Las Vegas Weekly

April 24, 2010 · 6 AM

How to talk to Siegfried in a bookstore

By Rick Lax

Siegfried & Roy.

Photo: Scott Doctor/www.greatscottstudios.com

I ran into Siegfried at the Barnes & Noble on N. Rainbow. I was walking from the café to the bathroom, and the blond Austrian magician was perusing the photography books. He was with a woman wearing a Siegfried & Roy sweater, but I still I used the opening line, “Excuse me, are you Siegfried or do you just look like him?”

I just couldn’t think of anything else to say on the spot.

“The first one,” he said, in his thick accent. “And who are you?”

“I’m a huge fan. My parents took me to your show when I was a kid.”

Only in Las Vegas do Middle Americans feel comfortable taking their children to watch gay Austrians in leather pants run around with deadly, unleashed jungle cats.

“I can’t find my book,” Siegfried said.

“You could go to the information desk and ask them,” I suggested.

“Where is that?”

“Here, let me show you,” I said.

“It’s okay,” Siegfried replied. “You can just point me in the right direction.”

“No, let me walk you.”

I wasn’t being considerate; I just wanted more face time with the celeb.

They said they didn’t have Siegfried’s book, but that they could order it. I forgot the exact title—something new age-y like Love is Eternal, or Life Forms & Dreamscapes or The Dreamscapes of Living Eternity—but I do remember thinking, That is so a Siegfried book.

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