the journal of new york folklore · adirondacks. called “an adirondack legend,” jack was a...

Maritime Folklore of NYC’s Forgotten Borough

Foraging Apples and Pressing Cider in theFinger Lakes

“The Golden Arm”Performing the Folktale

Pageantry Puppetsand Community Memory

The Market onSaturday Night

Fall–Winter 2017Volume 43: 3–4

The Journal ofNew York Folklore

Because of our state-wide mission, the New York Folklore Society necessarily works in collabora-tion with a variety of partners. Our most extensive partner has

been the Folk Arts Program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), with which we have partnered since 1990 to provide professional development and tech-nical assistance to the folk arts community within New York State. With NYSCA, New York Folklore conducts the annual New York Folk Arts Roundtable and an ongoing Mentoring and Professional Development Program. NYSCA is also a partner in an annual folk arts internship that is provided to graduate students in folklore, so that they can gain on-the-job public folklore experience.

Since 2016, the New York Folklore So-ciety has also partnered with the William G. Pomeroy Foundation in approving the placement of markers that designate specific sites as important to folklore in New York State. In the past few years, more than 30 markers have been placed throughout the state, highlighting the role of “place” in New York’s heritage. “Legends and Lore” recognizes the role of local legends and the folk stories of New York’s communities through markers explaining the tales. For more information, or to make a nomination, please see the website: http://www.wgpfounda-tion.org/index.cfm/nys-historic-grant-programs/legends-lore.

The New York Folklore Society is pleased to enter into two new partnerships in 2018. Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education has begun a program

in the Buffalo, NY, region. The project will train community tradition bearers and folk artists in the skills needed to be teaching art-ists within the K–12 school setting and will introduce classroom educators to curricu-lum connections, which can be made with folk and traditional arts. A workshop with the nationally recognized consultant on folk arts in education, Amanda Dargan, will be conducted in partnership with the Erie and Niagara County BOCES on August 21 and 22. Participating educators will have the op-portunity to have a two-day artist residency in their own classrooms as a follow-up ac-tivity. This program is supported by grants from NYSCA and the National Endowment for the Arts, with plans to duplicate it in subsequent years.

Probably, our most extensive partnership in 2018 is our joining with the American Folklore Society (AFS) and NYSCA to co-chair the annual meeting of AFS. This annual conference draws hundreds of folk-lorists, oral historians, and cultural special-ists for four days of academic presentations, workshops, forums, and professional devel-opment. This year’s theme is “No Illusions, No Exclusions,” and it will be held October 17–20, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Buffalo. We hope you’ll plan to join us there as we showcase folklore and folklife, with a special focus on New York State.

The New York Folklore Society remains a membership organization, open to all. We hope to be in YOUR community soon.

VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore

From the Director

“… the making of art is an irrepressible force that is true of everyone.”—Greg Sharrow, Folklorist, Vermont Folklife Center

Ellen McHale, PhD, Executive DirectorNew York Folklore Society

[email protected]

continued on page 2

My friend Jack Leadley died April 4, 2018. He was 90 years old. I’ve known Jack for some 30 years. We first met during my first survey of folk artists working in the Adirondacks.

Called “An Adirondack Legend,” Jack was a skilled woodsman, hunter, and trapper. He was also an artist, writer, and snowshoe and ski instructor. He made beautiful pack baskets and rustic furniture. He flew a plane, giving me my first aerial view of the Adiron-dack Park, saying how handy it was for a quick trip to Maine to catch up with family over a lobster dinner, and be back in time to sleep in his own bed by nightfall.

Jack’s love of the Adirondacks came early in life. In the 1930s his family drove up from Staten Island to spend summers in a rented cabin on Lake Pleasant in Speculator, New York. The mountain air helped his father’s asthma. After serving in the Second World War, Jack returned to the mountains perma-nently, marrying his wife Joan and joining a family with roots that traced back to 1794.

He opened Leadley’s Adirondack Sug-arbush in 1949. He and his family tapped some 2500 maple trees each spring to make maple syrup to sell from the gift shop on Route 30, just north of Speculator. It is one of several buildings on the 115-acre Leadley compound, along with immediate family households, including those of Leadley’s three adult children who are eighth-genera-tion Lake Pleasant natives.

Jack’s Adirondack pack baskets were sec-ond to none. He made them the old fashioned way, cutting black ash trees, usually in the spring when the bark peels off easily. He soaked and pounded every square inch of

From the Editor

1Fall–Winter 2017, Volume 43:3–4Fall–Winter 2017, Volume 43: 3–4 1

Features 3 Maritime Folklife of New York City’s Forgotten Borough by Naomi Sturm and Daniel Franklin Ward

11 In Memoriam: Jack H. Leadley, Sr. (1927–2018)

17 Fruit in the Forest Foraging Apples and Pressing Cider in the Finger Lakes

by Maria Elizabeth Kennedy 23 At Work in the Garden of Eat and Be Eaten by Chuck F. Tekula, Jr

24 “The Golden Arm”: Collecting and Performing the Folktale by Timothy Jennings

30 Pageantry Puppets, Community Memory, and Living Traditions: Extending the Reach of Cultural and Educational Institutions

into Immigrant Communities by Kate Grow McCormick

38 In Memoriam: Gregory Sharrow (1950–2018)

40 The Market on Saturday Night by Dan Milner

41 Two Poems: Jack “Legs” Diamond and Portal by Shannon Cuthbert

42 Analysis and Intuition: Reflections on the Mystic Union of Measure and Abandon in the Art of Figure Drawing

by Stephen Alcorn

Departments and Columns 12 Upstate by Dan Berggren

13 Poetry of Everyday Life by Steve Zeitlin 16 Good Spirits by Libby Tucker

29 Voices of New York by Libby Tucker

35 ALN8BAL8MO: A Native Voice by Joseph Bruchac

37 From the Waterfront by Nancy Solomon

39 Artist Spotlight

ContentsFall–Winter 2017

Cover: The Warasila bay house survived Superstorm Sandy due to the use of helical piles and having a trap door in the floor, which allows water in, but keeps the house in place during storms and hurricanes. Photograph by Martha Cooper, courtesy of Long Island Traditions. Read more in Nancy Solomon’s From the Waterfront column, “In Harm’s Way” on p. 37.

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2 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore

Fall–Winter 2017 · Volume 43: 3–4

Acquisitions Editor Todd DeGarmo Copy Editor Patricia MasonAdministrative Manager Laurie LongfieldDesign Mary Beth MalmsheimerPrinter Eastwood Litho

Editorial Board Todd DeGarmo, Chair. Gabrielle Berlinger, Sydney Hutchinson, Maria Kennedy, David Puglia, Puja Sahney, Joseph Sciorra, Emily Socolov, Nancy Solomon

Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is published twice a year by the New York Folklore Society, Inc.129 Jay Street, Schenectady, NY 12305

New York Folklore Society, Inc.Executive Director Ellen McHaleAdministration and Gallery Laurie LongfieldWeb Administrator Patti MasonNYC Regional Representative Eileen CondonUpstate Regional RepresentativeHannah DavisVoice (518) 346-7008 / Fax (518) 346-6617Website www.nyfolklore.org

Board of DirectorsPresident Tom van BurenVice President Julie TayTreasurer John BraungardSecretary Naomi Sturm Gabrielle Berlinger, John Gleason, James Hall, Maria Kennedy, Wilfredo Morel, Gregory S. Shatan, Kay Turner

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

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 Folk-lore 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: www.nyfolklore.org/gallery/store/books.html#back or call (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617.

ISSN 0361-204X© 2018 by The New York Folklore Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

Voices is available in Braille and recorded versions. Call the NYFS at (518) 346-7008.

From the Editor (continued)

Todd DeGarmoVoices Acquisitions Editor

Founding Director of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library

[email protected]

the log, causing the annual growth rings to loosen and separate. He then pulled the splints off the full length of the log. These he smoothed and cut into uniform strips, to create the raw material used to weave the basket.

Jack had carried a pack basket since the 1940s while running his traplines, and began to make his own when quality baskets were getting hard to find. He shared this knowledge wholeheartedly with anyone. He’s noted as a strong supportive influence of many basketmakers, and I’ve found his interviews as far away as Maine. For me, he breathed life into the old, discarded pack basket hanging in the garage of my childhood, owned by my stepfather, who, according to a family story, was carried in it by his own stepfather across a frozen Saranac Lake. Jack carried his own young son in a pack basket of his making while hiking the woods near their home.

Jack also made rustic furniture. He is known for reviving the Whitehouse chair, originally made by Lee Fountain, a local innkeeper in the late 19th century. The chair has birch framing with woven seats of black ash splints and was an early addition to the Folklife Center’s Folk Art & Artist Collection, available for view, along with his other work, on nyheritage.org.

A Hamilton County destination was the bark shanty that Jack built back in the woods of his family’s compound. These small cabins, now rare, were once commonly used by woodsmen, hunters, trappers, and fishermen in the backcountry of the Adirondacks. He called it Camp Balsam and dedicated it to the memory of those “Adirondack pioneers who came here before us.”

Its design was based on a shanty built by Jack’s wife’s great-grandfather, George Burton, at Little Moose Pond in the 1890s. His shanty was framed with poles and covered with sheets of peeled bark. The front door faced south to catch the winter sun, and the west wall had a window covered with deer rawhide, diffusing a warm amber light inside. A flat side of a

granite boulder formed the north wall and the back of an open fire pit. Inside, smoke escaped through a small, covered wooden tower on the roof. The two pole beds lining the walls of the 8 by 10-foot cabin were filled with fresh balsam. He welcomed visitors, including a special road trip from Glens Falls, as a part of our kids’ workshop series on “Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties.”

Jack demonstrated his craft at our earliest Adirondack folk festivals and children’s workshop series. He enjoyed these visits with us and with other venues like Fort Klock, Hanford Mills, and the Adirondack Museum. As he became more sought after, he began to limit these activities, as he recalled in a letter: “You and Crandall Library have always been special as I started going away from my workshop to demonstrate my work.” But it was a two-edged sword. “Almost all my work is sold on order…I don’t need more ‘exposure’. Working alone with no power tools limits my production.” He came to prefer staying on his own property in the woods, allowing folks to come to him: “My workshop is so complete for my production, I do not leave it much… July and August, there are visitors here every day. I like to be here as people interested in my work are an added benefit to meet.”

What an incredible joy it was to share an afternoon with Jack in his own workshop back in the Hamilton County woods.

A mini pack basket made by Jack was gifted to my family at the birth of my first son. Jack’s own son Rick carries on his dad’s role of maker of traditional rustic furniture, and his daughter Lynn continues to make the pack baskets.

Jack was a kind-hearted man, so very talented and generous with his time and his knowledge. Indeed, he was an “Adirondack Legend.” What an honor to have known him. Fare thee well, my good friend.

3Fall–Winter 2017, Volume 43:3–4

“Our commitment to this project stems from our deep-ly held belief that local knowledge both sustains com-munity and makes community interesting. Interesting communities thrive.”

—Naomi Sturm

IntroductionWe, as folklorists, enjoy studying local tra-

ditions, developing programming within local communities, and exploring their folklife. Be-gun as a project of Staten Island Arts (SIA) Folklife, and expanding to include many part-ners, the Working Waterfront initiative’s theme and project mission were chosen by the com-munity, for the community (see “About the Initiative” on page 4). In November 2015, we began what would become an expansive case study for public folklore’s role as a mecha-nism for sustainable economic development. Even prior to the start of the initiative, the

BY NAOMI STURM AND DANIEL FRANKLIN WARD

The tugboat James E. Brown in New York Harbor. Photo courtesy of Naomi Sturm.

Maritime Folklife of New York

City’s Forgotten Borough

amount of local involvement, enthusiasm, and input from Staten Islanders of differing generations, ethnic backgrounds, and occupa-tions demonstrated the importance of wa-terfront and maritime heritage in their lives. The myriad of local businesses, industries, and venerable cultural institutions dedicated to maritime and waterfront material on the island are further evidence of this fact.

Folklife, as we know, can best be defined as living traditions that are passed informally through generations within communities. Whether it be the distinctive Staten Island ac-cent, a ritual conch shell performance, a song with no author, a story from hurricane sur-vival, or knowledge of how to make chum to attract the best catch, folklife or living tradi-tions are the fabric of cultural heritage that celebrates everyday life. The Working Water-front initiative highlights this folklife—living,

working, and interacting with New York Har-bor.

We devoted the first half of 2016 to inten-sive field research, training and utilizing a ded-icated team of local community scholars from a range of occupations and backgrounds. We interviewed, observed, documented, and con-nected with a diverse cross-section of Staten Island waterfront communities, occupational groups, heritage sites, and cultural organiza-tions. This research resulted in a platform and plan for diverse programming that was carried out in 2017–18. We hope that the training and program models put forth by this project will result in a more sustainable future for mari-time folklife on Staten Island.

Staten Island’s Working Waterfront: Maritime Folklife of NYC’s Forgotten Borough seeks to raise both awareness and appreciation for Staten Is-land’s uniquely place-based maritime folklife,


at a moment when cultural heritage tourism has increasing potential for local communi-ties and industry. The multiyear Folklife se-ries complements a borough-wide focus on creative placemaking and waterfront revital-ization, highlighting Staten Island’s rich in-tergenerational and multicultural waterfront traditions. Programming took place at loca-tions throughout Staten Island and the great-er New York Harbor and featured a range of authentic maritime traditions, including crafts, music, foodways, narrative, and tradi-tional knowledge that make seaport working life and history accessible. The programming is intended to “excite” both renovation and sustainability of public spaces utilized for presentation.

The Issues ConfrontedAbsence of Cultural Tourism

Despite the fact that almost every New Yorker and New York visitor takes a ride aboard the Staten Island Ferry, the experience is largely limited to Statue of Liberty sight-ings and the infamous on-deck “selfie.” Non-commuting passengers rarely venture beyond the St. George Ferry Terminal before return-ing to Manhattan. Indeed, Staten Island’s reputation as the “forgotten borough” and as a cultural backwater means that, beyond its

Vintage Staten Island Ferry t-shirt by Richmond Hood Company. Photo courtesy of Re-shan Hangiligedara.

association with the Ferry, it is nearly un-known to potential tourists. At over $50 bil-lion last year, cultural tourism is among NYC’s largest industries, yet nothing on Staten Island is even listed as a top tourist attraction. Of New York’s five boroughs, Staten Island ben-efits the least from tourism.

Changing Maritime & Waterfront Economy Although Staten Island’s working water-

front has survived almost 300 years, there have always been economic and cultural changes. These changes have usually been progressive advances in technology or other ways of increasing productivity or decreasing overhead expenses. Today, the long ignored industrial waterfront economy appears to be facing an acute economic and social restruc-turing, driven by such forces as sudden dein-dustrialization, impending gentrification, and functional obsolescence in traditional water-front occupations.

Community Connection to Impending Development

New York City’s last working waterfront is changing. Port facilities on Staten Island are expanding to accommodate the larger ships that are now using the new Panama Canal. The long ignored waterfront communities

on the north and west shores are suddenly facing large-scale commercial development from the New York [Ferris] Wheel, Empire Outlets, Lighthouse Point, and Bay Street Corridor, with gentrification as luxury hous-ing expands. There is a strong sense of need in these waterfront communities for a way to connect local people and the local folklife to the planning of these developments to ensure that Staten Island’s uniqueness is sustained.

The Assets“The Working Waterfront initiative draws atten-

tion to Staten Island as the last hurrah of a vanishing diversity of urban lifestyle that has characterized New York City for the past 100 years.”

—Naomi Sturm

Staten Island’s waterfront heritage is uniquely place-based and authentic. Its his-torical importance as New York City’s last continuously operating commercial water-front is noteworthy. As the last surviving and still vital working waterfront in what was

About the Initiative

Working Waterfront began as a project of Staten Island Arts (SIA) Folklife, and the concept evolved to include a di-verse configuration of partners, ranging from the local (Museum of Maritime Navigation and Communication, At-lantic Salt Company, Isla Bonita, Sandy Hook Pilots Association, P.S. 59 “The Harborview School,” Moon Studios, Flagship Brewery, Staten Island Museum, Noble Maritime Collection, Conference House), to citywide (City Lore, Center for Traditional Music and Dance, Wa-terfront Alliance, Tugster, Kottu House), and statewide (Long Island Traditions, New York State Canal Society) institu-tions. Research and programming was made possible, in part, by generous sup-port from the New York State Regional Economic Development Council, Gov-ernor Andrew Cuomo, New York State Council on the Arts, the National En-dowments for the Arts, NYC Depart-ment of Cultural Affairs, Councilwoman Debi Rose, Global Container Terminals NY, Con Edison, Lois & Richard Nicotra Foundation, NYC & Company, Stop & Stor, and Northfield Bank.


once the greatest seaport in the United States, the Island’s potential as a top destination for cultural heritage tourism is growing exponen-tially. Through professional documentation, interpretation, presentation, and promotion of its unique status, this initiative makes in-roads in connecting the often forgotten bor-ough to the rest of NYC, its harbor, and other state waterways, including the Hudson River and the Erie Canal. That the Staten Island Ferry is one of the world’s most famous boats is icing on the cake.

The working waterfront’s traditional, water-based knowledge and authentic maritime folk customs are carried by the borough’s great-est asset. These are the folk tradition bearers from, among others, the following cultur-ally rich ethnic and occupational groups: Sri Lankan, Sierra Leonean, Ghanaian, African American, Puerto Rican, Turkish, Egyptian, Southern Italian, Irish and Anglo-Ameri-can, Mexican, and maritime pilots, tugboat

captains, engineers, fishermen, sailors, long-shoremen, brewers, and waterfront business owners.

Folklife and the Working Waterfront

Working Waterfront complements Staten Island’s borough-wide focus on waterfront revitalization and creative placemaking proj-ects. Staten Island Arts, the local arts council for the borough, is concurrently involved in Future Culture, a partnership with the De-sign Trust for Public Space that shapes and communicates a vision for culture in the public realm of Staten Island’s rapidly de-veloping North Shore waterfront. Empire Outlets, Ironstate Investments, and the New York Wheel are engaged in beautification and construction in St. George. The Noble Maritime Collection, Staten Island Museum, and National Lighthouse Museum regularly share knowledge and produce programming

via their maritime-focused exhibitions. The Maritime Education and Recreation Corridor (MERC) is planning for a large-scale renova-tion of Ft. Wadsworth on the East Shore, which may include a new maritime middle school for NYC.

By tapping into a shared local vision and streamlining ideas, resources, and market-ing, Working Waterfront takes a multipronged approach to cultural programming, which builds pride and appreciation for our uniquely place-based maritime heritage. Through this work, we hope to protect and make sustain-able special “folk” qualities of life in Staten Island’s waterfront communities and busi-ness districts. We believe that the very same authentic qualities that make a community unique can also make it a magnet for cultural heritage tourism, not to mention a highly at-tractive place to live and work. Folklife holds great potential as a holistic activator of posi-tive economic development.

