure—has lessened because many of us are in the same boat.

To that list we can add the growing number of homes being short sold—the sale of a home when you owe more on it than the home is worth. According to a report by First American CoreLogic, a data collection company, some 11.3 million (24 percent) of mortgages nationally were in negative equity at the end of last year. An additional 2.3 million mortgages were approaching negative equity, bringing the total percentage to 29 percent. According to the report, Nevada has the highest percentage of underwater homes in the nation, nearly 70 percent.

As of last week, according to Realtor Felipe Crook, there were 6,620 short-sale properties on the market in the Valley, out of 13,844 overall. It’s one more dubious area where Nevada is a national leader. “We’ve seen the tip of the iceberg,” says Kathryn Bovard, managing broker with Prudential Americana Group Real Estate. “It will continue to be a lot. We’ll continue to see short sales strong in the market for several years.”

There are benefits to short selling a home. “Depending on how the short sale is handled by the property owner, it can be more forgiving on their credit,” Realtor Stephanie Serra says. “In addition, depending on the source of the loan, the wait time to qualify for a home loan may be less than having a foreclosure.”

But getting cooperation from the banks can be hit-or-a-miss. “Banks have been notorious at dragging their heels at short sells,” says Nancy Rapoport, Gordon Silver Professor of Law at UNLV. “Part of the reason from the bank’s perspective is that if they do agree to the short sale they’re admitting Continued on Page 39 September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven

37

The Local Newsroom

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38 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Over the course of a week, Las Vegas hosts conventions and trade expos for industries from baking to sheet metal.

So it’s not surprising that the world’s premier casino industry trade show, the Global Gaming Expo, is held here each fall. A recently announced change of venue for the convention highlights the important role the meeting plays in the national casino landscape.

Since its inaugural meeting in 2001, the Global Gaming Expo has been held at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

With more than 26,000 attendees each year, it’s a massive show; it takes hours just to walk the exhibit floor. In addition to the exhibitors, there is a 14-track program with sessions on everything from human resources to casino surveillance.

The conference is organized by the American Gaming Association, the industry’s chief national trade group, and Reed Exhibitions, an international organizer. As American Gaming Association president Frank Fahrenkopf says, G2E is “the only international event developed by the industry, for the industry.”

So the recent announcement that G2E, starting next year, will be held at the Sands Expo and Convention Center was a bit of a shake-up, and also big news.

The move didn’t come out of any dissatisfaction with the Las Vegas Convention Center—both Reed and the AGA have praised the convention center’s commitment to the event for the past decade.

It was, instead, a matter of timing.

In its first years, G2E was held in September and October. But in 2006, the show moved to November to fill the hole that COMDEX left in the wake of its demise. The result was plenty of room, but a bit of a tight fit for both exhibitors and buyers.

“It worked well for a few years,” says Courtney Muller, group vice president at Reed, “but then we started hearing that it was too late in the buying cycle.

Most of the buyers preferred an event sooner in the year.”

In addition, there were international complications.

“November’s also very close to the London conference,” Muller says, referring to the International Casino Exhibition, another global trade show.

“We don’t want our customers to feel squeezed, so that’s another aspect we took into account.”

The decision to move to October meant a change of locations was inevitable; the convention center’s already booked for that week. Luckily, there’s more than one group in Las Vegas capable of hosting such a large convention.

“We went to Las Vegas Sands and MGM Resorts International and asked what they could do,” Muller says. “In the end, the Sands Expo Center had the dates we needed.”

Moving to the Sands, which is connected to the Venetian, will provide ancillary benefits. It makes sense to host a casino trade show in an actual casino.

That might sound like no big deal, but many international attendees don’t get too many chances to see Las Vegas casinos, and spending more time in one may help them come away with a better handle on the town.

Also, G2E Asia, which is held in May/ June, is at the Venetian Macau, and there are some synergies created by having the same organizer working with the same host company for both events.

“By having both shows in our properties in the U.S. and in Asia, we are able to ‘cross pollinate,’” says Eric Bello, vice president of sales for Las Vegas Sands.

“Comfort with exhibiting at one show leads to an ease of testing the other market, particularly for the smaller vendors.

This allows them to grow their market, and us to capture their stay.”

In the end, change may be a good thing. Muller is looking forward to being able to rebuild the expo floorplan from the ground up. “It’s a good opportunity to start fresh,” she says.

Yet there’s plenty to be excited about this November, as G2E meets for the final time at the Las Vegas Convention Center. For the first time there is an iGaming conference, dealing with cutting-edge remote gambling issues, and new concepts such as generational marketing are being discussed.

There’s also the Ultra Lounge Uniform Fashion Show, sponsored by apparel and products maker Cintas. It’s like Project Runway meets a restaurant trade show, and according to Muller is “a real crowd-pleaser.”

With casinos in need of new ideas, the Global Gaming Expo will continue to be a date that gaming industry folks circle on their calendars—no matter where it is held.

construction ahead

Road work at the interchange between Interstates 215 and 15.

If nothing else, they’re still building roads around here

Photo by Anthony Mair

By Kate Silver Bulldozers, gravel, orange cones and construction traffic abound around town, thanks in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Without those funds injected into Southern Nevada roadways, the economic downturn would likely have meant smaller budgets for transportation projects, according to Tracy Bower, spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC).

The RTC has received more than $70 million in stimulus funds relating to transportation—$39.1 million for roadway projects, and $33.6 million for transit projects. It also got a $34.4 million grant to design and construct a rapid-transit line along Sahara Avenue.

Additionally, the RTC gets three-eighths of a cent from the county’s sales tax for roads and transit infrastructure. The agency approves and pays for projects while cities and the county administer contracts.

The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) received more than $200 million in stimulus funds, and about $120 million of that was directed to projects in Clark County.

Here’s a rundown of some of the bigger projects currently in the under construction:

RTC TRanSiT PRojeCTS Bonneville Transit Center Located at Bonneville Avenue and Casino Center Boulevard, this $18 million facility, which is expected to be LEED Gold-certified, will serve as a central transit hub for buses. It will also house a bicycle station and bicycle repair shop, which is open to the public. It’s scheduled to open in October.

Centennial Hills Transit Center and Park & Ride Completed in March, this $10.6 million facility is a transit center/ park-and-ride lot served by the RTC’s Centennial Express (formerly called the C-Line), which links Centennial Hills with downtown Las Vegas, the Strip and UNLV, and also other routes.

Boulder Highway Express A new rapid-transit bus route that will link downtown Las Vegas with Henderson via Boulder Highway, and features a dedicated transit lane for much of the route. Construction began in April and is scheduled to be complete in 2011.

Sahara Avenue Rapid Transit This $40 million line along Sahara Avenue will reach from Boulder Highway to Hualapai Way, and feature dedicated transit lanes. It will link with the Deuce on the Strip, the Strip and Downtown Express, and Boulder Highway Express Rapid Transit lines.

Construction will begin in 2011.

nDoT PRojeCTS Interstate-15 landscaping and aesthetics project Designed to beautify Interstate15 southbound from California/Nevada state line to milepost 16, this $7.33 million project began in August and will be finished this month.

U.S. 95 repaving A new topcoat on U.S. 95 from onehalf mile south of state Route 157 (Kyle Canyon Road) to just north of Indian Springs. The $20.4 million project began May 2010 and is expected to take 200 working days.

Interstate 15 south The project began in February 2010 to relieve congestion and improve traf-

fic flow on Interstate 15 south, between Blue Diamond Road and Tropicana Avenue. It will cost is an estimated $246 million, and should be done in March 2012.

Interstate 15 north This $251 million project began in 2007 and served to widen the Interstate 15/U.S. 95 spaghetti bowl Interchange to Craig Road. It’s currently wrapping up.

U.S. 95 widening This $69 million project will widen the freeway from West Washington Avenue to Ann Road, expanding it from six to eight lanes, adding a high-occupancyvehicle (HOV) lane and an auxiliary lane between interchanges, as well as adding operational improvements. The project began this summer and will be completed in less than two years.

Lake Mead Parkway widening The project will widen Lake Mead Parkway (Route 564) from Boulder Highway to Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and from Boulder Highway to Ash Street at a cost of $13.5 million. It will be finished this fall.

September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven

39

The Local Newsroom

Short sale Continued from page 37

the value of something on their books is way less.”

A few underwater properties may not be a big deal to a bank or other loan servicer. But the accounting gets tough when properties pile up and the value of the assets on their books doesn’t match the actual value of their assets. “In a state like Nevada, you don’t want to rush to write off all these assets.”

The key to the short sale is forgiveness of deficiency—your lender has up to six years to pursue you for the difference between the loan amount and what you sold the house for, unless they agree to forgive the deficiency at the time of the sale. They are most apt to forgive a deficiency when homeowners can demonstrate hardship. There’s no data on the percentage of local short sales where the banks show mercy, but real estate agents interviewed for this story suggest that completing short sales is becoming easier.

Nevada statutes do provide homeowners some protection: Banks can’t go after the deficiency if you still have your

40

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

original mortgage (no refinances), if you used all the money from your mortgage to purchase your home (and didn’t purchase a new car or something else) and if you have lived in the house continuously.

Sometimes short sales can go smoothly; just as often they don’t. David Lyons had what he calls a nightmare trying to modify his loan with Chase last year. The bank on three occasions asked him for documents he had already sent, then confused his identity with another homeowner’s. When he tried to shortsell his house last month, the mistaken identity slowed things down. Then his purchaser couldn’t get financing and the deal fell through. He’s debating whether to search for another buyer or try another loan modification. On top of that he owes $15,000 in legal fees in dealing with Chase.

“The whole process seems to be so disorganized that I don’t believe the average person will be successful in completing either a loan modification or a short sale,” he says.

And even under the best circumstances, there are caveats: Short sales can tarnish your credit, and even if you are forgiven the deficiency (or some part of

As of last week, more than 6,000 homes were in short sale in the Valley market.

it), you have to pay taxes on that money.

Folks considering strategic short sales— they still have their job, but their house is underwater and they’re trying to cut their losses—can have an even tougher time. “If I were a bank,” says Rapoport, “that’s the last person I would a cut a deal for … the person who is solvent and just walking away.”

Short selling is also a moral question.

Pride, integrity and honor are on the line.

Bankers may take bailouts from Washington, but salt-of-the-earth Americans—the group we all like to think we’re members of—have to wrestle with whether they want to bail on contracts. The stigma of talking about a short sale may be down, but following through on one is difficult.

“It’s a sense of,” Rapoport explains, “how badly do I want to keep my word?”

The Local Newsroom

Politics

The woebegone state of Nevada

By Michael Green

Democrat Rory Reid and Republican Brian Sandoval, each of whom would like to become governor of our cashstrapped state, refuse to say they’ll raise taxes. Reid says he can balance the budget with cuts, reorganization and smarts. Maybe. One insider who knows him well calls Reid an incredibly talented administrator who would run the state brilliantly, but the question is whether he can be elected.

Meanwhile, Sandoval long since signed on to the Republican idea that taxes are evil and government is little better. Whether he always felt that way or decided during the primary that he had to sound like the disgraced Jim Gibbons if he wanted to win, who knows? If he becomes governor, he has boxed himself in.

Jon Ralston, the ubiquitous political analyst, has led the criticism of their refusal to call for higher taxes. Of course, he’s right in principle. The idea that Nevada can survive a rumored impending $3 billion shortfall on cuts alone is ridiculous. But principle, politics and getting elected are different things and often mutually exclusive.

My recent visit to southern Utah made that clear, and not just because I was in a state founded by religious pioneers with a history of being oppressed, a state whose governor encourages bigotry by advocating for the repeal of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship provision. It was also my choice of reading material that helped drive the point home.

My wife and I spent the weekend at the cabin of friends in the mountains near Cedar City. When not visiting, eating, admiring the trees and deer, and working (we public employees take our work on vacation), I picked up We Are Still Married (Penguin, 1990) by Garrison Keillor, creator of A Prairie Home Companion. One of his essays, written late in the 1988 presidential race, is called “Reagan.” He wrote, “What has been missing from the campaign is any note of reality.” Why? “The line between entertainment and news has been blurred most successfully by President Reagan. Better than any rival, he has been able to describe the world as he wanted to see it—a description independent of any objective truth—and do it so winningly that his stories seemed almost real …,” Keillor wrote. “He has enlarged his office, yet diminished politics by his success, sap-

42 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

ping our most fundamental strength, our ability as a democratic society to discuss and resolve our problems.”

Whatever one thinks of Reagan’s presidency—Rosalynn Carter described him perfectly when she said he made us comfortable in our prejudices—he made Americans feel better and more powerful.

Ironically, Reagan probably couldn’t have been elected president without the loyalty and support of a close friend from Nevada, Paul Laxalt, a governor and U.S. senator. So, a Nevadan, perhaps unwittingly, contributed to the decline of political discourse and problem solving by exporting beyond our borders our traditional refusal to face up to our failings. Yet, as governor, Laxalt backed creating a medical school and community colleges, and sought ways to fund them.

Not that he or any other candidate sought office by telling us what we needed to hear. Kenny Guinn’s recent death inspired high praise, but he spent his 2002 reelection campaign (against Joe Neal, who had as much chance of winning as Glenn Beck does of being honest) saying he had a plan to save Nevada and would divulge it later. The plan proved to be Nevada’s largest tax hike ever, but he didn’t say that as a candidate.

For Sandoval or Reid to admit the need for higher taxes might be honest and desirable to those of us who analyze politics, or who understand that Nevada’s status as one of the nation’s worst states for funding social services is deserved and disgusting. But it’s also pessimistic and politically suicidal.

Sandoval hews to a party line that all taxes are evil because to admit otherwise would be to admit to reality.

Reid and the Democrats, meanwhile, should know that whether or not they advocate tax hikes, their opponents will claim they do. Calling for higher taxes in some areas (hello, mining) might cheer reality-based Democrats, Republicans and independents. But if the polls are accurate (we know about R-J polls), or even if they aren’t, he’s likelier to win applause from a few political analysts and otherwise disappear without leaving a laundry mark.

Michael Green is a professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada and author of several books and articles on Nevada history and politics.

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Nightlife

Entertaining options for a week of nonstop fun and excitement.

Compiled by Melissa Arseniuk

Thu. 9 Make your Thursday night fun—and funny—by joining Mad TV alum Arden Myrin as she takes the Playboy Comedy stage at the Palms. (She has also appeared on Reno 911, Just Shoot Me and Gilmore Girls.) Comedians Cort McCown and Paul Hughes host. (9 p.m. Thu and Fri, 8 and 10 p.m. Sat, $40.) More laughs can be had at the Tropicana, where Tom McTigue and Kathleen Dunbar perform at the Brad Garrett Comedy Club.

(8 p.m., plus a 10 p.m. show Fri and Sat, $39-$59.) Alternatively, you can head to Haze, where everyone’s favorite frat boy, Asher Roth, starts the weekend early with DJs Karma and David Christian. At Aria, doors 10:30 p.m., $40 men, $20 women, local ladies free.

