d i z t o p i a

Hot Maine Mollusk Facial Action

Went to coastal Maine for much-needed vacation decompression, and I and the Girlfriend Attorney stayed in the little tourist town of Ogunquit, which it turns out is something of a gay Mecca in terms of twee New England destinations. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Though I imagine Muslims get annoyed with the "gay Mecca" term, and perhaps gay Muslims get even more annoyed, offended by the suggestion that the actual Mecca is not already gay and accepting enough of their lifestyle. Because, you know, it totally should be. And anyway, how do Meccans refer to a non-Mecca location that attracts people of a particular demographic?

But enough Andy Rooney bullshit. The trip was great and too short, though the coast was seized by the same tyrannically brutal steam wave that broiled the rest of the country this past weekend. It was comparable to the Alabama heat I remember so well, and experiencing that in Maine just seems like a betrayal of fundamental climatological law. North = cold. That's what we learned in AP Confederate Studies, and that's the way it oughta damn be.

Anyway, there are of course photos. Warning: contains rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.

Lonely Planet Hearts Club Band

Innaresting piece in this week's New Yorker by Tad Friend about Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet travel guides. Though Wheeler and his wife Maureen are still majority shareholders in Lonely Planet, they have given up managerial control over the company and its books. Friend describes their general dissatisfaction with how their guides, recently redesigned and relaunched, have been pared down to more traditional guidebook fare (rather than the copious historical notes, social commentary, and joie-de-voyage that LP was once known for). There's even a cabal of former LP guidebook writers who have been reduced to passing nostalgic stories back and forth over the virtual campfire, recalling in a net discussion group how great it was in the great old great days of "unfettered travel and unedited prose, of princely royalties and heavy drinking and broken marriages." Now that's a positive progression.

I sympathize with Wheeler and his cohorts; even Friend waxes sentimental about when LP guides were a constant friend in his global backpacker phase. Unfortunately, it's hard to marry the practical concerns of a guidebook with the literary concerns of a travelogue. It's especially hard to do this in contemporary guidebook production, which of necessity involves a collaborative network of researchers, writers, editors, and so on to put a book together. Many people who start writing a guidebook are horrified when they realize the immense amount of really tedious detail work that a guidebook involves. I loved your rich metaphor describing the Eiffel Tower, mes ami, but when does it close on Sunday? And how long does it talk to walk to the top? And how much is the senior discount? Et cetera.

Ultimately, the LP books just went through the same transformation as any other travel guides: when they went mass market, they had to start marketing to the masses. Another thing that unnerves me is the article's description of Wheeler's touring style on a road trip through Oman. They drive and hike and run around quickly from site to site, barely taking the time for a toe-touch: "A few minutes into any museum or souk, you’d see Tony’s eyes turn glassy, and he’d twitch his map-of-Africa cap and say, 'On, on.'" And they were traveling for pleasure, supposedly, not updating a guide. I can't stand that sort of madcap rush when I'm traveling, either as a travel writer or a civilian. Sometimes you have to do it, but the quality of the work always suffers. It's telling that Wheeler & co. find several mistakes in the LP Oman guidebook, including a map that's so off-kilter that they end up "going ten miles per hour on a road that had narrowed to a sinister goat track, in a canyon that bore no trace of human passage." Have a great vacation, folks!

When I was on the coast of Belize a few years ago, I ran into a Lonely Planet researcher who had been contracted to write up three Central American countries in two weeks. That's soup to nuts on all three nations--entry and exit, major cities, touring those major cities, non-urban points of interest, everything. He said that he'd arrive in a city, go to the best hotel he could afford, then interrogate the hotel clerk or other guests about restaurants, other hotels, shopping, sights, etc. He'd go see a few places, then get pamphlets for the rest, and everything would go in the book as if personally verified, evaluated, and rated. Another day, another city. And so on. In retrospect, his methodology sounds a lot like Wheeler's -- covering a lot of ground quickly, but in such a hurry you have to question the depth and reliability of the information. Though LP guides are still well loved, especially by younger travelers, they've started to get a reputation in the industry for shaky data.

Equally telling is Wheeler's ironic dislike for tourists. At the end of the piece, he feels compelled to keep hiking up a mountain (leaving Friend and his own wife behind) just so he can get higher up the slope than another group of hikers. A travel guide writer who hates tourists makes about as much sense as a dining critic who hates restaurant-goers. You get the impression that Wheeler would love it if people would buy his books, love his prose, and then never actually go to these places, just so he could keep enjoying his lonely planet in unspoiled solitude.

