Domestic Arts

Spring–Summer 2007 Volume 33: 1–2

The Journal of New York Folklore

Domestic Arts

Interns in the Bronx

Absentminded Professors

A College-Town Theater

Playing Hoops

Museums and Festivals From the Director

Ser vices to the The New York Folklore Society re- responding to a NYfolk-list query ask- feld are at the core ceived a grant from this program for ing folklorists to identify women whose of the New York services to folk and traditional artists. unique contributions to the feld had Folklore Society’s With this support, we have launched a inspired others. Subsequent columns will mission. Our ser- series of professional development introduce the nominees, incorporating vices include our workshops that will continue in 2007. In the praises offered by colleagues. This longstanding men- addition, we will develop enhanced web issue’s profle of Vaughn is based on a toring and profes- services, which will serve as a resource December 2006 interview with her hus- sional development about folk and traditional musics in New band and colleague, George Ward. program and our forum series, which York State. Please stay tuned for more “The Story of My Dolls,” which docu- invites informal discussion about issues details in the coming months. ments the life and needlework of Al- of current concern to the feld of folk- berta Nell Romano, represents the frst lore. With funding from the New York Ellen McHale, Ph.D. contribution to a new regular feature, State Archives we have offered symposia Executive Director “Artist Profle.” We hope that readers and other activities for archives and New York Folklore Society will send us profles, so that Voices can collections professionals. This year, [email protected] continue to recognize the work of the with support from the New York State many talented folk artists and citizens Music Fund, we are able to expand our of New York State. From the Editor professional development activities to Please continue to keep us in mind for serve musicians and other folk artists The breadth of your research, your reports, your stories, working in New York State. articles in this is- and your poems. Our journal is only as The New York State Music Fund is sue is extraordi- good as the writing you submit to us. a program of Rockefeller Philanthropy nary, ranging from Advisors, created when the Offce of a description of a Felicia Faye McMahon, Ph.D. the New York State Attorney General college-town the- Acquisitions Editor resolved investigations against major ater’s culture, to an New York Folklore Society music companies that had violated state academic legend [email protected] and federal laws prohibiting “pay for cycle, an intern [email protected] play,” also called “payola.” The settle- program for inner-city youth, the story ment agreement stipulated that funds of “this crazy American jumping” (bas- paid by music businesses would support ketball), and the use of personal narra- music education and appreciation for tives in Smithsonian Institution folklife the beneft of New York State residents. festivals. The attorney general’s offce enlisted the In this issue we are pleased to intro- services of Rockefeller Philanthropy duce a new column by Eileen Condon. Advisors to develop and manage the “In Praise of Women” will focus on the grant program. Many different musical work of women in folklore and folk arts forms, including folk and traditional in New York State. Eileen’s frst column musical performances throughout New highlights the work of Vaughn Ramsey York State, should beneft in the com- Ward (1939–2001), one of a number of ing year. women nominated last summer by those

“Folklore helps us to form and express identity in the midst of an always complex, sometimes confusing social context, in which our sense of who we are is frequently questioned and challenged.” —Martha C. Sims and Martine Stephens, Living Folklore (2005) Contents Spring–Summer 2007

3 Features 10 The Absentminded Professor: A Case Study of an Academic Legend Cycle by Michael Taft 16 Mind-Builders: Training Youth Interns as Beginning Folklorists by Deirdre Lynn Hollman

25 Hoops, Hebrews, and the Hudson River League by John Thorn 32 Voices of Others: 16 Personal Narratives in the Folklife Festival by Barbara Cohen-Stratyner 40 Peeling the Pop: Exploring a Tradition in Orkney by Michael A. Lange Departments and Columns 2 Announcements 3 Creative Ethnography by Meg Nicholas 8 Upstate 25 by Varick A. Chittenden 9 Downstate by Steve Zeitlin 14 Creative Writing by Edward DeZurko 14 Letter to the Editor 15 E-Resources by Kathleen Condon 30 Good Spirits 32 by Libby Tucker 31 Foodways by Lynn Case Ekfelt 37 Artist Profle: Alberta Nell Romano Cover: Alberta Nell Romano, 38 In Praise of Women Maple Downs Retirement by Eileen Condon Community. Photo: John M. McMahon. 39 Play by John Thorn 46 Reading Culture by Tom van Buren

47 Books to Note

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 1 S Land of Make Believe AMHS, also in Upper Jay, works to With your permission, AMHS will share The mid–twentieth century was a time of preserve the legacy of Arto Monaco, who your material with the New York Folklore great change in America and the Adiron- was the designer of the country’s earliest Society to help preserve a twentieth-century dacks. The growth of children’s theme parks children’s theme parks, located in the eastern American story. was central to the development and evolution Adirondacks. Monaco designed the Land of children’s entertainment and tourism dur- of Make Believe and then operated the ing this period. park from 1954 to 1979. He was also a toy EMENT The New York Folklore Society and the designer and builder and owned a toy fac- C Arto Monaco Historical Society (AMHS) tory in Upper Jay from about 1947 to 1954. are working together to locate people who Monaco died at age ninety in 2003. visited the Land of Make Believe theme park If you have memories or photos to share, in Upper Jay, New York, in the 1950s, ’60s, please write to the Arto Monaco Historical or ’70s. AMHS is particularly interested in Society at [email protected] or P. O. fnding photographs taken during visits and Box 102, Upper Jay, New York 12987. A gathering the recollections of visitors, includ- staff member will contact you to arrange ing those who were children at the time. to record your memories for the archive. Spring–Summer 2007 · Volume 33: 1–2 Acquisitions Editor Felicia Faye McMahon ANNOUN Managing Editor Sheryl A. Englund Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer Printer Eastwood Litho

Editorial Board Varick Chittenden, Lydia Fish, Nancy Groce, Lee Haring, Libby Tucker, Kay Turner, Dan Ward, Steve Zeitlin

Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is published twice a year by the New York Folklore Society, Inc. 133 Jay Street P.O. Box 764 Schenectady, NY 12301

New York Folklore Society, Inc. Executive Director Ellen McHale Web Administrator Patti Mason Voice (518) 346-7008 Fax (518) 346-6617 Web Site www.nyfolklore.org

Board of Directors President Dr. Sherre Wesley Vice President Kevin White Secretary-Treasurer Karen Canning Eric Ball, Austin Fisher, Hanna Griff, William Jones, Elena Martinez, Rathi Raja, Greer Smith, Libby Tucker, Mary Zwolinski

Advertisers: To inquire, please call the NYFS (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617.

Voices is available in Braille and recorded versions. Call the NYFS at (518) 346-7008. The New York Folklore Society is committed to providing services with integrity, in a manner that conveys respect for the dignity of the individuals and communities the NYFS serves, as well as for their cultures, including ethnic, religious, occupational, and regional traditions. The programs and activities of the New York Folklore Society, and the publication of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, are made possible in part by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is indexed in Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Music Index and abstracted in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Reprints of articles and items from Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore are available from the NYFS. Call (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617. ISSN 0361-204X © 2007 by The New York Folklore Society, Inc. All rights re- served.

2 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore C Don’t Anyone Walk REATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY Around Barefoot: Life in a College Town’s Second-Run Theater

BY MEG NICHOLAS

t’s 8:30 p.m. on Friday the thirteenth in watching from the safety of the concession other, there is little noise. Occasionally, a Ithe lobby of University Mall Theatres, stand, they are wearing jeans, button-down shout of exuberance or a grunt of pain the second-run theater across from George shirts, ties, and aprons bearing the insignia will rise when a hit is scored or when the Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dur- of University Mall Theatres. The only thing plastic blades strike a sensitive area. Finally, ing the break between the sevens and the that crosses the boundary of normal is the the elf-eared combatant gets hit in the arm, nines, two Jedi warriors are locked in a pair of horns on the top of one fghter’s and the horned warrior moves in for the ferce battle with plastic light sabers. While head, and the delicately pointed elf ears pro- kill. The fght is over, punctuated by an they both seem to be intent on striking a kill truding from under the hair of the other. elaborate death scene from the vanquished or lopping off an arm, neither looks very Apart from the “authentic” noises the knight. The duel complete, both warriors intimidating. Like most of the spectators light sabers make as they clash against each collapse their swords and move behind the

UMT employees try out the Groucho Marx glasses included in a “Kid Pack” concessions deal. Photo: Meg Nicholas

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 3 ticket counter to help a customer. Each week the whole affair becomes more and more involved. Today’s addition is the prosthetics, worn by several employees. “Soon we’ll have special effects and stunts,” one worker predicts. Maggie, the victor of the most recent bout, is one of the theater’s principal Jedi knights and unofficial caretaker of the weapons. Every Thursday and Friday she hauls fve light sabers into work in a plastic bag. There are two blue light sabers, replicas of Anakin Skywalker’s from Episode II. There is a long green one—Maggie’s weapon of choice—like the one that belonged to Obi Wan Kenobi. Count Dooku’s red saber with the curved handle is present, as is a smaller green saber modeled after the one Yoda carries. Apart from Yoda’s miniscule weapon, which is rarely used in battle, all of the light sabers are showing signs of wear. Silver paint from the handles streak the blades, several of which appear to have developed welts. Some of the swords belong to Maggie’s younger brother. The rest she bought for herself. Maggie has the most battle experience. “Last night we went in theater two with all the lights off, and I was walking across the chairs trying not to get killed by Greg,” she says. Although she acquitted herself well in last night’s fght, not everyone who participates in the impromptu battles is as hard-core as she is. “Patrick just likes to make the noises,” Maggie complains. “He doesn’t really fght. One of the other girls and I will actually fght.” “That’s just because I’m not out for blood,” he retorts. “You guys act like you’re going to kill each other.” There is a deep bond between the employ- Employees regularly draw comics featuring the theater’s owner. Comic: Greg McCarty ees that goes beyond the hours they spend together on shift. When Dan, the general Maggie shakes her head. “We don’t have that are few opportunities at other theaters to manager of the theater, got married three problem. We’re like a family.” engage in any work other than cleaning and years ago, the entire staff was invited. Not This behavior has, so far, proven unique selling tickets and concessions. Unlike the all of them got to attend—someone had to to this location. Several of the employees at employees at UMT, who are encouraged to stay behind to run the theater—but the ones UMT have worked at other theaters in the tackle diverse tasks, the staff members at the who did carpooled and went as one another’s area. When asked, each of them remarks larger chain theaters are assigned specifc jobs dates. The workers attend Renaissance fairs, that they found the social aspect lacking at each day. This ensures that there is always an powwows, highland festivals, the owner’s other locations. According to Melanie, whose employee on duty in every area of the theater, basketball games, movie screenings, and even college roommate used to work at one such but it also means that the employees do not funerals together. When asked if they ever theater, “They hate each other. They avoid have the opportunity to socialize with each “burn out” after seeing each other too often, each other a great deal.” In addition, there other very often.

4 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Originally purchased as a Halloween decoration, this gargoyle plaque now stands guard year-round at the projection booth door. Photo: Meg Nicholas

Socializing unquestionably improves the the theater is a makeshift town hall. tables. Not surprisingly, the UMT table is the atmosphere of the theater for the moviego- The quirky camaraderie enjoyed at Uni- loudest. The employees are raucous and jolly, ers, as well as for the employees. Rather than versity Mall Theatres doesn’t extend to the joking among themselves and with the boss, rushing from tickets to concessions and then other two theaters run by Mark O’Meara. who sits at their table with his family. on to their seats, patrons at the theater relax Keen, Meghan, and Dan have all worked Despite their propensity for mock battles, and often join employees in their banter. at Mark’s theater in Manassas, and Rachel limericks, and loud antics in public areas, Putting the customers at ease has an added recently began flling some shifts at Cinema most of the regular, long-term employees advantage when the projection equipment Arts just down the street. One of Keen’s are well-spoken and well-educated. The breaks down. Mark O’Meara, the man who constant complaints is how boring and quiet weekend shifts are flled with high school– owns University Mall Theatres, takes par- things would get at his other job. No one age workers, but the day-to-day business is ticular pride in the record of one worker, spoke to each other or ever got together handled primarily by college students and who managed to keep an entire audience to do things outside of work, as they so recent graduates, few of whom studied in a theater entertained for half an hour frequently do at University Mall Theatres. “practical” things in college. Though not by while others were up in the booth trying to The differences between the workforces at design, the owner of University Mall The- start the movie. There is no break room at these three theaters are clearest at the annual atres has managed to compile a workforce UMT, so much of the workers’ socializing brunch meeting that Mark holds to thank his that is peopled, predominantly, by individuals takes place in the lobby among customers. employees for their dedication. The meet- with a background in the arts. Patrick, Greg, Often the customers become part of the ing is held around nine in the morning at a and Dan all majored in English. Maggie is UMT family. Over the years, several regular restaurant located in University Mall, just a photographer. Melanie holds a degree in customers have become close friends of the upstairs from UMT. Although attendance anthropology, with a minor in theater. David owner and employees. This has contributed isn’t mandatory, the turnout is sizable, likely has recently been accepted into the music to Mark’s goal to build a community around owing to the free food that is provided. program at George Mason University. Zatch his business. Instead of just being a place There are no seating assignments, but every returns each summer from New York, where where people come to spend their money, year the three theaters take over separate he studies theater at NYU. Musicians, artists,

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 5 When the theater’s pet sea monkey Jacques died, the employees held a funeral and set up a memorial wall with hand-drawn comics. Comic: Margaret Cogan

writers, actors—they have all been drawn to the refrigerator, there is a folder holding an at the theater: “He kept going around telling work at this lively second-run theater in the eighty-page novella written by an employee; people I was in the entertainment industry, middle of a college town. many UMT employees appear in the piece like I was working with Spielberg, instead of According to the employees, their involve- as main characters. Two of the employees just projecting his flms.” ment in the arts had very little impact on their have formed their own small costume busi- The employees arrange themselves in a decision to seek work at this theater. Chris ness. Songs and snippets of dialogue from circle behind the counter to talk, and it seems and David’s desire to work at UMT stemmed musicals and movies are constantly being the battles are over for the night. Eventually from the practicality of learning more about sung or quoted in the lobby. the discussion turns to one of the employees’ the movie theater business. They both hope Working at the theater, these staff members favorite subjects: comparing the theater to to open their own independent theaters later are constantly immersed in the world of popu- famous literary and flm epics. This time it in life. For Andy, it was simply a matter of ne- lar culture. They read industry magazines for is J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. “Greg cessity. “I had been in Fairfax for two weeks, information on upcoming flms; attend flm, compared the theater to the one ring,” Patrick and I said to myself, I need a job.” anime, and comic conventions; and—although explains. “It fts, too, because everyone who Although most of the staff members do some express a certain degree of embarrass- comes in contact with it is corrupted. That’s not consciously draw a connection between ment about it—frequently purchase gossip why no one can ever leave here. It’s like a their choice to work at a movie theater and magazines at the grocery store. “Everything black hole. I’m Frodo, and Greg is Samwise, their own creative endeavors, each of these we see, everything we read, we put into what because it’s tainted us both so much. Mark, workers brings their art to the work environ- we say and do, how we act,” Maggie explains. the owner, is Sauron. Dan is Gollum.” Patrick ment. Hand-drawn comics cover the sides of One of the employees laughs when she recalls does an impression of Dan fnding popcorn the freezer and coffee machine. On top of her father’s reaction when she started working on the foor. “No! The precious!”

6 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore fve piercings. She sports three tattoos, and When a question arises as to which charac- she wants more. ter a particular employee is supposed to be, For Maggie, the theater provides a place the rest of the employees turn to Patrick. “Go where she can “show [her] emotions a little get the list,” Maggie tells him. The list is part more over the top than anywhere else.” She of a stack of paper, now an inch thick, re- is admittedly closemouthed about her emo- ferred to as “the Bible.” The Bible consists of tions outside of the theater. As she puts it, dirty limericks, lyrics to parody songs written “I grew up in a house with a bunch of men, by employees, and cartoons depicting upper where emotions and what you were feeling management in compromising situations, just weren’t talked about.” She also suffers all written on the back of used movie time from stage fright. At the theater, however, schedules. Each time a new contribution is she comfortably slips into “playing a part for made it is handed to Patrick, who then stores the customers.” The pop culture play that the it in a pocket of his backpack for safekeeping. employees engage in allows her to address As Patrick works every weekday, he is the best issues that might be more of an obstacle at choice to be the guardian of this fundamen- another job. Surrounded and nurtured by tal, evolving document. In addition to keep- friends from work, she has even been coaxed ing the original pages, he is currently making into singing in public. an electronic copy that can be downloaded Patrick, ironically, is the antithesis of by individual employees.

“Washington Mark,” a caricature of UMT’s Frodo, at least in appearance. The general “You can just ask me. I have it all memo- owner. Comic: Greg McCarty consensus at UMT is that he more closely rized,” he brags. He opens the refrigerator resembles an elf. This idea is supported door, and a package containing a single light by the fact that, tonight, Patrick is wearing bulb falls to the foor and smashes. There is a Maggie, as it turns out, is Aragorn, and it is Maggie’s second pair of ear prosthetics. At collective gasp from the circle of employees clear that she has the chutzpah to pull off the 27, he is the oldest employee at the theater, around him, followed by a pause. Then Pat- part. To those who know her well, her cur- apart from the general manager. He wears rick says, “Doesn’t belong there.” The group rent warrior status is nothing strange. Before his hair in a fourteen-inch ponytail down his erupts in laughter. she came to northern Virginia, she lived on back during work, stands about a head taller Just then the phone rings and a chorus of a homestead in Alaska, a place characterized than most of the other employees, and is “Not It!” chimes through the air. A rookie by extreme winters and hard work. Every- rail thin. His lanky walk is reminiscent of a is sent to deal with the caller, and Patrick thing about Maggie is Alaskan. She even biker’s strut, and he looks as if he would be retrieves a broom from the closet. The pro- stands like an Alaskan: sturdy and prepared. at home on a motorcycle. Instead, he drives a jectionist for the night runs off to thread the Furthermore, Maggie doesn’t pull punches. secondhand Toyota with a huge, deer-shaped next flm. A debate begins over the best music When she hits you, she really hits you, and dent in the passenger’s side door. His face for a Jedi light saber duel: Episode I’s “Duel she doesn’t mind (too much) if you hit back. frequently breaks out in a grin that would of the Fates” or Return of the Jedi’s score for Her nose is just slightly crooked from being put Steven Tyler to shame. When he laughs the battle between Luke and Darth Vader? broken twice when she was younger. It was hard—which is quite often—the grin gets The doors swing open, announcing a group never professionally set. Her hair, which bigger and his body shakes, but he doesn’t of college students, all of them clamoring has its own protean identity, is currently a make any noise. Even his closest friends for two-dollar tickets. As the rest of the reddish brown, and she wears it pulled back often forget that, at one time, he worked employees take their places for the next rush, into a ponytail. Her ears are studded with as a model. Patrick cautions them. “There might still be glass over there. So don’t anyone walk around barefoot. Or sit down naked or anything.”

