Moni and I are back in the icebox now, having just returned from a relatively short bout of southyness over the Christmas break. Didn’t get to see near enough of our loved ones, but it was good to connect with those we could.
We made a stop at one of my favorite haunts in Vegas, the Neon Museum, otherwise known as The Boneyard. This is the afterlife for many of the old marquees used on the strip and throughout town. It’s strange for me, because I used to live in the Vegas area (Boulder City, to be exact). I remember some of these signs when they were alive and in the wild, so to speak. I should say that I sort of remember them. The Strip and much of what most people think of as Vegas was always just as foreign to me as it might be to the tourists coming through town. I don’t think that’s an unusual perspective for locals, but it does give Vegas nostalgia an interesting mix of oddity and familiarity. One of the cultural consequences of tourism, I suppose, a past rendered both intimate and alien. Of course, in this case, the whole thing comes surrounded with the faint glow of neon lights.
Moni and I took a daytime tour of the museum a couple years ago, and we’ve been planning to go back ever since. This time, we made it! Thanks to Mark Thiel of Powel’s Camera Shop for helping us to figure out a few things about our new(ish) cameras. Moni and I made the Neon Museum our testing ground, so to speak. Looking at the photos now, I can see that I have a lot of practice to do, but anyway, the place is cool enough to overcome my clumsy camera skills in at least a couple pics.
The guided tours are an interesting mix of commentary on the signs themselves and stories about old Vegas. One minute you are learning about how they bend neon tubes to make the signs, and the next you are hearing about the role of divorce tourism in the mid-century development of the city. The tours are at their best in those moments when the two themes come together in a single narrative. The stars on the old Stardust marquee are a good example of that. As I recall our old daytime tour-guide related a rumor he couldn’t quite vouch for that they might have been meant to reflect the fall of radioactive dust in the days of nuclear testing. Our night guide on this tour was content to connect them to the era of space exploration. Either way, it’s interesting to see larger patterns of history in the very objects in front of you, or at least in the stories told about them.
My favorite story would have to be that of the Moulin Rouge accord. It’s hard to get a good picture of the Moulin Rouge sign, because it’s so big and distributed in with so many other signs, but the casino played an interesting role in Vegas history. So, it features prominently in the tours. As the first of the Vegas casinos to desegregate, it quickly became a Vegas hot spot, a place where the you could see Frank Sinatra hanging out with Sammy Davis Jr. after doing their own shows. So, it was fitting that the Moulin Rouge would pay a role in the civil rights movement. Facing protests in 1960 over segregation throughout the city, hotel owners met with civil rights leaders at the (already closed) Moulin Rouge. The resulting agreement desegregated the Las Vegas strip.
The tour guides have lots of other stories, of course. I wish I could remember them all.
(Anyway, …click to embiggen!)
Out front
Beginning of the tour (You can see the Moulin Rouge sign, sorta)
Whole lotta pink going on here.
Vegas Vic is kinda fuzzy here. (I think he’d been drinking.)
The Lucky Duck
Stardust
She’s just relaxing
Sahara
This was the first openly gay bar in Vegas
Vegas Vic in a clearer moment
Sometimes the neon light takes a back seat to the sunlight
Daytime guide
From a dry-cleaner, I think
The end of the tour
Doken Eddie’s
Neon alleyway
Cruelty to tourguides. I am guilty of cutting this one in half. (So sorry)
One of the dominant themes in Vegas area museums would have to be the struggle with nature. By ‘nature’ I of course mean the desert. It’s kind of fascinating to me as parallel themes dominate literature and cinema dealing with the arctic. It’s a pretty straight-forward notion in either event. Extreme environments help to frame a basic man-against-nature story-line, which is a common enough theme in fiction as well as some historical narratives, even a good number of anthropological works.
Where the arctic narratives focus on cold and the lack of food, Vegas area narratives focus on heat and lack of food & water. Both themes definitely have a little space reserved for the indigenous peoples of the region. “How did THEY survive?” would seem to be a common question, one which segways easily into stories about how WE survive now. The part about how WE survive typically morphs into a larger narrative about thriving civilization. Okay, so the North Slope of Alaska may be a little soft on the civilization theme, not that that’s ever stopped a runaway narrative, but more to the point, in Vegas that narrative steams full bore ahead to land us in a world of casinos, mobsters, and showgirls.
