Nom Nom Nom

When I was in Russian summer camp we used to play the 'niam niam niam niam' song to signal meal times!

Glad to see that folk expression absolutely thrives on the intranets.

Folklore Friday - Tuesday Edition!

The intrawebs is abuzz with folklore this week:

• "American Folklife: A Commonwealth of Cultures" - a 1991 article by Mary Hufford has been digitized and posted.
• The artist Rosalynn Rothstein has presented a rather confusing poster at the AFS meeting in Boise. I think it's wonderful!
• Josh Berer has been collecting folklore from Yemeni Jews.
• Weird Chicago Tours Blog has a personal recollection of the Bloody Mary/Mary Worth legend.
• VisWiki has an update to an article on Alan Dundes.
• Celtic Scholar has a review of Alan Dundes' "Sacred Narrative," a book which I revisit with much frequency.
• Osun.org has a neat-o collection of folklore pdfs.
• I think I will let the title of the posting speak for itself: Abstracts of Proceedings of Dying and Death in 18th -21st Century Europe.
• There are countless -pedias and wikis scattered throughout the internets. Here's wapedia's take on Russian folk belief.
• Andrew Whastie has a nice introduction to slavic mythology.

Till next time: Keep on Folklorin'!

Folklore Friday!

It is Folklore Friday and time for a news round-up from the amazing and exciting world of folklore studies!

• Professor Henry Glassie was awarded the Homer Haskins Prize for his lifetime of work. This award is akin to the Irving Thalberg award at the Oscars, and it is most deserving. Henry Glassie is nothing short of a monumental force in the field of folklore. I had the pleasure of meeting him a number of years ago, and saw an amazing lecture on the folk architecture of the Piedmont. A round of applause goes out to Professor Glassie. Mirror article can also be found over at the Educational Cyberplayground.
• Interesting transcript of an interview with Gary Snyder.
• An overview of a research project on the oral history of the Ayta people from Bataan, Phillipines.
• Springshare LibGuides has a useful listing of web resources for those interested in American Folklore.
• Short biography of Joel Chandler Harris.
• A joint meeting of the Popular Culture and American Culture Association has put out a call for papers on biography.
• Bess Lomax Hawes has passed away. The Washington Post has an obit and the NEA's official announcement.
• The Botkin Prize has gone to Maryland folklorist Elaine Eff. The accompanying picture in the Baltimore Sun makes me want to immediately get in a car and drive down to Maryland to try a Smith Island cake! Congrats!
• Speaking of Joel Chandler Harris, a call for Disney to let Song of the South out of the vaults.
• Disney's new movie has sparked lots of interest in "Song of the South," here's another article from Culture Mining.
• About a week too late, but an interesting lecture put on by the Botkin Folklife Lecture Series on Jewish/Irish collaboration on the minstrel scene.
• 
  

Folklore Books in Time for Festivus!

Another month, another list of books that can be enjoyed by folklorists of all stripes:

• Folklore of American Holidays, 4th ed. - Hennig Cohen and Tristram Potter Coffin.
• Folklore of World Holidays, 3rd ed. - Robert Griffin and Ann H. Shurgin.
• The Life of the Longhouse: An Archaeology of Ethnicity - Peter Metcalf.
• The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection - W. G. Runciman.
• Creation Myths of the World - David Adams Leeming, Ph.D.
• Ethnography: Step-By-Step - David M. Fetterman. In the Series "Applied Social Research Methods."
• Ritual: Perpectives and Dimensions - Catherine Bell. Revised edition.
• Culinary Fictions: Food in South Asian Diasporic Culture - Anita Mannur.
• The Flood and the Fire: Creation and Apocolypse in Irish Myth and Prophecy - Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore.
• Diana - Fay Glinister. From the series "Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World."
• Shamanic Journeys Through the Caucasus - Michael Berman.
• Consuming Agency in Fairy Tales, Childlore, and Folkliterature - Susan Honeyman. Part of the series "Routledge Studies in Folklore and Fairy Tales.
• Framing the Jina: Narrative of Icons and Idols in Jain History - John Cort.
• Old Gods, New Druids - Robin Herne.
• Shamanic Journeys Through Daghestan - Michael Berman (man he's been busy!).
• Primitive Classification - Emile Durkheim. Reprinted as part of the "Routledge Revivals" series.
• Unwitting Zionists: The Jewish Community of Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan - Haya Gavish. From the series "Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology."
• Celebrating 100 Years of the Texas Folklore Society, 1909-2009 - ed. by Kenneth L. Untiedt.
• Between Pulpit and Pew: Folk Religion in a North Yorkshire Fishing Village - David Clark.
• Tibetan Ritual - Jose Ignacio Cabezon.
• Going to the Well for Water - Rionach Ui Ogain.