Post-storm wreckage along the Port Richmond waterfront. Photo courtesy of Naomi Sturm.


Our ModelWe developed Staten Island’s Working Water-

front: Maritime Folklife of New York City’s For-gotten Borough with five primary objectives in mind:

(1) To establish authentic local folklife as a sustainable magnet for heritage tourism for Staten Island;

(2) To train and employ local community folklife scholars to work in the growing cul-tural sector;

(3) To support and sustain the livelihoods of maritime tradition bearers;

(4) To connect local folk artists to future developments like those surrounding the New York Wheel, real estate, and shipping via the newly enlarged Panama Canal; and

(5) To enhance visibility for local water-front business and historic institutions.

Beyond the execution of a wide-ranging and comprehensive cultural program, it is through the achievement of these objectives that we now propose a model for putting public folklore “to use” (Owen Jones 1994) in sustainable economic development initiatives.

Pillars of Our ApproachWorkforce Development and Local Scholar-ship

Folklife Fellows Program—We pilot-ed an intensive training and advisement in folklife field research and program design with four local “community scholars” from various ethnic and generational orientations, each representing a different waterfront com-munity:

Sachindara Navinna—Sri Lankan Amer-ican traditional dancer and researcher of wa-ter-based Sri Lankan traditions.

Bob Wright—Local songster and fourth-generation Staten Islander, hailing from a maritime family. Researcher of local water-front history, occupational folklore, and mari-time musical traditions.

Lina Montoya—Colombian-born public artist and graphic designer. Documenter of heritage sites, festival liaison, and project col-lateral.

Carl Gallagher—Musician, researcher of maritime occupational folklore, and art han-dling/exhibition construction.

The Fellows’ unique life experiences in-formed their research and participation in the project. They worked alongside Naomi Sturm (SIA Folklorist at the time), to conduct interviews, AV documentation, community outreach, and participant observation, while weighing in on the initiative’s overall devel-opment and deliverables. Each Fellow also published their research and debuted creative material (photography, design, installation, music, and live presentation) via the project.

SIA plans to continue this program in an effort to empower and prepare community members for jobs in the growing cultural sec-tor, and we believe that it is a replicable pro-gram component for any folklife department. Doing fieldwork from the roots up, telling stories from the inside out, and encouraging self-presentation when developing public pro-gramming is central to the sustainability, rele-vance, and social consciousness of our field. It is increasingly important that we find ways to highlight and legitimize local scholarship and present local perspectives and cultural contri-butions, with less of a top-down filter.

Programming for Cultural Sustainability In order to develop high quality, self-

sustaining folklife programs, we believe it is

important to (1) conduct deep, long-term fieldwork that adequately identifies commu-nity and aesthetic preferences; and (2) pilot varied interdisciplinary programming to “test the waters” (pun intended for this project) to see what sticks. It is often impossible to know which program structures will work most ef-fectively and be the most popular within a given demographic, without a proper test run and feedback. In the case of Working Water-front, we produced programs in the following areas, as part of the overall project: exhibi-tion; film screenings; history harvests (sto-rytelling); multimedia installations; foodways demonstrations; site tours; concerts; festival collaborations; themed events; community awards; school-based curriculums and edu-cational programs; publications; and material production.

In this section, we provide several exam-ples of the diverse, interdisciplinary, and in-teractive programming that comprised Staten Island’s Working Waterfront: Maritime Folklife of New York City’s Forgotten Borough.

Exhibition—“Memories Hold” was an in-teractive exhibit in the SIA Culture Lounge at the St. George Ferry Terminal. The opening reception for “Memories Hold” also served as the official launch of our Working Waterfront

Will Van Dorp and Ed Fanuzzi discuss the Arthur Kill ship graveyard as part of a film series in the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Photo courtesy of Naomi Sturm.


Samir Farag and his Museum of Maritime Navigation and Communication 2017. Photo courtesy of Reshan Hangiligedara.

initiative. Through archival images, documen-tary photography, and sound recordings; the personal narratives of Staten Islanders and accounts from tugboat crew members, long-shoremen, sailors, and maritime engineers

throughout the decades; and a wide variety of maritime artifacts, the exhibit explored individual and collective memories through three broad themes: Storms & the Sea, Gen-erations of Maritime Occupation, and, Water-lore & Material Culture. A continuous screen-ing of a narrative-based documentary about superstorm Sandy and other natural disasters brought the experience full circle. The exhibit

also served as the theater for a film and dis-cussion series and a backdrop for three “his-tory harvest” workshops.

Festival Partnerships—“Illuminating the Harbor: Lights, Lanterns & Lyricists of our Working Waterfront” was a fully curated exhibit, workshop, and performance loop at SIA’s biannual Lumen Festival at Atlantic Salt Company. As a collaboration between the Folklife Program and partners that in-cluded City Lore, 50/50 Skate Park, the Wa-hoo Skiffle Crazies, Harbortown, Brooklyn Arts Council teaching artist Aeilushi Mistry, and the South Asian Cultural Preservation & Educational Center, it presented a uniquely abstract, interdisciplinary, and interactive wa-terfront folklife installation, complete with tales of the Staten Island Ferry, songs of the harbor, and South Asian lantern ceremonies adapted to the NYC shoreline.

“IL-LUMEN8-ing the Working Wa-terfront” was a collaboration with Folklife Fellow Lina Montoya’s Isla Bonita Festival in Faber Park along the Port Richmond Water-front. We curated a pop-up exhibit and fes-tival booth that included ephemera, media arts, and live demos, ranging from traditional Morse Code and Sri Lankan conch shell tradi-tions to skateboarding and surf rock.

Folklife Fellow Sachindara Navinna demonstrates Sri Lankan conch shell traditions at the 2017 Isla Bonita Festival. Photo courtesy of Reshan Hangiligedara.

Folklife and Economic Development

Economic development has tradition-ally been left to planners who are simply trying to get a job done. Their ideas are tried and true, and that is why every place you visit is beginning to look like Any-place, USA. The new development plans for Staten Island were promising more of the same. We felt that local folklife could be incorporated into development plan-ning to help hold back the march toward sameness, while also helping to make wa-terfront traditions more sustainable. In our preliminary research, we could not find any good examples of local folklife as a consideration in development plan-ning. What we did find was that Staten Island had not shared in the growth of the booming tourism industry in New York City. It seemed to us that the Working Wa-terfront held great potential as a magnet for cultural heritage tourism. We submit-ted a proposal to the Regional Economic Development Committee for funding of a planning grant. The committee saw the po-tential and funded the planning of our ini-tiative and later, funded the project itself.


Fifth-generation Sandy Hook Pilot Tom Ferrie talks shop and family history at the 2017 Saltlore Fest! Photo courtesy of Reshan Hangiligedara.

Public Program SeriesAn important aspect of Working Waterfront

was our flagship program series that included: Saltlore Fest! at Atlantic Salt Company,

featuring a narrated site tour by Terminal Manager Brian DeForest, a salty foodways demonstration, live presentations by mari-time professionals, and a sharing about the Working Waterfront initiative via our descrip-tive report.

Brewing Up Staten Island featuring a narrated site tour of the Staten Island family-owned harborside Flagship Brewery, interpre-tive demos on their folklife-inspired branding process and oysterfest, and a tasting and un-veiling of their Oyster Stout, created collab-oratively with this initiative.

Waters at Play, a water-based recreation and music festival along the Stapleton water-front that included live presentations on fish-ing traditions and fish-based foodways from different Staten Island ethnic communities (Sierra Leonean, Sri Lankan, and Italian), wa-terfront sports, nautical knot tying, and a illu-minated nighttime concert featuring seafaring music by NYC-based artists from Sri Lanka, India, Puerto Rico, and Staten Island.

Staten Island Storms about Staten Island weatherlore, featuring a story circle about

School-based Folklife EducationWorking Waterfront at P.S. 59 was a twice

weekly, after-school folklife residency program for grades 2–3, with additional professional development for teachers that was focused on the history, cultural heritage, occupational tra-ditions, and changing nature of Staten Island’s working waterfront. The three-unit curricu-lum ran concurrently with P.S. 59’s Waterfront Harbor Unit and emphasized social studies knowledge best understood via local maritime professions, storytelling, and artistic traditions associated with waterfront life.

Long-term ImpactThe long-term impacts of the Working Wa-

terfront initiative can or will be seen in a num-ber of areas. First, and most obvious, will be ongoing waterfront folklife programming on Staten Island at venues such as Atlantic Salt, Flagship Brewery, Staten Island Museum, Museum of Maritime Navigation and Com-munication, Global Container Terminals NY, Staten Island Ferry Terminal, Conference House, Urby, and the New Dorp Moravian Church, where we presented our initial pro-gramming. Additionally, both LUMEN and Isla Bonita will continue to feature mari-time folklife as a core theme in their annual

Bill Wright (uncle to Folklife Fellow Bob Wright) aboard his boat The Amigos in the 1940s. Photo courtesy of Naomi Sturm, from Bob Wright’s personal collection.

living through storms past on the island, as well as live presentations on different forms of water-based natural disaster preparedness, from Sri Lankan water purification rituals, West African libations, and folktales to coastal storm prep.


festivals. Community conversations about such topics as storm preparedness will con-tinue. Another important byproduct of this work was the establishment of a Staten Island Heritage Award by Staten Island Arts Folklife, which will continue annually. This award, given to a deserving individual or entity for a lifetime of superior stewardship of Staten Island’s living traditions, was awarded to Mr. Samir Farag (maritime engineer and founder of the Museum of Maritime Navigation and Communication) in 2017. Given the depart-ment’s recent orientation, additional awards will be made in the areas of waterfront tradi-tion and maritime knowledge.

Although still in the beginning phase, this outgrowth of annual waterfront folklife programming positively impacts new tour-ism borough-wide. Evidence is found in the decision to include project-based attractions in the borough president’s “Tourism Ready” campaign and feedback from our partner in-stitutions indicating that participation in the project increased their visitorship and clients overall. In particular, the Flagship Brewery and Museum of Maritime Navigation and Communication noted that working on this initiative provided them with a toolkit and set

of replicable programs that allow them to tap into new cultural markets. Moreover, the Ca-nal Society of New York State saw this proj-ect as a compelling reason to bring the 2018 New York State Canals Conference to Staten Island and New York Harbor. Our expecta-tion is that the groundwork we laid for the Working Waterfront will provide a foundation for other organizations to promote the Work-ing Waterfront as an authentic and unique at-traction in its own right.

Our groundbreaking work in education, through the P.S. 59 after-school program and in training cultural workers via our Folklife Fellows program, provides models and re-sources that will be valuable to future his-tory, culture, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in Staten Island’s schools.

Possibly the the most important impact of the Working Waterfront initiative at this pivotal moment is its influence in the area of public policy and regional creative decision-making. On Staten Island, the protection and encour-agement of waterfront folklife has become a central discussion promoted by Future Cul-ture and others. The folklife element has now also been included in the Department of Cul-tural Affairs (DCA) Cultural Plan and state-wide advocacy.

One exciting development is that we are expanding the geographical footprint of Staten Island’s Working Waterfront model to cover the entire New York maritime region.

The project is now being taken on by several organizations, including City Lore, Long Is-land Traditions, and the Waterfront Alliance, working together to generate more interest in maritime folklife.

Conclusion: “Putting Folklore to Use”

In planning the Working Waterfront: Mari-time Folklife of NYC’s Forgotten Borough, we had a strong interest in documenting the vi-tal maritime folklife of Staten Island in the 21st century. The folklife we encountered was manifested in many forms, ranging from material objects to specific hand skills to tra-ditional foodways to narrative performance. Ultimately, what interested us most were the stories that were contained in and carried by a hand-created boat fender or a fisherman’s old manual chum grinder or a deckhand’s master-ful performance of marlinspike seamanship or an ancient ballad sung about a long forgot-ten mishap in the harbor.

It seemed easy enough, and certainly worthwhile, to collect these stories. We real-ized, however, that the cultural landscape was about to meet a “storm surge” of change in the form of new kinds of port operations, large-scale gentrification, and destination consumerism. Could the local folk traditions that we are documenting survive? Should they survive?

Beyond simple documentation, our pur-pose soon became to first demonstrate that

New York State Canal Conference

One measure of economic impact is how many people can be attracted to a place to spend their money. From the start, we made it a goal to attract a con-ference to Staten Island. The New York State Canal Conference convenes every two years at a different port or historic site along the state’s numerous water-ways. The eight-year long bicentennial of the Erie Canal kicked off in 2017. The Erie Canal connected New York Harbor to the Great Lakes and the interior of the continent. We learned that the New York Canals Conference had never met in New York Harbor, so we submitted a proposal to bring the conference to Staten Island. The competition was stiff, but the Working Waterfront sold itself. The conference, with its theme of “One Water,” will take place October 14–16, 2018, and will showcase the folklife of Staten Island’s working waterfront.

Local community discussion on Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath five years later. Photo courtesy of Reshan Hangiligedara.


local folklife is what makes Staten Island unique and that this uniqueness enhances life on the Island. Next, we sought to advocate for and set in motion effective means to sus-tain the waterfront tradition bearers, matching traditional knowledge and art forms with new economic drivers for their sustainability (At-kinson 1994, 240–7). This project succeeded in attracting broad attention to the folklife of the working waterfront and enabling a type of “responsible tourism” (Dettmer 1994, 192–7) that invigorates local cultural activity and sustains practitioners. We look forward to building on the foundation of this work with a growing consortium of local and statewide partners and further solidifying Staten Island’s place in NYC’s cultural economy.

BibliographyAtkinson, Patricia. 1994. In Putting Folklore to

Use. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

Dettmer, Elke.1994. “Moving Toward Re-sponsible Tourism: A Role for Folklore.” In Putting Folklore to Use, edited by Michael Owen Jones, 187–97. Lexington: The Uni-versity Press of Kentucky.

Owen Jones, Michael, ed. 1994. Putting Folk-lore to Use. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

Group photo of the 2017 Saltlore Fest! at Atlantic Salt. Photo courtesy of Reshan Hangiligedara.

Naomi Sturm is a folklorist and ethnomusicologist with expertise in expressive culture of the Americas, maritime and water-based folklore, and the New York City immigrant experience. Presently, she is the Director of Public Programs for the Center for Traditional Music and Dance and a Visiting Fellow in the Music Department at the New School for Social Research. She is also the founding Executive Director of Los Herederos, a media arts organization dedicated to inheriting culture in the digital age. Sturm holds a MA in Ethnomusicology from Columbia University. Her public sector work, media publications, and writing deal extensively with: (1) issues of ethnic identity, political economy, and cultural sustainability in NYC; (2) transmedia storytelling and documentation; and (3) models for holistic economic development through cultural tourism. Formerly the Director of Folklife at Staten Island Arts, Sturm cofounded and designed Staten Island’s Working Waterfront: Maritime Folklife of New York City’s Forgotten Borough. Sturm has also worked for Pachamama Peruvian Arts, City Lore, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and as a festival presenter for the National Council on the Traditional Arts. She is the cofounder of the Quechua Collective of NY (formerly the NY Quechua Initiative) and regularly consults on the design and production of self-sustaining community work, media projects, and other folklife-related activities with organizations across the country. She is the Board Secretary for the New York Folklore Society. Photo by Alex Bustamante, courtesy of the author.

Daniel Franklin Ward is an independent folklorist, based in Syracuse, where he is chair of the city’s Public Art Commission. A member of the board of the Canal Society of New York State, he serves as education curator for the Society’s newly opened Old Erie Canal Heritage Park at Port Byron. He holds a Master’s degree from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and a PhD in American Culture from Bowling Green. For 23 years, Dr. Ward served as Regional Public Folklorist for Central New York. He partnered with Naomi Sturm on the Working Waterfront project from its inception. During summer 2017, he and co-producer, Steve Zeitlin, traveled by canal boat from Brooklyn to Buffalo, screening their documentary Boom and Bust: America’s Journey on the Erie Canal and presenting musicians and storytellers in canal ports, large and small. Dr. Ward is a past president of the New York Folklore Society and a regular contributor to Voices. Photo courtesy of the author.


In Memoriam: Jack H. Leadley, Sr. (1927–2018)

Jack Leadley, Sr., maker of Adirondack Pack Baskets, Speculator, Hamilton County, NY. Photograph by Tim Davis, for the program booklet, Festival of the Adirondacks: Celebrating Cultural Traditions (edited by Todd DeGarmo, Crandall Library, 1990).

Jack Leadley—An Adirondack Legend. Framed giclée print on canvas, signed and numbered from an original, 2007. Paintings by Rhea, [email protected], 518-774-5554.

Right: Rustic Furniture: Whitehouse Chair by Jack Leadley. Folk Art & Artist Collection, Crandall Public Library.

Below: Jack Leadley demonstrating his craft at the Festival of the Adirondacks, September 15, 1990, hosted by Crandall Public Library in City Park, Glens Falls, New York. Photograph by Todd DeGarmo.Camp Balsam, a bark shanty, built by Jack Leadley on his property in

Speculator, New York. October 15, 1994. Photograph by Todd DeGarmo.

Left: Miniature Adirondack Pack Basket by Jack Leadley, 1990. Gift to Dylan DeGarmo at his birth. Private Collection.

“Leadley’s Adirondack Sugarbush 1949” logo by Jack Leadley.


Hunting for a Song BY DAN BERGGREN

Snowshoe rabbit, your trail is narrow.Can you beat the speed of an arrow?Johnny Hunter will find you quick, and

you’ll wind up in a stew.

Hey red fox, you sly old thing,Can’t you hear them hound dogs sing?Johnny Hunter will find you quick, and


Back home, while the boys were taking a well-deserved nap after our outing, stories of flatlander hunting accidents came to mind, along with a moral to the story.

Old moo cow that means you, too.They got the goat and they’ll get you.Johnny Hunter will find you quick, and


Whenever you’re in the woods alone,Sing this song with hearty tone, orJohnny Hunter will find you quick, and


My nephews are now grown men with chil-dren of their own. They know Johnny Hunter, even though they may not remember that par-ticular fall day when we walked and talked, sing-ing and making up a song the old-fashioned way. A few years ago I was visiting an elemen-tary school to sing with children and introduce them to songwriting, when a young teacher said something that made me smile and feel espe-cially happy: “Johnny Hunter—that’s a tradi-tional song, isn’t it?”

Living on the edge of a village, one can experi-ence lots of critters exploring backyards. Here, in Saratoga County, I’ve seen squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and the occasional skunk foraging for grubs or worms. Growing up in the Adirondacks, I was used to all sorts of wildlife wandering freely between state land and our family farm. It was fairly common to watch deer, bear, woodchucks, and porcupines in the apple orchard, and ruffed grouse, snowshoe rabbits, coyotes, and foxes a little further away in the fields.

