Mailing address: 31855 Date Palm Drive, No. 3-263, Cathedral City, CA 92234
775-324-4440 • RenoNR.com
Publisher/Executive Editor
Jimmy Boegle
Managing Editor Kris Vagner
Editor at Large
Frank X. Mullen
Photo Editor
David Robert
Cover and Feature Design
Dennis Wodzisz
Distribution Lead Rick Beckwith
Contributors
Matt Bieker, Maude Ballinger, Kaitlyn Caldwell, Bob Grimm, Michael Grimm, Helena Guglielmino, Matt Jones, Matt King, Kelley Lang, Chris Lanier, Michael Moberly, Steve Noel, Dan Perkins, Carol Purroy, Sitara Reganti, David Rodriguez, Sarah Russell, Jessica Santina, Max Stone, Delaney Uronen, Robert Victor, Matt Westfield, Leah Wigren, Susan Winters
The RN&R is a proud member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, the Nevada Press Association, and the Local Independent Online News Publishers. Coachella Valley Independent, LLC, is a certified LGBT Business Enterprise® (LGBTBE) through the NGLCC Supplier Diversity Initiative.
EDITOR'S NOTE
The world will change in November
Welcome to the November print edition of the RN&R!
Because we’re a monthly newspaper in print, I’m always working in something of a time warp. In the middle of each month, it almost seems as if the beginning of the fol lowing month is “the present,” because that’s when we’ll publish the next issue of the paper—and my mind is always on the next issue of the paper. The local events you read about in the RN&R a few days before they happen?
tem’s budget stable.
By the time you pick up our December issue, the nation, the state and the county may well feel like very different places than they do now.
We’re discussing them internally weeks before that.
As we send this issue to press on Tuesday, Oct. 29, a full week before the Nov. 5 election, it feels like the biggest time warp ever. This is the highest-stakes election of my lifetime, and by the time some of our readers pick up the paper, there’s a good chance that something monumental will have already happened.
So, what does the near future (which for you, print reader, may already be the recent past) hold? I make no predictions. I’ve never been good with the crystal ball. Heck, when I first saw someone scroll through a photo album on an iPhone in 2007, I was sure it was a passing fad for deep-pocketed gadget junkies. Could a person possibly have been more wrong about the imminent future?
When everything involving the election is finally settled, the United States will have one of two very different leaders ready to take office in January. Will Nevada be represented in the U.S. Senate by incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen or Army veteran or Republican Sam Brown? Reproductive rights either will or won’t be enshrined the Nevada Constitution, and a portion of Washoe County’s tax revenue either will or won’t be earmarked to keep the library sys-
As you’ve likely heard countless times by now, the two major presidential candidates are neck in neck in the polls. An CNN poll released on Oct. 29 reports that in Nevada, the contest is 48%-47% in favor of Donald Trump, and “those 1-point margins fall within each poll’s margin of sampling error” anyway. Trump has discussed his Day 1 aspirations widely. Back in December 2023, he promised to close the border, and his stance on immigrants has remained consistent. By Oct. 27, during a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, he
promised that on Day 1 in office, he would implement a mass deportation. Kamala Harris, when asked about Day 1 plans, has often said she’ll prioritize creating an “opportunity economy,” trying to bring down the cost of basic necessities and extending the child tax credit. She’s also said repeatedly that expanding and protecting reproductive rights is an urgent priority she’d tackle immediately.
While many of us might spend Day 1 at a new job getting the lay of the land and settling in, U.S. presidents typically hit the ground running. On Joe Biden’s first day in office, he signed 17 executive actions.
At this point, it’s anyone’s guess which set of actions may get signed on Jan. 20, 2025.
Does anyone else feel like they’re at the crest of a roller coaster, about to speed down a stomach-churning drop into the unknown?
In any case, I’m looking forward to picking up this conversation with you all in the December issue.
GUEST COMMENT
BY ANDRÉ C. WADE
Book-banning is a symptom of an agenda to strip Americans of their personal rights and civil liberties
Book-banning has come to Washoe County. Even though the topic was not on the agenda of a recent Washoe County School District board meeting, pastor John Amanchukwu Sr. stepped to the lectern to bring his nationwide book-banning dog-and-pony show before the trustees.
This anti-LGBTQ+ and self-proclaimed “book banning pastor” is not from Washoe County. He is from North Carolina and has taken his performance, in partnership with the right-wing group Turning Point USA, on the road, creating chaos during school-board meetings throughout the country.
This manufactured outrage, which often includes Amanchukwu and well-rehearsed community members being escorted from meetings, is reported repeatedly by the media — and Washoe County was no exception. Sadly, however, even a cursory review of the immediate coverage appears to have the unintended result of further spreading Amanchukwu’s hateful rhetoric by focusing on his antics.
At the above-referenced school-board meeting, Silver State Equality representatives spoke. We released a statement after the meeting: “Two representatives from Silver State Equality attended the Washoe County School Board meeting to speak on keeping school libraries safe spaces and oppose book bans proposed by far-right extremists. Unfortunately, they had to leave the meeting due to safety concerns after being harassed— blocked from returning to their seats, and subjected to derogatory comments, with one person even laying hands on them under the guise of praying.”
against “indoctrination.” But in reality, they seek to restrict free expression, including the right to receive and impart information by criminalizing the discussion of social inequity and diverse identities.
It is Silver State Equality’s belief that having a wealth of books from various perspectives allows marginalized groups to feel more connected in a world that already may overlook them, and empowers all readers to understand those who are different from themselves.
The movement to ban books is not a standalone issue, nor can we afford to treat it as such. It is one tentacle of a larger, right-wing plan outlined in Project 2025 to strip Americans of their personal rights and civil liberties and, in the end, replace our democratic republic with an autocratic and/or theocratic form of government.
It’s critically important to understand the realities of what may lie ahead if those who reject the rule of law, crave power for their own benefit and see “the others” as inferior or enemies are given power.
The right’s plan is no secret. It’s out there in Project 2025, created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank operated by many of Donald Trump’s current and former political allies, who are also the authors of the Republican National Committee’s platform. Recently, Heritage’s president said: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Why would someone thank you?
Asked in the Wells Avenue District, Reno
Erick Cruz-Lopez Food truck owner
BY DAVID ROBERT
I’ve always been very fair with people—my kids, my employees and my co-workers. I hired an older woman to work for me. Nobody else would hire her because of her age. She came up to me one day and thanked me so much for doing that. She was extremely appreciative. She worked for me for three years. She couldn’t do some of the tasks, but she worked hard at what she could do.
Moe Flamini Ski resort employee
I have a 20-year-old daughter who has autism and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) issues. I’ve spent most days with her for the past 20 years. I drive her to her therapy appointments three days a week and give her meds, and take her walking and swimming. I also take her to meet with her artist friends. She looks at me and gives me pretty damn genuine, “Thank you, Mama”s.
It should be noted that of the more than 40 public comments submitted by Washoe residents to the meeting, not one was in support of book-banning.
Book-banning is dangerous and harmful. It is censorship chipping away at First Amendment rights. The organized book-banning efforts taking place nationally and locally are designed to demonize segments of our society.
According to PEN America—an organization that works to protect the freedom to read and write for all—despite U.S. federal legislation protecting all students, including LGBTQ+ students, from sex discrimination, policies that ban books and restrict teaching of subjects related to race, gender, sex and sexual orientation claim to protect children
Such threats cannot keep us from fully comprehending that this year’s election is about keeping our freedom and not giving far-right politicians and judges control over our lives. The 800-page Project 2025 authoritarian playbook is a step-by-step plan that gives the next president massive powers without any checks and balances; it weakens legislative and judicial branches; it ends civil rights protections; it staffs the justice department with those loyal only to the president, not the law; and so much more, that in the end, democracy itself is dismantled.
I encourage everyone who values freedom, civil liberties and social justice to dissent by putting their energy behind supporting candidates—up and down the ballot—who are dedicated to protecting equality for all and preserving constitutional rights for all. Vote like democracy depends on it.
André C. Wade is state director of Silver State Equality, a civil rights organization that works to enact change through policy and other systems.
Monica Williams Service worker
I once had a customer who thanked me for bringing them a mimosa in the spa at the Peppermill. I do room service, and people often thank me and tip me extra for being so kind to them and making them so comfortable. They have thanked me for my friendliness and have said that Reno is friendlier than Vegas.
Charlie Cruz Political canvasser
I have a long-time friend. We don’t see each other for years and just pick up from where we were before. I ran into him in Ohio, where we were working on a project together, and he hugged me and said, “Love ya, bro,” and he thanked me for years of loyalty, being there for him, and my friendship.
Chris Howard
Vinyl graphics designer
My 16-year-old daughter and I just escaped from Texas, out of Austin to the Great Basin. We’ve been dying to live up in the mountains. My daughter has blossomed tremendously, is happy, and has come out of her shell since we moved here. She said to me the other day, “Dad, I’m so grateful that we escaped Texas and now live in a blue state.”
NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
| BY JIMMY BOEGLE
Canceling subscriptions to punish newspaper owners is a bad idea
Donald Trump held a big rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Oct. 27, nine days before Election Day. Here’s how Time magazine explained the event, in a piece headlined “Trump Rally at Madison Square Garden Marked by Racist and Lewd Jokes.”
Donald Trump was the headliner at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. But the more than two dozen warm-up acts showed the country a lot about the party he’s built around him.
Speaking from a podium on the arena floor that read “Trump will fix it,” comedian Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to an “island of garbage,” and made lewd sexual jokes about Latinos. When a Black man stood to cheer him on, Hinchcliffe said the two of them had been at a Halloween party the night before, adding “We carved watermelons together.”
A day later, Trump’s campaign disavowed Hinchcliffe’s set (even though it had almost certainly been OK’d by the campaign in advance), with a statement: “These jokes do not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” The Time article continued:
Tucker Carlson said it’s going to be hard for Trump supporters like him to believe the election results if Kamala Harris wins. He also mocked Harris—whose mother was from India and father from Jamaica—for her
biracial identity, saying she would be “the first Samoan Malaysian low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected President.”
Two longtime Trump allies—Rudy Giuliani and Stephen Miller—floated false conspiracies that Democrats were behind the two recent assassination attempts against Trump. New York Republican David Rem, who has been described as a childhood friend of Trump, held up a crucifix and called Kamala Harris the “anti-Christ.”
The Trump campaign has dropped all pretense, and is now promoting unfiltered hate and racism.
This New York rally—which drew more than a few comparisons to a 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue—makes the decisions by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post to overrule their editorial boards and decline to endorse Kamala Harris even more pathetic.
“Withholding support for Harris after everything that both newspapers have reported about Trump’s manifest unfitness for office looks to me like plain cowardice,” Robert Greene wrote in The Atlantic. “Although I served on the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board for 18 years, I believe one can reasonably question the value of endorsements. Still, the timing here invites speculation that these papers are preparing for a possible Trump victory by signaling a willingness to accommodate the coming administration
rather than resist it. At each paper, the editorial board had readied a draft or outline of a Harris endorsement and was waiting (and waiting and waiting) for final approval. … The L.A. Times editorials editor, Mariel Garza, told her team, including me, that the owner, Patrick SoonShiong, would not permit any endorsement to run. She then resigned in protest.”
The decision at The Washington Post led the nation’s two most famous journalists, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, to issue a statement slamming their alma mater.
“Under Jeff Bezos’ ownership, The Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process,” the journalists wrote.
These decisions by the owners of these two newspapers led upset readers to cancel their subscriptions—in droves. NPR reported on Oct. 28: “More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by midday Monday, according to two people at the paper with knowledge of internal matters. … The figure represents about 8% of the paper’s paid circulation of 2.5 million subscribers, which includes
print as well. The number of cancellations continued to grow Monday afternoon.”
I fully and completely understand the impulse to cancel subscriptions ... but I humbly ask: Does anyone think these cancellations will harm or move Patrick Soon-Shiong (with a net worth of $7.5 billion) Jeff Bezos (with a net worth north of $206 billion) at all?
It won’t. But it may very well harm the hard-working reporters at those newspapers.
Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion issues for The Washington Post, wrote eloquently on Twitter/X:
I feel lucky to work at a place that doesn’t blink when I say I need to fly to Texas to meet a woman whose life has been changed by an abortion ban. To document the impacts of Dobbs up close. I can only do that if we have subscribers who support us. Reporters in the Post newsroom will continue to do our jobs. We will report fearlessly on whoever becomes president, and so many other things that really matter, because we are independent and care deeply about holding the powerful to account. I completely understand if you’ve lost faith in our owner, but please, don’t lose faith in us.We have so much work to do.
Yes, we journalists all have so much work to do—now more than ever—and we can’t do that work without reader support.
ON NEVADA BUSINESS
The road to stability
How one savvy restauranteur has thrived in a notoriously tough business (through COVID-19, no less)
As a young man working my way through school, I worked in the restaurant industry for more than a decade.
I moved from dishwasher to prep cook and line cook while I was still in high school. At 18 and still in New Jersey, I got a job as a waiter at Donald’s Bistro and was taken under the wing of a couple of career servers. I didn’t realize it back then, but this was an incredible classroom for learning business soft skills. I learned how to read people and situations at the spur of the moment, during random interactions.
Good servers, within 10 seconds, introduce themselves and the restaurant’s specials, drinks and other details. This is all while they determine if the guests in front of them want to be entertained or left alone. Are they conducting business? Having a romantic interlude? Something else? If we got it right, the evening was usually blissful and profitable. If we got it wrong, the evening was long, miserable and usually not as profitable. Once you got comfortable in the rapid-fire nature of a Friday-night rush, you felt like a million bucks. You knew when you could work a room for four or five hours nonstop. There would always be complaints—the food’s not cooked enough, cooked too much, too spicy, not spicy enough, tastes like crap, etc.—but the old pros taught me that, as long as you could work a room, dealing with the rest of it was easy.
