Author Archives: Laura Williams

Two Twin Ducks

Nationality: American
Age: 11
Occupation: Child
Residence: Frisco, Texas
Performance Date: April 9, 2012
Primary Language: English

Lawson Franklin Echols-Richter

Houston, Texas

April 9, 2012

Folklore Type: Riddle

Informant Bio: Lawson is my youngest cousin. He is eleven years old. He is from Frisco, Texas and has lived there his whole life. Lawson is the younger of two boys, and both of his parents are Methodist Pastors. He enjoys video games and showing off his skills of dancing and flipping a fedora onto his head. I call him The Dude.

Context: I saw Lawson briefly with his father when my grandfather (not ours) passed away. I asked him what were some jokes he had been learning at school. He said he could not remember any jokes, but he knew a few riddles.

Item: So the two twin ducks sitting in a movie theater next to each other they’re both twins, but they are not born on the same day how is this possible? The answer is they are two twins not from the same family.

Informant Analysis: He said it’s just funny.

Analysis: This riddle is pretty intellectual in regards to the answer. It is also pretty intellectual humor that is simply derived from people attempting to figure out the riddle and enjoying the answer. It is not vulgar which could indicate that Lawson is not quite yet at that age of figuring out usual boy topics such as bathroom humor, or his cousin and father were not the ideal people to tell a vulgar joke too. The ducks do however denote a slight sense of innocence because of how much children love animals. Either way the joke demonstrates young boys attempting to play with and twist different scenarios in the world around them.

Alex Williams

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California

ANTH 333m   Spring 2012

 

Same-Side Queers

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 22, 2012
Primary Language: English

James Santelli

Los Angeles, California

April 22, 2012

Folklore Type: Joke, Phrase

Informant Bio: James Santelli is my boyfriend. He is a twenty year old Broadcast Journalism major with a minor in Sports Media at the University of Southern California. He is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; he has lived there his whole life and is very proud of it. James is the youngest of three siblings.

Context: Last Spring of 2011 a friend tried to convince a group of James, our friends, and me that the wife of a jazz musician always wearing a blue dress to a concert is a thing. James’ response was it’s not a thing, not like same-side queers. Everyone just looked at him and said huh. James then found out that no one but him knew what on Earth same-side queers was, and tried to explain it to us. I asked him to try to explain it again.

 

Item:

J: Same-side queers is when you have a booth or table like with booth seating, and you’re eating. And there are more than two people overall at a table and you have two people sitting on the same side of a table and there are no people at the other one. This will occur if there’s only two people sitting at the table, or if there are more and one person gets up to go to the bathroom or something. And you are left in the situation where both people are sitting on the same side of the booth with no symmetry to it. And they are thus same-side queers.

A: And when did’jou learn of this terminology?

J: It was either late middle school or early in high school ‘cause our high school cafeteria had all these booth seatings um like throughout the whole cafeteria. (Alex holds up pinky finger implying James’ school was fancy) So… yes fancy indeed, but usually people would not purposely sit same-side queers together. But if there were three people and one would go to the bathroom they would be left as same-side queers, and labeled as such.

A: Why is it not same-side queers with three people sitting next to each other in a booth?

J: Well it could be, but the booths usually only sat like two people in each like little long chair.

A: Ok?

J: So there wasn’t really the space to sit three people on one side, (sweeps hand as if gesturing to other side) zero to another. There was really only room for two.

A: Oh, ok. I understand. All right so, uh who’d you learn it from?

J: I don’t know exactly. It was, it had to have been like some guy or group of guys in probably late middle school, just learning of this fact that sitting two on the same side would be considered same-side queers.

(Portion of interview cut out and placed into Informant’s Analysis)

A: So when would you like say this? Just whenever you see it or (gestures downward while spinning hand in circles)?

J: It would usually be when you had three people or four people, and one or two people would get up to go to the bathroom from the same side.

A: Yeah, I mean just like now? Like when would you; like same situation?