Fri. 10 When his Aug. 25 set in tribute to DJ AM was cut short at Surrender, DJ Jazzy Jeff Tweeted, “Can u say ... The Right Party at the Wrong Place?” Perhaps. On that note, Philly’s first DJ son returns to Rain at the Palms, where the one and only DJ Dave Fogg (pictured) will do the opening set. (Doors 11 p.m., $30 cover, local ladies free.) Over at The Mirage, Revolution hosts REBELution, a back-to-school night that offers UNLV students free admission and bottle service that won’t require a student loan. Oh, and did we mention the sexy schoolgirl uniform contest? Yeah, there’s that, too. (Doors 10 p.m., $20 cover, locals free.)

Finally, it’s Champagne wishes—in the form of an open Champagne bar from 11 p.m.-midnight—and cake-filled dreams as Blush toasts the birthday of Robin Leach.

At Wynn, doors 10 p.m., $30 cover.

Sat. 11 It will be a birthday cake to remember: TLC comes to Eve to film an episode of Fabulous Cakes as the club’s assistant director of VIP services, Christine Tanaka, celebrates her birthday in a very over-the-top fashion. This will be an “Only in Dreams” extravaganza, complete with whimsical and fantastical costumes. You’re invited to dress up, enjoy some cake and, who knows, maybe you’ll see yourself on TLC this fall! (In Crystals at CityCenter, doors 10:30 p.m., $40 men, $30 women.) Meanwhile, VH1’s cameras will be rolling at The Bank as perennial party boy and ladies man Mario Lopez bids farewell to the single life.

Saved by the Bell’s Slater has a baby on the way, and tonight’s bachelor party is one of his last hurrahs.

At Bellagio, doors 10:30 p.m., $40 cover.

SeveN NIghtS Sun. 12 We hear that it’s Chocolate Milkshake Day, so we’re heading to BLT Burger and ordering one of its killer, adults-only, very boozey milkshakes to honor this alleged holiday. We recommend the Night Rider— Kahlúa, chocolate liqueur, Oreo cookies and chocolate ice cream. (At The Mirage, 11 a.m.-2 a.m., shakes from $11.) Afterward, head to the Palms and dance off those calories to the sounds of DJ Relapse, who spins at Ghostbar. Doors 10 p.m., cover $25, locals free.

Mon. 13 Today the Palms Pool rents its cabanas for just $100 and will give the proceeds to local burn victim Jorge Hernandez, who spent more than a year in the hospital—without insurance. (9 a.m.-5 p.m.; call 938-9999.)

Holly Madison’s assistant-turned-understudy, Angel Porrino, steps into the spotlight as her mentor takes a week off from Peepshow.

She’ll perform through Sept. 19. Planet Hollywood, 9:30 p.m., dark Wednesdays, $65-$125.

Tue. 14 Celebrate the new NFL season at Lavo’s Cheerleader Bowl, where the city’s sexiest ruffle their pom-poms (and a few feathers) and compete for $1,000 in cash and prizes. May we say, “Game on”? (At the Venetian, doors 10:30 p.m., $20 men, $10 women, locals free.)

Tonight is also Rockabilly Night at King Ink, complete with $5 PBR tall boys and live music from the Delta Brothers. At The Mirage, doors 11 a.m., event at 10 p.m., $10 cover.

Wed. 15 Celebrate Mexican Independence Day as Tacos & Tequila at Luxor launches a new monthly Wednesday-night event, “Viva T&T.” Toast the centennial of the revolution and experience a Mariachi rendition of “Viva Las Vegas” featuring a Mariachi Elvis. Also, the El Rey de los Elvis competition awards $500 to the best Elvis costume, but everyone who comes dressed like The King will receive a free daiquiri. The bar serves $5 margaritas, $3 bottles of Dos Equis and $5 shots of “Burning Love,” and in keeping with T&T’s “Mischievous Wednesdays” tradition, a cock-a-doodle duel will take place at some point. 8–11 p.m., no cover.

September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 45

Nightlife

Pure | Caesars PalaCe

Upcoming SEPT. 11 | Chanel of MTV’s fanTasy faCTory hosTs, DJ Marshall Barnes spins SEPT. 14 | inDusTry nighT wiTh DJ shifT SEPT. 18 | DJ Jesse MarCo spins

46 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Photography by Amy Schaefer

Nightlife

Blue Martini | town square

Photography by Amy Schaefer

Upcoming Sept. 9 | Noches Azul lAtiN Sept. 12 | suNset suNdAys with dJ JAce oNe Sept. 22 | A toAst to two yeArs

48

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Nightlife

Palms Pool | the Palms

Photography by Beverly Oanes

Upcoming sept. 10 | DITCH FrIDays wITH THe CaTaraCs sept. 12 | Palms Pool sunDay wITH DJ sCoTTy Boy sept. 17 | DITCH FrIDays

50 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

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Nightlife

Lavo | The PaLazzo

Photography by Jessica Blair

Upcoming Sept. 14 | Industry tuesdays, Cheerleader Bowl Sept. 15 | laBel JunkIe wednesday Sept. 19 | VICe sunday

54

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Nightlife

Venues

Suspended Animation Watching for signs of life as two shuttered nightclubs stir from their slumber

By Jack Colton and Xania Woodman All eyes were on the Hard Rock on New Year’s Eve 2009. And with good reason.

After six years of service, Body English took one last bow before passing its crown to Vanity, which stepped up that night as the resort’s new reigning late-night venue.

Exemplifying the type of extravagant promotions that kept the venerable club popular for so long, Body English’s vintage $250,000 Baccarat crystal chandelier was awarded to the evening’s highest spender, a software developer who rang in 2010 with a $25,000 tab.

In the nine months hence, Body English has sat quietly, patiently awaiting the next chapter. Although there was subsequent talk about the space reopening in spring—appropriately as Afterlife Afterhours—summer has come and gone and still her doors are shut. One imagines that within, her VIP booths doze tranquilly beneath a delicate veil of dust, her DJ booth woefully empty without talent bringing her sound system to life. She, like Privé, Ice, Smokin’ Hot Aces, Rumjungle and Empire Ballroom, remains frozen in time. At least for now.

But even while she rests, the remainder of the Hard Rock Hotel’s nightlife program has undergone a multitude of changes, including Rehab’s mid-poolseason handover to Angel Management Group in July and the August announcement that the barely 2-year-old Wasted Space would be making way for the Hard Rock’s new sports book. Numerous high-profile shake-ups in nightlife management have occurred, and rumors swirl about which leading Las Vegas nightlife company might possibly be

swooping in to take over all of the hotel’s existing and future nightlife venues and perhaps play an even greater role.

For its part, the Hard Rock will neither comment on, confirm nor deny any such major management or ownership changes, but will affirm that “Body English is currently being used to host special events at Hard Rock,” adding only that “No future plans for the venue have been determined at this time.” What is known is that Angel Management Group will reopen the nightclub (wholly Hard Rock-owned) on Oct. 15 for a special performance by progressive house DJ/ producer Deadmau5. The Body, it seems, will be resurrected—if but for one night.

Meanwhile on the Strip, the 12,000-square-foot Privé Nightclub/Living Room Lounge complex sits similarly dormant after a tumultuous and short life: opened December 2008, closed July 2009, reopened August 2009 and closed permanently in April. Harrah’s acquired the problematic club and its adjoining lounge via its purchase of Planet Hollywood Resort on Feb. 19. If Harrah’s plays its cards right, this could be an incredible opportunity to start fresh with a conscientious new nightlife partner and to reinvigorate the property’s nightlife menu. As of right now, not one nightclub exists within the casino. For today’s Vegas, this is shocking.

The rumor mill churns with whispers of some recent activity around the Privé space, of nightclub proposals and of clandestine talks. Just as New Year’s Eve 2010 will bring us new issue from Tao Group at the Cosmopolitan—to be joined

The late Privé: Rumors swirl over its potential reincarnation.

by Chateau at Paris in “early spring,” an inside source confirms—could 2011 not also bring us a new Planet Hollywood nightclub concept? And indeed, all eyes will be on Privé’s successor.

In a statement almost as tempting as it is vague regarding that question, a Harrah’s

press representative says simply, “We have no announcement at this time.” No problem, we say, brushing some dust off one of Privé’s Pucci-fabric-lined VIP booths for whomever might be looking into that prime real estate; time is something we have plenty of.

The X Factor

Bidding a fond farewell to Wasted Space

By Xania Woodman Doubtful that Wasted Space’s impending closure will receive quite the fanfare that our debuting clubs do, I figure now is as good a time as any to bid farewell to motocross legend Carey Hart’s petite club—sorry, anti-club—at the Hard Rock. That property has been on the tip of every wagging tongue recently, with speculation about both its nightlife program and the dining lineup (quiet talk is of a new Asian restaurant, Yi, possibly coming to the HRH tower).

Wasted Space is making way for a new sports book— sad news, at least for this confirmed non-gamer. The sentence was handed down to staff during an Aug. 4 60 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

pre-shift meeting. Cantor Gaming (the company behind In-Running wagering, also available at the M Resort and the Palazzo) will be operating the new venue, which is slated to open in the spring. I was not the least bit surprised. For months I’d been hearing the death rattle as promotions ceased and the venue started to go into multi-system failure.

I have since happened upon an e-mail from mid-December 2007: “Wasted Space is going to be a true rock ’n’ roll bar. The concept was created by Carey Hart to provide a spot for people who appreciate nightlife but do not necessarily care for the mega-clubs and ultralounges

so popular around town. There are lots of other fun details to come.” And there were: comfy leather library chairs at the upper bar, sexy staff uniforms, a rockedout design aesthetic and an overall intimacy that put you within handshaking range of your favorite artists.

But time is running out to get in your last kicks at Wasted. Despite earlier statements from the hotel that talent is booked through October, the furthest out event I could find was a Sept. 26 L.A. Comedy Club appearance by Sam Tripoli. Probably not my choice for a grand closing but, as Jack Nicholson’s The Joker said, “If you gotta go, go with a smile.”

A “career carouser,” Xania Woodman (pronounced Han-ya) is an impassioned nightlife and beverage writer, editor and blogger, causing a stir in Sin City since 2001. E-mail her at xania. woodman@weeklyseven.com.

Nightlife

Cocktail Culture

By Xania Woodman

Nouvelle-Orléans Absinthe As served at Sage Restaurant inside Aria With the 2007 arrival of Lucid Absinthe Supérieure in the U.S. market, absinthe-maker T.A. Breaux and Viridian Spirits forever changed beverage history.

After 95 years of prohibition, genuine absinthe (Grande Wormwood and all) was once again available in America. Since then, Breaux has been hatching his new oeuvre, the four-bottle Jade absinthe portfolio. For the first three, Breaux worked backward, Jurassic Park-style, from intact 19th-century bottles to re-create history’s absinthe formulas—one Swiss, two French. But the fourth, Nouvelle-Orléans Absinthe Supérieure, is special.

Whereas Lucid is made in accordance with traditional French methods and represents Breaux’s palate today, Nouvelle-Orléans is made in the style of pre-ban New Orleans and represents Breaux’s palate as if sent back through time. “Everything that I do is done exactly as it was done a century ago,” he says. Even his equipment is more than 130 years old. The creation of the Jade portfolio, Breaux says, is in response to the poor quality, industrial absinthe flooding the market since his Lucid breakthrough, “so that people can sample vintage absinthe and not be cheated.”

Fewer than 2,000 cases of Nouvelle-Orléans are available worldwide. Thanks to an early bottle having been personally gifted to Sage general manager Tobias Peach by the maker, Las Vegas holds the distinction of being the first city to experience Nouvelle-Orléans.

Tobias Peach offers an entertaining style of absinthe service table-side at Sage.

A russian twist In honor of the man who taught him Russian-style absinthe service, Tobias Peach offers this table-side twist at Sage: Coat the inside of a medium-size snifter glass with 1½ ounces of a high-proof absinthe (Lucid, Mansinthe, Grande Absente) by rotating it. Carefully light the spirit with a match and continue to spin the snifter for five to eight seconds. Then, from about six inches above a rocks glass that contains two ounces of orange juice with two dashes Peychaud’s bitters, very carefully pour in the flaming absinthe and snuff any remaining flames. Immediately invert the empty snifter onto a linen napkin and place on the table. Insert a long straw under the rim of the snifter and inhale the absinthe fumes. Now drink from the cocktail without exhaling.

“You get a warm, licorice head-rush,” says Peach, who guides guests through this exotic process nightly for upward of $30. Substitute root beer for the OJ and rim the glass with Pop Rocks for a root beer candy-twisted absinthe trip you’ll not soon forget.

2 ounces absinthe 1 sugar cube Ice water (about 3 ounces) Pour the absinthe into an absinthe glass. Lay a slotted absinthe spoon across the top of the glass and place a sugar cube on top of the spoon. Arrange the glass directly under the spigot of an absinthe fountain filled with ice water. Turn the water on in a slow, steady trickle, completely dissolving the sugar and filling the glass to the desired level of dilution. Turn off the water and stir with the spoon.

The Green Hour By the second half of the 19th century, French soldiers had claimed 5-7 p.m. for the taking of absinthe, their anti-malarial medication turned happy-hour beverage of choice. L’Heure Verte, or the Green Hour, it would come to be called. Enjoy your own Green Hour at these fine, absinthe-friendly locales or wherever you may roam. It’s always five o’clock somewhere!

Bouchon. It’s T.A. Breaux’s own choice for chance encounters with the Fée Verte in Las Vegas, though admittedly he prefers his absinthe in pre-Prohibition cocktails such as the Sazerac, made with High West Rendezvous rye and, of course, his own history-making Lucid absinthe. He says, simply: “Amazing.” In the Venetian.

Downtown Cocktail Room. Set amid DCR’s bohemian crowd, absinthe lovers and neophytes alike will discover 64

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

an ideal balance between tradition and originality with the classic absinthe drip or the original Huntridge cocktail.

111 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Fleur de Lys. The candle-lit absinthe cart will once again make for a romantic and daring conclusion to your dining experience when this restaurant reopens in mid-December.

In Mandalay Bay. Mario Barth King Ink. With not a fountain in sight, your choices are

limited to taking your absinthe as a straight shot or as a straight shot on fire.

Your move, tough guy. In The Mirage.

The Artisan. From a bar stool or cozy couch in the dark, inviting environs of the bar, you can image Toulouse-Lautrec and crew posting up and putting down plenty of absinthe before making besotted overtures to the boutique hotel’s statuary. Enjoy, but try not to follow in their doomed footsteps.

1501 W. Sahara Ave.

see for yourself!

Watch Tobias Peach get Ruskie with it via 2D barcode or online at WeeklySeven.com.

Photography by Anthony Mair

A TrAdiTionAl AbsinThe drip

The NaTioNal Newsroom iraq and history’s eventual verdict Without U.S. occupation, Saddam Hussein likely would have become more dangerous

Photo by Mirrorpix/Getty Images

By Cathy Young As the United States’ combat mission in Iraq draws to a close, it is fitting to look back on the war and its legacy so far.

