Note: found this old draft, tentatively scheduled for publication in mid-October, 2011.  Might still make for an interesting read.  -KM

CommRow opened recently in Reno amidst much fanfare.  Sporting the world’s tallest climbing wall, an ethnic food court, several small bars, two live music venues, an indoor bouldering park, and balconies overlooking the trench park in Reno as well as the Reno Arch, CommRow has got a lot happening.

The opening appears to have been something of a soft opening to get the athletic aspects of the facility, and its lounge, open and hosting events and activities on a regular basis, with different opening hours for other parts of the venue based on the day of the week and the time of the day.  A bit unusual for a downtown Reno establishment.

Reaction has been mixed.  Most people are happy to see something open on that corner again, some people get and really like the place and some just don’t.  On Downtown Makeover there has been a lot of discussion, with some people who have been coming to Reno for years weighing in.  CommRow’s slogan:  “No Smoking, No Gambling, No Whining.” seems to have put people at odds with what they think Reno is supposed to be.  It really is Reno’s image struggle playing itself out in broad daylight.  People are worried that Reno is going to pivot right off a good business for it and historically a main part of its identity onto something that seems as yet, unproven, and in many ways, unarticulated.

Reno’s identity is in flux.  The direction things are heading seems to be to allow Reno’s primary advantages from an urban design standpoint to take a greater role in influencing the kind of things that are going on there.

What this means is that Reno, as a compact, old city, with a water feature running through it, needs to, and is currently in the process of, making itself over into a charming old city, with a culture and a heritage and a forward- looking direction.

These three things – culture, heritage, and forward-looking direction are important viewpoints.  Culture is a combination of the regular traditions and daily living habits of the people, and a particularly rich culture includes many layers involved with its entire economy, from basic provisions through to arts, music and cuisine.  Culture allows us to look around us today and recognize what we see.

Heritage is the combination of things that brought us today.  It is the history of a people’s rise and fall and rise back up again.  It allows us to look backward.  A forward-looking-direction is not exactly a dream or a vision or a mission.  It is merely a general ethos that guides decision making in the future, a set of ideals which will influence development, to in time be incorporated into the heritage, and either part of the culture, or not.

The heritage elements that dominated the culture for so very long, many of them long ago amputated from the body of the culture and thus incorporated into the heritage, those heritage elements are still causing pain, like ghastly phantom limbs: here a cramp, there a muscle spasm, causing the body of Reno’s culture to writhe around on the floor.  At least it’s fun to watch.

The question now is, does Reno have what it takes to create new institutions on its forward-looking direction side, which are compatible enough with its daily and seasonal habits, as to become a part of the culture, rather than part of the heritage.  When the gyrations stop for an extended period of time, which history shows us they are likely to, for at least a while, what will we see?

Several months following the writing of this post, CommRow has undergone one closure, remodel and reopening.  The food court didn’t seem to work out so well, and the doggie lounge went nowhere.  Can empty spaces in old casinos be filled with anything other than casino?

This is a sweet collection of RBhop songs.

If I were to tell you that tucked into a strip mall right in the middle of Reno is a place where your party can sit down, choose a variety of meats, vegetables and broths to be brought to your table, and the whole gaggle of you can sit there, holding court, for well over an hour, dipping the ingredients (which come out raw) into the boiling broth, cooking them right there, dipping them into a sauce of your own creation, that you also prepare right at your table, sitting there cooking and dipping and eating for a length of time approximated by this run-on sentence… what would you say?  If you would say, “Let’s get over there RIGHT NOW!” then you would be saying the right thing, so I will tell you that the name of this place is Café 168 and its location is the Orchard Plaza strip mall, across from the remains of Park Lane Mall on South Virginia Street in Reno.

Café 168 is a Chinese place the likes of which you don’t see open up too often anywhere.  The lunch specials include a duck plate: not the typical Peking duck you might be used to, this is a roasted bone-in duck breast with rice and Chinese broccoli.  There is a beef stew that is made mostly from beef tendon.  The lunch specials come with soup and an egg roll, in addition to the main course and rice, plus depending on the main a vegetable side.   They are a good value.

I wish I had something to say about the other dishes on the menu, but I don’t.  Because when I go to 168, it’s either for a lunch special (and I haven’t eaten my way through the whole lunch menu yet – give me time) or for the aforementioned hot pot.