Saturday Folklore Link Bonanza

Lots and lots of folklore happenings this week, including the passing of another major influence on contemporary folklore studies:

• Turkish folklorist and novelist Hayrettin Ivgin was awarded the Pushkin Prize for his contributions to world literature. He is supposedly more popular in the former Soviet Union than in his native Turkey.
• Awards season is upon us - the American Folklore Society has posthumously awarded its Aesop prize for Children's Folklore to Nona Beamer for her book Naupaka.
• Dell Hymes has passed away after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's Disease. Professor Hymes held influence over innumerable fields such as Sociolinguistics, Anthropology and Folklore. While having been long associated with my alma mater - The University of Virginia - Professor Hymes was gearing up for retirement by the time I did my graduate study/indentured servitude. I never had the opportunity to meet the man, but his name resounded throughout the halls on the grounds. The Washington post has his obituary, UVA has an official press release, The Daily Progress has an obituary, and Jason Baird Jackson has an appreciation.
• The Aesop Accolade Award - also awarded by the AFS - went to Orville Hicks and Julia Taylor Ebel for the book Jack Tales and Mountain Yarns.
• Folklore Forum has put out a call for papers on Cultural Manifestations of Violence.
• Short article about the work of Brigham Young University-Hawaii dean/researcher Philip McArthur.
• I am so looking forward to seeing the movie "The Book of Masters" - Disney's first foray into Russian-language filmmaking. The New York Times has an article about the making of the film.

Keep folklorin'!

Folklore Friday Roundup

Hey! It's Folklore Friday! Time for a round-up of relatively recent news from the folklore front.

• Snopes.com has a debunking of a persistent urban legend concerning Oprah Winfrey and tipping.
• Alan Dundes's posthumous collection "The Meaning of Folklore" has been made available as a free ebook. My mother actually gave me a copy of this book for Christmas last year and I devoured it, digested it and loved it. It's nice to have a searchable copy on my laptop. I am not offering the link - the legality of this copy is dubious - but it is easily googleable.
• The New England Folklore Blog has an interesting post commemorating Bear Hibernation Day, and includes a retelling of a Penobscot tale. If you don't already subscribe to this blog, you should.
• There were many memorials about the late Claude Levi-Strauss this past week-and-a-half. Jason Baird Jackson from Indiana looks at Levi-Strauss from the point-of-view of a museum ethnologist. Vital reading.
• I have mentioned it before, but the new Russian Disney movie "The Book of the Masters" is set for general release. The Disneyfication of Russian tales has started (I wonder if Russian folkloristics has its Jack Zipes?)

November Spawned These Folklore Books

I am overwhelmed in updates that I have to do to this site, but I enjoy doing these lists the most:

• Dun: Discourses, Strategies, and Power in the Yora'ba Play of Transformation - Cristina Boscolo. From the series Cross/Culture.
• Preaching the Inward Light: Early Quaker Rhetoric - Michael P. Graves. From the series . in Rhetoric and Literature.
• Approaches to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey - Kosta Myrsiades. American University Studies XIX: General Literature.
• Perspectives on Israeli Anthropology - Harvey Goldberg, et. al. (eds). The Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology.
• A Tennessee Folklore Sampler: Selected Readings from the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin - Ted Olson and Anthony Cavender, eds.
• Indian Ocean Studies: Cultural, Social, and Political Perspectives - Shanti Moorty, ed. Routledge Indian Ocean Series.
• Pancatantra: The Book of India's Folk Wisdom - Patrick Oiville (trans). Oxford World's Classics edition.
• Serbian Folk-Lore: Popular Tales. Selected and translated by Madam Csedomille Mijatovich and W. Denton.
• Word Stories Originated by Ancient Africans - Joseph A. Bailey.
• Folk Tales of the Coast Salish - Thelma Anderson (ed).
• Ariadne's Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature - William Hansen. From the series Myth & Poetics.
• Popular Turkish Love Lyrics & Folk Legends - Talat S. Halman. From the series Middle East Literature in Translation.

As always, I would gladly accept free copies of these (or any) books!

Octoberfest of Folklore Books

It is October and time to go through the list of the new books coming out this month!

• Folklore/Cinema: Film as Vernacular Culture - Mikel J. Koven. This book uses my favorite phrase in the subtitle!
• Funeral Rituals in Eastern Shandong, China: An Anthropological Study - Zhou Shaoming.
• Fairy Tale Review, The Aquamarine Issue - ed. by Kate Bernheimer.
• The Penguin Book of Classical Myth - Jenny March.
• Encyclopedia of Pasta - Oretta Zanini de Vita (California Studies in Food and Culture).
• Elves in Anglo-Saxon England: Matters of Belief, Health, Gender, and Identity - Alaric Hall (Anglo-Saxon Studies).
• Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil (Second Edition) - Richard G. Parker.
• African Discourse in Islam, Oral Traditions, and Performance - Abdul-rasheed Na'allah (African Studies)
• Russian Magic: Living Folk Traditions of an Enchanted Landscape - Cherry Gilchrist.
• Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals - John Cuthbert Lawson. This is a reprint of a book that popped up a lot in graduate school.
• Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - T. W. Rolleston (Classic REprint)
• Dulcimer Maker: The Craft of Homer Ledford - R. Gerald Alvey.
• The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor: Musical Authority, Cultural Investment - Judah M. Cohen.
• We Will Dance Our Truth: Yaqui History in Yoeme Performances - David Delgado Shorter.
• Working the Field: Accounts from French Louisiana - Jacques Henry & Sara Le Menestrel.

September Folklore Books, Part Deux

Now that the month is almost over, time to list the other notable books about folklore that came out this month. I still haven't recieved a copy of the book "Folklore and the Internet" yet, but I hope to have it in my mitts very soon! I better be cited.