Meg Nicholas lives in northern Virginia, where she is pursuing her M.A. in folklore at George Mason University. She is a graduate assistant in the Offce of Diversity Programs and Services at GMU, but she remains close with the people she met while working at University Mall Theatres.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 7 From Gypsy Lane to Tupper Road to State Highway 310 BY VARICK A. CHITTENDEN TATE S For Christmas this last year, an old friend lakes, and streams called Trout, Bear, Deer, large sawmill once operated, producing couldn’t resist giving me a copy of a book Buck, or Beaver. There’s Grasshopper Hill, numerous huge piles of slab wood, the called Passing Gas . . . And Other Towns Cranberry Lake, Gooseberry Mountain, outer layers of wood left after lumber was UP Along the American Highway. Gas, it turns Balsam Brook, and Potato Street. milled. Usually the bark was left on, and out, is in the heartland of Kansas. The And of course Native American names, the wood was then cut into short pieces rest of the book offers profles of other so ubiquitous in New York State, are here, for woodstoves and freplaces. notable place names, like Left Hand, West too: Oswegatchie, Wanakena, Wyanoke Is- • Sunday Rock: A forty-three–ton glacial Virginia; Embarrass, Illinois; and Rough land, and Chippewa Bay are a few. Podunk boulder used to mark the limit of formal and Ready, Pennsylvania. In the vastness seems to have originated as “Amerindian,” civilization, beyond which lay the region of America, there are several million names and I’m happy to report that we have where only logging crews and hunters for places—cities, towns, counties, rivers, one. ventured. South of this point, it was said mountains, roads, and more—that are of- Perhaps most fun to the curious, how- that law and Sunday did not exist. fcial. But perhaps millions more are known ever, are those places that locals have given • Whiskey Brook: In the old days, when only to locals, and many of them are already colorful names, with interesting stories Parishville had a distillery, patrons used lost to time. attached. Here is a sample of some Saint to stop to dilute the fery liquid with When traveling, I’ve often been curious Lawrence County names: some clear sparkling water from this little about the colorful names I’ve run into stream. One day a man dropped his jug along the way. But I’m convinced that, like • Bingo Road: Many people attempted and broke it. Another man came along, so many other things folkloric, we can fnd to farm here but all failed, so “Bingo!” saw the broken jug, and called the stream some really good examples right around us. They were gone. Hardscrabble Road Whiskey Brook. I’ve discovered that Saint Lawrence County, and Pinchgut Road share the same con- where I’ve lived almost my entire life, is a notations. In the last few decades, offcial American great source. Said to be the largest county • California Road: A family on the road place names have changed considerably. in area in New York and ffth largest east announced they were going to California Zip codes make our mail more effcient; of the Mississippi, there has been plenty of for a better life but never left, so mild de- 911 emergency numbers make our lives land to settle and names to put upon it. rision by the locals followed for years. safer and more secure. But Robert Louis Right here, there is evidence of all the • Caravan Road and Gypsy Lane: Where Stevenson once said of American names, major categories for naming places: for itinerant gypsies were allowed to camp. “There are few poems with a nobler music founders and settlers (Flackville, Ogdens- • Eel Weir: A natural dam in a Black Lake for the ear, a songful, tuneful land.” Podunk burg, and Hopkinton); for historical and outlet, where eels are caught. is now 13652. And just around the corner otherwise important persons (Roosevel- • Flatiron Street: A wife once threw a from me, what was once Gypsy Lane was town, for Teddy Roosevelt; Fort Jackson, fatiron at her husband here. for a while Tupper Road. Now it is State for Andrew Jackson; and Remington Circle, • Horseheaven: An area in the sandbanks Highway 310. What’s in a name? for native son and artist Frederic Reming- along the Grasse River near Canton, ton); and names from faith (Saint Regis where horses were once buried because and Saint Lawrence, chosen by French it was easy to dig graves; more recently priests who established early missions, and the site of the village dump. numerous Old and New Testament names, • Mount Alone: The romantic story is that Varick A. Chittenden including Jerusalem Corners, Jordan River, a mean man married a woman and left is professor emeritus Galilee, Mount Pisgah—even Sodom). her about two weeks later; thereafter, she of English at the State That last one I’d really like to know more lived on the mountain alone. University of New York in Canton and about! • Pest House Road: In the nineteenth executive director of There are descriptions of physical ge- century, each town had a “pest house” Traditional Arts in ography (Dismal Swamp, Haystack Rock, where locals went when they had com- Upstate New York (TAUNY). For the list Lazy River, and Ironsides Island), nods to municable diseases or were quarantined. of place-names in this our richly diverse geology (Iron Mountain • Pulpit Rock: A seventy-foot–high column, he thanks Mary Smallman and Kelsie Harder, whose Road, Copper Falls, Lead Mine Road, and natural rock formation used as a pulpit diligent study of maps, records, and local Pyrites—probably a sardonic reference to by early settlers who held services at talk produced Claims to Name: Toponyms “fool’s gold”), and a bounty of references to the rock. of St. Lawrence County (Utica, New York: North Country Books, 1992). Photo: Martha fora and fauna. There are scores of ponds, • Slab City: A crossroads hamlet where a Cooper

8 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Urbanitas BY STEVE ZEITLIN

If truth be told, I hardly have time to of the city’s Department of Environmen- the Mets and Yankees meet in the World read the paper anymore. I catch the news tal Protection saying, “That’s where our Series. Still others are catastrophes such as in snatches. I pick up free and secondhand noses and instruments tell us the smell September 11, which created, along with newspapers. I ask my wife Amanda to give was coming from.” Mayor Bloomberg was horrifc tragedy, trauma, and hardship, a me highlights of her daily cover-to-cover quoted as saying something like, “This gas sense of urbanitas. Often during these read of the Times, and I hear stray bits of shall pass.” On January 13, Don Singleton urban moments, the distinction between NPR from a coworker’s desk. I can read covered Jersey’s response in the Daily News: news reports in the media and oral tradition the paper upside down, held by the person “‘We should sue them, and sue them bad,’ breaks down, with the reporters becoming sitting opposite me on a train, or backwards Assemblyman Louis Manzo, a Jersey City part of the chain of oral transmission, in the subway window’s refection of the Democrat, huffed yesterday as he recalled expressing emotion and passing along reader in front of me. I live in my own the many slights New Jersey has suffered, rumors like everyone else. (Facts are far world, and I miss a lot, I know. Maybe I’m largely from New Yorkers.” Of course from conclusive, for instance, as to whether not that different from other New Yorkers Singleton went on to make matters worse Jersey actually “cut the cheese.”) who pick up the news in bits and snatches. by citing some other rather folkloric in- When the blackout of 2003 occurred, But as for most of us New Yorkers who dignities dumped on Jersey: mosquitoes creating another urban moment, it took simply “osmose” the news, some urban the size of sparrows, smelly pig farms New Yorkers about an hour to realize that moments break through, coming at us from in Secaucus, and gangster burials in the terrorism was not the cause. Suddenly, a every direction. Meadowlands. rather joyous sense of urbanitas washed On my car radio in January, I heard a A few days earlier, on January 2, ffty- over the city, as New Yorkers walked home 1010-WINS reporter ask, “Who cut the year-old Wesley Autrey, construction work- together en masse across the Brooklyn cheese? Fingers point to New Jersey.” er and navy veteran, earned the headline Bridge as they had on 9/11—shouldering Hearing the story, I was swept—like a “Subway Superman,” when he left his two the Big Apple, each with his or her own stray, discarded paper—into a New York young daughters, Shuqui and Syshe, on the story. Many brought grills out on the side- moment. Such urban moments seem city- platform and jumped to the tracks to save walk to barbecue meat going bad in their wide, a fash of news that draws most city New York University student Cameron refrigerators. I miraculously managed to dwellers into the fold, bringing out their Hollopeter. You needed to be a New York- fnd a taxi driver who was gallantly picking New Yorkerness. During these moments, I er to appreciate what it meant for Autrey to up passengers and letting them off, pay- feel not what anthropologist Victor Turner lay atop Hollopeter in the “trough between ing little or nothing, all the way up First called communitas, which is a spirit of com- the tracks,” allowing the train to pass over Avenue. My wife picked up the phone and munion with one’s own community, but them. I still stare at the tracks in awe that called Con Ed, imagining that her n’er- what might be termed urbanitas, a feeling of two people could squeeze themselves into do-well husband had forgotten to pay the being part of a particular metropolis. Ur- such a tight space. After the train stopped electric bill, and pleaded with the operator banitas is the product of news saturation, in above them, Hollopeter asked Autrey if he to please turn her power back on. “Lady,” which word-of-mouth is amplifed by print, was dead. Autrey answered, “You are very he replied, “there’s a blackout all across the radio, television, the web, and other news much alive, but if you move, you’ll kill the city and throughout the Northeast!” media in a story that, for a brief moment, both of us.” When Autrey arrived at work, touches everyone in the big city. Wrapped his boss handed him a hero sandwich and up in the story, the city dweller identifes told him to take the day off. Five stories DOWN for the moment, not with the family or appeared about the Subway Superman in the block or the neighborhood, but with the Times. Personal heroism continues to the city itself. The frst few days of 2007 make a good story, in the hands of an epic were a chronicle of urban moments, New bard or a news reporter. York City–style. Some urban moments are comical, such The Daily News called it the “Big Stink.” as the silent protest by the Polar Bear Club,

The Post: “New Jersey P.U. Ripens Apple.” whose icy swims are covered by all the S On January 8, 6,500 calls went in to 911, New York news media each January. This Steve Zeitlin is the TATE twelve people went to emergency rooms year, the group staged a moment of silence founding director of City in Manhattan, seven in New Jersey, as a by the water’s edge to protest 72-degree Lore in New York City. result of an unusual smell. Once the odor weather, claiming global warming is killing subsided, the fun began, as New Yorkers this New York City tradition. Some urban drew on longstanding stereotypes to blame moments might be sporting events, such Jersey. The Post quoted Charles Sturcken as the Subway Series in New York, when

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 9 The Absentminded Professor: A Case Study of an Academic Legend Cycle

BY MICHAEL TAFT

The absentminded professor is a stock character of academic legendry. the campus? After several interviews, I was In this article, I examine the legend cycle concerning Charles Wayland able to add other questions that related Lightbody, professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan from more directly to the kinds of anecdotes 1948 to 1963. He typifed the absentminded professor, and the cycle of that people were telling me: What do you legends told about him includes widespread, or migratory, legends, as remember about pranks and practical jokes? well as stories related to Lightbody’s particular history. Stories of other rivalries? dances and concerts? the student absentminded professors, recalled as a form of free association by the tell- tradition of the snake dance that wound its ers of Lightbody stories, also contribute to the legend cycle. Added to these way through downtown? narratives are further legends and commentaries that attempt to explain One general question that almost always the complex and contradictory nature of Lightbody’s personality. Whatever elicited anecdotes was, What particular cam- their form, many of these stories rehearse the themes of anti-intellectualism pus characters or interesting personalities do and mental dysfunction, especially attention defcit disorder (ADD). Taken you remember? Answers ranged through the together, these migratory legends, personal legends, associated legends, usual categories: popular and unpopular pro- commentaries, and themes reveal a legend cycle that is more complex fessors, campus pranksters, troublesome col- than it frst appears. leagues, and the like—all of which became prompts I used in subsequent interviews. t goes without saying that a college a counterstatement to the “serious” history In many of the interviews, I began to hear Icampus is a community, and that it that a distinguished member of the history stories about an absentminded professor: generates its own traditions. Any folklorist department was preparing for the anniver- Charles Lightbody. Of course, I was aware who teaches in academe is aware of this, sary (Hayden 1983), and perhaps indirectly of the absentminded professor stereotype, if not through personal observation, then my aim was to present an alternative, folk- but only after several interviews did I begin through the many papers by students that loristic approach to culture at a time when to ask specifcally, Do you know any Light- document the folklore of campus life. In the the discipline of folklore had only the most body stories? I was rarely disappointed (see late 1970s, I began teaching folklore at the tenuous hold at the university. Taft 1984, 174–90). University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. My method was to conduct informal, Dr. Charles Wayland Lightbody (1904–70) I soon became aware of the traditions of conversational interviews with members was brought up in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, the institution, but I never knew about and former members of the academic com- and taught history at the province’s uni- one particular aspect of campus life, until munity, allowing those I interviewed to free versity from 1948 to 1963. Previously, he I purposely set out to survey the narrative associate as much as possible within their had taught at Grinnell College in Iowa and folklore of the university. anecdotal repertoire about university life. Saint Lawrence University in New York, and In 1983, the University of Saskatchewan I did, however, have a stock of questions he ended his academic career at Brandon announced a call for projects to celebrate to get the narrative ball rolling or to prod a University in Manitoba. In most respects, its seventy-ffth anniversary in the coming memory that had temporarily run dry. My his academic career was typical in terms year. I proposed writing an anecdotal his- questions ranged from, What were your of qualifications and accomplishments. tory of the campus (Taft 1984)—that is, I frst impressions of the university? to Can His lasting legacy on campus was as a local proposed to interview current and former you describe the social life that you led? to character—more specifcally, as a classic students, faculty, and staff of the university How did you interact with professors (or absentminded professor. to collect their legends and personal experi- students) outside of the classroom? to What The absentminded or otherwise distracted ences of campus life. My aim was to write were the interactions between the town and professor, as a character of legend, has long

10 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore roots (see Tucker 2005, 47–8). Plato wrote elements of the tale when she told me: has generated a body of traditions. Popular about Thales of Miletus, philosopher and culture has been a major purveyor of anti- mathematician, who fell into a well while I think I remember more people who intellectualism through its portrayals of were around in my mother’s time. . . . gazing at the sky. American mathematician I don’t even know what he was a pro- eggheads, mad scientists, and nerds, as well Norbert Wiener, a pioneer of cybernet- fessor in, but that’s one of the stories as absentminded professors. The university ics, was famous for his absentmindedness, I do remember from [when I was] a campus is in a paradoxical way fertile ground among other eccentricities (Jackson 1972). kid—about this wonderful professor for anti-intellectualism. It is a place where Lightbody was a member of this pantheon who was terribly absentminded. He students who are less concerned with serious and became the subject of a cycle of leg- would, you know, drive to Vancouver scholarship make fun of “swots”—those and then fy home because he forgot ends. It would be inaccurate, however, to he had his car with him, and stuff like more scholarly students—and feel intimi- say that this cycle concerns the single aspect that. So they’re kind of legends that dated by intellectually demanding profes- of obliviousness that characterizes absent- live on. sors, and where professors sometimes chafe minded behavior; rather the cycle contains against their ivory-tower image and make stories that range from migratory legends In the same vein, journalist and former jokes at the expense of colleagues who seem most associated with this general character student Bill Cameron told me, “I still hear caricatures of braininess. trait to stories that relate to Lightbody’s Lightbody stories. Apparently on three occa- Another aspect of this legend cycle is that specific personality. In fact, the cycle is sions, I am told, he went out for the evening stories about Lightbody often attract similar multilayered. It is a mixture of legends and with his car. Spent the evening wherever. stories about other absentminded profes- personal experience stories about the indi- Came out, went home, left his car behind. sors. In the free association of storytelling, vidual, to which are added other stories by Went out next morning. His car wasn’t those I interviewed would bolster their association, as well as stories of explanation there, of course, and he reported it stolen.” narrative portrait of Lightbody by telling and analysis of the individual as a type. President of the University of Regina and stories about similar campus characters. I would like to examine some of these former University of Saskatchewan student For example, former professor Newman layers through a selection of Lightbody Lloyd Barber recalled: Haslam noted: stories. For example, there are a number Well, I remember the library used to be of migratory legends about absentminded You’d have to say that Harrington really in Qu’Appelle Hall, the men’s residence. took the cake because of his absent- professors and cars. Usually the professor And you used to be able to drive around mindedness. . . . Harrington ran a fairly loses his car, forgets what kind of car he the Bowl. Some friends of mine and I, close second [to Lightbody]. . . . For has—I use “he” because most stories are on a Saturday morning, a cold Saturday instance, he would bring his wife up to about male professors, as Bronner pointed morning in November, were walking the university and, at least on one occa- around the Bowl when Lightbody’s car out (1990, 46)—drives off without his pas- sion, he asked her to wait in the offce was parked outside the library. And his while he did something else. Then he senger, or leaves his passenger in the car young daughter was in it. And she was went out the back door to where his for long periods of time. Richard Dorson crying and obviously cold and upset. car was parked and drove away home. described this legend complex in American And her dad had gone into the library Left her sitting there. After a couple of Folklore (1959, 256), while Bruce Jackson to pick up something. We went into the hours she got a little bit worried and related similar tales about Norbert Wiener library and found him engrossed, totally phoned home. It was a very—that guy, oblivious to the fact that he’d left his (1972, 6). he wasn’t profane—he wouldn’t say, little daughter out in the car on a cold “Oh, my God,” or anything like that. The most common Lightbody story I November day. He’d say some mild expletive: “Did I do collected contains these motifs. Retired that again?” And often he would. professor Lorne Paul told me, “He went There is certainly a process here in which downtown with his car. And he was going a known absentminded professor—if he did Telling stories about E. L. Harrington, a along and a woman was crossing the street. not, in fact, commit certain acts—accrues professor of physics (1920–52) who began And a bundle fell and broke. So he stepped migratory legends to his particular legend his tenure at the university before Light- out of his car and went over, helped her pick cycle. In effect, the accrual of these legends body’s, further emphasized the peculiarities up all her groceries. And then caught the bus to the history of Charles Lightbody forms of Lightbody by placing him within a special and went home.” Former student Mildred a commentary upon him as an archetypical narrative subspecies. Thus, retired professor Kerr’s story is similar: “Have you got the one absentminded professor. By associating Leon Katz told me, “Harrington was just as from Five Corners [an intersection]? Where these migratory legends with Lightbody, absentminded [as Lightbody]. Oh, yes. You he was apparently stopped at the light and narrators express their understanding of know the story they tell about Lightbody leav- saw someone struggling across the corner the personality traits that defne this type ing his car, and so on? Well, the same stories with parcels. Got out of the car to help this of character. were being told about Harrington.” woman and continued on walking to the In addition, these migratory legends Beyond the migratory legends associated university. Left his car at the intersection.” express a widespread sentiment in soci- with the Lightbody corpus, either directly or Aina Kagis, a former student too young to ety—namely, anti-intellectualism. Hostility indirectly, there are a number of stories that recall Lightbody herself, exaggerated the and fear of those who seem overly brainy seem more specifc to Lightbody himself.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 11 Bill Cameron remembered: brush—in his shoe. And, of course, for chaos, and the special ability to hyper- he ended up by being on crutches for focus on a specifc task or subject (Hallowell I’m also told that one rainy day Dr. several weeks. And he [had] just cut his and Ratey 1994, 70–106). Lightbody, he apparently had the habit foot completely. I suppose he even had of, quite a bit of the time at any rate, some infection and so on. But that was When Lightbody was still a child, his reading a book as he walked down the the kind of person he was. singular qualities were noticed by former street. Which is a pretty hazardous pas- student Thomas Arnason. He told me, time, especially if you’re crossing Col- Combining the motifs of cars and engrossed “Oh, yeah. I knew him. The year I was in lege Drive. But he went out one morn- conversation, former student James Mc- Yorkton High School he was at varsity then ing, a rainy day, and already his book was as a student. Yeah, I saw him once out there open, and he was reading it as he went Conica wrote: out the door. This is the story that is [in Yorkton] walking abstractly along this told. It may be apocryphal, I don’t know. [Lightbody] had formed the conviction broken sidewalk, hitting the fence beside And there was an umbrella stand at the that by driving slowly he could some- him every other step. I guess he was peculiar front of the door, which contained not how compensate for his random re- right from the start.” His manic obsessive- only umbrellas but also contained Dr. fexes and acute nearsightedness. When ness is evident in stories of his driving and Lightbody’s cane. And Dr. Lightbody, once I met him driving at a snail’s pace allegedly, was seen walking down Uni- along Spadina Crescent, he hailed me his intense conversations, while his tendency versity Drive headed for the campus and stopped the car without drawing to to hyperfocus surfaces in the story of his reading a book in the pouring rain and the curb. As he talked I pointed out that reading in the rain. Hyperfocusing and holding a cane over his head. the rear left tire was fat. He acknowl- impulsiveness also seem to be the subject edged this with cheerful surprise and of this story, published in the university’s Retired professors Ed and Jane Abramson waved me in, proposing to look for a alumni magazine: told me the following story: garage. While the conversation and the car proceeded at an even slower pace, I He once chanced to meet a reporter he Ed: Another story is he’s walking noticed with mounting horror that we were moving into a busy intersection knew, took up with him on the way to down the—he and somebody or other, his assignment (to cover a dinner talk a young colleague or whatever, are walk- at some fve or ten miles an hour, and against the red light. He chuckled ap- by a visiting Indonesian ambassador) ing downtown from the university, and and—disregarding his destination of as they go, the young fellow observes preciatively when I managed to break in with this news: “Yes,” he allowed as he minutes ago—went to dinner as an that Lightbody’s beginning to look a uninvited guest, much interested to hear little pained, and he begins to limp a pressed on remorselessly, “it is unpropi- tious.” (McConica 1983, 9) the ambassador. A couple of hours later, little bit. And fnally, when they get to when the reporter had left the premises their destination in the middle of town, to write his story, Dr. Lightbody was Lightbody says, “You know, I think I Given the prevalence of cars in these sto- the center of attention for all those in really better stop and take off my shoe.” ries, one might argue that these stories com- attendance as he held forth about details And there was a rock in there that was ment upon the lack of practical know-how of Indonesian history. (Eyre 1983, 9) cutting his foot to pieces. It took a walk of about a mile before he was willing and everyday knowledge of technology that to— seems to mark the intellectual as especially In a similar story, Jack Pringle, retired admin- Jane: He was so engrossed in the feckless. But the stories also present a psy- istrator, recalled Lightbody holding forth at conversation. chological type, as much as a stereotype. In a veterans’ meeting, giving minute details these accounts, absentmindedness becomes on a particular battle. In Pringle’s words, Retired music professor Murray Adaskin a form of mental dysfunction. “It would be a circle of ten or twelve of- recalled a version of the same story: Many of the Lightbody stories that I col- fcers all standing around there with drinks lected seem to describe symptoms of atten- in their hands just spellbound by Charles’s Did anyone tell you the story of one tion defcit disorder (ADD), and the cycle as exposition.” Like many ADD sufferers, of his great friends [who] was a lawyer, Lightbody had the ability to hold an audience who was a member of the Board [of a whole might be considered a case study of Governors] when I was frst there? And, this syndrome. While this syndrome is not through the sheer energy of his obsessive oh gosh, a very well-known person. I universally accepted as a mental disorder and knowledge. One of his students, Marcel de think he’s still living. One of the old may simply represent a trait of character, it la Gorgendiere, recalled: lawyers there. . . . He and Lightbody is nevertheless recognized by the American were walking down 25th Street Bridge I don’t think one wants to leave the im- down toward downtown. And Light- Psychiatric Association in their Diagnostic and pression that he was regarded as a kind body was limping. . . . And by the time Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. ADD is of muddled person. He was anything they got to the bottom of the bridge, he composed of a number of symptoms, many but. He had a wonderful way of starting was obviously in pain. And this lawyer of which we all suffer from to a greater or out on this subject and in a truly admi- said to him, “Charles, for heaven’s sake, lesser degree, but someone with ADD has rable way going to other subjects. And take off your shoe. You must have a his or her life defned by these symptoms: it was only after you’d been through pebble in your shoe,” you see. So he sat the full narrative that you realized that down on the curb at the bottom of the daydreaming and forgetfulness, impulsive- you’d been wandering all over the map. bridge and took off his shoe and found ness, tardiness, learning disabilities such as Because there was nothing abrupt about that he had a little wire brush—a wire dyslexia, manic obsessiveness, high tolerance his changes of subject.

