Point at the Stars and get a Wart

TEXT:

SS: “The first one is one I always got told while growing up. While you’re stargazing at night, if you point at the moon, if you point at the stars, if you point at anything beautiful in the sky, then you’re going to wake up with some sort of wart… on your face, on your finger, somewhere like that. So growing up, I always used my fist if I wanted to point out a star. And it worked for me! That is, until one night. My family was hanging out in the jacuzzi, chatting, having a great night, and then we talked about this beautiful star in the sky, the brightest star in the sky. I said it’s so nice, and my family said they didn’t know which one I was talking about, so obviously the go-to is to assist them. So I get my big old finger and point straight at this bright, beautiful star, and right after I look at my finger and my family and said “NO!” After that, I was like oh no, something’s going to happen, this will really suck, maybe I’ll find out if this is the real deal or not. I was so worried… the rest of the night, I made sure to use my fist so I wouldn’t get like, double the trouble or something. The next day I wake up and go to the mirror, and I’ve got a fat pimple on my nose. I was so annoyed! I was like this is real, I screwed it up, I should have pointed with my fist… that’s why I believe that superstition to be true. Moral of the story: don’t point at the stars.”

CONTEXT: SS is my roommate and close friend, a recent graduate of USC who was born in Brazil but moved to the United States soon after. She frequently flies back with her parents and brother to visit her family in Brazil.

SS: “All the Brazilian superstitions I have I learned from my family. I have multiple.”


ANALYSIS: SS described the practice as a superstition when she described it: she was self-conscious of its magical nature. The belief itself is an example of a jinx. She didn’t have to physically contact the star, so contagious magic appears to be out. On the topic of SS’s experience with the superstition, Her story about it becomes a memorate because of the way that she inserted herself into the narrative. Her experience with the superstition is built into the way that she describes it. Her testing of the superstition is significant because it was a one-time event: she followed the superstition at all other times in her life, making the one time where she didn’t dramatic in comparison. Her test could have been an outlier, but because her test confirmed her belief, she’s not going to try again. She built her own debate into the way she told the story, making sure to mention the fact that she herself was doubting it, but she makes it clear that in the end, her belief was confirmed, almost as though she was trying to convince her audience.

Brazilian Sandals Superstition

TEXT:

SS: So basically, something I grew up with… in the home… There’s a really big tradition in Brazilian culture to never walk around barefoot. We always walk around with flip flops, some kind of sandals. Something I used to do is if I was walking around outside, the bottoms would get really dirty, and I’d be afraid of my mom telling me to not walk around in my dirty sandals. So what I’d do is I would walk in and I’d set the sandals upside down, so the straps would be facing the ground. But every time I’d do that, my mom would tell me don’t put those upside down, or something will happen to a close relative of yours if you do that. I forget if it’s they’ll die, but it definitely wasn’t positive: they’d get harmed in some way. So every single time I put it upside down, I’d get a comment like that and get scared. My mom would always say “You want me to die?” and things like that intense sometimes. And finally, after a long time of thinking it was legit superstition, apparently it’s a joke among Brazilian parents. Like “I don’t want you to get my floor dirty.” “I don’t want the feet of your sandal to touch the dirty cold floor.” So it’s a way for parents to scare their kids. It’s always something I got scared of.

CONTEXT: SS is my roommate and close friend, a recent graduate of USC who was born in Brazil but moved to the United States soon after. She frequently flies back with her parents and brother to visit her family in Brazil.


ANALYSIS: For most of her life as a child, SS saw this rule as a superstition and treated it as such. The contrast between her and her mother’s beliefs is interesting: for the mother, the superstition was never real, but her insistence on the rule made it reality for her daughter. The text itself reminds me of the rhyme “Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back.” It’s similar in structure: the stepping on and contact with the ground—either the floor or a crack on the ground—results in injury to a part of the family, specifically the mother. That being said, the “superstition” detailed here has two key differences. First, the rhyme is often repeated between children and peers, whereas the superstition SS recounted was told to her by an authority figure—her mother. Second, the superstition has a legitimate motive to be told by parents. SS’s mother had a very clear purpose in telling her daughter not to step on the floor: so that she didn’t dirty them.

Poffertjies

TEXT:

  • 1 cup flour
  • 4 Tbls sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup hot water
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 Tbls vegetable oil
  • Butter
  • Powdered sugar

Mix flour, sugar, and salt. Add water, eggs, and oil. Stir until lumps are gone. Fry on a poffertjies pan or fry silver-dollar sized pancakes in a frying pan. To serve, spread with butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

CONTEXT: EC is a white graduate student at USC studying linguistics. Up until attending USC, she lived in Pasadena, California. That being said, her dad is from Iowa, and her mom is from Indiana.

The recipe itself was typed and printed on a piece of printer paper.

EC: I learned it from my dad. He makes poffertjies for us. We make it for Easter and Christmas brunch. It’s very much a brunch, a breakfast. It’s a Dutch recipe, you need a special pan to make it in: a round pan. All the ones I’ve seen are cast-iron, although I would imagine that you can make them in a non cast-iron, but it has little divots in them that are less than an inch in diameter, and there are about 15-20 of them. It’s like pouring batter into  a mold, and then you use a special two-tined fork to flip them and get them out, so it’s kind of a process. My dad probably learned it from… There’s a town in Iowa where he met my mom and he got married called Orange City Iowa, and it’s one of the most Dutch towns in America. They had a saying. I don’t know if this was a Dutch saying or the non-Dutch people that said it, my dad was mostly Swedish and Irish, and it’s: “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.” So I’m sure he learned it from living in that town. My dad typed out the recipe for Christmas: he gave my brother and I poffertjie pans for Christmas, and then he also gave us the recipe.


