(2022-02-20) Chapin Notes Against Las Vegas

Sasha Chapin: Notes Against Las Vegas. Evil is real. It’s uncool to admit it. Dark forces encircle the earth, running giant machines that abase the human spirit, hollowing out everything that can be full within us, filing down our fractal beauty until we’re as gluey as cheese sauce. To be effective, though, evil has to be cozy and agreeable.

There are flashes of beauty and innocence. But it’s rare to see anyone having what looks like fun.

People who come to Vegas ironically, so they can write blog posts about it or whatever, or just ‘see what it’s like’ are contributing to the decay.

One potential test of the mental health of a nation: can people, generally, stand to relax? And by relax, I mean, like, relax—at a hut on a beach by a forest, maybe, for a weekend. No devices, maybe a book or two, a couple of friends, simple good food.

Las Vegas is supposed to be the city of sin. But the bacchanalia is so banal. It doesn’t feel debauched at all. Real debauchery can be transformative—it makes you feel dirty and clean all at the same time, renewed by being flayed.

Nothing is too on the nose for the Strip. You can get a giant drink with the word Numb on it.

Cirque du Soleil was incredible. The raw athleticism, the whimsy, the insanely comprehensive command of ‘billowing’ as a genre of motion. I am inspired by the French Canadian people, who have excelled, despite their small number, in acrobatics, mixed martial arts, torch songs, and pork pie.

There is no one crowning moment, no single second that will tie everything off in a bow, or make your whole existence coherent. The riddle of craving is never quite solved. Reminding yourself of this is, if anything, what you can win in Vegas, this sucking pit of desire, which promises, like Dante’s conical inferno, to invert if you go deep enough, offering a way out at the very bottom, just out of sight.