Monthly Archives: April 2019

The Ghosts of Alcatraz

Nationality: American
Age: 13
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Francisco, California
Performance Date: 2/26/19
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

Informant: “My class always talks about how Alcatraz is haunted.”

Collector: “Really? Are there any specific ghosts that people mention?”

Informant: “Yeah! Al Capone is one of the most common ones I hear, and then the people who tried escaping the island when they were prisoners. A lot of my classmates say that they are stuck at sea, and that on the boat ride over there that the ghosts try to get help from the passengers.”

Collector: “Do they know that Al Capone didn’t die on Alcatraz?”

Informant: “I think so…they say that the reason his ghost stays there is because that is where he suffered the most during his life.”

Collector: “Has your class been there together or have they just hear about it in the city?”

Informant: “We went on a field trip and people working there even mentioned it. They sell some stuff in the gift shop that has to do with it! I think they might give tours about the ghosts.” 

Analysis

Alcatraz offers a prime example of how folklore can be used in a marketable way with a great deal of the tourism to the spot inspired by famous ghost stories. Although the informant is younger and did not have any detailed examples of haunting stories on the island, she probably has a greater idea of it being a haunted spot than some older people she knows. The amount of time that has passed since the prison was actively in use and not just a National Park designated land has allowed it to become further associated with the past identities that it has held, with particular attention to the era in which it held its prison.

 

Don’t Drink and Drive

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/2019
Primary Language: English

1:

This drinking game is played using any game from the Mario Kart franchise. A race is setup that contains only human players, no computer players. All players begin with a full drink (most frequently a glass bottle of beer). Before a player crosses the finish line of the race, their drink must be completely finished. The main obstacle to this, however, is that players may only drink while they are pulled over to the side of the road and completely stopped-in-place.

2:

The informant has played this game with friends in the past. He says that there are two main strategies that people tend to employ, either chugging the entire drink at the beginning of the race, or chugging the entire drink at the end of the race. He believes that stopping to drink more than once during a race would lead to too much wasted time over the course of the entire race.

3:

Mario Kart has been a staple of Nintendo game consoles for decades, and it makes sense that college kids would mix a party game they grew up with and had a “muscle-memory” sort of ability to play it with alcohol. The colorful graphics and clear iconography of Mario Kart are pleasant and readable, which are also highly important to someone who is more-than-buzzed. Because Mario Kart also famously “rubberbands” players who are falling behind by giving them powerful items, the game is rewarding and fun to players who are playing poorly as well as players who are playing well.

Drunkey Ball

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/2019
Primary Language: English

1:

This is a drinking game that is played at parties around USC utilizing a gamecube game, Super Monkeyball 2. All players take an individual turn trying to complete a level (Super Monkeyball 2 is a game about a monkey inside of a perfectly spherical ball rolling across perilous surfaces with the constant risk of falling off. It is up to the player to rotate the stage, causing the Monkey to move). If a player falls off the stage, they are required to take a “small drink”. If someone completes a stage with more than half of the time remaining (this normally means 30 seconds remaining of an original 60 seconds) then all other players have to take a “large drink”. The game can theoretically continue on until all players complete the final stage, but more frequently the players sooner run out of alcohol or become too drunk to continue.

2:

The game is played and taught by the informant, though it is unclear who originally started it. The informant played Super Monkeyball 2, along with other multiplayer gamecube games, with his sisters while growing up, and as such is quite skilled at the game even while drunk. He brought the game to at least two parties in order to play Drunkey Ball with friends who are as equally enthusiastic about it as he is.

3:

It makes a lot of sense to me for this fast-paced multiplayer game, especially with its emphasis on turn-based play and reaction-based challenges, for Super Monkeyball 2 to be adapted into a drinking game. It also makes particular sense in the context of the parties that they are played at, often hosted by IMGD (Interactive Media Game Development) students in USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. This group of people tends to promote weird, old games like these, and supports their being played at parties.

Recipe for Matzoh Brie

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, Actor
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/19/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Ingredients:

– Matzoh bread

– Eggs

– Salt & Pepper

 

Steps

D.F. – “Some people do it differently, but my family – you start with one board of matzoh per egg, so – if you have two boards of matzah, that’s two eggs, and a bowl of warm water uh:

– First you need to crack the matzoh boards to reasonable sizes

– And then soak them in the water; wait until it’s, like, not super soft, but you could see some mush there.

– Then drain it from the water, make sure there’s no water left, and then:

– Go mix your eggs (usually while the matzah is soaking), put some salt and pepper in there

– And then, you pour the egg on top of the drained matzoh,

– Mix it within the drained matzoh, prep your stove,

– YOU CAN scramble it or have it pancake style, (my grandpa likes it pancake style, but I’m not about that life, I like it scrambled.

– You must wait for the matzah brie to fully cook.

– I hate it when the brie is like eggy and not cooked, it’s disgusting, so wait until it is fully cooked.

– When it’s done, serve it however, but make sure you have some good jam.  I’m a big blueberry jam person, but you do you.

 

This is a good way for this person, D.F., to get in touch with her own culture.  Her being Jewish has always been a huge part of her identity, and she externalizes that identity whenever she can.  If that means preparing this dish, along with others she likes, as often as she can, then that is how she portrays herself to the world.

I found this very interesting, because; while my family on my father’s side is jewish, I had never heard of this recipe before this person’s interview.  The ingredients in the dish remind me of my own family, and the times I spent with them during the holidays, but that combination of ‘foods’ was totally foreign to me.  So, n0w that I’ve heard about it, I feel almost as if I’m more encouraged to explore my own identity, and ask the people I’m close with how they portray themselves to others, including me.

 

Alawatchakeema

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/9/2019
Primary Language: English

1.

Every year at the informant’s summer camp:

Alawatchakeema and his family would supposedly travel all the way across the great lakes to New York. There was a big ceremony, a fire was lit in the center of the camp. People would come out of the forest representing the spirits of the earth, fire, wind, and water. One would zipline down from the trees to create the illusion that he was flying.

To figure out where Big Al was, the whole camp would have to chant his full name in a low rumble. The head of camp would then tell you where Big Al was spotted.

Once Alawatchakeema got there, he selected kids for challenges. The challenges were: no talking, no eating, sleeping under the stars, and the triple whammy (all three).

Each of the challenges lasted for 1 Day.

2.

The informant was inducted into this tradition at one of his childhood summer camps, and one year was chosen for the “sleeping under the stars” challenge, which he expressed was meant for “kids who spent a lot of time inside”. He went on to inform me that the tradition is no longer being practiced because of the realization that it was insensitive towards Native American cultures.

3.

This sounds to me like a high-energy event which the entire camp could participate in, either as an actor or a viewer, and build a community around. The challenges are very interesting to me because they are both a rite of passage (the informant expressed that he looks back very fondly on his experience of Sleeping Under the Stars) and a call-out of any negative behavior that the camper may be displaying.