The restaurant business is notoriously one of the toughest businesses to start and sustain anywhere in the world. According to FoodIndustry.com, 60% of restaurants fail in the first year, and 80% fail within five years. That means that just 20% of restaurants make it to mature profitability. That is a low percentage rate for any business sector. According to CNBC, the primary reason cited for failure is poor location.
Back in 2012, I had a student in my entrepreneurship class at the University of Nevada, Reno, Kurtis Tan. In addition to attending school full-time, he worked at the Asian and sushi restaurants that his dad, Truman Tan, owns, with business partner Remmy Jia. He also did digital marketing to Asian communities for the Peppermill. This was a huge learning experience, which Kurtis didn’t realize until much later. His dad had wanted him to finish his education and eventually take over the family Ijji restaurants here in Reno and Sparks. Kurtis was grateful every day for his family’s mentoring and commitment to his education.
As a kid, he had watched them work hard,
with crazy schedules and hours, building their business. He had learned all facets of the restaurant business, and especially the Asian-restaurant business, but he yearned to go his own way and build his own company.
Understand that restaurant owners must be contrarians. Why? Because restaurants make money when everyone else isn’t—evenings, weekends and holidays. It is a weird lifestyle. You work until 10 or 11 o’clock or later, then sleep until 9 or 10 (if you’re not the owner!) and do it all over again. It’s a really tough routine, but there are folks like the owners of Ijji who would have it no other way.
As Kurtis says, “We sell experience.” The great food and extensive menu are bonuses. This is the recipe for success (no pun intended—really!) in arguably one of the toughest professions there is.
With the help and blessing of his family, Kurtis opened his Ijji Noodle House & Poke Don in south Reno at 199 Damonte Ranch Parkway in 2019. Yup, that 2019, before the pandemic. Kurtis and his staff spent the first few months tweaking the menu—testing various menu items and marketing strategies, which takes time. Kurtis realized that the numbers didn’t lie, and he had to make a tough decision: He decided to cut the Chinese food items off the menu to focus on ramen, poke and pho.
Initially, there were some pissed-off customers. Ijji Noodle House withstood the pressure, and Kurtis stuck to his decision. Soon thereafter, a bigger crisis hit: The entire world was feeling the sudden effects of the COVID pandemic, and most everyone had to adjust, including businesses—especially restaurants.
The Ijji restaurants were stocked with food—the walk-in fridges were full of meat, fish, poultry and veggies—that would spoil within days. Kurtis and his chef went around to each branch, gathered hundreds of pounds of food, and cooked it up. They delivered it to the area hospitals for the patients and staff to enjoy. Those donations and deliveries had Kurtis thinking about how to quickly adapt to the pandemic. He pivoted to doing only curbside pickup and delivery. It was a tough transition for the Ijji team; they fumbled through the first weeks before starting to get into a groove. Soon, they were a tuned-up machine, serving and delivering.
BY MATT WESTFIELD
Once restaurants were opening back up, Kurtis realized that the new (to him) pickup/ delivery piece of the business was a good one. He kept refining it. To this day, the “to-go” piece of the business is about 30%—and a very profitable piece at that, as to-go orders don’t involve service staff, table clearing or dishes to wash.
As we saw from the statistics from FoodIndustry.com, it takes five years to make it past the critical zone and into a sustainable business. The recipes for success include lots of pivots, quick adapting and focusing on the numbers.
We can congratulate Kurtis and his family at Ijji Noodle House, as they’ve passed that five-year milestone. On a recent Friday night, they were packed.
Well done, Ijji, and thanks for continuing to serve the community!
Kurtis Tan, owner of Ijji Noodle House & Poke Don, tests out a new menu item.
Photo/David Robert
Inside the evacuation zone
One family’s story of narrowly escaping the Davis Fire
On Sept. 7, Amber DiBello and her family were at Lake Tahoe soaking up the late-summer sun when they started receiving messages and photos from friends and neighbors about a fire near their home, prompting them to hurriedly pack up.
On the way home, DiBello saw people gathered on the Mount Rose Highway near Slide Mountain and pulled over to join them. She followed their gaze down the mountain toward Washoe Lake and the wildfire that was quickly growing in Davis Creek Regional Park.
“It felt like we were just so far, at least 3,000 feet above it, and at the time, we were thinking with the wind direction that it wasn’t likely the fire would go uphill,” she said.
The DiBellos live near Sky Tavern, the nonprofit ski and snowboard training center located a short drive down the hill from Mount Rose Ski Tahoe. A drive from their neighborhood to Davis Creek Regional Park would involve a winding, 20-minute descent. But as the crow flies, the distance is just under three miles.
They arrived at their house, still in their
Amber DiBello, outside her home with her 4-month-old daughter, said the week during her family’s evacuation was one of the most stressful times in her life.
Photo/Kaitlyn Caldwell
fires to spread faster than firefighters are able to reach them.
“All of the conditions were just right—and then, of course, down in the Davis Creek area, there was a lot of timber and just a lot of fuel for a fire to be successful,” Mayberry said.
In less than 48 hours, the fire engulfed 5,000 acres, according to the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District (TMFPD). It reached some homes so fast that residents barely had time to evacuate. DiBello said one of her friends, who was out of town when the fire started, couldn’t grab anything at all.
Chaotic winds pushed the fire northeast, then northwest. Because of this, the evacuation zone was large enough to affect 12,000 to 14,000 people and was in effect for more than a week, according to the TMFPD. Mayberry said that residents dispersed to shelters, family or friends’ homes, hotels and short-term rentals.
DiBello said that finding a safe place for her family and two large dogs was a challenge.
“I have everything for a newborn at the house, and I don’t have everything for a newborn anywhere else,” she said. She called a friend in Arrow Creek, but that neighborhood was also in the evacuation zone. Hotels weren’t an easy option, as many don’t allow pets.
bathing suits and covered in sand. Assuming they would return home in less than 24 hours, DiBello threw in a load of laundry and began leisurely packing suitcases for herself, her husband, their two young daughters—a 2-yearold and a 4-month-old—and their two Bernese mountain dogs. She thought through how to pack for an emergency and what to bring for an infant. She packed a sleepsuit, a small crochet blanket that her baby likes to hold, and a portable bassinet.
Then the power went off. The DiBellos heard sirens growing louder as emergency vehicles moved closer to their home.
“That’s when we were like ‘OK, we need to get out of here,’” DiBello said. “I think we were out within 30 minutes after we first walked in the door.”
The fire, now known as the Davis Fire, spread rapidly, threatening homes and businesses. The National Weather Service had issued a red flag warning that morning, with winds reaching up to 30 mph and humidity falling between 12 and 15%. According to Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District communications manager Adam Mayberry, such high winds and low humidity can cause
“We … certainly got some resistance from people who didn’t want to evacuate, or, once they were evacuated, they wanted to know when they could get back,” Mayberry said.
Brian Jordan, who lives down the street from DiBello, stayed to protect his home.
“It wasn’t that I wanted to be there when the fire came through,” Jordan said. “It was that I had a lot of work to do around the house to prepare it, in case a fire did come through.”
He said that his car was packed in case he needed to leave quickly, and that he cooperated with officials and made them aware of his plan.
“I was monitoring the fire as best as I could and knew my exit routes,” Jordan said. “I absolutely never felt like I made the wrong decision.”
Waiting out the fire
DiBello recalls those evacuation days as some of the most stressful of her life. Her family relied on short-term vacation rentals for shelter, moving five times and seeing rates increase “due to demand.” Amber and her husband, both engineers, worked remotely.
“It was not a great environment,” she said. “I was unable to sleep and unable to make good decisions. Schools were closed, so we had the kids home, but we still had to work.”
Amidst the chaos, DiBello said she worried
| BY KAITLYN CALDWELL
about losing things like the trees and hiking trails near her house.
“Those are places I bring my newborn and my toddler,” she said. “I kept thinking about those spaces that I was scared we would lose.”
During the week-long event, several agencies worked on the fire, including Reno, Sparks and Carson City’s fire departments, the Bureau of Land Management’s fire response team, Nevada Division of Emergency Management (Homeland Security), Nevada Energy, the Nevada Division of Transportation and the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.
Four days in, on Sept. 11, the National Weather Service issued a warning predicting high winds and low humidity. While aircraft operations were halted due to the wind, ground crews worked to secure the fire’s perimeter, which led to a dramatic increase in containment. The following day, fire officials updated the public that the fire did not grow as expected.
By the sixth day, some residents were cleared to return home, and businesses began preparing to reopen. By the eighth day, all evacuations had been lifted.
DiBello said that when she finally made it home, seeing burn scars and fire retardant on the road made the situation feel that much more real.
“The fire was 200 feet behind our house,” she said. “The bulldozer lines are literally behind our house. They spent 16 hours bulldozing those lines. That’s what saved our house. Our house should not be here. This Sky Tavern community was like a peninsula of safety. If you look at the fire map, it was on all three sides of my house.”
Communication glitches
According to the TMFPD, the fire consumed more than 5,800 acres, including two commercial buildings, 14 residences and 22 other structures.
When the Davis Fire broke out, Truckee Meadow Fire began sending send data about where the fire was spreading and which resources were needed to Washoe County Homeland Security, which manages emergency situations in the region. Program coordinator Jessica Adams-Lopes and her team used that information to update the fire’s page at PerimeterMap.com, which showed evacuations, closed roads, shelters and other information regarding the fire.
Adams-Lopes said some homeowners argued that the maps weren’t being updated fast enough, but she believes the tool served its purpose.
“We think it led to less confusion,” she said. “People were looking at it.” In fact, during the fire’s seven-day duration, there were more than 2.4 million views of the Davis Fire on PerimeterMap.com.
Some residents and business owners complained that a lack of information led to confusion about the exact location of the fire and the direction of spread. Dan Collins, who lives in the neighborhood near Sky Tavern, said when he woke up the morning after the fire started, his family packed go-bags, but still continued with a normal routine. He and his wife traveled down the Mount Rose Highway with only the clothes they were wearing to get gas and spoke with an officer about whether they would be able to come back up to grab their things.
“He told us everything should be fine for us to get back up, because none of the roads were closed,” Collins said. “So we dropped the dogs off at my in-laws and grabbed gas, and maybe 45 minutes later, they said, ‘There is no way you’re getting back up to your house.’”
Mayberry said that while he understood the homeowners’ concerns about communications, the department’s priority was to evacuate people, to stop the spread of fire and to contain it to the perimeter zone, which included efforts to save homes and businesses.
“We still frankly needed our residents to get the word out,” he said. “We have to work together. I think the information was maybe not given out as timely as some would have liked, because this was a very dynamic situation, which is why we do hope neighbors are checking on each other.”
Said Adams-Lopes: “I would say that just
Honoring the dead
the scale of this fire was so much greater than the fires we’ve had, at least in recent years, and so I think there is a lot to comprehend.” She recommended an online resource that can help emergency crews assist the public in the event of another fire.
“(Smart911.com) is a new fire platform that allows folks to put in their household information, such as if they have any pets, if there’s any access information, how many people live there, etc., and then, in theory, that information should feed into our 911 dispatch, making information readily available to first responders in an emergency,” she said.
DiBello said she has already seen a change in agencies’ responses. On Oct. 4, high winds began kicking up smoke from hot spots of the Davis Fire. Police officers went door-to-door in DiBello’s neighborhood, asking everyone to evacuate the area.
“I had three sheriffs personally evacuating us and helping me get my kids out of here,” she said. “We didn’t have that last time, because there were way too many houses to evacuate.”
Since again returning home, the DiBellos have been trying to slow down and enjoy the little things, like family dinners and school functions. DiBello has also been organizing donations to help people who lost their homes in the Davis Fire and those impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. She said the situation has changed her perspective on
disaster situations.
“People we didn’t even know were sending gift cards and helping us from so many miles away,” she said. “So that’s immediately what we’re doing now. The day we came home, I
donated probably 600 pounds of clothes that I gathered in maybe two hours. I was thinking, ‘Why haven’t I done that for years? Why have I not been donating this way?’ People had done it for me, and now I need to do it for others.”
Puppeteer Marcos Riquelme, from Chile, and puppet designer Lizbeth Furrow, of Latino Arte and Culture— dressed as La Calavera Garbancera, a female skeleton figure that is a prominent symbol of Día de Muertos— ready the giant catrin (skeleton) puppet at the Día de Muertos celebration on Sunday, Oct. 27, at East Pueblo Street and South Wells Avenue. Furrow has designed and made the puppets for the celebration for the past six years.
Latino Arte and Culture is a local nonprofit organization founded in 2010 that promotes Latinx-Hispanic arts and culture through mentorships, workshops and events. Learn more at latinoarte.org.
—David Robert
The Davis Fire stated at Davis Creek Regional Park, near Washoe Lake, and spread uphill to the neighborhood near Sky Tavern within a matter of hours. Photo/Kaitlyn Caldwell
Forfeit over gender
UNR women’s volleyball players and their allies gathered to oppose transgender women in sports
On Saturday, Oct. 26, several hundred people gathered at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center for a rally in support of the University of Nevada, Reno, women’s volleyball team, which made headlines by forfeiting a match against San Jose State University due to the latter’s inclusion of a transgender player.
UNR became the fifth team to forfeit against SJSU for that reason.
The rally, titled “Women’s Sports Are for Women Only,” was hosted by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS), a group that’s funding a lawsuit against the NCAA over its policies regarding transgender athletes.
Multiple speakers voiced their support for the volleyball team’s decision, criticized the inclusion of transgender players in women’s sports, and condemned what they perceived as a politically motivated initial response from UNR administrators.
Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer known for her outspoken stance against allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports, headlined the event. She began her speech with a prayer and shared her experiences competing against Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania who won the NCAA championship in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in 2022. Gaines
At an Oct. 26 rally at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, UNR women’s volleyball players and others took the podium, advocating to keep transgender athletes out of women’s collegiate and professional sports. Photo/Matt Bieker
team remains unclear.
“How many young women will have to be beaten, or see their friends beaten out for an opportunity from a male before enough is enough?” Liilii said, referring to transgender women. “Men do not belong in women’s sports.”
The speakers who followed included players Singleton, Bernard and Navarro; Marshi Smith, a former Nevada and NCAA champion swimmer and co-founder of ICONS; Jen Hucke, a Nevada state and Stanford University champion volleyball player; Kendall Lewis, a Galena High School volleyball player; and Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony, who pledged to introduce legislation to protect women’s sports in the next session.
Outside of the venue, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown posed with rallygoers at a Donald Trump merchandise booth.
The speakers mostly echoed the belief that transgender athletes enjoy an unfair advantage over cisgender women, and that the larger muscle mass and bone density afforded to them after undergoing male puberty poses a threat to the safety of cisgender women.
challenged NCAA president Charlie Baker, Mountain West Conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez, and UNR leaders to “do the right thing” by prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in categories that do not align with their gender at birth.
Gaines introduced nine players from the UNR volleyball team: co-captain Sia Liilii, McKenna Dressel, Sierra Bernard, Summer Suppik, Malia Pilimai, Kinsley Singleton, Masyn Navarro, Bella Snyder and Nicanora Clarke.
A visibly emotional Liilii addressed the crowd with prepared remarks.
“It hurts when our university has taken a position that could potentially hurt us,” she said. “My teammates and I were very emotional, and I’m not sure I can put into words what it feels like to dread what you have to face like this and know that we’re all on our own. Our rights and our voices were taken away.”
Liilii stated that as the team was preparing for its match against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on Oct. 3, the UNR administration released a statement committing to play against SJSU without consulting the team.
In a subsequent statement, UNR clarified that it could not legally prevent the match from occurring under the Nevada Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on gender expression, but that players who opted out would not face penalties. The extent of support for Liilii’s position among the wider volleyball
They also expressed alarm over the prospect of transgender athletes sharing locker rooms with cisgender women, framing their concerns as part of a broader cultural issue that they believe disregards “biological fact” for political reasons.
“Men are stronger,” said rallygoer Melissa Clement. “They’re built differently, and this transgender athlete may have taken hormones, may have done whatever, but that doesn’t mitigate the fact that the athlete has a build that’s different, and that doesn’t go away.”
The NCAA has signed off on transgender athletes in some sports and has set sport-by-sport testosterone thresholds. The American Civil Liberties Union says it’s a myth that transgender athletes have an unfair advantage, and that they instead have an unfair disadvantage in the form of harassment and threats.
There are no widespread scientific studies that show transgender athletes have an unfair advantage over cisgender athletes. Clement believes that scientific study in the area isn’t “objective,” and obfuscates the observable truth “from the beginning of time” that men are simply stronger than women.
Clement also believes that keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sports is a social-justice issue. She is primarily concerned with what she considers to be the unfair treatment of women. She also said she doesn’t hold any ill will toward transgender people.
| BY MATT BIEKER
“When they take away women’s scholarships (and) women’s positions on sporting teams, and invade the privacy of the locker room, that is criminal,” she said. “I’m sorry. Men who parade around in women’s face, that’s no different than how upset we get with blackface. It’s the same thing I see.”
Other attendees voiced concerns about a societal shift toward accepting transgender identities.
“This is clinical insanity to assume that a man who just identifies as a woman becomes a woman, and I tested that theory in the state of California,” said Somil Viradia, a Los Angeles doctor. “I went down to the DMV, paid $35, and now in the state of California, I’m legally a female. It says so on my driver’s license because that’s how stupid our society has become.
“In modern-day America, they’re saying 150,000 minors identify as transgender. That’s because they’re not actually transgender. They are buying into a social fad that has been pushed by TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, etc.”
At the end of the rally, Gaines reiterated that objections to transgender athletes are not personal and emphasized that they should be allowed to compete in categories aligned with their gender at birth. Advocates for the transgender community believe that such ideas further alienate an already small community from the avenues of personal expression and belonging that sports can provide.
“I cannot speak to the feelings of other women,” said Matt Kopicko, director of prevention and programming at LGBTQ+ community resource organization Our Center. “I’m not a trans woman, but from my perspective, and from what I know in my community and the research that I’ve done personally, trans women are women, and that’s the statement.”
Kopicko did not attend the rally but takes issue with what he believes is the unjust targeting of transgender people by organizations and individuals addressing the issue from unscientific and disingenuous positions, largely for political gain.
“The trans community is an agenda for some people, and it ebbs and flows, and every single election year, there’s always some (group used as a scapegoat), and this year, it’s trans people,” Kopicko said.
Kopicko also criticized UNR for not taking a stronger stance in support of the trans community.
“The university is like, ‘Well, we’re not at fault, because we allowed the game to happen, and if it gets canceled because none of our players want to play, oh, well,’” he said.
As of the forfeit, the UNR volleyball team’s record stood at 11-10 and 4-6 in conference play. The team may still face San Jose State University in the Mountain West Tournament later this year, but has not yet said whether it would forfeit that match.
Student views
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s UNR rally drew supporters and detractors
In the heated lead-up to the 2024 election, Reno played host to an influx of political heavyweights. During the week of Oct. 6, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump both visited the city to energize their respective supporters.
Adding to the political excitement was the arrival of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA—a group that advocates for conservative politics at U.S. high schools and colleges— whose “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour has been hitting college campuses across swing states, addressing controversial issues at the forefront of the national debate like abortion, immigration and the economy.
On Oct. 8, Kirk made his way to the University of Nevada, Reno. (A Turning Point UNR Instagram post put the crowd count at 2,000). Kirk has gained prominence, particularly among younger audiences, through his online debates, including his viral appearance on Jubilee (a digital media
company that discusses social issues) where he debated liberal college students. His ability to engage both supporters and critics has made him a highly polarizing figure.
Turning Point USA was out in full force on the UNR campus, handing out merchandise including “Make America Great Again” hats and “Socialism Sucks” pins. The crowd gathered outside of the student union, with an energetic atmosphere buzzing as students reached for the free merchandise.
Though Kirk’s views have sparked protests at many campuses in the past, this event was strikingly different. Unlike his 2019 visit to UNR, which was met with protests, the 2024 event drew no large-scale protest—though many students (from my vantage point, at least several dozen) expressed silent disapproval by wearing shirts supporting reproductive rights and other progressive causes.
Still, the absence of mass protests didn’t mean that Kirk’s rhetoric went unchallenged. Many students turned up specifically to debate him on the key issues of the day. Some students cheered on Kirk as he debated, while others
| BY SITARA REGANTI
Charlie Kirk invited students to step up to the microphone and voice their disagreements. He’s known for inviting critics to debate him during his events.
Photo/Sitara
Reganti
challenged his positions on issues like abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and immigration policy.
Abortion was a focal point of the discussion, especially in light of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade stance against abortion elicited strong reactions from people on both sides of the issue.
Some attendees, like Sydney Wethern, a 15-year-old high school student, expressed their alignment with Kirk’s conservative views. “I’ve seen his videos on, like, YouTube, and I agree with them a lot,” said Wethern. “Even though I’m, like, younger, I try to do a lot of political stuff.”
On the other hand, students like Grayson Ramirez-Gartner, 18, attended the event to challenge Kirk’s ideology. Gartner noted that while he wore a MAGA hat to fit in, his actual opinions were far from Kirk’s positions. “I don’t support (Kirk’s messages) at all,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t really like his stances on women’s rights, abortion rights, and, you know, Trump being president.”
Immigration and the economy also took center stage during the event, with Kirk advocating for stricter immigration controls and promoting conservative economic policies aimed at limiting government intervention in the free market. These positions resonate with a segment of the younger conservative base, but Bailey Plimpton, 18, when asked whether Kirk’s messages resonated with his generation, replied, “I think a lot of his ideas are pretty conservative, of older generations, or different things than I believe.”
Kirk invited students to step up to the microphone and voice their disagreements, creating a dynamic and, at times, tense dialogue.
Despite the disagreements, the event didn’t devolve into chaos. Some students, like Charles Yaley, 18, who said he was raised as a Republican, appreciated the opportunity to see Kirk in person. “I really just like watching him talk to people,” said Yaley. “I think he stands for what a country is supposed to be. It’s hard to resonate with Gen Z because of, you know, social media and how the world is today. But, you know, if you really read and understand politics, I think Charlie Kirk 100 percent aligns with Gen Z’s morals.”
A recent NBC news poll showed that 50% Gen Z voters would vote for Kamala Harris for president, compared to 34 percent for Donald Trump. However, Kirk’s presence on college campuses shows that conservative values still resonate with a significant portion of Generation Z.
Wanna be newsy?
The RN&R is looking for new freelance writers—especially talented writers/reporters who have a
Interested in making a difference in the community—and getting paid to do so? Email a resume and clips/writing samples to krisv@renonr.com!
Rekindling a long-lost custom
The Washoe tribe and other groups aim to bring back traditional Indigenous fire-management strategies
Eight firefighters in hard hats and work boots gathered around a gray utility truck on a sunny October morning, in a forest of tall pines, with Lake Tahoe’s glimmering surface a few hundred yards away.
“You’ll need your ear pro and eye pro,” said instructor Ian Colunga.
Ear pro—pro is short for protection— indeed. A pump in the back of the pickup, attached to a roll of flattened, red firehose, is louder than one might guess. His charges took turns fiddling with the pump’s controls and aiming a nozzle to spray a forceful stream of water at a fictional blaze.
The pump-operation exercise was part of the first-ever Washoe Intentional Fire Training, a week-long intensive on wildland firefighting skills. Colunga works with The Nature Conservancy, which collaborated on the event with a handful of other land-management groups, including the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. The trainees were from the Washoe Tribe and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The groups had gathered that day with two main goals. Buck Cruz—project manager for Washoe Tribe Conservation Corps and a tribal elder who’s been fighting fires professionally since he was 18—said one of them was to provide the tribe’s existing and aspiring firefighters with training to pave the way for better career opportunities.
The other: to help revive traditional Washoe fire and resource management practices.
“We use fire, and we view it as a living entity,” Cruz said. “We pray to it.”
Spiritual practices involving fire, he said, are just one part of Washoe cultural heritage that was decimated after settlers occupied the Lake Tahoe Basin a century and a half ago.
‘Cultural burning’
Until the mid-19th century, the Washoe tribe relied on a rich range of resources in Meeks Meadow, on the lake’s west side, near Tahoma, Calif.
“They would spend the summers up there collecting food plants, medicine plants, fishing and hunting,” said Rhiana Jones, environmental program director for the Washoe Tribe’s Environmental Protection Department. “In winter, they would go down to Carson Valley.”
(The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California’s headquarters are still there, in Gardnerville.)
“When you live that closely on the landscape, you’re in such connection with the land that you see things that need to be taken care of on a daily basis,” Jones said. In summer, for example, the Washoe would tend to the willows, thinning them and burning patches that were infested by caterpillars or bugs. After willow is burnt, she said, it grows back straighter and with fewer secondary nodes—qualities that make for better basketry material.
“Many of our medicine and food plants come back better with fire, like elderberry, yarrow and serviceberry,” she said. “A lot of those plants are in Meeks Meadow.”
At the end of summer, Jones said, the Washoe would burn their Meeks Meadow campsites, leaving a smoldering fire to burn itself out.
| BY KRIS VAGNER
Trainees practice wildland firefighting skills at the first Washoe Intentional Fire Training on Oct. 3. The training was part of an ongoing effort by the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, The Nature Conservancy and other groups to revive holistic fire management practices in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Photo/Kris Vagner
“And the environment was healthy enough at that time to where it wasn’t going to be a catastrophic wildfire,” she added.
This approach to resource and fire management, often referred to as “cultural burning,” declined sharply between 1850 and 1870, when the Washoe population was displaced from Meeks Meadow. This is what the tribe, The Nature Conservancy and the other groups involved are trying to revive.
A long process
Some tribes in other regions practice cultural burning, most notably the Yurok, Hoopa and Karuk in far Northern California. Efforts to bring back the practice in the Lake Tahoe Basin have been under way—but moving at a snail’s pace—for decades.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore traveled to the Lake Tahoe Basin to discuss the land-management topics with tribal leaders and other stakeholders.
“We have a letter from Bill Clinton talking about stewardship in the basin and saying how the Washoe tribe needs to be included in these land-management decisions, because they’re happening in our homelands, and we don’t have access to these cultural resources,” Jones said. “So, all this work is being done to improve recreation or tourism, but what about the Washoe tribe? We just kind of got left in the dust.”
She listed several reasons for the holdups, among them budget, staff turnover, red tape with the many government organizations involved—and one that seems particularly difficult to surmount: the market value of land in the Tahoe Basin. The Washoe tribe only owns two parcels of it right now. They’re small, less than 30 acres, and hard to reach.
The tribe is currently working with other agencies to try to advance plans for cultural burns.
“I have a couple conversations lined up with LTBMU (Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit) to burn Baldwin Meadow, and then to do pile burning and prescribed burning with (California) State Parks at Sugar Pine,” Jones said.
She added that it’s possible the tribal fire experts may be able to proceed with a burn that they’ve been trying to plan for a long time— one at Meeks Meadows, which is owned by the U.S. Forest Service and operated by the Washoe tribe—in fall 2025.
