Boulevard City, Riyadh, the Western consensus & the hypocritical oaf

. . . we took the next best option to Boulevard World, recently opened, Boulevard City. What does it mean?

Sensory overload.

I had this song playing in my head . . . but it's too early for a music break. . .

We thought at first, shopping, that's what it's about, as we were ushered, yes, ushered, ushers in carparks, ushers in museums, ushers everywhere except movie theatres (there are no theatre theatres until the National Theatre is complete, about which more later; well, there are but they're music and comedy venues, both recent additions to the entertainment scene) and ushers here, telling us, This way! gesturing to the right side of the walkway, Not that way! stopping us . . . and telling us no stopping, as we were ushered down the thoroughfare to arrive at the circular fountain, pictured above, from which, signs at all points of the compass. . . and so we wandered, imagining with difficulty we were flâneurs, the difficulty being the hyperreality of what we were seeing, drenched in coloured lights. . . a calm pervaded the place quite at odds with the visual hectic-ity; theoretically Boulevard City offers a concentrated essence of the contemporary city, its lights, noise and promise of experiences. Boulevard World in this respect makes more sense because it concentrates in one place all the cities of the world, the great ones, or, is it the worlds of the city?

Now I've been to both, hard to say. No national demarcations in Boulevard City as there are in the World, which in fact is just over the boulevard. We couldn't go there because all the tickets were sold out. . . It had to wait until the following weekend.

Experiences: there seemed to be interior spaces dedicated to them, experiences—but, excusing ourselves by saying, spoilt for choice, we couldn't choose, every one of them requiring paid tickets, we didn't experience anything, just got hungry.

And on the way, saw this –

and this –

and laughed. . . Experiences here is like memories, you know, how you hear for apps and on personal devices, social media and even from persons, that you are making memories: You're making wonderful memories! which doesn't remind me of anything so much as what Geri Brophy said once about time spent with Mum and Dad when they were dying: It's a special time! yes, You're making memories!

. . . experiences is triggering, too, for its performance of the real, the real at second-hand, my own but vicariously experienced, by my digital other. I'll look back at that time and say to myself, It was a special time! . . . as if one could choose, not this experience, that one; not this time, that special one. Not the shared agony and not to share agony but with a view to looking back some day, reflecting on how special it was, to experience this or that, and, what memories!

good god I found it. Here's a memory:

here are some guys in thobes, which as far as I know simply means tops, having the experience of being photographed. There were several of such photo-portrait stations, the most horrible with a miniature dance-floor and arm rotating around it, as if it was taking a 3D scan of the miniature person (I only saw kids doing this) on the miniature stage. Dance! the adults around prompted, when what they were really saying was, Experience! Get used to it because when you get older this is what we do, we furnish our mediatised lives with experiences which are and take the place of memories, a memorial furniture befitting the mausolea homes have become, whitewalled as if all the walls, the ones without screens built in, were waiting on projections, yes, a furniture reminding us of that with which we were supposed to equip our minds, by attending to how we furnished them, because we were going to be spending a great deal of time in there. . . They are now either closed or facing closure, our minds, bad business models some might say, and others, a statement on the general culture, and its present enthusiasms.

Here they are, and beside them, a game arcade behind the moon:

We stopped beside a fountain:

Some pre-dinner art, some of it deliberate acts of imagination; some of it chance products from enthusiastic prompts, like, Green Yeti! or 3 Cultural Icons! (this also seems to be the process behind some of the architecture, that its design comes about by chance, and that, whatever the result, it is then built):

Dinner in Egypt was pigeon (top) and duck (middle) livers (bottom), mint lemonade (left) and tahini (right) that was supposed to be something else, and altogether delicious –

followed by complimentary rice pudding-with-rice and rice pudding-without-rice. And tea –

Our charming waiter came from Cairo. He presented us with copies of the placemat, which is an interactive treat for you at home. Simply direct your cellphone at each of the phrases written in Arabic and request a translation. Enjoy –

there had been some criticism in the press directed towards comedians, accused, by selling out, of complicity with an authoritarian if not oppressive regime, who appeared at the Comedy Festival, and I had been reading the letters one evening poolside when I decided to respond as follows:

Riyadh: the hypocritical oaf

Vilify comedians who play Riyadh for pandering to an oppressive regime when peaceful protest for certain causes in the UK gets you locked up!

I don't get it. Western liberal democracies are increasingly surveillance states, their governments PR companies indebted to corporations, running on their software, the best of them, the worst, like the US, bouncing madly around in a Krazy Klown Kult pinball of white supremacist political ideation. Meanwhile liberalising programmes, like Vision 2030, which isn't just about superbuilds, in a traditionalist Islamic nation, such as the notorious Riyadh comedyfest was a part of, are painted with broadstroke west-is-best cliché, dated cliché! It's corny and sad really. And nothing on the ground here in Riyadh is as corny and sad, except the aspiration to attract the West. I have seen more fear on the streets of Auckland than I have here and that to me is what an oppressive regime looks like.

Best,
Simon Taylor,
Currently residing in Riyadh, KSA

An outro gallery, including masks outside one of the haunted houses, which predominate among the experiences on offer, that is, as I indicate in my letter to the Guardian, fear is the predominant experience, although joy is advertised, and giant laughing chilis –

. . . so we said goodnight to Boulevard City, and next weekend Boulevard World, as my eyes ran with joy and I sang along,

I have seen too much, wipe away my eyes

. . .

love from Riyadh,

حب من الرياض

Simon