From the Review-Journal:

According to Norm!, Michael Jackson lived at the Palms Hotel from last Thanksgiving through February while he worked with Akon and will.i.am (of the Black Eyed Peas) on a new album.  It would have been Jackson's first album since 2001.

They had been working on the album for over two years, much of it recorded at the recording studio in the Palms Hotel.

Elsewhere aroung town, fans gathered to pay their last respects to the "King of Pop".

The theater was dark and the mood wasn't any brighter.

Clutching handkerchiefs and tubs of popcorn, dozens of wet-eyed Michael Jackson die-hards gathered in auditorium 7 at Rave Motion Pictures on Tuesday to watch the memorial services for the pop icon on the big screen.

They clapped along to the beat as Jennifer Hudson thundered through Jackson's stirring "Will You Be There," they chanted their hero's name in unison -- "Michael! Michael! Michael!" -- they laughed when Brooke Shields recalled an incident where she and Jackson once snuck into Liz Taylor's bedroom to get a peek of her wedding dress the day before the ceremonies.

Some snapped pictures, the flash of their cameras briefly illuminating the shadowy room, others clutched loved ones in their arms.

But mostly, they cried.

"It was very emotional," said Mary Rios, a newfound Jackson fan who spoke in soft tones. "You couldn't help but cry."

The sentiment ran high throughout the ceremony, with the mood ranging from celebratory outbursts to such complete and total silence you could hear yourself breathe.

For those who grew up with Jackson's music, it was an especially powerful moment.

"I wrote letters to him," said Angelo Mayfield, a lifelong Jackson fan with forearms smothered in tattoos. "I just kind of had to come and say goodbye. It's unbelievable to think that he's gone."

Jackson devotees flocked to the theater to be around fellow fans and mourners, turning the auditorium into something of a group therapy session.

"I'd rather be around the fans paying homage to Michael than being at home paying homage to Michael by myself," said Craig Forbus, 49, who saw Jackson perform with the Jackson 5 in the early '70s.

"It brought everybody together," added Michelle Berkowitz, a mom with two children in tow.

"It was beautiful," said her 13-year-old son, Adam.

On the Strip, Mary Ouellette snapped a picture of Jackson's image on the Planet Hollywood big screen, then wiped a tear away.

"I hope everyone remembers him for the nice person he was, not the negativity," said Ouellette, who's from Albany, N.Y. "You can't grow up famous and be completely normal. It's impossible -- I'd love for people to step into his shoes."

Ouellette said she became a fan of Jackson when he broke onto the scene as a member of the Jackson 5.

They were born in the same year, she said, and it became fun for her to watch his progress.

"He was just a great entertainer. Always," she said.

Her opinions were echoed by 15-year-old Allison Cox, a Palo Verde High School sophomore who was born after almost all the King of Pop's biggest hits were released.

The Las Vegas teen attended the memorial service for Jackson in Los Angeles and watched a live feed from the Nokia Theatre, near the Staples Center.

"Before the event, I wasn't a huge fan of Michael Jackson. I liked some songs, but being with the big fans showed how great he was," Cox said. "It was moving how they showed he was such a great guy and how he tried to change everyone's lives."

Makeshift memorials were also set up at Madame Tussauds at The Venetian, where Jackson's wax likeness was displayed in the entrance, and a vacant house on Palomino Lane near Rancho Drive, once occupied by the pop superstar.

Stuffed animals, cards, notes and flowers were piled on the fence of the house.

"I remember the girls would just line up out here, trying to see Michael," said neighbor Dell Bartolome, after taking a picture next to the memorial.

Susan Mucha, also a neighbor, said "even old people" loved Jackson.

"Show me someone who didn't try the moon walk, at least once," she said with a laugh.

As we reported here a few weeks ago, due to the budget cuts by the State Legislature, the Governor and the Department of Cultural Affairs in Carson City, beginning today, all state sponsored museums will have curtailed hours of operation.

The staffs of these museums were the only state employees to be hit with a 20% pay cut.  They were not furloughed from their jobs as other state employees were.  They are now part-time workers, working only 32 hours a week. 

