In this month’s cover story, Nevada activists and others weigh in on some of the damage the incoming Trump administration’s policies could cause in areas such as education, public health and LGBTQ+ rights.
Given the subject, it seems like a good time to revisit the RN&R’s stance on partisanship.
It’s not Donald Trump’s party affiliation that bothers me. (And I acknowledge that he ushered in some helpful policies. The First Step Act of 2018 released 5,000 people, 91% of them Black men, from prison, undoing a 1994 act that Joe Biden had pushed eagerly, punishing crack users far more harshly than cocaine users. Same substance; different price point.)
My concerns are more about the 34 felony convictions, the track record of disparaging and assaulting women, and the ways in which Trump has exaggerated and often flat-out lied in order to villainize immigrants, transgender people and others who are now at risk of becoming collateral damage in 2025.
This month’s cover story is indeed critical of Trump’s policy positions because of the likely effects on people in our region. We don’t claim to be neutral, and we will continue to be the progressive voice of Northern Nevada. But that doesn’t mean we want to shut down productive discourse—and it doesn’t mean we’ve taken the polarization bait.
The bait is coming from both sides of the aisle. The logical fallacy memes are ubiquitous. A particularly egregious one from the left: “It’s really something to watch the party whose supporters poop on the floor in the Capitol and wipe their feces on the wall tell us which bathrooms to use.”
Seriously, we all need to stop that.
I want to assure my Trump-voting neighbors that when we talk about how good your garden looks, and my Trump-voting relatives that when we fawn over holiday dessert recipes together, I am not lumping you in with Jan. 6 vandals. That does nothing but squirt an extra quart of lighter fluid on an already raging fire.
LETTERS
More balanced political reporting, please
As a longtime reader and occasional contributor to the RN&R, I write regarding your Nov. 14 newsletter, which characterized the election results as a “gut punch” and focused on speculative cabinet appointments. While this anxiety resonates with many, it also overlooks those in our community who view these results with optimism and hope.
The data reveals a complex picture: Washoe County maintained a narrow 1% Democratic margin while the state showed a 3% Republican edge. Notably, Washoe shifted rightward by 4% from 2020, and when combined with Gallup’s finding that 70% of Americans feel dissatisfied with the country’s direction, it points to deeper challenges than mere partisan disappointment.
The journalism industry increasingly recognizes the need for balanced coverage. Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong recently announced major changes there to include “ALL voices … whether from the left, right or center,” acknowledging the media’s role in bridging divides. David Brooks’ New York Times analysis underscores this election’s
historical significance: Unprecedented Republican gains among minority voters, particularly in urban centers, created what he calls “a multiracial, working-class majority”—helping Republicans win the national popular vote for the first time in two decades.
Rather than dwelling on potential appointments and anticipating negative outcomes, RN&R has an opportunity to explore why traditionally Democratic constituencies, including those in our region, shifted right. Such reporting could illuminate our community’s concerns about identity politics, cultural issues, economic opportunity and perceived elitism.
Our community needs journalism that examines changing political dynamics with curiosity and balance. RN&R is uniquely positioned to foster dialogue rather than division.
David Rodriguez Reno
Genoa should make event parking safer
The Genoa Candy Dance is held each year in September. My family has attended for many years. With 400-plus vendors, it is very popular and very crowded. We like to arrive early for easier parking.
Parking has always been a challenge. This
year’s change was a horrible: Cars were directed to the far back of the field first, creating a ridiculously long walk to the Genoa Lane. I’m not handicapped, but at 75, I’m not as energetic as I used to be. I stayed at the entrance and waited with other people while my daughter parked. Shuttle buses are available to take people from this spot to the top of Main Street if needed. We walked up Genoa Lane and shopped. After several hours, I wasn’t feeling well. I knew I was not able to walk that long distance to our car. Other shoppers were having the same problem. Some had small children too tired to walk. Others had heavy purchases to lug back to their cars.
I have a solution. Shuttle buses currently transport people from the field entrance to Main Street and back. I suggest they extend that route into the field, making one continuous loop. This way, people can be dropped off along each end of the field, getting closer to their parking lane. We are already paying $10 to park. If cost is an issue, increase the price by a couple of dollars. I would gladly pay.
I mailed my suggestion to town of Genoa. They have not responded. Can anyone else come up with a better idea to ease the parking problem?
Maureen Sarver Sparks
—KRIS VAGNER krisv@renonr.com
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GUEST COMMENT
BY JACOB DORMAN
We need to undo racist, classist housing policies
Racism and classism helped cause the national housing shortage. If Reno is going to solve its housing crisis, it is going to have to unwind decades of wrong-headed policies that sought to segregate our city by race and class, and that impeded the free market from meeting our demand for housing, creating environmentally damaging sprawl in the process.
The prime culprit here is single-family residential zoning (SFR). Cities hit upon SFR as an effective way to create racial segregation in the 1910s—first in Berkeley, Calif., of all places. Since African Americans were so effectively discriminated against in education and employment, few could purchase single-family homes. SFR then was a policy that looked race-neutral on the outside, but was racist in intent and effect.
SFR distorted the housing market and gave an unearned benefit to middle-class families. It took land not far from cities’ cores and commercial zones, and artificially depressed its value by removing competition from apartment builders, allowing upper- and mid dle-class individuals to purchase lots for a fraction of the price they would have fetched if the land could have been developed for multifamily housing.
again, but without widespread advocacy, NIMBY homeowners will succeed in defeating it again.
The racist roots of SFR is one reason why the city of Minneapolis banned it several years ago, allowing duplexes and triplexes to be built wherever that market supported them. To address its own housing crisis, California has passed Senate Bill 9 to allow residential lots to support up to four dwellings, and SB10, which allows developments of as many as 10 units in any residential area served by public transit.
If Reno wanted to get serious about housing everyone who wants to live here, and not expelling its lower-income community members and young people, it could allow ADUs, ban SFR, allow builders to build apartments and condos wherever the market would support them, and get rid of the requirement for off-street parking for every unit. Street parking is not the end of the world, people. Put down your pitchforks.
We especially need tall housing towers given the fact that we’ve gobbled up most available land with SFR. Why should the only tall buildings in Reno house hotels for Californian gamblers instead of homes for Reno residents?
STREETALK
Do you have hope? What’s your hope for the new year?
The urban cores of the cities of the 19th century—close to jobs, housing, shopping and restaurants—are thick with apartment buildings designed for people of all classes, and dense with services and public transit options, too. In Reno, as in so many other 20th century American cities, this is not the case thanks to exclusionary zoning ordinances that reserve about 75 percent of all land for SFR.
SFR, racist covenants and redlining together sorted Americans by race, encouraging whites to move into desirable, bucolic neighborhoods with well-funded schools and infrastructure, while leaving Americans of color and lower-income whites in aging inner-city and industrial areas. Since homes have historically been Americans’ greatest financial asset, these racist housing policies helped create a racial wealth gap which persists to this day, when the average wealth of whites is 6.3 times that of African Americans and 4.6 times that of non-white Latinos. Put another way, the numbers are even more damning: Today, homeowners’ median net wealth is 80 times that of renters!
Residents of the exclusive Newlands neighborhood—almost all of which is blanketed by racist covenants—banded together in 2018 to block the legalization of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), thereby protecting a class privilege that was built on the back of racial privilege. The city is studying the issue
Reno could also return the attractive large homes currently zoned for offices in the Old Southwest to residential use and allow owners to convert them into multifamily dwellings.
New developments should be required to follow inclusionary zoning practices that set aside a certain percentage of units in every new development for people of low- and middle-incomes.
Nationally, we could give renters the same tax deduction for rent payments that homeowners receive for mortgage payments. Are you listening, Rep. Mark Amodei, Sen. Jacky Rosen and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto?
Working-class voters are the new swing voters. We ought to deliver better homes for them and lower the cost of housing for everyone.
All housing is good housing, as the Yes In My Backyard YIMBY movement argues. It is high time that we renounce 20th-century racism, elitism, environmentally damaging sprawl and free market interference, and instead create desperately needed homes. This is something on which everybody should be able to agree.
Jacob Dorman is an associate professor of history and core humanities at the University of Nevada, Reno, and co-director of the Racist Covenants Research Project, an effort to document how Nevada’s people of color have persisted and built communities in the face of structural racism. Thus far, the project has documented 8,100 racist covenants barring occupancy of homes by people of color in Washoe County. Learn more at www.unr.edu/history/rcrp.
BY DAVID ROBERT
Asked at Old World Coffee Roasters, 5020 Las Brisas Blvd., Reno
Katy Schleef Retired UNR curriculum specialist
Right now, I’m struggling to have any hope. It depends on the day; it comes and goes. A lot of it depends on what I’ve read that day. If it’s a bad indicator of potentially dire things that may happen, that’s (harmful) to my hope, personally. And if I read something bright, it may give me a glimmer of hope. I’m hoping to help with the current housing situation here in Reno and find a role for me to help.
John Hadder Director of Great Basin Resource Watch
You kind of have to have hope to keep living. There are a lot of good people out there, and I work with some of them. Eventually, we will rise out of the turmoil that we have today. I hope that we can protect the rights of individuals, especially the disproportionately affected, and also protect the environment despite what the incoming administration is planning to do.
Chris Smoot Student
Yes, I have hope. I think that life without it would be a moot point. People without hope tend to lean toward depressive narcissism. The human spirit is indomitable. People who ignore the essence of persistence are hard to be around. I hope to pass my classes, as I have 24 credit hours, and that’s a lot of information to take in.
Cadie Peters Student
I do have hope, and I find my hope through Jesus. He is a constant in my life, and no matter what is happening in the world, I can find hope through him. My family lost our house in a fire, and I was hopeless, and that was the catalyst for me to be saved. I’m hoping to get into grad school. I’m majoring in psychology among other things.
Michael Villanueva Warehouse lead
I do have hope. My faith gives me hope, and I’m surrounded by my family and co-workers. I haven’t felt hopeless in any way with all the stuff going on in the world today. I’ve been steady. I’m hoping to improve myself and grow in my knowledge. The hope is to do good for a lot of people and help others in the new year.
A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER
Voters are about to get what we collectively wanted—and
A couple of days after the election, I was talking to a relative. I told her I was worried whether my marriage to my husband would remain legal across the United States now that Donald Trump was getting a second term in the White House.
She told me confidently that I didn’t have to worry, because “the Supreme Court is keeping things the way they are now.”
Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and the authors of Project 2025 indicate otherwise.
This conversation, and several others, have led me to believe that a lot of people who voted to return Donald Trump to office don’t fully realize what he and his allies have said, rather clearly, that they intend to do regarding the rights of immigrants, transgender people, women, the news media and many other groups.
Either 1) they don’t fully realize; 2) they don’t believe his administration will actually do these things; or 3) they’re happy with these things happening and/or don’t care. For my sanity’s sake, I am going to assume No. 1 is correct.
I know people are unhappy with how a lot of things are going right now. Exit polls showed the driving force behind many votes
was the economy. All the “official” numbers—the gross domestic product stats, the employment rates, the stock markets—indicate that the economy is doing quite well. However, many inflation-weary Americans are feeling a different reality; look at the struggles of sit-down chain restaurants as one example of this. Trust me, I get it.
What I don’t get is … well, pretty much everything else.
Here’s an example of something voters may not realize they’ve greenlit: Late January and February of next year could be among the most chaotic months in our nation’s history as far as the federal government is concerned.
In a story published on Nov. 16, CNN reported:
| BY JIMMY BOEGLE
we may not like it
world’s wealthiest man and his sprawling technology empire.
The requests were like thousands of others sent in the past two years by Trump-allied groups seeking to identify perceived partisans within the federal government. Some have focused on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, others on employees who shared “off the record” information with reporters and on emails referencing “climate change.”
In mid-September, as tech billionaire Elon Musk intensified his efforts to elect Donald Trump as president, a wave of letters arrived at the Department of Transportation, asking the agency to turn over any emails and text messages that federal workers sent about the
It’s a massive fishing expedition that has already sent a chill through federal agencies bracing for Trump’s second term.
With Trump set to return to the White House with a promise to shrink the federal government and eliminate civil servants seen as obstacles to his agenda, the groundwork laid by these groups could serve as a road map for a mass purging of personnel.
It seems downright un-American to purge the government of employees based not on their performance, but their views on certain topics as
expressed in emails or on social media … but it looks like that’s where we’re headed.
Those of us here at the Reno News & Review are dedicated to covering all of this as things unfold. This publication’s mission statement begins with: “Since 1993, the Reno News & Review has been the source of independent news, arts coverage, commentary and culture for Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Minden, Gardnerville and the Lake Tahoe area. We believe in true, honest journalism: We want to afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted. We want to be a mirror for the entire greater Reno-Sparks area. We want to inform, enlighten and entertain.”
In 2025, we’re going to be focusing on the “afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted” portion by explaining and contextualizing what happens in our community as a result of the Trump administrations action’s (and inactions). If the president-elect does a mere fraction of what he’s promised, we’ll have a lot of stuff—awful, heartbreaking stuff—to cover. Our nation is getting what it wants—what our collective “we” voted for. I am certain that the vast, vast majority of us, Trump voters included, won’t like what we eventually get. We’ll all find out soon enough. God help us.
ON NEVADA BUSINESS
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
AI news from the San Francisco conference—plus details on a better way to get there
Northern Nevadans know what a pain in the ass it is to get from here to the Bay Area for a couple of days for business or to attend a meeting, show or game.
We have to navigate the traffic through Sacramento and Oakland via Vallejo on Interstate 80, or head down Interstate 680 through Walnut Creek and west over Highway 24 into Emeryville. It can take four to eight hours. When we get there, where can we park in San Francisco without getting our windows smashed or paying $50 per day to protect our car? If I bring the family, I need to think about where not to take them, plus consider what I do and do not want them to see.
Last summer, I drove back from Mountain View on a Saturday, believing I was foiling that insidious traffic by avoiding weekday travel. Oh, how wrong I was. I had purchased a classic car from a friend and found out quickly that the air conditioning wasn’t charged. It was bumper-to-bumper almost the entire way until I hit Roseville, and 108 degrees between Fairfield and Sacramento. The drive to Reno took seven hours. The car was beautiful, waxed and perfect for being 40 years old—and almost overheating after going only 5 mph for 80 miles. I dripped sweat like a pig for hours. I lost about 10 pounds on that drive, but I was still looking very cool in my new ride.