• Feminist Traditions in Andalusi-Moroccan Oral Narratives - Hasna Lebbady.
• The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture - Bernice Murphy.
• Islamic Spectrum in Java - Timothy Daniels. Part of the Series "Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific."
• Multiculturalism's Double Bind - John Nagle. Part of the Series "Urban Anthropology."
• Tales of the Yukaghir - Waldemar Bogaras. Yet another reprint of this oft-reprinted anthology. I read it a few months ago for free on Googlebooks and loved it.
• Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs - James Murray MacKinley.
• Animal Worship - edited by Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome and John McBrewster.
• The Doctor in History, Literature and Folklore - William Andrews.
• Perspectives on the Caribbean: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation - Philip W. Scher and Kevin Yelvington (eds).
• American Indian Fairy Tales - Margaret Compton. Reprint of the 1907 edition.
• Turf Fire Stories and Fairy Tales of Ireland: A Collection of Irish Myth and Legend - Barry O'Connor. Reprint of an 1890 collection.
• Celtic Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs, ed. 1892 collection.
• The Chinese Fairy Book - Frederick H. Martens.
• The Politics of Heritage Tourism in China: A View from Lijiang - Xiaobo Su.
• Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms - Ethan Gilsdorf. Not sure how this holds up to Gary Alan Fine's classic "Shared Fantasy" and (ahem) my dissertation, but should be an interesting lay read.
• Tall betsy and Dunce Baby: South Georgia Folktales - Mariella Glenn Hartsfield.

American Idol and Folklore

I got so excited last time about the new book on Folklore and the Internet that I have forgotten to update the list of folklore books for the month of September - and September is almost over! I will catch up later - I ordered a copy of the book and hope to have it in my grubby hands within the week. I hope I am cited! If not, then shame on them.

What could American Idol possibly have to do with folklore? Interesting question. Last year's contestant Anoop Desai was a folklore graduate student. And the Smithsonian has just recently put a display of the American Idol desk up in the castle. A discussion of this development can be found at the marvelous folklore blog Forums on Folklore, which has been added to the official New Vernacular Culture blogroll.

September Folklore Books

Amazon this month lists 373 books coming out this month with the keyword "folklore." Here is the cream of that crop:

• Evil People: A Comparative Study of Witch Hunts in Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier - Dr. Johannes Dillinger Phd. I just love typing the word 'Swabian.'
• The Oral Traditions in Ile-ife: The Yoruba People and Their Book of Enlightenment - Yemi D. Ogunyemi.
• Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes - Albert Jack. This is for the lay reader, but looks interesting.
• Rostam: Tales of Love and War from the Shahnameh - Abolgasem Ferdowsi.
• Tales from a Finnish Tupa - James Cloyd Bowman, Margery Bianco. A reprint of a book that originally appeared in 1936.
• Mythematics: Solving the 12 Labours of Hercules - Michael Huber. Applying math to myth.
• Legends, Lore and Secrets of Western New York - Lorna MacDonald Czarnota.
• Myth in History, History in Myth: Proceedings of the Third International Conference of the Society for Netherlandic History - Laura Cruz & Willem Frijhoff (eds).
• Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World - Trevor J. Blank (ed). OMIGOD! Someone turned my dissertation topic into a book! JK! LOL! ROFL! Goatse! I am so reading this book!

That last title got me so excited that I am running to the bookstore right now! I will have to finish this list later tonight.

Cemetery Folk Expressions

I don't think it matters whether you find them tasteful or not, but I beleive that decoration of gravesites in cemeteries is one of the most natural exhibitions of folk expression. However, some people get riled up by this, as evidenced by this (fairly) recent article from the Boston Globe.

I plead guilty to doing this myself; I left a picture of my father holding my daughter at his burial site, along with the requisite flowers.

Veal Cheeks Blog

It is no secret that Gary Alan Fine is one of my favorite writers; I believe I have mentioned it on this and many other blogs. He has studied little league baseballers, high school debaters and kitchen workers. I have been all three - for a while there I thought he was stalking my life!

I have also used his book on role playing gamers and the creation of a shared narrative as the basis for a major chunk of my dissertation.

I was pleasantly surprised the other day to stumble upon his blog - thank you GoogleAlerts! You all should read it too.

Veal Cheeks

This is Why They Invented the Interne

Small hut for chickens.

The AMNH has posted a massive collection of photos from an expedition to the Congo made by Herbert Lang and James Chapin from 1909-1915. I found the above photo by searching for the word "chicken."

This expedition was thorough, to say the least. This site is filled with riches.

Congo Expedition, AMNH.

Koschei The Everliving

The blog "EnglishRussia" has a very interesting posting about the Russian mythological beast "Koschey" along with a collection of many excellent pictures.

English Russia: Russian Folklore, Koschey

The Passing of a Folklorist

Folklorist Sandy Ives passed away this week in Maine at age 89. He was a long-time professor of folklore and anthropology at the University of Maine specializing in folk songs and the folklore of lumbermen. He also served as director of the Maine Folklife Center.

His love of local folklore sealed his relationship to his adopted state of Maine, as described by current Maine Folklife Center director Pauleena MacDougall:

Because so many of the Maine songs had to do with river drives and woods work. . .he soon found himself searching for more information about the Maine woods. His excitement grew and he no longer considered leaving Maine.

