A few thoughts about Las Vegas:

• I expected Las Vegas to be characterized by 1970s glamour gone to seed, kind of grimy and slightly dangerous. But really its aesthetic is more like a giant shopping mall. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not looking down my nose at the city. It’s just not what I expected.
• The Las Vegas monorail may be a quick and inexpensive way to get from one end of the strip to the other, but it does so by taking you by the most visually uninteresting parts of the city. And the pre-recorded tour information is gratingly chipper.
• The Star Trek bar at the Las Vegas Hilton is a great place to get a Romulan martini. Okay, I made that drink up, but the bar and the whole Star Trek Experience thing is pretty cool. Every once in awhile, someone goes walking by in full costume and makeup, talking in character with the patrons.
• I had hoped to sleep on the flights home–I left at 1:15 a.m. and got back to the apartment at 10:00 a.m.–but alas, this was not to be. For the first time in over thirty years of flying, however, I was bumped up to first class. Very nice. I tried to watch Pieces of April on my laptop to pass the time, but I didn’t think it was that good and gave up after about 45 minutes: too many indie film cliches. The movie they showed on the flight–and why show a movie from 1:15 to 3:45 in the morning?–was Spanglish. Even without the sound on I could tell that movie sucks.
• The Alexis Park Resort is a nice place to stay, but I had a frustrating time with my reservation and billing. Mistakes were made and apologies were not. I may blog about this in more detail, if I have the time and inclination

My flight doesn’t board until 12:40 a.m. That’s the bad news. I have a couple of movies on my laptop, 28 Days Later and Pieces of April, plus there’s free wireless here. That’s the good news.

I had coffee with Mademoiselle Polkadot this morning and then walked all over Vegas. Crashing hard, at the moment. I’m much, much too tired to write it all up now. Suffice it to say that Vegas is not Boston.

Okay, I will report this: A room full of patrons at the Hard Rock Cafe singing along to Radiohead: “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.”

Yes, we are all on the margins.

After racking up 1,800 frequent flyer miles yesterday, I made it to the conference hotel, delivered my paper along with three other people on my panel, engaged in some Q&A discussion, which was nice, given that we were the last panel of the day and had gone over our time limit, looked around for people I know, didn’t see any, went back to my room, ordered room service, crashed.

What kind of a time zone lets the sun come up at 5:00 a.m.? It’s hard enough to sleep in, given the time zone change.

The weather here is beautiful. I haven’t been to the strip, yet. I need coffee.

To the person who hoped to go out with me last night: sorry I crashed so early. I’m really not a boring old man.

• My mp3 collection is growing by leaps and bounds.
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: awesome.
• Delicious south Indian cuisine.
• American whiskey and conversation at a bar on Franklin Street in Brooklyn.

Tomorrow I hope to be able to meet up with Vika and Deb.

Yesterday we had lunch at the Thai place in the Polish Brooklyn neighborhood where we’re staying. Then we went to the newly expanded Museum of Modern Art (see this piece in the New Yorker), where I got to spend some time with a few of my favorite artists:

• Robert Rauschenberg
• Jasper Johns
• Mark Rothko
• Francis Bacon
• Jackson Pollack

I also made the acquaintance of the work of a few new (to me) artists:

• Alighiero e Boetti
• William Kentridge
• Jeff Wall
• Eve Sussman
• Michael Weseley

Weseley’s photographs, the result of exposures lasting up to three years, are amazing. Longstanding structures are portrayed as solid, but people, cars, and buildings under construction appear as ghosts at best.

Around 6:00 we had a couple of drinks at Union Square, then headed to a restaurant named Bruxelles for a meal of mussels and pommes frites accompanied by some delicious Belgian beer.

Today? I have no idea what we’re doing today.