12 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Lightbody’s inattention to the details of A former student, Duff Spafford, told me: Dorson, Richard M. 1959. American Folklore. daily life, combined with his intense atten- Chicago: University of Chicago Press. tion to one particular historical thread, seems Lightbody had a kind of old-fashioned, Eyre, Wayne. 1983. Of Monologues and a classic sign of ADD. Jackson noted this optimistic view of history. He really did “Stolen” Cars: Other Sides of Charles believe that the world was progressing, trait as common among absentminded pro- in a way. And I remember once going Lightbody. The Green & White (Sum- fessors: “One curious characteristic of the to a movie with a number of students, mer):9. absentminded professor (not just Wiener) is and Lightbody went along as well. And Hallowell, Edward M., and John J. Ratey. that he is often presented as someone who I think it was La Strada. It was at the 1994. Driven to Distraction. New York: in a certain area is capable of prodigious Broadway [Theater]. There must have Pantheon. feats of mind and memory. It is almost as if been a flm series on, one of the very Hayden, Michael. 1983. Seeking a Balance: early flm series. Well, I can remember his central memory suffered from cataracts, that Lightbody, after that movie—we The University of Saskatchewan, 1907–1982. while his peripheral memory was nearly in- were all very young and were willing Vancouver: University of British Colum- fnite and capable of perfect focus” (1982, to see points in the rather pessimistic bia Press. 1–2). Former Lightbody student Mildred viewpoint that was put across in the Jackson, Bruce. 1972. “The Greatest Math- Kerr captures this ambivalent quality, as well movie—but I remember how very ematician in the World”: Norbert Wiener disturbing it was to Lightbody. Then as Lightbody’s high tolerance for chaos, in we went back to Shirley’s apartment Stories. Western Folklore 31:1–22. the description she gave to me: afterwards—there were about a dozen McConica, James. 1983. Charles Wayland of us—and there was a very animated Lightbody. The Green & White (Sum- I felt almost awed at times. This won- discussion among the students. But mer):7–9. derful rolling voice and the memory of Lightbody was clearly rather disturbed Taft, Michael. 1984. Inside These Greystone details about something like Lichten- about the whole thing. He didn’t like to Walls: An Anecdotal History of the University stein, you know…. The other thing that see young people discussing such dark always amazed me was that his mind and pessimistic things. His world was of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon: University of seemed so organized, but personally, a world in which there were heroes, Saskatchewan. he was so disorganized. You know, he and society progressed, and there were Tucker, Elizabeth. 2005. Campus Legends: A would come [to class] and shake an virtues to be admired. I saw a side of Handbook. Westport: Greenwood. envelope of clippings out on the desk, Lightbody there that I didn’t know and that would be his notes. And I, before. too, remember a taxi driver waiting at the door for a long time before inter- But to see that side of Lightbody, there rupting and asking for his money. One day he came with shaving cream still had to be the scaffolding of the legend cycle on one side of [his face]. It was most to show the other sides of the enigmatic disconcerting. man’s personality. Without the core absentminded professor stories in this legend As some of these narratives suggest, cycle, it is doubtful that the other narratives there is yet another aspect of this legend would have remained in the repertoire of cycle—analysis of Lightbody’s character. the university community. The entire legend Because he so clearly fit the stereotype cycle is a complex commentary on anti- of the absentminded professor, as well as intellectualism, eccentricity, mental dysfunc- a type of ADD sufferer, many narrators tion, and one scholar’s puzzling personality. felt compelled to speculate on Lightbody’s personality. What made Lightbody tick? An References anonymous informant wrote to me: Unless otherwise cited, all quotations are from transcriptions of tape-recorded in- Charles Lightbody was a most diffcult terviews conducted by the author in British Michael Taft is the head of the archives colleague…. He was a strange, bril- Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Ontario from at the American Folklife Center, Library liant, utterly self-centered man, often June to November 1983. The interviews of Congress. He has written extensively completely insensitive to the feelings of were part of the author’s research for Inside on Canadian folklore and oral history others. (Once in a department meeting, and has held university positions in he objected to some proposal, referring These Greystone Walls: An Anecdotal History of Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, British to [Professors] Jean Murray and Hilda the University of Saskatchewan (1984). Columbia, North Carolina, and Indiana. He would like to thank Renate Peters, Neatby as “you two spinsters,” and was Carolyn Geduld, Libby Tucker, and the then puzzled that they were annoyed!) Bronner, Simon J. 1990. Piled Higher and University of Saskatchewan Archives for Sooner or later he quarreled with all his Deeper: The Folklore of Campus Life. Little their help, as well as the University of friends and became increasingly bitter Saskatchewan Offce of the President for Rock: August House. in his last few years in Saskatoon…. I fnancing his research. A version of this held out longer than anyone else, but Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Dis- article was presented at the 2005 annual ultimately I, too, failed to keep his con- orders: DSM-IV. 1994. 4th ed. Washington, meeting of the American Folklore Society in Atlanta. fdence and friendship. D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 13 CREATIVE

Editors’ Note: Edward DeZurko was born in New York City Have things ready. in 1913, the son of Edward DeZurko Sr. from Hungary, and Do not hurry the mixing. Hattie Lehman, born in the United States. Now ninety- Add salt, favor, and spice four, Ed had a successful and varied career that included According to good taste professional architecture, illustration, and teaching art at and common sense. all levels, but he believes that his “fesh and soul” are in Add leavening, but do not ferment his poetry, which he took up late in life. From the vantage into excess activity point of his apartment at the Maple Downs Retirement or become frothy. Stir gently Community in Fayetteville, New York, he writes poetry into the milk of human kindness some W that focuses on how crises affect people and their lives. refned sugaring. References to his parents and childhood are central in many RITING of his poems. This poem is reprinted from his collection, When ready, do not overcook Through Cracks in the Wall, published by Rutledge Books or store in the freezer. in 2002, copyright © Edward DeZurko. Use judgment about allowing substance to stand on its own while ripening. A Recipe from Grandmother’s Diary Feed them … and lift them up forever. Some sediment may form but Psalms 28:9 Usually can be skimmed off. This recipe should serve for public Gather your basics early and family consumption and not when the grains still have only for company. a touch of the sweet color, green. Then they are at their best for blending. — Edward DeZurko

October 5, 2006 Response from Kathleen Condon What a pleasure to hear from State Senator Farley, Dear Editor: who has worked so tirelessly over the years to enhance and maintain New York’s wealth of library resources! I Thank you for publishing Kathleen Condon’s E-Resources had not realized that there were any New Yorkers not column “Digging Deeper” (Fall–Winter 2006, p. 15) which fo- served by a local public library, and I am glad to hear that cused on the State Library’s New York Online Virtual Electronic NOVEL is helping to fll this gap. I’m sure that Senator Library (NOVEL). This is not only an extensive resource, but also Farley would join me in encouraging all New Yorkers who an example of governmental effciency, since the single statewide are able to get library cards to do so, in order to explore contract for databases is far less expensive than if each local library not only NOVEL, but also any additional subscriptions had to negotiate separate contracts with each database vendor. or collections that may be available—either online or in DITOR Had Ms. Condon indeed misplaced her library card, she still person—through their local public libraries. E would have been able to access NOVEL through the State Library’s direct site—www.NovelNewYork.org—using her New York State driver’s license (or DMV-issued non-driver’s ID) number. This also provides access for the one million New Yorkers (mostly rural residents) who are not served by a local public library. As Voices articles have consistently noted, New York’s public libraries—along with the network of library systems, academic and special libraries, and the New York State Library which back them up—are a treasure of information.

Cordially,

Hugh T. Farley State Senator, 44th District

LETTER TO THE TO LETTER Chairman, Subcommittee on Libraries

14 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore E - RE More Than Just Text for Free BY KATHLEEN CONDON

A few months ago, Oral Tradition became to subscribe to the print journal or to Project storytelling performance that Hicks gave in his S eOT, an open-access electronic journal. Simply Muse. Of course, non-Western cultures are home back in 1986. I urge Voices readers to OUR put, this means that, from the moment each often particularly rich in the oral traditions give this a try: frst download and read Sobol’s issue is published, anyone with Internet ac- that are the journal’s subject matter. With article, then listen to the audio while reading cess can download articles from this journal fewer local voices from these regions con- the transcript provided. Sobol’s artful render- directly and without a fee. In addition to the tributing to the discourse, the entire journal’s ing of the performance text immeasurably C current issue of the journal, many back is- readership was being disadvantaged—not just enhanced my own listening experience, and sues are also available on the journal’s web those individual scholars without access. Foley I imagine the same would be true for others. E

site (http://journal.oraltradition.org). As this reports that the situation has already started to The success of this article inspires me to think S column goes to press, only the journal’s frst change. The journal’s web site brought 5,000 about a future in which new technologies two years (1986 and 1987) and the past seven distinct hits from around the world in just the will increasingly allow aural artistry to stand years (1999 to the present) are available, but all frst two weeks. Scholars who did not have directly beside the scholarship written to help twenty volumes of the journal will be available access to the journal before eOT have already us understand it better. online within the next two years. submitted articles for publication. Of course, a journal does not have to be Oral Tradition, which was “founded in 1986 Journals that address subjects such as open access to provide such linkages. The to serve as an international and interdisciplin- oral tradition have at least one other more New York Folklore Society’s web site offers ary forum for discussion of worldwide oral fundamental reason to transcend the printed direct access to many past Voices articles; se- traditions and related forms,” had previously page. Internet publication offers audiovisual lected articles from each issue are posted as been available only by subscription—either in possibilities that generations of folklorists soon as the following issue has been published. print or, for recent issues only, in Project Muse, and related scholars before us could only have A “listening icon” on selected articles provides an online subscription database for academic dreamed about. Take, for example, “‘Whistlin’ links to recordings of related music, includ- journals. According to the journal’s web site, Towards the Devil’s House’: Poetic Transfor- ing—so far—sacred steel, merengue tipico, and the recent switch was inspired by concern mations and Natural Metaphysics in an Ap- Celtic fddle. The society’s web site includes that their conventional journal distribution palachian Folktale Performance,” an article by audio documentaries from the “Voices of channels “unavoidably excluded a substantial folklorist Joseph Sobol in the current issue of New York Tradition” radio series. This sec- segment of OT’s potential readership, particu- eOT (http://journal.oraltradition.org/issues/ tion of the web site (http://www.nyfolklore. larly non-Western academics and institutions.” 21i/sobol) . The article examines the poetic org/progs/radiodoc.html) also provides links, By providing OT in freely available electronic aspects of the craft of a well-known North when available, to related articles previously media, the journal’s leadership is hoping to Carolina storyteller, the late Ray Hicks. It ends published in Voices. “remove many of the natural barriers created with a verbatim transcript of the story cited Through an introductory article and an by print-based and subscription media.” in the title, rendered in an ethnopoetic style opening column on the subject of e-resources Readers may wonder how such a venture that uses line breaks and spacing to indicate in two previous issues of Voices, I’ve tried to can be undertaken without underwriting from the cadences of Hick’s artful performance as alert readers to the existence of scholarly folk- subscriptions. The journal is edited by univer- well as written words can allow. “Ethnopoetic lore articles in digital format that are available sity staff and graduate students affliated with transcriptions,” as Sobol explains, “are in- only through subscription databases and to in- the Center for the Study of Oral Tradition tended as modes of translation between folk dicate libraries where those not affliated with at the University of Missouri at Columbia. narrative in its living context and the acts of academia might access these resources. With The university’s Center for eResearch, which making and reading printed texts.” this column I’m beginning a much broader developed the eOT web site and continues Sobol goes on to note that even careful task: informing readers about the plethora to administer it using open-source software, translations such as these are by necessity “lim- of folklore resources available directly on the hosts the journal on its own server. ited by a series of compromises—between the Internet. Would any of you be willing to pro- OT has particularly compelling reasons to demands of the ear and the eye, between the vide me with guidance on areas of particular pursue this more inclusive distribution method: existential wholeness of performance and the interest? I would welcome such suggestions; the journal’s content is explicitly international permanence and cultural authority of print.” please e-mail me at [email protected]. in scope. Indeed, most folklore journals listed It is exactly such limitations that eOT’s new in the Directory of Open Access Journals electronic format helps to address, allowing (http://www.doaj.org) specifically address the author—and the storyteller—to transcend Kathleen Condon is a folklorist and mu- international subjects or audiences. Before the written medium. An “eCompanion” link seum consultant living in Brooklyn, New eOT’s launch, John Miles Foley, the journal’s from the article’s title page on the eOT web York. Her recent research in the area of e-resources is a continuation of her long- editor, received about one letter a week from site provides streaming audio of the record- standing interest in public access to culture scholars located in Asia, Africa, and South ing transcribed in the article, allowing the of all kinds. Copyright © Kathleen Condon. America, whose universities could not afford reader to experience more directly the intimate

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 15 Mind-Builders: Training Youth Interns as Beginning Folklorists

BY DEIRDRE LYNN HOLLMAN

very summer for the past eighteen cians, storytellers, dancers, and craftspeople concepts of immigration and folklore stud- Eyears, youth interns, ages twelve to in the Bronx community from Africa, the ies, this intensive six-week program requires eighteen, have gathered at Mind-Builders Caribbean, Central and South America, and interns to research cultural traditions in their Creative Arts Center in the Williamsbridge various regions of the United States. The own families, conduct community feldwork, section of the Bronx to be trained as begin- internship program is named for the late create multimedia projects documenting ning folklorists as part of the Dr. Beverly Dr. Beverly Robinson, a folklorist and pro- folk and folklife, and fnally, participate in Robinson Community Folk Culture Pro- fessor at the University of California–Los community folk culture presentations. The gram. Through the broad lens of examin- Angeles who inspired the program and feldwork section of the program is rooted ing the past, current, and ever-evolving who came to the Bronx each summer for in the following statement of purpose: As cultures of peoples of African descent years to codirect it. folklorists we are interested in the things who migrate to New York City, interns After two days of orientation designed (cultural markers) that people bring to the discover and interview folk artists, musi- to help teenage interns unpack the weighty new place that connect them to home,

Summer 2006 folk culture interns outside GroundWork, Inc., where they interviewed twenty young people about folklife in East New York–Brooklyn in August 2006. All photos courtesy of Mind-Builders.

16 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore A young performer in the Garifuna dance company Hamalali Wayunagu sings at a folk culture presentation at Mind-Builders in August 2005. the traditions that are maintained, and the of the program at its inception remain true birthplace of themselves or their families memories that remain. today: to help students defne, acknowl- when it is other than New York seems a Why was immigration chosen as the under- edge, and appreciate a rich community, worthy wall to break down. lying theme of the folk culture project for the their families, their neighbors, and all that Over the past two years, the interns have past two years? This theme seems especially has helped to make them who they are. In identified, documented, and presented timely in this community with large numbers addition, we strive to help young people more than ffty folk artists and tradition of families of Caribbean descent, especially combat prejudices and biases within black bearers from the Bronx community. Who as there has been a steady increase in the student groups regarding skin color, na- better to tell you about a few of them than population of native Africans in area schools tionality, accents, and other vestiges of the interns themselves? and churches, as well as new African and the self-degradation that slavery and colo- Caribbean restaurants, businesses, and tailors nialism cultivated. Madaha Kinsey Lamb, George Sakyiama, Bantoma Market opening along the nearby commercial strip the founder and executive director of Genre: Traditional Ghanaian Foods and on White Plains Road. There has also been an Mind-Builders, wants the young people Cooking increase in the diversity of the Mind-Builders’ to embrace the idea that “different is just By Ariel Snipe and Khalea Johnson student body, which presents an opportunity fne, different is rich.” In addition to lin- On Thursday, July 28, 2005, we went to to talk with these families so that they can gering perspectives that view lighter skin Bantoma Market, an African food store share their stories and teach young people and straighter hair as “good” and more at 180th Street and Grand Concourse. We about their cultural backgrounds. The goals attractive, the reticence to celebrate the learned about the importance of having

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 17 George Sakiyama, a native of Ghana, introduces students to traditional foods of Ghana at Mind-Builders’ African Folk Culture Expo in March 2006.

an African grocery store and its cultural used a lot in soups. Ground nuts are also bowl made of clay and sand, and it can hold connections for African immigrants that popular. Ground nuts are peanut butter heat very well. Africans are creative in their come from Ghana and neighboring nations with no added sugar or anything. cooking methods and let little go to waste. to the Bronx. Mr. George Sakyiama opened We learned about what certain foods are Corn husks are used to package kenkey. the Ghanaian food store in 2004 in order eaten with. Fufu is eaten with stew or soup Kenkey can be eaten with pepper sauce to provide Africans with food from their the same way Americans often eat potatoes or corned beef and is considered African home. Most of the food is from Ghana, in soups and in stews. Fufu is made of fast food because it takes only minutes to with a few items from England, France, cassava, plaintains, or corn meal. We also prepare. When eaten alone, kenkey tastes and the Caribbean. learned about how some of the foods are like four and water. One of the store’s popular items is palm made. Fufu is made with ground yucca and On how he became a good cook, Mr. oil, produced from palm fruit that comes cornmeal, then it is boiled in water and be- Sakyiama later told us, “In Ghana, tradi- from a palm tree. The oil is very popular comes like sticky dumplings. Most people tionally women learn how to cook from in Africa and tropical areas. You can cook in Ghana and Senegal love fufu and soup. other women. My grandmother was cater- fsh, chicken, and other things in palm oil, African eggplant is also a popular item for ing food for the school in Akropong. My because it is used like vegetable oil. Other soups. African eggplant is different than mother learned from her. My father died things that sell well are the spices. They are American eggplant, because it is yellow and young. I was the last born, and so I would made by grinding together a whole bunch much smaller. do everything for [my mother]. She wasn’t of different vegetables and herbs and are When making some African dishes, Mr. supposed to teach me, but she trained me put on meats and in soups and stews. An- Sakyiama taught us that Ghanaians use a very good. And all my wives, I teach them other popular item is dried okra, which is large clay pot called adanka. Adanka is a how to cook. At my store, I always have

18 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore dishes ready, and people love it. They eat old. The punta dance was a ritual dance is held on April 12, the day the Garifuna it like crazy.” performed at wakes by couples and has now people landed on the shores of Honduras Mr. Sakyiama was very informative. He was evolved into a social dance. Paranda is a so- and transplated their vibrant culture to a a natural and true teacher. He was very fun to cial dance with a song that tells the story of new homeland. spend time with. We learned a lot about the a dark-skinned Garifuna woman who is sad “When you don’t travel, you cannot see,” native foods of Ghana at his store, Bantoma because she cannot identify herself in the is a saying that Ms. Solis shared with us from Market. faces of the white Catholic saints. Ms. Solis her culture. At the age of 15, she moved to told us that “many social issues are revealed New York City—to the Bronx, where the Luz Solis, Hamalali Wayunagu Garifuna in the songs and dances of the Garifuna.” largest population of Garifuna people live Dance Company Wanaragua is a masked dance that is a dance outside of Honduras. Ms. Solis has a big Genre: Garifuna Dance, Drumming, and of healing. She says that the masks were job trying to keep her community together Family Life worn by men so that they could practice through dance, song, and drumming. She is By D’ontre Daniels, DeAnna George, Ivorie the dance of war while disguised as women determined to teach the young people the Claire, Linda Kontoh, and Adrien Harrison in layers of dresses, aprons, and fabric. The importance of writing about the Garifuna, Ms. Luz Solis, whose name means “sun- men wore cowrie shells around their legs, so that the living history of her people does light” in Garifuna, was born and raised in and the dance is known for its elaborate not die with the elders. Her story inspired Honduras. Ms. Solis is a free speaker and a footwork. Other traditional dances are the us to listen to our grandparents more. We natural teacher. She taught us that the Gari- gunche (a ballroom-type dance), sambe (men thank Ms. Solis for sharing her childhood funa people are a mix of Carib, Arawak, and only), and chumba (originally performed by traditions and memories with us. African peoples who lived for hundreds of older women, and now by young girls). years on the island of Saint Vincent in the Ms. Solis taught us that dances are Pat Lindsay, Pat’s Exotic Juices Caribbean. Garifunas speak an indigenous performed to a variety of drum rhythms. Genre: Jamaican Juicemaking dialect that is a combination of Arahuaco, Traditional chants like the abenyhami are By Desiree Rodriquez , Ricardo Dyer, and Shanard Swahili, French, and Bantu. Later, when the performed by women, and the arumahani is Kitt Garifuna people were exiled from Saint Vin- performed by men as part of the popular Ms. Pat Lindsay is a successful entrepre- cent to Honduras by the British, the people ancestral celebration called the Dügü. This neur who specializes in making exotic bev- spoke English and then learned Spanish. celebration is had whenever the elders call erages. She is a very hard-working woman It was interesting to learn that traditional for it. Another major Garifuna celebration with great vision and good taste. Her foods play a large role in Garifuna culture. Foods like the cassava, which Ms. Solis says is known to help prevent cancer, is made into the popular cassava bread. Cassava milk is also used to feed babies. Another well-known traditional dish is hundutu, made of mashed plantains. In Honduras, coconut milk is a staple in the Garifuna diet. Ms. Solis has been a performing artist and dancer her whole life. Her specialty is the history of the Garifuna people and the practice of Garifuna music and dance. She formed the Hamalali Wayunagu Garifuna Dance Company in the Bronx to celebrate and preserve her heritage. Hamalali wayunagu means “voices of the ancestors,” and when the whole group performs, a community of more than twenty people fll the space with voices and rhythms. She explained how dance was a part of everyday culture in her childhood com- Vickie Fremont, an artist from Cameroon who specializes in using found objects and munity. Many dances were tied to rituals recycled materials, demonstrates how to make junjun puppets out of sticks, wire coat performed by men and women, young and hangers, and yarn at Mind-Builders’ African Folk Culture Expo in March 2006.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 19 Luz Solis (center), Garifuna folk artist and founder of Hamalali Wayunagu, performs with two traditional dancers at a folk culture presentation at Mind-Builders in August 2005.

