Las Vegas in signage.

[Photo]

Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas


Money, flesh, and booze. That's the Three Card Monty of Las Vegas. It is played by consummate hustlers and charlatans, legitimate purveyors of finely crafted vice, and characters of every sort of dubious distinction.

You can see it in the signs.

[Photo]

The Pursuit of Pleasure


[Photo]

If you can't win here…


[Photo]

Loose Slots


[Photo]

Out of state checks cashed


[Photo]

Cowgirls gone wild!!!


[Photo]

Live Nude Girls


[Photo]

S. E. X.


[Photo]

Free marriage license


[Photo]

Wedding drive through


[Photo]

Live weddings on the Internet


[Photo]

Served 24 Hours


[Photo]

All you can drink


Eventually, neon and tungsten give out, even here.

[Photo]

Sign maintenance


The Vegas take on the traditional billboard is a set of four enormous panels that slide back and forth on a long arc. Sometimes connected, sometimes disjoint, they are never silent. Nothing is ever silent in Vegas.

[Photo]

Vegas billboard


At least some things are done in moderation.

[Photo]

Some things in moderation


If you can call a faux Venetian canal and acres of fountains in the desert “moderation,” which really, you can't.

Comments:

Las Vegas as Future Tense ...
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/10/the_fertile_valleys.html

"It's sucking all the glam out of Los Angeles. All of LA's best restaurateurs are opening newer, better venues out there. Spago LA, bleah. Spago LV, yeah. A number of the larger couture lines are opening virgin boutiques there, before breaking ground in LA. The Chanel shop in Vegas gets the 2005 Spring collection before the Beverly Hills store does. Some of the best plastic surgeons are there now, and hence, so are some of the world's best breasts."

Many social scientists feel Las Vegas is the new new. Good to see they sent Norm as a probe. :)

Posted by Jeff Suttor on 11 Dec 2004 @ 08:11pm UTC #

I'll come back to the food, the fabulous food, in another essay.

Posted by Norman Walsh on 11 Dec 2004 @ 08:42pm UTC #
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