A discovery for the ages
Meet the geology professor who uncovered Lake Tahoe’s record-breaking age
In September, news outlets announced Winnie Kortemeier found that Lake Tahoe is the oldest lake in North America, and third-oldest in the world. But this was old news to Kortemeier, a volcanologist and Western Nevada College professor who published her research proving Lake Tahoe is at least 2.3 million years old in 2012.
“I was just hoping that maybe somebody would pick up on that and figure out how old Lake Tahoe was in relation to other lakes, but it never really happened,” she said
over the phone. “That data just sat there for a decade.”
Though Kortemeier is not a limnologist (aka a studier of lakes), she knew the age of Tahoe is significant, and she wanted to share this knowledge with the public. Most lakes, she said, have lifespans of mere tens of thousands of years before they fill with sediment and die.
Kortemeier did not grow up in the Tahoe region. Her passion for the alpine waters developed when she moved to the area in 1986. Originally from South Carolina, she ventured
Geologist and Western Nevada College professor Winnie Kortemeier discovered that Lake Tahoe was formed 2.3 million years ago, making it the oldest lake in North America.
west for graduate school, earning a master’s in geology at Arizona State University. There, she gained attention for being the first and only person to find co-occurring ongonite and topazite rocks in North America.
“I was famous for a week back then,” she joked. She then turned to volcanology.
Later, while studying for her doctorate at the University of Nevada, Reno, she took a field trip to Skylandia Beach at Lake Tahoe, near Tahoe City, Calif. The professor leading the group said the volcanic rocks lining the northwestern side of Tahoe had never been studied. Kortemeier raised her hand and said she’d do it.
These same rocks became the basis for her Ph.D. studies. She figured that the basalt rocks that formed during volcanic activity interacted with water, proving that a lake was present at the time.
“I was like, ‘Oh, this changes everything; this is just exciting stuff,’” she said. “I knew that Lake Tahoe had to be at least 2.3 million years old.”
Kortemeier finished her Ph.D. in 2012, and her findings slid into the background. In 2018, she tried again to gain traction by publishing part of the findings in a scientific paper. Still nothing.
More recently, a mentor from the United States Geological Survey encouraged her to get the word out about Lake Tahoe’s age. She met with Steve Yingling, the public information officer at WNC, who recommended transforming the data into more palatable terms, suggesting she compare the age to other ancient lakes to learn whether Tahoe was the oldest.
“I’m like, ‘How do you do that? I’m not a lake expert. I can’t go study all the lakes,’” she said. “But then I just decided I’d have to study all the lakes.”
This recommendation led to a year-long sabbatical, during which Kortemeier scrubbed the internet and UNR’s databases for verified information on the world’s oldest lakes. She
| BY HELENA GUGLIELMINO
began by utilizing artificial intelligence to help her search. She asked ChatGPT to make lists of the oldest lakes for her.
“I’d never used ChatGPT before,” she said with a chuckle.
But digging into generated lists and Wiki searches only lead to claims without data to prove them. “That just caused all kinds of issues, because most of the dates that you can find for lakes are estimates,” she said. “They varied wildly. It felt like a lot of dead ends.”
This is when she decided she needed the “good databases” at UNR. To use them, she needed to enroll as a student. She took a graduate-level geology class each semester, and the access her helped her immensely.
At the end of her research, she had data to prove that there are only two lakes in the world that are older than Lake Tahoe: Lake Baikal in Siberia (estimated to be 5-10.3 million years old) and Lake Tanganyika in East Africa (estimated to be 8-10 million years old). Finally, the superlative the publicist had pushed her to find helped her research on Lake Tahoe come to light.
Though Kortemeier achieved her goal, she said the media blitz was a “little scary,” because she is not a limnologist and isn’t very comfortable using superlatives. She also doesn’t mind if someone proves that there is a lake older than Tahoe.
“I don’t care if it becomes not the oldest lake in North America,” she said. “Maybe they’ll find a lake with good evidence that it’s older. That’s OK with me.”
Kortemeier has a few tips for amateur geologists who would like to access the Lake Tahoe Basin’s volcanic rock themselves. Near the wooden boardwalk at Commons Beach in Tahoe City, there’s basaltic tuff, a tan-colored rock that forms when “lava flows into water and then is blown to bits and blows back on shore,” she said.
At Skylandia Beach, keep an eye out for smooth, black pebbles. These are basalt that has interacted with lake water. At Eagle Rock in Homewood, a .4-mile hike leads to incredible lake views from the top of an eroded volcano.
Bruce Van Dyke Radio
6-10am daily: BVD in Xville
His full morning shows on KTHX-FM circa 1993-96
10a-6a: BVD's 4000 handpicked-for-Jive tunes from Shpongle to James Brown with vintage Bruce voice breaks from Xville at the top of every hour.
.org/bvd "Alexa, play: bruce van dyke radio"
Planets and Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight
For November, 2024
ASTRONOMY
This sky chart is drawn for latitude 40 degrees north, but may be used in continental U.S. and southern Canada.
November’s evening sky chart. Illustration/Robert D. Miller
Pleiades, Aldebaran and Jupiter. On Nov. 3, find the 6 percent crescent moon within 9° to the lower right of Venus. At dusk on Nov. 4, the 12 percent crescent appears within 4° to Venus’ lower left. Residents in and around Reno can try for a daytime sighting of Venus earlier in the afternoon of Nov. 4 as it passes directly south two hours and 30 minutes before sunset, 4° above and slightly to the left of the lunar crescent.
A telescope will show Venus presenting a disk nearly 15” (arcseconds) across on Nov. 4 and in gibbous phase, about 76 percent illuminated. A magnification of about 120x would make Venus appear the same size as the moon to the unaided eye. Venus must be much farther away from us than the moon in order to display a greater phase while appearing so close to the crescent moon in the sky.
On the afternoon of Nov. 5, the southernmost moon of this month passes just 21° up in the south, 1.6 hours before sunset.
November skies
Venus and Jupiter are prominent as the return to standard time brings earlier evenings
Venus is the brilliant evening “star” now shining at magnitude -4 in the southwest at dusk. In early November—five months after its passage behind the sun at superior conjunction on June 4—Venus finally sets in a dark sky, after twilight ends. Watch for an ever-more-impressive evening display for the naked eye, binoculars and telescopes, as Venus swings closer to Earth in coming months, more than doubling in brilliance by February before a fast-changing finale in March!
On Nov. 4, Jupiter, of magnitude -2.7, rises just before Venus sets. On what date will you first see these two brightest planets simultaneously? By Nov. 16, from the Reno area, they’ll be 5° above opposite horizons within 1.9 hours after sunset. On that date, a lineup of six solar system bodies—Venus-Saturn-Neptune-Uranus-moon-Jupi-
ter—will span 162°. On Nov. 30, Venus-Jupiter will be 144° apart and 12° above opposite horizons about 1.6 hours after sunset for the Reno area. Venus-Jupiter will be 120° apart on Dec. 19, and 90° on Jan. 14. Does this fast decrease in their separation lead you to expect a conjunction of Venus-Jupiter within three months? Sorry to disappoint, but they’ll get no closer than 61.7° apart during this evening apparition, on Feb. 27, before Venus turns back and crosses into the morning sky in March 2025. Soon after, Jupiter emerges into the morning sky in July, and we’ll finally get to witness a close pairing of Venus-Jupiter on Aug. 12, 2025. There’s a new moon on Nov. 1 and another on Nov. 30, neatly bookending a visible cycle of lunar phases from start to finish within the calendar month. The full moon occurs near mid-month, on Nov. 15. During evenings Nov. 3-17, follow the moon past Venus, Saturn, the
On Nov. 10, at about 5:55 p.m., the moon’s northern edge passes less than 0.5° south of the planet Saturn. Even on other nights, when Saturn isn’t so deep in the moon’s glare, the planet, at magnitude +0.8 to +0.9 will look fainter than usual. That’s because its rings are tipped only 5° from edge-on this month. This angle reaches a maximum before mid-November as Earth runs ahead of Saturn for a slightly better peek at the northern face of the rings. Saturn will fade even more in coming months as its rings close. They’ll be presented edge-on to Earth and the sun in late March, while Saturn is hidden in the sun’s glare, unfortunately, and in early May, respectively.
The moon, less than a half-day past full, will pass through the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, star cluster on the night of Nov. 15-16, occulting some stars, including its brightest member, third-magnitude Alcyone. Two hours after sunset on the next evening, Nov. 16, the waning gibbous moon will appear in the east-northeast, within 8° above bright Jupiter. Aldebaran, eye of Taurus and follower of the Pleiades, will appear 10° to the right of the moon-Jupiter pair, forming an isosceles triangle. Follow this gathering overnight until sunrise the next morning, Nov. 17, or wake up an hour before sunrise for another look, and you’ll catch the moon and Jupiter only 5° apart in the western sky. Can you still spot Jupiter on Nov. 17 to the lower left of the moon in daytime, at or just after sunrise? It’ll be easy for binoculars!
The northernmost moon reaches its highest point in the sky during the early morning hours of Nov. 18, when it passes 11° south of overhead in the Reno area, 4.6 hours before sunrise. Continue following the waning moon an hour
| BY ROBERT VICTOR
before sunup through Nov. 29. On Nov. 19, the “Twin stars” Pollux and Castor, of magnitude +1.1 and +1.6 in Gemini, are 7°-8° above the moon. On Nov. 20, the Twins are 6°-10° to the moon’s lower right, while brighter Mars, of magnitude -0.3, is 5° to the moon’s upper left. On Nov. 22, Regulus, at +1.4-magnitude, the heart of Leo, the Lion, is about 5° to the lower left of the 55% moon, just more than half full and nearing last quarter phase. On Nov. 23, the fat crescent 45% moon is 7° to the lower left of Regulus. One hour before sunrise on Nov. 26, +1.0-magnitude Spica, spike of grain in the hand of Virgo, appears within 11° to the lower left of a 19% crescent moon. The next morning, Nov. 27, presents a very beautiful sight, especially for binoculars and small telescopes. About three hours before sunrise, the just-risen 13% crescent moon will be closely accompanied by Spica, only a fraction of a lunar diameter to the upper right of the moon’s Earth-lit edge. Watch the moon and Spica gradually separate as they rise higher, and dawn brightens. Farther east in U.S., east of a line from New Mexico through North Dakota, an occultation of Spica by the moon will be visible. But from the Western U.S., the closest approach of the moon and star occurs before moonrise and is not visible.
The waning moon is visible for two additional mornings. An hour before sunrise on Nov. 28, look for the 7% crescent 13° to the lower left of Spica. On the 29th, look for the 3% old crescent moon rising in the east-southeast, 25° to the lower left of Spica.
Mars’ northern hemisphere has its spring equinox on Nov. 12. Telescopes will show the red planet’s north polar region appearing very bright while taking up a significant portion of the disk, as the North Polar Hood (cloud cover) breaks up, revealing the North Polar Cap of frozen carbon dioxide and water ice underneath. If you observe near these best times, you can also spot Mars’ dark surface feature, Syrtis Major. This plateau of volcanic rock will appear as a dark triangle near the center of Mars’ tiny 10”-11” disk on Nov. 14 at 12:38 a.m.; Nov. 15 at 1:16 a.m.; and 38 minutes later on each successive morning, until Nov. 23 at 6:22 a.m. Mars will brighten to nearly equal Sirius, and its disk will grow in apparent size to nearly 15” at closest approach and opposition in January 2025.
Many events described in this column are illustrated in the Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar, available by subscription from www. abramsplanetarium.org/skycalendar. For $12 per year, subscribers receive quarterly mailings, each containing three monthly issues.
Robert Victor originated the Abrams Planetarium monthly Sky Calendar in October 1968 and still helps produce an occasional issue. He enjoys being outdoors sharing the beauty of the night sky and other wonders of nature.
Stereographic Projection Map by Robert D. Miller
Evening mid-twilight
Arcturus
Altair
Deneb
Fomalhaut
At the University of Nevada, Reno’s Church Fine Arts building, 12 student actors, a handful of student crew members and theater instructor/director Bill Ware stood in a circle holding hands. It was the intermission in their rehearsal for The Laramie Project, appearing at the university’s Redfield Studio Theatre Nov. 1-10.
“You should probably cover your ears,” Ware cautioned me from over his shoulder. “It gets really loud when we do this.”
I did as instructed—and then all of them issued a ground-shaking, primal scream. Fortunately, I’d also been warned before the start of the rehearsal. “What we’ve been doing at intermission or after the show is, if it gets too emotional or too crazy, I just have them scream really, really loud and jump around and shake it off, just get it out of their system,” Ware said. “Because they need to have something to get them into character and something to get them out, right? I don’t want them to take this home.”
Of course, I knew why: This was the heartbreaking story of the aftermath of the 1998 murder of 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, and a portrait of the town of Laramie as it came to grips with the violent act.
Written by playwright/director Moisés Kaufman and members of the theater troupe he founded, Tectonic Theater Project, The Laramie Project is a work of verbatim theater drawn from more than 200 interviews with residents of Laramie, actual news reports and journal entries written by company members themselves about the experience. The script is an assemblage of the precise words collected over the two-year period during which Kaufman and Tectonic members visited Laramie, arranged strategically to share the story of Shepard’s nightmarish death as well as the events that occurred in its wake.
For many adults like me, Shepard’s death was a notorious watershed moment, like Sept. 11 or the Kennedy assassination. Yet many of today’s young adults haven’t heard the story, which is part of why Ware was motivated to
bring it to the stage at UNR.
“This is a show I’ve always loved, because I have known people involved, and I’ve been to the fundraisers,” Ware said in our prerehearsal interview. “The murder of Matthew Shepard happened while I was a student at UNR. … The students (today) don’t know the story. I asked a few, and they were like, ‘Who?’ They’ve all heard of The Laramie Project, but they don’t know what it’s about. They just know it’s a play about something that happened in history.”
