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![]() Just Above Sunset
September 4, 2005 - Assessing the Pre-Ridiculous
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One of my friends, a doctor
of some repute, an internist, has parents who retired to Las Vegas, Nevada. The place has always fascinated me, from
my first trip there with a Chinese-Vietnamese woman I was dating, and her family, and her brother who was participating in
the Women's Wear Daily trade show with his line of silk t-shirts. Ah, Vietnamese fish-ball soup in an obscure casino
restaurant, chatting with the grandmother, in broken English, about Buddhism, while the slot-machines rattled away in the
distance. Not to be missed. And the trade show was a trip. Las Vegas is impervious
to jokes, because it already is one. Vegas is mockery-proof. The strip is so over the top, so jubilantly, unashamedly fake
(even the rocks are artificial), so ebulliently and confessedly crass, so contented with or even proud of its own trashiness
that you can't make fun of the place. How can you deride a wooden Trojan horse two storeys high that doubles as an FAO Schwarz
toy store? It is pre-ridiculous. This frustrates the likes of myself no end, because pejoratives like "tacky", "tasteless",
and "garish" ping off a giant gold-painted sphinx like pennies off a curb. Because one cannot parody parody and I do not gamble,
I had nothing to do. Lionel Shriver understands
America. |
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This issue updated and published on...
Paris readers add nine hours....
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