The last time I posted I was thinking about how stories have value because they have some manner of permanence due to the media that is used to transmit them. Moving away from the digital ephemera that I talked about in that post, a visit to Disneyland, and the “Summer of Statues” got me thinking about the value of remixing stories. How permanent do stories need to be? Is there any value in a story that is same through time? I’m not really going to speak too much about the statues coming down (like Sir Jon A formerly of Victoria) because we are still seeing that play out, but rather, I’m going to reflect on Disneyland.
Disneyland was never meant to be completed. Walt himself said that. But sure as there is sun in California, whenever something changes in the Happiest Place on Earth, there are waves of people who complain and bemoan the loss of some connection to history. While it seems that most of these people who complain are “locals” who visit the park on a regular basis, I’m sure there are those who don’t visit as often, but have a hard time reconciling the idea that something from their past visit will change and in so doing rob them of the ability to recreate some perfect or magical memory from their past.
Myself, while I would consider myself a Disney fanatic (aside, if you want to connect Disney and education, check out My Disney Classroom Podcast), don’t fall into the “local” bin, living in Edmonton, and I don’t think I find myself in the “ideal memory bin either. I feel that because of how often I get to go, I need to be able to go with the flow and take changes for what they are, knowing that change was continual in a place that for all intents and purposes tells the same story every day. Or does it? I had to think about it as I tried to create some otherwise iconic shots of my kids in Disneyland. Ideally, I wanted to get a picture of the two of them walking up an empty Main Street toward the castle in the evening, holding a balloon. But that wasn’t going to happen. So I managed (and thanks to my wife who caught the opportunity on the last day that we were there) to get one of them doing half of that – walking down Main Street toward the Castle, holding hands. This was the “same story” that I wanted to capture for myself, thanks to some pre-constructed ideal.
Looking at it now, it’s ironic that the same activity that I often use to help me keep learning and exploring, was the activity that dropped me into the mindset that some things should never change. Photography is after all, capturing a moment in time with little consideration of what came before. A statue in all but form. After returning home and sharing the image with family, my Dad mentioned that the view hasn’t changed much since the first time we went 30 years ago. It’s this observation that got me going on the background idea for this post. As much as “not much has changed”, so much has. Now with my children I’m able to share stories about what was there compared to what’s there now and enjoy the fact that we are all able to experience something that hasn’t changed at all.
The element of Disney that hadn’t changed is the time “away from the world” and enjoying an escape into fantasy and whimsy. The natural and artificial edifices change. Mountains are literally built, empires rise and fall, and Stitch escapes! For my wife and I, this was most obvious on our favorite ride (one of them at least) – Pirates of the Caribbean.
Having been on the “pre movie” version, the “movie version”, and now the “Redd” version. The theme of the ride has essentially stayed the same. Starting in the real world, there is a decent into the ruinous aftermath of a pirate’s life, culminating with a look at that life before a warning from Jack.
Over the years, the scenes have been added and removed to help clarify the story and fill in the world that you get to visit for about 15 minutes (or longer if you have to stand by in line :D). Personally I love how I can point out how certain scenes were there “back then” to my kids and marvel at what is new for me as well as for them. This is what brings me back. Without this remix/refurb, would there be a point to coming back? I don’t think so.
Many groups tried to ride the wave that Disney created with their parks (Bedrock City comes to mind) but failed because they lacked the “magic”. That missing magic, looking at it now was the ability to always change.
Flipping it over back to how this all connect to education, it reminds about encyclopedias. Growing up, that shelf of dead tree was “all knowledge”. It wasn’t changed (often) and if it was, there was a single page insert that came in the mail. There wasn’t much reason to return if you had that “knowledge” acquired the first time Fast forward to the dawn of the interwebs, and you see that “knowledge” begins to increase in volume, as do the number of voices that contribute to it. Very quickly, value is no longer based on how close one can reflect was was on the page, but it now comes from how quickly and completely one can anticipate what will be on the page. Examining stories to find themes that are timeless, even though the stories themselves may be somewhat or entirely unique.
That’s it for now – this is a brain dump that needed to get out – I’ll try to come back to it later. Perhaps after looking more into Eric Kandel h/t Alan Alda’s Podcast
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