jigsaw puzzle of the American West had had a piece pulled out, and the resulting blank space, a nowhere bounded within somewheres, became Area 51. What overwhelms is not the meaninglessness of the universe but the coexistence of an apparent meaninglessness with the astonishing interconnectedness of everything. The fascination Area 51 exerted, as the vanishing center of every rumored cover-up and labyrinthine conspiracy theory, was essentially the fascination of a vacancy.
