Category Archives: general

Meaning Behind The Proverb “In The Land of The Blind, The One Eyed Man is King.”

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: homemaker
Performance Date: 4/21/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Original Text (Latin): “In regione caecorum rex est luscus.”

Translation: “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.” 

Meaning as told by my informant:

“It means that if everything is bad, and one thing is less bad, then it’s automatically the best. It plays on the idea of ‘best’ being a relative term. So literally speaking, someone who has sight in one eye can see more than someone who is blind. Therefore, he’s the best. He rules. In life, if you’re better than people at something, even if you’re not even good at it, you’ll be the best. It’s winning by default. If you were playing a game and the other team forfeited, your team won just because it didn’t quit. You didn’t do anything, but you still did more than the other kids.” 

Background: 

My informant is my mother, who grew up hearing this phrase and doesn’t remember learning it. When I asked her if she knew the saying’s origin, she said “it must’ve come somewhere with a king, so it’s probably European.” She likes the saying because it puts things in perspective: “Once you enter the real world, nothing is perfect. A lot of life is just getting things done the best you can. It’s not like in school where there are grades. Many times, the things that are best aren’t even very good. That can be very comforting or very concerning, depending on your belief system. I think it’s kind of beautiful.” 

Context: 

I am currently in quarantine at my informant/mother’s house, and this piece was collected while we were eating dinner at the kitchen table. 

Thoughts: 

I had always heard this saying in the context of someone getting something by default; they didn’t work hard for it, but they worked harder than others. However, after some research, I learned this specific phrasing is taken from an Erasmus quote in Latin that dates back to 1500, which is likely based off of a Hebrew excerpt from Genesis in the Old Testament “בשוק סמייא צווחין לעווירא סגי נהור”, which translates to “In the street of the blind, the one eyed man is called the Guiding Light.” Once I saw that this proverb is Biblical, it gave me a new perspective on my mother’s idea that it’s “kind of beautiful.” In the Bible, Jesus always says people are perfectly imperfect. While the English proverb in particular is competitive, it also shows that sometimes, even the best people aren’t perfect. I think this saying is a good example of how a proverb can change over time. Biblically, it means that we are all human, and we shouldn’t be so hard on each other. But today, it generally means someone wasn’t good, they were just better. While I don’t imagine myself using this proverb in its original context, it does give me a new appreciation for the saying itself. 

For more information on the proverb’s origin:

Wiktionary. “In-the-Land-of-the-Blind-the-One-Eyed-Man-Is-King.” 

Friendship Bracelets as Folk Art

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: financial analyst
Performance Date: 4/21/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between me (LT) and my informant (AT). 

AT: When I think friendship bracelets, I think of taking strands of embroidery floss, and you knot or braid them in these different patterns, and then when they’re like fully woven, you give them to your friends. The whole idea is you and your friends either make matching ones and swap them, or you can make different ones for each other. Part of the fun in that is picking the colors or patterns you think they’d like. 

LT: But either way you have to make them, and they have to be for the other person, right? 

AT: Yeah, you’re not supposed to make them for yourself… I mean maybe you can? Everyone I know always made them for other people… and honestly I’m sure you can buy them off Etsy or something, but the whole fun in it is the actual process of making them. 

Background:

AT is a 23-year-old female from Los Angeles. She first learned how to make friendship bracelets at a summer camp when she was six years old. Her favorite thing about making friendship bracelets growing up was exchanging them: “I loved how excited my friends would get when I gave them theirs, and I’d always feel really special when they’d give me mine… it was a way we could physically prove to each other that we liked each other I guess.” 

Context: 

AT is one of my relatives with whom I’m quarantining. This piece was collected in our living room as we were sitting on the couch. 

