Monthly Archives: April 2018

Eye contact during toasts (A common drinking gesture)

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Flemington, New Jersey.
Performance Date: 4/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Michael Gordon, a Junior studying Pop Music at the University of Southern California, who hails from Flemington, New Jersey, provided four pieces of folklore for this collection.

The interview was run, within his studio, at Orchard Avenue, on the outskirts of the University of Southern California.

Folk Type: Folk-Speech.

Folk Performance: Eye contact during toasts (A common drinking gesture).

“Any drinking rituals out on the east coast?” – Stanley Kalu

STORY: Story-time, Mike again, if you do a cheers or a toast you gotta clink glasses and if you do, you need to make eye contact with each person that you’re about to toast with and when you take your drink you need to be making eye-contact with one of the other people and if you don’t it’s bad like and the cheers is forfeit.

Background Information: Michael enjoys this piece because the drinking culture on the east coast is particularly strong. He learned of it in high-school while drinking with his friends.   

Context of Performance: The context was illustrated in the story section.

Thoughts: There are theories that this practice stemmed from the frequent poisonings that would happen in European Court culture but i’m not sure how that applies to looking into people’s eyes. I wasn’t able to find any concrete reasons why this practice exists. So my current thought is frustration.

 

The ghost that pulled me back

Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: April 22, 2018
Primary Language: English

“I think my house is haunted. It was built in like the forties. Maybe it’s not fully haunted but definitely a little. One of the reasons I think it’s haunted is because there is a little spot in my parents’ room that you look at and just think to yourself… what is this? My dog will not step foot in that corner. One summer there were a bunch of flies flying around it with zero explanation and my parents had to hire special exterminators to get rid of them.”

“Anyways, unrelated to the corner… one time, I was sleeping in my bed and I awoke to this strange feeling of a hand grabbing my side. So, I get up and I start screaming at the top of my lungs and I tried to run to the light switch to turn them on. But I could only get to the middle of my room because this mysterious hand pulled me back. I tried to get the hand off of me by pulling on it super hard. I was somehow able to get to door but I could not find light switch. Then I tried to open the door but I felt myself being dragged backwards. My parents found me in my room screaming and were like ‘CLAUDIA WHATS GOING ON?’ I was fully in high school like I was not a young kid. I told them I felt a hand grabbing at my side and it felt extremely realistic and weird. They told me not to worry and that it was just my own hand. I told them that I grabbed the hand so hard so if it were my own hand I would have felt the residual gravity. Clearly they didn’t know what to do so they left me alone and I didn’t go to sleep the rest of the night.”

“I know I sound crazy but the hand feeling was so scary and realistic I swear there’s some type of haunted spirit in my house. Also the fact that my dog gets spooked out by a corner with all these flies makes me think so as well. I think there must be some eerie history that makes my house kinda haunted.”

 

My interpretation of the story:

 

Because the storyteller has no knowledge of the history of her home, it is hard to determine a link as to why it would be haunted. What stood out to me in this story, was the actions made by the family dog. Dogs have amazing senses that humans do not, they are able to sense emotions, hear things better, and have a general knowledge of what is going on even though they are unable to communicate with us. I have always thought that dogs have somewhat of a “sixth sense”, that allows them to develop strong relationships with beings of other kinds. The fact that the dog shows caution towards this corner makes me think that there most definitely is a reason for this beyond human knowledge. The dog must sense something that we cannot, making it not want to go in that corner because it knows there is something wrong, although it us unable to communicate that to us. A lot of times, dogs try to communicate with us through their actions, so also, the dog may be trying to tell the family that there is something wrong in that area or in the house as a whole and that they should either move or not be in that area. Another aspect of the story that I found interesting was the tangible physical contact between the teller and the supposed ghost. In many ghost stories, there is no physical contact between the actual person and the ghost. It can be thought that ghosts do not have a real foot in this world and cannot make direct physical contact. Of course, there are other cases of ghost stories that do involve physical contact, but these cases usually have deeper ties than just the random thought of a place being haunted. Indeed, there can be other factors that the teller is unaware of that can support their story, but until more information is discovered, I don’t believe this story can be determined as a true supernatural exchange.

Dime House (A Ghost Story).

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Flemington, New Jersey.
Performance Date: 4/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Michael Gordon, a junior studying Pop Music at the University of Southern California, who hails from Flemington, New Jersey, provided four pieces of folklore for this collection.

The interview was run, within his studio, at Orchard Avenue, on the outskirts of the University of Southern California.

Folk-Type: Legend.

Folk Performance: Dime House (A Ghost Story).

“Any Ghost Stories or weird happenings in Jersey?” – Stanley Kalu

STORY: I lived by a house and it was like, they called it the Dime House and there’s like a couple of ghost stories or like ghost books and the Dime House was in it and I lived right by it and apparently, no one has inhabited the place for 10 years but when you’d go inside they’d be this ghost that would lay dimes everywhere. And, if you touch one you’d get, like, really bad luck. My friend went in it and there were a bunch of dimes everywhere. It was pretty crazy.

Background Information: Michael heard about this through his friends. He likes it because it’s apart of his local identity.

Context of Performance: Teenagers will enter the space and check if there are actually dimes in there.

