Category Archives: folk simile

Midwestern Folk Simile

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Banker
Residence: Los Angeles/Kansas City
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

“You have just as good of a chance of meeting one as finding a kernel in a field of grain.”

The informant grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City before moving to Los Angeles with his wife and having kids. I am friends with his daughter who goes to USC, and we were coming back from dinner and discussing how his daughter couldn’t find a boyfriend here and how at parties there never seemed to be classy enough guys. I chipped in that I knew a few were out there but her dad came back with the folk expression above which made me laugh. I had never heard this expression before and was more used to hearing the “needle in the haystack” analogy.

I figured that he used this expression since he grew up in the Midwest but asked him how he learned it regardless. He told me he picked it up from his father and that lots of the expressions he uses today come from him spending lots of time with his dad. He also explained that in the Midwest, the expression isn’t as rare since farming is a huge part of daily life and industry there. Overall, I found it humorous that her dad used the expression in this manner, referring to how difficult it was to find a good enough guy for his daughter at a typical USC fraternity party.

A Handkerchief in Time

Nationality: United States
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 11APR2015
Primary Language: English

Kropp was a secret geek in high school. He thoroughly enjoyed sports, rap, and women but had a soft spot for cartoons. He says he would secretly want to be a superhero if he had the chance – “a dope superhero” at that. He is currently a USC student studying environmental science, is enrolled in the NROTC program and loves to skateboard. He has very close ties with his extended family. He hopes to one day commission into the navy as an officer.

Concerning his family, my friend has a large one. He has family crawling up and down the New England coast. One of our ROTC events requires us to dress up – the Ball. Both men and women put on their best outfits and dance the night away. At the event I saw that he was wearing a very old rustic handkerchief. It was a light blue with a dark silk blue border. But there were small stains and wear on the handkerchief. I asked him why he was wearing such an old dirty handkerchief.

“What…this is frikin dope. My grand-daddy gave this to me. So excuse…you!” he pointed. So I was curious and began digging. There is quite a story to this. His grandfather was in the Italian Army just after World War II came to an end. He met this beautiful Italian woman at a pier on one of his weekends on leave (break from military training). They talked for hours and hours. And of course, fell in love. After dating for a while, she had decided that she needed to move to America, that Europe was no longer somewhere she could withstand being. It was time she went to the free country. As he dropped her off to say good bye at the station, she gave him her handkerchief and said that if he was ever in America, to come find her. After the War ended he joined her in America and they had three-children, one of which is Kropps mother. Kropp heard this story from his grandfather. When he was growing up he would ask him to tell it over and over again. His grandfather would pull out his pipe and his old military uniform and retell the story – changing one small thing everytime.

“I’m giving this to my son one day…yah know, if I have kids or some sh**” Kropp said at the ball.

Analysis: Not only is this a beautiful story, with great depth and character, but it has moved someone two generations out of its relevance. Kropp took the real happenings of a couple and decided that it was something worth looking forward too. And now he values this timeless item. Maybe one day, he’ll have a story to add to the handkerchief.

El Que Madruga, Dios Lo Ayuda

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 41
Occupation: housewife
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/09/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

El Que Madruga, Dios Lo Ayuda

“El que madruga dios lo ayuda translates into the English saying, early bird catches the worm or something like that. But for us, we don’t use birds or worms, we use god, haha… anyway, this is a saying that just about anyone uses so that people are on time but I think since it used the word ‘God’ it may have be made so that we get up early to go to church I guess. Anyway, I heard this all the time from everyone, especially my mother who wanted me to be up at the crack of dawn doing chores and stuff and now I too catch myself telling my daughters the same thing. I guess since it was so common in my life growing up that I now use it in my own vocabulary.”

My informant is a 41 year old Mexican descendant who was born in Mexico but has lived in the USA for the most part of her life. She maintains most of her ties to her Mexican culture while living in the USA so therefore, most of the things she knows has been passed down by her mother and other relatives. She does not necessarily learn her “cures” for different thing via a specific book or other published material, but rather from relatives in her daily life.