…but those narratives often start with Paiutes.
Okay, so sometimes these narratives start with older Puebloan societies or even Paleo-Indians, but even then the stories quicken with the arrival of Paiutes into the area. These were the indigenous community of Las Vegas when Europeans arrived, so they figure more prominently in plot-lines anticipating those casinos and showgirls. Not surprisingly, the Vegas area museums often use the presence of Paiutes in the valley to frame general questions about survival in the desert, questions that will then play well into later developments in the area. Their own modest use of the area sets the stage in these stories for the mega-resorts of today. And if that seems an odd contrast, that is precisely the point. A miracle in the desert, so to speak. It’s all the more miraculous if we catch a glimpse of its modest beginnings.
A Convenience Store (Not
Of course, American stories of progress often treat Native Americans as just one more feature of nature standing in the way of progress, but I honestly think most of these museums try to handle things a little better than that. Still, there is a bit of slippage here and there. Anyway, the topic is worth a little time on my keyboard, so let’s just get on with it, shall we?
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What first got me interested in this was a visit to the Mormon Fort, a state park commemorating the first Anglo-American settlement in the Vegas Valley. It contains a number of exhibits, one of which enables you to watch a video recounting the history of Vegas from the creation of the fort itself up through to the development boom of the 1980s (about the time my own family moved into the area). It’s the story of a city built in the midst of a hot desert, and that story begins with the discovery of two springs by European explorers.
This story takes off when Brigham Young sends a small group of missionaries to build at Fort at the Springs to serve as a weigh station on the way to Southern California. According to the video, local Paiutes had used the Springs for irrigation projects, so there is little doubt as to a native presence at the Springs. Still, when those first missionaries up and leave, the video suggests that their major accomplishment was to prove that people could make a permanent settlement in the area.
…which of course leaves me wondering what about the Paiute? Hadn’t they already proved that?
This may not be as egregious as it sounds. I could well see white folks at the time thinking of it in that light, biased as it is, so I could see the point of calling attention to this perspective. Still, the commentary in the video is as invested in the bias as any Anglo-American might have been at the time the missionaries left, and so the resulting narrative does seem to erase the Paiute. There is enough information about the local Paiute around the rest of Mormon Fort and even in the video itself to contradict that kind of thinking, but the story-line has its own impact.
Could be worse, could be better.
Mostly, it could be better.
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That said, the Mormon Fort is a great place in its own right. If you’re in the area, and have a little pocket change left, I would definitely go check it out.
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I found a couple of interesting origin-narratives for the local Paiute, one at the Clark County Museum and one at the Springs Preserve. Each of these are Coyote stories, so it goes without saying that something is going to go terribly wrong in them. That’s how trickster narratives work. Each presents the choice of a Paiute homeland as something of an accident. At the Springs Preserve, this accident seems to suggest that Paiute ended up in the wrong place. Coyote opened the basket early (somewhere between Las Vegas and Moapa). The Clark County variant suggests that people had already been escaping and heading in different directions, and Coyote closed the sack before carrying it a ways further and pouring out those who would become Paiute. Whether this means they ended up where they were supposed to go or not, I can’t tell from the source at the museum.
I’ve presented both of these stories directly below (a video and a picture). Of course this kind of presentation strips a lot of the context out of each narrative, but I think a bit of the flavor in such stories does come through. I find myself thinking of the accident in terms of the arid setting, as if it were meant to explain how Paiute ended up in such a dry location with its sparse resources. Still, I’m not sure how much of that would have been the point of the Paiute story and how much of that may be the rest of the presentations in which they occur. With so much of each exhibit devoted to explaining how these people survived in the local desert, it seems easy to think of this as the point of the accident, that Paiute weren’t really meant to be here, but perhaps just me. Either way, I can’t help thinking it’s an interesting way of thinking about how one’s people ended up where they are. Mistakes happen. Sometimes a mistake mean you ruin lunch, put up a video with bad sound quality, or end up with a low grade on a test.
…and sometimes a mistake create a world to live in.
