It all started after leaving Boston. With a brief stint in Woodbury, CT with my aunt Penny and cousins, we left to seek further refuge from the wintery mix in Philadelphia, PA. Our first encounter with the Big Apple was fleeting. As I was shakily following road signs, directing Rosie where I saw needed, I yelped, "We're in the Bronx!"
Matt laugh nervously and said, "I didn't realize you'd have to drive in New York City. Oops."
But we made it safely through the Bronx, then New Jersey and into Philadelphia, receiving a warm welcome from the Harkins.
Leaving early the next morning, early if you consider 9am early, for New York City, all was swell until the flashing lights by the side of the road signaled that there were urgent traffic conditions. A broken down bus in the center tunnel of the Lincoln Tunnel-right where our little Rosie needed to go.
"Expect hour long delays" the chipper female voice instructed over the radio.
We continued vigilantly, hoping for the best. Our only delay upon nearing the tunnel was the $6 toll.
Once through the tunnel, Matt clutched the wheel tighter as all conceivable traffic rules flew out the window. In a left turn lane only? No matter, turn right anyway. Have to get over three lanes? Don't worry, just turn your car perpindicular to the road, stopping traffic in three lanes until you can situate your car. Street signs? No one needs them clearly labeled, your guess is as good as mine.
A huge sigh or relief escaped from the three of us; Matt, Rosie and I as the Icon Parking sign appeared before us. The parking garage on the corner of W. 49th St and 10th Ave seemed a welcome resting place. The attendants, connoisseurs in cramming cars into spaces that can't possibly hold them, took our precious Rosie down under.
We turned away, claim ticket in hand, to meander on the streets of New York City.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
A Sad Day
Yesterday was undoubtedly the toughest day yet for us here at The Rosie Chronicles...for those of you who haven't heard, Katelyn and I experienced our first car accident. Don't worry, neither one of us were hurt - but we wish we could say the same for Rosie.
On Sunday we were on our way from Rochester to Boston, where we had the book signing and interview set up with Dave Isay, the founder of the immensely popular StoryCorps. Because of some worrying weather conditions, we decided to stop over in Schenectady for the night with Katelyn's aunt and cousin. They took great care of us, but on Monday we still had nearly three hours to drive so we left early.
The bad luck began when we checked our E-mail that morning and discovered that at the last minute our ten-minute interview with Mr. Isay now had to be a FIVE minute interview with Mr. Isay. We attempted a weak argument, but there was no budging, so we figured we just had to take what we could get.
Most of the trip was rather uneventful. The roads weren't too bad, snow started to fall...about 20 minutes away from Boston we discovered we didn't have anywhere to go because the woman we're staying with, Kelly, works downtown and told us that if we were to come and get her apartment keys it would take us hours to navigate. We were grateful we didn't have to do that, so we decided to head straight for Brookline, where the bookstore in which our event that evening was supposed to take place. Naturally, we got a little lost...roads in Boston aren't exactly well marked, and it seems like every mile they keep changing names. Basically, about two miles from our destination, we were headed down a tiny side road in front of residences with a long row of parked cars on the right side of the street. We were going to make a left turn that would bring us out on the main road, when we started to skid.
I was driving, so after my instincts kicked in, I remembered what I was raised to do when your car starts to skid: turn into it. No luck. The entire road was practically one huge sheet of ice. We weren't going very fast, but the words from my mouth became increasingly more...ahem...unacceptable, as we rather ungracefully slid the front right of Rosie's bumper right into a parked Jeep Cherokee. Oops.
A bit less calm than usual, we got out to assess the damage, which really wasn't too terrible. Rosie sustained a slight bump over her front wheel, and the Jeep had a slight ding in the door and a paint scratch. Katelyn attempted to ring the bell for the apartment where the Jeep was parked while I tried to move the car. Unfortunately the ice wouldn't let the tires move too much, and I didn't want to try to move forward and risk hitting another car. I was able to at least get our car off of the Jeep, put the hazards on, and put it in park until we could get the owner's attention or leave a note.
That was probably the move I'll regret the most. Not even five minutes after the owner of the Jeep came out and we began to exchange information, I hear another crash. Actually two; a white car (a Honda, I think, I have the info somewhere but don't remember it) tried to make the same turn we did but ran right into Rosie's back driver side bumper. THAT collision, of course, hit our car BACK into the Jeep, and now our three cars are locked on this huge grid of ice outside a row of apartments on a fairly busy one-way street somewhere in Boston.
If you're laughing, I understand...I might laugh about it too...one day.
So anyway. Now the three of us (four including Katelyn) are standing outside, exchanging info, calling the police, et cetera, and are now smart enough to stop traffic coming towards us and tell them that they better not try to come past us and risk hitting one of us again. Cars pile up for a while, but some of them can't turn around; the ice is so slippery a lot of them can't get any traction. A man in a construction van tries to make it up a side street directly behind us, but he gets stuck. Some other men parked up the hill a ways come and try to pull out, THEY get stuck. More and more cars keep coming down this road and we're running back and forth, telling them they should probably turn around and go another way until the police come and assess the damage. Which, by the way, never happened. But I'll get to that in a second.
I don't remember exactly when I went around to look at the back of Rosie; at first I thought it wasn't that bad because her front was relatively unscathed. The driver's side door had a long dent and scratch in it where the white car side swiped us. But the front headlight of the Honda completely dented the back fender of our car, not to mention it broke the covering of both of our tail lights and left the lower part of our fender hanging a few inches off of the rest of the body of the car. It also re-dented the front wheel bumper, driver's side, AND caused a dent and some paint to come off the back passenger side, behind the door.
The police were taking forever to come; John, the owner of the Jeep, called them again and they said that such accidents were happening all over the city (THEN WHY DON'T YOU SALT THEM?!?! HELLLOOOO!) and there was really nothing they could do unless someone needed to be towed. Well, thankfully all three vehicles seemed drivable and with a little help from our...er, friends...we were able to make it to the bookstore with about an hour to spare. Needless to say, I'm totally nervous trying to drive around this city now and have spent the rest of our time on the road driving about five miles UNDER the speed limit...which, in Boston, is practically a federal offense.
Anyway, we filmed the book signing event, in which Mr. Isay talked a bit about the new StoryCorps book and played some excerpts from the interviews he used, had our five-minute interview (I'd be damned if we weren't going to squeeze every second we could out of that one, considering what we'd gone through to get there) and on a much lighter note, got some free books out of it! Brian, the guy who's in charge of special events at the bookstore, said that if we found a few used books we wanted, we could just take them. So, thank you, Brian, for granting us a small bit of happiness out of an otherwise crappy day.
This morning I filed my claim with the insurance company (two separate claims, actually) and tomorrow we have to take Rosie in to a garage and have her looked over just to make sure she can make it the last leg of the trip. I can't believe we've come all this way without incident and now, so close to the end, this happens.
