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.

April Folklore Book Update, Part Deux

The continuation in a saga that no one really cares about. . .

• Fanti Kinship and the Analysis of Kinship Terminologies - David B. Kronenfield.  From the Series 'Music in American Life.'
• The Ogress and The Snake: and Other Stories from Somalia - Elizabeth Laird.  Geared for the younger reader.
• Stairway to Empire: Lockport, the Erie Canal, and the Shaping of America - Patrick McGreevy.
• The Objects of Evidence: Anthropological Approaches to the Production of Knowledge  - edited by Matthew Engelke.  
• Fairy Tale Review, The White Issue - Kate Bernheimer.
• Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies: Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes - Marc Howard Ross.
• The Hero and the Goddess: The Odyssey as Pathway to Personal Transformation - Jean Houston, with Introduction by Marianne Williamson!  I usually avoid posting New Age-y things here, but it sometimes help to see how the other half lives!  I am willing to wager that this book quotes my nemesis, Joseph Cambpell, to great extent.
• "I Loved My Mother on Saturdays" And Other Tales from the Shtetl and Beyond - Roslynd Bresnick-Perry.  A collection of memorates.
• Kou-Skelowh/We Are the People: A Trilogy of Okanagan Legends - Barbara Marchand.
• King Arthur and the Myth of History - Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman.
• Xingu: The Indians, Their Myths  - Orland Villas Boas and Claudio Villas Boas.

There are also many many titles showing up as being available for the Kindle.   One of these days I should review exactly what folklore materials are available for the portable electronic book reader.

Folklore Book Countdown - April Edition!

Here are the books coming out in April of interest to all seven folklorists left in the country!

• The Christian Parthenon: Classicism and Pilgrimage in Byzantine Athens - Anthony Kaldellis.
• Culture and Customs of Greece  - Artemis Leontis.  Part of the series Culture and Customs of Europe.
• Mongolian Folktales - Dashdondog.  Part of the World Folklore Series.
• Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections - Ralph P. Locke.
• Persian Tales: Fifty-Eight Traditional & FolkTales from Iran - Donald L. Lorimer & E. O. Lorimer.  Classics of Persian Literatue 6, paperback.
• Romanticism and Popular Culture in Britain and Ireland - Phillip Connel & Nigel Leask (eds)
• Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature: Valuing the Vernacular - Alastiar Minnis.  Yes, you should value the vernacular.
• The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume and Music - Barbara Ravelhofer.  This is the topic my college girlfriend's mom studied.  I did not understand it then, and I probably still don't understand it!
• Sexy Shorts for Summer - Sanger.  For some reason this popped up in a search for folklore books.  I couldn't resist. 
• The Islamic Context of a Thousand and One Nights - Muhsin J. al-Musawi.
• Tales from Old China - Ong Siew Chey.
• African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Philip M. Peek.
• Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth - Yulia Ustinova.
• Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture - Michael Koven.  The title of this book has to include three of my five favorite words.  Beer and baseball are the other two.
• Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China - David Johnson.  Harvard East Asian Monographs.
• Selected Myths - Plato.  Oxford World Classics.
• An Intellectual History of Cannibalism - Catalin Avramescu.  Yay, another book about cannibals!

Looks like I only made it halfway through the month before it became time to watch the first pitch of the yankees baseball season!   Stay tuned for part two after the game!