a letter to Madeline Krause (1988-2008)

On Saturday morning, Madeline, who went to IU and was a native of Bloomington, jumped from the seven-story parking garage at IU, dying almost 90 minutes later. After reading about it, I decided to look at her Facebook profile, and although I could not post on her wall, I elected to write her a message, hoping that maybe those words will get to her somehow.

 

I didn’t know you at all, never met you, don’t know how I would have since I live in Bowling Green and you lived in bloomington. But reading of your death has left a spot in my heart, one praying for people who were feeling lost and lonely, like you, to find something that brings you up and makes you rise like a phoenix, triumphant in deed and full of the joy of life. I hope you are happy and safe in the next step of life. I hope someone loves you and doesn’t label you as a quitter, a despondent, a depressive. I hope nothing but the best.

 

ah, well, i left the house that night

and the gods said “well, time to go on the

woman hunt.”

i threw my hat on, the one some grew to hate 

and others to love,

but I’m not a dork.

In the winter, it doesn’t really matter,

for everyone looks like a colored mess

of swaddling.

so why not?

The bench, or how a moment becomes travel literature

That morning, I took a shower in Silje’s house, succeeded in getting my shorts wet on the floor, and had a quiet breakfast with her mother Anny. We literally ran to the train stop, where Anny would begin another typical day working in the center of Oslo. I, on the other hand, was bidding farewell to the only city in Norway that had any sort of relative energy. I wonder what Ibsen would think if he was still alive.

 

I took the Flytog to Gardemoen, feeling tired because it was so early yet more ready than ever to go home. I had slept in Silje’s bed last night, falling asleep in the sunlight while staring at her shelf, filled with Lonely Planet guides and CDs I wish I had. I could see her folk costumes in the closet across the room. It was as close to a home as I had during my time there. It is one the few things about Oslo that I truly miss.

 

Gardemoen was busy as usual, and I found myself on a bench, waiting. When would she arrive? Is the plane from Tallinn coming? I wondered if the same beautiful flight attendant is on duty that day. She was tall and had long blonde hair, just as you would expect from a local. She was wearing chunky heels, but not so clunky she could work in a parish. She stood on her own two feet.

 

I think many Norwegians did stand on their own feet, with a series of worries lacking. People were confident about themselves. The guy with the mullet at Anker, who I nicknamed Captain Mulletron, had no qualms about looking trashy. The students in Bergen were happy and shared their life with me, keeping me from being what felt like a genuinely alone feeling. I never felt so lonely as during my time there.

 

Finally, I saw her. She was wearing what looked like a suit set, some brownish color. Her hair was tied up and she was smiling. She said tere to me. Or maybe hei. I don’t remember. I was joyful to be in her presence, like I was in Japan filming a Suntory whiskey commercial and she was my travel friend. She was that anyway. The bench was our oyster, brief like modern life’s scenarios.

 

I think we talked about what I did in Oslo and Bergen. I never mentioned Kristiansand. I prefer to forget it. I really did do a lot in both cities, but Oslo has a place in my heart as being the site of my favorite playwright, my favorite explorer, and definitely one of the most interesting artists in history. It also brought me peace, in the form of a center where I saw the awards given to people like Wiesel, Menchu and Carter. This was, luckily, before Gore, who deserved nothing except some common sense injections.

 

I was not eager to return home. My flight left in a few hours. I think she had to go to Bergen to meet Silje. I hugged her like she was an old friend from middle school. Then we parted. And that was the end of the face-to-face part of our relationship. We haven’t seen each other since.

 

As I walked by, the floor said “Are you where you are? Are you not where you are? Go to where you are, I’ll wait for you- there.” I know she will wait for me. I want to be the guy in the whiskey ad again.

Coexistence

It’s very interesting to see the divisions between junior and senior MA students, especially in terms of group interaction and dynamics. What’s sort of unfortunate is that not everyone gets along within the juniors, yet the senior students are fairly tight-knit and refusing to create “groups.” I wish everyone got along better and was able to understand each other for what they are: humans.

I wondered how our year is different. Were we humbled by the pains of learning folklore theory and taking it back-to-back with folk belief? Does our academic background and life experience truly make a difference in how we all function as a community? Is it just luck that everyone is fairly relaxed? I definitely notice that there is something to be said for having life experience after getting one’s bachelor’s degree. Although I had little myself, really only a couple of months of travelling and sporadically working, I see how important it is for those I have classes with. 

Four of us took our MA exam this morning, and it was nice because I felt that, in spite of writing our own exams, we had a sense of being united, not as a Ben-Amosian group, but as a Noyes-esque idea of a network. But it was nice to have people to share knowledge, frustration, belief objects and prayer with this morning, when most of us were tired and could not sleep particularly well the night before. To Tim, Ripley, Candace and Gordon, thanks for being there in some form or another, and may we all have positive results when our scores come in.

