Lest I trigger some cataclysmic, late-game jinx upon Las Vegas as we tentatively scooch toward something resembling recovery (or post-COVID detente? or the New Abnormal? or the Third Second Wave?), I won’t spend too much of Editor’s Note celebrating the triumphant return of live arts, culture, and events. The best way for you to celebrate is to bail on my introductory bloviating and flip immediately to our Fall Culture Guide, happily gravid with a season’s worth of exhibits, concerts, festivals, plays, readings, and more. The nimble comeback of the valley’s cultural venues and institutions — from waking giants like the Smith Center to small gems such as Core Contemporary Gallery — speaks not just to their resilience, but to the strength of their enduring commitment to enlivening our city with art.
It’s fitting, too, that our fall issue of Desert Companion includes our Top Doctors and Top Dentists lists, celebrating a more literal definition of community health. For a glimpse of future medical excellence in the valley, check out our story, “Making the Grade,” in which Heidi Kyser and I had open-ended, eye-opening conversations with recent medical and nursing school graduates about their academic experiences, their hopes, concerns, and career aspirations. It might be too early to predict a full recovery for Las Vegas, but if this issue represents any kind of health checkup, the city’s prognosis looks promising indeed.