Pop quiz: What town has Nevada’s oldest and smallest school still in continuous operation? If you answered Goodsprings — located just 34 miles southwest of Las Vegas — retired Goodsprings schoolteacher Julie Newberry might just give you a gold star. Talk about resilience.

If paperback fiction authors are cooks, Las Vegas is the seasoning they want within easy reach. Setting too bland? Nothing a little Sin City can’t fix.

At-risk kids with ballet dreams find support — and life-changing opportunities — at Nevada Ballet Theatre’s Future Dance program I’ve twice seen Ariel Triunfo dance. The first time was three years ago, when Nevada Ballet Theatre’s 2010 summer intensive classes were wrapping up and the parents of so many ballerinas gathered in Nevada Ballet Theatre’s large Studio B to watch the session’s concluding performance.

“It was the first and best performance I’ve ever seen.” That’s what a grade-schooler wrote after attending one of the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s Youth Concert Series shows, an annual, five-day tear of concerts at The Smith Center that treats valley fourth- and fifth-graders to what is often their first taste of orchestral music — for many, their first soul-stirring communion with performed music as vigorous, vitalizing art.

Beneath a cardboard facade, this conceptual artist explores romance, pop culture and feminism In January, a young Las Vegas artist named Lauren Adkins married a cardboard cutout of a dreamy Twilight vampire — actual chapel and ceremony, real well-wishers and reception — and called it art. Now: Does that make you go, Hmm …, the ellipsis suggesting an openness to such a nontraditional idea of art? Or did you go, WTF?, because, you know, WTF? Adkins’ project, “Love Is Overtaking Me” (her graduate thesis at UNLV, by the way) was about several things: the contested nature of female fandom, the allure of romantic escapism, the grip that pop culture has on our lives.

This young filmmaker takes on everything from sci-fi to satire — and his Indie Film Factory inspires a budding scene Some where in the warehouse wastelands near the intersection of Valley View and Desert Inn, there’s a black box that’s helping to change the landscape of filmmaking in Las Vegas. The Indie Film Factory is large enough to fit a car in, with a green screen fastened to its far wall.

Scandal! Excess! Sexy lady robots! Whether it’s social commentary or a satirical free-for-all, every TV show does a Vegas episode Almost every show that’s been on the air for more than two seasons winds up with a Las Vegas episode. Find some pretext to pack up the cast, dump them into a car or on a plane, point them toward Sin City and let the hijinks ensue! The dramatic possibilities inherent in gambling losses or wins/unplanned weddings/alcohol-induced amnesia do seem irresistible to any writer mired in the season-three narrative doldrums.

Consider the humble chair. For most of us, it’s a plush pedestal for our lazy-butt, Netflix-based lifestyles, a mere booty receptacle for office work and web-surfing.

Ba lunches and math homework - it's yet another back-to-school season. Or is it? This fall, prep-school style gets a punky edge as the kids move to the head of the class.

Soft and structured styles warm up this fall's looks See full fashion spread here.