Letter From the Editor: Introducing the Summer 2023 issue of rjmagazine

We arrive to a new place and marvel at what we see — the silhouette of a skyline, the mosaic of shopfronts. Our eyes are busy answering questions: What does the dirt look like? Is this a place of sagebrush and creosote or cedar and birch? Is the horizon crenellated with mountain peaks or is it razor-straight at the far side of pale flatlands? What have human hands wrought here? How did the collision of commerce and creativity stamp the city?

And then we settle in. A place becomes a home. Our minds stop asking questions and our eyes stop answering them. What’s the point when we’ve already got the answers? The outline of the world becomes a thing memorized rather than a sensation experienced. This is the blessing and curse of familiarity.

In this issue of rjmagazine, we’re readjusting our gaze and re-examining the richness of our city. Making it new so we can fall in love all over again. Sharpening our perceptions so we can make Las Vegas a better home. Sense precedes sensibility; awareness precedes analysis. This issue is about seeing, about looking closer before we leap.

In his stunning photo essay, “The Angel in the Details,” L.E. Baskow brings his camera closer to the surfaces of the city, isolating objects from their ordinary surroundings and discovering something new in them. His images of places both glamorous and gritty help us find mystery in the small details of local icons and uncanny beauty in the forgotten workaday corners of the Valley.

Meanwhile, architect Eric M. Roberts, in an illustrated excerpt from his book-in-progress,

33 Beats of the Architect’s Heart, reflects on the shapes of a lost Vegas, forms whose ghosts have inspired him both in his career and in his embrace of Las Vegas as a true home — one with a substantive history, even if it’s a history of erasures. Longtime sportswriter Ron Kantowski examines the ways that sports arenas are redrawing the city — and our very understanding of Las Vegas’ place in the world. And historian Michael Green recounts how three California architects helped establish the visual language of old Las Vegas.

Elsewhere, T.R. Witcher looks anew at a different kind of design — the design of a life — as he trains to run a marathon at age 50. Jason Bracelin takes us into a thoroughly reimagined ring with the brawlers of PrideStyle Wrestling, a Las Vegas-based, LGTBQ-friendly league where everyone fights everyone and peace somehow reigns amid the body slams. Sarah Bun chronicles the rock ’n’ roll rebirth of Michelle Rohl, Natalie Burt gives tips on how to find new mojo for ourselves on stay-cool summer hikes, and Chantal Chandler’s “Zine Within a Zine” conjures the disappeared Las Vegas of her childhood. On our back page, C.L. Gaber talks modern design with Tyler Jones, the influential founder of Southern Nevada’s Blue Heron Homes.

This magazine begins with its most powerful story, “Pain and Peace,” by Jenny Stiles, a tale of profound perseverance through a lifetime of physical challenges. From Jenny’s first breaths, she lived beneath a fog of doubt: Would she survive? How would she make her way in the world? What could she possibly become? Well, Jenny became a formidable fighter, not only for her own rights but for the rights of others. She also became an extraordinary writer. The proof is here.

Jenny died on March 28 at age 35. She had recently seen the layout of “Pain and Peace” and was eager for her next assignment. This issue is dedicated to her memory.