“I’ve always felt the city has been a little cheated,” Brett Wesley Sperry said, gesturing with his champagne glass amid a small knot of people gathered in The Lady Silvia bar. Cheated, he meant, by the valley’s inability to provide itself the big cultural facilities a proper city ought to have.

In which we create a collage portrait of collage artist Anthony Bondi, whose work once captured — and helped define — the Vegas zeitgeist. What’s he been up to since?Robert Hughes’ colossal art-history doorstop, The Shock of the New, tells us that collage, as a technique of high art, began with the Cubists early in the 20th century.

The West’s great camel experiment sought to bring Mother Nature’s irritable, spitting, cactus-eating off-road vehicle to the mines and mountains of Nevada.The great desert of the West beckoned explorers, exploiters and settlers throughout the 19th century.

What do they like? How much should I spend? What’s appropriate? Jewelry? A novelty item? A gift card? The giving season can often be the stressing season when it comes to spreading holiday cheer among friends, co-workers and loved ones. Never fear.

The casual food trend is lively, playful, sometimes even silly - but also more sophisticated than you think. There are snobby gourmands - maybe you know one or two - who lament the trend of casual cuisine starting to eclipse fine dining.

We took three of the valley's top food writers out to lunch to dish about the state of the Vegas dining scene. We didn't save you any pizza - but here are a few slices of our lively conversation.

PB&J pancakes at LAVO Do not be frightened by the lithe she-creatures in club heels frequently tottering in front of LAVO; there is food inside, and it is good. The restaurant/club hybrid recently began flirting with something it calls “Proper Brunch” on Sunday.

La Cucina Italiana Food and Wine FestivalDec. 5-8.