The most recent of Michael Apted’s Up! film series chronicling a diverse group of children from Great Britain, 49-Up will be released in US theaters on October 6th, and on DVD on November 14th. The Up Series is one of the most compelling documentary series I’ve ever watched. Apted worked on the first film, 7-Up! which introduces the audience to several schoolchildren at the age of seven, with subsequent films revisiting those same children every seven years.

The first six films — 7-Up, Seven-Plus-Seven, Twenty-One, 28-Up, 35-Up, and 42-Up are available on DVD from Amazon and Netflix in a convenient box-set. I’m very exciting about seeing 49-Up — might even try to get to a theater for it — and I would once again like to thank Broadsheet for introducing me to this series.

My folklore class has been handed an assignment due in two weeks which is entirely reliant on the help of other people. In short, I need to collect three different examples of ‘folkways’ from three different people.

A ‘folkway’ can be any of the following (and more!, stolen in large part but not entirely from the course info packet):

Myth, legend, jokes, proverbs, riddles, charms, insults, retorts, teases, tongue-twisters, folk costume, dance, drama, art, belief; medicine, lullabies. Limericks, ball-bouncing rhymes, clapping games, dancing games, singing games, etc. Drinking games can also be classified as a ‘folkway.’

Examples shown in class include a “match gun” constructed with non-safety matches and a clothespin; a Land-O-Lakes butter box with the Indian’s knees cut and folded up to resemble breasts. (In short, anything transmitted informally).

But! Don’t jump-in right away. In addition to describing this folkway, you will also have to provide some personal information, which will, presumeably, be accessible to Dr. D of the Towson University English Department for quite some time (examples he showed us in class had in some cases been done many years earlier by other students). This personal information will be limited to: Your name, your age, your place of residence (Baltimore, Md, etc.), how old you were when you learned this folkway, and who you learned it from.

If you think you’ve got something that could help me, please e-mail. (Thank you in advance!)

Also: MHG, if you’re reading this, Dr. D. mentioned Black Aggie in class, and how she was somewhere at the Smithsonian. I caught up with him later, told him to do a google search for you, and to avail himself of your hard work. “Fascinating!” was, I believe, his exclamation.

My Tuesday night class is in the 7800 York Road building on Towson’s campus. I don’t know why it isn’t named after someone with a “Hall” on the end, but I refer to it as the “Bateman” building since Bill Bateman’s Bistro is located on the lower level.

Anyway, after class I settled down in the third floor lounge for a few minutes to allow the parking garage empty out. I was working on my laptop when two guys came walking down the hall.

The first guy said, “Man, I’m so at the point where I can’t wait to not be waiting for this semester to be out, y’know?”

The second guy said, “Huh?”

The first guy repeated himself.

The second guy said, “Huh?”

The first guy repeated himself again. At this point, I wanted to say, “Dude, he’s saying he can’t wait for finals to be over.”

**

A few minutes later, a couple came down the hall all snugglin’, with a straggler following them. The guy cuddlin’ his girl said, “I keep getting confused how the bridge to the parking garage is on a different level then it is here.”

The dude behind them then commented, “It’s because the floors in here are taller than they are over there.”

The guy cuddlin’ his girl rolled his eyes, as if to say, “Yes, I know that, dumbass” but instead only remarked, “Yeah.”

(Explanation time: instead of forcing people to walk to the bottom level of the next-door Glen Garage, there’s a bridge connecting the fourth level of the garage with the third level of the Bateman building — it’s completely level, it’s just that the fourth floor of the garage is level to the third floor of the Bateman building.)

I think it would’ve been neat for William Donald Schaefer to win the Democratic primary for Maryland Comptroller the other day, if only because it would almost assuredly mean we’d be treated to his antics for another four years, and, really, who can’t get enough of Billy-Donny boy’s geriatric moronicness?

I don’t know if he was joking about running for mayor of Ocean City or not, but I think he’d be great. His campaign commericals could show him on the beach, grabbing girls’ tits, and talking about how as mayor his first priority would be to attract chicks with bigger busts and smaller bikinis as a plan to boost the economy, and, oh yeah, get him laid.

(I bet he’s a big fan of viagra).