IVIV: More Golden Fang

[Joseph Tracy]

On Dec 2, 2009, at 1:11 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:


> I was traveling to Nairobi a few years ago with my sister-in-law  
> and we had an 8 hour stopover in Dubai, so we decided to have  
> dinner at the famed hotel.  We entered the lobby and found  
> ourselves in the midst of a photo shoot -- some sort of gay  
> extravaganza involving a hundred or so young, good-looking men in  
> tuxedos.  The seafood restaurant was accessed via a faux  
> "submarine" ride. It seemed to be patronized exclusively by wealthy  
> European and Arabic businessmen, served by Filipina waitresses.   
> After dinner, we took a strobe-lit elevator up to the roof-level  
> lounge, which was similarly populated by European and Middle  
> Eastern businessmen, this time in the company of various Asian  
> hookers.  Outside of this hotel/Fang outpost was a virtual police  
> state as far as "guest" workers were concerned -- the local paper  
> had blacklists of Nepalese and Filipino workers who had  
> "left" [escaped] their employment, the local women were shrouded in  
> veils, and every corporation (and I really mean every) corporation  
> in the world had a tax-free corporate skyscraper/HQ.
>
Sounds creepy. And now they're running out of Nixon Bucks to pay the  
proverbial piper.

>
> Does Dubai translate as Fang?  Any grievance al-Qaeda might have  
> against the West seems to be extravagantly present there, so you  
> have to wonder if al-Qaeda (whatever that might be) is just as cozy  
> with the Fang as the US, Haliburton, et alia are.
>
Right now according to the auditor for spending in Afghanistan who  
spke on NPR tonight, the US military spends up to  20 percent of its  
money on private contractors who insure safe travel to US troops. In  
other words we don't want to give money directly to the Taliban to  
prevent attack so we give it to "contractors" and they pay off the  
Taliban. The guy was dropping this giant clue about the corruption  
and the  NPR person didn't get it or didn't want us to get it.

> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>> Sent: Dec 2, 2009 12:50 PM
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: IVIV: More Golden Fang
>>
>> On Dec 2, 2009, at 9:22 AM, Robin Landseadel wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Dec 2, 2009, at 9:08 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> It's the Golden Fang, again—still.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Almost literally. Kharzi's brother, Head of the Opium trade.......
>>>>
>>
>> Saw this hotel while watching the Daily Show of 12/1/09:
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/yfde3gu
>>
>> 	"This extraordinary investment in state-of-the-art construction
>> 	technology stretches the limits of the ambitious urban
>> 	imagination in an exercise that is largely due to the power of
>> 	excessive wealth."
>>
>> 	The Burj Al Arab (Arabic: "Tower of the Arabs", also
>> 	known as "Arab Sail") is a luxury hotel located in Dubai, United
>> 	Arab Emirates. At 321 m (1,050 ft), it is the second tallest
>> 	building in the world used exclusively as a hotel. The Burj Al
>> 	Arab stands on an artificial island 280 m (920 ft) out from
>> 	Jumeirah beach, and is connected to the mainland by a private
>> 	curving bridge. It is an iconic structure, designed to symbolize
>> 	Dubai's urban transformation and to mimic the sail of a boat.
>>
>> 	Sam Wollaston writing in The Guardian described the hotel as
>> 	"...fabulous, hideous, and the very pinnacle of tackiness - like
>> 	Vegas after a serious, no-expense-spared, sheik-over".
>> 	
>> 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Al_Arab
>>
>> While it looks like a sail, it also looks like a fang. The Burj Al
>> Arab was completed in 2000.
>>