The Art of Storytelling

Collaborative Storytelling: Every Face...

Tells a Story

 
Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary. 
Image from Huffington Post

What does Yours Say?

Whenever I meet someone new, there are three questions that I try to find answers to:

• Who are you?
• What do you value?
• How do you tell me?

The first is, in some ways, the easiest.  You shake hands, you say you name, and maybe even what you do.  But is that truly who you are? 

Not entirely.

Sure we have business cards and pitches and the like.  They give a hint, a whiff, of what we value.  Just enough to draw someone in; and that's where the real conversation begins.

Now we tell stories.  About why and how.  Of course, some people take a little more coaxing than others.  So I ask questions.  Not about what you do now.  No, I prefer to ask why.  Because the response usually gives an indication of what you value.

Last night I attended Mediabistro's Freelancer Party in NYC, where I met a fellow named Lewis Stiefel, who worked for CBS.  After a couple minutes of conversation, I asked why he became an editor, producer, and videographer.  He looked taken aback for a minute, and then a smile crept onto his face.  He asked me how old I was and I said twenty-five, and then he said, "You know the TV show, Hawaii Five-O?  Well, when I was a kid, I saw the opening sequence and I just knew that's what I wanted to do."

Creating Value: The Weight of Words...

And the Burden of their Use

If you think about it, a promise is an odd thing: essentially, it's a guarantee, in words, that we make to other people.  The value of a promise--it's weight, in a sense--is based almost entirely on trust, which is, in and of itself, intangible.

Yet the burdens put upon the promise-maker are often terribly real: the time, the money, the commitment--all must be measured against the risk of failure.  That's why we don't make promises that we can't keep. 

But what happens when the promise is great, and the weight more than one person alone can bear?

Do you simply ask others to share in the burden?

No.  You challenge them.  You say:

Serve, or do not. 

And let future generations judge you accordingly.

Personal Narrative: Bellicose Brats...

And the People who Raise Them

Maria R. Burgio on Difficult Kids, Inept Parents, and Societal Indifference

I am often flabbergasted and worried as hell about the fact that every year teenagers commit 2,000 homicides in America and that ten per cent of these are committed by girls. This concern makes me excruciatingly aware of disruptive behavior in children. Over the holidays, I had an opportunity to observe two bad-mannered teenage girls.  I say ‘bad-mannered’ to be polite; their behavior would actually be called “acting out” or aggressive in psychological terms.

My sister, her husband, and I walk into Tiny’s Bar and Grill located on State Street in Utica, New York, a neighborhood bar and family eatery that’s been offering an interesting jazz venue for about twenty years.  It’s a bitter cold night, but in the holiday spirit, we’re excited to spend a fun night out. We take the only table left, meant for a party of eight at which sat two teenage girls. Tiny’s is tiny: small tables cramp into what looks like the basement of a ranch style house converted into living space. The acoustics are awful and the food is just as bad, but the family atmosphere during Christmas week makes it all okay.

Most of the servers are off for the holiday, so the bartender takes our orders.  I go up to the bar and case the stools for people I’ve known in the past who never moved out of Utica like I did. I didn’t recognize anyone except for the usual local crowds of men with one too many beers in them. The Utica brewery is nearby and well known to the locals for good cheap beer. Utica is a beer town, your classic upstate New York small town where long brutal winters, high unemployment, low paying jobs and cheap housing creates a simple life centered on raising kids. It’s a lonely place if you’re not married.

The two fifteen-year-olds (not so young that they look thirteen, not so mature looking that they may be sixteen, I thought, aging them as I do any child I see) are quietly sitting bent over the table as they look into the minuscule screens of their cell phones. They could almost be twins wearing the same skin tight jeans, sneakers, short tight bomber jackets, their short straight hair meticulously brushed into ponytails that are held in place from the elastic band wound several times to coerce each hair into place. Both of them are spaced out into their cell phones as the twenty piece brass and string ensemble is playing one of Chicago’s hit songs. They are oblivious to the music and I later find out that they had left their table to get away from the adults that brought them. They remind me of those I encounter in the shopping malls of small town America, arrogant, bored, toting cell phones with text messaging so they can stay “connected.” I try to ignore them as best I can.

