✦Weekender✦ Cult circus | VHS baby oil | Free trees | Native market | Style swap 👗
FROM CIRCUS SHENANIGANS to VCR sketch comedy to holiday choral sing-apaloozas, here's what made The List this weekend. Cheers! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
🎹 Friday Dec 13
- Seasonal cynics, I see you. If cloyingly clamorous holiday songs give you a case of the shivering grinchies™️, check out the sophisticated renditions by Christian Sands. He's a virtuoso jazz pianist known for his technical subtlety and restraint which, perhaps ironically, imbues his catalog of Christmas songs with a measure of deeply satisfying musicality. A Christmas show for serious jazzheads. 7p, Myron's
- One of the many victims of what-the-#$!@-is-going-on-at-Commercial-Center, Core Contemporary is going out with a bang or, rather, a blast of horns: Nancy Good's innovative art gallery in New Orleans Square is saying farewell with a Big Easy-style jazz wake. 6p, Core Contemporary
- While you're there, pop a few doors down and say goodbye to Wes Anderson shrine/micromuseum Office of Collecting + Design (530p), make potluck friends at Avantpop (6p) and hit up ASAP to catch the closing reception for "Scripted Spaces," Eri King's paintings inspired by our city's famous and mesmerizingly ugly casino carpets. 6p, ASAP
- I don't know how I slept on local comedy troupe The Sinnerverse, but now I'm rooting hard for investigative journalist Whisper Delacruz to crack the confounding case of The Diddler in Tapes from the Sinnerverse, a night of sketches inspired by The Twilight Zone, smelly old VHS tapes, and, uh, baby oil. 830p, The Composers Room
- I thought the newishly-opened Bonfire was setting itself up as a standard blues bar, which is fiiiine, but, wow, it looks like they're getting punky 'n' spicy with fetish party Dark Carnival. Googled "shibari," promptly cleared browser history. 10p, The Bonfire
- There'll be all kinda spirits flying around at this mixologized Charles Dickens show, A Christmas Cocktail Carol, and hopefully most of them fly right into yr mouth. This 90-minute quasi-theatrical production is "condensed for maximum impact," so you can focus on enjoying your four craft cocktails while Scrooge gets epically trolled by spectral old dudes. 10p, Notoriety Live
- The already supremely cozy Griffin achieves boss-level, final-form coziness in the cold months, when the flickering fires beckon you into the glow of the vaulted undercroft. Get even warmer with the kinetic energy flung off by a highly danceable double-header: jangly DTLV rawkers Nova Babies (8p), and then a dose of funk with Sundown Soul Club. 9p, The Griffin
🥊 Hella more weekend here, which may contain sentient nutcracker entities from the dream dimension:
🐴 Horsin’ around | Rat king rave | Yule dance party | Swedish feast | Sweater romance | Jupiter sunset | Dark carnival
The coolest things to do in Las Vegas this week, ever.
Andrew Kiraly
🛍️ Saturday Dec 14
- I'm going to get real with you: Today is probably your last day to shop for Christmas before your schedule is overwhelmed in an implacable, unrelenting avalanche of family obligations, holiday parties, and nagging errands you completely forgot about. Lucky for you, Fergusons Downtown is celebrating five years by blowing up the place with sales, specials, Market in the Alley, and live music. To keep you warm and wincingly awake: Fernet-Branca pop-up and drink specials. I recently tried Fernet-Branca for the 129th time and it still tastes like Italian village doctor. 11a, Fergusons Downtown
- Be sure to hit the spot next door for the Sin City Swap, where you can cycle out your old threads in exchange for new-to-you ones with fellow fashion enthusiasts. 3p, Gather House
- Ain't no parking-lot bazaar like a Vegas parking-lot bazaar because a Vegas parking-lot bazaar don't stop! Oakey and Decatur is gonna be ground zero for awesome local stocking-stuffer jank with this double-threat event: 702 Market outside, Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet inside. 1p, Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet
- If the phrase "white elephant" conjures low-key traumatic memories of shake weights and meme pillows, break the curse at the White Elephant Art Second Saturday Party. A group of cool local artists "gifted" artworks to each other in a cycle, creating hive-mind mashup pieces. 1p, Slonina ARTSpace
- Eyes popped at the phrase "50 to 75 percent off" as part of Cactus Joe's Holiday in the Desert Market, but they shot out of my orbital sockets at the bonus "explore 7+ acres of desert beauty with our 6th Scavenger Hunt!" 9a, Cactus Joe's
- Totally overdue for a jaunt to Big Dog's, one of the valley's OG craft beer spots, and still holding it down on Rancho. Their annual, nog-fortified Christmas party sounds like a good prompt for a check-in. 7p, Big Dog's
👺
Pagan it forward: With his goat feet, slithering tongue, and bristly hair, Krampus is olden-days Europe's terrifying anti-Santa for asshole children. In America, though, we've come to embrace the monster as a figure of menace and mischief who represents our darker impulses. Get a dose of demon energy at these Krampus-tastic happenings: Dress to distress at the Merry Krampus Holiday Horror Cosplay Party Dec. 13 at Millennium Fandom ✦ Get the kinks out (in public) at the Liquid Red Krampus Party Dec. 13 at The Nerd ✦ Shop quirky indie vendors and get a snap with the Horny Goat King himself at Krampusnacht Market Dec. 14 at Cemetery Pulp ✦ Don't ask me where the hell The Hogfather Dec. 13 at UUCLV fits into the Krampusverse, but he sounds like a helluva fun guy, too.
