A new local event offers the 4 Elements of Culture—art, music, food and fashion
Douglas Gibbs hopes to start a local phenomenon with 4 Elements of Culture, and judging by the Feb. 7 premiere of the event, that just might happen. Gibbs, who came to Las Vegas via L.A. in 2000 to serve as Ghostbar’s first resident DJ, still spins music around town (including Firefly on Fridays) but also works to connect local artists with venues. So the free event was a little less about pleasing the crowd on a Monday night than creating an atmosphere where artists can showcase their work in a fresh way at a funky venue.
Read More »Slayton’s brand of frenetic lad-mag humor returns to Hooters
Bobby Slayton is billed as “The Pitbull of Comedy,” and although he didn’t exactly hold on to any one throat, he did spend the night growling and snapping from one end of the stage to the other. He’s the kind of pitbull that your dinner party guests find uproariously misbehaved as he nips and sniffs and snorts and dry humps and drags his ass across your freshly cleaned, off-white Berber.
Read More »For musicians and obsessives, Murdoch’s teetering Web property is retro new media
So what if MySpace has fallen on hard times? Its kitsch value is through the roof. “My No. 1 form of music is listening to vinyl records,” Rachel Coleman said recently at an album release party at Death by Audio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “Even though I’m a blogger, I like my antiquated technology. I’m used to it, and I’m comfortable with it, and I want to use MySpace in the same way that I use my record player.”
Read More »Deep-fried Oreos Everyone’s favorite cookie is now even more delicious—because it’s fried. Slathered in beignet batter, the Oreos taste like they’ve been eaten by a doughnut. After a dusting of powdered sugar, they are served with a side of vanilla ice cream and best paired with Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.
Read More »Kenneth Slawenski’s J.D. Salinger: A Life (Random House, $27) is a reverent and carefully researched biography of the celebrated author of The Catcher in the Rye, but after 400 pages I’m not sure I know much more about J.D. Salinger than when I started. If there’s anyone to blame for the book’s shortcomings, it’s Salinger himself, who spent close to 60 years of his life avoiding the spotlight.
Read More »Some liberal ideology just doesn’t push the argument forward
I recently had dinner with a friend who confessed that every time he got into a room filled with liberals, he wanted to express the most far-out right-wing sentiments. My friend is one of the most radically progressive people I know, from his political positions to his social and cultural ones. But his sense of decency transcends narrow politics. He was simply tired of liberals who prescribe conduct for other people that they would never follow themselves. And he was fed up with liberals whose morally opulent rhetoric does nothing to persuade the other side, but does everything to win approval among their group and consolidate their professional status.
Two recent incidents made me recall my happiness at that dinner (I realized that I was not alone!), and aroused my own, long-lived revulsion against smug liberal attitudes. One was the resignation from MSNBC of Keith Olbermann, to whom I say: Goodnight, and Good Riddance. But let’s begin with the recent op-ed in The New York Times by the fiction writer Lorrie Moore, applauding the decision of an obscure Southern publisher to remove the word “nigger” from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Read More »Best known for writing suspenseful spy novels, Ken Follett changed direction in The Pillars of the Earth (William Morrow, 1989), a massive piece of fiction set in early 12th-century England. The novel is a masterful weaving together of history, individual personalities, and the engineering and construction feats required to plan and build a medieval cathedral.
Read More »José Andrés’ new Chinese and Mexican restaurant at the Cosmopolitan isn’t a fusion restaurant, but this dish is definitely fusion. Braised quail is paired with dragonfruit, chestnuts and rose petals. It’s one of the most unusual dishes in Las Vegas, but one that tastes better with every bite.
Read More »On the sixth day, God created man. On Saturdays, Café Rio creates the fried shrimp taco, which is loaded with shrimp and drowned in Café Rio’s house sauce. Ask for extra cheese, and the employees will sing you a song!
Read More »Do you miss the “old” Vegas? You know, the pre-Mirage Las Vegas, where comps and good deals were easy to come by? I was here then, and those deals are how I made ends meet in leaner times. Yep, those were good days. But I don’t miss ’em, because it’s even better now!
Read More »