Which is unfortunate, considering more than a quarter-century has gone by, and the show is still stunningly relevant and prophetic in its reflections of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.
This fall, the FBI issued a worrisome report: Despite the overall drop in violent crimes over the last year, hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity rose 8.6 percent. Crimes based purely on sexual orientation have gone up 83 percent since 2021, coinciding with a sharp rise in antiLGBTQ+ legislation introduced during that period.
Meanwhile, The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People found, among other
things, that 60 percent of these young people have felt discriminated against in the past year due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Staging this play during the contentious 2024 election cycle, which could determine the trajectory of these issues, felt particularly important.
‘I just thought it was a scarecrow’
On Oct. 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard—or Matt, to those who knew him—went to the Fireside Bar in Laramie. An openly gay student, Shepard met two men at the bar, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who led him to believe they were also homosexual. Later, the bartender saw the three men leave together.
Eighteen hours later, a cyclist named Aaron Kreifels went for a ride in a remote area of the desert and hit a rock, crashing his bike. That’s when he noticed something by a split-rail fence.
“I just thought it was a scarecrow,” he said later in his Tectonic interview. “I was like,
‘Halloween’s coming up,’ thought it was a Halloween gag.” That was until he got a little closer and saw Shepard’s hair, which was most definitely human—on a battered, bloody, unconscious human tied to the bottom of a buck, or split-rail, fence.
Kreifels ran to the nearest house to call the police, who arrived on the scene and cut Shepard loose. Shepard was eventually transported to the nearest major hospital that could treat his injuries, in Fort Collins, Colo.
In police interviews after their arrests, McKinney and Henderson recounted luring Shepard into their truck, where Shepard reportedly placed his hand on McKinney’s leg. In a homophobic panic, McKinney struck Shepard with his fists and the butt of a pistol. The men took him to the hills above Laramie and proceeded to savagely beat and rob him, then tie him to the fence and leave him, barely breathing, alone in the cold.
Thanks to eyewitnesses who reported seeing Shepard leave with McKinney and Henderson, and evidence including Shepard’s shoes found in McKinney’s truck, both men were soon arrested and confessed to the crime. Both are serving life sentences.
Shepard died from his injuries on Oct. 12, with his family at his bedside.
News of the crime quickly spread around the nation and world, with candlelight vigils and protests taking place in cities across the country—and Laramie sitting in a very uncomfortable spotlight. Shepard’s death garnered tremendous media attention and brought attention to hate crimes against LGBTQ+ individuals, spurring the creation of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to providing support and advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, and the establishment of new laws against hate crimes. The Laramie Project, which opened in Denver on Feb. 26, 2000, has been performed in at least 20 countries.
Today, only two states lack some form of hate crime legislation: South Carolina and, ironically, Wyoming.
Above: Madison Youngblood, Alexander Mead, Colleen Keene, Alyssa von Eberstein, Hunter Healy, Benit Hensley (yellow hoodie), Ora Harris, Phedre Perkins, MJ Boga and Matthew Fish during a rehearsal. Top: MJ Boga, Colleen Keene and Benit Hensley during a rehearsal. Photos/David Robert
Those who loved him
Ware and his actors were fortunate to gain insights on Shepard from some of the folks closest to him, including his parents and one of his oldest and best friends.
One of the goals of the Matthew Shepard Foundation is “to create an environment where people are afforded an opportunity to discuss the play and its messages,” states its website. At the helm of the foundation are Dennis and Judy Shepard, Matthew’s parents, who, among other foundation activities, are committed to being involved with productions of this show. Ware, whose own social circle led him to form friendships with the Shepards and others in their lives, was fortunate to have Dennis speak to his students in a Zoom call prior to auditions for the show.
“He told them a little about Matt’s life, about what happened and how it affected the family,” Ware said, adding that Dennis also shed light on many of the characters the students will portray, as well as the funeral and other events that followed Matt’s death. “I think that kind of put the whole thing in perspective for them. It’s not just a story from history anymore; it’s a story about somebody who they know now.”
He also helped to reframe that moment in history for this new generation. “(Dennis) was like, ‘You guys don’t realize there was a time, not long ago, when you could get beat up just walking down the street for being gay,’” Ware said. “For the students, there was a lot of disbelief, but then they knew what they were auditioning for.”
Ware explained that while the Shepards were supportive of Kaufman’s work, Judy did not want to be portrayed in the play. (She is not.) Though they went years before reading or seeing the show, they’ve always been supportive.
Also active in her support is Zeina Barkawi, one of Matt’s oldest and best friends. Both the children of parents who worked overseas,
the two met while in boarding school in Switzerland and became fast friends. Barkawi gave an informal talk with the students during their intermission.
She said that Matt was a typical 21-yearold. He played video games, ate fast food and liked going to bars and clubs with his friends. Like his dad, Matt “was a jokester,” and the two exchanged long letters during college. She even told of the last time she saw him—he’d come to pay her a visit while she was a student at UNR.
Barkawi, who co-produced the 2015 documentary film Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, said she makes a point of being involved in any production of The Laramie Project, to amplify the message to new audiences. Her willingness to be frank with students is clearly appreciated; many at the UNR rehearsal entered the second act wiping away tears after listening to her.
Barkawi reflected that now, at age 46, she is the mother of a son whose middle name is Matthew—and she is now older than Judy Shepard was when her son died.
“I can’t imagine that happening to my child,” she said, “and having to process it so publicly.”
‘Still a story that needs to be told’
More than 60 characters are portrayed in the show, from Kreifels; to the bartender at the Fireside; to Officer Reggie Fluty, the policewoman who first responded to the scene; to students and faculty at the University of Wyoming, local clergy and others, including McKinney and Henderson themselves. Each of the 12 actors in this production plays several characters, conveyed through careful acting and minimal costuming—for example, the addition of a scarf or hat to indicate they’ve switched roles.
The staging is also minimal. Before a painted backdrop that suggests a Wyoming desert, a buck fence, constructed by the students, sits ominously before it—an inert but chilling reminder of what brought us here. A simple set of risers is placed in various configurations to portray locations such as a living room, a bar, a funeral, an interrogation room and a courtroom. The seating arrangement of the Redfield Studio Theatre places audience members on three sides, evoking the idea that we’re present for the interviews.
Knowing the play was constructed from interviews and news reports might give the impression that it’s merely a dry recounting of events after the fact, read from transcripts. On the contrary—the excerpts, woven seamlessly together, are stunning in their power and exceptionally moving. Some lines hit like physical blows.
And the power isn’t only felt by the audience. During the rehearsal I attended, several actors were reduced to tears, caught up in the emotions of the moment.
Benit Hensley plays several characters, including a young theater student at the University of Wyoming, as well as both McKinney and Henderson.
“Just reading it was emotional and cathartic,” Hensley said, adding that it’s been a great experience being part of the production. “I love the cast, and the story, obviously, is so moving. I play some rough characters in the second act, and I say some choice things … They did do some inexcusable things, but if the truth isn’t told, then there’s no point.”
Those “choice things” are indeed tough on today’s ears; words such as “faggot” and “dyke” make frequent appearances. But as Hensley put it, “We can’t change those, because that’s important to hear as part of the hate.”
Hensley delivers the show’s heartbreaking last line, and on this night, he spoke through tears, which sometimes happens.
Marco Bisio, whose roles include Dennis Shepard, Moisés Kaufman and various other Tectonic members, also has struggled with the emotions the show brings up.
“There are times when I’m teary throughout
THEN AND NOW
the entire show,” Bisio said. “I can see the effect on other people, too. … We as a cast do a very good job of bringing each other up and really just helping each other through the whole thing, before and after.”
MJ Boga has known about The Laramie Project for years and is honored to be part of it. “There are certain characters that are harder to rub off at the end of the day,” Boga said, pointing to his role as hospital CEO Rulon Stacey, who makes an emotional announcement about Shepard’s death in a press conference.
He admits it’s hard coming in to perform the show every day. Despite Ware’s efforts to keep the actors from carrying the story home, it’s unavoidable.
“It was 26 years ago,” he said, “and it’s still relevant—still a story that needs to be told, which is heartbreaking.”
The University of Nevada, Reno, presents The Laramie Project at the Redfield Studio Theatre in UNR’s Church Fine Arts Building at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and 1:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 1-10. Tickets are $25 with discounts for seniors and students. For tickets and information, visit unrarts.evenue.net/ events/THR.1.
Young people have seen The Laramie Project through shifting lenses for a generation now
By Kris Vagner
The Laramie Project, first staged in 2000, is one of the most frequently performed plays in the United States. It is often staged by colleges and high schools—and not always without controversy.
Stacey Spain—now the executive director of Our Center, and previously a theater instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College and the University of Nevada, Reno— taught the play to students for 15 years.
“When you teach something for that long, you see a sort of generational shift in how people approach the material,” she said.
Shepard’s death was front-page news in 1998, but then began to recede into history. “The need to educate folks about who Matt Shepard was increased over time,” Spain said. In the 24 years since the play debuted, legal protections for LGBTQ+ people have increased dramatically—largely, said Spain, because of advocacy by Shepard's parents. In recent years, she said, “young LGBTQ people expect a measure of protection from their laws.”
Spain said she’s seen the play resonate with students in a variety of ways. For one, it’s a valuable historical document. While the story’s messages have endured, the 1990s-style flannel shirts and some of the language—including epithets that have since been “canceled”—seem very much of their time.
“It is frozen in time, as Matt’s life was frozen in time,” she said.
She added that she’s seen the play catalyze two things often high on the list of art teachers’ goals—critical thinking and empathy.
“When you’re teaching theater, you’re almost always going to be teaching a higher percentage of queer kids,” Spain said. “But for kids who have not experienced a play or a piece of art which was centered on the queer experience, it is an invitation for them to learn deeply about something they may not know a lot about. … I think the biggest pieces of learning that I saw were connections that students made about other marginalized identities. Kids who grew up as minorities in their schools … all of the kids who are on the edges … could really look at this play and find themselves in it.”
While rehearsing The Laramie Project, students met with Zeina Barkawi, a dear friend of Matthew Shepard, pictured here in her Reno home. She makes a point of being involved in any production of The Laramie Project, to help amplify its message to new audiences. Photo/David Robert
| BY BRENT HOLMES
Time-travel fantasy
Ichthyosaurs are a visual and cerebral feast—but why is there a science show at the art museum?
In a dark room, mist surrounds you, wisping into visible forms—a fractured tunnel generated by projected light. Behind you, a white curve and a white line on a black wall oscillate in form, producing a simple but pleasing effect. The tunnel and the shapes are the same—a stunning trick of light enveloping you. The light-and-form installation “Swell,” by
Anthony McCall—a New York-based artist who has been exhibiting light installations at major museums since the early 1970s—is engrossing, thoughtful and engulfing. Guests of the Nevada Museum of Art should endeavor to experience it. It’s a work of elegant simplicity with which anyone would struggle to find fault. However, the context for the presence of
“Swell” is rickety, at best. The museum has utilized much of its third-floor exhibition space (a portion of it is blocked off due to ongoing construction of a new wing) to feature Deep Time: Sea Dragons of Nevada, an interactive presentation of the ichthyosaur—the state fossil—and its lengthy history as a regional paleontological fixation. The ichthyosaur was
an enormous marine reptile that thrived in the vast, inland sea that covered Nevada a few hundred million years ago.
Multiple preserved fossils are presented in a pastiche of elements from their natural state— laid on the floor, surrounded by well-sifted sand, producing mounds reminiscent of a paleontological excavation site. Pony walls are shaped like mountains, with all of the requisite info dumps, small paintings, photographs and illustrations relating to discoveries and excavations of the celebrated water lizard, from the 1800s to the present day. A design critique: Some of the mountains are made of unfinished composite boards with stock numbers and branding logos still visible. Though seemingly intentional, they provide the display’s most glaring, obtuse aspect.
At the entrance to the exhibition, exceptional work by Elaine Parks, one of Nevada’s finest ceramicists, awaits deep scrutiny. “Fossilia” is a collection of ambitiously tall columns that writhe like pods of previously unimagined oceanic life forms. Details in dimples, glaze and texture form a display of bio-abstraction that suits both the maritime nature of the exhibition and the arid locations of the fossils’ excavation.
Other art that peppers the exhibition is primarily historical—like paintings and illustrations of miners in Berlin, now a ghost town, and renderings of the ichthyosaur in different modalities. The imagery ranges from cerebral to commercial. Seeing early 20th-century illustrations depicting the creatures in almost sci-fi habitats, drawn for chocolate and canned-meat packaging, is deeply satisfying, and a maquette of the dark gray ichthyosaur copied from the 1957 relief sculpture/mural at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is gorgeous.
The most dominant work of art is a life-size wall projection of the ichthyosaur itself, with a lavish soundscape created by University of Nevada, Reno, music professor Jean-Paul Perrotte. It is quite captivating as a point of attention and lends the entire gallery a mood of submerged tension.
There is a delightful side exhibition featuring glass case upon glass case of prehistoric creature toys, collected by the late Northern California farmer and artist Jack Arata. The collection made the dino-obsessed 8-year-old that lives inside of me giggle with glee, and it’s paired with an excellent explainer of how artists have been critical in the development of visualizing prehistoric worlds that can never be captured on film.
