A last look back at 2021

KUMUD ACHARYA

President, Desert Research Institute, hydrologist

We scientists have been talking about climate change for years, but this year’s takeaway, I think, is that we got to see the impact of climate change – just a glimpse. Look at the Lake Mead level this year. Of course, it’s a buildup of years of drought, but this has been one of the lowest years. Another thing: This is the first year I’ve seen so many smoky days in Las Vegas. … We’d better get used to the smoky days because this phenomenon is going to continue.

These are two things I felt personally, and I hope other people feel it, too.

I was at a gathering at a friend’s house recently. As soon as a person found out I work at DRI, all he wanted to talk about was Lake Mead water levels. He’d lived here all his life. And he said, “Should I think about moving elsewhere?” I get asked that question a lot. And it’s real. I’m not trying to paint a doom and gloom scenario. But we need to act. This is a wake-up call.

ANTHONY CURTIS

President, Las Vegas Advisor, Huntington Press

Though some businesses benefited, even greatly (think Amazon), most had to react and adapt to get through. Doing that is difficult enough, but when your vendors and customers are all doing the same, there’s a significant knock-on effect that has to be accounted for. What impressed me was the way small businesses dealt with the vast changes on the fly and probably learned lessons that will benefit them once normalcy returns. Part of the strategy for many was blaming problems on COVID: “We couldn’t do that because of COVID” was in everyone’s arsenal, and there wasn’t much of an argument to make against that.

KRIS SAKNUSSEMM

Author, podcast host

Like millions across America, I’ve had recent concerns about health care, and COVID, of course, hasn’t helped. So I was surprised when my new primary care doctor, who is African American and 20 years younger, invited me to his “table tennis” club. He thought the socializing would be fun and healthy for me in these weird times — and he wanted to see my reflexes in action (I have a neuro-muscular issue so far resistant to a specialist diagnosis). Good doctoring? Basic male companionship and a bit of competition? Humanity? Community? We call it Ping Pong! And the emphasis is on we. A very precious resource.

KIM FOSTER

Food writer

The pandemic taught me that everything that matters — really matters — is local. Political agencies and bureaucracies fail us all the time, but what we can control is right here in our communities, neighborhoods, the street we live on, and how those places function for all of our residents.

“Any way that people can be knitted into the social fabric is precious,” Andrew Soloman wrote in his book “Far From the Tree,” and it resonates with me now more than ever. Regular folks can make a huge difference if they invite people into their lives. They can invite a shut-in, elderly neighbor to their next dinner party. Or support a teen whose parents have kicked them out because they are trans. They can babysit for a struggling single mom. The big takeaway of 2021: We have to insert ourselves in each other’s lives, get involved. Judge less. Help more. Politics will never save us.

ERICA VITALE- LAZAR

CSN professor, author, editor

As the new year turned over, from the scourge of 2020 to the summer of love that would be ’21, I discovered the world was not quite done teaching us that heartbreak does indeed come in threes, and often in its aftermath, as the ol’ folx say, “Joy does come in the morning.” A good friend lost two sisters in two months’ time to COVID; a nonprofit I co-founded broke ground on its community garden; a beloved gathering of artists and writers bowed under the weight of scandal; I fulfilled a childhood wish to become a museum curator; my parents remained in good health; my sons thriving. “Beautiful-ugly” is how Bajan writer Paule Marshall described the Janus-headed roiling of life up and under our feet — how we tumble into love one moment and are beset with the loss of love and life the next. But if ’20 was a plague of job loss and cherished bodies succumbing to all our failings and frailties, then ’21 was the slow burn of grief, followed by the urgency of stumbling up from knees to feet. ’21 was a tottering forward, giddy but reeling. Each day I’ve felt the ol’ folx’ promise building as a swell in the distance, washing over us, binding us to each and every soul in our homes, and on our streets, in the news, and, yes, running amok through our Congressional hallways. How fragile. How foolish. Too much and not enough. The joy coming. Let ’22 bring the morning.

JONATHAN ULLMAN

President, The Mob Museum

It’s been a remarkable mix of ups and downs and terrible uncertainty. But also a lot of reflection and coming together and figuring how to move forward. It’s been a real lesson in interdependence, I can tell you that. You look at the ways in which we’re affected by supply chains and transportation issues, all the things you take for granted. But we persevered pretty well.

It’s been a real lesson in interdependence, I can tell you that. You start to look at all the ways in which we’re affected by supply chains and transportation issues — all the things you take for granted.

But we really persevered pretty well. And it’s not unique to us. You look across the community, there’s been a lot of “How do we make the most of our situation?” You see a lot of innovation as a result. There’s been an amazing acceleration of how do we use technology, and how do we use our spaces differently — along with the permission to experiment. There’s nothing like really unusual, tough circumstances to give you permission to try new things. And we’ve seen that across the community. It’s made us stronger and will make us better going forward.

PENN JILLETTE

Magician, author

I came into 2021 with no sense of time. Just floating. I can’t say I was depressed or sad, I wasn’t even in the world enough to be sad or lost. I used the time: I wrote a novel, I studied Spanish, I exercised and ate right, but I wasn’t ever there. I was unstuck in time, not able to feel it passing.

And then, one night, out of the fog, I was backstage listening to Jonesy (Mike Jones, our long-time pianist) play the “Penn & Teller Theme,” and suddenly time came back. It was just four bars until my entrance onstage at the Penn & Teller Theater. Four bars and I’d be back. I saw Teller on the other side of the stage, suited up and ready to make his entrance. I flashed him a peace sign and forced a smile.

I was sick to my stomach, close to being sick. I was trembling. It was hard to stand up. I was so nervous about going back on stage. I didn’t remember how to be “Penn.”

It was the greatest feeling. I was worried about something that didn’t matter. I was worried about magic tricks. I was sick-to-my-stomach worried that stupid magic tricks wouldn’t go right and that we wouldn’t be funny. Finally, for a little while, I wasn’t worried about everyone I loved dying from a plague and my country falling apart. I was worried about getting “wows” and laughs from an audience. The four bars passed in perfect time and I jogged out onstage. I straightened my tie, grabbed my upright bass, and felt those hundreds of brave souls, and 50,000 watts of power, make me myself again. Make me Penn again.

And the magic worked. In every sense.

ASHANTI McGEE

Artist, curator

This year I had the opportunity to curate an exhibition, “A Common Thread,” at UNLV’s Barrick Museum, which celebrated women-of-color textile artists. The works, vibrant in many hues, expressed stories of lineage, memory, work and navigating space. In her piece, Lyssa Park, a Korean American artist, illustrated the reality of tracing family history through men only, leaving out all women. Noelle Garcia, a member of the Southern Paiute, created a pistol using traditional Indigenous beading techniques. Yacine Tildale’s video and “wedding shroud” told the complicated story of a migrating other hoping to pursue a better life for her family. I was thankful to have been entrusted with such incredible voices during our recent complicated times. This exhibition forever changed me as an artist and individual.