"The Desert"

[Nazz]

Las Vegas, for all its egregious sins more numerous than grains of sand in all the deserts combined, will eventually save the planet. Forget your messiah. The Las Vegas Convention Center holds the key. Everything that has been, or will ever be conceived to revolutionize civilization, or at least feed its nervous attention deficit tick, passes through those numberless doors. Gadget pushers descend on Vegas throughout the calendar, largely devoted to a single-minded purpose of smashing all life into a handheld screen and coordinate system, with pizza or sushi in the upper right. Those snappy little glowing boxes insure continuous attachment to your world and its matrix of nervous attention deficit taskmasters—an unthinkable prospect. Then again—stock quotes in the middle of breakfast. What’s not to get? Maybe dial up the next cage match at the MGM.

Hell, you could almost walk to it from that cavernous complex of gigantic boxes on Paradise Avenue—cool, indoor deserts—they can’t sit there forever in that heat. You could walk if you didn’t mind a trip through Paradise— along Paradise—a dizzying mix of lifeless ephemera. You can hear the stale and sterile indifference in every tenth random click of keycard swipes at the Temporary Inn next block. Lose your ass and get out of town and come back. But that’s a tired dig, isn't it? Sin City is not exactly a sucker punch—we know the odds by now. Hell, the casinos teach classes on them. The Strip itself lies just blocks or lifetimes to the west, and you have to admit, there’s a certain transporting, semi-disposable, semi-literate panache to billions spent irrationally in one place. One place? Las Vegas Boulevard stays true to its desert roots in one sense—incomprehensible space.

This is not another shot at Vegas (mandatory as that remains). This is a walk on Paradise, with its common gas stations and beyond-ubiquitous slots of course. Gas stations? You can glimpse, at various points, the hulking backs of the Strip—the irrational billions. And they seem roughly a universe away. No, this is no shot. We parse the language, that’s all Your desert has legendary qualities, generally associated with the unseen empty and lifelessness in some form or another—assigned by you, of course.

(More later. Maybe. I guess).

[mtmynd]

well done, nazzerino... i enjoyed the various lines that colored so well the scenes of gadget-lust that we humans have so come to depend upon as if these little screened 'know-it-alls' somehow hold the code of truth if we only push the right buttons to get in.. deep within the chips like Tron, 1982. The reality which created all things is simply too uninteresting when compared to flashy, compact gadgetry, isn't it..?

[still.trucking]

I only read it once, I may change my mind but
I got to ramble a little about this

Nazz wrote:

Las Vegas Boulevard stays true to its desert roots in one sense—incomprehensible space.

I am in way over my head when I try to talk quantum physics. But on the side walks in all that man made light bright and flashing I was tripping, such a sense of unreality, uncanny? all I got to do is flash that memory and I am back on the streets of Vegas where the night comes on like lightning and it was all there for me.

I never felt that in the desert even from the cab of a truck
just a still feeling of the night sky full of stars and signs, hmm after Camus I suppose

Sorry about the ramble
nothing to do with your post
just me off on a personal tangent about incomprehensible space.

you write like ted williams hit.

you ever see this ?
going to insert a link here when I find it


http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=16440

[Nazz]

Thanks Cecil and Jack. Appreciate.

I think there'll be another "desert cycle" for me. I've been away for a couple years solid now. As a kind of "parting shot" to my last tour, I got a wild hair a few days ago to somehow expand on the concept of "desert"-- uh, from the more negative "lifeless" angle of course-- which is the prevailing perception or interpretation among all us vivacious lovers of green things. A ridiculous idea. So many deserts, so little time! Ha.................. Jack-- on the incomprehensible space. Came to me as I remembered how my sense of scale was scrambled when walking between the mega-casinos.

I think I'll just post this one as it filters down... not the best way to do business, admittedly, but there ya go.

.......................................................................

Las Vegas, for all its egregious sins more numerous than sand grains in all deserts combined, will save the planet. Forget your messiah. The Vegas Convention Center holds the key. Everything that has been, or will ever be conceived to revolutionize humanity, or at least feed its nervous attention deficit tick, passes through those numberless doors. Legions of gadget pushers descend on Vegas, largely devoted to a single-minded purpose of smashing life into a handheld screen and coordinate system, with sushi in the upper right. Those snappy little boxes insure 24/7 attachment to your world and its matrix of nervous attention deficit taskmasters—an unthinkable prospect. Then again—stock quotes during breakfast? What’s not to get? Maybe dial up the next cage match at the MGM.

