Monday, July 04, 2005
VIVA LAS VEGAS
It was time for a complete break from the daily routine, and I've certainly had one. Three Red Hat Society friends and I decided to visit Las Vegas during the Red Hat Convention held there last week. Since the cost of the convention seemed to far exceed the value offered, we opted to skip the festivities in order to create our own. There is enough stuff to do out there.
Gambling isn't my idea of fun--I'm just too practical--but I had strict orders from my husband to at least play the slots a couple of times to get the flavor of the place. I obliged him, but didn't enjoy it; and had I quit after the first gambit, I would have come home $20 to the good instead of just $10. Watching the people and wandering through the hotels was better entertainment.
All of the hotels are connected to at least one other via walkways and trams. Going down to street level and rubbing shoulders with the uninformed is a last option. It's a surreal world where morning begins at two in the afternoon and night doesn't arrive until morning; where clocks are reluctant to appear.
Ground floor hallways that were an easy stroll in the a.m. became a crowded challenge-to-the-hurried by dinner time at New York-New York where we stayed. The hotel lobby is a warren of interwoven "bricked" streets and movie-set fascades of apartments, shops, and sidewalk cafes interspersed with real restaurants, lit by fake trees covered in white Christmas lights. The manholes in the "street" emit steam. There is a bridge that crosses the stream flowing through the lobby. The roller coaster at NY-NY goes right through the hotel. It isn't possible to avoid the casino because it's part of the lobby, and it's loud. Gambling machines emit their own distinctive sound.
Since the convention was held at the MGM Grand across the walkway from NY-NY, periodically Red Hatters wandered through our lobby in costume. Yes costume--not dress. No one would dress like that for any other occasion. The larger the hat and the more fake jewelry laden on, the better. Flowers and feathers were in and appropriate anyplace a Red Hatter wanted to stick them. With clothing being a required purple combined with red accessories, well-dressed Red Hatters most resembled circus clowns. There was a pajama party one evening, and ladies were wandering through the lobby dressed in purple satin pajamas and bedroom slippers as early as two in the afternoon. One had a giant purple stuffed bear. I wonder how she got it out there in a suitcase! After seeing the get-up, I'm glad I didn't attend the convention.
Then there were some other hotel guests. I watched them for four days and still can't fathom why parents bring children to such a place. There is nothing there for children to do except play games in the arcade where the noise is so great they are in danger of becoming deaf by evening, or frying by the pool which offers no shady spot where one can escape the merciless Las Vegas sun. Technically the kids aren't allowed in the casino, though since the casino is a part of the hotel lobby, they are in there by default--even children so young they require a stroller.
The strip is a long piece of eye candy. You can eyeball the Sphinx at the Luxor, the Statue of Liberty at NY-NY, the Eiffel Tower (scroll down and click picture for larger image) in the Paris section, a Spanish castle called the Excalibur, Ceasar's Palace (ok, maybe the real thing didn't look like that), the MGM golden lion, and more in one long glance. It's a world tour. In the Venetian, the ceiling mimics Michaelangelo's work. Outside there is a canal around the hotel where a guest can take a ride in a gondola. The Mirage offers a volcano at street level that erupts every fifteen minutes in the evening, complete with smoke, real fire, and rumbling. There is a white tiger in a habitat at the Mirage, and there are two lions at the MGM Grand where you can have your picture taken with a cub. You can observe dolphins or relax by an aquarium. Trying to see it all is exhausting. Distances are greater than they seem, and getting lost is a constant concern.
The best evening there was spent at the Stratosphere (click the arrow to see the top) where dinner at Top of the World provided a view of our surroundings from 1,149 feet; where the restautant makes a complete rotation every hour and fifteen minutes; and the service and food are five star. After dinner we went up two floors to the observation deck and watched Las Vegas turn on. It's quite a sight. There is an open-air mini amusement park atop the Stratosphere where you can ride the roller coaster, or increase the fear factor on a ride called "Insanity" that swings you out over empty space. You can see these riders as they swing away from the tower by looking up and out the window from your table in the restaurant. There is also a ride they call "X Scream" ,that I call "Death in Vegas," which leaves you dangling over open space and hoping that the brakes on the ride are still working.
Then there was another kind of ride. I knew it would be long, but I was determined to see the Grand Canyon, though not prepared for the reality of 8-plus hours on a bus. We left the hotel before 7 a.m. and didn't get back until 11 that night. The bus rolled over Hoover Dam on the way, snaking around the road construction. The Canyon was impressive but didn't sufficiently contrast with the man-made wonders of the strip so as to be fully appreciated. When you've been spending time in man-made larger-than-life, you become jaded. What should be spectacular was just a nice hole in the ground. I regret fulfilling a life-long desire to see it in this way. God's work deserves a better reaction from His human creation than I could give it after seeing the Strip.
We saw "Mystere," a performance of Cirque du Soleil--Circus of the Sun. This New Age circus is a breathtaking integrated exhibition of human athletic capacity and circus performance that must be seen to be believed. Cirque comes at you like a fireworks finale with no breaks to assimilate it. You must take it at face value and digest the performance later while trying to fall asleep. "Mystere" sends a message that seems to be just beyond reach. You have a sense of something more that you can't quite grasp; and since, like the circus big top, there is more than the main act going on at one time, you have a nagging suspicion when you leave that perhaps you just missed the key to the whole thing. Cirque is the ultimate in New Age performance, a perfect example of Las Vegas surreal.
In "Mystere" the stage moves. Sections of it break apart, portions rotate. The ground itself is unstable. In one scene the front part of the stage drops down leaving a void between it and the back part of the stage. Lighting turns the void blood red and smoke swirls in the pit. One gets the impression of staring into the bowels of hell. Out of the red rises a white head. The face cannot be identified with anything in particular, human or animal. It is larger than human. At the end of the production, this same face appears again. It is attached to the body of a snail. This snail inflates like a Macy's Parade balloon to fill the stage left to right, floor to ceiling. The snail remains on stage while the audience departs. It seems to be sending a message, but what message? Lucifer rising at a snail's pace? It's the only interpretation I've been able to make.
I remain fascinated by Cirque. Guy Laliberte, co-creator of this extravaganza, is listed among the world's billionnaires. There are currently four Cirque productions running in Vegas--"Mystere" at Treasure Island, "Zumanity" at New York-New York, "O" at the Bellagio, and "Ka" at MGM Grand. Additionally, Franco Dragone, another Cirque co-founder, will be staging "A New Day" with Celine Dion at the Wynn. Also there are Cirque performances in foreign countries, and Cirque touring companies in the U.S. Whatever the message of Cirque, a lot of people are absorbing it.
I'm trying to come back to reality now...to laundry and dinner and blogging, to the weeds in the garden that need attention...to what matters and what does not...to putting all of it in context. Las Vegas doesn't seem to fit anywhere. It's a dream world that has no place in the world of responsibility. This adult fantasyland is a place apart, a memory to be tucked away and then taken out and spit polished during a future moment of discontent, like a favorite toy or a treasured frivolous gift from a friend. Perhaps that's really all it was ever meant to be.