Yes, we can fly to Oakland or San Francisco, but with security and bags, it’s four to five hours. Last-minute flights are $350 each way, and then it’s an $80 Uber to get to where you need to go anywhere in the Silicon Valley. It can be quite a headache.
I can honestly and sheepishly say, after 25 years here, I have found a better way. I wish I had done this years ago. What is it, you ask? Amtrak. Yup, Amtrak. It takes $80 and seven beautiful hours from Reno, climbing through the Sierra, down through the Sacramento Valley, then over to Emeryville. The train has a viewing car, a snack bar and a restaurant that serves a full $25 lunch. There are no long lines or security scans. There are a ton of retired folks coming across the country from the Chicago hub, seeing the land. The seats are way more comfortable and roomier than the crappy airplane seats, too. I brought my own jug of hot tea and snacks. My liquids were not in a bag.
Once at the Emeryville station, you hop in a $30 Uber and pop over to the Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square—very safe (within three or four blocks) and a lot less expensive than waterfront rooms in San
Francisco. The best part is that the ferry to SF docks right outside of the hotel and comes hourly during the week. It’s another relaxing and scenic 30-minute ride under the Bay Bridge over to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. From there, you can walk, scooter or Uber around the city. It’s just as easy going back to Oakland and Reno.
There are two caveats: 1) You need a day on each end of the trip for the Amtrak train, but the views going over Donner Pass through the snow tunnels and high above the American River Canyon are worth it. 2) If you want WiFi, you’d better have your own hotspot—and expect to lose it completely from Truckee to Auburn. It forced me to stop working, relax and enjoy the ride.
I’m taking the fam over this exact way over the holidays. It is a hoot!
The reason for revealing this well-kept traveling secret is because I recently had to go to TechCrunch at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to meet our Polish government delegation, including our friend, the marshal of Lubelskie (equivalent to our Nevada governor), whom I’ve mentioned in this column before. We met clients from Poland, Lithuania, India and Germany. TechCrunch is an annual startup conference featuring what’s known as “disruptive technologies.” For those who don’t know exactly what this is, but are afraid to ask, disruptive technology examples in the last 30 years include Amazon for books (and now everything else). AirBnB and Booking. com have both disrupted the longtime hotel and hospitality business models, which had been in place for centuries. Uber did the same thing to the livery business, disrupting taxi and limousine services.
At the 2024 Techcrunch Disrupt 2024 event, more than 200 companies from around the world pitched in three-minute increments all day long for three days straight. As you can guess, this year’s theme is everything AI. Here are a few examples:
From Japan: 3rdBrain, “a human-centered AI technology company developing a series of advanced management decision-making software.” Perhaps it can run one or two of my three companies so I don’t have to!
From Belgium: Ingram, “the AI R&D lab behind the Fabrile chatbot platform. We offer a B2B platform for companies to create and deploy support, sales and niche knowledge chatbots that can integrate across many different knowledge bases and be deployed to a wide variety of chat and messaging platforms.” Maybe this one can increase my outgoing sales, then leave respectful voice messages that
BY MATT WESTFIELD
sound like me, so I don’t have to!
From the U.S.: PherDal Fertility Science “offers the only (Food and Drug Administration)-cleared sterile insemination kit as an athome fertility treatment for anyone struggling to conceive.” I saw this pitch (among 20 others); the founder is a Ph.D. medical researcher. This was a classic case of a person determined to solve her own problem and then creating a replicable solution for others experiencing the same rollercoaster struggle. I don’t need this one, as my wife and I are done with that stuff. I have been in cutting-edge tech for more than 30 years, when I helped bring virtual reality out of the Department of Defense and created early real-world apps in the first-generation VR systems from 1992-1997. Back then, there were VR companies popping up everywhere, as the venture capital money was flowing into VR early on. Then it was Amazon,
eBay and the new age of internet companies also known as dotcoms, one of which lured me from Seattle to Reno to launch in 1999. We then saw the funding implode for that. In the early 2000s, it was the social media boom with the Facebook of this and the MySpace of that. (Look it up.) In the mid-2010s, it was the “internet of things,” and in the late 2000s, blockchain and cryptocurrency, then new and improved VR, followed by AR. The Facebook guy even changed the name of his company a few years ago to represent the “new era of ‘VR.’” So do you have your $3,000 Oculus Rift headset yet? No? Huh, me neither. Now it’s the AI of this and the AI of that, because that’s where all of the VC money is now. Check back with me a couple of years, and I’ll fill you in on the fallout from the AI crash and the next cool new tech investment play. Stay tuned, everyone—and happy holidays!
Traveling from Reno to the San Francisco Bay Area by Amtrak can take the better part of a day, but the trip is comfortable and scenic. Photo/Matt Westfield
UPFRONT
Nevada receives $375 million for
recreation and conservation; Churchill County gets $42 million
On Nov. 4, Sen. Jacky Rosen’s office announced $375 million is coming to Nevada for improvements to recreational opportunities, and to protect public lands and conservation efforts.
The funds come through the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA), which returns revenue from public land sales in Clark County to the state.
Churchill County is slated to receive the largest award in Northern Nevada, around $42 million, for three softball fields on six acres of county-owned land, new outdoor park amenities, and an expansion to existing facilities at the 3C Event Complex in Fallon.
Much of the funding went to Southern Nevada. SNPLMA guidelines outline “buckets” for which money can be used, and more Southern Nevada projects qualified under the parameters set by lawmakers than projects from other parts of Nevada.
It is up to individual counties to apply to the Department of the Interior for funds. Counties must present plans for each project and show that it meets award eligibility requirements. The Bureau of Land Management then has input. The Nevada division of the BLM typically posts funding opportunities on its website but does not usually send out proactive emails requesting applications.
The RN&R spoke with Jesse Segura of Churchill County Parks and Recreation. He confirmed Churchill County was awarded $42 million for the projects. He said the Maine Street softball fields are about 50 years old and clearly require upgrading. He added that the county anticipates the 3C Event Complex project will turn out to be a beautiful facility and is a much-needed addition to recreational opportunities for Fallon’s young residents.
There is one other Northern Nevada awardee: Carson City has been allocated $14.9 million for its Mills Park Master Plan Implementation. —Leah Wigren
NEWS
DIY warmth
Heater Bloc Reno makes tent-safe heaters— costing about $7 each—and gives them to the unhoused
An icy coldness fills your body and lungs. It’s hard to breathe. You start to cough and wheeze. Your body is exhausted, and your limbs go numb. Unless you can find shelter, there’s no escape.
This is life for the unhoused during the winter in Reno, where in December, the average low temperature is 25° Fahrenheit, and the average high is 46°. When the body reaches an abnormally low temperature, hypothermia begins to set in—which can cause lasting health problems and, if left untreated, death.
To keep warm, unsheltered people sometimes burn trash, wood, kerosene or other flammable substances they can find. These can produce toxic fumes, and fires can sometimes spread out of control.
The DIY Heater Bloc is meant to replace these makeshift fires. It’s a tent-safe heater that costs about $7 to make. Kelsey Corvidae, of Heater Bloc Reno, explained the effort to the RN&R via a combination of email and text messages. They said the first local batch of about two-dozen heaters was slated to be distributed just before Thanksgiving. The design was initially created in Oregon.
“This type of ingenuity exists wherever an underserved population is trying to survive, but the first ‘Heater Bloc’ that created this specific tent-safe heater design and shared the open-source guide was an an-
archist collective in Portland,” Corvidae said. “There are now Heater Blocs in many cities. We’re connected with people from all over the continent who are supporting each other and skill-sharing.
“There is a wonderful original guide available online, and there are many collectives innovating and making it their own. There are ample instructions on how to both build and use a tent-safe heater, and more groups (are) adding their ideas to the hive all the time. Every heater distributed includes an in-person demo as well as printed instructions.”
The core of the DIY heater is a mason jar filled with rubbing alcohol, which burns cleanly. The ends of a U-shaped, 10-inch-long segment of copper tubing are secured in holes in the lid. The middle of the segment is a loop, and in the bottom part of this loop is a tiny hole. A piece of cloth long enough to touch the bottom of the jar hangs out of each end of the tube, feeding alcohol from the mason jar into the copper tube. When a flame from a lighter is held near the hole in the tube, the alcohol vaporizes, and the vapor exits the hole and ignites.
If the mason jar tips over, the flame goes out immediately—but for added safety, the jar is glued to a plate, surrounded by a wire cage, and topped with an inverted terra cotta pot which both helps control the flame and radiates steady heat.
The open-source, affordable, DIY design is
BY CAT MAKINO
The Heater Bloc is designed to be tent-safe. If the mason jar tips over, the flame goes out immediately.
meant to empower as many people as possible to make and distribute them.
“These blocs, or affinity groups, sprung out of an immediate need for safe survival heat among people who are made unhoused by the state,” Corvidae said. “State-run shelters are often not available or safe, and tents and makeshift structures are often the only option. In winter months, unhoused people are forced to burn whatever they can for warmth, sometimes in risky ways. Tent fires are a particularly gruesome way for a person to die, and firefighters have thanked us for preventing tent fires specifically.
“Tent-safe heaters are the bare-minimum offering to people who really should be housed. Everyone should be housed. So while we continue to fight for housing, we make tent heaters, too.”
Washoe County’s 2024 “Point in Time” count found 1,760 people experiencing homelessness earlier this year, breaking the previous record set during the pandemic. Activists, however, say that count is too low.
Corvidae said that the immediate goal of the Heater Blocs is to safely provide life- and limb-saving heat to our unhoused neighbors. But there is a broader goal: to create a collective of people who believe in housing as a human right, “because these types of actions are how we find our community, housed and unhoused, and create networks of care so that we can all face the bigger fights together.”
“There is no official group or nonprofit,” Corvidae said. “Heater Blocs have remained a grassroots anarchist endeavor wherever they pop up, because that’s just the kind of person who gets this work done. And I really want to emphasize that this effort is collaborative between housed and unhoused people.”
In fact, some of the best feedback Corvidae got on how to improve the design was from an unhoused man who had been a Marine engineer. “He had some awesome tips and taught me a lot about the science behind the heaters,” they said.
Corvidae said the “little heaters” are muchloved by their recipients.
“I can’t emphasize enough that the first step to helping another person is to just directly ask that person what they need!” Corvidae said. “If people didn’t come back with enthusiasm, we wouldn’t be doing the work. Maybe the state should take note.”
To learn more or support the efforts of Heater Bloc Reno, visit www.instagram.com/ heaterblocreno.
Time for pie
The Peppermill’s ninth annual “Pie It Forward” bake sale took place Sunday, Nov. 24, to benefit the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. Guests were able to purchase pumpkin pies for $7, with the Food Bank receiving 100% of the proceeds.
Collin Alldredge, director of special events at the Peppermill, said it took bakery staff 18 to 24 hours to prepare and bake 1,400 pies. The line started at 9:30 a.m., and the event drew a wide range of customers.
Alldredge said that businesspeople sometimes buy 30 to 40 pies for their employees, and the Huffaker Elementary School PTA requested that 60 pies be put aside for teachers and staff.
—David Robert
Collin Alldredge, director of special events at the Peppermill, and Johannah Go, marketing coordinator, bring out a batch of the 1,400 pumpkin pies that the casino sold to aid the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. Photo/David Robert
Wanna be newsy?
The RN&R is looking for new freelance writers—especially talented writers/reporters who have a nose for news.
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!
Tahoe ski updates
Nearby resorts boast new amenities and an expansion; Homewood is closed for the season
A fresh ski season has arrived. Before you hit the slopes, there are new developments to note at some of the region’s resorts, including equipment upgrades, a slalom event where the pro-level contestants are also the judges, and a dispute at Homewood that’s led to the resort’s closure—at least for a season.
A backcountry slalom race where the athletes are the judges
Sugar Bowl at Donner Summit prides itself on its independent ownership, heavy snowfall and challenging terrain. According to Sugar Bowl’s website, founder Hannes Schroll, a world-class Austrian skier, convinced Walt Disney to invest in the resort, which opened in December 1939, featuring the first California chairlift. Two weeks later, a blizzard struck the summit. The high snow levels cemented Sugar Bowl’s reputation as a premier ski destination for the Hollywood crowd.
That same season, the resort held the challenging Silver Belt Classic, a backcountry slalom race down 1,300 vertical feet. From 1940 to 1975, skiers from around the world tested their mettle and skills on whatever conditions the mountain threw at them.
After a three-decade break, the Silver Belt returned in 2024, and it is again an annual event. The next installment is April 3-5, 2025, when freeride skiers (those who ski on natural, ungroomed terrain) from around the world will compete for cash prizes. In this new version, the athletes themselves judge their fellow competitors.
In other news this year, the resort debuted its new athlete training facility, Sugar Bowl Parks, a pro-level park with increasingly difficult and higher ramps and rails for freestyle skiers and snowboarders.
Palisades Tahoe’s massive expansion plan approved Palisades Tahoe
1960 Olympic Valley Road, Olympic Valley, Calif. www.palisadestahoe.com
As Palisades Tahoe celebrates its 75th anniversary, it is also celebrating the fact that on Nov. 19, Placer County unanimously approved its ambitious expansion plan. The approval comes after years of opposition, primarily from environmental nonprofits League to Save Lake Tahoe and Sierra Watch.
In November 2016, the Placer County Board of Supervisors first approved the plan. Sierra Watch sued Placer County and won in 2021. Palisades took in community feedback about increased traffic and decreased Lake Tahoe water quality. The resort then reduced the number of beds in the plan by 58%, agreed not to build new above-ground parking decks, and dedicated 16 acres of land for permanent conservation.
According to Patrick Lacey, public relations manager at Palisades, the plan will unfold over the course of 25 years, developing in phases, beginning with construction of 300 units of workforce housing, then 850 guest accommodations and a Mountain Adventure Center featuring a pool, climbing wall and conference space.
For this season, Palisades Tahoe invested $1.4 million in snowmaking equipment, restored the Tower of Nations and Olympic torch, and opened Little Bear Cafe, offering baked goods and sandwiches.
Mt. Rose invests more than $2 million in upgrades
Mt. Rose Ski Resort
22222 Mt. Rose Highway, Reno skirose.com
Locals love Mt. Rose Ski Resort’s proximity to Reno and Lake Tahoe’s North Shore. With its high base elevation (8,260 feet) and north-fac-
| BY ALICE OSBORN
Slide Mountain, part of Mt. Rose Ski Resort.
ing slopes, conditions are favorable even into the late spring. The ample, free parking (not a given at area ski resorts) is also a draw.
