PAGE12 Oct. 6, 1998 FEATURES (insert name here]

[ am so in love! You guys rock. I'm guessing. however, that you were either bored or pulling off some sort of assignment; hence the plentiful entries. But I'm not complaining, believe you me. This week, I received a butt-load of entries. Here goes. u ·'Hi. rm Dave and J play the Tuba." (submitted by Dm•e Bel/Ill) (cd. note: does that really work. Dave?] O"Hi." Q "Eep Op Ork:Ah Ah" led. note: you get points for the pop culture reference. I'm impressed.] 0 "Hey! l"ve got toe fungus!" ...J ·'Those clothes look very mce on you ... of course. If I were on you. I would ... damn! I messed up. Let me start over!" 0 "I'm two degrees from Kevin Bacon! It's the truth!'" [ed. note: I actually am only two degrees away from Kevin Bacon.] 0 "You Tarzan. Me Jane" 0 "Go out with me or Twill shoot you. In the face. With a really big gun." 0 "Wanna go back to my place and play... Boggle?" [ed. note: this worked on me once with Yahuee] 0 "J'aime bien Ia fromage du poisson" .:J "Je m'appelle [insert name here] Je suis une belle femme. Je n'aime les vericots verts. Je n'ai pas des problemes." [ed. note: you aren't any relation to the Dr. Prosterman: Eli Zubowsk:i I Retriever Weekly Staff, Urban Legend: TriStar Pictures two-headed bluebird of happiness who only speaks high-school French, Living Legends: Left, Dr. Leslie Prosterman teaches a class on American folklore that explores the are you?] significance of urban legends. The new film Urban Legend brings some of them to life, including, from 0 "Does this smell rotten to you?" the top, the dead roommate, the killer in the backseat and the lethal Pepsi-Pop Rocks combo. 0 "Give me your disco ball and I'll give you mad sex." [ed. note: I'm not that kind of girl.] .:l"Excuse me, would you happen to have a six-foot inflatable ptero­ dactyl with a slow leak?" [ed. note: way to suck up, guys. You've already won.) ..J "I am quite nervous URBAN LEGENDS So I wrote you a haiku Do you love me now?" (multiple entries submitted by Joanna Smith, WHAT you CAN LEARN FROM THE FRIEND Rohini Thomas. Dave Bell. and Sarah) Well, kids, Iemme explain something to you. I can't really choose a OFAFRIENDOFAFRIENDOFAFRIEND winner per se, because you all entered together. So obviously you win. Dave Bell ill, however, gets a runner-up prize because of his JAMIE PECK pet dog? Some old lady put her day parables. '"Legends fill a space solo entry. If I had to choose a favorite amongst the slew of entries, I Retrie~·er Weekly Staff Writer poodle in the microwave to dry it where there's some sort of social guess it would be: off after taking it for a walk in the anxiety," he says, and stresses that 0 ''Have you riverdanced with the devil in the pale spoon light?" sst. Hey. did you ever rain? And it exploded? And it hap­ two components are very important I guess the real competition comes into play when you have to fight hear the one about the pened just a few years ago? Sheesb, in their qualification -specifically, over the broken disco ball. Come get your prize. Head to the office, babysitter? See, it was make up your minds already ... that it always has to happen to hmm, say Wednesday? That good for you? Wednesday at 1 p.m. would the 1960s, this couple someone who knows the person be splendid, actually, and you can come to our Wednesday meeting was going out to a din­ Urban Legends 101: Wel­ who's telling it and multiple set­ and roast the previous day's new issue. You'lllove it. Trust me. But if Pner party and they needed someone come to the wonderful world of ur­ tings, though when you're hearing you'd rather not sit through the meeting, I'll understand. You can still to come over and watch their baby. ban legends, where the possible it, it's likely to have happened have your prize. So they got this hippie chick, prob­ meets the impossible and every­ somewhere nearby. (ed. note: It occurs to me that in a publication with a 5,000 copy ably a friend of their teenage son's, thing always happens to a friend of UMBC's own urban legends ex­ circulation weekly, reaching approximately 10,00() people through­ only they didn't notice that she was a friend of a friend. In case you're pert is Dr. Leslie Prostennan, who out Baltimore,/ have just carried on a conversation with four specific completely fried on LSD. drawing a blank on the subject mat­ instructs a similar course (listed in people. Man, I love my job.] Well into the evening, Mom ter, urban legends are those contem­ the catalogs, for those of you inter­ This week's contest is a complete and total cop-out- urn, I mean, called the house to check on things. porary folktales that appear out of ested, as American Studies 260). I'm giving you, the reader, the chance to come up with your own The babysitter said, "Oh, nowhere and spread like wildftre. She considers the legends as an "ar­ contest ideas. Quite frankly, if you just want to send me random con­ everything's fine. I put the turkey Chances arc you've heard a couple tistic presentation of a shared test entries, without specifying which contest you are entering, that's in the oven." They hung up, but and maybe even believed them as knowledge about how to approach fine, too. Just make sure you specify which you are submitting. a mom got to thinking and didn't re­ honest, real-life incidences. events and situations in our lives." contest idea or a random entry. member telling the sitter anything Perhaps the most popular urban Regarding the effectiveness of their The winners (for I shall choose one of each-like I'm going to get about cooking a turkey that night. legend is the one where the boy­ hidden morals and societal warn­ one of each) shall receive salt and pepper shakers, one shaker each. Sensing that something was not friend and girlfriend are parked in ings. she says. '"You· re going tore­ Reachin' for ideas. reachin' for pnzes, what bas this contest become? quite right, Mom and Dad left the lover's lane and they hear a radio member .,..ho's not supposed to do I think I need some coffee. party and rushed home to lind that report that an mental patient with a what •f you're sitting around with a this hippie chick had stuffed the hook for a hand has escaped into group of people your own age." Runner~ up will receive stuff 1 have lying ·round my apartment not that 1t baby in the oven and cooked it while the area. The girl gets spooked out And urban legends are quite a hot mailers. because not once have I had a runner-up aucmpt to claim a cmppy tripping. It's a true story. and demands that the boy drive her commodity now. thanks to the pn,e. cntnes must be received on Thursday in the Retriever Weeki\' oflice. UC 214. or you can e-mail your entries to jsicill @gl.umbc.edu. And just to cover Wait. What's that? It didn't hap­ home. He reluctantly complies. and TriStar Picturl!s' ne\\. film. simply every liulc crack in the paper. if}OU have aclub.leciUre ore,ent on campus that pen in the ·60s. but rather in the late when he walks over to her side of titled Urban Uf!,end. The movie you'd like to advertise for fret in lncidentall) .... drop a line to the Retrie1·er '70s. early '80s? It wasn't LSD­ the car to let her out, dangling from falls into your basic slasher/horror ~~h·Myore-mail the address above.! ha\e no clean socks. That is the one draw­ it was pot?i\nd the baby was found the handle is ... a hook! Oick category. tellmg the scary story back to being on staff here at 11/e Retrie1·er Weekly - no time to wash my in a microwave, not an electric Professor Peter Tokofsk) teaches of a deranged killer who murders socks. And it gets expensive juM buying new ones every week, willy-nilly.likc oven? an American Folklore course at his way through a New England socks grow on trees or something. Gratuitous use of the phrase "willy-nilly" there, d'ja notice? Hold on a second. Now you're UCLA, and spends a good portion saying that it wasn't a baby, but a of the class studying these modem- see URBAN LEGENDS, page 20