Q + A

New Black Mountain Institute Executive Director Joshua Wolf Shenk plots the future of the literary center.

A conversation with acerbic comedian Doug Stanhope as he returns to where he began Straight from the American id, it’s Doug Stanhope — trampler of pieties, smasher of taboos, peddler of dangerous ideas (such as, it’s okay to stop caring about 9/11). Also, crucially: a comedian.

New water chief John Entsminger on lakes, lawns and how he plans to keep the taps flowing in Southern Nevada (hint: It’s not all about the rural pipeline plan anymore)What do you get for $260,000 a year? We get John Entsminger, the new general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. For his part, Entsminger gets a big, fat dehydration headache: A region of 2.

Former grand dame of gaming Elaine Wynn now sets her sights on a new venture: fixing the state’s education system For those accustomed to seeing Elaine Wynn in glamorous Vogue photo spreads or as the elegant, one-time grand dame of the Bellagio or Wynn resorts, it may be a little discombobulating to discover she’s actually a hardcore policy wonk. Yet it came as little surprise to anyone in the education world when she accepted Gov.

NPR’s Linda Wertheimer on Tea Parties, missing Tip O’Neill and why we can’t all just get along NPR senior national correspondent Linda Wertheimer discusses political polarization and civility in political dialogue in her talk “Cooling the Partisan Fires,” 1 p.m.

Dennis Oppenheim on a Las Vegas aesthetic, the mystique of art-making and those giant paintbrushesDennis Oppenheim's Paintbrush Gateway is slated for completion this fall: two 45-foot tall steel paintbrushes have already been planted along the sidewalk on East Charleston Boulevard. One brush rises from in front of a dilapidated Siegel Suites franchise at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard, while a second brush sits four hundred feet west in front of the Brett Wesley Gallery and across from the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC).