Cirque de Porn

Someone once described to me a trip that she had taken to Las Vegas with a former boyfriend. She had gone reluctantly, and she seemed really emotionally injured as she described to me how appalled she was by the gluttonous excess, the crass, alienating inhumanity, the whole tawdry, tacky, morally bereft mess of it all. And as she talked, all I could think was, "Yeah? That's the point."

Being able to appreciate things on their own terms is a valuable skill, especially for the traveler. It's not something that I always succeed at myself, but I always try, and it was in that spirit that I went to a Cirque de Soleil show called Zumanity. Now, you may think, as I did, that Cirque de Soleil is an actual, unique performance troop with some sort of integrity. Like, I don't know, the Bolshoi Ballet or something, but with trapezes. Well, it ain't. It's a franchise, and every casino on the Las Vegas strip has a show with the Cirque de Soleil label slapped on it. You might think it would be hard to choose, but really it wasn't, I just went to the one that was "created for our guests 18 years of age and older." It was cute. It was sort of like the Bolshoi Ballet, but with trapezes, and breasts.

Honestly, much as I like breasts, and the Bellagio fountains, and the Mirage volcano, and the view from the Stratosphere, and losing money at blackjack, the coolest thing in Vegas (and I realize that this is me utterly failing to appreciate a place on its own terms) is the Hoover dam. Damn. That thing is cool.