In most left-of-center commentary, the folly and criminality of the war in Iraq is now an article of faith, and anyone who ever supported it has a black mark against him. Yet, as someone ambivalently pro-war in 2003, I remain unrepentantly ambivalent and far from certain about history’s eventual verdict.

Ironically, President Obama’s Aug. 31 Oval Office speech marking the war’s official end reflects nothing if not ambivalence, Obama’s early anti-war stance notwithstanding.

Some facts are undeniable: The weapons of mass destruction of which Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession was the ostensible reason for the invasion never turned up. It is also fairly clear that, in the buildup to the war, the Bush White House disregarded evidence that did not fit its casus belli—though it is a far cry from that to the charge that Bush deliberately “lied,” and the belief that the Hussein regime was hiding WMDs was widely shared among Democrats.

Few would also dispute the conclusion that the war and the occupation was badly mismanaged from the start, due in large part to the previous administration’s arrogance and incompetence— with tragic results for far too many U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

But what if we had not gone to war?

David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, argues in a recent column in The National Post, a Canadian daily, that a Hussein regime left intact in 2003 would have become far more dangerous due to new wealth from rising oil prices and the probable collapse of sanctions—and would have eventually ended in a violent downfall with massive casualties from sectarian battles. Such suggestions are easy to dismiss as speculation intended to justify the war in hindsight. Yet the truth is that what-ifs stressing the benefits of not going to war can be just as speculative. It is far from certain that if we had not sent

troops to Iraq, our forces would have been more successful in Afghanistan or would have captured Osama Bin Laden.

President Obama’s speech, as one might expect, stressed the costs—human, social, political and economic—of going into Iraq. Yet he also spoke in surprisingly positive terms about many aspects of the U.S. mission.

He noted that American troops in Iraq “defeated a regime that had terrorized its people” and, “together with Iraqis and coalition partners who made huge sacrifices of their own fought block by block to help Iraq seize the chance for a better future.” He asserted that “because of our troops and civilians—and because of the A Marine adds a colorful touch to a statue of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in April 2003. resilience of the Iraqi people— particularly one with a different culture Salon.com’s Joe Conason has a point Iraq has the opportunity to embrace and a different majority religion—and when he notes that shocking cases of dea new destiny, even though many that the respondents included people tainee abuse in Iraq have compromised challenges remain.” He praised the sucwho held privileged positions under the cesses of Iraqi elections and emphasized our moral standing. To take on the role Hussein regime. When the question is of an occupying force places the military “our long-term partnership with Iraq, phrased differently, between 60 and in an extremely tough quandary: Being one based upon mutual interests and 75 percent of Iraqis have agreed that too aggressive in dealing with the local mutual respect.”

Saddam’s ouster was worth it despite the This must be a bitter pill to swallow for population creates the risk of backlash hardship. Only a quarter prefer the way many of Obama’s supporters—those who and resentment; not being aggressive things were in prewar Iraq. enough creates the risk of a anarchy, regard the war as an American atrocity Do these findings give us a mandate to causing resentment toward the troops against Iraqis (often characterized in depose oppressive regimes everywhere? for failing to protect the population. left-wing venues in starkly racial terms, Of course not. They do, however, put U.S. troops have faced Iraqi anger and as the slaughter of “brown people”). our actions in perspective. Whether disappointment for both reasons.

Such a view is now fairly standard on or not Operation Iraqi Freedom was Despite all these problems, polls the left: at the height of the controversy a blunder, only time will tell—as even conducted in Iraq since the war began of the “ground zero mosque,” a satirical some strong critics of the war, such have shown a complex picture that does piece by a Salon.com blogger noted that as former Democratic presidential not fit into the left-wing narrative of the if an enemy attack that kills thousands contender Howard Dean, concede. But war any more than it does into a proof innocents creates a “sacred ground,” war script of U.S. soldiers being greeted it is not too early to say that Americans then the Iraqis should be grateful to the are not the villains in this story. That as liberators. Survey after survey has United States for giving them “hundreds role belongs to the dictator who drove so showed Iraqis more or less evenly split of such sites.” To people with that mindmany of his subjects to welcome a foreign on whether the 2003 invasion was right set, Obama’s praise for the American invasion, and to the extremists who or wrong. (In a 2009 survey, only 28 role in Iraq must sound like monstrous unleashed carnage on their own. percent said that it was “absolutely hypocrisy—literally adding insult to wrong.”) This is a remarkable fact fatal injury. Never mind that most of the considering than it is a natural human deaths were at the insurgents’ hands.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at instinct to strongly oppose the invasion It would be absurd to claim that the Reason magazine and a columnist at war in Iraq was a human-rights triumph. of one’s country by another power— The Boston Globe.

September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 69

The National Newsroom

Lady Gaga, shown performing at the MGM Grand Garden in August, has been accused of being nothing more than a Madonna rip-off.

Enough with the yogurt Toast is … toast as health-conscious citizens slurp this ubiquitous, multifunctional sludge.

When will the madness stop?

By Spencer Morgan

Continued on Page 74 70

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Copy this, baby: Nothing’s unique in the Age of Google Who pays the price when information is free? The new crisis of originality

By Lee Siegel A few years ago, I found myself on the giant playground known as the Google “campus” in Mountain View, Calif., speaking to a small group of Google employees about, among other things, originality. I tried to make what I thought was a pretty unoriginal point.

The culture, I suggested, rewarded successful copying and ignored or even denounced originality. Some examples: If a talking cat gets a million page views on YouTube, then within days there will be a million talking cats, dogs, ferrets, etc.; American Idol contestants are always imitating a famous singer’s style; the knowing ironies of the mash-up are more appealing to its audience than what is being mashed up. Yet at the same time, the Internet delights in tearing down figures who come to prominence on the basis of some original achievement. Lady Gaga has become renowned for imitating Madonna, but if Madonna ever got caught texting something insulting about Lady Gaga, heaven help her.

After my talk, a few people who had been in the audience came up to me and began to press me on the issue of originality. One of them asked me bluntly: “What is so great about being original?” I was about to launch with confidence, not to say smugness, into some mildly condescending explanation of originality when I realized that, in fact, I had nothing to say. The inestimable value of originality was just one of those fundamentals I had never questioned. I stood there, hemming and hawing, desperate for something to offer. “Don’t you think it’s important,” I ventured, “to … er … well

… to … hmmm … march to the beat of a different drummer?” There it was—in the defense of originality, I had uttered one of the most celebrated bromides in the history of banality. But the response of one of the Googlians was even more astounding. “That’s a great line,” he said, without the slightest irony.

We are now in the middle of a crisis of originality, and partly this is due to the raging dogs of information that Google has unleashed. We are so inundated by what has been written and said, and by what was written and said just seconds ago, that it is becoming impossible to sort out who said what first. Not only that, but as the idea of intellectual property—of copyright—has been thrown out the window, the notion that thoughts are duplicable commodities has become more widespread. If Google can reprint articles from newspapers and magazines without permission, then why shouldn’t students copy passages verbatim from online reference sources such as Wikipedia (it’s called “content scraping”) without attribution?

And if all information is now free, and if search engines lump all forms of knowledge together under the rubric of “information,” then isn’t the writer who copies from the published work of another writer simply exercising his right to drink from the public trough? As the definition of originality implodes in the capitalist anti-capitalist chaos of the Internet, instances of plagiarism multiply. Plagiarism is the Internet’s neurosis.

Plagiarism has become to journalism what sex scandals are to politics. Just as there are pods of Continued on Page 71

Gaga photo by Erik Kabik/Retna

The pressure to eat yogurt in America is out of control.

In recent years makers of the tasty snack, once the province of menopausal women and grade-school sack lunches, have been aggressively targeting the minds of the nation’s young adults and middle-aged.

The campaign is now going full bore. Big Yogurt is in the throes of a vicious battle for market share. If you are not a yogurt fanatic, you are caught in a dizzy, distinctly unappetizing crossfire.

“I eat Greek yogurt at Starbucks at least four times a week,” a lawyer friend told me by phone from the health-conscious paradise of Los Angeles. “I’ll admit it, I’m a yogurt eater.”

“I’m actually eating some right now,” said a TV writer friend. “We keep a stash of Greek yogurt in the writers’ room.”

Earlier this year, Harry Balzer, vice president with the market research firm NPD Group, declared yogurt as the food of the decade. “The versatile dairy product really does define what I think America wants from its food supply,” he said in an interview on NPR. What breakfast food saw the biggest decline? Toast. Toast!

What is wrong with these people?

The clarion calls to consume this multi-functional goop play on a mix of cultural insecurities, and have gotten so out of hand that mere mention of the unfortunate sounding word calls to mind a grotesque menagerie of women’s gastrointestinal hygiene and sexual beauty. Yo-gurt.

Activia is the primary culprit on the constipation front, with commercials featuring a notably peppy Jamie Lee Curtis issuing a challenge to younger ladies to eat Activia for two weeks. “If it doesn’t help naturally regulate your digestive system, we’ll refund your money.”

In February, Activia settled a $45 million class-action lawsuit from disgruntled, understandably frustrated folks for whom the purportedly medicinal yogurt had offered no relief. For those who had such an experience, visit ActiviaSettlement.com, there’s still time to get up to $100 compensation. It seems the FDA is not so sure about yogurt’s regulatory abilities.

Make no mistake: Protein and live bacteria-laden milk-sludge is big business.

In 1980, the U.S. yogurteating market clocked in at an estimated $300 million. Last year, Mintel International’s latest report on U.S. consumer trends put it at $4.1 billion. Industry titans Dannon and Yoplait, between them, occupy 67 percent of the market, with Heidi Klum pitches for Dannon.

Originality Continued from Page 70

journalists looking to catch public officials with their pants down, there are pods of ordinary citizens looking to catch journalists with their scanners working overtime. Even editors have become super-vigilant about ensuring the originality of their writers’ ideas. Of course, there was always the nightmare editor who would send you 48 books on the subject you had just been assigned to write about (“Thought this might help”), as opposed to the heaven-sent editor who brushed off your apprehension that someone had just published an essay on your theme: “Don’t worry, you’ll do it in your inimitable style.” But now some editors Google your suggestions to death to make sure that no one has ever touched on what you want to say. “Sorry about this, but we’re going to have to take out the bit about laziness.

Plato said something similar in The Republic.” As journalism begins more and more to doubt its purpose, it becomes other things, and one of the things it is becoming is another branch of academia, as editors and general readers mentally annotate everything they read.

Yet we are equally paranoid about the possibility that someone has passed off fiction as fact.

Some years ago, an editor at a magazine I regularly wrote for called me up to check on some facts in a piece I had just written. “You say here,” he queried, “that you were standing on a corner in midtown and thinking that the Flatiron building was designed to be seen in the snow.

Now, are you sure that you were really thinking that?” No, I’m not sure; shall we try hypnosis? Nevertheless, I sympathized with his anxiety. The plagiarist and the fabricator suddenly lose the distinct shape they had acquired as people. We no longer know them. They are not what we thought they were.

They sink back into anonymity before our very eyes.

You might even say that e-readers such as the Kindle have a similar anonymousmaking effect. The unique appearance of a book—one’s idea of Dostoyevsky is indistinguishable from that tattered Penguin copy of Dostoyevsky—dissolves

on the pearl-gray screen, against whose background the words of John Donne resemble the words of J.D. Salinger. The aesthetic sameness of our expanding electronic universe makes us ever more comfortable with the idea that originality is a romantic chimera.

Still, we are caught between the horror of plagiarism and, with our love of reality TV and participatory culture, a sneaking revulsion against originality.

Maybe the romantic notion of originality that we have inherited and that is so out of sync with our lives now is why originality is so vulnerable in the first place. Maybe no one is springing to originality’s defense because the very idea of it sounds so 19th century. In our moment of pretension to democratic openness and transparency, it sounds elitist, even authoritarian. Think of originality, and you think of Michelangelo, Beethoven, Van Gogh; you think of tortured, socially unassimilable geniuses. But this is the age of Facebook’s homogenous format for friendship, not of tortured, socially unassimilable geniuses. Wasn’t his grotesque parody of the artistic genius what made Michael Jackson so transfixing? His semi-campy deconstruction of the romanticism of originality might have been one of originality’s last gasps.

What I should have argued to the Googlians was that there is nothing romantic about originality at all. It’s as run-of-the-mill as your own irreducible, nonduplicable, profoundly specific life—a fact that we often lose sight of at a moment when we are all being pulled by various modes of social networking into the madding crowd. Of course there is nothing new under the sun; everything has been thought, said or done. But no one is quite like anyone else, and so long as you are honest about your experience, no two people will ever make intellectual or artistic sense of the world in the same way. Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand. And you can go ahead and Google that. It’s still, as they say in Mountain View, a great line.

We are so inundated by what has been written and said, and by what was written and said just seconds ago, that it is becoming impossible to sort out who said what first.

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8 I or tri follower 11 Bikes without pedaling 17 Where “vapour” is not a variant: abbr.

18 Up to something?

21 Miner matter 22 Say something?

23 Extinguisher 25 In a solution they conduct electricity 26 Safety org.

27 Sault ___ Marie 28 Uncompromising situation?

30 Critter carrier 32 Lime drinks 35 Russian city or oblast 36 Something new?

41 Vaccine VIP 44 Wallace’s 1968 running mate 46 View from Huron, Ohio 47 ___ Semple McPherson 49 Tell me something?

51 Gather by cutting 52 Hair line?

53 Muscat resident 54 Olympic zipper 56 Put something on?

58 She played Julia in “Julia” 61 Final passage 63 Mouth prefix

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69 Fool 72 Tray content 73 Org. with jets 74 007 enemy org.

76 Play something?

82 Singer with a Z 84 Roman household gods 85 Poet Wylie 86 Meadows 88 Something awful?

91 Language group that includes Swahili 92 Funny stuff 93 Landing pier 94 Palindromic Prussian 95 Something to do?

98 Not a movie 100 Orange coat?

101 “Little Swee’ Pea” co-star, 1936 102 Most moist, as a leaf 105 “Mighty ___ a Rose” 108 Cuts (off), as a branch 111 Edmonton’s prov.

113 Like Alec, among the four Baldwins 115 Something fierce?

120 Mai ___ 121 Thirty something?

122 Shot spot 123 Cooks with water 124 Photo ___ 125 Lid swelling 126 Compass pt.

Answers found on Page 74 72 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

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DOWN 1 Something for nothing?

2 “Vive ___” 3 Concert hall 4 UT campus 5 Eagle’s nest 6 Mag mistake 7 Threefold 8 Make (a visit) 9 Dairy-case sub 10 Cash: abbr.

