Author Archives: Charly Charney Cohen

Ghost Captured in Photo

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, from Wisconsin
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant is a theatre student at USC who was raised in Wisconsin and comes from 65% German heritage. 

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Ghost story.

This is something my mom actually experienced. There’s a little bit of backstory to it as well. She and her boyfriend went to this old lighthouse – they actually- they got lost, they were looking for something else and they found this old lighthouse. And they were just taking a whole bunch of pictures. She snapped a couple pictures, looked back at them, and was like “holy shit! I think I just caught a picture of a ghost!” and her boyfriend was like “what? No. try it again.” So she took another picture. “There’s absolutely nothing in front of-“ and you can find these pictures on her Facebook.  I can get you the link or something so you can see them. It looks like an old man. It seriously does. And it’s kinda hard to explain. Because like – it was colder outside, but she had the windows up in the car. It wasn’t a flash on the window; you would know what that was. And we don’t think it was her hair, because hair is pretty easily recognized even if it’s like “ghostly footage” or whatever – it still is pretty easy to see if it’s hair. It’s really strange. My mom does not have the skills to photoshop anything so pretty sure it’s real.  They came back the next day, asked around “is there any history with this lighthouse?” they weren’t actually supposed to be up there, so that’s a thing.  And they were like “well, I mean the owner’s wife died there – I don’t remember if she died gruesomely or not, but he – we assume it was him, the owner, that they had caught.  Or like the original owner- that they had caught on film because it was definitely – I thought it was a guy, my mom thought it was a guy.  Some other people disagreed, but I thought he had a mustache.  There were at least one, maybe two deaths there.  So we think it was probably a ghost.  And very interesting.  They asked around and they were like “yeah, she was killed there, she died there,” near the barn, or the silo or something, I don’t know.

When did you first see the pictures? 

She posted it, probably 2012.  A couple years ago.

Where were they?

I think it was at a lighthouse in Northern Wisconsin.  Kinda close to Green Bay.  You know there’s that mitten that’s kinda like up here – peninsula there.

Were you there?

No, I wasn’t.  But my mom is not one to lie, so I believe her.

How soon after the trip did you see the picture?  Did it get posted right away?

Yeah, like the day after.

My cousin kept trying to debunk it, and my mom kept throwing up roadblocks, so there really isn’t an explanation we can think about.

Is your mother a superstitious person?

Sort of, not majorly.  She’s kinda like me, where she’s not the most superstitious, but sometimes there’ll just be those moments where you like “holy crap” and you freak out.  She’s religious, so if you count that as a superstition – with some people, my sister, do – then I then I guess.

[Informant discovers the photo and shares it]

It’s like hair is the only thing it can possibly be,  but there such a clear face in there.  It’s not in any other picture and she snapped the first two in one go. So if her hair fell over the lens it would have had to do it like super quick.  Once you get down into this area it’s very much so a face.  I don’t know what to believe.

Got any other pictures?

Not of him.  That’s the only one where it appeared.  This is where they were – the Sherwood Point lighthouse.  It’s actually a coast guard owned building now, so I think they weren’t supposed to be up there.

Pretty neat, right? My family’s one and only ghost story.

Did that picture in any way affect your level of belief in ghosts? 

I think I’ve always really believed in them. Not so much in the “Ooh, something’s haunting me” kind of way, But I think that there’s definitely a level of anger that someone can hold towards something that’ll keep around.  I don’t know, I’m a little superstitious. When I was a kid, my sister used to tell me “When you go under bridges, you have to hold your hands up, and when you go over bridges, you have to lift your legs up. When you go past a graveyard, you have to hold your breath” – you know, things like that. So I used to do that as a kid. Now I don’t anymore but there’s a little part of me that’s like whenever I go under a bridge that’s what I think. Whenever I go by a graveyard I involuntarily take a deeper breath, and I’m like “I didn’t need to do that,” but I still do it.

Actually, you know what? I am totally superstitious. I walked past a crow the other day, it was right in front of me, it seemed super chill for a crow. It just kinda looked at me and was like “’Sup,” and kept going.  I freaked out, ‘cause I thought that was super meaningful. And I went and did a whole bunch of research on crow symbolism.

