Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL O'LEARY S easons come to Las Vegas to reinvent themselves, too. This is most obviously the case with summer, which blows in to cut loose, party a ll night , overst ay it s welcome, a nd st ick aut um n w it h t he bill. However, this year also saw winter reposition itself in a big way—as spring. Clear skies, temps in the 60s. It was an unusually long interlude of favorite coats not worn, of Face-tweeting a shirtsleeve selfie or two as a delicious taunt to East Coast friends shivering under the polar vortex. But even if it wa s pa r t icula rly pronounced t h is yea r, some version of t h is sea sona l schizophrenia plays out every winter (locals view these spasms of quasi- spring as partial reimbursement for the unpleasant solar vortex to come). As a consequence, Las Vegans can't rely on spring itself to let them know when the season has arrived. For that, we have the very many f lo- ral technicians at the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens. They are far more dependable—and, it must be said, stylish—harbingers of the season than Mother Nature. Sure, she can push the tender green shoots of miraculous spring renewal up through the dirt, but in Vegas the old ga l is simply over matched. Each Ma rch, a s if to f ulf ill Tolstoy's dic- t um t hat "Spr ing is t he t ime of pla ns a nd project s," Bellag io's 14 0 Conser vator y hor t icult u r ist s engage in a ma ssive inf usion of br ight plants, t rees, fountains, gazebos, pathways, and whimsical sculpture that takes a full week to complete. I mean, how often does Mother Nature suspend a cloud of oversize faux water drops or inverted parasols above a ma nicu red a r ra ngement of exot ic blossoms? At Bellag io, it 's ever y year. Does Mother Nature continually swap out thousands of plants to make sure the view is just so? Not that we've noticed. Indeed, even the more subtle manifestations of man-made spring in Las Vegas—the way Venetian adjusts the lighting of the ersatz sky above its canal, for exam- ple—are done with considerably more panache than nature typically musters. A nd it 's not just spr i ng, eit her. T he Conser vator y's pola r bears, penguins, poinsettias, and pines are a better indication that win- ter's here than a sackful of mall Santas. To be fair, Southern Nevada doesn't offer nature much to work with, just bland desert dirt (with ext ra caliche!), abundant sunshine, and a drought - st ra ngled water supply. T he Conser vator y ha s 14,0 0 0 a ir - conditioned square feet, access tunnels beneath the f loor, and the ability to pay a bonkers water bill. Those a re t he k inds of product ion va lues we've come to appreciate in L a s Vega s —a ma ssive out lay of f ina ncia l a nd huma n capit a l to ma int a in, w it h seeming effor t lessness, a n idea l- ized, showroom version of nature far superior to anything nature itself can put on the marquee. No surprise spring has a hard time keeping up. But t hat's how Vegas has a lways rolled—t he cit y's ver y existence in this resource-starved desert is a kind of taunt to nature, an ongoing selfie composed of f lower extravaganzas, dolphin tanks, and tiger preserves that we post every day to prove we did it our way. "Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party,'" Robin Williams once quipped. Spring displays are Las Vegas's way of saying, "You're on." V Spring Comes to Vegas DON'T LAMENT THE ABSENCE OF SEASONAL CHANGE. YOU'RE JUST LOOKING IN THE WRONG CASINO. BY SCOTT DICKENSHEETS 144 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM Parting Shot 144_V_BOB_PartingShot_Spring14.indd 144 2/11/14 12:06 PM