Prose lubricates, distances actuality, and forms a glow around dubious experience in the same way that three miniatures of Southern Comfort loosen up a seatmate on the 45-minute flight from Burbank to McCarran International Airport. In concept, Vegas is an escape, a desert playground, but reality can never match the fantasy. Las Vegas plays so much better on the page than in person. The anodyne is juxtaposed with the lurid in the desert playground that is Las Vegas