This season marks Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe’s 60th anniversary, and the resort has invested $2.2 million in trail improvements and amenities. New snowmaking equipment is expected to produce snow more efficiently, and three new snowcat vehicles are equipped with LiDAR (light detection and ranging) to help measure snow depth, for more efficient grooming. There are new loading ramps beneath three of the chairlifts. The dining area has undergone a major renovation and boasts a new taco bar.
Homewood Mountain Resort closed for the season amid disagreements
Homewood Mountain Resort
5145 West Lake Blvd., Homewood, Calif. www.skihomewood.com
The 63-year-old Homewood Mountain Resort, on the West Shore of Lake Tahoe, is closed for the 2024-25 season. This news shocked both guests and employees. Many in the community feel their hometown, laidback ski resort is being threatened by outside developers who want to change Homewood into a high-priced, members-only destination, driving the public out.
The owners are in talks with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and Keep Homewood Public, a grassroots organization of more than 3,000 people. At stake are changes to Homewood’s 2011 master plan, which grants the resort more real estate opportunities and higher building heights in exchange for public access to the resort.
According to the master plan, Homewood would also make improvements to its aging infrastructure, offer new snowmaking facilities, build up to 25,000 square feet in commercial space, and construct an ice rink and other community amenities.
According to the Homewood website: “At the Sept. 25 (Regional Planning Commission) meeting, KHP leadership repeatedly made requests that TRPA require a ‘hard reset’ of the approved master plan. … With no clear path forward for the project approval, HMR’s financial partner withdrew support for the 24-25 season.”
Candice Wilmuth, a Keep Homewood Public board member, said the group’s goal is to make sure Homewood stays accessible.
“This community is crazy for this resort, and this whole effort is to keep it going for future generations,” Wilmuth said. “We are open to a public/private resort, and we want this development to work, but over 15 times in the last year, we’ve asked HMR to include enforceable specifics about public access in the amendment, since the owners have previously documented the intent to privatize the resort.”
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BY JASON GOODE
Out of this world
California students launched a rocket in the Black
Rock Desert that broke height and speed records
One fin of the rocket reads, “We’re so back.”
On another, “For real this time.” Between the fins were the names of University of Southern California students, scrawled in Sharpie, which burned off from the heat as the rocket propelled itself past Earth’s atmosphere on Oct. 20.
According to the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (RPL) report, students successfully launched their rocket to a max height of 470,400 feet (143 kilometers). This surpassed the previous amateur height record of 380,000 feet, which was set by the Civilian Space eXploration Team’s rocket, GoFast, in 2004. The student rocket’s maximum speed of 5,283 feet per second (3,602 mph) also broke the record set by the GoFast rocket by
around 180 mph.
“A group of college kids launched a rocket higher than any other non-professional organization ever has,” said Ryan Kraemer, a senior in mechanical engineering and the lead engineer. “Retrieving awe-inspiring videos of Earth from space and successfully tracking the rocket to its landing point, we demonstrated more advanced space technology than most nations around the globe.”
Aerospace programs with spaceflight capabilities are not widespread, concentrated in a few main countries.
“(The capability to launch) is in 30-something localities. … Lots of countries have no industrial base in aerospace manufacturing at all,” said Gunter Krebs, a physicist, programmer and author of Gunter’s Space Page, which compiles data about worldwide space activity.
The Black Rock Desert, 566 miles from USC, is remote enough that a high-altitude launch could get back to Earth safely, making it one of the closest options that fit all of USC RPL’s needs.
“The higher your rocket goes, the farther away it might land, and that is why people launch in deserts in general, but Black Rock is a particularly big, good desert,” Kraemer said. “For now, Black Rock is one of few options for such a high-altitude launch in the United States.”
Across the vast expanse of the playa, just north of Gerlach, RPL students watched as Aftershock II pierced the sky, making history on its trip to an outer-world frontier. Launching at 11:16 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 20, the rocket’s 12-minute, 34-second flight was in space above the atmosphere for three minutes, five seconds.
Later that day, RPL tracked down and recovered the rocket north of the launch site. That week, they began the careful retrieval of the
After data from the Aftershock II rocket that showed it had reached space, students cheered and celebrated. Photo/Jason Goode
data and started the review process.
On Nov. 15, the team released the results with the height and speed data to show they broke the two records for amateur rocketry for which they were aiming. By extension, they broke their own height and speed records set by Traveler IV for student rocketry.
“This result establishes Aftershock II as the fastest and highest amateur rocket of all-time,” RPL said in the report.
To give a sense of how far the rocket went, it got about a third of the way (143.4 kilometers) to the orbit of the International Space Station (420 kilometers). This height is also nearly at the Federal Aviation Administration’s limit for amateur rockets, 492,000 feet (150 kilometers) with the proper clearance.
The rocket reached a maximum speed of about 3,600 mph. Mach 1 is the speed of sound—and the rocket went about five times as fast, according to RPL’s data.
RPL has been building rockets for more than 20 years. In 2019, it was the first student group to send a rocket to space with the aforementioned Traveler IV, which reached 339,800 feet (104 kilometers), and passed the boundary of
Earth’s atmosphere at 100 kilometers, known as the Kármán Line.
The rocket’s namesake and predecessor, Aftershock, suffered an early nose cone deployment during takeoff at the previous semester’s launch. Aftershock II was a mission of redemption.
Students poured their hearts, souls and work into re-creating and improving the machine.
“Working around the clock, a lot of sleepless nights across all the teams, a lot of weekends and summer vacations (were) given up, just to get this to where it was,” said Sofia Pantoja, a junior studying aerospace engineering, and the composites lead. “… I was a part of doing something I had been dreaming of for so long—that was when I was in tears … in shock almost, and I was just hugging and smiling my head off.”
Said Jayna Rybner, a senior and the operations lead of RPL: “Going to space wasn’t just something that happened once; it wasn’t something that happened out of luck. By doing this again today, we are proving that (this) is a repeatable process, it’s something we know, that we understand.
“It’s not just (that) we are going to space … (but) how far can we push the limits of our engineering?”
Jason Goode is a senior journalism student at the University of Southern California.
Students launched the University of Southern California Rocket Propulsion Lab’s Aftershock II rocket in the Black Rock Desert on Oct. 20.
Photo/Jason Goode
OUTDOORS
Bird’s the word
Tundra swans flock to a Lemmon Valley wetland in winter
As winter descends, thousands of tundra swans make their seasonal home at one the region’s few remaining wetland habitats: Swan Lake Nature Study Area, located in an otherwise industrial block of Lemmon Valley.
A 600-foot-long boardwalk extends over the water, allowing strollers, walkers and wheelchairs easy access to view the birds, making this an engaging spot for grandparents and children alike.
“When you start noticing birds, I think it helps you be more in tune with nature … because you’re listening more; you’re looking more,” said Lauren Whitenack, vice president of the Lahontan Audubon Society. “It’s really meditative to me, to be honest.”
The swans winter here roughly from November to March, but Whitenack emphasized that when the snow is fresh in December, it’s a particularly beautiful time to watch the swans
Northern Nevada is one of few inland stops for migrating tundra swans. At Swan Lake, in years when the water is high, there can be up to 2,000 at a time. Photo/Lauren Whitenack
glide through the snowy backdrop.
Tundra swans are an amazing sight to see, because they indicate the health of one of our region’s last remaining wetlands. As local bodies of water dry up, so does their motivation to visit. Whitenack said that the reason swans favor Sawn Lake is because of its size. Other wetlands in the immediate area—like Damonte Ranch, South Meadows and Oxbow Nature Study Area—don’t have large or deep enough bodies of water anymore to host birds the size of tundra swans.
“It’s possible that (tundra swans) used to come here in much larger numbers than they do now,” she said. “We have a decent problem with losing our water resources due to climate change, agriculture and urbanization, so having these remaining wetlands becomes more and more important as time goes on in these species.”
These birds summer in the High Arctic and travel to the western and eastern coasts of North America. There are only a few inland destinations where some flocks spend their winter; northwestern Nevada is one of them.
Swan Lake garnered attention for protection in the early 1990s. In 1999, it was designated as a nature study area, meaning the roughly 1,800-acre park is preserved for wildlife, habitat protection, environmental education and outdoor recreation. The prime feature of the park is the lake, which fluctuates between 100 and 1,000 acres, depending on seasonal snowmelt from Peavine Mountain.
According to the Washoe County Swan and Silver Lake Water Monitoring program, the lake is currently around 980 acres. When the water is higher, more swans visit.
“A few years ago, I counted 2,000 swans,” Whitenack said. She predicts just as many birds will visit this winter.
With that many birds around, Whitenack said to expect a lot of noise. “All the swans come down, and it’s like a family reunion or something, because they’re very vocal, and they make this trumpeting sound,” she said. “It’s such an elegant bird, but it’s not a very elegant noise. … It’s this rowdy, rooping noise. But it is incredible.”
With the naked eye from the boardwalk or southeastern shores, you should be able to see swans glide across the water or stirring up the water to scavenge for plants to eat. “You can’t see their feet under the water, but you can see them rocking back and forth on the surface,” Whitenack said. “It looks really funny.”
Binoculars are recommended to get the best view, because the birds spend their time in the middle of the lake, not along the shores. Binocu-
| BY HELENA GUGLIELMINO
lars and spotting scopes (telescopes with 20-30 times magnification, used widely by birders) are available for public use during Lahontan Audubon Society birding events.
Swan sightings can happen all day, Whitenack said, but the evenings might make for the most impressive experiences.
“Sometimes groups of birds will go out during the day and forage elsewhere, and then they’ll come back to one place to roost for the night,” she said. “You might see, as the sun is going down, a bunch more birds coming in to roost; it can be really beautiful and fun to watch them all come in and land very gracefully on the water.”
The sunsets at the lake are also special, presenting a golden hour that feels miles away from the industrial complex surrounding the park.
You can also time your visit to see some of the other 200-plus species that inhabit the lake. Songbirds are best spotted in the morning; raptors can be seen hunting midday; and owls are active in the evenings. Coyotes might be spotted darting through the sage, and a rustle or two underfoot might indicate a desert cottontail rabbit. Resources like eBird—both a website and app—note which species can be spotted during particular times and provide excellent species-specific information about birds’ behavior.
Whitenack discourages feeding any of the birds you may see. The city of Reno prohibits feeding waterfowl outside of designated areas (at Virginia Lake, Idlewild and Teglia’s Paradise parks). Feeding can be harmful to animals by disrupting their natural habits and diets. It is also unlikely that a swan will accept food from humans.
“Tundra species are really wild,” Whitenack said. “They spend most of their year not seeing a single human in the very North Arctic, so they’re not likely to be the type of bird that would come and eat something that people brought.”
If feeding birds is more your style, Whitenack recommends visiting a designated feeding area (like Virginia Lake) and bringing food that agrees with their natural diet, such as thawed frozen peas or dried oats.
“I think everyone could use some birds in their life,” Whitenack said, noting that tundra swans are a great “spark bird” for birding rookies.
“A lot of birders talk about a spark bird, a bird that got them interested in birding, and maybe if you bring your kids out for a December walk to see the swans, the swans can be their spark bird,” she said with a laugh.
The Lahontan Audubon Society will host a Swan Lake Family Birding Trip from 2 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 15. The event is free and open to all ages and experience levels. Binoculars and a spotting scope will be available for use. Visit www.nevadaaudubon.org/calendar. html to sign up.
Planets and Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight
For December, 2024
ASTRONOMY
This sky chart is drawn for latitude 40 degrees north, but may be used in continental U.S. and southern Canada.
December’s evening sky chart. Illustration/Robert D. Miller
visibility on Dec. 7, when Earth passes between Jupiter and the sun. That same night, Mars begins retrograde just 2° northwest of the Beehive (use binoculars to see that cluster’s individual stars), and Neptune ends retrograde 0.65° east-northeast of the 5.5-magnitude star 20 in Pisces, end of the handle of a dipper-shaped asterism. Jupiter and Uranus retrograde all month, with Jupiter reducing its distance east-northeast of Aldebaran from 8.4° to 5.7° in December, while Uranus shifts only 1° during the month, ending 8° southwest of the Pleiades.
December skies
The month brings the longest night of the year—and great views of planets
Winter begins with the solstice on Dec. 20-21, at 1:21 a.m., during our longest night. There are plenty of dark skies in December, and lots of planets to be seen, especially in evening hours!
On Dec. 1, nearly 1 1/2 hours after sunset, around the end of twilight, brilliant Venus (magnitude -4.2) is low in the southwest; Saturn (magnitude +1.0) reaches its high point in the south; and Jupiter (magnitude -2.8) is low in the east-northeast. About 1 1/2 hours later, Venus sets while Orion and Gemini rise into view. Another 1 1/2 hours later, or 4 1/2 hours after sunset, look for Mars (magnitude -0.5) low in the east-northeast, Procyon low in the east, and Sirius (magnitude -1.5) low in the east-southeast. Note four brightest “stars” are now Venus, Jupiter, Sirius and Mars, but not all are visible simultaneously until about
mid-December, when Sirius, rising four minutes earlier daily, rises before Venus sets.
On Dec. 11, Mars rises just before Venus sets. On what date will you first see the lineup of four planets—Venus-Saturn-Jupiter-Mars—simultaneously? By Dec. 20, Venus and Mars will be 5° above opposite horizons three hours after sunset. The lineup of Venus and all five outer planets —Venus-Saturn-Neptune-Uranus-Jupiter-Mars—then spans 169°. If you’re surrounded by mountains, go elsewhere for a vantage point with unobstructed views toward the west-southwest and east-northeast, or wait several days as the lineup shrinks in extent. On Dec. 31, Venus (magnitude -4.4) and Mars (magnitude -1.2) will be 154° apart and 13° above opposite horizons about 2 1/2 hours after sunset.
Jupiter’s brightness changes little this month, as it reaches minimum distance from Earth and maximum brilliance at opposition, with all-night
Saturn appears at an unusually dim magnitude +1.0 in December, and will continue to fade because its rings are tipped from edgewise by only 5° on Dec. 5; 4° on Jan. 7, 2025; 3° on Jan. 28; 2° on Feb. 16; and 1.5° on Feb. 25, when Saturn will set in twilight. It’s early spring in Mars’ northern hemisphere. The planet’s north polar region now appears very bright and large, as the North Polar Hood (cloud cover) clears and reveals the North Polar Cap of frozen water and carbon dioxide. You can also look for Mars’ dark surface feature, Syrtis Major, In the morning sky, Mercury emerges quickly after perihelion and inferior conjunction of Dec. 5-6. Can you spot it by Dec. 12? It brightens through magnitude +1.3 on Dec. 12, +0.9 on Dec. 13, 0.0 on Dec. 17, and -0.4 Dec. 22-31. Mercury-Mars-Jupiter span 171° Dec. 13-17. Mercury lingers 7° from fainter Antares Dec. 20-26 and reaches greatest elongation, 22° from the sun, on Dec. 25.
