Vernacular Culture: The Folklore Blog

April's Batch of Folklore Books

2007-04-04T19:21:00.000-04:00

Here it is, a hotly anticipated list of books coming out this month. It's a mad mad mad folklore world.

Weird Virginia - Loren Coleman, Jeffrey Bahr, et al. Funny series of regional humor, this time in my adopted homestate.
Book of South Wales, a Book of North Wales - S. Baring-Gould. Very expensive reprint of a turn-of-the-century collection. Free Baring-Gould books can be found at Project Gutenberg.
Cantemos Al Alba: Origins of Songs, Sounds, and Liturgical Drama of Hispanic New Mexico - Tomas Lozano.
Essential Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa): Light on the Indian World - Charles Eastman, edited by Micahel Oren Fitzgerald.
Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague- Yudi Rosenberg.
Lancelot and the Lord of the Distant Isles: Or, the Tale of Galehaut RetoldPatricia Terry
Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars - Alasdair Livingstone
Sacred Angkor: Carved Reliefs of Angkor Wat - Vitorrio Roveda. Photographs by Jaroslav Poncar
Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian - Joseph Epes Brown.
Teller Tales - Jo Carson.
Urban Legends: A Collection of International Tall Tales and Terrors - Gillian Bennett
Walking with the Green Man - Bob Curran.
When Dreams Came True - Jack Zipes. Second edition. Any new Jack Zipes book is a reason to celebrate.
The High Book of the Grail: A Translation of the 13th Century Romance of Perlesvaus - Translated by Nigel Bryant
Legend and Lore of the Guadalupe Mountains - W. C. Jameson.
Signs, Cures and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore - Gerald Milnes. This is my most anticipated title, having an interest in both German and Appalachian folkways.
Kokopelli: Trickster, Trader and Troubadour of the Ancient Southwest - Dennis Slifer.
Black Cats and April Fools: Origins of Old Wives Tales and Superstitions in Our Daily Lives Harry Oliver
Canadian Folk-Life and Folk-Lore - William Parker Greenough. I love when the word folklore is hyphenated.
Flowers and Fables: A Welsh Herbal Jocelyne Lawton.
Tashi and The baba Yaga - Anna Fienberg. Children's book that looks fun.
Unicorns acs, Figures & Fun - Nigel Suckling. Unicorns are huge now. Especially in the five and under set. I just went to a unicorn party, where, my daughter asserts, a real-live magical unicorn showed up.
Washaka: The Bear Dreamer - Jamie Lee
Woodcraft and Indian Lore - Ernest Thompson Seton

New This Month

2007-03-13T23:06:00.001-04:00

First off, apologies to all three of my readers for not updating in months. I promise this will never happen again, sincerely (uproarious cackle).

Here's a list of new books coming out this month that would be of interest to you and the folklorists in your life:

