Author Archives: Corinne Gaston

Jehovah’s Witness Dungeons & Dragons Legend

Nationality: Latino
Age: 19
Occupation: student, officer worker in a shitty office
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/7/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: some Spanish

It’s supposed to be a warning tale. Basically the story is that back in the seventies, there were some kids that were Jehovah’s Witnesses that got really interested in Dungeons and Dragons and played it a lot. They got the idea that it would very cool if they could trap a demon themselves. So they decided they would glue a bunch of Watchtower magazines to this box and the walls or something – they were in a garage. And then they would do a summoning incantation to summon the demon…and they happened to summon a demon, but it wasn’t as easy as catching the demon in a box. And the boys were stuck in the garage for a long time, like quite a few hours, umm…but when their family finally got them out, one of the boys was dead and two of the other ones were like insane basically, and they were never okay after that.

I’m not sure how far outside of California this story goes, but there are different people I’ve talked to that have kind of said that story or some version of it that those people were alive in the seventies and stuff. And I got to hearing it because, you know, there are different card games and stuff that you grow up with that are usually kind fantasy based like, every generation seems to have them now. So when I got interested in certain card games, that was a kind of story my dad would tell me to get me to not play or throw it away or why he would throw it away. Funny thing, like, he liked Lord of the Rings a lot, but he kept it really hidden, really quiet cause he didn’t want other people in the church knowing, because it was satanic. It had magic in it and it had monsters and stuff like that.

 

It’s pretty clear by what my informant said, that this legend is meant to scare kids, and probably adults too, away from anything associated with the occult, magic, monsters, or anything deemed unnatural and dangerous by the congregation. My informant heard this legend from multiple people, particularly his father and stepmother as well as people who claimed to know the congregation where the legend occurred. The purpose of legends like this, with their essences of possibility and truth, is to keep people in line and keep them obedient. I’m skeptical of all organized religion, but particularly those that foster a culture and lore of fear to keep the followers “faithful.”

Sana Sana Culito de Rana

Nationality: Latino
Age: 19
Occupation: student, officer worker in a shitty office
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/14/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: some Spanish
Sana sana, culito de rana
Si no sanas hoy,
Sanarás mañana

Translation:

Heal heal, little ass of frog
If it doesn’t heal today
It will heal tomorrow
 

This is a rhyme that parents, usually moms, will say to their kids when they get a little injury. My informant said that it’s like a mom kissing a boo-boo and that you can hear a lot of Latin mothers say this to their kids; he learned it from his. Sometimes there will be variations on it such as:

“sana, sana, culito de rana,
si no se te alivia ahora,
se te aliviará mañana”

Translation:
it heals, heals, little ass of frog,
if it is not alleviated to you now,
is alleviated to you tomorrow

Sometimes parents will change “ass” to “tail” or “bottom” for little boo-boos and keep it as “ass” for boo-boos that hurt a lot.

“When you are an anvil, bear, a hammer, strike.”

Nationality: Caribbean-American
Age: 50
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Media, Pennsylvania
Performance Date: 4/9/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: basic Patois, Spanish, French, and German

My mother, who says this proverb has a lot of significance for her as an adult, learned it from her father, who was a strict man with a tough work ethic and a Latin scholar. My mom’s family immigrated to the United States from Dominica when she was a kid and they were able to do so, because her father had saved up enough money to be deemed self-sufficient by US immigration. The meaning of this proverb is about timing, preparation, patience, thinking strategically and taking the right opportunities. When you are the anvil, you have to take the blow, because that is the position you are in. Basically, sometimes you have to pay your dues early on in order to be in a position to reap the reward later. Moving through life smartly means not striving for instant gratification. You have to wait, plan, and work hard for opportunities that may come in the future. Essentially, you must put yourself in a position to strike, so you are able to take opportunities when they manifest for you.

