A Critic at Large – Made You Look

The desert illusions of the Sphere and "City.”

- By Jackson Arn

Spend more than a few hours in Las Vegas and you become hyperaware of the carpets. They course through hotels, casinos, theatres, and malls. They teem with triangles, circles, ogees, leaves, flowers, and teardrops. They are hideous. When I was a kid, my dad explained that they encouraged tourists to look up at the slot machines and keep gambling away their money. It’s a counterintuitive idea—flashy stuff that’s designed not to be stared at?—but apparently it’s the truth. Vegas carpets snap you out of your daydreams, thrust you back into your surroundings, and remind you what you’ve come to the desert to do. It doesn’t hurt, presumably, that they do a good job of hiding spilled beer.

The main-level atrium of the Sphere, Vegas’s newest entertainment venue, is the most conspicuously carpetless place I know. The floors are dark, smooth, and sleepy. In the context of their city, they imply a boast: we don’t need to keep you awake, because the Sphere does that on its own. Gentle blue lights, similar to the ones on my flight from J.F.K., dare patrons to nap through the experience of a lifetime. The entire space evokes an airport, actually—there’s even a full-body scanner, where you can be turned into a hologram of yourself. As I walk around, I see hundreds of people voluntarily waiting to be scanned. Is the T.S.A. taking notes?