Thoughts: I wonder if people place dimes in the dime-house in order to keep the legend going.

 

 

Two daughter angels

Nationality: Swiss, Greek
Age: 57
Performance Date: April 8, 2018
Primary Language: English

“I would consider myself a pretty religious Catholic woman. I like to follow the word of the Bible verbatim, and with that came being a nonbeliever in ghosts. However, over my children’s Christmas break in December 2007, all of my beliefs, or rather my non-beliefs, were tested and everything I thought I knew changed overnight. It was Christmas Eve, and I was sitting in my mother’s home in Switzerland with my family. My two boys, Paul and John, were joined by my youngest child, Charlotte, on the couch as they watched Christmas movies and anticipated the upcoming morning. After their movie, I tucked my babies in to bed and then I quietly arranged their presents under our Christmas tree. Shortly after, I joined my husband in bed and began reading a book before going to sleep.”

“It was a long day of cooking, family time, and preparing for Christmas Day; all of this made me pretty drowsy. While reading my book, I felt a strange sensation that there was someone watching me. Falling in and out of sleep, I did not think much of this sensation. I clearly remember opening my eyes and seeing two beautiful women in long, white dresses, floating above the canopy of my bed. They were both brunette with blue eyes, just like my daughter Charlotte. I was unsure if I was simply dreaming or if I had gone mad, but before I could truly put much thought in to it, I was fast asleep.”

“The next morning, I woke up to the sounds of my kids screaming with joy at Santa’s gifts and I met them downstairs to revel in their excitement. After all the kids opened their presents, we sat down for Christmas breakfast. My brother, who was also spending the holiday at my mother’s house, announced to the table that he saw the strangest thing while using the restroom in the middle of the previous night. He said, ‘It was the strangest thing, I opened my bedroom door to use the bathroom and I looked down the hallway. In the distance, I saw these two young brunette women in long white gowns. Both of them were wearing beautiful gold jewelry and had bright blue eyes that I could see from across the hallway.’”

“I instantly started to freak out because my brother’s description of these women was exactly the image I saw floating over my bed as well. He went on to tell me exactly what the dresses looked like, and I recalled that the women I saw had the same detailed white gowns. Although I thought I was just having a strange dream, the coincidence was too poignant for me to wrap my head around. Ever since that Christmas Day, my beliefs regarding the presence of ghosts and spirits in this world has changed. Maybe there are otherworldly presences in this world…”

 

My interpretation of the story:

 

In hearing this story, the part I found most interesting was the resemblance of the tellers daughter and the ghosts she seems to have seen. I has been medically proven that in our dreams, we are only able to dream of people we have seen before, or a compilation of different features from different faces we have collected over time. Our mind in our dreams don’t just make things up, they have purpose and derive from our subconscious. In this story, the relation in physical appearance between the two ghosts and the tellers daughter must be noted and taken into consideration. For the teller, as opposed to her brother who had also seen these women, she had been unsure if she was asleep or awake. Our mind has a way of playing tricks on us when we are in between states of being awake and asleep. This must also be accounted for because both sightings happened in the middle of the night, which is a time where the mind is not fully alert. Indeed, this may be a coincidence too strange to just all it a mind game, but at the same time, there are no intense markers that are present to determine the details of the story are of ghostly origins.

TMB Band Name: Venti Four Logo

Nationality: Japanese, Mexican, American
Age: 23
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/19/18
Primary Language: English

While interviewing my informant, Peter, I decided to document his Band Name. He got his Band Name from the upperclassmen of his section in the Trojan Marching Band (TMB). Peter is a member of the Mellophone section. I asked him to perform his band name to me as if he were asked to “introduce himself” by another member of the band:

 

“Once upon a time my name is Venti Four Logo.

Someone then asks me ‘why?…’

Because I’m a Marshal Snake.”

 

My informant would usually perform this Band Name/Joke ritual in a social setting with other members of the TMB. Sometimes he is asked by alumni of the band who are interested in hearing the new Band Names their section has come up with. Members of the band also frequently ask each other because they are often humorous or come with humorous jokes attached. It is also used to test the band Freshmen to see if their jokes are up to par with the standard set by current band members.

 

According to my informant, everyone in the band has a Band Name that they have been dubbed by their older section members. The Band Names are different in each section. Some sections give their members short names that function as traditional nicknames (example: “Egg”). My informant was mostly able to give me knowledge of how the Mellophone section names its members.

 

My informant’s section gave him a long, complicated name because they have to figure out how it applies to them/ what the other section members know about them. My informant is dubbed ‘Venti Four Logo’ because of a few reasons: 1. He’s tall, hence the ‘Venti’ part. 2. He has a history of getting coffee at Starbucks, hence the ‘Venti’ part. 3. He’s obsessed with Apple, hence the ‘Logo’ part. He does not yet know how the ‘Four’ part fits into his name, although he recognizes that “Four Logo” is a play on the drink “Four Loko.”

 

Analysis

I have seen my informant introduce himself on many occasions with a few different Name Jokes. The particular joke he gave me is a little tame compared to the usual raunchy, outrageous jokes the section normally uses. I personally enjoy this social band tradition. Everyone has a name, so it’s fun to get to know all the members of the band just to hear them. The tradition of Band Names also further unties the band as one entity.