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Now the Springs Preserve is interesting in itself. This place is huge, and after four visits, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen everything. It contains the Nevada State Museum and the Origin Museum as well as a number of outdoor exhibits (one of which is the Paiute village where I recorded the origin story above). That story is one of several narratives relating to Paiutes that you can find in the Springs Preserve. The Origin Museum contains a couple more videos. One appears to be a straight-foreword history of Las Vegas beginning with the arrival of Native Americans in the area. It further mentions the brief history of interaction (including conflict) between whites and natives. A second, more dramatic video (set up in a stand of artificial tulies) appears to depict a Paiute elder greeting us (the visitors) as if she were meeting non-natives for the first time. She is friendly, of course, and explains a thing or two about her people’s survival strategies, but the video ends on a dark turn. She sees change coming, and it seems to fair to suggest this is an allusion to the hazards of contact and colonization.
Neither of these videos goes into much detail about the troubled relations between Paiute and non-natives, but each mentions them. Where the first is dry and a little up-beat, the second is cryptic and disturbing.
A quick listen to the Coyote narrative always seems to put things in perspective for me. Odd, I know to want to follow modern history with an origin narrative, but I doubt Coyote would object.
Oh, the videos!
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The Springs Preserve also contains a history of Las Vegas as portrayed in paintings by the artist Roy Purcell. The only explicit mention of natives I recall seeing in this exhibit is a reference to Spanish raids on local Indians. That’s pretty much it. It’s an interesting history. I at least would have found it a bit more interesting if it had a place for the indigenous population. His website suggests that Purcell is working on Native American subjects now. This sounds promising.
No pictures are allowed in the Purcell exhibit, so I haven’t anything to show for that part of the Springs Preserve.
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The Nevada State Museum (also in the Springs Preserve) doesn’t seem as focused on questions of subsistence, but it does have a few interesting pieces on indigenous peoples of the area. A life-size photo of Sarah Winnemucca had me wondering if she wasn’t a bit south of her usual residence. My personal fussiness aside, she certainly deserves a place in the Nevada STATE Museum. The museum also includes a video presentation in which a modern actress interprets some of her words for visitors at the Museum. Similar videos provide a glimpse of Wovoka’s prophesies, and a woman whose name translates to Little Willow teaches us a bit about basket-making. Please accept my apologies for the poor quality of the audios. To get the full experience, you’ll just have to go to the Museum.
.
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There is one other thing I really must say about the Nevada State Museum, and that it that it seems to contain the White Tree of Gondor. Oh, they call it a Great Basin Bristle Cone Pine, but I know the White Tree of Gondor when I see it. You can’t fool me!
I know, this has nothing to do with Paiutes, but seriously, I think the White Tree of Gondor deserves at least a mention. Don’t you?
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I’ve written about the Atomic Testing Museum before, and I don’t have a lot to add here, except to note that the museum does reference the indigenous populations of the testing zones. It’s a smallish display by comparison, focusing primarily on cultural preservation. By some accounts Newe Segobia is the most bombed nation in the world, but that story falls a bit North of this post. It’s worth noting though, the general tenor of the Museum’s approach to Native Americans. They want us to know they are trying to do the right thing, but their treatment of the issue doesn’t really escape the largely pro-testing narratives of the museum as a whole.
Let me conclude with a smattering of selected photos from the museums. As always, you may click to embiggen.
Paiute Village in the Springs Preserve
Springs Preserve (Origen Museum)
Mormon Fort describes pre-contact use of the Springs area for crops
Display in the Mormon Fort
Very cool diorama in the Mormon Fort
White Tree of Gondor, …duh!
Sarah Winnemucca at the Nevada State Museum
Atomic Testing MUseum
Atomic Testing Museum
Atomic Testing Museum
Clark County Museum
Clark County Museum
Clark County Museum
This mural depicts Southern Paiute. Yes, it’s on the side of a 7-11. I don’t know what to make of that.
The Atomic testing Museum in Las Vegas would be among the more interesting places I visited this summer. The museum has two major exhibits, one for Atomic testing and one for Area 51. I’m really not sure what to make of the Area 51 section, and really I’d just as son not be picked up by the Men in Black, so we’ll just leave commentary on that aside for the present. Besides, the Atomic Testing Museum provides plenty of interesting material t consider.
Seeing the Dina Titus reading room in there made me smile. It’s been a long time, but I do remember my old Political Science Professor rather fondly. Her book, Bombs in the Backyard would be the most obvious connection to this facility, though I’m not entirely sure how much of a role she played in the development of the museum and it’s collections. She does provide one of the more critical voices in one of the films shown in museum. I find myself wondering if her views couldn’t have received more coverage.
