We were walking through the empty space at MGM Grand at night, where the theme park used to be, and there were these huge boards announcing the shops to come. One said, "Coming soon: Shibuya."
There's an essay somewhere where Nietzsche says rather acerbically that Wagner's pathos topples taste. I think the sheer effrontery of Vegas topples taste. It's in the middle of a desert but there're fountains and lakes and canals and old-world European conservatories and soon there will be a Japanese garden the likes of which can only be found in Kyoto. First they have to build a mountain and then pipe in water for the streams and ponds and lakes and then bring in the trees and then they can sculpt the garden. In Singapore we just whinge about the weather being too hot and leave it at that; in Vegas they paint the ceiling has feathery white clouds and the blue fades quietly the dusk at the edges and the lighting is controlled to always simulate evening light (because they did studies which showed that that's when people shop the most, when they're all mellow and relaxed) and it's always 72 degrees F. As my colleague pointed out, Vegas works because Americans like to see things, but they don't like to leave their country. So they have the Eiffel Tower and Doge's Palace and the Colosseum and the Village and Shibuya brought to them, but all prettied up and air-conditioned. What complete lack of irony does it take to do such a thing, to say, well I'lll just create a scale model of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of my casino?
We met Steve Wynn, who is the American dream personnifed. He came to the Strip some 40 years ago, at 24, as a blackjack dealer. In 1989 he built the first of the mega hotel/casino/entertainment complexes, the Mirage, which was at the time about $400 million more expensive than any other casino built so far. He designed the damn thing and put a volcanic island at the front and fish at the reception and white tigers along the corridor (the sign above says: Phones. Restrooms. White Tigers. Shops.) and it's actually all quite nice. He built Treasure Island and then the Bellagio, which is still the pinnacle of achievement for these mega-whatsits, and then sold the lot to MGM because now that he has completely transformed the Strip, he wants to do something different there. He came to the Strip at 24 as a blackjack dealer! I'm 24, and I'm never going to build a $600m casino, not even in 20 years' time. No formal training, but he designs his own buildings. All the other meetings with the operators were very corporate affairs, we met the Board, they presented themselves as a body corporate, but Steve Wynn just flung himself into the room with his dogs. Oh and his Chief Operating Officer, whose job apparently was to open the door for his dogs.
In MGM Grand there was a sign that said, "Video arcade: virtual reality". As opposed, I suppose, to the actual reality of the rest of the casino/hotel/complex? It's impossible not to admire the scale of what was done in Vegas, and impossible to accept it entirely; we're schooled in British irony, after all. I almost said, impossible to accept it without any saving grace of irony. I'm not yet willing to put away a strong sense of the ridiculous, but perhaps this is an inhibiting quality? Perhaps what it takes is a complete abandonment of - not taste, exactly - but any self-consciousness whatsoever?