A full obituary can be found here at the Bangor Daily News.

And a list of publications available from the folklorist can be found on this link from Amazon.

A preview of the book he contributed to - along with Henry Glassie and John Szwed - can be found on this link from Googlebooks.

New August Folklore Arrivals

I present to you my monthly list of folklore titles. If only I was blessed with unlimited time, energy and moolah, then I would read them all! This time with reviews freshly cut-and-pasted from Amazon!

• Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction - Benjamin W. Fortson. "This is an excellent introduction to Proto-Indo-European and its study. Both the chapters on various aspects of PIE grammar and those describing the various Indo-European branches are masterly précis of their subjects. As a Tocharianist I’m pleased to see that all branches of Indo-European are given the same thoughtful, substantial treatment. Both novices and the experienced Indo-Europeanists will read this book with profit; more than one of the latter group will wish he had written himself."
  –Douglas Q. Adams, University of Idaho
• Music in Motion: Diversity and Dialogue in Europe. Study in the Frame of the EXtra! Exchange Traditions Project - Bernd Clausen, Ursula Hemetek, Eva Saether (eds). Diverse musical cultures of migrant communities have existed in Europe for centuries. This volume will focus on different musical traditions and practices, but also raises questions such as: How are musical traditions of migrants integrated into education and public music? Can music facilitate transcultural dialogue? And to what extent does the practice and performance of music reassert cultural traditions in a foreign environment? Answers to those questions as well as a review on what can be observed in twenty-first century Europe are gathered in various thematic sections; model projects will provide a practical insight into the life and work with music of migrant and minority cultures in Europe. This volume results from a project of the European Music Council, a non-governmental network of music organizations.
• History and Folklore in a Medieval Jewish Chronicle: The Family Chronicle of Ahima'az Ben Paltiel - Robert Bonfil. Part of the Series "Studies in Jewish History and Culture" and could be yours for only $185. As Alfred E. Neumann would say: Cheap!
• Tales of the Yukaghir (Adventures in New Lands) - Waldemar Bogaras. Originally published in 1918; I just read this book a few weeks ago for free on Googlebooks. Go ahead and search for "Folklore" on googlebooks, you will be richly awarded.
• Hammer & Tickle: The Story of Communism, A Political System Almost Laughed Out of Existence - Ben Lewis. Wow, Publisher's Weekly was harsh about this: "This often enjoyable but flat-footed compilation and study of jokes from the Soviet bloc has a hard time justifying its existence." This book seems unnecessary to me, I've read other books that have ably dealt with this subject matter.
• Tales from a Finnish Tupa - James Claude Bowman & Margery Bianco. Another reprint.
• Tamil Oratory and the Dravidian Aesthetic: Democratic Practice in South India - Professor Bernard Bate. Oooo, I like how he put Professor before his name. Actually sounds kind of interesting: an ethnographic study of Tamil political speech. Part of the series "Cultures of History."
• Tales From Brookgreen: Folklore, Ghost Stories and Gullah Folktales in the South Carolina Lowcountry - Lynn Michelsohn.
• Historism and Cultural Identity in the Rhine- Meuse Region - Wolfgang Kortjaens, Jan De Maeyer and Tom Verschaffel (eds).
• Selected Tales - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Oxford World Classics edition translated by Joyce Crick.
• On the Sacred in African Literature: Old Gods and New Worlds - Mark Mathuray. No customer reviews on this one yet, but the publisher asserts that "This innovative book provides an original approach to the analysis of the representation of myth, ritual, and ‘magic’ in African literature."
• Sacred Wells: A Study in the History, Meaning and Mythology of Holy Wells and Waters - Gary V. Varner.
• Folklore of Sussex - Jacqueline Simpson. I have a vague recollection of listing this last month. Meh.
• Princess, Priestess, Poet: The Sumerian Temple Hymns of Enheduanna - Betty De Shong Meador.
• Folklore of Northumbria - Fran & Geoff Doel. Now I am seriously getting a case of deja vu.

I am still confused as to why so many academic books are so damn expensive. Some of these books average in the Fifty to Seventy-Five dollar range, which is kind of ridiculous. I understand the whole concept of them having limited marketability and audience and what not; but my basic understanding of Adam Smith is that decreased demand should decrease the prices.

It may be a generational tic of mine, but I believe that knowledge and information should be cheap and readily available to all. That is why I am a big fan of googlebooks and libraries. A lay reader would be more than willing to buy a more 'academic' book if it was priced in a comparatively normal range. Then they will just be disgusted by the sheer unreadability of it. I shall flesh out these half-arsed thoughts at a later date.

Facebook Folklore Groups

I have often voiced how disheartened I am when searching for an online community in which to discuss folklore with like-minded individuals.

Like other members of my generation, I am a Facebook junkie. I update too frequently and check in on the updates from high school and college friends with whom I have lost touch.

So - not unlike the brilliant minds at Reese's who mixed two great things - I decided to search Facebook for folklore groups.

Wowee! There are hundreds of groups on facebook with folklore as a keyword. And most of them are legit and of interest to me. Tonight I was able to join the groups for the New York Folklore Society, Fans of Slavic Folklore and the American Folklore Society.