Thoughts:

American female friendships are often depicted in the media as being “catty” or fake, but I think that friendship bracelets show how pure they can be in real life. Having gone to an all girls high school, some of my strongest, most loyal relationships are the ones I have with my female friends. In the context of friendship bracelets, girls take it upon themselves at such a young age to learn special patterns and spend time making them for their friends. I still cherish having that experience with mine. When we all wore the same friendship bracelets, it felt like we were all wearing the same jersey, and we were on the same team. These bracelets are generally made by little girls who might not be eloquent enough to express their emotions accurately, and friendship bracelets are a beautiful way to nonverbally show your friends how much you care, knowing that they’ll understand and likely reciprocate. 

COVID-19 Car Parades

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Thousand Oaks, California
Performance Date: 4/20/2020
Primary Language: English

Background: AR is my college roommate and friend. She spent the first fifteen years of her life in Minneapolis, Minnesota before moving to Thousand Oaks, California for high school. She is currently in her twenties and attends school at the University of Southern California.


Context: AR and I conducted this interview over Zoom, since this was amidst California’s Stay-At-Home orders for COVID -19. Both of our birthdays are coming up within the next few months, so we began speculating how we could celebrate without gathering a large group of people under one roof. AR brought up the idea of car parades, which I then asked her to elaborate on.

Main Piece:

(In the following interview the informant is identified as AR and the interviewer is identified as JS.)

AR: So for my friend’s birthday, her mom organized a little drive-by parade kind of “moment.” Um, and so her brother texted me and asked me if I would come at a certain time and I was like “Heck yeah I will!” Um, so, we surprised her on her birthday and people drove by in their cars and then me and her girlfriend, we got out of the car, and like, stood in her yard and like, had a conversation—social distancing! [Laughs] Um, yeah but that was kind of it because I had class after, so I had to leave early, but yeah it was like a little surprise moment. Yeah.

JS: Did you know about these parades before?

AR: No.

JS: Okay.

AR: But I feel like now that I know about them, like, I’m not that surprised by them, because I know that for a lot of medical workers people do like drive-bys with posters and stuff, so it’s pretty common…form of communicating in quarantine.

JS: How many people participated? Or like cars or whatever?

AR: Um, there were five cars and then two of them had like family friends in them, and then the other three were like me, her girlfriend, and then like another friend.

JS: Did you guys like dress up at all or make posters?

AR: Um, the family friends did—they made posters. Uh, I mean I guess I wore something nice?…Yeah. [laughs]

JS: Did you guys loop around the block multiple times? How’d you guys meet up beforehand?

AR: We didn’t meet up beforehand. So we all just, like, went to their house and parked on the block. And I texted her brother and was like, “I’m here” and he said “Okay, we’re on the patio”—they have a patio above their garage, and so I came out and stood in their driveway with her girlfriend and just chatted and then some other cars came by and just stopped in the street and said hi and then left.

Thoughts: I’ve also had the opportunity to witness COVID-19 car parades, though the ones I saw were far more disruptive than the ones AR describes. For her, it seemed like the “car parade” was mostly an excuse to come over and talk from six feet away. They did not honk repeatedly or circle around the block multiple times or blast music from their cars, as many of these car parades often do. Still, it’s a pretty clever way to socialize with people while “social-distancing” and provides an excuse for people to get out of the house. I’d guess that it’s a far more common occurrence in suburbs, where most participants have access to a car and don’t have to worry about blocking traffic.

Trunk-or-Treat: An Alternative American Halloween Celebration

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Long Beach, California
Performance Date: April 11th, 2020
Primary Language: English

Background Info: JB is a man in his early 20s and a close childhood friend of mine who grew up in Long Beach, California. His parents are from St. Louis, Missouri and Brooklyn, New York. He has attended a large (hundreds of members) Baptist church in South Central LA for his entire life.

Context: We were chatting over the phone about ghost stories, and JB remarked that he never participated in games like Bloody Mary because he believed in them. He then segued into talking about his church and how a lot of that fear of the supernatural originated from attending church.

Main Piece:

(In the interview the informant is identified as JB and the interviewer is ES.)

ES: Do you have any specific stuff your church did? Like what denomination were you guys?