Follow the moon: On Dec. 2, in evening twilight half an hour after sunset, look for the 3 percent crescent moon very low in the southwest, 24° to the lower right of Venus. On the next evening, look within an hour after sunset to find the 8% crescent moon just 12° to Venus’ lower right. In a spectacular sight on Dec. 4, the 15% crescent moon with earthshine on its dark side passes within 3° south (to the lower left) of Venus. Through a telescope, Venus’ disk, 18” (arcseconds) across, shows its phase, two-thirds illuminated. Venus is far in the background, in place to catch more sunlight than the moon. From now until March, Venus will grow in apparent size, but show less of its illuminated face as Venus draws closer and begins to swing between Earth and the sun. On Dec. 5, the 23% crescent moon will appear 13° to Venus’ upper left.
On Dec. 7 and 8, the moon flips from a 44% crescent to a 55% gibbous, skipping from 10° west to 5° east of Saturn, and past first quarter phase, when the moon would be half full and 90° from the sun.
On the evenings of Dec. 13-15, the waxing gibbous moon coasts eastward through the constellation Taurus, passing the Pleiades cluster,
| BY ROBERT VICTOR
Aldebaran and the Hyades cluster, Jupiter, and Beta and Zeta Tauri, the tips of the Bull’s very long horns.
Bright moonlight also interferes with the peak of the Geminid meteor shower on the night of Dec. 13-14. The moon is full on the night of Dec. 14, and during that evening, Jupiter appears midway between the moon and Aldebaran, 7° from each.
After it passes full, you can follow the moon by staying up later each night, or more conveniently, by switching your viewing time to mornings, perhaps one to 1 1/2 hours before sunrise. As the moon is about to set on the morning of Dec. 14, you’ll note bright Jupiter, 6° to the moon’s left. On the next morning, December’s northernmost moon will appear 12° above Jupiter. On the morning of Dec. 17, the 94% moon passes 2-3° south of Pollux, the brighter of Gemini’s “twin” stars. (The other is Castor, 4.5° away.) On the morning of Dec. 18, the 88% moon appears just 2° east of Mars. Several hours earlier, during the midnight hour, the moon’s southern edge passes within half a degree—a moon’s width—to the north of Mars. On the morning of Dec. 20, spot the star Regulus, heart of Leo, 3° west of the 72% moon. On Dec. 24, Spica in Virgo is within 3° east (to the lower left) of the 35%, now crescent moon. On Dec. 27, find the 11% crescent moon low in the southeast, with Antares, heart of Scorpius, 12° to its lower left and 8° right of brighter Mercury. On Dec. 28, find Mercury 9° left of the 6% moon. Antares, very close to the moon’s upper left, shows up quite well in binoculars. The last chance to see the moon during this cycle of phases will be an old, 2 percent crescent rising in bright twilight on Dec. 29, about 9° to the lower right of Mercury. After the new moon of Dec. 30 at 2:27 p.m., your next chance to spot the moon will be about half an hour after sunset on New Year’s Eve, a 2 percent young crescent, within 27 hours past new, and 34° to the lower right of Venus. Binoculars, clear skies and an unobstructed view of the west-southwest horizon are recommended. The 2.1-day-old crescent on the evening of Jan. 1 will be much easier. Happy New Year! These events, and other gatherings of the moon, planets and stars, are illustrated on the Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar. A sample December 2024 issue, with its accompanying evening star and constellation sky map, are available at RenoNR.com. The Sky Calendar is also 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
mid-twilight occurs when
We don’t know yet which of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks will stick when he takes office in January. We can’t predict which of his proposed policies will be mere campaign bluster, and which will come to pass—but many Nevadans are nervous about rollbacks to civil rights and environmental protections, and potential cuts to health and education spending.
The RN&R spoke with activists and experts in a range of fields to get a read on what they’re anticipating.
LIBRARIES
Calls to censor queer-themed materials are likely to escalate “Book bans are sweeping across the nation,” said fiction author Naseem Jamnia.
That’s the case in Washoe County as well, with some residents calling for the Washoe County Library System to remove or reshelve books—mostly those with adult or LGBTQ+ themes.
“Some people oppose some of the books to the point that library board of trustees meetings have become very disruptive to library business,” said Jamnia, perched in a cozy backroom at The Radical Cat bookstore, where they lead a writers’ group meetup.
Jamnia and a few others began meeting to discuss ways in which they could support the library staff during these confrontations. The colleagues formed Freedom to Read Nevada, at first a loose coalition, and now formally a branch of the Freedom to Read Foundation, a national anti-censorship group.
In Washoe County, most of the opposition to library books has come in the form of public comments at Library Board and County Commission meetings, as opposed to formal challenges. Nationwide, the American Library Association reported that formal book challenges increased 65% between 2022 and 2023, the highest jump the group has ever documented.
“There’s no doubt that more book challenges
are coming,” Jamnia said. “We know that these are going to increase, because we’ve seen Project 2025, and we’ve seen the opening pages, and it very clearly lays out what will happen to teachers, authors and librarians who want to advocate for reading material in particular.”
Project 2025, the 900-page playbook by the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 other conservative groups, lumps together what it calls “transgender ideology” with pornography and the sexualization of children. The foreword reads, in part: “It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”
Jamnia predicted that people who have been disrupting libraries will feel emboldened by the election results. “We really want people to understand that we believe in the First Amendment right of all people in the United States of America,” Jamina said. “That includes children. Children have a right to read. Individuals who are concerned do not have the right to put that concern on other families and other individuals. The conversation gets derailed, often because of the misinformation and disinformation that floats around.”
of people are kind of just like, ‘Dude, do your thing over there. I’ll do my thing over here.’”
Pen America, a national group that champions free expression, documented around 10,000 book bans in U.S. public school systems during the 2023-2024 school year. Florida led the pack with 4,561. Nevada had zero.
PUBLIC HEALTH
Childhood vaccination rates could drop. Water fluoridation’s slow progress could be halted.
“ I’ll give this for Nevada conservatives: A lot of them are libertarian, and they want to be left alone. I think the majority of people are kind of just like, ‘Dude, do your thing over there. I’ll do my thing over here. ”
— Naseem Jamnia, Freedom to Read Nevada
On Nov. 14, President-elect Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On Nov. 18, the American Public Health Association released a statement detailing its concerns over the appointment. It said, in part: “Kennedy’s past statements and views on vaccines alone should disqualify him from consideration. He has stated that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’ and touted misinformation claiming that vaccines cause autism. A serious candidate for this position would follow the decades of real-world evidence that shows that vaccines are safe and prevent as many as 5 million deaths each year.”
Dr. John Packham, policy director for the Nevada Public Health Association, is concerned about Kennedy’s appointment as well.
level, but their distribution has historically relied on federal funding.
Kennedy has also said that he’ll recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. Packham called fluoridated water “one of the most scientifically based interventions in public health history,” adding that it has been effective at preventing tooth decay “at the cost of pennies on the dollar.”
Washoe County’s water is not fluoridated, despite repeated attempts by advocates, so a federal recommendation or order wouldn’t change anything locally in the short run.
“Water fluoridation efforts have always faced headwinds in state legislatures, and I think that it’s gotten even more challenging over the past decade,” he said. If Kennedy is indeed confirmed, “any progress will be stopped in its tracks.”
EDUCATION
Keeping an eye on special education funding and LGBTQ+ students Trump, throughout his campaign, has scorned the federal Department of Education. The
While Freedom to Read Nevada members are strategizing to oppose book bans in the coming years, they are hopeful that Nevada will see fewer of them than other states.
“I’ll give this for Nevada conservatives: A lot of them are libertarian, and they want to be left alone,” Jamnia said. “I think the majority
“We have one of the poorest track records as a state on childhood vaccinations, and that’s just not going to get better,” Packham said. “We’re going to see disease outbreaks that were uncommon 20 or 30 years ago, like measles, pertussis (whooping cough) and other things that were big killers a century ago that we essentially wiped out through 50 years of childhood vaccinations.”
Vaccines, Packham explained, are administered by public and private clinics at the local
Naseem Jamnia, founding member Freedom to Read Nevada, is concerned about national and local efforts to censor library books, particularly those with LGBTQ+ themes. Photo/Kris Vagner
Associated Press reported that he’s prone to “describing it as being infiltrated by ‘radicals, zealots and Marxists,’” and noted that Trump has called for dismantling the department altogether, although that would require congressional approval.
“In every cycle, and with most politicians, there’s a difference between campaign rhetoric and policy actions,” said Beth Smith, a member of the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees. She emphasized that she was speaking on her own behalf, and not that of the school district, as the board has not yet taken a position on matters related to any potential federal policy decisions.
Smith isn’t placing any bets just yet regarding the education policies Trump may implement, but there are two things she especially does not want to see happen.
First: cuts to special education funding.
“Between federal and state funding for special education students, we only receive (from the federal government) about 48% of what it actually costs to meet those children’s needs,” Smith said. The remaining 52% of WCSD’s special education budget comes from the state’s general fund.
“The general fund is the money that we’re supposed to be using to provide a baseline education for all students,” she said. A reduction in special-education funding, she said, could be “dramatic and devastating” to those students. “So, I will tell you that I am at the edge of my seat about the threats around discontinuing title funding, and changing special education funding.”
Second: potential threats to LGBTQ+ students and their families.
“I am very concerned that we’re going to go back to a time when those families and children became political narratives and not the humans that they are,” she said. “That’s something that I’m personally concerned about, but I have to wait and see what actually comes to pass, because there has been some extremely heated rhetoric, but what that will result in? We’ve yet to see.”
Nov. 5 ballot, asking Nevadans to vote to remove outdated terms relating to physical disabilities—such as “deaf and dumb” and “insane”—from the state Constitution; the question received 66 percent of the vote.
“I feel confident, to a degree, that our Legislature will continue to stand up for these students,” Smith said.
Smith said she is also worried that “if the federal government deems a district is teaching something that they don’t like, they would cut off all funding to them.”
She offered a couple of examples: “In 2022, the national fear narrative around education was that kindergarten teachers were encouraging gender transitions, which was a flat-out lie. … And the other ’22 political fearmongering for education was CRT, critical race theory, which is not taught and has never been taught. But who becomes the arbiter of those things? Those are things that we’re just going to have to wait and see, because there have been threats that if school districts are teaching X, Y and Z, then all funding will be withheld from them.”
LGBTQ+ RIGHTS
Silver State Equality is bracing for rollbacks to protections, including those for transgender military members In 2016, the Obama administration lifted a longstanding ban on transgender military personnel.
In 2018, then-President Trump announced that the ban would be reimplemented. In 2019, he instructed the military to begin discharging its transgender service members. In 2021, President Biden overturned the Trump ban. “There is substantial evidence that allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military does not have any meaningful negative impact on the Armed Forces,” he said in his executive order.
Nevada’s 2025 legislative session. “Although we have some pretty good protections in Nevada, we can always do more,” Wade said. “We’re hoping to just hear more from LGBTQ+ folks across the state to see what their concerns are, what their fears are, what their questions are.”
ENVIRONMENT
“ Although we have some pretty good protections in Nevada, we can always do more. We're hoping to just hear more from LGBTQ+ folks across the state to see what their concerns are, what their fears are, what their questions are. ”
— André Wade, State Director, Silver State Equality
Smith said Nevadans are fortunate to have a Legislature that’s largely stood by marginalized communities in recent years. “We’ve seen that in, for example, the recent votes to amend the state Constitution regarding some wording,” she said, The Legislature placed Question 2 on the
André Wade, state director for Silver State Equality, a statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, predicts that Trump will reimplement the ban as he takes office. He and his colleagues are keeping a watchful eye out for that while following other issues of concern, including threats to marriage equality. He said Silver State Equality is in the planning and strategizing phase, considering what actions it may be able to encourage—or push back on—during
Activists and politicians are ready to oppose reopening nuclear facilities
The Nevada Conservation League is a statewide group based in Las Vegas that works to promote conservation policies and elect pro-conservation candidates.
Executive director Kristee Watson listed a few of the initiatives the group has worked on in recent years. Provisions in President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act incentivize clean-energy developments via tax credits for things like home energy audits and solar appliances. Federal oil and gas leasing reforms have protected portions of Amargosa Valley, outside of Las Vegas, and the Ruby Mountains, outside of Elko. In 2023, the area around Avi Kwa Ame (aka Spirit Mountain) south of Las Vegas was declared a national monument by President Biden, protecting more than a half-million acres for both public recreation (such as hunting) and spiritual uses by tribes. She considers that one “a huge win,” because it garnered wide bipartisan support.
What Trump administration policies could affect conservation efforts over the next four years?
“We’re already hearing rumors of rollback
and shrinkage to that monument,” she said. “Some of the stuff that’s getting a lot of attention right now is the reopening of Nevada Test Site to be used as an atomic testing location. Then, also, Yucca Mountain. I mean, this is something that has been outlined in Project 2025.”
The playbook’s authors carefully note that they’re not exactly calling for Yucca Mountain to be reopened just yet—but they are calling for it to be considered.
Trump has come down on both sides of Yucca Mountain, said former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, chairman of Nevada’s Commission on Nuclear Projects, as reported by the Nevada Current in July. “He’s been against it before he was for it. So, we really just don’t know. I think it’s a very critical time for us.”
Due to both nuclear sites’ proximity to Las Vegas, Watson said, there is “real concern about air pollution, water pollution, economic impacts, radiation. … You just really can’t minimize how dangerous and reckless it would be to consider reopening Yucca Mountain as a dumping ground for waste, and then reopening the Nevada Test Site for either above-ground or below-ground nuclear testing.
“We are strategizing, prioritizing, and then fundraising accordingly. We started the Nevadans Against Nuclear Testing, which is a bipartisan group. Sen. (Catherine) Cortez Masto, the Nevada Conservation League and Gov. (Joe) Lombardo are all part of that coalition that are doing everything we can to get out in front of this issue that would have such a negative impact for our state.”
Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft and Rep. Dina Titus watched as Taylor Patterson, executive director of Native Voter Alliance of Nevada, spoke at the 2023 dedication of the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. The designation protects 506,000 acres outside of Las Vegas. Kristee Watson, director of the Nevada Conservation League, said she’s concerned the incoming Trump administration could roll back some of that protection. Photo/courtesy Nevada Conservation League
Tickets to holiday cheer
December brings a smorgasbord of festive shows
End-of-year work deadlines, travel, company parties, kids’ school events, gift exchanges, family dinners—with the annual increase in obligations, the most wonderful time of year can feel more like a chore than a reason for cheer.
One way to get through it is to soak in some carols, turn on some twinkly lights and escape into a world where sugar plum fairies exist; generosity reigns; and we’re reminded of all that’s happy about the holiday season. Fortunately, the Reno area is bursting this month with holiday theater, dance and musical performances guaranteed to lift your spirits and banish your inner Grinch back into his hidey hole.
A.V.A. Ballet Theatre
Nevada’s largest ballet company will reprise its popular production of The Nutcracker, which welcomes more than 6,000 people every year. Accompanied by the Reno Philharmonic, the company will take the stage at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts Friday through Sunday, Dec. 20-22, for five performances. As always, local dancers will be joined by visiting professionals from some of the finest companies
around the country, in leading roles. Avaballet.com
Brewery Arts Center
Tired of the same old chestnuts? The BAC is the place for wholly unique holiday productions. It officially kicks off the capital city’s holiday season on Friday, Dec. 6 with the Silver & Snowflake Festival at the Capitol Building, featuring the annual tree-lighting ceremony, caroling, sleigh rides and more.
Then, on Tuesday, Dec. 10, local historians David and Gayle Woodruff present their holiday Chautauqua, You’ll Never Escape the Fruitcake!, in which they take a humorous look at the histories of some of our favorite and not-so favorite (e.g. fruitcake) holiday traditions.
The folks at BAC are taking a stand: Die Hard is a Christmas movie! At least that’s what they’re asserting on Friday, Dec. 13, with a screening of the classic action movie starring Bruce Willis that’s set on Christmas Eve. With your ticket, you also can enjoy a pre-show happy hour with cocktails and snacks.
The center is also kicking off a brand-new
tradition with its first annual Tamale Festival on Sunday, Dec. 15. In addition to sampling an array of tamales from local vendors, enjoy live music, dancing and more, plus cast your vote for the tamale-makers who deserve cash prizes!
Finally, on Saturday, Dec. 21, BAC presents a free event like nothing else you’ll experience this season: Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night. Four complementary pieces composed by Kline are interwoven through an app attendees download to their phones. After a countdown, everyone pushes play at once, then travels together on foot around the Capitol Building, bringing the joyous wall of holiday sound along with them. Breweryarts.org
Brüka Theatre
The Brüka crew brings its long-running Nutcracker spoof, Buttcracker, to the pageant world with Little Miss Buttcracker, Dec. 6-21. Spend a couple of hours with Olive and the Hoover family from Little Miss Sunshine (rather than Clara and the Stahlbaums). This is not for ballet purists! Forget Mother Ginger and the Arabian dancers; this hilarious sendup features Honey Boo Boo,
| BY JESSICA SANTINA
In The Golden Girls Holiday Extravaganza at Good Luck Macbeth, actors in drag bring back the beloved ’80s sitcom. Photo/ David Robert
JoJo Siwa and a whole pageant’s worth of crazy contestants, à la Dance Moms, showcasing their talents and vying for the audience’s votes. Bruka.org
Good Luck Macbeth Theatre
Revisit your favorite gray gals with the return of GLM’s The Golden Girls Holiday Extravaganza, Dec. 5-21. This beloved local tradition brings us the Fab Four—Dorothy, Sophia, Rose and Blanche—played by actors in drag who plop us right back into four favorite episodes (two holiday-themed) of the ’80s sitcom. In between, catch vintage commercial breaks and intermission antics, courtesy of the GLM cast. With the purchase of champagne seating, enjoy the ladies’ fave treat: mini cheesecakes!
Goodluckmacbeth.org
Grand Sierra Resort
It’s like Santa’s workshop, but with lasers! Catch Santa’s Epic Holiday Show at the GSR, Dec. 19-31. This family-friendly, cirque-style production features high-energy performances merged with cutting-edge technology like holograms, projection mapping and interactive lasers for some unexpected holiday magic.
Grandsierraresort.com
Reno Dance Company
On Sunday, Dec. 15, RDC presents two performances of The Nutcracker, now in its 22nd year, at the GSR. The show features more than 100 performers, including 20 gymnasts and a mix of 30-35 adults and children, as well as elaborate set pieces and some extra-athletic choreography. Pro tip: Skip the fees and buy your tickets in person at the GSR.
Yuletide grooves are on tap at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Nightingale Concert Hall with A Very Soulful Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 21. World-renowned guest R&B/soul/rock artist Tasche, who has performed with the likes of Prince and Michael Jackson, joins the 17-piece RJO for a night of big-band holiday tunes with a soul and funk spin.
Renojazzorchestra.org
Reno Philharmonic
For some of us, the only way to officially kick off the holiday season is with the Reno Phil’s annual Spirit of the Season. This family production, coming Friday through Sunday, Dec. 6-8, features classic and contemporary music for
Christmas, Hannukah and more, not to mention dance and other impressive performances from guest artists and companies, a sing-along and even a visit from Santa. Renophil.com
Reno Wind Symphony
About 70 local musicians come together to present two free holiday concerts this month. First is A Musical Winter Wonderland, on Sunday, Dec. 15, at UNR’s Nightingale Concert Hall, and Sunday, Dec. 22 at the Paradise Ballroom at the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa. It features a blend of classic holiday favorites and unexpected arrangements that are sure to get you in the holiday spirit.
On Friday, Dec. 20, the RWS Holiday Trombone Choir will present an hour of warm seasonal classics at the Airport Gardens hotel. Renowindsymphony.com
Shamrock Productions
SIAMSA—A Celtic Christmas returns Thursday, Dec. 5, to the GSR. This beloved, long-running production written, directed and choreographed by Amanda Coulson, features world-champion Irish dancers, who play characters on a journey to find the true meaning of Christmas. In addition to traditional dance numbers, enjoy harpist Marina Roznitovsky, the Celtic Choir, bagpipers, vocalists and actors.
The Nutcracker is the world’s most-performed ballet and a long-held holiday tradition. While
it’s touted as family friendly, some members— particularly the youngest ones—may find it hard to sit through in its entirety. That’s why, 22 years ago, SNB’s artistic director, Rosine Bena, created The Peanutcracker: The Story in a Nutshell, an abridged version written specifically for families with young children (through fourth-grade). This year’s production features professional dancers and apprentices from the company, as well as 80 dance students from the local area. In addition to school performances, the show will appear for the public on Sunday, Dec. 1, at the Pioneer Center, and Saturday, Dec. 7 at the Carson City Community Center.
sierranevadaballet.org
TheatreWorks of Northern Nevada
Dickens’ classic holiday tale gets a modern makeover in A New London Christmas Carol, coming to the TWNN stage Dec. 6-15. In this musical with a Broadway-caliber score, female protagonist Belle Anderson lives a miserly existence in New London, Conn., after a lifetime of heartbreak and loss—that is, until a few visitors help thaw her hard, cold heart.
Twnn.org
The ROW
Baby, it’s cold inside—it’s Christmas on Ice, the holiday show in residence at the Eldorado Showroom through Dec. 29. In this thrilling, heartwarming show for the whole family, synchronized and freestyle figure skaters perform on a real ice rink to holiday tunes, accompanied by singers and dancers, all working magic on ice.
Caesars.com/the-row-reno
A.V.A. Ballet Theatre performs The Nutcracker for more than 6,000 audience members each year.
ART OF THE STATE
Remembering Robert Morrison
The late sculptor and UNR professor, subject of an exhibit at Western Nevada College, inspired generations of artists
It’s probably for the best that Robert Morrison worked in the art department rather than the accounting department.
Not that there was anything wrong with his math skills; the University of Nevada, Reno, art professor, who taught at UNR from 1968-2017 and died in 2018, was not one for tidy answers. The stories his former students and colleagues tell suggest that his approach to life and art was one of rigor, curiosity and relentless, meandering inquiry.
A selection of Morrison’s work is on display at Western Nevada College in Carson
City, in a show titled A Glimpse Back. It contains, among other works, steel and bronze abstractions, from around baseball-mitt size to appliance size. Titles like “Nurse” and “Baboon Nurse” seem to allude to specific stories—but you won’t find human or animal shapes, even if you squint. Most of Morrison’s shapes are so nonrepresentational that they force your focus onto the materials and surfaces. It’s easy to drop the question of “what it all means” and proceed to fawning over the weights and shapes of each piece, the copper, the gold and rust-colored patinas, and the rich textures he coaxed from bronze and steel.
Tamara Scronce, a former UNR art department chair, posed with the late professor Robert Morrison in a re-creation of the iconic “American Gothic” painting in 2007. Photo/Dean Burton
Among the show’s many mysteries, a row of five tall, steel panels with notches and thin lines cut into them look like they could be objects salvaged from an industrial site. They’re not; they’re titled “Mumbles.” Sharon Rosse, director of Capital City Arts Initiative, the group that organized the exhibition, said that, as of 1983, when Morrison fabricated them, the title was accurate. Each “Mumble” has a small motor at the top, and they used to make sounds.
“It was just sort of a mumble,” Rosse said. “His sound was always like just scratching on a window screen. It was never talking, or anything recognizable.”
In the current exhibition, the sculptures make no sound. “We have no idea how to reproduce it,” Rosse said. “He didn’t leave instructions.”
You’d be excused for wondering if presenting the “Mumbles” without their sound might have been a curatorial copout, but it’s more of a fitting demonstration of one of Morrison’s most important points.
Brett Van Hoesen, a UNR art history professor, wrote, in an essay accompanying the show, “What I find most admirable about Morrison as an artist and colleague was his willingness to live with the uncomfortability of the unsolved.”
Van Hoesen elaborated in a phone interview: “He’d be like, ‘Yeah, my printer’s not working, but it’s making these really interesting lines. … What could I do with that in the meantime while I’m waiting for my new printer?’ He would be willing to be in that liminal space. I really admired that.”
Said Tamara Scronce, a former art department chair and Morrison’s student in the late 1980s: “There’s never this equation of one plus one equals two; it’s always like one plus one equals seven or something like that.”
Morrison left a couple of generations of students calling him an unparalleled mentor. By
| BY KRIS VAGNER
all accounts, he was not one to coddle.
“He was an amazing teacher,” said Rosse, who studied with Morrison in the 1970s. “Always the blasted cigarettes and a cup of coffee with a lid on it from the AM/PM or 7-Eleven or something. … During critiques, of course, you had to know what you were talking about.”
Said Scronce: “He took you seriously. He was asking you to consider your own work more expansively than you and your colleagues already were. … He could take a pretty poorly done drawing and talk to you about how to refine the skills within that drawing, but more importantly, how to care about why you were drawing what you were drawing.”
She described art-school critiques as a situation in which students can easily feel uncomfortably vulnerable, putting a work that contains their heart and soul up for critical discussion.
“Sometimes that would feel like getting beat up a bit,” Scronce said of Morrison’s critiques. She remembers feeling deflated after some of those discussions. “He wouldn’t hold back,” she said. “If we’re going to use the analogy of getting knocked down, he wasn’t going to rush in and pick you up and brush you off. He was going to let you roll around in the dirt a little bit. But he wouldn’t leave you there.”
He would never shut a student down, Rosse recalled.
“He was always putting your work, amazingly, in context with a greater contemporary art scene,” Rosse said. “So everybody felt like, ‘Well, we can do this. We can be professional artists.’ … I remember seeing people go off with high expectations to other schools around the country.”
Each time she bid farewell to a grad-schoolbound classmate, she’d wonder if they would ever run into teachers as good as Morrison.
The Capital City Arts Initiative presents A Glimpse Back, showcasing a selection of works by Robert Morrison, in the Bristlecone Gallery at Western Nevada College, 2201 West College Parkway, in Carson City, through Wednesday, Dec. 11. Learn more at www.ccainv.org/ morrison-glimpse-back.
History for the holidays
Give the gift of Reno nostalgia
As Reno continues to be changed by development and growth, we bet there are at least a few people on your gift list who could use a dose of back-in-the-day local flavor. Lucky for you—an author, two artists and a former city of Reno employee with an eye for midcentury charm have just what you need this holiday season. Remember to get your holiday orders in ASAP, as these creators are not megaretailers with giant distribution centers or two-minute shipping.
Motel life
A self-published book of midcentury memories
Jackie Schalberg remembers what Reno looked like before the freeway was built. She remembers when Plumb Lane was a dirt road. She grew up in Yerington, and in 1970, she moved to Reno—“before casino towers,” she noted.
From 2008-2018, she worked for the city of Reno as a senior engineering tech. Around 2010, she recalled, the city was ordering dilapidated mid-century motels to be demolished.
“One of my duties was to do demolition permits for the engineering site, abandoning utilities and whatnot,” Schalberg said. She’d
Before she retired, Jackie Schalberg’s job with the city of Reno took her all around town, where she photographed motel signs for years. She’s compiled them into a book.
Photo/Kris Vagner
Campus compendium
A new book on UNR’s 150-year history
story of Gov. Kenny Guinn using tobacco-settlement money in the 1990s to found the Millennium Scholarship, which allowed the university system to include students from a wider range of income brackets. Trent said the measure has been a game-changer.
never thought much about the motel’s iconic signs until she started issuing the permits.
“I would go out, and I’d have to do a site visit, and I’d look at this sign and go, ‘My God, this is going to go away,’” she said. “And I thought that these signs were so cool. … So I just started taking pictures.”
She started carrying her camera in her vehicle and shooting every motel sign she could find. “I just did it, because I just love the whole idea,” said Schalberg, noting that she’s not a professional photographer. “I’d just snap a shot.”
She kept snapping for years, and in 2023, she compiled photos of signs from 92 motels into a self-published, 120-page paperback coffee-table book. It’s an appealing archive of neon tubes, starbursts and custom shapes—intact or broken—from motels long-gone or still in business. It’s a loving portrait of a city on its way from one era into another.
“It has to evolve,” she said. “I really hate losing the history out there. But you, you know, you’ve just got to move on.
You can order a copy of Reno Vintage Motel Signs—A Pictorial Tribute ($29.99) by emailing Jackie Schalberg at jackie@ renovintagemotelsigns.com.
John Trent is senior editor at the Office of Marketing and Communication at the University of Nevada, Reno. That’s one reason he was selected to write a history of UNR upon the university’s sesquicentennial. The other reason is that Trent is a former Reno Gazette-Journal sports reporter, so administrators knew he’d be able to laugh in the face of tight deadlines.
