7 Star Service
The Internet has natural class structures such as Wireless vs Fixed Line, Broadband vs DialUp, ADSL.1 vs ADSL.2 (in australia anyway), Laptop vs Tablet, Windows vs Mac, Blackberry vs Treo 650, Registered Member vs Anonymous Unique User, Paying Subscriber vs Free Member, A-List Blogger vs Z-List Blogger (according to my blogshares.com valuation ;) I mention this as one of the University degrees I did and enjoyed the most was an Arts Degree (allowed me to pad the statistics and accounting subjects in my Marketing, then post grad Venture Capital studies) and I first really got into "enjoyable" class analysis through Mike Davis and his City of Quartz book in 1993 (which made me an instant fan of LA; "In the summer of 1989, a well-known fashion magazine constantly on the prowl for lifestyle trends reported from Los Angeles that 'intellectualism' had arrived there..."), when I had asked someone (a postmodernist) "What is post-modernism ?" they recommended reading the book. Understanding why McDonalds and Public Parks use certain lighting and seating design to ensure the homeless cant sleep there will never be the same. SO I was very excited when I saw that Mike Davis had written an essay about 7 Star Hotels in Dubais (which also reminded me of the essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll never do Again" which DF-Wallace wrote about 6 star boat cruises - soon we'll be up to 8 star) Amazing how the best writers of or about California have the most interesting things to say about consumer economy, and all the grey matter between consumption, production and class. But unlike your university sociology courses in Derrida/Foucault these guys write in a fun interesting yet dense and rewarding way. I have on my bedside Foer's latest and his wife's book "History of Love : Nicole Krauss" and I cant wait.
To Davis' "Sinister Paradise" extract : "As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-colored islands in the shape of an almost finished puzzle of the world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Coliseum are clearly visible. In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The "Palms" are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chock-a-block full of mega-hotels, apartment high-rises and yacht marinas. As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of skyscrapers (nearly a dozen taller than 1000 feet) soars a new Tower of Babel. It is an impossible one-half-mile high: the equivalent of the Empire State Building stacked on top of itself. You are still rubbing your eyes with wonderment and disbelief when the plane lands and you are welcomed into an airport emporium where hundreds of shops seduce you with Gucci bags, Cartier watches, and one-kilogram bars of solid gold. You make a mental note to pick up some duty-free gold on your way out. The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel's famed "underwater fireworks:" a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a multi-level failsafe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft. Although you have an important business meeting at the Internet City free-trade zone with clients from Hyderabad and Taipei, you have arrived a day early to treat yourself to one of the famed adventures at the Restless Planet dinosaur theme park. Indeed, after a soothing night's sleep under the sea, you are aboard a monorail headed for a Jurassic jungle. Your expedition encounters some peacefully grazing Apatosaurs, but you are soon attacked by a nasty gang of velociraptors. The animatronic beasts are so flawlessly lifelike -- in fact, they have been designed by experts from the British Museum of Natural History -- that you shriek in fear and delight. With your adrenaline pumped-up by this close call, you polish off the afternoon with some thrilling snowboarding on the local black diamond run. Next door is the Mall of Arabia, the world's largest mall -- the altar of the city's famed Shopping Festival that attracts 5 million frenetic consumers each January - but you postpone the temptation. Instead, you indulge in some expensive Thai fusion cuisine at a restaurant near Elite Towers that was recommended by your hotel driver. The gorgeous Russian blond at the bar keeps staring at you with almost vampire-like hunger, and you wonder whether the local sin scene is as extravagant as the shopping….."
Speaking of post-modernist, my selective-perception-rss-feed has led me to post-modern/hyperreality crossover publishers JG Ballard : "Television today is an ageing theme park, which we visit out of habit rather than in hope of finding anything fresh and original. At times I think the era of television is over, but then it suddenly comes up with something rich and strange. A few years ago, I began to linger over a series called CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. After only a few episodes, I was completely hooked, for reasons I don't understand even today... The series unfolds within an almost totally interiorised world, a clue to its real significance. The crimes - they are all homicides - take place in anonymous hotel rooms and in the tract housing of the Vegas and Miami suburbs, almost never in a casino or a druglord's gaudy palace. A brutal realism prevails, the grimmest in any crime series. Suburban lounges and hotel toilets are the settings of horrific murders, which thankfully are over by the time each episode begins. Gloves donned, the cast dismantle u-bends and plunge up to their elbows in toilet bowls, retrieving condoms, diaphragms and bullet casings, syringes, phials and other signs of the contemporary zodiac. Faecal matter and toilet paper are never shown, perhaps reflecting American squeamishness, though evidence of anal intercourse and vaginal bruising is spoken of like tennis scores. If the crime scene is brightly lit, the outdoor world is always dark. A car crash or street shooting always takes place at night, when the city seems deserted and dead. Light and safety are found only in the crime lab, among its high-tech scanners and its ruthless deconstruction of human trauma."
To Davis' "Sinister Paradise" extract : "As your jet starts its descent, you are glued to your window. The scene below is astonishing: a 24-square-mile archipelago of coral-colored islands in the shape of an almost finished puzzle of the world. In the shallow green waters between continents, the sunken shapes of the Pyramids of Giza and the Roman Coliseum are clearly visible. In the distance are three other large island groups configured as palms within crescents and planted with high-rise resorts, amusement parks, and a thousand mansions built on stilts over the water. The "Palms" are connected by causeways to a Miami-like beachfront chock-a-block full of mega-hotels, apartment high-rises and yacht marinas. As the plane slowly banks toward the desert mainland, you gasp at the even more improbable vision ahead. Out of a chrome forest of skyscrapers (nearly a dozen taller than 1000 feet) soars a new Tower of Babel. It is an impossible one-half-mile high: the equivalent of the Empire State Building stacked on top of itself. You are still rubbing your eyes with wonderment and disbelief when the plane lands and you are welcomed into an airport emporium where hundreds of shops seduce you with Gucci bags, Cartier watches, and one-kilogram bars of solid gold. You make a mental note to pick up some duty-free gold on your way out. The hotel driver is waiting for you in a Rolls Royce Silver Seraph. Friends have recommended the Armani Hotel in the 160-story tower or the seven-star hotel with an atrium so huge that the Statue of Liberty would fit inside, but instead you have opted to fulfill a childhood fantasy. You always have wanted to be Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Your jellyfish-shaped hotel is, in fact, exactly 66 feet below the sea surface. Each of its 220 luxury suites has clear Plexiglas walls that provide spectacular views of passing mermaids as well as the hotel's famed "underwater fireworks:" a hallucinatory exhibition of "water bubbles, swirled sand, and carefully deployed lighting." Any initial anxiety about the safety of your sea-bottom resort is dispelled by the smiling concierge. The structure has a multi-level failsafe security system, he reassures you, that includes protection against terrorist submarines as well as missiles and aircraft. Although you have an important business meeting at the Internet City free-trade zone with clients from Hyderabad and Taipei, you have arrived a day early to treat yourself to one of the famed adventures at the Restless Planet dinosaur theme park. Indeed, after a soothing night's sleep under the sea, you are aboard a monorail headed for a Jurassic jungle. Your expedition encounters some peacefully grazing Apatosaurs, but you are soon attacked by a nasty gang of velociraptors. The animatronic beasts are so flawlessly lifelike -- in fact, they have been designed by experts from the British Museum of Natural History -- that you shriek in fear and delight. With your adrenaline pumped-up by this close call, you polish off the afternoon with some thrilling snowboarding on the local black diamond run. Next door is the Mall of Arabia, the world's largest mall -- the altar of the city's famed Shopping Festival that attracts 5 million frenetic consumers each January - but you postpone the temptation. Instead, you indulge in some expensive Thai fusion cuisine at a restaurant near Elite Towers that was recommended by your hotel driver. The gorgeous Russian blond at the bar keeps staring at you with almost vampire-like hunger, and you wonder whether the local sin scene is as extravagant as the shopping….."
Speaking of post-modernist, my selective-perception-rss-feed has led me to post-modern/hyperreality crossover publishers JG Ballard : "Television today is an ageing theme park, which we visit out of habit rather than in hope of finding anything fresh and original. At times I think the era of television is over, but then it suddenly comes up with something rich and strange. A few years ago, I began to linger over a series called CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. After only a few episodes, I was completely hooked, for reasons I don't understand even today... The series unfolds within an almost totally interiorised world, a clue to its real significance. The crimes - they are all homicides - take place in anonymous hotel rooms and in the tract housing of the Vegas and Miami suburbs, almost never in a casino or a druglord's gaudy palace. A brutal realism prevails, the grimmest in any crime series. Suburban lounges and hotel toilets are the settings of horrific murders, which thankfully are over by the time each episode begins. Gloves donned, the cast dismantle u-bends and plunge up to their elbows in toilet bowls, retrieving condoms, diaphragms and bullet casings, syringes, phials and other signs of the contemporary zodiac. Faecal matter and toilet paper are never shown, perhaps reflecting American squeamishness, though evidence of anal intercourse and vaginal bruising is spoken of like tennis scores. If the crime scene is brightly lit, the outdoor world is always dark. A car crash or street shooting always takes place at night, when the city seems deserted and dead. Light and safety are found only in the crime lab, among its high-tech scanners and its ruthless deconstruction of human trauma."
posted by redbarren at 3:30 PM
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