#aladdin — Public Fediverse posts

Movies of the day (4/8) 🎬 Aladdin(2019) 🎬 Undisputed III: Redemption(2010) 🎬 Mission: Impossible(1996) 🎬 A Million Ways to Die in the West(2014) © TMDB #Aladdin #UndisputedIIIRedemption #MissionImpossible #AMillionWaystoDieintheWest #Action #Adventure #Comedy #Family #Fantasy #Romance

Movies of the day (4/8) 🎬 Aladdin(2019) 🎬 Undisputed III: Redemption(2010) 🎬 Mission: Impossible(1996) 🎬 A Million Ways to Die in the West(2014) © TMDB #Aladdin #UndisputedIIIRedemption #MissionImpossible #AMillionWaystoDieintheWest #Action #Adventure #Comedy #Family #Fantasy #Romance

More #KingdomHearts ship art, because yes.

#disney #squareenix #art #digitalart #fanart #krita #agedup #sora #jasmine #aqua #terra #kingdomhearts #aladdin #princessjasmine #cute #sexy #hypnosis #hypnoart #hypnoartist #hypnokink #hypnosiskink

More #KingdomHearts ship art, because yes.

#disney #squareenix #art #digitalart #fanart #krita #agedup #sora #jasmine #aqua #terra #kingdomhearts #aladdin #princessjasmine #cute #sexy #hypnosis #hypnoart #hypnoartist #hypnokink #hypnosiskink

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You cast on me that spell

#CursedLyrics #HashTagGames #Aladdin

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You cast on me that spell

#CursedLyrics #HashTagGames #Aladdin

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You cast on me that spell

#CursedLyrics #HashTagGames #Aladdin

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You cast on me that spell

#CursedLyrics #HashTagGames #Aladdin

I can show you the world
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Tell me, princess, now when did
You cast on me that spell

#CursedLyrics #HashTagGames #Aladdin

I said I wasn’t going to make a highlights video of my last Aladdin livestream but I couldn’t help myself. Here it is!

https://odysee.com/@OregonPacifist:0/Aladdin-Highlights:2

#Aladdin #SNES #RetroGaming

Movie TV Tech Geeks #MovieFeatures #GuyRitchie #Aladdin #Disney Guy Ritchie's Highest-Grossing Movie Is Not the One You'd Expect http://dlvr.it/TSLCT2

"Are you sure? Because I'm 100% ready to rumble with this guy over your ownership, fyi"

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1989533/are-you-sure-because-i-m-100-ready-to-rumble-with-this-guy-over-your-ownership-fyi

Kas, emojinäppäimistöön on ilmestynyt Groucho Marx -hymiö.¹

Mistä tuli mieleen että olin yli kolmekymppinen kun tajusin että vappunaamareiden klassikkoihin kuuluva nenä ja silmälasit oli GMarx-viittaus.² Toinen vastaava viittaus oli Aladdinissa.³

½
_
¹ Ilman sikaria.
² Kuinka vanhoja te olitte? Asiaa vaikeuttaa että tekijänoikeussyistä halppislaseilla on Stalinin sijaan Hitler -viikset.
³ Näistä meni valtaosa ohi, ja menisi varmaan vieläkin.
#viikset #huumori #aladdin #grouchomarx

Aladdin’s Revenge (2026) | Full Horror‑Thriller Movie – Your Last Wish Is Their First Command

#horror – #Trailers – #horrormovies – #AladdinsRevenge – @ITNFILMS – Those who believe legends fade into the dust of time have yet to pay the ultimate price for their greed. Forget the tales of flying carpets and noble heroes — what remains is an ancient artifact that has returned to the modern world,

#ad #Aladdin’sRevenge #horror #Trailers

https://horrornerdonline.com/2026/04/aladdins-revenge-2026-full-horror-thriller-movie-your-last-wish-is-their-first-command/

Aladdin (2026) | Full Horror‑Thriller Movie – Be Careful What You Wish For

#horror – #Trailers – #horrormovies – #Aladdin – @ITNFILMS – Deep in the silent woods, a dream escape is about to transform into a waking nightmare where every shadow hides a sinister price. Four lifelong friends, looking to break away from their daily grind, retreat to a secluded luxury cabin for a weekend of reconnection. […]

https://horrornerdonline.com/2026/04/aladdin-2026-full-horror-thriller-movie-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/