My mother, who had grown up on that farm, was willing to let the wild animals take a por-tion of the harvest, but she also wanted her fair share of the apples and berries. I did, too, espe-cially if I was ever going to enjoy another apple pie, blueberry muffin, or a taste of strawberry jam again. One August when I was seven or eight years old, my mother sent me out to pick wild blackberries. On that hot and still summer afternoon, I found a good crop growing next to a juniper bush that must have measured 15 feet across. Standing in one spot, I could pick and pick and . . . suddenly, I noticed I wasn’t the only one getting berries. On the far side of that bush was a black bear. I’d seen bear before but never so close. It might have been because I was downwind of the bear, or maybe it was so focused on its own technique for freeing the berries that it ignored me. Its mouth went over each thorny branch; then, drawing its head back gingerly, let the ripe ones fall into its mouth be-fore releasing the branch. I stood there dumb-founded, remembering my parents’ advice about bears: don’t run, and don’t get between a mother and its cub. Still ignoring me, the bear turned, walked to another bush, and began its process again. Slowly, I took a few steps back-wards while keeping my eye on the bear. When I felt I was a safe distance away, I turned and walked as quickly and quietly as I could.

Several years later, I had another close en-counter that sticks in my memory. Coming around the barnyard corner, I found myself face to face with a deer. Without forethought, I started speaking to the doe, as one would to a dog. “Hey, how you doing? What are you looking for, hmm? Something good to eat?” It raised an ear, turned its head this way and that,

then bobbed its head down to check out the ground while keeping its eye on me. I stood still, so as not to spook it.

That scene, along with the blackberry-pick-ing bear, probably lasted no longer than a few seconds, but they are preserved in my memory as lasting moments of wonder. When I was old enough to get a hunting license, I loved the ex-citement of tracking, but shooting one of these creatures had no appeal at all. That’s probably what prepared me for writing “Johnny Hunter.”

One autumn while walking in the woods with my nephews, we made up a song. I told them that during hunting season it was best to wear a red or some other bright-colored jacket and to make some human sounds, so hunters would not mistake us for wildlife. Just then, we surprised a grouse and as it took off, its wings a-drumming gave us a surprise in return.

Partridge, partridge you’d better stop drumming.

Look behind you, who’s that coming?Johnny Hunter will find you quick, and


And so the impromptu song began, in the oral tradition of thousands of songs—long be-fore the Internet, television and radio, before jukeboxes, record players, and sheet music—when all music was folk music; when the only way to share a song was in real time, and the only method to learn it was by ear. Variations can creep in, depending on memory, geography, and other influences, or the urge to modify the song to a suit a new situation. My childhood memories kicked into gear.

Old black bear you’d better not wait.If I were you, I’d hibernate.Johnny Hunter will find you quick, and


White-tailed deer, you’re young and strong,But if you’re not fast, you won’t have long.Johnny Hunter will find you quick, and


There we were the three of us in the woods singing to every animal. My nephews and I were on a roll, and there was no stopping us in our oral tradition experiment.

Dan Berggren’s roots are firmly in the Adirondacks, but his music has taken him throughout the United States and abroad. Dan has worked in the woods with a forest ranger and surveyor, was a radio producer in Europe, professor of audio and radio studies at SUNY Fredonia, and owner of Sleeping Giant Records. An award-winning musician and educator, Dan is also a tradition-based songsmith who writes with honesty, humor, and a strong sense of place. Visit www.berggrenfolk.com to learn more about Dan and his music. Photo by Jessica Riehl.

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The Bell Tolls for Ringling BY STEVE ZEITLIN

one friend said to me, “Ringling’s demise is something like the Catholic Church shutting down.”

I attended a three-ring circus once in my childhood. My uncle Walter took my brother and me to Ringling sometime in the early 1950s, and I can still remember walking through its legendary sideshow tent, past giants and fat ladies, and seeing the elephants lined up as an attraction. That one unforgettable visit sparked my imagination. You need to see the circus only once to experience its magic—and you can’t experience it on your phone. Once the images of the circus and the sideshow entered our lived experience, they emblazoned our imaginations with unforgettable imagery.

The circus serves as a powerful metaphor for the poetry of everyday life. It often harbors its own elevated language: circus impresario Milton Bartok, for example, pointed his audiences’ attention to the aerialists not at the “top of the big top” but to the “lofty recesses of the big top.” The circus has kindled the imaginations of

countless writers, poets, and musicians. In his poem “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,” William Butler Yeats wrote: “Winter and summer till old age began / My circus animals were all on show, / Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot, / Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.”

In his song “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” Bruce Springsteen sings of a circus where “the flyin’ Zambinis watch Margarita do her neck twist” and where the “circus boy dances like a monkey on barbed wire” and “the Ferris wheel turns and turns like it ain’t ever gonna stop / And the circus boss leans over and whispers in the little boy’s

This past spring, I bought two tickets to the last show of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, scheduled for May 21, 2017, in Uniondale, New York. The iconic three-ring circus, mother of all American circuses, was closing its show after 146 years.

At the time, my friend, the circus historian Richard Flint, was busy researching a book commissioned by Ringling Bros. to commemorate the history of the famed circus for its 150th anniversary in 2021. Ringling didn’t make it that far. The circus closed prematurely on the book.

“People call it the Greatest Show on Earth,” Richard told me, “but it was literally the Greatest Show on Earth.” A large, profitable circus, Ringling was able to deliver grandeur that no other show could match. Not just horses, acrobats, and clowns. Not only numerous elephants, but lavish costumes, state-of-the-art lighting, three rings, five weeks of rehearsals, Broadway choreographers to help train a bevy of showgirls and clowns, original music composed for Ringling each season. As

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ear / Hey son, you want to try the big top?”Years ago, I used a circus metaphor to

write about a crazy and wonderful girlfriend: “Rosemary, lioness of rare beauty / struts across her cage / scratching with her claws / rattling her cage! / Yet she pats with velvet paws / the keeper of the neurotic woman / who puts his head between her jaws.” Not just poets, but all of us need the circus as a world apart, a world of daring, extravagance, and wonder.

A few weeks after the final Ringling Bros. show closed, the Smithsonian Institution featured circus arts as part of its Folklife Festival on the National Mall, in Washington, DC. Among the performers were members of a number of youth circuses and small circuses, along with a few veteran, multigenerational performers, including Dolly Jacobs who just two years earlier won a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts for her career as an aerialist with Ringling Bros. and other circuses. From June 29 to July 9, visitors to the festival could see aerial acts, jugglers, tightrope walkers, and trapeze artists, as well as attend panels on circus lingo and circus life. This magnificent array of circuses included the Hebei Golden Eagle Acrobatic Troupe, which features two dozen of China’s top acrobats; UniverSoul Circus, which is a unique celebration of urban pop culture; the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, based in New York City; and a number of youth circuses, including Sailor Circus Academy from Sarasota, Florida. In contrast to the Ringling Bros.’ demise, these were ten banner days for circuses in the nation’s capital.

I attended the festival, and a number of the participants suggested that Ringling Bros.’ closing was just the end of an era, a business decision by a circus too big and unwieldy to survive (which does not appear to have been the case). One person likened it to a large oak tree that came down, but that now would allow the underbrush to grow—suggesting that the small youth circuses sprouting across the United States would now be able to blossom.

Ringling Bros. image with circus performer Gleice Gillet on the lead elephant. Courtesy of Ringling Bros.


The Circus Historical Society convened in the same hotel where the Smithsonian participants were housed; it promised the Greatest Convention on Earth for 2017! The meeting showcased a film about renowned tiger trainer Mabel Stark (December 10, 1889–April 20, 1968). The film depicted times when she had been mauled, her heroism, and her love for the tigers. Circus historian Charles Taylor met Mabel Stark when he was 18 years old. He was, he said, “naive and precocious enough to ask her why she had so many wrinkles. She sweetly answered, ‘Why, dear, they are all places where I have been bit by lions or tigers. There is not a square inch on my body that doesn’t have a scar!’” Legendary juggler and Big Apple Circus performer Hovey Burgess told me that the youth circuses on the National Mall were, to use his crazy pun, a “stark” contrast to the film about Mabel Stark.

No animals—no lions, no tigers, no horses, no animals at all—were featured in the circus program. A sign at the festival read, “major compliance regulations and costs relating to sanitation, safety, and welfare (both human and animal) eliminated the presentation of exotic animals. Nonetheless, several sessions in the Circus Stories tent will discuss the role of animals in the circus.”

One of the circus participants said if indeed animals had been allowed, protesters from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would have lined the walkways to add controversy to the event, generate publicity, and put a damper on the occasion. The circus, they suggested, is a perfect target for PETA’s cause, because it guarantees publicity.

PETA and other animal rights groups did picket Ringling Bros.’ performances for a number of years, holding up graphic signs,

which purported to depict the disputed mistreatment of elephants, in the faces of children and families waiting to enter the big top. The Humane Society of the United States and other groups sued Ringling Bros. for its alleged mistreatment of elephants, but in 2014, their suit was thrown out by the judge when it turned out the groups had paid a low-level elephant groomer to bring the suit, claiming that the mistreatment hurt his personal relationship with the elephants. Despite losing the battle, the protesters, and the PR nightmare they created ultimately forced Ringling Bros. to retire the circus elephants to a preserve in Florida. Without the legendary elephants, the circus seemed doomed to fail, and its demise came a year later. The Humane Society lost its legal battle against Ringling Bros. but won the war; children of all ages lost.

The Ringling Bros.’ elephants had been part of New York City folklore for generations. When the show was up in Madison Square Garden, the elephants paraded from the circus train through the Lincoln Tunnel with pomp and circumstance, often paying the tolls with great fanfare. New Yorkers lined the streets in the middle of the night to watch the procession. In a number of small circuses, the elephants would assist with hoisting the tents and pulling the stakes to take them down. Elephants hearkened back to the beginning of Western civilization,

The Hebei Golden Eagle Acrobatic Troupe performs in the Open-air Ring at the 2017 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Photograph by Art Pittman. Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archive and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.


from ancient India to the early 19th-century circuses. Until recently, at the Blessing of the Animals at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York, Episcopal priests sometimes paraded an elephant in, at least once led by Gunther Gebel-Williams, Ringling’s star animal trainer in the 1970s and 1980s.

The animals, clowns, and aerialists, which make up the circus, free the human imagination to consider the glorious possibilities of how the body moves, how animals can be trained, how human beings can choose to live dangerously, and how human beings interact with the natural world. As a child, ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson recalls that he thought the festooned

horses he saw at the circus were actually unicorns. He told New York Times reporters Sarah Maslin Nir and Nate Schweber that the world is losing “a place of wonder.”1 The athletic youth circuses cropping up across the country are healthy and wonderful—they are a form of gymnastics in which young acrobats await the audience’s applause rather than the judges’ scores; they are a place for retired circus performers to teach; they support many thousands of underserved young people; they are a boon to physical fitness and youth camaraderie. But no one runs away to join a youth circus.

Cruelty to animals is a serious offense. No one questions that. As Richard Flint put it: “In this day and age, those who insistently

Please email your thoughts, stories, and responses about the poetic side of life to <[email protected]>. Steve Zeitlin is the Founding Director of City Lore. He is the author of The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness (Cornell University Press, 2016).

shout the loudest prevail.” I don’t believe there is any point in debating the impossible question of whether elephants are happier in their natural habitats in Africa and Asia (where they are frequently killed for their ivory tusks), or in the zoo, or the circus. I’ll leave it to others to ask the elephants that question, but who is there to raise a whisper in honor of the collective creative genius that created the modern day circus and the role it plays in sparking our imaginations. The circus in all its glory is one of humanity’s great imaginative constructs—like the opera or the sonnet. And the circus, I believe, needs to be experienced in its fullness, with animals and acrobats and clowns; those diverse attractions have defined the circus since Philip Astley, an English cavalry officer, brought the three together to create the first circus in his London amphitheater in 1770; without that combination of elements, it’s an opera without the music.

My wife Amanda and I never did get to see the last show of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. We had a family emergency—so two seats were still available. Here’s hoping that two curious children, their eyes filled with wonder, snuck under the big top and found those seats for the last performance of the Greatest Show on Earth—and that children everywhere will always have the chance to see clowns, acrobats, tightrope walkers, tigers, and elephants gallivanting under “the lofty recesses of the big top.”

NOTE1Nir, Sarah Maslin, and Nate Schweber.

2017. “After 146 Years, Ringling Brothers Circus Takes Its Final Bow.” New York Times, May 21.

The artist Philomena Marano drew this picture of the circus after seeing it, when five years old. Courtesy of the artist.


Shadow People BY LIBBY TUCKER

Many supernatural figures in ghost stories are friendly and kind. There are, however, certain supernatural beings that defy the usual categories and make observers’ hair stand on end. Unlike familiar, easily recognizable spirits, these are the strange, elusive beings known as shadow people.

According to folk tradition, you are most likely to see shadow people from the corner of your eye. If you look straight ahead, you will never spot them. But if you pay attention to your peripheral vision, you may see something startling begin to appear. As you walk along, doing ordinary things, a shadow person may suddenly cross your path.

Some paranormal enthusiasts insist that shadow people get humans’ attention while traveling between dimensions. Some think that shadow people feel drawn to humans who feel sad and are grieving the loss of a loved one; others believe that these travelers simply want to get where they are going. The first of these two possibilities does not seem to match what we find in oral tradition. In ghost stories, shadow people do not seem to be especially empathetic or kind; on the contrary, they tend to be enigmatic, silent, and even threatening.

A few years ago, a freshman in one of my folklore classes told me about a terrifying, middle-of-the-night encounter he had experienced in our campus’s Nature Preserve. “I was climbing a hill,” he told me, “when I bumped up against a really tall, dark shadow. I couldn’t see who it was, but I could tell it was a man, and he was definitely dangerous. I just turned around and ran. I’m never going back to the Nature Preserve again!”

This freshman was not the only student of mine who was frightened by humanoid shadows. When I was researching my book Haunted Halls, a male Resident Assistant told me that a dark, shadowy man had appeared in a plate glass window during his late-night rounds. This man was his own size but wore different clothes that were all black. Horrified by the sight of this unexpected apparition, he changed his evening routine to avoid seeing more shadow people—and as far as I know, he never did.

Both of these stories suggest that shadow people are disruptive and dangerous. Their emphasis on negativity fits Carl Jung’s shadow archetype, which represents the socially unacceptable impulses that people may feel while leading orderly, admirable lives. Jung argues that all of us have a shadow self, whether or not we choose to follow it. No matter how kindly and courteously we behave, our shadow selves may urge us to pull fire alarms in public buildings, tell inappropriate jokes at parties, and cut other people off on the highway. Like the four rowdy guys in the popular movie, The Hangover (2009), shadow selves are exciting, but troubling and unsafe companions.

While some stories about shadow people fit Jung’s concept of the shadow self, others told in New York State do not emphasize negativity. In Potsdam, for example, some people have reported seeing a shadowy man who wears a top hat. His tall, imposing hat reminds us of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when upper class American men dressed quite formally. President Abraham Lincoln, for example, often wore a top hat. Why would a man wearing a hat of this kind suddenly appear and then disappear? There seems to be no compelling reason; however, like other ghost stories, this one tells us that the past can break into the present with very little warning.

A more specific reason for a shadow person to appear is to help visitors understand about painful past circumstances. Dramatic sightings of shadow people have taken place at Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York. Known as the Genessee County Poor Farm when it was founded in 1827, this institution offered shelter to orphans and indigent adults, as well as elderly and disabled individuals. Now a part of New York’s Haunted History Trail, this asylum has become well known as a site for shadow people’s appearances. Because so many legend trippers have observed shadows in the East Wing, that part of the building has earned the nickname, “The Hall of Shadows.” On YouTube, Pinterest, and other Internet sites, eager visitors post their latest videos, photos, and observations of the shadows’ activities.

One YouTube video of the Rolling Hills Asylum begins with a view of a long, violet-hued corridor with peeling paint on its walls. “Is anybody here?” the videomaker’s voice inquires. After a moment, there are two footsteps and then—so fast that you can hardly see it—a shadowy blur moves from the right to the left of the screen. This is one of the shadow people of the famous East Wing. Although one might ask whether the videomaker added this moving image, the image certainly looks eerie. I am not sure how comfortable it would feel to stand in that corridor, waiting for such a shadow to pass by.

Sometimes images of shadow people gain a wide audience through YouTube videos. In the summer of 2016, a video of a dozen or more shadow people in the clouds above New York City caused a brief uproar. What was this shadowy host of people in the sky? Could it be the coming of the last judgment, or could it be the spirits of people who died on September 11, 2001? Alternatively, could it just be an unusual assortment of clouds, enhanced by Photoshop? Anyone who enjoys both gazing at clouds and listening to stories about shadow people can have a good time watching this video, trying to discern faces in the shadowy crowd.

It is tempting to wonder whether we might become shadow people ourselves, stepping briefly into others’ worlds through the entryway of a different dimension. Our universe holds many wonders that we are just beginning to discover. If a doorway to another dimension opens, let’s go!

Libby Tucker teaches folklore at Binghamton University. Her book Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses (Jackson: Uni-versity Press of Missis-sippi, 2007) investigates college ghost stories. She also authored Children’s Folklore: A Handbook (Westport: Greenwood, 2008). She co-edited, with Ellen McHale, New York State Folklife Reader: Diverse Voices (University Press of Mississippi, 2013).

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BY MARIA ELIZABETH KENNEDY

Fruit in the Forest

A pickup truck pulls up to a busy scene at the end of a tree-shadowed driveway in

the Finger Lakes National Forest. Under the cover of tents, the churning motor of an apple mill grinds away, and a homemade press stands ready. The back of the pickup truck is full of apples, and we are loading them into laundry baskets. They will be sprayed with a garden hose to rinse off the twigs and dirt and then fed into the mill.

Foraging Apples and Pressing Cider in the Finger Lakes

Mounds of this apple pulp are spread onto a coarse cloth, which is folded into an envelope on the bed of the apple press. Layers of these pulp-filled cloths are stacked, one on top of the other, until the press is full. A strong young man, accompanied by several friends, cranks down the press inch by inch, and the golden juice begins to pour out of the neatly packed cloths full of pomace into a bucket. The bees are still alive, even this late in the long, warm

fall, and they instinctively gravitate toward the sweet juice, as it is being poured into individual plastic jugs.

At the helm of the apple mill stands Marty Morris, who is the center of the cider-pressing event that he and his friends and family have been carrying on for over 30 years. Marty first learned to press cider from an old man who pressed apples near Letchworth State Park:

Behind the truckload of apples, Peter Hoover, mentor to many local cider makers, waits for the pressing to begin. All photos by Maria Kennedy.


An old man had a cider press a long time ago, and he showed me how to do it, and we liked to drink hard cider so…. He was an old guy, 80 years old. All those old guys that grew up there in the Depression made hard cider. He always did it.

Marty bought the press from him, and it has continued to function, making cider for his family and friends for the past 30 years. This old press has also provided a model for other presses that friends have built based on its design. Marty once used a hydraulic jack, but found that the pressing wore the jack out over time, and switched to a manually turned house jack, set in the wooden frame.