I’d have to say the material collections in this museum are fantastic. I’ll include a few pictures, but they really don’t do the place justice. It’s worth a trip to see this stuff, so remember this place if you’re ever in Las Vegas and your hangover is under control. Of course you may also pick up a bit about Nuclear testing at the Neon Museum, because nuclear tourism was once so very Vegas. But of course the Atomic testing Museum is a long way from Neon. Much of it is drab green and grey, just like I remember my dad’s old military paraphernalia, which is very fitting I suppose.
There is a tremendously matter-of-fact tone to the presentation in this museum. As you proceed down it’s halls you will learn how scientists first came to understand the possibilities which would give rise to nuclear technology; you will learn about the rush to acquire that technology during World War II, and you will learn about the many twists and turns of the nuclear arms race which would follow. Also you will learn about the steps and procedures taken to set up and run the actual facilities in Nevada.What bothers me is just how unproblematic each step in this process would seem to be in the narratives this museum provides.
The Atomic testing Museum presents the rationale for each stage in the history of its subject in a very straightforward manner. It does the same with protests, and even with various decisions to scale back nuclear testing and/or to discontinue certain programs. I wouldn’t say that the museum slights the protest movement in an overt manner, but the museum leaves a strong impression that the development of nuclear technology proceeded along a rational course. Whatever the pros and cons of nuclear testing, and of specific events in the history of nuclear testing, the planning process behind that history was, at least as far as the narrators here would have it, utterly reasonable.
This is of course exactly how I remember those in favor of nuclear testing presenting the case for it when I lived in Nevada. It’s also what I see whenever I dip my toes into the history of Atomic power. For whatever its worth, this does appear to be the view of those who worked in the industry. And of course those who worked in the industry are strongly represented in the Museum and its supporters.
This doesn’t mean that the museum is insensitive to critics of Atomic testing, but it does mean that the narrative presentation at the museum provides a strong bias in favor of the grounds for testing in each of its various phases. Whether testing is right or wrong, so it would seem, the case for doing was always a function of careful, rational consideration. The problem is of course that this just isn’t entirely true. It may well be that the arms race was inevitable. It may well be that the bomb needed to be dropped on Japan, as so many still argue today. It may even be that we needed to keep testing for so many years into the cold war. All these things may well be (and yet they may not), but that doesn’t mean that each step in the process can be fully explained as a rationale decision by someone genuinely interested in pursuing national security.
There are moments in the history of Nuclear testing in which the larger narratives just don’t fully explain what’s going on; moments in which the fingerprints of Dr. Strangelove seem to be found all over the course of nuclear testing; moments in the mad scientist seems to upstage the soldiers and scientist doing heir grim duty for the sake of loved ones, the nation, and possibly the entire world. When I see images of U.S. troops marching towards ground zero of an explosion because someone wanted to see how the bomb would affect troop movements, I can’t help thinking that I’m seeing one such moment in the history of nuclear testing
I look at such an image and I can’t help but wonder at the supposed reason for putting those troops in harms way, at least on that particular day and in that particular manner. Was this really a serious research question? Or was someone doing that simply because they could? Because they could put people out there and expose them to great danger in the name of science, and because being able to put human beings in danger for any reason must be one of the surest signs ever that you are somebody and that what you do is important.
I’m fairly certain that I see one such moment in one of the smaller placards of the museum, that devoted to Operation Plowshare. The placard reads as follows:
The Atomic Energy Commission’s Plowshare Program was named after a Biblical verse referring to “beating swords into plowshares.” The program was intended to find peaceful applications for nuclear weapons.
The Plowshare program, initiated in 1958, sought to develop peaceful uses for nuclear explosives to construct major facilities such as canals, harbors, earthen dams, and other engineering projects. Twenty-Six of the 35 Plowshare nuclear experiments were conducted at the Nevada test site. In 1961, the first off-site multi-purpose experiment, “Project Gnome,” near Carlsbad New Mexico was fired in a salt dome to study heat generated by a nuclear explosion, isotope and energy production, and seismic measurements. The most notable experiment in 1962 was Sedan, a 104 kiloton thermonuclear detonation, equivalent t an earthquake magnitude of 4.75 on the Richter Scale. The blast displaced 12 million tons of earth, creating a crater 1,280 feet in diameter and 320 feet deep. The crater could hold four football fields, end to end. Concluding the experiments in 1973 was Rio Blanco near Rifle, Colorado which focused on fracturing natural gas-bearing formations. The Plowshare program terminated in 1975 due to waning industrial interest and mounting public concern about the environmental consequences.
