#TalesFromTheGrid is about not just one thing at this point. It started as a surreal thought experiment regarding absurdity (AI, algorithms, technology, rodents who accidentally went to medical school, and ruthless cats).
Born in that weird, vulnerable moment between being awake and asleep, this set of texts explores dream logic, surrealism, and the absurd.
If you ever needed proof that humanity’s hubris has a direct line to nature’s “prank” department, look no further than Las Vegas in July 2019. This was the week the city accidentally summoned a biblical plague using a giant flashlight.
The Setup (The Bug Zapper)
The Luxor Hotel features the “Sky Beam”—a 42.3 billion candela beacon that shoots straight up from the top of the black pyramid. It is the strongest man-made light in the world. It is visible from space. Pilots use it as a waypoint.
To the human marketing team, it says: “Come gamble.” To the insect world, it says: “THE MOTHERSHIP IS CALLING.”
The “Glitch”
In early 2019, Nevada had an unusually wet winter. The desert bloomed, providing an all-you-can-eat buffet for the Pallid-winged Grasshopper. The population exploded.
Then, the migration started. Usually, these grasshoppers fly at night, navigate by the moon, and mind their own business. But when 46 million of them reached the Las Vegas Valley, they saw the Luxor Beam.
The Invasion
The beam from Luxor (the hotel/casino) acted as a hypnotic anchor.
The Numbers: An estimated 46 million grasshoppers descended on the Strip. That is roughly 30 metric tons of insects.
The Radar: The swarm was so dense that the National Weather Service’s radar picked it up as a “biological storm cloud” moving over the city.
The Visual: The base of the Luxor looked like a scene from The Mummy. The light beam was a swirling tornado of wings. Sidewalks were carpeted in a living, crunching layer of bugs.
The Human Response
Tourists screamed. Instagram influencers fled. The Nevada Department of Agriculture had to issue a press release that basically said: “Please remain calm. They are horny and hungry, but they don’t bite.”
The best part? The grasshoppers weren’t attacking. They were just confused. We built a fake moon, put it on top of a fake pyramid, and were shocked when nature treated it like a real navigational beacon.
When the 2019 “Grasshopper Apocalypse” hit, Las Vegas did exactly what Las Vegas does: it commodified the plague and turned it into a limited-time culinary event.
Here are the #MoreTrueFacts about the “Canyon Hopper.”
The Culinary Counter-Attack
While the rest of the world was looking at the Luxor beam and seeing a horror movie, Evel Pie on Fremont Street saw a free supply chain. They released a specialty pizza called “The Canyon Hopper” to capitalize on the swarm.
The Ingredients: This wasn’t just cheese and bugs. It was a high-concept build featuring chorizo, goat cheese, caramelized onions, and arugula. The star attraction was a generous sprinkling of lime- and garlic-roasted grasshoppers.
The Sourcing: In a rare moment of corporate responsibility (or perhaps just health code caution), the restaurant didn’t actually scoop the grasshoppers off the sidewalk. They imported food-grade chapulines from Oaxaca, Mexico, rather than harvesting the wild, exhaust-fume-covered ones from the Strip.
The Marketing: They advertised it as being for “only the bravest daredevils” and even the staff admitted they were shocked that it actually tasted “damn good”.
The “Boozy Revenge”
It wasn’t just the pizzerias. The bars on Fremont and the Strip joined in with a wave of “Grasshopper Drink Specials”.
The Smashed Pig: They leaned into the classic “Grasshopper” cocktail (crème de menthe, crème de cacao, and cream), putting it on their chalkboard as a $8 special the moment the swarm hit.
The Golden Tiki: They created the “Grass Skirt Hopper” using Branca Menta and dark chocolate liqueur, promising to keep it on the menu as long as the insects remained in town.
The Scale of the “Toppings”
To give you an idea of the market potential, the swarm was estimated at 46 million grasshoppers weighing roughly 30 metric tons. On the night the invasion peaked, there were more grasshoppers in the air over Vegas than there are humans who visit the city to gamble in an entire year.
It remains the only time in history a city’s “pest problem” was pick-up radar by the National Weather Service and then immediately paired with a craft beer and a side of goat cheese
