Last week I wrote in passing on the Buffet that my two favorite writers on the subject of Las Vegas are art critic Dave Hickey and historian Hal Rothman. Today comes news that Hal Rothman has died from Lou Gehrigs disease (ALS) at age 48.

 

I only interviewed Rothman once by phone, we exchanged a couple e-mails and I never met him in person. I wish now I had let it be otherwise; I think I was far too intimidated. No book has taught me more about Las Vegas than Rothman's "Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century" (2002). To recommend Neon Metropolis to you I've searched through the book this morning looking for a section of its wisdom and insight about Las Vegas to give you a taste. In his life, Rothman was a quote machine appearing in almost every serious article or documentary about Las Vegas (and I mean EVERY). His writing was on the same level as his speech: lively, deep and quotable. Yet, going through Neon Metropolis this morning I realized that Rothman's amazing sound bites are nothing compared to the magnified depths that come from his carefully constructed chapters.

 

Even after only three years(and, Rothman's book came out five years ago) almost any other book about Las Vegas is no longer about contemporary Las Vegas. It is about the past. Pick up a guide book from three years ago and there is no Wynn, there is still a Stardust, Pure and Tao don't get a mention and you won't get the slightest hint that Cirque has a Beatles show at the Mirage. Yet, Rothman's Neon Metropolis reads like it knows (even if it doesn't mention) all of these things about Las Vegas as well as what is coming next. In 2007, from the master planned communities, to the history of the town's golden era to the Vegas of the future, Neon Metropolis remains the single most relevant book on the subject of Las Vegas. I guess what I am saying is that I am going to resist offering one of Rothman's pithy quotes and just say that if you have any interest in Las Vegas or take any pleasure in this blog I can not recommend Neon Metropolis highly enough.

 

Finally, I remember the one time I interviewed Rothman, we spoke on the occasion of a feud about the meaning of Las Vegas between intellectual heavyweights Bernard-Henry Levy and Francis Fukuyama. After the interview was over, Rothman said almost wistfully, "You know I really wish they would have read Neon Metropolis." And, he was so right.