Look Back in Neon

Spent last week in Vegas doing research work for the annual update of The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas (fifth year running). A shorter trip than usual, which was both good and bad ... didn't see Penn & Teller but got to miss out on Elton John, for example. The rundown:

Myself and the Girlfriend Attorney hit town about 3 pm, rented our Hertz hoopty and headed off to the Westin Casuarina, our home for the week. The place has decent rooms and is about half a block from the Strip. It's not Vegas glamorous by any means, but our options were limited by Final Four frenzy (some other researchers bunked at the Plaza downtown, an old Vegas queen now quite down at the heel). After stowing baggage, we went downtown ourselves to meet the bossman at the California's Redwood Bar & Grill, an old-Vegas gourmet room.

One steak and a few glasses of wine later, the GA begged fatigue and was dropped off at the hotel (so lucky), while I was forced to accompany the boss to see Havana Night Club at the Stardust. This show is filling in for Wayne Newton and seems to be doing quite well; in fact, the dancers are good, and the 13-piece band is better. But like most of these shows, the downfall is the hideous Dr.-Moreau-style grafting of a pointless theme or storyline atop the musical. In this case, Havana Night Club attempts to tell the musical story of Cuba, and it starts with some kind of proto-jungle where the beat of the island was "born." There's lots of dancing in skimpy Road Warrior outfits and little explanation ... the jungle-beat people don't appear to be slaves or colonizing Spaniards (the dancers come in all colors), so who knows what the deal is. Anyway, this era is finally dispensed with, and what follows is solid flamenco and samba and cha cha cha and so on, all the way to a Latin-techno dance party. Ended up not a bad show, though it seemed like several of the dance numbers lasted forty minutes apiece. Rumor has it that most if not all of the ensemble are Cuban exile asylum seekers; I personally enjoyed the little old Cuban lady who kept shouting "Viva Cuba! Muerte al Castro!"

The next day and afternoon were spent planning research and waiting for other researchers to arrive. Myself and the GA bummed around the Strip, as she'd never been to the city before and justly wanted to gawk. Later we met up with the boss and the new fish for another gourmet room dinner, this time at Roberta's at the venerable downtown El Cortez, the oldest continuously operating casino in town. Another night, another steak, though not as good as the Redwood ... not surprising, since El Cortez is a bit isolated and shabby even for downtown. The GA and I bid the rest farewell and went out for night work.

First up was a show at the doomed Aladdin, soon to be Planet Hollywood: Fashionistas, a high-concept piece of fluff about fetish fashion. It's a very sexxxy show, though not topless. Bankrolled by its porn-director auteur, it has high production values and a convoluted plot that involves bondage and hidden DVD features. But there's no dialogue! I can't tell you how grateful I was for that. Plus the music was better than most Vegas shows, let alone most Vegas sex/topless shows. It likely is making nowhere near enough money, nor is it likely to survive the crushing force of P-H'y'wd, but it was amusing and novel while it lasted. The GA was appalled, and in retrospect this was probably not the best choice for her first Vegas show...

Then it was on to nightclub reviews. First was Vivid at the Venetian, a sad and empty dance club that was all too similar to the sad and empty tiki bar it replaced. Tucked away in a frontage corner with no access to the mall or casino and no visibility from the Strip, they might as well turn this spot into a broom closet. Then it was off to Tangerine at Treasure Island. Formerly the Buccaneer Bar, this spot was best used as a vantage to watch the pirate battle out front. But now it's an uppity and admittedly pretty dance palace, and the crushing crowds and huge line made me very glad we were on the door list (thank YOU, publicity department). Seemed like a fun place, but you'd better make the most of each time you manage to fight your way to the bar. Supposedly has "speakeasy style" burlesque, but none was on offer by 11:30 pm anyway.

I spent the next day doing hotel work, which involves driving around and reviewing new and renovated hotels. The less said about that the better (the GA spent the day at the spa). Fortunately we had two teams working hotels this year, so I had less to worry about. We finished off both sides of the Strip in one day. That night, the GA and I set off once more for downtown to see if we could cobble together a touring plan from various lounge acts. Not much luck really, as fewer and fewer lounges even operate regularly anymore. We did see a few mediocre bands and one terrible Elvis impersonator, though I was more taken with the ad for the late-night Russian stud-show at Fitzgeralds ("A Russian invasion of sensual proportions"). I like the idea of classifying strippers by nationality, and it only makes sense now that there are two shows highlighting the indigenously erotic capacities of Australians.

