"At a bar downstairs at the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, I recently found myself next to a 67-year-old man who had come to town to get a tattoo on his shoulder. The tattoo in question was of Yosemite Falls, in California. As best I could understand it, he was getting branded with the landmark because he was enmeshed in a situationship that wasn't working out. He and this woman had apparently taken a memorable trip to Yosemite"
"he hoped that-after he showed her the tattoo-a tarnished spark would be rekindled. I wished him all the luck in the world as he took his leave of me, and for a few minutes, I was alone among the chirping slot machines, nursing a gin and soda and pondering how no place on Earth can make you believe the impossible quite like Las Vegas."
"I know more people who hate Vegas than love it, and I've never been able to construct a convincing argument for why they're wrong. We are granted only so many vacations in this life, and it might seem ill-considered to spend one of them watching the Blue Man Group in an Egyptian-themed hotel in the Nevadan desert. But here I was, at the Luxor, on a quest to renew my love affair with this city."
An encounter at the Luxor involves a 67-year-old man getting a Yosemite Falls tattoo to revive a fading relationship. Las Vegas can make impossible hopes feel believable. The narrator recognizes that many people dislike the city but seeks to rekindle personal affection for it. The Luxor sits at the Strip's tip as a matte-black pyramid with 4,407 rooms and 65,000 square feet of gaming, drenched in pop-Egyptian pastiche. Walls bear incoherent hieroglyphs, plastic pharaohs guard the check-in lane, and taxis idle beneath a gargantuan Sphinx. Arrival finds a third-floor suite with slanted floor-to-ceiling windows and bright desert sun.
Read at Slate Magazine
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