Road Notes

Just got back from several very fun days in California and Las Vegas. Feel a need to explain my attraction to Vegas, as this is my second visit in two years. I find myself awe-struck by the Excess, the Scale, the Volume, the Pace. But also by the Spectacle.

Saw my second Cirque de Soleil show, and was just overwhelmed by the creation of a theatre to house it, the pre-show antics, the number of acrobats involved, and by the visual, choreographical and mechanical details of several of the vignettes. This show (Ka) did not draw me in the same way Mystere did, but the scene that stays with me is a battle in which the dancer/actors propel themselves up and down the side of a wall, and each step they take reverberates in light on the wall - just beautiful.

At the new Wynn hotel, there is a series of light shows that incorporate giant puppets and water - can't even describe it, but again, had that feeling of wonder that someone would go through the trouble of making something which had no utilitarian value beyond creating a sensation of surprise and - for me - something akin to joy.

Of course you can see these things the other way, as yet more distraction and "entertainment" for the masses, to help us ignore the true troubles of the world. But they are so superior to the lowest form of that - television. They are live, they are tangible, they do have artistic value.

Note that I do not place the Fremont video montage in this category, though it is amusing in it's own way, giant screens above our heads filled with iconic images of Sin City: nubile young women, gambling chips, food...