ML - Vegas Magazine

2014 - Issue 4 - Summer

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.

Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/332267

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 23 of 123

PHOTOGRAPHY BY 'LOS (DICAIRE, SWIMMERS, SCHORR); AL POWERS (SYLVESTER) ABOVE: If I can't be Esther Williams, I can at least live vicariously through the talented synchronized swimmers, the Aqualillies, who opened Downtown Grand's rooftop Picnic with Vegas. LEFT: At Picnic with Downtown Grand CEO Seth Schorr. I celebrated our gorgeous Spring cover with its star—the incredibly talented and lovely Véronic DiCaire—at Indigo Lounge at Bally's. Wearing a gorgeous Roberto Cavalli dress from Saks Fifth Avenue, with Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker, Vegas native, and major kid role model Stevenson Sylvester. Two dreams come true! Nearly 50 years ago in his novel An American Dream, Norman Mailer gave us this image: "The night before I left Las Vegas I walked out in the desert to look at the moon. There was a jeweled city on the horizon, spires rising in the night, but the jewels were diadems of electric and the spires were the neon of signs ten stories high." (If you have read the novel, keep in mind the imagery, not the controversial nature of Mailer's protagonist—not the most likable guy in fiction.) That delicious and otherworldly description feels as current today as it did in 1965. For artist Peter Max, choosing from the city's abundance of icons to convey his vision of Vegas on our cover must have been a bit like taking that proverbial draft from a fire hose. There are the saturated colors of Red Rock Canyon and the stars of Max's cosmos twinkling above the old Stardust sign. Within this Summer issue's pages, more icons come to life—among them the ageless, statuesque Vegas showgirl who, while she exists in smaller numbers than in Mailer's day, remains as fabulous and titillat- ing as ever. Although Vegas is constantly revamping, renovating, reopening, and reinventing, some of our symbols are sacred—even if they are topless and wearing a 35 -pound rhinestone headdress. Summer is my favorite time in Las Vegas. For some, the heat is punishing. For me, the heat waves just add a shimmering layer to the preternatural beauty of both the natural and man-made creations here. Everyone has his or her own interpretation of Las Vegas; I prefer Mailer's description. I recently returned from a long trip, and as my plane circled in from the east, there was a jeweled city on the horizon, its spires rising in the night. Welcome to summer in Vegas. ANDR EA BENNETT Follow me on Twitter at @andreabennett1 and on vegasmagazine.com. 22 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of ML - Vegas Magazine - 2014 - Issue 4 - Summer