“A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness”*…
A woman and her work
Las Vegas– and the world– lost two icons of neon sign design on April 19th: Betty Willis, seen above with the iconic “Welcome” sign that she designed, and Brian “Buzz” Leming, creator of many of the Strip’s most memorable marquees, passed away within hours of each other.
Leming’s “Hacienda Horse and Rider”
Willis and Leming both worked at the Western Sign Company, where they struck up a friendship. Many of their creations are preserved in the Neon Museum’s outdoor “Boneyard,” where it stores its relics.
The Neon Museum’s Boneyard
More at “Two Designers of Las Vegas’s Iconic Neon Signs Died on the Same Day.”
* Nelson Algren (writing about Chicago, though it’s surely apropos of Las Vegas as well)
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As we switch on the lights, we might send forbearing birthday wishes to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; he was born on this date in 121. The last of the Five Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers; his Meditations, written on campaign before he became emperor, is still a central text on the philosophy of service and duty.