Not mentioned in this placard would one of the Plowshare projects never completed, Project Chariot. Project Chariot was an effort to build a harbor via nuclear detonations at a site just south of Point Hope, Alaska. Dan ONeill’s book, The Firecracker Boys provides a pretty thorough account of the politics behind this project as well as the opposition which eventually killed the project. Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson’s documentary, Project Chariot, also provides an interesting take on the subject, one focused the local Iñupiat population and their efforts to deal with the lasting impact of their brief encounter with an almost-bombing. I don’t particularly wish to rehash the full subject here, but it’s hardly a study in rational scientific inquiry. The Atomic Energy Commission ignored a great deal of science in planning the project, misrepresented the findings of its own scientists, lied to the people of Point Hope, and finally, when forced to abandon their plans to bomb the Alaskan coastline, the research team left radioactive material buried at the site without telling anyone.
I think about project Chariot when I read this placard telling us about the many successes of Operation Plowshare, when I see this matter of fact discussion of Plowshare’s goals and the simple decision to discontinue it. I think about the lives of scientists whose careers were trashed because they opposed it, and I think about the people in Point Hope today still unsure of just what did actually happen in their region, still wondering what effect it had upon them. In it’s pursuit of Project Chariot, the behavior of the Atomic Energy Commission was (as ONeill suggests) closer to that of kids with firecrackers, all-too eager to blow something up, than the sort of benign search for new ways to help mankind that one might expect from reading this placard on Operation Plowshare.
I think about all that, and I wonder how many similar stories never made it into the placards at the Atomic Testing Museum.
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(Gallery. You may click the pictures. Don’t worry. They won’t explode!)
Neat Ad
Yep!
Newe Segobia, the most bombed nation on earth. …did I type that out loud?
I love the smell of Whitesplaining in the morning. Smells like, …privilege!
So, it’s been a good week for me, or at least for my guilty pleasures. One of the greatest joys of the week has been watching my usual qualms about lefty crit-speak vanish in a puff of “Oh yeah, that’s what that means!” See, I have to admit, I’m not always down with the use of ‘whitesplaining’, ‘privilege’, ‘objectification’ in critical commentary. Some might suggest my hesitation is just what you’d expect from a middle-class white guy, but I can’t help thinking these get a little overused at times.
But then Dan Snyder made a true believer out of me.
This miracle of clarity came on Tuesday a charity event in which he answered a few questions, …badly. According to the Associated Press, Snyder simply declared that the team name is “not an issue” and that people need to “focus on reality.” And lo! The matter was settled. If you are like me, you might be thinking that’s a neat trick. When people keep telling you they have a problem with something you’re doing, you just declare it isn’t an issue, and like magic, it simply isn’t. Teenagers everywhere should try that with their parents and teachers.
…or maybe not.
Of course Dan Snyder isn’t a teenager; he isn’t challenging authority. Given his wealth and his power, and that his primary critics here seem to be an underprivileged demographic, the man is speaking down the social scale in some sense, delivering a pronouncement from on-high, one that others will struggle to challenge. If Snyder’s ex cathedra pronouncement seems to work, it is precisely because he has the power to make the story stick, and that power does not come from the clarity of his personal insight or the cogency of his arguments.
This isn’t someone speaking truth to power; it’s someone speaking power in the face of truth.
But of course Snyder isn’t just playing privilege, he also has an argument. That argument has something to do with addressing real issues affecting the lives of Native Americans rather than the symbolic issues associated with mascot politics. As Snyder says; “The real issues are real-life issues, real-life needs, and I think it’s time that people focus on reality.”