J: Nowadays it would be just yeah when I see it day to day in Parkside or in a restaurant or something, but the most fun part and I can give you this anecdote is when you have four total people. And you have two on each side, and let’s say one person on the inside had to get up to go to the bathroom. So the person on the outside would have to get up as well, but for that little period of time (both laughing) you’d still be labeled same-side queers because there’d be two on one side and not on the other. And then in some instances one of the people on the opposite side would get up so that they would not be labeled same-side queers because they would technically not be sitting two to a side until the other person got back.

A: D’, do people plan this out?

J: It’s just a thing you react to. (Alex laughs) You know the person on the other end is getting up to go to the bathroom so if you’re on the outside of the other side, you don’t wanna be same-side queers, so you gotta get up for a second til the other person whose getting up to allow the other person out gets back in. (Alex stares a little) This is a thing that happens! (Alex laughs)

 

Informant Analysis:

A: How is this experience important to you, and/or how has (laughs) it affected your life? Why do you do it? (Both laughing)

J: It’s, it’s somewhat humorous, if you look past the possible framing of it as homo-phobic. (Laughing) Just that there is this very idea of, you know, two people sitting on the same side and none on the other as being humorous in some way. But it kinda gives meaning to this thing that we all kind of notice in our day to day lives like even if you’ve never heard of same-side queers you’ve seen people sitting on the same side of something with nobody on the other side, and probably’ve been made uncomfortable by it. No matter if its two guys or a guy and a girl or whatever (slight laughing). You just think canchu sit opposite sides? Even if you’re on a date it’s kinda, kinda weird and off-putting. And for some reason we have a name for it and other people don’t know about it. (Laughter from Alex).

 

Analysis: On the one hand yes, the joke is somewhat humorous, but on the other it is an unsuspecting reinforcement of societal norms. The joke is learned and told mostly during the awkward teenage years of later middle school to high school. Boys are uncomfortable with their changing bodies and identity at this time. James specifically mentioned how two people sitting on the same side of a table alone makes others uncomfortable because it is unconventional. Sitting same-side queers is considered what is different than what is considered the societal norm which would make a person doing such a thing odd or even an outcast. A teenage boy struggling to figure out where he fits in most likely will not be trying to break the societal mold. By noticing same-side queers one is singling out those people as queer, or strange. (I also find the idea same-side queers interesting because that is how people sit on couches and talk, usually with a coffee table in front of them)

Alex Williams

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California

ANTH 333m   Spring 2012

Pittsburgh Cookie Tables

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 22, 2012
Primary Language: English

James Santelli

Los Angeles, California

April 22, 2012

Folklore Type: Tradition

Informant Bio: James Santelli is my boyfriend. He is a twenty year old Broadcast Journalism major with a minor in Sports Media at the University of Southern California. He is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; he has lived there his whole life and is very proud of it. James is Catholic and has three siblings. He likes cookies.

Context: James’ sister Katherine got married right before this Spring Semester of 2012 started. I attended the wedding with him, and before I went we talked about what would happen during the wedding as I had never been to a Catholic wedding before. During this he mentioned how excited he was for the cookie tables. I had never heard of cookie tables before especially not at a wedding as I am an avid cake fan, and that is all people eat for dessert at an average Texas wedding. We got into a heated debate about cookies versus cake, in which he tried to explain to me the merits and tradition of the cookie tables. Much later, I asked him to re-explain the cookie tables to me.

 

Item:

J: So if you’re a Pittsburgher that’s having a wedding or you’re having your wedding in Pittsburgh you still usually have a wedding cake, but it’s a small cake. It’s not a huge cake, and instead of everybody having cake. They would have tables of cookies all different kinds of cookies. Your basic chocolate chip or sugar cookies, and then you have other ones, you know, peanut butter blossoms or snickerdoodles or pizzelles. All sorts of different kinds of cookies. So much so that at Katherine’s wedding (sister) What did it end up being? Like…ten cookies per person? And there were so many left at the end.

A: Oh my god. Boxes and boxes. Um all right, who makes the cookies?

J: The cookies are made by the family of the bride usually, a lot of it is done by the mother of the bride which is why my mom was working like almost (laughs) tirelessly making cookies in the few weeks before the wedding. (Still laughing) And like baking them and freezing them like all day, and then doing it another day. But she also got help from, you know, family friends that baked cookies as well. And, you know, cousins, sisters of my mom, or sisters in-law that baked some cookies themselves and froze them. And then it all has to get transported to the, to the site of the wedding reception.

