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?
Denne historien er fra November 20, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra November 20, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
PRESIDENT FOR SALE
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.