Marty’s cider pressing is a tangible link between a generation of cider pressers who lived through the Great Depression and Prohibition, and a new generation of people who are interested in making craft beverages like cider, wine, and beer, both as amateurs and entrepreneurs.

Craft cider has become an increasingly popular industry in New York in the last few years, following the rise of local wineries and craft brewing. Although a commercial cider industry is experiencing a new blossoming, cider pressing gatherings like Marty’s have

been a regional folk practice for many generations.

At The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, the Folk Arts program has been documenting local cider-making practices among amateurs and entrepreneurs, as part of our Finger Lakes Fruit Heritage project. While large-scale commercial orchards are the source

of fruit for some cider makers, forgotten corners of former agricultural land provide the resources for others. Abandoned orchards on old farmland and wild trees on the roadside and the hedgerows contain an interesting stock of heritage or feral fruit often well suited for cider making.

In the hilly land between the southern ends of Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, there are two

Each load of apples gathered from the back of the pickup will be washed, milled, and pressed for juice. Neighbors, children, and friends each bring their own foraged fruits, but all pitch in together in the work of the pressing.

In boxes, bags, barrels, and truckbeds, the apples come in from backyards, farms, and forest. Some domestic, some wild, in colors of red, yellow, green, russet, and blush—each has a distinctive flavor to add to the juice. People revisit their favorite trees year after year and find new gems by the roadside.


The apple mill’s loud engine clicks and sputters to life, signaling the beginning and end of new batch of pomace ready for pressing.

areas where these abandoned orchards have been preserved on state and federal land. Both the Finger Lakes National Forest and the Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area are upland areas that were farmed by early European settlers. In the early 20th century, lands deemed unsuitable for agriculture were purchased by the state and federal governments and turned into conservation areas:

Between 1890 and the Great Depres-sion, thousands of acres of farmland were abandoned in south–central New York…. From 1934–1941 over 100 farms were purchased in the area now known as the Finger Lakes National Forest, as authorized by the Emergency Relief Act and the Bankhead–Jones Act. Sales were strictly voluntary, resulting in a federally owned patchwork of parcels. (“Origin of the Finger Lakes National Forest,” USDA Forest Service pamphlet)

While the farmhouses and barns on these properties were torn down, and the fields slowly reforested, the orchards remained and became a resource for local foragers and cider makers. Close to both these preserves, the States Cider Mill in Odessa, New York, served local people as a custom cider press for decades, allowing them to bring apples from farms, gardens, or from the abandoned orchards in the forest to be pressed into cider. Small local custom-pressing operations like States, which used to dot the landscape and serve rural populations, are now few in number.

Carl States, whose father Lloyd owned the mill, recalled how many of the people, who would come to press their apples at the mill, had foraged them from the abandoned farms on nearby Connecticut Hill:

Most of the old-timers would bring plenty of apples, more than what they needed, and then Dad would buy what [cider] was left over, or they would just take it home with them in gallons or give it away. Apples were pretty plentiful then.

A lot of people when I was a kid—all the old orchards were still in production on Connecticut Hill, because all the old farms were abandoned in the Depression, but the orchards were still there. So you could go

up and get all the apples you wanted for free—just go up and pick them.

States Cider Mill no longer operates. It closed its doors when New York State changed its laws to require pasteurization of all cider. For the little cider mill, the investment in new

pasteurizing equipment was too much. Like Marty Morris, the States Cider Mill was an important bridge between a generation of old-timers and people who would go on to lead the commercial craft cider revival today. Before it closed, it was a place where people like commercial cider maker Ian Merwin of Black


fair, with the pot of water simmer[ing] on the top, which drove belts and overhead shafts, and that ran the whole operation.…At some point they switched from a steam engine to a little single cylinder gas engine.

While Steve and Ian have taken their experiences at States Cider Mill forward not only as a hobby, but also as the basis for new craft cider businesses in the region, Marty Morris’s cider pressing party is evidence that, even in the absence of local custom cider mills like States, the tradition of autumn apple pressing continues among new generations.

Another pickup truck with a load of foraged fruit pulls up to the tents just as I am leaving, driven by a young man eager to fill up his carboys. “Marty is the only one I know who has a cider press, so it’s the only way to get the juice,” says Josh Bower, driver of the pickup. “It’s easy and it’s cheap. With a truckload of apples, I can make enough cider to last a year.”

Interview with Diane Richards, Grove Road Cider Pressing, October 2017

Folklorist Maria Kennedy interviewed Diane Richards, co-host of the Grove Road Cider Pressing with Marty Morris.

MK: You’ve been doing this for 30 years?DR: Well over 30 years—33 years. Every

year, we do it.MK: And how did you get started?DR: Well, Marty. He got this press given to

him, this really old press back in the day. Like in the ‘70s. So, then we just always used it. He knew how to make it. And, of course, we are in an area where there are a ton of apples. So we’ve just always done it.

MK: Was it something you did growing up, too?

DR: No.MK: Just when you moved here?DR: Just when we moved here, and he had

a cider press.MK: Where did he get it?DR: Nunda, over in Allegany county, by

Geneseo—that neck of the woods. An old-timer had given it to him, or maybe he bought it. But since then, we’ve had so many cider

The press, an enormous old 19th-century machine, was, according to Merwin and fellow cider maker Steve Daughhetee, a wonder in itself, a magnificent piece of 19th-century mechanical technology still functioning into the end of the 20th century. According to Daughhetee:

States ran on one of those old single cylin-der gasoline engines like you see at the state

Diamond Cider encountered the local tradition at a grassroots level. Ian Merwin recalled his early introduction to States Cider Mill, which a friend insisted he visit soon after he arrived in Ithaca, as a professor in Horticulture at Cornell. At the cider mill, Ian described a crowd of people showing up with burlap bags full of apples in the back of their trucks that they had picked from old abandoned orchards or from people’s front yards.

Fellow fieldworker Dr. Karin Patzke pours freshly pressed juice into a carboy for fermentation.


Marty Morris feeds apples into the hopper of his apple mill.

Participant Josh Bower brings in a load of apples to make his yearly batch of cider.

Marty Morris looks on while newcomers master the mechanics of his old press.


Host Diane Richards and friends sample the freshly pressed juice.

parties, that we’ve had two or three people that have made presses, taking all the dimensions and information from this press. Maria Kempler, who has the Hammerstone School for Women—she just did a big pressing and made her press after using this press. I feel like it is the grandfather of all the presses around here.

MK: Where do you get most of your apples from?

DR: Everybody brings them. Every year is different.

MK: Are there trees in people’s backyards?DR: I think a lot of them—the first

pressing we did today—my daughter Emma and granddaughter, we went into Hector, on Potomac Road, and we went onto the cow pastures and we picked the wild apples that were out there. And there are wild apples on this road. And all these are pretty much—none of these are orchard apples. They are all just wild apples.

MK: And do you go back to the same spots every year? Do you have trees that are like your trees?

DR: Yes, we do. And then, of course, we have friends who have orchards, like planted

orchards. They are not for production. But we can go and pick on them. So, we do those every year. Like the same ones, the ones in the neighborhood.

MK: And the wild ones in the cow pastures, are they old?

DR: They are really old. They are old varieties, they are old. And the apples themselves are kind of small. But a lot of them are like the older varieties that you don’t see grown in people’s orchards. Like the Translucents—the old white ones. They are delicious, they are tart. They are very different than a lot of apples today.

MK: Do you know what kinds they are?DR: Peter—the guy who was here—he is

the variety guy. I just taste them and go—this is a good one, it’s really good, it’s yummy. It’ll mix good with all the sweet ones.

MK: Do you know, were they on old homesteads?

DR: Some are for sure. And up here—I picked on this road and there’s old foundations and stuff, so you can tell there was a house there at some point, absolutely. So they were planted, certainly a hundred years ago, probably.

MK: And are there other people you know

around here who are doing this when you started?

DR: Absolutely, yes. Although now, in the last five years, it’s kind of taken off, with the hard cider renaissance that is happening here. So, more and more people are doing cider. And making their own hard cider, which is certainly happening here.

MK: Is most of the cider you make here to drink fresh, or do people ferment it, too?

DR: It’s probably half of the people here are going to have carboys, and they are going to do hard cider, and then all the half gallons are going to go in our freezers, which will last me all winter. And I won’t have that many. If I have, like 10 gallons, that will be good till summertime.

Dr. Maria Kennedy is the Folk Arts Coordinator at The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes. Additional writings on cider, orchards, and vineyards can be found on her blog: ciderwithmaria.com. Photo by Chris Walters.


On dry land nothing’s moving yet, still dark and cold.But in the watery fields the feasting continues.Bluefish dart like lightning in and out of the pods of bunkers that themselves still strain the tiny swimming plankton,even as their brethren are themselves devoured. Spider

crabs wait for the pieces to fall, and then crawl through the waving eel grassinto my awaiting net for what they think is another free meal.

The big bass know.But they’ve had their fill of the shiny finned and oily delights. Another aroma draws them in. The spiders are shedding now, it being early autumn.

BY CHARLES F. TEKULA, JR.

At Work in the Garden of Eat and Be Eaten

Left: Getting ready to make an overnight set on the south side of Moriches Bay. Photo by Nancy Solomon.

Below: Chuck Tekula is a regular participant in Long Island Traditions’ education and public programs. Here he shows an audience at the Tobay Boat Show what a blowfish is. Photo by Nancy Solomon.

Chuck Tekula is a commercial fisherman from Center Moriches. Educated at Empire State College in New York, Chuck frequently writes about the lives of commercial fishermen, the regulations and policies that affect them, and what has led to the decline of Great South Bay. He was one of the first observers to the pollution caused by sewage treatment plants on the bay and other factors that affected the marine resources, including runoff and development. Tekula fishes using a gill net, crab traps, and other traditional methods of baymen and fishermen. He also harvests clams and other shellfish when not fishing. Chuck has written extensively for National Fisherman, Newsday, and other publications. He has also written poetry and songs including “Morning in the Garden.”

And the still soft ones are like warm buttered muffins right out of the oven to these bright-eyed

and stealthy hunters.The fish that hit early on in the night have attracted a bevy

of crustaceans to my webbing, there to return the favor.

We who trek the land with our shod feet don’t face the constant threat of being eaten alive by our

larger neighbors —At least not literally.We don’t rationally worry that bugs and birds will

peck us apart if we sleep a bit too soundly. And so we consume ourselves with these irrational fears. Like the impending collapse of life on earth brought

on by the likes of my little gillnet boat.More sensible parents wonder what to put on the dinner table.Prudent chefs wonder what they’ll find at their seafood

supplier to grace the specials card tonight.

And if I get in early my wonderful bluefish, or weakfish or bass might be the prey that answers their prayers.

But at this point in my own journey the hardest work of the day comes first.

The roughest leg of the day’s excursion is the trip from the bed to the floor.

Raisin Bran, weather websites, and a cup of hot tea.A prayer for a safe and successful morning, and I’m

off to witness another sunrise over theGarden of Eat and be Eaten.


[Editor’s Note: Tim Jennings, a storyteller of folktales, is back with another story of a tale and how he presents it. In his pre-vious article, in the Spring-Summer 2014 issue of Voices (www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic40-1-2/liver.html), Jennings wrote of performing “Dead Man’s Liver,” and in-troduced the storyteller’s concept of the “jump tale,” in which the storyteller builds suspense, then jumps and shouts loudly to elicit similarly jumps, shouts—and laugh-ter—from the audience. In this new piece, he explores his collection and retelling of Mark Twain’s “The Golden Arm,” again sharing his storyteller’s technique.]

IntroductionLike many people, I read Mark

Twain’s “The Golden Arm” when I was a child. My buddy Stevie and I had been swapping scary stories on the school bus ride home. I told him stuff out of Poe—“Tell Tale Heart” was my best— and he told me elements of Lugosi’s Dracula, Ab-bot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and most memorably something about “The Mad Axman,” who comes into rooms out of any corner that’s too dark to see into. (That’s one that’ll come back to you after bedtime.)

Naturally, I was on the lookout for some-thing new. And here was this compelling, traditional oral tale, transcribed by an au-thor I loved, with instructions for perfor-mance. Around 1850, little Sammy Clemens heard it just before bedtime; much later, as the legendarily effective public speaker Mark Twain, he performed it in front of large audiences all around the world and wrote it down in an essay “How to Tell a Story.”

“The Golden Arm”Collecting and Performing the Folktale

BY TIMOTHY JENNINGS

His words are fun to read; you can see how they work. Best of all—and rare to this day—in addition to the words of the story, Twain gave tips on how to tell it. Most em-phatically, Twain told me (he said “you,” so he was definitely talking to me) that the story would create a big effect. But, he said, that would only happen if I could manage the timing on a particular pause just before the final line. He said, “you must get the pause right; and you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain thing you ever undertook.”

Yes, it was.Instinctively, I dropped the dialect.

(Twain assumed the persona of the black man who had told it to him as a boy.) Af-ter the usual early stumblings, I got control of the narrative, so the story would reliably take hold and ratchet up tension all the way to the climax. I shed a lot of sweat over the ending, and by the time I was an adult, I was able to spring what Twain calls “the snap-per” without telegraphing its approach.

Twain wasn’t lying about that pause. It—or something—was aggravating. Some-where in my twenties, I began to suspect that the promised final effect never was go-ing to pay off the way Twain said it should.

Nobody gave out a “dear little yelp.” I never made anybody “spring right out of her shoes.” Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes something did—maybe their stomachs sank—but it wasn’t enjoyable. I might see them shrink a little, or look stunned, or cringe. To tell the truth, they often looked abused. The slow-winding en-ergy of the build never got released, there was no laugh (which you expect from a “snapper”), no sense of fun.

At its most effective, the story left us all feeling stupid and a little sore; it was like be-ing on a roller coaster that goes up and up and up, then at the top somebody slaps you and you have to get out.

Maybe I just didn’t have the chops? Then I saw Hal Holbrook in “Mark Twain To-night”—lots of chops there—tackle the same story, with similar results to mine.

For a modern teller, it doesn’t help that, thanks to Twain’s essay, the story is so well known. Much of an audience’s enjoyment from this kind of tale comes from the sud-den final surprise. As Twain points out, if a listener can figure out the surprise is com-ing, the whole set-up “fails of its purpose and makes trouble.”

It’s a problem with all jump tales. As lis-teners figure out what kind of story they’re hearing, they begin to brace themselves, and it’s hard to get under their guard. I gave up on “The Golden Arm” a few years into my professional career. I had taken to telling “Dead Man’s Liver,” a different jump tale I’d collected myself, with my own tim-ing and my own balance of humor and scares. It worked. The roller coaster went up and up and up, teetered on the brink, then plunged, reliably delivering its brief payoff rush of primal fear. I watched my audience jump, recoil (in a visible wave sometimes), squeal, then after the briefest catch-your-breath silence, explode into ten to thirty seconds of laughter and loud talk. That’s what you want, it turns out—that’s the sign the thing has landed right, and you’ve given your crowd a good time.

Nobody wants my second-best jump tale, I decided. It was useful. I’d learned from it, now let it go.


“He re-e-e-eached in and felt around.” Tim Jennings in storytelling performance of “The Golden Arm.” Photo by Terry J. Allen, courtesy of the author.


Then one day during a course of elemen-tary school workshops in Chester, Vermont, a girl in the fifth grade told a story she got from her auntie. It was “The Golden Arm” all right, but miles away from Twain’s version, clearly coming from no book. And it was great!

Best of all, the ending was different from anything I was familiar with. Actually, I real-ized later, I had come across that ending in the text of an English dialect tale, but had turned my nose up at it. I had to hear it per-formed to know it was perfect.

I tell the story that way, now using that little girl’s ending and structure, mixing in some of Twain’s set-up and flourishes, a few things I’ve learned from performing the “Liver” story, and a lot of stuff—maybe too much—that just comes up on its own. It’s one of my wife’s favorites, and it al-ways works.

The Golden ArmThere was a man who lived in the swamp;

he was a miser; he loved to get and keep and never spend, more than anybody you know. He lived in the swamp because it was free, and because nobody came around to bug him out there, trying to get something from him. He built himself some kind of a house out of the things people dumped out there. And actually, he was pretty handy; it was an OK kind of place to live, consider-ing it was made out of junk, in the middle of the swamp.

Now they say there’s somebody for ev-eryone in this world, and I guess it must be true, because this man had a wife, some-body got married to him. She was an or-dinary person, nothing unusual about her, except for three things. First, she was will-ing to marry him. Second, she was sickly; she was never very well. (Maybe that’s why she married him; maybe she thought he was her last chance.) And finally—I probably should have told you this first—one of her arms, instead of flesh and bone, was made out solid gold.

And that’s why he married her.He figured, because she was his wife,

community property, her arm was kind of

his arm, too. And, like I said, she wasn’t very well; a swamp’s not a healthy place; maybe she’d die, then the golden arm would really belong to him.

No, he didn’t kill her! He wasn’t that kind of man; not wicked, he wouldn’t do that, not a murderer. Just, very, very tight, very greedy.

A swamp is not a healthy place, and she got sicker and sicker, and one day she went to bed and didn’t get up. She called him over to him. She said, “Honey, maybe I’m not going to get better this time, and now it’s time to tell you. I know why you married me. I’m not blaming you, I knew who you were when we got married, we’ve done all right, you’ve been good to me, considering, as good as you know how. But, now I need you to make me a promise. When I die, I want you to bury me with my arm. It’s part of me, and I want to go into the ground whole. I want you to promise me that, right now.”

He said, “Oh, honey!” He said, “You’re not going to... I would never… how could you think… I didn’t… Alright, I promise.”

And, she did die, just a little while after.He didn’t get her a coffin, they cost too

much, and for what? He wrapped her in a sheet. It was good enough for his grand-parents; it was good enough for anybody. He wasn’t going to bury her in the church-yard, you have to pay too much, big waste of money. He knew a spot in the middle of the swamp, where the ground rose up to a high place, dry enough that trees and flowers grew there, and berries, and birds came, and butterflies. He thought she’d like it.

He carried her up there; he dug the hole, put her in and covered her up, then started back home.

Every step he took away from the golden arm, he grew more angry and upset. He started talking to himself as he walked.

“Why did she make me promise that? How selfish can you get! But I promised, damn it. I’m a man of my word, I do what I promise.” A little further on, more angry, more upset, ”It’s wrong! I never should have promised. She never should have

made me! Why? What good is it doing her? Doing anybody? I should have said no, I should have changed the subject. Aaaa! …But I keep my promises, I’m man of my word.” He walked a little further, furious: “Wasted! It’s wasted! She can’t use it! In the ground, in the dirt! Oh! It’s stupid! It’s wrong! It’s wicked! In the grave, with the worms! No good to anybody! And I waited so long!” Over and over, more angry and upset every step he took. Until, suddenly, he stopped.

