Author Archives: Stephen Carr

Snappa

Tanner is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in Brea California, on the boarder of Orange Country. He was a part of both soccer, skate, and fishing communities as a kid, as well as the public school community and his local community. 

 

 

Preformance: “So, Snappa. It’s a game. and you have one cup in each corner of the table. And it’s 2v2. and you’re playing, and it involves a dice and each cup is filled up with beer. and you have 2 people on a team on one side and 2 people on a team on the other side. and the objective of the game is to throw the die a certain height up in the air, and make it land and roll through each of the cups on the other side. And whoever is playing defense at that point has to catch it with one hand. So, if it’s caught with one hand then there’s no point for the offensive team, and the game goes on. and then whoever the team was on defense at that point is now on offense. if it goes through the cups and they don’t catch it with one hand then it’s a point for the team that threw it in the air, and you keep going and play to what you want… you know… 5 – wait biz, 7, 11…”

Wait, what’s that? Why’d you say that?

“Biz? Biz is a word for 5. during the game you’re not allowed to say the number 5, which i’ve said like 4 times in a row now… so i would have to fill up my cup with beer and drink it 4 times. if you say the number biz… or 5… you have the drink your entire cup and then fill it up with a new beer. So, that’s that rule.”

Does everybody play by that rule?

“No actually, that’s only a SoCal thing. the game changes from across where you are. I mean here at USC we play and you have to say biz instead of the number 4 plus 1. but whenever i play with my buddies in NorCal they say 4 plus 1 all the time and i’m like “oh you just said it” and they’re like what are you talkin’ about. they don’t understand. that’s only a SoCal thing.”

 

 

Response: Snappa is a drinking game that is very popular in the fraternity culture at USC and across the country. It is a relaxed drinking game, unlike beer pong, where a single game can last anywhere from 20 minutes to multiple hours. The goal of the game is more to have fun and relax than to get drunk quickly, as the pace is fairly slow. There is no such thing as professional snappa, and there are different rules to play the game depending on where it is played. It’s really fun.

Jellyfish Sting

Carol is a Floridian who left the state to study film production at Boston University. She has since started a family in LA and is as much an LA native as a Floridian at heart. She has no remnants of her floridian accent, and knows the entire secret menu at In N Out.

Performance: “If you got stung by a jellyfish (some said pee on it, but not my folks), rub it with wet sand. I actually tried this one once and it totally works! the barbs from the jellyfish get stuck in your skin and rubbing sand can help to sort of exfoliate them out! Peeing on it may help the pain, but I’ve never tried it and my folks insisted that it was not the way to go!”

Response: I had never heard of this cure for a jellyfish sting, and am curious if it is widespread in areas beyond just Florida. Folk remedies involving the ocean seem to be common in Florida, and it is no surprise. The abundance of wet sand available when stung by a jellyfish also lends a level of convenience to this remedy that would lead to its general acceptance and use.

For another version of a folk remedy to use on jellyfish stings, watch the famous scene between Zach Efron and Nicole Kidman in the 2012 film, The Paperboy:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1496422/

Curative Powers – Gulf of Mexico

Carol is a Floridian who left the state to study film production at Boston University. She has since started a family in LA and is as much an LA native as a Floridian at heart. She has no remnants of her floridian accent, and knows the entire secret menu at In N Out.

Performance: “So…growing up in this weird place I did, southwest Florida on the Gulf of Mexico, we had our own weird set of things. Nobody was really FROM there, just like there’s not that many people that you meet, who are older, who are FROM L.A., so there was a big mish mash of things. One thing that was distinctly floridian however was the belief in the curative powers of the Gulf. If you had a cold, swim in the Gulf. If you had a rash, swim in the Gulf. If you had a sunburn, swim in the Gulf. It was supposed to be able to cure a lot of things, and I felt like it really did. Maybe it was the saline or something, but I think it actually works.”

Analysis: Folklore tied to the water is abundant in the Florida keys.  I feel that the curative powers of bodies of water is a common belief spanning multiple cultures and countries. It is interesting that Carol believes in the curative powers of the Gulf, and reaches for a scientific justification. Perhaps the Gulf has curative powers thanks to the placebo effect, or perhaps something about the cleansing salt water actually does help skin conditions and stuffy noses.

The Floor Is Lava

Anthony is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in New York and moved to Los Angeles this year to study at USC. He comes from an Italian background.

 

 

Performance: “back in my kindergarden years, we used to have some pretty intense stuff going on. And one of the most intense things was the state of the floor that we walked around on on a daily basis. The floor contained a checkered pattern.. a black and red checkered pattern, and the red really represented lava to us kindergardeners. And it was not chill to step.. you could NOT step on the lava, or you would be persecuted by your peers, left out of your friend group, and potentially die. You will not advance in your social group if you step in the lava. SO you must hop, leap, and skip over the lava squares. You have to hop from black square to black square. You can also climb on furniture or people who had already fallen into the lava. As long as you didn’t touch the red portions of the floor you were safe.”

 

 

Response: This is a game that i myself played as a child as well. When I played however, the entire floor was lava, and using furniture was the only way to navigate it safely. It is a sort of classic children’s game, and requires a fair amount of imagination to play. It also works bette for kids because full grown adults cannot hop across furniture like chairs and couches as easily due to their size. In terms of significance perhaps the lava represents danger in the home, as it was almost always played in a living room or another room with more furniture. In Anthony’s case, where the game was a sort of social determinant, giving children a chance to prove that they are brave to one another.

Left is Law

Anthony is a student at USC and one of my closest friends. He grew up in New York and moved to Los Angeles this year to study at USC. He comes from an Italian background.

 

 

“Left is law is a phrase you say when smoking. If you are sitting in a group of people smoking, hookah or whatever, you have to pass to the left always, counterclockwise, never to the right. Left is law. If you ever try to pass to the right everybody freaks out and reprimands you for it. It’s like a ritual type thing. If you ever pass to the right then it’s all fucked. The whole time is ruined, and it’s all shit. You always pass to the left.”

 

 

Response: This is a sort of ritual/magic folklore that revolves around smoking. I’ve never come across the folklore before, but my friend Anthony was adamant about it’s importance and relevance. He was shocked that I had not heard of it before. Perhaps it just exists in order to create a “go to” or “status quo” for a situation that is often variable. There also seems to be an expectation of having a good time tied to following the ritual, and a poor time associated with breaking it.