Monthly Archives: May 2011

Town Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Ageles and Three Rivers, CA
Performance Date: April 20, 2011
Primary Language: English

“So every May, um, in the little town where I live there’s something called the Redbud festival.  Um, the Red Bed is a type of, um, supposed to be like, a bush I think, it looks more like a bush, like technically considered a wild flower. But anyways so, they’re really pretty in May, and um you know like in other festivals you have the May Day festival, anyway this is celebrated in May. And, it’s a time when, um, in the community where I live they’re a lot of artists. And every, they come together, I’m not sure if other towns do this, there might be some other type of festivals around, but um, anyways the town comes together and it’s a way for, mostly for the artists to showcase of all their work. 

It definitely showcases the nature of the town. Like, we have a lot of artists, um, so if you come to the Redbud festival then you’ll get a pretty good glimpse of like, what the whole town is like and the type of people who are there. It’s mostly arts and crafts, so not really a lot of music, um, but we do have jazz people. So they’ll come and do like, little improve gigs and things like that. There’s not a lot of structure to it, it’s just kind of relaxed. Um, but yeah just a lot of arts and crafts which itself has a lot of folklore, like different ways of weaving and you know, traditional um, modes of activity um, craftwork.”

The town’s festival is celebrated in on mothers daay in May, in spring. This is the time of year when new life is being created everywhere, from plants to animals. The festival is even appropriately named after a vibrant, red wild flower.  The festival marks a time when the occupants of the town can come together and show off their particular artistic skill.  Spring is a great time to hold a festival; the weather is just beginning to become warm.  Additionallly, the informant states that arts and crafts are most prominant at the festival.  Women, especially mothers, are often associated with such domestic tasks.  The festival is a celebration of everyting associated with spring and motherhood.

School Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles and Three Rivers, CA
Performance Date: April 20, 2011
Primary Language: English

“So, at my high school a small little high school I the central valley here in California, um, in drama, drama club, we believe, well I don’t believe, but a lot of people believe that there’s a ghost that lives in the, uh, the performing arts building. And his name is Charlie. Yeah, and, people have, I’ve never personally never had an experience with Charlie in the performing arts building, but a lot of people say that if they’re in the room by themselves if they get there early and its really dark, um you know, or they hear noises they think that Charlie is doing something backstage or is somewhere, uh. Yeah there’s a storage area underneath the seats it’s like, the seats are elevated. So underneath there’s, we store a lot of things in there. Uh, people swear that he, moves chairs and, or props and stuff for the scene around.  Some people think, I don’t think, I haven’t heard anyone say he’s important, or that he’s a historical figure.  Um, I don’t know, girls for some reason like to think that he’s younger. Guys like to think that he’s older. ”

The informant doesn’t know why why the particualr name “Charlie” was given to the ghost and is not sure how long the legend of the ghost had been around.  He  heard about the ghost when he was a freshman from a group of senior girls.  Girls may find the ghost of a young man lurking about the empty stage as exciting, and so encourage the idea that Charlie is a young male ghost.  Boys, on the other hand, may not find the same idea as appealing and rather, think of the ghost as an older man.

Wood Carvings – Iowa

Nationality: Czech American/ German American
Age: 93
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Whittier, CA
Performance Date: 22 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“He was in a installing a gas, a-a- gas in a basement, or hot water heater and he didn’t know it but it was, the pilot light was still on – he light a match and the explosion was pretty bad. He was burned all over and one hand was burned real bad. But he started to carve things to get his hand flexible and those are from him.”

Why would it help his hands when asked why he thought it would help his hands she answered: “It flexed it, it gave his hand exercise…maybe somebody said if you exercise your hand it will be more usable and it was. Originally it was kinda like a claw [she shows me her hand in a clenched-claw shape] it was really bad.”

The informant as well as her father were born in rural Iowa and are of Czech decent – more specifically Bohemian decent. The informant is a 93-year-old housewife who has lived in the Los Angeles area since the 1950’s.

When asked who told him that whittling would help his hands grow in dexterity the informant didn’t know. In fact, I asked several members of the family and no one knew. The informant and others in the family reacted defensively when I asked, answering right away that it did indeed help him. When I asked where he got the designs from the informant said that she thought he just got them out of his head.

Whittling is a common American pastime, especially around the 1920’s and 30’s (Reynolds 80). This was the era that the Czech American folk artist was whittling away, starting with his wife’s broom (much to her dismay). This carving of whatever piece of wood could be found was observed also in a Folk Art Museum in New York state (Rita 19). As far as the folk remedy for a severely disabled hand, the origins of this are less clear. C.J Reynolds, D.D.S in a Popular Science article from April 1924 mentions that whittling helped with improving his “manual dexterity” so key to his profession as a dentist (80). The pieces picture above actually somewhat resemble some of those picture in the article. Something particularly striking about the pieces is their clear use of geographic shapes such as squares and triangles. After doing some research I found that the dominant use of these shapes are similar to those used in chip-carved spoons found in Eastern Europe – which were also carved with a simple knife (Sentance and Sentance, 118). These spoons, however only took small chips of the wood out, leaving the surface nearly flat still while the angles in the above pieces are far more three dimensional. This three dimensional quality more resembles the totem poles made by Native Americans and the walking sticks made by African Americans in the south( Sentance and Sentance, 24-25; Burrison, 70). In this way these pieces can be seen as a mixture of both old world and new world influences.

