Las Vegas, Part 3

So the second night in Las Vegas my parents and I had tickets to see Le Rêve, the water acrobatic (aquabatic??) show in the Wynn. We had the buffet around the corner, spent a few minutes gambling (I won $20!) and went to the lobby of the theater. There was a interesting mix of people: high society types in eveningwear, summer vacationers in polo shirts and shorts. I noticed there weren’t any kids, which made sense when I actually saw the show.

We were led in to the theater, which was a lot smaller than I imagined, and also circular. A thick fog covered the center stage. We took our seats and I waited for my first Vegas show to start.

When one encounters something new, there is a natural tendency to place it within context of prior experiences. Watching Le Rêve for me was like two videogame elements made liveaction: Final Fantasy, and Cho Aniki. Everyone knows what Final Fantasy is:

Cho Aniki is a series of homoerotic shmups. How homoerotic?

But Le Reve couldn’t possibly be as…

So yeah, it was quite the show. At the end, a few people in the crowd stood up to applaud, but the other 97% did not. To be honest, it wasn’t mindblowingly spectacular. Early on I saw one of the fruits of the man-tree above try to leap for a branch and epic failed into the water. The show also had a bizarre plot, kinda like Final Fantasy actually. There’s this girl, and this guy proposes to her or something but she’s not sure about it she trips out of reality and is taken through some weird scenes of devilry, water, and dance by the bad guy in Temple of Doom. Oh and a creepy 3D rendered baby was narrating. Then she wakes up from this stupor and says yes to the guy (duh!). Then they’re salsa dancing and all of the figments are happy. The end.

Ater the show I blew the $20 I won before, and then the rest of my gambling allowance. I retreated to the hotel room and worked on my dissertation, my plan to escape to financial security having been foiled by probability.