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Informant did not have a direct memorate but rather gave a second-hand account (given that they weren’t there, and it was their mother’s story). The story still had an effect on them and they were quite sure the photo contained a ghost.

“I Ship It”

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant’s self-description: “Both my parents were born in Canada but both my parents on either my mom or my dads side were born in China or in Wales so I identify pretty equally with both of those cultural backgrounds. Even though I didn’t really get a chance to get to know any of my grandparents because they died when I was very little. So I don’t really know that much of the cultural background from those sides but I would like to explore it sometime. Mostly just Canadian though. Born and raised. Very Canadian. Obnoxiously so.

“I do a lot of sports. I grew up playing – my mom wouldn’t let me. I tried to play hockey but she wouldn’t let me. She told me my brain hadn’t finished growing and I would damage it by falling down skating on the ice. And I could start playing when I was twelve. But the thing is is that by the time you’re twelve, you’re already so far behind on the skating skills that catching up then becomes a mess and its not even worth starting, which she probably knew. So I never played hockey. I played soccer and softball and volleyball growing up and I did gymnastics for a while until my mom made me pick between that and soccer. I chose soccer. I’m also into fandom culture and general nerdiness. I’m in the cinema fraternity at USC. Also a social sorority somehow. I don’t know how that happened. ”

—

Aside from sports, you said – fandom, let’s talk about fandom. What fandoms are you a part of?

Harry potter, Lord of the Rings, those are the two that are omnipresent. Except Lord of the Rings is picking up because of The Hobbit stuff. And then Marvel, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, definitely kind of the BBC – actors, whole sort of BBC-ness. Oh and the Hunger Games.

How do you participate in fandom?

I’m definitely more of an observer than an active participator. I’m not one of the people that writes fanfic, or does fanart. It depends how much time – usually I just scroll past it on Tumblr and absorb it. But there’s a couple fandom-specific blogs that I’ll follow. Like for certain ships.

What are ships?

When one watches a show, and one feels an intense investment in a couple of characters – sometimes friendship but more often romantic possibilities – it’s called a “ship,” it’s short for relationship. So when someone says “I ship that,” what they’re meaning to say is “I want them to be together forever and have beautiful babies.”

And the term for someone who ships two characters is a “shipper.” I can go all into the different kinds of ships.

There’s called a “one true pairing” or an OTP is what it’s referred to on the internet, which is someone’s main hardcore “I will ship these two characters ‘til the end of the days” or “I will go down with this ship” – it’s kind of like one of the things that is often heard and thrown around on the internet. For me it’s Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff from the Marvel universe – Black Widow and Hawkeye. I love them, I think they’re fantastic. They are also somewhat canon depending on the universe and timeline, but that’s a whole other story. They would be my OTP.

There’s also a broTP, so that’s two characters that you really appreciate their friendship but you don’t want romantic things for them. For me- Capt. America and Black Widow or Steve and Natasha – they’re a brotp because I think their friendship is fantastic but I don’t want them to get together romantically.

There’s also multishipping, when someone wants a character to be with whoever, and there’s also the noTP – two characters for which you hate the mention of that ship. That’s some of the lingo.

Some blogs on Tumblr are devoted to particular ships. It’s an archive of fanfic, fanart, fanmixes and playlists, or headcanons – which is something that could happen between the characters that isn’t clarified in canon – so it’s also not counteracted by the canon of the story. So it’s going beyond the material but not creating an alternative universe to make it something that could be true.

Let’s go back to shipping – 

Is your fandom activity all online or do you talk to people about it in person? Have you ever used the phrase “I ship that” in a standard conversation?

Not necessarily in a standard — I do, but it’s with friend who I know who are also a part of that community.  So people like Thalia, because we talked about TV shows, and that turned into talking about Marvel, and that turned into talking about Clint and Natasha, and then that turned into – we both are obsessed with anything relating to Avengers Tower, and love hearing about headcanons of what shenanigans may go on at Avengers Tower. [lists examples] It’s generally something that’s more so online unless I already know the person is interested in that kind of thing. If I know they’re interested in that kind of thing it becomes a very large part of our friendship.

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Informant neglected to mention the term “OT3,” which is also a very popular shipping term, and means what you probably think it does.

