Las Vegas, Nevada.

A destination for travelers from around the world: one of those must-see places for first-time visitors to the United States.

A playground for the young and well-heeled (Jimmy Choo, Salvatore Ferragamo, Christian Louboutin…)

A ruthless consumers’ paradise designed to part fools from their money as efficiently as possible. Labyrinthine casino complexes like a visit to the Twilight Zone. How the heck do we get out of here?

On the other hand, why we would want to? It was hot as Hades in Vegas in mid-August. I think temperatures reached 110 degrees while we were there. (I would say 110 degrees in the shade, except that there was no shade.) Do they chill the pool water, I wonder?

The land of make-believe

Las Vegas offers a synthetic world designed to entertain, overwhelm, and bemuse. Magical interiors that look and feel like European city streets, complete with painted skies, subtle lighting that moves from daylight to twilight to evening, and the occasional, gentle gusts of air that almost persuade you that you’re outdoors. A completely constructed and controlled experience — marvelous and appalling and seductive and vulgar all at the same time.

I kept thinking back to a film I saw some years ago called Synthetic Pleasures (1995), which describes a variety of artificial experiences and environments, some of which mimic the natural world (indoor surfing and skiing, anyone?) and others — like Las Vegas — which re-create exotic locales. The film, which of course predates most of the immersive virtual experiences we now take for granted, seemed to approve of this phenomenon. I’m not so sure and found myself continually resisting the allure of Vegas’ glamorous artifice.

Everyone goes to Vegas

I suppose the truth is that Craig and I are simply not the consumers for whom this destination was created. We don’t gamble. We don’t drink much. We don’t care about shopping. I hate the heat. We’re bored sitting in the sun. And we detest crowds. But, boy, were we in the minority!

We had flown out to Vegas to meet up with Craig’s friends John and Maxine, whose son was getting married. They were staying at The Venetian — and so we were, too. As were about 14,000 other people. With 7000 rooms, The Venetian, together with its twin sister, The Palazzo, is the second-largest hotel in the world. Wow. I don’t think I have ever before endured such crowds for so long.

And this wasn’t just in the hotels and casinos and shopping malls: there were unbelievable numbers of people wherever we went. The pool complex was so crowded that you couldn’t actually swim, because so many bathers were just standing in the waist-deep water, drinking daiquiris. Craziness. The one exception was the fitness center at eight o’clock on Sunday morning — mercifully empty — though even at that hour we saw people staking out deck chairs for a day of sun-worship.

Over the mountains, above the smoke

All this crankiness is not to say that we didn’t have fun. We did — half of which was getting there (or so they say). There are lots of mountains between where Craig and I live in the San Francisco Bay area and Las Vegas. And with this summer’s terrible fires, there was also lots of smoke, especially in California’s Central Valley but also creeping up into the Sierra. So we were flying high — 13,500 feet up on the way out and a thousand feet higher on the way back. Hence the oxygen mustaches.

This was the first longer trip I’d taken with Craig in his Mooney airplane, which got us to Vegas in about two and half hours. It’s chilly at 14,000 feet — about 41° much of the way — but the bright sunshine made it comfortable in the cockpit, and the views over the mountains were spectacular.

What to do in Sin City?

On Saturday, while our friends were busy with wedding festivities, Craig and I made our way through the throngs and over to The Bellagio, where we had tickets to Cirque du Soleil’s O. Before the show, we checked out the glorious Chihuly ceiling in the lobby — a riot of glass flowers — gawped at the gamblers in the casino, and sipped $17 cocktails while speculating about how quickly we would be ejected, should we have the temerity to venture into one of the private, high-stakes gaming parlors. Instead, we went to the circus.

Cirque du Soleil now has six different shows running in Vegas. Their concept is genius in a city that attracts mobs of international visitors, because it does not rely on language. Anyone can go and enjoy the music, the costumes, the acrobatics, and — in this show — the water ballet and spectacular diving. O was the second of the permanent Cirque shows in Las Vegas, and I had wanted to see it for years. In case you don’t know, O is a water-based show (O being a homophone for eau, the French word for water). Photography is fiercely prohibited, so of course I have no pictures. But I did discover where all those Olympic divers go, once the Games are over.

On Sunday, we got to spend some quality time with John and Maxine, who are delightful people. They treated us to a delicious multi-course banquet at Tao Asian Bistro, after which we all wandered around The Venetian and then over to Caesar’s Palace, admiring the sculpture and murals and elaborate architecture. We finished out the evening by watching the volcano erupt — right on schedule — in front of The Mirage.

Dancing waters

One of my favorite parts of our visit was seeing the dancing fountains at The Bellagio. (I admit this with a twinge of guilt or chagrin or something: the irony of pools and extravagant sprays of water in the middle of the desert was not lost on me.) We were lucky enough during our pre-Cirque dinner at Lago to be seated next to the window overlooking the “lake” in front of the hotel. Every half-hour the music started up and the fountains began to dance — each performance choreographed to a different melody, ranging from Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman singing Con Te Partire to Bruno Mars’ UpTown Funk to Singin’ in the Rain. After O we went out to see the lighted fountains from the outside. The best free show in town.

When do we go back?

You might be surprised to know that we are looking forward to our next trip to Las Vegas (which I trust will not be in mid-summer). But a great deal on a hotel, a splurge-y dinner, and a show would make an overnight stop worthwhile. And who knows? Next time we might even make it to the Mob Museum…

Something about Las Vegas rubs me the wrong way — and yet we had a good time… So here’s a toast to a balanced perspective: may my jaundiced eye not prevent my enjoyment, and may my pleasure not blind my critical eye.

Connections

• Watch Synthetic Pleasures on Vimeo
• Dale Chihuly
• Cirque du Soleil: O
• Tao Asian Bistro at The Venetian
• Fountains of Bellagio
• The Mob Museum

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• All postcards
• Cover Photo: The Chihuly ceiling at the Bellagio: