Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The Grand Tour





The pale chinless girl could be a family member in a  portrait by Gainsborough. Instead of  the bleaching fluorescence behind her it is possible to imagine foliage, instead of the expensive tee-shirting, satin. She is speaking of shopping. We listen to her rapid clipped narration allowing no interruption with a tense fascination.

Dubai. She opens  her eyes to convey limitlessness, the infinity of the spheres.
It  took my mother and me two full days. Literally  and we only really covered a wing.
The skating rink's huge and there's Candilicious.  But it is so massive you would never see it all.

Someone has experienced  similar wonderment  in Las Vegas. But, then she had not realised until her last day that  there was a regular mall where average people went where you could buy things that weren't labels.
The chinless girl is amazed  how someone could  be in Las Vegas for a week  and not know where this mall was.
It is just off the main strip, there are signs everywhere. Come on.  But really L.A. is so much  better  in terms of high quality anyway.

We see the movie.  Her  on Rodeo Drive leafing judiciously through a rack of delights, in the shadow of  passing celebrities.  It gives us all pause.

Someone quite timid  has been to Paris.  It had some good shops.
Well it has some good department stores, the girl says, but the malls are really awful.
She did not like Paris much at all. It was so old and  there is  so much smoking in the malls. They  were all so smokey they made her sick.

We see  her pale expressionless face, green in a  dense pall surrounded by ancient buildings and average people who smoke and have no idea.

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