There is no sunset clause on this legislation so these changes could stay in affect for the next two years until the Legislature meets again.

What does this mean for those of us who think that museums are a vital cultural link to our communities?

Well, the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas used to be open seven days a week, excluding Thanksgiving Day and Christmas day from 9:00 am - 5:00 am.  The staff there worked forty hours a week, five days a week and were there Monday through Friday to help patrons with research and to answer questions.

At least four times a year, there were educational programs that took place in the evenings.

That all ended with the cutbacks.

Beginning today, the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas will only be open Wednesdays-Saturdays, from 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.  There will be no evening educational or cultural programming.

These changes affect schools and their bus tours for children, our ability to do educational and cultural programming with the Museum and anyone who is doing research on the history of Nevada, Southern Nevada, Clark County and/or Las Vegas.

It is our understanding that the board members of the Department of Cultural Affairs in Carson City did not take any pay cuts or have their hours curtailed.  They passed that misery on to the staffs of the state sponsored museums and those of us who patronize museums in Nevada.

Thanks guys.

It certainly sounded like one of those "fires of suspicious nature" that plague empty, historic buildings in Las Vegas.  So we are not surprised that Arson investigators have some questions about the fire that finally destroyed the historic Moulin Rouge Hotel two months ago.

From the Las Vegas Sun:

For city residents, the four-alarm fire at the Moulin Rouge in May was a civic misfortune, the second major blaze to devastate the site since the iconic downtown hotel opened in 1955.

For Las Vegas arson investigators, who have confirmed that the fire was set by human hands though not necessarily intentionally, the blaze presents a host of facts to explore.

No allegations of arson have been made by city investigators — and may never be. In their only public statement since the May 6 fire, investigators last month confirmed “there was human involvement regarding the heat source” — though they do not yet know whether it was intentional or accidental.

“Neither arson or cooking by vagrants could be eliminated, so the investigation is ongoing,” according to a city spokeswoman.

The Moulin Rouge’s new owners assumed control of the property one day before the fire, after the former owners went bankrupt and the property was foreclosed upon. The Moulin Rouge sign — the only remaining valuable vestige of the historic casino — was carted off to the Neon Boneyard one week before the blaze.

The Moulin Rouge, open for a period of months in 1955, was the first integrated casino in Las Vegas. It was the place where several community leaders, including former Las Vegas Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun, met in 1960 and agreed to end segregation on the Strip.

The property’s former owner, the Moulin Rouge Development Corp., had sold the City Council last August on its plans to develop a spacious casino and 41-story hotel on the Bonanza Road site. Before demolishing the site’s existing structure, the owners faced a large bill for removing asbestos from the property. The fire cut into that cost considerably.

Two arson experts outside of Nevada who were interviewed by the Las Vegas Sun after they familiarized themselves with news accounts and city news releases about the fire say the circumstances, taken together, raise questions investigators want to explore.

“These are all what we call major red flags,” said Nicholas Palumbo, a nationally certified fire investigator based in New Jersey. “You look at these things and you have to ask: Are they all just coincidences?”

City spokeswoman Diana Paul said no other questions about the fire, or the probe being led by Las Vegas Fire & Rescue arson investigators, will be answered until the investigation is complete. The statute of limitations for arson in Nevada is four years, she said.

More than 100 firefighters took over two hours to quell the blaze. Plumes of dark gray smoke could be seen for miles. No one was injured.

A local fire investigator from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was on the scene, the ATF confirmed, though local fire officials decided not to call in the agency’s national response team to assist with the probe.

(ATF national response teams have been called to at least three Southern Nevada fires in recent years, including the 2003 fire at the Moulin Rouge.)

As firefighters were finishing their task, the structure was demolished. According to a city news release, the decision to demolish what remained of the building was made by the city manager and fire chief based on an ordinance that allows the city to abate a hazard — in this case, tear down a smoldering building — if “the condition of a property constitutes an imminent hazard.”

According to the release, representatives of the group that had lost ownership control of the property the day before, the Moulin Rouge Development Corp., were on the scene and had a contractor ready to conduct the demolition.

Despite the fact that the group no longer owned the property, the city gave the company the OK to tear it down. The city said arson investigators had finished their work at the site before the demolition.

