Notes Against Las Vegas

not recommended for humans

—Evil is real. It’s uncool to admit it. It’s cool to just sort of like everything, to be very simpatico with every manifestation of the human spirit. But you know that evil is real. Dark forces encircle the earth, running giant machines that abase the human spirit, hollowing out everything that can be full within us, filing down our fractal beauty until we’re as gluey as cheese sauce. To be effective, though, evil has to be cozy and agreeable. It has to look like fun, empowerment, freedom, a privileged status you deserve to occupy. You’ll only consent to being infantilized if your diaper is exceptionally soft and shiny.

—The engineering is incredible. I’ve never felt so much like an orderly process. The hallways want you to go in a direction, and you do. That direction is not out—it’s always hard to find the exit, by design. You are kept subdued by a perfectly even blanket of nonthreatening overstimulation, ruby and emerald flickers, smoke, that delicious ‘theme park water smell’, as my wife called it, from the Bellagio’s fountains. It takes twenty fucking minutes to walk from anything to anything, but the dazzlingly ugly carpets keep you from feeling the crushing monotony.

—There are flashes of beauty and innocence. But it’s rare to see anyone having what looks like fun. Occasionally you see it: a couple of close friends shrieking, drunk, losing $2 at a time at the cheap card tables. More often everyone is just circulating, anxious to get to the next thing, looking for another experience to shove in the experience-holes, or staring at video slots through a Vaseline-smeared awareness. Every part of the day has its own kind of ambient anesthesia wafting from the passers-by.

—People who come to Vegas ironically, so they can write blog posts about it or whatever, or just ‘see what it’s like’ are contributing to the decay. The only way to win this would be to just starve the infection. Briefly, we found ourselves admiring Steve Wynn for his commitment to ethical eating and his prestigious art collection. In that moment we were absolute dupes.

—One potential test of the mental health of a nation: can people, generally, stand to relax? And by relax, I mean, like, relax—at a hut on a beach by a forest, maybe, for a weekend. No devices, maybe a book or two, a couple of friends, simple good food. Would it be a bit boring for the average citizen, or would it trigger a total mental breakdown? Would the simple elapsing of time seem like the sucking of a remora upon the mind? I don’t know, but Las Vegas offers a clue: it’s the country’s most famous recreation destination, but there is no apparent relaxation, just another to-do list, in fact a longer and more difficult one, which has fun aesthetic rather than work aesthetic.

—Las Vegas is supposed to be the city of sin. But the bacchanalia is so banal. It doesn’t feel debauched at all. Real debauchery can be transformative—it makes you feel dirty and clean all at the same time, renewed by being flayed. But the most lurid thing we can arrange, in the most powerful nation in the world, apparently, is a topless steakhouse. We can get corn-fed meat and naked ladies in the same location, that’s all we can do. Where are the nude masquerades staffed by gorgeous amputees? Why can’t I play with Play-Doh on psilocybin? Where do I go to get hypnotized by a sinister boatsman? Once in Toronto, at a warehouse concert I went to, someone impaled a lamb on a crucifix and set it on fire, and revelers ate it by the fistful. We’re in trouble if some Canadian art kids with respectable politics can do better than the American chieftains of disgrace.

—Nothing is too on the nose for the Strip. You can get a giant drink with the word Numb on it. There will be a roped-off area, almost identical to the non-roped area, but slightly nicer, called the Clique Lounge. You will see a butt with “Las Veg-ass” written on it, attached to a suffering person exuding understandable contempt, and then you’ll see another one.

—Memetic desire is hard to resist completely. It’s like pointless irritation: it’s there, it’s inherent to your mind, you just have to figure out how to address it. Here, where a pack of Keurig pods in your room costs $21, I found myself, an objectively fortunate person, thinking vaguely about what sort of ‘startup’ I could ‘do,’ and quietly mourning my cryptocurrency-related decisions for the first time in months.

—Vegas isn’t just the casinos and stuff, it’s true. What we saw of the rest seems fine. It’s a place. Also, Cirque du Soleil was incredible. The raw athleticism, the whimsy, the insanely comprehensive command of ‘billowing’ as a genre of motion. I am inspired by the French Canadian people, who have excelled, despite their small number, in acrobatics, mixed martial arts, torch songs, and pork pie. We exited the theatre and used the rush of energy to drive home at 10 PM, a day early, the best decision we made all weekend.

—There is no one crowning moment, no single second that will tie everything off in a bow, or make your whole existence coherent. The riddle of craving is never quite solved. Reminding yourself of this is, if anything, what you can win in Vegas, this sucking pit of desire, which promises, like Dante’s conical inferno, to invert if you go deep enough, offering a way out at the very bottom, just out of sight.

—Las Vegas is where they pumped a bunch of water. It’s a temporary diversion for the iguanas scurrying through the Mojave, a tin flower for the ground squirrels to squint at. Around, the desert stretches for hundreds of miles. The red rock in the canyon has beautiful neon green lichen on it.