Ir Hakoidesh has been conquered by the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God crowd and their wardrobes. Can it really be that if not for a fateful decision many years ago that would have been me? Or was some parting of the ways always inevitable? Is my attraction (revulsion) to the decadent hotel scene rooted in an atavistic need to confront an unrealized potential trajectory of my life or in the opportunity for smug self-validation? Maybe it's just the food.