“From 2000 on, essentially, not only the University of Nevada, Reno, but UNLV as well, became incredibly diverse, because suddenly education was open to everybody,” he said.
With the help of archivist Laura Rocke, Trent spent two years—that’s lightning-fast for a 240page research project—poring through photos and various other materials, consulting UNR’s 50-year history book from 1924 and centennial history book from 1974.
“We’d always known that Stella Mason Parson was the first female African American graduate of our university from 1952,” Trent said. “It was never quite apparent—or at least nobody had really pursued—who was the first male African American graduate.” He put the question to UNR’s librarians.
“They dug out the fact that it was a gentleman by the name of Theodore Miller who graduated in 1932 in engineering,” Trent said.
“I tried my best to try to find people who were emblems of larger themes,” he added.
Among the people is Frankie Sue Del Papa, a student government president in the early 1970s who later became Nevada’s first female secretary of state and attorney general.
Among the themes is diversity. Trent tells the
John Trent’s new book, The University of Nevada, 1874-2024: 150 Years of Inspiring Excellence ($39.95), is available online from the University of Nevada Press.
Signs of the times
A deck of motel-sign playing cards
Jenny Kane is another former Reno Gazette-Journal reporter. She grew up in Reno and moved away for college and work for about a decade. When she returned in 2015, the urban landscape looked a little different than she’d remembered. Downtown-adjacent weekly motels were being razed at a fairly steady clip.
As a journalist, circa 2015-2022, Kane had a close-up view of a fast-changing city. She reported on the demolition of the Best Bet Motel, the removal of the Burning Man sculpture park across from Circus Circus, and Jacobs Entertainment’s bid to purchase the Benham-Belz House—“The old Victorian with mustard yellow porch columns” on West Street—deemed to be likely the oldest house in Reno.
Kane took up watercolor painting in recent years, specializing in pictures of Reno motel signs rendered in muted colors. In her images, the signs are mostly removed from their buildings, isolated against plain white backgrounds that highlight their midcentury quadrilaterals, swooshes and arrows.
Eventually, she had enough paintings to make for an entire deck of playing cards. It consists of 52 separate images—tiny prints of the signs from places like the Castaway Inn, Stardust Lounge and the Merry Wink Motel—plus a joker, the sheet-metal-and-neon Topsy the Clown
Jenny Kane’s watercolor paintings of vintage motel signs are available in miniature as a deck of cards. Photo/Kris Vagner
who’s stood guard outside of Circus Circus since it was built in 1978.
If you want to give a lavish version of this gift, it would not be a bad idea to send it with 53 tiny frames.
To purchase Jenny Kane’s deck of motel sign playing cards ($20), visit The Radical Cat bookstore, 1500 S. Virginia St., or contact her at jennykanearts@gmail.com, or on Instagram @jennykane88. Local, free delivery for orders of two or more decks is available. Cards can be shipped to out-of-town buyers; the shipping cost will be added.
Facades forever
Photos of a city’s architecture in transition
Emily Najera is a Michigan native whose mother first gave her a camera at age 13. She took to photography immediately and passion-
ately, and soon developed a specialty—shooting architecture.
In her high school and college days, she was inspired by some of the prominent photojournalists from the 1930s (like Walker Evans and Berenice Abbott) who were documenting a rapidly changing New York. Since then, she’s made a career as both a photojournalist and an artist, documenting the changing neighborhoods of Detroit, Grand Rapids and Reno.
When the New York Times covers a Nevada story, there’s a good chance that the crisp, obsessively well-exposed photos that accompany it have her byline, and her work is shown in the region’s galleries on occasion. (Her current show, Nevada Roadsides, in on view through Jan. 30 at the Courthouse Gallery inside the Carson City Courthouse, 885 E. Musser St., in Carson City.)
Eleven of Najera’s Nevada images are
available for purchase on her webstore. They include big-city and small-town neon, and Reno buildings we’ve seen change hands over the last several years, like the Sands Casino and the Nystrom Guest House. Motels, of course, feature prominently.
Prints of Emily Najera’s photographs ($50$120), some framed and some unframed, are available on her webstore at www.emilynajera. com/store. Najera recommends ordering in the first week of December for delivery by Christmas; local drop-off is available.
Emily Najera photographed the 1875 Nystrom Guest House in 2022 (cropped here), after its move from Ralston Street to Fourth Street. Photo/Emily Najera
We’re looking for a new food news writer!
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; 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 conveys your tone and style.
Keep Reno weird GIFTS
| BY JESSI SPROCKET JANUSEE
Timothy Brancamp is a co-owner of Terror, where his niece, Jaylin Ortiz, is an employee. Photo/Jessi Sprocket Janusee
In addition to books, Thistle & Nightshade features a thoughtfully curated selection of locally made gifts including jewelry, aromatic candles, quirky stickers and artisan teas. One standout item this season is the “Books Are Magic” advent calendar, perfect for any bibliophile.
Goth essentials
Heathens
3652 S. Virginia St., Unit C3, Reno
Instagram: @heathensapparel775
Local treasures from indie retailers to keep in mind for your holiday shopping list
During tight economic times, the temptation to shop for cheap deals on Amazon or at Walmart is real—but there’s something special about putting your dollars back into the local community to help keep Reno weird, wild and wonderful.
Fortunately, our city has been blessed with a few quirky new stores this year that are perfect for finding gifts for all the unique folks in your life, as well as goodies you won’t find in bigbox stores.
Hall of horrors
Terror
670 Alvaro St., Reno terrornv.square.site
Instagram: @terror_nv
For the horror fans in your life, look no further than Terror, Reno’s newest haunt for all things creepy and spine-chilling. This shop, which opened in June, is a paradise for those obsessed with the dark and gory. From spooky collectibles to horror-themed board games, Terror has it all.
The offerings include neon-green bat Crocs, tombstone bags, detailed figurines, merch from late-’80s sci-fi horror classic Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and macabre home decor
items featuring everything from Jaws to Chucky. Don’t forget to visit the back room, which features a full replica of The Exorcist bedroom complete with demonic Regan and exorcist masks for purchase.
Throughout December, Terror is hosting a toy drive to benefit underserved local kids. Bring in a new toy to donate, and receive 10% off your holiday purchase.
Beaucoup books
Thistle & Nightshade
5365 Mae Anne Ave., No. A38, Reno linktr.ee/thistleandnightshade
Instagram: @thistle.nightshade
With the recent closure of Sundance Books & Music, it’s much harder to find the perfect gift for the bookworms in your life. Luckily, Thistle & Nightshade, which proudly brands itself as “a bookstore for weirdos and others,” opened on Mae Anne Avenue this past August.
This shop is a haven for readers who cherish the odd, the eclectic and the diverse. The collection spans genres from woodworking guides to science fiction, and there’s a wonderful children’s section, complete with a colorful rainbow mural that makes it feel extra magical.
Do you have a spooky sibling or a goth partner for whom you need to shop? Check out Heathens, an alternative clothing store that opened in April, offering an array of dark and edgy fashion. The racks are filled with spiderweb sweatpants, leather harnesses, striped crop tops, platform boots, pumpkin duffle bags and classic fishnets. The store also stocks occult-inspired home goods and figurines, including Baphomet statues and cute zombie bears in tiny coffins to satisfy your goth decor cravings. Heathens is also a great place to get yourself something dark and fabulous for holiday parties this winter. Heathens focuses on keeping prices affordable. There’s even a sale rack in the back of the shop stuffed with sweaters, leggings and lacy dresses.
More local gems worth exploring
Aside from these new additions, Reno has several established independent shops that are perfect for the holiday season.
Radical Cat: This indie bookstore and cat-adoption space recently moved from Wells Avenue to Wolf City Tattoo’s former location on Virginia Street. As the name suggests, it’s perfect for book lovers who are searching for more radical titles and feminist authors. 1500 S. Virginia St., Reno; theradicalcat.square.site Glass Die: A board game bar with a vast selection of games—ideal for the role-playinggame nerd on your list. 675 Holcomb Ave., Reno; theglassdie.com.
Three Moons Trading Company: Specializing in witchy goods, crystals, herbs and candles for those who are seeking a little magic—or trying to create some. 1515 S. Virginia St., Reno; threemoonstrading.com
Coffee N’ Comics: Your one-stop shop for comic books, graphic novels and geeky collectibles, paired with a delicious cup of coffee. 940 W. Moana Lane, Reno, and 1235 Baring Blvd., Sparks; coffeencomics.com
Natural Selection: Two words: bones and plants! With a fantastic array of strange bits and bobs, Natural Selection is where you can grab a claw or a cactus for that sweet collector type in your life. 39 St. Lawrence Ave., Reno; naturalselectionstore.com.
BY BOB GRIMM
Wicked-ly curious
The first movie has Bob looking forward to ‘Wicked: Part 2’ next year; ‘Gladiator II’ is simply unnecessary
As somebody who knows very little of Wicked, other than a couple of scenes from the Broadway play in which Idina Menzel blew out eardrums, I found myself struggling a bit with Wicked: Part 1
Yet ultimately, I find myself curious about Part 2 of this Wizard of Oz prequel and where this thing is going. Given its two-hour, 40-minute runtime, my still being interested after the final scene is a victory, and I feel comfortable giving it a mild recommendation. That is, a mild recommendation for the uninitiated. As for established Wicked fans, I’m guessing this movie is the second coming of Christ.
While the proceedings are flawed, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are pure dynamite strapped to a nuclear bomb as Galinda and Elphaba, young sorcery students on their way to being the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West in Oz lore. When the two share the screen for musical numbers, it’s pure movie-musical magic.
There are a bunch of subplots that don’t really engage, with long stretches that feel like padding. A fair amount of stuff makes
little to no sense and drones on at times, but Part 2 (due out next year) will likely make some of those moments clearer. On the fun side, there are some cool Oz easter eggs, including a frightened lion cub and a couple of quick cameos.
The final act is easily the best part, with Jeff Goldblum making a perfect Wizard, and a rousing rendition of “Defying Gravity” that showcases Erivo’s astonishingly good voice. Let it be said that Grande, obviously no slouch with the singing, has some impeccable comic timing, imbibing Galinda with a fun, snarky element.
So, yeah, I care where this whole thing is going despite being sporadically bored with the first installment. Hopefully next year’s conclusion will elevate the grade of the first one by driving the whole thing home.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked
reprise their roles from the first. Mescal plays Lucius, son of Lucilla (Nielsen), exiled after the first movie when he was a preteen. He returns to Rome a prisoner of war, and basically goes through the same motions as Maximus (Crowe) before him.
Washington’s Macrinus is Lucius’ owner, who puts his latest warrior into a series of showdowns including the aforementioned shark-attack scenario. I don’t really like this movie, but I did enjoy the shark sequence, which involved the Colosseum being flooded with water and stocked with bloodthirsty sharks. One must wonder how they managed to get the sharks from the ocean to the arena back in Roman times. I’m pretty sure there were no aquariums. Historically improbable, but quite fun to watch. Alas, the rest of the movie is fairly routine and quite boring. Mescal gives it his all; Pascal is admirable as a Roman general; and Washington has his moments, but it’s all in the service of a sequel that didn’t need to happen.
Kieran Culkin goes next-level brilliant in A Real Pain, the sophomore directorial effort from Jesse Eisenberg, who also wrote the amazing script.
5
This is, in essence, a road movie, but it doesn’t have the usual funny interludes of touristy shenanigans. Culkin and Eisenberg play Benji and David, two anxious cousins traveling to their grandmother’s birthplace in Poland. Their
grandmother survived the Holocaust, and their trip involves a tour through Holocaust sites, including a concentration camp, Majdanek. (This is believed to be the first time a narrative movie was allowed to film inside a real concentration camp.)
Benji is a live wire, constantly combatting hyper-anxiety with unbridled humor and alltoo-brutal honesty. This renders him hilariously awesome, unpredictably nasty and unhinged, all at once. Other folks on the tour (including tourists played by Jennifer Grey and Kurt Egyiawan) are simultaneously enchanted by and afraid of Benji’s constant, unfiltered stream of consciousness.
Meanwhile, Eisenberg’s David is also impaired by anxiety, but he’s taking the prescribed meds and mostly keeping the cork in the bottle. That changes during a dinner monologue during which David lets it all hang out while Benji is taking a bathroom break. That moment makes it clear that Eisenberg can not only act, but, damn, he can write with the best of them.
The kinetic interplay between Culkin and Eisenberg is some of the best you will see this year. Both actors deliver career-best work. Culkin will probably garner the most buzz and almost certainly get a supporting actor Oscar nomination, while one could expect a screenplay nom for Eisenberg. His directorial powers should not be underestimated.
Culkin’s Benji is a once-in-a-lifetime role that plays perfectly into the performer’s wheelhouse. It’s funny; it’s scary; and it’s the sort of performance that will be viewed 100 years from now as masterful and complete.
Almost a quarter-century after Ridley Scott went full Roman for Gladiator, he returns to the well for a second round—and instead of offering up a new take on the subject, it’s basically more of the same.
2
The new antics involve everything from shark attacks (yes, shark attacks) to big rhinos and Pedro Pascal. Scott can still make a great-looking picture, but this one lacks the emotional punch that peak Russell Crowe helped deliver in the original.
Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington and Joseph Quinn are new to the bloody toga party, while the likes of Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi
Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in A Real Pain.
Happenings
Regency Lake Tahoe began offering afternoon tea in late November in its Osteria Sierra restaurant. Tea service includes scones and pastries by executive pastry chef Sahid Khan, including a lemon meringue tartlet, raspberry macarons and honey almond cake. It also includes sandwiches such as black truffle and egg salad, roasted prime Angus beef, and smoked salmon and cucumber. Afternoon tea is $45 per person and is available Friday through Sunday from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Reservations can be made at www. exploretock.com/osteria-sierra. The Hyatt is located at 111 Country Club Drive, in Incline Village.
The vendors at Reno Public Market’s food hall, at 299 E. Plumb Lane, are now participating the Green Box To-Go Program, intended to reduce the number of single-use food-service items used by guests. Using an app, customers can purchase reusable plastic takeout containers. There’s a two-box option for $20, or a four-box option for $40. Used boxes can be returned within two weeks at any participating restaurant. GreenUP, the nonprofit that administers the Green Box To-Go Program, is offering a $10 discount for new users. Use the promo code GREENRPM. To find participating food purveyors in Reno, Sparks and Carson City, visit greenupnv.org/ green-dining-programs.