The good way to do hot pot is to order two colors of broth, one or two meats, tofu, noodles, and a vegetable.  Be prepared to spend some money on that combination (up to 40 dollars, all told) and if your party is only two people, be prepared to leave very full.  Hot pot might best be a lunch dish on a day you’ve skipped breakfast.

First to come out is an induction burner, then a pot with a divider in it separating two very different broths: red and white.  The white broth is earthy, delicately salty, gently enhancing anything you cook in it.  The red broth is spicy – both in terms of heat (not overpowering) but also just spiciness in general, with giant cardamom pods floating around in it.  Around this time there are also little dishes of accoutrements that you can use to make a sauce at your table:  peanut and fermented bean sauces (the peanut sauce being very hearty and nothing like the Thai sauce you’re probably imagining), garlic, scallions, sesame oil, and cilantro.  Your main ingredients will show up in short order and once the broth gets boiling, the lid comes off and it’s time to get to work.

A recent somewhat extravagant visit featured the following ingredients:  lamb, squid, pork intestine, mushrooms, tofu, and noodles.  All the meats are thinly sliced and should only go in the broth for a very short period of time.  The staff keep an eye on their patrons at first to help them understand this point.  Lamb, for example, should go in the broth for 15 – 20 seconds.  Squid should be watched closely, going into the broth just until it curls up.  The pork intestine, which we came to order somewhat on accident, also follows the same rules (not bad, by the way.)  Vegetables and noodles go in longer to soften up and the tofu can pretty much tolerate being cooked however long you want to cook it.

If you are tempted to put some broth into the little bowl that is part of your place setting, go ahead and give in but you would be wise to keep this urge in check until late in the dining process after most of the food has been cooked and eaten.  Both broths are incredibly tasty and make for a nice little bowl of soup, especially when you add some of the noodles.  The risk is, you don’t want to run out of broth and scooping out a ladle or two of broth is a pretty addicting behavior.  A ladle comes out with the broth pot, as well as little wire baskets for scooping out what you’ve just cooked.

A large part of the fun is mixing up the dipping ingredients into a sauce that pleases you the most.  Don’t be surprised if you find yourself ordering extras of these ingredients: the staff will happily oblige.

Café 168 is obviously doing something right.  The large Chinese clientele is a testament to the notion that they are serving an unmet need for that community, as well as serving culinary adventure seekers and big-city refugees of all stripes.  If you’ve had hot pot before and loved it and didn’t think you’d ever get good hot pot in Reno, you’re in luck.  If you’re up to try something incredibly delicious that you’ve never had before, you’re also in luck.  Get down there and see what I mean.

From “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money”

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.  It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.

Dear Reno Bike Salmon,

“What’s a bike salmon,” you may ask?  Glad to answer.  A bike salmon is someone who rides their bike against the flow of traffic.  Get it?  Salmon!  Swim upstream!  Ha!

I know you might think you’ll be safer doing your cycling this way, but I have to tell you, as a motorist, I fear for your safety.  And I’ll tell you why, as I plead with you to stop it.  Please.

I generally try to make sure I check all the directions I can when I’m making a turn at an intersection.  But I have to tell you, and this is especially true on one way streets such as the one I live on, and streets with bike lanes, which are becoming way more prevalent – I tend to look everywhere right in front of me and on the sidewalks for pedestrians, and assuming I’m turning right, and I usually am, I check the direction traffic will be coming from – which is my left.

If you are coming from my right and I begin to make my turn, something very unfortunate is going to happen.  I am a strong supporter of the rights of cyclists to have their own space on the road – including being an ardent supporter of sharing the road, to the extent that I strongly encourage a cyclist to take the lane if the conditions merit such action – and keep the lane as long as needed until it’s safe to move to the rightward margin of the lane.  I am a strong supporter of bike lanes.

My mom used to always say to me, “When riding a bike, ride against the flow of traffic – that way you’ll be able to see who might hit you since they’ll be coming at you.”  But that is a completely bogus point of view from a traffic safety standpoint.  That’s because motorists look for where pedestrians might be so they won’t hit a pedestrian, and they look for where cars are coming from so they don’t get hit, and they look in front of them for other vehicles so they can know to slow down so they don’t rear-end someone.  Since you are riding against the flow of traffic, you don’t fall under any of these conditions.  And you are doing it at your peril.

Be safe out there.