beverages give you a bit of the Caribbean because she never quit and her business Bobby Gonzalez in every bottle. has been growing for seven years. Now she Genre: Taino Poetry and Storytelling As a young girl in Jamaica, Ms. Lindsay’s has a plant on Tiemann Avenue. When she By Delicia Myvett, Latesha Durky, Keshawna grandmother taught her to make fresh started her business, she and her crew would Johnson, and Makini I juices, such as sorrel, ginger beer, sour bottle fve hundred juices a week. Now they Mr. Bobby Gonzalez is a Taino poet and sop, and grapefruit punch. As she grew bottle six thousand juices a week in eighteen storyteller. His culture originated in what older, she would only make juice for family delicious favors. She uses only the fnest is now Puerto Rico. The original name for meals and celebrations. One day, one of her tropical fruits, roots, and vegetables from Puerto Rico was Boriken. Boriken means friends told her she should bottle it and sell New York, and many rare fruits she buys “land of a valiant people.” His mother mi- it. Today, she still tastes each batch before in Jamaica, freezes, and brings back to the grated from Puerto Rico to Miami, and then it goes out to the client. She explained that Bronx. She is committed to quality! to New York City in the 1940s. He taught her recipe for each drink changes depend- Pat Lindsay migrated from Jamaica to us that at that time there was a “big exodus ing on the batch of fruit. “Every mango New York at the age of eighteen. Over the from Puerto Rico to New York City, but doesn’t taste the same,” she said, “so I have course of a few short years, she has taken a the Puerto Ricans, who were Catholic, were to adjust the other ingredients to make the family tradition and turned it into a success- not accepted in the Irish Catholic churches juice just right.” ful family business that continues to thrive in the Bronx.” From her migration experi- Ms. Lindsay showed her physical strength in the community, where each bottle of juice ences, his mother taught him that “life is by carrying ffty-pound bags of carrots and provides a visceral taste of “back home” for hard, but it is fair.” sugar to her house, which is right around the her customers. For a number of years, Ms. The Taino people are the native people of corner from Mind-Builders, in order to make Lindsay’s nephew was a member of Mind- the islands that are known today as Puerto juice. She is a positive person all around, Builders’ teen theater company. Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamai-

20 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore ca, Cuba, and the Bahamas. In fact, Jamaica bodega [deli] in the Bronx, which served they had similar native beliefs about nature, is a Taino word meaning “land of wood as the meeting place for the Tainos who spirituality, and family life. He told us that and water.” Other Taino words that we use were moving into the area. Mr. Gonzalez native peoples and Africans intermarried in English are hurricane, canoe, barbecue, said that the bodega was like a traditional and created communities in the Caribbean and tobacco. We learned that Tainos lost areyto, or gathering, where the chief would and in North America largely due to the most of their culture gradually since 1808, recount the history of the people with oral transatlantic slave trade. when in Puerto Rico, the Spanish declared stories, songs, and dance. His father, a mas- We really enjoyed Mr. Gonzalez’s stories the Taino extinct and forced people to de- ter storyteller who knew everybody in the of the Taino people and their history. He fne themselves as either white or colored. community, opened that bodega every day shared a folktale about a baby manatee that Today, there are only about three or four until the day he died in his eighties. was loved and cared for by a village man hundred Taino words left. Tainos’ main Mr. Gonzalez collected oral histories and one day disappeared. He also taught us foods are cassava, cassava bread, sweet and stories from sitting in his father’s store, about batu, a ball game that is native to Puer- potato, pineapple, and peanuts. The most from family members, and from people to Rico and was played before soccer was delicious delicacy is roasted iguana. he would meet at pow-wows. Pow-wows invented. The batu ball was made by rolling Although the Taino people are consid- are traditional gatherings and commu- weeds in plant-based rubber and gum mixed ered a lost tribe, Mr. Gonzalez is trying to nity celebrations of native peoples in the with soil and sand. It was a hands-free game keep the group’s traditions alive. To help Americas. He taught us that the Taino preceded by a ritual ceremony, the batey, that do this, he became a storyteller and a poet. people were known as healers, not warriors, drew large crowds of natives together until He was inspired by his father to become and that Tainos and Africans that met in the Spanish outlawed the game because of a storyteller, because his father owned a the Caribbean made connections because its spiritual connection.

Program interns interview Pat Lindsay, Caribbean juicemaker, at Mind-Builders in April 2006 about how she learned to make fresh juices from her grandmother as a child in Jamaica.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 21 A boy from a Harlem kindergarten class learns how to make junjun puppets from Vickie Fremont at Mind-Builders’ African Folk Cul- ture Expo at the National Black Theater in Harlem in March 2006.

Growing up, Bobby Gonzalez lived in the answers to the question, Why were blacks father. Her husband owned two stores Melrose housing projects of the South Bronx, moving from the South to the North dur- in Harlem, a sweet shop and a novelty where the majority of his neighbors were ing the Great Migration? Ms. Poole told us, store. Family members who moved away Jewish, Irish, and Muslim. Over the years he “It was the discrimination in the South that found hope in the North, and her family has seen many changes in the community tied prompted the Migration . . . the anger, the took education very seriously. Born in the to the infux of people migrating here from rage” that sent people packing in search of 1950s in Harlem Hospital, which was then the Caribbean and Africa. We really enjoyed jobs and better opportunities in the North. known as Flowers Fifth Avenue, Ms. Poole Bobby Gonzalez’s visit because he inspired us The racism also caused many black men moved to the Bronx with her father at the to learn more about our own cultures by do- to join the military—like her father, who age of twelve. ing research. He also taught us not to believe joined the navy in 1932, her uncle, and her Ms. Poole started her family research everything you read in history books because cousin. Ms. Poole taught us that, for many, by talking with the eldest relatives and sometimes there are other truths. it was hard to escape the frustration of the then working her way down, generation times, and many people were victims of by generation. She collected rich stories Annora Poole alcoholism and depression. and photographs along the way that she Genre: African American Family History Ms. Poole’s family moved from Fayette- shared with us. She refected, “Hearing By Shirnette Reid, Kenton Williams, Emeka ville, North Carolina, to Harlem in the late the narratives gave me such an enormous Lamb, and Tesfa I 1930s. Her Aunt Annie Mae was the frst to sense of pride because I realized that we Ms. Annora Poole did research on her move, followed by all of Aunt Annie Mae’s were—and are—truly survivors.” Ms. paternal family background and discovered brothers and sisters, including Annora’s Poole’s presentation was very interesting

22 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore and inspired us to take a closer look at our shared heritage and diverse histories. interns are expanding their community families and to see their stories as part of This is a family reunion, and like all feldwork to include the histories and tradi- American history. family reunions, we come to share tions of the Spanish- and French-speaking our stories, our food, and what we *** have learned in our travels and to Caribbean, as well as those of additional na- I believe that the most successful aspect of renew our knowledge of each other tions in Africa, as we continue to investigate our internship program has been identifying and ourselves. the vibrant cultural landscape of the Bronx. the interns themselves as tradition bearers. Our North American Regional Diversity This approach encourages them first to Just as a family tree grows branch by Project continues to develop, as well, with identify the cultural traditions that permeate branch over generations, so grow the proj- two branches: 1) investigation into the varia- their own lives, and then to identify the ects of the folk culture program. Currently tions of African American teen culture in roots of those same traditions in others from throughout the African diaspora. The interns document their cultural traditions by writing essays on how their families migrated to New York City, sharing childhood songs and games, identifying cultural markers in their home and creating an exhibition of these artifacts, collecting family proverbs and sayings, and interviewing family members about cultural foods and recording recipes. Collecting this treasure trove of personal folklore allows the interns to be intimately connected to the program. Their direct participation in the community presentations—not only as folklorists and hosts, but also as tradition bearers of their own brand of contemporary youth culture in this area—allows them to demonstrate aspects of their culture that contribute to their broadening sense of identity. Last summer, Dr. Diana Baird N’Diaye, curator and cultural heritage specialist at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, worked with us as a mentor and consultant to the folk culture program through the support of the New York Folklore Society’s mentorship program. At the end of that phase of our work together, she provided a brilliant refection that unifed the work we are doing in the Bronx with the theme of family reunion:

It is amazing that people from all over the African world, whose ancestors were violently and ruthlessly separated from the continent and from each other through slavery and colonialism so many centuries ago, should fnd themselves side by side in New York City at the dawn of the twenty-frst century. Our migrations from Africa, from the Caribbean, from other parts of the United States, have brought us Three young men of Hamalali Wayunagu perform the wanaragua at a folk culture presen- together again in this place with our tation at Mind-Builders in August 2005.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 23 the fve boroughs of New York City, and 2) identifcation of family and community ties to folk outside of the city, in other culturally rich pockets of North America. This project will grow over the next year into exploration of communities of affliation.

Deirdre Lynn Hollman directs the Dr. Beverly Robinson Community Folk Culture Program, managing the program, developing curriculum, and supervis- ing interns. She is deeply committed to cultural heritage education for youth. A graduate of Princeton University in art history, she is currently studying for her master’s degree at Bank Street College of Education. She wishes to thank all of the folk artists who take the time to share their rich stories and traditions with the youth at Mind-Builders. To recommend Taino storyteller Bobby Gonzalez reminisces in July 2006 about the stories, history, and to the program a folk artist or tradition gossip he heard as a child while hanging out in the bodega his father, a Puerto Rico na- bearer who lives in the Bronx area, please tive, owned in the Bronx. e-mail [email protected].

Members: Order your copies of New York Folklore Society books at a members-only discount. To join the New York Folklore Society, see the inside back cover. ADD T HESE ESSENTIAL RESOURCES AND FASCINATING BOOKS TO YOUR LIBRARY!

Working with Folk Materials in Self-Management for Folk Art- TO ORDER New York State: A Manual for ists: A Guide for Traditional Artists and Performers in New York State Books subtotal $______Folklorists and Archivists By Patricia Atkinson Wells Edited by John W. Suter Shipping and handling With contributions by leading New York State This handbook is a must for traditional artists Add $4 for the frst book, archivists and folklorists, this manual introduces in New York State interested in managing and $1 for each additional item. $______folklore to the archivist and archives to folklor- marketing their own businesses. Topics include ists. It is required reading for those working promotion, booking, contracts, keeping re- with collections of folklore materials cords, taxes, and copyright. Total $______in any part of the country. 148 pages, loose-leaf notebook 168 pages, loose-leaf notebook $30 $40 nonmembers $______Enclose check payable to New York Folklore $25 $35 nonmembers $______Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, P.O. Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. Folk Arts Programming in New Folklore in Archives: York State: A Handbook and ______A Guide to Describing Folklore Resource Guide Name and Folklife Materials By Karen Lux ______By James Corsaro and Karen Taussig-Lux Written for anyone considering starting a folk Shipping Address Written primarily for archivists and others who arts program at their institution. Shows the potential of a broad range of different types ______care for collections of folk cultural documen- City, State, Zip tation, this manual describes the theory and of folk arts presentations and provides infor- practice of folklore and provides essential mation on how to carry them out. ______information on how to accession, arrange, and 108 pages, paperback Phone describe folklore materials. $10 $______128 pages, loose-leaf notebook $25 $35 nonmembers $______

24 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Hoops, Hebrews, and the Hudson River League

BY JOHN THORN

Improbable as it may seem today, professional basketball in this But the year 2000 marked the frst time country was once the game for Jews, as much as today it is a game in the history of the National Basketball dominated by African Americans. That time was not so long ago, as Association—and all the pro leagues the author recalls from his own youth. A Polish Jew transplanted to before it going back to the 1900s—that New York City in 1949, who has lived in New York’s Ulster County not a single Jew was on an NBA team for the past thirty years, he embarked upon a search for the localized roster. In the middle-class fight to the story of one of the game’s earliest professional leagues, the Hud- suburbs, what had been left behind on son River League of 1909–12. Surprisingly the journey of discovery the curb was “our game.” took him back to Poland and New York City, revealing a heretofore Investigating the story of Kingston’s hidden hero of basketball, Harry Baum. Upon his death in 1959 at surprisingly long and illustrious history in age seventy-six, this former chairman of the Department of Electri- professional basketball, we will focus on cal Engineering at City College had amassed credits enough for a “our league”: the Hudson River League generous obituary in the New York Times. Nowhere in his death (HRL) of 1909–12. Kingston played in notice, however, was there any mention of his pivotal role in the other pro leagues, too, from 1914 all the evolution of basketball. way to 1940. The Colonials of 1923 were world champions, defeating the Original y father had not been an athlete Ever since the turn of the century, Celtics (of New York, not Boston) in a Min his youth in Cracow, and he when the new game of basketball had best-of-fve classic. Among the hoop- never could fathom my boyhood mania come into the cities through the settle- sters who wore Kingston colors are Hall for sports, especially basketball—“this ment houses, the Young Men’s Hebrew of Famers Frank Morgenweck, Barney crazy American jumping,” as he called Association, and the Amateur Athletic Sedran, Johnny Beckman, and Benny it. Immigrating to this country after the Union, Tevye could have blared “Tradi- Borgmann, plus such stars as Harry war, by 1954 my family settled into Kew tion!” in reference to basketball more Franckle and Phil Rabin. While not all Gardens, then a predominantly Jewish aptly than to the Talmud. As Hank of our region’s top players were Jews, neighborhood in Queens. As my pudgy Rosenstein of the original 1946–7 New certainly, there is no telling this story frame began to elongate by age eleven, York Knickerbockers recently said, without them, any more than you could basketball became my life: maneuvering “Basketball was our religion.” tell the story of the NBA’s rise without around the nuisance of schooling, I be- Today basketball is generally conceded mention of Shaq, Kobe, Lebron, and came a playground habitué from daylight to be the game for African Americans, other black stars so famous they don’t to dusk and a gym rat at night. And I with token representation by white even need last names. was never lacking for company from jumpshooters from the western states Let’s do a racehorse run through similarly crazed coreligionist jumpers. and Eurostars looking to buy a vowel. early basketball. Our national pastime

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 25 the amateur level. One of Dr. Naismith’s by Ape Saperstein in 1927 and still original rules—that a ball out of bounds barnstorming today. Jews went on to belonged to the team that frst possessed dominate the new pro leagues that began it—led to bloody mayhem that did not to have national aspirations, from the cease until the rule was changed in 1913. American Basketball League (founded An early means of keeping the ball in in 1925) and National Basketball League bounds, adopted by several pro leagues, (1937) to the Basketball Association of was to play the game in a wire or rope America of 1946, which three years later cage; although the cage was last used in would change its name to the NBA. In 1930, players were still called cagers in what is now considered the NBA’s frst news headlines for ffty years thereafter. game, between the Knicks and the To- And then there was the center jump, ronto Huskies on November 1, 1946, an action-stopper after each feld goal Ossie Schectman scored the league’s frst or free throw that somehow survived basket on a give-and-go fast break. With until 1936–7. Jewish teammates Sonny Hertzberg, Stan In its inaugural season of 1909, the Stutz, Hank Rosenstein, Ralph Kaplow- HRL included teams in Kingston, New- itz, Jake Weber, and Leo “Ace” Gottlieb, burgh, Catskill, Hudson, Poughkeepsie, the Knicks won that game and fnished Troy, Yonkers, and Paterson, New Jersey. the season with a 33-27 record. Apart from the inclusion of Troy, these What accounted for the basketball franchises mirrored precisely the fnal- success of the Jews? New York Daily year cast of HRL baseball only two years before, when it had been a Class C minor Barney Sedran went from the Lower East Side to the Hudson River League to the league. In its three years of play, several Basketball Hall of Fame. Courtesy of the of the league’s teams (the Newburgh author. Tenths, the Yonkers Fourth Separates) were sponsored by local national guard of baseball has roots in this country units, or “separate companies,” thus going back to the 1700s, but it is an Old transforming the patriotically grandiose, World import. Indeed, the only major white-elephant armories into basketball sports born in America are lacrosse and arenas. Probably the best of the early pro basketball—the frst created by Native teams and champions of the HRL in its Americans as baggataway and renamed frst two seasons were the Trojans of by French missionaries, and the second Troy. Led by Ed and Lew Wachter, they by a Canadian physical education in- then abandoned the HRL for the New structor at the YMCA Training School York State League, whose crown they in Springfeld, Massachusetts. In 1891 also captured—playing on courts with James Naismith nailed peach baskets to no backboards, so that all shots had to be the balcony rail of the local gym and for- made “clean”! Many early pro fves also mulated a set of rules (no backboards, played in other leagues under the ban- no dribbling, no limits to the number of ner of other cities or barnstormed like players on the foor) that soon became the Original Celtics, the Rens (Renais- subject to widespread tinkering. sance Five, an all-black team), and the Unlike the development of baseball South Philadelphia Hebrew Association and football, in basketball the pro game (SPHA) team. advanced simultaneously with the col- “Professional basketball is a Jewish lege brand, with the formation of a boys’ game,” said Eddie Gottlieb of the play-for-pay circuit in the Philadelphia SPHAs in the 1920s. And for several area in 1898. As additional pro leagues decades it was, despite such formidable In later years, James Naismith refected sprang up, each operated under its own African American teams as the Rens and on how far basketball had come from the socccer-ball-and-peach-basket days of the rules, as did the AAU and the NCAA at the Harlem Globetrotters, organized 1890s. Courtesy of the author.

26 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The Seventeenth Separate Company team, based in Flushing, New York, was typical of the most competitive fves of the era. The team won the national championship in 1900–1. Courtesy of Andy Sandler.

News sports editor Paul Gallico wrote Franckle and Sam Curlett, won the (Cohen), Joe Girsdansky, and Jake Fuller, in the mid-1930s that basketball “ap- championship as the league folded on all of them alumni of the teenage Bizzy peals to the Hebrew with his Oriental January 20, 1912, having played barely Izzies. background [because] the game places half its scheduled games. Kingston’s This “midget” team—some, like Se- a premium on an alert, scheming mind 14-8 record bested the 14-9 mark posted dran at fve feet four inches, were too and fashy trickiness, artful dodging, and by the Newburgh Tenths. This colorless small to make their high-school teams— general smartaleckness.” In rejecting the regimental name soon gave way to the owed everything to their coach, Harry clear anti-Semitism behind that analysis, more descriptive “Bizzy Izzies,” the Baum, who is not in the hall of fame but we are thrown back upon the obvious nickname that the all-Israelite squad ought to be. Streusand explained that answer: that pro basketball provided a had first assumed when it won the “as kids, we were all physically inferior. ladder to a downtrodden minority, as New York City inter-settlement league We were really midgets; hardly weighed it would continue to do for other mi- “midget” (under 106 pounds) title for anything at all. But Baum taught us norities. Yet the most intriguing answer fve years running. Its players included teamwork and a new brand of ball and may lie closer to Gallico’s remark, and it future Basketball Hall of Famers Barney we ran everyone ragged.” Sedran added, played out in the Hudson River League Sedran (Sedransky) and Marty Friedman, “He taught us a style of play which we of 1911–2. league-leading scorer Ira Streusand, and carried with us during our entire careers. In that truncated season the Kings- such other Lower East Side luminaries In fact, his style of basketball was fol- ton Company M squad, led by Harry as Harry Brill, Lou Sugarman, Bill Cone lowed by most of the pro teams.” In

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 27 In its infancy, basketball—like baseball—was regarded as a game equally suitable for women and men. Courtesy of the author.

