No Direction Home: “Planet Claire has pink air All the trees are red No one ever dies there No one has a head” -B-52s

September 8, 2023

“Planet Claire has pink air
All the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head” -B-52s

In 1979, my cool older sister Marika brought home this album it was bright yellow with five strangely clad members featured on the cover. I was intrigued and I began sneaking into her room, grabbing the album and listening on my own turntable to a sound that I had never heard anything like before. The B-52’s first album featured only nine songs but from the opening strains of “Planet Claire” I was hooked.

Now some forty plus years later, I was in Vegas and the B-52s were doing a residency at the theater at the Venetian, it what is billed as some of their final performances as a band and I knew I had to get tickets and go. So I got a ticket for the Sunday night show, the night before I was to take the redeye back to Key West.

I am so glad that I did, while the band may not have the energy or excitement that they once did, the show was the wacky fun that you would expect from the new wave legends. The show opened with a DJ set by the crazy cool DJ Cumberbund which featured him mixing tunes while a huge screen played incredible images to match the mashups he was creating.

It was unique and cool and a great lead in to what was a wonderful and fun B-52s set that was very heavy on their greatest hits. The band sounded pretty good and were a ton of fun and they had a video presentation for each song that was as fun and innovative as the songs themselves.

They are going to be doing the residency off and on through at least early next year, so if you are headed to Las Vegas you should check it out. It was as fun and wacky and set the tone for what would be my final day in Las Vegas where I chose to visit the Vegas location of the immersive art installation known as Meow Wolf. Kathy and I have been to the Denver version of Meow Wolf and the one in Vegas was supposed to be even more spectacular.

Located just off the Strip in a place known as Area 15, Meow Wolf has created Omega Mart (stylized as Ωmega Mart) is an interactive art installation. Those entering the installation explore a supermarket, from which they can access various other areas and uncover a narrative. It features contributions from over 300 artists and designers.

Omega Mart features custom-made products available for purchase, such as Mammoth Chunks, Organic Moth Milk, Nut Free Salted Peanuts, Gender Fluid, and Plausible Deniability, one of the three brands of laundry detergent. Piñatas of the Seven Deadly Sins, designed by artist Justin Favela, are also available for purchase. The installation also features a secret bar, Datamosh, which serves eight specialty cocktails.

All the items in the Omega Mart are actually for sale, so you can take home one of products sitting on the shelves that are… unique… and hilarious. Items like ‘Nut Free Salted Peanuts”, “Tattooed Chicken”, “Symbiotic Shrimp” soda, and cans of “Dehydrated Water” are examples of the eccentric product assortment offered.

This was the second Meow Wolf permanent location, after Santa Fe and it opened in February, 2021. The experience is hard to explain and impossible to categorize. My guess is that you will either love it, or not. I really loved the cool creativity and the collaboration of the artists as well as the just plain weirdness of the Omega Mart. From the Omega Mart store, you walk through mostly hidden doors, such as through a cooler into the more artistic and surreal world that is more typical of other Meow Wolf experiences.