Friday’s lecture actually made me feel quite positive about things. Our discussions about Hickney’s ‘At home in the neon’ left me asking myself the question; what happens when you stop scrutinising and looking to uncover the mythologies of our time, and just enjoy it? We discussed how the bad points of Vegas exist everywhere, but are just hidden in other places, and how Hickney makes you understand his connection to Vegas by referring to it as home, and then defining home itself.
Unfortunately, it seems that Las Vegas has been gobbled up by major corporations, and is not the same place that it used to be, certainly for Hickney who longer sees it as his home.
The main point that I took from this was that Las Vegas, as a place became the perfect tool to liberate writing. The values that fit in with traditional writing just don’t fit with Vegas - it has become the vehicle for writers to evolve. It is the sort of place that inspires people to feel liberated of social ‘normality’, and do what they want to do.
Maybe we should stop and simply enjoy the world around us, instead of desperately trying to undermine it. Or maybe the struggle to understand what is around us, and the purpose of all of this, can be much more enjoyable than just accepting without deeper thinking.
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