The Writer’s Block
“I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything.” So says noted book fan Reese Witherspoon (thanks, BrainyQuote.com!), but she might as well have been describing my EKG when I visited The Writer’s Block the other day. That’s the smart new bookstore at 1020 Fremont St., operated by Scott Seeley and Drew Cohen, the newest saints in my personal pantheon. (I’m crazy for bookstores, too, Reese.) It opened this week, and I have the receipt for $72.32 to prove it. Much love to ya, Barnes & Noble, but you haven’t been carrying the books I got at the Block. That’s the first thing to love about this place: These fellas have great taste and judgment in books. The selection, while not B&N-large, is potent — I wanted to buy everything in a cash-flinging, Witherspoonian frenzy. The second is that their mission is larger than just selling books — the back half of the store will be a workshop area focusing on kids’ literacy programs. And you gotta love the spritz of cosmopolitan éclat that a sophisto bookstore brings to a Downtown that’s lately measured its progress in terms of new bars. (See, I’ve been there once and suddenly I’m using words like éclat.) And have I mentioned that there are lots of great books there? Be still my heart. — Scott Dickensheets
Scarves
Given that our annual winter is, oh, like 17 minutes long, we Las Vegans don’t get much chance to do all that stylish layering that you see denizens of chillier burgs doing in the streetstyle photoblogs, dashing sinuously around their metropolis, trailing scarves, tails, flares, lapels and belts like sartorial emoticons. So when valley temperatures dip below 60, it’s time to get my sweet metrosex on with some scarves. It’s a functional, seasonal accent without the commitment (and the slow corporate strangulation) of a traditional necktie, an urbane flourish that gives faux-sophisticates like me a placebo dose of metropolitan gusto, as though — collar popped, gloved hands in pockets — I’m running to catch the Abbessess line for a tryst in Montmartre. Okay, so I’m dashing into the Terrible Herbst for a Twix. But only because I heard they brought back the dark-chocolate version — a flavor truly appreciated by bescarved, wanna-be aesthetes like me. — Andrew Kiraly