Softball Ritual

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant’s self-description: “Both my parents were born in Canada but both my parents on either my mom or my dads side were born in China or in Wales so I identify pretty equally with both of those cultural backgrounds. Even though I didn’t really get a chance to get to know any of my grandparents because they died when I was very little. So I don’t really know that much of the cultural background from those sides but I would like to explore it sometime. Mostly just Canadian though. Born and raised. Very Canadian. Obnoxiously so.

“I do a lot of sports. I grew up playing – my mom wouldn’t let me. I tried to play hockey but she wouldn’t let me. She told me my brain hadn’t finished growing and I would damage it by falling down skating on the ice. And I could start playing when I was twelve. But the thing is is that by the time you’re twelve, you’re already so far behind on the skating skills that catching up then becomes a mess and its not even worth starting, which she probably knew. So I never played hockey. I played soccer and softball and volleyball growing up and I did gymnastics for a while until my mom made me pick between that and soccer. I chose soccer. I’m also into fandom culture and general nerdiness. I’m in the cinema fraternity at USC. Also a social sorority somehow. I don’t know how that happened. ”

—

Are there any rituals among your sports things that you took part in and continued?

Softball and baseball are very superstitious sports, not sure how much of that you’re aware of. But some of the general ones including not stepping on the chalk when you’re starting a game – in the on deck circle and the batters box, ‘til the game starts you don’t step on the chalk. And then in tournaments once you slide or get your uniform dirty, it’s lucky dirt – you can’t wash your uniform. Some people take it to the point where they can’t wash their socks either, between days of the tournament. Which is kind of gross. Like after you play five games in one day and then you go to play five games the next day. But usually our team would change the color of the socks we were wearing so that you could wear different ones. ‘Cause they stank.

Did that happen to you where you couldn’t wash your uniform?

I generally subscribe to the belief that it was unlucky to wash my uniform. Yeah, It’s like a lot of smaller rituals. I wouldn’t say there’s a big one but probably the not-washing-the-uniforms is the biggest one.  But also stepping into the batters box the same way each time, like when you’re sitting up in the field – or I used to be a pitcher, so when I was standing up to pitch it would be the exact same motion every time. Which is kind of a muscle-memory comfort thing.

Talk about one of them in particular. Which one did you ascribe the most to?

Aside from not washing the uniform between games, I think the biggest one would be the batters box. [Informant demonstrates] I’d always sort of scrape the dirt up, of the box and sort of make sure I”d have – with my cleats and make sure it was a nice flat surface. And then I would go like – back foot in first, then touch the far side  – the outside of the plate with  the end of the bat. Front foot in, and sort of dig myself in, set up, put my bat out – and get into batting stance. And I would do that every time and then sometimes when I would step  out, I would knock off the dirt between my cleats with my bat. And I would feel weird if I didn’t do it for whatever reason.

Did someone tell you about this ritual? Where did you first hear about it? Do you remember?

Most of the players have a sort of getting-in-the-box ritual that they have, that’s different from player to player. A lot of it is just from watching the national teams play when I was little or watching the professional league – like you’d want to emulate your favorite players. So you’d kind of adopt what they did stepping into the box until it became your own habit, and then you’d adapt them a little bit as you got more comfortable with your own batting style. So I’d say it definitely – from players on team Canada that I would admire growing up. I have no idea where they got it from.

Did you ever talk about that to your teammates?

A couple times. We’d always say like, “yeah I always” or “[Name A] always taps her helmet when she gets in the box.” Or “oh, you always do that when you get in the box.” “Yup, it’s weird if I don’t” A lot of us who took the sport more seriously would discuss our weird little habits on the field that we always do – like [Name B] always spits in her glove, and she has this old batting glove that has holes in it and smells like rancid manure but she doesn’t throw it out because it’s her lucky batting glove, even though it’s mostly just a strap of a glove now ’cause it’s so worn down – like all of the – like the entire palm is gone but she still wears it in her glove. And then [Name C]  always twirls her bat when she steps into the batting box even though it looks kind of dumb. But she can’t stop at this point. It’s definitely something we talk about.

You said you do it as a comfort thing. Does it get you prepared, mentally?

Yes? I’m not sure if the action itself gets me mentally prepared – it’s more like the absence of the action makes me feel unprepared.

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Was not able to take video, but the demonstration of the batters box movement was very specific. Informant described each part as they did it.

