AN INTENSE GOLDEN BLUSH OF DAWN IN A PALE GREEN SKY. THE SUN APPEARS AS A GOLDEN PINPRICK RAPIDLY SWELLING AS IT RISES, THROWING PIERCING RAYS ACROSS MY VISION. IT SWIFTLY PALES INTO YELLOW AND THEN TURNS BRILLIANT white. The green skyline segues into blue, the distant hills become outlines and another desert day has begun. It’s a perfect day, too, as an intense wind has blown away all the smog and the hills appear clear and bright in every wrinkle and fold. To the west there is a slight brush of white on the rims of the red mountains. It’s cold and the bellmen wear capes and earmuffs, and stamp their feet, laughing good-humoredly. Inside the Bellagio real snow is falling on thousands of red poinsettias from a real snow machine installed in the glass roof. I’m here to visit the treasures of Chatsworth, the improbable collection of an English stately home in a Las Vegas hotel.
This morning Tania and I made a plan for me to go with her to a shopping mall. Over breakfast I asked her how she would feel if I didn’t go.
“At first distraught and then relieved?” I suggest.
“At first distraught and then relieved,” she says.
Too often married people end up doing what neither of them wants to do because they think the other person wants, etc., etc., whereas in fact what the other person wants etc., etc., though they think what the other person wanted was etc., etc. So we cut to the chase. Tania goes off shopping, and I go to the Chatsworth Collection at the Bellagio, and we are both happy. The gallery at the Bellagio is just the right size for a decent hour’s browsing and the sampling on offer here, from a huge collection at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, England, is just perfect. Tiny jeweled objects, some paintings, and some letters, notably from Dickens, Thackeray, and Charlotte Brontë to the sixth Duke of Devonshire, known as “the bachelor duke.” Hmm, funny he never married…
There are enough pictures of overdressed aristocrats to stimulate the taste buds of any revolutionary, but the art is fine, and I am amused by a miniature version of a splendid Renaissance painting by Domenichino, which shows God clearly giving the finger to Adam and Eve. It says “admonishing” in the title but with his large forefinger held firmly erect there is no doubting God’s message.
While Tania shops, John and I take tea with Teller in the Verandah. What a nice, bright, intelligent man he is. John and I were consulting him on a technical matter [How to make the tour go away perhaps?—Ed.], and he couldn’t have been more courteous or informative or helpful. His expertise clearly stems from a great love for and intense study of his art. He has an appealing modesty and a directness. There is no bullshit or hype, he just speaks the simple truth. My kind of guy. I visited Penn and Teller six months ago after their show at the Rio and sat with them in their dressing room for a couple of hours just talking. I had forgotten how pleasant it was to have intelligent conversation with witty and informed men on any subject that arose. I guess that’s from living too long in L.A., where most conversations tend to descend fairly swiftly to movies and “the business.” Eye-crossing. Penn and Teller delight in discussing unimportant subjects like the universe. A wonderful statuesque African-American woman with an amazing body comes across to say hello to him. We all stare helplessly at her.
The first time I came to Vegas was with a bunch of Carrie Fisher’s friends for the opening of her mum’s hotel. Debbie Reynolds was opening a tiny boutique hotel, complete with minicasino, just off the Strip. I think she had been enticed by the success of the Liberace Museum. When we arrived from the airport we were taken by limo to the Debbie Reynolds Hotel, where we were greeted by the most extraordinary sight: there in the lobby at twelve in the morning was Debbie doing her act, in full glam, in sequins, in a red, glittering diamanté dress, singing “Tammy” on a tiny hand mike to a small party of bewildered Japanese tourists. Welcome to Vegas, baby.
Unfortunately we couldn’t stay at the Debbie Reynolds Hotel because of a last-minute disaster with the fire department: when they tested the emergency sprinklers, water just trickled down the walls of the rooms, so they refused to grant a license and we were shoveled into a nearby hotel on the Strip: the Dunes or the Prunes, or the Sands or the Glands, I forget which because it has long since been pulled down to create Venice, or Paris, or Madrid, or is it Berlin? Long gone are the days of sand and sin. Nowadays Vegas succeeds because it creates everything but desert in the mind. It is built on illusions. A dream of naughty pleasure. Literally titillation.