Monthly Archives: May 2022

The M word

Main Piece: 

There’s a superstition in the theater world about saying Macbeth or Lady Macbeth or any like version of that. So you cannot say the M-word in a theater or I take it very seriously. I don’t even say it in like a classroom within a theater. I get really scared of that too. I don’t know why I mean I don’t know why, but I do. And oh my god, one of my professors, I think was Scott Ferris who explained the reason but the reasoning behind it, of why it’s Macbeth and not like any other character like Word or name, but if you do happen to say, the M-word in the theater, you have to go outside you have to spit on the ground, spin three times, something like that. And then or else like something terrible is going to go wrong with your show, or the theater is going to collapse or something’s going to happen. The spirits of Shakespeare will come after you. 

Informant’s Relationship to the Piece:

Me: Have you ever had an experience with like saying Macbeth and like anything bad happening? 

Informant: No. Well, actually, for one show one of our actors said it in the dressing room, and was saying “oh my god, I love Macbeth. It’s such a great play.” And the other actors were like ‘Go outside right now’ and I checked in on them during intermission. And they were saying and they were outside making this-this other actor who said the M word spit and like, spin around. And I was like, ‘what’s going on? I was like, you guys, okay? Like, I’m trying to make sure this show is gonna happen. And they were like, No, he has to do this. And the show went great, nothing happened. I personally have never said it. Um, I know that there’s some people who think it’s so silly and they’ll just say whatever they want, and I think everything turns out to be okay. But there is a part of me that always fears the spirits will come and give us some obstacle.

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 19-year-old theatre major at the University of Southern California. I was told this as we were hanging out in one of the theatres on campus as we were talking about folklore. 

Analysis:

I’m also a theatre major and I think the majority of us have different levels of belief about “the M-word”, where my informant takes it seriously to the point where she won’t even say the characters name unless it’s in one of her lines, but I’ve also met people who don’t really care, and of course, there’s always the one person that says it to annoy the people who really believe in it. But, those people are seen in a different light in a theatre space, because the whole point is to build an ensemble, a community, and when you have a person in the space who goes out of their way to scare people in the group, they take the trust out of the space. So even if you don’t believe it, it’s a sort of litmus test to see who you might not want to work with in the future if they know the superstition and like go out of their way to say it. I also think the “cure” for saying the word is fun because everyone has a slightly different way of doing it, where the steps are all basically the same, but with different variations within it, where like you have to spit over your left shoulder, you have to spin three times, then knock three times and someone has to let you back in. In some variations, you have to say the worst curse word you can think of. 

Pomegranate for New Years

Main Piece:

Informant: We crack a pomegranate on New Year’s Eve, or like as soon as it like midnight again, I don’t know why, like if I asked my mom she’d be like like this just something we have to do. I’m like, okay, cool. Yeah, like I’d guess pomegranates are a symbol of life and like a new beginning kind of which is why you crack it like, you know, at midnight for the new year. But no, she takes it very seriously too. So like, for example, this past New-New Years. It was just me my mom, my sister. My dad was at work and yeah, so we watched the ball drop in Times Square. And then my mom had a pomegranate ready, like a full one, like you don’t touch it at all. And what you do is you go to your front porch or like the entrance to your house or like, wherever you want something that’s like, again, like an entry. I feel like in Turkey that that’s a lot of important like entrances of like, you know, you start something new, so you want to do it at an entrance of your life or something like symbolizes, you know, like when you walk into your home, it’s not something new. It’s a new year. So anyways, we go to our front porch and you’ve just like hold the, the pomegranate the full thing in your hand and you just drop it and you have to have a crack if it doesn’t crack, you know, you just keep going. And then and then it’s like okay, yay. Like now the new year has officially begun. So for her it didn’t it doesn’t start till then and then you you know, clean up the shells. And as many of the seeds that didn’t touch that like the seeds that are still in the pomegranate. Obviously, you throw the ones that touch the ground out and then you eat the seeds.

Relationship to the piece:

“If we don’t do it, then it doesn’t feel like the start of a new year. It doesn’t feel like the past is behind us. Like something it just kind of like commemorates a new beginning and if we don’t do it, it’s like we’re still in the old year. Kind of thing.”

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 20 year old Turkish American theatre major at the University of Southern California. I was told this as we were hanging out in her room after I asked her about some of the traditions she grew up with. 

Analysis:

I’d never heard of this tradition, but I feel like a lot of traditions surrounding the new year have to do with inviting in what you want for the New Year, but for my informant, this tradition is about welcoming in the New Year. Breaking the pomegranate is like breaking open the new year and then you have to ingest what’s been broken, you’re literally taking in the New Year. I also think it’s interesting how, for many children of immigrants we follow traditions because our parents tell us to, rather than doing it because we know exactly what it means. We just know that certain holidays don’t feel right if we don’t follow these traditions. 

