UFO Navy

Nationality: USA
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: English

So, my teacher is the like tech guy at school, and told me about a time when he was in the navy and they were on their battleship and they saw some weird, like…light, and it came down above the ship and stopped, like a big ball of light. And it like stopped over the ship and went around a little bit, and then it disappeared. Um…and so he talked about that a lot. And he and the whole boat saw it. 

We were hiking, and just like telling stories while we were walking and he brought that up. He definitely seemed to think it was a UFO…um…or something like that. I have heard that theres a similar like phenomenon called ball lighting or something like that so I would imagine it was that, but I wouldn’t imagine it would like stop above a ship….so…..thats weird. 

This is a fairly typical UFO sighting story. The informant believes it to be an explanation for a natural phenomenon, whereas the original storyteller believes it to be a UFO or alien spacecraft.

For more examples of UFO narratives see Bartholomew, Robert E. “From Airships to Flying Saucers: Oregon’s Place in the Evolution of UFO Lore.” Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 101, no. 2, 2000, pp. 192–213. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20615052. Accessed 13 May 2021.

Captain Dickhead

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 5/1/2021
Primary Language: English

We call it Captain Dickhead. I’ve also heard people call it King’s Cup, but we always call it Captain Dickhead.

So there’s one can in the middle, usually a beer can, but something with a tab is essential. And 52 cards are spread in a circle around. Continuous circle, cause the circle has to be connected at all points. and the way it goes, everyone sits in a circle around the can and each person takes a turn drawing a card and each card have specific meanings.

Ok so king is categories and the way that works is the person who drew the king will say a category like “dogs” or “types of beer’ and then they’ll say something like ‘labradoodles’ and everyone has in the circle has to say something that fits in to the category. So the first person that takes too long to repeats something thats already been said has to take a drink.

Queen is question master so if you pull a queen you put it down in front of you and then if you ask anyone else playing the game a question and they answer it as long as you have the queen they have to take a drink…BUT if they ask you a question and you answer it then you have to take a drink and you give them the queen. So the queen gets passed around until a new queen is drawn… once a new queen is drawn it gets stuck under the tab of the can, of the beer. So every card, once it gets played, get put under the tab and then whoever cracks the tab has to drink the whole beer or whatever you put in the middle, and then you just sub in the new one. Also, if you pull a card and it breaks the circle you have to drink.

So we do Jack as ‘social’, so for social everyone has to take a drink, it’s just like we all cheers and drink. 

10 is waterfall, so the way waterfall works is whoever drew the 10, they start drinking then everyone else in the group starts drinking at the same time. So once the person that drew the 10 stops drinking then the person to their left can stop drinking, and then once that stops the person to their left can stop and on and on.

So whoever’s to the right of you when you have the ten gets screwed over because they have to drink a bunch.

Nine is rhyme, you have to say a word like “butt” and then everyone goes around the circle and says a word that rhymes with the word and when someone can’t think of a rhyme or repeats something thats already been said and whoever loses then they have to drink.

Eight is date that means you pick someone else in the circle and say “youre gonna be my date” and then whenever they have to drink because of one of the other cards then you also have to drink and it goes both ways. So once

Seven is heaven, so basically when you draw a seven the first thing you have to do it is stick your hands up in the air, and then everyone else has to stick their hands up in the air as fast as possible and the last person to do it has to drink.

Six is dicks, so all the guys take a drink

Five is slap the table – the last person to slap the table has to drink

Four is whores, so all the women have to drink

Three is me, so whoever drew the card has to drink

Two is you, so you get to pick someone to drink

And then Ace means youre Captain Dickhead, thats the titular card. So when you draw an Ace you lick it and you stick it to your forehead, like you slap it up against your forehead and as long as the Ace stays stuck to youre forehead, youre God. You can break all the rules, like you can say “Hey James, take a drink” and he has to do it. If you have to drink and you don’t want to, you can just pass and not take a drink. The same goes for rhyme or any of the other games, you can pretty much just play however you want to play.

I learned it from some friends in Louisiana, and we usually play at parties and stuff but I’ve also seen a lot of variations since I went to college. Ive talked to a lot of people about it, and they usually don’t recognize it by the name but they recognize it once it starts playing.

I was probably 15 or 16 when I first learned it, we usually play it at parties and stuff when we’re trying to get drunk because it makes you drink a lot. Its a heavily….heavily…yeah it makes you drink a ton. So usually like small groups no more than 8, usually with 8 or less we’ll play it and…yeah. It’s great. We like to just do it to get drunk and its something to do ya know, something to pass the time.”

This card game has a number of variations, and seems to change depending on the group playing it.

