ok sorry one more time... just imagine, IMAGINE lestat dragging louis to coney for july 4th to see joey chestnut beat his record. we're talking high noon on the beach, nationally televised. thee most dangerous place for vampires to be. they have to get a special shady spot under the stands or something. lestat psychically compels the girls in the hotdog costumes to not block his view. louis is having a minor panic attack thinking he might fry to death in the sun again, cooked like so many hotdogs, and also running the numbers on how much Nathan's is making that day in sales, ad revenue, merch. Lestat is all "Louis, your capitalistic tendencies. The greatest American art form takes place before your eyes and you her natural born son cannot even appreciate it. Typical." they are represented by and within the crowd, equal parts revulsion (Louis) at the spectacle, the waste, the gluttony, the vapidity, and celebration (Lestat) of excess, violence, bun girls. George Shea gives his rousing intro speech, rising up into the sky on his platform, and Louis can't help but see a mirror of Santiago strung on false wires, orating for the feeble minded mortals below. nothing ever changes, does it? the mashing of meat into mouths lasts but for a moment, ten minutes, a blink in a vampiric existence, and yet it is a more grotesque bloodbath than Louis has ever witnessed. reversals of fortune. unprepared onlookers dry heaving. heat stroke threatening each and every fragile body and yet they watch, rapt, the festival of sweat and engorgement.
Joey Chestnut wins, 80 dogs even. New world record. Lestat has to shake his hand. He would never eat him, how dare you insinuate such a thing, Louis. The finest mortal eater in generations, with such an unsullied naive mind? He must be preserved.
Louis is more interested in prowling the boardwalk under the fireworks in the evening. a spectre of the old America at this carnival. he becomes enamored of a paltry dying freakshow and buys it outright. he's no artist, not a director like Armand, an actor like Claudia, a musician like Lestat. he's a hustler. here in this hall of mirrors by the sea, he can revive a trick or two from the old days. hock beauty and ugly in shady back rooms. Lestat has his freak show up there on the big stage. Louis prefers something a little smaller.
