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WATTEAU IN VEGAS
30 November 2005
Very few works of art have anything interesting to say about Las Vegas. Partly, perhaps, this is because there isn't
very much that's interesting to say about Las Vegas. As the cultural critic Dave Hickey says, ". . . 'the secret of
Vegas' is that there are no secrets." Everything is out in the open, on the surface, leaving art no mysteries to unveil.
But there's more to it than that -- since the surface of things is interesting, profound, consisting as it does of all
those things we see without seeing, and art could certainly bring them into our realm of conscious experience in interesting
ways. The nude in art may have gained a certain frisson from the fact that female nudity used to be a private thing, but
the breasts of a cocktail waitress bursting out of her bodice are no less lovely and worthy of our attention for being all
but exposed in public.
Movies about Las Vegas veer between neo-Puritanical visions of sinful dissipation ("Leaving Las Vegas") and fantasies
of beating the house ("Ocean's Eleven") -- neither of which are true to the actual experience of the place, where
sin is mostly under control and the house always makes out like a bandit. What's really interesting about Las Vegas is not
that cocktail waitresses walk around half naked but the elaborate rituals defining what is and is not permitted in exchanges
between cocktail waitresses and their customers. What's even more interesting is not the occasional lucky gambling win but
how people deal with the routine losses they know they must expect here.
The only movie that's really true to Las Vegas is Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas", because it simply participates
in the place on its own level of cheerful and inventive vulgarity.
The only painter who's ever really gotten Las Vegas, I think, is Watteau, whose celebration of the pleasures of the ephemeral,
the sweetness of hopeless yearning, the comic tristesse of all theatrical enterprises, accords perfectly with the late night
mood of the town.
Has there ever been a better evocation than the image below of a Midwest businessman trying to get a cocktail waitress
to acknowledge him as a sexual being?
Has there ever been a better evocation than the image below of the psyche of a poker player who's just busted out of a big
tournament because of a cruel suck-out on the river? Or of a guy who's just had a five-hundred dollar fuck with a breathtakingly
beautiful hooker and perhaps didn't perform as well as he hoped he might?
The many images of social flirtation Watteau painted present an image of romance as gaming -- a blend of vexing and piquant
action with negative expectation, and the rueful, self-deprecating acknowledgment that 1) this is all there is to life, and
2) it's wonderful.
Indeed, it's fabulous . . .
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
27 November 2005
It was impossible to rouse myself from sleep before 2 in the afternoon on Thanksgiving day, having stayed up until well
past dawn the night before playing poker. The turkey, which had been theoretically thawing out for two days in the refrigerator,
still had ice inside it. This presented my houseguest Jae and I with a dilemma -- or rather with a deadline. It was a ludicrously
large turkey -- almost 19 pounds. It would take about six hours to cook. The question was -- could we get it done in time
to eat it before midnight, while it was still technically Thanksgiving? This seemed an important thing to do.
We ran cold water over it for a couple of hours, until it seemed thoroughly thawed. We popped it into the oven at about
four, filled with some stuffing Jae had made, some sage-infused breadcrumbs bought commercially to which Jae had added fresh
chopped garlic, carrots, onions and mushrooms. We inserted a little pop-out thermometer in its breast and the countdown began.
We basted religiously. Around 8:30, optimistically, we took off the aluminum foil to let the skin brown. By ten the
thermometer still hadn't popped. We decided to give it a few more minutes and then take it out and eat it -- whatever the
thermometer said. When next I opened the oven door the little red indicator was extended, the skin of the turkey was perfectly
brown and crisp -- the thing was done.
We took it out and I improvised some gravy from vague instructions passed along by my mom and sister Lee. I boiled some
green peas and set out the pot of rice I'd already cooked. I heated up the gravy and we sat down to dinner a little after
10:30.
The meal was a total triumph all around. Jae's stuffing was sublime -- especially the portion of it stuffed inside the
bird and suffused with its juices. The turkey, a free-range bird bought at the Whole Foods Market in Summerlin, was tender
and amazingly tasty -- the best home-cooked turkey I've ever helped prepare myself.
We ate like kings -- self-satisfied kings, proud of their unaccustomed labors over real food in a real kitchen -- and
washed it all down with some delicious Beaujolais Nouveau, just light and fruity enough for the bird. Then . . . pumpkin
pie with whipped cream and pecan pie with ice cream, all store-bought but adequate.
It was awesome. We barely made a dent in the turkey, but I'd bought a bigger one than we needed in order to have plenty
of leftovers. To me this means enough turkey breast for endless sandwiches consisting of cranberry sauce, stuffing and white
meat, eaten with a Coca-Cola. I can survive on this and this alone for days and days, happily.
The immediate future, then, is bright -- and I'm thankful for it, thankful for everything . . .
TIME OUT OF MIND
26 November 2005
This past Wednesday was the first anniversary of my move to Las Vegas -- the end of a year that has zipped by in a blur
of neon, cards flying across felt table-tops, reading, writing and filmmaking. This is the price you pay for living in a
place you love too much -- time evaporates around you.
To mark the occasion my friend Jae and I made an expedition into deep Vegas -- Caesars Palace, whose cheerful, inventive
vulgarity is like a slap on the back from a good drinking buddy, or a radiant smile from a half-naked cocktail waitress.
