Vegas Day 1
Mall architecture
Las Vegas is confusing. On a street map, it looks like everything is all in one big row, the Strip, and you can just walk down Las Vegas Boulevard and go from one hotel to the next. Instead, it became clear about three minutes after the airport shuttle pulled into town that whoever came up with the mall design theory—confuse everybody so they have to go down all the halls looking for one store—worked here first. Finally I made it to the conference. I met my dinner date for the evening in the hallway outside the elevator, where he was wandering aimlessly looking for conference registration. Always good to meet somebody new, especially when they are even more lost than you. But because I don’t mind using maps, eventually we got registered for the conference and headed out into the bright lights of the big city for dinner.
We ended up eating dinner in the Caesar’s Palace mall, right outside one of the fountains with the moving statues. It’s hard to describe what happens to the notion of classic Greek statuary and architecture when you thrown in slot machines. And let’s just say that the mannequins at Victoria’s Secret in Vegas doesn’t look anything like the ones back home in Kansas.
At the conference that night, an author roundtable included my favorite contemporary writer, Ursula K. Le Guin. The panel got off to an interesting start with the dismissal by one of the male writers of the notion that the personal is political, and with his assertion that science fiction becomes deadly tedious when it becomes political. Le Guin, whose work is steeped in politics of all kinds, made a few pointed but polite remarks to the contrary as I sat and wondered what she must’ve been really thinking.
The conference hotel is “inexpensive” and essentially grossed me out. I brought flip flops in case I decided to swim at the pool, but spent the trip walking around my hotel room wearing them so I wouldn’t have to touch the carpet. Wish I could’ve stayed at the Bellagio.
Las Vegas is confusing. On a street map, it looks like everything is all in one big row, the Strip, and you can just walk down Las Vegas Boulevard and go from one hotel to the next. Instead, it became clear about three minutes after the airport shuttle pulled into town that whoever came up with the mall design theory—confuse everybody so they have to go down all the halls looking for one store—worked here first. Finally I made it to the conference. I met my dinner date for the evening in the hallway outside the elevator, where he was wandering aimlessly looking for conference registration. Always good to meet somebody new, especially when they are even more lost than you. But because I don’t mind using maps, eventually we got registered for the conference and headed out into the bright lights of the big city for dinner.
We ended up eating dinner in the Caesar’s Palace mall, right outside one of the fountains with the moving statues. It’s hard to describe what happens to the notion of classic Greek statuary and architecture when you thrown in slot machines. And let’s just say that the mannequins at Victoria’s Secret in Vegas doesn’t look anything like the ones back home in Kansas.
At the conference that night, an author roundtable included my favorite contemporary writer, Ursula K. Le Guin. The panel got off to an interesting start with the dismissal by one of the male writers of the notion that the personal is political, and with his assertion that science fiction becomes deadly tedious when it becomes political. Le Guin, whose work is steeped in politics of all kinds, made a few pointed but polite remarks to the contrary as I sat and wondered what she must’ve been really thinking.
The conference hotel is “inexpensive” and essentially grossed me out. I brought flip flops in case I decided to swim at the pool, but spent the trip walking around my hotel room wearing them so I wouldn’t have to touch the carpet. Wish I could’ve stayed at the Bellagio.
Vegas reports are all posted after the fact, as I determined there was no way I was dragging my laptop all the way across the country, and I'm damned if I'm going to pay to blog. At least for now.
posted by Lisa at 6/27/2005 08:28:00 AM
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