[UA] New artifact and ritual as an urban legend

[Cassady Toles]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 14:10:22 -0700, ua at lists.uchicago.edu wrote:

  But what about the Vanishing Hitchhiker, which has the advantage of a
  multiplicity of variants, coupled with actual people you can talk to who
  actually experienced the phenomena on a localized level (Resurrection
Mary,
  fer instance)?  It exists in defiance of folklore conventions (as you
  defined them), and yet is a perfect example of what folklore is.
  
I'm not familiar with the resurrection mary phenomenon.  But I can tell you
that a buddy of mine did his senior thesis on the vanishing hitchhiker, and
spent eighteen months trying to find an actual witness of the event, or a
real driver and he never did.  If you mean the phenomenon of the story
spreading through small towns, yes, that's true.  Like I said the story
would be either very local or very varied.  

The problems with the OU is that it covers ten major towns and has thousands
of members.  that's not very local, it would change a lot, then factor in
the percentage of people who heard it who were, A) not entirely sane, B) not
in full control of their facilities, C) full of s**t, D) dipsomancers,
cryptomancers, infomancers, or some type of adept or avatar that spread lies
or didn't really understand how things worked.  I don't believe it could
keep the key details (7 round magazine, .29 caliber, invented by x guy,
showing up when your desperate).  Those would change because someone, didn't
remember, thought it would be more interesting this way, lied to throw you
off the track, misspoke and shrugged, etc.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am the messiah in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's.  Drink of me
and
no peace." -- Cobra Baghdad www.peoplehateme.com
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