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  • Downtown

    Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009

    The vibe at The Fremont Street Experience has changed from even a year ago, when panhandlers and bargain-hunters and a terrible odor were the most obvious memories taken from visits to the Experience.

  • 21

    Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009

    Even sex, at least the not-for-profit kind, is feeling the recession. But, as with other museums, big sponsors help.

  • Culture

    Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009

    As with most things that come to Vegas, Beer & Blog originated somewhere else, in this case Portland, Oregon.

  • Economy

    Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009

    A group of men are standing in the cold. They watch me with wan faces, rubbing their hands for warmth. They don’t speak much, only look at each other and at the castle behind them.

  • Entertainment

    Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008

    O quietly marked its 10th anniversary in 2008. Far from dating, however, the show remains a timeless experience; even its technology still impresses.

  • Environment

    Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008

    The Solar Convention proved one thing: The future of solar is not sunny.

  • Dining

    Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008

    When a new restaurant opens on the Strip, owners like to announce their presence to the world with a grand opening. This turns out to be true even when the restaurant isn’t at all grand, like the new McDonald’s next to Circus Circus.

  • Economy

    Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008

    At 6:15 a.m. on Black Friday the line outside the Office Max at a strip mall near Sunset Station numbered in the dozens. Do people give office supplies as holiday presents?

  • Music

    Thursday, Dec. 4, 2008

    In what fantasy rock-band league do the bass players of Killing Joke and The Beatles form a band? Yet The Fireman is unquestionably the sound of Youth and Paul McCartney working together.

  • Silverton

    Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008

    I never intended to adopt an airman. And now I was pondering what sort of airman I wanted. Were there women airmen?

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

    In July 2007, Luxor announced a $300 million renovation to undertake the seemingly perverse task of taking the Egyptian theme out of the pyramid-shaped resort.

  • Religion

    Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008

    The XXXChurch ministers to people addicted to porn, largely by attending porn conventions and handing out literature.

  • Literature

    Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008

    Can you name a major American writer from Nevada? I can’t. But undeterred, Cheryll Glotfelty, a professor of English at the University of Nevada-Reno, assembled Literary Nevada.

  • Entertainment

    Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008

    The Sarah Palins were getting tipsy. There were 13 Palins, in bikinis and other outfits that you would freeze in if you wore them in Alaska.

  • Politics

    Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008

    Want to guess on which channel the McCain-Palin supporters watched last week’s debate when they gathered at Brendan’s Irish Pub at the Orleans? You are correct.

  • Music

    Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008

    After what one scholar called her “battle years,” describing the time of wild and fertile creations of the early 1860s, Emily Dickinson’s later poetry has a calmer, while no less grim, quality, and always faces ultimate truths. And listening to Tell Tale Signs, Volume 8 in Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series, it makes more sense to compare Dylan to a Civil War-era poet than to place him in the landscape of today’s music.

  • Economy

    Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008

    Flo Rogers is only the second leader in the station’s [KNPR 88.9-FM] history and the first to face trying to fund public radio in the midst of a major economic downturn.

  • Luxor

    Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

    Dressed in monks’ robes, with appropriately shaved heads, the half-dozen men acted more like tourists than religious figures about to perform a sacred ceremony. Or, as the press release described the occasion, with much fanfare: “Buddhist monks from all over the Las Vegas Valley will come together to perform an ancient blessing on the 13 whole-body specimens inside the brand-new Bodies: The Exhibition at Luxor.”

  • Sexuality

    Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

    In both his private practice and as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, attorney Allen Lichtenstein has been fighting for the rights of adult businesses in Sin City.

  • OJ Simpson

    Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008

    What is now going on at the Regional Justice Center is really just an echo from the trial of the century. The police and the media were the primary witnesses to what little spectacle attended Day 1 of O.J. Simpson’s kidnapping and robbery trial in Vegas. This was good news for the attention-seekers who did take the time to put in an appearance. A line of reporters was waiting to interview a lady dressed as Wonder Woman.

  • Politics

    Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008

    Denver and St. Paul are all-American cities, the sorts of places that host national political conventions. But why not Las Vegas? This city in many ways embodies the American dream.

  • Music

    Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008

    The best that can be said about Brian Wilson’s That Lucky Old Sun is that, like ’70s Beach Boys discs 15 Big Ones and Love You, it exists as neither total embarrassment nor praiseworthy contribution to his catalog.

  • Music

    Thursday, July 31, 2008

    On July 16, 1930, country music’s founding father, Jimmie Rodgers, and jazz progenitor Louis Armstrong found common ground in the blues, creating “Blue Yodel No. 9 (Standing on the Corner),” one of history’s most unlikely and extraordinary recordings. Almost 80 years later, on Two Men With the Blues, Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis find the same sweet spot—a perfect match between Nelson’s Western swing and Marsalis’ New Orleans jazz—showing how much vitality remains to be mined from that earlier recorded encounter between jazz and country

  • Tuesday, July 22, 2008

  • Monday, July 14, 2008

  • Literature

    Thursday, July 3, 2008

    The generation that fought World War II is beginning to pass, and few remember much about the final year of the war with Imperial Japan except for the decision to use the atomic bomb. That choice has echoed through history without context, endlessly second-guessed, attacked and defended.

  • Wednesday, July 2, 2008

  • Monday, June 30, 2008

  • Tuesday, June 24, 2008

  • Friday, June 13, 2008

  • Tuesday, June 10, 2008

  • Music

    Thursday, May 22, 2008

    Determined and dogged are the two words that describe the Old 97’s music and behavior. The band formed in the early ’90s as part of the alternative country movement (albeit with a pop streak), releasing independent singles and discs and eventually winding up on a major label for a few years, before being unceremoniously dumped.