On another level, these wooden carvings are entering our family as cherished folk objects whose story has been passed down four generations now. My grandmother offered each of her over a dozen grandchildren a few of the more than 50 that she has left. It is almost a mark of family identity that we know that our Czech grandfather made them. The story itself could perhaps be seen as a family member triumphing in the face of adversity by making something beautiful in order to counteract this terrible explosion that happened.

Burrison, John A. Shaping Traditions: Folk Arts in a Changing South. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000. 70.

Reif, Rita. (1975, April 12). Antiques: wood carving: 139 ‘varied’ findings in new york state on view at folk art museum. New York Times, p. 19.

Reynolds, C.J., D.D.S. “Fun and Profit in My Jack-Knife.” Popular Science. April 1924, 80.

Sentance, Bryan, and Polly Sentance. Craft Traditions of the World: Locally Made, Globally Inspiring. London: Thames & Hudson, Ltd., 2009. 118-119. Print.

Angel Memorate – Georgia, U.S.A

Nationality: American - Caucasian/ German
Age: 26
Occupation: Cinematographer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 22 April 2011
Primary Language: English

“I was really young. I was, it was in Georgia. My Mom and my Dad were married at the time. My mom was at work, my Dad and my brothers were in the house sleeping. I could sleep so I – like taking a nap, it was midday I went out into our backyard and started swinging on the swings. I was facing away from the house. I was facing, like this hill that our backyard faced. And I was just swinging, running around, doing kids’ stuff and I suddenly heard my Mom’s voice calling my name – or what sounded like my Mom’s voice. It was a female voice. I turned around, and just as I turn around smoke starts coming out of the kitchen. Um, so I go running in there – the kitchen window, sorry the kitchen window. So I go running into the house and the – the kitchen’s on fire! And my Dad and my brothers were also so they had no idea. So I ran in there and I woke up my dad and my dad went and extinguished the fire and actually burned his hand in the process. And um, my Mom wasn’t home. So the voice that I heard, it was unexplained. It was a female voice that called my name and draw my attention to the fire as it began. So early on, and if it had been any later it might not have been able to be extinguished. And my family was inside asleep so who knows, you know, how bad it could have been.”

The informant is a 26-year-old cinematographer who grew up as a military brat moving every couple of years, before coming to Los Angeles, California for college and to work in the motion picture industry. He is the oldest of three boys and was recently married.

When asked what he thought it was the informant said, “I think it was an angel. I mean it was an angel or, or something along that line.” What had caused the fire initially was that there was a pizza box on the stove and his little brother had accidentally turned the stove on while climbing up on the counter to get something out of the cabinet. He said “There was no female that I knew that was there” and his Mom “didn’t even know about the fire until she came home.” He said “it was definitely a guardian angel or something.” He told me, “I didn’t know what [the voice] was until later on because I never, I wasn’t Christian or anything until my teens and then when I was saved then I realized, ‘Oh, I wonder if that’s what it was.’ To him what was significant was that his family was saved from great harm due to him hearing this voice. The informant says he usually tells this story whenever he is talking about miracles or God’s goodness, he called it a “praise report”.

I can see why one might be confused as to what to label this strange voice as. It didn’t move anything around like one might expect a ghost to do and he didn’t see the translucent form of a woman like we hear in many stories about ghosts. But most significantly what it did was good – it likely saved his family’s life. Stories about ghosts saving someone’s life are not characteristic. It is clearly a situation where the informant was trying to categorize something outside of scientific explanation or normal experience. As he says, when he heard an explanation that made sense of an experience, he integrated that explanation into his narrative. It happened to be that that explanation was of guardian angels in Christianity. Perhaps had he moved to Ireland and learned about friendly fairies (sí) he may have integrated this explanation into his memory. The key here is how closely the idea of guardian angels explained his unexplainable experience. In that he said it was “definitely” an angel says how well the concept makes sense in his mind.

Make like a tree…

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: February 13, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: French, Hebrew

“Why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here?”

Alex is 24 years old; he was born in New Jersey, but was raised and lived the majority of his childhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He arrived in California for the first time when he was moving into his dorm room at USC in Los Angeles, California.  Currently, Alex is an alumni from USC with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

Alex told me this is one of his favorite quotes from one of his favorite movies Back to the Future. It is a variation on the pun “Make like a tree and leave.”  He told me that he actually uses this quote in real life because of how much he likes this quote; additionally, he says that he has heard other people use the same quote in colloquial conversation as well.  He says that this quote appeals to him because he finds it humorous that the character that says it, Biff Tannen, doesn’t seem to understand that what makes the statement and actual pun (leave – the verb and the noun).

I personally find this quote to be hilarious as well.  I have heard people use this in real life additionally and feel as though I’m “in the know” when I heard other people say it and am able to say that I get what’s funny about it. It forms a sort of group identity in the sense that all people who have viewed the movie and remember the quote are included in.

Zemeckis, R. (1985, July 03). Back to the future. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/quotes