It is also quite easy to make a facebook group, so look forward to the seeing the facebook group devoted to some of my faves: occupational folklore and erotic russian folklore!

Russian Videogame Featuring The Three Bogatyrs

A new Russian-produced videogame whose protaganists are the bogatyrs Ilya Muromets, Alesha Popovica and Dobrynia of byliny fame gets a very bad review from examiner.com.

I saw a preview of this game a few months ago and found it kind of silly, but charming. It seems that the reviewer did not find it quite so charming.

Overall, Fairy Tales: Three Heroes has a pleasant, if somewhat antiquated look to it, enjoyable music, and boring tedious gameplay that approaches totally unplayable. This game may serve well for children new to adventure gaming, but the average video game enthusiast will likely want to pass this title by.

The game supposedly also suffers from some translating problems. My main problem with the game is the genre confusion: shouldn't it be Epic: Three Heroes, or Bylina: Three Heroes? Folklorists are nothing if not nit picky.

Folklore's Wissenschaftschmerz

I believe that I have mentioned Lingua Franca's dooming article about folklore's demise a number of times on this blog. Even though it came out a dozen years ago, on many message boards devoted to folkloristics it still gets some people's panties in a bindle.

The article came out the same Fall that I started my graduate studies in folklore, and I was only an intermittent reader of the magazine at the time. I was well aware of my future job potential as a Ph.D. in Folkloristics (the sub-field of Slavic folkloristics, at that) were somewhat limited. But I was not aware of the direness of the situation. I believe that I am the last person from my university with a degree in my field, and that degree which was conferred five years ago was probably the last one to be granted. If only I had the foresight to apply to law school instead. . . .

The article identifies what has for many been a long-standing open secret of the field: folklorists aren't sure where they belong - in the introduction to my dissertation I call them the red-headed bastard child of literary studies and anthropology, which is not too far off the mark. John Dorfman offers the following anecdote:

When exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti came to speak at UCLA in 1992, Donald Cosentino, chairman of the folklore and mythology department, was asked to make the introduction. Before the event, the university's vice-chancellor told him, "We have a head of state hear. Under no circumstances will I introduce you as the chair of folklore and mythology. I will introduce you as from the English department. Let's not embarrass ourselves."

Ouch. I am never embarrassed to tell someone I am a folklorist. And, usually, I am not embarrassed by the inevitable question of 'what's that mean?"

Lurking the message boards, I find out that most people who contribute are not working as folklorists: they are librarians, sci-fi writers, editors, ancillary staff. A few hold faculty positions in American Studies or English departments. Some are scraping by. My favorite journal, New Directions in Folklore, is now offline and struggling to find a sponsor and an editor. Are we in a better place today then we were twelve years ago when Dorfman wrote this article?

As can be expected, the article drew a few critical letters. A group of eighty graduate students at Indiana University wrote in why folklore is so great:

A good place to start might be by asking why graduate students continue to devote their professional careers to a field so poorly understood, and hence so easily maligned. Surely we could instead be attenting Ph.D. programs in anthropology, literary studies, dance, sociology, linguistics, musicology, psychology, history, art and architecture, semiotics, popular culture, or cultural studies. However, we understand that the value of folklore is precisely that it incorporates the wisdom of all these and other disciplines - wisdom folklorists enrich with their unique focus on human traditions. Folklore explores cultural and artistic continuity across time and place, an enterprise for which other branches of the humanities and social sciences have historically demonstrated little interest or imagination.

I don't know about this. The problem with doing a little of everything is that you never get to do anything that well. I am reminded of an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares where he visits a restaurant in New York City with an Indian, an Italian and an American menu. Of course, with this lack of focus they produced lazy and nasty dishes in all cuisines. Who wants to eat in a restaurant that can't decide what kind of restaurant it wants to be.

I was inititally drawn to folklore by a bunch of great teachers while I was taking a class on Fairy Tales as a whim. I liked the scientific approach to everyday subjects, I liked the focus on humor and I liked how folklore takes the words off the paper.

When my daughters go to college in the ensuing decades (11 more years - time to start saving!) will they be able to take folklore? I would dissuade them, but I doubt the possibility will even be there.

Slavic Mythology and Ritual Updates

A couple of interesting articles concerning slavic folklore and folk belief have recently come across my Google Reader feed (that's the 21st C. variant of 'coming across the transom').

• Ria Novosti has a six-part series on Russian sects and 'out-there' religious groups and movements. Part IV deals with the continued propagation of magic beliefs throughout the former Soviet Union. The article focuses on papers and people advertising magical services.

  "People in Russia are far more drawn to magical services than to psychiatrists or psychoanalysts," Mikhail said. "They believe more in miracles than people in the West. And they really love a show."

  ---------------

  Olga had her own theory as to the popularity of magical services in Russia.

  "It's much more interesting," she said. "When you go to a psychoanalyst, you have to tell him your problems. Here, psychics and clairvoyants tell you your problems. That's far, far better."

• The blog Dalton Road, has a rather extensive entry about Slavic Mythology, and the hurdles faced in trying to reconfigure a pantheon without a written theogony. Our understanding of ancient Slavic Myth is passed down from ritual, archaeological data and outsider accounts. The author gives the warning:

  When dealing with Slavic mythology, one cannot be too careful or too critical about the validity and authenticity of sources. Scholarly interest in beliefs of ancient Slavs has been continually waxing since the times of the Renaissance, and with it the overall number of confusions, errors, misinterpretations, and unsupported reconstructions (not to mention inventions) has also increased.

