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diaryDiariesA weeklong electronic journal.2NA=1154&NC=1192&DI=4098&PS=58313&PI=7315diaryfalsefalsespacernotembeddeddiaryHer Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of JordanHer Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of JordanQueen Rania of Jordan in New York.Rania Al Abdullah0I've met many celebrities this week, but the message that will stick with me most came from a little Indian girl.Woke up this morning, and the first thing I did was phone my son Hashem to see how he was feeling. He was napping, and I didn't get much out of him, but it was still comforting to hear his sleepy little voice. I can't wait to give him a big cuddle.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno200892423004PMWednesdaySepSeptember149/24/2008 6:30:04 PM633578634040000000200892610610PMFridaySepSeptember139/26/2008 5:06:10 PM633580311700000000diaryMaking Lipstick JungleMaking Lipstick JungleLipstick Jungle:A bad day on set.Andrew McCarthy0A bad day on set.Dec. 10, 2007—I find that in acting, one out of every 10 days is a breeze, a joy. Everything feels easy, carefree. I am in a zone where I don't really have to do too much, I'm relaxed and aware, and every choice seems inspired, and everything falls into place, and happy accidents occur left and right.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno20082453427PMMondayFebFebruary172/4/2008 10:34:27 PM633377432670000000200828121109PMFridayFebFebruary122/8/2008 5:11:09 PM633380694690000000diaryAt Home in ShanghaiAt Home in ShanghaiAt home in Shanghai.Deborah Fallows0Some tips on how to get by in China.I'm keeping my guard up even along my familiar path to school. I turned off busy Nanjing Xi Lu onto Qinghai Lu, which is a big sidewalk but is nonetheless overrun with bikes, scooters, and the occasional Buick (luxury car of choice) with tinted windows. Passing a fast-food restaurant and watching preparations for the lunch crowd, I had an epiphany: China is dangerous.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno2006111315906PMMondayNovNovember1311/13/2006 6:59:06 PM6329902314600000002006111711200PMFridayNovNovember1311/17/2006 6:12:00 PM632993659200000000diaryAdoption Approved!Eric WeinerA weeklong journal of a hopeful father-to-be.Eric Weiner0A weeklong journal of a hopeful father-to-be.Today is the big day—our court hearing. The judge will decide whether or not to approve the adoption. Not that long ago, these hearings were a mere formality, handshakes and smiles all around. But we've been warned to expect a real grilling.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno2005121912458PMMondayDecDecember1312/19/2005 6:24:58 PM6327059549800000002005122770514PMTuesdayDecDecember1912/28/2005 12:05:14 AM632713071140000000diaryA Visit With an Author, Activist, and Dickens FanTamara ChalabiA weeklong journal of a writer in Iraq.Tamara Chalabi0A weeklong journal of a writer in Iraq.The waiting game began when the last ballot box filled up. Waiting doesn't seem to be something people do well or enjoy. There is a tension in the air that rises in crescendo with every complaint about ballot-rigging.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno2005121213134PMMondayDecDecember1312/12/2005 6:31:34 PM63269991094000000020051216120827PMFridayDecDecember1212/16/2005 5:08:27 PM632703317070000000200311442731PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:27:31 PM631781584510000000200311442731PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:27:31 PM631781584510000000falsetruefalsefalsefalsefalsetrue20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001103090133AMTuesdayOctOctober910/30/2001 1:01:33 PM631400292930000000By xAndres MartinezxMartinez, AndresAndresMartinezfalse13Andres Martinez is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.762160 East 91st Street #8PNew YorkNY10128USA111103520011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101875336PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:53:36 PM63139031616000000011Diary19981019122000PMMondayOctOctober1210/19/1998 4:20:00 PM630443964000000000324420011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101875337PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:53:37 PM631390316170000000Andrés Martinez is author of the forthcoming book Doubling Down. He is currently gambling his way through Las Vegas.DayOfWeekxEntry05        On the surface it may not seem it, but when Hal Rothman called me one of his "favorite carpetbaggers" over lunch it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. Hal is a University of Nevada, Las Vegas historian and, for my money, the foremost guru about the new Las Vegas, which he likes to call "the first 21st Century city." His most recent book, Devil's Bargain, deals with tourism and the American West. He is fond of saying that Las Vegas' biggest problem is too many grandstanding intellectuals and hipsters flying into town for a few days to tell the world what Sin City is all about. But me, he likes. I pay for lunch.        