The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh - David Damrosch. Henry Holt & Company, 315 pp. The story of how the epic was discovered and deciphered by George Smith in 1872.
Morality and Expediency: The Folklore of Academic Politics - F. G. Bailey. Aldine, 237 pp. Paperback reissue of text from the 1970s. Read review of book here.
Irish American Folklore in New England - E. Moore Quinn. Academica. St. Patrick's Day is only three days away! Living here in Boston, I can't escape this. Proffesor Quinn's homepage can be found here.
Apollodorus: Library and Hyginus: Myths: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology - Apollodorus and Hyginus, translated by Stephen Trzaskoma and R. Scott Smith. Hackett Publishing Company, 247 pp. Two Greek and Roman mythographs collected in one handy-dandy volume.
Blackfeet Indian Stories - George Bird Grinnell. Riverbend, 144 pp. Originally collected in the 1870s, is actually available in many different editions.
Flower of Paradise and Other Armenian Tales. Bonnie C. Marshall and Virginia Tashjian. Libraries Unlimited, 232 pp. Part of the World Folklore Series.
Folktales of the Jews, Volume 2: Tales from Eastern Europe - Dan Ben-Amos and Dov Noy. Jewish Publication Society, 550 pp. Both editors are heavy-hitters in the field, this is a collection I look forward to getting my mitts on. It appears that the publication date pushed back till May, but what the hey, I'll still mention it here. Also, the Israel Folktale Archive is named for Professor Noy.
Ganesh Goes to Lunch: And Other Tales of Ancient India - Kamla Kapur. Mandala Publishing, 128 pp. Collection of tales from the Ramayama and Mahabharat.
Remedies and Rituals: Folk Medicine in Norway and the New Land - Kathleen Stokker. Minnesota Historical Society, 260 pp. I look forward to reading this, Professor Stokker has an interesting bibliography. Her homepage is here. I've already added her Folklore Fights the Nazis to my ILL request page.
Thebiad: Seven Against Thebes - Publius Papinius Statius, translated by Charles Stanley Ross. Johns Hopkins University Press, 432 pp. New translation of work from 92 C.E.
Wild Ride: The History and Lore of Rodeo - Joel H. Bernstein. Gibbs Smith, 176 pp.
Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy - Martha Feldman. University of Chicago Press, 432 pp. This is showing a September release date, but it somehow made it into my March pile.
Senet, Gaming with the Gods, the Games of Senet and Ancient Egyptian Religious Beliefs - P. Piccione. Brill Academic Publishers, 320 pp. Part of the Egyptological Memoirs Series.
Fossil Legends of the First Americans - Adrienne Mayor. Princeton University Press, 488 pp.

If you are one of the authors or publishers of the above books, and you stumbled upon this link by googling your own name, then please give me a shout-out. I intend on getting most of these books by interlibrary loan, but, hey, review copies are most appreciated!

The Penguin Thief

2006-12-08T22:28:00.000-05:00

Local story making the rounds about a child who steals a penguin from the New England Aquarium, as reported by the Boston Herald. I have yet to hear this story, but I am sure to hear it soon from either someone in the break room at work or one of my in-laws.

Fixing the damn Blog

2006-12-06T23:44:00.000-05:00

For a while there was something screwy going on with this blog. Not screwy in the sense of what I'm writing makes no sense at all. It's always that type of screwy. No, screwy in that it was unreadable in certain browsers - mine included, and that I haven't set up the RSS feed properly. I have upgraded to blogger beta, and the blog looked fine on my browser as of two minutes ago. So, we're off and running again. . .

Plagiarism and Folklore

2006-11-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

Slate has an interesting article on a bunch of nineteenth century writers stole from each other and how by using twenty-first century technology of Google Books will lead to more of this sort of thing. The funny part is England Howell stole a passage from Sabine Baring-Gould which she, in fact, had stolen from an earlier text on Northern Mythology. Y'all better make sure your disses and other stuff you'paraphrased' are vetted.

Oh yeah, I'm terrible at updating this

2006-11-20T23:20:00.000-05:00

To my fan: I'm sorry I haven't been updating this. I promise to be a good boy. I'm going to kick this getting-on-with-my-real-life jag and start obsesssing over something as unprofitable (both monetarily and spiritually) as folklore.

On that note, let me rant about the most boring and misguided podcasts I have heard in a long while: The Myth Show.. I'm sure this guy means well, but he is so boring. His musical bed is jazzed-up New Age pap. He quotes wikipedia. He has a chub-on for Joseph Campbell. I considered recommending this to a friend who is developing a seventh-grade myth curriculum. But jeesh, I'm afraid this show would hold the interest of a class for even the scant seventeen minutes the show runs. I need volunteers to help me develop a folklore podcast that's both academically rigorous and interesting. I know, that's a tall order.

The folks at Hometown Tales have an interesting and funny show, but I would have a hard time either incorporating it into a folklore class or introducing a newbie into folklore studies.

Which brings me to the point about the point. What should the point of a folklore podcast be? Should it be geared to those outside of our admittedly small circle of folklorists? Should we evangelize to the unconverted? Or should we bicker among ourselves, becoming embroiled in silly internecine conflict over minutia and esoterica? (Personally I prefer the latter, that's why I wa a big fan of Lingua Franca while it lasted).