  The unnamed author of this article give a good account of the archaeological evidence of our knowledge of the Slavic pantheon. I would recommend this article for those looking for a thorough introductory overview to the subject. While doing my due diligence on this article, I found out that it is a word-for-word copy of the wikipedia entry on Slavic Mythology! Ha!
• Аргументы и факты announces the arrival of the first animated film to bring together all the heroes of Russian Tales. "Три богатыря и Шамаханская царица" (The Three Bogatyrs and the Shamakhan Princess) brings together the bogatyrs Alyosha Popovich, Dobrynya Nikitich and Ilya Muromets.

  
  

  
  

July Folklore Books

A whole bunch of hot new folklore books are coming out this month - so send me some!

• The Golden Bough: J. G. Frazer, His Life and Work and The Making of the Golden Bough - Robert Ackerman and Robert Frazer. Two-volume reprint.
• Slavic Sins of the Flesh: Food, Sex, and Carnal Appetites in Nineteenth-Century Russian Fiction - Ronald L. LeBlanc. Part of the Series "Becoming Modern: New Nineteenth Century Russian Studies." Some of my favorite topics covered here: food sex and russian fiction!
• Problems of Ethnomusicology - Constantin Brailoiu.
• Reading the Medieval in Early Modern England - ed. by Gordon McMullan and David Matthews.
• Indiana Ghost Folklore - Tom Baker.
• Irish Folk and Fairy Tales - Gordon Jarvie.
• Argentine Fairy Tales - Ana Schindler.
• Grettir's Saga - trans. by Jesse Byock.
• History, Evolution and the Concept of Culture: Selected Papers of Alexander Lesser - Sidney M. Mintz (ed). Lesser was a student of Franz Boas.
• Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States - Andrew Coe. Jennifer 8. Lee had a great book last year about Chinese food in America, I don't know how this one will compare.
• Family Origin Histories: The Whaling Indians, West Coast Legends and Stories - Edward Sapir.
• Trickster Jack - New Jack tales by E. Reid Gilbert.
• The Poetic Edda - trans. by Carolyne Larrington.
• Masks and Masking: Faces of Tradition and Belief Worldwide - Gary Edson.
• Historic Figures of the Arthurian Era: Authenticating the Enemies and Allies of Britain's Post-Roman King - Frank D. Reno
• Fairy Tales Reimagined: Essays on New Retellings - Susan Reddington Bobby.
• Native Americans and Anglo-American Culture, 1750 - 1850: The Indian Atlantic - edited by Tim Fulford and Kevin Hutchins.
• Minstrel of the Appalachians: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford - Loyal Jones. This might be the book of most interest to folklorists released this month! I want this, badly. The first sentence: "To use a mountain saying, Bascom Lamar Lunsford would cross hell on a rotten to rail to get a folk song."
• Folklore of Essex - Sylvia Kent.
• Folklore of Northamptonshire - Peter Hill.
• Lore and Legends of Kerala: Selections from Kottarathil Sankunni's Aithihyamala - trans. by T. C. Narayan.

Parsing Through Dead Michael Jackson Jokes

I knew it would not be long for there to appear a website devoted to collecting Michael Jackson jokes, I present for your consideration: deadmichaeljacksonjokes.com! This site collects jokes told over that most folk of medium: the text message.

Jokes always arise during times of tragedy or death; they are a formulaic way of dealing with issues of ambiguity and of talking about concepts which are generally uncomfortable to talk about. And Michael Jackson was nothing if not ambiguous and uncomfortable.

A classic article about humor arising from the ashes of a hard subject was written by Bill Ellis a number of years ago, entitled "How to Make a Big Apple Crumble." Unfortunately it is no longer online, where'd it go?

The postings on Dead Michael Jackson Jokes can be separated into the following categories:

• Jokes that combine his alleged drug abuse and his alleged child molestation: Apparently the Police found class A drugs in his kitchen, class B drugs in his bathroom and class 5c in his bedroom...
• Jokes that reference his plastic surgeries, and his alleged child molestations: when michael jackson died doctors melted michael jackson since he was 99% plastic he was made in a box of legos so little boys can play with him; michael jacksons ashes will be sprinkled in to an Etcha-Sketch so little kids can still play with his Knob.
• Jokes that combine his song lyrics with alleged child molestations: wat did micheal jackson say to the little boy ? The way you make me feel , you really turn me on ... (n.b: not all the jokes are winners!)
• Jokes that mention his weird appearance: when the doctors gave michael jackson got cpr his nose snaped off like a cracker
• Jokes that play on celebrity deaths in general: What are Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon getting for christmas? Patrick Swayze!
• Recycled jokes from the original molestation charges: At the exact time of MJ's death Wal-mart decided to do a one time immediate sale...ALL BOYS PANTS HALF OFF!
• Jokes about the alleged molestation charges and food imagery: It has been confirmed... Michael Jacksons death was actually the result of CHOKING ON a 12year old nuts....; In honor of Michael Jackson, McDonald's is now serving a new sandwith called, the McJackson. It is made from 50 year old meat that is between 12 year old buns
• Pleas for reason: Maybe we should stop making jokes about MJ. Maybe his fans are right and we are going to hell. MJ is there and I don't wanna get sodomised...

