The Pursuit of Pleasure

Volume 7, Issue 207; 10 Dec 2004; last modified 08 Oct 2010

Las Vegas in signage.

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.

Eventually, neon and tungsten give out, even here.

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.

At least some things are done 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. :)

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