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Foaftale News FOAFTALE NEWS NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR CONTEMPORARY LEGEND RESEARCH No. 67 May 2007 ISSN 1026-1002 Bodil Nildin-Wall, “The Death-Ray: IN THIS ISSUE From Literary Cliché to Newspaper Legends and Inventions” International Society for Contemporary Legend Research 1:00- 2:30: Lunch 25th Annual Conference May 23-27, 2007 2:30-4:30 (Session III): “Ghost Utah State University Stories” (Moderator: Diane Goldstein) Logan, Utah Sylvia Grider, “The Literary Commodification of Texas Ghost Miscellany Stories” Elizabeth Tucker, “Indian Boarding School Ghost Stories” Programme 5:00-7:00 Reception and folklore archive tour WEDNESDAY, MAY 23: FRIDAY, MAY 25: 7:00-9:00 p.m: Registration (University Inn, 5th floor lobby) 8:00: Fife Folklore Archives open 10-12:30 (Session IV): “Material THURSDAY, MAY 24 Culture” (Moderator: Lynne McNeill) Cathy Preston, “Panty Trees, Shoe 8:15-10:00 (Session I): “Legend and Trees, and Legend” Landscape” (Moderator: Yvonne Diane Goldstein, “Aunt Clara’s Creepy Milspaw) Doll: Narrative Commodification and Lisa Gabbert, “Tripping into Myth: the eBay Haunted Object Frenzy” Supernatural Landscapes in Erica Obey, “Stop Oppressive Contemporary Legends” Gardening! An EcoCritical Robin Parent, “Serendipitous Examination of Garden Gnomes” Ostension: The Tourist Experience” 12:30-2:00: Lunch 10:00-10:30: Break 2:00-4:30 (Session V): “Case 10:30-1:00 (Session II): “Legend and Studies” (Moderator: Mike Preston) Notoriety” (Moderator: Jan Brunvand) Jan Brunvand, “Zipper Stories” Jodi McDavid, “The Fiddle-Burning John Lee, “Private Actions in Public Priest of Mabou” Spaces: SARS and Paradigm Morgan Bowen, “Becoming a Living Violations” Legend: A Practical Guide to Steve Siporin, “The Chocolate Egg Becoming a Legend in Your Own and the Diamond Ring: A Time, or At Least Your Own Mind” Contemporary Legend from Perugia, Italy” FOAFTALE NEWS 67 MAY 2007 - 1 5:00: Business Meeting alphabetical order of authors' surnames. 6:30: Legend trip (meet at the Also note: at the time of going to press Weeping Woman, Logan Cemetery) abstracts of papers by Linda Dégh and Bodil Nildin-Wall were not available SATURDAY, MAY 26: 8:00-10:00 (Session VI): “History of Jennifer Eastman Attebery, Scholarship” (Moderator: Elizabeth "Narratives as Embedded Genres in Tucker) Immigrant Letters" Bill Ellis, “The ‘Sheffield Approach’ to Contemporary Legend: A Quarter- As has been pointed out by David A. Century Retrospective” Gerber (Authors of Their Lives) and Linda Dégh, “Legend Scholarship” others, the immigrant letter presents an early form of transatlantic 10:00-10:30: Break communication with parallels in contemporary e-mail. From a 10:30-1:00 (Session VII): “Genre” folklorist's point of view we can add (Moderator: Sylvia Grider) that the immigrant letter, like e-mail Elliott Oring, “Legendry and the and other computer-mediated Rhetoric of Truth” communication (CMC), can be seen Yvonne Milspaw, “Vampires, as a vernacular form within which Interactive Narrative, and the writers establish a shared code for Creation of Legend-like Narratives” communication that includes formulaic Aurore Van de Winkel, discourse: catchphrases, proverbial “Communication, Belief, and the expressions, and longer embedded Construction of Identities: The Case genres such as personal experience of Urban Legends” narratives. 1:00-2:30: Lunch Some Swedish immigrant letter writers located in the Rocky Mountain West 2:30-5:00 (Session VIII): “Legends during the 1890s and 1900s were in Other Genres” (Moderator: Cathy especially given to narrating Preston) experience. These epistolary Ian Brodie, “Stand-up Comedy and/as raconteurs often depicted their Legend-Telling” Western surroundings as exotic and Paul Megna, “Lyrical Legend(s): The dangerous. However, while many of Societal Construction of ‘Hip-hop- these raconteurs used their stories to cracy’” claim their part in a metanarrative Jennifer Attebery, “Narratives as about the Wild West, others set Embedded Genres in Immigrant themselves apart from the region, Letters” condemnatory of the West and its people. 6:00-9:00: Informal evening barbecue at Lynne and Steve’s In this paper I analyze the narratives embedded in the letters of Victor A. SUNDAY, MAY 27: Hallquist, who wrote from Denver during the period 1897-1904. 