LL-L "Traditions" 2012.03.18 (03) [EN]

Sun Mar 18 21:51:53 UTC 2012

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 18 March 2012 - Volume 03
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From: Roger Thijs rogerthijs at yahoo.com <edsells at cogeco.ca>

Subject: LL-L "Traditions" 2012.03.17 (01) [EN]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Traditions
> Many cities have public ceremonies for kindling the Jewish Hanukkah<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz>lights,

Around New Year the greeting cards in the shelves at the Brentwood Target
were:
1/3 New Year greetings
1/3 Christmas
1/3 Hanukkah
Some food at the Target is also marked "Kosher", other as "100% Kosher".
I don't know what is the difference between the two.
I do not see people over here (Brentwood-Clayton area) in traditional
Ashkenasi dress, just incidentally (but exceptionally) though young girls
with long dresses (the boys do not have the hair strings at the ears as one
sees in Antwerp).

An other cultural mixture:
At the "Sarku"s in foodcourts at the malls, many guys have a Japanese look
and do some exercises with their tools in the air. Sarku is an American
group though, and I guess the Japanese cannot pronounce the name "Sarku".

My preferred fastfood restaurants (all chains, some only present in the
Midwest Heartland):
buffet: Golden Corral
mexican (TexMex): Chili's
hamburger Culver's
breakfast: Denny's
sandwiches: St Louis Bread Co - Panera
fish: I'm still looking, the best up to now is the fish menu part of
"Little Italy" at Richmond Heights. The "Gulf Shores" in Creve Coeur has
also some fish, but the taste is not really cajun as announced, but rather
standard American.

Regards,
Roger

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From: "Fonken, Gael M. [foga0301 at stcloudstate.edu]" <
foga0301 at stcloudstate.edu>
Subject: LL-L big "T" traditions & little "t" people

Greetings once again,

    I’m happy to read so many comments from you all. These help to open up *the
odd way that Americans invent things*.  I’m studying this invention process
(of fake *big “T” traditions*) in order to try to back it up so that we
might be better able to tell the difference between inventions and the real
thing.  However, it’s shocking to explore this topic openly in public here
because it’s true that people really do just casually absorb shallow bits
and pieces of other people’s sacred celebrations.  This issue of wearing
green in the US is so automatic now and so very commercialized.  It’s
linked with the practice of drinking ‘green beer’ for one night.

   That’s where St. Urho comes in as a spoof meant on one level to get them
to start a day early and drink wine instead.  At that level the gesture is
more about who to salute on the onset, but the result is the same—people
seem to just want to forget the world around them for a moment.   At least
that’s how one might read all this green-talk and explain why it is so
superficial.  On a more functional level, it’s a way to unify people for a
moment despite the very serious political differences we experience—like
who to elect as president.  But you’re right it excludes many non-white
people and does so strategically, I think.  The tricky part though is that
 the path back to a real past for Euroamericans needs to *travel
through*this willingness to identify as ethnic people (
*little “t” people*).  Most of the time there is no reflection on anything
ethnic, except to hound people who are different.  We’re deeply afraid of
our own differences.

    So, it’s very rare that anyone tries even to parody these automatic
reflexes.  I’d been living in central Minnesota for 12 years before I heard
of this Urho feast day, so I got excited about it and I went around last
Friday all over campus with a made-up “Urho poster” trying to get people to
take about it.   Only one professor was able to do so intelligently (and he
even spoke in German for a moment so as to reflect on his own hybrid
Mennonite-Norwegian heritage since I knows that I’m interested).  But for
most people the conversation soon moves on, sometimes the person steps away
first though.  Trying to talk with people about these automatic reflexes
threatens their sense of timeless existence.  So, it’s scary to bring up *the
past that really happened*.  People don’t want to think about how much they
lost by buying into the mainstream.

    To be optimistic though, I do think the way back to a real past is easy
enough to discover.  I’m grateful for all your emails, especially those
that carry ideas forward in languages besides English.  Gradually I’m
learning to read them.   So yes, learning new languages is fun, Hanne.
Thanks for helping me to do the same.   I hope you all know that I’m more
than happy to engage in the real past and not just propagate these fake
ones.  But locally here in rural Minnesota, I’ve started to think more
about strategies for recovering painful memories—like those that wounded
Civil War veterans brought back to this area over 100 years ago after
fighting fellow Americans from the southern part of the country.  There are
also intentionally obstructed memories of a bloody war with the native
Dakota tribe that resulted in their banishment to the neighboring state.
 It is probably not coincidental that these superficial invented traditions
started to emerge about that time.  How does one move forward after so many
years????  I think you all in Europe and other places with intact,
realistic memories of the past can help us in the US.  The question remains
how, though.  Let’s keep talking.

Sorry for writing too much,

Gratefully,

Gael
[BOOK] The invention of
tradition<http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sfvnNdVY3KIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR6&dq=hobsbawm+%22invented+traditions%22&ots=ZQvsPQxnB7&sig=nJB1KZALwX52DN3BFpveVxAnrf4>
[PDF] from bc.edu <http://digilib.bc.edu/reserves/hs410/sava/hs41002.pdf> *Eric
J* *Hobsbawm*… - 1992 - books.google.com- More interesting, from our point
of view, is the use of ancient materials to construct *invented* *traditions
* of a novel type for quite novel purposes. A large store of such materials
*...* Cited by 10178<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=6265332896718237641&as_sdt=5,24&sciodt=0,24&hl=en>-
Related
articles<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:ya91DBPv8lYJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,24>-
Library
Search <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8763782> - All 15
versions<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=6265332896718237641&hl=en&as_sdt=0,24>

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