Indian Dancing Ritual

Nationality: Indian
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Performance Date: 3/23/18
Primary Language: Hindi (urdu)
Language: English

Collection:  Indian wedding dances – groom’s side

During a discussion about Indian weddings, the informant mentioned that the groom is not allowed to see the bride before the ceremony. On the day of the ceremony, the groom and his family travel to the bride in an extravagant dancing parade which symbolizes him claiming her as his wife.

Context/Interpretation: Folk dancing is performed for various reasons, and in this case, the dance portrays a traditional action. Further, dancing at wedding is a pretty universal concept, however this dancing demonstration signifies a deeper meaning which the the initiation into marriage. This dance is rite of passage ritual.

 

Ravioli Ravioli

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Barrington, IL
Performance Date: 3/23/18
Primary Language: English

Collection: Family Holiday Tradition

A: “Do you have any family holiday traditions?”

B: “We will make ravioli from scratch when we get together because we are Italian. We are very Italian. Like my grandparents immigrated from Italy, and they used to own a pizzeria. My dad actually used to work in the pizzeria when he was in high school. Um…and so we have our own family recipes and sauce recipes.”

A: “Could I get one of the recipes?”

B: “I could, but the only way you could get it is if you married me.”

A/B: *laughter*

Context/Interpretation: The informant’s family tradition and recipe stems from a long line of Italian family members. I find the pizzeria anecdote slightly ironic because of the idea of “authenticity” in foreign restaurants. Does this collection make the recipe authentic? Who gives it the authenticity? Perhaps in this case, the tradition and recipe has vernacular authority through the large family.

 

A Christmas Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Greenwich, CT
Performance Date: 4/19/18
Primary Language: English

Collection: folk belief/ghost legend

A: “Have you had any weird experiences? Something out of the ordinary? Or do you know of an unusual story?”

B:“Yeah! Um… one time, my mom’s friend was putting up lights in her Christmas tree and got a feeling, and then the lights flickered. And like five seconds later, her dad called and said that her mom just died.

A: “And you said that she had a feeling?”

B: “She just got like a really weird feeling as if she knew that her mom just died. Like she knew that something was wrong with her mom, and the lights on the tree were flickering.”

Context/Interpretation: This collection implies that the informant believes in some sort of soul or being after death. Also, it’s interesting that this story took place during the Christmas season because holidays hold significance in other ways. This narrative turns the ordinary into the strange which can be a common characteristic of folklore.

 

Oscar Watch Party

Nationality: USA
Age: 24
Occupation: Talent Agent
Residence: Silver Lake, CA
Performance Date: 3/04/18
Primary Language: English

To provide context, the ‘awards season’ is a film industry term that refers to the months and awards shows leading up the final, and most historically prestigious show, the Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars). Held at the end of each year to recognize various achievements in filmmaking, the awards given in this show are considered the highest achievement in the entertainment world.

 

Despite being centered on a relatively small industry, the place of movies is highly visible in the eyes of the American public, given that they are seen by millions of people. Therefore, it becomes a popular group activity to try and predict the winners of the Academy Awards, given its competitive nature, the widely familiar subject matter and the ability of anyone to play.

 

The following situation illustrates an ‘Oscar watch party’ with a number of guests at the house of a friend during the airing of the 90th Academy Awards. It should be noted this took place in Los Angeles, the seat of the film industry and the location of nearly all the awards shows, with the hosting friend a prominent producer in said industry:

 

Invited guests arrived at the host’s home in the hours preceding the show, with a dinner of pasta and salad being prepared at the same time. A number of appetizing foods were laid out for the meantime- chips, salsa, queso, guacamole, and bottled beers, with the television switched to the channel that the show would soon air on.

 

The awards show itself is preceded by a ‘red carpet’ program where nominees and their guests, naturally forming a sizable body of famous celebrities and movie stars in a single location. The stars are documented arriving to the venue of the awards show, showcasing elaborate dresses and participating in interviews.

 

The presence of this program allows a pleasant occupation of time before the actual show begins, alongside the appetizers and friendly conversation. During this time, the host additionally distributed ballots with a complete list of nominees in each category for guests to fill out and make their respective predictions.

 

As the show began, dinner was served alongside more alcohol-heavy tequila margaritas, ballots were handed in, and guests took their seats before the television.

