The Lone And Level Sands
Dubai is a place for the shallow and fickle. Tabloid celebrities and worn out sports stars are sponsored by swollen faced, botox injected, perma-tanned European property developers to encourage the type of people who are impressed by fame itself, rather than what originated it, to inhabit pastiche Mediterranean villas on fake islands. Its a grotesquely leveraged version of time-share where people are sold a life in the same way as being peddled a set of steak knives. Funny shaped towers smatter empty neighborhoods, based on designs with unsubtle, eye-catching envelopes but bland floor plans and churned out by the dozen by anonymous minions in brand name architects offices and signed by the boss, unseen, as they fly through the door. This architecture, a three dimensional solidified version of a synthesized musical jingle, consists of ever more preposterous gimmickry - an underwater, revolving, white leather fuck pad or a marina skyscraper with a product placement name that would normally only appeal to teenage boys, such as the preposterous Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower. |
The rest here (via Sullivan).
7 Comments:
slow...
naked capitalism was way ahead of you
I was going to send this to you today, but I figured you would have seen it. Wow. Strangely not surprising.
What? Gauche is no longer cool??
Who could have predicted.
Worth clicking through to read the comments over there. One by Tom S. in particular.
Agree, the comments on the original post are worthwhile.
so basically, Dubai is like America, only more so?
(only kidding, guys)
I am not at all sure "nil" is kidding. Or should be kidding.
Bet'cha can find as many people in Dubai, white-skinned tourists of course, quoting Ayn Rand to approving listeners, as you could have found at a Fed Reserve meeting pre-2007, or an AEI board meeting today.
Hey, even if TCR is slow on the draw with this particular article, it's still good to see him back after a hiatus!
Post a Comment
<< Home