Vegas, I abhor you, though I know you not.

My grandfather Victor Leickner in the desert near Vegas, 1958

I have never been to Vegas but people are always telling me to go to Vegas. First off they all know what type of person I am so they make excuses for Vegas. They add substance to Vegas. If that fails they go on to say Vegas is a vacation from substance (and too much substance is just plain boring). They don’t actually say all that but that’s their general synopsis of the Vegas experience. What is it about Vegas then, that makes the enlightened babbling apologists? Is it an Oasis that Bugsy Seagel created out of sand as an ode to a woman he adored? Sometimes I think Vegas is all that’s wrong with North America. It’s too much make-up, too much development, too much glitz and mega-consumption. It’s cacophonously loud and open all night. All this is bound to bring out the worst in people. Then again I’m not so sure about that last point. This is all speculation; it’s all a priori. I don’t think I can judge the veracity of this city’s intentions unless I am there. Will I love it or will I just be disgusted and bored. Is the lack of substance going to overwhelm me or will I fall for Cirque Du Soleil’s latest offering: Love by the Beatles. It probably won’t change me in any great way. I’m 38 and relatively set in my ways. So do I even need to go to Vegas to feel what everyone tells me to feel? Will I find this ecstatic truth that Werner Herzog speaks of? He laments there are no pure images left, that if we want such a thing we must go to another planet. So must we then search out the most impure, inorganic images ever crafted by man? Probably. Vegas does not have a monopoly on these manufactured images but it’s a good place to start. Perhaps through progressive images we may find truth. Through a Frank Gehry Building or a Miami Skyline we may see snatches of ecstasy. This is not so hard to find these days, now that every centimeter of our planet contains man’s enormous carbon footprint. So the place to start really is Vegas. All spokes are attached to this hub. So yes, I will go to Vegas and yes something will be reinforced in me and I will learn cause that is all we really want; to be better than we were last week. And if we can pass this knowledge unmangled to others so much the better. I won’t go tomorrow or in the near future but I will report back to you when I’ve accomplished my mission.