Overall, Deep Time is a great exhibition
The Nevada Museum of Art commissioned Reno artist Elaine Parks to create the new ceramic installation “Fossilia” for the Deep Time exhibition. Photo/Kris Vagner
that would fold perfectly into any world-class museum. Still, there is an elephant to address in the room. The history buff, biology lover, paleontology kid and education advocate in me recognize the excellent work done in Deep Time. The hungry arts writer, on the other hand, has a complaint: Deep Time would be a wonderful showing in a natural history museum, or at either of the Nevada State Museum’s locations—Carson City or Las Vegas. I must return to the topic of “Swell” here, because, despite its genius, it feels like a sideline to the exhibition that doesn’t quite fit its surroundings. A work like “Swell” would be better served against work by some of the major 20th-century century artists who also used light as a medium—like James Turrell or Dan Flavin—in dialogue with works that speak the same language, rather than as loose fodder for a time-travel fantasy.
In a state that has few exhibition spaces for
art of the caliber the Nevada Museum of Art, it feels like a disservice that so much space and time—a full year and a half—are dedicated to a subject that, although appropriate and interesting, denies us a major showing of international fine art, before the rollout of whatever major new collections and/or exhibitions that come with the completion of the expanded museum.
Deep Time: Sea Dragons of Nevada is on view at the Nevada Museum of Art through Jan. 11, 2026. The museum is hosting several exhibition-related events, including a Prehistoric Pajama Party on Friday, Nov. 15, and “Turning Pages Book Club: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier” on Wednesday, Nov. 20. For details, visit nevadaart.org.
This article was produced by Double Scoop, Nevada’s source for visual arts news. Learn more at DoubleScoop.art.
A life-sized, 80-foot-long projection of an ichthyosaur, created by artist and designer Ivan Cruz, is a highlight of the Deep Time exhibition. Photo/courtesy Nevada Museum of Art
This cast of a 200-million-year-old ichthyosaur fossil, on display at the Nevada Museum of Art, is from the collection of the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Photo/courtesy of the Nevada Museum of Art
WESTERN LIT
Willy Vlautin is coming home
The Reno native headlines the new Reno Author Fest
When the Washoe County Library surveyed patrons to see what programming, they wanted more of, the reply was “author events,” according to South Valleys Library librarian Jennifer Cole. In response, Cole and her colleagues have organized the first Local Author Fest at the Downtown Reno Library, on Saturday, Nov. 9, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The event will showcase more than 30 local nonfiction and fiction writers reading books for adults, children and young adults. An author will read every 20 minutes at three locations in the library. Authors include Terri Farley, an author of children’s fantasy books about wild horses; Zoe Bray, an artist born in the Basque country whose children’s book is in both English and Basque; and Debra Hendrickson, a pediatrician who published a book this year on how climate change impacts children’s health.
Willy Vlautin, the headliner, is a Reno native and a best-selling, award-winning author whose books are often set in Northern
Nevada. Whether you haven’t yet read any of Vlautin’s books, or you’re a long-time fan, you’ll want to hear what he said in a recent phone interview about his characters, their brokenness and how, for many of us, just getting up and facing each new day is a triumph.
Vlautin has written seven novels. His most recent, The Horse, takes place throughout Northern Nevada. It tells the story of songwriter Al Ward, who played in casino bands before retreating to a mining claim north of Tonopah. Al has known trauma and loss, is all alone, and yearns for connection and community. I asked Vlautin if someone could spend so much time isolated and still be a part of a community.
“That’s the crux of a lot of my characters— they long for community, but they’re oftentimes too broken to accept it or be a part of it,” he said. “So many people are a little dented or a little beat up and struggle to find comfort in community, although they long for community. They may dream of love, but they can’t quite get there, because they’ve got too many scars. It’s sadly probably a pretty common feeling for most people now. It’s a vicious cycle, because the more you protect and isolate yourself, the harder it is to connect, and then you need the connection to bring you out of it.
“In The Horse, I was interested in that idea of a guy saying, ‘I’ve failed at so many things in life, and my skin’s too thin to live in this world. So, I’m going to just isolate myself.’ But you’re never free that way, because then you’re stuck with yourself, and in Al’s case, he can’t stop thinking about things he doesn’t want to think about; his mind just goes in a free fall.”
Al and Vlautin’s other characters are plagued by alcoholism and regret. Despite their rough lives and questionable choices, Vlautin treats them with dignity. But to him, the dignity of these characters was never a question.
“With a guy like Al, a guy born a little bit broken (who) leaned on music his whole life as an answer to that, the dignity in him is he never (gives up),” he said. “If there’s a link between all my characters, it’d be that none of them ever give up, and none of them have ever fallen into complete bitterness. There’s dignity in getting up every day and trying.”
Vlautin’s characters are people he always thought should be heroes in stories. He said that from an early age, he wanted ordinary people to be heroes.
“I’d get crushes on the checkout lady at Raley’s, and I’d say, ‘Man, why can’t she be a hero?’” he said. “My old boss was this old, grizzled janitor, and I was like, ‘Man, that guy deserves to be a hero in a book!’ I knew I wanted to write about working-class people.”
Vlautin no longer lives in Nevada, but his novels often take place here, both because he’s always been sentimental about Reno and the people who live here, and because it allows him to spend more time in Nevada in his thoughts.
“There’s a certain side of Reno that I grew up with, so many men living in motels around downtown Reno,” he said. “I always thought I would end up living in those. I was interested in the darker, boozy side of Reno, the late-night, old-man bar vibe of Reno nightlife I loved.”
As for the rest of the state, “Nevada itself is just the most beautiful,” Vlautin said. “Driving
| BY SARAH RUSSELL
around Northern Nevada is just heaven. I write about things that I love, because if you’re going to sit in a room by yourself for a few years, I want to write about places I love.”
In The Horse, Vlautin, who is also a musician and songwriter, captures an era in Nevada that has ended, the heroes who lived it, and the victory found in showing up and reaching out.
The Reno Author Fest takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Downtown Reno Library, 301 S. Center St. Willy Vlautin’s reading is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. The event is free, but registration to hear Vlautin is required. To register, visit washoecountylibrary. us/events/authorfest.php.
Some of the quotes in this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Willy Vlautin, a Reno native and bestselling author who now lives in Oregon, will headline the first Local Author Fest at the Downtown Reno Library on Saturday, Nov. 9.
FILM & TV
Blowing smoke
Great performances make ‘Conclave’ worth watching; ‘The Apprentice’ is a compelling-enough take on the Donald
Ralph Fiennes in Conclave.
ally assaults her instead of almost strangling her at the end. Thus, this one gets an R rating.
The dark side of business eventually takes a toll on his hair and body (too much stress and pasta!). He is eventually reborn after having his fat liposuctioned off his belly, and he has his scalp shrunk. One of the final scenes involves him, much like the original Darth Vader in Sith, getting retooled on an operating table, including yucky scalp staples. However, he does not wake up and make a request for Ivana, punctuated with an unholy “Noooooooooo!!!”
The action takes place in the earlier part of Trump’s life so we never see his run-ins with other major villains, like Jabba the Hutt Epstein and General Grievous Putin.
In all seriousness, this is a fairly compelling take on Trump’s progression from daddy’s boy to blowhard sleazeball. Stan is good as the Donald, but Strong steals the movie as Cohn.
Expect Academy Award buzz for Strong, unless Trump wins the election, in which case he will likely find a way to have The Apprentice erased from the Earth. He’ll probably use that laser beam they used to blow up the Death Star.
an opportunity to do so much more.
After a prologue that features a character from the first chapter, the action picks up in a way that surprises—and builds upon the premise. Naomi Scott flat-out brings it as Skye Riley, a Gaga-esque pop star trying to make a comeback after a tragic accident took the life of her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson, son of Jack and dead ringer for asshole-supreme Matt Gaetz). In addition to her grief, Skye is trying to stay sober after a rough stretch of substance abuse.
Skye has a run-in with somebody infected with the smiley demon—and this exacerbates all of her current issues while supplying a new doozy. Skye becomes the most unreliable of protagonists, somebody constantly in danger of going off the tracks for many reasons, not the least of them being a relentless supernatural curse. The viewer winds up trusting nothing they are seeing onscreen—and that makes the movie all the more fun.
Scott delivers such a wild range of work that she deserves some Oscar buzz alongside Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley for their work in The Substance. I submit that Scott’s work here is superior to theirs, and they were impressive. There’s almost no chance she’ll get a nom given the film’s status as a horror sequel, but man, oh man, does she do great work.
“Who gonna be da pope?” That’s the central question propelling Conclave, a mostly well-done slow-burner from director Edward Berger starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow.
3
They play three cardinals dealing with the sudden death of the pope, and the squirrelly, mischievous politics that take place as all the holy guys answer that central mystery, “Who’s gonna be the next guy to wear the funny hat and rep for the Big Guy?”
Fiennes does strong work as Lawrence, the man basically in charge of the proceedings who doesn’t necessarily want the gig for one reason or another. Lithgow plays Tremblay, a cardinal who might just be a lying bastard— which is not generally a desirable character trait for somebody you call the pope. Tucci is good as an all-business candidate who doesn’t want some right-wing candidate to come in and screw things up for the more open-minded pope wannabes.
This may not be the movie for me. The fact that I don’t give one flying shit about the papacy makes this less than totally interesting. The conclusion didn’t really knock
me on my ass when it was revealed. I just sort of thought, “Well, that certainly happened.” But I can’t deny the fine acting and the film’s beautiful look, which is a triumph of art direction and cinematography.
This one has “Oscar contender” written all over it, so expect to see some nominations (Best Picture, Best Actor and/or Supporting Actor, Best Most Catholic in Every Way Picture, etc.).
While I try to avoid paying attention to advance buzz on movies, Conclave has been getting buzz for quite some time, so I went in with high expectations. The results were certainly entertaining and sometimes interesting, but the movie is vastly overrated. It’s not one of the year’s best—and this is a year that doesn’t have very many excellent films thus far.
Hey everybody, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith has been remade! I know! I am as surprised as you likely are.
The remake is called The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as young, extremely polite padawan Donald Trump, being trained about the dark side of the business world by his Sith lord master/highstakes lawyer, Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).
While Smile was a moderately fun horror pic, it didn’t leave me all that eager for a sequel. In fact, I felt like the premise of the 2022 film—some sort of smiley demon inhabits people and pushes them to kill themselves—was played out by the film’s end.
4 3
Little Donnie starts out a well-meaning, earnest businessman who slowly turns to the dark side. Along the way, he falls in love with Princess Ivana (Maria Bakalova), but this is where the plot differentiates from Sith, in that he sexu-
However, Smile 2 turns out to be one of this year’s greater horror delights, up there with Cuckoo and The Substance. This is a rare sequel that picks things up after the first film and improves upon that premise. While the smiley demon is still causing plenty of mayhem, writer-director Parker Finn takes this sequel as
Finn does a terrific job keeping his audience off balance with solid twists, lots of effective jump scares and masterful editing. With the exception of a lag after the film’s midway point, Smile 2 is a snappy, great-looking, expertly paced endeavor. The sight of characters suddenly sporting that creepy smile before madness ensues has not lost its creep factor. It’s also bloody as all heck for you gore hounds.
The ending provides worldwide implications for what could happen in Smile 3, a movie that will most certainly come to fruition. Smile 2 is a great standalone horror film, as well as a sequel that leaves you anxious for the next chapter.
Maria Bakalova and Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice
Are you knowledgeable about the local food and drink scene? The RN&R is seeking a writer to compile the monthly Taste of the Town column. The job involves keeping an eye on the scene; doing research; writing clear, direct prose in news-publication style; and rounding up photos, all on a monthly deadline.
This is NOT a restaurant review position, but if you are a skilled, experienced food or drink reviewer, we’d welcome your inquiry.
To apply, email Kris Vagner at krisv@renonr.com.
Please include links to 1-2 published articles or a writing sample that best conveys your tone and style.
TASTE OF THE TOWN TASTE OF THE TOWN
Happenings
The Grand Sierra Resort’s Fantasies in Chocolate event takes place at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 9, at the Grand Sierra Resort, 2500 E. Second St., in Reno. The event’s theme this year is “The Nightmare in Wonderland,” and guests are encouraged to dress in whimsical costumes while enjoying a variety of sweet and salty confections alongside chocolate-themed libations. For tickets, which start at $110 plus fees, and more information, head to fantasiesinchocolate.com.
Openings
Beloved’s Bakery and Café has opened at Reno Public Market, at 299 E. Plumb Lane, Suite 129, in Reno. The café is the new brick-and-mortar location of farmer’s market favorite Beloved’s Bread, and offers organic sourdough bread alongside a plethora of pastries and a full breakfast and lunch menu. “We are excited to open Beloved’s Bread’s first brick-and-mortar location at Reno Public Market,” said Zach Condron, owner of Beloved’s Bread, in a press release. “The bustling shopping center was the perfect location for us to finally open a storefront to share our passion for baking high-quality organic breads, pastries and more—along with the opportunity to offer a sit-down space for our customers.” Get details at www. belovedsbread.com.
Brass Tap, a craft beer bar and restaurant chain, has opened a location at 1171 Steamboat Parkway, Suite 120, in Reno. This is the first Brass Tap in Northern Nevada, and the family-friendly location will feature 60 beers on tap, including local brews, 200 bottled and canned beers, spirits, a full kitchen, an outdoor patio, bar seating and 20+ high-
continued on next page
LIQUID CONVERSATIONS
What should I bring?
Local booze recommendations for every Thanksgiving need
Once upon a time, I worked in retail alcohol, and I loved this time of year. Sharing my recommendations on what drinks to bring to friends and loved ones for celebrations is one of my favorite pastimes.
Before I advise, I run through a list of qualifiers: What’s your mood? Are you trying to impress these people? Who will be drinking with you? Are you trying to leave early? Do you even like these people?
Many factors go into choosing the tableside tipple, so I want to share some of my unique Northern Nevada picks for your harvest-time celebrations, based on the more common occasions you may run into this time of year.