The reason Hal likes me is that I am as enamored as he is of the world's largest Coca-Cola bottle, which towers more than four stories over the World of Coca-Cola museum on the Strip. We're enamored of it as a symbol of what Las Vegas is becoming. Even a decade ago it would have been hard to imagine one of the most mainstream, conservative, and family-oriented companies on earth eager to be identified with this place. Now, in a telling marriage of brands, the company is peddling sweatshirts with "Las Vegas" written under three stylized Coke bottles, and there is nothing like the World of Coca-Cola anywhere else outside of Coke's hometown of Atlanta.        The Strip is becoming a permanent World's Fair. That is why Coke is here, as are the nation's most successful and innovative shopping mall and a growing wave of celebrity-chef restaurants from across the company. And it's not all about leisure. Much like the 19th century and early 20th century expos and fairs showcased the latest industrial achievements, Las Vegas is now where new technological marvels are introduced. That's why more than 200,000 people descended on Vegas last year for the annual COMDEX computer convention. There is a COMDEX held in Las Vegas for most industries, which is why the intersection nearest the World of Coke boasts more hotel rooms than does the entire city of San Francisco. ******        I can rationally discuss the significance of Coke's presence on the Strip, but I must recuse myself from reviewing the museum on its merits. You see, I'm something of a fanatic. My father works for a bottler, and I drink more Diet Coke in a day than anyone would deem advisable. Anyone, that is, except the pleasant voice at the toll-free number listed on the can.        It's true, once when Kat mentioned that I drank too much of the stuff, I picked up the phone, dialed the number, and asked if there was such a thing as too much of a good thing. It's the sort of impulsive gesture I used to pull to amuse her during the wooing stage. Now that we're married, I just go off to Vegas for weeks at a time.        "How much do you drink in a day?" the sweet voice had asked, trying to mask her concern. I told her. Silence. Then I heard noises in the background at Coke HQ. Was it the sound of a helicopter coming to evacuate me, to whisk me down to Atlanta for some intensive R & D? I could picture them all lining the helipad. "Doctor, we're finally going to be able to cut open a 14-canner and see what we've wrought," one mad scientist would tell another, with a Strangelovian gleam in his eye.        Ms. Coke had regained her composure and interrupted my fantasy by assuring me there was no known limit, adding something about inconclusive caffeine tests on rats. Everything will be OK; keep on chugging.        A German tourist sitting next to me watching Coke TV ads from the 1960s leaned over and asked, "Do you also have a Marlboro museum in America?" I don't think I would ever visit, say, a Colgate or a Gillette museum, but this guy was onto something; a Marlboro museum would be as fascinating as Coke's. Particularly the "What we knew and when we knew it" exhibit. 241998102333000AMFridayOctOctober310/23/1998 7:30:00 AM6304471020000000001998102333000AMFridayOctOctober310/23/1998 7:30:00 AM630447102000000000xEntry04        I am an aspirational packer. I'm not sure when I started viewing travel as the ultimate self-improvement opportunity, but I do. My running shoes have seen the world, mostly from the inside of a suitcase. Some of the world's literary treasures on my bookshelves have also gone on tour. The Brothers Karamazov might winter in Bali next year on the frequent-flyer miles they've accumulated while waiting for me to read about them. They're still waiting, racking up those miles. Every time they go back to the bookshelf, they brag about the places they've seen to Anna Karenina, who stands next to them. She's only brought along on longer trips. You know, for me to read when I'm done with the Brothers.        