“I kept my promise. I said I’d bury her with her arm, and I did! I am a man of my word. But I’ll tell you what I didn’t promise. I never said I wouldn’t go back there and dig her up again.”

And that’s just what he did. That mean, grasping, greedy man turned around and went back to her grave. He dug down to where she was, re-e-e-eached in, felt around—there it was—reached into the sheet, pulled it out. Then he filled in the hole, and started back home, heart pound-ing, hugging the arm tight against his chest.

Well, by this time, with all the carrying and digging, and going back and forth, it was growing dark, and from the coolness of the night after the heat of day, a thick mist was rising in the wetlands. And as he walked down into the mist, a big moon rose up above it. He couldn’t see the moon itself, but the moonlight turned the mist white. He could see a step before him and a step behind him, but beyond that was just like a glowing white wall.

He wasn’t concerned, he’d been that way many times, his feet knew the way without him thinking about it at all. His heart and his mind were full of the golden arm, as he hugged it tight to his chest.

And now up above the mist, a wind rose up. He didn’t feel it down where he was, but he could hear it blowing up there, it made a kind of moan: whoooooooooooooooo.

And while he was listening to that, he began to imagine he could hear something else, too, under the wind: his own footsteps, of course, but also—was it an echo?—something that sounded like another set of footsteps coming along behind him. But


how could it be an echo? There’s no echo in a swamp.

He stepped a little faster; the echo did the same. And now he began to hear the moaning of the wind almost like a voice: whooooooooooooooooooooo. He walked a little faster, and the steps kept right up. Whoooooooooooooooooooo ssssssssss-toooooooooooooole. He walked faster; the steps behind him came faster. The wind was get-ting louder, it sounded more and more like a voice, and if you let yourself, you could hear words: Whooooooooooooooo ssssssssssssssss-toooooooooooooooole my goooooooooooooooooolden arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm?

He stopped walking. The other footsteps kept coming.

He ran, fast as he could, he never knew how he got home; the next thing he knew clearly was that he was in his house, heart pounding, hugging the arm to him, looking around wildly. “Where am I going to hide it? Where can I put it where nobody will find it?”

He saw the cellar door, went down into the cellar. There was a dry stonewall set up against the dirt and in front of that was a set of shelves, with jars of pickles and peaches and jam. He pulled the shelf out, took some of the stones down from the wall, dug a nook into the dirt, and put the arm in there. Then he set the stones back up in front of it, moved the shelf back, went back up to the house and shut the cellar door.

He paced around for awhile, listening to the wind, looking out the window, trying to see into the mist, until he finally went up-stairs to bed. But he couldn’t sleep. He just lay there in bed, wide awake for hours, star-ing out the window, listening to the wind.

Then, at midnight, the wind stopped. He heard footsteps outside, shuffling towards the house. He heard the steps come up onto his porch, heard the screen door open, heard the kitchen door open, and then slam together shut. He heard the footsteps mov-ing around downstairs, under his bedroom floor; then he smelled, coming up through the floorboards, a dank smell of earth, of mold. Then he heard ripping and crashing and smashing and tearing below him. Then

exactly, lying in bed he heard the wind stop. He heard the shuffling footsteps come into his house, smelled that powerful smell of mold, much worse now. Heard it go down into the cellar, then smashing crashing, like rolling stones, splintering glass. Heard it come back up the cellar stairs and go into the bathroom. “NO!” he thought. But he couldn’t move, he didn’t dare, he was par-alyzed. Heard smashing and crashing in there, then the steps left the bathroom, left the house, and he heard them shuffle away. The smell drifted away, the wind picked up, and again he lay there motionless till the first light of dawn.

Then he ran downstairs, down into the cellar. The shelf was thrown down, jars bro-ken, pickles and peaches and glass all mixed on the floor. The stonewall was down. If the arm had still been there, she would have found it.

He ran up to the bathroom. The cabi-net was open, bottles and pills and such all tossed onto the floor. The tub had been moved out from the wall! The tiles were disturbed. “NO!” He pulled the tiles down, reached behind the lathing— Ah! Thank god! It was still there. He took it out, hugged it to him.

“She’s going to come back! I know she is! Where can I put it where it’ll be safe?— I know! I’ll hide it under my pillow.”

And he did. From then on, every night, he’d sleep with it under his pillow, he could feel it under his neck; he could touch it whenever he wanted. And everything was fine. Nothing happened. For a year.

And exactly a year later, to the day, that same weird weather, the white mist, the moaning wind. At midnight, the wind stopped, and as he lay in bed he could hear the shuffling footsteps come into his house. The smell of mold was overpowering, ris-ing up through the floorboards. He heard it cross the room to the staircase. He heard it coming up the stairs. He heard it outside his bedroom door. Saw the doorknob turn. Saw the door swing open. Saw it at the foot of his bed.

“Honey—what happened—to your… long, long… hair?”

he heard the steps go toward the cellar. He heard the cellar door open, heard footsteps going down.

“No!” he thought. “Don’t! Leave it alone!” But he didn’t say anything; he was too scared. He wanted to jump up, to go down and stop it, whatever it was, keep it away from his arm, but he was paralyzed, he couldn’t move. Then he heard the steps come back up to the living room and leave the house, and go away. And the wind came up again; he couldn’t hear anything else. He wanted to go downstairs—so bad!—and see what had happened, but he didn’t dare. He stayed in bed, still wide awake, until the first light of day.

Then he got up and ran downstairs. The couch and tables had been turned over; cushions ripped open, cabinet doors open, dishes smashed all over the floor. The cel-lar door was open! He ran down the cellar stairs, The shelf was moved, pulled away from the wall, the stone wall part way taken down.

“No!” and he reached back behind the stones—Oh! Thank god! The arm was still there. He pulled it out, hugged it to him. “Where can I put it? She’s going to come back. Where can I hide it where she’ll never find it?”

He carried the arm out of the cellar, went into the bathroom. He pulled the clawfoot bathtub away from the wall. Some of the tiles on the wall next to it were loose; he took them off, behind them was bare lath-ing. He pulled some of that out a bit, and dropped the arm back behind it into the wall. Replaced the lathing, stuck the tiles back, moved the tub up against the wall where it had been.

And, everything was fine from then on. Nothing happened after that. He knew where the arm was; he could put his hand up on the wall near it whenever he took a bath. Whenever he wanted, he could take down the tiles again, reach down behind the lathing, and touch it, or take it out and look at it. Everything was great. For a year.

Then a year later, to the day, the sun set, that same white mist rose up, with that same wild wind above it. And at midnight


really make sense, it’s the man’s line, not his wife’s, but I’m sure she got the move from her auntie and it had a surprising impact when she did it, so I do it, too.

The rhythm of question and response stays the same with each iteration, though there’s room to build within the sentences, and in the spaces between sentences.

The man can be increasingly nervous, conciliatory, smiling, swallowing—reacting to each of the ghost’s chants.

The ghost can vary between intense, re-signed, spooky, or sad. But the music of the chant must remain the same.

As the man begins to speak his final line, it should be clear that he knows he shouldn’t ask it, and in fact is in some way fighting against asking it, but he is somehow trapped by the structure, it’s almost pulled out of him against his will, like poor Little Red Riding Hood squeezing out “Oh Grand-ma…What big … teeth … you have.”

The audience also knows he shouldn’t ask that question, and is bracing itself. If you play it right, though, their ancient preverbal social intercourse module should set them up irrationally to expect a chant of “faded awayyyyyyyy” before anything else happens. So they will be unprepared, unbraced, when you go in sharp and sudden to get’em.

Once you get the dynamics right, you can get ’em every time. It’s bulletproof.

“Faded awayyyyyyyyyyyyy. Faded awayyyyyyyyyyyyy.”

“Honey—what happened to your... bright blue... eyes?”

“Faded awayyyyyyyyyyyyy. Faded awayyyyyyyyyyyy.”

“Honey—what happened to your… long, long… legs?”

“Faded awayyyyyyyyyyyy. Faed awayyyyyyyyyyyyy.”

“Honey— what happened to your…golden…arm?”

“YOU GOT IT!”

Performance ThoughtsAs usual with texts of performance ma-

terial, much of what makes the thing good doesn’t reveal itself until you start working with it.

The great Viola Spolin had a useful prompt for improvisers: “Show, don’t tell.” Characters in a tale can speak and act from within their emotions—anger, terror, ten-sion—there is no need to say, “He said, in a frightened voice.” So, when the man has run home with the arm, the story-medium of text requires the words “looking around wildly,” but a live storyteller need not say that, but can rather show the guy look-ing around wildly, speaking breathlessly: “where am I gonna hide it?”

Similarly, as you say “he re-e-eached in and felt around,” demonstrate what you’re talking about—it’s a normal part of high-value speech to show as well as tell. No careful mime here, just ordinary conversa-tional gesture and high-level tone and tim-ing.

You can skip the moaning of the wind if you want, I imported it from Twain, I don’t always use it.

One of the tale’s biggest payoffs comes on the line “I know. I’ll keep it under my pillow.” Pause after you say that, share the moment with the audience and enjoy their reaction. Try to notice other places like that as you perform.

Clearly, there is quite a bit of similarity between this and the “Liver” story, and for that matter a host of other jump tales you may have heard, like “Big Toe,” or “Teeny

Tiny Woman.” A Horrible Thing comes in, climbs the stairs, enters the bedroom, and approaches the bed. Sometimes, I use the bit from the “Liver” story where the man pulls the bedclothes up over his face, and the Thing grabs them from the foot of the bed and pulls them down again. I may have got-ten it from Jackie Torrence; I’m not sure. It’s a nice touch. I use it when the audience hasn’t already heard me tell the “Liver” story.

Generally speaking, you don’t follow one jump tale with another, but I have followed the “Liver” story with this one (generally, at different ends of the show), because the distinctive finale will go a long way to make the jump happen anyway, even though they know it’s coming.

Do not memorize this story. Start by cut-ting it to the bone. Figure out how it works, and make it your own. If you’re like me, it’ll start stretching out again soon enough, and you’ll know why. Using your own words naturally and engagingly on stage is para-doxically difficult—ask any aspiring come-dian—but it’s the only thing that pays off in the long run.

Getting the End RightBy the ghost’s final visit, you already

should have demonstrated how the man looks, as he’s lying in bed, terrified, holding his bedclothes up under his chin.

The cadences and language of the final dialogue are as I received them from the little girl.

As the man, I address the Thing (ghost or zombie or whatever it is) directly, speaking to the space above the foot of his bed, six feet in front of me, up in the air. (I think of her as floating.) I smile nervously at his wife, speaking in a hesitant, conciliatory, reasoning tone of voice.

The ellipses (…) in the husband’s ques-tions indicate pauses. Take them, it’s impor-tant. Don’t even think about what she looks like. Say her lines blindly, staring off into space, in a quiet, moaning, trailing, sing-song voice.

Like the little girl from whom I got this story, I widen my eyes on the word “eyes.” (She and I both have blue eyes.) It doesn’t

Tim Jennings has been telling folktales for a living since 1980. Recordings of live performances made with his wife, Leanne Ponder, have received American Library Association and Parents’ Choice Foundation awards. In addition to their storytelling, Tim and Leanne have released instrumental music recordings as the harp and concertina duo “Sheefra,” and contributed four cuts to the 2008 FolkSounds compilation English International: A history of the English Concertina with some of the best players from around the World.” Tim and Leanne live in Montpelier, VT, with a feisty little dog and a ginger cat. Their website is www.folktale.net. Photo by Terry J. Allen, courtesy of the author.


VOIC

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George Ward — Oh! That Low Bridge! BY LIBBY TUCKER

For further information, see:Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor,

http://www.eriecanalway.orgThe Erie Canal Museum, http://eriecanal

museum.orgErie Canal Song, http://www.eriecanalsong.com

George’s CDs are available online (http://www.nyfolklore.org/gallery/store/music.html) and in the NYFS gallery shop.

George Ward, one of New York State’s best-loved, regional folksingers, brings the Erie Canal’s folk culture to life in his won-derful CD Oh! That Low Bridge! (2006). Sing-ing and playing the banjo, concertina, and other instruments, Ward helps us feel the emotions of Erie Canal diggers, teamsters, pilots, and travelers: pride, excitement, frus-tration, and sadness. His waterways research, over a period of more than 25 years, has given us a treasure trove of meaningful and entertaining songs from this important pe-riod in New York State’s history.

The Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, gave people a chance to travel and haul freight from the Hudson River to Lake Erie. New York State was growing fast, so the chance to move all sorts of materials and passengers from Albany to Buffalo was tremendously exciting. “The Meeting of the Waters,” this CD’s eighth song, shows how awestruck people felt about the merging of these two mighty bodies of water. Just a few decades later, however, railroads became the dominant mode of transportation. Song number seven, “Lament of the Teamsters,” personalizes the sadness of this change: “If we go up to Albany and ask for a load, They’ll tell us too late, it’s gone on the rail-road.” Even though the Erie Canal is no lon-ger a vital pathway for movement of freight, it still has a lively bunch of commercial and pleasure vessels. In 2000, the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor opened. One of 49 such sites in the United States, the Erie Canalway encourages historic preservation and celebration of regional folkways.

All of us who have had the pleasure of attending Ward’s performances know how eloquently he conveys the spirit of an era. “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal” (some-times called “Fifteen Years on the Erie Ca-nal” and “Mule Named Sal”) is very well known in the United States; I learned to sing it in grade school and am fairly certain that most of my fellow Baby Boomers did too. Even though countless Americans have

sung this song over a long period of time, nobody sings it better than Ward does. Dur-ing his many visits to schools, he has helped children understand why they should pay attention to an old mule named Sal. Times change; now Sal has her portrait on the Erie Canalway’s Facebook page. It’s nice to see her picture there, but Ward’s song keeps her memory alive even better than Facebook does.

All of us who love New York folklore owe thanks to George Ward, who has done so much to keep Erie Canal songs as appealing and exciting as they were in the 19th century. George and his late wife Vaughn produced so many concerts, recordings, festivals, and ex-hibits that they received one of the only two Evergreen Lifetime Achievement Awards giv-en by Traditional Arts of Upstate New York (TAUNY). Let us celebrate these achieve-ments and enjoy listening to the CD!

Libby Tucker teaches folklore at Binghamton University. Her book Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses (Jackson: Uni-versity Press of Missis-sippi, 2007) investigates college ghost stories. She also authored Chil-dren’s Folklore: A Handbook (Westport: Greenwood, 2008). She co-edited, with Ellen McHale, New York State Folklife Reader: Diverse Voices (University Press of Mississippi, 2013).


T he American Folklore Society’s working group Folklore and Museums Policy

and Practice outlined the rich potential for folklorists to shape museum theory, prac-tice, and policy (AFS 2015). The Center for the Future of Museums launched an ambi-tious study: “Museums and Society 2034” to look at trends and future planning for both small and large institutions (CFM 2008). Kurt Dewhurst and Daniel Sheehy (2015) outlined the expanded role of folklorists in museum heritage work in “Connecting Tangible and Intangible Culture.” These initiatives point to the changing demographics of museum audiences, shifting focus to a more interac-tive, responsive approach for museums and historical societies in serving their communi-ties. The three programs chosen for discus-sion here are from The Queens Museum, The Brooklyn Historical Society, and Teatro SEA (the Society for Educational Arts), a bilingual children’s theater. These New York City institutions have done substantial work engaging museum audiences and making ad-vanced connections through advocacy, dia-logue, community involvement, and the use of collective memory.

Peter Schumann’s 50-Year Retrospective at the Queens Museum

The Queens Museum’s retrospective ex-hibit of Peter Schumann’s art, The Shatterer, explored the artist’s prolific protest art, resis-tance manifestos, and pageantry puppets as the artist/theater director’s response to the needs of the world. Schumann’s cardboard books, posters, and murals acted as stimuli

Pageantry Puppets, Community Memory, and Living Traditions:

Extending the Reach of Cultural and Educational Institutions into Immigrant CommunitiesBY KATE GROW McCORMICK

in understanding the work of The Bread and Puppet Theater (http://breadandpuppet.org). The collage installation accompanied by live performances of The Shatterer, a play about immigration and the iconic bread making in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, accented through its raw imagery, as part of the The-ater’s 50 years of work advocating for justice and peace. Schumann’s bread distribution fulfilled his mandate “to feed the audience at an art event” (“A Conversation with Bread and Puppet’s Peter Schumann,” City Lore, 12/13/15).

The Queens Museum, formerly the Queens Museum of Art, housed in the Unit-ed States’ pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair, stands in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the most ethnically diverse borough of New York City. It is notable for its employment of art therapists in its education department and visiting artists and interns. Its goal of inter-secting with community organizers to work on local issues makes it an agent of change, seeking to represent the Queens community and address the future of this diverse bor-ough. Its fine arts collection, expanded new atrium, and expanded galleries have displayed topics relevant to everyday life and the in-frastructure of Queens—“Migrant Kitch-ens,” “Portraits and Short Films from the Margins,” and “Waterworks of New York,” to name a few. The updated “Panorama of New York City” is a major effort, as is the museum’s ownership of the history of the 1964 World’s Fair and the fairgrounds.

The Shatterer, a retrospective of Peter Schumann’s artwork as theater director of the Bread and Puppet Theater, curated by Jona-

than Berger, covered all the walls and ceil-ing of a gallery at the Queens Museum with black and white drawings and posters from his 50 years of protests and resistance art. A photo of Peter in the midst of his figures of human agony and angst—ogres, saints, fat cats, and washerwomen—reveals how he has been at home with his history of advocacy for peace and justice. Puppet historian, John Bell described the Bread and Puppet Theater: “an anomaly, an odd, un-electrified, counter-culture spectacle which certainly isn’t sum-mer stock theater, nor a classical musical fes-tival, nor an outdoor rock extravaganza” (Bell 1997, 6). Under the direction of Schumann, the theater has been consistently there for the common man and woman. The puppets slow deliberate, sweeping, provocative move-ments have been not so much entertainment as a force of theatrical wonder, which sticks in the mind, altering perspective. Although Schumann said that he is not sure if a puppet ever changed anyone’s mind, he has discussed the materials of his art, his design for build-ing “papier-mâché citizens.” Clay, cardboard, river water, and cornstarch glue—the sim-plest of materials—are the “tools” and “lan-guage,” “slogans” and “paint” with which his “weapons” fight the Wrong in the Northeast Kingdom, acknowledging his home base in Vermont as the source and impact of his art (Schumann 2016, 16–17).

The Queens Museum appropriately ex-hibited Schumann as a major force, as one’s life work can be. The Bread and Puppet per-formance barn is called the cathedral and his artifacts were placed in what he called a “ca-thedral gallery” at the museum. Additionally,


Bread and Puppet’s iconic bread making in a simple brick oven in Flushing Meadows Co-rona Park, a spectacle of feeding the public, took place as an essential experience along with the art. The Shatterer was conceived as a play about immigration, deploying a vast number of human figures moving over bor-ders and in lines that seem not to end. The immigration agent is either stamping or re-jecting these figures, shattering their desire to belong. The borough of Queens and the Queens Museum, in particular, provide en-couragement of immigrants’ determination to belong through programs and recognition of their place in the community, defraying the forces that shatter dreams.

