Category Archives: general

Memorate: A Coworker’s Ghostly Encounter

Context:

Informant N is the collector’s supervisor in the technology department of USC SCA. He is 27 years old and grew up in Denver, Colorado until age 7, when he moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. His father’s family is from the “deep south,” and his mother was “an army brat” who lived mostly near the east coast. N’s family has been in the US “since the mayflower,” and his ancestry is mostly German, Northern English, and Welsh. He now lives in Los Angeles, CA and is a singer/songwriter, as well as an employee of the film school’s technology services.

Text:

Informant: “Okay so when I was a kid, my mom – in the first floor, this was like a three story house, the house was like a hundred years old if not more. Um, classic brick style home, it was in Denver. And there was a doctor who lived in the house with his um… I think she was a distraught person, probably back then. Like she probably had some mental illness that was untreated and you know, back then they kind of skewed those people into obscure…”

Collector: “What year was this?”

Informant: “Oh this was like 30s (…). So she was a well-known pianist at the time and she eventually committed suicide in the house and the house was also a historical site. So the house is old, there have been people who lived there who had some musical connection and there was the suicide and you know… There was a couple times growing up where I would hear the piano play and my sister would hear the piano play while we were upstairs and my mom wasn’t home playing the piano nor was my dad or whatever, or we had a babysitter at the time. So there was just a couple weird moments in that house where the piano would be playing and we’d go downstairs and it would stop playing so whether that’s true or not I don’t know but I remember it and my sister clearly remembers it and to this day it’s very bizarre to me and it makes me feel a little… (*informant trails off*)”

Collector: “How did you find out about the woman who died?”

Informant: “My parents – my mom found out about it after they bought the house. The history of the house.”

Collector: “From who?”

Informant: “I think from a neighbor’s family or something. (…) It was like a local thing so it was kind of weird. (…) The piano that was in the house was over a hundred years old at the time.”

The informant also mentioned that his sister, who was 8 or 9 at the time of the piano incidents, is “still perturbed” by them to this day. He also mentioned that he experienced what he called “typical ghost stuff” – that he would hear dogs barking at nothing, and that one of the room’s in the house (his sister’s room) was specifically colder than others. His family checked and made sure that “the piano wasn’t a player” piano (a self-playing piano), and noted that the music he heard was notably classical, and that the woman who had died was a classical pianist.

Interpretation:

N’s ghost story seems pretty typical upon first glance, but I find it interesting because of both his personal context and folkloric trends in memorates. For one thing, the informant seems to truly believe that all of this happened and that something supernatural was going on because his sister also experienced it. He mentioned her multiple times throughout the story and when he was providing more context, and we’ve talked a number of times about how people tend to believe what their peers, family, friends, etc do. What’s more, his family heard about the woman who supposedly died in the house from a neighbor, making this particular figure almost a local legend. While I wouldn’t label her a full-on urban legend for lack of popularity or name, the story about her being mentally unstable and her death in the house is legend-like. She has the traits of one as a woman believed to be mentally unwell and responsible for a haunted area. The apparent ghost is not necessarily true, but there is a negotiation of sorts about whether to believe it for the informant, his family, and his neighbors. This woman’s story lines up with a lot of what we know about ghosts – having unfinished business of some sort (to play music for others), hauntings that happen when things don’t go as they should (her suicide), and the idea that ghosts’ have property even after death (the piano). This story is definitely a memorate for the informant, who seems unsure whether he believes in ghosts entirely, but is fairly convinced that something happened in this house, and still finds it inexplicable and bizarre 20 years later.

Memorate: My Great-Grandparents’ UFO Sighting

Context:

Informant J is a 73 year old Mexican-American man and is the collector’s grandfather. He is from San Jose, California, but his family moved there from parts of Texas and Mexico. For the majority of his life, J was a manager at a regional grocery store, and studied art in college with a focus in jewelry making. J is now retired and his hobbies include guitar playing, metal working, and reworking vintage cars.

Text:

(Please excuse typos, this is an unaltered text message from the informant): “There was an incident that happened when my parents were traveling to Del Rio Texas. They were in the middle of the desert headed for DR when they noticed a bright light shining behind their car they thought it was another car coming up behind them with their high beams on or maybe a bright light from a train. My dad as afraid to pull over for fear that it might be something nefarious. Needless to say they traveled 20 miles or so and they still had the light shining on their car. After traveling a bit farther the light shifted to above the car and  suddenly the light disappeared and everything was dark again. My mom said that she was pregnant with me and they were freaked out about what had occurred. There were a large number of ufo sightings in that area during that period of time. No one could explain what had occurred!”

