#folklife

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: theslowtraveler

[ex0skeletal-undead]

The Dead Oak Tree by LiigaKlavina

[cozydaysathome]

Instagram- brittany.morian

https://instagram.com/brittany.morian?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[fallbabylon]

antique cast iron fire back depicting witches dancing with devils and riding broomsticks and goats on their way to the sabbath (with owls and cats appearing as familiars).

[popculturelib]

Do you ever encounter a book that changes the way you look at the world, just a little bit?

Folklife, studied alongside folklore, involve the customs and traditions of people in their everyday lives. One may not think that there could be much significance in something as mundane as clotheslines, but the washing of clothes -- especially without an electric washer and dryer -- is intrinsically full of meaning as part of a cultural practice passed on from one person to another.

As Helen Mather, the author of Clotheslines U.S.A. (1969), writes in the introduction:

One day it occurred to me that clotheslines of America, like the American buffalo, might one day become extinct. A lot of people talked about clotheslines, but nobody did anything about them. It was up to me. "It's too late already," said my friends in New York. "The big machines have eaten them up, and besides, everything's plastic." Nevertheless, I drove out across the country to see for myself. There are plenty of clotheslines left. American is still hung and strung with them. I went from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again, twelve thousand miles, doing nothing but looking at clotheslines and talking to Americans who have their feet on the ground, their eyes squinting into the sun, and their clothes on the line.

Keep reading below for a selection of excerpts from Clotheslines U.S.A.

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

[darknessblackness]

“Carcharoth” by Justin Gerard

[victusinveritas]

Photograph and post by Ashley Suszczynski.

[person4924]

idc what your favorite taylor swift album is, lyrically folklore is the best taylor swift album and no one will ever change my mind.

[silverravenstudio]

Looking through the archives & drawn to these ‘Powerful Adornments’ from 2018 ✨ Should I bring this style back? ✨

[iphigeniacomplex]

once the war on christmas has been won all musicians will have to release an album of folk ballads and epics instead of christmas songs. megan thee stallion's next single will be the wife of bath's tale and björk has been learning sumerian in preparation for her next album, which will be the entire epic of gilgamesh, including the previously undiscovered tablets. we're trying to get michael bublé to shift to whaling songs but he's not quite adjusted yet.

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: oneslowsunday

[cozydaysathome]

Sunday mornings 🍳🥓🍞

Instagram- brittany.morian

[ancestorsalive]

Na pouti - by Czech artist Joža Uprka (1861-1940, Hroznová Lhota), painter and graphic artist, whose work combines elements of Romanticism and Art Nouveau to document the folklife of Southern Moravia.

[popculturelib]

Faxlore, and the related xeroxlore and photocopylore, is a kind of folklore circulated via fax machine. Since many originate in office settings, they most often are jokes, art, and urban legends related to the workplace, sent and reset and degrading in visual quality. By some definitions, they are memes, in that they a individual units of meaning passed on through cultural transmission.

Unfortunately, the age of faxlore is long over by now due to the internet and the use of email to communicate. However, a variety of faxlore artifacts are preserved in a series of books by Alan Dundes and Carl R. Pagter, several of which are featured in this post:

Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (1978)

When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators: More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (1987)

Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (1991)

Sometimes the Dragon Wins: Yet More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (1996)

Why Don't Sheep Shrink When It Rains?: A Further Collection of Photocopier Folklore (2000)

Below the read more are several examples from Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded that show variations of the cover image.

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

[solarpunkqueen]

Sunday reading.

Trying to remember all the things my lineage has lost.

All the knowledge and wisdom that took centuries to develop.

The cultures and magic.

The undying faith in something more while living life simply.

This is what I long for.

This is what I’m reviving in my soul.

[victusinveritas]

"I grew up on these 'mean streets'. They look peaceful, bucolic, even. But in the chill of a winter's afternoon, as the weak failing sun falls to its early rest, and there's no sound but the haunting echo of the rooks and crows, then these lanes come alive. You don't see much. But you feel things. You know they are there, watching, waiting. You know that fairies don't exist - but you also know, that if you should ever hear their music, you must not fall into step nor dance to it. You know that there are no such things as pixies, but you also know that you must always leave some crumb for them, as a tribute for crossing their land. Some pay no heed - city folk on holiday, ignorant of country ways - but then they get a flat tyre, or an oil leak. One way or another, the Old Land will have its revenge on those who do not tread lightly upon it. Salute the magpie. Touch the smooth-worn branch on the crossroads tree. And so you move on, turning up your collar against the wind, and scuttling home beneath dark arch of overhanging branches, hoping that your bones will not be added to those of the centuries."-Elliot Bulmer.