Author Archives: Zane Grace

“The Gold Shitting Donkey”

Nationality: Iranian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Singer
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 30 April 2015
Primary Language: English

Text:

This might be a little long but it’s highly entertaining. A lot of the time around dinner we’d request to hear them again and my dad or someone would tell the story in Farsi and they’re all about this fictional character named mullah nasradin. (Mullah is the respectful title for a religious leader) and he’s this buffoonish character who does stupid shit. One of the stories was mullah nasradin is trying to sell a donkey in the market that no one wants and comes up with this idea to shove a gold coin up the donkeys ass, feed it a sugar cube, and wait for the donkey to fart and then try to sell the donkey as a donkey that shits gold coins. So he does this and ends up seeking the donkey to an Iranian prince who locks the donkey in a room full of sugar cubes for a week hoping to come back to a room full of gold coins. The punch line essentially is that he opens the door and there’s a rotting donkey corpse and a bunch of poop in the room a week later. It’s really not that well conceived of a plot in English but somehow it’s a hilarious twist in Farsi. I’m sorry I don’t know how to tell it in Farsi, I can understand the language but not speak it well at all.

Background: Like I said I heard most of these stories from my dad at dinner or at holidays. To me it’s just a funny story – I guess I never thought about it as having so much meaning to it but just as a cute fairytale. I like it because it’s a part of my childhood.

Context: This isn’t exactly a party story, it’s more something that’s told on holidays around closer family and friends. There are these like extended jokes that are told usually to children and they’re just funny stories. My family wasn’t super traditional Persian, so mostly we’d hear these things on Christmas or whatever. But I always remembered them as being a pretty distinctly cultural thing that my other friends didn’t know.

My Thoughts:

I think it’s really interesting that my informant mentioned that her non-Persian friends didn’t know the stories because it creates a separation of cultures and also a similarity that Persians can bond over knowing. I think the piece itself has a meaning of ingenuity – it seems to place blame on the buyer for not adequately researching his purchase beforehand. In this way, it seems to be a cautionary tale for preventing “buyer’s remorse.”

“Romulus and Remus”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 12 April 2015
Primary Language: English

Text:

This is the story of the founding of Rome. Romulus and Remus are two dudes and their Rhea Silvia and they’re all descended from the Trojans and Aeneas. These dudes… I think it’s uh… I don’t remember how they get lost, but they get lost as wee little children from their mama, and they get raised by a she-wolf, which in latin is lupa. So they grow up with the wolf lady and then they go out to found their own city, so they both start building walls around these hills, one being the Appaline and I don’t remember what the second one is, but they’re building these walls right near the river Tiber. Then they get in a fight about whose city will be the ruling city and who gets to name the overall city, so Romulus kills Remus, which is why Rome is called Rome because it’s named after the brother who survived the duel.

Background:

I learned that from a Latin class in middle school from this dude named Mr. Mele. Our school was really big on Latin and Roman mythology and history and stuff. I just like the idea that a city is founded from this like one dude that’s like raised in the wild and that Rome has like this one family tree that you can trace back to ancient history like the Trojans and shit. Basically the focus about a lot of Roman myths fighting another dude and because of that he gets to name stuff is pretty common. I guess I think the Romans really found a need for like individuals to idolize, especially into the empire. I think what’s especially interesting about how these myths are utilized is that there was a hut in Rome proper even into the empire that was left there as a historical landmark of Romulus’s house to legitimize their ancestry and culture to prove they come from Troy and all these heroes and everything.

Context:

This is just a fun fake history thing that I think was just created to give the Romans this heroic background, so similar to the Bible with Cane and Able, and shit, like other stuff like that, it’s just like similar to other stories like that. I think it’s mostly just history at this point cuz the people who valued this story, like their culture is dead now, so really the only occasion to talk about this is in a history class or whatever.

My Thoughts:

This made me think a lot about similar myths of my own culture. For example, as an American, I think the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree is a good comparison because it deals with idealizing one person as the patron of an entire place. Much like the Romans idealized Romulus, we idealize George Washington through these stories even though historically he was actually a pretty crappy general.

