Friday, April 30, 2010

Dubai

Dubai makes me wish Ballard was still here to describe it. It is the closest we have to seeing what human life would amount to on another, less hospitable planet. A slave economy that built the most startling canyons of tall buildings, now with a sleek futuristic overhead metro system. Some episodes from my day here:


At the airport, the musclebound Muscovite (at least I imagined he was), waiting by the barrier. His biceps are as well defined as his face is puglike. Eventually, his blonde bombshell from Kiev arrives (again, in my mind). Another henchman mills around in the background. A few minutes later, their car screeches out of the car park. A large Chrysler that looks like a Bentley driving towards the skyscrapers. Late for a meeting with the Columbians, or D Company perhaps.

Three Japanese women taking tea in the foyer of the hotel. Their postural elegance belongs in an Ang Lee film. Who would not be entranced? Are they airline crew or the wives/travelling geishas of visiting diplomats?

The crowds gathering in front of the double height aquarium at Dubai Mall. A 2 metre shark floats benignly by. Sting rays flap like stunned birds in slo mo. Inside the tank, visitors can be seen, looking up from inside a transparent tunnel.

Staring up at the Burj Khalifa. So tall, yet so much smaller than a mountain. I wonder: did anyone die building it? Close by, 40 story buildings that stand incomplete, the cranes frozen in time, waiting for money to come through from Abu Dhabi. No one buys property in Dubai anymore.

An anoxeric British woman shops for food at Organics. She moves about on crutches. She wills herself to buy a flapjack but then doesn't eat it.

Ali, the Yemeni taxi driver. He complains that the North get everything: the capital city, the higher wages, the favours. That's why he had to leave. He works up to 90 hours a week. Ali's sees his wife and three kids once a year.

The Philippino working girls, arriving in the bar for the evening's labours..

7 comments:

Jaycee 7:58 pm  

I'm in love with the intimate descriptions of these different scenarios. Have fun in Dubai.

Myne Whitman 9:40 pm  

You have a great manner of description, interesting! Enjoy your weekend Jeremy.

Anonymous,  11:28 pm  

"Are they airline crew or the wives/travelling geishas of visiting diplomats?"

Perhaps the are travelling business executives or publishers in Dubai to discuss next year's literary festival!
Perhaps they are nobody's wives, but lovers, drinking tea together before they depart!
Perhaps they are diplomats sharing tea and comparing notes about the hassle of having jobless trailing husbands.
Perhaps they are looking at you thinking who is this handsome dude we can fuck for the night and leave in the desert so the sun can lacerate his skin, his prick, his tongue, his fingers so he will never have to type again.
Perhaps you should stop assumming that a lone woman or two are there as someone else's property or fetished commodity.
Perhaps someone is thinking the same thing about your wife when she waits in airports, in hotel lobbies as she treverse the globe presenting her treatise on the 'Continued devaluation of womanhood'.

I hope you'll post this.

Jeremy 3:01 am  

Anonymous: you are quite right, on reflection the bit about the Japanese women might sound a bit sexist. In my defence, I should say that the women were not alone as you assumed. They were with two very dashing looking Japanese men: think the suave lead in In the Mood for Love.

This your laceration dis tin, its a bit much though.

Battaille,  2:57 pm  

@ Anonymous: Pretty swait! Especially the bit about Sir J. being fucked and left in the desert with a fucking sun-lacerated prick. Ouch.

Jeremy 8:09 am  

Bataille: I thought you were dead?

Myne Whitman 6:42 pm  

Jeremy, someone is out for you. I do get the original Anon's point though if not the manner of presentation.

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