Winter on the inside

Apparently it takes an Islamic country to bring Christmas decorations to a less blaring volume, and while there are plenty of tree decorations and stockings in sight, we are at least spared some of the traditional grotesquery. Just yesterday I spent several hours tooling around Mall of the Emirates researching a 700 word primer on buying a stereo. The first editorial stricture was that all the products I wrote about had to be available at this particular mall, and the second was that the article should avoid sucking. Happily MOE offers a wide range of equipment, spanning a variety of incomparably nasal computer speakers to the stern looking but highly musical and esoteric McIntosh amplifier, a version of which once helped Jerry Garcia to kick out his loping electric jams.

MOE is also home to climate scoffing Ski Dubai, a nearly 10,000 square foot indoor ski park, now featuring a permanent Picabo Street exhibit, wherein the former Olympian and Mountain Dew shill entertains onlookers by trading ski tips for clean clothes and/or hot meals at MOE's  St. Moritz cafe. I haven't yet had a chance to set ski-boot inside what is essentially the world's largest walk-in freezer, but each time I visit the mall I'm drawn to it's glowing facade. Ski Dubai is like some huge and frigid human terrarium, it's inhabitants forced into unwitting visual harmony by their rental togs. Because the best views are reserved for the many dining establishments that skirt the park, and I'm currently adhering to the kind of fiscal diet that encourages eating at home, my pictures offer only the most cursory views of Ski Dubai. Someday, when the economy thaws out I'll take some shots from the inside.

Upon exiting the mall I encountered a puzzling art-show/corporate ad campaign that refers to itself as The Art of Can. All submissions contained some vestige of, or reference to, a Red Bull can, a guideline that made the paintings excruciatingly bad in particular. While anyone seeking thoughtful consideration of contemporary art would be better served visiting Rob's excellent blog, I can tell you that my reaction to the show varied from amusement over it's brazenly compromised premise, to genuine admiration of the craftsmanship evident in certain submissions. While the included submission is perhaps genuinely inspired by Rodin, I choose to think of it as a pun on the word "can", one that might be titled "The Art of going to the Can" or, maybe just "Rodin on the Can."