I would never presume to sit down and read Dostoyevsky's classics in my living room (When? During Monday Night Football or Friends?), but in the fantastical world of travel, I fancy myself a true Renaissance man. So somewhere in the depressingly imposing mound of luggage in my Sunset Station room, I wouldn't be surprised to find a guitar, a Latin primer, a physics textbook, or a knitting kit. You never know what that nutty packer back in New York will throw in.        If Bellagio is a stunning departure from the older Strip hotels that cater to tourists, the Sunset Station Hotel & Casino, in the thriving suburb of Henderson, is an equally revolutionary move away from the classic seedy "grind joints" that once serviced local gamblers. Like the mall across the street, Sunset Station is a pleasant public space striving to become suburbia's answer to the lost town square. And it is a cheery, well-designed, welcoming environment, with its brewery, surprisingly good restaurants, rows upon rows of video poker machines, multiscreen cinema, and Funquest, a place to check your kids. There's even a Borders bookstore next door.        Most of the people milling about in the middle of a school day, or standing in the Disneyesque lines at the buffet, appeared to be retirees. The woman waiting in line in front of me at the coffee shop said she and some "girl" friends have a "Hump Day Club" that meets at Sunset every week. They eat, play the slots, catch a movie, and then go crazy in the bingo hall. She's 78, a refugee from Chicago's winters.        More insidiously, these casinos also serve as full-fledged financial-services firms. Sunset and its sister Station Casinos properties have perfected the art of paycheck-cashing ploys, in which everyone (but especially the house) is a winner. These should make a juicy target for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission when it comes into town for hearings next month. Cash your paycheck at Sunset and you get a "Paycheck Bonanza" scratch-off ticket. And if you don't win that $25,000, you at least get a meal or a margarita. The point being, relax, stay awhile. Got some cash?        On the edge of the casino there was even a booth where you could apply for a Visa card, on which, instead of accruing frequent flyer miles, you accrue points redeemable for cash at your favorite Station Casino. One bleary-eyed guy wanted a card right then and there but had no form of ID. He was swearing at the poor lady behind this booth, he found this requirement for credit so unreasonable.        From Sunset, I went to the command center in Las Vegas' frantic battle to cope with its Third World-like growth rate--roughly 5,000 new arrivals a month--the office of Clark County School District Superintendent Dr. Brian Cram. Cram oversees the nation's 8th largest school district, which grows at a rate of 12,000 to 17,000 kids a year. He puts up a new school every 28 days, on average, and just hired 1,700 new teachers for this school year. Next month voters will vote on a $3.5 billion bond issue to build 88 more schools. 241998102233000AMThursdayOctOctober310/22/1998 7:30:00 AM6304462380000000001998102233000AMThursdayOctOctober310/22/1998 7:30:00 AM630446238000000000xEntry03        I cut loose from the Strip late in the morning and ventured out into the Las Vegas few tourists see--the sprawling land of faux-Mediterranean gated communities, Office Depots, and apartment complexes with such improbable names as Oasis del Mar. But before doing so, I spent some quality time at the pool.        Shockingly, the pool attendant, who looked old enough to gamble legally, pulled out a calculator to subtract the $10.70 for sunscreen from the $11 I was handing over. Sad thing is, he probably had a computer in his classroom. "That'll be 30 cents in change," he announced with flair after a digital pause, as if resolving a baffling mystery.        Sexism distorts language, to the point where my pool attendant would never be called ditsy, flighty, or an airhead. Men are either smart or dumb. Only in rare cases when everyday befuddlement visibly overwhelms raw intelligence are they a benign-sounding "absent-minded." It is for women that we reserve an entire catalog of terms to specify the extent to which someone might be out to lunch.        