|
|
|
|
This is it...the notorious casino carpet gallery: NINE (9!) pages of casino carpeting and nothing but. When I started this quixotic adventure, I thought I'd try to photograph a sample of casino carpeting in every Las Vegas casino. On a pre-Katrina trip to the Missisippi Gulf Coast, I decided to extend it--why not take pictures of the carpets there? From there it grew into a national quest: in every casino city I visit now, I make a point of capturing each casino's floor for these pages. Casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble. In a strange way, though, it's s sublime work of art, rivalling any expressionist canvas of the past century. Note the regal tones of Caesars Palace, the bountiful bouquet of Mandalay Place, the soft, almost abstract pointilism of Paris, all whispering, "gamble, gamble" just out of the range of consciousness as people walk to the nearest slot machine. Many of the carpets use flowers and wheels, both suggestive of a cyclical life: flowers bud, bloom, and then die, and their beauty is only ephemeral. The wheel was famous to the Romans (note its prominence at Caesars Palace) as a symbol of the relentless capriciousness of fortune. Could both be subtle reminders to casino patrons that life and luck are fleeting, and one should eat, drink, and be merry before the morrow brings a swing in fortune? People are curious about how I take these pictures. Basically, I just walk into a casino, find a nice section of carpet, and snap a picture, while keeping an eye open for any casino staff. It's not that big a production. I would have added a Macau gallery, but security at those casinos was pretty adamant about the no pictures policy, and I really didn't want to get a firsthand view of the Chinese (or Macau SAR) criminal justice system. In my quest to launch casino carpet hermeneutics as a legitimate academic discourse. I delivered a paper on it at an academic conference. Seriously. If you were at the 2005 Far West Popular Culture Association conference in Las Vegas, you might have seen my presentation:"Art for Gamblers' Feet: Casino Carpets from Coast to Coast.". People around the world have been wondering why I did this: the answer is, I guess, because the carpets are there. Having worked in casinos, I've always been fascinated by every element of the casino landscape. Even my academic work on casinos has been an attempt to answer the question of how you get people to spend hours in smoke-filled, garishly-decorated places, losing money--and liking it. While you're on the site, check out the blog, particulary if you're interested in gambling/Las Vegas/Atlantic City/books/writing or learning more about my work. |
|
 |
|
| Carpet Gallery 2: Downtown Las Vegas & Boulder Highway |
 |
| Carpet Gallery 3: Mississippi Gulf Coast |
 |
| Carpet Gallery 4: Reno/Sparks |
 |
| Carpet Gallery 5: Atlantic City, New Jersey |
 |
| Carpet Gallery 6: Clark County, Nevada |
|
| Carpet Gallery 7: Indian Casinos |
 |
| Carpet Gallery 8: Riverboat Casinos |  |
| Carpet Gallery 9: Lake Tahoe/Carson City, Nevada |  |
|
Interesting notes: Out of the carpets I've seen, only Slots o' Fun uses specific gambling imagery MGM Grand and New York-New York both reference their logos: MGM with the lion, NY-NY with skyscraper. Spacequest looks like something from space. Hard Rock has musical notes. In general, there's been a shift in casino carpets since I started tracking them 3 years ago. Most Las Vegas casinos are moving towards earth tones and a more contemporary look--check out the Red Rock, for example. In five years, we might be back to swirling purples and day-glo flowers, but for now, most designers are toning it down. If you see anything compelling, contact me. In fact, feel free to contact me for any insights at all, but please don't ask me to sell you carpet. I don't have any. As I said above, I just thought that taking pictures of casino carpets and putting them online would be whimsical. If you want more of an insight into the kind of person who would do such a thing, there may be clues in my books.
Feel free to use these as desktop wallpaper; just click on the image, then right click to "save as." Or you can just "set as desktop background" from your browser, if that works for you.
If you want to learn more about the history of gambling, check out my writing page. When I'm not eluding casino security to provide you with images of casino carpet, I write books about gambling history--good ones, too, if the critics--and publicists--are to be believed.
If you like gambling news with an off-beat twist, be sure to bookmark my main page and check back regularly. Please spread word of this page. Let's make casino carpet the cult phenomenon it deserves to be. Here's what some people have said about this gallery:
|
|
|
© 2008 the die is cast/David G. Schwartz |
|