Another great video essay by Lindsay Ellis, this time about Disney's "Aladdin" (1992), a somewhat obscure movie by Richard Williams called "The Thief and the Cobbler" that they may or may not have ripped off, along with some background on Howard Ashman, who helped make movies like The Little Mermaid, The Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin into what they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44chgavSaKA (67 min)

#LindsayEllis #RichardWilliams #Aladdin #Disney #VideoEssay

Did Disney Really Steal Aladdin?

Lindsey Ellis takes on the claim that Disney stole elements, if not, most of The Thief and The Cobbler to make Aladdin. She presents a story more complicated than simple theft. Brings to focus important players not often mentioned. And timelines that show something else. A story of a talented animator, that was his own enemy. A studio(s?) with no need to be that evil.

CW Orientalism, AIDS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44chgavSaKA

#Animation #VideoEssay #Disney #Aladdin

"Oh shit our bad"

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1913301/oh-shit-our-bad

This also came out years after Disney's animated #Aladdin and #RobinWilliams take as the genie

#monsterdon2 #kazaam1996 #monsterdon2 #kazaam1996

This also came out years after Disney's animated #Aladdin and #RobinWilliams take as the genie

#monsterdon2 #kazaam1996 #monsterdon2 #kazaam1996

Movie TV Tech Geeks #MovieNews #GuyRitchie #Aladdin #WillSmith 7 Years Later, the Biggest Sleeper Hit of Guy Ritchie’s Career Continues Charming Audiences http://dlvr.it/TRcyxg

https://www.europesays.com/ch/34257/ Avaloq, Aladdin expand partnership with Arab Bank Switzerland #AI #Aladdin #ArabBankSwitzerland #Avaloq #CrossBorderPayments #DigitalBanking #DigitalLending #DigitalPayments #DigitalTransformation #FinancialInclusion #FinancialInstitutions #FinancialServices #FinTech #FintechNews #Switzerland

Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant Linked to Salmonella… https://www.diningandcooking.com/?p=2545226 #Aladdin #claremont #Diego #Eating #Mediterranean #MediterraneanRestaurants #Popular #reports #restaurant #Salmonella #sickened

Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant Linked to Salmonella… https://www.diningandcooking.com/?p=2545226 #Aladdin #claremont #Diego #Eating #Mediterranean #MediterraneanRestaurants #Popular #reports #restaurant #Salmonella #sickened

Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant Linked to Salmonella… https://www.diningandcooking.com/?p=2545226 #Aladdin #claremont #Diego #Eating #Mediterranean #MediterraneanRestaurants #Popular #reports #restaurant #Salmonella #sickened

Both DeviantArt and AI bros think aging up characters into consenting adults is morally worse than using software that has endangered and ended lives.

Anyway...

#dragonballgt #sailormoon #aliceinwonderland #disney #aladdin #kingdomhearts #agedup #alice #bullabriefs #sora #jasmine #chibiusa

sadly still WIP and not finished yet

but art block is sometimes hard to power though

#disney #fanart #magicalgirl #WIP #jasmin #aladdin #art #illustration

the next disney magical girl is in the making :D

#disney #fanart #magicalgirl #WIP #jasmin #aladdin #art #illustration

Most Broadway Shows Vow Snowstorm Performances (And Not All Performers Warm Up To The News)
#News #Aladdin #Broadway #Snowstorm #TheLionKing

https://deadline.com/2026/01/broadway-snowstorm-closings-1236695984/

#disneychallenge
#Frozen
#Tarzan
#Aladdin
#Hercules

2/3

Here's a #review of a game that made up a large part of my childhood, #Aladdin for the #SegaGenesis

https://the--adventuress.blogspot.com/2022/08/platform-game-mega-review-aladdin.html

BlackRock Aladdin 攜手 AWS 管理數十兆美元資產，重新定義金融科技基礎設施

廣編企劃 2026-01-21 10:00:00 CST

https://www.europesays.com/es/349269/ Priscilla Presley reveló cómo se imagina a Elvis si estuviera vivo en 2026 #1960s #1967 #aladdin #bride #ElvisPresley #Entertainment #Entretenimiento #ES #España #groom #hotel #LasVegas #marriage #Music #Música #PressConference #priscilla #sixties #Spain #veil #wedding

https://www.walknews.com/1161943/ “テレビ超えの臨場感”をプロジェクターで手に入れよう　『Aladdin Poca Laser』で推しのライブを見る｜Real Sound｜リアルサウンド テック #Aladdin #AladdinPocaLaser #Perfume #Science #Science&Technology #Technology #テクノロジー #はるまきもえ #プロジェクター #科学 #科学＆テクノロジー

[SP] Aladdin (1994) (Action Platform) (Sega Master System) [FULL LONGPLAY] [EN] [HD]

#retrogaming #Aladdin #MasterSystem #SMS #1994 #jgo #johnnygameover #videogame #gameplay #games #gaming #short #shorts #play #shortplay #sp

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LDUBhzm4_YU

MONDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO Clips from “Aladdin” featuring Davy Jones & Chris Andrews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKxXNJf7YPk

#davyjones #monkees #chrisandrews #aladdin #jessicapacheco #panto #pantomime #Britishtheatre #oliver #fagin #artfuldodger #judeparry #goldcoasttheatrecompany #florida

MONDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO Clips from “Aladdin” featuring Davy Jones & Chris Andrews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKxXNJf7YPk

#davyjones #monkees #chrisandrews #aladdin #jessicapacheco #panto #pantomime #Britishtheatre #oliver #fagin #artfuldodger #judeparry #goldcoasttheatrecompany #florida

Kev Johns on life as Swansea’s panto dame — 30 years of sparkle at the Grand

Swansea’s favourite pantomime star Kev Johns is back in the spotlight this Christmas, starring in Aladdin at the Grand Theatre. With nearly three decades of panto under his belt, Kev gave Swansea Bay News a glimpse into the glamour, chaos and community spirit that make the festive season so special.

7:00 a.m. Rise and Shine

My wake-up call is 7am. To be honest it’s a bit hard for me to believe I’m now an early riser. Back in college, I was always the last to get out of bed! These days, I like to get up early, I check the news, enjoy my breakfast, and then it’s on with the day…

7.30am. On the Road

I like to leave early as I’m always wary of traffic and I hate the idea of getting stuck and being late even though I only live a few miles away from the theatre. Also, I actually LOVE my dressing room and make it’ home’ for the season, so getting in early suits me fine. For a 10am show I like to be in the theatre just after 8am.

8:30 a.m. A festive wander

If I do arrive early, I love nothing more than a walk around town, soaking up the atmosphere.  I love Swansea all the time, but I particularly love it at Christmas. I’ll take the chance to pop into the Market and pick up my cockles and lava bread (You can’t be a Welsh dame unless you enjoy cockles and lava bread – it’s a staple part of the panto diet!).

I’ve been lucky enough to perform in panto in Swansea for most of my career, so a lot of people know me and I like to stop and chat to them. Everybody you see in the city talks about the panto… if they’ve seen it, when they’ll see it, what their favourite bit is!  Its brilliant so it can take me quite some time to get through town!  

9:00 a.m. Getting into character

Panto is my one chance in the year to be ‘glamorous’ my makeup kit is bigger than my wife and daughters put together! After all these years I’m actually pretty quick at getting my ‘face’ on – shattering the myth that ladies need a long time to get ready.  But then I am a natural beauty!

9:30am Dressed to impress

On a three-show day, if we’ve got a 10 a.m. performance I like to be in costume early. The wardrobe team is brilliant, But I try to do as much as I can myself before my dresser knocks. Costumes this year are incredible. My opening number is Barry Manilow’s Copacabana “yellow feathers in my hair”… it’s very Carmen Miranda. For someone who outside of panto usually wears football gear and Doc Martens, stepping out in these costumes always gets a brilliant reaction just in itself!