I raise the issue because when I mentioned to Kat that Las Vegas, the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan area throughout the decade and a surprisingly great place to live, also happens to have a high DF, or Ditsy Factor, she cautioned me that I was sounding sexist. She knew I'd perfected the DF as a gender-neutral reading, but we were both stumped to find an appropriate gender-neutral name for it. You'd still think I was talking only about women if I went on about a city's "airhead factor" or "flighty factor," and "absent-mindedness factor" doesn't quite cut it.        So, let's just stipulate that men too can be "ditsy" (which after all Merriam Webster defines as being "eccentrically silly, giddy or inane") and get on with it. The point is that Las Vegas' DF is rather high. This was first brought to my attention anecdotally by a number of employers in town who bemoaned their difficulties in finding competent, serious employees in the labor market. Now I've backed up their impressions with hard math.        For you number crunchers out there, the DF formula is: DF = ([number of breast implants per capita] + [vanity license plates per capita] + [Gold's Gyms per capita] * 1/foreign films playing in local theatres)/ NPR market share of local radio audience. ******        In the late afternoon, as the gorgeous desert sky turned red, I headed for Boulder City, the charming town south of Las Vegas built 70 years ago to house workers brought in to build the awesome Boulder--now known as Hoover--Dam.        I was going there to appear on a TV show, which presented a dilemma. Talk about being ditsy. 1) I'd matted down my hair just right with gel for the occasion. 2) I don't usually use gel, but then I've only been on television a handful of times, and I found it terrifying. 3) I was driving a (rented) convertible for the first time in my life. Hmmm.        Boulder City residents are notoriously active in their public affairs, as they try to maintain their town's unique identity. Theirs is the only community in Nevada where gambling is not legal, and one of the few not to embrace the cult of growth for growth's sake.        Bob Faiss is arguably the most prominent gaming attorney in Nevada, representing many casino interests, but he'll tell you, with a bit of a chuckle, that he'd be on the front lines to combat any move to bring gambling into his beloved town. I like Bob. He is a genuinely nice guy, and the prototype of the traditional sharp-but-gentlemanly lawyer. Currently he is one of many authorities in town struggling to come to terms with the issue of problem gambling as a regulatory matter, something that until recently hadn't been on anyone's radar screen. Casinos are trying to figure out how to emulate the alcohol industry's approach to addiction, rather than repeat the tobacco industry's missteps. Stay tuned on that story.        On Tuesday evenings Bob leaves his imposing corner office on the top floor of the Bank of America Tower in downtown Las Vegas to be back in Boulder City to tape his weekly "Hi Bob" local-access TV show. He'd graciously asked me to come on to talk about my book, and I was grateful for an opportunity to get my stuttering and gaffes out of the way before going on with Katie Couric next year. But when I walked into the studio and Bob mentioned that the show would run 21 times over the next week, and is also carried by some Northern Nevada stations, I felt a knot forming in my stomach. Then I looked in the mirror. My hair was a disheveled mess. 241998102133000AMWednesdayOctOctober310/21/1998 7:30:00 AM6304453740000000001998102133000AMWednesdayOctOctober310/21/1998 7:30:00 AM630445374000000000xEntry02        Try losing seven coin tosses in a row, with 15 grand riding on each, and you'll know what Mr. E. to my right is going through. His eyes betray the stark bewilderment of a dog grown tired from chasing his tail. And yet he asks one of the many solicitous supervisors hovering behind the table for more credit. He wants to feel like Zeus again, as he did a mere 20 minutes ago. The rest of us avoid eye contact with him, lest we identify with what might become of us in a moment of weakness.        My average bet this evening, I realize with terror, is roughly what my weekly salary had been as an editorial writer. Back then I used to grapple with such lofty issues as Supreme Court jurisprudence, NATO expansion, and local politics. Now I wonder whether the banker's natural nine on the last hand means a momentum shift is upon us and whether Mr. T., sitting next to Kat, will be shot.        