A: Who does the transporting?

J: Uh, it depends on who can take them, like I know in this case my mom stored a lot of the cookies as much as the freezer can hold. And then Mrs. Bacala, our family friend, she like people would bring her the cookies, and she’d freeze as much as possible. And then some of them they would just order, and they would be catered. But I gotta think a majority of them were homemade.

A: Um, ok, um so it’s mostly like mother of the bride or like family of the bride I guess who pays for all of that?

J: Well their paying for the whole wedding anyway so they probably save money baking their own cookies rather than buying them.

(Portion of interview cut out and placed into Informant’s Analysis)

A: So when, when do you get to eat the cookies?

J: Get to eat the cookies after dinner unless you sneak some cookies before. It depends on if the like, if they bring out the cookies like right after dinner and place ‘em out on the tables, or the cookies are already sitting there. And you kinda know you shouldn’t eat them until after, but there are so many cookies so you gotta at least have one or two before dinner just to make a dent in them.

A: Is there not a cookie baron that gets mad at you (James laughs) for eating cookies too soon?

J: Nobody’s really guarding the cookie table (Alex laughs) so seriously. Everybody knows that those cookies have gotta get eaten, so it’s kind of with a wink and a nod that you (begins winking on every word) shouldn’t eat them before dinner.

 

Informant Analysis:

A: So how does the cookie table make you feel?

J: I like cookies! (laugh) So the cookie tables are definitely a plus in my book, and I also think it’s good because if you have just one wedding cake, and it’s the kinda cake that uh some guests may not really like they don’t really have a choice. They’re not eating the cake, but in the case of the cookie table then there are dozens of different kinds of cookies, myriad cookies. Even if you don’t like peanut butter cookies or whatever you’re bound to find a cookie that you like, and you can eat those for your dessert instead. Plus it’s just a Pittsburgh tradition to have cookie tables at your wedding. It’s something cool to have. The best guess (to how it started) is that it came from European immigrants, you know, either German, Polish, um Slovak, Irish, somebody that people are guessing that’s what they did in weddings back in the homeland. If they like didn’t have real big cakes. It was just people who were coming to the wedding but bringing cookies instead.

A: Ok, so it just stayed through tradition supposedly?

J: Probably. That’s what they guess.

A: And why do you think it’s still a thing today? Just because it’s…easy and tradition and..?

J: Well it kinda makes sense for me. It’s like I said to have the cookies that you have the variety of things, and I dunno it’s just Pittsburgh can be a very regionalistic place that obviously we’re all more nationalized and we have like wedding magazines that everybody reads all across the country. And like things that are the same amongst all weddings, but then you have things that are unique to the area that you live in. And just ‘cause they kinda develop that way, and if I’m a person that grows up and sees at all the weddings I go to that there are cookie tables that’ll probably continue when I get married or Kara (sister) gets married or Andrew (brother) gets married. And just passes down along that way.

 

Analysis: I agree with James about why the cookie tables are important to him and how they probably came into being a tradition. What is interesting is the fact that the mother of the bride is the one that makes all or the majority of the cookies. It is the mother’s matronly duty to prepare an important and beloved food item for the last time that her child will be seen as a child and in her care. A wedding is usually where a girl transitions from her family to creating a family of her own. The importance of the cookie tables seems to be a last attempt for a mother and other adult female figures to do something while the daughter of the bride is still acting as a child. The other aspect that connects to this mother and child mindset about the cookies is that people steal them before dinner. The common occurrence that almost acts as a joke refers back to the practice of children stealing cookies before dinner when they are not supposed to. Whether or not there was the same association between matrons and cookies among older European generations is unknown, but that association is alive today in early childhood and again in a Pittsburgh wedding.

Alex Williams

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California

ANTH 333m   Spring 2012

High School Pre-Show Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English

Maddy Heyman

Los Angeles, California

April 24, 2012

Folklore Type: Ritual

Informant Bio: Maddy Heyman is one of my apartment mates and good friends. She is a twenty year old Sophomore and double major in Theatre and Narrative Studies at The University of Southern California. She is from St. Paul, Minnesota and has lived there her whole life. Maddy is a very active member of her theatre community back in St. Paul. She also has acted and directed shows at USC. Although she is thriving in college despite tearing her meniscus and finding out she has mild Crohn’s disease, she is very attached to her home, family, friends, and Theatre community in St. Paul.