- Wholesome, old-timey Christmas songs performed by some of the most talented voices in Vegas? Ho yes! The ever-stalwart Silver Statesmen Barbershop Chorus joins the Swing-It Girls for the spirited It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas. 2p, Winchester Theatre
- You can score a free Christmas tree at Winter Wonderland. The catch: You have to enter the brutal Thunderdome of the tree decorating contest. Chant it with me: Two conifers enter, one conifer leaves. 4p, Desert Breeze Community Center
- Hella recommend catching real-deal country troubadour Charley Crockett, whose songs ring with the bluesy, beautiful despair of the lonesome wanderer. Best threads ever, too. 8p, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
▼ Saturday cont'd
- It doesn't get any more shop local than this: the Native and Decolonial Market, featuring indigenous vendors selling beadwork, pottery, and other crafts. Need a helping hand or want to lend one? There's also a mutual aid exchange. 10a, Starboard Tack
- Relentlessly propulsive surf-punk bands such as D.I. were built for speed and power, not longevity, so I interpret it as nothing less than a wondrous marvel of pure willpower that the archetypical OC punk band is still – to unearth an old-timey saying – fucking shit up in the pittttt! 8p, Backstage Bar & Billiards
- Every time I've typed some variation of "just when you thought you've seen every kind of yoga," a new one comes up. Jive Yoga: yoga, wine, neo-dive patio bar. Try the chicken tenders. (The food, not the yoga pose.) 3p, Jive Turkey
- The ferocious popularity of Enchant Christmas is no surprise, but I've also been seeing somewhat-surprising "sold out" alerts for popular dates, so consider this your official reminder to get it while it's hot or, uh, rather cold: Slot tix available Saturday to this yes-actually-literally-enchanting seasonal stadium takeover. Las Vegas Ballpark
🚂 Sunday Dec 15
- There should be no age at which you stop being spiritually tickled by riding on a train, especially if said Santa Train is soundtracked with holiday tunes and St. Nick working the aisle. 10a, Nevada State Railroad Museum
- The Winter Wonderland Craft Show's got the recipe for total Hallmark winter charm overload: alpine views and a fresh bite of winter air at a mountain artisan market. 10a, The Retreat on Charleston Peak
- Underrated tells the story of Stephen Curry's meteoric rise to the NBA pantheon, but it's not all back-slappy, bro-washed sports glory. Director Peter Nicks – who'll be there for a post-screening Q&A – also brings focus on Curry's commitment to completing his college degree amid the blossoming of his already-legendary career. 1p, The Beverly Theater
- For KISStory buffs (yes, it's a thing), it's a settled fact that when KISS removed their makeup for 1983's Lick It Up, it launched a fertile new phase for the band that saw them branching out into fresh sub-sub-genres of hair metal. So, see, they got more flamboyant without the masks. Tribute band Kuarantine specializes in the hits of KISS's naked-face oeuvre. 7p, Count's Vamp'd Rock Bar & Grill
- Tomorrow is Monday: Work week, Christmas rush, seasonal stress, plus all the usual baseline factory-installed existential dread. Pre-emptively armor yourself in an impenetrable carapace of unflappable optimism by macrodosing The Las Vegas Men's Chorus at Be of Good Cheer, their rousing holiday extravaganza. 4p, UNLV
🙏 Hope you have the raddest weekend. Thanks for your support! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍
