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We made a magazine about HOME

/ sarahfeldberg / Leave a comment

So, it’s been a couple years since I added any new blog posts to this little site, because I’m lazy and write for a living and generally spend my non-writing hours remarking on how much I love my dog/eating cheese/doing anything except writing words.

But last month we made a magazine, and it really is worth writing about.

Allow me to introduce, A Beautiful Perspective’s HOME Issue.

In September, we relaunched abeautifulperspective.com as a digital magazine, dedicating each month-long issue to a single theme and digging into that topic through a wide array of stories and formats. By focusing on a single theme at a time, we get to wade into the delightful muck of a concept, bypassing the obvious angles for more interesting and sometimes important ideas. (Thanks to all our incredible contributors!) By tapping each theme for a live event, we get to produce Activist Mornings, a new concert and speaker series that kicked off in New York with an incredible show featuring Suhaiymah, Jennifer Mendelsohn, Rotana and M.I.A.

So, what did we cover in the HOME Issue?  How about …

Click around, check out whatever speaks to you and stay tuned for our next issue, coming soon! And if you’re a writer/photographer/illustrator/video journalist interested in working with us, shoot me an email at sarah@abeautifulperspective.com.

 

 

 

 

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Here goes nothing

/ sarahfeldberg / Leave a comment

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It’s official. On November 14 I shoveled my desk decor into boxes, recycled hundreds of old magazines, cried over office cake and said goodbye to four great years as editor of Las Vegas Weekly.

Then I drank—heavily. Major life decisions should always be chased with a cocktail.

Which is not to say I’m unhappy with my choice. While I’ll miss the newsroom debates, inspiring brainstorms and the Wednesday deadline rush of the Weekly, I was simply ready for a change. There are few moments in life when you can forsake regular paychecks and the security of full-time employment for a here-goes-nothing leap into the unknown. My fiancé and I saw our window narrowing, so we held hands, closed our eyes and stepped right off the ledge.

Now, it’s time for Part 2: getting down to the business of freelancing. Already I’m growing accustomed to a new routine—pitching, waiting, reporting, writing and pitching some more. It feels like poetic justice to sit on the couch, fretting over my inbox the way I’m sure many of my former contributors did when I was their editor. I’ve even published my first two stories as a full-time freelancer: an account of endurance obstacle race World’s Toughest Mudder’s final hours with the winning team and an interview with Vegas-based home renovation masters the Property Brothers, both appropriately published in the Weekly.

And so I’m off on a new adventure. If you need a story from Las Vegas, I’m your girl.

 

Cooking, crawling and all types of ill shit

/ sarahfeldberg / Leave a comment
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Hey look! It’s a stop on my new favorite bar crawl: the Velveteen Rabbit. (Shhh. Don’t tell.)

Every time I go out, people ask, “What’s new?” And, in keeping with social custom, I give them a non-answer: “Not much.” Sometimes I even say, “Same old same.” Can you believe how stupid that sounds? Neither can I. 

Worse, it’s a total lie. Things are new. Samba’s midway through devouring a new rope toy. I cooked a new orzo salad last weekend. I’m newly obsessed with dapper Australian singer Willy Moon (just try not dancing to “Railroad Track”). And I’m contemplating a new adventure that involves driving a three-wheeled motorbike across Peru. Okay fine, I’ve been thinking about that one for a while. 

And work? Well …

First, I made a plea for a Downtown Las Vegas water fight. You know, a depths-of-summer, all-out, Super Soaker-packing, blast-your-neighbor affair inspired by the water gun battles in Jerusalem that help relieve the heat and tension just before Shabbat.

Then I found my new favorite bar crawl, a Downtown jaunt that doesn’t touch Fremont Street, doesn’t have a single dress code or velvet rope and includes a place that serves seasonal punch in charming little glasses. It can be your favorite new bar crawl, too.

Scarpetta chef Scott Conant taught me to make his signature spaghetti, a simple dish that’s far richer than it has any right to be. The keys: good pasta, good tomatoes, a good helping of butter. The takeaway: I will never rinse pasta again. (It’s very, very bad and gets rid of all that good starch that helps pasta bind to sauce.)

Finally, I got to spend an afternoon at Calico Basin gawking at local rock climber/Porsche racer/pilot/all around badass Simon Peck make tricky routes look like absolute cake. He’s as humble as they come, and watching him on the cliffs made me want to squeeze my feet into a pair of elfin-sized shoes and give climbing another shot. 

So, yeah, stuff’s new. 

There’s this guy named Marcel …

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Marcel Barel and I at his Lee Canyon Cabin. By Sam Morris

I met Marcel Barel a few weeks ago when I was up at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort for a ladies’ day. (Yes, in Vegas even the ski resort has a ladies’ special.) After we spent a few hours boarding, the girls and I retired to the lodge’s bar for wine and snacks and good conversation. At some point during the reception, the gentleman in this photo sidled up to me and almost immediately I realized I was speaking to someone very special. Marcel is, in many ways, the face of the ski resort. He’s worked there for 45 years, ran the ski school for a long time before his daughter, Gabrielle, took over and spends a lot of his time in a cabin just a few minutes away. A cabin without electricity or central heating. Did I mention he’s 79?

Anyway, when I got back down to the Valley I couldn’t stop thinking about the man I’d just met and what an interesting story he had. So, a few weeks later I headed back to the mountain to spend a day getting to know Marcel a little better. The result is “King of the Mountain,” which ran in this week’s issue of Las Vegas Weekly. Enjoy the story, and next time you’re up on the mountain, keep an eye out for a spry skier with tufted eyebrows making his way downhill with visible skill. Say hi; you won’t be disappointed.