Context: Maddy and I were in our dimly lit apartment late in the night around midnight when I asked her to share some theatre folklore knowing she is a Theatre major. She had just closed a show the previous weekend.

 

Item:

M: There is a super secret pre-show ritual at my high school that no one is allowed to talk about, but now that I’m graduated I can. So we would all gather in a choir room behind the stage in the hallway area. It would be fifteen minutes before the show. One thing we did was the bugaloo, and that was pretty normal (sings) let me see you bugaloo. There was traditionally a leader of the bugaloo. They would be the leader for the whole year. It was passed through, well we had these testaments in the paper at the end of the year, and the leader would be named that way. So we would do the bugaloo and people would do ridiculous ones like let me see you fry like bacon. Or we would do things that make fun of the show. The next one would be ride my pony which was pretty basic. You know, ride, ride my pony and then we would ride our ponies around the room. And then after that we would scope. We would get a bottle of Scope and some Dixie Cups. We would pour the Scope, and we had a phrase. We would say, “Scope that shit up, mothafucka what? Scope that shit up, mothafucka what?” continuously until all people have Scope. The order people got Scope and got to count down would be different every night, some nights would be seniors, or all the girls first, or all the chorus leads. When we Scoped we had to swish it in your mouth as long as everyone counted down from ten. And then right after you’d just go and do the show. Well except on the last night. We would get together early, turn off the lights, and light a bunch of candles on the piano ‘cause we were really safe. Then each senior gives a little speech about their experiences and advice for the uh, the whatever we call younger people in high school that I can’t remember anymore.

A: Underclassmen?

M: Yes (sweeping hand gesture) underclassmen. Then we’d do the bugaloo and everything. And that is the Central High School pre-show ritual. And if anyone knew I’d shared that with you,

A: You would be murdered?

M: An’ you’d be murdered. It’s cool to see each place’s pre-show rituals.

 

Informant’s Analysis: (The following interaction applied to her analysis and why the ritual was important to her)

A: Why is this one ritual in particular important to you?

M: Just ‘cause this was the most long-standing tradition I’ve experienced. They have always been a part of the ritual for as long as people can remember, and like no one knows how they started. We do it for every single show, every single year (hand chop down). Especially since at SC each pre-show ritual depends on the show so they’re different. I also just think the fact that all shows have pre-show rituals is interesting.

 

Analysis: Maddy has a serious attachment to her home and life in St. Paul as well as her childhood. She has a tattoo of Alice from Alice in Wonderland because of that attachment. This particular ritual is most likely important to Maddy because it connects a large part of her childhood home life to her passion and career choice. Remembering these experiences allows her to reminisce when she is having a hard time being away from home especially with all of the stressful physical issues she has had to face while adjusting to living away from St. Paul for the first time. This memory also keeps her spirit and passion going when the Theatre world is less than kind as it is known to be. The ritual itself like many things in the Theatre world was probably developed from personal experiences and inside jokes of various casts over time. Although Maddy claims the ritual has not changed over the years, it has probably been adapted slightly from cast to cast. The bugaloo is one version of several Theatre games actors use to warm up. It combines rhythm and improvisation. Ride my pony is also a Theatre game that is energizing and loosens nerves. The Scope ritual appears to be a combination of hazing and was probably an incident that turned into an inside joke for one of the casts that started this pre-show ritual. The seniors sharing their experiences by candlelight on the last evening of the show is a fairly common occurrence with most show casts. The cast of a show is a lot like a family because there are people that love each other and people that hate each other, but everyone has to interact and work together or the show will fail. Theatre people are also generally more flamboyant and in tune with feelings because they have to express them on stage in front of people, so a final sharing of knowledge and memories is a way to feel like a collective family for the last time before the mandatory time together are over. This is especially true for high school seniors because they are about to or have entered into a giant transition in their lives out of childhood and into an interim phase of college before true adulthood. This ritual is a way to create a collective memory and connection as well as relax before a performance.

