Casino at the End of the World

Every casino is the same physical space. No windows, no clocks, the Feng Shui of confusion with ranks of slot machines, blackjack tables, carpet with a labyrinthian design, cocktail waitresses with trays of drinks in plastic cups, the constant promise of the quick buck and a timeless oasis of ups and downs, hope and despair. Some are palaces, others are dumps, all offer something subversive and, underneath the smell of smoke, whiskey, and oddly manufactured air deodorizer, a whiff of possibility. What sets one casino from another is the people who decide that this place is *the* place, their place.

Las Vegas did have a place for me but it wasn't anything like I imagined. A building is just a building but the Wild Wild West was something so much more, so much seedier and alive, than the tried and true dazzle of this circus in the desert that it felt like *the* place, my place.

Part memoir, part history of Las Vegas, "Casino at the End of the World" is a as wild and seedy as the place it memorializes.