11 Noisy bug 12 Lennon’s lady 13 Reaction to adorableness 14 Cries uncontrollably 15 Fox follower 16 Terrier’s island 18 Tasty tidbits 19 Iraqi port 20 Ogee feature 22 Ling or long preceder 24 Gonzaga University city 29 Large number 31 It has a cap 33 Term for a mother’s-side relative (anagram of EATEN) 34 Jitterbug wear 36 Financier and presidential advisor Bernard 37 W.C. Fields cry 38 Drawing-off tube 39 “___ a man with seven wives” 40 “The Fountainhead” co-star

41 Kitchen buy 42 Sportscaster Rashad 43 Puts pressure (on) 45 Daffy’s voice 48 ___ out a living 50 Unless, in Latin 51 Second tries, in cards 52 Be stingy 55 Former co-host of “Entertainment Tonight,” Bob ___ 57 Love god 59 With 110 Down, part of a flight?

60 Call screener, perh.

62 Show starter 66 On ___ (at large) 67 More like molasses 68 Scream 69 Stabilizing brace 70 “Give it ___” 71 Basil-and-pine-nuts sauce 75 Wheedled 76 Black History Mo. 77 What “there oughta be” 78 City in northern Vietnam 79 Available 80 Way to go 81 Type of lily 83 Toward the rear 87 Concerning 89 Raison d’___ 90 Glasses, etc.

92 Ballroom dances 93 Bread spreads 96 Actress Diamond and novelist Lagerlof 97 Marriott rival 99 Afflicts 102 “Catch-22” major (Richard Benjamin played him in the film version) 103 Biological bristles 104 Ivan et al.

105 1980s Fords 106 At the drop of ___ 107 Luke of TV’s “Kung Fu” 109 Bit of Monterrey money 110 See 59 Down 112 Country star Hall 114 Something’s up?

116 Letters for Jeff Davis 117 Electrical unit 118 Tape meas.

119 Tiny

!!! VOLUME 16 IS HERE !!!

To order Merl’s crossword books, visit www.sunday crosswords.com.

9/9/2010 © M. Reagle

By Joe Conason Among the very puzzling aspects of the midterm election—and the Democratic debacle that appears to be looming in November—is why voters would return the opposition to power only two years after the multiple disasters of the Bush administration. They know that the years of Republican dominance in Washington led to an extremely expensive war that was launched on false pretenses; enormous deficits, skewed tax cuts and unrestrained waste; and, by the end, a ruined economy.

Most Americans feel no nostalgia for that era or its politicians. A midsummer Newsweek poll showed that the Republican right’s program is still far from popular. Asked whether they care more about reducing the federal budget deficit or increasing federal spending to create jobs, 57 percent said they wanted more spending, not less, and only 37 percent were more concerned about red ink. More than half want to let the Bush tax cuts benefiting the top 2 percent expire, and only 38 percent prefer to extend them. Nearly every poll indicates that even now, as President Obama’s approval ratings sink, those of his predecessor remain considerably lower.

Yet we appear to be heading toward an election that will empower an ideological minority, whose candidates endorse extremist nostrums such as privatizing Social Security and shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency. Why should this be happening now?

There are several plausible explanations, but the most persuasive overall is what political scientists and pollsters describe as the “enthusiasm gap.” The zeal that Democrats felt in 2006 when they ousted the corrupt Tom DeLay machine, and in 2008 when they bade farewell to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, has dissipated under Barack Obama—who has inspired the same kind of fiery determination among Republicans. In a midterm election, when voter turnout is predictably much lower than in a presidential contest, the fervor of the partisan base can make the difference between a draw and a rout.

Public Policy Polling, a firm whose accuracy was recognized by The Wall Street Journal despite its Democratic affinities, recently tried to measure the enthusiasm gap in several statewide contests. Across the country, its researchers found that that gap has shifted an average of seven points in each of 10 Senate and gubernatorial races—and in some places, such as the president’s home state of Illinois, that number is even higher. Without the gap, critical Senate races, and presumably many Houses races as well, would be closer—or the Democrats would be leading.

Although President Obama has passed important reform legislation, saved the auto industry and confirmed two Supreme Court nominees, both women, the Democratic base is obviously dispirited. They hoped he would bring more fundamental change. Instead his White House staff seizes every opportunity to exacerbate the inevitable letdown by insulting, bullying and mocking the progressive voters who are the most vital and loyal constituents of his coalition.

At this late hour, Obama shows few signs of understanding why he is about to lose the majorities that made his achievements possible. He needs to speak up, fight back and win back the respect of the public.

They know that if he won’t fight for his party and his program, he won’t fight for them, either.

The National Newsroom

Personal Finance Yogurt Continued from Page 70

French-owned Dannon holding onto a tenuous advantage.

But while yogurt remains a booming business—sales grew 32 percent between 2004 and 2009—the growth rates declined from a steady 6.5 percent to 2.8 percent in ’09. Which might have something to do with the increasingly aggressive marketing tactics, pushing overt references to constipation, yeast infections and sexual imagery.

Yogurt eating remains a woman’s pastime—the more intuitive sex represents some 80 percent of this curdled pie—so it isn’t surprising that ladies bear the brunt of the shameless attacks on emotional insecurities that increasingly afflict men as well: Namely, that if you can’t fit into a “itsy bitsy bikini”—the tagline of a recent Yoplait Light commercial—you should eat a shitload of yogurt.

Our national obsession with obesity and the notunrelated success of the so-called fro-yo industry opened the door for yogurt barons to demagogue and pervert the issue. The new Dannon “Light & Fit” campaign features the impossible svelte Heidi Klum tonguing a cup of the functional nectar, declaring after a sensual slurping of the last drop, “I love Light & Fit.” Light & Fit may only shave 20 calories off its Yoplait counterpart, but it’s way sexier.

Indeed, the frothing public debate over which yogurt is more “functional” has somehow merged questions of sex, gastronomy and female hygiene into one fetid pile.

For when even men are buckling to the yogurt tides, forsaking the time-honored American tradition of sizzling breakfast meats for a teacup of probiotic goo, there seems little hope for our nation. One of the more brutish men I know, who had previously enjoyed steak and eggs or the occasional huevos rancheros, is now an Activia addict.

“It helps you dump,” he said simply.

The whole idea of an open and breezy society in which conversation can skip lightly from breakfast to bathing suits to how badly you need to take a shit has a distinctly foreign feel to it. One that should be resisted at all costs.

On a recent trip to Paris, I attempted to order up a bowl of yogurt, which, I must admit, can be quite delicious.

“Yes, yo-gurt,” I repeated into the receiver. “Oh oui,” replied the governess of our quaint hotel. “Activia?”

I lost my appetite.

Now, That’s Something

by Merl Reagle

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New FTC rules for debt-settlement firms could protect you

By Kathy Kristof, Tribune Media Services

The advertisements for debt settlement are nearly irresistible to the overextended. They make the process sound almost painless; some even promise that government programs will stomp down debts.

Sounds great, except in reality debt settlement can be fraught with difficulties and sour consequences, and there’s no magical government program to make it easier, according to experts in the field.

In fact, debt-settlement companies have been charged in more than 250 federal and state falseadvertising cases in the last several years. The companies have also been the source of thousands of consumer complaints.

“This is an industry that’s built on false promises,” said Linda Sherry, director of national priorities for advocacy group Consumer Action. “They’re just funneling money away from families who need it.”

There is a real government program coming, although it won’t be welcomed by shady companies.

Later this month, new Federal Trade Commission rules for debtsettlement companies will begin going into effect.

There are three major components to the rules: — Fees: The biggest change is that debt-settlement companies will be barred from collecting upfront fees. In the past, some companies have collected thousands in fees without renegotiating a single debt agreement. Under the new rules, these firms will be able to charge a fee only after the company has successfully renegotiated, settled or reduced at least one of the consumer’s debts.

Fees must be spelled out in formal written agreements between the consumers and creditors. And the fees must be proportionate to the amount of debt that’s been settled.

— Dedicated accounts: If the consumer pays into a dedicated account as part of the settlement agreement, that account must be established at a financial institution that offers federal deposit insurance. In addition, the account must be in the consumer’s name and control, rather than in the control of the debt-settlement company.

— Better disclosure: Settlement companies will be required to spell out the negative potential consequences of a settlement. Debt settlement can harm your credit as dramatically as a bankruptcy, said David Jones, president of the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.

The disclosure rules go into effect Sept. 27. The rules

banning upfront fees go into effect Oct. 27.

Until they go into effect, it’s buyer beware. More than likely, consumers will continue to be charged upfront fees. In fact, some settlement companies may ramp up their advertising with pitches akin to “Act now, before this program expires!”

If debt settlement isn’t a good option, what can you do if you can’t pay your debts?

Your best bet is to go to a nonprofit credit- counseling firm to get advice about ways to pay back your debts without a settlement or bankruptcy.

You can find a nonprofit credit counselor by clicking the “find a counselor” buttons on the websites of the two major counseling trade groups, the National Foundation for Consumer Credit (nfcc.org) or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies (aiccca.org).

A counselor affiliated with either of these groups will evaluate your financial situation for free. If a pay plan overseen by the counselor is set up, that might involve modest fees.

If it’s determined that you have no way to pay off your debts in full, the counselor can walk you through your next steps. In some cases, the counselor may advise you to work directly with your creditors to reduce the amount you owe.

You can negotiate directly with your creditors as effectively as the debt-settlement firms, experts maintain. But note that creditors might not negotiate with you if they’re convinced that you have options other than bankruptcy.

In some cases, the best option is, indeed, bankruptcy, Sherry said. That’s because it wipes out debts permanently.

And because consumers can’t file for bankruptcy within eight years of their last filing, creditors have some solace that you won’t repeat your mistakes.

Consequently, they might be more likely to issue new credit to a recently bankrupt consumer than they would be to one who merely settled his or her debts for less than 100 cents on the dollar, she said.

“I think a lot of people are afraid of bankruptcy,” Sherry said. “But for some people, it’s the best option.”

Debt-settlement companies have been charged in more than 250 federal and state false-advertising cases. They have also been the source of thousands of consumer complaints.

Kathy Kristof’s column is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. She welcomes comments and suggestions but regrets that she cannot respond to each one. E-mail her at kathykristof24@gmail.com.

Movies

Arts & Entertainment

Saving the Best for Last Summer movies may have disappointed, but ease into better weather with our fall movie preview

By Cole Smithey The fall movie season officially kicked off on Sept. 1 with George Clooney’s foreign intrigue thriller The American (see review on Page 80). It may not be Oscar bait, but Clooney knows exactly how to up the stakes on a stellar career.

There isn’t a bad one in the bunch of other September starters, including Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1, Sam Rockwell’s The Winning Season, Jann Turner’s South African-set romantic comedy White Wedding and A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop—Yimou Zhang’s brilliant interpretation of the Coen Brothers’ modern noir Blood Simple.

Robert Rodriguez’s co-directed grindhouse fun-fest Machete is loaded with laughs, gore and ’70s-styled social commentary about America’s immigration crackdown. This is throwback exploitation cinema at its best. Robert De Niro plays a bigoted right-wing politician who gets his just desserts. Yum. September finds Patricia Clarkson delivering a home-run performance in Mel Damski’s better-thanyou’d-expect wrestling drama, Legendary. Pascal Chaumeil’s Gallic romantic comedy, Heartbreaker, is deceptively effective, with Johnny Depp’s talented wife, Vanessa Paradis, doing some fine work opposite Romain Duris as a professional romancer who breaks up bad relationships for a living.

Catfish (Sept. 17) is an inventive and intimate documentary about a Facebook romance that isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Also opening on Sept. 17 is Easy A, a funny teen comedy with a break-out performance from Emma Stone as a high school student who perpetrates her accidentally formed reputation as the school slut.

Ryan Reynolds lays down some pre-Green Lantern acting cred in Rodrigo Cortes’ low-budget thriller Buried (Sept. 24), about a U.S. contractor in Iraq who gets buried alive. More noteworthy is Oliver Stone’s much-anticipated Wall Street sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Sept. 24), with performances from Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Josh Brolin and Shia LaBeouf. Brolin fans can also catch him in Woody Allen’s Cannes fest favorite You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger on Sept. 22.

Documentary audiences will get their fill with Joaquin Phoenix’s traveling freak show, I’m Still Here (directed by best friend Casey Affleck) on Sept. 10. Also of interest is Davis Guggenheim’s look at America’s failing school system, Waiting for Superman (Sept. 24), and Charles Ferguson’s insightful take on our country’s economic crisis, Inside Job (opens Oct. 8).

David Fincher breaks October open with his Facebook drama The Social Network (opens Oct. 1), about Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm-room idea that turned him into a billionaire, and gave office workers one more thing to distract them from work.

A busy guy, Ben Affleck acts in and directs the

Left to right: Due Date, Easy A, The Social Network, Burlesque, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Jackass 3D, True Grit, The Company Men.

Continued on Page 78 September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 77

Arts & Entertainment

Fall Movie Preview Continued from Page 77

Boston crime drama The Town (Sept.

17) and then stars in The Company Men (Oct. 22) opposite Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones.

Also on Oct. 22, Clint Eastwood’s firstever chick flick, Hereafter, stars Matt Damon as a San Francisco psychic whose interactions with dead people affects his personal life. It doesn’t hurt that Hereafter was written by Peter Morgan (screenwriter for The Queen and Frost/Nixon).

Sam Rockwell aficionados can get a second look at one of America’s best-kept secrets when he plays a wrongly convicted man whose sister (played by Hilary Swank) battles for a decade to exonerate him in the fact-based family drama Conviction (Oct. 15). Also in the category of best-kept secrets is Diane Lane, whose performance in Secretariat (opens Oct. 8), as real-life horse-trainer Penny Chenery, has Oscarnomination written all over it.

Then there’s Jackass 3D on Oct. 15.

Those who know the hilarity of the Jackass films will be in mandatory attendance; those who don’t will miss out on the biggest laughs of the year.

Fall won’t redeem an especially poor year for movies, but it will have some bright points. Robert Downey Jr. has so successfully reinvented himself that it would be a mistake to miss him in Todd Phillips’ (The Hangover) R-rated road comedy, Due Date (Nov. 5), where Downey Jr. teams up with Zach Galifianakis.

Musical fans go gaga over Cher’s glamorous return in Burlesque (Nov. 24).

Watch out, because Christina Aguilera lets it rip as a dancer with major pipes.

On Nov. 19, the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is the beginning of the end to all things Potter.

Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond) directs Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway in a romantic dramedy loosely based on Jamie Reidy’s memoir Hard Sell (Nov. 24), about a ’90s-era Viagra salesman.

Paul Haggis (Crash) steps up with his Americanization of Fred Cavayé’s 2008 French thriller, Anything for Her. Haggis’ The Next Three Days (Nov. 19) stars the painfully serious Russell Crowe as a man who risks everything to help his wife (Elizabeth Banks) escape from prison.

Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) mixes things up with 127 Hours (Nov. 5), about mountain climber Aron Ralston ( James Franco) who cut off his own arm to save his life after he gets trapped by a boulder.

Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) courts Oscar territory with Fair Game (Nov. 5), an exposé about the Bush administration’s smear campaign against CIA secret agent Valerie Plame. The always-remarkable Naomi Watts plays opposite the equally gifted Sean Penn.