I have so many different costumes and I have a little area in the wings where I do my quick changes some of which are lightning fast. Each costume has been lovingly crafted and I love to give each one it’s moment.

Funnily enough I don’t struggle with heels. I’m surprisingly natural in them. They wouldn’t let me onto the football pitch in them, mind you! But they’re part of the transformation, and I enjoy that moment when the look comes together.

10:00am – SHOWTIME

Before I go on stage, I always take a quiet moment to focus. Even after all these years and I’ve been doing pantomime since 1992 (not just at the Grand but all over) there’s still that little bit of fear. I think once you lose that, you lose your edge. You can’t be too confident. I always remember an old producer telling us, “It might be your last show of the season, but for the audience, it’s their first.” Every single performance is unique; things happen in panto that don’t happen in any other show, and you have to give 100% every time. I can forgive many things, but never ‘walking it’. You have to be warm, committed, and generous in every performance. And for me, that starts with taking a moment to focus and say a little prayer before I go on – that’s really important to me.

The show itself is a mixture of magic and mayhem – everyone is different and every time I walk onto stage at the grand it’s like a dream come true for me because that’s the theatre, I grew up watching Panto. And you know, the saying is true, there’s no place like home and there is NOTHING like performing in panto. It’s just magical.

12.30pm – A quick break

Some days we have three shows others its two, but I tend to stay in the theatre and don’t see the outside again til I leave!  I’ll probably eat my lava bread and cockles and relax with a bit of telly.  On days like Christmas Eve, when we have a 1 p.m. and a 5 p.m. show, I love a quick wander around town. Grab tea, say hello to people, feel the festive buzz. Sometimes I’ll pop out through the front of house just to hear the chatter about the show. Or I just look out to the empty auditorium – it’s such a beautiful theatre!

2pm – We’ll have to do it again then won’t we!

We are off again! The orchestra strikes up and I’m ready to meet a whole new lot of friends. I love to see the theatre full of children, parents, grandchildren, sometimes four generations. of a family, watching a show together, knowing that this could be the start of their love of theatre and what will keep the industry going. That gives you all the energy you need to do the shows.  I’m quite annoyingly energetic but maybe that’s because I love life and I love what I do.

10:00 p.m. – Heading Home in Glitter

Even after a good wash there’s always a little leftover sparkle around my eyes, so I have extra glam on for Christmas  My wife just looks at me and tuts. But it feels right. A bit of magic from the Grand!

Kev Johns is joined on stage this year by panto legend Joe Pasquale and Welsh singer Celyn Cartwright, promising a magical family adventure full of laughter, music and sparkle.

Aladdin runs at Swansea Grand Theatre throughout the festive season.
🎟️ Tickets are available at swanseagrand.co.uk.

Predator vs. User:innen
Die auf der US-Sanktionsliste stehende israelische Überwachungsfirma Intellexa setze ihr Spyware‑Produkt Predator mit einer bislang unbekannten Zero‑Click‑Methode ein, die den Namen Aladdin trägt. Damit können Angreifer ein Ziel allein durch das Betrachten einer bösartigen Anzeige infizieren – ein Klick ist nicht nötig.

Mehr: https://maniabel.work/archiv/646

#ZeroClick #Aladdin #Predator #Intellexa #Online-Werbung #Spyware #Überwachung #infosec #BeDiS

Predator vs. User:innen
Die auf der US-Sanktionsliste stehende israelische Überwachungsfirma Intellexa setze ihr Spyware‑Produkt Predator mit einer bislang unbekannten Zero‑Click‑Methode ein, die den Namen Aladdin trägt. Damit können Angreifer ein Ziel allein durch das Betrachten einer bösartigen Anzeige infizieren – ein Klick ist nicht nötig.

Mehr: https://maniabel.work/archiv/646

#ZeroClick #Aladdin #Predator #Intellexa #Online-Werbung #Spyware #Überwachung #infosec #BeDiS

Smartphones wereldwijd zijn stilletjes via advertenties geïnfecteerd met de #Predator-spyware, waarbij alleen het te zien krijgen van een besmette advertentie genoeg was. Vervolgens hadden aanvallers toegang tot de camera, microfoon, gesprekken in chatapps, e-mails, gps-gegevens, foto's en andere bestanden en bezochte websites.

