This City of Visual Overload
By Sarah Calvo
Over the course of 10 years, my husband and I moved seven times around the country. In that time away, the sights were what we missed the most about Las Vegas. This is a city of spectacle and surprise wrapped in sparkling sequins. It has a reputation in every corner of the earth. For those of us who call Las Vegas home, especially for those of us who grew up here, we defend this place with a hard-won love.
Everywhere else I’ve lived has something special, and many things I miss. But, on long winter days, I yearn for the pink desert glow at the gloaming hour and the fiery red sunsets over purple mountains. When I felt cooped up in bustling cities, I needed an open road to the middle of the desert where I could see for miles in every direction and hear only the wind.
It isn’t just the natural spectacles I am happily near again. In many of my fondest memories, I am an audience member, wide-eyed and awe-struck, while watching my favorite artist on stage. We have always been a mecca for visual arts that arrest your senses on the Strip. And now, from space, you can view things like the Sphere, which is the world’s largest and highest-resolution LED screen dedicated to housing immersive entertainment experiences on the inside, with astonishing 360-degree visual arts on the outside.
But we are also beginning to overflow with murals, theater, independent film halls, and art exhibits. I can find the Henderson Symphony Orchestra playing the score for Black Panther while the movie plays on a big screen behind them, and my kids and I can make memories. I can go to the Beverly Theater—a film house, concert, and storytelling arena—and watch somebody’s biggest dream come alive on stage and support their art. You can go to the Smith Center for the Performing Arts and see Hamilton, or Six, or Beetlejuice without needing a flight to New York. You can visit the Barrick Museum at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and see exhibits that inspire and educate. You can visit the Nuwu Art Gallery + Community Center to see the intersection of art and activism and bear witness to the long history here before city lights. We are a place that lives and breathes all kinds of visual spectacle, and it just keeps getting better.
Image/Las Vegas Writes Volume 14 Feather Shows cover.
Though we are a city where visitors swarm to view shows of all forms, the one thing I have heard all my life is: I could never raise my kids there. It was precisely this remark that inspired me to write the piece that I contributed to the anthology, Feather Shows: Las Vegas Writers on Film, TV, and Other Spectacles, Vol. 14 in the Las Vegas Writes series, made possible by (and a program of) Nevada Humanities. I grew up with the hum and glow of the city behind me, and yes, the inappropriate billboards, too. But this city of visual overload didn’t consume me; it just helped me see life in vivid complexity..
I hope that you enjoy the stories presented in Feather Shows. I’m so happy that I’m a part of this project, surrounded by others who have been impacted by visual wonder in this city I love. From movie sets to desert phenomena, show stages to comic books to forgotten TV series and curious nutcrackers, this anthology showcases intriguing stories with surprises along the way. Stories are, after all, one of the greatest things Las Vegas offers us.
Sarah Calvo is a participating author in Volume 14 of the annual Las Vegas Writes: Feather Shows: Las Vegas Writers on Movies, TV, and Other Spectacles. Click here to RSVP for the Las Vegas Writes: Feather Shows: Las Vegas Writers on Movies, TV, and Other Spectacles book launch and conversation with the authors on Thursday, October 19, 7-9 pm PT, at the Clark County Library Theatre (1401 E. Flamingo Rd., Las Vegas, Nevada). Copies of Feather Shows will be available at the book launch event and available soon at The Writer’s Block in Las Vegas.
Sarah Calvo is a teacher and writer from Las Vegas, Nevada. She taught high school English in Reno, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia before staying home with her energetic kids, who taught her a love for comic books and drawing cartoon animals. She will finish her master’s degree in English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in December 2023 and will continue doing what she loves: teaching, writing, cooking, traveling, and spending time outdoors with her family.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Calvo.