78

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Bottoming Out at the Top of the World The gripping personal story of two climbers who are separated by life, death and time on Mount Everest

By Cole Smithey Just when you were fed up with the whole idea of people treating Mount Everest as if it were Six Flags Magic Mountain, documentarian Anthony Geffen reclaims a significant chapter of Everest’s climbing history with The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest.

In 1999, American mountaineer Conrad Anker discovered the frozen body of famed British explorer George Mallory (1886-1924) in Mount Everest’s famous “Death Zone.” Geffen uses this discovery to lay down the parameters for a biographical essay on Mallory. Amazing archive film footage from Mallory’s 1924 expedition, cherished photo stills, and a roundelay of gifted narrators (Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Hugh Dancy and the late Natasha Richardson) combine to create a time-flipping effect that puts the viewer in touch with the momentous subject.

Mallory’s heartfelt letters to his wife, Ruth, during their time apart provide a condensed spectrum of his poetic romanticism, which was undaunted by the aspiration that consumed Climbers Conrad Anker and Leo Houldig attempt to repeat the past without dying. him. His promise to leave a photo of Ruth on Chinese climbers installed in 1975 in the “Death Zone” to the mountain peak plays into the mystery of take a crack at free-climbing Everest’s “Second Step,” just as Mallory’s famous climb.

Mallory and Irvine would have done in 1924.

For his attempt to climb Everest in 1924, the 38-year-old Never for a second is there any doubt that the filmmakers’ Mallory chose as his climbing partner 22-year-old Sandy prime motivation is to prove that Mallory and Irvine were inIrvine for the younger man’s strong physicality as an Oxford deed the first men to make it onto the peak of Mount Everest. oarsman and for his technical ability with oxygen tanks. Neither man would survive the climb, and the question of whether The photo of Ruth that Mallory promised to deposit at the mountain’s top was not with his corpse, while other possesor not they were the first men to summit Everest is one of the sions, such as letters, an altimeter and a watch, were still with central issues the film addresses in an unvarnished way.

In 2007, 83 years after Mallory’s doomed expedition, Anker him, leaving one to believe he might have succeeded.

Mallory will likely best be remembered for his response and his co-climber, Leo Houlding, attempt to re-create it. to a New York journalist’s question, “Why climb Everest?”: They go during the exact same late season (May/June) time “Because it’s there” is an enigmatic concept that The Wildest period that Mallory and Irvine did. They take gabardine Dream eloquently embraces and illuminates on a visceral and jackets and hobnail boots identical to the ones that Mallory intellectual level. used, to test the clothing’s practicality for such a rigorous journey. A particularly spectacular aspect of Anker’s mission involves removing the aluminum ladder that a group of The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest (PG) ★★★★✩

The King’s Speech (Nov. 24) catches Tom Hooper (The Damned United) bringing to life ’30s-era England when King George VI (Colin Firth) seeks the aid of an Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush) to correct his debilitating stammer.

A runaway train loaded with toxic chemicals means spectacle and suspense in director Tony Scott’s Unstoppable (Nov. 12). Denzel Washington plays an engineer with nerves of steel opposite Chris Pine (Star Trek), a trainee who tries to stop the unmanned locomotive.

Hollywood rolls out its big guns in

December. How Do You Know (Dec. 17) stars Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson in a romantic comedy from As Good as It Gets writer/director James L. Brooks.

The Coen Brothers’ update of the John Wayne western True Grit (Dec. 25) puts Oscar winner Jeff Bridges back in the limelight as an alcoholic U.S. marshal who takes marching orders from a 14-year-old girl who hires him to track down the man who killed her poppa.

Gwyneth Paltrow will warm hearts as a country singer in Shana Feste’s tale of

rehab success Country Strong (Dec. 22). Also of interest is Darren Aronofsky’s suspense ballet thriller (Dec. 1) Black Swan (starring Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel), and David O. Russell’s Dec. 10 opener The Fighter (starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale).

2010 hasn’t been anything to write home about in the way of movies, but the best is all back-loaded for fall. Get your Oscar-ballot predictions ready.

Read more about movies at colesmithey.com.

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Arts & Entertainment

Movies

A Sure Hit

Anton Corbijn’s story of an assassin’s last job is the best thriller of the year

By Cole Smithey

Anton Corbijn was destined to compose a great second film. The Dutch photographer-turned-director made a splash in 2007 with his terrific Ian Curtis biopic, Control.

Now, he has crafted a sexy and taught European thriller based on Martin Booth’s novel A Very Private Gentleman.

George Clooney is Jack, an aging hitman on the run from a group of murderous Swedes. Before retiring, Jack accepts one last mission to supply an assassin, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), with a special rifle. Clooney plays his character of walking contradictions with an alternating intensity and sensitivity that registers onscreen with a delightful intricacy. Clooney’s mercurial performance is his finest work yet.

Corbijn’s intuitive sense of scale and composition create an unforgettable regard for the remote Abruzzo region of Italy. It’s a unique region of Italian culture where, in this case, earthy romance and unseen danger collide. His emphasis on silence over sound gives the film a refreshing sense of time and space. During a year when Scorsese and Polanski have each delivered incredibly lush thrillers, it says a lot that The American surpasses them both on a compositional level. The American is the perfect thriller.

One of the film’s best aspects is its vibrant female characters. That one is an heir apparent to Jack’s job, and the other (Carla, played by Violente Placido) a prostitute with a disarming charm, sets up a confusing synergy for Jack.

We know from the film’s stylish and disquieting opening sequence in snow-covered Sweden that Jack’s romantic integrity is not to be trusted. Jack has to remind himself not to “make friends” as he travels to Italy. However, years of traveling around the world to kill for money and use women has made him vulnerable. He’s not quite burned out, but he’s on the brink.

From doctor to marksman: the always distinguished George Clooney.

In an especially absorbing scene, Jack takes Mathilde to a secluded wooded area with tall reeds for her to test out the rifle he has painstakingly built for her. Jack is visibly taken aback by her depth of gun knowledge. He instinctively sets his stopwatch to time her as she assembles the rifle with blinding speed. Mathilde’s polished skill and methodical execution makes him nervous as he notes her every move.

During a nocturnal visit with Clara, Jack tells her, “I’m here to get pleasure, not give it.” The statement is an obvious lie under the particular circumstances. It’s a fib similar to one he tells Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), the priest to whom he categorically states that he’s “not good with machines.” The lies Jack imparts are well-rehearsed defense mechanisms he uses to keep

others off balance. Some, like the one he tells Clara, he even believes himself.

George Clooney orchestrates an effortlessly subtle portrayal that transforms in micro-measures. His face registers every detail of carefully poised foreshadowing, which Corbijn supports with camera work that is nothing short of virtuosic. If you had asked me last week who was the best American actor working today, I might have answered Leonardo DiCaprio or Sean Penn. But after seeing The American, I’m convinced it’s Clooney.

However clichéd you might imagine the hit man premise for The American to be, know that it is one of the most sophisticated thrillers you will ever see.

The American (R)

ShoRT REviEwS

★★★★★

By Cole Smithey

MoviE TiMES

Machete (R) ★★★★★

Robert Rodriguez’s co-directed grindhouse fun-fest is loaded with laughs, gore and ’70s-styled social commentary. Machete follows former a Mexican Federale called Machete (played with gusto by Danny Trejo) who is hired to assassinate a Texas senator. Machete soon becomes public enemy numero uno, waging a one-man war against the bigoted powers that oppress and kill his people. You can guess his weapon of choice.

80 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

The Last Exorcism (PG-13)

★✩✩✩✩

Following in the shaky-cam footsteps of The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Stamm directs a poor script about evangelical con-man Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian). Marcus takes along a couple of documentarians to record his experiences and the trio road trip to rural Louisiana where a fundamentalist farmer believes his daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) is possessed. The Last Exorcism has all the appeal of a glorified student film.

Takers (PG-13)

★✩✩✩✩

Written by a committee of four screenwriters, Takers is a nondescript heist movie with one-dimensional characters and an inexcusably silly plot. Misguided director John Luessenhop wants his audience to admire his well-dressed gangsters who talk like they’re taking a semester away from Harvard to pull off an armored car job in L.A. To see talented actors Matt Dillon and Marianne Jean-Baptiste stoop so low is a travesty.

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Arts & Entertainment

Reading Bookini

Rick Moody’s The Four Fingers of Death

By M. Scott Krause I greeted Rick Moody’s new novel, The Four Fingers of Death (Little, Brown & Co., $26), with high expectations. I’m a great fan of Moody’s early work, particularly his novel The Ice Storm (Little, Brown & Co., 1994) and the short stories in The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven (Black Bay Books, 1995), but I’ve been disappointed with his recent efforts and didn’t even finish his last novel, The Diviners (Little, Brown & Co., 2005).

However, I thought The Four Fingers of Death might be a welcome return to form for Moody. It’s a comic novel with a high concept, and the book is dedicated to the memory of Kurt Vonnegut—all good signs.

Fingers of Death is a sprawling satire that takes place in 2025 in Arizona. Protagonist Montese Crandall is an eccentric writer who specializes in one-sentence short stories and makes a modest living selling baseball cards (specifically of athletes with artificial limbs, this being the future, after all). His wife, Tara, has an online gambling addiction and a new set of lungs, courtesy of a recent transplant. In need of money for medical bills and gambling debts, Crandall enters into a series of chess games with the mysterious D. Tyrannosaurus. The stakes? If Crandall wins, he gets to write the novelization of the 2025 remake of a Z-grade horror movie from 1963, The Crawling Hand. If Tyrannosaurus wins, he gets one of Crandall’s baseball cards.

I don’t think I’m spoiling things by letting it slip that the bulk of The Four Fingers of Death is Crandall’s novelization of The Crawling Hand. For the record, the original was a real movie, viewable on Hulu.com. And yes, it’s a cringe-worthy melodrama with cheap effects and awful acting. In Crandall’s version, nine astronauts go to Mars. All perish, although one of the astronaut’s arms makes it back to Earth, minus a finger. Horror and mayhem ensue, along with numerous attempts at biting satire. Moody seems to be swinging at a Pynchon-esque fence, but just can’t hit it out of the ballpark.

There’s lots of good writing in The Four Fingers of Death, along with echoes of Vonnegut and hints of Joseph Heller.

Sadly, not everything works. At more than 700 pages, the book feels bloated, and too much of the humor feels forced.

It works best when Moody focuses on Crandall and his wife; as a novella, The Four Fingers of Death might have worked better. As a novel, it’s ambitious—just not stellar.

This is the last installment of our summer reading series, Bookini. Watch for Book Jacket, our reading series for cooler weather.

The LIbrarIan Loves ...

Selected by Jeanne Goodrich, executive director for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District.

Everybody has anecdotes about their “crazy family” but the story Jeannette Walls tells about hers in The Glass Castle (Scribner, 2005) would beat most. She, her brother and two sisters are raised by parents who are both disengaged (to the point of providing no food, clean clothes, habitable shelter or protection from sexual predators) and fiercely in love with their family. Repeatedly “doing the skedaddle,” the family moves from place to place and ever worsening circumstances. Ultimately, the children escape to better lives. Written without self-pity and describing remarkable self-reliance, Walls’ memoir shows us a world most of us try to look past.

82 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

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Arts & Entertainment

Music

Wild-Hearted Son At age 48, The Cult’s Ian Astbury grows edgier, more ambitious

By Jarret Keene That work, which so far this year has only included the Nobody has mined the fault line between the undersingle “Every Man and Woman Is a Star” (a two-week ground and the overground better than Ian Astbury, iTunes exclusive), will see the light of day in unorthodox 48, frontman for the British hard-rock outfit The Cult, fashion. Astbury has a plan to deal with what he terms whose commercial zenith hit in the late-’80s, just before “the Wild West mentality of today’s so-called music ingrunge de-leather-pantsed every young male rock star. dustry.” Rather than release a proper His vocal attack is equal parts Ian album, he hopes to unveil “capsules,” Curtis, Jim Morrison and Robert Plant. or clusters of three songs released evHits such as “Fire Woman” and “She ery few months, for a limited time, via Sells Sanctuary” straddled alt-rock and the band’s website, along with a film. glam metal, while Astbury’s interest in “The idea of going into a studio and Native American culture infused every making an album and then touring cosmic-inclined lyric and arena-ready doesn’t work so much now,” Astbury guitar riff with a spiritual quality. says. “Who knows? Perhaps at the end Still, even in those years when The of a [capsule-release] cycle, we’ll do a Cult was at the top of its multi-platinum physical release.” game, you sensed Astbury had bigger In addition to The Cult, Astbury aspirations. “There have definitely has immersed himself in dark, aggresbeen periods, particularly at the height sive music. Last month saw the release of Sonic Temple, when the touring was of BXI, a four-song EP, in which he extreme,” Astbury says. “It brought us lends his voice and lyrics to riffs crebeyond the point of exhaustion. That ated by Japanese sludge trio Boris. kind of compromise on the road can “I personally get off on Boris,” Astbe life-threatening. Creatively, we love bury says. “I have great admiration writing and being in the studio, but for that band, as well as [drone-metal for a long time that was all placed in a The Cult (Astbury is second from left). pioneers] Sunn O))). Experiencing secondary position. Compromise, for their live shows, I’m always in awe of what’s happening us, is touring. Yet you do it for higher ground.” onstage. I took my sons to see Sunn O))), and they were If you’ve seen The Cult live, then you know how still speechless two hours later. The ritual space of live inspiring that higher ground can be. The band, which rock is so important ... it can have a profound impact.” now comprises Astbury, longtime co-writer/guitarist For all his thinking about music, Astbury insists you Billy Duffy, and three newer members (drummer John don’t need an overriding intellect to be an authentic Tempesta, bassist Chris Wyse, rhythm guitarist Mike artist. What you should follow first is instinct.

Dimkich), sounds reborn.

“I love to see a band, no matter how old or young, dy“The creative side drives us today,” Astbury says. “It’s ing for it. I love to watch them, hands on their hearts, more important than ever. The band is more of a band. taking a leap of faith.”

It’s been four years with this group of guys, and we’re really tight. In terms of energy, the Cult is about as pure as it’s been, perhaps since 1985, and I like to think that The Cult (with The Black Ryder) play The Pearl at the Palms we’re getting close to our best work.” at 8 p.m. Sept. 16, $29-$35, 944-3200.

Concert Review

Ray of Light “Welcome to Vegas, Ray!” These words shot from the darkness of the Pearl theater, toward the end of Ray LaMontagne’s 75-minute set. They were uttered by an anonymous (and perhaps drunken) fan, but spoke for many of the 2,000 or so people in attendance, who’d waited years for the bearded singer-songwriter to perform in Las Vegas. On Sept. 3, he finally did. And it was well worth the wait.

LaMontagne opened with two songs from his latest album, God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise, the measured “For the Summer” and bluesy “New York City’s Killing Me.” But the set unofficially began when he and his band, the Pariah Dogs, launched into a rousing version of “Trouble” and followed with a soulful “Let 84 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

It Be Me.” Other highlights included “Repo Man,” featuring an extended intro and scat-style ending, and “Jolene,” which showcased LaMontagne’s scratchy baritone voice.