More club work that night, both at Mandalay Bay. The first we visit is Mix, set atop the chi-chi hotel-within-a-hotel THEhotel. Normally I cringe when asked to pay a $20 cover, even though I get reimbursed for this kind of work. But Mix is worth it. The room itself is extremely pretty and well designed, but the kicker is a jaw-dropping view right over the adjacent Luxor pyramid right into the heart of the Strip. Floor-to-ceiling glass, with balcony for the brave. After Mix, the other Mandalay newcomer, Forty Deuce, failed to impress ... so much so that we didn't even realize there's apparently yet another burlesque show that takes place in another room of the club. Oh well.

The next day, I kidnapped the GA and forced her to endure more hotel work, as I took care of straggler properties located far afield. Then we dipped over to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, one of my favorite ways to decompress Vegas stress. But then we had to stagger over to the Stratosphere so I could try out Insanity, their latest top-of-the-tower thrill ride. It's a retractable claw holding ten chairs that it dangles and spins off the top of the tower. The line was ridiculous, so I just ended up waiting long enough to get a good idea of how things worked, and we bailed. Looked vertiginously fun and horrifying, though.

That night we had two shows, the first being Forbidden Vegas at our very own Westin. I was prepared for this to be truly awful, but it ended up being quite funny, though in a somewhat startling and overbearing way. The performers seemed not to care that they were in a tiny showroom of a third-tier chain hotel, and several had some of the best voices I've heard anywhere in Vegas. I suspect a lot of the Vegas-mocking might be a little inside baseball for some showgoers (even I was unable to catch all the references to Steve Wynn's business dealings), but it was good to have my pre-show disappointment disappointed. Afterward, we were supposed to go take a look at Pure, the new elite club at Caesar's Palace, but even our publicist powers couldn't get us on the list, and we were assured that it would be list-only while the basketball crowds were in town. So, we delegated an escorted pre-opening visit to other researchers, and instead moseyed over to Treasure Island to see Mystere.

This was a civilian outing, as it's one of my favorite shows. What can I say, I'm a Cirque du Soleil nerd. But here's a funny: while jockeying to keep all the right dates straight, I'd inadvertently bought tickets for the week before! Har har har! But not only did the nice Cirquers automatically refund my charge when I didn't show previously, but, now that I was here with my sad puppy dog face and pitying girlfriend, they let us have some unallocated high-roller tickets for the same price. So, we went from fairly high in the nosebleed section to six rows back from the stage, center. My stupidity reaps dividends once again. Show was predictably excellent, and the GA was duly amazed.

The next day was our last, though our flight didn't leave until 11:30 pm. So, we took the opportunity to drive out to Death Valley, which is experiencing a historic floral bloom due to freakishly heavy rainfall. Truly awe-inspiring scenery out there, and I never once felt like crawling around on the desert floor, gasping for my last cracklin' breath. (Odd note: in the tiny desert town of Shoshone, the only restaurant was a tiny shack that served ... crepes? and Havarti cheese platters? never mind.) After we got back to town and enjoyed a bit more Strip wandering, we adjourned to the airport, only to find our flight delayed three hours. We elected to stick around in case things improved, and spent a nice time dozing on the floor in front of gate A15. Managed to get finally back to my apartment in NYC about noon the following day, then slept for five hours like a dead corpse baby under a rock and log pile.

And I didn't even play any blackjack. The supposedly level-headed Girlfriend Attorney got really into the slot machines, though. Regardless, there are lots of pretty pictures, mostly of the great outdoors. Until next year, when the Wynn is finally open and Kà isn't temporarily dark ...

London Crawling

Went to London last weekend, courtesy of the Girlfriend Attorney, cheap airfare, and my birthday. An excellent trip, and it would be foolish not to go ahead and lead with the photos.

Urban bumpkin that I am, I hadn't been out of the country for three years, and then only to Mexicalifornia. Hadn't been on a transatlantic flight for almost twenty years. No, it's true ... my carefully cultivated guise as a worldly, cosmopolitan renaissance man is nothing but a sham! You never would have guessed, right?

Flight over was eventless. I can't sleep on airplanes, so I thrilled to a couple idiotic inflight movies. One of these was Shark Tale, which was painful. So painful. I really hate how they made the fish look like the celebrities voicing them, particularly the Will Smith fish ... its eyes were so googly and set far apart, it was offensive even as a caricature. Arrived in London about 9 am, and Thank Jeebus but our Kensington hotel let us in the room to crash rather than forcing us to wait till the 3 pm check-in. But just to simmer down, we wandered into the kind of gray London morning reserved for Mike Figgis films. Walked over by Kensington Palace, then blearily back to the hotel and jet-lag bed.