This retrospective achieves, in exhibiting one artist’s life’s work, a focus on the many, giving hope that persistence and creativity yield belonging. So, too, many of the Queens Museum’s exhibits celebrate the achieve-ments of Queens’ resident artists. Museums do not exist in a vacuum, and the Queens Museum’s involvement in reclamation of space around the museum is a further step in extending its reach as a vital agent for the community. Another example exhibit: “No Hay Medio Tiempo” (There is No Halftime) by Ecuadorean artist Quevedo recognizes the multiplicity of people using Flushing Mead-ows Corona Park as their playground, a place to belong, to use freely and call their own.

Rafael Hernandez Band Romance

Teatro SEA has operated as a bilingual the-ater in the Clemente Soto Art Center on Suf-folk Street on the Lower East Side of New York City for 25 years. By sponsoring a live concert of the Rafael Hernandez Band Romance, it stepped into the role of advocate for the arts for their senior neighbors. The band has been part of a musical tradition in Puerto Rico for over 60 years. By providing three evenings of traditional jibara music, dance, and song, the theater acted as a gathering place, paid tribute to elder residents of their community, and widened its footprint as a bi-lingual children’s theater.

Increasingly, museums and historical so-cieties are being asked to advocate and em-brace new audiences, to create programs from existing resources, to exhibit life histo-ries and ethnographic studies, and to develop citizenship skills in their young constituents. Museums, at the same time, have become concerned with changing audiences, exclu-sionary barriers to attendance, and availabil-ity of specialized knowledge on the part of their audiences, as well as with competing media and social networks that encourage or distract audiences from attendance. Mu-seums are interested in reaching out to build educational and neighborhood associations that encourage community and assure their future. The American Alliance of Museums gathers data on museum attendance and ad-vocates for education and cultural exposure, noting the economic impact of museums on the economy and the changing face of the museum within our communities of the fu-ture.

The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center has a broad-minded cultural collaborative ap-proach to the use of its galleries and theater. It houses a youth theater and bilingual chil-dren’s theater, all dedicated to the cultivation, preservation, and presentation of Puerto Rican and Latino culture. The exemplary presentation of the Rafael Hernandez Band Romance in June 2017, organized by Teatro SEA for seniors of the community over three nights, celebrated the tradition of the band with familiar music, dance, and song.

Cover to the 2014 exhibition of Peter Schumann’s The Shatterer at the Queens Museum. Courtesy Queens Museum. Photo by Peter Dressel.


Most of the audience lives in the Rafael Hernandez Houses, which are named for the band founder and composer. Hernandez served in the US military in the First World War and later directed bands, becoming an ambassador for Latin music. On the occasion of the concert, his son directed the band and three male and three female dancers enter-tained the audience with songs and skits in the cumbachero/jibara tradition of anthems and songs of the countryside of Puerto Rico. The legacy of the composer and cumbachero were familiar to the appre-ciative audience and the presentation marked an initiation of the use of the

Center’s parking lot as a performance space. These premium spaces, of course, are cov-eted resources in New York. The addition of Puerto Rican crafts and food tastings added to the event, filling the performance space with a festive flare.

Teatro SEA carries a tradition of present-ing familiar Puerto Rican folktales and dra-mas with a Latin twist. They often use live masked characters to convey a lesson within the tale. Manual Moran, the director of the theater has chosen carefully classic folktales for school performances including: Pinoc-chio, Red Riding Hood, Perez and Martina, and an original play: My Superhero Roberto Clemente. Manual Moran recognizes com-munity councilmen and women and local officials in a nod of thanks to their support for his theater and encouragement for the arts, over its 25 years. It is an achievement met with pride in the community to be a bilingual children’s theater, with a legacy of presenting traditional tales, servicing 75,000 students a year.

La Cucarachita Martina performance of The Bread and Puppet Theater. Courtesy of Teatro SEA.

Rafael Hernandez Band Romance poster. Photo by Kate Grow McCormick.


Archival Film: Los Sures at the Brooklyn Historical Society

The screening of Los Sures at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) was a collaborative program with UnionDocs (UNDO), an or-ganization of documentarians housed on the south side of Williamsburg. The screening fulfilled the mission of the museum to study neighborhoods of Brooklyn, to provide his-tory, and to share archival material with de-tailed analysis, highlighting the educational aspects of ethnographic film. TeachArchives.org resulted from Students and Faculty in the Ar-chives (SAFA), a three-year grant at BHS; and BHS developed a research tool called CASA (Cultural Afterschool Adventures) to encour-age research by young scholars. Notable is its ability to draw audiences with collabora-tions with museums, book talks, and invited speaker forums, with an accent on city plan-ning. Los Sures is the 1984 documentary of everyday life of the changing neighborhood of East Williamsburg. Diego Echeveria used funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to give cameras to every-day residents, resulting in what has been described as “an invaluable piece of New York history.” Union Docs, an organization comprised of documentarians, activist artists, media-makers, journalists, and local thinkers, cosponsored the screening with BHS. The film displayed the value placed on everyday life in the neighborhood, as a flood of Puerto Rican newcomers struggled to make Brook-lyn home. Each presentation of the film pro-vided for a reclamation of community mem-ory and dialogue about the survivor’s mental-ity that still exists today in the neighborhood, largely stemming from the early residents’ determination. An interesting fact about how the film was found: East Williamsburg young documentarians heard of the existence of the footage and were determined to retrieve it from of all places, the New York Public Library. Their response, “The library! It’s our history!” indicates the collective memory and ownership in East Williamsburg residents. The film was returned, renewed, and recon-stituted. Its footage inspired several projects by UNDO: “Shot by Shot,” a frame analysis

of East Williamsburg, and another “South-side Short Docs,” highlighting activist and lo-cal heroes—those that stayed and fought for recognition of the neighborhood’s needs like school access, better health care, job oppor-tunities, and protection from gangs. El Pu-ente and Southside Community Mission are grassroots organizations, originating in 1984, and are core organizations in the neighbor-hood today.

Documentary film yields a unique per-spective that allows us to speculate on life of a particular moment. The poignancy of

highlighting everyday life is not to be under-estimated. One such moment in Los Sures emphasizes the entrance of a well-groomed young man strutting from his apartment stairway out to the street where he is hailed and known to the community. He glows with pride and ownership of his street persona. Historical societies often focus on one shot to glean a historical portrait. The merging of these two perspectives provided a lively dis-cussion on ownership and sense of belonging felt by residents, where they had a common language, food, music, and vibrant street life.

Viva Pinochio performance of The Bread and Puppet Theater. Courtesy of Teatro SEA.


Kate Grow McCormick is an independent folklorist who has written about folklore projects done in her role as teacher and guidance counselor in the Department of Education NYC. Her interests are museum programming, childlore, and puppetry.

Union Docs has memorialized activist/leader Carlo Soto, resident of Williamsburg. Photo by Kate Grow McCormick.

Testimonies by audience participants as to the historical richness of the film were abun-dant in the discussion at the BHS. The power of this documentary to inspire 40 short films and another project “89 Steps” indicates the importance of highlighting the people who stayed and built the community of East Wil-liamsburg. The struggles today are gentrifica-tion, inequality of income, and sharing of city resources, which make Los Sures just as relevant today as it was in 1984. Collabora-tion with UNDO, which is housed in Wil-liamsburg and addresses the past as well as the present, strengthens the historical mes-sage at BHS. Another example: One cannot reclaim the farm movement of the 1960s without looking at the vast number of im-migrants employed in food prep factories in present day Brooklyn and Queens. UNDO’s programming is relevant.

ConclusionThe examples here have dealt with Peter

Schumann’s life of resistance, a historical

society and a documen-tary organization’s rec-lamation of film, and a bilingual children’s theater expanding its role in the community. There is much more to be examined in each of these organizations, as there is in the 17,500 museums in the United States, of which the small, ethnically focused historical museums are growing the fastest. C. Kurt Dewhurst and Daniel Sheehy (2015) outlined the expanded role of the folklorist in “Connecting Tangible and Intangible Cul-ture.” Museums, large and small, are changing their approach to pub-lic programming and opening their doors in daring ways. They have

become more central to creating civic learn-ing and advancing civic dialogue. Folklorists, museums, and historical societies are work-ing more closely to enrich presentations and enhance the lives of those they serve. They have begun to view their resources as start-ing points for contemporary exhibits that address the issues of a diverse society. With these initiatives, folklorists can assist muse-ums to close the gap between competing cul-tures and peoples opening up new avenues of research. Newcomers to urban centers can grasp history for theirs in a similar jour-ney. Ethnographies and demographic infor-mation abound and can become catalysts for change. Media collaborations can bring to life these stories in a variety of performance genres. Elizabeth Merritt from the Center for the Future of Museums states the challenge:

It is up to each museum to develop a nuanced understanding of its com-munity and the very important differ-ences—generational, political, histori-cal, geographic and cultural—that exist

within any labeled category. (CFM 2010, 6) With that challenge comes the shedding

of conventional language and categories for groups of Americans. There is work to be done.

ReferencesAFS (American Folklore Society). 2015. Re-

thinking the Role of Folklore in Museums: Ex-ploring New Directions for Folklore in Museum Policy and Practice, A White Paper prepared by the American Folklore Society Folk-lore and Public Policy Working Group on Folklore and Museums. Bloomington, IN: American Folklore Society.

Bell, John. 1997. Landscape and Desire: Bread and Puppet Pageants in the 1990s. Glover, VT: Bread and Puppet Press.

CFM (Center for the Future of Museums). 2008. “Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures.” Version 1.0. Amer-ican Alliance of Museums, Washington, DC.

CFM (Center for the Future of Museums). 2010. “Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums.” Authored by Betty Farrell and Maria Medvedeva, Cul-tural Policy Center for American Alliance of Museums, Washington, DC.

Dewhurst, C. Kurt, and Daniel Sheehy. 2015. “Intangible Cultural Heritage.” In Rethink-ing the Role of Folklore in Museums: Explor-ing New Directions for Folklore in Museum Policy and Practice, 15–18. Bloomington, IN: American Folklore Society.

Schumann, Peter. 2016. “Clay, Paper and Paint as Tools and Weapons.” Puppetry In-ternational 39 (Spring/Summer).


Jesse Cornplanter: Telling Stories With Pictures And Words BY JOSEPH BRUCHAC

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of a reputation as an artist to be sought out for illustration projects. Frederick Starr, the American anthropologist, commissioned him to illustrate Iroquois Indian Games and Dances in 1903, while Arthur Parker began a decade-long collaboration with him that included providing illustrations for The Code of Handsome Lake. In both books, he was credited as “Jesse Cornplanter, Seneca Indian Boy.” To this day, an archive of 45 of his illustrations, annotated by Parker, is in the New York State Library.

Jesse Cornplanter’s career as an artist and representative of his culture did not end in his teenage years. Close by his father’s side, including on a trip to Europe when he was a child, he absorbed everything traditional, becoming an accomplished craftsman, storyteller, and singer. Following another longstanding Seneca tradition—defending the homeland—he enlisted in the United States Army in 1917, and was sent to France where he was wounded and received the Purple Heart. His father Edward died in the 1918 flu pandemic, which also took the lives of his mother, one of his sisters, and several nieces and nephews. Jesse adopted and raised his sister’s orphaned children while going on, over the next four decades of his life, to become a chief in the Long House of New Town and a head singer for ceremonies.

His life story would make a fascinating movie—no less so for the fact that he played the leading role in the 1913 film Hiawatha, based on the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was the first feature film with an all-Native American cast. A review in Moving Picture News3 (Jan–June 1913, 16) described Jesse as “one of the handsomest men ever shown in moving pictures.”

An ironic historical footnote is that the death in 1957 of Jesse Cornplanter—that ardent protector of his people’s traditions—played a part in one of the

On the wall of our Ndakinna Education Center hangs a striking, beautifully detailed print. An Iroquois woman sits with her baby beside the fire inside her elm-bark longhouse. Above, looking down through the smoke-hole in the roof, a flying head—one of the most fearsome of traditional monsters—is poised to swoop down and devour her. It’s done in the style called “Iroquois Realism,” that dates back to Tuscarora artist and writer David Cusick (1780–1831). It is, to me, the quintessential rendering of one of the most classic stories of the Haudenosaunee—that of the brave woman and the flying head.

The artist who did that drawing was “Jesse J. Cornplanter of the Senecas,” as his name appears on the title page of Legends of the Longhouse.1 Published in 1938, it’s a compilation of letters written to “Sah-nee-weh, the White Sister,” Mrs. Walter A. Hendericks. These were not ordinary letters, for each contained a well told traditional story, the epistolary form serving as a device for Cornplanter to relate everything from the Haudenosaunee Creation Story to the tale of the vampire skeleton. With the author’s own illustrations bringing each story further to life, it’s still a delight to read 80 years after it first appeared in print.

Who was Jesse Cornplanter? In a brief introduction to Legends of the Longhouse, Carl Carmer described him as “six foot two of solid Seneca, soldier, craftsman, musician, actor, tale teller. . . a fitting descendant of that ancestor of his, the Corn Planter, who was a friend to General Washington.”2 All that and more was true, but it needs further explanation.

The original Cornplanter, whose European name was John Abeel, III, was indeed a friend of this nation’s first president. His Seneca name was Gaiänt’wakê, “the planter.” As a war chief and diplomat, he fought as an ally of the British in the French and Indian War and

the American Revolution. One of the most famous Native Americans of his time, he led the negotiations of the Iroquois nations with the new United States and maintained Iroquois neutrality and friendship with the Americans from then on. In 1796, the United States government granted “him and his heirs forever” title to 1,500 acres of former Seneca lands in northern Pennsylvania.

Cornplanter was also the half-brother of the Iroquois prophet, Handsome Lake, whose visionary experience near the start of the 19th century led to the creation of the Gai-wiio, the “Good Message”—the Longhouse Religion. It preached a code of family unity, abstinence from alcohol, and a return to traditional ways at a time when the Iroquois nations had been greatly weakened.

The code of Handsome Lake’s played an important role in Jesse Cornplanter’s life. His father, Edward Cornplanter (1856–1918), the original Cornplanter’s great-great-grandson, was one of a half dozen men of his generation who were authorized as faithkeepers or “holders of the Gai’wiio.”

Until 1903, the Gai-wiio was entirely an oral tradition. Literacy in English, however, was long established among the Senecas, as a result of the various reservation schools that began to appear in the 18th century—founded by one Christian denomination or another. Fearing the Gai’wiio would be lost, Edward Cornplanter wrote it down in English in a manuscript he gave to the New York State Museum. Edited by none other than Arthur C. Parker, it was published as The Code of Handsome Lake (New York State Bulletin 163: 5–148) in 1912. And this brings us back to Jesse.

Born on the Cattaraugus Reservation in 1889, Jesse became fascinated with art at an early age. He received no formal training, but by the age of 14 had enough


Joseph Bruchac is a writer, musician, and traditional Native storyteller whose work often reflects his American Indian (Abenaki) ancestry and the Adirondack Region of northern New York where he lives in the house he was raised in by his grandparents. He is the author of over 120 books for young readers and adults, including the award-winning volume OUR STORIES REMEMBER, American Indian History, Culture and Values through Storytelling. Photo by Eric Jenks.

Submission Guidelines forVoices: The Journal of New York FolkloreVoices: The Journal of New York Folklore is a membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). The New York Folklore Society is a nonprofit, statewide organization dedicated to furthering cultural equity and cross-cultural understanding through programs that nurture folk cultural expres-sions within communities where they originate, share these traditions across cultural boundaries, and enhance the understanding and appreciation of folk culture. Through Voices the society communi-cates with professional folklorists and members of related fields, traditional artists, and a general public interested in folklore. Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of folklore in the words and images of its creators and practitioners. The journal publishes research-based articles, written in an accessible style, on topics related to traditional art and life. It also features stories, interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and music, photographs, and artwork drawn from people in all parts of New York State. Columns on subjects such as photography, sound and video recording, legal and ethical issues, and the nature of traditional art and life appear in each issue.

Editorial Policy Feature articles. Articles published in Voices represent original contributions to folklore studies. Although Voices emphasizes the folklore of New York State, the editor welcomes articles based on the folklore of any area of the world. Articles on the theory, methodology, and geography of folklore are also welcome, as are purely descriptive articles in the ethnography of folklore. In addition, Voices provides a home for “orphan” tales, narratives, and songs, whose contributors are urged to provide contextual information. Authors are encouraged to include short personal reminiscences, anecdotes, isolated tales, narratives, songs, and other material that relates to and en-hances their main article. Typically feature articles range from 1,000 to 4,000 words and up to 6,000 words at the editor’s discretion. Reviews and review essays. Books, recordings, films, videos, exhibitions, concerts, and the like are selected for review in Voices for their relevance to folklore studies or the folklore of New York State and their potential interest to a wide audience. Per-sons wishing to review recently published material should contact the editor. Unsolicited reviews and proposals for reviews will be evaluated by the editor and by outside referees where appropriate. Follow the bibliographic style in a current issue of Voices. Reviews should not exceed 750 words. Correspondence and commentary. Short but substantive reactions to or elaborations upon mate-rial appearing in Voices within the previous year are welcomed. The editor may invite the author of the materials being addressed to respond; both pieces may be published together. Any subject may be addressed or rebutted once by any correspondent. The principal criteria for publication are whether, in the opinion of the editor or the editorial board, the comment constitutes a substantive contribution to folklore studies, and whether it will interest our general readers. Letters should not exceed 500 words.

StyleThe journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. Consult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for questions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and avoid gender-specific terminology. Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be avoided; incorporate such information into the text. Ancillary information may be submitted as a sidebar. Bibliographic citations. For citations of text from outside sources, use the author-date style described in The Chicago Manual of Style. Language. All material must be submitted in English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) should be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical English gloss; the author bears responsibility for the correct spelling and orthographics of non-English words. British spellings should be Americanized.

Publication ProcessUnless indicated, the New York Folklore Society holds copyright to all material published in Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. With the submission of material to the editor, the author acknowledges that he or she gives Voices sole rights to its publica-tion, and that permission to publish it elsewhere must be secured in writing from the editor. For the initial submission, send an e-mail attach-ment or CD (preferably prepared in Microsoft Word and saved as Rich Text Format). Copy must be double spaced, with all pages num-bered consecutively. To facilitate anonymous review of feature articles, the author’s name and biography should appear only on a separate title page. Tables, charts, maps, illustrations, photographs, captions, and credits should follow the main text and be numbered consecutively. All illustrations should be clean, sharp, and camera-ready. Photographs should be prints or duplicate slides (not originals) or scanned at high resolution (300+ dpi) and e-mailed to the edi-tor as jpeg or tiff files. Captions and credits must be included. Written permission to publish each image must be obtained by authors from the copyright holders prior to submission of manuscripts, and the written permissions must accompany the manuscript (authors should keep copies). Materials are acknowledged upon receipt. The editor and two anonymous readers review manu-scripts submitted as articles. The review process takes several weeks. Authors receive two complimentary copies of the issue in which their contribution appears and may purchase additional copies at a discount. Authors of feature articles may purchase offprints; price information is available upon publication.