Oh well. Katelyn and I were just very grateful that the damage wasn't worse than it is (at least she can still drive) and that no one was hurt. I imagine that if one of us had been in or near the car when the white Honda came out of nowhere and hit us, this blog (and invariably this entire trip) would likely have an entirely different outcome.
On Sunday we were on our way from Rochester to Boston, where we had the book signing and interview set up with Dave Isay, the founder of the immensely popular StoryCorps. Because of some worrying weather conditions, we decided to stop over in Schenectady for the night with Katelyn's aunt and cousin. They took great care of us, but on Monday we still had nearly three hours to drive so we left early.
The bad luck began when we checked our E-mail that morning and discovered that at the last minute our ten-minute interview with Mr. Isay now had to be a FIVE minute interview with Mr. Isay. We attempted a weak argument, but there was no budging, so we figured we just had to take what we could get.
Most of the trip was rather uneventful. The roads weren't too bad, snow started to fall...about 20 minutes away from Boston we discovered we didn't have anywhere to go because the woman we're staying with, Kelly, works downtown and told us that if we were to come and get her apartment keys it would take us hours to navigate. We were grateful we didn't have to do that, so we decided to head straight for Brookline, where the bookstore in which our event that evening was supposed to take place. Naturally, we got a little lost...roads in Boston aren't exactly well marked, and it seems like every mile they keep changing names. Basically, about two miles from our destination, we were headed down a tiny side road in front of residences with a long row of parked cars on the right side of the street. We were going to make a left turn that would bring us out on the main road, when we started to skid.
I was driving, so after my instincts kicked in, I remembered what I was raised to do when your car starts to skid: turn into it. No luck. The entire road was practically one huge sheet of ice. We weren't going very fast, but the words from my mouth became increasingly more...ahem...unacceptable, as we rather ungracefully slid the front right of Rosie's bumper right into a parked Jeep Cherokee. Oops.
A bit less calm than usual, we got out to assess the damage, which really wasn't too terrible. Rosie sustained a slight bump over her front wheel, and the Jeep had a slight ding in the door and a paint scratch. Katelyn attempted to ring the bell for the apartment where the Jeep was parked while I tried to move the car. Unfortunately the ice wouldn't let the tires move too much, and I didn't want to try to move forward and risk hitting another car. I was able to at least get our car off of the Jeep, put the hazards on, and put it in park until we could get the owner's attention or leave a note.
That was probably the move I'll regret the most. Not even five minutes after the owner of the Jeep came out and we began to exchange information, I hear another crash. Actually two; a white car (a Honda, I think, I have the info somewhere but don't remember it) tried to make the same turn we did but ran right into Rosie's back driver side bumper. THAT collision, of course, hit our car BACK into the Jeep, and now our three cars are locked on this huge grid of ice outside a row of apartments on a fairly busy one-way street somewhere in Boston.
If you're laughing, I understand...I might laugh about it too...one day.
So anyway. Now the three of us (four including Katelyn) are standing outside, exchanging info, calling the police, et cetera, and are now smart enough to stop traffic coming towards us and tell them that they better not try to come past us and risk hitting one of us again. Cars pile up for a while, but some of them can't turn around; the ice is so slippery a lot of them can't get any traction. A man in a construction van tries to make it up a side street directly behind us, but he gets stuck. Some other men parked up the hill a ways come and try to pull out, THEY get stuck. More and more cars keep coming down this road and we're running back and forth, telling them they should probably turn around and go another way until the police come and assess the damage. Which, by the way, never happened. But I'll get to that in a second.
I don't remember exactly when I went around to look at the back of Rosie; at first I thought it wasn't that bad because her front was relatively unscathed. The driver's side door had a long dent and scratch in it where the white car side swiped us. But the front headlight of the Honda completely dented the back fender of our car, not to mention it broke the covering of both of our tail lights and left the lower part of our fender hanging a few inches off of the rest of the body of the car. It also re-dented the front wheel bumper, driver's side, AND caused a dent and some paint to come off the back passenger side, behind the door.
The police were taking forever to come; John, the owner of the Jeep, called them again and they said that such accidents were happening all over the city (THEN WHY DON'T YOU SALT THEM?!?! HELLLOOOO!) and there was really nothing they could do unless someone needed to be towed. Well, thankfully all three vehicles seemed drivable and with a little help from our...er, friends...we were able to make it to the bookstore with about an hour to spare. Needless to say, I'm totally nervous trying to drive around this city now and have spent the rest of our time on the road driving about five miles UNDER the speed limit...which, in Boston, is practically a federal offense.
Anyway, we filmed the book signing event, in which Mr. Isay talked a bit about the new StoryCorps book and played some excerpts from the interviews he used, had our five-minute interview (I'd be damned if we weren't going to squeeze every second we could out of that one, considering what we'd gone through to get there) and on a much lighter note, got some free books out of it! Brian, the guy who's in charge of special events at the bookstore, said that if we found a few used books we wanted, we could just take them. So, thank you, Brian, for granting us a small bit of happiness out of an otherwise crappy day.
This morning I filed my claim with the insurance company (two separate claims, actually) and tomorrow we have to take Rosie in to a garage and have her looked over just to make sure she can make it the last leg of the trip. I can't believe we've come all this way without incident and now, so close to the end, this happens.
Oh well. Katelyn and I were just very grateful that the damage wasn't worse than it is (at least she can still drive) and that no one was hurt. I imagine that if one of us had been in or near the car when the white Honda came out of nowhere and hit us, this blog (and invariably this entire trip) would likely have an entirely different outcome.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
snow snow snow snow-snow!
Well, yes it is snowing. I stated that in my last blog, in a momeny of pure ecstasy. It was powdery and light, coating Rosie everywhere. She turned into an icebox instead of the sassy car she usually is.
We were in Ithaca, New York for awhile visitng Matt's friend Ben at Cornell. I have to admit that we did nothing but sleep until this morning, when we had an interview with one of the psychology professors at Cornell, Dr. Harry Segal. He spoke with us for almost two hours about narrative and the research he's done. I was fascinated as he spoke, to hear so psychology so simply put, and to hear someone speak about it who really seems passionate about the work that he does.
I think my favorite thing that he said involved basements. He said we all draw, when writing a story or narrative, from the basement of ourselves. Our earliest memories and encounters. Then we build on the basement, the first floor, the second, etc. until we are so far from the basement we don't quite remember what it's like, but we still have to use that foundation for our story because it is holding us up. His theory and his research shows that we use our earliest memories and feelings throughout our writings, and can even work through our problems in those writings. Writers block occurs because we begin to write about a problem that is especially difficult for us to figure out, and we can write no more about it until we figure out how to either solve the problem or discover the answer.
But we're in Rochester, NY now, visiting my brother and seeing, briefly, his world. We leave tomorrow for Boston.
And speaking of snow, if you'd like to make snowflakes online, as my mother LOVES to do, go to popularfront.com/snowdays.
There are also more pictures posted on our website-check them out!
