It was Zoe’s first destination choice. Hmm, it was not quite perfect as a 2econd Friday connection. A perfect Connection would be one that gives only one answer. Zoe chose Circus Circus because, it was another (along with last month’s The Mirage) film location in Leaving Las Vegas. Hmmm.
We dined at The Steak House, which is a pretty renowned place. Oh, dear, Zoe asked if they had chups (French Fries). That didn’t seem to go down very well with the waiter. He called Zoe, “dear”. That didn’t go down very well with Zoe. She didn’t say anything, because Camper doesn’t complain, does she.
For the activity, it was off up to the midway. We saw a clown’s performance. Zoe doesn’t like clowns. We saw a pair of trapeze artists. Oof, they were good. We had a wonder round. We didn’t play much on the carnie things. I remember when the carnie (minks) would come to Kemnay, and setup behind The Burnett. Rupert Munro would remember, too.
On completion of remembering Rupert remembering, we went out to The Strip to get a couple of photos of what is surely one of the best sights Las Vegas has to offer – the Circus Circus porte cochere. Oof, yeah, look at all those lights. Then there’s also the great clown sign, which yes, you may well remember from a scene in Leaving Las Vegas, when Ben and Sera stop for a chat on the pavement below, if I remember rightly (but may well not do).
To finish, what tune could be used for Circus Circus’s year of opening. It’s 1968. It’s psychedelia. I was torn between The Doors, and Pink Floyd. Perhaps Paul (Pashley, not Rothchild) would say I’ve made the wrong choice. Anyway, I’ve gone for a Pink Floyd track. Talking of which, have a read of this fantastic comment about Stefan Al’s even-more-fantastic book, “The Strip”:
"Stefan Al joins such astutely fascinated European Robinson Crusoes as Jean Baudrillard and Reyner Banham, washed ashore on the sands (and in this case The Sands) of American hyperreality. Al sees Vegas not simply as metaphor for what animates and ails us, nor as occasion for learned analytic theatrics (as if the parking lot of Caesars Palace really were aswim with chariots). His is a wonderfully observed account of the architectural development of the Strip at the singular, mesmerizing convergence of postwar car culture, mafia power, A-bomb blasts, suburbanism, libertinism, mass consumption, TV, LSD, and unself-conscious, hyperbolic kitsch -- and its discontents. The Strip is a definitive account of their surreal spawn along an axis at once emblematic and truly weird."
(Michael Sorkin, Distinguished Professor of Architecture, City College of New York; Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio; President, Terreform)
Opening Date: October 18th, 1968
Tune: “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” by Pink Floyd
Dress Code: Resort Casual