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Aug. 1st, 2014 08:57 amAttend all the conference!
I am still in Las Vegas, though mostly you wouldn't know it. The conference center's quite nice and that's just as well since it's where I'm spending the bulk of my time. I did get to eat at a genuine Las Vegas Buffet for lunch yesterday, which was entertaining. Five spice duck and sushi and macaroni and cheese and pancakes, yes, I will have one of each, thank you. (They all come in tiny portions.) I also tried bone marrow, and while I'm willing to concede that buffet-served roasted bone marrow might not be the most gourmet in the world, I found myself rather surprised by its totally neutral flavor. It doesn't really taste like anything, and has a peculiar texture. It's a bit like eating warm Crisco.
So far I've attended a keynote and two sessions. The keynote was informative but not entirely cohesive, and one session was way over my head while the other was entertaining but basically a list of bookmarks for evaluating wealth markers. It did make my colleague and I put our heads together at one point and plot a prospect identification search using airplanes as an index (not using actual airplanes, using conceptual ones) which I realise probably means very little to you guys but trust me it's a super-cool idea.
Vegas is exhausting. I was discussing with someone that it's two cities, a bit like Mieville's "The City And the City", only really it's three. Two are the normal big urban spread where people eat and live and go about their business, and of course the tourist industry that is so prevalent. But I was walking through a casino on Wednesday wondering why anyone with significant money would come here, because it's sort of...chintzy, and weirdly cheap given how expensive everything is. And it's because there's a third city: the one you have to have a million dollars to even see. It's one level up, metaphorically and possibly physically, from the other two. You go from the limo to the club to the penthouse to the high-roller room, and presumably you give the slots a miss. At least, the ones with women in bikinis or grinning devils on them.
One of my colleagues, who is very into social justice (as well one ought to be) is made very nervous by the strip, and I was, too. I've decided to employ my love of history and just look at it as a sort of long-term experiment in human behavior. I'm thinking of going to the Flamingo purely because it was built by Bugsy Siegel (genuine crazy motherfucker sociopath) and Meyer Lansky (bizarrely trustworthy for a mobster) and was basically one of the foundation stones for the mega-resort monster that is now the Strip.
It probably has a lot of terrible slots.
I am still in Las Vegas, though mostly you wouldn't know it. The conference center's quite nice and that's just as well since it's where I'm spending the bulk of my time. I did get to eat at a genuine Las Vegas Buffet for lunch yesterday, which was entertaining. Five spice duck and sushi and macaroni and cheese and pancakes, yes, I will have one of each, thank you. (They all come in tiny portions.) I also tried bone marrow, and while I'm willing to concede that buffet-served roasted bone marrow might not be the most gourmet in the world, I found myself rather surprised by its totally neutral flavor. It doesn't really taste like anything, and has a peculiar texture. It's a bit like eating warm Crisco.
So far I've attended a keynote and two sessions. The keynote was informative but not entirely cohesive, and one session was way over my head while the other was entertaining but basically a list of bookmarks for evaluating wealth markers. It did make my colleague and I put our heads together at one point and plot a prospect identification search using airplanes as an index (not using actual airplanes, using conceptual ones) which I realise probably means very little to you guys but trust me it's a super-cool idea.
Vegas is exhausting. I was discussing with someone that it's two cities, a bit like Mieville's "The City And the City", only really it's three. Two are the normal big urban spread where people eat and live and go about their business, and of course the tourist industry that is so prevalent. But I was walking through a casino on Wednesday wondering why anyone with significant money would come here, because it's sort of...chintzy, and weirdly cheap given how expensive everything is. And it's because there's a third city: the one you have to have a million dollars to even see. It's one level up, metaphorically and possibly physically, from the other two. You go from the limo to the club to the penthouse to the high-roller room, and presumably you give the slots a miss. At least, the ones with women in bikinis or grinning devils on them.
One of my colleagues, who is very into social justice (as well one ought to be) is made very nervous by the strip, and I was, too. I've decided to employ my love of history and just look at it as a sort of long-term experiment in human behavior. I'm thinking of going to the Flamingo purely because it was built by Bugsy Siegel (genuine crazy motherfucker sociopath) and Meyer Lansky (bizarrely trustworthy for a mobster) and was basically one of the foundation stones for the mega-resort monster that is now the Strip.
It probably has a lot of terrible slots.