ANALYSIS: Wikipedia shows that the dish is frequently made with yeast and buckwheat, but this is not shown in EC’s recipe. Instead, it uses accessible ingredients: a nonspecific type of flour, vegetable oil, etc. It may simply be because yeast and buckwheat aren’t pantry staples in many American households—since the recipe was a gift to his children, EC’s father may have also wanted to ensure that they could actually make it. The gift of the recipe was almost a rite of passage, given to continue the poffertjie legacy in their family but only once they were old enough and living on their own. There are many nonspecific parts of the recipe. The amount of butter and powdered sugar, for instance, are completely vague. These are the portions of the recipe that don’t concern the actual making of the recipe: they’re additions at the end. That being said, EC would know the general amount that’s required from watching her dad make them over the years, taking down that potential barrier. Any people outside of their family who attempted to make them may struggle with that particular step, but the written recipe becomes more of a reminder than a guide for those who are already familiar.

Loira do Banheiro/the Blonde in the Bathroom

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 22
Occupation: Unemployed
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 03/22/2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Portuguese

Text:

SS: Loira do Banheiro, which is the Blonde in the Bathroom. There are a couple clips online to demonstrate what happened, people acting it out. Basically the story goes that there’s this blonde who went to public school, but she was pretty and kind and had all these nice characteristics, but she got bullied a lot: there were a bunch of people who gave her a hard time, who were rude to her, who didn’t treat her well. The story goes that she went to the bathroom, and that was especially where she got bullied. Something happened where she got in a fight, and the girls who were bullying her were like, pushing her around, and she hit her head. So she died in the bathroom. The idea is that she stays in the bathroom ready to haunt all the bullies and taunt them. So what happened is that my cousin and I tried it. It’s super similar to the American Bloody Mary: there are all these things you can do online. Go to the bathroom, like spin around three times, spin around three times, say her name three times. My cousin and I said every single one trying to summon her. But then as soon as we left, our aunts were like—I’m positive they were messing with us—but they said we saw her, that everything we did worked. And it’s a super popular story.

Loira do Banheiro

Transliteration: Loira → blonde / do → of / Banheiro → Bathroom

Translation: the Blonde in the Bathroom

Context: SS is my roommate and close friend, a recent graduate of USC who was born in Brazil but moved to the United States soon after. She frequently flies back with her parents and brother to visit her family in Brazil. She learned this particular legend from her cousins, not her parents, while she visited Brazil and decided to test it out.


Analysis: When I went to elementary school, we had our own version of Bloody Mary, which was activated by saying her name three times in our school restroom. Even in this analysis, I find myself wanting to make sure I don’t say her name too many times… obviously, it’s text, so the question is whether or not it would count, but I find myself not wanting to take too many chances. SS was the opposite, purposefully seeking her out in order to test the limits of the legend—a legend quest. The Internet definitely affected her perception. While she initially learned of the legend from her cousins, researching on the Internet became a large part of proving the ghost story’s validity. Her testing of the ghost story in this way could have only occurred in modern day—it veers into the realm of creepypasta and other online forums for ghost stories. The proliferation of information on this ghost story via the internet changed the way that future generations will interpret it. Knowing both Brazilian and American cultures gave her a unique perspective because she was able to recognize the similarities for herself, affecting the way she interpreted the legend’s validity.

Trapped in a Tuba Case

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 03/28/2023
Primary Language: English

Text:

AX: I think a long long long time ago, one of like the brass instrument players got stuck in a tuba case. So in our band, we always had one case open in the storage area: I didn’t know if it was accidental or purposeful. Sometimes, we’ll have tiers of levels, like a trombone case open here, and a tuba case open there. I was like, is there always an instrument missing or something? And the people went oh yeah! It’s so that we can make sure that nobody is in there. And I was like in a case? And they said yeah! A long time ago, some kid fell asleep in his tuba case, and without knowing it, some of his band mates closed it and buckled it up. And this kid is still dead asleep by the way, like in a coma. Must have been a rough day at practice. When he woke up, he was like what the hell? And this was like midnight, so nobody was on campus, so he was just banging on his tuba case for help. In the morning they found him, and then they opened it, and at that point his tuba was right next to him. He was actually traumatized, so traumatized that he left his tuba and case in the band room, left and never came back. So now everybody leaves their cases open, including flutes and clarinets. I was like Jesus Christ! And it’s so funny because during practice, we joke about it. People actually sit in the tuba case, so we joke about closing it, like it looks empty to me! If that happened to me, I would resign myself and say this is how I die.

Context: AX is a freshman at USC studying English—she’s a fellow student in our folklore class and knows the material well. She grew up in Chino, a small suburb outside of Los Angeles. She’s of Asian descent.

AX: “I’m pretty sure it’s not real because like… all night? I don’t think it happened. I think it’s made up so that people are responsible with cases, so maybe it was made up by someone to force good instrument etiquette. It’s less of a horror story and more of a joke story. Now that I’m telling it to you, it sounds way more messed up than I thought.”

Analysis: The story is definitely a legend. It takes place in the real world, but it may or may not have happened. AX herself questions it. Though being a part of a high school band may not be a paid position, this story very clearly fits into the realm of occupational folklore as explained by Robert McCarle. It serves to enforce rules involving cases, but also acts as a catalyst for jokes. The joking that band members engage in about closing the tuba cases help reinforce a sense of community: members only “get” the joke if they’re familiar with the tuba case story, separating fledgling band members from the seniors. In the moment, it’s funny, and members seldom stop to think about the horrifying implications of being stuck in a case overnight. The story also provides context for the occupational custom of leaving cases open. The legend includes a leap in logic that AX acknowledged: how can you close a tuba case without seeing a person? It’s a part of the story that, being so well known, wasn’t challenged until the informant told the story outside of their circle.