We were in Ithaca, New York for awhile visitng Matt's friend Ben at Cornell. I have to admit that we did nothing but sleep until this morning, when we had an interview with one of the psychology professors at Cornell, Dr. Harry Segal. He spoke with us for almost two hours about narrative and the research he's done. I was fascinated as he spoke, to hear so psychology so simply put, and to hear someone speak about it who really seems passionate about the work that he does.
I think my favorite thing that he said involved basements. He said we all draw, when writing a story or narrative, from the basement of ourselves. Our earliest memories and encounters. Then we build on the basement, the first floor, the second, etc. until we are so far from the basement we don't quite remember what it's like, but we still have to use that foundation for our story because it is holding us up. His theory and his research shows that we use our earliest memories and feelings throughout our writings, and can even work through our problems in those writings. Writers block occurs because we begin to write about a problem that is especially difficult for us to figure out, and we can write no more about it until we figure out how to either solve the problem or discover the answer.
But we're in Rochester, NY now, visiting my brother and seeing, briefly, his world. We leave tomorrow for Boston.
And speaking of snow, if you'd like to make snowflakes online, as my mother LOVES to do, go to popularfront.com/snowdays.
There are also more pictures posted on our website-check them out!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Sigh...
I just don't know what I'm going to do about that girl.
Anyway. As you may have guessed from Katelyn's...ahem...informative blog post, we spent the lovely Thanksgiving holidays with her family in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Laying out on a hammock in her backyard with a good book under the autumn leaves was, I think, an excellent respite from the constant go-go-go that has been our lives for the past several months. That, and shooting BB guns with her two brothers in the backyard. (Mom, I've never wanted a BB gun before, but THIS Christmas...)
Just kidding.
Sorta.
Anyway, with barely three weeks left on the road, we're desperately trying to tie up any loose ends that can't be tied up back in St. Louis. With almost 40 hours of footage, we've stopped trying to frantically find something, ANYTHING to put in front of the camera (sort of like we did at the beginning of the trip) but still there are a few people we want to talk to before we head home. One is here in Ithaca, at Cornell University where we're staying with my best buddy, Ben. Dr. Harry Segal, a psychologist who specializes in "psychodynamic approaches to literary texts" (whatever THAT means) has agreed to meet with us this weekend. That will be cool because it will lend, I think, a bit of an "academic" bent to our film.
In New York City, where we're hoping to be within a week or two, provided we find a place to stay, we are meeting with a producer who has written and directed an Off-Broadway show which collects over 4,000 stories of people's "first times" and performs them with four different actors and actresses.
And a week from yesterday, we are meeting the founder of StoryCorps, the national initiative to collect stories from everyday Americans, in Boston. Mr. Dave Isay is currently on a book tour for StoryCorps first book, Listening Is An Act of Love, and we will be filming both the signing he will be at on Monday and also have a brief exclusive interview with him.
We're only looking for about one or two more interviews, and then it will be all over. I have to admit I'm strangely excited to be going back to school, the classes I'll be in are going to be great, but I'm a bit nervous about editing this whole thing together. I've been thinking about it lately, mostly because people have begun asking if I've started to think about how it's all going to fit together, and the truth is I really haven't.
The biggest concern I have right now is I think I'm just beginning to grasp how weird of a concept this is for a documentary. I mean, how do you document stories? How do you document what stories are, what they mean? We can just play all of our interviews back-to-back, but goodness knows that's boring. How are we going to make this interesting enough to other people? Specifically other people who are not our friends and family, who are by default required to find it interesting. This will, I think, be our biggest struggle in the year to come.
That being said, next semester is already stressing me out and I haven't even set foot on campus yet. A lot of opportunities and options have been presenting themselves and I'm trying to decide which ones to choose. A lot of it has been consuming my mind so much I'm finding it hard to focus on the film and the trip. It's been increasingly harder to keep my mind on the here and now as school looms closer and closer. But, such is life.
Besides, it's the Christmas season and that always cheers my spirits, despite the fact that radio stations seem to think there are only, like, 20 good Christmas songs worth playing over and over and over and over and over and over....
Anyway. As you may have guessed from Katelyn's...ahem...informative blog post, we spent the lovely Thanksgiving holidays with her family in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Laying out on a hammock in her backyard with a good book under the autumn leaves was, I think, an excellent respite from the constant go-go-go that has been our lives for the past several months. That, and shooting BB guns with her two brothers in the backyard. (Mom, I've never wanted a BB gun before, but THIS Christmas...)
Just kidding.
Sorta.
Anyway, with barely three weeks left on the road, we're desperately trying to tie up any loose ends that can't be tied up back in St. Louis. With almost 40 hours of footage, we've stopped trying to frantically find something, ANYTHING to put in front of the camera (sort of like we did at the beginning of the trip) but still there are a few people we want to talk to before we head home. One is here in Ithaca, at Cornell University where we're staying with my best buddy, Ben. Dr. Harry Segal, a psychologist who specializes in "psychodynamic approaches to literary texts" (whatever THAT means) has agreed to meet with us this weekend. That will be cool because it will lend, I think, a bit of an "academic" bent to our film.
In New York City, where we're hoping to be within a week or two, provided we find a place to stay, we are meeting with a producer who has written and directed an Off-Broadway show which collects over 4,000 stories of people's "first times" and performs them with four different actors and actresses.
And a week from yesterday, we are meeting the founder of StoryCorps, the national initiative to collect stories from everyday Americans, in Boston. Mr. Dave Isay is currently on a book tour for StoryCorps first book, Listening Is An Act of Love, and we will be filming both the signing he will be at on Monday and also have a brief exclusive interview with him.
We're only looking for about one or two more interviews, and then it will be all over. I have to admit I'm strangely excited to be going back to school, the classes I'll be in are going to be great, but I'm a bit nervous about editing this whole thing together. I've been thinking about it lately, mostly because people have begun asking if I've started to think about how it's all going to fit together, and the truth is I really haven't.
The biggest concern I have right now is I think I'm just beginning to grasp how weird of a concept this is for a documentary. I mean, how do you document stories? How do you document what stories are, what they mean? We can just play all of our interviews back-to-back, but goodness knows that's boring. How are we going to make this interesting enough to other people? Specifically other people who are not our friends and family, who are by default required to find it interesting. This will, I think, be our biggest struggle in the year to come.
That being said, next semester is already stressing me out and I haven't even set foot on campus yet. A lot of opportunities and options have been presenting themselves and I'm trying to decide which ones to choose. A lot of it has been consuming my mind so much I'm finding it hard to focus on the film and the trip. It's been increasingly harder to keep my mind on the here and now as school looms closer and closer. But, such is life.
Besides, it's the Christmas season and that always cheers my spirits, despite the fact that radio stations seem to think there are only, like, 20 good Christmas songs worth playing over and over and over and over and over and over....