Family Values

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles - Originally from Phoenix, AZ
Performance Date: April 28, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant’s self- description: “I see myself as very American. I come from a family that my parents have had a happy marriage for many years and I think that has definitely informed my life, more so than I had realized when I was growing up, when it just seemed like, oh that’s just what it is – but now interacting with other people when that wasn’t the case it’s definitely a unique perspective on relationships and everything in general. I feel like that’s a defining thing.  Family’s a really big deal – we have multiple gatherings throughout the year. Most of my family lives in the same state so we’ll all get together a ton of times throughout the year. So family is a big identifying thing and a really important thing to me. Another one is that I like to see myself as a creative person with all the things that come with that, which is – I might be going totally off the rails with this. I feel like – being a creative person I don’t know how much of it is things I just associate with creative people, so I just see that as something I should live up to, but there’s a whole ‘troubled writer’ persona – there are times were you just kinda want to fit in to that. There are times when I feel like I should live up to that ‘ideal writer.’ Another thing that comes with being creative and to me – there’s a romanticism to the bohemian lifestyle, ‘we can just make it with nothing but our art and each other. And that’s all you need to survive.’ And that’s a cool thing instead of ‘that’s a horrible idea, and you’re basically homeless.’ But to me there’s a romanticism in that.”

—

There’s a story in my family. When my dad was growing up, he was incredibly close with his siblings. So one my dad’s side of the family, he has two brothers and two sisters. And they’re less close now, ‘cause there’s been all kinds of family drama. But at the time, they were incredibly close. And his older brother got married. He was – my dad was just starting college at the time, his brother just finished college and was just recently married. And then there were the other – the other people in the family. His sisters were younger. And the marriage wound up being awful. For my dad’s brother. And she was cheating on him. And he decided he was gonna get a divorce and move out. He told her this, and I don’t know exactly the sequence of events but she basically locked him out of their house. She changed the locks when he wasn’t there. And had all the stuff and was starting to sell his stuff and just give it to the guy she was cheating on him with. So the entire family – as a family thing together, not with their parents but the four siblings – broke into – it was his house, but the locks had been changed. There was some stupid thing with the deed or whatever. But they broke in to the house and took all his stuff back so she couldn’t sell off any more of his stuff. Or give any more of it away. But they were like – it was a family thing they all did together to help out their brother, which has stuck with me. I would say – absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt – my best friend is my little brother. We’re both the type that we say stuff to each other all the time, and insult each other all the time, but I know that it’s one of those – absolutely no one else can do that. It’s one of those “I’m gonna defend them to the death”

Is that a story that gets brought up a lot? Did it used to?

It used to. When they were closer. Whenever they would get together again – not all the time, but there would be something that would trigger it. And they would just be like “I can’t believe we did that.” ‘Cause they dressed up for it. They put on all black and went in to get the stuff. It’s a ridiculous story. So I’m not surprised that they would bring it up whenever they were around each other. I feel like my brother and I – we’ve never had to do anything like that, but we – there are stories even we tell from when we were little kids – like there was a time when we were fighting. Because you do when you have a sibling. So we were fighting and it was something stupid. We had – for some reason there was a bunch of cardboard in our yard. And we had a trampoline. And I was with my friends, and I was probably being mean to him, whatever. And he started attacking us with this inflatable hammer. And we built this – my mom made him go in, and she was “you can’t attack your brother!” and we built this fort out of cardboard, this huge fort. And we were like “no, let him outside, to attack us!” And without saying a word, we were ok, and it had all just been a game. So he was attacking this fort we had built and it became one of our favorite games. We always talk about the fort game and make analogies to it. I’ve taken after that sibling thing from my dad’s side of the family. I feel personally I relate more to my mom, just personality-wise she gets me more, but that feeling of family responsibility – you look out for each other no matter what – you figure things out after but you look out for each other first and foremost. I definitely picked that up from my dad and from hearing about him and his family.

 

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The folkloric quality of these stories is that they were referred back to in the context of the community from which they came, and they reaffirm identity. The break-in story has had generational influence and affected the way the informant relates to their brother.