Cornetto

Nationality: Italian
Age: 63
Occupation: Businessman
Residence: Bologna
Performance Date: 03/28/2021
Primary Language: Italian
Language: French, Spanish

Main piece:

VS: What is this?

P.S.: This is a cornetto, a horn, which was gifted to me by my wife when we started dating, so something like 30 years ago. hmm. I actually have two, because once I thought I lost it and my wife bought a new one for me. I have always carried it with me, in my pocket. Every place I go, everything I do, this object is with me. Always. I take it out of the pocket just when I am at home. 

VS: You said you lost it once, what did you feel when this happened?

P.S: I don’t know exactly. I guess I was sorry. Not like desperate, but yeah sorry. 

VS: What does this object represents for you then?

P.S.: Mhh, I don’t know. It’s difficult to explain. It’s something like a lucky charm, a sort of protection that helped me through the years especially in my job.

V.S: How so? do you think the good things that happened derived from this object?

P.S.: I cannot tell if what happened to me was because of this object. What i know is that since I have carried this object with me, everything in my work-life turned from negative to positive, everything got in its place. One thing, then the other, then again another one. Every single thing fell into place. 

[stops talking for a bit, in a moment of reflection]. 

Yes. It is not lucky in the sense that I buy scratch cards and I win. No, it’s something in a greater sense. It has to be seen from a wider perspective. It is almost like it helped carrying out the process smoothly.

Background:

My informant is my father who was born in Belgium from Italian immigrants and who spent the majority of his lifetime in Italy. His wife is Italian as well, and this is relevant considering that this particular object was gifted to him by her. When asked about this piece, my informant put much emphasis on the fact that the cornetto was given; indeed, in the Italian tradition, for the horn to be lucky and prosperous, it never has to be acquired ‘in first person’, but it always has to be necessarily gifted, otherwise it won’t work, or worst, it could even bring bad luck. Furthermore, in Italy it’s quite common for people to carry with themselves a cornetto, either in the form of jewelry or, like in this case, in the form of talisman. 

Context:

I have seen my father, my informant, carrying this object with him since I have memory. So I decided to delve more into what the object really meant for him, and this is when this conversation happened.

Thoughts:

I have always been extremely fascinated by this object, whose origin mainly derive from the Southern regions of Italy, but that with time was diffused in all parts of the country. It is interesting to notice that the South of Italy has always been considered more connected with superstition, magic and beliefs, than other areas, and this was for much time accompanied by a sort of prejudice Northern Italians would have towards inhabitants of the South. As a matter of fact, especially in more Modern and recent times, the South of Italy has been subjected to sorts of discriminations also because of the high levels of superstitions and popular beliefs present in the area, as they were associated to illiteracy, ignorance and obsolete traditions. I stressed the word “modern” times because I believe it to be highly indicative and relevant for this analysis. In fact, Northern Italy was the first area to be industrialized at the end of the 19th century, making it more advanced and ‘educated’; consequently, the South remained more attached to the past and the un-littered culture. An interesting observation now arises: while many nations used folklore and past traditions as an incentive and a symbol for nationalistic spirits and will of independence, Italy didn’t. The reason probably lies in the fact that, despite its small size and its unification in 1861, since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Italy had never been a untied country. On the contrary, throughout centuries, it had been governed by many different powers, which controlled different parts of the nation and influenced them with different traditions and lifestyles.

Beside the political-geographical value, the horn is said to be an amulet against the Evil Eye and it is said to have really ancient roots, it being the emblematic representation of the phallus of Priapus, the Greco-Roman divinity of prosperity. In order to be ‘effective’, it necessarily has to be red, which is the color of blood and life. In this way, also a connection with the female counterpart is established, the color red representing the woman’s fertility and sensuality.

The union of these two elements -shape and color- provides the object with a mystical value related to homeopathic magic: because of the law “like produces like”, the horn not only exemplifies the perfect emblem of prosperity and fertility, but it is also meant to attract prosperity and fertility upon the one who carries it.  

The embodiment of the Italian spirit in a Meme

Nationality: Italian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bologna
Performance Date: 04/26/2021
Primary Language: Italian
Language: English

Main piece:

L.L.:Ok so. [laughs] Every-time I see this meme I start to laugh. [laughs again] Basically there is this gif, which has now become also a sticker that we send to each other in chats, where there is the woman, I think she is a television’s reporter or something like that. Hum…anyway, she basically looks directly into the camera and does all these gestures and facial expression which are simply hilarious to me. Probably because it perfectly portrays the way I and the majority of other Italians act. And, I don’t know. To me it’s funny because I associate it with the daily online conversations I have with my friends and how we use it to simply represent what we would be doing if we were face to face. Also, [laugh again] it’s so funny because it has now become a thing we do “live”, so we basically mimic the woman, who is not doing anything special or different from what we would actually do normally. But I don’t know, when we now do those kinds of gestures, all the people of my generation know who are we referring to…It became a sort of national indirect joke, I guess. 

