Literarisches Events (in and around Lawrence KS)

  • PATRICIA LOCKWOOD. Lawrence. Thursday, September 11, 7:00 p.m., Spooner Hall, KU Campus.
  • PATRICIA LOCKWOOD. Lawrence. Friday, September 19, 7:00 p.m. Lawrence Public Library. Sponsored by Raven Bookstore.
  • DENNIS ETZEL, JR. & RACHEL CROSS. Lawrence. Thursday, September 25, 7:00 p.m., Raven Bookstore, 6 E. 7th St.
  • TONY TRIGILIO. Lawrence. Thursday, Oct. 2, 4:00 p.m., English Room, Kansas Union, KU Campus. FREE.
  • CALEB PUCKETT & JUSTIN RUNGE. Lawrence. Thursday, October 16, 7:00 p.m., Raven Bookstore, 6 E. 7th St.
  • BEN LERNER. Kansas City, MO. Thursday, October 23, 7:00 p.m., Epperson Auditorium, Vanderslice Hall on the KCAI campus, 4415 Warwick Blvd.
  • KRISTIN LOCKRIDGE & ROBERT DAY. Lawrence. Thursday, December 4, 7:00 p.m., Raven Bookstore, 6 E. 7th St.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Vegas vagaries

The Las Vegas airport produces the same kind of chaotic, disorienting distraction that is also produced by the casinos.

We talked about budget cuts to higher education - in a casino.

I saw my first chukar.

I read Christian Peet's Big American Trip on my small American trip. I plan to do a book description soon.

My room had a padded vinyl headboard and motorized drapes. I think this was supposed to suggest sexiness, rather than a mental institution. The mirror was supposed to have a television in it, but there wasn't a remote, and I didn't bother to ask for it, so all I could see was myself, which wasn't very entertaining or unique, from my point of view.

There is a palpable class hierarchy amongst casinos. I was at the Flamingo, which seems to have a distinctly working/lower-middle class, racially mixed clientele. Walking through the Wynn (new, lush) one could feel the money - Dior, Rolex, Swarovski - lots of Japanese people, not many African-Americans. Less pink w/ brass fixtures, more burnt orange and wood paneling.

The weather was better in the Mojave Desert than it is in Kansas.

The sins in "Sin City" are theft and stupidity. In this way, it is like the global economy, only moreso. Not original, but it bears repeating.

Why would anyone expect a senator from Nevada to be morally upstanding? Didn't you see Godfather II??

The greatest thing about Vegas: being able to sit in an easy chair and watch 5 baseball games at once.

I saw Liberace's pink turkey-feather cape. And his Czar Nicholas collection. That's what all Americans aspire to. The Czar, not the turkey, I mean.

Do you always wait for the longest day of the year, and then miss it? I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it.

Why waste all that perfectly good Colorado River water in the Gulf of California, when it could be spewing forth in fountains to the strains of "Blue Danube" or "Viva Las Vegas"??

Firefox Ak's album Madame, Madame! is a great Denver airport soundtrack.

If you are underground, it doesn't matter where you are.

4 comments:

susan said...

which games did you watch?
sounds horrifying!

admin said...

I wish I'd included Vegas in the book. But that's actually a different book. I suspect the postcard would read along the lines of:

It is the Hunter, this Thompson the Tommy, the gun without the salve, without the lubrication that is the coke snot and peyote ectoplasm. Pink cliffside entry into Sin City, you are the "loosest slots on the strip," you are the Hoover, you are God Dam!

Anonymous said...

"The weather is better in the Mojave desert than it is in Kansas."


I appreciate your keen meteorological observation skills here. Your characterization rings true to at least one newcomer's experience

a.k.a. "Joe" said...

Well, I watched the Cards being hammered by the Mets - I remember that, for sure.

V. nice postcard, Christian. You really can shoot machine guns at one range in LV - tho not tommy guns, unfortunately. God dam, indeed!