I recently attended three events that celebrated the old Vegas.

I think I might have been the only person at all three, and the coincidence offered a perspective on how memory is transformed into legend.

The bittersweet event was the funeral of '50s lounge pioneer Mary Kaye, followed by an upbeat musical get-together -- a "party" may not be the right word, but it felt like one -- at the Sahara.

The Mary Kaye Trio once was "a magical name in Las Vegas," as Norman Kaye, the trio's last surviving member, noted at the funeral. The group helped define "lounge" as a musical subgenre and perhaps even as a place.

Mary Kaye said it was her idea -- though others have claimed it as well -- to curtain off a bar at the Last Frontier and turn it into the all-night party zone that went on to identify Las Vegas in the '50s.

On their 1959 album "On the Sunset Strip," Frank Ross's running comic commentary to Mary's singing is something copied in later live recordings of the Rat Pack.

But the trio's name has fallen into obscurity beyond those with fervent memories of seeing them. Part of it may be that their recordings are long out of print. Part of it may even be a confusion with Mary Kay cosmetics and a name that doesn't scream Vegas cool.

And part of it is that "if you weren't there, you simply can't understand it," said restaurateur Lorraine Hunt, who would sneak into the back of the lounge as a high school student.

No one at the Mondo Lounge Atomic Frolic was there back in the day, though everyone at the Aruba Hotel that January weekend would surely have loved the chance.

The retro-culture convention brought out a fashion parade of campy vintage garb that probably would have turned heads even in 1960. The event celebrated more the fantasy world of the artist Shag than, I would suspect, the down-to-earth memories of Mary Kaye's funeral attendees.

Shag (Josh Agle) was on Fremont Street last week to witness the first showing of a video using his artwork on the street's giant overhead canopy. The tie-in to the "Shag With a Twist" show fuses this stylized take on the old Vegas to a place of real history, though Fremont Street officials apparently discouraged any images of bygone casino signs such as The Mint.

I followed Shag into the Plaza, where he was the honored guest at a benefit for the Neon Museum. He was the only one in vintage wear. But no matter what civic impulses drove the rest of the crowd to be there, the Neon Museum is our best chance to preserve the tangible history of the old Vegas. It could be common ground for those with real memories and those who celebrate the fantasy.

If all three forces cross-pollinate, strange and wonderful things could happen.

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays. Contact him at 383-0288 or e-mail him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.