Reno will host a unique cultural event- so unique it’s only been done four times in the last 500 years! The Nevada Repertory Company will have performances of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in the original pronunciation. Hamlet has been performed in the original pronunciation only four times since the 1600s in its original form, twice at the new Globe Theater in London, once in Kansas and at Cambridge in England. David Crystal, a Shakespearean scholar, linguist, and the dialogue coach for new Globe Theater in London has worked with actors of the Nevada Rep to say the dialogue of Hamlet the way Shakespeare would have. Ben Crystal, David Crystal’s son, will play the lead role of Hamlet in the play.

You might ask, what’s the difference? There is a big difference, actually. Although we can read what Shakespeare wrote, the way we say it is totally different. Vowels used to be pronounced more like they are in Spanish today. So, all those silent e’s would be pronounced (say the following sentence out loud pronouncing all the vowels that way). I’m really curious to see how the actors say their lines- are they going to try to say them with an accent, or just simply use the actor’s natural accent. I plan on going and I will find out and report it back to you all. This production of Hamlet should be a very interesting one as well as an historic one.

If you’re interested to get tickets for this unique event either go to the Lawlor Event Center Box Office (where you don’t have to pay the wonderful “convenience fee”) or get them online here. The official premiere of the show is November 4th, with previews November 1, 2, and 3rd. The show plays through November 20th.

To be there, or not to be there? Arnold as Hamlet might encourage you to be there in this clip from Last Action Hero!

Some good stuff has been coming out of Reno musically this year, and this fall brings a few things worth mentioning.  Keep the quality music coming, Reno musicians, and we’ll keep listening and reporting on it!

My series of quotes from the economics writers of yore has not been as prolifically posted as I originally desired.  After starting in on Keynes’ General Theory, I decided I was skipping ahead and that I should put that book down and take up Das Kapital first.  The aim being to read the classics of economics, insofar as the layperson would know about them, in chronological order.  So I give you, the reader, the first quote from Marx that really stands out as quipworthy:

It is very characteristic that the enthusiastic apologists of the factory system have nothing more damning to urge against a general organisation of labor in society than that it would turn the whole of society into a factory.

Of course. one wonders if the original German is just as or more biting than the English.  Perhaps that’s an investigation for another day.

In a press release outlined here,  Western Lithium, which has a large, budding project here in Northern Nevada (as well as having a base of U.S. operations in Reno),  has signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.   This means another move towards commercialization of lithium carbonate from the Company’s Kings Valley Lithium Project which is located in Humboldt County, Nevada.

The idea is that batteries can be made–batteries that can power cars and other things we might like to use some day, every day.

A quote from the release:

“Purity is critical for battery-grade materials such as lithium carbonate, which is the precursor material in lithium battery technologies,” said Argonne scientist Ilias Belharouak, who will lead a team of researchers on the Western Lithium project. “Our team will work with Western Lithium to develop a battery specification for lithium carbonate produced from the Company’s Kings Valley clay. This research will enhance the pilot study work that has already been completed.”

Get Nevada working, I always say, because we need it!

Via RGJ:

Officials of the Nevada Department of Wildlife report a "tremendous increase" in illegal marijuana cultivation on public land in recent years, with much of the activity associated with violent Mexican drug cartels.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has said he is open to the idea of sending the US military into Mexico to fight drug cartels:

“It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and to keep them off of our border and to destroy their network,” Mr. Perry said during a campaign appearance here.

Meanwhile the activity that does happen north of the border, to supply a relatively innocuous substance to a market with no signs of decreasing demand, is increasingly impacting regular people not accustomed to dealing with armed criminals.  Back to the RGJ:

Such incidents by those recreating or working on public land are dangerous, with many growers likely to turn violent, Buonamici said.

"These people are not even in the mindset of dealing with someone who is armed and dangerous and may use deadly force," Buonamici said. "The stakes are pretty high for the folks involved in these grows."

Prohibition is not working.  Production, distribution and consumption of drugs will continue.  Criminal gangs will grow ever more violent.  They will seek to occupy whatever out of the way locations they can find to cultivate marijuana.  That could be the house next door, it could be the national forest down the highway a ways.  People will still want to smoke the stuff.

Rather than spend all the law enforcement resources trying to stop this kind of thing from happening, we should instead stop it from happening in the most logical way:  legalize the cultivation and distribution of marijuana.

Problem solved.