 

1. This was official quoted by Edwin Markham.

Translations from other languages:

2. If thou art an anvil then suffer: if a hammer, then strike.  Romanian

3. If you are an anvil be patient; if you are a hammer strike hard.  German

4. It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.  French

Having the Sight: Being Born with a Veil

Nationality: Caribbean-American
Age: 50
Occupation: Attorney
Residence: Media, Pennsylvania
Performance Date: 4/7/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: basic Patois, Spanish, French, and German

Now this story is about people who are born with Sight: the ability to see things and perceive things. And it’s called being born with a veil or being born with, what you call it…a cowl. A cowl is a piece of skin, a piece of membrane in the birthing process that is sometimes covering the face of the baby. And it’s called a veil. Anyway, your grandmother, my mom, was born with one. My mom was born with a veil. At some points she said she could see different things…but after a while she lost it. Her last recollection of something happening was…she was in her house and she had a dream, it was more like a premonition. It was a dream about smoke and it was – she was dreaming it was at my sister’s house, right. So she woke up out the dream and immediately called my sister, you know. And what happened at that time was that my sister had fallen asleep and she had something on the fire and it was burning. There was smoke in her house, but my mom woke her up and she able to – it wasn’t a fire yet, but it was smoking, you know. So then she was able to turn it off and she said, “thank god,” because if my mom didn’t call her, the house would have really burned down. Actually, it was an apartment they were living in at the time. So that was the last incident she had recounted to me.

This is a folk belief held by my informant and many of my relatives on her side of the family. Honestly, I believe that people can have predictions and premonitions in dreams; I have heard of other people having them and I have had them myself. After telling me about the story of my grandmother having the premonition about smoke, my mother said that abilities like these are often passed down through families. She doesn’t have it and never did, but implied that it might skip generations. She views Sight as a gift, especially since it was able to save her sister by showing what could/would happen in the future instead of showing the tragedy at the time it was happening. She didn’t discuss why she thought my grandmother received and then lost the ability, but perhaps that is simply the nature of what we would call a supernatural gift.

How Free Speech Was Saved

Nationality: European mutt
Age: 24
Occupation: filmmaker
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: some Swedish, Spanish, and Farsi

This is pre-co-op early days. The year was 2006, so it was one year before the house was created. This was when certain people who were influential to the house lived at what was called the Phi Omega Tau house, or the green house, and so did Strawberry and Wave, who named the Technicolor Tree Tribe from a brain wave she had. (laughs) They lived at the Phi Omega Tau house and they had participated in a free speech zone protest because USC made up this thing, like, a couple years ago where we only had a free speech zone from 12 to 2pm at Tommy Trojan. So they had made this sign and painted it and stuff. After the protest they took it back to their porch and hung it up on their porch and it’s a really nice porch and that they were hanging out on. And so, they were just hanging out on the porch one day and this girl comes by and starts talking shit and she sort of identified herself as a USC college republican and she had a lighter and like tried to set the banner attached to their porch on fire. So, they like brought out a hose and Strawberry was apparently in the background yelling, “if you’re gonna bring fire, we’re gonna bring water!” And they basically sprayed this girl and her dog with a hose and then she came – well, they don’t if she came back – but someone came to the house that night and set the banner on fire and the smoke alarms went off and like they got up and luckily woke up and sprayed the thing out, but there were burn marks all over the porch. Yeah. So they pretty much knew it was this girl, but they couldn’t like call the cops or anything, because apparently like you don’t really invite the cops over to something called the Phi Omega Tau House…because if you know what those Greek symbols mean (laughs) Phi Omega Tau kind of spells out ‘pot.’ That’s Strawberry’s story. I think the girl knew about the protest during the day and like was against that or just this house.

 

After finishing the tale, my informant went on to say that free speech was ironically practiced by the girl who had thought that the people at Phi Omega Tau shouldn’t have expressed what they believed. This situation is an example of the tension, division, and struggle between people who believe in different ideals and how students opposed to certain USC policies also collide with other students.