“I want to impress my whiskey-loving dad with something cool and new.”
Minden Mill Distilling, formerly Bently Heritage Distillery, has been aging some of Northern Nevada’s most anticipated whiskies. This multi-million-dollar distillery has been quietly filling barrels with estate-grown and distilled whiskey, and after four years, they are finally being released. Minden Mill’s bourbon and rye are the newest additions to the local whiskey scene. The bourbon is balanced and at a perfect proof for drinking on the rocks,
with vanilla and sunflower oil notes. The rye is bold with spice and body, screaming to be used in a Manhattan. Nothing makes people forget that you burned the green beans last year like bringing bottles of whiskey everyone is dying to try.
“I am meeting some out-of-town friends from college for a Friendsgiving.”
It’s the week before Thanksgiving, and all your buddies who moved away are coming back into town and want to get together. What better way to show a little hometown pride than popping open a bottle of the limited University of Nevada 150th anniversary edition of the Frey Ranch Four Grain Bourbon? The fine folks at Frey Ranch are making worldclass bourbon out in Fallon and growing quite a cult following with their single barrels and limited-edition releases. Besides the slick silver-and-blue label, the best part of this bottling is that for every bottle purchased, 10% of proceeds go to the Pack Excellence Fund, which supports Wolf Pack student athletes. The four-grain bourbon is perfect for cocktails, shots or adding a bit to your turkey brine.
“I need to bring something to my aunt’s house, and all she drinks is pumpkin spice-flavored whipped cream.”
We all have that person in our lives who
| BY MICHAEL MOBERLY
Ferino Distillery founder Joe Cannella shows off the spices that go into his namesake spirit, Cannella Cinnamon Cordial—just right for spiking hot chocolate. Photo/David Robert
breaks out the apple candles and fills their house with pumpkins and pumpkin-flavored anything when the first leaf falls. We love these people, and we want to make sure they get to drink something local that speaks to their Taylor Swift-flavored soul. Good thing the smart-as-heck folks at 10 Torr have canned up their seasonal Spiced Apple cocktail. This blend of cinnamon, apple juice, brown sugar and award-winning 10 Torr vodka is lightly carbonated to satisfy even the most basic of drinkers. Want to dress this drink up for your Instagram-loving cousin? Pour it over ice, and garnish with fresh apples, cranberries and a sprig of rosemary.
“I have been to eight Thanksgiving parties this week, and my wallet hurts.”
Finding a bottle that won’t make you feel like you shopped at the gas station on your way to the party can be tricky when you’re on a budget. Enter our friends at Sonoma County, Calif.’s own Russian River Brewing. This legendary brewery makes Pliny the Elder, one of the most sought-after beers on the West Coast. This imperial IPA boasts a perfect score of 100 on Beer Advocate and is ranked No. 38 on its list of best beers worldwide. Pliny is now distributed in Northern Nevada, so you can buy bottles all over Reno, but here is the best part: This large, 17-ounce bottle is around $10 in most places. It’s big enough to seem like you brought enough for everyone, and it’s rare enough that people will get excited.
“I need to bring something for my friends who are way too into making drinks at home.”
Many people became exceptional home bartenders during COVID-19, and more people’s home bars are now fully stocked. So, what do you bring to the people who appreciate spirits but have every base spirit under the sun? Down at Ferino Distillery on Fourth Street, owner Joe Cannella distills his namesake cordial, Cannella Cinnamon Cordial. This bottle of lightly sweet cordial is cinnamon in a shot. Cannella Cinnamon Cordial is perfect this time of year for throwing in a hot chocolate on the mountain or adding a fall-time twist to a classic. A half-ounce of Cannella in your margarita is like drinking Thanksgiving in Cabo.
Always remember—it’s better to ask a pro than it is to grab a random bottle of something that looks good. Specialty retailers like Whispering Vine Wine Co., Craft Wine & Beer, Drams and Smoke, and Battle Born Wine & Whiskey have some of the most knowledgeable staff. Because, like I always say, “When in doubt, ask a nerd.”
Character clues
The legs that form when you swirl can tell you a lot about a wine
When we are given a glass of wine, we give it a swirl.
Swirling a glass of wine is fun. I love watching the colors change as the light bounces off the rotating liquid. I’m sure you have done this as well.
We swirl for a couple of reasons. First, it adds a little air into the wine and releases the aromas so that our noses can better sense them. Second, we can observe the color, the body and the legs.
What are wine legs? When wine is swirled, some of it clings to the side of the glass. The wine then turns into rivulets of liquid, streaming down the sides. While these droplets have long been a source of fascination and speculation, their true
significance is often misunderstood.
Wine legs are known by various names around the world. In France, they are called the “tears of wine,” and in Germany, they are known as “church windows.”
They scientific process behind them is called the Gibbs-Marangoni Effect, named after two scientists who researched the phenomenon in the late 1800s. When wine is swirled, a thin film coats the interior of the glass. As the alcohol evaporates, it alters the surface tension, causing the remaining liquid to form droplets that flow back into the glass. This effect is influenced by several factors, including wine’s alcohol content and sugar levels, the current temperature and humidity, and the glass itself. Stepping out of the lab and into the tasting
| BY STEVE NOEL
It’s not a filter altering the ridge below Peavine Peak—it’s wine legs. These liquid rivulets that form when you swirl a glass present a host of clues about each varietal’s characteristics. Photo/David Robert
room, how can this science help you appreciate and understand wine better?
The first thing the science taught us is that the presence of wine legs does not mean the wine is of higher quality. The wine could taste absolutely awful, yet if it has enough alcohol and a thicker body, it could have beautiful-looking legs.
When I am evaluating wine in the glass, imagining what it might taste like, legs give me several clues, based on my experience of observing many thousands of glasses of wine. The first clue is the number of legs. More legs tell me the wine likely has an alcohol content above 15 percent. The second is the legs’ thickness. Thicker legs let me know the wine will have more body; it will feel more like 2 percent or whole milk in my mouth than water. In specific wines, the legs’ thickness is due to the wine’s sweetness. The more sugar content, the slower and thicker the legs.
If you want to see this effect for yourself, start with a clean glass. A wine glass that is dirty or has mineral buildup or scratches will distort the effect. A glass that has a wide mouth allows more air exposure, promoting faster alcohol evaporation and more pronounced wine legs than a narrow glass. The shape of the glass can also impact the temperature of the wine, which also affects the leg development. A wider bowl will make the wine warmer quicker, enhancing the legs.
After you have your clean glass, add just a couple of ounces of wine, and give it a gentle swirl to coat the interior of the glass. Now, hold the glass still, and watch the legs form. Pay attention to their density, the speed as they flow down the glass, and their thickness. Remember wine legs will look different here in Nevada’s high desert, with our low humidity, than they will in a more humid area.
The best reason to observe legs is because they can help you identify at a glance which wines you’re likely to prefer. Do you like wines better if they have thicker, slower legs? Have you noticed that light, white wines with thin, fast legs are refreshing on a warm summer day? Wine legs are just one more evaluation point when tasting a wine.
While definitely not a measure of quality, legs offer a fascinating glimpse into the physical properties of wine. They remind us of the complex interplay of elements in each glass and can provide useful hints about a wine’s structure. However, the true measure of a wine’s quality and enjoyment ultimately lies in its aroma, taste and the overall sensory experience it provides.
TASTE OF THE TOWN TASTE OF THE TOWN
continued from Page 22
definition televisions. Find out more at www.brasstapbeerbar.com.
Willie’s Pasta Shop has (finally) opened at 1298 S. Virginia St., in Reno. From the owners of LuLou’s and Kauboi Izakaya, Willie’s has had a “coming soon” sign on the front door since 2018. It opened quietly, with a menu featuring soups, salads, antipasti, house-made pastas and heavy meats. The hours are currently Monday-Wednesday from 5 to 8:30 p.m. There’s no website we can find, so call 775-409-3002 to learn more.
Pele Utu, billed as Reno’s only traditional tiki bar, has opened at 1275 Stardust St., in Reno. The bar features tiki drinks like the Skipper mai tai, the zombie and even scorpion bowls, all in a lounge atmosphere with live music on select days, like Yacht Rock Sundays. Find out more at www.pele-utu.bar.
Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream has opened a location in the Shayden Summit mall at 13987 S. Virginia St., Suite 710, in Reno. The Ohio-originated chain is known for its high-quality ice cream with interesting flavors like caramel pretzel crunch, pumpkin cheesecake chunk and midnight madness. The website is handelsicecream.com.
Reno has a new Dairy Queen at 18450 Wedge Pkwy. “As an owner of seven Dairy Queens in Arizona, we are proud to expand into Nevada,” said owner Rajiv Paul. “This will be our first Dairy Queen in Nevada with our local partner Vish Krishnan, and we are committed to bringing the same excitement and success to this location as we have with our others. Since there once was a Dairy Queen in Reno, we hope the community is thrilled for the brand to return and will come together to enjoy their favorite meals and treats.” Get more info at dairyqueen.com. Have local food, drink or restaurant news? Email foodnews@renonr.com.
—Maude Ballinger
MUSICBEAT
Progressing prog
The BEAT Tour honors and elevates ’80s King Crimson songs with two band members and two rock icons
King Crimson, the band behind strange hits “21st Century Schizoid Man” and “In the Court of the Crimson King,” disbanded in 1974. In 1981, members Robert Fripp and Bill Bruford recruited new bandmates Adrian Belew and Tony Levin. The new lineup went on to create a different percussive and funkier sound, and released the albums Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair
Now four decades later, this era of King Crimson is being celebrated in a live concert setting known as the BEAT tour.
Belew and Levin, with Fripp’s blessing, are hitting the road to honor the chaotic yet captivating sounds of Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair. The duo is joined by guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and drumming powerhouse Danny Carey (Tool). You can catch BEAT at the Grand Sierra Resort on Thursday, Nov. 21.
During a recent Zoom chat with Tony Levin, he explained how the BEAT tour celebrates King Crimson while keeping things fresh.
“When you’ve got great players, it’s going to be really good, but I didn’t know how far we would veer from the original versions of the King Crimson music,” Levin said. “Steve Vai and Danny Carey are new to it— except they way did their homework. They seriously did their homework, so they’re up and running, and it’s turning out that we veer away from the original arrangements quite a
bit. We’re playing the same pieces, and they’re certainly recognizable, but fortunately, as far as I’m concerned, Steve Vai is still Steve Vai, even though he’s playing and covering Robert Fripp’s guitar parts very well. Danny Carey was a fan of Bill Bruford when Danny was young, so he’s keeping to it somewhat, but he’s got a very unique style of playing the drums, as evidenced by anybody who’s heard Tool. … I’m extra-happy, because I’m happy when the music kind of has a life on the road, and it keeps growing, and it doesn’t just stay the same every night.”
Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair were quite different from the operatic, proggy and conceptual style of King Crimson’s earlier work. Levin recalled how audiences reacted to the band’s new sound.
“We were youngish, and we were making a new kind of music, a new kind of rock that really was unlike anything we had heard,” Levin said. “King Crimson fans are a unique breed … but a good percent of the fans wanted to hear the older King Crimson music, which we were not playing. We weren’t playing anything like that, so they were less than happy with the band. They weren’t miserable, but they gradually opened their musical minds up to the new style of music. Now, of course, anybody who’s coming who was a fan of the music in the ’80s knows what to expect, and like me, they’re looking forward to seeing what these guys are going to do with these pieces. In preparation for this tour, I listened to quite a few live performances from the ‘80s, and we did veer off quite
a bit from the original records.”
Forty years removed from writing and performing the challenging bass work left Levin feeling “daunted” when revisiting these albums.
“Some of it, I was like, ‘Oh, how did I do that?’” he said. “I really had played these counter rhythms and cross-time signatures so much that at some point, they just become automatic in your fingers, and you can then do a third thing, which in my case would be singing background vocals with Adrian Belew, where he’s singing a whole third tempo. I practice quite a bit, but I cannot quite get back to where I was in the ’80s for that. So, I minimize, and I’ll be two guys at once, but not three.”
While popular, King Crimson often falls into the “your favorite band’s favorite band” category, as their pioneering prog paved the way for bands like Nirvana, Tool, Rush and Primus. Levin said he didn’t expect there to be such a demand for a revisitation of some of the band’s less-popular work.
“People are a lot more excited about it than I thought they were,” said Levin. “We booked an ambitious tour of 42 shows, and they sold so well that they added 23 more shows. I was not the only one who didn’t expect the passionate turnout of ticket-buyers from King Crimson fans. Because I’ve been playing rock music for a long time, I maybe know better than to really think I know what’s going to happen, or to have expectations about the tour. … Of course, it’s very gratifying to have very good reception and people giving you standing ovations and a lot of
| BY MATT KING
good word on the web about the concerts. That’s not the most important thing, but of course, that’s gratifying, and way better than the opposite, of people having trouble dealing with the music you’re playing. Admittedly, some of this music is very challenging, but these audiences seem to be coming prepared for that.”
Even though he has played with Peter Gabriel, John Lennon and many others, Levin said nostalgia plays a very small role in his career.
“I’ve been around a long time, and there are a lot that I have done, but I’m not really the kind of guy who goes back and listens to things I’ve done, not things I did last year or not things I did last century,” Levin said. “… My musical life consists almost completely of doing my homework for new music, stuff that’s coming up, or stuff that I’m working on right now, or writing maybe an album for next year. Very, very little of it is involved with listening to what I’ve done before, and sadly, very little of it is involved with just listening to music for fun. I don’t have the musical space in my brain as much as I used to for that. … When I’m going to play a piece, or a whole concert of pieces that I’ve done before, of course, I listen to the old parts, and I really remember them. I don’t have to memorize them. I kind of know them; they’re in there. My musical brain jumps to, ‘Where am I going to go with this part? How is it going to change?’ I have no desire to exactly reproduce what I did before, but mind you, I will reproduce it if it’s the right thing musically, and if I can’t come up with something better. … If it’s good music, then it deserves to have a life of continuing to grow on the road, as you do it for people, and so it doesn’t need to stay exactly the same.”
