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Currently viewing the tag: "culture"
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Sin Eaters performed a ceremony wherein they took on the sins that the deceased performed — sins that went unforgiven or without confession prior to death. People typically hired a Sin Eater in situations where the deceased died unexpectedly.
By consuming bread and a drink (usually wine or beer) placed on, or ritually waved over, the dead body, onlookers believed the dead person’s sins were digested by the eater after he or she consumed this beggar’s feast. The act appears to be confined to 18th and 19th Century Europe, with no accounts of necro-cannibalism noted.
In time, the practice expanded in popularity, so that Sin Eaters also attended to people who had just died of natural causes — because people believed the ritual could help prevent the dead from wandering the countryside after death. -Keith Veronese -Keith Veronese
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or poem with a sin eater as a protagonist.
Journaling Prompt: Write about the oldest tradition your family still practices.
Art Prompt: Sin Eater
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Research a strange custom and tell your audience about it.
Photo Credit: Mikamatto on Flickr
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Teenage girls were a strange breed of animal, prone to strange trends and behaviors. – Bradley Convissar, Blink
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem that features the exotic creature known as the teenage girl.
Journaling Prompt: What is the strangest trend you have seen in teenage girls, whether in this generation or your own generation.
Art Prompt: Teenage Girls
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write a humorous piece about teenage girls and their strange trends and behaviors.
Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr
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If you’ve found yourself wandering zombie-like through a mall or a grocery store, looking around and hoping that something will catch your eye, many would say that you’ve been the victim of a Gruen Transfer. The “transfer” is the moment when you stop shopping for something in particular, and start just shopping in general. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Take your character on a shopping trip.
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever been the victim of the Gruen Transfer, or do you go window shopping on purpose?
Art Prompt: Gruen Transfer
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the Gruen Transfer and give them some strategies to avoid it.
Photo Credit: rowens27 on Flickr
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…parents from different social classes teach their children different lessons about interacting with institutions. …parents help to perpetuate inequalities not only through what they do for their children, such as equipping them with different resources or opportunities, but also through what they teach children to do for themselves. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. How did your protagonist’s parents teach social interaction and how does that affect your protagonist in your story? (Click through and read the entire article to learn how social class affects what parents teach children.)
Journaling Prompt: What is the most valuable lesson your parents taught you?
Art Prompt: Parent teaching Child
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the essential lessons that parents must teach their children.
Photo Credit: Nationaal Archief on Flickr
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…the greatest unspoken rule of bus travel is that if other seats are available you shouldn’t sit next to someone else. As the passengers claimed, “It makes you look weird.” When all the rows are filled and more passengers are getting aboard the seated passengers initiate a performance to strategically avoid anyone sitting next to them…
Kim found that this nonsocial behavior is also driven by safety concerns, especially for coach travel which is perceived to be dangerous with ill lit bus stations.
“In a cafe, which is more relaxed, people often ask strangers to watch their stuff for a moment,” said Kim. “Yet at bus stations that rarely happens as people assume their fellow passengers will be tired and stressed out.”
“Ultimately this nonsocial behavior is due to the many frustrations of sharing a small public space together for a lengthy amount of time,” concluded Kim. “Yet this deliberate disengagement is a calculated social action, which is part of a wider culture of social isolation in public spaces.” -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: prompt here
Journaling Prompt: prompt here
Art Prompt: prompt here
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: prompt here
Photo Credit: epSos.de on Flickr
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kaffeeklatsch noun: An informal social gathering for coffee and conversation.
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the word of the week in whatever you write today.
Journaling Prompt: Where do you like to gather with your friends just to hang out and talk?
Art Prompt: Kaffeeklatsch
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Use the word of the week in your article or speech.
Photo Credit: CAMPUS OF EXCELLENCE on Flickr
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When Emily Daggett Weiss boarded the Twentieth Century Limited in the spring of 1913, bound for a brief sojourn in the West, one or two old biddies gave her the hairy eye. Woman traveling alone. No better than she should be, as her mother used to say about young women of low moral standards. Worse than the biddies, a traveling salesman winked at her. -Irene Fleming, The Brink of Fame
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: Imagine traveling a century back in time. What would be the most difficult thing for you to get used to?
Art Prompt: 1913
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about how women’s place in society has changed in the last century.
Photo Credit: phlubdr on Flickr
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Once there was a city where everyone had the gift of song.” -Kevin Brockmeier, The View From the Seventh Layer
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: If you had the gift of song, what kind of music would you enjoy singing?
Art Prompt: Song
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about how the world and our culture would be different if everyone could sing.
Photo Credit: x-ray delta one on Flickr
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Fact. In a world of twelve-year-olds in sexy boots and grannies in sparkly minidresses, the surest way to tell the prostitute walking into a hotel at Heathrow is to look for the lady in the designer suit. -Belle de Jour, Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story about a professional who hides in plain sight.
Journaling Prompt: Write about how you judge people by their clothing or appearance.
Art Prompt: Classy Call Girl
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the error of judging by appearance.
Photo Credit: Lauren Close on Flickr
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“Every Chinese family had its own quarrelsome, mischievous ghosts who could be appealed to, appeased, or comforted with paper people, houses, and toys. As a small child lying awake in bed at night, Pearl grew up listening to the cries of women on the street outside calling back the spirits of their dead or dying babies. -Hilary Spurling, Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, poem, or haiku about a mother searching for the ghost of her baby.
Journaling Prompt: What sounds did you hear from your bed at night when you were growing up?
Art Prompt: Ghosts in China
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Tell your audience a ghost story from the point of view of a child.
Photo Credit: yettis doings on Flickr
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