Cherry Festival

Main Piece:

Well in Traverse City during the summer is the Cherry Festival. Oh, my sister was the cherry princess! And I remember that cuz I was like in preschool and basically for that the parents the dads make a float. So all the cherry princesses they which is one from every school, and there are 25 schools or something. And so all the two princesses someone from a first graders have a girl and a guy Tirpitz is for prints, and the cherry princesses and princes from each school make a float, and our float was Herbie. There’s like a theme of the float, which was like Disney or something. And we did Herbie, do you remember that like the racecar? So I vividly remember like we took a car, we painted a car, like a dumpster car, and it was on a float. And then on the cherry festival parade all of the floats go through. And then they vote on like a Cherry Queen and the queen is like in high school or older. She like takes pictures with all the princesses. That’s a big deal and Cherry Festival, well there’s like a fair and there’s events that happen every every day and it’s like a very big thing a lot of fugdies, a lot of people would call fudgies people from like South Michigan who to Traverse City for the cherry festival. It’s a big deal. But none of the people who live in Traverse City actually like the festival because they make the grass dirty, without it the grass is like fluorescent green. 

Context:

My informant is one of my roommates, a 20-year-old dance major at USC. She’s from Michigan and this performance took place in our kitchen as she was cooking. 

Background:

My informant grew up with this festival and her sister was a cherry princess one year. She loves cherries and says it’s the only fruit that tastes better in Michigan than in California. 

Analysis:

I thought it was fascinating how much my informant talked up this festival and her families involvement, only to reveal at the very end that the people who live there don’t actually like the festival, that it’s much more for the people in Michigan who live outside of Traverse city than for the actual residents. So while this festival is a part of Michigan culture, it’s a yearly annoyance for the actual residents of the city.

Jeep Wave

Main Piece:

So my thing is more of a gesture. It’s kind of something that happens and I didn’t know about it till after I got my car. But basically, once you get the Jeep, there’s something known as a Jeep wave. And so basically it’s with, I don’t really know, like, I think there are different variations of how you do it. But the one I was told is that you put one hand and one hands on the wheel, and it’s just like, three of your fingers are just like couple your fingers up. And it’s the idea is if you see a Jeep, like driver and you and you’re driving your Jeep and you’ll see each other you do a Jeep wave. And it’s a form of like a community type thing, but like it’s really just like a wave that you do. So

Relationship to the Piece:

My informant has driven a Jeep for the last few years and was told this by his friend who also drove a Jeep and it’s become a way for him to connect to his community of Jeep drivers, especially as he recently began to drive his Jeep around LA. 

Context: 

My informant is a 19-year-old BFA lighting design student at the University of Southern California and I was told this as we were hanging out in a theatre on campus swapping tales of folklore. 

Analysis:

I’d never heard of the Jeep wave, but I think it makes sense, as especially in America, the cars we drive often become aspects of our identity, especially with all the stereotypes we associate with certain makes and models of vehicles. It makes sense that a little community would form around certain cars, but it also creates questions, like who began the gesture and how it spreads. 

Car Game

Main Piece:

Informant: This is my car game that I play every time I drive and also just every day I do this every single day it’s become a way of life for me. And basically, the game is for every Kia Soul that you see it’s one point for every vintage Subaru that you see it’s one point so like things like the ones that have like the split color siding, you know, the old logo, et cetera. Um, and then if you see a Subaru Baja, which is the truck Subaru made from 2000 to 2006. And they discontinued it because it was so unpopular. It’s worth 10 points. And it is minus one point for a cop car minus two points for concrete with their lights on because it’s annoying and ablest and, yeah, and then the other versions that we’ve had that we’ve played is like for every like, quote, liberal, gay, whatever. Sticker it’s plus one and like for every like Trumpy sticker it’s minus one it just really depends on oh yeah, it really depends on where you are though because I feel like it’s a little biased played in Texas because it’s really unfair because you’re in the negatives and that’s no fun. Um, but it only Yeah, so and then my whole thing is like the more points I have, the better of the day I’ll have so it’s an emotional thing and it fucking holds up to I swear. 

Relationship to the Piece: 

This is a game my informant came up with and has taught to all of their friends, which they now play. It has spread around their cohort, taking on a life of it’s own.

Context: 

The informant is one of my friends, a 19-year-old theatre major at the University of Southern California who grew up in Texas. I was told this as we were hanging out in one of the theaters on campus as we were talking about folklore. 

Analysis:

I think it’s interesting how the point system involves what the car is decorated with as well, because the predictors of good or bad days start to make a little more sense. For my informant who grew up in a conservative part of Texas, the bumper stickers were a reminder of the people they lived around who weren’t very accepting, but at the end of the day, it’s about the cars and the points. These indicators might seem silly, but they are a way of external reassurance of your emotional state, I’ve started playing it and I’ve noticed that I almost force myself to have a better day if I’m in the positive, which I feel like has actually helped my mental health because I end up in the positives more often than not.