I just have this feeling that, as a folklorist, I am alone in this world. The discussion board over at Newfolk a couple of weeks ago was abuzz with talk about "Cultural Cringe." Well I personally cringe everytime I tell people I'm a folklorist. Especially since it is usually accompanied by "Would you like fries with that?" With colleges getting rid of folklore departments (as well as Russian departments), with English and Anthro departments looking down upon folklorists, and with the dearth of actual opportunity in the field, I can't help but feel that I chose the wrong vocation. With all my professed love for Lingua Franca, I never read that article that came out ten years ago asking "Whither Folklore?" Had I done so I might have just sold my soul and went to law school or ed school or culinary school.

McSweeneys Take on Popular Urban Legend

2006-03-23T19:53:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered about the logistics behind some popular urban legends. Jim Stallard over at McSweeneys Internet Tendency presents a humourous take on one that we've all heard before.

Man Marries Goat

2006-03-23T19:51:00.000-05:00

There must be an Aarne-Thompson type number for this story.

Krewe du Vieux 2006 Flickr Slideshow

2006-03-05T10:08:00.000-05:00

Krewe du Vieux is the parade in New Orleans that kicks off the mardi gras season. This year, as can be expected, saw many Katrina themes making its way into the usual folk raunch. Folk expression meets diaster meets politics.

My favorite signs and floats from this Flickr Slideshow include: "Michael Brown Grand Marshall: Out to Lunch," "Comatose Corps of Engineers," "Take Us Back Chirac," "C'est Levee" and (just because it's dirty) "Pizza Slut."

Also, it appears that the creator of Mister Bill was the real grand marshall, hence all of the Mister Bill photos.

This reminds me that a few years back the JAF ran a whole issue devoted to Mardi Gras, which I think would prove a fruitful re-evaluation post-Katrina.

Antler Lawn Art

2006-03-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

You can probably file this under folk expression through lawn decoration or the sort.

Modern-Day John Henry

2006-03-02T18:10:00.000-05:00

From The Onion, America's finest newsweekly, comes the story of a 21st Century "steel-driving man."

Teddy Girls

2006-02-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

This might be more in the cultural studies domain, but an interesting article and picture series about the Teddy Girls in 1950's Britain. As folk movements, youth culture and fashion movements like the Teddy Boys, the Beau Brummels, the Russian Stiliagi and Congolese Dandies interest me.

Diss Songs

2006-02-19T00:18:00.000-05:00

Post on Boing Boing about the song "Round the Corn, Sally," the first African-American diss song on record. INteresting discussion following concerning other disses from Scandanavian epic and the like.

Hungarian Folk Hero

2006-02-16T11:45:00.000-05:00

Interesting story from Salon a couple of months ago about a post-Soviet Bloc Hungarian folk hero named Attilla Ambrus - the Whiskey Robber. You might have to watch a small ad to read it, but don't let that dissuade you.

Online Gaming Environments and Narrative

2006-02-12T12:57:00.000-05:00

One of my main objectives in my otherwise useless dissertation was to establish that online gaming's purpose is in the creation of narratives (storytelling in a new medium). Hence, since folklorists are involved with the study of storytelling, this was a viable path of study. Whether or not I was successul or not in demonstrating this was left to my dissertation committee. However, I'm still sold on the idea.

Via Boing Boing , I was led to a very informative interview with Sean Stewart on this very topic. Link.

Tivo and Giants

2006-02-09T10:34:00.000-05:00

Let me just come right out and say it: I've fallen in love with my tivo. I no longer have to worry about missing the latest "Office" or the series finale of "Arrested." I can fast forward through "Idol" and I can watch "Iron Chef" whenever I like.

I set the little bugger to record any program with the word 'folklore' in the title or description. This week it recorded its first 'folklore' program, the History Channel documentary
Giants: Friend or Foe. I was a little apprehensive about watching it, thinking it would be some sort of fakeloric gala. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see Simon Bronner and his shining head pop up. Granted there was some sillyness to the movie, and like many tv documentaries it tended towards the repetitive. Overall, it was quite entertaining. I watched bits of it with my three-year old and now she is totally curious about John Henry, the steel driving man. I would definitely show this to a high school class, or a general survey course, on folklore. It would make a great jumping off point for many topic areas: i.e., genre, fakelore, the hero, mythology.