Prodded by a standing ovation, LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs returned for a one-song encore (“You Are the Best Thing”). They then disappeared into the wings without having played many of his best songs, including “Burn,” “Empty” and “Forever My Friend.”

Oh well. That gives LaMontagne and his band a good reason to return to Vegas. And hopefully, sometime soon. – Matt O’Brien

Soundscraper

Fire Woman on the phone

By Jarret Keene It’s always good to catch up with old friends. One of Soundscraper’s earliest Vegas buds (she recruited me to play bass in her band when I first moved to town) is the lovely and talented Ann Yu. In 2006, she moved to San Francisco to join indierockers LoveLikeFire, whose ferocious guitar-based attack, especially on the band’s 2009 full-length Tear Ourselves Away, for U.K. label Heist or Hit Records, made a big play for the mainstream. Now Yu has moved in a moodier direction with a forthcoming album on Heist or Hit later this year (and self-released in the States).

LoveLikeFire performs Sept. 18 at The Bunkhouse (as part of the Neon Reverb Music Festival). I had a chance to phone-chat with Yu about the challenges facing rock bands today—a still-stagnant economy and the Internet, and how they affect touring.

How has touring changed?

Bands like us can’t afford to do the kind of touring we’d done before. It’s hard to be on the road unless you have stable income. There seems to be no reason to go out and play shows. Seems like the trick is to become a blog darling. For us, it’s not a matter of wanting to tour, but being able to tour.

What about overseas? And do you pay for studio time?

We lost a little money on our U.K. tour last September. Since then, we’ve written our next record and recorded it in June at my bandmates’ warehouse. It was totally self-funded. The recording industry is on the way out. People don’t care how polished an album sounds. It’s the song that matters, which has always been the case. I’ve had the experience of not being happy with a super-produced recording. Doing it yourself, at least you know what you’re in for. Mixing and mastering was the only cost for us. Our friends did the artwork, and it was all done way faster and less expensively.

Gives a whole new meaning to the term “bedroom recording.”

Bedrooms are small! These days, artists can’t afford to have a band. They use recording software, make the album and find a band later. They put songs on the Internet, and if a song gets big, they hit the road.

LoveLikeFire’s new material sounds dreamier, darker. The song “Dust” possesses a lonely beauty, like the Vegas desert at night.

Being in San Francisco for so long, I see that it’s easy to get wrapped up in figuring out how to make things ironic and pop, to let your environment influence you.

This record makes clear what my deeper influences are. Before, I strove to write songs everyone would like. I’m no longer looking to please everyone. “Dust” was inspired by the hazy mist of S.F. and how I wish I could experience it without the buildings. But you’re right about the lonely beauty, because that’s what the song’s trying to evoke.

Going to Neon Reverb? Contact jarret_keene@yahoo.com.

Arts & Entertainment

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Blame for the increasing emasculinization of American rock lies squarely at the Snuggied toes of Rivers Cuomo, who has stripped away the darkest, animal-like parts of guitar-based music, replacing them with irony, false intellect and horn-rimmed glasses. That said, dude writes a catchy tune, even if the Pinkerton-worshipping emo crowd hopes for a return to autobiography. His band, Weezer, releases its eighth album on punk indie Epitaph; nothing has changed. Hooks are massive, commercial. The usual, cloyingly shallow, nerd-uplifting lyrics, even more so. In the self-celebration of “Memories,” Cuomo waxes nostalgic about a quirky career spent hackysacking with Audioslave and lying to music journalists. The song struggles to make Weezer cooler than they were. “When I’m looking at the night sky/I can see my soul,” Cuomo reveals on glockenspiel-kissed “Run Away.”

Annoying, since he’s 40. Shouldn’t he stop staring skyward and start writing songs for adults? Not if an album cover featuring Lost actor Jorge Garcia is any sign. ★★✩✩✩

DREAM-POP

Blonde Redhead Penny Sparkle (4AD) It’s rare that a rock band starts out atmospheric and continues to push pop structures into richer, more seductive environments. But New York City’s Blonde Redhead is far from your average American group, especially given its European/Asian roots. Redhead comprises Italian-born Canadian brothers Amedeo (guitar) and Simone Pace (drums), and Japanese singer/musician Kazu Makino. Together they deliver an always-interesting sonic mashup that appeals to avant-pop fans of, say, Björk. The noisy, videogamebleeped, spy-guitar ballad “Love or Poison” is lethally intoxicating, bringing to mind Julie London trapped in a Krautrock cabaret, its gorgeous melody enveloping the listener like a CIA-sponsored honeypot. The electro-galactic hiss of “Will There Be Stars” (sung

by Amedeo), meanwhile, is a gorgeous slow-groove ornamented with layers of eerie keyboards. But it’s the spare “Oslo,” which conjures a dreamscape of frozen love, that drives home the point: Blonde Redhead is at the moment the top band specializing in this kind of smeared, delicate pop. ★★★★✩

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86 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

El Guincho Pop Negro (Young Turks) This sophomore effort by Spanish musician Pablo Díaz-Reixa (a.k.a. El Guincho) is so damn good it’s downright frightening. Nine tracks of Spanish-sung, dub-stricken, rocked-up, Afrobeaten, Tropicália-crazed exotica pop, Pop Negro never fails to amaze, each track delivering a different studio nuance, whether it’s subdivided hi-hats blistering across what sounds like a cut-up salsa loop, or blown-out kick drums blasting their way into a ’70s funk-bass sample. It’s as if El Guincho has somehow absorbed every old hi-fi hit record—from Roxy Music’s Avalon to Quincy Jones-era Michael Jackson—and re-interpreted them all into an album’s worth of supercharged Caribbean and Brazilian pop. Every song here’s a winner, but I definitely find myself spinning the hypnotic “FM Tan Sexy” most often, its glissando of electronic keys and gaps of silence between slamming drum-machined beats making for inspired music by which to soak in the sun. Few records make you want to embrace life poolside—this one of them. ★★★★★

Arts & Entertainment

Art

Art School

From foreclosure photography to Frida, Clark County School District depends on all artistic aspects of the community to enrich programs

By Kate Silver A group of Arbor View High School students will soon take a field trip to downtown’s Contemporary Arts Center, where they’ll look at foreclosed houses. Most of them likely pass at least one foreclosed home every day on the way to school, but this is their chance to also learn about photography, perspective and art at Emily Kennerk’s exhibit, America’s No. 1 Foreclosed City: Las Vegas (through Sept. 18, 107 E. Charleston Blvd., Suite 120, free, noon to 5 p.m. Tue-Sat and by appointment, 382-3886).

“I think it’s a great opportunity for grade schools and high schools to engage and find art in the broader cultural landscape,” says Kennerk, who also heads the sculpture department at UNLV. Her exhibit explores what it means to be the highestranking city in the country when it comes to foreclosure.

It consists of a loop of images of foreclosed homes, paying homage to all of the foreclosures that happened in 2009. The video lasts 22 hours and nine minutes.

“While it’s very abstracted in one respect, it’s actually incredibly literal,” Kennerk says. “It’s almost like a more human way of understanding a reality.”

The artist is looking forward to opening a dialogue with the students, who have spent some of their formative years growing up in the eye of the Great Recession.

This field trip is just one of the many ways that the

Kahlo’s ”The Broken Column.”

88 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Clark County School District will reach out to the arts community this year. “We take any advantage for our kids to see live arts together,” says Barb Good, coordinator of elementary fine arts for Clark County School District. “I really believe—and the research has shown—that kids have a much closer connection to art when it’s an authentic source.”

With her counterpart, Rick McEnaney, CCSD’s coordinator of secondary fine arts, Good attempts to find accessible arts experiences within the district and the community to enrich students’ education. Their goal is to get the students out of the classroom and into the cultural opportunities offered in Las Vegas. It’s become more challenging in recent years, with the closing of the Las Vegas Art Museum and the Guggenheim, but, Good says, cultural options still abound.

In late August, for example, before school was in session, 60 teachers participated in an arts leadership retreat, which was held at the World Market Center. The furniture mega-market let the teachers meet, gratis, and after discussing the year’s outlook for the arts, they got a sneak peak at Viva Frida, an exhibit presented by the Consulate of Mexico in Las Vegas and co-sponsored by Las Vegas Design Center, that focuses on the works and life of the revolutionary artist Frida Kahlo.

The teachers learned about the life of Kahlo, whose folk art brims with commentary on politics and gender.

Now, they’re equipped to bring students to Las Vegas Design Center at World Market Center on field trips until the exhibit ends Sept. 17. Or, if that’s not viable, they can at least pass on the information and encourage students to visit the free exhibit on their own.

“We really strongly believe in these difficult economic times for the schools we need to make connections with the community,” Good says. “So we have a list of approximately 30 community collaborations that we’re currently working on for our K-12 arts program.”

Those connections include music, theater, fine arts and more. Every year, nearly 9,000 fourth graders will attend a performance of the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

Students work with clay thanks to a Native American exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center. They visit the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art to see the latest exhibit and head to movie theaters to watch a simulcast performance of The Metropolitan Opera out of New York City. They play instruments that were purchased thanks to a donation of more than $50,000 from the

Top: Kahlo’s exhibit in Las Vegas; above: ”Diego and I.”

Manilow Music Project.

In addition, the school district has programs that work with Disney’s The Lion King, Blue Man Group and the International House of Blues. The schools regularly collaborate with The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which participates in the John F. Kennedy Center Partners in Education Program, and holds training sessions throughout the year for teachers on everything from puppets to art, movement, music and more.

“We have wonderful things going,” Good says. She adds that the main goals for her department lie in making even more community connections and spreading arts awareness—beneficial ideas to all involved.

Viva Frida at the Las Vegas Design Center, Building A Atrium, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, through Sept. 17 , 495 S. Grand Central Parkway, Suite 2203, 599-3093.

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Arts & Entertainment

Art

Sex and the ‘Sity’ Erotic Heritage Museum marks its second anniversary with a thrilling exhibition

By T.R. Witcher

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Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Erotic Heritage Museum Director Laura Henkel.

founder of the Sin Sity Sisters, is submitting several mixed-media pieces that document the different stages he’s gone through in living with AIDS for more than 19 years. Another exhibit, “Faces of Courage,” features plaster casts of the faces of Las Vegans living with HIV and AIDS. He’s hoping his work, and the larger show, encourages people to “reflect on different stages of this virus.

It affects many people, and we don’t know who it will affect later on.”

For the sex and disability event, artist Todd VonBastiaans is preparing a series of art installations centered on four objects: a prosthetic leg with a Christian Louboutin shoe (the shoe, not surprisingly, doesn’t quite fit), a walker, a large turn-of-the-century wheelchair, and a pair of leg braces. All of these, he explains, are “objects that belong to people with sexual needs.”

He’s also created, for the Hung in Vegas show, a sexually provocative piece featuring the letters BP, in neon, spurting little tear drops and heart shapes. “The opportunity to do something that was political and sexual at the same time certainly interested me,” VonBastiaans says.

The fundraiser will also feature an interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salome

by Insurgo Theater, and to top things off, former porn star Nina Hartley will receive an honorary doctorate from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, the San Francisco-based institute, which runs a satellite “campus” at the museum.

“That’s what’s so magical about this place,” Henkel says. “It’s really a place for knowledge without judgment.” Despite the dark undertones of the show, she says both are really “a celebration of life.”

Erotic Heritage Museum 3275 Industrial Road, 369-6442.

Photo by Hew Burney

Erotic art, Laura Henkel says, doesn’t have to be explicit and in your face— even in Las Vegas. “It can be subtle and suggestive.”

It’s an interesting comment coming from inside the city’s Erotic Heritage Museum, where Henkel is the director.

Although surrounded by a smorgasbord of art, videos and props that celebrate and explore human sexuality, Henkel is referring to two new exhibits that put her words into practice.

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the museum, on Sept. 11, Henkel is staging Hung in Vegas, an ambitious exhibition and fundraiser featuring a variety of works exploring different facets of human sexuality. The events at the museum, she promises, will be “invigorating for some people, nervous for others; some will be shocked.”

Hung in Vegas will feature new work throughout the year; new artists will be rotated in six months. (All the artwork is for sale; half of the proceeds go to charity.) It’s co-sponsored by Aid for AIDS of Nevada, which provides support to the HIV community in Southern Nevada.

One component of the exhibition is called “Sex and Disability” and will feature work by disabled artists. It’s predicated on, Henkel says, “the understanding that people with disabilities have sexual needs.” This event will aid Sin Sity Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a local nonprofit group run by an order of cross-dressing nuns, which also provides support to the AIDS community.

“I’m continually putting in exhibitions to shed light on issues relating to sexuality,” Henkel says. “It’s trying to get as much education out as we can and still make it fun and exciting.”

This means seeing erotic artwork that’s usually kept behind closed doors, or participating in some of the museum’s interactive exhibits, like one that encourages people to write dirty jokes in the bathroom. Above all, it beckons for you to “be a bit of a voyeur and understand how other people’s lifestyles can be.”

Hung in Vegas is showcasing work by 10 artists, including 24 photos of women’s genitalia by photographer Nick Karras. (“It’s amazing to watch people react to it,” Henkel says.) Tracy Dean Skinner, a board member of the museum and the

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Dining

Dining

Legends Reborn

The Tropicana steak house gets serious, with a new name and big-time cuisine

Photo by Anthony Mair

By Max Jacobson “This is sooo Philippe Starck,” remarked one of my more pretentious friends, eyeballing the white shutters, beige linen walls, dark cherry parquet floor and nautically themed paintings at Biscayne Steak, Sea & Wine at the Tropicana.

Until recently, the restaurant, a short escalator ride from the casino to a mezzanine floor, was known as Legends, which sounded like an ’80s sports bar. But this has become a serious restaurant, thanks to serious talent such as executive chef George Barginsen, formerly of the Rio, and pastry chef Meegan Lancaster, from the shuttered Daniel Boulud Brasserie at Wynn.

The entire property is actually in the midst of a renovation, giving it a distinct South Beach feel. The logo has been streamlined, and many rooms have been completely redone. Havana, a little place on the casino level, features Cuban sandwiches, as part of the new theme.

Biscayne’s signature cocktails are Latin-themed, such as caipirinhas made with Leblon cachaça and Key lime margaritas made with Ambhar, one of the trendier tequilas on the market.And even appetizers get into the south Florida act, such as conch fritters with avocado aioli spiked with

The rib-eye steak with a vegetable medley.