Vooral journalisten, politici, zakenmensen en publieke figureren zijn slachtoffer geworden:
https://www.security.nl/posting/915926/%27Smartphones+stilletjes+via+advertenties+ge%C3%AFnfecteerd+met+Predator-spyware%27

#Intellexa #Aladdin #Amnesty #Israel #spyware

Smartphones wereldwijd zijn stilletjes via advertenties geïnfecteerd met de #Predator-spyware, waarbij alleen het te zien krijgen van een besmette advertentie genoeg was. Vervolgens hadden aanvallers toegang tot de camera, microfoon, gesprekken in chatapps, e-mails, gps-gegevens, foto's en andere bestanden en bezochte websites.

Vooral journalisten, politici, zakenmensen en publieke figureren zijn slachtoffer geworden:
https://www.security.nl/posting/915926/%27Smartphones+stilletjes+via+advertenties+ge%C3%AFnfecteerd+met+Predator-spyware%27

#Intellexa #Aladdin #Amnesty #Israel #spyware

Nach der Premiere ist vor der Aufführung. Mitunter werden noch Stellen gekürzt oder verändert. Weil sie in der Praxis -trotz aller Proben- nicht funktioniert haben. Oder weil die Gegebenheiten im anderen Haus andere sind. (wir sind ein fusioniertes Theater). Dies muss dann nachträglich ins Textbuch übernommen werden.
#theater #vogtland #aladdin #wunder #wunderlampe #tontechnik #audio #veranstaltungstechnik

Swansea Grand prepares for festive panto adventure Aladdin

The countdown is on at Swansea Grand Theatre as rehearsals finish for this year’s pantomime, Aladdin, which runs from 6 December 2025 to 4 January 2026. The production is billed as a festive highlight for families across South West Wales, continuing the Grand’s long tradition of seasonal pantos.

Familiar faces return to the Grand stage

The cast features well‑known performers including Joe Pasquale as Frankie Mankey and Kev Johns as dame Mona Mankey. Welsh singer Celyn Cartwright appears as the Spirit of the Ring, while JG Daniels‑White and Freya Humberstone take on the roles of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. Andrew Fleming plays the villain Sven Gali, with a supporting ensemble and local young performers completing the line‑up.

A modern take on a classic tale

Producers say the show will combine slapstick comedy, audience participation and toe‑tapping tunes with a digital set designed to bring the Cave of Wonders and magic carpet ride to life. The production is written by Andrew Pollard and directed by Joe Pasquale, with choreography by Jared Hageman and musical direction by John Quirk.

Theatre’s festive tradition

Swansea Grand Theatre, which marked its 125th anniversary this year, has long been a centrepiece of the city’s Christmas celebrations. Owned and managed by Swansea Council, the venue continues to host major touring productions alongside its annual pantomime.

The show is produced by Imagine Theatre, part of the Trafalgar Entertainment group, which stages pantomimes across the UK. The company says it is proud to bring “innovative and immersive” productions to audiences while maintaining traditional panto elements.

Event details

• Dates: 6 December 2025 – 4 January 2026
• Location: Swansea Grand Theatre, Singleton Street, Swansea, SA1 3QJ
• Tickets: swanseagrand.co.uk or 01792 475715

Related stories from Swansea Bay News

Festive spirit set to shine as Together at Christmas returns to Brangwyn Hall
Swansea’s annual community event offers free meals, entertainment and support services on 9 December.

Free buses return to Swansea for Christmas
Families and shoppers can travel across the city at no cost on selected dates this month.

Festive Feastival coming to Carmarthen this Christmas
A new event at Carmarthen Showground brings street food, circus acts and festive entertainment.

Christmas pop-up shops return to Carmarthenshire high streets
Local businesses showcase festive gifts in Carmarthen, Llanelli and Ammanford throughout December.

