Knit Sisters

I’ve been here in Vegas for a week now and the pyramid is starting to feel like home.

If you lived here, you’d be a dead pharaoh home by now!

The Luxor really is special. It really is. You might not know it, but at night they turn on these huge klieg lights at the top of the pyramid to create a massive shaft of light that rises up into the night sky, a column of white light that is a beacon to all those who have lost their way, who stumble in the darkness without a slot machine or a cocktail to call their own.

My friend Jen e-mailed me to call my attention to the fact that the Luxor light attracts a “solid column of very large, buzzing, flapping bugs, stretching towards the sky.”

I checked last night after dark and you know, she’s right! Oh, what a magical sight!

Next to a solid column of roiling and swarming mega-insects, these other casinos, with their phoney-baloney Statues of Liberty,

Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to bet their entire life savings at the blackjack table and take in a topless show!

their fake castles,

That is so not a real castle, dude.

and their cheesy knock-off Eiffel Towers,

Ceci n’est pas une Tour Eiffel.

just don’t measure up. Hey, when those places can show me the bugs, then we’ll talk. Until then, I’m hanging out with Cleopatra.

Cleo and I have been doing a little knitting:

This is actually the Fetal Icarus. The previous one was embryonic, but I didn’t realize that at the time.

I’ve discovered that if you take your knitting down to the poker tables, all the guys seriously underestimate you and you can really clean up. Something to keep in mind for your next trip to Vegas!

Of course, there’s more to Vegas than just gambling. There’s also the

Thunder from Down Under Show Atomic Testing Museum, conveniently located near where I am working and highly educational regarding chiselled pecs and abs an important chapter of this great nation’s history. (Hi Alex!)

I was able to pick up a couple of nice picture postcards from the Atomic Testing Museum shop, which features all sorts of strange and wonderful products having to do with nuclear weapons and the Nevada Test Site:

Irradiating the bejeezus out of Utah since 1951!

Look close. There’s a different mushroom cloud in every letter. Someone, at least, has stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.

Just to prove to you that I still knit, that I don’t just go from desert town to desert town zipping around in red convertibles, drinking whiskey sours, and shooting craps doing serious research on Cold War history, I give you Exhibit A:

Fetal Icarus, made from luscious Alchemy Haiku, color 41a—Vermillion

And isn’t it fitting in a town like Las Vegas to be knitting a pattern called Icarus? Icarus, the boy whose hubris led him to fashion flimsy wings out of $100 bills and fly over to the high stakes gaming tables where he proceeded to lose everything and was subsequently forced to work as a male stripper in the “Bareback” show over at the MGM Grand. His personal humiliation became complete when he was asked to perform in backless feathered chaps.

Or have I got that wrong? I always did get kind of mixed up on my mythology.

Anyway, I’ve been getting accustomed to my surroundings here in Little Egypt:

The Sphinx, looking vaguely perplexed, watches planes land at McCarran Airport.

The Luxor wedding chapel was hopping over the weekend. It is conveniently located right across the way from the food court, which means that you and your wedding party can enjoy a round of Big Macs right before the big event.

No, I don’t want any fries with that, but can I get the Honorable Estate of Holy Matrimony?

The Luxor chapel pledges to organize your dream wedding, to make it a day that you will never forget.

No matter how hard you try.

But seriously, I don’t think a Vegas-style quickie union is necessarily less likely to work out than any other marriage. My great Aunt Mary Frances and my great Uncle Boone were married in Reno at one of these kinds of chapels and they were together for decades. Until he died at an advanced age just a few years ago, in fact.

In the spirit of full disclosure, it must be noted that sometime fairly early in their marriage she threw a massive lead crystal ashtray at his head in an attempt to kill him, but he nimbly ducked and all was forgiven in the long run. And they do say that successful couples need to learn how to fight.

But the best part of being at Luxor over the weekend was watching these two energetic musicians perform at the Nefertiti Lounge. One plays keyboards and the other plays saxophone. They do mostly covers, but they do them with such verve and energy that their performances often outshine the originals. I can’t stop photographing the saxophonist because he’s so mesmerizing.

Here he transmutes into pure energy.

I was out early on Sunday morning for a run on The Strip, which turned out to be a nice way to get some time to myself. Note the general scarcity of people in this photo:

I reckon everyone was at church.

Unfortunately, cell phone reception is not that great in my hotel room. But what do you expect? I’m smack dab behind the Sphinx and one of the great pyramids. There have to be some trade-offs.

So I’ve taken to calling Alex from the outdoor pool area, which has given me the chance to say something that I’ve wanted to say all my life:
“Hey, baby. I’m calling from the pool.”

Living the dream, living the dream.

More news and, with any luck, more Icarus, on Thursday…