Monday, November 19, 2007
Numbers
Days spent in Colonial Williamsburg: 2 1/2
$ we spent on food in Williamsburg: refuse to tell
Times we've gotten lost leaving the visitor center in Williamsburg: 3
Hours to drive to North Carolina: 4
Number of the tape for filming we are on: 40
approx hours of footage we have: 39
Pictures taken and uploaded on computer: 1,779
Miles till next oil change: less than 300
Days we've spent in Fayetteville: 6
Lizards found in house: 2
Hours to Chapel Hill to interview Daniel Wallace: 1 1/2
Times listened to Hairspray in the car: once daily
days of leftover Thanksgiving food: approx 4
movies Matt has watched for his independent study: over 40
Times Matt has told me to write a blog and I procrastinate: infinite
$ we spent on food in Williamsburg: refuse to tell
Times we've gotten lost leaving the visitor center in Williamsburg: 3
Hours to drive to North Carolina: 4
Number of the tape for filming we are on: 40
approx hours of footage we have: 39
Pictures taken and uploaded on computer: 1,779
Miles till next oil change: less than 300
Days we've spent in Fayetteville: 6
Lizards found in house: 2
Hours to Chapel Hill to interview Daniel Wallace: 1 1/2
Times listened to Hairspray in the car: once daily
days of leftover Thanksgiving food: approx 4
movies Matt has watched for his independent study: over 40
Times Matt has told me to write a blog and I procrastinate: infinite
Friday, November 16, 2007
Onward!
Hello faithful readers,
Our time in Washington D.C. is sadly coming to a close. What an eventful visit we've had! We spent the last two days getting in some last-minute touring; we saw Mount Vernon, George Washington's mansion in Virginia, the National Holocaust museum, the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, the World War II memorial, and several of the Smithsonians! As one can imagine, we're pretty beat.
We're on our way this morning to visit Colonial Williamsburg and witness even more of our nation's history. After a three-day stop there, we'll be with Katelyn's family in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, because there's no place like (a) home for the holidays. I can hardly believe Christmas is practically right around the corner.
And with the advent of Christmas comes the advent of the end of our adventure. We have little more than three weeks or so left. We've both done a lot of talking in the past few days about how odd it will be to have to go back to the "real" world and be responisble adults again. It's not something we're looking forward to, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. At least we can be satisfied that we were able to make this good thing last as long as we did.
Plus, I'm very excited to get back and start editing this film. I can't wait to see how it all fits together! I can't forget that after the traveling is done, the hardest part of the work is still ahead.
Have a great day everyone!
Our time in Washington D.C. is sadly coming to a close. What an eventful visit we've had! We spent the last two days getting in some last-minute touring; we saw Mount Vernon, George Washington's mansion in Virginia, the National Holocaust museum, the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, the World War II memorial, and several of the Smithsonians! As one can imagine, we're pretty beat.
We're on our way this morning to visit Colonial Williamsburg and witness even more of our nation's history. After a three-day stop there, we'll be with Katelyn's family in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, because there's no place like (a) home for the holidays. I can hardly believe Christmas is practically right around the corner.
And with the advent of Christmas comes the advent of the end of our adventure. We have little more than three weeks or so left. We've both done a lot of talking in the past few days about how odd it will be to have to go back to the "real" world and be responisble adults again. It's not something we're looking forward to, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. At least we can be satisfied that we were able to make this good thing last as long as we did.
Plus, I'm very excited to get back and start editing this film. I can't wait to see how it all fits together! I can't forget that after the traveling is done, the hardest part of the work is still ahead.
Have a great day everyone!
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Good night, good morning or good day
The best thing about this trip is that making a documentary is AWESOME! Not only do we get to travel and learn about something we are passionate about, stories, but we get to do so many neat things. For example, we had an interview at the Library of Congress in the Jefferson building. We were then taken into the ultra secret secured stacks- in the underbelly of the library. The Library of Congress has some books in the reading rooms that researchers are allowed to use, but generally they have to have in mind what books they want and ask for them to be brought out. We got a tour of the folklife section, where materials are kept. Ducking and breathing tight as the ceilings are low and the hallways small, Matt and I were blown away by all the books and the documents kept. It was cool to hear from Todd and Valda about all of the archiving that is done there. After the interview and tour we went and got our researchers cards, good for two years, to be able to research and go into the reading rooms there.
We met with Amy from SpeakeasyDC and interviewed her and will see a show hosted be SpeakeasyDC on Tuesday. She explained the difference between an open-mic storytelling and stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedians adopt a persona and work to make the laughs. The laughs are crucial and important. Storytelling may be funny, but the more real the person, the less persona they present on stage, the better the story. Laughs may come and go, but telling the story is more important.
We've also gone to the Spy Museum, Arlington National Cemetery and the National Archives to see the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Tomorrow we're heading to the Smithsonian to learn more about history. Matt and I keep taking turns being sick. I wasn't feeling well the last two days, Matt has a headache today. The temperature is hard to adjust to, with us traveling in and out of cold weather, muggy, rainy, etc.
Yea, this isn't a profound update or entry, but at least it is one. Goodnight, good morning or good day to you all.
We met with Amy from SpeakeasyDC and interviewed her and will see a show hosted be SpeakeasyDC on Tuesday. She explained the difference between an open-mic storytelling and stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedians adopt a persona and work to make the laughs. The laughs are crucial and important. Storytelling may be funny, but the more real the person, the less persona they present on stage, the better the story. Laughs may come and go, but telling the story is more important.
We've also gone to the Spy Museum, Arlington National Cemetery and the National Archives to see the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Tomorrow we're heading to the Smithsonian to learn more about history. Matt and I keep taking turns being sick. I wasn't feeling well the last two days, Matt has a headache today. The temperature is hard to adjust to, with us traveling in and out of cold weather, muggy, rainy, etc.
Yea, this isn't a profound update or entry, but at least it is one. Goodnight, good morning or good day to you all.
Friday, November 9, 2007
PICTURES!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - for those of you who haven't been to our website recently, check out our pictures tab, we finally have a few up! More to soon follow!
The City of Brotherly Love -Or - Birth of a Nation
After five or so days in good ol' Philly, we've landed for the time being in our nation's capitol - Washington, D.C. I'll have to admit that out of all the places we've been so far, Philadelphia has been my favorite. A large part of that may be my love for American history, but nowhere else have we found the most things to do in the least amount of time. AND the nicest people. But more on that in another post.
Thanks to Holland Saltsman and John Buck at Webster, we were able to stay with a beautiful family only 20 minutes from downtown Philly; Buck's old high school friend David Harkins, his wife Judith, and their two wonderful daughters, Sophia, 3, and Mirielle, 2. Katelyn and I were thrilled to have younger people to play with once again. We played with the girls in their own huge playroom in the basement, went to feed the ducks at a nearby college campus, and we even got to babysit for a night while Dave and Judith went out. (We figured a free night of sitting was the least we could do to pay back their hospitality).
