Author Archives: Andreana Tabacco

Russian Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 60
Occupation: Regional Sales Manager
Residence: Frisco, TX
Performance Date: April 17, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: Russian

Text: So my grandfather told me this joke that there were two old Russian guys driving through the forest. And, the guy in the passenger seat told the driver, “Hey, you need to pull over.” And the driver’s like, “Well, we can’t pull over, we’re not, we’re not where we’re supposed to be yet.” The passenger goes, “Look,” he goes, “I need you to pull over.” The driver goes, “But we’re in the middle of nowhere.” The passenger goes, “Look, I have to go to the bathroom. You have to pull over.” So, the driver pulls over, the guy gets out of the car, and he heads into the woods. A few minutes later, the passenger comes back to the car, and his pants are soaking wet. The driver looks at him and says, “What’s a matter? You didn’t make it in time?” He answers, “Nah, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.”

Context: AT is a child of Russian and Italian immigrants that grew up in Queens, New York. He would spend the summers in Maine surrounded by dense forest and vast natural landscapes, with is Russian grandparents who insisted that he learn Russian so that they could converse in their native language with their grandson. He has been a fluent speaker ever since then because of their teachings. His grandfather used to tell him this jokes as they were driving through the forests during the harsh main winters. I was told this joke over coffee one afternoon.

 Interpretation: Jokes area very popular form of folklore that can take on different forms in different societies.  The use of punch-lines in the telling of jokes can be largely recognized as an American behavior, for a lot of cultures don’t do punch-lines, rather they just tell funny stories. I expect that this is the case here, for when AT told me the joke for the first time, I didn’t really laugh because I thought the punchline was weak. I expected that perhaps the punch line was funnier in Russian, but now I expect that there is no punchline, only a funny story.

This joke still employs the cognitive switch technique that all jokes share. It sets up something in the beginning only to turn it on its head by the end. The entire story builds the idea that the passenger needs to use the bathroom, and that he will wet himself if the driver does not pull over and let him go into the woods to do his business. However, when the passenger finally gets his chance, he makes a mess anyways, cognitively switching the joke on its head.

 

Funghi; Fun Guy

Nationality: American-Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Rhode Island
Performance Date: April 14, 2019
Primary Language: English

Text: Question: What do you call a mushroom that likes to party?

Answer: A fun guy.

Context: SV is a freshman at the University of Southern California studying neuroscience. Befitting her scientific major, she remembers hearing this joke is biology class. This is one of her go-to jokes because, as she says, “I’m a sucker for puns, and that’s probably why I remember it.”

Interpretation:  Jokes are a very popular form of folklore, and can take on different forms in different societies. The use of punch-lines is a distinctly American behavior, and is employed in the joke above through the use of a pun. A pun is a joke exploiting different possible meanings of a word, or a joke that uses the fact that there are words that sound alike but have different meanings. There is still a cognitive switch going on, but puns resemble riddles in the way that they propose a solution to a seemingly impossible question and end up creating a magical transformation of meaning through the use of language.

In the example above, the participant is asked to link two seemingly unrelated things in order to derive an answer to the joke. However, the pun reveals that the answer was hiding in a play on words the entire time.

Blind Stallion

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Dallas, TX
Performance Date: April 19, 2019
Primary Language: English

Text: So basically there was this cowboy, and when he was a little kid, he would go out onto the range with his father. And there was this wild herd of mustangs that was roaming at the time, and there was this one little foal. It was a black stallion foal, and he was like, “One day I’m going to get that horse, and I’m gonna ride that horse.” So he grows up and spends his adult life wandering the hills trying to find the same horse that he saw as child. He wants to capture it. So he finally finds the herd after like a year of wandering, and he starts following it around because he wants to figure out how to catch the stallion. He spent three days following the horse, and with each day, he figured out that the stallion what is the strongest horse, but it always stayed next to its mother. It stayed with the mother horse that the cowboy saw it with when he was little. So he’s like. “Okay, whatever, kind of weird.” But it keeps going. After the three days, he decides that the only way he’s going to catch this horse is if he shoots the mother horse. So that the stallion won’t follow her anymore. So he shoots the mother, which is obviously sad and awful, and horses start running away. But the black horse starts running in the opposite direction and acting wild and crazy and falls off of the edge of a cliff. And then that was when the cowboy realized that the horse was always blind, and that the only reason he was following the mother around is so he could get around. And when the cowboy shot the mother, the stallion couldn’t get around anymore, so he fell off a cliff.