Hell, you could almost walk to it from that complex of cavernous boxes on Paradise Avenue—indoor deserts with A/C. They can’t hold out forever in that heat. You could walk if you didn’t mind Paradise—that uninspired run of lifeless ephemera expressed in a stale indifference of every tenth keycard swipe at the next faded stucco Temporary Inn. Blow your wad and get out of town. But that’s a tired dig, isn't it? Sin City is hardly a sucker punch—we know the odds. Hell, the casinos teach classes now. The Strip lies just blocks or kingdoms to the west, and there’s a hypnagogic incredulity in the spectacle, even a fractionally literate panache to untold billions spent irrationally in one place. One place? Well, no. Las Vegas Boulevard is true to its desert roots in one sense—its run of incomprehensible space and no useful grasp of scale.

But this is no mere shot at Vegas. It’s a walk through Paradise, all ten haggard lanes of it, the common gas stations, miles of carved up sidewalks, awful souvenirs, stretch limos and taxis with Rita Rudner's face zooming by at sixty, and greasy wrappers wafted on the baked Nevada wind—thoroughly inhospitable and out of scale. Towering, garish ghosts loom in the west, and ominous, hulking backs of mega-casinos, a universe distant—the irrational billions. Imagine sun-crazed emigrants staggering toward a spring on the hellish trek known as Old Spanish Trail a century ago—where Caesar’s Palace now leers in luxurious, pernicious pomp, or perhaps a Mirage, and a wonderland of flashing, drunken miasma and busted span—deep in a merciless desert in either case, in either century.

[Nazz]

A desert in what sense? A sinister one, of course. To fit my backhanded tribute. As all sensible, vivacious lovers of green will attest, the desert is worthless, dead space. It's amusing how many folks moved to anhydrous southern Nevada lately, in the aftermath of some mobster's odious, heat-stroke vision—and then promptly planted green. There is green all over that blistering desert, hanging by the skin of its sprinkler system. Perhaps irony informs a desert. After all, deserts are found even in temperate zones, in spent girders and jimson weed rooting up through cracks in the Rust Belt and dismal nicotine-paneled lounges out in the badlands of Detroit. Maybe it’s a downward crush of commerce in general. Money. Maybe that’s it.

[Arcadia]

Perhaps irony informs a desert... maybe!

it seems desert put things and persons in place and out of place at the same time including Las Vegas.... I can´t imagine the city at all, the mental images I have: a too much spectacular-neon-disneyland for adults or something like that. No similarities I guess in this side of the world: from Rio Colorado to the south you´ll be lucky to only find somehow outside the estancias´s fences small cities and towns and some places to eat a sandwich and fill the tank!

Enjoyed the text, gracias!!!!!!!!

[hester_prynne]

"....stale and sterile indifference in every tenth random click..."
Now that's Las Vegas. Lost wages as my uncle used to call it.
This is a really compellingly written snippet...
Indeed, that space that appears when you look the other way....
Really dug this ..
H

[Nazz]

Thanks Arcadia and Hes... Wow, this one really took on "a life of its own".... (outta my hands now).


--------------------------------------------

Money in what sense? Irrational billions. Onscreen. Your screen embedded in tissue. Twisted into your DNA. Your screen behind rabid dog preachers in amiable suburban megachurch compounds preaching God’s infinite mercy and "Armageddon"—all fifty feet of it in high-def whish of metal spoiling for rightful profit. No one knows what billions look like anyway, aside from fifty miles of parking. It’s all a jungle of interests, but I’m sure we can make it into a desert. I’m just parsing language, poking about for my desert amidst random broken-ness and overtaxed sprinklers. Irrational billions? We are the billions. What if we just didn’t pay? Ah, but I won’t rot in some cell to prove the pointless. I am no Thoreau. No martyr. Switch on the power—it’s easier and more cutting edge. Welcome to America, where you can earn $25 million for gutting a company.

Ah, but I’m haggling over the dada. Anyone can do the grumpy old man rave. Okay, so the whole thing is an over-constructed blip-vert wasteland. I’ll just breathe a bit of life back into the system, that's all. Besides, I like Vegas as a desert. It has a pulse. I think I’ll move there.