Author Archives: Kayla Carlisle

Street of the Kiss

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 21
Occupation: USC Student
Performance Date: May 8, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

So, in Guanajuato, Mexico there’s a place called Calle de los Besos. Um, and it’s just translated to Street of the Kiss, where this couple lived on opposite ends of the sleep. The woman lived with her family, and the man was a traveler. And every night they would talk and then kiss good-night, and then one night the woman’s father came home from work late and saw that they kissed, and he was furious and he said :If you ever kiss him again, I’m gonna make sure he’s dead and he just freaked out, and so she promised to never kiss him again, And then some weeks passed and she didn’t keep her promise, and then again one night the dad came home late and saw that they had kissed and so he goes up to the guy’s room and kills him, and she freaks out, and she’s really depressed. And then she kills herself. And then now today whenever you cross that street, visitors or anybody, you kiss each other on the 7th step, because there’s like steps on the street. On the seventh step you kiss your significant other, otherwise it’s like 7 years of bad luck for you. But if you’re single nothing happens to you.

This legend tells the story of the town, and tells how the custom of kissing when crossing this certian street came to be. The story also tells us about the culture of the town. For instance, one might infer from the story that it comes from a culture where fathers have a lot of control over their daughter’s love lives, and the father’s extreme reaction, while drastically over the top, is considered within the realm of possibility. It also tells us that the town culture may identify as romantic and passionate.

Booty Shaking, Vomit Dance for Good Mojo

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Colorado
Performance Date: May 4, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Some German

Before every competition, my high school theater group would circle up, and shake all of our bad mojo/energy into the center of the circle. It usually involved some brushing off, fake vomiting, booty-shaking, etc until our jitters were out of like two minutes had passed. Then we all visualized that nasty ball of nervous energy, lifted it up as a team, and and threw it far far away. It made us perform better.

This is a ritual the theater group would conduct. For superstitious reasons they would join in a type of bad mojo warding dance. Obviously this ritual provides comfort, marks the occasion of the competition, and provides a good placebo affect, but the biggest benefit is likely that the team members joining together to do an embarrassing dance provided the club with a strong feeling of community.

The Sucks

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Colorado
Performance Date: May 5, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Basic German

Ok, so in my high school winter guard team we had these things called sucks. We had them before every show we did. We also had them during color guard season, as like a pre-show ritual. We’d all eat jolly ranchers or life savers or whatever we got that week and say “Suck hard now so you don’t suck later.” And usually some sex jokes were made to lighten the mood, especially by my coach.
The main worry was finishing your suck before we started the show, cause you didn’t want to be sucking while you performed. But you have to finish it. And you actually had to suck hard in order to avoid the bad luck.

This is a high school Drama Club tradition that creates a sense of community through the team conducting a shared superstition to unite them before a performance. Although the “sucks” are a superstition that potentially has a placebo affect for the performers, much of the value of this folklore also comes from the inside jokes the club members would make based on the “suck” tradition. The dirty jokes and funny phrases helped solidify a team that would need to work harmoniously to pull off something as challenging and nerve-wracking as a high school play.

Oprah Gives Out Halloween iPods

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Santa Barbara
Performance Date: May 4, 2013
Primary Language: English

Ever since I was a little kid, trick-or-treating was a big deal to me. Seeing as my parents were very protective of me however, I was never allowed to go very far outside my Santa Barbara neighborhood each Halloween. Every year, kids with more lenient parents would circulate tales of what fantastic goodies they collected from the more affluent neighborhoods I was not allowed to visit. Rumors of “king size” chocolate bars and candy buffets incurred awe and jealousy from the kids with restrictive Halloween guidelines, but what really captured my attention were the iPods Oprah Winfrey allegedly distributed to those lucky enough to make it to her Montecito estate. Nobody I knew ever made it out there to get a piece of this iPod action, it was always their brother’s friend or a friend of a friend who got the goods, but I believed all the same. I could just imagine a group of costumed children arriving at Oprah’s doorstep to be greeted by exclamations of “You get an iPod! You get an iPod! And you get an iPod! Everybody gets an iPod!” as confetti rained down, etc. To this day I’ve never been able to confirm the veracity of this rumor one way or the other, but I guess that’s the case with most urban legends; regardless of truth, the story never dies.

This is a FOAF legend, popular among trick-or-treating children who live in Santa Barbara, or near enough to Oprah’s Montecito estate they could potentially stop at her house on Halloween night. As Oprah has a reputation for giving our lavish gifts on special occasions, the story is not beyond the realm of possibility. However, as the person who told me this folklore never knew anyone directly who received an iPod, there is no guarantee that this story is true.

Cracking Jaw Causes Brain Cell Explosion

You know that crackling, snapping sound you hear in your ears when you yawn? When I was a kid in middle school, the other kids were always trying to come up with medical-sounding, crazy ways to explain normal things a body does. And everything you did seemed to cause brain cells to die, because that was the worst thing imaginable. For a while everyone was saying that when your jaw cracks, what you’re actually hearing is the sound of your brain cells exploding. Which was super bizarre and frightening. I think they knew that wasn’t true, but we all started freaking out about it.

This explanation the kids created to explain the sound their cracking jaw made, seems like an idea kids would tell other kids to scare them like they had been scared. These frightened children would then tell their parents, who would tell them this wasn’t true. This led to a cycle of initiation, as kids scared their peers with this pseudo-medial knowledge for status. As middle school kids are often told it’s important they develop their brains, and take drug education courses focusing on how drugs negatively impact their brain’s development, it seems natural that at this age there would be so much fear that they could be causing their precious brain cells to explode.