my parental units

picture : via

in all seriousness - the end of an era. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back back back when i was quite young, my family and i were visiting relatives in maryland. they took us to a libarace show. i WANTED to hate it (me being so cool and all), but i couldn't. he was quite a showman. yes, i liked it

Mr. Showmanship’s Show Is Closing

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

 

LAS VEGAS — Bill Holt was gawking. At the room filled with ornate antique pianos, among them a Baldwin grand glistening with a coat of rhinestones that was Liberace’s favorite. At a 1962 Phantom V Landau Rolls-Royce, covered in mirrors, that looked like a disco ball on wheels. At Liberace’s collection of candelabras, rings, capes and boots. 

At, in short, the paraphernalia of a onetime star of the Strip who appears to have become a symbol of an era that is not only past, but forgotten, too.

The Liberace Museum, once a tourist attraction on a par with the Hoover Dam — 450,000 people came every year to the strip-mall museum with a red neon piano on the roof — is closing its doors next month. The collection is being put into storage.

“I’ve lived here for 40 years and this is the first time I’ve come,” said Mr. Holt, 71, a retired civil engineer, soft piano music tinkling above him. “I heard this place was closing, so I headed over.”.......

picture of the picture:

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Emmy Awards won by Liberace.