There was a big bank where the local folks indulge in. The Oversea Chinese Bank Corp at Jalan Rahmat. It architecture was British, colemanesque columns and arches with red bricks motifs. Look what Duffield did to it.
Wilson Fisk was once the bank manager. He has managed a great many finances. Actually he don't have to. But being at work keep him close to the employed. Said it keep him informed. Time was, you keep yourself informed by doing it yourself. Time now, you pretend. Now that's not a bad thing. Most everyone don't know history anymore and they will swallow whatever that is wriggly, brown and attached to a hook. Problem is when your fakery start looking like your uncleaned toilet that you have not bothered to flush since the pump choked... well, the stink will always catch up with the stinker. Fisk says its simple banking economics. You crap big, you stink worse. Maybank at Jalan Rahmat has seen better days.
This was KL Tower. Was. Duffield again. The infamous non-maintenance of the federal utilities & works ministry has been non-existent for years. Build something new. Give it a year or two to outshine, outsize, outsex and out-boleh everyone else in the neighbourhood. Then the glory fades. Then the power trip occurs. Then the drips. Then the peel. Then the scurvy look. Then the sores. Then the sores some more. Call it syphilis. Call it gonorrhoea. Call it another victim of unprotected architectural sex. This was KL Tower. Not hard to imagine. Time was, folks build with foundation. The slow dig in the ground and the tedious calculated laying of steel and concrete to ensure that structural demands are met. Time now, thanks to certain pre-fabricated engineering, even a small island can mass build estates, architecture wonderlands and even casinos in 3 years. Most everyone don't study history anymore and they will marvel at whatever is shiny and new. As long as it is shiny and new.
The world groaned and shooked the other day and buried thousands under rubble of pre-fab concrete without foundation. Meanwhile pre-fab experts are exhibiting their foundation-less theses to the distress of precision engineers who have forecasted collapse years ago. In their ignorance they pronounced their high sounding pre-fabricated arguments to impress and subdue those who remain polite. Yes, some will be polite when they want to. They need their veneer of respectability to mask the fact that... perhaps, all they have is also pre-fabricated. Both stand as monuments to be torn down. Haven't folks seen enough of sick places like KL Tower?
I am Simon Alhazred and I have been around. I have seen things. The nameless cities hide the cries of the masses. Sometimes they build monuments useless to hide their ignorance of history. Sometimes they slip and reveal they don't care at all. Time was, Boat Quay was where the simple folks could work for a decent day's meal. Some folks worked harder and their children grew. Sometimes they get old enough, these kids. So they join their folks in investing for the future. Time now, Duffield's Boat Quay is under water.
There was time when most people thought no way anyone can make it in such a small island. But these folks who work the Boat Quay - they did. They made it. Their children made it too. But some children forget. They thought they always had it. They thought. Now they demand. I am Simon Alhazred, I have seen how today's children forget. I have seen how today's children manipulate ignorances to hide their own. Meanwhile monuments of unusual uselessness get built in the name pre-fab engineering. Ignorance begets stupidity and stupidity begets the same.
What is the nature of time? Does time have a shape? Is it
an arrow, or the rootball of a tree? Or perhaps some enormous floating bum, and us all swept up in its momentum of it's colossal, unearthly farts. Imagine time as something that can be held in your hands and turned. That was the great intellectual fear of the 20th century.-Warren Ellis-
No comments:
Post a Comment