Russian Exhibit on Rugs

2006-02-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

For you Russian speakers out there, the Pushkin Musuem is mounting an exhibit of 'unusual rugs.' In that part of the world, more often than not you are going to find a rug hanging on a wall. As the article from the Gazeta website states, in my rough translation: "Every one of these rugs was created with the goal of covering up something."

Link

Another Neato Congolese Monster

2006-02-04T22:56:00.000-05:00

Cryptomundo has another great account, plus a pic of a wood-carving, of a 'mythical' creature from the Congo. The Emela-Ntouka appears to be somewhat of a cross between a crocodile and a rhino. It is known as the "Killer of Elephants."

Link.

American Primitive

2006-02-03T19:40:00.002-05:00

Meredith Ochs on NPR's "All Things Considered" on the latest Revenant records (the people who brought you the damn beautiful Charley Patton boxset) collection, American Primitives 2. This is a collection of early "race records," minstrel shows, folk & regional music. Get you some.

Link

Sideshow Bobs

2006-01-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

File this under cultural studies: great collection of photos from old-timey sideshows. Link.

This is another great site I found out about first on Boing Boing. They troll the Internet for fun crap so you don't have to.

The Genius of the Internet Archive

2006-01-31T23:18:00.000-05:00

If you haven't done so already, get your asses on over to the Internet Archive. It is an excellent repository of old-time films, live audio recordings, extinct websites, and all things glorious and public-domain.

The Poetry of Spam

2006-01-31T23:15:00.000-05:00

Shovelware has a nice little something-something about the poetry created by the random-words found in your spam email headers.

Link

For those interested in things like James Frey . . .

2006-01-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

Interesting story in the LA Weekly about the Navajo memoirist Nadjii, who is in fact a Scandavian-American writer of gay erotica from Michigan. This outfreys Million Little Pieces. First The Education of Little Tree [and that Forrest Carter guy seems like a total douche] was a fake, now this.

Link

See also:

News & Observer article

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

2006-01-28T12:10:00.000-05:00

UC Santa Barbara project containing thousands of MP3s of turn-of-the-last-century cylinder recordings. Priceless. Very easy to lose a few hours of your life going through these. Link.

Batgirl Fan Art

2006-01-26T23:07:00.000-05:00

File under fan fiction. Link

Thanks again to the lovely folks at Boing Boing.

Ape Men of the Congo

2006-01-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently the US government is withholding a videotape of the Central African kalanoro, a four-and-a-half-foot tall three-toed apeman. From the great site Cryptomundo.

More links on the kalanoro.

The Indigo Children

2006-01-24T09:38:00.000-05:00

Somehow this New Age movement has slipped under my radar. A number of years ago a new color aura was discovered: indigo. People with this aura color are intelligent, hyperactive and overbearing. Gee, that kind ain't got ADD, he's not disturbing the class, he has an indigo aura! Personally, I hate this sort of hoo-ha. But, I think the new age movement is a legitimate expression of folk belief, even if most of it is founded on craptacularly misguided books (rather than being disseminated by word-of-mouth, ritual and tradition). BUt it fills in gaps of knowledge that science and official religion have trouble explaining. (Or, in other terms, the folk imagination takes over where official explanations end).

Article from the New York Times is archived here . To view you do need to subscribe to the online service, but, hey, don't worry, it's free.

Again, thank you Boing Boing for another great link.

Cryptozoological News from Africa

2006-01-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

The mokèlé-mbèmbé is a dinosaur-like creature from Central Africa. An expidition has recently been launched to find this creature. Read about it here.

Wikipedia article on the creature here.

If you haven't boing boinged yet, you should. They're chock full of interesting stories.

Mouse on Fire

2006-01-23T13:20:00.000-05:00

This story could be a developing Urban Legend: Link

Hey look, a quick check on Snopes reveals that maybe, just maybe this is a legend.