The BEAT tour’s setlist only manages to miss a few of the songs from the trio of albums.
“We’re doing a great deal more than I thought we would,” Levin said. “We picked most of it to rehearse, thinking that we would either swap things out or just only do some of it, and it turned out we’re allowed to do a longer show than we first expected, so we can do all of what we rehearsed. Then, we lengthened our rehearsal time from two weeks to three weeks, which is unusual … so we got it pretty solid before we headed out. I think we’re doing a very good representation of those three albums—not every single song that’s on them, but a lot of them— and we’re doing all the ones that have a road life that can be valid when you play them live.”
BEAT will perform at 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 21, at the Grand Sierra Resort, 2500 E. Second St. in Reno. Tickets start at $39.50. For tickets and more information, visit www. grandsierraresort.com.
The musicians in the BEAT tour.
MUSICBEAT
Shake shake shake
KC and the Sunshine Band bring five decades of funk to the Grand Sierra Resort
If you want talk disco and funk, you can’t get too far without mentioning KC and the Sunshine Band.
If the band’s reign on dance floors everywhere in the ’70s—with hits like “Boogie Shoes,” “That’s the Way (I Like It)” and “Get Down Tonight”—wasn’t enough to
Harry Wayne Casey.
sort’s Grand Theatre at 8 p.m., Friday, Nov. 8.
During a recent interview with frontman Harry Wayne Casey, he said that although the band’s biggest hits came in the 1970s, many younger fans are getting down tonight, and every night, to their long-lasting disco. He mentioned one of the band’s show in Europe.
“I don’t think anybody was older than 30, and they knew every word to every song,” Casey said. “It just blew me away. I had to just stand there for a moment and pinch myself. It was such a magical moment, and I love to see young people in the crowd. I love to see everyone in the crowd. That’s when I’m at in my happiest moments.”
The string of uplifting, happy party songs for which he’s known were created as an antidote to the times.
“I felt like music had gotten very dark, and the country was dark,” Casey said. “We were going through the first oil crisis here in the U.S., and stuff around the world, and I just wanted to create some music that was high energy, and from side A to side B, once you put that needle down, it just was nothing but high energy—and that’s all I could think of.”
Casey said he wanted to create songs like the ones he turned to for emotional support when he was younger.
“I think sometimes that those songs come from the darkest moments,” he said. “I think I write them to pick myself up. When I’m in the studio, I’m not thinking about energy or anything like that; I’m just thinking about what flows out of my hands onto the keys and the idea of the song. I’ve always loved dancing and up-tempo music anyway, even growing up, but I’m a word guy, so I really liked ballads that say something to me or soften me. When I grew up, you really couldn’t talk to your parents very much at all, and you had to kind of keep things down. Songs were a way of dealing with emotions and things that you were feeling without having to talk to anybody about them—and they still are. Songs help people heal in so many different ways, from breakups to things that are happening in general around the world or whatever. There’s always a song that you can play that’ll help you release that emotion and whatever you’re going through, and help you find an answer.”
Casey views the songwriting process as making art.
er people. We’re all so much alike—more alike than I think a lot of us would like to admit—so we all share the same feelings, the same hurts, the same happiness, the same good things, the same bad things.”
Casey continues to write, and he said he’s been branching away from the more radio-friendly aspects of his previous numbers, and pouring new energy into an upcoming mega-release.
“I’ve been working on a new project for the last 10, almost 12 years now,” Casey said. “It’s like 56 new songs, and my approach to writing them was a little bit different than some of the previous ways. I had people send me tracks, and I wrote the melodies and the lyrics to the track that was sent to me; some of the other things I created from scratch. I’ve always wanted to try to experiment, to do things like that. Back then, I think I wrote a lot more commercially, and probably not as lyrically as I’ve been writing recently.”
It’s taken a long time for Casey to change up the band’s commercial sound—but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried.
“A lot of times when I did try to change, people didn’t want to let me change,” Casey said. “… After I left one record company, I’d bring something, and they’d say, ‘That doesn’t sound like KC and the Sunshine Band,’ and the minute I make it sound like KC and the Sunshine Band, they say, ‘Well, that sounds dated.’ As I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely felt like my songs are more lyrical than they’ve ever been.” Casey said his upcoming string of new releases may not be as chart-friendly as his past funk jams, the artist, now 73, is proud of them.
“I’m going to release eight albums—eight EPs, kind of—with eight songs on them,” he said. “My logo has always been the rainbow. … There are seven colors of the rainbow, so each one of the EPs has a different color, and then the final album is all the colors together. One will come out every month for seven months, and then the eighth month is the release of all of them. My engineer that I’ve been working with to this day is Bob Rosa, and he’s worked with Prince, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion and a number of amazing artists. We’ve kind of been remixing them for the third time, and they’re sounding really, really good. I’m very excited about it. I think I’ve never sounded better, and I think there are some great songs in there. There’s up-tempo; there’s midtempo; there are ballads, and I’ve done a couple of covers.”
cement their legacy, the countless commercials, sporting events and movies featuring the band’s music certainly did. It’s unlikely that people will ever stop shake-shake-shaking their booty to the timeless funk of KC and the Sunshine Band.
The band is heading to the Grand Sierra Re-
“When I’m creating a song, it’s the same thing as when artists are creating a painting, and it starts with a white canvas,” Casey said. “You’re going to do a landscape, or you’re going to do an abstract, and the only thing different from writing is you’re writing about feelings and emotions and stuff. A lot of times, they’re my own emotions, and I’m going through something, and it just translates to oth-
KC & the Sunshine Band will perform at 8 p.m., Friday, Nov. 8, at the Grand Sierra Resort, 2500 E. Second St., in Reno. Tickets start at $39.50. For tickets and more information, visit www.grandsierraresort.com. This piece originally appeared in our sister publication, the Coachella Valley Independent
JONESIN' CROSSWORD
| BY MATT JONES
Matt Jones
42. ___Kosh B’Gosh (kids’ clothing line)
43. P’s somewhere on campus?
44. Limerick’s rhyme scheme
45. Sailor with a foot injury?
49. Stuck-up
50. Assistance
51. Annual milestone, for short
53. Author who’s a distant relative of Henry VIII’s last wife?
60. The trans pride one has light blue, light pink, and white stripes
61. “Birthplace of Aviation” state
62. Cobra’s foe
63. Cosmo rival
64. ___ doble (twostep dance)
65. K-pop hub
66. Musical with the song “Good Morning Starshine”
67. Emeril’s catchphrase
68. “___ Remember”
Down
1. 1998 baseball MVP Sammy
THE LUCKY 13
Zander Hoschak
Lead vocalist of Split Persona, releasing new single “Hypo” on Nov. 8
Split Persona is Reno rock ’n’ roll with a bluesy, heavy edge. For a taste of the aggressive and punchy mix, check out songs like “Lies,” “I Need More” and “Prey.” Split Persona is set to release a new single, “Hypo,” and teaser videos hint that the band is digging even deeper into hard-hitting metalcore. For more information, visit www.instagram.com/splitpersonaofficial Lead vocalist, songwriter and rhythm guitarist Zander Hoschak is the latest to take The Lucky 13.
What was the first concert you attended?
2. Sea bordering Uzbekistan
3. Place for a planter
4. Keep watch while the owner’s away
5. Warhol and Williams
6. Composer Mahler
7. “Dies ___” (Latin requiem)
8. Old MacDonald’s home
9. Leave the premises
10. Stench
11. Animal den
12. “Unbelievable” band
15. Opera venue in Milan
21. Amtrak stop, for short
22. Canadian Olympic skateboarder and LGBTQ rights activist Annie
Find the answers in the “About” section at RenoNR.com!
My mom argues my first concert was Dave Matthews Band, because right before she had me, she and my dad and attended one of his shows, and I was particularly “active” during the performance. However, my first concert I can remember was either Foreigner, who I saw at Universal Studios in Florida, or Charlie Daniels Band.
What was the first album you owned?
Sonic Highways by the Foo Fighters. I bought it on vinyl as a gift to my girlfriend in eighth-grade, and also bought myself a copy before even owning a record player.
What bands are you listening to right now?
Beartooth, Mammoth WVH, Sleep Theory and Nothing More. With the recent Linkin Park reunion, I’ve gotten on a little nostalgia trip listening back to their albums Hybrid Theory and Minutes to Midnight, two albums I grew up listening to that play a huge part in my influence for starting Split Persona.
What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get?
I personally can find enjoyment in pretty much any genre you can think of musically. However, mumble rap artists, I just
| BY MATT KING
can’t get behind. But whatever floats music-listener boats, I’m always down for!
What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? I’ve wanted to see System of a Down, Deftones and Pearl Jam for years since even before I started music. Those bands are big influences, and I haven’t yet got to experience them live. I’d do absolutely everything to see Taylor Hawkins perform on a stage again, with or without the Foos. It was an incredibly sad day when we all lost him.
What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? I don’t believe in guilty pleasures when it comes to music. If you like what you’re listening to and others don’t, who cares?! I personally will blast Zac Brown Band and ABBA in my truck with no guilt singing at the top of my lungs.
What’s your favorite music venue?
It’s a tough tie between Red Rocks and Wembley Stadium, two venues I strive to be able to headline with the band one day.
What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?
“Inspiration, move me brightly,” “Terrapin Station,” Grateful Dead.
What band or artist changed your life? How? Eddie Van Halen, and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. Without Eddie, I would’ve never picked up guitar, and without Dave, I would’ve never started writing songs and started my band.
You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? I’d ask Dave Grohl or Caleb Shomo (of Beartooth) how they tour five nights a week and scream their faces off whilst singing perfect clean vocals. I want to know how they warm up and keep their vocal health in check!
What song would you like played at your funeral?
“Here Comes the Sun,” Beatles.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?
One by One, Foo Fighters, or Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd. It’s a tough choice, because after five-plus years of listening to these albums, they NEVER get old to me.
What song should everyone listen to right now? “Drown” by us in Split Persona. It’s truly a theatrical listening experience, and we crafted it that way on purpose to “roller coaster” you through a ton of emotions.
Jenny Angius
Director of Urban Roots, celebrating
Urban Roots began in 2009, using gardening as a tool to teach STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and math), environmental stewardship and nutrition. In 2012, the group opened a teaching farm and outdoor learning center, turning a former motel into a farm with gardens, animals and programs for kids, families and teachers. In 2017, it moved to East Second Street. During the COVID-19 shutdowns, Urban Roots employed at-home garden kits and virtual learning. In 2021, they launched seed-totable programs for all ages, from preschoolers to seniors. On Saturday, Nov. 2, the group will host a brunch to celebrate its 15th anniversary, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Urban Roots Teaching Farm, 1700 E. Second St. Tickets are $60 in advance or $75 at the door. Learn more at www.urgc. org. Jenny Angius is the executive director of operations and development and has been with the organization for 11 years; we chatted via email.
How has the organization evolved over the years. What have you learned? Historically, our organization has primarily served children. However, in response to popular demand during the pandemic, in 2021, we expanded our programs to serve individuals of all ages. This growth includes our family nutrition workshops, “Dead Plant Society Gardening 101,” and the expansion of our school garden program, now called “Gardening for All.” Through this initiative, we now build gardens for fellow nonprofits, residents and businesses.
What are some programs you offer that people may not know about?
Our workshops, like the Little Chefs family cooking workshop series. We believe in the power of seed-to-table education. We are thrilled to finally have our teaching kitchen operations as we expand our
| BY DAVID ROBERT
its 15th anniversary
offerings in the community, as educators continue to lead students of all ages in nutrition education workshops, and prepare healthy snacks and teach cooking skills that participants can use in their daily lives. Our parent/child cooking workshops nurture healthy eating habits by empowering children to enjoy nutrient-dense foods. Through hands-on activities, families explore the journey of food, from harvesting fresh, seasonal produce on our farm to cooking a delicious meal together. Each life stage has unique nutritional needs, so building healthy eating habits early is essential for lifelong wellbeing. A registered pediatric dietitian will be available to answer nutrition questions and provide tips on discussing healthy eating with kids. … We believe anyone can garden, even in the unique conditions of the high desert. The Dead Plant Society offers seasonal workshops tailored to help grow a thriving garden, no matter your experience level. From February through November, we guide adult learners in essential skills like composting, transplanting and seed-saving, all adapted for the high-desert climate. You will learn how to work with native soil, manage water efficiently, and choose resilient plants that can handle Nevada’s sun and temperature swings. You will get your hands dirty and leave with the knowledge to make your high-desert garden flourish.
What’s happening at the anniversary brunch?
We will be celebrating this special milestone with both familiar faces and new friends, including staff, board members and supporters who have been part of our journey. We will have a delicious, family-style canapé brunch provided by the talented Humble Harvest series chefs— Chris Cowell, Kawai Garrido, Kevin Futamachi and Maya Rae—along with drinks crafted by El Sativo tequila and other local favorites. We’ll also have mocktails for everyone to enjoy.
Tell me about the chicken yoga at the event. We’re excited to offer chicken yoga as part of our Gratitude Hour in the Garden, hosted by Kelly Laplace from Yoga Pod Reno. This 30-minute, kid-friendly session lets you stretch and relax alongside our adorable farm chickens. You’ll start the session with gentle hugs from our feathery friends, then move through fun and lighthearted poses designed to leave you feeling both grounded and joyful. It’s a unique way to connect with nature while practicing mindfulness.