#Aladdin #AndrewFleming #CelynCartwright #FreyaHumberstone #GrandTheatre #GrandTheatrePantomime #ImagineTheatre #JGDanielsWhite #JoePasquale #KevJohns #panto #pantomime #Swansea #SwanseaGrandTheatre #TrafalgarEntertainmentGroup

Aladdin’s Revenge (2025) – Trailer

#horror – #Trailers – #horrormovies – #AladdinsRevenge – @ITNFILMS – After the events of the first films, Rachel, the lone survivor of Aladdin, finds the lamp once more haunting her as she attends a therapy retreat. She must protect a new set of friends as the lamp’s evil plan to grant three deadly wishes begins […]

#ad #Aladdin'sRevenge #horror #Trailers

https://horrornerdonline.com/2025/11/aladdins-revenge-2025-trailer/

Movies of the day (4/8) 🎬 Aladdin(1992) 🎬 The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special(2022) 🎬 Creed(2015) 🎬 The Bodyguard(1992) © TMDB #Aladdin #TheGuardiansoftheGalaxyHolidaySpecial #Creed #TheBodyguard #Action #Adventure #Animation #Comedy #Drama #Family #Fantasy #Music #Romance

Movies of the day (4/8) 🎬 Aladdin(1992) 🎬 The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special(2022) 🎬 Creed(2015) 🎬 The Bodyguard(1992) © TMDB #Aladdin #TheGuardiansoftheGalaxyHolidaySpecial #Creed #TheBodyguard #Action #Adventure #Animation #Comedy #Drama #Family #Fantasy #Music #Romance

“Las Vegas: a savage journey to the heart of the American dream”*…

Isaac Ariail Reed muses on Las Vegas and what it can tell us about ourselves…

It comes buzzing into my mind like a hazy half dream, the kind that arrives when you’ve had too much espresso and need to close your eyes in the dark of your hotel room for a moment. I’m in two places at once: One is the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, where I am wandering around the sandy two-acre lot amid the retired signs of dynamited casinos, hotels, and other businesses on the Strip, listening to old Elvis live shows on my headphones; the other is the recently opened poker room in the Venetian Casino, where I find myself sitting next to Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish intellectual who once saw, with a clarity that remains difficult to reckon with today, the end of an epoch.

As Benjamin wrote in 1928, in his sprawling and unfinished magnum opus The Arcades Project, “if, sometime in the mid-nineties, we had asked for a prediction, surely it would have been: the decline of a culture.” He meant the 1890s, the European fin-de-siècle and the coming descent into fascism, but I could say the same thing about the 1990s today. Benjamin was writing about the arcades, those iron-and-glass canopied commercial passageways that he took as emblematic of Paris when it was the epicenter of the glory and fragility of nineteenth-century bourgeois culture. What Benjamin saw in the persistence of the remaining arcades in early-twentieth-century Paris (after the urban-renewal efforts of Baron Haussmann leveled many) is what I see in the persistently glitzy architecture and tightly time-constrained nightly shows of Las Vegas today: a culture attempting to grasp its own passing…

…

… What I did not quite realize viscerally before this year, though, is something that the great art critic Dave Hickey was always on about. Las Vegas, despite its similarities to Macau, is in its history, culture, and politics deeply American. Hence, de Tocqueville: “Those who live in the midst of democratic fluctuations have always before their eyes the image of chance; and they end by liking all undertakings in which chance plays a part.” In Hickey’s 1997 classic, Air Guitar, he wrote, “America…is a very poor lens through which to view Las Vegas, while Las Vegas is a wonderful lens through which to view America.” He continued:

What is hidden elsewhere exists here in quotidian visibility. So when you fly out of Las Vegas to, say, Milwaukee, the absences imposed by repression are like holes in your vision. They become breathtakingly perceptible, and, as a consequence, there is no better place than Las Vegas for a traveler to feel at home. The town has a quick, feral glamour that is hard to localize—and it arises, I think, out of the suppression of social differences rather than their exacerbation. The whole city floats on a sleek frisson of anxiety and promise that those of us addicted to such distraction must otherwise induce by motion or medication.