Interpretation:

My grandpa mentions that this happened to his parents when there were common UFO sightings in the area at the time. Based on what I know about my family, this happened either in 1949 or 1950, right before my grandpa was born. I find it interesting that a bright light alone was enough to convince my great grandparents that a UFO may have been traveling alongside them. This memorate doesn’t involve contact with any actual ‘alien’ creatures or strange technology – just a bright light – but the popularity of alleged UFO sightings in the late 40s and early 50s is definitely at play here. My family members were probably more likely to believe that what they saw was a UFO or alien spaceship because that was a common occurrence in the community around them. A quick google search provides many results for Texas alien sightings in those years. Although this memorate doesn’t reference a specific legend or named figure, aliens in general function similarly to legends – in that there is a negotiation of belief surrounding them and peoples’ ideas about them are influenced by their peers. It’s also notable my grandpa was told this happened while his mother was pregnant with him – he is a staunch believer in the supernatural, as was his mother.

Folk Belief: On Money and Hands

Context:

Informant E is a 21 year old USC student studying American Studies and Ethnicity. She identifies as Chicana and and was born and raised in the greater Los Angeles area. E is a junior at the university and is the interviewer’s roommate.

Text:

E: “So if my right hand – the palm of my right hand – is itchy, I put it in my pocket, because it means I’m gonna get money. If the left palm/hand is itchy, that means I owe someone money. So I have to scratch it.”

Interviewer: “Did you learn this from someone?”

E: “My family.”

A friend, also in the room: “If you scratch it does it mean that you don’t owe them money?”

E: “Like I’m not gonna get – it could mean, like, ‘Oh I have to pay rent soon,’ so it’ll start itching. Or I have to go pay someone back because they took me out to go eat. So then that means I have to get them back.” “If I scratch my hand, I don’t have to pay them back. Sometimes.”

Interviewer: “So who taught you this?”

E: “My grandma and then my grandma taught my mom and then me.”

Interpretation:

E’s folk belief is a kind of self-soothing ritual and, though a bit more complicated, I would compare it easily to knocking on wood or throwing salt over one’s shoulder. It’s clearly been passed down to her as familial knowledge. I did search for more information online and found that the superstition originates in the Caribbean which, although not part of Latin America, is close to it, and the belief itself seems to have spread easily throughout the world. I find it interesting that this belief has to do with hands, as I feel there’s a through-line in history. Bartering relied heavily on hands, and handshakes or palms are often symbols of such agreements. Trade and bartering then became money or payment, which is still then associated with hands, and is what I would argue led to this superstition. In general, money obviously is a good thing to have and a bad thing to lose, so this self-soothing ritual can be comforting and seems so common because of that universal truth about the value of money. The scratching part of this belief makes it a ritual or a form of jinx (re: like knocking on wood) in my opinion, as the participant is doing something tangible, as if to put the belief into effect.

A Friend’s Family Tradition: Christmas Pajamas

Context:

Informant K is a 20 year old USC student majoring in Narrative Studies. She is from the Seattle area in Washington state. K was born in Boston, MA, moved to San Francisco, CA, and then to Seattle at age 3. Her extended family is from parts of Canada and, though her immediate family is not religious, K’s grandmother is Christian. K is a sophomore and has been living in LA for 2 years.

We exchanged folklore as a group during a designated time in our discussion section. We went around in a circle, and this was one of my friend’s stories.

