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The famous neon of Glitter Gulch, on the Fulmont Street Experience
A friend of mine recently moved from San Francisco back to her home town of Las Vegas, NV. She was upset that whenever any friends visited, all they wanted was to drink and gamble. ”Fine,” I told her. ”I’m flying out there for a weekend, and you can show me the Nevada that you grew up in.”
The first night we hit the Strip, not to gamble, but to people watch. The lights, the sounds, and everything else were overwhelming, and everywhere people were caught up in the heady illusion of instant gratification without apparent consequence (the next morning, of course, would be different).
The next day we drove two hours north to Beatty, which is five miles west of the ghost town Rhyolite. Between 1905 and 1911, the gold-rush town grew to a population of 5,000 and then dropped to nothing. Financed largely by Charles Schwab, the town in its heyday was highly advanced and sophisticated. Now, all that stands are a few empty shells of buildings.
The gold dried up in Rhyolite, but its sister town, Beatty, proved to have a much more abundant, important, and reliable resource: water. Beatty provided the water for the gold mining town, and when Rhyolite blew away on the sands of time, Beatty stuck around. It’s still a lonely little town, but it’s full of incredible characters.
A ghost in Rhyolite
Stuck in Beatty with not much to do, we hit the town’s three bars, which had all sorts of locals who welcomed us with arms wide open. They were a trip and a half, and we made some memories that won’t soon be forgotten: climbing into an abandoned basement church, wearing a viking helmet, and the urinal whose flushing mechanism was the brake lever of wall-mounted motorcycle handlebars.
See the full gallery here.
Posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
Last week I headed down to the southeast corner of New Mexico, to the Lea County Fair and Rodeo, held at the Jake McClure Arena in Lovington. As a city slicker from Cleveland, it was by no means something I would normally attend, which made it all the more incredible of an experience.
Fairs in general are an otherwordly experience. There are the bright lights and tinkling, repetitive sounds of the Midway. The sickeningly alluring odors of deep fried twinkies, roast turkey legs, funnel cakes, and other things you probably shouldn’t eat but are too intrigued to resist. Not to mention odors that are just plain sickening without being alluring – overflowing trash bins, port-a-potties, and the livestock yards.
Ah, livestock. This is one part of the county fair to which I’ve never had much exposure. Down in Lea County, though, livestock is a way of life.
Lovington is just a few miles away from Texas, and it shows; it feels much more like the Lone Star State than it feels like New Mexico.
See the entire photo gallery here.
As I’m sitting on a bus, I probably have little personal experience upon which to base an analysis of Italians and their driving. However, this journal is as much about observation as it is about experience.
By American standards, cars – as with just about anything here – are quite tiny. More so than any other is probably the Smart Car, a joint project between Mercedes and Swatch. With a cabin just barely large enough for two, the car also has no apparent front or back end… it’s just a little capsule on wheels.
Yet, with cars as small as they are, the people who own them use them for everything. I’ve seen people sleeping in Puntos, eating in Minis, reading the paper in Pandas.
Still, considering the way loitering is as popular as soccer, perhaps it’s more of the Italian love affair with the street. Instead of Americans, who are only concerned with getting from Point A to Point B, Italians are content simply to enjoy the ride.
Posted 5 years, 10 months ago. Add a comment
The more I’m exposed to the Italian people, the more I want to become them. Men and women, slim and portly, young and old, all carry themselves in a way that makes them so appealing. Somehow, though, I can’t distill what it IS that makes someone Italian…
It is not what they wear, but it IS how they dress. Every outfit somehow looks fantastic, whether it is a business suit with a wide-knotted tie, or a denim skirt and a silk scarf, or the T-shirt and Jeans look that I used to think was perfected in the US.
It is not what they eat, but how they prepare and present it. Lunch generally consists of grabbing a panino from a bar and sitting outside for the better part of an hour, watching natives and tourists float by. Dinner consumes as much time as we do food. We joke with Carlo, our waiter at the Abruzzi, as he brings course after course of meals whose names we recall from the Chef Boyardee cans that line the shelves of most college students’ pantries back in the States. “But Carlo, this can’t be ravioli… it’s not thick with prcessed meat, nor does it have a metallic taste from sitting in a can for months.” Besides, it tastes too good to pass as ravioli. “Come si chiame, vero?” (what is it called, really) Wine glasses clink as we all get to know each other over bottles of red and white, decanters of mouth-puckering vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, and slices of warm, hard-crusted bread.
And it is not what they have, but how they use it. One thing Americans complain about not having is time. Italians apparently are without this problem. If something can’t happen, so be it; far be it from me to have to rush someone, and I hope they afford me the same courtesy. It is not time that is the enemy of Italy, but space. As with most of Europe, personal, private space is a luxury afforded to few. While extravagant piazzas too numerous to count can be found everywhere around the city, the home of the modern Italian might appear claustrophobic to an American. Full bathrooms occupy about nine square feet. Magnificent Palazzos increase the density of the urban space until your ears pop. These giant downtown palaces force the streets to narrow until they’re little more than alleys, and still the pocket-sized Smart Cars and motorinis find room to park on the sidewalk. Those who say Roman life is relaxing have never tried to cross the street – I have seen saner driving in Mad Max movies!
So then perhaps the question I should ask is not what makes an Italian, but how does one earn that title?
Posted 5 years, 11 months ago. Add a comment
