Living Las Vegas

Real Life in the Shadow of the Strip

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Top Vegas Hotels: Bellagio, Luxor, Rio

Roads from the Ashes: An Odyssey in Real Life on the Virtual Frontier, by Megan Edwards

Las Vegas Strip

A View to a Thrill

The Stratosphere Tower is nothing new. It opened in 1996, which makes it practically a senior citizen in Las Vegas years (which are sort of like dog years, only more so). I moved here in 1999, but I happened to be passing through in 1995, when maybe 200 of the tower’s eventual 1,149 feet had risen from the north end of the Strip.

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Mysteries of Mystère

Cirque du Soleil’s Mystère is now in its tenth year at Treasure Island. A decade is a long run, but judging from the crowds last weekend, the magic isn’t fading, not even a tiny bit. Neither are the costumes, the lights, the sets… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I rush on, I must [...]

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Lovely Rita

The chair I’m sitting in reminds me of Sunday school—it’s the stackable kind with a straight back and a Naugahyde seat. The room is dark, and a disembodied male voice is instructing me and the other 200 people sitting on Sunday school chairs to make sure our cell phones are turned off. Then the lights come up on the bare stage in front of us, and a woman walks out from a wing. She starts talking…

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Something Even More Spectacular: The Liberace “Play-A-Like” Contest

If it’s understatement you’re after, don’t go to the Liberace Museum. If you admire self-effacing modesty, stay away. Are you a person of quiet tastes? Be warned. The strip mall at the corner of Tropicana and Spencer will assault your tender sensibilities.
And don’t expect any apologies, either. Liberace was the guy who coined the phrases, [...]

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Spirit of the King

Elvis impersonation has been around long enough to show obvious signs of its own idiosyncratic evolution. You no longer hire an Elvis without first deciding whether you want the young Elvis of Ed Sullivan fame or the mature Elvis in white jumpsuit. Just the other day, I saw one of these senior Elvi (oh, and [...]

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