Submission Deadlines

Spring–Summer issue November 1 Fall–Winter issue May 1

Send submissions as Word files to Todd DeGarmo, Voices Editor

(e-mail preferred): [email protected] or

New York Folklore Society 129 Jay Street

Schenectady, NY 12305

most unjust events to befall the Iroquois people in the 20th century. Because Jesse left no children and was the last descendant of the original Cornplanter, the federal government claimed the 1,500-acre Cornplanter Tract that had been granted to “him and his heirs forever.” The Kinzua Dam built there flooded most of the lands of that tract, forcing the relocation of many Seneca families and taking most of their fertile land, and also resulting in the moving of Cornplanter’s grave and the 1866 monument honoring his friendship with the new nation.

NotesCornplanter, Jesse J. 1938. Legends of

the Longhouse. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press.

Carmer, Carl. 1938 “Introduction.” In Legends of the Longhouse, p. 9.

Archive available online: https://archive.org/details/movingpicturewor15newy

A Native Voice (continued)

Send Your Story to Voices!Did you know that Voices publishes creative writing, including creative fiction (such as short stories), creative nonfiction (such as memoirs and life/work stories), and poetry? If you are one of New York’s traditional artists or work-ing in a traditional occupation, please consider sharing with our readers. For more information, see our Submissions Guidelines or contact the Acquisitions Editor at [email protected]


“In Harm’s Way” BY NANCY SOLOMON

There are other proven ways to mitigate a house to make it flood resistant, such as buoyant foun-dations or flood break walls that rise against the house as the floodwaters rise. These designs al-low the house elevations to remain as-is. You have other issues, too, when you elevate. You may be out of the flood zone, but now you’re higher in the wind zone. You also have to think of the marketability of these houses—who is going to want to climb 13+ steps to get to their front door? We have to be sensitive to the com-munity.”

Pignataro helped redesign a bay house and has some astute observations about its design:

“The bay houses have these trap doors in the floor, and they let the water come in. When the water rises, the trap door opens, the water comes in, and six hours later, the water goes down. The interior will get wet, but if you live in a coastal area, you have to make a few conces-sions to how you design your interiors. A lot of houses around here were condemned, because they shifted on their foundations, where there was so much water pressure on the sides of the houses, it actually caved in their foundations. Had they had flood vents that let the water in and out, most likely their foundations would have remained intact. Older houses that have used spray foam fiberglass insulation within

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As part of the exhibit “In Harm’s Way,” which explores how communities cope with storms and hurricanes, I conducted numerous interviews with local residents, architects, and planners about their experiences with storms and hurricanes. One of those interviewed was the Town of Hempstead Commissioner of Conservation and Waterways, Tom Doheny, who has worked on erosion issues for over 40 years. In addition, architects Joe Pignataro of Freeport and Joe Gallinaro of Long Beach have important insights into the problems facing wa-terfront homeowners.

Tom Doheny: “The severe storms of the ‘60s and the ‘70s snapped us to attention. Because there was no dune, and therefore, everyone had a good look at the ocean. We started building dunes in the early 1970s, installing snow fenc-ing and planting beach grass. I went to a Long Beach Civic Association meeting and when I ex-plained about the dunes, they just about tarred and feathered me. Hurricane Gloria showed up and completely wiped out the west end of Long Beach. Their TVs and furniture were floating down Ohio Avenue. The City Manager’s phone line lit up, and the people demanded a dune be built for the west end of Long Beach. A month and a half later, it was completed. We were able to decrease the damage to a great degree.”

When Sandy hit, Doheny, like others, was surprised at the damage on the bay front: “Had I known we were going to have an 11-foot tsu-nami, coming down Reynolds Channel, I would have done a lot more personally to protect my own property. The forecasters kept equating it to Irene, saying ‘it would only be a foot or two over, don’t worry.’ But that was not the case. The tide from the East Rockaway Inlet and the tide from Jones Inlet came together, and sand-wiched the people in Island Park. They didn’t have a chance.”

Like many coastal planners, Commissioner Doheny had seen a wide variety of proposals to prevent future storm damage on Long Island. Although there are some who would like to see floodgates erected, there are factors that could affect the success of such proposals.

“I’m still asking myself what a flood wall would do. When there’s no place for the water

to go, it will take the path of least resistance. It’s just going to shunt the water further west. The water will just pile up on it [the wall.] It’s a mas-sive 15-foot wall of steel and concrete that is made to protect infrastructure. They don’t really care if the water goes someplace else. I hope the state is going to do some studies on the hy-draulics. The mayor of Freeport wants to put tidal gates in the inlet. The volume of water that comes in the inlet is enormous. I can’t tell you how many millions of gallons of water come in there a day—600,000 cubic yards of sand come in there on the littoral drift every year. A study needs to be done to determine what will hap-pen when the tidal gates holds the water back, from coming into the embayment, as to where the water will go in response to the tide gate.”

Alongside people like Commissioner Doheny are architects like Joe Pignataro of Freeport, who experienced Sandy and also have to cope with the new reality of climate change.

“A house has to be designed well, but just as important, has to be built well. We’re being more sensitive to how these houses are going to be fastened, and how they’re going to be constructed and secured. There’s a big rush to elevate the houses, and I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’re creating skyscrap-ers of houses just to get them off the ground.

Point Lookout 2015: Shoreline communities like Point Lookout on Long Island’s South Shore suffered catastrophic damage during Sandy. Photo by Nancy Solomon, courtesy of Long Island Traditions.


115 Connecticut Avenue: Architect Joe Gallinaro has rebuilt several houses in Long Beach, where there are houses on both the ocean and the bay. Photo by Nancy Solomon, courtesy of Long Island Traditions.

their floor joist cavities after Sandy could pos-sibly float off their foundations the next time such a storm occurs. Those are the things peo-ple need to be concerned about.”

Architect Joseph Gallinaro of Long Beach has worked on countless projects since Sandy struck:

“We stayed during the storm. Unfortunately, our block had multiple house fires. The flames were reflecting off the 36-inch deep floodwater, making the street look like it was on fire. A very surreal experience.”

“After the storm, the potential for how I could help surfaced right away. In a single day, I could be at a friend’s or neighbor’s house giv-ing them a list of individuals that could help them, gutting houses or drawing with a black marker on some wall, showing owners how to deal with this forced renovation project. It has felt good to help my community. My children are the fourth generation of Gallinaro’s to live in Long Beach.”

“We’ve been developing multiple founda-tion systems and ways of laying out houses. The homeowner’s connection to the yard is com-pletely different once elevated a full story. We

sometimes bring the yard up to the height of the second story or main living area with a large deck, or extend the exterior yard space under a house on stilts for kids to play on.

We ask people, ‘How do you live?’ so that the house design reflects their lifestyle. It’s not enough to make the houses safe—we need to do more. Designing a house that can withstand strong winds and flood waters is not enough. We have to positively affect the way people live in their homes. We try to give people something they don’t even know they want.”

For those interested in hearing more about these topics, I invite you to visit the Long Island Traditions’ YouTube channel, and look for the “In Harm’s Way” playlist. www.youtube.com/user/LongIslandTraditions

Nancy Solomon is executive director of Long Island Traditions, located in Port Washington, New York. She can be reached at 516/767-8803 or [email protected].

In Memoriam: Gregory Sharrow (1950–2018) Folklorist, Vermont Folklife Center

“We believe strongly as an organization and as individuals that art does not belong to any particular sector of the population—to rich people or to people with university training or to people who have public acclaim—but rather that the making of art is an irrepressible force that is true of everyone.”

—Greg Sharrow

“If we are really wanting to understand someone’s experience we need to know what they believe. Because people exist within a system of belief that has to do with health and wellness and illness and healing, it has to do with justice and fairness and all kinds of really fundamental and important things. Folklore is the perfect postmodern discipline. Because truth from my point of view is a chorus. It’s a chorus of 10 people, or a chorus of a thousand people, where some people are singing in unison, some people are singing in harmony, and some people are singing in disharmony.

—Greg Sharrow

Quoted from “In Memoriam: Gregory Lew Sharrow (March 26, 1950—April 2, 2018)”Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont. For the entire post, go tohttps://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org/fieldnotes/in-memoriam-gregory-sharrow


Alex Torres & His Latin Orchestra Alex Torres & His Latin Orchestra also have

been featured on television commercials for The Albany Times Union. They wrote and performed the music for the PBS weekly program Made in New York, and twice performed for Time Warner’s music series, Sounding Board. Their music has also been featured in the motion pictures Slammin’ Salmon, Old Dogs, Drunken Wedding, and Broken City; indie films The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Guten Tag Ramon, and Permission; and the made-for-TV movie Unanswered Prayers. Also, they have been featured on TV series Ugly Betty, Human Target, The Finder, Miami’s The Color Splash, Road to the Kentucky Derby, Quiero Mis Quinces, Mistresses, Breaking Amish, The Blacklist, Code Black, and Complications; and Australian TV series Tricky Business and The Glades; as well as Verizon’s web series Grown, and featured sound tracks on the video games Tropico 3, 4 & 5.

Orchestra members are: Alex Torres – Band leader, bass, vocals; Abe Sanchez – Piano; Robert Lopez – Tres, vocals; Wilo Rodriguez – Lead vocalist; Todd Fabozzi – Congas; Angel Dueño – Timbales, guira, vocals; Miguel Santiago – Bongo; Jon Bronk – Lead trumpet; Terry Gordon – Trumpet; Fred Young – Trumpet; Nate Giroux – Saxophones; and Ken Olsen – Trombone.

The band members hail from different areas of the region and are of different ethnicities:

Formed in Amsterdam, New York, in October 1980, this 12-piece orchestra is led by the Bronx-born bassist Alex Torres. They have been presented by hundreds of festivals, performing arts centers, and events annually to perform their original blend of Afro-Caribbean rhythms, such as salsa, merengue, cha-cha, bomba, plena, and Latin Jazz.

The Orchestra has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the New England Cultural Arts Preservation Award, the New York State Music Achievement Award, the Schenectady League of Arts Award, the Governor’s Excellence in Arts Award, the NAACP Albany Chapter Award, and three awards from New York Capital District Original Music Awards in 2016.

Alex Torres & His Latin Orchestra have performed for President Bill and Hillary Clinton at the New York State Democratic Convention and also for New York Governor’s George Pataki and Eliot Spitzer’s inaugurations. They have shared the stage and billings with such major acts as Tito Puente, Tito Puente Jr., Eddie Palmieri, Andy Montañez, Los Hermanos Moreno, Arturo Sandoval, Branford Marsalis, the Count Basie and Woody Herman Orchestras, and others.

The group is also registered with the Arts-In-Education Program of New York State. This program brings the orchestra into schools to showcase cultural diversity and explain the music, instruments, and rhythms associated with their music.

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Abe Sanchez is from Venezuela and currently resides in North Adams, MA. William Rodriguez is from Santiago de Cuba and currently resides in Brattleboro, VT. Alex, Robert, Angel, and Miguel are Puerto Rican and have roots in Amsterdam, NY, and Todd was born and raised in Amsterdam and currently resides in Saratoga. Alex, Todd, and Robert attended Amsterdam High School together. Ken, Fred, and Nate are Albany residents, while Jon is from Gloversville, NY, and Terry is from Sharon Springs, NY. Many of the musicians are Capital District jazz players, and this has helped spread the word among them about Alex’s band. Some have stopped by to “check it out” and have stayed for over 20 years!

The band is currently in their 37th year of performing, and there are no signs of them slowing down. They are also currently recording their 13th CD Guarapo y Mermelada, which is due to be released in the summer of 2018.

For additional information and a complete schedule of performance dates, please visit the band’s web site (dates are added every month): http://www.alextorres.com.

Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra CDs and T-shirts are available in the New York Folklore Society’s Gallery, 129 Jay Street, Schenectady and online at www.nyfolklore.org/gallery/store/music.html

Alex Torres and His Latin Orchestra. Back row, left to right: Bobby Falcon, Angel Dueño, Todd Fabozzi, Jon Bronk, Terry Gordon, Fred Young, Miguel Santiago, Eric Ciarmello, Abe Sánchez. Front row, left to right: Ken Olsen, Alex Torres, Robert Lopez. Photo by Bill Ziskin.


The most important center in any village, town, or city is its primary place of exchange—the mar-ket. It is the place where everyday, or once a week, or sometimes in between, people spend what they have to buy what they need. Today, that can range from local farm produce to clothing or tools made on the other side of the globe. In many smaller localities within New York State, the market can be a vestigial general store or modern convenience outlet, while in towns and cities, it is likely to be the main street or a mall. In Manhattan, beginning in 1812 and for more than 140 years thereafter, Wash-ington Market dominated the scene.

Built partially on wetlands and now the site of the World Trade Center, Washington Market at first contained both wholesale and retail busi-nesses, becoming the largest food market in the country by 1859. Its bustling location between the downtown central business district and the Hud-son River, however, became a traffic nightmare, as horse carts and hand trucks and throngs of people could barely move in and around it. So, the two functions, wholesale and retail, were separated after the Civil War. The retail operation, between Wash-ington, Vesey, and Fulton Streets and the river, was rebuilt between 1883 and 1884—but not before Edward Harrigan, the greatest 19th-century musi-cal chronicler of Manhattan’s streetscape, captured the atmosphere in his 1882 realist song lyric, “The Market of Saturday Night”:

The Market on Saturday Night BY DAN MILNER

I’m a poor market woman,I do a fine trade,Selling my goods at the stall;A nate bit of moneyMyself I have madeWhere I sit with my back to the wall.

I sell turkeys and partridges,Turnips and cabbages,Crockery and tinwear so bright,Parsnips and cresses,And little babes’ dresses,At the market on Saturday night.

The Mondays and TuesdaysAnd Fridays are fine,Wednesdays and Thursdays are light,But thousands of people They stand in a lineAt the market on Saturday night.

We sell lemons and butterbeans,Carrots and holly greens,Celery, so crispy and white,Pickles and chow-chow,And dogs that say bow-wowAt the market on Saturday night.

In summer or winter,Oh, when the wind blows,Filling wid dust all our eyes,In rain or in frostOr terrific snow,We’re shouting and yelling our cries.

We sell peanuts, bananas,And Chinese Havanas,It’s really a beautiful sight,It’s oleomargarine,Little pigs crubeens,At the market on Saturday night.

Saturday night is crucial to the widowed stall-holder, because it is the apex of the week, the eve-ning before the only day of rest for most working class New Yorkers. While most of the city happily puts work aside, she joyously embraces it. Saturday night is when the throng descends, when she might make her weekly rent in one day and could raise the cash needed to buy her stock for next week. Who is this woman? First, she is Irish. We know that be-cause she refers to pickled pigs feet as crubeens. Sec-ond, she is proud, someone who has worked her way up to being a small business owner, possibly after laboring at a laundry tub—one of the self-employed army of stallholders in the city’s prime bazaar.

If you want to sing “The Market on Saturday Night,” you may do so. Just go to the University of California website (http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder3626) to listen to Ada Jones’ re-markable 1909 recording. Interestingly, the tune David Brahim wrote for Harrigan’s lyric sounds very much like a minor key rendition of the Dub-lin standard, “Biddy Mulligan, the Pride of the Coombe.” Which appeared first? Probably the New York melody.

“The Market on Saturday Night,” which appeared in Edward Harrigan’s 1882 musical play, McSorley’s Inflation.

Dan Milner comes from a family of Irish traditional singers. A former ranger in the National Park Service, he teaches cultural geography at St. John’s University. Dan’s recordings for Smithsonian Folkways include Irish Pirate Ballads, which received two Indie nominations in 2009, and Civil War Naval Songs with Jeff Davis and David Coffin. His book of 150 folksongs from Ireland, England, and Scotland is The Bonnie Bunch of Roses (1984).


Jack “Legs” DiamondBy Shannon Cuthbert

They called him “clay pigeon of the underworld,”a man they said would never die,in spite of the bullets they sunk in his skin.Bootlegger, skirt-chaser, murderer, traitor,he fled Manhattan for wide upstate skies where a man could see for miles and start anew, a trail of conned cops and double-crossed damesall left behind to seek their vain vengeance.And start he did, a vast business of booze,a network of moonshine smuggled by moonlight,silently finding its way to speakeasies—not always as silently as Legs hoped,though he was in the business of fixing that too,snuffing out lives like last night’s lanterns.All Legs, all strut, he was fire on the dance floor, cavorting at the Kenmore, at Catskill Mountain House,itself a doomed creature left to dim and decay,razed in ’63 to let wilderness in.Diamond was destined to shine too bright,shot in the dark in his bed on Dove Street,ghosts catching up under cover of night. He is nowhere and everywhere, an echo now,his name etched deep on the marbled mountains.Even now the Hudson, hungry for stories,carries whispers of his many crimes,dark tales that seep in the clay-soft soil,make silver minnows scatter like stones.

A native of New Jersey, who grew up spending many summers with family in upstate New York, Shannon Cuthbert is a freelance writer who holds a BA in Creative Writing and Psychology from Hamilton College. She is a long-time lover of fairy tales, folklore, and local legends, with a particular interest in New York State and Irish folklore. She currently lives in Brooklyn and frequently spends time in the Catskills to be surrounded by their beauty.

PortalBy Shannon Cuthbert

The man drove us up to his aunt’s old place, a tumbling-down house in Cairo, New York.The house on its haunches lay curled like a question,with trees blowing smoke on either side.It seemed to me a ghost of its own,though the man assured us there were more within.We walked past a shed hung with dull-eyed deer,past bikes whose wheels were tongue-tied with weeds,churning up white moths like sparks of flame,til we came to the door, its maw yawning wide,its gap-toothed blackness beckoning us in.I turned around once before I went through,and watched a white moth taking flight,its powdered wings seizing my cool, dark heart.