Kat is convinced the Mediterranean-looking guy will get shot, if not tonight, perhaps tomorrow. "He has to be in some mafia," she mutters under her breath, staring at his imposing tower of C-notes. I tell her to be more tolerant.        It must be hard being a thrifty Russian, Mexican, or Indonesian, eager to splurge a bit at the baccarat tables, and have people assume the cash in your suitcases is tainted rogue money. Maybe Mr. T., who accentuates the gleam of his chunky gold jewelry with an all-black outfit, and whose inability to sit still is bad baccarat form, just has the same aversion to complicated financial instruments my grandmother had. She put her credit card my parents pestered her to get in a safe deposit box, along with her jewels.        If it weren't for the new-hotel smell, you'd think we'd been sitting at this table since the beginning of time, transfixed by the question of whether "the player" or "the banker" will come closest to nine on the next hand. For all its hype--the intimidating barriers between mere tourists in a casino and the baccarat tables, the James Bond associations, the phenomenal sums of money involved--baccarat is that simple. The first time I played it I felt cheated. Could this be it? Had Bond really donned all those dapper dinner jackets to bet on what's essentially a coin toss? Banker or player?        The Bellagio's sumptuous high-roller rooms are crowded. We make for an interesting mix of hard-core gamblers, celebrities, and eye candy. At most casinos in town that cater to high rollers you rarely see more than one busy baccarat table, which seats 12, but here there are four packed ones going. You can be sure more money is being wagered at these four tables than in the rest of the casino put together. The buzz is that someone has already lost $6 million, in the back room where the minimums are steepest and the carpet is thickest ($250 a square yard). Mr. Wynn was kind enough to leave the minimum bet at $100 at our table, though I am the only one who ever comes close to betting it. More bets hover near the table maximum of $15,000 a hand. At the table next to ours, the minimum bet is $3,000.        Kevin Costner is playing blackjack, and Michael Jordan saunters by our table, maneuvering the crowded room with a felinelike grace. But we're an unfazed lot; hardly anyone looks up from the table. Only Juan from Paraguay, one of four impeccably mannered dealers working the game, makes a comment about the world's greatest athlete. "There goes the Jose Luis Chilavert of North America," he told me in Spanish, referring to his nation's heroic World Cup goalkeeper. I find the statement suitably surreal.        I now know better, of course, about baccarat. If its mechanics are deceivingly simple, then so are life's. And as with life, a Chinese gentleman once explained to me after we'd been going at it for 14 hours straight, the key to baccarat lies in discerning patterns. The house, which every so often does get badly burned, scoffs at this notion that history matters here, which is why it obligingly passes out scorecards. Try keeping score at blackjack, where the past is known by all to matter, and you'll most likely be asked to leave.        Tourists who drop a few dollars in a slot machine are entertained by the randomness of fate. But most who linger beyond the first entertaining skirmishes, and certainly those of us entrenched beneath the chandeliers of the baccarat pit, have a desperate need--or a grander ambition, if you will--to impose a sense of order over chaos. So we keep score, and decipher the future from the checkered past. B-B-P-B-B-B-P-P-B ... What's your next bet going to be? 241998102033000AMTuesdayOctOctober310/20/1998 7:30:00 AM6304445100000000001998102033000AMTuesdayOctOctober310/20/1998 7:30:00 AM630444510000000000xEntry01        I went from craps to Cézanne in three minutes, 12 seconds and probably could have made it in two minutes flat, if the art gallery attendant hadn't detained me to show me how the audio guide worked. Such is the "new" Las Vegas.        I had intended in good conscience to share with you a whole laundry list of other stats on Steve Wynn's stunning new $1.6 billion Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Alas, my promised media kit hasn't been delivered.        Did you know France exports mud? It's true. The purveyor of all things fine to snobs everywhere exports mud.        