Las Vegas

Vegas Collage 061612 (click for larger view)

I could write pages about why I am falling in love with world's greatest city of simulacrum.  With that statement though, I've already given the city a disservice.  My parents hate Las Vegas without having visited.  I think they hate one street in the city, to be honest.  Las Vegas Blvd (the Strip) represents so many things they hate.

For me, the Strip is a place to view humanity, the simulacrum and the efforts to maintain it, and millions of individual stories.  On one end is the airport and Mandalay Bay and the other end of the Strip ends at the Fremont Experience*.

Late last year I bought a second home in Las Vegas.  The price was good, the location very convenient and the home in good shape.  Since then, it has become my "urban cabin".  I truly relax there, find inspiration in the people, architecture and natural beauty surrounding it.

The digital collage at the top is part of an assemblage I made in honor of my oasis in the asphalt.  The assemblage is a metal book safe that I painted, glued the collage above on the back wall of it and wired LED lights around it to illuminate it.  I glued some sand around it and added some other bits to add to it.

For me, much of Las Vegas involves lots of driving.  Almost all the roads are perpendicular, very wide, 45mph, and go toward the 4 cardinals.  **They hook into a series of highways and interstates that wrap around the city, with the I15  coming from LA and going up to the US/Canada border in Montana bisecting the city. That is why I put the map on it.

One night, we were waiting for our car to be brought up from valet***.  There were two young couples all dressed up to go out and hit the clubs, waiting for their ride, .  One guy says, "Let's ask them. "  He came over and asked, "Hey, they should replace the 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' with "Vegas- the back is the front'.".  We thought it was probably too deep, contextual, and vague, but clever.  Since buying a place there, I never enter the city through the front.  I always go to my urban cabin and poke around the backside of this great city.

*Las Vegas Blvd goes for miles north beyond Fremont St, but that is the stretch known as the Strip.
**Big tip 1.  Unless you want to get stuck in traffic and see tons of lights, avoid driving on the Strip.  There are multiple roads and I15 that run parallel to it.  Take one of them and take the closest cross street to get to the place you want.  
***Big tip 2.  If you are driving to one of the big casino resorts, check your car into valet parking.  It is a free service and will cost you a few bucks in tip.  Your car will be parked in a shades spot (remember, it can get above 110).  It is fast, efficient, and worth it.

I'm kind of in a Beatles mood and am really missing George.  This video is fascinating.  They are just dicking around, having fun.  Damn.  There is a huge void.