The inaugural Tamale Festival will take place at the Brewery Arts Center, 449 W. King St., in Carson City, on Sunday, Dec. 15, from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free, and a variety of tamales will be available for purchase. This is a family-friendly event with live music, dancing and activities for kids. Attendees are encouraged to vote for “Best Tamale” and “People’s Choice Tamale,” and cash prizes will be awarded. If you’re interested in selling your tamales, email Val Moore
continued on next page
LIQUID CONVERSATIONS
A tropical labor of love
Welcome to Reno’s new tiki bar, Pele Utu
I have been to many bars that call themselves tiki bars, and I have been to real tiki bars. A palpable difference exists between a bar serving tropical drinks with goofy stuff on the walls, and a real, full-blown tiki bar.
A real tiki bar is a special marriage of tropical escapism and kitschy nostalgia. It should feel like drinking fresh pineapple juice out of a coconut while watching a B-52s concert in the hull of a sunken ship—equal parts magical and weird.
In the most unassuming of locations— the old Gateway Lounge on Stardust Street—a new shining beacon of tiki nerdery has opened called Pele Utu, and it is home to some of the most thoughtful, honest tiki vibes Reno has known in decades.
Enter Pele Utu owners Dr. Shocker & Rosie Raddish, who use these monikers to honor the long legacy of earned tiki epithets generally bestowed upon you by your fellow enthusiasts. (The legendary tiki bartender and author Beachbum Berry was not born with that name.) Dr. Shocker started in the heart of tiki culture, Southern California’s Tiki Oasis, a festival for true tiki enthusiasts, in the late ’90s.
“Well, I’ve been a tiki collector since last century,” Dr. Shocker said. “I went down the tiki rat hole and discovered that most of these drinks taste good when you make them the right way. I just fell completely
in love with tiki. I’ve got close to 500 mugs in my collection. We still have a ton of art at home, and just about everything on the walls here is out of our collection.”
His wife, Rosie Raddish, whose mother was a travel agent, grew up visiting tropical locations and the legendary Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. But her love of tiki grew when she met Dr. Shocker 15 years ago. He ran a vaudeville show, and Rosie wanted to tell a few jokes onstage.
“It turns out I liked him better than his show, and he introduced me to tiki cocktails, because I only knew that my mother enjoyed resort mai tais and chi chis by a pool,” Rosie said. But soon, their shared love of tiki drinks led to them working together.
One busy day at the Ventura, Calif., tiki staple VenTiki, the couple stepped up and stepped into the world of bartending. The bar was understaffed that day, with just the owner and one cook, but a rush of customers came in.
As Rosie tells it, Dr. Shocker started bar-backing, and she picked up a tray. “I look at the owner and said, ‘I keep my tips,’” she said. “I just started doing it, and I’ve loved working in tiki ever since.”
Tiki bars have a set of rules—a code of conduct to help keep you in the artificial world of paradise. The first rule of tiki bars is: Respect the vibe. You will not hear the newest single from Charli XCX in Pele Utu. There are no win-
| BY MICHAEL MOBERLY
Dr. Shocker, co-owner of the new tiki bar Pele Utu, drinks a Hukilau Jim, made with gin, rum, passionfruit syrup and lime juice and served in a pufferfish mug. Photo/David Robert
dows to the outside world, because Dr. Shocker and Rosie have gone to great lengths to take you to an exotic location of their creation.
“Everybody wants to act like we’re a regular bar,” Dr. Shocker explained. “We don’t have football; we don’t have basketball; we don’t have any sports on the TV; and we won’t, and we’re not going to. We don’t have cable. We have Gilligan’s Island.”
When you step into Pele Utu, it has the cluttered charm of a curated collection of beloved trinkets and the dark escapism you need to feel transported to an island paradise.
“A tiki bar should have a proper dose of patina,” Rosie said. “You have to feel as if it’s been there, even if it’s brand new. It has to feel like it’s been there forever and that you’re discovering it.”
Rule No. 2 is a hallmark of any excellent bar: Trust the bartender. Despite having an impressive cocktail menu of historically significant and delicious tiki drinks, Dr. Shocker and Rosie make all kinds of beverages.
“We are still a craft cocktail bar,” Dr. Shocker said. “We are rum-forward, but we have a little bit of everything. We have whiskey, tequila and vodka drinks.”
As a nondrinker, one of my favorite places to drink cocktails is at a tiki bar. Most have a world of ingredients to make a fun, non-alcoholic drink, and Pele Utu is no exception.
“If you’re a non-alcoholic drinker, tell us,” Rosie said. “We didn’t put any NA drinks on the menu, because we discovered, or at least I discovered, that if I did that, NA drinkers would only touch those. They’ll never explore anything else.”
Lastly, rule No. 3 is: Don’t steal the glassware. This rule is fundamental, because most people don’t know what it takes to pull off such a laborious and detailed concept like this.
“People will inevitably take stuff home, but it forces bars to stop having fun glassware,” Dr. Shocker said. “And what inevitably has caused some of the old tiki bars to go under is because they can’t afford it.”
Rosie and Dr. Shocker’s family painted the hanging mural behind the bar. Every detail, from the lavish tropical fruit garnishes to the fake lava rock on the walls, is made by this passionate couple.
“The tiki bar is never going to be finished, much like Disneyland. I’ll never be finished,” Rosie said.
Learn more at www.peleutu.com.
Hyatt
A new tradition for Christmas
Move over, milk and cookies: I’m leaving Santa some wine
Christmas traditions are among the things I love about the holiday season. Watching the same movies, making the same foods, sharing the same stories—these are all things that strengthen the family and friendships around us.
Handing these traditions down over the generations made me think: I have been leaving milk and cookies for Santa Claus my whole life, but why? Who decided Santa would like a sugar cookie with an inch of icing? I decided to do a little digging to find out when this tradition started.
It seems the tradition of leaving milk and cookies for Santa started in the United States during the Great Depression. As the story goes, parents wanted to teach their children to be grateful for gifts and to share with others. The tradition spread globally, with some regional variations.
While I love traditions, this year, I plan on modifying this one: I’m going to leave
wine for Santa. I’ve thought a lot about what type of wine I should leave him. If I lived in another country, would I choose a different wine? As Santa flies around the world, which wines would he get?
I reached out to Jennifer Walker, who owns Zephyr Wine Bar in south Reno. I asked her what wine she might leave for Santa, and, if Santa was stopping in France first, where he is known as Père Noël, which wine she’d pick.
“I feel like I would be remiss if I didn’t say Champagne, for a few reasons,” she said. “It obviously can be considered a celebratory wine for the holidays, and so if I was Santa, I’d be pretty darn happy with that.”
I do love the idea of Champagne for Santa. I think he deserves it, and it pairs so well with Christmas cookies.
After France, I imagine Santa landing on rooftops in Italy. There, he is known as Babbo Natale, and some Italian children leave him bread with Nutella. There are so many great
| BY STEVE NOEL
Jennifer Walker, owner of Zephyr Wine Bar, samples a lambrusco, along with some bread and Nutella, a treat that some Italian children leave for Santa. Photo/ David Robert
wines in Italy that I was having a hard time deciding which one I would leave. Walker had a suggestion.
“One wine I’m currently obsessed with is lambrusco,” she said. “It’s another sparkling wine, but it’s a chilled, sparkling red, which a lot of people just never had. We just love lambrusco, and 100% of the people we’ve exposed it to are now also obsessed with lambrusco.”
What another great choice. Lambrusco is not what you remember your grandfather drinking; it is a fun, fresh wine with a touch of sweetness that, along with the bubbles, would pair well with cookies, Nutella, or a slice of pizza. Che bontà!
I asked Walker why she wanted to open a wine bar here in Reno. She said that before moving to Reno with her husband eight years ago, she worked in marketing and events in the venture-capital industry for about 20 years. Due to her involvement in hosting events, Walker became interested in wine and began studying it formally 13 years ago at the San Francisco Wine School. Just more than a year ago, a space in south Reno became available that Walker believed would be a perfect location for a wine bar. The location, at 15415 Wedge Parkway, is close to ArrowCreek, Montreux and other upscale developments, and the area has a limited number of wine bars.
“I’m an experience creator—that’s really how I can see myself,” Walker said. “My philosophy is to offer unique wines from around the world, rather than just focusing on California wines.”
Zephyr also has meeting space for small gatherings. They’ve even had a wedding there.
I was impressed with the passion Walker showed for exposing customers to lesser-known varietals and regions. “If I had one goal, it would be for everybody to learn one thing (about wine) by the time they leave,” she said.
I asked Walker if there was a wine she had at Zephyr that would be a good offering for Santa from a unique wine region. Without hesitation, she mentioned a Lebanese wine, Chateau Musar. I think this is such a great choice; Santa is known there as Baba Noël.
“Chateau Musar is just an icon of Lebanese wine, and they’re famous for having never stopped production since 1936, even during all the events that have happened in that region,” Walker said
I had so much fun speaking to Walker, imagining Santa tasting wines around the world. If you are looking for a place to “taste with Santa” this holiday season, I hope you stop into Zephyr Wine Bar.
TASTE OF THE TOWN TASTE OF THE TOWN
continued from Page 22
at val@breweryarts.org. Learn more at breweryarts.org/event/ 20241215-tamale-festival.
Openings
Lake Tahoe AleWorX, with locations in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and Stateline, has announced plans to open a Reno location before the year’s end in the former Record Street Brewing Co. building, at 324 E. Fourth St., next to The Alpine concert venue. Lake Tahoe AleWorX Reno’s menu, similar to those of its sister locations, will include craft cocktails and beer, small bites and wood-fired pizzas in what it calls a “lively, welcoming atmosphere.” AleWorX has already been operating at The Alpine for a few months. Learn more at www.instagram.com/ tahoealeworx_reno.
Changes
MaryBeth and Colin Smith—owners of Roundabout Catering and other businesses—have announced their acquisition of The Virgil, a century-old brick building in the Wells Avenue neighborhood that housed Little Flower Church from 1947-1978 and in recent years has been an event and coworking space. “We have been catering at The Virgil for a few years and realize how much of a gem it is in our city,” said MaryBeth in a press release. The Smiths plan to upgrade the kitchen and offer a “one-stop shop” that includes party rentals, catering and event planning. Plans also include renting out office space, meeting space and a boardroom for classes and corporate events. The Virgil is located at 301 Vassar St., in Reno. Visit thevirgil.co. Vistro, the late-night café and takeout/ delivery kitchen formerly located on First and Lake streets in Reno, has moved to 95 N. Sierra St., No. 101, where it now offers only takeout and delivery. A note on Vistro’s website reads, “As much as we loved having our own location, it was best for us to downsize. … We hope to still keep you happy and your bellies full!” Menu items include classic late-night munchies like fries and nachos, creative burgers and specialties such as BBQ mac—mac and cheese with sliced crispy chicken, onion rings, barbecue sauce and green onions. The kitchen is open until 1 a.m.; visit ordervistro.com. (To learn the business owners’ backstory, see the RN&R’s April 2023 On Nevada Business column, “Meet the people behind Vistro, a local entrepreneurial success story.”) Have local food, drink or restaurant news? Email foodnews@renonr.com.
—Kris Vagner
MUSICBEAT
A place for baby bats
The Belfry at the Holland Project welcomes goths of all ages for dancing and community
Reno’s goth scene is growing thanks to a large community of younger people—and events that support these fans of all things dark and different.
The Belfry, a “seasonal-ish” event dedicated to Reno’s goth community, is an all-ages night of dancing and community. DJs spin through spooky genres like darkwave, goth rock, post punk and more, while the exuberant local goth scene celebrates. Each event comes with a gothic theme, and the next event, set to take place at 7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 27, at the Holland Project, is Nosferatu-themed.
During a recent interview with Izzy Brewer, one of the members of the Belfry’s “Goth Committee” of organizers, she explained how the idea for an all-ages goth night filled a need.
“We have a Facebook group (Reno Goth Scene), and we had some of our younger goth community who were under the age of 21 popping on there and asking if there were any events that they were able to attend,” Brewer said. “Reno’s goth scene is still kind of being developed, so we really were only focusing on 21-and-up events … so we didn’t really have anything for the community. That sparked something throughout a lot of the elder goths in our community, and as it happened, we apparently all emailed the Holland Project in the span of two weeks, saying, ‘We would love to talk to you and figure out if we can potentially partner with
you on how we can get a goth dance night and all-ages goth night going for our baby bats.’”
Alana Berglund, the associate director at the Holland Project, helped organize a meeting.
“We had quite a few people there,” Brewer said. “I think it ended up being between nine to 12 people from our goth community who showed up, and it was a mixture of DJs, elder goths passionate about the scene and about our youth, and then other event coordinators. Basically, we all just came together to say, ‘Let’s just band together, start hosting a few shows, and put a few out there to see what the need was.’ This happened probably a week before the Holland Project hosted their Goth Skate Night at the Roller Kingdom. (Alana) invited us out, and she was like, ‘If you guys want to come and see the community, we’ll see what the reach is and what the turnout is there, so we know what to expect moving forward.’ When we got there, the place was sold out. I think she had said 500 people showed up for the event, and less than 200 of those were adults.”
The committee members wanted to create an event inspired by their memories and experiences as younger goths.
“The first thing everybody said in that meeting was, ‘Look, we really need to be there and bring this for our youth, because we all got into crazy things, just being so desperate for a community that looked like us and has the same passions as us,’” Brewer said. “We need to create that for them. … Another thing that we were hearing from a lot of our younger generation is as soon as
they would turn 21 and start attending our events, they had such a hard time acclimating or getting into the community and getting to know people.”
The first Belfry event, hosted in January, was an instant success.
“Before the day of the show, we were already over 50% sold out, just from pre-sale tickets,” Brewer said. “… Walking into that, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh; it’s amazing.’ We had our doors open at 7, and I think it was 6:30 when I showed up to help with the setup of the show, and there was already a line of 30 kids waiting to get into this dance that we were hosting.”
Brewer was amazed at the huge turnout, and even more amazed at the attendees’ dedication to expressing themselves.
“These kids went so hard,” Brewer said. “I felt under-dressed at my own event. It was so awesome, but that’s exactly how I wanted it to be. Working with youth, I’m very aware of the development of kids of this age group, so I became quickly aware that they were all looking at me to learn how to dance to the music, because they hadn’t really been exposed to it in a public setting like this. I was starting dance circles and bringing people in. … The DJs were really good about bringing in a lot of the popular songs that the kids were requesting. There were even some sing-alongs, and the kids knew all the words to songs from the ’80s. It created this amazing environment that we got really committed to.”