28 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore 1983, at the age of eighty-seven, the legendary Nat Holman recalled that he Submission Guidelines for had really begun to learn the game in Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore 1908, when he was the twelve-year-old mascot of the Izzies. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is Style a membership magazine of the New York Substituting brains for brawn, Baum The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). Consult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for transformed the plodding game that The New York Folklore Society is a nonproft, questions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and avoid basketball had been ever since its birth statewide organization dedicated to furthering gender-specifc terminology. cultural equity and cross-cultural understanding Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be into a sharp passing game with intricate through programs that nurture folk cultural expres- avoided; incorporate such information into the crossing patterns that became the clas- sions within communities where they originate, text. Ancillary information may be submitted as a share these traditions across cultural boundaries, sidebar. sic New York style. Instead of bulling and enhance the understanding and appreciation of Bibliographic citations. For citations of text one’s way to the basket or positioning folk culture. Through Voices the society communi- from outside sources, use the author-date style cates with professional folklorists and members of described in The Chicago Manual of Style. for two-hand set shots, the Bizzy Izzies related felds, traditional artists, and a general public Language. All material must be submitted in pioneered the fve-man fre drill that interested in folklore. English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) should presaged today’s Phoenix Suns. folklore in the words and images of its creators and be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical Amazingly, Baum never played bas- practitioners. The journal publishes research-based English gloss; the author bears responsibility for the articles, written in an accessible style, on topics correct spelling and orthographics of non-English ketball himself. Born in Cracow on July related to traditional art and life. It also features words. British spellings should be Americanized. 11, 1882, Baum graduated from City stories, interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and music, photographs, and artwork drawn from College in 1902. He played one season Publication Process people in all parts of New York State. Columns Unless indicated, The New York Folklore Society of lacrosse while there and another three on subjects such as photography, sound and video holds copyright to all material published in Voices: recording, legal and ethical issues, and the nature of seasons at Columbia. It was while pursu- The Journal of New York Folklore. With the submission traditional art and life appear in each issue. of material to the editor, the author acknowledges ing his engineering degree at Columbia that he or she gives Voices sole rights to its publica- that he agreed to coach the midget team Editorial Policy tion, and that permission to publish it elsewhere Feature articles. Articles published in Voices must be secured in writing from the editor. at the University Settlement House represent original contributions to folklore studies. For the initial submission, send a PC-formatted on Eldridge Street. Because Baum’s Although Voices emphasizes the folklore of New disk (preferably prepared in Microsoft Word and York State, the editor welcomes articles based on saved as Rich Text Format). only previous athletic experience had the folklore of any area of the world. Articles on Copy must be typed double spaced, on one side come in lacrosse, he based his approach the theory, methodology, and geography of folklore of a sheet only, with all pages numbered consecu- are also welcome, as are purely descriptive articles tively. To facilitate anonymous review of feature to basketball on that game, with its short in the ethnography of folklore. In addition, Voices articles, the author’s name and biography should passes, limited dribbling, and man-to- provides a home for “orphan” tales, narratives, and appear only on a separate title page. songs, whose contributors are urged to provide Tables, charts, maps, illustrations, photographs, man switching defense. Also infuencing contextual information. captions, and credits should follow the main text and the Izzies’ style was the Lower East Side Authors are encouraged to include short personal be numbered consecutively. All illustrations should be reminiscences, anecdotes, isolated tales, narratives, kids’ tradition of playing basketball with clean, sharp, and camera-ready. Photographs should be songs, and other material that relates to and en- prints or duplicate slides (not originals) or scanned at a rag ball that could be tossed between hances their main article. high resolution (300+ dpi) and e-mailed to the edi- Typically feature articles range from 1,000 to the rungs of a fre-escape ladder. As tor as jpg or tiff fles. Captions and credits must be 4,000 words and up to 6,000 words at the editor’s included. Written permission to publish each image Macyln Baker, Jewish captain of New discretion. must be obtained by authors from the copyright Reviews and review essays. Books, recordings, York University’s 1921 basketball team holders prior to submission of manuscripts, and the flms, videos, exhibitions, concerts, and the like are written permissions must accompany the manuscript put it, “rags didn’t bounce.” selected for review in Voices for their relevance to (authors should keep copies). folklore studies or the folklore of New York State Leave it to a Polish Jew to blend one Materials are acknowledged upon receipt. The and their potential interest to a wide audience. Per- editor and two anonymous readers review manu- game invented by a Canadian with an- sons wishing to review recently published material scripts submitted as articles. The review process other created by Native Americans. In should contact the editor. Unsolicited reviews and takes several weeks. proposals for reviews will be evaluated by the editor Authors receive two complimentary copies of the basketball history no better examples of and by outside referees where appropriate. Follow issue in which their contribution appears and may “alert, scheming mind and fashy tricki- the bibliographic style in a current issue of Voices. purchase additional copies at a discount. Authors Reviews should not exceed 750 words. of feature articles may purchase offprints; price ness, artful dodging” may be found than Correspondence and commentary. Short but information is available upon publication. Harry Baum and the Bizzy Izzies. substantive reactions to or elaborations upon material appearing in Voices within the previous year are welcomed. The editor may invite the author of the Submission Deadlines materials being addressed to respond; both pieces Spring–Summer issue November 1 Fall–Winter issue May 1 John Thorn is the author and editor of may be published together. Any subject may be many books, mostly about sports, as well addressed or rebutted once by any correspondent. The principal criteria for publication are whether, Send submissions as Word fles to Felicia Faye as occasional pieces for the New York McMahon, Voices Editor, at the following address: Times, Los Angeles Times, and Boston in the opinion of the editor or the editorial board, the comment constitutes a substantive contribution [email protected] (preferred) or 374 Globe. He lives in Saugerties, New York. Strong Road, Tully, NY 13159. An earlier version of this article was pub- to folklore studies, and whether it will interest our lished in the Woodstock Times on May general readers. 12, 2005. Copyright © John Thorn. Letters should not exceed 500 words.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 29 S Ghosts That Refuse to Go Away BY LIBBY TUCKER

After sending students to their hometowns to let go. Like the mother in the popular Like the ghost of the candlesticks from to collect supernatural narratives in the movie Monster-in-Law (2005), this mother Russia, this beer-drinking ghost wants to PIRIT

S 1940s, New York folklorist Louis C. Jones just cannot leave her daughter alone. Rachel’s help his relatives remember important rituals discovered that four-ffths of the ghosts in story also conveys a serious message about from their original homeland. Thai culture his students’ stories were American and one- preserving the integrity of family ritual. Just emphasizes the importance of honoring and ffth were European. Like Jones, I have sent as the candlesticks stay on the Sabbath table, feeding dead relatives; it also recognizes the my students out to collect folklore from fam- the grandmother’s ghost remains with family deceased’s right to occupy the body of a ily members. Some students’ ghost stories members. Only the daughter who inherited living person, if the family does not behave

GOOD describe family members who, after living the candlesticks can see the ghost, but her itself properly. Although Thai people know and dying in Europe or Asia, come along own daughter Rachel, next in line to own a remedy for possession, that remedy will with their relatives to start a new life—or these family heirlooms, will remember her not work until the ghost gets what it wants afterlife—in the United States. These an- mother’s narratives and may, in turn, see the and needs. noyingly persistent ghosts highlight the dif- ghost herself. Possession is a cross-cultural phenomenon, fculties of adjustment to a new culture and My second example, from a family that im- so stories about ghosts that occupy people’s the importance of remembering ancestors’ migrated from Thailand to the United States, bodies move fuidly from one cultural area to traditions. similarly focuses on a ghost that refuses to another. After The Exorcist came out in 1973, Some ghost stories take root on new soil, leave its loved ones. Instead of becoming many Americans recounted horrifc posses- while others languish and fade away. Be- attached to a particular object, this ghost sion scenarios. In The Exorcist, the demon liefs from the old country explain stressful inhabits the body of a member of its fam- came from the Middle East. More recent situations in the family’s new land, offering ily. In the fall of 1998, twenty-fve–year-old movies such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose comfort and occasional laughter. When a Jason told the story of what happened to his (2005) have supported belief in possession. story about an encounter with an old-country mother when she fainted following a family Since American culture has grown through ghost fts patterns of folk legend telling and Mother’s Day celebration. Feeling dizzy and multiple waves of immigration, it should flmmaking in the United States, that story weak, she went to fnd her husband, then not surprise us that stories about ghosts will appeal to listeners beyond the ghost’s began to speak in the voice of her hus- from other countries have come together to family circle. band’s deceased brother: “I want something create the folklore of the supernatural that In the spring of 2006, Rachel, a sopho- to drink. I’ve been waiting for you guys to we collect today. A ghost may be considered more from Syosset, New York, told her give me food since yesterday, but no one American if someone sees, hears, or feels it fellow students in my introductory folklore remembered me. No one saw me. I waited somewhere in the United States, but a narra- class a story about her Russian step-grand- outside for you, but no one came outside. So tive about a spectral experience does not have mother, a cantankerous woman who often I went downstairs and waited. I saw all of much impact on others unless it sounds excit- told younger female relatives that they were you, but you still didn’t see me.” ing and bears some similarity to established, not working hard enough to preserve family This miserable ghost desperately wished appealing stories or popular flms. rituals. This grandmother’s most precious to be remembered and honored by the Today’s Empire State ghosts refect the possession was a pair of candlesticks used for members of his family. Instead of receiving interaction of storytellers and moviego- Sabbath dinners. For several generations, the food from his family on Mother’s Day, as ers; they also display a complex and ever- oldest daughter in the family had inherited Thai ritual requires, he felt excluded from changing blend of cultural infuences. I hope these candlesticks after their owner’s death. the warmth of the family circle. Trying to that feldworkers will continue to track the Rachel’s mother inherited the candlesticks get back in, he entered the body of Jason’s development of New York State’s folklore before leaving Russia to settle in the United mother—an uncomfortable surprise for the of the supernatural as future immigrants tell States. Sometimes, when lighting candles be- Mother’s Day honoree. Thai ritual suggests new ghost stories. fore dinner on Friday evenings, she saw a pale that the best way to exorcise a ghost is to tie Libby Tucker teaches image of her stepmother’s ghost near the white yarn, phi, around the sufferer’s wrist. folklore at Binghamton table. During dinner, Rachel’s mother would Although Jason’s father did this for his wife, University. She is the author of Campus Legends: tell her husband and children about the most the uncle’s ghost still refused to go away. A Handbook (Westport, recent sightings of the eerie apparition. Only a glass of beer, offered to the host body, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005). Her next This story has comic value, evoking images persuaded this spirit to leave his sister-in-law book, Haunted Halls, will of relatives and in-laws who don’t know how in peace for a while. investigate college ghost stories.

30 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore F OODWAY Nick Tahou’s Garbage Plate BY LYNN CASE EKFELT

Warning: Those suffering from high cholesterol eggs, fried ham, chicken, or fsh. Next come should avoid reading this column. The descriptions the optional chopped onions and mustard. Garbage Plate Meat alone may cause fatal clogging of the arteries. Finally the entire plate is smothered in the Sauce secret meat sauce and served with Frank’s Nick Tahou (pronounced like Nevada’s Red Hot sauce. Lake Tahoe) is no longer alive, but the “gar- After some consideration I selected the It goes without saying that Nick Tahou’s S bage plate” served at his restaurant is still a beans and home fries base, topped with red sauce recipe is a secret. Should you want mainstay of Rochester cuisine—primarily of hots and a cheeseburger, and, of course, to try making your own garbage plate, the late-at-night-after-the-bars-close variety. the onions and mustard. When I carried however, the following recipe is a ballpark Still, when my husband and I stopped for the plate and its accompanying bread and approximation. lunch at the original downtown Nick Tahou’s butter back to the table, we stared at the (yes, there now is a suburban branch), we mound of food and congratulated ourselves ½ pound twice-ground beef found the place flled with customers, most on our foresight in ordering just one plate ½ teaspoon chili powder of whom were happily tearing into garbage to share. As I understand plate etiquette, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper plates, although there are plenty of other the real afcionados stir everything together ½ teaspoon paprika items on the menu. before eating it. That seemed excessive, since ½ teaspoon cinnamon We had been just a bit apprehensive, the individual items were already fairly well ¼ teaspoon ground cloves having learned that the restaurant was no indistinguishable, so we settled for shaking ½ teaspoon dry mustard longer open twenty-four hours because there Frank’s over the whole thing and tucking ½ teaspoon black pepper had been so many incidents there involving into it with our plastic forks. Interesting—al- ¼ teaspoon salt various weapons. However, a friend who though I don’t expect I’ll ever become a real 1¼ cups water is a native Rochesterian assured us we’d be fan of cold baked beans. fne eating there in the daytime and that we A sign over the counter proclaims that Combine the ingredients and simmer for had to go to the original restaurant to get the this restaurant, the home of the original two hours, replacing water as needed to authentic atmosphere. The clientele proved garbage plate, was established in 1918. Ap- keep the meat from drying out. Serve over to be a happy multiracial mix of young parently the roots of the plate lie in a dish your choice of meats and starches. businessmen in suits and ties, teens in baggy called “hots and potatoes,” consisting of two pants or sweats with baseball caps, old men hot dogs accompanied by either cold baked in neatly pressed khakis and windbreakers, beans or home fries—very flling for hungry offce workers, and three-generation fami- workmen during the Depression, according lies, with everyone much too busy eating to to Becky Mercuri in Sandwiches That You Will cause trouble. Like (2002). It wasn’t until the early 1980s My husband put me in charge of order- that a college boy in the wee hours of the Doubtless the many fne chefs in Rochester ing, so while he grabbed a seat for us at one morning ordered “the plate with all that cringe to think that their city is best known of the formica-topped tables, I went up to garbage on it,” giving it the name that stuck for its garbage plates, but generations of the busy counter and threw myself on the and became so popular that the restaurant returning alumni from colleges as far away mercy of the young woman taking orders, now has trademarked it. as Ithaca can’t wait to stop in Rochester for explaining that I had no idea how to go On her web site “What’s Cooking Amer- a plate—by whatever name. about arranging a garbage plate. She very ica,” Linda Stradley tells us that, although kindly walked me through the vast number many other restaurants in the area have of choices. You don’t just order a plate—you jumped on the bandwagon and serve similar build one. For the bottom layer, you have a plates, all have been legally required to give Lynn Case Ekfelt is retired from her choice of two starches from the following their dishes other names such as Dumpster position as a special collections librarian list: cold baked beans, home fries, French Plate, Dog Dish, and my favorite: Plat du and university archivist at Saint Lawrence University. She is the author of Good fries, and macaroni salad. The next layer con- Refuse. There’s even a web site, www.geoci- Food Served Right: Traditional Recipes sists of any two of the following (again, your ties.com/garbageplates, that rates all such and Food Customs from New York’s choice): cheeseburger, hamburger, steak, plates in the city, should you be planning a North Country (Canton, New York: Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, hotdog, white hot, red hot, grilled cheese, visit and want to sample the best of the best. 2000).

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 31 Voices of Others: Personal Narratives in the Folklife Festival

BY BARBARA COHEN-STRATYNER

ersonal narratives have long been be collection methods for personal narra- Folklife Festival 2000: P promoted as a way to connect ex- tives—formative or existing narratives, as Observations hibiting institutions and audiences. As the opposed to those elicited from visitors—but My two-year, intermittent schedule with Oral History Society’s Michelle Crow-Duffy I soon realized that materials gathered the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage wrote in the May/June 1995 issue of Local through both methods were used together. allowed me to observe how the folklife fes- History Notebook, “People feel connected I focused my observation, discussions, and tivals develop and use personal narratives. I to history when it is told in the context research during the two years of the fellow- had planned to observe the development and of a personal history or story. Augment- ship on four models of integrating personal realization of the 2000 festival’s Washington, ing an exhibit with oral history also brings narratives into exhibits and other interpre- D.C., area only, but since I had already agreed supplementary viewpoints to each visitor’s tive projects. The Smithsonian Institution to be on the advisory group for the New York experience.” The interest in personal narra- Folklife Festival is a prime example of the City area of the 2001 festival, the center spon- tives—oral tradition and existing personal folklore model, but its projects demonstrate sor suggested that I extend the fellowship to documents, such as diaries and inventories, all of the following models: observe the ways that narratives were elicited as well as elicited personal narratives—sus- by the New York City researchers. We decided tained by professionals in public history, • The folklore model uses and trains that I would frst observe how narratives were folklore, and museums has been matched by feldworkers to document extant communi- presented in the 2000 festival, and then in the curriculum planners and teachers involved ties and individual culture bearers, and then following year observe the ways that narra- in multicultural education looking for ways presents the process and results to the gen- tives were gathered for the 2001 festival. This to help students understand that their own eral public. This method is most often used reverses normal observational procedures histories and those of “others” have equal in folklore, anthropology, and performance and may have impacted my understanding importance. studies projects. of the experience. In 2000, I received a Smithsonian In- • The public history model locates or My observations of how personal narra- stitution Fellowship in Museum Practice, elicits personal narratives to add personal tives were used occurred at the 2000 Folklife cosponsored by the Smithsonian Center content and emotional context to historical Festival, which was held June 23–7 and June for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, to ob- projects. It is associated with history muse- 30–July 4. The festival had three areas of serve the use of personal narratives in the ums and institutions documenting specifc geographic focus: El Río, Tibetan Culture: Smithsonian Institution Folklife Festival cultures or communities. Beyond the Land of Snows, and Washington, and analyze models for museum exhibits, • The selector model elicits personal D.C.: It’s Our Home. In the six months be- museum web sites, and related projects. This narratives from artists, culture bearers, or fore, I had many meetings with folklife center article concentrates on the 2000 and 2001 audience members as part of a process of staff, including the focus curators and educa- festivals. The remainder of my fellowship developing artifact exhibits in which those tors, and attended festival progress meetings research looked at exhibitions and online individuals curate the exhibits. at monthly intervals. My aim was to identify projects with African American topics. A • The caption model elicits short personal and observe the locations chosen for narrative full report and information on the fellow- narratives from artists and subjects, pairing presentations in each focus area. Although ship program can be found online at www. them with images. This model comes from every festival is different, there are consistent museumstudies.si.edu. catalogs and other publications, but is often opportunities to present information to visi- I went into the fellowship in January 2000 used in online, traveling, and panel exhib- tors. In a Teachers’ Seminar handout titled thinking that the organizational key would its. “Bringing Folklore into Your Classroom,”

32 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Visitors play street games in the New York City area of the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photo: Nancy Groce. Courtesy of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution. these opportunities are identifed as formal the 1998 festival. The El Río project would decision-making process from past festivals performance on the large stage; narrative also include online presentations and a trav- and reviewed a videotape of the Bahamas stage discussion; foodways; craft demonstra- eling exhibition. Richard Kennedy wanted focus. Other conversations covered his plans tions or informal presentations; and signs, the Tibet participants to focus on cultural to decentralize activities around the city to photos, and other props. They parallel the survival and to detail the establishment of spaces on and off the Mall. standard methods of museum interpreta- institutions that have strengthened the tradi- Franklin explained the differences between tion: public programs, artist demonstrations, tional cultures. His preliminary months were the two primary sites for personal narratives: docent tours, and learning with objects. flled with logistical diffculties in assembling the oral history tent, which was a joint project The curators for each geographic area visas for the participants and translators, with with the Washington Historical Society, and took the time for substantive conversations added worries about a scheduled appearance the front porch narrative stage. WHS vol- with me about their goals. Olivia Cadaval by the Dalai Lama. unteers in the oral history tent, decorated and Cynthia Vidaurri talked about the Río The D.C. project, developed in collabora- with enlarged time lines and photographs Grande/Río Bravo border area, how they tion with the D.C. Commission on the Arts of neighborhoods, would elicit memories and their feldworkers had identifed top- and Humanities, focused on neighborhoods from the audience and passersby as part ics and participants, and their expectations and faith communities, social justice, oc- of the historical society’s “Growing Up in that participants and presenters would cupations, and community gardens. The Washington” project. The front porch nar- make the most pressing concerns clear to February 2000 meeting with D.C. curator rative stage appears in some form at almost visitors. These concerns were culture and John W. Franklin detailed how the themes every festival. Participants present their own environment, culture and identity, sustain- being investigated by the local feldworkers stories and memories to the audience. In able development, and the intersections of were translated into leading questions for order to emphasize the separate traditions of tradition, knowledge, and land management. the feldworkers’ use. My March and April sacred and secular music, the D.C. focus area They had been working with a core group conversations with Franklin focused on the included tents for gospel and a “café” stage of community-based researchers in the Río spatial assignment of subject matter and au- designed for blues and jazz, but also offering a Grande area since a related presentation at dience orientation. He gave examples of the space to teen poets, who presented their own