Context: SH is a born and raised Texan studying psychology at USC. Her time in the south led her to be exposed to many different stories with western flairs while she was growing up. In regards to the tale above, she doesn’t remember who told her the story, but it has never left her mind due to the fact that, “It’s so fucking awful.” SH thinks its significance means, “To leave nature be because you don’t always know what is going on behind the scenes, and if you insert yourself into nature it might not go the way you wanted to because you just don’t know.” I was told this piece of folklore over lunch one afternoon.

Interpretation: Tales are recognized as fictional stories that are used as fun ways to entertain and teach lessons to one another. They can sometimes reflect values and teach important lessons on behavior and ethics, or they can simply be stories for stories sake. They are not supposed to be viewed as true and exist outside of the real world. They also like to use groups of threes in their plot structure, a definite tactic employed in the blind stallion. This tale seems to function completely as a way to teach lessons, for there is a lot to be learned from the horrible acts committed in the above story. I will note that the tale does remain entertaining despite the horrible ending, due solely to its shock value and ridiculous logic in how the main character goes about getting what it wants.

I think that SH was correct in that the blind stallion contains some commentary about nature and how people should leave it alone. I also think it has possible lessons rooted in the shying away from greed, impulsive action, and murder. This tale also contains the idea that SH brought up about things not always operating as they appear, and the ghastly consequences that can unfold when people convince themselves that they understand something that they really don’t.

 

The Indian Paintbrush

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Dallas, TX
Performance Date: March 19, 2019
Primary Language: English

Text: So there was this little Native American boy who was born. He was not as strong as the other boys though, so when everybody else got named cool names such a “strong arms” or “fast legs,” I don’t quite remember what he was named, but it was kind of lame. He was not cool. So he’s growing up and he’s not strong so he goes to visit the shaman chief person and the guy’s like, “Just because you’re not strong doesn’t mean you don’t have other talents. Like, you might have something else. I know you’re going to be great!” So this kid is like obsessed with art and painting and stuff, and he’s always been painting as he’s been growing up. So he goes up to the top of this hill one day and he sees this gorgeous sunset and he’s like, “I want to paint that sunset.” Then this vision comes to him of this woman who is like, “Go find a buckskin as white as this,” and she holds up a white buckskin sheet (because they used to paint on leather), “and when you do, paint the sunset on it.” So he’s looking around trying to find this buckskin sheet. He’s painting and he can’t quite find the colors that match the sunset anywhere, and he’s trying to put it all together but he’s having some trouble.  So finally he gets the buckskin, but he still can’t get the colors. So he goes to the hill and he’s like, “Help me I need assistance.” So the vision lady says, “Come back tomorrow.” So he does, and when he gets back to the hill he has the exact paint that he needs on the ends of all of these paint brushes that we’re left for him, sticking out of the ground. And he paints the sunset on the sheet and he leaves the paintbrushes up there and he goes down the hill, and he shows his people his painting. And they’re like, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” And they go back up in the morning and there’s these new beautiful red flowers that are blooming all over the countryside. And the real flowers are called the Indian paintbrushes and that’s what the Native Americans in that area use for red pigment.

Context: SH is a born and raised Texan studying psychology at USC. Her time in the south led her to be exposed to many different stories with western flairs while she was growing up.  The myth above is a story that she remembers learning at a very young age, and can be assumed to be very specific to Texas, for SH was very clear that most Texas children know this tale. I was told this piece of folklore over lunch one afternoon.

Interpretation: Myths are weird, sacred stories about creations and how the world came to be. In this case, this is the myth of how the Indian Paintbrush flowers came into existence. They don’t have any real world value because they do not interact with our world. If they do, it is considered a miracle. They are held as sacred truths and blueprints as to how we should go about living our lives. Sometimes myths are not easily translated from one language/culture to another. The Indian Paintbrush, however, contains pretty reasonable circumstance that explain how the red wildflowers came to exist when considered alongside other creation myths that would be considerably more outlandish when viewed from a western perspective.