KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/19/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his family when he told me this proverb. I like this idea of the proverb being an engineering saying, an occupational proverb.

 

Piece:

“When my dad was teaching me, um, woodworking and we were getting into making. And that was the start of me getting into engineering there was an axiom that’s like everywhere in engineer but he specifically drilled it into me so I always think about him that is KISS which is Keep It Simple Stupid”

 

EmPHAsis on the wrong syLAble

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/19/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. We were talking about his family when he told me this proverb. I’ve heard this dite a lot and wanted to collect it. It’s not too interesting.s

 

Piece:

“My dad would always say “put the EmPHAsis on the wrong syLAble” whenever he messed up saying something or I messed up saying something, so that just ran into me.

 

Lizard City Under Los Angeles

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/19/18
Primary Language: English

Context:

The subject is a white man from Dallas, Texas. I asked if he knew any urban legends and this was his response. This reminds me of the Sewer Alligator or Molepeople of New York and I like to think that all cities believe that there is another one underneath them.

 

Piece:

“There’s this myth that there’s this lizard world underneath LA that people are like lizards who live in caves and have their own community. Like there were these two guys were went to go find them like early on in LA history and never came back. I think the city was meant to look like a lizard. I remember reading about it online. Something in the 30s, I think the lizards were either aliens or related to ancient civilizations, or maybe bomb testing, super weird. I don’t think it’s true.”

 

La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: Early 40s
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 21 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Context: I was teaching a class of 6th graders through the Joint Education Project (JEP) in a middle school near USC. Almost all of the students in the class are of Latino descent. When I asked the class to tell me any legends that they knew, this was the most commonly known one amongst the students (whose names have been replaced with aliases). 

Discussion

Instructor: Can anyone tell me a legend that they have heard of? Maybe one I would not know (the students knew that I was from Ireland and might not know some of their culture’s legends).

Angel: Oh sir, sir! (raising his hand high)

Instructor: Yes, Angel. (gesturing to him to speak)

Angel: La Llorona is a legend.

Instructor: Who’s that?

Angel: She’s like a evil spirit that roams around at night near lakes n stuff and if you hear her scream or…eh…see her, I think (slowed down expressing unsureness), it means you’re gunna die soon.

Instructor: Where did you learn this legend?

Angel: My mom told me.

Instructor: Has anyone else heard of this legend?

Most of the students nodded or said ‘yeh’ or ‘uhuhh’ in response.

Mr. Salamander (presiding teacher): When I was a kid, my mom told me that story too. It’s to scare kids to keep them from wandering around at night, especially near lakes or rivers ye’know? La Llorona means like uh…weeping lady.

Instructor: Do you know the backstory to the legend?

Mr. Salamander: Yah. Apparently, she drowned her kids after her husband left her for a younger woman and so know she is cursed to wander the Earth as a spirit. So she weeps for her children and looks for other kids to drown or replace her own or something.

Analyses

Clearly this legend has a didactic purpose to keep children from wandering at night, especially near bodies of water. Legends can be useful in this way because children don’t have as much of an appreciation for how dangerous the world can be like adults do. Children have a tendency to think that they’re somehow indestructible and can put themselves in dangerous situations, like standing on the edge of river banks, without appreciating the threat of the situation. These kinds of stories help to give those dangers a face, and a scary face at that, which children respond to better than mere adult interdictions. An adult saying, ‘stay away from the water, it’s dangerous’ will not be taken to heart by a child as much as them saying, ‘remember, if you go too close to the river, La Llorona might come out weeping and drag you under the water’.

Creepy LA Hotel Death (Elisa Lam)

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Context:

The subject is an Asian woman, born in China, who has lived in Los Angeles for most of her life. I asked about Los Angeles urban legends and she told me this story. I’ve seen this story online and only online before, so much of the story is in the video which appears on several websites. This is a good example of online folklore.

 

Piece:

“Remember there’s that happened a couple years ago. There’s this girl, asian girl who disappeared in a hotel in LA. And then like weeks later they found her body in like the boiler room in like a big can of water where like people shower from. People were either saying that she was possessed and like kill herself, cause like theres footage of her, I need to look this up, it’s very recent, couple years. She went inside the elevator and she was like talking to like invisible man inside the elevator and she was like kinda wandering around. And then like she walked out and no one see her ever again after like that elevator. They found her dead. So no one really figured out how she got from point A to point B. I read it online when it just came out. Yeah, the internet. It wasn’t official, like LA times, but it was some sort of news website, I would like to say Buzzfeed. Really creepy videos online. It turned into this whole mythical, like she was possessed.”

 

Here’s a Buzzfeed video of the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48jBi86ih5Q