Crackpot Book-of-the-week

2006-01-23T08:42:00.000-05:00

This weeks crackpot book is the classic 1970 John M. Allegro screed The Sacred Mushroom & the Cross: Fertility Cults and the Origins of Judaism and Christianity. What a doozie! Allegro posits that many of the rituals and beliefs of the early Christians were based on magic mushroom ingestion.

Sample prose,
If rain in the desert lands was the source of life, then the moisture from heaven must be only a more abundant kind of spermatazoa. If the male organ ejaculated this precious fluid and made life in the woman, then above the skies the source of nature's semen must be a mighty penis, as the earth which bore its offspring was the womb. It followed therefore that to induce the heavenly phallus to complete its orgasm, man must stimulate it by sexual means, by singing, dancing, orgiastic displays and, above all, by the performance of the copulatory act itsel.

Oh yeah, I likey.

Crackpot Websites to Check Out

jesus christ virgin mary last supper born again son of god

Aminita Muscaria Mushrooms and Religion Research Page

Sacred Mushroom of the Cross

Paradigm Magazine INterview w/ Terrence McKenna

Folk Monopoly

2006-01-21T10:22:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite areas of study is the intersections of popular and folk culture. Fan fiction, children's games based on tv and movie re-enactments, tv drinking games, etc. Here's a site devoted to folk-developed rules for Monopoly. I think this is an instance of where folk imagination fills in the gaps left by the official rules.

Link

Santarchy!

2006-01-19T17:58:00.000-05:00

It was Santarchy all over the world.

Link

If you're keeping track of these things, you might have noticed that I am three weeks behind in my posts! Viva holiday lag.

German New Year's Television Tradition

2006-01-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

Jude Stewart in Slate describes how an obscure British skit is broadcast every year on New Year's Eve in Germany. This reminds me of the Russians watching the comedy "Ironiia sud'by (The Irony of Fate)" on New Year's Eve.

Stewart describes the possible reasons for the development of this televisual tradition:

But the biggest reason for Dinner for One's popularity, I suspect, is the magic of repetition. The skit is mildly funny, sure, but much more important is that it has the mysterious quality of something that could get very funny after years of drunken viewing. The script itself, so laden with repetition, lodges in the brain and accretes in-jokes easily. (Like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Showgirls, which have achieved bad-is-good popularity through repetition, Dinner for One has a bad little kernel of a story and a crass creepiness.) And in a modern Germany many feel is teetering into economic free fall, a comfortable old-time ritual has an almost religious attraction.

Link

More On RPG and Economics

2006-01-18T13:29:00.000-05:00

IN keeping with posting about real-world results from on-line gaming, here is an article in Legal Affairs about possible taxation issues from income generated in an online world. Link

Online Gaming and Economics

2006-01-18T00:36:00.000-05:00

This is sort of old hat by now, but here is a BBC article about the economics of online gaming. Link.

One day you can ask me about folklore and Computer Mediated Communication.

Is This Video Folklore? Discuss.

2006-01-13T23:41:00.000-05:00

Here's the video: Link.

Now, I would argue that this is folklore. Why? Oh, many reasons. None of which probably make any sense.

Let me list some reasons:
1) It is passed along through non-traditional means (viral video, even though quickly co-opted by marketeers and advertisers is still a folk medium in my book).

2) It is a folk reaction to something from popular culture (like mashups, "Sonic Outlaws"-type art, and and fan fiction.

Some reasons why this is not folklore:

1) It's not passed on orally. (Oh stop being such a fuddy-duddy).

2) There is a stated author to the video.

It's too late at night right now to get into this any further.

Katrina Legends

2006-01-13T22:58:00.000-05:00

Article in Reason magazine discussing role rumours played in Katrina coverage. I believe the author might be conlating rumour with urban legend, but the article still resonates. Link

Books of Human Skin!

2006-01-11T06:33:00.000-05:00

Don't know what this has to do with folklore, but here's an interesting article about books being bound in human skin. Link.

