Art and the Homeless

In the opening scene of Sergio Leone's, “Once Upon A Time In The West,” notice the bird in a cage. It's a green-yellow bird, a wild desert bird, and not a canary. Nobody cannot notice the bird in the cage, as it is thrust in the camera's lens by the director and, therefore, into the viewer's face. It's a "tell," or gamblers' slang, for a reveal.  Sergio Leone is revealing to the viewer he is a gambling casino insider. A player. Without bragging, he is letting those also in-the-know, know he's been inside “the cage.” In Las Vegas (as any player can tell you), “the cage” is the casino bank tellers' window. Every player has been TO the cage. The director has been IN the cage. As even anyone who has never been in a casino can imagine, the cage has bars. It's a danger zone. What Sergio Leone is saying (metaphorically), is that he has been behind the bars, he has been “back of house.” That's casino talk for the business office, in Las Vegas....

Real gamblers—gamblers by nature—don't gamble. They don't play. They don't play games. They don't play at games of chance. Fools play because fools are losers.  "But, it's entertainment." Picture me shaking my head. Gambling money on games of chance is a vice. The compulsive gambler, the inveterate gambler, the "degenerate gambler," all have one thing in common. They're playing for the wrong side. As the legend of Las Vegas goes, when Joe Schenck, chairman of 20th Century Fox entertainment corporation, had a friendly conversation with W.R. “Billy” Wilkerson, publishing magnate, millionaire, and gambler, he told it like it is -and as a friend.  Mr. Schenck hated to see Mr. Wilkerson gambling-away his hard-earned millions, and so he suggested that he try playing with the casino, for a change; "Why don't you build your own casino?" All Wilkerson needed was a nudge. A challenge.  Wilkerson didn't need to have his arm twisted. H...

My argument, that Sergio Leone's 1968 hit movie Once upon a Time in the West is a mythologized portrayal of the birth of the Las Vegas phenomenon, must necessarily be told in the form of informal rambling discourse. I am shooting at a moving target while time is running out. The notion is so new, to me, that I can't provide any footnotes. It may not even be an original idea, after all. And so (by way of disclosure), I state that if it's not my original idea, neither am I guilty of deliberate plagiarizing. I repeat not  intentionally, because neither can I claim to be innocent. The movie is a cultural icon of mythic proportions. I saw it as a kid. Probably, if I did my homework, I would discover my thesis discussed before by one—or more—Cinema deconstructionists. I don't want to know. I'm a reluctant researcher. I don't like spade work. I'm a lucky finder. A researcher hedges his bets. A writer shoots from the hip and hopes. You can be a reader, or you can ...

According to the 2020 Census, the population of the entire Las Vegas, Henderson, and Paradise, Nevada Metropolitan Statistical Area was 2,811,488. To put that in perspective, the same Census counted 3,104,614 for the entire State of Nevada. When I do the arithmetic, I find that Las Vegas accounts for fully 90.5% of the total population of the State of Nevada. Without troubling to look-up the official size of the physical area of urban sprawl known universally as Las Vegas, to any observer a mass-density dynamic should be obvious. Nevada is not the American state with the lowest population. Nevada ranked #32 on the list for 2020. Again (for perspective), that means the Metropolitan Las Vegas Area's population is larger than that of the entire State of New Mexico (which ranks #36.) The population of Las Vegas is also larger, in turn, than each of the next 13 States on the list. The population of Greater Las Vegas is larger than the combined 2020 populations of Alaska (733,406), Distr...

I hate to admit it, but Las Vegas is not the place for art. Art has no place in Las Vegas. It doesn't "belong here" -in the idiomatic sense of the term. The developer Steve Wynn appreciated the price tag of famous works of art, and he tried diligently to create a physical presence for art in his world-class resorts, not so much as hotel room décor (a crass, nod-to-class gesture), as much as to present a true, cultural experience -in the Old World tradition. He failed. This isn't Monte Carlo. Las Vegas never was, it will never be, and above all it doesn't want to be, Monte Carlo. The jewel box gallery for art exhibits in the Bellagio Casino is sparsely attended. That's not because the exhibits are less than world-class; “How much for the Monet?” Unless a painting seen in Las Vegas is signed by a famous name artist, and carries an (insured) value of millions, it's got no box office value. Las Vegas is itself a show - an exhibition - with which art can't ...