Now this little gambit almost has promise. You could make a plausible argument out of prioritizing material needs over symbolic politics, at least some people could under some circumstances. So, this argument seems like it might have some legs. Of course those legs might take his cause further if Snyder weren’t busy laying down a hundred thousand dollars to help a high school team change their football field to field turf, this after bragging up some coats and part of a backhoe given to Native Americans. Those legs stop walking altogether when one considers that any effort to actually help people in their real lives does nothing at all to answer questions about the name of the team. As Keith Olberman pointed out, it is quite possible to do both. And those legs sit down and kick up their feet for a smoke break when one considers just how outrageous it is for a non-native to simply declare that he knows what the actual issues for Native Americans really are in direct opposition to the stated position of so many of them. Mind you, the man isn’t making a suggestion, fielding a question, or even respectfully submitting any thoughts for folks to consider. He simply declares his own command of the issues once and for all. …adding that he and his folks have done their homework, “unlike a lot of people.”
I wonder who Dan Snyder thinks those other people who haven’t done their homework would be? Could it possibly be the people whose lives he pretend to want to help? Could it be the very people he is talking about? So, yep. Dan Snyder thinks he can simply tell the world what the real problems are in Indian Country, all the while ignoring the input, comments, criticism, and vocal outrage from indigenous voices all over the country, not the least of them appearing on the pages of Indian Country Today.
If I had to give an example of whitesplaining, I think this might just be the first one that came to mind.
But of course Dan Snyder had competition this week from rural Nevada where rancher and Tea Party hero Cliven Bundy opted to tell us a thing or two about the ‘negro’. …yep. Of course some folks might not be surprised to find a man with odd thoughts about federal authority (and the lack thereof) also had odd thoughts about minorities, but I prefer to give folks the benefit of the doubt.
…at least while there is doubt.
Here’s the quick and dirty version:
Now some folks seem to feel this shortened version of Bundy’s remarks reflects an unfair edit, so they present a larger version of the clip showing a bit more of Bundy’s thoughts on different people. Here it is:
If you watch this longer version of Bundy’s remarks, you can see quite clearly that he is not trying to spread hatred of or prejudice against anybody. No, he just believes a lot of terrible things about African Americans, at least, and he doesn’t seam to see that those beliefs are offensive and harmful to the people he claims not to hate. Bundy’s comments reflect common stereotypes about African-Americans and somewhat less common musings about the potentially benign effects of slavery. They may not reflect the kind of strident racism one would expect of the KKK (though we might have our suspicions about a few of Bundy’s supporters), but Bundy’s remarks do reflect a casual racism that tends to show up in some circles a couple beers into a good BBQ.
What seems most striking about this to me is the role that minorities play here as an object of contemplation for Bundy and his many defenders. Minorities present to Bundy and casual racists everywhere a source of material, so to speak, one tailor-made for commentary about where this damned world is going and where it really oughtta be. It’s a tired litany in which the real problems of the world can be found in the privileges of those with the least and with whoever is responsible for creating those imaginary privileges. Black folk aren’t the real evil of Bundy’s remarks. No, they are simply dupes of the Fed, fellow victims of big government who must be saved from it’s diabolical schemes. All the problems of the African-American community are thus subsumed under the interests of Bundy’s states’ rights agenda. They are simply one more reason to oppose big government, all for their benefit as well as his own.
The notion that the modern welfare state is just another form of slavery has been a favorite talking point of right wingers in recent years. It’s just one of the many ways in which the critique of welfare has long since jumped the shark in the echo chambers of America’s pseudo-conservatives and free market fundamentalists. So, I suppose it shouldn’t come as any real surprise to find Bundy reproducing this little yarn. It is a little bit of a surprise, I think, to find that people could be so thoughtless and so clueless about the realities of either slavery or social programs. The problem here is not malice (I will give Bundy supporters that much anyway); it’s ignorance, but it’s ignorance taken to 11.
One of the manifestations of that ignorance is a complete inability to conceive of minorities as anything but an object of casual consideration. Bundy’s past experiences are simply grist for the mill, anecdotes in a narrative about big government. The concerns, thoughts, and ideas of any actual minorities are quite absent from that narrative. So yet again, the key to minority problems turns out to rest in the hands of a random white guy whose principle concerns have little to do with them, who isn’t listening to them, and who has no real concerns for their welfare.
Like I said it’s been a good week for whitesplaining.
I never go down to the strip. By ‘never’ I really mean ‘almost’, but anyway, this trip was one of those exceptions. I came down a couple times to give my money to these guys (much better than dropping it in a slot machine. …seriously, you walk in a casino and look at all the people playing slots. If you see one person smiling, then you’re beating the odds on that one. But anyway…
There seems to be a fair range of different people working the strip. Some folks appear to be in desperate straights, doing what they can to hustle up some cash. Others have made a genuine profession out of it. …and no, I don’t figure those are mutually exclusive narratives.