Taoist fieldwork?

Wei wu wei: Chinese for “action without action.” It is a central core of Taoist belief, the belief that when we think about doing something while we’re doing something, it often tends to fail us.  In order to avoid this, we have to quiet ourselves while taking action.

Upon reading this, I realized how this applies to doing fieldwork. As many of my fellow students know, I have a past history of being terrified of doing audio interviews. I suppose I don’t like to hear myself recorded (I never liked films of myself, either), but it is mainly because I find myself often stretching for questions after so long. I attribute getting an A in fieldwork to a miracle, because I just wasn’t good at interviewing in a formal manner.

It was indeed this formal manner that went against the idea of wei wu wei; I simply thought too much about my fieldwork. Trying to up the sound quality is not easy, as is attempting to produce an hour-long interview that sometimes is not going to be the best interview. I have learned that I can do fieldwork better when I limit my interviews to 30-40 minutes at a time (unless the conversation goes on informally). I used to keep a list of questions, but have realized that having a set list of questions limits my ability to come up with more questions and even decreases the positive rapport I have with my informants. I want them to feel at home with me, like we are talking and I just happen to have an iPod recorder handy. I don’t think about interviewing as much; I simply do what is within reason, both within the field and within my own capabilities as a person. Perhaps it is fieldwork without fieldwork.

Yes, please remember.

I held my friends in my arms last night as we watched our nation, a good one at heart, decide that it was time to make a change in how things are run. Although it was sad to see John McCain and Sarah Palin be upset about their loss, they, like many other Americans, now know that last night’s events were, in fact, what the people not only wanted, but desperately, desperately needed.

I just learned that Bill Ivey is going to be part of the transition team, and I’m excited about it. I suggested to my fellow Western folkies that this could be the start of something very incredible for the field of folklore. Maybe we will become what people like Hurston, Botkin and Lomax became in the 1930s. Maybe we, of all people, laid-back yet daringly ambitious graduate students, will not only be able to share our work, but know that our government is not afraid of us speaking our mind and siding with the people. We are community organizers of a different breed- we work with the folk groups. I can’t wait to be part of this era.

A dirge for academic freedom

Put the duct tape over my mouth, I’m being muted

Let it stick so it can’t be removed

Don’t humanise those who seem so dirty

Eradicate those who work against the groove

I salute you in your duties

and bury you with a flag

the flag of peace and justice

you fought bravely, only to lose

ahh, AFS…

I should have written about AFS a week ago, when it was closer to having been finished, but I think now is a good time to do so.

 

I remember last year’s AFS meeting, being in Quebec City, being really different. As a first-year graduate student and newcomer to conferences, last year was about exploration, understanding the dynamics of the discipline, and trying to meet people. It seemed that, during last year, I had less of a focus and thus I couldn’t completely take advantage of some things that AFS had to offer. If anything, it showed me the sheer variety of things I could do as a folklorist, which I myself hadn’t realized.

Having been there before, I felt as if this year’s AFS meeting was a completely different experience. Having developed strong academic interests, it was far easier to pick panels to attend, and being involved in section meetings was also easier because I remembered people from last year. Last year, I was reserved about reading my writing at the Creative Writing section meeting because it was not “folkloric” enough. This year, Peggy Yocom said to me, “We want anything a folklorist writes,” which gave me the courage to read my piece “Estonian kitchen party,” providing me with a chance to share something I have had little opportunity to do. A professor at Brigham Young University, Jacqueline Thursby, actually came up to me and expressed interest in my work, which led to a really long chat about Estonia, a place where she is taking her students soon. 

AFS is also different when you are no longer just a spectator, but are presenting to an audience. I will definitely remember walking to the Hyatt in the dark with my backpack, taking the time to make sure all of our technology would work. I have to admit that I had the best time talking to the others in my panel: Wanda, Michael and Marcia were terrific people who were extremely nice and very supportive of me and my presentation. The audience, for being at an 8:00 A.M. panel, were very receptive and asked quite a lot of questions. It was a perfect way to get into the groove of AFS.

One of the most interesting things about AFS was getting to have dinner with Dan Ben-Amos, who has a very civilized way of letting you know he is not a fan of public folklore. While I agree that the government should not have a say in what is or isn’t folklore, I said to him that I strongly believed that the peace between the two areas is developing. Truthfully, they need each other in order to bring the folk into the greater commons of knowledge.

All in all, the conference was fairly successful in the fact that I have created a better network for myself, strengthened some connections I made last year, and, most of all, had fun while filling in my niche a little further. I hope I can make it to Boise next year; God willing, I will have a chance.