When flying to Las Vegas know you’re in another world the moment you step off the plane and enter the terminal. This is what you see. The waiting passengers are right next to a bank of new-generation slot machines. No, there is no pulling of handles: they’re all electronic and replete with sounds and flashing lights:
I ubered to the hotel where the CSICon meetings are taking place, which happens to be the Horseshoe Las Vegas (for luck I suppose, formerly known as Bally’s). The main floor is completely filled with slots roulette tables, and other venues of gambling which have been called “a tax on stupidity”:
After waiting four hours to check into my room (I spent it in the food court reading a book I’m reviewing), I finally got a place to stay. CSICon begins this morning; the website is here and you can see the schedule here. Today is mostly workshops, but tonight at 8 pm physicist Brian Cox will receive the Richard Dawkins Award, As noted by Wikipedia, the award is
. . . . currently presented by the Center for Inquiry to an individual associated with science, scholarship, education, or entertainment, and who “publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead.” They state that the recipient must be approved by Dawkins himself.
The award will be announced by CFI and Dawkins Foundation President Robyn Blumner, and then there will be a video by Dawkins explaining why Cox is getting the award, and that is followed by the formal presentation (it will be a lovely staatuette) by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (see below). Cox will then give a keynote address. Tyson himself got the award in 2022, and I was honored to join the panoply in 2015.
Last night a few people forgathered for dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s Steakhouse in the Paris Casino next door. It was a lovely meal hosted by CFI. The wine was chosen by an astrophysicist who is also an oenophile, and is far more competent than I to select the wines. Here he is instructing the waiter that the bottle he brought was, in fact, not of the vintage noted on the menu. We got another bottle:
My meal included a starter of onion soup, heavy with cheese and thick, onion-flavored broth:
And then the famous Gordon Ramsey beef wellington, which was excellent.
On Saturday, after I speak in the morning, a frew friends and I will head to what is often regarded as Vegas’s best buffet, the Bacchanal at Caesar’s Palace, across the street. You can’t consider a trip to Vegas complete without a visit to a buffet.
Here’s a tour of the Bacchanal. I plan to concentrate on the seafood: crustaceans and oysters, and fill in the gaps with the lamb and a passel of desserts.
Looks like fun! And the food. Oy!
When I attended a conference in Reno many years ago, I was surprised to find that my room had a live Keno display in the wall. Numbers were updated day and night. There was no escaping the incentives to gamble. (Maybe there are even more incentives today; I don’t know.) But I had no trouble resisting, and the rumor was that gambling proceeds were way off that week, as geologists, apparently, are not the gambling type.
The most jarring thing to me about Vegas is the smoking in the casinos. I’m just not used to walking into a place where people still smoke, although I worked in offices until I was in my early 20s where it was still allowed.
I guess state law permits that, but oy, do the casinos stink!
A number of years ago, I had a surreal Las Vegas experience. Several of us Colorado fogies decided to run the Las Vegas marathon; fairly flat and slightly downhill starting about 25 miles south of town. When we arrived at our hotel for check-in, the scene made us chuckle (and cough a bit). The lobby casino was filled with generally overweight smoking gamblers commingled with more slender physically fit non-smoking runners 😄
Isn’t that astrophysicist oeniphile Neil deGrasse Tyson?
What kind of joint brings out a wine of different vintage than that listed on the wine list without first alerting the diner to the change and asking if that is ok? Or better, updates printed wine list to match cellar selections currently on offer. Oy! But hey, it’s Vegas not Paris.
I think so Merilee. Some mornings ol’ Neil gets up and feels like he’s a red, other times a white. Or a rose, even. The wine is what it THINKS it is… and it is all made of grapes so that makes it all the same, right?
cheers,
D.A.
NYC
Whoops, David, somehow I missed Jerry’s mention of Neil above🙀
Love Brian Cox, the physicist (also the actor).
Hate Las Vegas, except for getting to Grand Canyon. Seeing people on slots at 7 AM with cigarettes and beer is so depressing.
What do you think?
I love the side-eye that Damian is giving the exchange.
Wait. Haven’t you, PCC-E, gotten the R Dawkins Award yet? (maybe I hadn’t noticed?).
Brian Cox is a cool chap, for sure, but I think you’ve done much more.
D.A.
NYC
Yes David, PCC-e was 2015 recipient I believe.
Oh btw – if you run into Rebecca Watson waiting for the elevator…. RUN!
Run man, run, like your life depended on it!
😉 Evolutionary biology joke brought to you by the “I can’t stand Rebecca Watson club president”…. me.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Never cared for Vegas. It seems to epitomize everything sleazy and inauthentic about the US.
It does have the advantage that if you don’t gamble it’s cheap—food, lodging, etc. Obviously the profit margin is much higher in the casinos, so it makes sense to not make much profit on, or even subsidize, food and lodging, so that more people spend more on gambling. But if you don’t gamble, that makes it cheap. For that reason many conferences are held there. But otherwise, I agree with you.
Lodging is not expensive here, but to get cheap food you have to go a ways from the Strip.
It’s never appealed to me (a Canadian) either – there are lots of places in the US I love because of the culture or the nature but Vegas has neither.
However, I have friends from Scotland who are delighted by the over-the-top kitschiness of the place and go every chance they get. Chacun à son goût.
“Last night a few people forgathered for dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s Steakhouse in the Paris Casino next door . . . a lovely meal hosted by CFI . . . wine was chosen by an astrophysicist who is also an oenophile . . . instructing the waiter that the bottle he brought was, in fact, not of the vintage noted on the menu.”
Well, I trust that the serving staff met at least the high standards of civility and congeniality and comity for which Gordon Ramsey is famously known, and that the resident expert oenophile allowed spaces in the group togetherness (to borrow from Kahlil Gibran) for tablemates to complete sentences.
I hope you have fun at CSICon! I attended two previous meetings and liked them. Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend this year.