The range of performances vary as well. Some folks have reasonably well-developed acts. Others simply dress up in a costume and pose for a dollar a pic. All of them appear to work for tips. They can get rather aggressive about that dollar too; don’t even try to snap one without paying the guy in the costume. No-one looks cool when they are getting their ass kicked by a guy in costume.
Of course the streets are also filled with folks handing out small business cards. They only offer these to the guys, for some unknown reason (cough), but they give you a whole bunch at once. I don’t want to go into details, but let’s just say that apparently a girl named Jackie is just waiting to hear from me, and Heather makes house-calls. Candy might even bring a friend!
Anyway, I have a couple videos below. …click to embiggen.
I’m not sure what a Statue of Liberty means in this context, but I’m pretty sure there is at least an ironic implication or three,
Meet Constant
I’m really disappointed, my video of this act didn’t come through. He’s quite remarkable.
Constant
Living Statue
Ace, Paul, and Peter were nowhere to be found.
Okay, so I think this is how these pictures are supposed to go.
Equipment just left there.
These guys were in town for a comic book convention.
Living Placard.
He plays and plays…
Almost lured me in, she did.
I think these girls may have been the real thing; they were, um, …flexible.
Guess these guys are in town again.
This Elvis made a point to find out where I was from.
He’s Batman!
He posed for the picture.
See, this bastard is the reason Vegas is so dry!!!
I really like this kitty!
Hello Kitty!
Moon and Tower
Transformers!
So, were is Gorp or the Asteroids Ship?
Comedy-gician
Hey look; a Gold Guy!
Elvis after he has left the building.
More Vegas Buildings
Card Hawker!
Yeah, …Vegas has one.
Yep, there is a person in there.
I wanted to get a complete video of one of these.
There is a bad joke in this picture. I won’t write it, but I’m a terrible person for thinking it.
They look so much bigger in person.
Colorful …yep.
Just Random Buildings. …they don’t do tricks or sing or anything!
Spider People Flash a Peace Sign!
I didn’t have anyone to buy a flower for, so he just posed for a picture.
So, this is the second half of my photo gallery from Las Vegas, again focusing on the murals of the arts district. (Volume I is here.) I want to thank my friend Liliana for helping get a couple of these from my crazy phone to the net.
A few items of note:
This website has a list of a hundred murals in Vegas, including quite a few that i haven’t managed to get in here.
The Erotic Heritage Museum had some interesting pieces. …and by ‘interesting’ I mean…. uh, nevermind.
A number of the pieces included here (and some I never found) appeared to be the result of an event, called the Meeting of Styles in September of 2012.
When I mentioned that I was in Sin City for Christmas, someone on Twitter asked if there were any murals in Vegas. I hadn’t really thought about it, as I soon proved with my answer. Vegas to me can usually be divided between the bare (earth-toned) walls of most residential neighborhoods and the kitchy goodness of the Strip and its progeny. …I tend not to notice either as I go about my business.
If you look closely you can see signs of effective graffiti-abatement programs all over the town. Graffiti does not last in much of Vegas, and it doesn’t appear that most of these programs distinguish a well done work of art from a simple tag. Even a legal mural can apparently be quite a problem.
This area was home to me for a good chunk of my life, but I always feel like a tourist when I come back to Vegas. …more so when I venture near the places this town is known for. Some parts of Vegas are more Vegassy than others.
…and sometimes it’s better to be a tourist than others.
Like this time for instance!
I decided to look around and see if I could find a mural or three, just for the heck of it. I soon discovered the Las Vegas Arts District, a neighborhood that was nowhere near this colorful back in the days I called this area home. But here it is, the source of most of the pictures I posted below. They hold an art fair here on the First Friday of every months, but my own interests lay mainly with the murals strewn about the walls of various buildings in this district.
Suffice it to say that I was very wrong to think Vegas doesn’t have interesting Street Art. They have rather a lot of it. You just have to know where to look.
***
This is a two part post (cause I got a lot of pics). I’ll add a few comments on some particular locations to the second post.
(As always, you may click to embiggen!)