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 33 personal narratives in hip-hop rhyme in slam but unfortunately, the oral history tent was and participant lists. Working directly un- events. Additional performances of gospel, not on a direct route to these locations. The der Groce were area curators—assigned to blues, jazz, and hip-hop were decentralized design of the tent may also have worked music, fashion, foodways, media, Wall Street, through the city. against it. The interviewers’ table was set and neighborhoods—and researchers, work- My time in residence at the 2000 festival back from the tent sides, so their warm, ing on smaller slices of those felds, New was divided among four days as a participant welcoming smiles could not be seen by York City industries, and special themes. in the Teachers’ Seminar, two days as a vol- passersby. A group of programmers for the perfor- unteer audio logger, and time as a visitor—all As part of my residency at the 2000 mances and an advisory committee of rep- roles allowing opportunities for observation. festival, I attended the Teachers’ Seminar. resentatives from New York City institutions When I did a directed observation of the Led by Betty Belanus and Marjorie Hunt, would also contribute. There was a great deal D.C. focus area during the Teachers’ Seminar, staff educators and curators, the seminar of overlap, and in the end, members of all I looked for evidence outside the folklore was attended by grades 3–10 teachers from of these groups served as documenters and model. I recognized that the spaces in which Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland presenters at the 2001 festival. practitioners faced an audience tended to be schools, as well as three observers from The frst large meetings, held in New more performative, and the prepared narra- Bermuda who were preparing for the 2001 York, consisted of presentations by festival tive statements were given whole. In outside festival. The program included instruction staff and discussions of content. There spaces and tents without seating, the narrative in folklore methodology, observation at the were many “it absolutely has to haves” and statements are integrated into conversations. festival, and an opportunity for the teachers excitement about every example of retained In most projects using the selector model, to develop folklore-based projects for their traditions, whether food, music, or trade. institutional authority in the artifact selection classes. Belanus and Hunt had provided The general approach was occupational and identifcation process is ceded to the cul- me during our earlier conversations with folklore, although the group was evenly ture bearers. At the festival, however, I was most of the excellent readings and oral drawn from the disciplines of folklore, struck by the adherence of the participants history guides used in the seminars. I was anthropology, ethnomusicology, and per- and their presenters to the primary areas of especially taken with the suggestions for formance studies, refecting the different curatorial concern. All Río participants men- observation that were distributed and have strengths of the city’s universities. Cities tioned water and water rights within the frst since used them for formative critiques of participating in a folklife festival enjoy a few sentences, whether talking about brick my developing exhibitions. For the narrative number of benefts, including “preserv- making, horse cultures, food, or popular stage, for example, one guide suggests: “If ing Cultural Heritage . . . stimulation of music. In Tibetan Culture: Beyond the Land you catch an introduction or reintroduction research and documentation . . . [and] of Snows, even the youngest Tibetan par- of the participants, what information does enhanced self-representation capability,” ticipants prefaced almost every answer with the presenter give to the audience? How according to a 1993 promotional pamphlet “before the Exile” or “since the Exile.” do the participants interact? What type of for the festival, “Culture of, by, and for the Audio or video loggers are assigned to information can be provided in this setting People.” But the New York City region most scheduled concerts, demonstrations, that cannot be presented elsewhere?” Other was not typical, since it included such a and talks. Every presentation on the per- guided observation methods were based large preexisting community of trained formance and talk stages are taped, with on classroom practice, including asking for folklorists. detailed logs created noting the participants, answers to specifc questions (info searches) Groce made a preliminary list of research presenters, and themes of each event. In this and descriptions (fve-sense searches). interests from those meetings. Fieldworkers way, the narratives presented at the festival investigated New York City’s industries and can be preserved for future research. All are Folklife Festival 2001: Process neighborhoods to locate practitioners who cataloged and housed in the center’s archive Before the 2000 Folklife Festival, I had could demonstrate and discuss what they as part of the documentation collection, many conversations with Nancy Groce, an did. They documented their searches with established in 1967. I logged two narrative ethnomusicologist who had proposed and photographs and audiotape. Group meet- areas in the D.C. part of the festival—the would curate the New York City focus in ings were also held for teams of researchers café and front porch. I checked the oral 2001. She had begun the planning and fund- in specifc felds. My assignments were in the history tent, but on my days, it was not raising process and was already compiling backstage crafts of performance, especially attracting visitors, so I could not observe suggestions for content and documenters. the culture of costume shops. Researchers the memory-eliciting process. The most Soon after the close of the 2000 festival, she documented many more practitioners than successful gathering places seemed to be called the frst New York City group meeting would eventually appear at the festival, in the always-crowded basketball court and for the three intersecting groups of New part because many culture bearers are small the high school reunions in the music tents, Yorkers who would develop the content business owners who cannot commit two

34 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Children jump rope at the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photo: Richard Strauss. Courtesy of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution. weeks of their summer schedules to travel published program for each festival, which Folklife Festival 2001: to the festival. Researchers also documented includes daily schedules and lists of partici- Observations people for information and background. pants, presenters, advisers, and feldwork- Since the demands of my day job kept me The winnowing down process added to the ers, as well as essays describing the themes from a two-week residency at the festival, I volume of collected documentation. of each focus and the documentation could not serve as a presenter. While this was At this formative point, the distinctions process. An e-mail Listserv was established disappointing, it let me repeat my observer among the four models for using personal for Groce and the researchers to broad- roles. I again served as an audio logger and narratives were blurred, since any interview cast questions, needs, and discoveries. A observed the many opportunities to present could produce a culture bearer or a voice typical communication from the feld, sent Groce’s concept of New York City neigh- that added context to history. Groce’s job by Henry Sapoznik, requested call letters, borhoods as geographic and ethnic centers. required her to balance the interests of schedules, and languages for everybody’s There were demonstration areas for Food- the feldworkers, the needs of the general favorite community radio stations. The ways, Backstage Broadway, Wall Street, the interest audience, and the physical realities center staff also used the list to request Garment District, and Community Radio. of days on the Mall, while aiming to bring ideas and artifacts, such as a late May call The performance stages presented lecture- to life her theme, “Local Culture in the for non–English language newspapers demonstrations of regional ethnic arts, with Global City.” Striking a balance was diffcult from neighborhood newsstands. The 2001 personal narratives about how and when the since researchers in folklife, anthropology, festival working group lives on as a Listserv, presenters, their families, or their mentors ethnomusicology, and performance studies with announcements of concerts, confer- emigrated to New York. tend to be highly enthusiastic and sure that ences, projects, and—always—questions. The New York City oral history tent was their visions of New York are universal. In the hours, days, and months following perpendicular to the road in the neighbor- The process of taking the festival from the destruction of the World Trade Center, hood area, close to the storytelling stage feldwork to realization is made as transpar- the working group refocused its collective and street games. The storytelling stage had ent as possible to visitors. There is a large energy on documentation of the tragedy. three speakers in rotation—one on childhood

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 35 in New York City, one on the needle trade family connections.” During the frst festival vided free online as a sampler for teachers, and fashion industries, and the third on the week, when I was in residence, the installation recommends classroom projects that mimic story of a Brooklyn neighborhood’s fght to was hosted by the executive director of Place community scholar programs, resulting in organize a celebration of a Revolutionary Matters, Laura Hansen; Sevcenko was at the photo essays with quotations from interviews. War battle victory. Performance artist An- festival for the second week. The culture map includes a mini version nie Lanzilotto, who served as a presenter of such a photo essay, presenting lengthy and introducer for the adjacent areas and Folklife Festival: Products and quotations about four examples of border a storyteller on alternate days, focused on Results traditions (La Virgen de Guadalupe, murals, her work at the Arthur Avenue Italian street The Center for Folklife and Cultural language, and recycling), with speakers iden- market. The presentations and range of sub- Heritage enlarges its audience for feldwork tifed only by location. Such publications, jects straddled the folklore and public history and documentation by issuing books, record- online resources, and products extend the models. I also observed, but did not log, the ings, and educational kits based on material festival into the classroom and teach visitors street game mavens demonstrating and teach- elicited for use at the folklife festivals. These the value of personal narratives—both their ing stickball and stoop games. The game area projects rely on the caption model, a standard own and those of others. integrated instruction with constant narration museum strategy for integrating personal The retrospections of festival attendees can and neighborhood stories. Lanzilotto and the narratives. A typical example is “Workers at contribute to everyone’s understanding of street game demonstrators were excellent the White House,” an exhibition, video, and artifacts and communal history. By recogniz- barkers, so people were attracted to the area twenty-four–page catalog by Marjorie Hunt, ing personal and group memories, we assign and to the oral history tent. developed with the White House Historical power and value to audience members. There The neighborhood area was located next Association and National Archives for the are many admirable examples of such models to Mapping Memories (adapted by City two-hundredth anniversary of the White at exhibiting institutions, including folklore Lore and Place Matters as a tent activity), so House (1792–1992) and the 1992 festival. centers, historical societies, and community- that its huge maps could be used to locate The catalog uses occupational folklife meth- based documentation projects. Museums are neighborhoods and prolong conversations. odologies to emphasize the community of beginning to follow similar models for use of An ongoing project for eliciting site-specifc workers, rather than treating the employees personal narratives in their exhibit develop- personal narratives, Mapping Memories was as witnesses to political history. The primary ment, auxiliary texts, and products, such as developed by Liz Sevcenko as “Mapping theme is pride of employment and coopera- education kits and web sites, and to a lesser Your Lower East Side” (1996), an installation tion; secondary themes are institutional iden- extent in gallery-based interpretation. Over and video project created with the Lower tity and work during the era of segregation. the months following the 2001 Folklife Fes- East Side Tenement Museum. Sevcenko Hunt’s essay in the catalog, titled “Making tival, I watched the construction of shrines then expanded the public history project to the White House Work,” is prose interlaced at frehouses adjacent to my workplaces in cover the fve boroughs of New York City as with sentence- to paragraph-long quotations. New York City, including one that honored “Mapping Memories Family Workshops: Ex- The photo essay by Roland Freeman, which a fre fghter who—before his death on Sep- ploring the City’s Diverse Neighborhoods,” reproduces the 1992 exhibit, presents a sub- tember 11—was a stickball demonstrator at a 1998 exhibit at the Museum of the City of stantial quotation with each portrait of the the festival. In New York City and, I suspect, New York. elderly retirees, who are photographed with around the country, the spontaneous creation At the festival, a huge black-and-white map tools or at the White House. of memorials after September 11 caused a of each borough was laid out on trestle tables Borders and Identity/Fronteras, a focus greater recognition of the public’s right to in a hall gallery, along with colored markers. of the 1993 Folklife Festival, was trans- create and interpret artifacts than any event Asking “questions that help contributors formed into a set of educational materials, in recent history. reminisce about specifc times and places,” composed of a teacher’s guide, videotapes, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner is the curator of Sevcenko invited visitors to write memories and a poster-sized, bilingual culture map. It exhibitions at the New York Public Library directly on map sites. There were two pre- deals specifcally with United States–Mexico for the Performing Arts. She holds a Ph.D. in performance studies from New York dicted responses written into the project. The border communities and more generally University. She would like to thank Nancy frst focused on specifc locations, whether with the concept of borders, helping teach- Fuller, Bruce Craig, and their colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution Center for homes, stores, or public places. The other ers to introduce students to “ethnographic Education and Museum Studies, as well as invited visitors “to mark the map with the investigatory methods (close observation Richard Kurin, Richard Kennedy, Olivia Ca- daval, Cynthia Vidaurri, John W. Franklin, path they’ve taken through the city over the and documentation of living persons) used Betty Belanus and Marjorie Hunt, Nancy course of their lives or a single day and to by folklorists and anthropologists to explore Groce, the staff and volunteers of the 2000 describe how they used each place along the living culture,” so that they can create their and 2001 festivals, and the entire New York City Smithsonian Institution Folklife way—for work, celebration, social action, or own caption models. The frst section, pro- Festival working group.

36 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore A Alberta Nell Romano: RTI S

The Story of My Dolls T P RO My mother’s name was Enrica Cavicchi. wasn’t there to meet her, so—the poor little Her mother died at the age of thirty-seven kids, of course, you can imagine—so there during childbirth, and she had to really was a man there who could speak French, F I raise the little brother. Of course in those and her dialect has got French so she could L days they had to work, they had to work in speak some French, so she was able to com- E the wheat felds [in Bologna, Italy], so she municate with him and tell him she couldn’t used to bring the baby with her. That was understand what happened. And she did her brother, yes, but she was fourteen, and have his address, and they had the phone at then when her father remarried, the second the train station—the old-fashioned kind wife had her own children because she was that you crank—and so he called, and where a widow, and she was mean because she [my he was living these people had a phone mother] had another brother and another which was a good thing, and said, “Your wife sister, and of course the little baby brother. is here from Italy with your two children,” Alberta Romano tends Tom the Tomato, But she was the oldest, then the brother, and he said, “No, it isn’t true. I’ve written to her favorite potted plant, at Maple Downs Retirement Community in Fayetteville, then the sister, and then the baby. them that I’ve made arrangements to return New York. Photo: John M. McMahon. And so when she married . . . I don’t think to Bologna.” So he said, “I’m going to put my mother would have come to the United her on,” so that’s how they came, and then States if she had had a happy life there, but they lived out in the country in West Peters- I started, I really liked crocheting teddy the stepmother was mean, just ignored, be- boro there, and he was into truck farming. bears and knitting dolls dressed in old-time cause of course they weren’t her children. He was going around selling vegetables. He clothes. Those were knitted, too. I gave them So when she married . . . when my father started out that way and then they did fnally to my children and to the children of my [Alberto Accorsi] came to the United States, have an Italian grocery store, selling the Ital- friends. It’s important to make the toys soft of course, he came frst during World War ian foods in Haverhill, Mass. and the eyes should be sewn on so they don’t I because a cousin was over here, and he There just wasn’t any money because he come off, because babies put everything said the opportunities were really great and bought this enclosed truck, so Christmas in their mouths. I see dolls today, and the that they could have a better life than over Eve, the children upstairs, their parents had eyes are plastic, and a baby could swallow in Italy. Then he sent money over to her for the shoe factory, so they had some money, them—you have to be careful because they transportation, and my two brothers were but they got all these gifts, and we got noth- don’t know. I always make sure my toys are born there. They were like two and three or ing. I’ll always remember that. I couldn’t safe for babies, you know. three and four, and so she came over by boat understand. The following year there was a during World War I, and all of them were little bit of money, and I did get a doll—one Alberta Nell Romano was born in 1919 in Ports- seasick practically all the way and landed in of those porcelain dolls—and your Aunt mouth, New Hampshire. She lived in Rutland, Boston. In the meantime, her husband, my Lunda got a little carriage. We each got one Vermont, until 2006. She now makes her home father, had been here a year, and then he thing. But she took out my doll one day—of in Fayetteville, New York. In her golden years had decided he didn’t like it here and had course, she didn’t think, she was younger she continues the domestic arts she loves. Some of written to her not to come and that he was than I was—and didn’t tie it in or anything, her dolls and teddy bears are in the collections of going to return to Italy, but she never got and of course the doll fell and just smashed folklorists. that letter. to pieces, and I never got another one. That’s how she got to the United States. I learned to sew in high school, when I Of course he wasn’t there to meet her be- went to West Rutland High in Vermont, and cause he didn’t expect her, and of course she I remember that I learned to crochet, and had been seasick and didn’t speak English, when I married, I crocheted my own doilies and so she was fnally able to get on a train and afghans. I had a doily on every table and from Boston to Petersboro, New Hamp- even on the arms of the chairs. Everybody Collected by Felicia Romano McMahon. shire, and when she got there my father still made afghans then, and later, that was when Christmas Eve, 1989; Rutland, Vermont.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 37 Vaughn Ramsey Ward (1939–2001) BY EILEEN CONDON

Five years after her death, Vaughn Ward’s NYSCA. Before leaving LARAC to found the ings of the 1960s and 1970s. Vaughn was also OMEN praises are perpetually at her husband’s lips. Black Crow Network, an inclusive nonproft promoting the concept of equal partnerships George Ward characterizes the energy that devoted to supporting Adirondack tradition between folklorists and community scholars W Vaughn brought to her life and work as a folk- bearers and regional culture, Vaughn started as early as the 1960s, according to George.

F lorist, musician, and educator as “sheer force the Adirondack Liars’ Club, a performing and Her tendency to approach regional tradition of personality. She was one of those people social group of male and female tall tale tellers, bearers as teachers, and to encourage artists who could see the potential in individuals most of whom Vaughn had overheard “swap- to interview other artists and collaborate in

E O that they might or might not see themselves, ping lies” for their own amusement at a fddling program planning and interpretation, informed

S and see the potential to bring them together party in the Adirondacks. the whole of her dynamic forty-year career in with other people. And she was very, very A great coup in her programming career folklore and education. gifted at that.” was securing space at the Washington County Between 1990 and 1999 Vaughn collabo-

RAI Growing up in Oklahoma and New Mexico, Fair for a folk festival within a fair in the 1980s. rated with Greenfeld Review Press to edit and Vaughn Ramsey was a whirlwind in her par- The catch: Vaughn and community-rooted as- annotate regional tale collections, including the P ents’ home and dry goods stores, organizing sistants at LARAC, Gail Turi and Kathy Bain, Adirondack Liars’ Club’s I Always Tell the Truth neighborhood service clubs even as a child. would need to keep twelve hours of daily folk (Even if I Have to Lie to Do It); The Witch of Mad N

I The Wards’ egalitarian and lifelong partner- programming running for all six days of the Dog Hill and Go Seek the Powwow on the Mountain, ship included studying, doing feldwork, and fair. George remembers assisting with stage stories of Sacandaga Valley by Don Bowman; eventually teaching together, although not management and child care during these fes- Tales from the Featherbed: Adirondack Stories and always in the same schools or districts. Vaughn tivals, while Vaughn and her crew recruited Songs, by Bill Smith; and I Was On the Wrong Bear, and George shared child care for their sons some two hundred regional tradition bearers by Harvey Carr. In 1998 Vaughn self-published Pete and Nathaniel, made music together, and for the program and public sector folklorists Six Foot Man Eatin’ Chicken, featuring tales by cowrote a pioneering New York State Council from all over the state to assist. Folk music of many Adirondack tellers, combined with her on the Arts (NYSCA) grant proposal in the all kinds was featured, along with ice-fshing recollections of working with them. 1970s to do a sabbatical year as folklorists-in- demos, farming stories, panels about life on the Vaughn’s Black Crow Network coworkers residence at upstate New York public schools. Champlain Canal, quilting, recreations of Straw and friends Brenda Verardi and Ruby Marcotte The couple ran folk festivals together for Boys Christmas visits, and much more. have discussed with George the possibility of many years, but evolved separate identities in The Wards’ long love affair began in Middle- an upcoming retrospective exhibit based on folklore, as well. bury, Vermont, at the Bread Loaf Graduate Vaughn’s life and work. In 2004 the American Vaughn Ward had the habit of transforming School of English in the summer of 1961. Folklore Society’s folklore and education sec- big dreams into immediate action. Her particu- Having recently graduated in English from the tion established the Robinson-Roeder-Ward lar brilliance for programming, recruiting, and University of New Mexico, Vaughn introduced Fellowship in memory of the “vision, scholar- using folklore in teaching was exemplifed in herself in her usual extroverted manner to ship, and activism” of Vaughn and two other the Niskayuna Festival period of the 1970s. In George, then a law student at Cornell. She sub- folklorist-educators, who inspired a whole the weeks before the festival, Vaughn brought sequently informed her roommate that she had generation of folklorists working in K–12 the fnest folk artists to make music in the hall- just met the man she would marry. They were education. Pamela Cooley, who suggested ways of the local high school, where she taught wed in 1964. Vaughn fnished a master’s in Eng- Vaughn Ward for this column, described her English, to inspire students to volunteer. Six lish at Middlebury, and the couple took folklore as “a welcoming voice and an impassioned hundred high school students—nearly half coursework in the 1970s at the Cooperstown advocate” for folklore. “Her love for the feld the school’s population—plus some twenty Graduate Program, under Bruce Buckley. was infectious.” faculty members got involved yearly in one George attributes the egalitarian character of upstate New York’s most memorable folk of their marriage to several factors. There was festivals. Vaughn’s exposure in childhood to the model of Eileen Condon is staff folklorist at the Dutchess By the 1980s George had branched out parents working together; Vaughn and George County Arts Council and of K–12 teaching into arts in education, and determined to work together in the feld of outreach coordinator for the New York Folklore Vaughn had progressed into public folklore folklore. Other factors included strong women Society. To nominate a with the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts in Vaughn’s extended family, George’s happily colleague for “In Praise of Women,” contact her Council (LARAC), thanks in part to newly rebelling against traditional marital roles, and at [email protected]. established folk arts program funding at their mutual discovery of some feminist writ-