Got up in the afternoon and walked about some more. We hadn't planned much for the day, but the weather was unkind ... gross, cold, rainy, windy. Stopped in a pub and had some kind of thick, honeylike beerlike beveragelike thing which was tasty, but nearly put me right back to sleep. Ate at a neighborhood upscale British restaurant (they exist). An accursed Barclays cash machine to eat my ATM card. Good thing the Girlfriend Attorney had a bag full of cash, or as the British call them, "quid." So cute!

Eventually we went out and had a smashing time. Took a taxi to Buckingham Palace, walked to Trafalgar Square, then a boat down the Thames to ride the London Eye, taking in Big Ben and Parliament while doing so. That night, we had dinner at one of Gordon Ramsay's fine dining rooms, and were both mightily impressed more by the atmosphere and service than the food itself (not that the food wasn't excellent, just hard to compare with such a stellar room and staff). The next day we fiddled about with bags and check-out and such, then made it out to see Westminster (full of way too many dead people) and the British Museum, where I corrected a typo on the Rosetta Stone. That's macron, not hacek, you Egyptian git! (Notice my mastery of English slang. Awesome, wot?)

And so we flew back, landing at JFK at 2 am in a snowstorm after a descent so precipitous that it caused my sinuses to pulse with air pressure and my eyeballs to bulge from their sockets. Still have sort of a sinus headache and permanent runny nose from that. Since it was 7 am for us, I decided to call in sick to work. The Girlfriend Attorney was not so lucky, as the law sleeps for no one, as Shakespeare would have said were he alive today chained under my desk, instead of this worthless intern.

The Supreme Mohney Will Now Hear Your Pleas

Spent the past weekend in our nation's capital. Hadn't been there since I was 13 and visited for a junior-high junket. On that trip, we stayed at some Holiday Inn variant. Our surly group of preadolescents encountered another surly group of preadolescents. One guy in our group starting talking to a female from the other tribe. An alpha male from the other tribe then challenged the suitor, and harsh, preteen insult-words were exchanged. The end result was that the other guy decked our guy very adroitly, sending him to the pavement. The two tribes separated in hasty confusion. Even though I didn't like the guy who got punched, our tribe convened a revenge council and began plotting. Then, an adult from the other tribe somehow tracked us down to our hotel room and gave us the business. Apparently the assaulter was a junior Golden Gloves boxing champ. The implication being that we could suffer a serious whupping if we challenged him. Then the adult added on some halfhearted bloviating about how we shouldn't be fighting anyway blah blah blah. But it was obvious he was there more as a heavy than as an after-school-special intercessionary. Strange that no adults from our own cadre came in to speechify too. Well, screw this guy, we thought. We were given pause by the boxing prospect, but now it just meant we'd for sure jump the pugilist en masse. Which was probably what we expected to do anyway. I didn't want to get punched at all, even by someone without training. Still don't!

We never successfully assembled the posse back then, and I'm happy to say that this past weekend's visit was violence-free. DC is an interesting town, but now more than ever with all the batten-down-the-hatches antiterrorist fortifications and street closings, it's a pain in the ass to get around anywhere near the capitol grounds. Once you get away from that stuff, it's weird how the city transforms into a typical midsize Southern metropolis with a couple university districts. And the fact that none of the buildings in DC proper can be higher than nine stories gives it an even more bucolic feel. More Louisville than Atlanta.

Anyway, here are some photos. Remember, don't touch the box.

Götterhämmpshirung

Ah the untamed wilds of New Hampshire, where the leaves are turnin', birds are singin', and earthmovin' equipment quite literally BEGS to be driven, crushing all the bucolic landscape in its pitiless path! Go see pretty pitchers here.

One note from last night's vice presidential debate. Did you see the part where Cheney--who, in his role as vice president, presides over the Senate--took a swipe at Edwards' lousy senate attendance record? Cheney grumbled, "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight." Ouch! Zing! Oh wait, oops.

Also, as of today, I have worked at this job for one. Full. Year. Please note the date. If this is still the case in 365 more days, this unit will self destruct. Explosively, might I add.