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L eonardo da Vinci, perhaps the first art-ist in the modern sense, was by inclina-

tion a scientist. He wanted to discover how things worked. He loved to collect data and filled the notebooks he kept through a spell-binding marriage of calligraphic notation and an unrivaled drawing prowess. He was espe-cially fond of drawing diagrams. And many of the drawings and diagrams concerned me-chanical subjects and themes—the action of crossbows and catapults, or the movement

of air and water. Many of these investiga-tions revolved, however, around what we call art; the way light strikes a sphere, the way in which an image is conveyed to the human eye. Leonardo made no distinction between the various forms of knowledge. He believed that what we call science and what we call art are one. Art was a branch of knowledge in which a permanent record of natural ap-pearances was considered valuable, both for its own sake and because it would supply

man’s imagination with convincing images of important things. Leonardo was too much an artist, in our modern sense, not to realize that the imagination could operate in a dia-metrically opposed manner. This awareness is beautifully expressed in the passage in the Treatise on Painting, in which he explains this contrary mode of operation:

I shall not refrain (he says) from includ-ing among these precepts a new and

Analysis and Intuition: Reflections on the Mystic Union of Measure and Abandon in the Art of Figure Drawing

BY STEPHEN ALCORN

Four figure studies; Drawn from life. In-class demos; Department of Communication Arts, VCU/SOTA. Mixed media on paper; 11 in. x 14 in. Sketchbook. Full color (reproduced as grayscale). © Stephen Alcorn 2018.


the Gothic cathedrals or set up the stained-glass windows of Chartres or cast the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery or build the dome of the cathedral. When this bracing el-ement of craftsmanship ceased to define the artist’s outlook, as happened in Leonardo’s lifetime, new scientific disciplines had to be invented to maintain the intellectual element in art. Such were perspective and anatomy. From the purely artistic point of view, these disciplines were not necessary. The Chinese produced some of the finest landscapes ever painted without any systematic knowledge of perspective. Greek figure sculpture reached its highest point before the analytic study of anatomy. From the Renaissance onward,

speculative idea, which although it may seem trivial and almost laughable, is nonetheless of great value in quickening the spirit of invention. It is this: that you should look at certain walls stained with damp or at stones of uneven color. If you have to invent some setting you will be able to see in these the likeness of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, woods, great plains, hills and valleys in great variety; and then again you will see their battles and strange figures in violent action, expressions of faces, and clothes, and an infinity of things which you will be able to reduce to their complete and proper forms. In such walls, the same thing happens as in the sound of bells, in whose strokes you may find every named word you can imagine. (Clark 1959, 82)

Later, Leonardo “repeats this suggestion in a slightly different form, advising the painter to study not only marks on walls, but also ‘the embers of the fire, or clouds or mud, or other similar objects from which you will find most admirable ideas…because from a confusion of shapes the spirit is quickened to new inventions.’ ‘But,’ he adds, ‘first be sure you know all members of all the things you wish to depict, both the members of animals and the members of landscape, that is to say rocks, plants and so forth’” (Clark 1959, 82).

Forging a Mystic UnionThe Blot and the Schemata: these may be

taken to express the opposite poles of our faculties, and it is arguable that the connection between the two has produced what we call art. This concept reflects the aesthetic ideas expressed in the writings of Benedetto Croce (1928) and, in particular, the belief that art is connected not with our rational, but with our intuitive faculties. This represents, in fact, a reversion to a very old idea, because long be-fore Leonardo had advised the artist to draw inspiration from the stains on walls, men had admitted the Dionysian nature of art. They also had recognized that the frenzy of in-spiration must be controlled by law and by the intellectual power of putting things into harmonious order. This general philosophic concept of art was supported by technical necessities. It was necessary to master certain laws and to use the intellect in order to build

however, painters felt that these two sciences made their art intellectually respectable and, therefore, honorable.

The act of drawing is a means to an end—but to what end depends not only on the individual artist, but also on the context in which he/she lives and operates. In the 19th century, for example, belief in art as a scientific activity declined. This happened for a number of reasons, but the end result was that science and technology withdrew into the realm of specialization. In spite of their belief in inspiration, the great Roman-tics of the day were aware of the impoverish-ment of the imagination, which would take place when science had drifted out of reach,

Analysis and Intuition: Reflections on the Mystic Union of Measure and Abandon in the Art of Figure Drawing

Ten figure studies; Drawn from life. In-class demos; Department of Communication Arts, VCU/SOTA. Mixed media on paper; 11 in. x 14 in. sketchbook. Full color and grayscale (reproduced as grayscale). © Stephen Alcorn 2018.


Twenty figure studies; Drawn from life. In-class demos; Department of Communication Arts, VCU/SOTA. Mixed media on paper; 11 in. x 14 in. sketchbook. Full color and grayscale (reproduced as grayscale). © Stephen Alcorn 2018.

thereby informing and shaping the works they created. The deflections from art to science are more serious, because these are not, as once supposed, two contrary activities but, in fact, draw on many of the same ca-pacities of the human mind. Although, over the course of the past century, science may have absorbed many of the functions of art and deflected many potential artists, it obvi-ously cannot be a substitute for art. Its mental processes may be similar, but its ends are dif-ferent. The impure nature of art, the seem-ingly unnatural marriage of truth and beauty, has been the despair of metaphysicians and has only ceased to worry philosophers since they both agreed that words could be de-constructed to the point of rendering them

meaningless. Is it not the illogical totality, the mystic union of the blot and the blueprint, or the instinctive and the rational, which has giv-en true art its significance? Can such a union ever be reestablished? Since being invited to teach at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts in the fall of 2010, this has been my primary objective.

A Proverbial Fork in the Road

Aspiring fine artists entering today’s typical art school move into a world in which they are encouraged to pursue specializations that prevent different disciplines from interact-ing in informative, meaningful ways—some would argue an escapist, post-Duchampian

world, in which theory is systematically di-vorced from praxis, and in which established standards of excellence are either evaded or refuted. The result can often be an art that is subjective and arcane to a fault—an art of accident rather than rule, of stains on walls (or of the unconscious mind), rather than of calculation, of inscape rather than landscape. In this newfangled Ivory Tower, new stan-dards are being invented to accommodate a rising tide of mediocrity at the expense of irrefutable excellence; respect for tradition is dismissed as mere nostalgia; physical me-dia are considered obsolete, and the practice of drawing from life has been all but aban-doned. Fortunately, however, this is not the only track.


Alternative tracks await those who (by con-trast) are interested in pursuing a more pur-poseful career within the realm of the applied arts, for example, as a scientific and medical il-lustrator. Students dedicated to drawing tend to fair better in this arena, especially in terms of the skill sets being imparted. Here, too, the technical instruction they receive can suffer from the ill effects of specialization. There are figure drawing programs that dictate that students concentrate on one sustained pose for an entire semester, forbid students from drawing the heads of the models, and finally, from using more than one quality of graph-ite—a dehumanizing, impersonal approach that necessitates that the models be treated as inanimate objects. Inevitably, the end result to this approach is an unduly formulaic and homogeneous, disconcertingly gray body of work devoid of any spark of life. Analysis requires time, due diligence, and patience. And inevitably, the process of gauging and the subsequent process of transcribing one’s findings onto a two-dimensional surface

necessitate innumerable interruptions of one’s eye–mind–hand coordination—the very coordination upon which spontane-ous artistic expression depends. Such are the mechanics of observational drawing. This methodical science of gauging and transcrip-tion, once championed in Beaux Arts schools around the world, can degenerate—if one is not vigilant—to the point of suffocating any intuitive impulses, in the name of precision and accuracy, that the students may experi-ence in the process of drawing a live model. Consequently, and paradoxically, rather than engage in what has been known for centu-ries as the practice of life drawing, students can find themselves forced to engage in a sort of death drawing. That great intellectual achievement known as perspective, by which figures of a human scale can be related to one another in some plausible and measur-able system, can also paralyze the intuitive faculty by which objects are seen with imme-diate vividness. Without a proper balance of analysis and intuition, there is the danger that

an impersonal, diagrammatic coldness will prevail at the expense of human tactility and warmth. By the same token, the iconoclastic abandonment of figurative drawing practices on the part of many fine art departments around the world today, in the name of in-trospective self-expression (real or imagined), has proven equally problematic. To this day, students and instructors alike continue to feel the aftershocks generated by the schism be-tween analytical and Dionysian impulses that took place in the early and mid-20th century.

Drawing At The Speed Of Sight

As an instructor, I strive to provide my stu-dents with a healthy alternative to this divisive dichotomy in the realm of art education. I do so by cultivating a learning environment, a creative greenhouse, if you will, in which my students can begin to experience firsthand the holistic and edifying marriage of (mea-sured) deliberation and (intuitive) spontaneity that was all but abandoned by art schools in

“Perpetual Motion.” Myriad figure studies; Drawn from life, at the speed of sight. In-class demos; Department of Dance & Choreography, VCU/SOTA. Mixed media on paper; 11 in. x 14 in. sketchbook. Full color and grayscale (reproduced as grayscale). © Stephen Alcorn 2018.


the wake of the Second World War. By dedi-cating the beginning of each semester to the fundamentals of gauging and transcription, I provide students with a foundation that serves as a precursor to the more interpre-tive approaches that follow—the elements of space, light, and time. The semester-long, in-cremental transition from analytical process-es of transcription to increasingly intuitive mark-making practices culminates with a visit to the Department of Dance and Choreog-raphy, where students are challenged to draw dance majors as they train and rehearse—in a word, to draw the human figure in perpetual motion. Thus, students experience the antith-esis of the inanimate, static approach that has come to define the conventional figure draw-ing instruction and, in the process, are intro-duced to drawing at the speed of sight. Such a practice precludes an unwarranted interrup-tion of the line-making process; and indeed, one of the means by which one can achieve a level of fluidity that is commensurate with the kinetic spirit of such subjects is via the use of a single, continuous line. By not lifting

the drawing tool, a calligraphic rhythm can be achieved, the result being the embodiment of a figure in motion. The inability to pause, and ponder the marks they make, encourages students to act swiftly and with decisiveness. The resultant economy of means of drawings executed in this manner fosters an awareness of the importance that the selection process plays in the realization of a compelling draw-ing, and of the value that lies in the creation of a graphic shorthand, capable of express-ing in select few lines the essence of what is being drawn. From this newfound awareness, students come to realize that the creation of works of art is not a sort of obstacle race, in which the artist who wins has overcome the greatest number of arbitrary conceptual or technical difficulties. And perhaps, most im-portantly, they learn that finish is only of val-ue when it is a true medium of expression. To bring every square inch to the conventional degree of finish risks destroying the unity of the whole. This is the case, especially, when a drawing is conceived in a spirit opposed to clear statement: as in an allegory, with an

allegory’s equivocations—a dream in which the protagonists are dissolved. In drawings such as these, it is imperative that those pas-sages stemming from half-formed thoughts remain inarticulate, unless they are expressed by a hint, a suggestion, or a cadence, that gives remote intuitions visible shape. Tintoretto, El Greco, Degas, Cezanne, Picasso, and Käthe Kollwitz have shown how the greatest artists could achieve a complete and coherent man-ner of drawing with a degree of definition no greater than that of a prehistoric cave paint-ing. In the wake of the advent of photogra-phy, we have learned that all the knowledge of anatomy, botany, and geology with which Da Vinci enriched his art could have been suggested, rather than described and could, perhaps, have found as vivid expression in a few spontaneous hints, as in an accumulation of careful statements.

A Means To An EndI believe that, although the practice of

learning to draw the human figure in this way is neither the beginning nor the end of art,

Six figure studies; Drawn from life. In-class demos; Department of Communication Arts, VCU/SOTA. Mixed media on paper; 11 in. x 14 in. sketchbook. Full color and grayscale (reproduced as grayscale). © Stephen Alcorn 2018.


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Stephen Alcorn is an Associate Professor, Department of Communication Arts, School of the Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University.

Stephen’s work at VCU is described in the March 7, 2018, Richmond Times-Dispatch profile titled “Drawn from real life: Stephen Alcorn uses his global education to lift VCU art programs”: http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/art/drawn-from-real-life-stephen-alcorn-uses-his-global-education/article_58931156-b84d-5b7c-87c8-abcec916e3b0.html.

it is a means for my students—perhaps, the most reliable means—of uniting their analyt-ical and intuitive mental faculties. By remind-ing my students of the original meaning of the word “art”—it signifies a certain level of skill and discipline—and by treating the mod-el as a living, breathing individual while intro-ducing the element of time (and the passage thereof) into the drawing process, I find it possible to restore to the learning process an appreciation for the ties that bind the seem-ingly disparate, yet mutually inclusive, mental faculties of analysis and intuition. The result is a process, predicated upon the recognition of and trust in the eye–mind–hand coordi-nation, a process in which the flow of con-sciousness—rather than its interruption—is celebrated and fostered. The need to bridge these complementary mental faculties and the mechanics of drawing with the greater spiritual dimension would not be so urgent were it not for the incremental reduction of focus on the practice of figure drawing over the course of a typical art school academic career.

Cultivating A Garden Of Experiential Learning

The courses I teach require students to draw and build their sketchbooks on a daily basis. My participation in this daily

assignment serves to present the professor not as a “fount of all knowledge,” but as a facilitator and participant in the humble ac-tivity of learning. Thus, teaching becomes learning. The result of this pedagogical strategy is twofold. First, students come to respect professors who adhere to daily stan-dards of behavior fundamental to their field. Second, the professor comes to have a great deal more respect for the challenges that stu-dents face as they complete their rigorous assignments. The drawings featured in this article are emblematic of the variety of tech-niques and approaches I have developed as an instructor, and of my participation in the daily drawing lessons I have had the privilege to conduct within the Department of Com-munication Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University: a corner of the world in which the practice of figure drawing continues to play a defining role in the development of aspiring artists.

ReferencesClark, Kenneth. 1959. Leonardo da Vinci.

Hammondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. (first published by Cambridge University Press, 1939).

Croce, Benedetto. 1928. Estetica come scienza dell’espressione e linguistica generale: teoria e storia, 6 edizione. Bari: Laterza & Figli.

Self-Portrait: “Through the Looking Glass” (Detail of self-portrait by Stephen Alcorn). Mixed media on tinted paper; 22 in. x 17 in. Full color (reproduced as grayscale). ©Stephen Alcorn 2018.


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Institutional Partners ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, Arts Mid-Hudson, ArtsWestchester, Brooklyn Arts Council, Clifton Park Half-moon Library, Local Learning: National Network for Folk Arts in Education, Long Island Traditions, Staten Island Arts

Institutional MembersAmerican University, Arizona State Univer-sity, Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, Brown University, Buffalo and Erie Counties Public Library, Cayuga County Community College Library (SUNY), Cleveland Public Library, College of St. Rose, College of William and Mary, Colorado College, Co-lumbia University, Crandall Public Library, Duanesburg Central, Duke University, East Meadow Public Library, Elmira College, Gannett Tripp Library, Elsevier Science Bibliographic Databases, Georg August Universitaet, George Mason University, Hartwick College, Harvard College , Hofs-tra University, Huntington Library, Indiana University, Jefferson Community College, Library of Congress, Marshall University, Miami University, Michigan State University, Mid Country Pub Library, Middlebury Col-lege, New York State Historical Association Library, New York State Library, Newberry Library, Ohio University, Onondaga County Public Library, Penn State University, Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, Princeton University, Rochester Public Library, Sau-gerties Public Library, Schenectady County Public Library, SKS/Kirjasto Ethnologinen Osato, St. John’s University, St. Lawrence University, Stanford University, SUNY Adirondack, SUNY Albany Library, SUNY Geneseo, Syracuse University, Texas A&M University, Union College, University of California Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Delaware, University of Hous-ton, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, University of New Hampshire, University of Oregon, University of Pitts-burgh, University of Toronto, University of Vermont, University of Virginia, Utah State University, Utica College Library, Vas-sar College, Western Kentucky University, Winterthur Library, Yale University

Harold S. Thompson MembersJohn and Lynn Aber, Camilla Ammirati, Jill Breit, Joseph and Carol Bruchac, Kathleen Condon, Todd DeGarmo, Ellen Fladger, Helen Ghiradella, Nancy Groce, Joseph C. Hickerson, Karen B. Johnson, Ellen McHale and John McKeeby, Geoffrey Miller, Randel Mott-Cobb, Jennifer Pearce, Jessica Schein, David B. Smingler, Naomi Sturm, Julie Tay, Elizabeth Tucker, Kay F. Turner, Tom and Ann van Buren, Mary Ward, Daniel Franklin Ward, Sherre Wesley and Leonard Davis, Anna L. Wood, Steve Zeitlin and Amanda Dargan

Individual MembersCamilla Ammirati, Eric Ball, Brea Bar-thel, Roger Benton, Dan Berggren, Robert Bethke, John Braungard, Warren F. Brod-erick, Simon Bronner, Margaret Bruchac, Elizabeth Burbach Gallardo, Karen Park Canning, Leona Chereshnoski, William Clements, Helen Condon, Thomas Con-roy, Robert Crowley, Alden (Joe) and Gay Doolittle, Leila Durkin, Lynn Ekfelt, Dolores Elliott, Enikö Farkas, Delcy Ziac Fox, Sean Galvin, Stephen Gencarella, Robert Godfried, Yitskhok Gottesman, Ann Green, James Hall, Eric Hamilton, Lee Haring, Susan Hengelsberg, Amy Hillick, Robert J. Hoffnung, Sydney Hutchinson, Mira Johnson, Maria Kennedy, Robert Kent, James Kimball, Lynn Arthur Koch, Kathleen Kozakiewicz, Jonathan M. Kruk, Alice Lai, Michael Leach, Laura Lee , Joan Studer Levine, Marsha MacDowell, Nicole Macotsis, Ruby Marcotte, Elena Martínez, Kathryn McCormick, Edward McGraw, Phyllis McNeill, Isa-Kae Meksin, Geoffrey Miller, Daniel M. Milner, Marcia H. Moss, Aaron Paige, David Puglia, Stanley Ransom, Paul Rosenberg, Dave Ruch, Puja Sahney, Virginia Scheer, Joseph Sciorra, Cindy Skala, Amy Brook Snider, Emily Socolov, Dare Thompson, Joan Uhrman, Patricia Uttaro, Michael Vandow, Brenda Verardi, Evelyn White, Robert Wilhelm, Lynne Williamson, Kevin Wilson, Robert J. Wright

DonorsJohn and Lynn Aber, Camilla Ammirati,

The New York Folklore Society thanks the people

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Richard Bales, John Brooks, Karen Canning, Helen Condon, Todd DeGarmo, Enikö Farkas, Ellen Fladger, Delcy Ziac Fox, Helen Ghiradella, James Hall, Lee Haring, Karen B. Johnson, Lynn Arthur Koch, Kate Koperski, Jonathan M. Kruk, Ruby Marcotte, Kathryn McCormick, Ellen McHale and John McK-eeby, Geoffrey Miller, Daniel M. Milner, Stanley Ransom, David B. Smingler, Naomi Sturm, Dare Thompson, Elizabeth Tucker, Kay F. Turner, Tom and Ann van Buren, Brenda Verardi, Mary Ward, Daniel Franklin Ward, Kevin Wilson, Anna L. Wood, Robert J. Wright, Mary Zwolinski

Funders – Government National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Archives and Records Admin-istration, New York State Council on the Arts, Schenectady County Initiative Program

Funders – Foundations and Corporate SupportAmerican Folklore Society, Humanities NY, Stewart’s Corporation Holiday Match

Funders – Program PartnersCastellani Museum of Niagara University, Kids’ Arts Festival, Long Island Traditions, Schenectady County Historical Society, Wil-liam G. Pomeroy Foundation

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