Plumbing the Depths

A dent finally repaired. The slow trickle rediverted and sealed. Three crenallated plastic knobs, now obsolete, morphed to become a sleek chrome handle. Soon the open wounds will heal as plaster bandages cure the gaping holes that rob any sense of wholeness. And the disquiet of discontinuity which lingered like a cancerous growth retreats momentarily. It is an ongoing process this worry.

Upon visiting Sin City

Christmas in Vegas sounded like a bad Hollywood comedy starring Hugh Grant and whoever the latest WB Television Network ingenue might be. It turned out to be both exactly that and something otherwise. Sort of Broadway Boogie Woogie meets Bright Lights, Big City. (Piet Mondrian chumming with Jay McInerney?) The bombastic neon explosion along the Strip IS the cascading electric canyon of grandiose American sublime as advertised. Why else would someone no less than Dave Hickey champion its formalism?

But the expected kitsch never materialized as the anticipated irony. Somehow the excessive and overblown theatricality of the "big show" works as ordinary normalcy. No escapism or fantasy disguised as healthy simulacra to disorient, no agape awe of Disney World proportions, this is unexpurgated, unadulterated "real life" now.