It is the season of Snowbird Sob Stories. There are up to 500,000 such stories - that's the number of Canadian homeowners in Florida. The Friday CBC call in show at noon had the topic of snowbirds and Florida after the hurricane. I wanted to boo-hoo for them and the increase in costs of insurance and house repair. There is a sense of people living in a fantasy realm where things should be as they want them to be. Perhaps there is some kind of snowbird mental freeze. Like eating ice cream too quickly.
But wait. The Globe and Mail pops up with a story today that gives me a formal term that might apply here - Kayfabe.
What is kayfabe? It is a professional wrestling term for staged performances that are combined with real wrestling to give an illusion that everything is real. It is compared with the "fourth wall" in acting. As in the "suspension of disbelief".
Maybe Kayfabe applies to quite a few things. Here's the headline that backs me up:
"Kayfabe in Postmodernist Heterotopic Society"
"Postmodernism challenges traditional narratives and structures, emphasizing the fluidity of meaning and the constructed nature of reality. Heterotopia, a concept introduced by Michel Foucault, refers to spaces that exist outside of regular societal norms, where alternate realities or truths coexist. In today’s postmodernist heterotopic society, kayfabe becomes increasingly relevant as the lines between reality and fiction blur."
I think this is a word that is going to get a lot of use.
I found this picture of Niagara-on-the-Lake in Autumn. I can see the street sign - Gage Street. This is one of the pretty streets there. I had to remove all the poles, etc. And in doing that we can live in the illusion of an old-fashioned town, where things are simpler and calmer.
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