38 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore P L

Bruegel and Me BY JOHN THORN AY

Walking through the European wing in a meadow distant from the scything and We play fewer games today than a century of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with stacking and dining and drinking that make ago, and fewer still than in sixteenth-century my son Mark, home from college for the up the foreground. Mark agreed: there seems Europe, just as the evolution of species has holidays, we glided from gallery to gallery to be a man with a bat, a felder at a base, a produced the dubious triumph of fewer at a leisurely pace. He had seen many of runner, and spectators, as well as participants and not necessarily superior survivors. In- these glorious paintings before, but only as in waiting. The strange apparatus opposite creasingly our children exercise their minds color plates in an art history textbook. I had the batsman’s position might have been a and thumbs in play, but not their limbs, so visited them at the Met before, but never catapult serving as a pitching device. As I young men and women must build supple- with him; our earlier visits, when he and his was later to learn, this detail is unnoted in ness and mass through the simulated play older brothers were still living at home, had scholarly studies. of ftness routines that translate, upon re- tended not to stray far from the mummies, Now, it could be argued that as a historian fection, to just another form of work. We the hieroglyphs, and the Temple of Dendur, of early sport, particularly games of bat are overstimulated mentally, underutilized unless it was to check out the medieval armor and ball, I may tend to see instances of my physically, and—bombarded with media and, as a sop to me, the American wing. specialty popping up everywhere, like hob- messages—discontented with our daily lives Now we were two adults, with his interest goblins. Or I may just be lucky. more than ever before. in Northern Renaissance and Flemish paint- It might be argued, as well, that the title Or at least that is what has often been re- ing far exceeding mine. His newfound pas- of this column is misleading, as it is less ported, and not only in these days of virtual sion would determine our path, as it had the about Bruegel than it is about me. But I reality. The New York Times of December 30, very idea of a full-day ascent of this cultural would rejoin that is about both of us, and 1883, published a story headed “Boyhood’s Matterhorn. We were still father and son, I all three of my children, and you and yours Merry Games; Some of the Sports in Which was still the guide and he the willing initiate, too. Winter break is a great time to reconnect Our Fathers Indulged; The Healthful Games but the gap had narrowed. We were near, if with your kids, whether they live at home, are of a Generation Ago of Which the Boy not at, the point at which my relationship had away at college, or are grown and live at great of Today Knows Little or Nothing.” The twisted and turned with his brothers—from distance. It’s also a time to connect with how anonymous author was stunned to learn that parent to grownup friend and, enduringly, children everywhere view the world—not as the only game his ten-year-old son played to peer. a series of milestones to be marked, honors was marbles. “Now, marbles is all right,” he Our mission was to gawk until we dropped. to be won, and rewards to be earned, but as wrote, “but I don’t like the idea of a steady Sometime during our second hour we paused an arena for new experiences. And in the diet in that line. It isn’t broadening. It’s a sort to discuss lunch plans, unwittingly right in end, it’s a great time to connect with your of one-sided development. Boys are dying front of Bruegel the Elder’s “Corn Harvest” own childhood, and thus who you are and out in this country, or at least the boy I’m (1565), one of the world’s great paintings of always have been. bringing up is of a different species from everyday life. Bruegel is a marvel not only Seeing this mysterious game of ball de- what I used to know.” for his craft, but also for his bottom-up ap- picted in Bruegel’s “Corn Harvest” recalled How we play is ever changing. Play is a proach to story that tells us more about the for me another of the master’s great works, constant. Today we still have a few things to human condition than paintings of battle his “Children’s Games” of 1560. Although teach our children, and a lot to learn from and royalty; his dedication to landscape tells not yet 500 years old, this painting is nearly them. us more about heaven, too, than dreamy as mysterious as the hieroglyphs of the pyra- depictions of an anthropomorphic deity. mids and requires no less a Rosetta stone. Why, you may ask, is “Corn Harvest” the title Although it depicts some eighty different when the crop is obviously wheat? Because sports and games, scholars have only been John Thorn is the author a generic name for grain in German is korn, able to identify thirty-two with certainty. A and editor of many books, and the term—mistranslated—labeled this few of these will be familiar to modern read- mostly about sports, as well as occasional pieces painting early on. ers: blindman’s buff, bowls, crack the whip, for the New York Times, Turning ninety degrees to the wall, my follow the leader, hoops, king of the hill, Los Angeles Times, and Boston Globe. He lives in view fell upon a tiny tableau at the left- leapfrog, marbles, mumblety-peg, tug-of-war. Saugerties, New York. center of the painting, in which young men Others are in the realm of lexicographers Copyright © John Thorn. appear to be playing a game of bat and ball and ghosts.

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 39 Peeling the Pop: Exploring a Tradition in Orkney

BY MICHAEL A. LANGE

This article examines the burning of the pop, a traditional activity in Orkney. identify an individual. Limiting demographic Orkney is a set of Scottish islands, separated from the mainland by his- information does hide individual identities, tory and identity as much as by water. The burning of the pop resembles but I hope it does not objectify or essential- Halloween guising and begging traditions in the United States and other ize the individuals. parts of the world, but I argue that such an interpretation is superfcial. Only by exploring cultural contexts can the differences among traditions Setting the Scene: be understood. Stromness, Orkney Orkney is a county of Scotland, a set of orms of Halloween begging occur all activities, there are layers of meaning that approximately seventy islands that lay just off Facross North America. In the United are not readily apparent from a superfcial the northern coast. The islands have a rich States, trick or treat is a fairly standardized examination. This article explores the tradi- and varied history, having been an important activity with easily identified trappings: tion of the pop and the particular expression earldom under the Norwegian crown from costumes; the stock phrase, Trick or treat? of this tradition in the town of Stromness. the tenth century to the ffteenth. In 1468, that requests a token of candy or money; the Peeling away layer after layer of meanings, I the islands were given to Scotland as part of jack-o-lantern; and often mischief. There are will demonstrate the many interrelated levels a dowry, and they have been politically a part regional and local variations on the tradition, of cultural competence that are needed to of Scotland ever since. The last millennium which speak of many cultural infuences. understand fully what is going on. My hope has been roughly equally divided, with fve Jack Santino talks of the “many intersections is that this article will serve as a cautionary hundred or so years of Scandinavian control and forks and sideroads and curves” in the tale for young feldworkers—as my fnd- followed by fve hundred or so of Scottish development of the American Halloween ings did for me—who may be too quick rule. Both of these periods left indelible (1983, 5). Connections between Halloween to settle on an interpretation for what they marks on the cultural landscape of Orkney, and European traditions have been explored observe. to the point that it feels different from other by others (Beck 1985; Tuleja 1994), who The material for this article was recorded part of Scotland. The islanders emphasize note similar begging activities, guising, and during a year of ethnographic feldwork in and reinforce this difference, consciously mischief across the continents. In the Scot- Stromness. The quotations in this article constructing and promoting a separate Or- tish town of Stromness, children take part (cited by my tape catalog numbers, e.g. R1- cadian identity distinct from Scotland (Lange in a traditional activity that seems to ft this 19.09.2003) are taken from interviews with 2006). In some ways, Orkney nonetheless mold. They wander the streets on November informants in Orkney, all of whom requested resembles rural areas of the east coast of 5 with a carved turnip, known as a “pop,” anonymity. Orcadians requested anonymity Scotland, with small towns spread evenly asking people for money. The verbal request not from the world outside Orkney, but from between fertile farms. The lifestyle is similar is formalized as, A penny for me pop? or A other Orcadians. I have chosen not to assign as well, with a relaxed pace and a relaxed penny for the guy? In response, adults give pseudonyms, and identifying information populace. the children a small sum of money. (age, gender, place of birth) has been kept Stromness has been an important Or- It is easy to view this as a Scottish variant to a bare minimum because of the small cadian harbor town for three centuries. on the American Halloween trick or treat. community in which Orcadians live, where Stromness is the second-largest town in However, as is always the case in traditional the least amount of information can easily Orkney with a population of approximately

40 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore two thousand, following the county seat, backing the town. The paths are often little Viking port of Hamnavoe. The poet George Kirkwall, with over three times that number. more than alleys between the buildings, and Mackay Brown called his hometown “a bal- When I arrived for my feldwork in the sum- few of them are straight for any distance. lad in stone” (1997, 13). In short, Stromness mer of 2003, Stromness felt like an old place, Houses jut into the streets, forcing twists is the sort of town where so many people stretched along one stone-paved main street and turns into any journey along the slate (folklorists included) want old traditions to parallel to the harbor, with narrow, winding pavements. Stromness is an evocative place, exist and have deep meanings. The burning paths shooting away from the water up a hill which is often romanticized as the ancient of the pop fts this bill quite nicely.

Photo: Geof Gould

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 41 The tradition has many parts with many again there’s no, there’s no, the—well, dian culture by weakening participation in different infuences, but the complex basi- there’s a lot of incoming people com- traditional Orcadian activities, such as the ing in to the town and that. They cally consists of construction of the pop, don’t know about this, you know, and making of pops. begging for tokens, and throwing all of the there’s not the bulk, the volume of the The latter part of the tradition, casting the pops into a bonfre at the end of the night. youngsters coming through from native pops into a bonfre, is also becoming more The construction of the pop—and some Stromness people to keep it going, you rare, again due to infuences of modernity: know. There’s no the volume either, and are quite elaborate—is often done by adults. quite a few are just, same old thing like They are carved from turnips, generally tak- a lot of other things, they just cannot But, you see, there’s not the bonfres really be bothered, you know, to help now either…. No, this is it, you see. ing the form of a human or animal head. They used to have a communal bon- One informant gave me a lengthy descrip- their kids do it. Maybe there’s other things happening as well, you know, too fre here in Stromness, and it was the tion of the pops: many things happening. It’s a shame, community council that did it, and I really shame…. And then of course think they got a bit of a scare one year They cut out effigies—it could be the kids are going around, but I think because it was a bit windy, and one or anything, can be anything, it can be an even at our door last night, although I two freworks went a wee bit haywire. alien, whatever…. You just carve out wasn’t in the whole night, I think there They had it all roped off and that, but a face or whatever. It can be anything was only maybe two kids, three. And one or two freworks went a wee bit at all; it can be an old man, and can be normally, the door’s going the whole astray, and they said no, they wouldn’t as I say an alien, it can be a pop star, night from four o’clock till eight, you be doing it anymore, because they had or it can be an animal, or anything you know—continually. That’s the way it much diffculty in getting insurance know? . . . Maybe something that’s kind used to be. (B2-06.11.2003) for it, to cover it, to cover the event. of topical, you ken…. Quite a lot of (B2-06.11.2003) them were really good topical ones, The consensus among Stromnessians you know, because it wasn’t the kids In earlier times, concerns such as liability was that the tradition was quite strong very that were doing it, I suppose, it was the insurance were not a factor. Today, the com- parents, you know. You ken, the parents recently, but that it had lessened this year. munity council is responsible for public are helping the kids, suppose it’s the My interviewee explained the decreased safety in a direct legal and fnancial way. idea, you know, and you get a few good participation as the infuence of incom- topical ones. (B2-06.11.2003) Locals view authority at any level, from the ing families—people who have moved to community council all the way to the Euro- Orkney from outside, primarily Scotland and Grotesque forms—trolls, gargoyles, and pean Union, as a threat to traditional life in England, and who are therefore not familiar exaggerated human forms—have been and Orkney: “The biggest mistake this country with the local customs and way of life. The remain common, but recently other shapes, made was joining the EU” (R8-27.02.2004). modern infuence of more opportunities such as aliens, caricatures of political fgures, The modern development of bureaucracies also takes some blame; children and parents and pop stars have taken their place among has created layers of control that affect Or- are more involved with other things, so an the effgies. The turnip effgies are hollowed cadian life. Modernity has not completely old traditional activity like carving a pop out, and a burning cinder or candle is in- done away with the bonfres, however, even is edged out. One woman expressed her serted. Children carry the pops from house if participation has changed: concern that children today were not taking to house in the evening, asking adults they part in the activities that children of previous meet if they can have “a penny for me pop” Other areas still have it, you know, like generations did: Kirkwall—they had one last Saturday…. or “a penny for the guy.” After the children I think like the Kirkwall one, I think, was have canvassed the town collecting money, They don’t go to church, they don’t go maybe run by the Rotary Club or Round they assemble around a bonfre and throw to join things either. They just don’t Table or something, like it was an or- the pops into the fames. want to—television’s the cause of it ganization doing it rather than people themselves. I can remember here, it was The tradition occurs in this form only in all. They watch the television. Any- more, they got television, they got the a great thing because you would have so Stromness, one local assured me: “It’s the computers…. I got three grandsons many different bonfres, and each group only place in Orkney that’ll do it—that the that come down from Stromness, and of kids would be collecting cardboard kids go round with the pops, as they call they come down here, and they go to and paper and everything like, you the computer through in the room, know, for weeks and weeks beforehand, it” (B2-06.11.2003). Being localized in one and you never see them. They’re at and wood and whatever, and they would town, the continuation of this tradition is that the whole time, a lovely day like store it somewhere, you know…. It tenuous, and many Orcadians believe it is this, and I’m so wild if they’re sitting used to be a great thing—there were kids would come through the street becoming less common: through there…at the computer. (B8-09.03.2004) at the shops, you know, and ask them for cardboard and anything else they And it’s dying out, as well, which is a could get for the bonfre, you ken, col- shame. It’s been a marked difference in Modernity, whether in the form of outsiders lect wood and stuff like that, as well, the last fve year, actually. Yeah, because or outside infuence, is a threat to Orca- but sadly, that’s kind of gone, as well.

42 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore And now I think it’s just maybe one or the capture of Guy Fawkes in 1605 (Can- he should have a pole for a spine. On two private bonfres, and that’s it. (B2- nadine 2005). Fawkes plotted to destroy the top of the pole, his head will be placed. 06.11.2003) …A face should be painted, or better British Parliament with explosives, killing still, a terrible mask made out of papier- The tradition of bonfres is widespread its members along with the king. The plot mâché and wired to the head so that it cannot fall away in burning…. On his beyond Stromness, but is becoming less was foiled when Fawkes was discovered in the basements of Parliament. He was tried head there should be a tall pointed hat, common all over. When I frst encountered of paper if necessary, and if possible a the pop tradition, it was diffcult to under- with his coconspirators and, although he wig. His hands will be merely stuffed- stand the relationships among its various was hanged, he is burned in effgy on No- out gloves. (1947, 209–11) parts. There were elements that looked very vember 5 to celebrate Parliament’s escape familiar to me as an American, but other from destruction. All over Britain, children This description evidences a more complex aspects that baffed. The pop was presented make effgies and go begging for money effgy than the Stromness pop. The typical to me as a strictly Stromnessian tradition, but before Guy Fawkes’ Night, traditionally to British guy is a fully represented, and in some bonfres were held in all parts of Orkney buy freworks. The stock phrase used is, cases articulated, human fgure, much more and throughout Britain. Only in Stromness, A penny for the guy? since the effgies are reminiscent of Guy Fawkes. The pop, on the however, was the bonfre connected to the referred to as guys. The activity is known as other hand, represents only the head, and it carving of the pop. “going guying” (Beck 1984, 194). After beg- is not necessarily meant to be the historical ging and acquiring freworks, the effgies are Guy Fawkes—indeed, in many cases, it is Interpreting the Pop burned, often in a bonfre, and the freworks explicitly someone or something else. The parallels between the pop and Hal- are shot off in celebration. “It’s pretty much The begging takes a slightly different form loween traditions are obvious. The carving a British thing, I think, yeah—this bonfre’s as well. In the guying tradition, children beg of a hardy vegetable into an effgy lantern, being Guy Fawkes’ thing, you know, was re- in the days running up to November 5 in the begging for some small token, the stock ally to celebrate Guy Fawkes being burned” order to get money for freworks. In Strom- phrase used during the transaction, and the (B2-06.11.2003). Tuleja confrms a seasonal ness, children go house to house seeking building of a bonfre all closely resemble connection between the American Hal- money, seemingly for the sake of money. traditional Halloween activities, a fact rec- loween traditions and Guy Fawkes’ Night There is no explicit connection to freworks, ognized by people in Orkney, as well: “It’s (1994, 84). The pop seems to draw on both and the begging takes place on November kind of like a trick-and-treat sort of thing, Halloween and Guy Fawkes’. 5 itself, removing the possibility of buying you ken, kind of idea, but it’s ‘a penny for me The Stromness tradition becomes much freworks for use at the bonfre that same pop’ idea, ‘a penny for the guy’ sort of thing, more clear given this information. The burn- night. Clearly, there are many similarities being of the pop is a local expression of Guy you know. It’s very much the same as that, tween the Stromness tradition and the wider Fawkes’ Night and Halloween traditions, you know” (B2-06.11.2003). The proximity celebration of Guy Fawkes’ Night, which with the pop being cast into the bonfre of the dates, November 5 and October 31, may speak to some syncretism, but it would rather than the guy. The effgy has grown be just as premature to explain the pop only less than one week apart, strengthens an from being simply a representation of Guy interpretation that seeks to explain the pop Fawkes to any effgy fgure. Problem solved, in terms of Guy Fawkes’ as it would be to in terms of Halloween. It was seductive as right? The begging, the construction of ef- call it simply a Halloween custom. My in- a feldworker simply to relate the two tradi- fgies, the bonfre, even the stock phrases formant reminded me, “I think [the pop]’s tions, awarding me a feeling of ethnographic are similar. Many aspects of Stromness’s only Stromness, actually” (B2-06.11.2003), accomplishment, of having understood tradition parallel the general British tradition. identifying the pop as something separate some aspect of the culture that I was study- If we simply substitute the pop for the guy, from the general tradition of burning the ing. However, Occam’s razor does not always then the two traditions are nearly identical. guy. Historical context has provided some obtain in folklore: the simplest explanation This interpretation is made more attractive elucidation, but more is necessary. is quite often too simple. As I learned more by the fact that Stromness children will use The next layer of understanding comes about the tradition and the cultural contexts the phrase “a penny for the guy” when re- from an examination of linguistic context. ferring to their pop. There are nevertheless in which it takes place, new interpretations The term for the effgy in Orkney is spelled important differences in the two effgies, emerged. The relationship between the pop “pop,” leading an American English speaker which demand explanation. Lawrence Whis- and Halloween customs was merely the frst to assume it is pronounced to rhyme with tler described the construction of a typical layer of interpretation to be penetrated. “top.” In the mouths of some Orcadians, guy in 1940s England: The next layer of the pop unfolds with this is true. However, others pronounce the historical context of the date. Guy the word with a middle vowel sound ap- [It] must be nearly life-size. His body Fawkes’ Night is celebrated over the whole should be made of old clothes stuffed proaching that of “caught” or “flaw.” I of Britain on November 5 to commemorate with straw into the shape of limbs, and noticed this pronunciation at frst without

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 43 deeming it important to the meaning of 1996, 19). Catholics had long suffered under Neither the political nor the religious aspects either the word or the tradition. As I spent James I’s predecessor, Elizabeth I, and they of Guy Fawkes’ Night are as powerful in more time in Orkney, I learned more about hoped for some relief from James, whose Scotland, leading to a more generalized local pronunciations, and this led me to mother was the Catholic Mary, Queen of celebration of Bonfre Night, less attached think there may be some importance in Scots. However, life for Catholics under to historical narratives. Why, then, does the that vowel sound. There is a small seaside James was not much better than under pope get burned in Orkney? town in Orkney called Saint Margaret’s Elizabeth. Fawkes and his coconspirators The fnal layer of the pop is made clear Hope, which locals refer to simply as “the were Catholics, and they had wanted to by understanding the cultural context of Hope.” Many people pronounce the name make a statement for their rights in largely Orkney within Scotland. Orkney is a county of this town as something between “hop” Protestant England. The burning of the guy of Scotland, but its identity is based largely and “hawp,” although the spelling remains celebrates not just the capture of a political around it being not Scottish. As one infor- “hope.” Knowing that this pronunciation conspirator and the foiling of a political mant put it, Orcadians speak of “going to could be a phonetic representation of the plot, but a triumph of Protestantism over a Scotland from Orkney. . . . We are offshore, orthographic “hope” at least suggests that Catholic conspiracy. If the burning of the but our culture is totally different” (R1- “pop” as pronounced could be a phonetic guy is a celebration of justice meted out to 19.09.2003). Orkney was a part of Scandina- representation of “pope.” the Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes, then via for fve hundred years until 1468, and this This suggestion makes sense, consider- it is not too diffcult to view the burning of time has left a mark on Orcadian identity. ing that “pop” is the name of the effgy, the pop/pope as an antipapal, anti-Catholic While Scotland was defning its identity in like “guy” for the constructed effgy of response. the eighteenth century around the Gaelic Guy Fawkes. If this holds true, then the language, the bagpipe, and the kilt (Trevor- pop is—or was—meant to be an effgy of Separating Pop and Guy Roper 1983), Orkney was being pushed to the pope, and the tradition dealt with a real Guy Fawkes’ Night is more commonly the margins. None of these trappings of person in the same way that the burning referred to as Bonfre Night in Scotland, identity have ever been important markers of the guy was based on the historical Guy downplaying the Englishness of the holi- in Orkney. Their indigenous language was Fawkes. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary day. Parliament is symbolic of London’s Norn, a descendant of the Scandinavian gives the spelling “pop” as a seventeenth- political control of Britain, a situation many language Old Norse; kilts and bagpipes were century Scots variant in its entry for “pope.” Scots would like to see change. As such, it is identifed with the Highlands of Scotland, Beale (1984, 910) and Shane (1997, 209) understandable that the salvation of Parlia- but were never used in Orkney. There is a provide further examples of the long “o” ment and the monarchy from destruction strong sentiment on Orkney’s part to iden- in “pope” opening up in dialect to “pap” is a less potent motive for celebration in tify with its Scandinavian past, rather than or “pop,” while retaining a distinctly papal Scotland than it is in England. While the the hegemonic version of Scottish identity meaning. Shane’s example of “pop-eye” as capture of Guy Fawkes does not evoke (Lange 2006). As such, Orkney sometimes explicitly a derogatory term for the pope nationalistic celebration for Scots, the anti- works as a microcosm of non-Scottish— emphasizes the antipapal sentiment that can Catholic sentiments of the night are also even anti-Scottish—identity within Scotland. easily be seen in burning the pope in effgy. less important in Scotland, as opposition As Scotland rejects antipapistry to identify This linguistic interpretation of the Orkney to Catholicism is perceived as more an itself as non-English, Orkney is able to per- term “pop” was confrmed by ethnographic English than a Scottish idea. (See Cham- petuate antipapist traditions, freed from the investigation, with several people telling me pion 2005 for a dramatic discussion of the cultural desire to defne itself as non-English that the pop was, in fact, a representation anti-Catholic aspects of the burning of the and perhaps driven by the cultural desire to of the pope. Another informant confrmed guy in England and Northern Ireland.) To defne itself as non-Scottish. This idea of in an e-mail on May 3, 2006, that “this is a be sure, there is anti-Catholic sentiment to a separate identity from Scotland explains ‘burn the pope’ scenario, although I don’t be found in Scotland—one only need attend the view that incomers from Scotland and think folk are aware of this anymore.” a Rangers–Celtic football match for ample England and the outside infuences of mo- How has the pope entered into a tradi- evidence—but Scots view England as uni- dernity are weakening the tradition of the tion complex that purports to be about the fed in its anti-Catholicism. The Church of pop in Stromness. English and Scottish are capture and execution of Guy Fawkes? The England is straightforwardly connected to equivalent in Orkney—both are outside cul- next layer of the pop reveals itself with an the culture of England, and it is perceived tures. Locals view civil authority as handed understanding of the religious context. The as representative of all of England. Scottish down from London and Edinburgh, and the Gunpowder Plot of which Guy Fawkes was people consider themselves more religiously modern concerns with fre insurance and a member was a reaction to the persecution diverse, with strong Protestant sentiments public safety are viewed as infuences from of Catholics under King James I (Fraser alongside Catholic infuence from Ireland. outside, as well. While the burning of the