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September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 93

Dining

Diner’s Notebook

The Grape Nut

California Drinking Celebrating California Wine Month on the road and on your home terrior

By Xania Woodman Fall brings us the bountiful grape harvest, but first we celebrate September as California Wine Month. Two words: road trip! If California’s myriad appellations seem a bit daunting, allow me to suggest the roughly 250 miles of coastline that comprise the Central Coast as a sort of California Wines 101. To the south you have Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, Solvang, Buellton, Los Olivos ... Sound familiar? It should if you’ve seen or read Sideways. My personal favorite from the area, Kalyra Winery (Australian Aboriginal meaning “a wild and pleasant place”; KalyraWinery.com), was featured in the film as the place where Jack (actor Thomas Haden Church) meets Stephanie (Sandra Oh), who declares she needs a spanking (“Grrrrowl!”). Kalyra’s native Aussie winemaker, Mike Brown, has quite a way with shiraz/syrah. Farther to the north lies Santa Maria, San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Paso Robles, where packages are available now through Oct. 31 at Lake Nacimiento Resort (NacimientoResort.com) and Lake San Antonio Resort (LakeSanAntonioResort.com). Whether nestled on a houseboat or re-creating Sideways in your own way, the white to drink is chardonnay. However, I especially enjoyed the area’s syrahs, such as Kalyra’s 2005 Tucker’s Run and the 2009 Angelique dessert wine ($22). If road-tripping is not your thing, Aureole at Mandalay Bay offers an award-winning wine list, including some of the area’s finest labels.

2005 Tucker’s Run Syrah, La Presa Vineyard, Kalyra Winery, Santa Ynez Valley, $28. For on-site purchase only.

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Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

A visit to Vinny’s, a farewell to Nico and hello Beer Fest!

By Max Jacobson Italian food dominated what was a good but high-calorie week of dining out. The northside appears to have a winner in Vinny’s New York Seafood Bar and Café, at 2950 N. Durango Dr. It’s one of the few places in town where you can get scungilli, or conch—but when it’s pronounced, leave off the last syllable, Sicilian style, and say skun-jill.

This is the sort of retro southern Italian fare that Las Vegans can’t get enough of: stuffed clams, baked ziti, a greaseless chicken Parm. I love the marinara sauce here, and there is two-for-one pasta Wednesdays nights—a terrific deal, especially since nothing on the menu is more than $18.

Las Vegas lost one of its best Italian chefs when Café Giorgio at the Mandalay Place closed, and Sardinian Nico Chessa decamped for Santa Monica, Calif., to become the head chef at Valentino. Some of you may know Luciano Pellegrini’s cooking at Valentino in the Venetian. If you ate Chessa’s food at Giorgio, however, he’s kicked it way up (sorry, Emeril) at his new post.

I recently was privileged to dine on the amazing dishes he has created for the upscale celebrity crowd in his new position. Perfectly charred octopus came on black pasta colored with squid ink, followed by a toothsome risotto with summer truffles, malloreddus—a bite-size Sardinian pasta with a wild-boar ragu—and rose-pink lamb chops.

I recommend that you try the desserts at our Valentino; they’re by pastry master Davide Giova, who makes the world’s best cannoli. Then take the kids down the Strip to M&M’s World, at the Showcase Mall (3785 Las Vegas Blvd.

South) to see the new “Welcome to Las Vegas sign, made from 50,000 multicolored M&M’s.

They’re also unveiling a personalized machine that will allow you to emboss your own candy with any message you like—providing, of course, you don’t overstep the bounds of politeness.

Finally, did you hear the good news? The Golden Nugget is putting on a Beer Fest, Oct. 15-16, which will feature more than 300 craft beer producers in one place (the Grand Events Center), as well as live music, chef-inspired appetizers and general frivolity. Participants such as Shiner, Blue Moon and one of my faves from my misspent youth in Wisconsin, Leinenkugel, are featured in what promises to be an ocean of suds.

Tickets are $50; call 386-8100.

Thirsty, yet?

Follow Max Jacobson’s latest epicurean observations, reviews and tips at foodwinekitchen.com.

Biscayne photo by Anthony Mair

good to stop eating, but hardly appetizer material. There is also an oddball dish called Caked Lamb Eggplant Tacos, which use folded slices of fried eggplant in place of tortillas to shield a filling of mashed lamb with roasted poblano chiles and tomato jam. I’d wager my house that a normal person can’t finish a steak after this baby.

As to steaks, they are USDA Angus, served with a nice vegetable medley and a trio of sauces. The Big ($26) is a 16-ounce hunk of prime rib that was served perfectly pink in the center and properly tender alongside little pots of au jus and two different types of horseradish.

Our 16-ounce rib-eye ($32) was a touch fatty, but a 12-ounce New York ($34) had just the right tone, deliciously beefy and tender, although both of them could have used a little more char.

Barginsen is a seafood specialist; he oversaw the Seafood Buffet at the Rio, and his fish are superb. Wild Atlantic salmon ($26) with a chipotle pineapple Strange but true appetizer: Caked Lamb Eggplant Tacos. yogurt sauce is wonderful. So are scampi, grouper, halibut and pan-flashed lump crab béarnaise.

Biscayne There are good sides, too, such as lobster mac and Continued from Page 93 cheese and something the chef calls Mashed Potatoes of the Moment. Our Moment came laced with a sun-dried Ambhar tequila, crab claws in mustard sauce, and Key tomato lobster concoction—buttery and irresistible. lime smoked chicken chowder, a thick soup that turns out There is a fairly priced, 200-bottle wine list and to be more like a Texas chili. astounding desserts such as Lancaster’s coconut candy bar, Those aren’t the dishes that impressed me most, though. which is like the world’s greatest Mounds Bar, and Black First off, the bread basket features a delicious multigrain Forest brandied cherry bread pudding, served for two. pretzel bread and ciabatta, and if you order the Bread Who the hell is Philippe Starck, anyway?

Enhancer to go with it, you get a tray of dipping jars containing cheese fondue and hummus spiked with chimichurri.

Another starter is the duck and chorizo hash, topped Biscayne is open 5-11 p.m. Thu-Mon. Dinner for two, $78-$129. with fried egg and crisp fingerling potatoes. It is way too Call 739-2222 for reservations.

Dining

Dishing Got a favorite dish? Tell us at comments@weeklyseven.com.

This family-owned restaurant was started by three siblings who prepare their mother’s old Korean family recipes with Hawaiian influences. And this dish perfectly represents these regions: thinly sliced beef is marinated in a homemade, slightly sweet soy sauce.

It’s dipped in egg wash, panfried and served with rice. $7.95, 8826 S. Eastern Ave., Suite 113, 566-5867.

96 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Prime Rib at Lawry’s

After dining here you won’t think of getting prime rib anywhere else. With many cuts to satisfy any appetite, the Lawry’s cut is the most popular. Silver carts are wheeled to your table as a chef hand-carves the perfect prime rib. It comes with your choice of sides and its famous seasoned salt. $32-$49, 4043 Howard Hughes Parkway, 893-2223.

Trio of Tuna at Spago

Decide which sashimi you like best with this dinner appetizer that suits the whole table. The first selection is Hiramasa with avocado, daikon radish, scallion and yuzu wasabi. The second, Yellowfin sashimi, is served with a crispy rice cake, marinated cucumber and hearts of palm with a soy seviche vinaigrette. Lastly, big-eye tuna tartare is paired with a sesame tuile taco with chili mayo and masago caviar. $25, in the Forum Shops at Caesars, 369-6300.

Crispy Fried Shrimp at Sensi

Appealing to all your senses, Sensi has four kitchens that feature four main cuisines—Italian, Asian, American grill and seafood. This dish is a classic: The shrimp are fried and made crispy with a rice-flake crust, then they are dressed in calamansi mayonnaise, served in little individual plates and garnished with Buddha’s Hand Citron. $20, in Bellagio, 693-7223.

Meat Chun photo by Anthony Mair

Meat Chun at Jun’s Korean Restaurant

Dining

Drinking

The Glad Scientist

Adam Carmer pours one of the Frog’s 1,000 brands of beers.

The Whisky Attic’s Adam Carmer has invented a better way to taste

By Xania Woodman

98 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

Seven Things Adam Carmer Can’t Live Without Laughter. The key to the soul. It translates to love in action with a good end in my world.

dilute the alcohol and retain the memory of the alcohol.”

When you’re ready, swallow at least three times, keeping your mouth closed the whole time. (Don’t gulp or you’ll choke.) Breathe in once through your nose and out through your mouth. Now you’re calibrated to that spirit and ready to focus on the flavors and aromas.

It takes all of about 20 seconds, it’s subtle—no snobby swirling, sniffing or spitting—and the heightened awareness lasts for hours or until you’re ready to move on to another product. You must recalibrate each time you switch spirits or brands. “It’s not so much what you notice,” Carmer explains, “it’s that you notice more easily, more clearly.” Like Lasik for your senses, “now you’re able to notice nuances you would never have picked up. If it’s a poorly made product, you’re going to find that out much more quickly now. If it’s an exceptionally made product, you’re going to appreciate it all the more.”

CSECT is the only method Carmer teaches at UNLV and the Attic’s “flight schools,” but also to owners of Fortune 500 companies and renowned bourbon distillers, who are stunned—“shocked awe”—when they realize they’ve been evaluating their own product with the tools of another trade. Palms smack foreheads everywhere he goes.

“One guy bowed,” Carmer says.

True, Carmer could have kept this development a secret from the industry and consumers; but instead he chooses to spread the gospel. It is Carmer’s openness to the possibility there might be a better industry standard that makes him an effective instructor, scientist and colleague. And thank goodness for it.

Just think: A closed-minded Thomas Edison would have left us drinking in the dark.

The Whisky Attic is inside the Freakin’ Frog, 4700 S. Maryland Parkway, 597-9702, freakinfrog.com. To book a flight school, call 217-6794.

Books! There are precious few experiences like relaxing with a well-crafted tale physically flipping the pages. The smell, feel and intimacy of reading a book is one of my life’s great pleasures. The book I am currently rereading and transfixed by is Dante’s Inferno.

Seems to fit the philosophical strata (“level”) of time we are living through.

Israel. It is one of the world’s great stories embodied in a physical space you can experience. Hope, perseverance, many of the world’s great religions, and a modern example of the human spirit.

Traveling. It has always been a happy time for me—experiencing other traditions, tasting the food, smelling the air! London is my ultimate for the theater. I have experienced countless plays each with its own living memory stamped into my psyche.

Teaching. The ultimate giving. You have the opportunity to help, mentor and inspire people, yet the gift of making a difference in someone’s life, that which you receive in return, is of far greater value. It’s a win-win.

Creating new products. This provides an outlet for me to share the embodiment of my acumen coupled with practical use in the world.

Beaches of the world. Every day is better at the beach! I grew up at Zuma beach in SoCal and spend summers with my family in Surfside. Maybe someday I will be the old man at the beach.

Photo by Anthony Mair

Mother Nature, in her divine wisdom, has equipped us with the good sense to look, touch and sniff before accidently offing ourselves with ingested hazardous substances. But when Whisky Attic/Freakin’ Frog owner Adam Carmer turns to you during a spirit tasting and says, “Don’t smell,” you should probably do as he says.

Carmer recalls a time when he was sampling a superhigh alcohol spirit. Despite his habit and contrary to instinct, he tasted it without smelling. Just then, his wife cracked a joke and Carmer choked. Gasping for breath after this little comedy of errors, Carmer noticed something had changed. And for the better. “So I’m thinking, as I’m dying, ‘Wait! I’m actually tasting this better!’”

Three years after his choke of genius, the Carmer Spirits Evaluation Calibration Technique (CSECT) is patentpending. “It’s a new way for people, both amateurs and professionals, to taste and evaluate spirits more effectively, easily and accurately,” says Carmer, who can now add “inventor” to his collection of hats: husband, father of three, bar owner, and adjunct food and beverage professor at UNLV’s hotel school for the last 15 years.

Carmer’s Whisky Attic opened in 2005, an understated sort of modern-day Alexandrian library secreted within and above that UNLV student staple, the Freakin’ Frog.

The Attic boasts more than 600 whiskies from around the world, and the Frog, more than 1,000 beers, which Carmer believes makes his the largest beer bar on the West Coast, and the largest whiskey bar in the country.

Somewhere between dealings with distillers, liquor reps, winemakers and brewers it occurred to Carmer that we’ve been evaluating high-alcohol spirits the same way we evaluate their lower-alcohol cousins, beer and wine—nose first. Knowing full well what a deep whiff of alcohol can do to the olfactory system (answer: temporarily fry it), Carmer thought, “There’s obviously going to be a way that’s better for some [products] than others.” Faced with a glass of spirit, Carmer says, “The first thing everyone tries to do is smell it.” He calls it “man bites dog”; it’s just backward. And so, with CSECT, we calibrate or tune our palate tongue-first.

CSECT seeks to eliminate the three enemies of spirits evaluation: the interference of high alcohol, location (you want to move the flavors and smells directly to your retro nasal passage, where the back of your tongue meets the base of your sinuses) and temperature (warming the spirit up separates the molecules).

Here’s how: Resist the urge to dive in nose-first. Sip about a fifth of an ounce, allowing it to land on the front of the tongue. Neither swish nor swallow. Instead, just let any alcohol burn come and go. This should take about five to eight seconds. Note how the salivary glands leap into action trying dilute and neutralize the alcohol. This is normal.

Says Carmer, “Our tongue gives us the ability to both

HEALTH & FiTnEss

A Beautiful Way to shape Up Ballet academy offers a graceful, artistic alternative to your usual workout class

By Ben Conmy A 5-foot-3 balletic nymph just burnt a hole in my calf muscle. She did it in 90 seconds, and that was the result of simply mimicking her graceful frame with a few basic postures. It becomes immediately apparent I’m a long way off being ballet fit.

Meet Sarah Fuhrman, one of the highly trained, superlatively skilled instructors at the Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre. “Toned” doesn’t do this young woman justice. If you fired a bullet at her, she could probably

Ballet for Adults The Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre offers a variety of classes this fall, including these three

100 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

deal with it with either an elegant leap through the air to dodge the imminent threat, or just flex and let the bullet bounce off her. Watching Sarah walk is a thing of beauty, because she doesn’t really walk as such, she glides.

It’s something to which to aspire, which is why I’m in this studio at academy headquarters in Summerlin (1651 Inner Circle), where they offer this relatively new initiative designed for novices. If ballet can tone me to 50 percent of where Sarah is at, I’m listening.

Absolute Beginner Ballet. This class is designed for those who have little or no dance experience. It’s perfect for parents who bring their child to Saturday class who can benefit from an easy, non-intimidating workout while they wait. 11 a.m. Sat, $16 each class or $120 for a 10-class card.

Ballet Workout Class Inspired by the New York City Ballet. This new

Ben Conmy is a performance consultant based in Las Vegas working with athletes, executives and performers in the United States and Europe.

ballet-based regimen includes a unique combination of stretching, toning and strength training that can easily be adopted by anyone. Catering to all ages and fitness levels, this progressive class incorporates basic ballet techniques and positions that increase body tone and flexibility while enhancing cardiovascular stamina and posture. 10:30 a.m. Tue-Thu, $16 each class or $120 for a 10-class card.

Intermediate/Advanced Ballet.

This dynamic class is great for those with a moderate amount of dance experience.

The academy has added a new afternoon time slot to accommodate those in the local entertainment industry. 2:30 p.m.