There are many more jokes in this cycle. I see an article in the future!

FF Communications and Maurice

I was book-hunting in Boston last week and managed to snag a copy of FF Communications: Vol. LXXXVII: Studies in Finnic-Slavic Folklore Relations: Selected Essays by Felix Oinas. This is a find for many reasons - but even better was the inscription on the cover: "To Maurice - with all best wishes - Felix."

Even better, there was a note inside the book:

Dear Maurice:

Many thanks for your fine book. And for the comments on my article.

Felix

I am now scratching my head and doing my best googling to find out who was the previous owner of this book. I have started off with a search on folklorists with the first name of Maurice, of which I know of none off the top of my head. And then I probably should narrow it down to folklorists who worked in the Boston area (even though the book could have travelled a bunch), and were active in folkloristics (maybe with either a slavic or finno-ugric bent) during the late sixties.

Here's my list of suspects:

• Maurice Saxby - the doyen of Australian children's literature.
• John Maurice Miller - also published with the switched-up name Maurice John Miller, but during the turn of the last century. Not a likely candidate.
• Maurice Harris - wrote a book about the Talmud, but also the name of a boxer who goes by Mo Bettah!
• Maurice Baring - lived in England and died 23 years before this book came out.

I have to admit that I am stumped. If you have any leads, feel free to email me!

Baseball Card April Fool's Prank

Another cross-post from Snopes, but it deals with one of my favorite topics, Baseball!  Looks like as a lark the fine folks at Topps put out a fake card about a supposed Japanese pitching phenom named Kaz Uzuki.   Shades of Sidd Finch!

Online Folklore Community

When googling "folklore blogs," I am delighted when this blog is the number one entry on the first page.  However, the slight amount of traffic this blog receives disheartens me and makes me fear for the future popularity of folklore as a field of study.   Being No. 1 in folklore blogs isn't that impressive when it is outstripped in popularity by Professional Tiddlywinks.

Where my folklorists at?

There is sporadic traffic on the New Directions newsgroup, mostly of the "is there anybody out there" vein.  

First step is to invite others to contribute to this blog - when I created it I envisioned a sort of folklore parallel to the collaborative blog Boing Boing.   I am unable to contribute daily, I would love for others to enrich the site.   

Next step is to send out invitations to create a webring of folklore blogs - a community where folklorists meet to share interesting and useful information with one another.    I will probably send out personal invites to those of you who are out there!   

June Folklore Books

Here are a few books coming out this month that may be of interest to the folklorist:

• Tales from Slavic Myths - Ivan Hudec.  I have had this book on order from Barnes & Noble for over a year.  If this actually comes out this month I will be flabbergasted.
• Legends and Lore of Western Pennsylvania - Thomas White.   I went to school and have many friends from Western Pennsylvania, and I am sure that I have heards some of these tales recounted to me by local friends.
• This Is What They Say: Stories - Francois Mandeville.  Chipewyan story cycle re-told.  Evidently the new spelling is Chipewyan, a fact that I was unawares of.  
• Lakota Sioux Legends and Myths: Native American Oral Traditions Recorded by Marie L. McLaughlin and Zitkala-Sa.  - ed. by Peter Jones.  
• Naive: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design - ed. by R. Klanten and H. Hellige.  
• Legends and Landscape: Plenary Papers from the 5th Celtic-Nordic-Baltic Folklore Symposium, Reykavik 2005 - ed. by Terry Gunnell.  Oooooo, I love this sort of things.  Symposia papers and festschriften get me excited!  
• Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Legend - Leo Ruickbee.
• Do You See What I Mean?: Plains Indian Sign Talk and the Embodiment of Action - Brenda Farnell.
• Sango in Africa and the African Diaspora - Joel E. Tishken, Toyin Falola, Akintunde Akinyemi, eds.  Part of the African Expressive Cultures series.  Sango is the Yoruba god of thunder.
• At the Font of the Marvelous: Exploring Oral Narrative and Mythic Imagery of the Iroquois and Their Neighbors - Anthony Wonderley.  

Not that many new books this month, but still too many to keep up with!  

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Archiving of Audio Files at the Library of Congress

Another excellent article from Snopes.com; this one about the archiving standards at the Library of Congress going very retro:

Another interesting bit about how things last - the Library of Congress completed a study on the best medium for near-permanent archiving of their extensive audio collection.  Their conclusion - 78 RPM platters.

The ensuing article about this item of folklore is very in-depth and  realistic about the perils of transfering data from one medium to another.

A Fairy Tale Ending to Eurovision

The Norwegian (by way of Byelorus) entry to this year's Eurovision Song Contest held in Moscow won the grand prize.  Alexander Rybak - violinist and singer won with the song "Fairytale," which incorporates folkloric imagery from both Norway and Russia.  Surprisingly, this song garnered the highest vote tally of any Eurovision song ever.  Even more than Abba!

Obama and Swine Fly Urban Legend

Interesting urban legend going around asserting that the swine flu is a result of the Obama presidency, in terms of a fulfillment of the 'when pigs fly' prophecy!

