CHARACTERS
The Prism Casino-Hotel Guest List
16 * asian tourist
17 * promoter
18 * owner
21 * engineer
22 * conventioneer
31 * extra-terrestrial
32 * helicopter pilot
33 * pawn broker
34 * house loan officer
36 * lobby actor
37 * souvenir vendor
39 * interior designer
40 * priest
41 * costume designer
42 * choreographer
43 * magician
44 * rupert murdoch
45 * marriage minister
46 * divorce judge
9 * a raging pit boss
The raging pit boss is an alcoholic. He drinks only Hollywoods: raspberry liquor, vodka, and pineapple juice. He wears an element of teal in all of his outfits, be it a teal tie, handkerchief, socks, shirt, or undewear. The raging pit boss has a bad temper and a bad heart. He takes injections of nitroglycerin to keep him healthy. He swallows an aspirin with every drink. The raging pit boss has a perpetual throat irritation. He likes to suck on peppermint lozenges when he's at work. He has a ruddy complexion and meaty joints. He has a silver cell phone that fits into his jacket breast pocket. The raging pit boss is 4'11" tall and weighs 160 lbs. His shoes are always vinyl. He has French manicured nails. He keeps a gold-plated case filled with toothpicks in his shirt pocket. It's the size and volume of a split deck of cards. The case is engraved with his family crest: the top layer has two curlews with beaks intertwined, standing on dry ground. The bottom layer is split into two panels: the left panel features a "diamond" of four bees, each at 45 degrees from the other, heads facing inward. The right panel is composed of horizontal stripes: black and gold. The crest is between two branches of poison sumac. He uses talcum powder as a full-body deodorant. He keeps a devotion card of Saint Anthony, aflame, in his wallet, sealed in plastic. He doesn't smoke. He chews Clorets gum. His shoes have an extra two inches on the heel. He wears glasses only when he feels he is personally under pressure. His glasses are ornamental: Ben Franklin-esque, rectangular-shaped spectacles. He keeps his money in a silver-plated money clip, the shape of a dollar sign. He keeps a tiny dispenser of Visine in his left pants pocket. His key chain is thin it hold only two keys. The charm on the key chain is of a small pistol, gold and ivory, in the style of 18th century dueling weapons. The pistol is a lighter. The raging pit boss has small, sharp teeth. He murdered his kid half-brother when he caught the latter going through his dirty magazines.
SOUNDS
1). Every room in The Réal is now divided by a set of slot wheel animations. This was not always the case. In fact, once upon a time, walking through a room eventually led you to a brief animation based on the game of Pac Man. The ghosts chased you from the left to the right and then you chased the ghosts back in the opposite direction.
Here's the sound that accompanied the ghost chase, in AIF format: runnin.aif
2). When the narrative of the project was still up for grabs, José put together a couple of audio loops based on recordings he'd made of Mark during their visit to Vegas. Here are some of those soundbites plus a reworking of a Depeche Mode song made to be a background melody for one of those loops.
sametime.aif (842k)
virtual.aif (314k)
onecasino.aif (891k)
depeche.aif (314k)
CONCEPTS
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 96 08:22:53 EST
X-Sender: mtaylor@popserver.williams.edu
To: no_way@servonet.com
From: "Mark C. Taylor"
CC: Mark.C.Taylor@williams.edu
Content-Length: 1756
"I have never known how to tell a story." (Derrida)
Ditto.
...[excerpted]...
Story line might be cyberpunk meets Wall St. on the Strip. Narrative would
have to enact themes that are on display in Vegas. Thus we would have to
one-up Blade Runner. Replicants would have to become holographic
intelligent agents. But at outset must not be clear that they are such.
Motel clerk (Norman) could be programmer who creates agents to beat the
house. Given the credit lines of the high rollers, the global economy is
wired to the casinos. Thus the intelligent agents roam from casinos thru
web gathering data -- which, of course, is "money." They can also flood the
market with "counterfeit" money which is nothing more than viral data. So
while the house is playing with "real" money, the IA (intelligent agents,
note these are reverasl of abbreviation for artifical intelligence AI), play
with "fake money." Gambling with nothing to lose. Making something out of
nothing. Not sure whether each of the "players" in different rooms could be
different AIs who are part of Norman's scheme to bring down Vegas. To show
Vegas as symptom, everything has to collapse when the IAs beat the house.
Infocalypse.
A possibility; nothing more. And I ain't sure I can work it out. But if
there is a narrative, some of the players/characters will have to be IAs who
are undetectable as such...[excerpted]
m
mct
IMAGES
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the Motel Réal was an inverted pyramid, stuck in the sand like an ostrich's head. The significance of the pyramid varies depending on who you ask.
For Mark, the pyramid alludes to Hegel and/or Derrida and notions of a decapitated pyramid, the letter A, as well as the novelty of the Luxor, Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. If you ask José, the pyramid is a direct reference to the movie Stargate, a very silly but brilliant movie made by the same German directors who brought you Independence Day.
No matter where the pyramid was going, it never got there. Leading our audience through a so-called virtual tour of a pyramid would have worked well in a David Copperfield made-for-TV special. Or, perhaps, as additional electronic wallpaper at the Luxor, Luxor. Either way, this lovely 70's-styled illustration never made it out of a folder entitled "motel art."