Having gone 32 years, somehow, without ever having got a mud wrap, I wasn't sure what the etiquette was when Mireille Alfa, the resort's head aesthetician, allegedly from Paris, was covering my body with mud. Should I strive for reverential silence or friendly chitchat? No longer able to take the pressure, I cracked. "I suppose you saved this dirt from the construction site," I teased.        Mireille was not amused. "All good mud for Moor wraps comes from the coast of Brittany," she said sternly. Once I'd got over the disappointment of not having my eyes covered with cucumbers--one of the motivations behind this indulgence, I must confess--I fell into that soothing purgatory between wakefulness and sleep.        When Mireille and I parted, she suggested I also take a Vichy shower in the spa, a suggestion that, needless to say, I found rather offensive, not to mention unpatriotic. I almost told her to go get a Pétain facial but then thought better of it. I did stay on for a very proper posh-spa workout. That is, I spent 12 minutes on a treadmill and two hours consuming a variety of juices, watching college football games, sitting in a hot tub, and sweating in the steam room, all the while doing my best to go through as many towels as some small nations do in a month. This all in an attempt to get physically geared up for a night of the most stressful form of relaxation invented by man: casino gambling.        Casinos have always known that a little disorientation goes a long way toward loosening a patron's grip on his wallet. You've heard of all the tired old tricks employed by casino moguls. Hide the clocks, the sunlight, and the cash, and ply your gamblers with free drinks, provided by mesmerizing waitresses prancing about in what Tom Wolfe once described as "buttocks décolletage." Better yet, have them gamble in a pyramid, a pirates' den, or a fake Manhattan in the middle of the desert. Self-parodying kitsch, stressing the absurdity of life, makes people laugh, shake their heads, and take cash advances on their credit cards. Kitsch is good.        Now Wynn, Las Vegas' most visionary hotelier, has taken this disorientation to new heights with his Bellagio Hotel. Instead of adding to the city's collection of ever more theatrical, excessively themed hotels, Wynn has done something truly shocking. He has blown an unfathomable sum building a hotel dripping with taste in the very heart of the Strip. He has wooed New York's Le Cirque 2000, San Francisco's Aqua, and a dozen other renowned eateries to his beloved Bellagio, along with such retailers as Tiffany's, Armani, Chanel, and a place whose name I cannot recall that sells sparkling $2,789 shoes. But most crazily, as you've probably heard by now, Wynn has amassed a world-class art collection valued at more than $300 million to display at the resort.        No amount of free drinks or sleepless nights could ever match the disorienting power of finding a sublime art gallery, the intimacy and selectivity of which bring to mind Washington's Phillips Collection, under the same roof as a casino--just around the corner, past the conservatory. One minute you are walking down the Strip with what seems like half of America hunting for those $4.99 dinner buffets, and the next you are admiring such gems as van Gogh's Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, for which Wynn reportedly paid $47.5 million, and Edgar Degas' Dancer Taking a Bow.        But disoriented or not, I am off to the baccarat tables to play the role of False Pretender among the millionaire players in town to help Wynn and his celebrity buddies open the joint. That's because I am writing Doubling Down, a book on the Las Vegas phenomenon, and its clever gimmick has me gambling away my advance. My pitch to publishers was as simple as the game of baccarat itself: Give me a decent bankroll to go gambling for a month in Vegas, and I'll write about it. Amazingly, somebody bought it. My weekend at the Bellagio is to be my book's epilogue and my final, mano a mano showdown with Mr. Wynn. 241998101933000AMMondayOctOctober310/19/1998 7:30:00 AM6304436460000000001998101933000AMMondayOctOctober310/19/1998 7:30:00 AM63044364600000000010Monday night footballMonday night footballM10CokeCokeC10College footballCollege footballC10GamblingGamblingG10OnceOnceO10NevadaNevadaN10WorldWorldW10Waiting in lineWaiting in lineW10MuseumMuseumM10CasinoCasinoC10Las VegasLas VegasL1A week in the life of Andrés Martinez, gambler.000023falsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsetrue2falsefalse42.01998102133000AMWednesdayOctOctober310/21/1998 7:30:00 AM6304453740000000001998102533000AMSundayOctOctober310/25/1998 7:30:00 AM630448830000000000