Oh yeah, we also worked on our film. Once Upon a Nation was indeed what Katelyn said it was; a huge production that takes place over the summer that employs a large array of costumed interpreters from colonial times as well as storytellers who perform at a series of benches around the historic district, telling stories of our nation's birth. It sounds like a great program...definitely something the two of us will be keeping an eye on for summer employment options!
The Please Touch Museum was wonderful as well. We were bummed we didn't have kids to play with there (Sophia and Mirielle had to be in school) but we were wonderfully taken care of by the staff of the museum who were more than willing to work with us. We filmed an interview with the VP of Exhibits as well as Alice and David who write and perform in the children's theater. The show they were doing now was called "Eat Like a Pirate," and it was a thinly veiled message to kids to start eating less fast food and more fruits and veggies. We loved it.
When we weren't working, we spent time touring. I finally got to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, as well as the grave of Benjamin Franklin. Being in Philadelphia made me want to learn more about the Revolutionary War, watch National Treasure, and see the musical 1776 again. I'm not sure if I can really describe what it was like for me to be in these places and see these things; to see actual copies of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the Contsitution. I think I'm finally at that age when I can fully appreciate what these things meant to the people who wrote them, and what they mean to all of us now. It was truly a treat to see them all in person.
Being in Philadelphia brought new decisions and more disappointments also; we both registered for a full set of classes at Webster next semester, so that pretty much sealed our decision about whether we go back or not. We also found out that the school system at Nashville apparently has this whole application process we were supposed to go through in order to film anything at one of their schools. Even though we had permission from both the teacher, the principal and every single parent of each child who was filmed, they don't want us to use the footage. We asked the man who we've been in contact with if we could submit an application ex post facto, and they told us no, they don't want Metro to be affiliated with our project. That means right now we can't use any of the footage we shot of the first grade class. Obviously, I'm not that willing to let it go just yet, but we're a bit confused about how to go about convincing them that we're not out to smear their school's reputation.
So, the fun continues. We're having a blast in D.C. as well, but I'll let Katelyn tell you more about that in a day or two. Thanks for reading!
Thanks to Holland Saltsman and John Buck at Webster, we were able to stay with a beautiful family only 20 minutes from downtown Philly; Buck's old high school friend David Harkins, his wife Judith, and their two wonderful daughters, Sophia, 3, and Mirielle, 2. Katelyn and I were thrilled to have younger people to play with once again. We played with the girls in their own huge playroom in the basement, went to feed the ducks at a nearby college campus, and we even got to babysit for a night while Dave and Judith went out. (We figured a free night of sitting was the least we could do to pay back their hospitality).
Oh yeah, we also worked on our film. Once Upon a Nation was indeed what Katelyn said it was; a huge production that takes place over the summer that employs a large array of costumed interpreters from colonial times as well as storytellers who perform at a series of benches around the historic district, telling stories of our nation's birth. It sounds like a great program...definitely something the two of us will be keeping an eye on for summer employment options!
The Please Touch Museum was wonderful as well. We were bummed we didn't have kids to play with there (Sophia and Mirielle had to be in school) but we were wonderfully taken care of by the staff of the museum who were more than willing to work with us. We filmed an interview with the VP of Exhibits as well as Alice and David who write and perform in the children's theater. The show they were doing now was called "Eat Like a Pirate," and it was a thinly veiled message to kids to start eating less fast food and more fruits and veggies. We loved it.
When we weren't working, we spent time touring. I finally got to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, as well as the grave of Benjamin Franklin. Being in Philadelphia made me want to learn more about the Revolutionary War, watch National Treasure, and see the musical 1776 again. I'm not sure if I can really describe what it was like for me to be in these places and see these things; to see actual copies of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the Contsitution. I think I'm finally at that age when I can fully appreciate what these things meant to the people who wrote them, and what they mean to all of us now. It was truly a treat to see them all in person.
Being in Philadelphia brought new decisions and more disappointments also; we both registered for a full set of classes at Webster next semester, so that pretty much sealed our decision about whether we go back or not. We also found out that the school system at Nashville apparently has this whole application process we were supposed to go through in order to film anything at one of their schools. Even though we had permission from both the teacher, the principal and every single parent of each child who was filmed, they don't want us to use the footage. We asked the man who we've been in contact with if we could submit an application ex post facto, and they told us no, they don't want Metro to be affiliated with our project. That means right now we can't use any of the footage we shot of the first grade class. Obviously, I'm not that willing to let it go just yet, but we're a bit confused about how to go about convincing them that we're not out to smear their school's reputation.
So, the fun continues. We're having a blast in D.C. as well, but I'll let Katelyn tell you more about that in a day or two. Thanks for reading!
Friday, November 2, 2007
how do you spell lolligagging?
I don't quite understand how mapquests driving time and our driving time seem to differ in MANY HOURS. I understand that it is just an estimated time. I understand that it does not involve time to get out and use the restroom, to change drivers or simply to blow your nose. The drive to Philadelphia from Cincinatti was supposed to take a mere 9 hours and 15 minutes. Our drive took...13 hours and some minutes.
But that's okay, because we made it safely. Matt's lolligaging in his sleeping bag this morning, but we have an interview at 10 with a man that works for Once Upon a Nation. This organization, if I understand it correctly, works with interpreters and storytellers that interact with visitors in downtown Philadelphia. They put on numerous programs throughout the year. It's similar to a living history museum, like New Salem in Illinois or Williamsburg in Virginia, but it seems to be a little more in depth. We'll find out more as we interview today. Some of what I said may be wrong.
We also have an interview set up with people at the Please Touch! Museum. It's an interactive childrens museum that has some exhibits bringing Alice in Wonderland to life, as well as Where the Wild Things Are. We're waiting to hear back today when we are allowed in the museum to film. The woman we're in touch with there seems extremely excited about us.
This second leg of our journey seems to be bringing us a wider variety of options and things to learn. The Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY was exciting. We had media passes which allowed us in the museum before it opened in the morning and we were able to walk around without a crowd for an hour. The museum takes you through Genesis; through the creation of the earth, through the fall of Adam and Eve, the great flood and Noah's Ark, and the tower of Babel. It finished with a film about the resurrection of Christ. There is a planetarium that illustrates how large the universe is, which I found to be really cool in putting everything into perspective. How miniscule our solar system is... There are animatronics throughout the museum and a lot of displays putting the stories in the bible into three-dimensional form.
Matt's awake, so I need to go.
But that's okay, because we made it safely. Matt's lolligaging in his sleeping bag this morning, but we have an interview at 10 with a man that works for Once Upon a Nation. This organization, if I understand it correctly, works with interpreters and storytellers that interact with visitors in downtown Philadelphia. They put on numerous programs throughout the year. It's similar to a living history museum, like New Salem in Illinois or Williamsburg in Virginia, but it seems to be a little more in depth. We'll find out more as we interview today. Some of what I said may be wrong.
We also have an interview set up with people at the Please Touch! Museum. It's an interactive childrens museum that has some exhibits bringing Alice in Wonderland to life, as well as Where the Wild Things Are. We're waiting to hear back today when we are allowed in the museum to film. The woman we're in touch with there seems extremely excited about us.