JB: Ooh, so we were Baptist which means we liked money [laughs]. I remember for Halloween we’d always have a Harvest Festival at the church so the kids wouldn’t be out in the world doing Halloween. You would just be in the church—and they would still tell you about your salvation and eternal damnation, and like, it was kinda scary, and then you’d just get candy after your lecture. And I’m like “Uh, okay thanks, thanks Pastor.”

ES: Okay

JB: But yeah, so yeah we’d have like Harvest Festivals and Trunk-or-Treat—

ES: [gasp] Trunk-or-Treat! Yes, please explain Trunk-or-Treat to me because I did it at a [Local Church/Daycare Service] once.

JB: Mhm, so yeah, well yeah, it’s never Halloween cuz it’s church so it’s always “Harvest Time” or whatever. They would usually use the parking lot of the building and everybody of the church, like the members and the deacons, they would park their cars and have their trunks sticking out and open their trunks and you would, like, get to design the little back of your car. You could put spiderwebs or hay and you’d have candy in your trunk and then kids would just kinda walk in a circle around the parking lot and go to each thing and just go home.

ES: Yeah, and were you dressed up and everything?

JB: Yeah they would let little-little kids dress up.

ES: Okay—

JB: And, like, probably the first time I trick-or-treated was like late middle school.

ES: Oh really?

JB: Yeah, the first time my parents actually let me.

JB noted later that it was really only young children and elderly members of the church who participated in Trunk-or-Treat and that “people our age” (teens through early 20s) were probably out actually celebrating Halloween, since that’s what he does now.

Thoughts: It’s worth noting that I also participated in Trunk-or-Treat once, though it was slightly different from JB’s description. Trunk-or-Treat is clearly a spin-off celebration of Halloween, since the name is a pun of the phrase “Trick-or-Treat.” Instead of going door to door and asking for candy by saying “Trick-or-Treat,” children instead go car to car and say “Trunk-or-Treat.” Both A and I experienced “Trunk-or-Treat” in a church context, probably because organizations like churches have both the resources and community pull to hold an event as large as this. JB’s Trunk-or-Treat, however, actually occurred on Halloween itself instead of serving as an additional celebration. It seems like it was designed to keep kids in a controlled environment as opposed to celebrating Halloween, which is considered dangerous by some. JB’s offhand mention of scary Halloween-related sermons and his parents’ reluctance to let him Trick-or-Treat until he was thirteen support this.

East Fitzsimmon’s Road

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Madison, WI
Performance Date: April 27, 2020
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE

East Fitzsimmon’s Road

“When you want to be scared, you go down East Fitzsimmon’s Road.  It’s become sort of a right of passage for teens in Milwaukee to do.  It proves you’re no longer a baby to a lot of them.”

To walk down East Fitzsimmon’s road is a rite of passage many Milwaukee youths complete when they no longer want to be seen as a child.

BACKGROUND

DA, is from Madison, Wisconsin and has lived in the state all her life.  She knows this right of passage from doing it herself when she was a teen and said that it was definitely frightening and that there is a common belief that ghosts exist on this road.

CONTEXT

DA is a cousin I have that goes to college right now.  We sat down and I invited her for a zoom call.  She seemed a bit stressed about her finals, but she was very elated to talk and take a break from studying for her chemistry exam.

THOUGHTS

Ghosts are very popular in Southern culture, but you don’t hear as much about them in a big Midwestern city like Milwaukee.  It’s been proven, upon further research, that there are no ghosts that roam East Fitzsmmon’s road, yet for the thrills,  the belief they exist is still there.  The rite of passage aspect of this piece of folklore probably perpetuates the belief in ghosts as it gives it a reason why it is so “spooky”.

For a greater understanding of this folklore check out this article…

Hrodey, Matt. “Milwaukee Myth-O-Meter: 5 Local Myths, Busted.” Milwaukee Magazine, 30 July 2018, www.milwaukeemag.com/milwaukee-myth-o-meter-local-myths-busted/.