Mon and Thu, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Wed, $16 each class or $120 for a 10-class card.

The first class is free. Call 243-2623 or e-mail info@nevadaballet.org.

Photo by Anthony Mair

Our writer gets a pre-class ballet lesson from Sarah Fuhrman.

The wise first move would be to try the beginner’s class, but, alas, I missed the opportunity. So I’ve found myself in the Intermediate/Advanced class—and quite a bit out of my league. I considered finishing what I started with Sarah, but as Clint Eastwood once rightly stated, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” So rather than disrupt a class full of talent with the ungainly inadequacies of a novice, I took my seat and observed the 90-minute class, which proved to be part fitness regimen and part art.

The class began with meticulous stretching, barre (stationary handrail) work and some complicated routines involving all sorts of legs, going in all sorts of directions, bending, leaning, twisting. Apologies to the experts out there: All these movements have their own poetic names in ballet parlance, but let’s just say there was a great deal of balletic splendor transpiring.

The disarming thing about ballet is that the initial part of the class looks as though there is very little happening. But slowly, beads of perspiration start to appear upon participants’ brows. The form of these artists is impeccable, and when done correctly, these specific movements are exhausting and absolutely wonderful for your body. The combination of stretching and strengthening provide a synergistic double-team that is a toning dream for the human frame. The hips, abdominals, legs and upper body all receive intense workouts, which in turn impact flexibility, cardiovascular fitness and also improve posture—and who in this computer generation doesn’t need help with his or her posture?

The academy’s goal for the fall season is to get the community to experience the benefits of ballet. There are a several options available for all levels and goals (see sidebar for a sampling). The overwhelming atmosphere at the company is one of professionalism, yet there is no snob mentality here. This milieu is about dance, a beautiful form of dance that is beyond judgment or grading (take note, reality-judge buffoons). This is about an experience; this is about you and what you take from it.

Ultimately, it’s a marvelous way to get tremendously fit and learn a new yet classical skill while you’re doing it. Yes we could all grind away for an hour on the elliptical, but will any of that activity lead us to discover Ludwig Minkus or what it means to brisé? No it won’t.

So stop procrastinating, sign up for the right class, and get your dance on, ballet style.

SportS & LeiSure

Focusing on Some Real Knockouts Female boxers get star treatment in photographer’s book

By Andreas Hale the passion of putting these girls in a James Brown sang “this is a man’s world” book as a tribute to them.” back in 1966, but while America has seen The 272-page book—which features the gap between men and women in the photos and documents the careers of workplace close over the past few decades, 47 boxers, including Christy Martin, there’s one area where men apparently Laila Ali and local fighters Layla still rule: professional sports. No other McCarter and Jessica Rakoczy—took sport may lay claim to the Godfather her a decade to complete. Then, being a of Soul’s mantra more than boxing. first-time author in a bleak It’s something Henderson economy, Owen had her resident Mary Ann Lurie doubts that it would ever Owen has taken notice of and see the light of day. chosen to spotlight with her “To get this book published first book, Extraordinary Women was next to impossible,” of the Ring (Kirographaires she says. “It all happened Editions, $35). by accident when I was in As a 12-year ringside Paris. I met a young girl that photographer, Owen has was a photographer. Come covered boxing for numerto find out, when I met her ous publications as well as the second time, she was an BoxingInLasVegas.com, editor for a very small pubthe website she launched in Mary Ann Lurie Owen lishing house in Provence. I 1999 with husband Butch sent them all the information and it had Gottlieb. It was early in her career as to be that special publisher that loved a boxing photojournalist that Owen female boxing. Kirographaires Editions noticed the lack of attention given to published the book, and I was shocked.” female boxers and decided that their Growing up in Kearny, N.J., in the story needed to be told.

1950s, Owen was called a tomboy “I started the book in 1999 and was because of her competitive spirit and covering the all-female boxing events at athletic ability during an era in which Arizona Charlie’s,” Owen says. “I was women were encouraged to get married new at it and I had never seen women and stay at home rather than have a box. It was a shock, like, ‘These girls can career–especially one as a professional really fight!’ I kept shooting the pictures athlete. She encountered this reality the for Boxing in Las Vegas and I just had 102 Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

hard way as a 10-year-old when she was removed from her youth baseball team once officials realized she was a girl.

She relocated to Las Vegas in 1963 and competed in everything from long-distance running to grappling (boasting a green belt in Jiu-Jitsu). While working as a corrections officer in the ’90s, Owen trained with Roger Mayweather, the uncle and trainer of boxing star Floyd Mayweather Jr., as she prepared to compete in a tournament for law-enforcement officers. After having a story about her boxing prowess featured in The Ringside Review, Owen was asked by the paper’s publisher if she would be interested in photographing female boxers. Considering that photography was Owen’s other passion growing up, it was a no-brainer. This is when she realized that documenting the struggles of women in sports was just as important as competing.

“I have a passion for these girls,” she says. “Women are always fighting for everything. There is a history of women struggling in any kind of professional sport, but especially boxing.”

Owen says much of the problem with female fighters gaining acceptance is that the emphasis by boxing promoters is often on the competitors’ physical appearance instead of their talent.

“With all due respect to all of the women who are tomboyish,” Owen says, “the promoters are looking for the next Laila Ali and Mia St. John. They feel like [beauty] is what really draws the crowd.”

Owen says female boxers don’t encounter the same difficulties in Europe.

“They really embrace boxing—male and female—and provide a huge fan base,” Owen says. “Their arenas are loaded with people. They love the female boxers and treat them like rock stars.”

With women not commanding the money and attention of their male counterparts here, Owen thinks it is time for the gender gap to close in boxing.

“If women can fight for their country,” she asks, “why can’t they fight in the ring?”

Extraordinary Women of the Ring is available at kiroed.com.

WBA champ Yuriorkis Gamboa.

Featherweight titles on line in boxing card at the palms With 10 career losses, it wouldn’t seem as if IBF featherweight champion Orlando Salido would have much of a chance against unbeaten WBA title-holder Yuriorkis Gamboa (18-0, 15 knockouts) in their Sept. 11 bout at the Palms. But eight of the losses by Salido (34-10-2, 22 KOs) came before 2002, and his two defeats since then were by decision to current WBA and WBO lightweight champ Juan Manuel Marquez in 2004 and Cristobal Cruz in 2008.

Salido avenged his loss to Cruz in May to claim the IBF title, and now has his sights set on Gamboa, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist for Cuba, who will be making his fourth title defense.

Gamboa, 28, is favored against Salido, 29, and could face WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez next in an anticipated matchup.

The card’s co-feature is a bout between unbeaten lightweight contenders Anthony Peterson (30-0, 20 KOs) and Brandon Rios (24-0-1, 18 KOs).

Tickets for the event are available at ticketmaster.com, and the bouts also will be televised on HBO Boxing After Dark. – Sean DeFrank

Lurie Owen portrait by Chris Cozzone; McCarter photo by Mary Ann Lurie Owen; Gamboa photo by Chris Farina

Local photojournalist Mary Ann Lurie Owen captures lightweight champion “Amazing” Layla McCarter landing a left hook.

Going for Broke

Quick turnaround coming after fumbling opening kickoff

By Matt Jacob To say that my opening-week performance in college football was a little disappointing is akin to saying Elton John is a little flamboyant or Mel Gibson is a little off his rocker. I can see the e-mails flooding into the editor now: Who is responsible for hiring this clown? For the love of God, bring in the monkey!

My response? Those weren’t my picks, folks. Nope, I let a friend borrow my computer and unbeknownst to me, he did last week’s column. (Hey, if Paris Hilton can play the “It wasn’t mine!” card …)

Seriously, though, it certainly didn’t take long to be reminded that the line between winning and losing is as thin as an Olsen twin. Consider: My biggest play, on Missouri (-12½ over Illinois), failed to come in by three points (Missouri, which settled for three field goals of less than 35 yards, won by 10); and my second-biggest play, on USC (-21 over Hawaii), was up 19 points late in the fourth quarter (the Trojans finished the game with the ball on Hawaii’s 35-yard line).

Then there was that half-point loser on Utah: Laying 3½ points to Pitt, the Utes won 27-24 in overtime on a field goal that was the distance of an extra point.

If those three games had gone my way, it would’ve been a profitable opening week. Of course, if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.

I went 3-6 overall for a loss of $745, dropping my bankroll to $4,860, but things will be different this week. $440 (to win $400) on COWBOYS (-4) at Redskins: The NFL preseason is meaningless. The Cowboys looked dreadful in August, with the first-string offense producing just one touchdown in five games, but injuries to the offensive line led to vanilla play-calling in an effort to keep QB Tony Romo upright. Now that the bullets are flying for real, we’ll see a different Cowboys squad. Three points of interest: Dallas has taken the last two meetings in D.C. by a combined score of 31-10; the Redskins have cashed in just three of their last 14 home games; and new Washington QB Donovan McNabb is bothered by a high ankle sprain. $220 (to win $200) on WISCONSIN (-37) vs. San Jose State: The Badgers’ 41-21 win at UNLV was a much bigger blowout than the score suggests. Wiscon-

sin outgained the Rebels 475-217, and if not for two turnovers that led directly to two of UNLV’s three touchdowns, the Badgers would’ve won by at least 35 points. Now Wisconsin returns home and faces an opponent that’s far worse than UNLV. San Jose State got pummeled in a 48-3 season-opening loss at top-ranked Alabama, failing to cover a 40-point spread while producing just 175 total yards and seven first downs to Alabama’s 591 yards and 30 first downs. $110 (to win $100) on TEXANS (+2½) vs. Colts: Indianapolis has won 15 of 16 all-time meetings with the Texans, including a 35-27 win in Houston last year when the Colts climbed out of a 17-0 hole. In fact, Indy won (and covered) all seven of its road games that it tried to win last season and is 12-5-1 against the spread in its last 18 games overall. So why are the Colts less than a field-goal favorite in this game? Something smells fishy here. Indy has come out of the gate slow the last two years, opening with a 29-13 loss to the Bears in 2009 and barely getting by Jacksonville 14-12 last year—and both those games were at home. $110 (to win $100) on MICHIGAN (+4) at Notre Dame: I was much more impressed with Michigan’s 30-10 home rout of UConn than Notre Dame’s 23-12 home win over Purdue. For one thing, the Wolverines’ offense—which was so impotent in coach Rich Rodriguez’s first two years that Viagra offered to sign on as a corporate sponsor—was magnificent.

Michigan piled up 473 yards (287 rushing), went 14-for-19 on third down and QB Denard Robinson was a one-man wrecking crew (19-for-22 passing, 383 combined rushing and passing yards).

WATCH YOUR FAVORITE FOOTBALL GAMES HERE!

E. Lake Mead & Mt. Hood W. Cheyenne & Fort Apache

BEST OF THE REST: Vanderbilt +10 vs. LSU ($66); Chiefs +4½ vs. Chargers ($55); Bengals +4½ at Patriots ($44); Tennessee +13 vs. Oregon ($44); Georgia Tech -13½ at Kansas ($33); Oklahoma (-8½) vs. Florida State ($33).

Horizon Ridge & Stephanie

Matt Jacob is a former local sports writer who has been in the sports handicapping business for more than four years. For his weekly column, Vegas Seven has granted Matt a “$7,000” bankroll. If he blows it all, we’ll fire him and replace him with a monkey.

N. Durango & Dorrell

Ann & Simmons W. Cheyenne & I-215

Tenaya & Azure

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September 9-15, 2010 Vegas Seven 103

seven questions

Lance Burton

After 30 years of doing magic, Burton is about to disappear from the stage.

We talked to him about his start, his legacy and how Las Vegas has changed.

By Elizabeth Sewell It was a volunteer performance at age 5 that set Lance Burton on his path to becoming a magician. The young Burton was called onstage, had quarters pulled from his ears and was hooked. Less than 15 years later, and with numerous magic awards to his credit, Burton first performed onstage in Las Vegas in Folies Bergere. The young magician made quite an impression in Las Vegas, and in 1996 began what would become a 14-year run for Lance Burton: Master Magician in his very own Lance Burton Theatre at the Monte Carlo.

Burton has established himself as one of the world’s top magicians, performing for heads of state and being named Best Magician and Best Entertainer in local polls. Although Burton’s show ended with a farewell performance Sept. 4, he plans to continue performing magic and dedicating time to catching up on his neglected TiVo. What are your thoughts about leaving the show?

It’s kind of bittersweet, I guess. We had a great run there. We’ve done over 5,000 shows there and we’ve had over 5 million people come in to see the show, and we’ve 110

Vegas Seven September 9-15, 2010

been there 14 years at the Monte Carlo, so I think that’s the record.

What do you love about magic?

I started doing magic when I was a kid and the first time I saw a magic show I was 5 years old and that’s all I ever wanted to do. I just didn’t understand why everyone wasn’t doing magic.

Do you have a favorite trick you perform?

That’s kind of like asking a parent who their favorite child is. All of the tricks in the show I like or I wouldn’t put them in the show. But if I had to pick I think I like the audience participation the best because that’s always different every night and always surprising because they don’t always react the same.

How has entertainment in Las Vegas changed?

My first job was at the Tropicana Hotel. I opened there on May 20, 1982, and I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. There’s a lot more people coming to Vegas, there are more hotels, there are more shows and there are more things to do. I think it’s gotten more diverse over

the years. Back 30 years ago you had the French revue shows like the Folies Bergere, which was the first show that I was in, and then you had the headliners like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Wayne Newton, and that was pretty common.

Now, it’s become much more diverse.

You still have revue shows and headliners, and you have magic shows, then you have the Cirque shows and you have shows that are kind of hard to categorize, like Blue Man Group.

Who are your favorite performers?

There are a lot of great magicians.

There’s Penn & Teller, Mac King and Criss Angel. Clint Holmes has always been one of my favorites; he’s a fantastic performer. Wayne Newton, I love seeing his show. I try to go see him every few years. There’s some great comedy shows like the Amazing Johnathan. I love the Blue Man Group. This is probably the best time to see shows in Las Vegas there’s just so much to choose from.

What’s your craziest performance story?

Everything you can imagine has happened. I’ve had ducks jump into the

audience and I had to stop the show and go get them. I’ve split my pants a couple of times. I’ve fallen down. I broke a bone in my foot last year. That was the worst thing, I think. We’ve had people have heart attacks in the audience. We got rained-out one day; I couldn’t leave my house because of the floodwaters. The sound system went out one time. We got almost to the end of the show and for some reason the entire sound system crashed so we had no music and no microphone. We just got down to the last number and so the show sort of ground to a halt and my sound man was frantic trying to get it back up. I said, “Rob don’t you have the music on a CD?” We brought out a boom box and we set it on the front of the stage and my sound man sat there and put the CD on and hit play, so there’s a thousand people watching the last number and we had a boom box sitting on the front of the stage. We finished the show, and everyone was happy.

What will your legacy be?

I have no idea. I guess I would like people to say that Lance was a good magician and he entertained people and tried to make people happy.