Donald Pittenger has noticed a connection between themed casinos and entropy:
Currently active themes in the heart of the Strip include Venice, the Italian lake country, King Arthur’s court, ancient Egypt, New York City, Caribbean pirate islands, China, a desert oasis and Paris. Well on the way to phase-out are Aladdin’s Middle East and Hollywood. (The MGM Grand dropped some of its Hollywood-themed decor. On the other hand, the Aladdin has been pretty much transformed into its new, Planet Hollywood guise.)Did I just mention “phase-out?” What I’ve been noticing are signs that that theme-purity is starting to diminish in the strongly-themed casinos — places where even the shops originally tried to conform to the overall scheme. The majority of themed casinos wear their themes lightly, embodying them in the general decor, but not extending to most of the shops and restaurants.
A case in point is the Paris. It has a Parisian-style shopping street where all (or nearly all) shops and restaurants were — Parisian. Yesterday I noticed that one shop site had been taken over by (if memory serves) a Shooz shoe store. And there was a new restaurant that, at a glance, didn’t seem particularly French.
The Luxor casino began an image remake a few years ago. Its architecture (a hollow pyramid) is impossible to change, but the ground floor details are changing from ancient Egypt to Los Angles show-biz.
The Luxor’s change was by top management decision. The Paris’ seeming shift is probably fed by the need to rent retail space, a need that will likely be enhanced by the current hard economic times.
Or, as the title of this post suggests, it’s possible that entropy itself kicks in where highly structured, low-entropic conditions exist.