The Moulin Rouge Development Corp., which purchased the property in 2004, filed for bankruptcy in February with $40million in debt, despite receiving a $24million loan from Seattle-based lender Olympic Coast Investment Inc. for a new hotel on the site.

The week before the fire the property was put up for auction but there were no bidders, sources familiar with the process said. On May 5, Olympic Coast took ownership of the 15-acre site, which also includes two former apartment complexes and 60 condominium units.

Olympic Coast’s president, John Hoss, visited his new property while the fire was still being doused.

“The timing is a little odd,” Hoss told a Las Vegas Sun reporter at the time. “It’s a weird coincidence. It’s certainly odd.”

In a more recent telephone interview, Hoss said he had no idea how the fire started.

He said his group is attempting to sell the property — which still has gaming development rights attached — for more than $25million, and that parties have expressed interest. A sale could be announced soon, he said.

Hoss said there was an insurance policy in place when Olympic Coast took ownership. He declined to say how much the property was insured for, other than that it was in the single-digit millions of dollars. But he said he’s asking insurers for only $100,000 to cover the cost of the fire’s clean-up.

Both Hoss and the city’s neighborhood response division manager, Devin Smith, confirmed that all four properties are or were laden with asbestos, and that the city has been demanding it be cleaned up at a cost of $1.2million. That cost is now hundreds of thousands of dollars less because it is cheaper to clean up asbestos from a fire site than to remove asbestos from an existing structure, Smith said.

Palumbo, the fire investigator, and Patrick Andler, a Phoenix-based certified fire instructor who has investigated more than 4,000 fires, say the city may have erred by allowing the building to be demolished so soon after most of the fire had been doused.

Investigators would have had a better shot at determining the precise origin of the fire — and what may have caused it and who may have started it — if the structure had been left intact, they said.

“Fire investigation is a process of elimination,” Andler said. Investigators need to be able to look at every single room to determine which one was the source of the fire. And then they need to have access to that room to search for debris.

Neither the three principals of the Moulin Rouge Development Corp., Chauncey Moore, Dale Scott and Los Angeles attorney Rod Bickerstaff, nor the group’s former public relations consultant, Jayson Bernstein, could not be reached for comment.

David Peter, the president of Republic Urban Properties, a Virginia group that had announced it would invest up to $1billion to develop the site — said he has washed his hands of his investment and given up on seeing a return on the money that his group had poured into the project. “We’ve written it off,” he said.

It is one of the iconic books about Las Vegas architecture, "Learning from Las Vegas".  Written over forty years ago, this influential book, along with Alan Hess', "Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture", influences the way we look at the architecture of the Classic Las Vegas Strip.

Recently, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi returned to Las Vegas to see how the landscape had changed in forty years.  Their partner, Steven Izenour, passed away some time back.

From our pal Kristen Petersen at the Las Vegas Sun:

It’s 100 degrees. Everyone is sweating.

Architects Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi tour the Neon Boneyard, followed by a small crowd, some shaded by umbrellas. Cameras roll.

The Boneyard visit and a subsequent architectural bus tour are for a documentary on the architects whose famous 1968 study of Las Vegas launched an influential way of architectural thinking by observing what the people want, rather than what the architect dictates.

The project, begun five years ago by their son, Jim Venturi, delves into their working relationship, transformative years, observations, influences, ideas and projects, and has taken them around the world.

The Las Vegas stop is key. “Learning from Las Vegas,” a book of their study of the city as a prototype for 20th century American suburbia, became a formula for how they approached, and still approach, architecture.

Jim Venturi calls it a bedrock of his parents’ career, “the defining element that they are associated with by their willingness to look at things other people weren’t looking at.”

That the book remains topical in college curricula and contemporary conversation, even outside of architecture, is partly what inspired him.

“People had discovered their thinking and applied it outside the field,” he says. “Today you’ll find all kinds of interesting schools that are using ‘Learning from Las Vegas’ in the curriculum.”

Scott Brown, 77, and Venturi, 84, have received their share of criticism for their writings and designs — though they have their disciples and Venturi won the 1991 Pritzker Prize.

