Tag Archives: Parking

LA Parking Prayer

Nationality: Brazilian-American
Age: 32
Occupation: Marketer
Residence: Salt Lake City, UT
Performance Date: 2/24/23
Primary Language: English

Background

This short prayer was given to the informant by a friend who had grown up in Los Angeles. The interviewee is currently living in Salt Lake City, Utah, but lived in Los Angeles for ten years. This is a prayer to find a parking spot in LA, only meant to be invoked in true desperation. She is of Latin American descent.

Text

MM: Um, Okay. It is “Mary, Mary, full of grace, help me find a parking space” and it’s used to help you find a parking space, uh, when you are looking for street parking or in a car park, a crowded parking lot.

MM: Um, and, but you have to use it very sparingly. I can’t, you can’t just like at, for, you know, you have to have been looking for a minute before you can use it.

MM: Um, I first heard it from a friend who grew up in LA and she pulled it out after we’d been searching for parking for quite a while and she said she keeps it in her back pocket for absolute emergencies. We found a parking spot immediately and it has not failed me since, but again, only used in emergencies.

Interviewer: Sparingly.

MM: Sparingly. Yes. Yes. And by emergency, I mean, you know, a Los Angeles emergency, which is there’s no valet.

Interviewer: Haha, yeah.

MM: Truly an emergency.

Analysis

This is an example of folk speech, more specifically a prayer. I had heard this prayer from the interviewee some time ago and knew it would be perfect for the archive.

As any LA driver can attest, it can be extremely difficult to find parking on the streets of Los Angeles. One can find themselves driving around endlessly, and this prayer is meant to save them from the struggle. As the interviewee states, the prayer cannot be used in any situation. Instead, it can only be invoked at a time of desperation or emergency, when hope is nearly lost for finding a parking space. This maintains a certain significance to the prayer; if it does not work, the situation might not have been desperate enough.

This example of folk speech likely evolved through the converging influences of car culture and Catholicism on Los Angeles. This prayer is invoked almost in jest, rather than it being attached to any true religious belief. The informant, notably, does not have any ties to Catholicism. Still, the prayer mentions Mary, most likely the Virgin Mary, pointing to its roots in Catholic belief. This prayer is an excellent example of how folk belief evolves from the environment and culture it finds itself in.

The Parking Prayer

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Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: High School English Teacher
Residence: Cloverdale, California
Performance Date: May 3, 2021
Primary Language: English

Background:

This short prayer was passed to my informant from her godmother’s great grandmother, who lived in long beach California, and was of western European descent. She claims that it has worked “98% of the time,” which is why she loves it.

Context:

The informant takes this prayer very seriously, hardly ever sharing it with anyone because “if everybody said it, the parking god wouldn’t listen anymore.” When this prayer is being used, it’s extremely important that it be stated before you get to your destination and see that parking is an issue. Additionally, it may only be used in extreme cases (i.e. a late flight, life or death situation, etc…).

Main piece

“Lord for us make radiant room.”

Analysis:

The thing that I find most interesting about this prayer is that my informant is not religious whatsoever. While I assume that she doesn’t actually believe in a parking god either, she genuinely believes in the sanctity and sacredness of the prayer. In this way, I believe–whether consciously or not–she is practicing the concept of chaos magick. Chaos magick is a practice that does not adhere to any religion or a specific set of spells or rituals. Instead, chaos magick relies on the idea that simply willing or believing something to be true can cause it to be. Thus, in saying this parking prayer, the user wills a parking spot to be emptied for their use.

The Parking Lot Angel

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: April 24, 2018
Primary Language: English

This friend of mine has always mentioned that his family is very Christian, while he himself is more secular. He believes in God, and prays regularly, however he is a bit skeptical in terms of miracles happening here on Earth. Having grown up in San Diego in close proximity to his grandparents, who are even more religious than his parents, he often shares stories from his childhood, many of which involve church or some other religious attribute. Though he attends Mass somewhat regularly here at USC, college has made him even more of a skeptic than before.

The following was recorded during a group interview with 4 other of our friends in the common area of a 6-person USC Village apartment.

“Another angel story, my grandmother says there’s a parking-lot angel that she has that follows her car around. And every time she’s gone to places to park she just always manages to find a spot. And she would tell me that every time. She went to like parking lots and stuff, and she used to tell me stories.”

This story is just so innocent and sweet. A little old grandma who has come to the conclusion that the reason for her exceptionally good luck when it comes to finding parking spaces is her very own guardian angel. Everyone I’ve told it to since I’ve heard it has smiled and said, “hey, that’s not such a bad explanation”. Perhaps the parking lot angel is busier than we know.

 

Chicago Parking Chairs

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: United States
Performance Date: April 27, 2016
Primary Language: English

Informant is a 19 year old female who was born in Chicago and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is my roommate.

Informant: So there’s this really strange tradition where I’m from in Chicago. And I mean, I don’t know if it’s only a Chicago thing, I don’t know if they do it in other parts of the States too, but it’s very common to see in Chicago. So like, basically, what the tradition is is that during the cold months, when people have to shovel the snow off of their parking spots, they have to remove their cars, right? So what people do is that they will put a chair, sometimes they put other things, but usually it’s a chair, and they will put the chair in their parking spot so that no one takes it. Because parking in Chicago is really hard. And like people will do this for games too. Like I’ve done it before when I went to a Cubs game. That’s a baseball team in Chicago by the way. But yeah, so it’s super popular to go to, and everyone’s looking for parking, so people will put chairs in their parking spaces to reserve it for them.

Collector: Do people actually respect these chairs?

Informant: Yes. I mean, of course there’s some people who don’t. But most of the time, because everyone does it, yes, they respect it. Like you won’t really see someone removing a chair unless it’s their chair, and they’re taking their parking space. It’s just because parking goes so fast there, because there’s so many people. But people tend to be respectful of it, it’s a pretty big tradition there.

Collector: Is there anything that you particularly like about this tradition?

Informant: Well, I always find it funny when I go down the streets and I see a bunch of chairs all over the place. I like it because it reminds me that it’s going to be the holidays soon. But other than humor, I’m pretty indifferent towards it.

I think this story is really cool because its so different from my culture. Where I’m from, Sao Paulo, there are a lot of people and also difficulties finding parking, but if somebody were to put a chair to save their parking space, people would laugh, remove the chair, and park their anyways. I think it’s interesting how this has become such a tradition in Chicago that people respect other people’s chairs and parking spaces. It’s also cool to see how a tradition can arise from external factors such a temperature and spacial arrangement.