Text:

K: “Mine is also a Christmas tradition. I don’t know if this started with, like, earlier back or if this was a ‘my parents’ kind of introduction or invention but we do Christmas pajamas. So every year on Christmas – on Christmas Eve – we get to open one present. And that is our Christmas pajamas. And it always starts with my mom being like ‘Go look under the tree!’ like ‘Go look for your pajamas!’ And so they’re usually not – I mean sometimes they’re set out? When we were younger it was more like we got to root through the presents under the tree and find our Christmas pajamas and the tag always says, like, ‘Happy Christmas Eve! Love Mom and Dad.’ And then we open them and they usually have a fun little pattern on them, like sometimes they’re candy canes. The ones I got last year were a little less christmassy it was more just animals in a Wintery forest. And my sister and I – we used to get like strictly matching ones, now we get more like coordinating ones. I think as we’ve gotten older, my mom was like, ‘Okay, I’ll give them a little bit more… like I’ll tailor this a little bit more to their personal styles.’ And then we have to go upstairs and we have to try them on and we do like a little mini fashion show for our parents and she’s like ‘Oh, yeah! Those look nice!’ And then we take a picture, usually in front of the tree and you have to go to bed wearing your Christmas pajamas. I don’t think that’s a hard and fast rule but, like, I would never take off my Christmas pajamas ‘cause that would feel like an insult to my parents, and also it just makes it fun and festive.”

A friend, also in the circle: “Is Christmas pajamas just you and your sister or do all of your… do your parents also get…?”

K: “I don’t think my parents get pajamas. I don’t remember if they did at one point but from what I can remember now it’s just me and my sister.”

Interpretation:

What K is explaining is a clear tradition – something contemporary that is done each year. I find it intriguing to discuss costumes or outfits as tradition, because wearing them is inherently a kind of performance. K also mentions ‘showing off’ the pajamas to her mother in smaller ‘fashion show’ performances. Her tradition is observable and fits the general description of one, yet it’s debatable in its references to the past or source material, as K doesn’t actually know the origin. It’s also worth noting that K takes this tradition very seriously – she wouldn’t dream of changing out of the pajamas. As far as I can tell, K’s tradition seems rooted in Americana. Matching pajama sets date back to the age of the nuclear family, so it’s fitting that this is a sibling tradition for the informant. Wearing matching clothes for holidays specifically is common, but I would argue that doing so for a Westernized version of Christmas is a way of creating tradition for an originally religious holiday when the participant isn’t actively religious. It’s a conspicuous example of that which is popular in an immigration-heavy society like the United States. To create a tradition is to strengthen identity, because those who participate in tradition are then considered part of an in-group.

Russian Tradition: New Year’s Eve Cinema

Context:

Informant M is a 21 year old Cinema and Media Studies major from Upstate New York and Florida. He minors in Russian Language and Culture and is passionate about Soviet Cinema. He is a junior at USC and has been living in the area for 3 years.

Text:

“In, I think 1972… in the 1970s, a movie was released in two parts in Russia called The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath. And it was a TV movie, so it was broadcast in sections, but it’s basically about this guy, Evgeny, which is like the Russian version of being named John. Who basically gets super pissed with his buds on New Year’s Eve and ends up… his friends end up pranking him and putting him on a plane, blackout drunk, in the place of one of their other friends. And he flies from Moscow to… I think it’s St. Petersburg. And because – and it’s like a joke about the setup of Soviet cities – his address goes to an identical building with an identical lock and so he gets to what he thinks is his house. And it’s not his house, it’s a woman named Nadia’s house. And the movie is just like, the two of them – she’s got a fiance – just the two of them like gradually falling in love. But the first half of the movie is before New Year’s Eve and the second half of the movie is after New Year’s Eve, after they’ve had their moment and they’ve kissed and it’s beautiful and then there’s other problems but that’s like the middle of the movie. And so every year, on Russian state TV and also Russians will watch it on their own, they will broadcast the first half of Irony of Fate on New Year’s Eve and the second half immediately after midnight and people will watch it and it’s just a tradition because the two halves of the movie are also split by New Year’s Eve.”

Interpretation:

Upon first glance, the tradition M described seems lighthearted, perhaps lacking in depth. The concept of watching a film that takes place over New Years on New Year’s Eve and into the new year is fun and simple. It’s easily classified as a tradition. It’s something observable and in which outsiders can participate. In fact, the informant and I attempted to watch The Irony of Fate on New Year’s 2023, but fell asleep before it ended. Furthermore, I believe there to be much more cultural commentary involved in this tradition. For one thing, it’s part of a greater national identity. It’s broadcasted on public television networks and accessible to Russian people. The film includes jokes and bits that are recognizably Russian – something which helps certify identity time and again. What’s more, the film is a rom-com, perhaps the most popular genre and one which can unite viewers. Plus, there seems to be a focus on domestic values of love and friendship, something significant and worth holding onto in periods of change during life (such as New Year’s Eve).