Category Archives: Kinesthetic

Body movements

GRANDPA’S FIRST EXORCISM

Age: 19

For this story, I spoke to my friend. He told me this story that he got from his grandfather. The following is told from his first person perspective about his grandfather.

INTERVIEWEE: “When my grandpa was 25 years old he was a deacon at a church in Riverside, California. During his time, he had some house calls regularly. He was a deacon until he was around 40 so he saw a lot of different stuff at peoples’ houses. They would typically send him to houses to pray over new houses, old people, deceased, etc. However, one time he was asked to come to a home to perform a literal exorcism which was very out of the ordinary for him.

He thought this was unusual because he had never done anything like this before. One day, the church sent him to this house to perform the exorcism on this teenage girl who was spasming out, blaspheming, and acting really funky in general. The parents had no idea what to do so they called up my grandpa who and some other people with then church. My grandpa showed up with a few other priests. The other priests must have brought a bible, a cross, and some holy water.

They went into the house and the parents directed them into the room where the teenage girl was. She couldn’t sit still. They did something and they got the demon out of her; repeating a prayer or splashing holy water on her. She tried to jump away from it, but eventually she hit the ground and started shaking and screaming for a couple minutes. During this, the priests recited the prayer again and again. Then she passes out.

The girl didn’t wake up until the following morning super exhausted. She ended up being totally fine afterwards, with no signs of possession or evil spirits holding inside her anymore yet having no idea what had happened. This actually was the last and only exorcism my grandpa had to perform during his time being a deacon; this being a very different experience for him.”

My thoughts: I find it super interesting that his grandfather never did another exorcism after this, nor having done one prior. Around this time, which was maybe the 1970’s, the first Exorcist film came out, which made exorcisms more believed in during this time perchance, which may be why he got this house call in particular. With this, the details such as the girl forgetting everything that had happened, as well as the possession itself, it makes this story very unique; especially in the perspective of someone who has never experienced something like this.

Exploding Sodium

Text: During his Peace Corps years teaching chemistry in Fiji, JW would take his students down to the bay every now and then with a chunk of sodium. His school lab had real sodium, kept in oil. He would fish out a small piece and throw it as far as possible into the water. It would skim across the surface and then catch fire and sometimes explode. The students loved it. He had seen it done by another teacher before trying it himself.

Context: JW is my father. He served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Fiji for two years following his undergraduate studies, teaching high school chemistry at a local school. The demonstration is not part of any sanctioned curriculum, but rather an informal reward to a well-behaved class. It is generally considered dangerous, and therefore impossible in a well supervised urban school setting. JW has not seen the practice done outside of his peace corps years in Fiji. He has retold this story to me on several occasions.

Analysis: This is a good example of occupational lore. The sodium demonstration is a chemistry teacher’s vernacular practice: it is not taught in the credentialing program, and the manuals tell you not to do it; you learn it from your own teacher and transmit it to your students. Its status as both pedagogically vivid and institutionally suspect is what gives it folkloric stability: every chemistry teacher who has ever done it remembers their own teacher’s version, and JW’s repeated retelling of the story, with the same opening and the same skimming and the same explosion, is itself an iteration of the form that keeps the practice circulating. The Peace Corps placement adds a second layer. An American chemistry-teacher folkway moved with JW to Fiji and entered a different pedagogical ecology, where his students may now be carrying it forward as their own, possibly without ever knowing whose Ohio classroom it had been picked up from in the first place.

Pre-show ritual – Will Bundy

Text:

CS: We would gather… usually it was before every opening. We would all gather together, um, like, everyone on the crew. And the stage manager, who would be calling the show, would say a prayer to the theatre gods. And we would all have out hands on their head in a circle around them. And then they would say like, “I just hope this show goes well, everyone did so good…” usually it was something along those lines. And once they were done, we would all raise up our arms and go “whoooooooa, Bundy!”

Context: CS is a college student in Southern California who attended an arts high school in Santa Ana. This school had conservatories focused on different art forms, and CS was in Production & Design (P&D), which focused on technical theatre and design elements in live performance.

CS: I have been told conflicting things.My brother, he says that it’s like how in The Mighty Ducks, the movies, they would say “quack, quack!” Like, that’s our “quack, quack.” But, um, the lore that I was told is that Will Bundy was the first P&D student admitted to Production & Design. Like, top of the roster, “B,” Bundy, top of the alphabetical order. And so we’re like, honoring him by saying Will Bundy. And it’s either “whoa, Bundy,” or “Will Bundy,” depending on who you ask.

Analysis:

I think this is a very interesting pre-show ritual. It contains some marks of common pre-show theatre rituals–the standing in a circle, touching hands, a “leader” figure within the group saying some kind of affirmation or “prayer” hoping for a good show, as well as recognizing the work of the people around them–but the chant is one I’ve never heard before. I think the supposed connection to the first student of the program is very sweet, and represents a kind of honoring of the work of the students of the program through all the years of its existence. It’s almost a celebration of the technical theatre program and all the unrecognized work that these students would do.

Falling AC Units

Text:

In New York City, there was a common fear of Air Conditioners falling from buildings and crushing pedestrians.

Context:

Informant grew up in NYC in the 70s/80s, and was often told to be careful and look out for falling air conditioners, as apparently, they were common. At least, that is what she was told and raised to believe.

Analysis:

This belief is something I have heard of before, though it is less common now, in my experience. Still, it is rooted in a real fear, and it encouraged children to be much more cautious and aware of their surroundings.

Frozen Faces

Text:

Parents would tell their children that if they make funny faces too much, their faces will be stuck like that forever.

Context:

The informant was told this as a child, and noted that it was said generally either in jest or as a light way to discourage them from being immature/disrespectful and making faces all the time. They also carried this on and said it occasionally to their own child, though mostly in teasing.