Background:

My informant is a 19 year old girl who was born in Crotone, Calabria(Southern Italy), but who spent most of her lifetime in Bologna (Italy). She is a dear-fiend of mine, with whom I have daily conversations both on the internet and off. This piece of cyber folklore is actually fairly recent and it came to her attention both through conversations with some friends and thanks to social networks. She particularly enjoys this piece because -as many trends do- it perfectly portrays the general atmosphere of the moment in which it became viral and, at the same time, it is able, somehow, to picture in a couple of frames, typical gestures, expressions and attitudes of the average Italian.

Context:

I myself entered in contact with this piece in the last few months, and we were imitating it during a lunch when I though it would be a good idea for my informant to talk about it and describe it to me. My closest friends and I use these kinds of meme/stickers quite often during online conversations, usually with the intention of either portray on a chat our physical behaviors and expressions, or maybe ‘soften’ more serious topics.     

Thoughts:

I consider this meme quite interesting for various reasons. First of all, it was originally taken from a television clip and re-created by other people-especially teenagers and young folks- on social platforms like Tik Tok or Instagram. Later on, it was transformed in various forms of cyber-folklore, like memes and stickers, which, again, young people started to exchange on chats and online conversation with the main objective of portraying their current facial and body expression also in a written chat. This, in my opinion, perfectly reflects folklore’s definition of “Multiplicity and variation”, it having been transformed and utilized ‘vernacularly’ in various different ways. At the same time, it can also be said to be a sort of new and innovative format of “artistic communication” in small groups, it having been re-crafted in various ways throughout the short-period of time from its creation. 

Secondly, I find it really compelling from a cultural and national point of view. The woman which gesticulates and has such strong facial expressive articulations is able to supremely depict the Italian way of communicating which, despite the sometimes erroneous stereotypes, still talks a lot through hand-gestures and “visual phrasings”. 

I believe this meme -and its affiliated stickers- to be extremely representative of my nationality and this is why I will probably never get tried of using it.

Potato to cure burns

Nationality: Italian
Age: 89
Occupation: --
Residence: Bologna
Performance Date: 04/07/2021
Primary Language: Italian

Main piece:

L.S.: I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this , but if you have some kind of burn you have to cut a potato and place one half on the injury and….with that the burning sensation goes away and you do not feel the pain anymore. My mother taught me this, and I myself taught it to my friends.

V.S.: Do you know what could be the origin of this practice?

L.S.: No I don’t. I don’t even know where my mother learnt this from. But I am pretty sure it’s something quite ancient. Also, my mother, after applying the potato on the burn used to draw on it with her hands the sign of the cross and recite a sort of prayer. And I remember saying to her “Mum teach me it, so that when I get burned or when my children will get burned, I will know how to do this myself”. And she used to tell me ”No, I cannot tell you it. There is only one day in which I can tell you this….this prayer is taught only one day a year”.

Once she finally told me it, but I do not remember it anymore [laughs].

Background:

My informant was born in the Tosco-Emilian Apennines (Italy) in 1931. While she spent the majority of her childhood there, she moved to Bologna, Italy, when she was about 13, and she has been living there ever since. She told me of practicing this folk-medical remedy still nowadays and she told me of having taught it to her children as well.

Context:

The informant recounted me this while having a tea in her living room.

Thoughts:

Countless are those practices that could be vernacularly defined in Italy as rimedio della nonna, grandmother’s remedy, which match the border genre of folk-medicine and, to a certain degree, folk-magic. 

As my informant points out, these are, in the majority of cases, procedures and costumes which are passed on from generation to generation, and which are difficulty attributable to a single and unique creator. In this way, they perfectly reflect folklore’s definition, them becoming part of what could be described as common knowledge, and distancing themselves from scientific knowledge, which is often characterized by the singularity concerting an individual genius -either of a research group or of a single scientist. 

The reason why this particular folk-medical practice can also be seen as overlapping with contagious magic is due to the fact that, as the informant recounts, the usage of a potato in order to cure a burn was often associated with a prayer and ‘religious touch’(cross sign), involving some sort of spiritual power acting on the wound. This tells a lot about the identity Italians used to share, particularly in the past, which saw a quite strong attachment to religion, and, especially, Catholicism. Furthermore, the emphasis my informant put on the secrecy of the prayer’s words, makes another aspect emerge, which is the one of generational division and shamanic authority adults were invested with in those sorts of small rituals. 

This practice is still, nowadays, performed, but, as many of the other grandmother’s remedies, is slowly losing adherence and utilization, leaving more space to ‘proved’ science.