“The Golem of Prague”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 12 April 2015
Primary Language: English

Text:

The Golem of Prague is one of the best known stories in the Jewish oral tradition. There are many versions, but they all tend to share the common thread of a well-respected 17th Century Rabbi in the secluded Jewish ghetto in Prague. Beset by antisemitic raids and pogroms, the Rabbi constructed a clay statue of a man, which when given a scroll reading “shem” (a holy word) came to life. The animated statue defended the Jews from their enemies, but eventually fell out of the Rabbi’s control (some legends point to the Golem falling in love, others to basic monstrous behavior). The Rabbi, realizing that the creature had to be stopped, removed the “shem” from it’s mouth, and it fell apart on the spot.

Background:

To me, the legend of the Golem is fascinating because of its ambiguous message. On the one hand, it’s a cautionary tale that warns against overreaching human limits; on the other, it’s an expression of Jewish resilience and ingenuity. The proto-sci-fi angle also reveals some of the more offbeat elements of the Jewish oral tradition. My general impression of the story is one in which the Jews, whether to their benefit or detriment, manage to assert themselves in a hostile environment (a theme which would have absolutely helped the story to endure throughout the events of recent centuries).

Context:

The legend of the Golem comes from a fundamental part of Jewish identity and history: persecution. The Golem represents the desperation to which Jewish culture would resort for their very survival, and the inherent risk of playing God in order to do so. The Golem’s influence is evident in many popular legends, most notably in that of the Robot. I think the story is invoked in times of peril.

My Thoughts:

I think it’s really interesting that my informant didn’t try to tell a definitive version. It wasn’t important to him that the story had a one-hundred percent certain plot, but more so he took the general idea as the important piece of the narrative. He seemed totally comfortable with the ambiguity of the stories and took it as having multiple meanings and lessons more so than having no meaning at all by being ambiguous.

“Festina lente”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 12 April 2015
Primary Language: English

Text:

Original Latin: “Festina lente”

English: “Make haste slowly”

Background:

This is a Latin motto I learned in high school during my four years of learning Latin. We learned it as a motto that Augustus Caesar would use as a way of progressing as an emperor; always have something you want to do, and wait for the right time to do it. It is a classic example of the literary device oxymoron. This proverb has governed how I think about parts of my life, especially working on film sets. One always needs to be working on somethings, but sometimes to work, one must wait. And on film sets, you always have a job to do that involves waiting: waiting for actors to fly in, waiting for lights to be set up, waiting for the camera to roll, etc. There are so many moving parts in a film, and it’s important to understand how all of them work together. So for one part to progress well, it must wait for the others.

Context:

This proverb comes up a lot in work environments, particularly those that rely on multiple people to finish one’s own job.

My Thoughts:

I think it was interesting that my informant described this piece as being used almost exclusively in a professional context. I think this is the only piece I’ve collected so far that is used thusly. In any case, it seems to be particularly applied to film for the informant’s life… I wonder how it applied in ancient times? If there were specific professions or tasks that utilized this proverb more than others?

 

“Wolfjob meme”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 18, March 2015
Primary Language: English

 

Background:

There’s this youtube channel called Game Grumps that consists of two dudes named Danny and Aaron, and Danny told Aaron about this picture on one of the episodes of the show. The Game Grumps have kinda owned the picture by doing a lot of photoshops with it where to censor it they’ll put their faces over the nipples or add a top hat over the penis or whatever. There’s a Christmas version and a Jew version, but I think all of them embody the same vision or purpose which I guess is just vague internet awkwardness, like something really awkward done very seriously, which creates this quality of irony and campiness that I find hilarious.

Context:

Danny first used it between his friends like they’d be texting and whenever things got awkward or he had to break a silence he’d send wolfjob. The way he puts it is there’s something weird and adorable about it which juxtaposed with this ridiculous CG thing it helps to break those silences. I use it a little differently because I know people don’t know about wolfjob, so I use it for a lot of shock value or to comment on the awkwardness of a situation by making it even more awkward through this photo.

My Thoughts:

I guess this is just me, but I don’t understand how this breaks awkward silences as opposed to creating them. In the first place the photo is really lewd, and I don’t know where the comedy comes from. But I think it’s interesting that my informant and many people over the internet find this funny – especially over the internet where people can like it anonymously without admitting to another live person they think this thing is funny thereby facing the judgment of others.