Seventeen years since I was first here, and it's easy to feel like some kind of aging lothario with bulging stomach and pills and rather grisly beard and reading glasses. Somebody who's feet begin to ache and who feels a twinge. No Cindy Crawford miracles for me I fear, I've made my arm chair and I'm going to have to sit in it. Bethnal Green could flatter (!) but there is nothing like this city of such frenetic addition and subtraction to bring on inevitable contemplation of the dance to the music of time, when for instance there is a 50% sale at Macy's if you buy before noon, and 80% if you buy before noon on Monday. Venturi and Scott Brown did not like the new Vegas which was my old vegas, and the new new vegas is something else entirely. For one the skyline is full of ordinary buildings, sure some of them have tents on top, and some have wonky lines but they are the apartment blocks and the administration blocks and the other blocks of the new generic city, which, frankly, is not up to much, for it is the perfect representation of some new generic life of which I heartily and instinctively disapprove. And every time I run the shower I think of the sinking water levels of Lake Mead, and I'm wearing a tee shirt which is extraordinarily 80% bamboo. Poor fucking pandas I found myself saying, but I bought it anyway, for it was remarkably soft to the touch.