44 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore guy may be spread over the whole of Brit- by peeling away the layers of contexts from Santino, Jack. 1983. Halloween in America: ain, the pop is uniquely Stromnessian, and the kernel of the tradition can we discover Contemporary Customs and Perfor- therefore something Orkney can claim as the many meanings of the pop. mances. Western Folklore 42:1–20. its own. The incorporation of the pop into Shane, Bernard. 1997. Slanguage: A Dictionary the guying tradition gives the whole complex Works Cited of Slang and Colloquial English in Ireland. of traditional activities a vernacular fair—a Beale, Paul. 1984. A Dictionary of Slang and Un- Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. unique expression in Stromness. conventional English. London: Routledge. Trevor-Roper, Hugh. 1983. The Invention Beck, Ervin. 1984. Children’s Guy Fawkes of Tradition: The Highland Tradition The Meanings of the Pop Customs in Sheffeld. Folklore 95.2:191– of Scotland. In The Invention of Tradition, We have reached the center of the pop. 203. 15–42. Ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence What on the surface seemed to me to be a ———. 1985. Trickster on the Threshold. Ranger. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- simple expression of Halloween customs Folklore 96.1:24–8. sity Press. became more complex as I learned more— Brown, George Mackay. 1997. For the Islands Tuleja, Tad. 1994. Trick or Treat: Pre-Texts or rather, the complexity of the tradition I Sing. London: John Murray. and Contexts. In Halloween and Other became more evident to me as I learned Cannadine, David. 2005. Introduction: Festivals of Death and Life, 82–102. Ed. more, and it is probable that there are com- The Fifth of November Remembered Jack Santino. Knoxville: University of plexities I still do not understand. Folklore and Forgotten. In Gunpowder Plots, 1–8. Tennessee Press. deals with contextualized information all the Ed. Brenda J. Buchanan. London: Allen Whistler, Lawrence. 1947. The English Festi- time. Historical, linguistic, religious, cultural, Lane. vals. London: William Heinemann. personal, social, local, and temporal contexts Champion, Justin. 2005. Popes and Guys all affect the material folklorists gather and and Anti-Catholicism. In Gunpowder Plots, the meanings that material can have. The 80–117. Ed. Brenda J. Buchanan. London: pop is a local tradition that is informed by Allen Lane. many contexts, including the transnational Fraser, Antonia. 1996. The Gunpowder Plot: Michael A. Lange received his Ph.D. in context of Halloween. Is the pop a Hal- Terror and Faith in 1605. London: Weiden- folklore last year from the University loween tradition, as I frst thought? Yes, at feld and Nicolson. of Wisconsin–Madison. He remains in Madison, where he works as a folklorist least in part. But it is many other things as Lange, Michael A. 2006. The Discursive Con- and ethnologist, eating turnips whenever well: an expression of religious affliation, struction and Negotiation of Cultural Identity he gets the chance. a celebration of patriotism, but—most im- in the Orkney Islands. Ph.D. diss., University portantly—a marker of local identity. Only of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 45 The Press and Folk Arts BY TOM VAN BUREN

While I was organizing a material folk While doing feldwork for an exhibit the active engagement of the artists in arts exhibit in December of 2006, the about spiritual, ceremonial, and religious the maintenance and passing on of their

TURE attention it received in print raised some traditions in folk arts I had asked my traditions.

L interesting questions about different views friend, the honored elder African Ameri- A final article that featured the ex- of cultural traditions and how simple can adviser to my work in Westchester, Mr. hibit appeared on January 7 in the New U misperceptions can undermine the best Surya Peterson, if he could recommend York Times. “Presenting Artists to New laid plans of folklorists. As I continued any artists from the black community. He Audiences” used the exhibit to illustrate C mulling over these issues in my own had grown up in what was once a black a theme of diversity and changing de- project, I opened the New York Times on neighborhood in Scarsdale. During a ca- mographics of the suburban regions of Tuesday, January 23, 2007, to see the front- reer in the postal service, he explored the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. page story, “In Frederick Douglass Trib- arts and culture of the black community It considered how regional cultural insti- ute, Slave Folklore and Fact Collide.” The in Westchester, organizing fne arts ex- tutions are fnding and presenting arts in article concerned an expensive monument hibits and other events in White Plains, nontraditional venues, such as juvenile being installed at the north end of Central where he once ran a storefront gallery. detention facilities and schools, as well Park in New York City that features a He told me that African Americans did as the groups’ efforts to diversify audi- bronze statue of abolitionist author and not have a religious tradition in material ence participation at more conventional

READING orator Frederick Douglass, sitting atop a arts of their own, because all of that was events like concerts and festivals. The mosaic that incorporates patterns from lost through slavery and the erasure of article spanned three states and numerous African American story quilts. indigenous culture that is so much a part programs, but failed to mention the con- According to historians cited in the of America’s story. He was essentially tribution of the New York State Council article, the story quilt—whose symbolic saying that the artists he knew could not on the Arts (NYSCA) to encouraging folk designs are said to have guided escaping be ft into a narrow defnition of folklore and traditional arts, or the role of any slaves to safety—cannot be confrmed based on multigenerational continuity of folklorists, curators, or cultural specialists. by written history, such as contemporary practice. Instead, the writer opted to focus entirely slave narratives. The code was introduced While I believe that a curator has to on executive directors, whose support is in a popular book, by journalist Jacqueline adjust expectations about tradition from admittedly essential to such programs, Tobin and African American quilt and culture to culture, I did not press the point, but not suffcient to make them happen. textile expert Raymond Dobard, about and the exhibit took its own incomplete Three of the six photographs accompa- the ancestors of a Los Angeles teacher shape with assistance from folklorist Jean nying the piece were taken from the “Ex- who passed down the tradition. While Crandall. Entitled “Expressions of the pressions of the Spirit” exhibit, including reading the article, I thought sadly of the Spirit,” it included Ukrainian religious ico- two page-wide banner photos. predicament of the artist and the curator nography, as well as decorative arts such While the exhibit and one of its featured of the folklore-related project. Their work as pysanky and embroidery, which are asso- artists were described adequately, the is in jeopardy on account of academic ciated with ceremonial function. Opposite exhibit’s prominent position in the article opposition, now amplifed by the atten- this was a display of the wedding arts of seemed to imply that it was emblematic tion of the New York Times. It is a public chupot and ketubot. Filling out the show of the diversifcation efforts of major folklorist’s nightmare: to have the very were displays of Indian rangoli, Mexican cultural institutions. As the unnamed basis of a project yanked out from under renderings of the Virgin of Guadalupe, curator, I could not help but feel a little you just as it is going public. Arabic mosaic art, and Japanese ikebana used. It was, perhaps, a small taste of what The idea of the story quilt initially and shodo associated with meditation. many a folk artist identifed as “diverse” inspired me as a tale of invention and As the exhibit was presented around must feel when institutions of the media cunning in the face of inhumanity and Hanukkah and Christmas, it naturally at- and the cultural establishment rest their injustice. Quite a few modern quilters have tracted a certain amount of attention from gaze, momentarily and imperfectly, upon incorporated the “code” into their work the newspapers, starved as they must be them. and presentation, giving their art a deeper for real cultural content during the shop- meaning than mere decorative bedding. ping season. The show was the subject All of this made me think about how a of two articles in the New York Times, one Tom van Buren directs the folk arts tradition is made and at what point its in the regional Journal News, and three in programs of the origin becomes immaterial to those who local weeklies. The themes that seemed to Westchester Arts take ownership of it, because the story resonate with reporters were the spiritual Council and serves as archivist for the itself is compelling and has a meaning to dimension of the artworks, the social and Center for Tradi- subsequent generations. cultural diversity they represented, and tional Music and Dance.

46 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Books –to– Note

When the Trains Ran: The Diary Doland kept painstaking accounts of Folklore in Utah: A History and of a Delaware County Woman, expenses and income during both of her Guide to Resources, edited by David 1877–1928, by Jennie McKenzie Hewitt marriages. She faithfully recorded items Stanley. Logan: Utah State University Press, Doland. Delhi, New York: Delaware County ranging from butter purchases to jobs done 2004. 343 pages, preface, appendices, index, Historical Association, 2006. 138 pages, by her second husband, David Doland, $24.95 paper. index, appendix, $10.00 CD-ROM. in 1914. She also recorded the deaths of friends and family in her diaries. President This remarkable book uses historical and It is not often that an organization like Theodore Roosevelt’s death in 1919 merited folkloristic methodology to trace the devel- a local historical society attempts to move a mention. opment of folklore study in Utah through beyond geographical confnes or has the re- Throughout the CD-ROM are pho- three generations of scholarship and public sources to produce large exhibits or publish tographs of diary pages and of people folklore administration. Interpretive essays books. New technologies, however, now en- (including a wedding photo from her frst on folklorists, academic research, and public able smaller organizations to publish works marriage), buildings that were important to programs offer much valuable and intriguing inexpensively on CD-ROM. I applaud the Doland (homes and schoolhouses), and, of information. Fourteen of the essays origi- efforts of the Delaware County Historical course, trains. One of the pleasant surprises nally appeared in the Utah Folklife Newsletter Association, which has released the diaries in the CD-ROM is the inclusion of paper from 1985 to 1991; the others came later. of Jennie McKenzie Hewitt Doland on ephemera related to Doland, including her Written in a lively and engaging style, this CD-ROM. teaching certificates and advertisements book will appeal to a broad readership: When the Trains Ran is a compilation of for items she bought, such as an 1895 students, academic and public folklor- data from the diaries of Jennie McKenzie Montgomery Ward washing machine. The ists, historians, journalists, writers, artists, Hewitt Doland over an almost continuous appendices include recipes for foods from festival-goers, and others. ffty-year span, dating from 1877 to 1928. chili to ginger cakes, remedies—From 1888, David Stanley’s introductory historical She was born and spent her entire life in “How to restore gray hair to its natural color: essay, “Folklore Work in Utah: A Historical the Halcottsville–Kelly Corners area of Take equal parts of black tea and butternut Survey,” helps the reader to view Utah’s Delaware County. The diaries are more a bark and a few rusty nails. Steep and put on folklore from a broad historical perspective. listing of daily happenings, than a journal 2 times a week.”—and dyes. Describing what remains of early Native of thoughts and ideas. One of the few The work that went into this electronic settlements, he explains, “The variety of moments of refection relate to her frst presentation of Doland’s diaries is daunt- food crops, pottery, woven cloth, seashells, husband’s death, when she wrote, “I am ing. I can’t imagine how long it took to ac- and feathers from tropical birds found in alone in the world.” complish. For the person looking for data archeological sites only hints at the diversity Perhaps because of this paucity of self- about one small region from one person’s of interactions and observations among Na- refection, the Delaware County Historical point of view, When the Trains Ran is a fne tive bands during pre-European times” (6). Association chose to present a compendium piece of work. I recommend When the Trains Printed folklore began circulating in Utah of information from the diaries, as opposed Ran to anyone interested in a glimpse of in 1891, but the practice and observation to a transcription. The organization has life in Delaware County from 1877 to 1928. of folklore began millennia earlier. painstakingly taken her diaries and gleaned Folklorists and other scholars, however, Stanley describes some of the frst gen- from them a broad selection of information, may want to read the primary source for eration of Utah folklorists’ important dis- presented under topics such as “Immediate ourselves. This CD-ROM is a good starting coveries, noting their signifcance and their Family” and “Home and Transportation,” point for further research. occasional comic incongruities. Alta and with subheadings that include genealogical —Elinor Levy, Austin Fife, traveling along the “Mormon information, family life, and the railroad. Northwest Jersey Folklife Project Trail” in 1946, learned that a storyteller

Spring–Summer 2007, Volume 33: 1–2 47 named Bertha Booth was one of the best ence was a perfect time for us to gather sources of folk tradition in Salt Lake City. together people we loved, to talk about ideas Are you... After locating Booth and hearing her tell a we loved, and nothing else really mattered. It new to the New York series of mesmerizing stories, the Fifes gave was and is a brief and shining moment for her their full names and address. Reading folklore” (235). Folklore Society? what they had written, Booth cried, “So The appendices provide useful informa- you’re a Ph.D., too!” and pulled out a thesis tion about academic programs, college and missing back copies from a cupboard. She had earned a Ph.D. university folklore archives, and folk arts of the journal? from the University of Chicago in 1915, collections. A calendar of festivals and com- then immersed herself in the fascinating munity celebrations lists such varied events folklore of Utah. as a rhubarb festival in March, a bear dance You can order the complete set or Besides chronicling the Fifes’ achieve- in April, a Mormon miracle pageant in June, fll in the gaps in your collection. ments, the book’s frst section summarizes Wheat and Beet Days in July, and a Slovenian Members: Order at the members-only the work of Edward A. Geary, Hector Lee, picnic in August. discount. To join the New York Wayland D. Hand, Lester Hubbard, Thomas Clarifying past achievements and present Folklore Society, see inside back cover. Cheney, Olive Woolley Burt, and Helen Pa- resources, Folklore in Utah offers a fne model panikolas. The second section provides many for future studies of other states’ folklore Single Issues details about prominent folklorists William and folklorists. Like Utah, New York State Date or volume: ______A. Wilson, Barre Toelken, and Jan Harold has a diverse population, whose folklore $8 $10 nonmembers $______Brunvand, then briefy considers members has been studied by several generations of of the third generation of Utah folklorists, professional folklorists. Since 1945, the New whose work is currently emerging. York Folklore Quarterly, New York Folklore, and New York Folklore Quarterly The book’s third section, “Studies in Utah Voices have published substantive essays 1946 – 1974 Folklore and Folklife,” offers insights into about New York’s folklore and folklorists. Call for availability of individual issues the traditions of ethnic and religious groups: Perhaps at some point in the near future, $5 per issue $______Native Americans, Mormons, Latinos, and New York’s folklorists will produce a volume Greeks, among others. Photographs of that chronicles the development of their Daughters of Utah wearing pioneer cos- home state’s folk culture. tumes, Andean musicians performing in —Libby Tucker, New York Folklore Liberty Park, and Greeks enjoying fellowship Binghamton University 1975 – 1998 in the Open Heart coffeehouse demonstrate 32 issues the diversity of Utah’s celebrations. $85 $95 nonmembers $______In section four, seven authors describe and analyze Utah’s public programs. Elaine Thatcher’s essay, “Public Folklore in Utah,” makes some excellent points, including the desirability of collaboration between pub- TO ORDER lic and academic folklorists. Anne Hatch’s Publications subtotal $______“Under the Big Top: The Utah Humanities Shipping and handling Council and Folklore” takes a close look at Add $4 for 1 to 5 issues, how public programming works, with special $20 for complete sets. $______Total $______attention to getting grants and overcoming political challenges. My favorite essay in Enclose check payable to New York Folklore the section is Barbara Lloyd’s “Lessons of Society and mail to New York Folklore Society, P.O. Box 763, 133 Jay St., Schenectady, NY 12301. Summer: The Fife Folklore Conference,” which vividly describes the development ______of the Fife Conference since 1977. Epic Name ______hikes, sing-alongs, folk arts presentations, Shipping address and steak fries have made this conference ______a cherished experience for many folklorists City, State, Zip and students. Lloyd observes, “The confer-

48 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Join the New York Folklore Society today and become a subscriber to Voices

Join the New York Folklore Society and A Public Voice become part of a community that will deepen Yes, I want to join the New York The NYFS raises awareness of folklore among the your involvement with folklore, folklife, the Folklore Society. general public through three important channels. traditional arts, and contemporary culture. As a member, you’ll have early notice of key Print. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, Name ______events. published twice a year, brings you folklore in the words and images of its creators and practitioners. Organization ______Fall Conference. People travel from all over to The journal’s new look distinguishes it from other meet in a different part of the state each year for Address ______publications in the feld. Read Voices for news the NYFS Fall Conference and Annual Meeting. you can use about our feld and legal issues, City, state, zip ______Professionals in folklore and related felds join photography, sound and video recording, and with educators and practitioners to explore the Country ______archiving. culture and traditions of the area. Lectures and Telephone ______discussions are balanced with concerts, dancing, Radio. Voices of New York Traditions is a series of E-mail ______and tours of cultural sites. radio documentaries that spotlight the folklife of the state, aired on public radio. Stay tuned! New York State Folk Arts Forums. Folk arts $35 Basic member professionals, colleagues in related disciplines, Internet. Visit www.nyfolklore.org for the latest $20 Full-time student and lay people come together each year to news on events in folklore. 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Folk Artists Self-Management Project. If you’re a traditional artist, you know the So Join! 2007 2008 importance of business, management, Membership dues $______$______Become part of a community that explores and Tax-deductible and marketing skills to your success in nurtures the traditional cultures of New York donation $______$______the marketplace. NYFS can help you with State and beyond. Membership in the NYFS workshops, mentoring, and publications. entitles you to the following benefts: Total enclosed $______$______Folk Archives Project. What could be • A subscription to Voices: The Journal of New more critical than fnding a repository for an York Folklore The amount of memberships greater than $20 and all donations are important collection? The NYFS is a leader in • Invitations to conferences, workshops, and tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. the preservation of our cultural heritage. Attend meetings our workshops and order copies of NYFS • Updates on technical assistance programs Make your check payable to New York Folklore books at a discount. • Opportunities to meet others who share your Society and send it with this form to: Consulting and Referral. The NYFS offers interests New York Folklore Society informal counseling and referral services to the • Discounts on NYFS books P.O. Box 764 members in the feld. Contact us by telephone, Plus the satisfaction of knowing that you support Schenectady, NY 12301 e-mail, or letter. the only organization devoted to folklore across New York State. Publications. Members receive discounts on all NYFS publications. Visit www.nyfolklore.org for current titles. November 2–4, 2007 SaveDate! the New York Folklore Society Field Trip “Voices of Belief”: Poughkeepsie, New York

The New York Folklore Society’s 2007 Field Trip takes you to Poughkeepsie, New York, to experience the remarkable diversity of belief and religious expression in the mid- Hudson Valley. This highly interactive and participatory event will offer presentations and performances on four themes—folk belief and material culture, belief and social justice, sacred music, and sacred song—with a special tribute to the late John Mohawk, Haudenosaunee spiritual leader and scholar.

Performances will include sacred dance; a hands-on Tibetan Buddhist mandala motif demonstration with members of the Wappingers Falls Buddhist monastery; music by Poughkeepsie-area gospel musicians, including the gospel quartet the Sensational Won- ders of Newburgh; and a Sabbath table with Nigunim, Jewish songs of devotion and praise.

Additional information will be forthcoming! www.nyfolklore.org

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