Hickey was luminously perspicacious in his ability to recognize, amid the vast and disturbing inequalities of Las Vegas, the horizontality of its cultural politics, which are not so much lowbrow as they are open to weirdness and conformity in equal measure such that the sheer humanity of the equally but differently weird (or conformist) is suddenly public and undeniable. Hickey also argued that there was something about the American experiment wrapped up in his “home in the neon.” The secret of Vegas is that there are no secrets, he explained, and, furthermore, “there are only two rules: (1) Post the odds, and (2) Treat everybody the same. Just as one might in a democracy (What a concept!)” Hickey thus found in Liberace’s rhinestones the key to a democratic politics of honest fakery as a defense against the subtle tyranny—recently become much less subtle—of a politics of authenticity and its handmaiden, the deep hatred of art, freedom, and changing your mind dressed up as love of family, morality, nation, and the supposed liberty of guns and tariffs. The emphasis, for Hickey, is on the honest and the different human commmunities of desire that are the root of pluralism in aesthetics: Liberace’s rhinestones is not a real diamond, but union wages, sexual freedom, and aesthetic ambition are honestly held commitments. In Hickey’s version of Las Vegas, no one asks who is a “real” American, because the reality of the USA is not something that has to be performed into existence by duplicitous electoral promises and unpaid contractors; it’s right there in the posted gambling odds, the midnight steak and eggs, and the civilizational ambition of the Hoover Dam. 

This, then, is the problem we have inherited from Hickey: Can the bare and brutal honest fakery of Las Vegas, and the deeply American, weirdly libertarian, outsider-art-loving union democracy that Hickey found inside that honest fakery sustain itself as part of a free society? Or will the crushing inequality, insane techno-oligarchy, and battling moralisms of toxic masculinity and therapeutic bureaucracy be, in the end, too much for Vegas and thus too much for the United States as well?…

…

… There was in Hickey’s writing a deep suspicion of both the aesthetics and the politics of authenticity, and that suspicion, one might hazard, is the connection between Las Vegas and the kernel of freedom held in common that has, on occasion, here and there, made itself present in American life, and which has sustained American intellectuals as distinct as John Dewey and Joan Didion. What, then, does Las Vegas do for us when it reminds us that libido is a fact of life and building a culture on its suppression is a little like taking a political stand against gravity? Here I found my way to a different kind of theorizing, once I realized that far from any simulacrum, Las Vegas is in fact the place where American modernity articulates the eternal problems of being human.

On the one hand, Las Vegas is the culmination of the historically specific phenomenon of the American modern, bringing together the technological sublime, movable capital, representative democracy, and libertarian culture in the first postindustrial metropolis. Yet on the other hand, Vegas is about the inescapable aspects of human existence from time immemorial: desire as multiple, the importance of creature comforts to a sense of well-being, the philosophy of uncertainty and the problem of fate, embodiment as both wonderful and unbearable, and the irrepressible need to create new art and build new buildings. In this regard, we can say that Vegas is the place where the American project’s complex and conflictual relationship to the more immovable aspects of human life together was thrown into stark relief. 

And then there are the binaries. In Vegas, it becomes quite clear that the towering economic power that drives American politics has, in the end, cultural sources and cultural consequences. The USA is about sin and salvation, filth and cleanliness, God and the Devil, believer and atheist, winners and losers. All societies have such binaries. The sociologist Émile Durkheim mapped them all as versions of sacred versus profane, while the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss used them to read stories as clues to the structure of the mind itself. But in the United States, with its Calvinist inheritance and infamously strict racial hierarchy, the binaries have a special importance. They have always resisted middle grounds and gray areas, preferring the intense clash of purified poles to ambiguous endings and existential despair. This is why American movies are melodramatic to the point of absurdity and why the harshness of the American moral climate, when combined with the filth of American politics, created a political culture that can be unbearably self-righteous. Vegas puts on display the harsh feel and gleaming strangeness, bordering on surreality, of the American binaries, but it also breaks them down, which is the deep effect of its honest fakery. Vegas is not there to make you feel your job back home is unavoidable. It is there to make you ask whether the difference between good and evil is really what your pastor says it is. 

