One thing you don't often do in a casino is go to a book signing. In fact, there is only one bookstore on the Strip:  The Reading Room at Mandalay Bay. Its unique existence is likely the result of a quirk in that a former Mandalay Bay executive was a graduate of the famous Iowa Writers Workshop (whose alumni include Flannery O' Connor, John Irving, Raymond Carver and T. C. Boyle). The Reading Room is located right near The House of Blues in the casino. The store is a total joy in its wonderful oddity.  True story: One day while waiting for doors to open for a Seether concert I was writing about at HOB I headed over to The Reading Room hoping to show a friend an Osip Mandelstam poem I had told her about earlier in the day and, yes, in the casino on the Las Vegas Strip, we discovered a translation of the work of that great Russian poet.

On Saturday afternoon I returned to the Reading Room for a signing by French photojournalist Francois Paolini. We All Live in Vegas features 320 of Paolini's photos many artfully arranged into collages that offer juxtapositions that really capture the energy of the town. One of my favorites merges the frontage of Circus Circus with the ceiling of the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton.

I asked Paolini what his favorite casino was to photograph: "The MGM. I've stayed at the MGM Grand many times. And, the more I stay at the MGM the more I love it. But I know it is not the most beautiful of the resorts. Here (Mandalay Bay) is better than the MGM, of course, and Bellagio and Four Seasons. But I feel better in MGM. I don't know why. It is an interesting place. When night falls on MGM, its color, its special green is completely strange. I don't know how they make this green. It is green from a dream. I also like to get pictures of the street from the rooms at the MGM."

I had to ask Paolini where he got his jacket. "Las Vegas," he said with a huge smile

(photo by Sarah Gerke)