 

Loud cheers, boos, praises, and surprises filled the room as each winner was announced over the course of the three hours making up the show. All the while, guests checked off their ballots to see whether they were correct or not in their predictions.

 

By the show’s end, the person with the greatest amount of correct marks earned a moment of pride, along with a physical prize of the last margarita.

 

On a further explanatory note regarding the Academy Awards and the fervor that comes to surround its airing, the months preceding the Academy Awards are peppered with smaller, less prominent awards shows (Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globes, BAFTAs) most of whose voting members have great amounts of crossover with the voting body of the Academy. Altogether, the nominees and winners of these preceding awards illustrate candidates of favorability to eventually be nominated for an Academy Award. Once the nominees have actually been announced, the winners and nominees of the awards leading up to the final show helpfully contribute to an overall historical record of statistics that allow one to pinpoint the likely ultimate winners.

 

With so many factors and events that present an increasingly clearer picture of who might win an Oscar, competition can become understandably heated as to making accurate predictions. The most interesting contentions arise when viewers are attached to certain films, directors, actors, or other nominees and insist their likelihood to win despite statistics suggesting otherwise. Given that there have been plenty of surprises and snubs throughout its 90-year history, upsets are not out of the question.

 

Although bets are frequently placed on the winners, this was not the case in the matter of this watch party’s ballot. The non-necessity of betting likely suggests the reason why so many people participate in the guessing-game conversation regarding the Academy Awards, being that the only thing at stake for most participants is the pride lost from having made an incorrect prediction.

Sore Tooth Joke

Nationality: USA
Age: 29
Occupation: Agriculture
Residence: La Quinta, CA
Performance Date: 2/23/18
Primary Language: English

The following story is a joke collected from an older cousin during a brief car ride to a hiking area. Instead of turning to music or media-based entertainment as means to pass and occupy time, my cousin and I tend to exchange long dialogues of personal philosophies and other similar thoughts. Because these types of conversations tend to last for extended periods of time, and given that this car ride would only last about ten minutes, we instead opted to share our favorite ‘dirty jokes,’ ie, anecdotal passages of humor that typically rely on sexual topics as their main basis of humor.

The joke goes as follows:

“So this man, just your average joe, he’s driving around in backwoods Louisiana, taking in the manner of the country and whatnot, looking for some local character.

He comes up on a bar, this nasty old shack of a place right on the water. Rickety, pieced together, looks like a hell of a time if you can manage to handle it. Anyway, he walks up to the front door with a few hints of second thoughts and then sees a bright yellow notice posted on the front. Big capital letters, reads: ‘Lifetime of Free Beer for anyone who completes the Three-Tier Challenge.’

So the guy shrugs and goes on in. Place is a madhouse, needless to say. He doesn’t fit in at all with his office drone attire compared to all these boondocks Louisiana maniacs.  Sure you can picture that pretty easily. Anyway, he goes up to the bartender and tells him he’s interested in the Three-Tier Challenge.

Guy looks at him like he’s crazy. ‘You sure?’

The man nods, and the bartender tells him the details:

‘Alright, well first, you gotta down a bottle of our specialty flaming pepper tequila. Without crying. Second, there’s a mean ol’ fifteen foot alligator out back with a sore tooth. And once you get that tooth out, you gotta head upstairs and take care of the roughest, toughest hooker in all of Louisiana.’

The man nods. And he goes ahead and starts.

He gets set up with the pepper tequila, and after a few long and painful minutes, he gets through the entire bottle without a single tear. Everyone’s impressed.

He stumbles out the door, drunk as shit, where the alligator’s waiting for him. Closes the door behind him. Everyone inside thinks ‘oh boy, this guy’s a goner’.

And then they hear the sounds. Thrashing, roaring, the most terrifying shrieks imaginable. Noises they don’t think could possibly come from either the man or the alligator. Even the toughest souls in that saloon are haunted to the core. The noise stops. Everyone’s quiet.

In walks the man, his outfit torn to pieces, covered in blood. He looks at the bartender and asks

‘ALRIGHT! WHERE’S THAT HOOKER WITH THE SORE TOOTH!’ ”

This particular joke certainly shows the effectiveness of using the combined surprise of subverted expectations and abrupt endings as a comedic tool. In this instance, the listener is expecting to hear the encapsulating line to the joke following the patron’s completion of the third task, but instead, his faulty (and cringe-inducing) completion of the second task serves to cut the joke short without leaving anything unresolved.