Strip Cultures: Finding America in Las Vegas

by The Project on Vegas

On the Las Vegas Strip, blockbuster casinos burst out of the desert, billboards promise "hot babes," actual hot babes proffer complimentary drinks, and a million happy slot machines ring day and night. It’s loud and excessive, but, as the Project on Vegas demonstrates, the Strip is not a world apart. Combining written critique with more than one hundred photographs by Karen Klugman, Strip Cultures examines the politics of food and water, art and spectacle, entertainment and branding, body and sensory experience. In confronting the ordinary on America’s most famous four-mile stretch of pavement, the authors reveal how the Strip concentrates and magnifies the basic truths and practices of American culture where consumerism is the stuff of life, digital surveillance annuls the right to privacy, and nature—all but destroyed—is refashioned as an element of decor. 

 

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 2, 2015

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic books can be hit or miss. Especially academic books written by multiple authors, each trying to get their unique point of view across. I'm pleased to say that I was more than pleasantly surprised by Strip Cultures: Finding America in Las Vegas by The Project on Vegas: Stacy M. Jameson, Karen Klugman, Jane Kuenz & Susan Willis.

Published by Duke University (forthcoming in Oct 2015), Strip Cultures is an investigation by four professors into various aspects of Las Vegas culture. Topics covered include expected ones like quickie marriages and marriage chapels as well as character sketches of people who play the penny slots. There are also unexpected and provocative chapters on topics like water use in Vegas and surrounding areas, surveillance inside and outside the casinos, and an investigation into the increasingly diminishing public spaces in Vegas and how private spaces are taking over.

The eleven chapters are each written by one of the four academics and all of them are accompanied by the photography of Karen Klugman.

I found the book incredibly interesting as well as refreshing accessible. This is absolutely a scholarly work with philosophical discussions, sociological observations and plenty of citations. But the academic theories are interspersed with personal anecdotes and observations from the authors' trips (individual and collective) to Vegas over a period of years. I also found the writing very clear and straightforward, never overly-complex simply for the sake of academic pomposity.

I also enjoyed the photography of Karen Klugman. I wish there had been more/better/stronger captions (I read an early ebook version so that may have been updated in the final) as well as more discussion of what photos she chose to include (and exclude).

Another real strength of the book is that each of the authors are very attuned to the sensorial experience of Las Vegas (one of my favourite anecdotes is a trip to the Coke tasting bar where the authors sampled Coke's offerings from around the world). Whether Klugman's visual eye or Stacy Jameson's aural proclivities, the book is peppered with multi-sensory perspectives which add an evocative layer to the narrative. For example, in the chapter "Gaming the Senses", Jameson writes:

From the moment you step off the plane—in what could visually be any other airport waiting room—the sounds of slot machines function as geographic and ideological markers. The sounds identify the destination, set the lively mood, and guide the newly arrived tourists to gamble. Indeed, my most lingering “image” of Las Vegas is in fact auditory. The name of the place and the ideas it inspires is inextricable from an unavoidable recall of a chorus of those slot machines. My head fills with that characteristic cheerful sound, “bing, bing, bing.”

For those folks like me who love to peruse end notes and bibliographies for new reading material, you'll find Strip Cultures a real treasure trove of citations and references.

I highly recommend Strip Cultures. Even if you've never been to Vegas (which I actually haven't), you'll enjoy Strip Cultures as well as have a great idea about what to expect if/when you do visit. The variety of cultural and sensual excursions that authors take you on, and their astute exploration of the larger cultural implications of what is actually happening, make this a great read!

A big thanks to NetGalley and Duke University for the review copy of Strip Cultures: Finding America in Las Vegas.

[Biblio Files (takingadayoff) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone has something to say about Las Vegas. Some of the most thoughtful and revealing books are by historian Hal Rothman. David Schwartz and David Littlejohn wrote about life beyond the Strip. Mark Gottdiener and Eugene Moehring dug deeper into the culture of Las Vegas. And William Fox and Bruce Begout took a gloomier, philosophical look at the city.

Most of the books about Las Vegas are by men. Las Vegas is undeniably masculine. So what happens when four scholars who are women go to the Strip, making several trips each, alone or with partners or children, or with each other? The result is predictably academic, but there are also aspects of Las Vegas that come up in Strip Cultures that I haven't read about anywhere else. In addition to observations about gambling, showgirls, "slappers" (the people on the sidewalks who hand out photo cards advertising escort services), there are also essays about the art in Las Vegas (there's more than you'd expect), about the sounds and smells, about souvenirs, about buffets.

If there's a unifying theme here, I missed it, but the individual essays are well worth your time. One thread that pops up in several essays is that Las Vegas is overwhelmingly fake, but doesn't try to hide the fakeness, in fact it seems to flaunt it and even invites you behind the scenes. It's all part of the show.

In addition to the excellent essays (a few of my favorites were Jane Kuenz's chapter on casino security and Stacy Jameson's on the smells and sounds of the Strip), there are plenty of arresting photographs throughout, taken by Karen Klugman.

[Sean Wicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might have given this book 4 stars, in fact, about halfway through, I was pretty sure I was going to. Analyzing Las Vegas from a cultural and detached observational view (everything from Weddings, to gambling, to souvenir buying to porn hustlers on the street) it offers some interesting comments on things that can happen only in Vegas that wouldn't fly anywhere else. This is great, particularly chapters about gambling and weddings, but then later in chapters about people and selfies and souvenirs you wonder - wait, these things are everywhere, not just Vegas. I mean, people are constantly taking pictures of themselves and their food even when not on vacation, and souvenirs have been a part of the landscape for every destination for decades. These chapters drone on and almost come across as being written from someone from another planet rather than someone from somewhere else in the USA visiting another American city, albeit one that is all about letting lose and being on vacation. While chapters about water supply and natural elements on and around the strip are interesting, they like the phone and souvenir sections drone on.

It's a good book overall, but could have used some editing in spots.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Five stars for useful information on casino-resorts on the Strip, two stars for the authors' heavily biased and unprofessional rhetorical choices in the majority of the chapters.

[Duke Press]

"[T]he chapter on surveillance and 'security aesthetics' is downright chilling. This study may not expose all of Las Vegas’s secrets, but it still feels like someone pulling back the curtain for a peek at the Wizard." Publishers Weekly

"Strip Cultures explores all aspects of Vegas from the perspectives of art, photography and the visual, from the sensory experience to nature and technology, and brand and image. Every facet goes under the microscope, which makes for diverting reading in itself – viewing this city, its culture and its bizarre mix of inhabitants for the sheer theatre it is." — Sam Marsden Jackpot.co.uk

"[A] book of often startling richness and complexity, often very finely written. ...Strip Cultures is an admirably even handed and non judgemental account, for the most part, of a city whose openness allows its authors to experience it in some new ways. But as they make clear, it’s also a city whose pleasures come at a human cost. Without hectoring or harangue, but instead by steady accumulation of data and anecdote, that is the disturbing conclusion this book leaves." — Richard J. Williams Times Higher Education Book of the Week

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of essays. It talks about how they made a 4 mile long strip into the street of decadence it is with all the neon lights, the water displays, the volcano going off. It is like being in Fantasy land for 4 miles.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspectives of LV.