In my opinion, this is a very interesting proverb because it uses a concept that is similar to another culture yet makes it its own to mean the same thing. In other words, the proverb when said in Spanish directly refers to the culture’s religion and in English it refers to its surroundings yet when translated, they essentially mean the same thing. So even though the proverbs use completely different similes, the idea is the same. This is fascinating because one can see how one’s culture can determine how one explains a similar situation.

Drag Performance

Nationality: Latin-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/22/2014
Primary Language: English

About the Interviewed: Davey is a student at the George Washington University double-majoring in English and LGBT Studies. His ethnic background hails from Spain. At the time of this interview, he was currently on leave at his home in Southern California. He is biologically male, but he identifies as gender-queer. Nonetheless, he prefers male pronouns. He is 20 years old.

My friend Davey moonlights as a Drag Performer. I asked if he could define what drag is.

Davey: “Well, everything is drag, that’s what RuPaul [drag icon] says. To most people, it’s just dudes dressing up as girls, which is like, kind-of what it is, but not really. It’s a statement on gender, it’s a statement on performing. People come to drag shows dressed as men, people come as women, people come as whatever the hell they want, that’s what drag is. It’s an illusory gender performance. Men and women both dress as things you can’t describe. Men become Queens, Women become Kings, some become things that you can’t describe.”

I asked him if he could describe what a performance is like.

Davey: “That depends on the queen. When I go out there, I lipsync to songs by Rihanna, Beyonce – I like to be fierce. Most queens lipsync, some don’t. Some actually sing live, if their voice is pretty enough. Those are the fishy queens.”

I asked Davey what “Fishy” means.

Davey: (laughs) “Oh lordy! It means vagina. The more fishy you are, the more you look like a real woman in dress and make-up. Some queens try really hard to be fishy. I don’t have the make-up, or the skills. Yet.”

We then talked about Davey’s personal experiences as a drag queen.

Davey: “Well for starters, I’ve never performed at one of the [drag] clubs. You have to be pretty much be top shit to get in these days. I’ve just done it for parties and things. Just for fun.”

I asked him if the pursuit of “fishiness” was about emulating a standard of beauty.

Davey: “Yeah, I mean, everybody wants to be a supermodel, but I just wanna have fun. I think that as a drag performer, we’re attracted to these images of grandeur and beauty, and some respond by mocking it and others try to become it. It all depends on how you interpret it. It’s art. It’s meant to be that way.”

Summary:

Drag is a performance that plays with the notion of Gender in Western Society. Performances take the form of wild cabaret shows, that showcase vibrant individuals who dress in ways that denounce typical gender norms. Drag can either be a form of Male to Female impersonation, or it can be something crazy and hard to pinpoint. Davey defines drag as a visual art.

As an artist myself, I resonated with Davey’s final statement on gender performance – that art is meant to be multi-faceted. Even within cultures, the meaning of certain performances or pieces of folklore are heavily debated. Ultimately, it’s up to the audience to pick and choose which elements resonate the strongest within themselves.

Trees are Pretty Fucking Beautiful

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/14
Primary Language: English

Text:

“I think I shall never see a poem as pretty as tree.”

Background:

My informant heard this quote from his aunt when he was 10, randomly. He thinks that it means that nature can do amazing things, and people can never make thing as nice. He said that it’s probably a “hippie thing”. He still likes it although he doesn’t think about it all the time because it rhymes and it still makes sense. “Trees are pretty fucking beautiful, and I’m not a huge fan of poetry.”

Context:

My informant’s aunt would say this to him randomly while he was growing up.

Personal Thoughts:

It’s hard to analyze this saying without knowing the informant’s aunt, but I think his interpretation seems pretty plausible. I’m not sure if his aunt made this up herself, or heard it from somewhere else.