I’m afraid I missed our class discussion of Trouble on Triton last week, so please forgive me for what might come across as a simplistic or redundant response.

I was particularly interested in the second section in this collection, “The Tale of Old Venn,” both in terms of the Utopian enclave (More/Jameson) and the idea that Utopia is a (pre)historic status to which we can return (Mackey, as one example). Venn reminded me of the narrator in More’s Utopia, and her primary narrative about the Rulvyn–“simple, proud, insular–like an island within our island”–is framed within many utopian terms (Delany 92). Venn disparages the spread of modern systems that developed from more “civilized” Nevérÿon. She feels that money has devalued labor by forcing all goods and services to be equated in the same currency (102). She is concerned about the development of writing as a way to better keep track of and more easily enslave people, and therefore advises that “Since we, here, do not aspire to civilization, it is perhaps best we halt the entire process” of developing a written language (85).

Rather than a positive and progressive force, Venn sees civilization as corrupting. She frames her past life with the Rulvyn as a simpler time free of many of the complications like written communication and money (More’s own symbol of human corruption). Because Rulvyn was “isolated,” it retained a prolonged immunity against the influences of Nevérÿon. Yet, as we discover, the utopian enclave is impermanent as long as the Rulvyn participate in trade. By the time Venn is telling her story, it is clear that the Rulvyn have also been corrupted by money (93). What is established, then, is a utopia that is unreachable not because of its geography, but its temporality. Venn advocates (or longs for) a society free of civilization that can only be set in history now that society has experienced that civilization. And what are we, as readers supposedly thousands of years in the future of Venn, supposed to make of the fact that we are much further removed from Venn’s utopia?

– Heather Nielsen

Earlier this week, a friend sent me this video and asked if I understood it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJiSSAMNWw[/youtube]

(can also be viewed here, since the videos don’t seem to be embedding properly right now)

Admittedly, I did not. I didn’t find it funny or creative, I didn’t see what it had to do with the dance the Harlem Shake (except that the words are in the song playing in the background), and I certainly had no idea why the internet had suddenly exploded into copycat videos of people gyrating in their office cubicles.

Like most popular things on the internet, it frustrated me. Here we have this wonderful–dare I say utopian?–resource to spread ideas and cultural resources around the wired world in the blink of an eye, but a lot of this gets lost among the cat videos. “Memes” develop and evolve so rapidly that they quickly lose all provenance, all coherence, and all awareness of any cultural roots. The Root does a much better job than I could of discussing both the origins of the Original Harlem Shake and the Meme Harlem Shake. I also came across THIS video (a much better use of our time, I should say) asking Harlem residents what they think of this new fleeting YouTube trend:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IGH2HEgWppc[/youtube]

(can also be viewed here)

The consensus? These videos are insulting. Not only would Harlem residents not be caught dead dancing so poorly in their pajamas in public, BUT ALSO these videos belie Harlem’s role in Americans’ consciousness as a primary hub of rich African American culture and history dating back to at least the turn of the last century.