Set amidst the retro, democratic excess is a quiet, cool, hip-moderne restaurant called 808, which offers extremely fresh
seafood prepared in an unclassifiable fusion style. Jae and I ordered tasting menus -- between us we had samples of almost
everything on the menu, and the effect was staggering, overwhelming . . . a medley of odd taste combinations each of which
spoke of deep respect for and understanding of the various fruits of the sea offered. Oysters, scallops, shrimp, lobster,
fish.
Buoyed by this excess of pleasure there was nothing left for us to do but go play poker at the Palms. Jae and I have
both been losing at poker recently, and we lost on this night, too -- but to me it hardly mattered. I spun out a (relatively)
modest buy in for about seven hours, was entertained by strange and hilarious table-mates, many of whom were workers at other
casinos just getting off their late-night shifts.
All too soon they brought out the free donuts, which meant the sun was up outside and it was Thanksgiving. Jae had drifted
away -- disgusted by being dealt super starting cards all night and losing with them to people drawing out with rags. (This
is sometimes the way of things in a $2- 4 game.) I had a sense, on this Thanksgiving morning, of sitting around some bizarre
Norman Rockwell vision of a family dinner table, with a flop at the center of it instead of a roasted turkey.
An attractive but cynical Russian girl, who works as a blackjack dealer at the Hard Rock, regaled us with a litany of
her disappointments in life -- with men and with people in general. Then she suddenly remarked, "Why is this the only
place I ever have fun?" No one had an answer. There isn't one -- except perhaps that the company of fellow misfits
is easily found in Las Vegas, and too easily discounted. I was just happy to be home, betting on another round of cards.
Jae and I slept late, of course -- we'd taken the turkey out of the freezer too late, as well, and there was still ice
inside it when we woke up. The question now was whether we could get it cooked in time to eat it while it was still technically
Thanksgiving.
Tune in to the next report to find out how it all went down . . .
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| © 2005 Jae Song |
KNIGHTS OF THE FELT REVISITED
16 November 2005
My friends Jae and John blew into town from Gotham last week. We had tickets for the Klitschko-Rahman fight on the 12th
-- when that got canceled due to an injury to Klitschko we had nothing to look forward to but a mad marathon of poker at various
card rooms around town.
We set about it with a vengeance.
That's John in the photo above, wearing his lucky poker shirt, so consecrated because he was wearing it when he figured
out how to beat the $50 buy-in no-limit Hold-'em game at the Luxor. Jae, below, didn't get his poker bearings until he sat
down at a $4-8 game at the Bellagio late in the week.
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| © 2005 John Sosnovsky |
John jumped into the deep end head first on his first day of play -- at a $200 buy-in no-limit game at the Monte Carlo. He
busted out fast and proceeded to go on tilt until he discovered the Luxor no-limit game, at which point he recovered steadily.
Jae was in the hole early, too, as was I. I dropped $75 at a long session at the Fiesta Rancho playing dumb cards. After
two days of disaster all around we decided we needed to clear our minds with a trip to the desert -- so we headed out to Red
Rock Canyon.
Below, I take a moment to meditate on the folly of playing J-3 suited against a raise.
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| © 2005 John Sosnovsky |
The wilderness experience seemed to help and we all started winning soon afterwards. I had a great session at the Fiesta
Henderson -- playing well, accumulating chips, until I got dealt pocket sixes. I flopped two more sixes, bet them well and
won a huge pot, plus a house bonus of $83 for the four-of-a-kind. This put me well up for the week.
The next night Jae discovered that the Palms had reinstituted smoking between midnight and 8am -- great news for me as
it gave me a congenial place to play near my home. Jae and John would play the Luxor and some other rooms in the afternoon
and evening, then join me at the Palms for an all-night session . . . or at least until they put out the free donuts at 6am.
Jae and John summoned up the nerve to play at the Bellagio, maybe the town's premiere poker room -- Johnny Chan, the legendary
champion, was playing at a high-stakes table while they were there. They both made money in that rarefied atmosphere -- which
forced them to play their best.
Later, at the Palms, John played at a $4-8 table with Johnny Phan, a young kid who's now one of the top rated players
in the world. Johnny took John's money until John wisely switched tables and started winning again.
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| Johnny Phan |
On his last day in town, John ante-ed up for a tournament at the Luxor and finished second, winning over $200 for his $50
buy-in. Jae was still ahead, and so was I -- about $25 up for the week, which is a kind of miracle for me.
Hours of big-time fun, gallons of free drinks -- and I got paid $25 for the week-long extravaganza.
Life is good.
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| © 2005 John Sosnovsky |
KID VEGAS
PART EIGHT
3 November 2005
On the ninth day of their visit to Las Vegas the Rossis and I went to Shark Reef, at the Mandalay Bay. This is the only
predator based-aquarium in North America -- it's great fun and fascinating. I've written about it before so I'll just say
that Harry and Nora rated it a 10 (out of 10) on the cool-fun scale.
Afterwards we went and had a great meal of Southern-Cajun food at the House of Blues, also at the Mandalay Bay. The kids
loved the gaudy, playful, bizarre folk-art decor as well as the eats, and this joint also rated a 10 from Harry and Nora.
Nora's vote might have been influenced by the fact that she got some real drumsticks at the House Of Blues gift shop, which
she thought were really cool.
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