This second leg of our journey seems to be bringing us a wider variety of options and things to learn. The Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY was exciting. We had media passes which allowed us in the museum before it opened in the morning and we were able to walk around without a crowd for an hour. The museum takes you through Genesis; through the creation of the earth, through the fall of Adam and Eve, the great flood and Noah's Ark, and the tower of Babel. It finished with a film about the resurrection of Christ. There is a planetarium that illustrates how large the universe is, which I found to be really cool in putting everything into perspective. How miniscule our solar system is... There are animatronics throughout the museum and a lot of displays putting the stories in the bible into three-dimensional form.
Matt's awake, so I need to go.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
On the road again...
Hey, folks.
We haven't been posting for awhile, most likely because there hasn't been too much to post about. Well, that's not entirely true.
After Nashville, we decided we needed to take some time off from both travelling and filming to 1). Relax and make sure we don't get burnt out and 2). Take the time to plan out the rest of our trip; where we want to go and who we want to talk to. Turns out we were only four hours from Springfield, IL., my hometown, so we stayed there for a nice relaxing week or so and got our bearings.
Needless to say, most of the week we worried a lot about next semester. We both have several important decisions that need to be made about going back to school, like where do we live, where should we work, what classes we should take and so on. So Katelyn and I have been actively persuing answers to these questions. One development I'm very happy about is that I managed to score an internship with the Weinstein Company in Los Angeles, reading screenplays for their development departments. As an added bonus, I can do the work from home in St. Louis so I can also go back to school and take a few classes I've always wanted to take but never got the chance to. Looks like I'll be graduating next December with a billion elective credit hours. Oh well.
Now we're in Cincinnati, Ohio, staying with an old friend and former roommate of mine, Kelly and her boyfriend, Ben. Our big event here so far is tomorrow we're touring the brand new Creation museum, which apparently tells the story of creation through a series of interactive exhibits. We'll see if this strictly a Biblical thing or if they mesh science into the mix as well. It looks very intriguing on their website: www.creationmuseum.org
Tonight we're interviewing a few local musicians about their former band and their experiences of telling stories through song. From there, we plan to hit up some good ole' U.S. history in Philadelphia as well as Williamsburg, see New York City and Washington, D.C. and talk to a few psychologists at Cornell University in Ithaca.
Take care and thanks for reading...we'll let you all know how the Creation Museum is soon!
We haven't been posting for awhile, most likely because there hasn't been too much to post about. Well, that's not entirely true.
After Nashville, we decided we needed to take some time off from both travelling and filming to 1). Relax and make sure we don't get burnt out and 2). Take the time to plan out the rest of our trip; where we want to go and who we want to talk to. Turns out we were only four hours from Springfield, IL., my hometown, so we stayed there for a nice relaxing week or so and got our bearings.
Needless to say, most of the week we worried a lot about next semester. We both have several important decisions that need to be made about going back to school, like where do we live, where should we work, what classes we should take and so on. So Katelyn and I have been actively persuing answers to these questions. One development I'm very happy about is that I managed to score an internship with the Weinstein Company in Los Angeles, reading screenplays for their development departments. As an added bonus, I can do the work from home in St. Louis so I can also go back to school and take a few classes I've always wanted to take but never got the chance to. Looks like I'll be graduating next December with a billion elective credit hours. Oh well.
Now we're in Cincinnati, Ohio, staying with an old friend and former roommate of mine, Kelly and her boyfriend, Ben. Our big event here so far is tomorrow we're touring the brand new Creation museum, which apparently tells the story of creation through a series of interactive exhibits. We'll see if this strictly a Biblical thing or if they mesh science into the mix as well. It looks very intriguing on their website: www.creationmuseum.org
Tonight we're interviewing a few local musicians about their former band and their experiences of telling stories through song. From there, we plan to hit up some good ole' U.S. history in Philadelphia as well as Williamsburg, see New York City and Washington, D.C. and talk to a few psychologists at Cornell University in Ithaca.
Take care and thanks for reading...we'll let you all know how the Creation Museum is soon!
Friday, October 26, 2007
frustration
Not being at school when registration for next semester rolls around is
FRUSTRATING
Having to talk on the phone to someone who's accent is thick and I am not bright enough to understand what they are saying is
FRUSTRATING
Playing transfer tag around the infinite web of Webster University departments is
FRUSTRATING
realizing that it's not as easy as I thought it was is
FRUSTRATING
Not to say, of course, that it's hard. In all reality, I am having to do very little after having taken a semester off. The hard part is being able to talk to the people I need to talk to when I want to talk to them...that's hard. They, of course, are not revolving around my universe.
In the meantime, the weather is finally fall, it's raining, the trees have changed, and we're getting close to ending this adventure and replacing it with structure structure structure of time and school.
AGH PULL MY HAIR OUT
FRUSTRATING
Having to talk on the phone to someone who's accent is thick and I am not bright enough to understand what they are saying is
FRUSTRATING
Playing transfer tag around the infinite web of Webster University departments is
FRUSTRATING
realizing that it's not as easy as I thought it was is
FRUSTRATING
Not to say, of course, that it's hard. In all reality, I am having to do very little after having taken a semester off. The hard part is being able to talk to the people I need to talk to when I want to talk to them...that's hard. They, of course, are not revolving around my universe.
In the meantime, the weather is finally fall, it's raining, the trees have changed, and we're getting close to ending this adventure and replacing it with structure structure structure of time and school.
AGH PULL MY HAIR OUT
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A Superheroic First-Grade School
I think today was my favorite day so far since Katelyn and I began travelling with Rosie. But we'll get to that in a minute.
I first want to share with you a little about our time actually in Jonesborough at the National Storytelling Festival. Simply said, we had a great time. We were exhausted most of the time, going to bed late and getting up early and running every which way trying not only to attend and enjoy the storytellers but also interview some of them (not to mention people who attended). It was definitely a different experience. I'm still trying to gauge exactly how I felt about it, because nearly 10,000 people crowding this tiny town and filling tents to the brim made for an interesting time. Most of the time, if you want to see one of the more popular storytellers, you have to sit around at least half an hour ahead of their show to save yourself and only one extra person a seat. This makes it difficult to eat sometimes.
We were also a little dismayed by the lack of the diversity. But we confronted it in almost all of our interviews, including with the founder of the festival, Jimmy Neil Smith. He confirmed that due to the price of tickets, most of the attendees of the festival are middle class, white and from the South. Although one of the storytellers we spoke to, an energetic, vivacious man named Teju, believed that having a diversity of tellers (which they pretty much did) will eventually bring the diversity of the crowd.
All in all, it was enjoyable and I might like to go back someday, although I want to see some smaller festivals where the telling is more intimate. I also happen to think that some college-age storytelling festivals are long overdue.