Mochi Soup

Nationality: “Half Japanese, half Korean, so I am Asian.”
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, but born in Fresno and lived there until starting college
Performance Date: April 30, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant’s self-description: “I am a large melting pot of everyone that I have ever met. Even if I did not really know who they were. And that makes me me! And different from everyone, ‘cause we all have different experiences. I am a video game person that loves a video game, and I love things that aren’t actually real life. But I also like real life! But sometimes fiction more so because the boundaries of what can be done are expanded. And that’s really cool to me. I like food – a lot. And I am a person that just wants to do a lot of things all the time. Forever.”

 

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Are there any traditional food dishes that you consume or make on particular occasions?

Um, yes. Every New Year’s – well, Christmas and New Year’s, but because they’re so close together they just kinda happen in that sort of time slot. Christmas, my mom always makes this certain rice cake soup, it has – or mochi soup – and she prepares it all day, and then she makes the soup, and we have to eat it for dinner. And she adds eggs, and green onions, and seaweed, and we all sit down and we get special silverware and bowls out, and eat that for dinner, and then on New Year’s day, you have to eat the same thing, or you have to eat the mochi soup. It doesn’t have to be the exact same one from before because that would be nasty. But it would be like a new batch – the same recipe, obviously. And then you have to eat it for good luck in the New Year. And if you don’t you’ll have bad luck. But I haven’t experienced that yet because I’ve never turned down a bowl of my mother’s soup. Because why would you. Yeah- that’s the only sort of traditional thing that we have in my family.

You’ve always had mochi soup –

Since I can remember, yeah.

Do you like it?

I like it a lot. I kind of want it now.

Have you ever helped make it?

Uh, yes. Actually, I forgot a part of it- Once we were old enough, my mom made me and my two younger sisters – we made little dumplings, or I guess gyoza in Japanese. Little dumplings with pork and spices and meats and vegetables. We make the dumplings, and that’s a thing we always have to do on Chistmas and New Year’s Eve. Then my mom puts them in the soup and you can see all the little dumplings that you’ve made and usually we make really weird shapes. So sometimes you’ll get a nice little round moon shape and then you’ll get, like, a rectangle, and then they fall apart and you just have to have dumplings in your soup everywhere.

Do you try to make them into particular shapes?

Sometimes yeah, sometimes yeah. I tried to make a snowman dumpling once, and he kinda looked like a malformed sugar snap pea after. I was sad.

Was there a reason for the snowman?

I mean, it was Christmasy, sort of, and I was like “Oh, if we can shape dumplings, that’s sort of like shaping cookies when we make them for Santa. So I can just like form this with my fingers,” and then it fell apart, because she had to deep fry it and he was just kind of sad. And ripped apart. But it was ok, because it tasted delicious.

You helped make the dumplings – your mom makes the rest of it?

Mostly. It’s a pretty basic process, just making the broth, and then she throws in the little dumplings and the rice cakes. But she’s a very excellent cook so I wouldn’t want to disrupt anything in her kitchen – she’s a gale force wind when we step in and she’s not expecting us. It’s a danger zone.

Is it just your family? OR a tradition that many other people take part of?

I think it’s a Korean – well, Korean / Japanese tradition. My mother’s side of the family is Korean and it’s what she does, it’s what her side of the family does, but my baa-chan, or my grandma on my dad’s side who is Japanese – she always comes over and it seems like it’s something that she does too. She lives alone, and right next door to us, so she always comes over for all family celebrations. So I assume that it’s maybe just like a Far Eastern – Asian sort of deal. Maybe. I mean, it seems that way. I met a couple other families who do the same thing, Japanese or Korean.

Is there any symbolism to the food? Like the rice cake part of it?

I don’t really know. I feel like rice cakes in general are just kind of important to – maybe not the Korean culture so much as the Japanese culture because my grandma, my baa-chan, she sometimes throughout the year – she’ll just be making large things of rice cakes. Just in the kitchen. And there’s no reason for it, she’s just doing it. And I’m like “Ok…!” And there’s just like a lot of rice, and a little machine going around that like smashes it and whirls it around and stuff. But I think specifically would be for Japanese holidays and New Year’s and Christmas. But I mean she kind of just does them whenever.

Do you speak fluent Japanese?

I don’t, I unfortunately speak neither of my family languages. I know how to say very basic things.

 

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Informant gives lots of background to the mochi soup. Informant sounds fond in description, and it makes them think of the family they love.