For a long time, it sure looked as though Hickey was right to find a home in Las Vegas, and to find his version of America there too, because of the way Vegas both displayed the binaries and embraced the gray areas in between. It happens in two steps. First, the town cuts through pretense. One night in Vegas will remind you that in America, the most famous cultural critic in the world, past or present, is about as important as the current special-teams coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers (and probably less). Second, it liberates you from the defensiveness that constantly infects the American intellectual trying to justify his existence. Why? Because Vegas is an intellectual’s paradise in so far as it is the place that knows, better than anywhere else in the United States, that we are all creatures addicted to symbols, entranced by our illusions, and in need of a lucky roll. In Vegas, as Dean Martin and Katy Perry have both attested, the desirous body, the strategic mind, and the neon sign are bound together in a cosmic swirl, and the result is the Frankenstein’s monster of American modernity. What could be more intellectual than that?

Back when American modernity was more than the latest tweet from the Department of Homeland Security, its intellectuals navigated the harsh binaries of American culture via innovation in thinking and generosity of spirit, making some kind of room, some of the time, for the next immigrant culture to arrive and do the two most American things of all: make a buck and do whatever you want with religion and culture. This is the spirit we have lost; we increasingly just want to double down on the same binaries that every other preacher in this godforsaken land does, calling endlessly for the return of the cultural artifacts of an earlier era. But the two great philosophies of culture to emerge in America—pragmatism and jazz—are, among many other things, attempts to solve the problem of the excluded middle between the purest Good and the worst Evil, and to find in the very confrontation of contradiction an improvised way for humans to live together a little better tomorrow than they did yesterday. This is the American promise: that beyond the binaries lies not transcendent meaning or nihilism but a little bit of democracy, a little bit of freedom, and a whole lot of practicality. 

But navigating the binaries to subvert and reinvent them takes energy, and it is that energy one still finds in Las Vegas. Even if in enervated form, it is there, and this is the part of the city—the Strip, yes, but also the Arts District and downtown—that some foreign visitors grasp intuitively and immediately and others will never, ever understand: Vegas as the intensity of American hustle. On that winter-vacation visit, I was set straight about it by my bartender. I had just had a quite unpleasant interaction at the craps table with an overstimulated and sleep-deficient fellow in town for the rodeo. His truculent attitude had turned very dark, even threatening, in response to my friendly overtures. I was getting ready to bitch about it to the young man from Los Angeles who had just served my whiskey and had all the signs of being a safe political harbor. He cut me off right away: “Shit, I’m glad they’re here. Otherwise, we’d have no money to make these two weeks in December.” 

There, in that moment, I saw the tiniest glimpse of possibility for a new, but nonetheless recognizable, American culture, and I realized everything I was, in my academic bubble, missing. Vegas is much cheaper to live in than LA; for the first time in its history all major casinos on the Strip are unionized; my bartender, like me and the poker pros, was hustling most weeks of the year but was also going to take a real vacation with his girlfriend; I might be able to write and teach, but who cares about my opinions on the cultural politics of the rodeo? And that’s the deal that Las Vegas has offered: Make the wages fair and the housing affordable, post the damn odds, and let people make their own judgments about what kind of clothes, art, sex, and sports they want. That’s the project, if we want our country back in a new and better form. But the artists in Vegas are here to tell you: The odds are very long…

What does it mean to “think Las Vegas”? “Mourning and Melancholia in Las Vegas,” from @hedgehogreview.bsky.social. Eminently worth reading in full.

Pair with “Lost Vegas,” from @lukewinkie.bsky.social in @slate.com: “Everyone inside America’s most flailing destination city has a theory for what’s wrong. Now I have my own.”

* Hunter S. Thompson

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As we check the odds, we might recall that it was on this date in 1997 that Las Vegas strip fixture The Aladdin hotel and casino closed. The site of Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s wedding in 1967, its final show was a preformance by Mötley Crüe.

The building was demolished the following March (in front of 20,000 spectators, 1,000 of whom paid $250 each to watch the implosion from inside a “ringside” tent). In 2000 a new Aladdin resort, three times larger than the original, opened on the site, but quickly went broke. It was purchased out of bankruptcy to become “The Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.”

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