Each city is an archetype rather than a prototype, an exaggerated example from which to derive lessons for the typical. Each city ...vividly superimposes elements of a supranational scale on the local fabric: churches in the religious capital, casinos in the entertainment capital. These cause violent juxtapositions of use and scale in both cities. Rome's churches, off streets and piazzas, are open to the public; the pilgrim, religious or architectural, can walk from church to church. The gambler or architect in Las Vegas can similarly take in a variety of casinos along the Strip. The casinos and lobbies of Las Vegas are ornamental and monumental and open to the promenading public.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Las Vegas has become, just as Bugsy Siegel dreamed, the American Monte Carlo--without any of the inevitable upper-class baggage of... the Riviera casinos. At Monte Carlo there is still the plush mustiness of the nineteenth century noble lions.... There are still Wrong Forks, Deficient Accents, Poor Tailoring, Gauche Displays, Nouveau Richness, Cultural Aridity--concepts unknown in Las Vegas. For the grand debut of Monte Carlo as a resort in 1879 the architect Charles Garnier designed an opera house for the Place du Casino; and Sarah Bernhardt read a symbolic poem. For the debut of Las Vegas as a resort in 1946 Bugsy Siegel hired Abbot and Costello, and there, in a way, you have it all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All that is necessary to do with this drink is to place it in an open saucer on the window sill and inhale deeply from across the ...room. In about eight seconds the top of the inhaler's head rises slowly and in a dignified manner until it reaches the ceiling where it floats, bumping gently up and down. The teeth then drop out and arrange themselves on the floor to spell "Portage High School, 1930" the eyes roll upward and backward, and a strange odor of burning rubber fills the room.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If some beggar steals a bridle he'll be hung by a man who's stolen a horse.... There's no surer justice in the world than that which makes the rich thief hang the poor one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Know that, on the right hand of the Indies, there is an island called California, very near to the Terrestrial Paradise, which was... peopled with black women.... Their arms were all of gold.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
First we kill all the subversives; then, their collaborators; later, those who sympathize with them; afterward, those who remain i...ndifferent; and finally, the undecided.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable ...to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time--and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »