Micropinion

1. Talk about burying the lede. Nestled at the bottom of The Sunday’s most recent cover story about Tony Hsieh is this nugget:

About halfway around the White Rock Loop Trail, on the backside of White Rock Mountain, I come upon two guys heading the opposite direction. All three of us step off to the same side of the trail; they to their left, I to my right.

"De-accessioned." That's the demure word (from dictionary.

It’s an odd, frustrating, thought-inducing book, this new novel by Nigerian author Chris Abani, The Secret History of Las Vegas (Penguin, $16). Odd in its shifting mix of genre tropes and high literary intent — it may have aspects of a mystery, but this narrative of amok science, racism, hatred, memory and depravity is not escapism.

To a weary observer who’s watched Nevada’s K-12 education system limp into the 21st century, it can sometimes seem like the problems facing the school district aren’t just problems, but Problems — implacable, inscrutable, systemic, dyed so deep in the grain they’re less symptoms than a larger syndrome. Whether it’s state funding for education, graduation rates or test scores, the school district’s struggle to educate Clark County students has taken on the same sort of flavor as efforts to right our state tax structure: that of an ongoing epic with some small victories, precious few triumphs and lots of heartbreaking setbacks.

What does a Las Vegas literature look like? Is it vivid and brash, like neon? Is it spontaneous and risky? Is it populated with casinos and cocktail waitresses, jackpots and cheap drinks? Is it preoccupied with themes of chance, luck, swift changes of fortune? Does it even have to have any of these qualities to be considered “Las Vegan”? These are questions crossing my mind after reading Sandra Beasley’s recent rumination on the importance of regionalism. Beasley is chiefly concerned with regional poets, but her point could readily apply to the creative elements of any form of writing:.

When I stopped in the Albertsons on Maryland Parkway and Sahara Avenue on Monday and saw it being emptied out, pallet by fork-lifted pallet, my heart sank. The liquor department manager, still in apparent shock herself, told me she and her coworkers had just learned of the store’s closure a couple days earlier and that it would be gone for good by the end of February.

Now that it’s about to happen, it seems grimly inevitable: the closure of Las Vegas CityLife, the city’s altiest alt-weekly, after 21 roller-coaster years of reporting, snark, cultural judgment, occasional juvenilia and general cognitive dissidence. If you're a CL reader, you've seen it coming.

Hey, look! We highlighted Andrew Donner in our Influence list in the latest issue. He's the head of Resort Gaming Group, which, among other things, helps do the real estate wheeling and dealing for The Downtown Project in its ongoing llamafication plans for downtown.

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