Full story here on Snopes.

May Folklore Books

Books!  Books!  Books!

• Samuel Johnson, The Ossian Fraud, and the Celtic Revival in Great Britain and Ireland - Thomas M. Curley.  This reminds me of a special edition of the Journal of American Folklore a few years ago devoted to the topic of Ossian.  
• Draculas, Vampires and Other Undead  Forms: Essays on Gender, Race and Culture - John Edgar Browning & Caroline Joan Kay Picart (eds).
• Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book - Paul Lopes.
• Sango in Africa and the African Diaspora - Joel E. Tishken, Toyin Falola and Akintunde Akinyemi (eds)
• Musica Nortena: Mexican Americans Creating a Nation Between Nations - Catherine Ragland.
• Menschen - Heros - Gott: Weltentwurfe und Lebensmodelle im Mythos der Vormoderne -- Anja Bettenworth & Christien Schmitz.
• Zombie Holocaust: How the Living Dead Devoured Pop Culture - David Flint.
• Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What they Have to tell Us - Nicholas Evans. 
• The Tale of Sinuhe: and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 BC - RB Parkinson.
• Rromane Paramicha (A Collection of Romany Folktales) - Hedina Sijercic.  A bilingual collection of Romany stories.
• Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory - Guy Beiner.
• Talking About Laughter: And Other Studies in Greek Comedy - Alan H. Sommerstein.
• The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation - James O. Young & Conrad G. Brunk (eds).
• Border Crossing: Transnational Americanist Anthropology - Kathleen S. Fine-Dare & Steven L. Rubinstein (eds).
• eCulture: Cultural Content in the Digital Age - Alfredo M. Ronchi.
• Inventing the Jew: Antisemitic Stereotypes in Romanian and Other Central-East European Cultures - Andrei Oisteanu.
• The War in Words: Reading the Dakota Conflict Through the Captivity Literature - Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola.
• Kitchens, Smokehouses & Privies: Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth Century Mid-Atlantic - Michael Olmert.

Swine Flu Folklore

Fresh from our friends at Snopes!

Beatification of an English Cardinal

I recently read an article Boston Globe (which, incidentally is probably not long for this world) suggesting that the Vatican confirmed a miracle in the case of a local man with back pain.  This is a major step in the sainthood hopes for Cardinal John Henry Newman, a 19th Century British Cardinal.  I was dubious of the report when I read it, but not as dubious as the blogger at Bostonist!

I know this doesn't have much to do with folklore, but I found it interesting nonetheless.  Stay tuned for updates on recent folklore books!

Roadside Folk Expression

I have long held a fascination with roadside displays of folk expression: flags and signs hanging from overpasses, graffiti on bridges and rock croppings, memorials to those who died in that very spot, cranky hand-lettered signs.

On my recent trips to Boston I have passed a sheet hanging from an overpass on the Mass Turnpike saying: "Lawyers want Custody Battles 1-800-SAD-DADS." Folk expression usually derives from instances where regular means of communication are either exhausted or felt inadequate. I can imagine the frustrated father who was moved to spray paint this message on a perfectly good sheet and hang it over the highway (especially since I am driving to Boston for a contentions custody battle!)

Other instances of local signage that I enjoy occur just outside my home town. In Maynard, MA, at the town line, someone put up a plywood sign with the message "Since Maynard Public Schools Refuse to Have an Honor Roll, here is a list of the students who should be on the honor roll.. . " (or something to that effect). In Littleton, MA, on a particularly ill-repaired road is a homemade sign - again on plywood - saying "Fix ******** Street It is an embarrassment to Littleton. . ." What I most love about these signs is that there is simply too much verbiage on them to read completely during one drive-by. And again, we see frustration with official means of communication and action displayed in folk ways.

I stumbled upon an article on the website Something Awful about the sprouting of roadside memorials at places where there have been automobile fatalities.  In this incredibly misanthropic posting, the author wonders why we put memorials up for people who die in auto accidents, but we don't make memorials in places like hospitals where people die of cancer.   I think any folklorist could easily answer this question: the automobile death is an unexpected and unusual death.  And unusual and unexpected things are generally celebrated or marked in the folk imagination.    You are expected to die in the hospital: hence no spontaneous memorials springing up in hospital rooms (and, besides, logistically this would be impossible).  But, people are not expected to die on the road (especially young people), hence spontaneous memorials springing up at accident locations.

Russian Folktale Told in Lego

A lego movie of the tale of Baba-Yaga, famous Russian witch:

An Incredibly Racist Urban Legend

Snopes has just recently written about a new - and incredibly racist - urban legend concerning our new president and Mt. Rushmore.  Essentially the legend states that a road will be closed to allow for a large block of coal to be delivered to Mt. Rushmore, ostensibly to create life-like image of our new president.

Snopes has some decent analysis of the 'joke',  and it is probably more racial humor than racist humor.  Most likely it is also a commentary on the supposed apotheosis of Mr. Obama.  (I will use that word any opportunity I get, ha ha ha!)   But, probably because of my political leanings, I am still personally offended by the legend.  (Keep in mind that it is the role of the folklorist to analyze and collect the material, regardless of the political or racist motivations behind it).

The article can be found at Snopes.com.