The film, Jim Venturi says, explains some of that: “You see the world from their perspective. You see their challenges. You learn about the experiences that shaped them.”

That, he says, includes their application of Eastern ideas and quest for balance.

John Halpern, known for his 1979 documentary on German artist Joseph Beuys, directs the film, one he says he would have given anything to be a part of: “Our main characters are amazing and complex.”

Halpern recalls Robert Venturi describing Palladio’s Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore: “He revealed part of his mind, his mental process, his natural instinct for seeing art in its deeper meaning and esoteric impact. His sincerity, openness to and love of art and architecture moved me completely.”

Halpern describes Scott Brown as a powerful woman and architect, denied credibility in the “men’s club” of architecture. He’s also seen her open up:

“While describing her feelings and visionary ideas about architecture and the intricacies of city planning, (she) revealed a beautiful correlation between her body and sensorial experience in her art expression.”

Scott Brown says the project has been hard work, but has given them their lives back by revisiting the places where they shaped their ideas and careers.

Have they visited Vegas much?

“We have,” she says. “But who’s to know, this could be our last. But we say that everywhere.”

Having just driven from Southern California to Las Vegas (and back), you would think that the idea of a high speed train would excite those of us who do the 4.5 hour drive on a regular basis.  And the idea of a high speed train does interest me. 

Just not the one that Sen. Harry Reid is backing.  As reported here a few months ago, a battle is brewing over two companies that want to bring high-speed rail to Southern Nevada.  The DesertXpress is the maglev train that would go from Anaheim to Las Vegas.  You could leave Las Vegas and be at Disneyland without having to endure the notorious (and not getting any better) Southern California traffic jams.  If you wanted to go to Los Angeles, you'd take one of the light-rail trains to Union Station.  They have plans for a terminus in Palmdale to accomodate those in the high desert that want to go to Las Vegas.

The other high-speed train, the one that Sen. Reid is backing, would go from Victorville to Las Vegas.  Yes, you read that right.  Victorville.  People in Southern California would have to drive to Victorville to take advantage of the train.  And people visiting from Las Vegas, would have to rent a car in Victorville and drive into Los Angeles.

The worst part of the trip is usually getting through Southern California traffic just to get to Victorville.  After that, the trip is usually less aggravating.  The idea that the freeways in Southern California are only a problem during rush hour is an urban legend.  About the only time the freeways aren't jammed are in the wee hours of the morning.

It is about 2.5 hours from Victorville to downtown Los Angeles.  And it usually bumper to bumper for a good portion of that drive.  And most people going to Los Angeles aren't staying downtown, so just getting to Downtown Los Angeles, still means you have more driving (and more sitting in traffic) to do.

So, we are scratching our heads over Sen. Reid's backing of a high-speed train that does not connect Southern California to Las Vegas but instead only goes part of the way.

It reminds us of the hype around the Las Vegas Monorail and we all know what a boon-doggle that became.

Let us know what you think!  Would you take a train to Victorville?

From our friends at the Las Vegas Sun:

A high-speed train should be in place in 2012 that links Las Vegas and Southern California.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today announced that plans are moving ahead for the DesertXpress train to Victorville, which is a private project. Reid had thrown his support behind the project, saying it had a better chance of getting built than an alternative maglev option that would have linked Las Vegas and Anaheim.

Officials hope to break ground in the first quarter of next year, with the project expected to be completed two years later.

As a private project, DesertXpress has insisted it has no interest in competing for $8 billion in federal recovery money — although more recently its backers said they may seek federal loans to help finance the $5 billion project.

Reid said today that plans are in place to link the project with California’s north-south trunk line "soon after" the Victorville project is complete, although no specific timeline is in place. The $45 billion trunk-line project links San Francisco and Southern California.

DesertXpress envisions a spur linking its Victorville stop to the California train’s Palmdale station, about 50 miles west. The Sun reported today that the U.S. Transportation secretary would announce the designation of a federal high-speed-rail corridor between Las Vegas and Southern California.

The one-way fare between Las Vegas and Southern California would be about $50.

DesertXpress is a private enterprise currently unaffiliated with a state agency.