Happy Holidays from the American Folklife Center! As in years past, we enlivened Library life last week with performances of a traditional Mummers play, updated for modern times. The title of this year’s play is "Keeping Cool and Dry for the Holidays: A Film Preservation Mumming," and it’s all about Film Preservation and the National Film Registry. It takes place at the Northpole Audio Visual Preservation Pavilion (NAVPP). St. George Bailey (It’s a Wonderful Life) is confronted by Connor MacLeod (Highlander series), who has a dastardly plan to get his terrible movies on the registry by undermining the preservation of all other films. The play includes Film Preservation Board members like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, some of our usual characters, and some surprises, including a reenactment of the “Let’s all go to the Lobby” song—which is actually on the real registry. Mummers’ plays are short 15-minute plays, traditionally performed in Britain, Ireland, North America, and the West Indies at holiday time, as the Mummers went from house to house and pub to pub, collecting food, drink, and small change as a reward for their entertainment. The American Folklife Center’s archive boasts one of the largest collections of English Mummers’ Play texts in the world, in its James Madison Carpenter collection. In this blog post you'll find the text of the play and lots of fun photos--plus a wealth of links to explore!
The American Folklife Center took part in the Library's Halloween-themed Family Day in October. In addition to showcasing a few items from the archive, AFC staff led visitors in an activity (making paper fortune-tellers) and encouraged participation in an engagement question around cryptids, ghost stories and urban legends.
We're back with another episode of the Folklife Today podcast! In this latest Halloween episode, John Fenn and I continue our discussion with Hanna Salmon about the new Research Guide "Folktales and Oral Storytelling: Resources in the American Folklife Center Collections." Then we introduce some of our favorite spooky stories: the ghost legend "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" as told by students Marty Weathers and Bill Henry of Georgia; the witch story "Skin, Don't You Know Me" as told by master storyteller J. D. Suggs of Mississippi and later Michigan; and the truly spooky tale of "The Two White Horses," told by the great Connie Regan-Blake, a leading Appalachian storyteller who has lived in Tennessee and North Carolina among other places. Of course, in addition to some chat about the tales, the episode showcases the stories themselves. This blog post shows you how to find the podcast and gives you some additional background on the stories and storytellers. So prepare for a scare and give us a listen!
Today, the Veterans History Project (VHP) launches a new online exhibit titled “In Memoriam: Honoring the Fallen,” featuring the stories of 15 servicemembers who died during their time in the military. For many, Memorial Day may feel like nothing more than a day off from work, a holiday that serves to mark the start of …
