New York Adult Entertainment: A Begrudging Admiration of Las Vegas
Yet I knew that Las Vegas was born from the loins of Los Angeless greatest gangsters and from the great Hoover Dam project which employed thousands of men in the Depression to bring the water and power that made the desert bloom. And finally, you add Hollywood into the mix, with its stagecraft and pleasure machine technology, and you can create ersatz reality on a grander scale than the real thing.
You can make a convincing great ship on the silver screen from a three-foot long model, if its well enough made. And magic has long been part of the business of organized crime. Thugs have been running prostitution, night clubs, amusement parks, horse racing and have even had a hand in the movie business for nearly a century. Here in the desert, the thuggery has taken on a new and possibly redeeming dimension, by the simple expedient of mixing large amounts of magic and stagecraft into the brew.