Oh yeah, I guess we're back again.

Best Folklore Books Ever!

2005-05-02T15:30:00.000-04:00

A thread on the Newfolks discussion list and Dundes's recent demise have prompted me to start a list of my favorite folklore books of all time. My short list so far includes "Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder" by Dundes, "Ukrainian Minstrels" by Kononenko, "Folklore Genres" by Ohring, I'd definitely include some stuff by Propp, Santino, Paredes, Bronner and Ben-Amos.

I should also include articles in this list - some of the best folklore resources are in article form: "The Story of Asdiwal" by Levi-Strauss, Bascom's 4 Forms of Folk Narrative, and, IMFHO, the best folklore article ever Bill Elli's Making A Big Apple Crumble. More later on why that is the best ever.

If any readers - assuming I have any! - out there have suggestions, please supply your comments!

Dundes, RIP

2005-04-24T08:36:00.000-04:00

Don't know how I missed this.

Knowing the sort of humor that Dundes studied, he might appreciate some sort of macabre joke about his passing. Just can't think one up right now. There is something of the urban legend in a professor dropping dead in front of his class. I don't know how many times I've wished some of my profs would do the same.

So, I guess there's an open position in folklore at Berkeley? (Tasteless, I know)

Go out and buy "Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder," I think it is the best folklore book ever.

Tackling Albion's Seed

2005-04-20T10:22:00.000-04:00

First off, I wrote this all last week, but lost it while attempting to post onto blogger. That got rather frustrating. "Learn to save, dummy," I say to myself.

I am currently working my way through David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America." I became interested in this work mainly because it has become embraced by White Supremacists. I'm pretty sure this is not what Fischer had in mind when he set out to write this. I sure hope that is the case.

I have only started this immense (almost 900 pages) work, and will be reporting on it as I plug my way through. Essentially I want to know what in particular about this book is attractive to people in the white nationalist movement. And can a careful reading of this book provide clues as to Fischer's actual encouragement of such a reading? Personally, going into this book, I would guess that people of this ilk are attracted to this book because it provides a history for a people who are, in essence, rootless. We'll see.

Show Me Your Ong

2005-03-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

Two websites - Remembering Walter Ong and The Walter J. Ong Project - are devoted to the life and work of the recently deceased (2003) Renaissance scholar, Jesuit priest and lifelong devotee of the study of culture.

Ong's work has some resonance for the folklorist, his Orality and Literacy should be read by all (alongside with Havelock's "The Muse Learns to Write.")

Check out these websites, RWO works as a message board for those scholars who are devotees of Ong's work, and the WJOP is a digital archive of his work. Both are interesting and offer many avenues of diversion.

Encyclopedia Mythica

2005-03-10T23:07:00.000-05:00

Today I came across this website called the Encyclopedia Mythica. I don't know how I have overlooked this website before. I must have stumbled upon it some time ago, but it probably did not leave much of an impression.

I kind of find resources like this interesting. What it seems to be is a collection of definitions of various creatures and dramatis personae from mythologies the world over. It's good for people like me, people who can't keep names straight.

However, this kind of work also annoys me to no great end. It seems to be what the layperson believes folklore to be: the study of nymphs and leprechauns. It sets up folklore as a lexicological endeavour. It's like the folklore section at Barnes N Noble - especially in the discounted remaindered books in the front section - basically reprints of nineteenth century omnibuses - always very solarist - whose copyrights have enterred into the public domain.

Works like this consciously avoid the present. They treat folklore as some quaint relic, it's as if the whole twentieth century never happened.

Take the Encylopedia Mythica's definition of Paul Bunyan for example:

A legendary hero of the lumber camps of the north-western U.S.A. His feats are many, and one of the most famous is perhaps that he cut the Grand Canyon by dragging his pick behind him. His stories are told and retold with embellishments by the lumbermen. Some of those stories are collected in Paul Bunyan Comes West.

I don't understand how an entry on Paul Bunyan could a) treat it as real folklore, and b) not mention any of Bronner's (or is it Dorson's, I should look this up in my notes before I blog and rant) work on fakelore. Paul Bunyan is an example used by Bronner (Dorson?) of manufactured lore. At least make some mention of this.

