Flawless Perfection

One of my favorite blogs on architecture is Build LLC's. This cheat sheet sums up why. Image and copyright theirs, naturally. 

Vegas again

This morning the desert air is a prism, and the mountains are cut from the sky with god's own exacto. 

The awareness of the desert is everywhere, the sense that this has all just been rolled out like a Persian rug, and could all be rolled right back up again, when the money stops coming, when people get bored of foolishness and hope, when there's no more excess to lust after. You drive in and see these things rising like worm-gods from the sand, an LSD mirage, and it's like they're waiting for the dunes to sweep through, for sand to cover the lobbies and the air to dry the glass, preserving everything just as it is, lights still blinking, forever. 

Leaving the strip, you drive across a flyover, like the spine of the continent, and find yourself rolling down towards Chinatown. Five linear miles and counting of run down strip mall, stucco and desert pink paint, blasted to a whisper by the sand. It’s all a dogpile of asian restaurants of all ethnicities, spiked with vape shops and gas stations and massage parlors, and, tellingly, not a single other type of business in sight. Nowhere to buy clothing, or groceries, a book, or something injection moulded in China. This, in my experience, makes it unique among all the ghettoes of the world. 

It's like these were airdropped here by the whim of some Croseus, or, more likely, sprang up overnight, mushrooms drawn by the moisture of a sudden population. Thai food shotgunned with tamarind, chilis deployed correctly, matched with a wine list that made me blush. Edomae sushi, served in silence, handed to you piece by piece over hinoki counters, touched with soy sauce three years old. Food that passes for serenity.