Blue Face
Wall of Tolerance
Colorful Door
I wonder where this leads?
Liquid Chronic
A Hopeful Message
They say that as though it’s a bad thing.
Bail Bonds and Art, Who Knew?
Random Coolness
The Face of Coolness
Coolness Claimed
Moar Bail Bond Art!
An Owl Named Black Wolf?
Found the Wolves
Must have been neat when you could see it.
Schoolyard
School
From an Alley
Close Encounters of the Cool Kind
Sexy Martian!
Well Painted Wall 1
Well Painted Wall 2
Well Painted Wall 3
Well Painted Wall 4
Well Painted Wall 5
Well Painted Wall 6
Well Painted Wall 7, (I seem to have cut a Warhol piece in half. …I’m not sure he would disapprove.
Well Painted Wall 8
Well Painted Wall 9
Well Painted Wall 10
Well Painted Wall 11
(This pic, no zoom!)
Photography Studio
Pretty Face
Back Alley Goodness I
Back Alley Goodness II
Back Alley Goodness III
Museum
Old Version of The Attic (taken over a fence)
More Eyes than Most
Wild
Modernist Antiques
Quaint Shop I
Quaint Shop II
Quaint Shop I
Carriage
Art Imprisoned!
Cluster of Houses
House 1
Cool Character, …I seem to want to sit at his feet and learn.
So, I have this brand new camera, and I have been busy confirming my lack of photographic skills whenever I get a chance. Alone for a day in Reno, NV, I decided to go check out some of the artwork around town.
So, I figured these pics might go up on Facebook, but this isn’t a photo-blog, so I really didn’t think my trip to Reno would end up here at the northy place.
That was before I got to the Bruce R. Thompson, United States Courthouse & Federal Building. It had kind of an interesting sculpture in front of it, so I tried a few times to get a decent pic; zoomed in and out, turned the camera 90 degrees, tried it again, …you know the drill.
Enter the security guard.
He walked up rather briskly and asked me if I was doing this for commercial purposes? I answered ‘no’, and he proceeded to explain to me that if I had been doing it for commercial purposes, then I would need to get a permit. As long as I was just doing it, because I thought it was an interesting building I was okay, but taking a picture for commercial purposes required a permit. Asked why this was the case, the guard simply shrugged and said the politicians always have their regulations. What they were, he didn’t seem to know.
I had my pictures, so I walked off.
…but this has been eating me. Oh, the guard was perfectly nice about the whole thing, but still it’s eating me. I’ve studied enough legal conflicts to know just how complicated and counter-intuitive these matters can get, and normally I like to sort through the particulars before saying anything. Still! Somewhere in the scope of the First Amendment, I just can’t help thinking there ought to be room for taking a picture of a perfectly public building from a perfectly public sidewalk.
…and it shouldn’t require a damned permit to do it.
At this point I have no idea what the regulation is, or how broad its scope happens to be, much less how its framers envision its relationship to the rights of citizens. Nor do I know how much may have been lost in the translation from the particulars to what that guard said to me at that particular moment. But this is one case where I just can’t help thinking that no matter how the particulars shake out, it shouldn’t lead to exchanges like the one I had there with that guard.
Perhaps I am being unreasonable; I just don’t think so.
Since I’m thinking about it (airports and free time, you know how it goes), and since I now have story (however brief) to go with my bad photography, I am now going to inflict my pictures on those of you unfortunate enough to stumble across my blog today.
What did you expect? I’m a bad man!
Reno From Above
It’s entirely possible that the trouble began with check-in.
Now that’s a climbing wall!
They actually use it!
Reno, Mural 1
Reno Sculpture 1
Church in Reno
A river passes through Reno. It’s quite beautiful.
The Rover Again
So, …my new camera ain’t much, but it beats a cell-phone!
Duck!
Reno, Mural 2
Reno Mural 2, Close-Up
Reno Mural 2, Close-Up 2
Reno Mural 2, Close-Up 3
Reno, Sculpture 2
And here is the infamous sculpture!
The Federal Building
Federal Building and the Sculpture in the Same Shot, Oh yeah!
There is one other thing I really must say about the Nevada State Museum, and that it that it seems to contain the White Tree of Gondor. Oh, they call it a Great Basin Bristle Cone Pine, but I know the White Tree of Gondor when I see it. You can’t fool me!
northierthanthou 