Introductions!

2005-03-09T09:03:00.000-05:00

Hello and welcome to Vernacular Culture: The Folklore Blog! The title of this blog is cribbed from Chuck Perdue, the funny and pithy folklorist and raconteur from the University of Virginia. (He was also a second reader on my masterpiece of a dissertation).

This blog will be an analysis of current trends, books, publications, blogs, websites and developments in the field of folklore.

As the title to this blog probably shows, my definition of folklore is very wide. Back when I was a poor graduate student, my folklore interests included Computer-Mediated Commmunication, Knowledge Management, Hypertext Theory and MUD studies. This is not traditionally considered folklore by any standard. I can think of only three or four folklorists who study what I study: Jeannie Banks Thomas, Bill Ellis and Bruce Lionel Mason, off the top of my head. And, of course, they do it all a lot better than I can and did.

I fell in love with folklore studies my first semester in graduate school after taking a class on the folktale taught by the irrepressable Natalie Kononenko. I quickly forgot about all of that Russian Literature stuff which I told the department I was going to study. I had had some Russian folklore exposure as an undergrad: my Russian professor and mentor (Lou Wagner in da house!) was the English translator of Propp's Morphology of the Folktale, and he made us study Propp's formulae and such. Back then I had no clue what the fuck Lou was talking about. I thought he was crazy and trying to teach us calculus or something.

Like most Americans, I had no freakin' clue what folklore was. If you had asked me, I would have responded like one of Leno's Jaywalkers: "Dude, it's the lore of the folk, I guess." I still see the look of disbelief and confusion on people's faces when I tell them that I am a folklorist. Just last week my dentist says: "Oh, a folklorist? What do you do?" "Oh, I basically just hang out with my kids all day. Maybe someday I can teach somewhere." How do I explain to a layperson that my thoughts are concerned with the study of vernacular culture in all of its manifestations? That my main area of study is the folklore of an online community of gamers who play a Russian-language text-based adventure game? That I have devoted over a year of my life trying to apply the tenets of knowledge management to the study of Slavic Folkloristics, even creating a computer-based ontology of Slavic Folkoristics and Russian Erotic Fairytales?

Oh yeah, the Russian Erotic Fairytales. At one point in my brief academic career I was known as the Oral Sex Guy. I had presented a paper at a small conference about images of oral sex as they appear in Russian jokes, tales and songs. It was a serious look at the lack of oral sex imagery in Russian folklore, the attitudes towards oral sex in Russia and an interpretation of said folklore applying Mary Douglas's theories of boundary protection. I thought the topic held more than prurient interest and that I did an evocative and serious study that was not without humour. During my talk, between the giggles, I could see all of the professors in the room (and my talk was a big draw) trying to remember how many blowjobs they got when they were exchange students. The rest of the conference it was "Hey Oral Sex Guy!" Years later people were talking about me in the third person: "Did you hear that there was this guy who was going to write his dissertation on oral sex in Russia?" That project never panned out. But imagine the fieldwork!

Speaking of fieldwork, I have many other projects that never got off the ground. A while ago I was enthralled with the work of Jack Santino, especially his studies of occupational folklore. I decided on studying the occupational folklore of Russian sex workers living in the United States. I'd get to do my fieldwork in tittie bars! It was legit. It was dealing with my area. It was folklore and oral history. I thought I had struck the motherlode. There have been many many oral histories and studies of sex workers: Times Square Strippers, Porno Stars, etc. However, I was interested in the cultural clashes that occured during the 1990s influx of sex workers from the former Soviet Bloc. I should still keep this brilliant idea on the backburner.

I should also keep my million-dollar ideas to myself, else someone steals them. Oh, go ahead, you can have them.

This is turning into a long-ass introduction. I'd better cut it out before I start explaining my theory on how Gary Alan Fine is stalking me (the subject of a later post). If I have another glass of this South African Pinotage I just might also gripe some more about not finding a job in the field.