Eid ul-Fitr

I have had a couple of social engagements this weekend, both in the "townsite" section of Corner Brook, and both with people from Grenfell. First, there was the end of Ramadan celebration (Eid ul-Fitr) on Friday night, largely in celebration of the other post-doc in the department, who is from Egypt.



The townsite area is very interesting. The houses are nice, two-story (sometimes three) and a kind of craftsman. There are only about 4 different floor plans because it's a company town and therefore, they were all built at the same time by the same crews. Isn't it weird that company towns are so oddly similar to Soviet towns? I mean, when I used to walk into an apartment in the former Soviet Union, I'd know right away the era of its design and where the bathroom was. Here it's similar, but more quaint. But the idea is the same: the company (or government) will build for you what you need, and you'll work for the company (or government). It's a socialist vision, expressed through different means. In both cases, it has disappeared, and we're dealing with something after. In the case of the company town, the previous era was called "Fordism," for obvious reasons. Henry Ford developed a system of paying his workers enough to purchase his cars. This is a story across corporate America (and Canada, I guess) in the dream time that was the early and mid 20th century. There are a lot of great stories of timber towns in Oregon where the boss would drive around, inspecting people's lawns. In Pennsylvania, mom and I met a couple from Hershey, PA who talked about the Hershey family and how it built the town of Hershey and populated it with workers and a theme park. The corporation not only employed people, it provided for them. It was paternalistic.

Our current era is being called "post-Fordism," an uninspiring and non-descriptive term. Any time someone uses the prefix post you can be sure that they're living through it, and so its immediacy makes it blurry and muddled. Our relationship with corporate governance will have some other word, later, when our fates become evident. For now, we occupy the old Fordist structures, while the mills close one by one and move to China. Meanwhile the company houses of the townsite are filled with professors. And here I am, in the "information age" of America. I often wonder what will happen when the zombies come, and I'm forced to take stock of what I can contribute to a post-post-Fordist society. I will tell the dark overlord of the Mad Max future: "Sir, I can analyze the power structure here."

Saturday, I returned to the townsite for a campus-wide eating party. I enjoyed the din of congregated, concentrated conversing, and the plates of food, and the smiley, friendly Canadians, and discussions begun by awkwardly extending a hand and saying, "Hi, I'm Erin." I've thought about trying some interesting ice-breakers, but they always seem contrived. So I stick to the geography topic: "I'm from Oregon." It's a winner here. I shall spread the tale of my beloved Oregon, a land of cowboys and loggers and hippies and the most delicious beer in the universe.