photo credit: scragz

When I woke up, I started thinking about Pontypool and memetic infection. At around the same time, Robin Sloan posted:

What terrifies the North Korean regime? Pirated movies on DVD showing modern lifestyles in other countries. >> http://is.gd/4HCTV

Robin Sloan on Twitter

There are times when North Korea’s regime seems like someone read 1984 as a how-to manual. The building that is frequently edited out of photos. The assertion that things are worse everywhere else and that Americans are to blame for everything that goes wrong. The simulacra village with the world’s tallest flagpole. The logic of the dominant regime: control history, control what seems possible, control the future.

photo credit: superblinkymac

I’m reminded of the myth we tell ourselves about Coke and blue jeans bringing down the wall 20 years ago. MTV showed people the glamorous Western lifestyle, the story goes, and people came to demand that life for themselves. They saw what we claimed we had and they compared it to what they didn’t have.

The fascinating thing about this story is that the infection is a side-effect. In fact, it only works as a side effect. When we see the pomp and circumstance of a military parade we know that we are supposed to be impressed. We also know that someone is going out of their way to impress us, which makes us suspicious. We think they’re exaggerating or hiding something.

The reason that MTV and pirated DVDs are so much more potent than staged displays is that the wealth (ignoring rap videos) is incidental. The message is: We have these nice things and it’s so commonplace that we can’t be bothered to mention it. We made these for ourselves, and you are listening in on our cultural conversation. The stuff you learn by eavesdropping must feel more authentic and believable than the stuff they are spouting on Radio Free Europe. This isn’t wealth over here in our culture. It’s just basic living. This is like a cultural germs part of Guns, Germs and Steel. Of course, not many of the people over here actually live like the people on TV.

(An aside: There is a tension between the environmentalist rhetoric that we’d need 6 earths to live like North Americans and the story that it was conspicuous western consumption that brought down repressive regimes. As if we sold out our future selves to dangle the carrot of democratic civilization in front of everyone else.)

I’d like to know more about the (possibly exaggerated) Amish rites of passage depicted in Devil’s Playground. The story is that during adolescence, Amish youth have a period where they go a little crazy. They are released into secular North American society, and may experiment with cars, modern clothes, sexual relationships, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. Most end up returning to the church.

This is an almost perfect reversal of the slow erosion of values. Instead of a long period of small doses, these kids are dropped totally unprepared into an alien culture. They arrive lacking defences, context, or tools to handle a different set of norms. Unsurprisingly, most have a terrible time and gratefully return home, no doubt convinced that the alternative is clearly inferior (and probably baffled at why the rest of us live that way). Like an inoculation, the culture preserves itself not through avoidance, but through strategic exposure to the competing options.

The gas station has long been abandoned. For some reason, one of those old coke machines is still there, still working, and still stocked. A beacon across the darkened parking lot, you find yourself going out of your way to investigate, one hot summer night. To your surprise, the price is 50¢. You buy a drink, and can’t tell whether you’re enjoying the flavour or the nostalgia. You excitedly tell your friends but months later, when they finally make the trek, it’s gone.

In the heart of the University you find the main library. Walking through the atrium you notice a ditch, now dry, that seems to run both out into the cliff and down into the lobby itself. The security guard explains that when the building was first conceived, the ditch was to be a pool fed by a waterfall from the top of the cliffs and meandering through the atrium and into the lobby where the patrons would be soothed by the lapping of the water. He wonders at the lack of foresight of the architects who forgot to account for the bitterly cold winters of the region and tells you about the decision to finally drain the pool and seal the lobby, one frozen Saturday afternoon.

Wandering down a street near the government district, you see another of the familiar blue Heritage markers that denote a building of particular historical value. You stop to examine it and note that instead of the usual words about heritage and protected properties, this one tells the story of a man waking up drunk in an alley. Careful examination reveals that someone has cleverly mimicked the style of the Heritage markers, though the materials are cheaper and the ink has started to run. As you continue on your way, you can’t help but steal a glance back at the building, uncertain as to why you would have accepted it as a candidate for Heritage protection in the first place.

Crossing the lawn, you see that the parking lot is deserted and that the windows of the grocery store are dark. This surprises you, as the sign out front indicates that this is a 24 hour location. There is a small sign posted to the door. “For your shopping convenience,” it says, “we are now closed between Midnight and 7:00am.” You leave, hungry.

Cresting the hill, you begin to hear the syncopated beat of a tambourine. As you approach the park you see a group of people dressed in loose white clothing. In the dimness they seem almost luminescent. You watch as they seem to alternate between fighting and dancing, marvelling as the execute flips and one-handed cartwheels. Your friend tells you that they are practising Capoeira, a martial art developed by slaves and disguised as a dance to hide it from their masters. The disciples are fluid and graceful.

Continuing past the commercial district’s bright windows and packed patios, you find a small storefront that has been converted into a Falafel shop. A sign on the door notes that the health agency has given it a “conditional” pass but you enter anyway, lured by the low prices. The shop keeper is earnest and his movements are nervous and unpracticed. You wonder if he is new to the falafel business. You note that he has prominently displayed three books on organic and vegetarian cooking and try to decide if this is marketing or an indication of his actual cooking style. The pitas are whole wheat and he gives you too many vegetables. The chicken is delicious.

Halfway down the block there is a gap between the houses. If you walk down this tiny alley you find yourself in the half-overgrown backyard. Bending down, you see that the remains of a herb garden grows between the weeds. Peering through the windows you see by the boxes that the occupants have just moved in. At night, three friends sit in the sun room. One reads, one writes and one draws. All three are comfortably silent as they listen to a playlist of songs selected especially for the occasion.

Embedded in the sidewalk that runs along the outskirts of the park is a series of small copper plaques. Each one depicts a different species of fern (there are more than twenty in all) and gives its Latin name. No explanation is offered and the park itself contains no living ferns.

The grass on the hill is even and lush. Your friend tells you that it was not always so. She tells you about the day when the city woke to find that someone had dumped huge quantities of fertilizer on the lawn, leaving chemical burns outlined by verdant green. The result was that anyone passing the hill on their way to work that morning found themselves confronted by hundred foot tall letters asking “WHY?”.