The Southern Festival of Books: amazing. Not so much going to see the authors or any of the events (I didn't really know anyone who was being featured, which made it hard to figured out what I wanted to see) but rather the booksellers. Especially this one, Pennyworthbooks (located in Chicago) with an entire TWO BOOKCASES full of new, pristine-condition books FOR ONLY $5 A PIECE. And not just second rate books, either. This included titles as diverse as Angela's Ashes, Bridget Jones' Diary, Le Morte de Arthur and Democracy in America (by Tocqueville). As strapped for funding as we are, I can always find money for books, seeing as how given a choice between eating or reading can often be a pretty tough decision. So I got some great stuff that I'm really looking forward to reading (only one of those in the aforementioned list I actually purchased, I'll leave it to you to guess which one, but here's a hint: it's about King Arthur).
So, back to why today was my favorite day. In Jonesborough, we ran into Dr. Judith Maloney, who teaches first grade at Una Elementary in Nashville. Katelyn had been trying to contact schools that she attended here but we had been having no luck and were feeling rather disheartened. Nashville was where we had planned to go next but so far no opportunity to actually get anything done had presented itself. So by a stroke of fate we happened to overhear Dr. Maloney say that she taught school in Nashville. We brought up what we were doing and she said she would love to have us come and talk to her class about what we had learned about stories.
So over the last weekend we wrote up a brief activity to do with them, involving going over the main parts of a story; beginning, middle, end, good guy, bad guy, problem, solution. We wanted to tell them a story and write a story with them. But since neither of us had either ever told a story performance-style before, or been in front of a class that young, or even had a third person to film the whole thing for us, we were a little nervous about how the whole thing would go.
Turns out we couldn't have asked for a better class. These kids were bright, attentive and fun. We were able to switch off the filming duties to one another with relative ease, so we each got to spend a good amount of time working with the class. Katelyn began by leading a brief opening discussion about what a story is, where they hear them and what kinds they like. Then I told them the story of the Billy Goats Gruff, and let me tell you: the things they say about kids snapping to attention and listening to a story is true. It was like a spell had fallen over them, and I know it had nothing to do with my technique, considering I worked out how I was going to tell the story in the shower that morning. After that we went through the parts of the story and identified the beginning, middle and end. They knew who the good guys were and why, who the bad guy was and why. I didn't have to tell them anything.
Then came the best part. Katelyn facilitated a story crafting time, in which the class wrote a story of their own. They settled on their story taking place in, of all places, a school, but not just any school: A SUPERHERO First-Grade school. First they wanted to populate their school with Batman, Spider-Man and Superman but fearing copywright lawsuits we had to steer them away from that. Once Katelyn led them to a Halloween theme, their ideas sprang up like lightning: The Ghost, Skeleton and my personal favorite, Pumpkin-Man, whose head is a big orange pumpkin and who can shoot pumpkin seeds at his enemies, as well as take his head off and throw it (I gues a lawsuit from Washington Irving is not as possible). But a serious threat plagues this Superhero First-Grade School in the guise of The Vampire, who cunningly disarms you with his charm before giving you a hug and sucking all of your powers (not blood, sorry, kids) away, leaving you "weak and sad." Good thing our heroes are resourceful, and can make a plan to capture this evil man by hiding a hole in the ground with leaves and leading him over it, causing him to fall to its depth and subsequently restore their powers.
Then the class divided into groups of three and illustrated their story, and Katelyn and I hope to find somewhere we can publish their story for them and send it back to them, although we didn't tell them that in case we couldn't make it happen.
So we were truly blessed to come to Nashville after all, thanks to Hume-Fogg Academic High School, and Humanities Council of Tennessee, and Una Elementary, and Meaghan and Jared who have let us trash their guest room with our many clothes, books and camera equipment. Speaking of camera equipment, I almost forgot to mention that we had to purchase a new shock mount for our microphone because the one we were using became stripped. Good thing we were in Nashville, the Music Capitol of America.
Funny thing, after this, who knows where we'll be? We certainly don't. Like everything else, we seem to be deciding at the last possible moment.
But of course, when we know, you'll know.
I first want to share with you a little about our time actually in Jonesborough at the National Storytelling Festival. Simply said, we had a great time. We were exhausted most of the time, going to bed late and getting up early and running every which way trying not only to attend and enjoy the storytellers but also interview some of them (not to mention people who attended). It was definitely a different experience. I'm still trying to gauge exactly how I felt about it, because nearly 10,000 people crowding this tiny town and filling tents to the brim made for an interesting time. Most of the time, if you want to see one of the more popular storytellers, you have to sit around at least half an hour ahead of their show to save yourself and only one extra person a seat. This makes it difficult to eat sometimes.
We were also a little dismayed by the lack of the diversity. But we confronted it in almost all of our interviews, including with the founder of the festival, Jimmy Neil Smith. He confirmed that due to the price of tickets, most of the attendees of the festival are middle class, white and from the South. Although one of the storytellers we spoke to, an energetic, vivacious man named Teju, believed that having a diversity of tellers (which they pretty much did) will eventually bring the diversity of the crowd.
All in all, it was enjoyable and I might like to go back someday, although I want to see some smaller festivals where the telling is more intimate. I also happen to think that some college-age storytelling festivals are long overdue.
The Southern Festival of Books: amazing. Not so much going to see the authors or any of the events (I didn't really know anyone who was being featured, which made it hard to figured out what I wanted to see) but rather the booksellers. Especially this one, Pennyworthbooks (located in Chicago) with an entire TWO BOOKCASES full of new, pristine-condition books FOR ONLY $5 A PIECE. And not just second rate books, either. This included titles as diverse as Angela's Ashes, Bridget Jones' Diary, Le Morte de Arthur and Democracy in America (by Tocqueville). As strapped for funding as we are, I can always find money for books, seeing as how given a choice between eating or reading can often be a pretty tough decision. So I got some great stuff that I'm really looking forward to reading (only one of those in the aforementioned list I actually purchased, I'll leave it to you to guess which one, but here's a hint: it's about King Arthur).
So, back to why today was my favorite day. In Jonesborough, we ran into Dr. Judith Maloney, who teaches first grade at Una Elementary in Nashville. Katelyn had been trying to contact schools that she attended here but we had been having no luck and were feeling rather disheartened. Nashville was where we had planned to go next but so far no opportunity to actually get anything done had presented itself. So by a stroke of fate we happened to overhear Dr. Maloney say that she taught school in Nashville. We brought up what we were doing and she said she would love to have us come and talk to her class about what we had learned about stories.
So over the last weekend we wrote up a brief activity to do with them, involving going over the main parts of a story; beginning, middle, end, good guy, bad guy, problem, solution. We wanted to tell them a story and write a story with them. But since neither of us had either ever told a story performance-style before, or been in front of a class that young, or even had a third person to film the whole thing for us, we were a little nervous about how the whole thing would go.
