Only 5 hours away from Flagstaff, Las Vegas sits in the Nevada desert like an anemone in the middle of bleached corral. The waving tendril buildings can sting, or provide a haven for those with the money to pay for their protection. One word that might suffice to describe the Vega strip is majestic, not the glory of Richard the Lionheart, but the posturing pretence of John the Pretender. There’s nothing actually false about Vegas; all the sculptures, the grandeur, and splendour and light, they are as authentic as the cultures they allude to. Recreations of New York, the Eiffel tower, whole rollercoasters... it was all well-made and epic, but after a day of wandering round, the soul of the place seemed lacking since everything, all the artistry, all the industry, is designed for one thing: making money. It doesn’t help that the strip is crowded with leafletters and newspaper bins dispensing pornography. I don’t have a problem with it per say, but like all you can eat buffets, you can have too much of a good thing.
The shops in the Venetian, the MGM Grand, the Bellagio etc. were fun to explore. The tech store in Venetian had all-sorts, a massage chair, a laser-based music system and there was a huge collection of classic cars in the Imperial Palace. We spent more time in the arcade in Circus Circus than on any of the casino floors. Most of the casinos have some exhibition of one sort or another, my favourites being the photography exhibits in the Bellagio and the Venetian. A book of the photos costs $175, had it been $80 I would have definitely bought one. There was one shot, a 4 hour exposure of circumpolar stars above an old Vietnamese boathouse, which took 6 months to perfect.
It’s possible that it was inspired partly by the artistry in those landscapes, perhaps it was the fact I’ve been dying to get my hands on a macro lens for ages, whatever the reason I spent $280 on a couple of lens and a circular polarizing filter. I was an impulse buy, a macro lens with a coupled fisheye/wide-angle lens. What I’ll use the fisheye for remains to be seen, I just know that it’s incredibly cool and my camera looks ludicrously professional with it stuck on the end (think Jack Sparrow in the ‘most awesome telescope competition’ in At World’s End). It’s a shame that the most appropriate subject for the lens was the Grand Canyon we’d already left behind.
Overall it was fun, but really not my thing. In the end, the only bet I made was for the chance of winning at air hockey against Barry. I changed a $20 bill into quarters for the arcades and used almost nothing... getting rid of that change is going to take ages.
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