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| What Las Vegas's Talking About |
| 🚗💨 Fool Zones | Twenty-six kids have been hit by cars near schools this year, a jump from the last school year. Crossing guards and others report that motorists seem more impatient these days, unwilling to slow their roll, regardless of the presence of children. [KTNV] | | 💵 Big Math | Fifteen billion dollars: That’s how much tourism honcho Steve Hill says Las Vegas stands to rake in over the next few months, between major sports events and conventions. He estimates the Grand Prix alone will generate $87 million in taxes. [KTNV] | - Hill’s sky-high projections have been met with some skepticism:
| | 💻 More Hacks on the Way? | Before our cultural amnesia bumps last month’s Strip cyberattacks from our memories, the Las Vegas Weekly takes a sobering look at the city’s online vulnerability. Says one expert, “It’s not a matter of if you’re going to get hit, but when you’re going to get hit.” [Las Vegas Weekly] | | 🗳️ Pense Goes Primary | Former veep Mike Pence is now the first major GOP presidential contender to file to run in Nevada’s primary election in February, rather than in the GOP caucus. (The election is run by the state, the caucus by the party.) Donald Trump has already filed for the caucus — which is how the party intends to award primary delegates. [Nevada Independent] | |
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| | 🃏 | If you need a booster shot of halloween spirit, this family-friendly cavalcade of scary floats and marchers should do the trick (or treat). [Downtown Summerlin; free] | | 🐭 ‘Stuart Little’ | Today-Sunday | Various times | The newish troupe Neon Spark Youth Theatre stages the family classic about the adventures of a talking mouse in New York City. [Las Vegas Little Theatre, Valley View and Spring Mountain; $12] | | 🛡️ | Chain mail, turkey legs, swords, louts, and wenches — the imaginary past becomes nerdily alive at Ren Fair. [Sunset Park; $17-$40] | | 🎨 | Celebrating its 27th year, the three-day event features the works of more than 100 local and national fine artists as well as children’s activities and entertainment. [The Lawn at Downtown Summerlin; free] | | 🖼️ Chalktober Fest | Saturday | 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. | An afternoon of chalk art competitions, plus activities for kids, a pumpkin patch, and food trucks. [Skye Canyon Park; free] | | 🥘 | A roster of top Vegas chefs each cooking brand new dishes makes for one of the valley’s biggest food events. [California Street, Arts District; $150] | - Context: Our talk with Vegas Unstripped organizer Eric Gladstone about how the national media treats the Vegas food scene. [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧]
| ✍️ | Presented by Avantpop Bookstore in the whimsical setting of the Office of Collecting and Design, this event brings together local poets under the theme “Obsessions.” [New Orleans Square; $17.85] | | 🎸 | Valley bands Soft Party, K.E.W.K., Mutual Head, and Ugly Boy tear it up in an all-ages show. [Taverna Costera, Arts District; no cover] |
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| The Appreciation Index: 🪨 A Caliche Story |
|  | Don’t pick a fight with caliche. (SkyAceDesign/Getty Images) |
| Kirk Stowers has a caliche story. Not because he’s a geologist, which he is — with the consulting firm Broadbent & Associates — but thanks to his dad. It was 1973, and his family had just arrived from Illinois. “My father had been led to believe that in order for a family to appreciate living in Southern Nevada, a swimming pool was going to be necessary in our backyard,” Stowers recalls. A contractor was hired and began to dig. “We wanted an eight-foot pool, and at about six feet they ran into caliche.” Full stop. That’ll be $10,000 extra, they said. | | Caliche is a hard, dense sedimentary rock a few feet beneath our soil, formed when groundwater dissolves the alluvium that fills our bowl-like valley. The minerals reharden in a process “a lot like making cement,” Stowers says. It occurs in random swatches throughout the valley, though more often in the center. The bane of people who dig or who wish their house had a basement, caliche isn’t without its upsides. It’s good for building rock walls, for one. It also inhibits pollutants from seeping deeper into the soil. And studies show that desert caliche traps a lot of carbon underground, out of the air — no small benefit as climate change accelerates. | | Stowers’ father stubbornly dismissed the change order and “bought himself a pickaxe,” his son recalls. “Then he walked down into the bottom of the excavation, and he took a mighty swing —” | | Let’s pause briefly to reflect on the comic inevitability of the man vs. nature saga about to play out, symbolic of the larger challenges of imposing our will on a hard desert place (see also “Vegas, Las”). From the outside the stone is a riddle, poet Charles Simic wrote, no one knows how to answer it. That certainly pertained to Mr. Stowers that day in 1973: | | “— and it made a loud, clanging sound, like a bell. He only took one swipe, and the pick bounced back up; it didn’t even make a dent.” At which point Mr. Stowers solved the riddle of the stone by calling the contractor back. “They finished our swimming pool, $10,000 later.” Lesson learned: You can conquer the desert, all right, but it’ll probably cost you. | | ➕ Caliche isn’t the only thing worth griping about in this town! We have a whole list. [City Cast Las Vegas 🎧] |
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| Today on City Cast Las Vegas |
| | On this week’s news roundup: Podcast host Dayvid Figler is joined by audio producer Layla Muhammad and TheList.Vegas publisher Andrew Kiraly. They’ll talk about (a) the workarounds proposed by tourism honchos to help Strip workers deal with F1 traffic; (b) magnet schools and “school choice”; and (c) the release of baby desert tortoises into the wild. | | | | ➕ Dig this ensemble mojo? Check out (🎧) last week’s hoppin’ news roundup: school start times, street vendors, and whether Sphere’s razzle-dazzle is 👍 or 👎 |
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Lastly today ... | | | ☕ Scott Dickensheets | | Thanks for the sharp edits, Sonja Cho Swanson and Layla Muhammad! |
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