Author Archives: Michael Chasin

The Hodag

In western Wisconsin lives the Hodag, a creature of folk legend native to Stephen’s Point that the informant described as their version of Bigfoot, but more evocative of a mongoose-like creature. It lives in the woods, and people frequently report sightings.

The informant claims most people don’t truly believe in the Hodag, treating it more as a tongue-in-cheek part of the culture. I suspect folk proliferation of the creature thrives largely due to the way the informant told me it bolsters the local tourism industry, with the Hodag plastered all over merchandise and used to entice outsiders to give the town a closer look and, by proxy, help out their business. Informant seemed dismissive of the local superstition, but still amused by it, as most Wisconsin natives probably are.

A bit of independent research revealed the Hodag is actually most closely associated with Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where it was “discovered.” That the informant didn’t know exactly where the creature is most popular despite living in Wisconsin indicates that general awareness of the creature greatly diminishes the farther out of Rhinelander one travels. I suspect it started out as some sort of hoax and proliferated from there, with locals becoming attached to the first accounts of the creature’s existence.

Emo’s Grave

Informant account:

“There is a district, a sort of suburban district in Salt Lake City, Utah called ‘The Avenues,’ and it runs from A to Z. At the top of the Avenues is the oldest cemetery in the state. It was established when Brigham Young lead the Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley. Anyway, there’s one grave site called Emo’s Grave. And that’s the epitaph, ‘Emo.’ There’s no birth date, there’s no death date. But it’s that kind of gated sort of memorial where there are benches inside but nobody can sit on them because it’s gated around. But you can reach through, and there’s sort of a crevice that’s been chiseled out of the grave itself, where initially I guess the family left flowers or something. But, um, regardless it’s cold stone.”

“On certain evenings, usually Friday the 13th or the evening thereof, um, teenagers will go up to Emo’s Grave and from inside the stone, smoke will start emanating. And this has been corroborated by several different accounts. And then someone will walk up and say ‘Emo’s Grave, Emo’s Grave, Emo’s Grave,’ and they will put their hand inside the crevice and it will feel warm. And people have left things there in the late evening to come back the next morning to find them gone, and these aren’t just, like, berries and things that birds can pick up because for one a bird can’t get in there, and for two, like I said: Not light things. So there’s a bit of supernatural suspicion that surrounds Emo—this mysterious individual named Emo—and his grave.”

I then asked how he came to hear about this piece of folklore, to which he responded:

“It’s become a sort of rite of passage for teens to go up to the Avenues cemetery and go through this Emo ritual.”

So I asked the next logical question, did he do it?

“I did.”

What happened?

“It happened.”

Did he find anything?

“We found ourselves to be scared. Because, this is like thirteen, fourteen years old, right? And it might have been—your mind fills in what you want to see. I mean it’s the same concept with the face on Mars. You want to see the face and so you do. But I swear there was smoke, I swear there was heat. We left a note; it was gone the next day, so, yeah, eerie.”

My favorite piece of folklore that I collected, I really couldn’t have asked for better. It’s a rite of passage that’s become traditional for these Salt Lake teens, and best of all my informant actually went through it. I suspect Emo’s Grave has proliferated because of the aesthetic of the site itself, bolstered by these ever increasing accounts of people visiting the grave under the right conditions. Along the way Friday the 13th got tied in with this death-based ritual, as well as the rule of three. I love the way my informant seems perfectly aware of how amusing and perhaps slightly ridiculous the whole thing might sound, but when talking about his own experience at Emo’s Grave is sure that, as far as he can tell, things happened that he couldn’t rationally explain. A testament to the power of folk rituals.

Sterling Box Cutter

Interview with informant:

“Well there’s a crazy guy in our town, supposedly. In the mall in Sterling, Virginia there was this guy who would apparently walk around with a box cutter, and he would just—walk around with a box cutter—with the blade in so you couldn’t really tell that it was a weapon. And when he walked past women he would open up the blade and slice their butt. He would just cut their butt. He would just cut their butt and keep walking. And no one ever found out where, like, does he exist? Where he is? He just cut peoples’ butts. So. And that’s about as interesting as it ever got.”

This is a pretty disturbing piece about what might just be a violent sexual deviant. If something like this happened even once, no question it would get spread around to everyone who would listen. It’s got sex, violence, a strange and menacing pervert; the whole package. It’s also possible a woman was cut in some other way and blamed a person, or someone just made it up as a joke. Whatever the case, I doubt this rumor actually stopped anyone from going to any malls. Cautionary tales don’t quite outweigh the consumer impulse.

Shooting up with the Colonel

“Alright so I heard this rumor that if you take a KFC Famous Bowl and you put the bowl in a blender and blend it to the point where everything is liquified and then you inject the liquid substance into your blood, then you will get really really really high.”

The informant related learning this from the internet and that’s not all that surprising. Fast food chains are frequently the subject of rumors both in regards to the shady practices of the corporations as well as the (lack of) nutritional content present in the actual food. This piece of folklore finds itself firmly in the latter camp. I’m not sure what would happen if anyone were actually to introduce a puréed bowl of KFC into their bloodstream. Death? Perhaps. But would they get high? That I find myself doubting.

 

 

 

The Five Questions Game

The informant enjoys playing a question game he calls “The Five Question Game.” Two people play: One, who knows how the game works, asks the questions. The other, who has never played before, answers.

A wager is made at the outset to determine what the two participants are playing for.

The person answering has to get all five questions wrong in order to win. After he explained these parameters, he and I wagered one dollar and set to playing:

Informant: What’s your name?

Me: Jeffrey.

Informant: (pointing to someone else in the room) All right. Who’s he?

Me: Arturo. (it was not Arturo)

Informant: (pointing to a longboard) OK. What’s that thing?

Me: The moon.

Informant: Okay. Wait, what question are we on?

Me: …Seven. Probably seven.

Informant: Okay, so basically yeah, that’s the game?

Me: Is that the end of the game?

Informant: Yeah, well basically. You just ask a couple questions and then you like, throw a curve ball, and then like you ask them, like, how many questions is it at, and most of them are eager to like, get back to the game and win their money and then that’s how you get ’em. I mean it only works once, because if you’ve played before you see it coming. You haven’t played before, right?

Me: Oh no, I’ve played a million times.

Informant: Fuck you. So yeah, that’s the fifth question.

Me: Okay.

*conversation continues for about a minute*

Informant: So what was that for again?

Me: Oh, it’s uh, it’s for the, the CIA. I work for them now? Yeah.

Informant: DAMN IT.

This was a pretty fun one. Informant says he heard it as a thing you do to hit on women, i.e. at a bar you bet a woman a drink that she can’t win the game, then whether or not she loses you could still offer to buy her the drink. I’d say there are worse ways to break the ice. Makes sense that it would proliferate as a it makes the person performing it look clever.