Britney Spears Story

Nationality: American
Age: 35
Occupation: Playwright and Market Research Survey Programmer
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/22/17
Primary Language: English

The impulse to attribute outrageous sexual behavior to celebrities may serve as a way to differentiate them further from the people who make them famous in a vertical model of cultural production–perhaps establishing a binary between us and them.  It is also interesting to observe which communities tell this story about which artists: that this story hadn’t been popular since Queen was hot and new in Los Angeles, but that it was being recycled every few years in a small town in Eastern Iowa seems to say something about what kinds of behavior, and by whom, are considered beyond the pale, and where those lines are drawn.

Informant: Yeah, um, I realize I’m not sure I remember this correctly. I thought I was younger when this happened, but Britney spears was not a thing until I was finishing high school. But the story I heard was that Britney Spears did a concert near Iowa City and she had to go to the hospital and have her stomach pumped.

Interviewer: I feel like I’ve heard this about Freddy Mercury.

Informant: Are you gonna let me tell this or not?  So she was unconscious and she had to go to the emergency room and they pumped her stomach and they had to pump out six ounces of semen.

Interviewer: Freddy Mercury had a quart.

Informant: In Burlington, when they tell this story, it’s six ounces.

Interviewer: Who’d you hear it from?

Informant: Some guy in high school.

So I repeated this to my brother Aaron for some reason, and so Aaaron said, when I heard that story, it was about Rod Stewart, and he was saying that his friend at the time had a can of pop in his hand, and so they were able to eyeball what six ounces looks like.  It’s a lot.  And Rod Stewart is bigger than Britney Spears.

 

Protective Superstition: String in Mouth

Nationality: American
Age: 75
Occupation: Student Advisor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/12/17
Primary Language: English

You always hold a string in your mouth when someone is cutting or pinning something on you, and that way they won’t cut you by accident, or stick you with the pin.  I’m not sure how or why, but my grandmother was a seamstress and her mother was a seamstress, and you can bet nobody ever pinned or cut anything on me, when I was trying it on, you know, without a string in my mouth.  My mother and my grandmother, they just wouldn’t do it.  I don’t know why, it’s just how it was.

 

Informant does indeed come from a family of seamstress.  The interviewer was unable to verify other sources for this superstition, but it is clearly a sort of contagious magic: that if the person holds a string in their mouth, the wholeness of that string will somehow keep them whole.  It probably also serves a more practical purpose–reminding the person to stay still and quiet while the seamstress works on them.

The Flying Asshole

Nationality: American
Age: 77
Occupation: Retired dentist and underwater photographer
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/17
Primary Language: English

So I think I learned this in Cozumel, but I’ve seen it in Fiji and Palau and the Bahamas and here, too, when you’re underwater, or when you’re not underwater, but I learned this from other scuba divers, and it’s how I’ve seen it used, I’ve only seen it used underwater when someone’s, you know, landed hard on a reef and fucked it up, or kicked someone accidentally, or whatever.

But the flying asshole, it starts out as the ok sign, that circle with your forefinger and thumb, but then you wave the rest of your fingers and sort of bounce your hand across.

It’s the universal sign for, “I’m fine, but how about that flying asshole?”

Informant was an underwater photographer and for many years, and divers do have their own formal sign language, but an informal sign language has developed around the standardized one, particularly among professional divers–people who do it for money, rather than enjoy it as an expensive hobby. It seems to separate the sheep from the goats, the dabblers from the polished pros, while establishing the same sort of class division any other difference in dialect might.

How to Live a Long Life, According to a 102 Year Old

Nationality: American
Age: 102
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 02/28/17
Primary Language: English

Informant is 102 years old, and has become quite practiced in answering the question, “what’s your secret for living so long?”

She was recently hospitalized after an operation, and the interviewer was able to record the following instructions for living to an old age:

Well, the thing is this, it’s all about the moderation.  And being consistent.  You don’t let anything fall by the wayside.

So everyone knows you move around every day, not to little and not too much, I like to climb stairs when I can and take walks.  Everyone knows about exercise  And you eat some vegetables every day and more is better than less, everyone knows that, but the thing my mother really believed in and that she learned from her mother who learned it from her mother and that I haven’t yet gone a day without doing is every day you have a little bit of chocolate, just a piece of it or chocolate ice cream or something.

Used to be we would come home from school for lunch and there would be maybe some cabbage soup or something, kasha and mushrooms or what have you, but always there was a piece of plain chocolate cake and a big glass of milk, and you don’t go back to school until you’ve had your cake and milk.  And on the weekend it was for breakfast.  But every day it was very important to my mother because her mother taught her, every day, you have a little bit of chocolate.

My mother was hit by a car so we don’t know if the chocolate would have kept her alive so long or not, but her mother, she lived for a long time, and she did it every day.  And I’m 102 and I do it every day.   And my sister, she’s 97, and she is in very poor health, and she never ate the chocolate because she didn’t want to be heavy.  But I tell her you can’t live on bread alone and she tells me that’s not what that means and I tell her who’s to say what’s living?

Ouija Boards

Nationality: American
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Encino, CA
Performance Date: March 6th, 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant was asked if he’d ever seen anything that was haunted, and described an experience he had while on a playdate at a friend’s house.

Informant: My friend had a oiuja board, and he, like, he got real mad, got scared, he yelled at his mom, because she put it away and it was, like, it was inside the house and facing up, and like, you’re not supposed to do that, you’re supposed to put it away facing down and outside is better, they believe, because they think that then the spirit can get out., the spirit that is in the board and answering questions. Also if they tell you their name when you contact them, you’re not supposed to say the name of the spirit.  Not even to try to pronounce it or whatever.

Interviewer: Why? What happens?

Informant: The spirit gets released, and it–it gets out of the board.

Interviewer: And then?

Informant: Depending whether it’s mad or not, it’ll maybe haunt whoever released them.  And the board also, you know, there’s nobody in it then to answer the questions anymore.

Where are they from?

His mom is from Hungary, and she was glad when he pointed out that she put it away wrong because she believes it too.