You'd have to be living under a rock to not know about the precipitous fall that global stock markets have taken these past few days. Anybody trying to call a bottom to this slide must either be a prophet, or insane. Gone with them are the legends of modern finance which has driven much of the world these past decades. Within days, names such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns and Merrill Lynch were relegated to the annals of history through a combination of bankruptcies and forced takeovers.

I was in New York last weekend to catch a play and let my feet wander, as they love to do. I couldn't help but notice how quickly the stories of these companies had vanished off the face of the city. Lehman Brothers' headquarters now bore the name of its rescuer, Barclays Capital, and the skin of video screens that cover the building's base flashed Barclays' blue instead. I had to walk just a block further to see the contrast with legends past.

I've resisted blogging, preferring to save my ruminations for unsuspecting dinner companions, so this is a first of what I hope will be many, minus the food, but do take it with some wine and a pinch of salt ;-)

I wrote an op-ed piece many, many moons ago, when my head had no salt and only pepper in it, on what I then called the ‘jesus fulcrum'- how a single birthday became the benchmark for how we measure time and history, and how so many different cultures (and faiths) had their own pivots on which they balanced their teetering constructs. At some point one end of the seesaw gets too heavy, and through minor, bloody upheavals, we find a new event to prop it up with for a few more generations.

Unlike in the visual, performing and literary arts, where today is being recorded through the memorable lilt of a figure etched in paint or prose, the shape and form of our cities are left to the ubiquitous imaginings of nobody, leaving nothing of collective value to the future.