ACK Attack

And here at long last are pics from Labor Day weekend in ACK. (ACK being the airport code and snobby nickname for Nantucket.) Ah, how bourgeois! I was there with the Girlfriend Attorney to join in celebrations of her mom's birthday, other attendees being her dad, sister, and sister's boyfriend. The main (and really, only) hamlet on the island, Nantucket Town -- someday to be called Nantucket City when it gets a few housing projects -- is very nice and well mannered, though a little twee and Disney-perfect. The island itself is quite gorgeous though, especially the wild sections, inlets, beaches, and sunsets. Went for a long bike ride, walked a lot, ate quite a bit of excellent food, got a slight bit of solar coloring and then promptly succumbed to sun poisoning, but then bounced back in time for a long afternoon by the water, on chaise lounges, as the mudslides and cheese plates kept a-comin'. Weather was almost suspiciously pleasant. It's good to be part of the ruling class. I rule you!

Speaking of weather, since Ivan chose not to consume my birthplace of New Orleans, he has instead decided to inundate my nominal home state of Alabama. Check out this scary image of Ivan from space. That's the kind of sight that makes you want to stick it out in the capsule for a few more days. As for those of you in Birmingham, I advise sealing yourself inside Vulcan's head.

Block Island Falls to Coalition Forces

So I and the Girlfriend Attorney spent the weekend on Block Island, RI, doing research for a glossy travel mag article. Much fun was had, even if my flesh is still somewhat irradiated and my liver a little turgid. Block Island is a proto-Martha's Vineyard, in that it sustains itself almost entirely from tourism, but hasn't yet been completely made over by super-rich folk into a Hamptons-ized fortress (though we passed Christopher Walken's house, and I felt it appropriate to discuss how much I fucking love hot dogs). About 40% of the island is protected land, much of it under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy, so it's quite pretty. Lots of rolling green hills with fieldstone walls blah blah blah. Anyway, you can read the damn article when it comes out in summer 2005.

Things that won't go in the article: having to drive another 60 miles to a different ferry because the new high-speed boat from New London, CT, pushed back its opening date (and now it appears their ostensible James Bond super-boat is in fact broken, and they also seem to be changing their website and company name, the shady bastards). So the other ferry was missed because of hellish traffic around Greenwich, CT, and we had to stay in the Most Repulsive Shit-Hole Motel in the Universe (do NOT believe the website photos ... even the earthy Nature Conservancy hippie dude I interviewed called the place a "hole," and one other Block Islander actually recoiled from our presence when informed where we'd recently spent the night).

Block Island is also one of the few remaining habitats of the American burying beetle. Consider this tender scene, taking place after a mated pair have fought off others of their species to secure rights to a dead mouse:

Underground, the two beetles cover the body with a secretion from their mouths and anuses that strips away the mouse's hair and preserves the remains. Then the female lays her eggs near the body. They hatch in a few days, and the young are fed from the carcass. To get a meal, the larvae stroke their parents' jaws. This goes on for about 50 days, when the larvae emerge as adults. This is the most complex form of parental teamwork yet discovered among beetles.

Secretions from mouths AND anuses? That's love, baby. I'm sure I'm forgetting other miscellany from the trip, but if you really want the whole excruciating visual enchilada, check out my photos. Sans captions (sorry, I got work to do). Specific questions about any particular tableaux can be left in the comments, where such will be answered fictionally if at all.

Las Vegas 24/7 x 10: The Play

Previously:
Are You Lookin’ at Me?
The Work
The Work-Play

Let the effete sipping of cocktails begin! Guidebook research completed, I pulled up stakes and moved over to Mandalay Bay to await the arrival of three friends from New York. They weren’t getting in till midnight, so I had a wonderful relaxing afternoon and evening of doing nothing, nothing, nothing. I’m ashamed to admit that lounging by the pool, napping in the room, and eating a quiet dinner while reading the paper was some of the most fun I had on this trip. But then the New Yorkers arrived, and it was time to get obliterated.

Las Vegas 24/7 x 10: The Work-Play

Previously:
Are You Lookin’ at Me?
The Work

One of my favorite things about going to Las Vegas is getting out to the desert. After several days of intense guidebook research, we find ourselves finishing up a bit early. This means we get to do a few things that are technically covered in the scope of the guidebook, but are really just excellent ways for us to do stuff we actually enjoy.

The first order of business is a mountain-bike ride in Red Rock Canyon, which is only about 20 minutes from the Strip. The scenery of both desert and red cliffs is nothing short of stunning, and you occasionally encounter feisty wild burros wandering in the coulees. (If you don’t want to bike around, there’s a fantastic driving loop with several pullouts for stops to take pictures or explore the cliffs.) No burros this time, but it’s painfully, laboriously apparent how out of shape I am by how quickly I get winded. Still, it’s an excellent ride, and makes me realize that I must, must get a bike back in New York now that spring is threatening.