 

Alex Williams

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California

ANTH 333m   Spring 2012

The Haunted Forest

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: March 8, 2012
Primary Language: English

Parin Patel

Los Angeles, California

March 8, 2012

Folklore Type: Ghost Story

Informant Bio: Parin Patel is a friend I met when we both went on an archaeological excavation in Rome the summer of 2011. He is a Junior and double major in Archaeology and Business at the University of Southern California. Parin is Indian and thus interested in Indian Archaeology and stories, particularly of the supernatural sort. He is actually interested in spirituality and the supernatural in general.

Context: There were several Archaeology majors and one Visual Anthropology Graduate student sitting around drinking after a long day of survey at Catalina Island. We were there for the weekend as a Directed Research Experience. Parin was the only guy in this group hanging out. We were talking and laughing in general. We played Never Have I Ever, and then Parin says, “Guys, guys let’s tell ghost stories.” About four or five people shared some sort of real life encounter that they heard from a friend or relative. Parin told two stories. This was the second one he told.

Item: So here’s the next one. (which burial ground? Then we can talk.) um my uncle is an engineer and a developer in India, uh he lives in Gujarat. But he basically takes land and from like forested land and just like chops it down and builds entire sub-divisions. So he took this forested area and uh built up the land and built houses and stuff. And built uh my other uncle, his brother, a house there as well. And so they’re living there. My cousin uh one day this was um back in 2002 or so. He’s in, he’s like in the bathroom uh just like uh taking a shower or whatever. And he like. First of all his house, his house is kind of scary anyway ‘cause he has this photo of this woman with no face like posted up right in the hallway when you enter the second floor. When you walk up the stairs there’s this woman with no face. So like every time I’m there I just run through, but that has nothing to do with this story. Um so my cousin’s in the bathroom, he just got through taking a shower and he looks out of the window ‘cause he hears, hears something, something or somebody and he looks out of the window. And all of a sudden like the entire area’s just forest. Like all he sees is like trees everywhere. And this whole place is like built with houses. There’s no trees around. Um it’s just entire forest and he sees a woman scream, and he hears her scream like as loud as like… (stammer) uh if somebody’s next to you screaming. He looks out of the window and he sees her running through the forest with like a white gown on. And he just freaks out he just runs downstairs. He’s like, “did’jou guys hear that? Did’jou guys see that?” And nobody heard about it. And they like did their research or whatever, and it turns out like a girl was like raped and killed in that area… twenty or thirty years before that. (so creepy, murmurings, o my god) And he’s, he’s not one to believe in ghosts or anything and that’s the first time he’s ever had that kind of experience. (that’s horrible).

Informant’s Analysis: Parin trusts his cousin because as he said his cousin is not the type to believe in ghosts. Parin said that he believed in the supernatural and was very interested in it. He believes the story to be true based on his trust in his cousin.

Analysis: Everyone that shared a story was sharing a second account of a personal experience, and everyone that night agreed that they believe in the supernatural on some level. Yet, we are all a major that is grounded in material data and theory. Sharing and believing in the ghost stories fulfills a need for an explanation that in most circumstances is impossible in Archaeology. Although material culture is available the answers to Archaeological questions are mostly theory with no way to truly know if the theory is correct. The supernatural provides an answer that is acceptably unexplained, which could provide comfort to Archaeologists that it is all right that their questions may also never truly be answered. The story itself reflects a clash between old occurrences on specific land and modern changes to said land. The area used to be a forest, and then it got disturbed by being torn down and turned into houses. In many ghost stories the correlation of modern people disturbing the land is fairly common. Older ideas of spirits living within the land or the land being alive come out in these stories of modern change to an old area.

Annotation: In the film An American Haunting there is a scene of a girl running through a forest, she has been raped, rape is a central issue in the film, and there is a reference to the Bell Witch which is the other story Parin told that evening. There is also a house that burns down and connection between the past and present through the story in a journal which relates two similar tales of rape in the past and present of the film.

 

Alex Williams

Los Angeles, California

University of Southern California

ANTH 333m   Spring 2012