To be continued...

Craft Matters: In the Beginning, There Was...

Magic, Old School:
Part One of a Three Part Riff on Contemporary Fables and Folklore

I won't lie.  I grew up during the Golden Age of cartoons, back when animated Disney movies were still good and overgrown mouse ears weren't synonymous with commercialized satanism.  Sure there was a fair share of schlock and drivel back then (I don't need to dwell on the the Thudercats, do I?), just as there is now (Adult Swim's in-house animation come to mind).  There there were also serious animated films (SAMs?); I'm thinking in particular of such classics as The Hobbit, The Last Unicorn, Flight of Dragons, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Phantom Tollbooth (just to name a few), all of which used the medium's fluidity and versatility to great effect.

And let's face it, had those films gone the live-action route, no one would remember them.  Hell, I can barely recall the BBC's rendition of the Narnia series--and the production values on that were dismal even by 80s standards.  So logically, animation was a mainstay for anyone who dabbled in the fantastic or futuristic.  In this light, it made perfect sense for Beagle to turn his book into an animated film, after all, who in his right mind would believe for an instant that a horse with a horn on its head was anything else? 

Instead we start with a unicorn in a forest who overhears two hunters saying that she's the last one and off she goes to find the rest.  And just like that, we're in the story.  Why?  Because animation, like the paintings in Lascaux and the visual koans of the Zen masters, is a medium of the imagination.  As such it was an ideal environment, from the 60s onward, for magic and marvels alike.

Coming up: CGI, Animation's Second Advent...

Collaborative Storytelling: Who Says We Need...

More McCheese?

Image by A-Squared Concepts

Maria R. Burgio on Government Spending, Urban Development, and Forgotten Children

When I logged onto my Yahoo homepage the other day, I noticed an article from Forbes.com by Joshua Zumbrun.  The article was entitled, “The Obama Boomtowns: Mayors Line up at the Trough with Projects Ready for Stimulus Money,” the majority of which is going towards efforts to create jobs, provide cities with an economic lift, and perhaps even generate some hope for the future.  High on the list were cities such as: San Fransisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Sacramento, Miami, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, St. Louis, Phoenix and Dallas.

What’s interesting is that while almost every mayor requested funds for infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, highways (Dallas, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles were among those requesting assistance for energy projects like installing solar panels), only one (Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia) made the children a priority.

I was stunned by the overall scarcity of attention to children's needs.  After-school activities are so important to teenagers because for most of them, their parents are not at home.  Sure, most mothers who work get home after 4:30 PM; but a 2004 Journal of Adolescent Health study suggested that the highest risk time for teenagers is not at night—it’s between the hours of 3 and 4:30 in the afternoon.  Likewise, recent U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2006) show that there are roughly 750,000 babies (which is down from one million in 1995) born to America's teenagers each year.  With such a significant number of children being born to young adults, one has to wonder why there are so few social clubs, organizations, and institutions for teenage parents in high risk communities, like inner cities and poor rural areas.

At least Philadelphia's mayor takes an active interest in developing resources for the youth in his community:  a good deal of the money he’s requested is dedicated building new schools and a new juvenile detection hall.  Not only that, he wants to develop bookmobiles to improve literacy, direct money toward community block grants  (which create green space, parks, etc.), and establish a new zoo and art museum.

All for the children.  And why?  Because they are a powerful presence in our lives; they are why we work.  And they are also our future.  Yet community outreach programs like teenage social clubs, supervised after school activities, and parent networking and educational opportunities are all still missing in many cities, perhaps because of the void in our priorities that I described in my first article.

I urge you, readers, during this holiday season, to share how your communities take care of the children, particularly those that increase healthy socialization and community spirit. Together, we can work toward creating a new itinerary, one that we can share on a broader political forum.

-M.R. Burgio