Subsequent Belfry events weren’t quite as successful as the first, causing the elder goths to rethink their approach.
| BY MATT KING
Party-goers at a Belfry event earlier this year. Photo/Aden Oster
“It kind of slowed down until we could all come together again in the summer and be like, ‘OK, so we have a few shows under our belt; we need to figure out our direction, and we need to figure out our marketing, and what’s our actual goal here,’” Brewer said. “… From there, we got an even tighter group of people who were really well-rounded, and had the time commitment, because it is a big commitment to put on these themed shows. Now we have built a whole name, and we’ve built a whole direction that we’re taking things, and everybody’s on the same page about this passion.”
Brewer said attendees have told her how much the Belfry means to them.
“I actually bump into so many of them, which is great, and they always say hi, and we’ll catch up, or they’ll ask when the next event is,” Brewer said. “A lot of the kids were just really excited that it gave them a community to come and be part of. … Kids are coming in full makeup to the event—not just some black lipstick and black eyeliner, like full trad goth makeup, and kids of all genders were doing this. … I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you for feeling so safe in this space where you could come and express yourself and be confident in this.’”
Brewer and the rest of the Goth Committee are working to include more youth in the organization of the events, and add other adult collaborators as well. She urges anyone interested to reach out via instagram.com/belfryreno or mailto:mbelfryreno@gmail.com.
“I didn’t want it to be an event that was just hosted by adults for kids; I wanted to bring the kids in and start teaching them, helping them develop skills if they were interested, and giving them a space to actually grow in the subculture,” she said. “Already, two of our DJs have brought on young adults who they are coaching, and they’re actually going to play in our April show, which I’m super, super excited about. … Holland already has their youth mentorship program, where they allow kids to come in and learn about event production. We are also going to put out our own thing, inviting any young adults who are interested in getting into concert photography, who want to come and build their portfolio, or anyone who’s interested in event planning or coordination. I’m super-open to any ideas. I just really want to start building that platform where these kids can come in and either start learning from us adults, or have a space where they can grow and perform and share their art. We also are wanting to build up a roster, and just connect with older people in our community who already have established metaphysical stores that want to be involved, or clothing stores, DJs, artists, bands—anyone in the community who’s passionate about this.”
Teree Yount, aka DJ TigerBunny, is a frequent performer at the Holland Project, and a pillar in Reno’s goth scene. She’ll be one of the DJs performing at the Dec. 27 event.
“I’m going to play with Jon Potter, who was a friend of mine in the ’80s; we used to go dancing at all-ages clubs when we were teenagers,” Yount said. “It really changed our lives and shaped who we are now. We’re both DJs, and we’re never going to stop buying records, and we have great taste and play really well together. … We’re going to have young people and old people. We’re just so excited because we all got to go dancing when we were young, and nobody gets to do that now.”
Yount talked about discovering the goth lifestyle.
“When I was young, like 14, I found this article in Rolling Stone, and it was about this generation in Los Angeles that was secret,” Yount said. “They would have underground nightclubs, and they interviewed all these people in Los Angeles, and I saw their pictures and read all the music they listened to, and I went out and bought (music by) every single band that they listed, and that really changed my life. I was into punk and mod, but as soon as I heard Christian Death and Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cramps and T. Rex and The Sisters of Mercy, I completely knew that was my home for the rest of my life.”
The Belfry event is in good hands with DJ TigerBunny, an OG goth, behind the decks.
“We would call ourselves ‘death wreckers’ before it was called goth, or ‘graveyard dwellers,’” explained Yount. “We really, really were addicted to ghosts, and we did Ouija board all the time and the tarot all the time. It was a lifestyle, and now it’s called goth.”
While the goths of today are very different from ‘death wreckers,’ Yount said she loves that they have a chance to thrive.
“Whether it’s spiritual, or they’re dwelling in graveyards, at least they will be dancing together, and they will be wearing what they want to wear and hearing what they want to hear,” Yount said. “The best thing is they get to meet kids from all high schools, like we did. Instead of only knowing your friends from your high school, when you go to a dance night, you get to meet teenagers from all the high schools, and
I think that’s so special. That’s how I made so many friends when I was young.”
Yount feels a connection to the young goths for whom she spins.
“Everyone thinks teenagers are scary, but I feel like a teenager still, so I’m not afraid,” Yount said. “I work for the library system, and I’m on the teen engagement board, so we’re always trying to find more ways for teenagers to engage with our community organizations, and Holland is the perfect place, because teenagers are there all the time. If they want to dance, then we will absolutely provide that for them, and they’re just so enthusiastic about it. They express themselves so thoroughly, and we really love that, too.
Yount expressed her respect for the Holland Project.
“They make everyone feel so comfortable and cool,” she said. “It’s not a judgy place. Everyone just feels like they can express themselves in the way they want. You can do art or crafting, or maybe you can be in a show with your art, you can have your band be onstage. The Halloween cover show, I think, has really brought out so much more ambition from the young music community, because they really see that they can go onstage, and they can play instruments in front of that full room. That’s really rare, because when I was growing up, we only had bands playing in community centers and basements and secret warehouses and stuff—and now they get to actually do it legally and in a place where everyone supports them.”
While the Belfry events are catered to younger goths, Yount and other elder goths have benefited as well.
“One cool thing is that parents like myself, or younger than myself, who have teenagers, can bring their kids to those events, and it is all-ages,” she said. “We love it, and their kids also love it, so everyone gets to be together. There’s nowhere else you can bring in a 15-year-old to enjoy music that we also love.”
Remember when...
... you went to Columbo's at 1 am for duck raviolis? ...Tony and Inez were hosting at the Halfway Club? ... you could get a great steak at The Glory Hole? or......When you could get Uncle Zeke's Old Fashioned
Cracked Butterscotch Candy right here in Reno! Still available after 39 years Get it delivered to your doorstep now by going to:
and don't forget...
The Belfry All Ages Goth Night: “Winter Kills” will take place at 7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 27, at the Holland Project, 140 Vesta St., in Reno. Tickets are $5, and the event is all ages. For tickets and more information, visit hollandreno.org.
small food MFG
located in the charming little town of Cedarville in Surprise Valley, CA only $225,000 - fully equiped for more
Teree Yount, also known as DJ TigerBunny, is performing at the Dec. 27 event. Photo/David Robert
| BY MATT JONES
Jones
event
43. Cuba libre garnish
44. Served as
45. 2015 Emily Blunt crime film
48. Two focuses of a Grateful Deadthemed vegan restaurant?
52. Company found at many airports
53. South Pacific Tony winner Pinza
54. Rubber duckie’s home
57. ___ Sark (scotch brand)
59. Group that reports on a single Greek island?
61. “Ignore that last comment”
62. “What’s Hecuba to him, ___ to Hecuba”: Hamlet
63. Because of the Times group Kings of ___
64. Cares for 65. General ___ chicken
66. Office furniture
Down
1. Out of trouble
2. Touch upon
3. Dark Angel actress Jessica
THE LUCKY 13
Rachael McElhiney Saxophonist, ukulele player and solo
musician
Rachael McElhiney’s skills on the baritone saxophone, baritone ukulele and bass clarinet have added a beautiful layer to Reno’s music scene. Through a number of solo releases and band stints, she has crafted a musical style that is at times warmly comforting, and other times mind-blowing. Her latest EP, while you fall asleep, released earlier this year, is a folky collection of songs with moments of campfire storytelling (“every wish”), modern pop-star vibes (“my gummy”), soulful vocal power (“what do you want?”) and poetry-slam funk (“boysenberry”). To hear more, visit rachaelmcelhiney.bandcamp.com.
4. Arthur of The Golden Girls 5. Minuscule
6. Napoleon and Peron, for example
7. Rummage (through)
8. Ariz. setting all year long
9. Contacts
10. Go quietly (around)
11. Snowman accessory
12. “Stop kidding around!”
13. Avian homes
18. Napoleon Dynamite’s uncle
23. Trading card figure
24. Soft ball substance
25. “Mon ___!” (French cry)
26. ___ empty stomach
27. Go out with 28. Accidentpreventing org.
29. Equipment
32. Fast jazz subgenre
33. “Aquarius” musical
34. Rogers once married to Tom
Cruise
35. Cookie that partnered with Coca-Cola
37. Furniture retailer with a blue and yellow logo
Find the answers in the “About” section at RenoNR.com!
What was the first concert you attended?
The first concert I attended, I guess, was a school band concert, technically, ha ha ha. It wasn’t until college that I attended my first big concert with famous people— Bone Thugs-n-Harmony opening for DMX.
What was the first album you owned?
The first tape cassette I bought with my own money was Brandy’s first album, Brandy. I can still sing all the songs on it; I listened to it so much. The first CD I bought with my own money was Tubthumper by Chumbawamba. I picked it based on the cover, and it did not disappoint. I still cover a deep cut from that album in my own solo set.
What bands are you listening to right now? I’m listening to a lot of Clown Core. I freakin’ love Clown Core. SZA is in there, and I’m recently into this album Purgatory by The Mystery Lights. My friend and bandmate, Spencer Kilpatrick, sent it to me. I’m also listening to a lot of his music, too.
What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? I liked Bijou’s answer for this one: Taylor Swift. I’m just not in the realm of understanding her way of music, but she’s
| BY MATT KING
absolutely killing it and hopefully loving her cool-looking life.
What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?
I have three. Morphine: Dana Colley is one of my absolute favorite bari-sax players. I love all the bass instruments so much, so a band with bass guitar and bari sax was my ultimate when I first discovered them. Spinal Tap, and I’d also love to see Lauryn Hill live (and the Fugees). I felt so sad to miss this last tour that she went out on; it looked so amazing! I’ve loved her since Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? I wouldn’t call it a “guilty pleasure,” because I don’t feel guilty about it, but the Spice Girls are my absolute pleasure! I still know every word and every inflection; I can recognize exactly who is singing what.
What’s your favorite music venue? Holland Project for life!
What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?
“Uh, huh, the good lord knows, I don’t really care where the green grass grows. Uh, huh, it’s a beautiful scene, I don’t really know if that’s a good thing,” Spencer Kilpatrick, “Failure Machine.”
What band or artist changed your life? Bryan Jones, aka “Buffalo Moses,” is an artist who changed my life pretty significantly. He’s one of my best friends and bandmates for more than 20 years. He asked me to join his band Busted Blue early in our college years, and then he asked me: If he were to take the band on the road, would I go? I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. We left our school journeys and hit the road for about a decade of touring. I’m not sure if I’d be out performing to the magnitude that I do if it weren’t for him. Love you, Bran Muffin!
You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? I’m asking Clown Core if I can play bari sax on their next album.
What song would you like played at your funeral? “Send Me on My Way,” Rusted Root.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? Spice Girls, Spice.
What song should everyone listen to right now? Everyone should listen to their hearts.
| BY DAVID ROBERT
Mike Smith is keeping alive the art of the shoe shine. The business took a big hit during the COVID-19 shutdowns, and Smith is on a mission to revive the craft and see it flourish. The noble profession has been around for centuries. It’s not just about putting a mirror shine on a pair of shoes or boots, but also about protecting footwear from Northern Nevada’s dust and sun, and increasing its longevity. You can find Smith and his stand at the Nugget Casino Resort, at 1100 Nugget Ave., in Sparks, Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. His website is www. ShinySoles.com.
Tell me how you got into shoe shining. I’m a retired educator and taught for 33 years in Mississippi and Tennessee, but I was born in Memphis, Tenn., and grew up in Mississippi. My first was job at 13. I had just gotten out of school one day and stopped in the local shoe cobbler’s business and asked for a job. I just thought he’d have me sweeping the floors and emptying the trash—which I did, but he also taught me the art and craftsmanship and artisanship of shining and polishing and caring for shoes. Later on, when I was in college, some of the professors would come by and knock on my door and give me a couple of pairs of their boots and shoes to shine. They tipped me very well. After retiring from being an educator—and I don’t do well with retirement—I started shining again in 2018, so you might as well say that I’ve returned to one of my first passions. I’m often asked what brought me to Northern Nevada in 2017, and my response is 5’ 4”, 125 pounds—a fifth-generation Nevadan, my soulmate, Margaret.
Can you tell me a brief history of shoe shining? Shoe shiners kind of date back to the 18th century in France. During that time, shoemakers would make base mixtures based on animal fat, and they would use that to nourish and protect their customers’ shoes. It kept the shoes supple, and it kept them waterproof. Shoe polishes never hit the masses commercially until the 20th century. Shoe shining still exists today, and the profession is very common
in many countries around the world. The singer James Brown—we know him as the “godfather of soul”—not only was he singing and dancing in the streets of Augusta, Ga.; he was also shining shoes.
Have you shined for any famous people?
One of the people who I can think of off the top of my head was then-Gov. Brian Sandoval, who is now the president of UNR. I had an opportunity to polish his boots in Carson City when I first launched Shiny Souls Boot and Shoe Shine based out of Carson City.
Have you ever received an unusual or big tip for your services?
The biggest tip I received was in cash for a $20 shine. The gentleman gave me a $100 bill and said to keep the change. He said that the conversation was way worth it, and I did a great job. He also said, “I want to keep you guys in business, because you can’t find you guys everywhere,” and that was at the Reno Rodeo.
Why do you think the art of shoe shining declined?
I think the decline has been exacerbated by the pandemic with remote working, and the rise in popularity of more casual shoes and casual workwear. That’s what people wear now going to work—sneakers and casual shoes with suits and business attire. So, I just got with the program. I don’t just do leather; I also clean sneakers. After the decline in the wearing of nice leather shoes, my sneaker business began to increase by about 25%!
This is how you’re resuscitating the art of the shoe shine. What are your future goals?
That’s just one of the tenets of it. I think just by providing the services, it’s resuscitating a dying art. I’m probably the only shiner in Reno. I know there are no other shiners in any other casino properties. I do a lot of conventions in and around Reno, starting with the Reno Rodeo and all the cowboy-Western events, so I’m sort of well-known around town. One day, my goal is to have my brick-and-mortar shop and stands where people can sit, and also, they could drop off and leave their shoes. I’m always looking for people who want to learn this craft. I’ll be more than happy to teach them, because if I had more personnel and more help, I could have more locations. One of my other goals is to get this out to the Reno Airport and have a stand, but I need skilled manpower. If they are breathing and have a pulse and are willing to listen, I’m willing to teach. My motto is: “Let Mike put a glow on that toe!”