10:00: Straggler’s brunch at Hallquist's stories of Western crime Siporins’ and vigilante justice constitute a rejection of what he found around him. In 1900, Hallquist wrote from Denver Abstracts to his brother Johan in Sweden that Editor's note: these abstracts have not "this is not a nice place." He followed been edited and are presented in up on this judgment of his Western FOAFTALE NEWS 67 MAY 2007 - 2 environs with a story of brutal Legends are not only a means to bring violence, the rape and murder of a girl understanding to personal endeavor and the lynching of the alleged but they become a path to expanding criminal, an African-American boy. personal vision to an ever increasing Hallquist's story undoubtedly was and broader audience. inspired by newpaper accounts of the death of Louise Frost in Limon, Colorado, and the subsequent Ian Brodie,,"Stand-up Comedy and/ lynching of John Preston Porter, Jr., as Legend-Telling" by a large crowd that voted, in Porter's hearing, over how to kill him. The This paper has its basis in my current incident was widely decried in the dissertation work on the relationship English-language American press between stand-up comedy and (although not apparently in the vernacular forms of talk. The parallels Swedish-American newspapers), and of narrative-jokes and legends have Hallquist's retelling reflects drawings of been much discussed (Ellis 2004; Porter that depicted him as a Christ- Henken 2006, inter alia), with like sacrifice. Yet Hallquist also uses particular emphasis on how the same storytelling strategies from oral narrative elements can switch back narrative. He develops the story, as he and forth between the two genres. does others in his repertoire, using a two-part connotative structure that Ellis has proposed that a definitional invites his brother to consider the characteristic of legend is it being a original crime of rape and murder as narrative that does not contain its own parallel to the lynching, and therefore resolution: it thus occasions a dialogue to see both the girl and the boy as between teller and listener that victims of Western violence. Hallquist's simultaneously negotiates a position storytelling reflects little of the on both the "facts" of the narrative and recursiveness we might expect of the "truthfulness" of the underlying written materials. belief propositions or worldview which give potential credibility to those facts. One way of looking at the joke is that it Morgan Bowen, "Becoming a Living works similarly, inasmuch as it is a Legend: A Practical Guide to narrative lacking a resolution: the Becoming a Legend in Your Own narrative is deliberately framed by the Time, or At Least Your Own Mind." teller using both performance and linguistic conventions to cue a laughter This paper examines the use of response as the resolution of legend as a vehicle for individuals to preference. The performance is also achieve notoriety. Several case framed as play, so that the issue of the studies will be cited to illustrate how narrative's facts is (largely) moot, and people make use of legend in creating the acceptance of the worldview is a their own personal mythology, thus conceit of participation in the telling projecting themselves into new realms event which can be dropped when the of human endeavor. Individual play frame terminates. examples include Rodger McAfee’s use of the legend of Joaquin Murrietta Lastly, legends tend to be as a framework to describe his own interpersonal, collaborative creations life experience. Bill Mollision, founder emerging from dialogue whereas the of the Permaculture movement, has legend-texts, as exegetes have become a living legend through his access to them, are largely legend countless followers. Bishop John D. reports, abstracted from their natural Koyle and his Dream mine story have contexts. Stand-up comedy in its created a sustainable legend that lives current dominant mode has the trait of on in numerous mutated forms. intermingling its narrative and non- FOAFTALE NEWS 67 MAY 2007 - 3 narrative elements in a longer flow of Bill Ellis, “The ‘Sheffield Approach’ discourse from which the joke qua to Contemporary Legend: A narrative can only be abstracted with Quarter-Century Retrospective” much difficulty: "naturalness" is its preferred stylistic feature. Through this This meeting marks the twenty-fifth longer flow of performance (and meeting of the organization that has through extra-performance techniques grown out of the “Perspectives on such as reputation cultivation), the Contemporary Legend” seminar performer collaborates with the organized by the University of audience to create or invoke the Sheffield’s Centre for English Cultural worldview within which the individual Tradition and held in July 1982. It was units arise and thus within which they intended as an opportunity for are meant to be interpreted. This international scholars interested in the paper will articulate the position of legends variously termed “urban” or stand-up as a dialogic form through “modern” legends (or sometimes, the parallels with current legend myths). There was a sense of performance research. discovery, and a conviction that this seminar, and the four that followed, were a time of valuable insights and
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