Turns out we couldn't have asked for a better class. These kids were bright, attentive and fun. We were able to switch off the filming duties to one another with relative ease, so we each got to spend a good amount of time working with the class. Katelyn began by leading a brief opening discussion about what a story is, where they hear them and what kinds they like. Then I told them the story of the Billy Goats Gruff, and let me tell you: the things they say about kids snapping to attention and listening to a story is true. It was like a spell had fallen over them, and I know it had nothing to do with my technique, considering I worked out how I was going to tell the story in the shower that morning. After that we went through the parts of the story and identified the beginning, middle and end. They knew who the good guys were and why, who the bad guy was and why. I didn't have to tell them anything.
Then came the best part. Katelyn facilitated a story crafting time, in which the class wrote a story of their own. They settled on their story taking place in, of all places, a school, but not just any school: A SUPERHERO First-Grade school. First they wanted to populate their school with Batman, Spider-Man and Superman but fearing copywright lawsuits we had to steer them away from that. Once Katelyn led them to a Halloween theme, their ideas sprang up like lightning: The Ghost, Skeleton and my personal favorite, Pumpkin-Man, whose head is a big orange pumpkin and who can shoot pumpkin seeds at his enemies, as well as take his head off and throw it (I gues a lawsuit from Washington Irving is not as possible). But a serious threat plagues this Superhero First-Grade School in the guise of The Vampire, who cunningly disarms you with his charm before giving you a hug and sucking all of your powers (not blood, sorry, kids) away, leaving you "weak and sad." Good thing our heroes are resourceful, and can make a plan to capture this evil man by hiding a hole in the ground with leaves and leading him over it, causing him to fall to its depth and subsequently restore their powers.
Then the class divided into groups of three and illustrated their story, and Katelyn and I hope to find somewhere we can publish their story for them and send it back to them, although we didn't tell them that in case we couldn't make it happen.
So we were truly blessed to come to Nashville after all, thanks to Hume-Fogg Academic High School, and Humanities Council of Tennessee, and Una Elementary, and Meaghan and Jared who have let us trash their guest room with our many clothes, books and camera equipment. Speaking of camera equipment, I almost forgot to mention that we had to purchase a new shock mount for our microphone because the one we were using became stripped. Good thing we were in Nashville, the Music Capitol of America.
Funny thing, after this, who knows where we'll be? We certainly don't. Like everything else, we seem to be deciding at the last possible moment.
But of course, when we know, you'll know.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Travellers Inn
I know it's been a little while, and Matt and I were getting really good at updating every so often, but we had a bit of a mishap in Jonesborough that prevented us from blogging.
After New Orleans, we headed to Jonesborough, TN via Birmingham, AL for the National Storytelling Festival. We spent the night with a friend of mine from high school, Brydee. Then we went to Jonesborough to stay at a motel that Matt's step-grandmother bought for us. We checked in at the Traveller's Inn in Elizabethon, TN. Elizabethon is not that far from Jonesborough, and it was the only place with a room open. We had problems checking in, but that is really not important. It ended up being worked out. We went to our room, room 111 on the bottom floor, an easily accesible non-smoking room. As Matt was using the bathroom, I sat down next to the TV reading a brochure about the motel when I noticed a jumping black period sized dot on my hand. A flea. I looked down at my socked feet. Covered with fleas. I yelled for Matt, he came out of the bathroom and I by-passed him in, pulling the fleas off of me and dropping them into the toilet. Matt checked his legs and began pulling his off as well. We grabbed our things and went to the front desk to get our room changed. We were met with the manager from Hades.
"How do you know there are fleas?"
"Well, it jumped on my hand. Matt just killed one over there. I left them in the toilet in the room if you want to see them"
"Well, you have to understand that I'm really busy right now."
"Umm...ok?"
But she handed us our new keys. And although we discovered that the wireless internet was secluded to the lobby, only open until 11pm, and it was already 10:30pm, we passed the night rather comfortably.
As did our second night of our stay, although we did pass the cleaning ladies in the morning smoking cigarettes at the same time pushing their cleaning carts.
The third night in Jonesborough we were out late at the festival, attending the midnight cabaret. We got back to our room around 12:30am. Matt went to use the bathroom and came out, "The toilet isn't flushing". I went in to look at it. It sounded like the chain had disconnected inside the toilet, something that happened frequently at the res halls in Webster University. We tried to lift the lid of the toilet in order to fix the problem, but the countertop extended over the toilet seat and we could only lift the lid about half an inch. Matt disappeared downstairs again to speak with the manager from Hades. He returned, agitated, with a key in his hand. "We can use a bathroom in another room, but we can't change rooms. There isn't anyone here to be able to fix it tonight. She'll have maintenance in the morning."
We went to the room, but I couldn't get the door open. I went to get some more help. The woman met me at the night check in window, and started to talk to me with the window closed. I asked her to open it so that I could hear her better. She looked at me, and I said, "The key won't open the door"
"So what, you think I can call mainetnance now?"
"No, I don't. I just can't get the door to open"
"Is your toilet still broken?"
"Yes"
"How do you know it's broken"
"It doesn't flush"
"It doesn't work?"
"No. We even tried to fix it ourselves but we couldn't because the counter is in the way."
"You guys need to stop coming down here and complaining."
"I can't get the door open."
"Lift the door handle, not push it down."
"Oh."
"But don't touch the bed. If you touch the bed, I charge you $80 to your credit card. Don't make it look like you've used the room at all. I charge you."
And so I left, running, fuming up the stairs. It worked. There was a protective sanitary strip on the toilet holding the toilet seats together. I lifted them both, squatted and used the bathroom. Didn't want to get charged for taking the sanitary wrap off.
When we left the next morning there was a woman's purse floating in the pool outside. Matt told a worker, she said maintenance would take care of it. She was sitting right next to the pool.
Anyway, now that that is over we are at my sister and her husband's in Nashville. We went to the first day of the Southern Festival of Books today. I got to see two long lost friends, Linda Ragsdale and her daughter Jessie. Linda was there with her books she's just published, and her daughter went to a session of an author of a book she was just reading.
Can we have more information on the documentaries that anonymous said are out? We'd like to look at them to ensure that what we creat isn't what has been created.
After New Orleans, we headed to Jonesborough, TN via Birmingham, AL for the National Storytelling Festival. We spent the night with a friend of mine from high school, Brydee. Then we went to Jonesborough to stay at a motel that Matt's step-grandmother bought for us. We checked in at the Traveller's Inn in Elizabethon, TN. Elizabethon is not that far from Jonesborough, and it was the only place with a room open. We had problems checking in, but that is really not important. It ended up being worked out. We went to our room, room 111 on the bottom floor, an easily accesible non-smoking room. As Matt was using the bathroom, I sat down next to the TV reading a brochure about the motel when I noticed a jumping black period sized dot on my hand. A flea. I looked down at my socked feet. Covered with fleas. I yelled for Matt, he came out of the bathroom and I by-passed him in, pulling the fleas off of me and dropping them into the toilet. Matt checked his legs and began pulling his off as well. We grabbed our things and went to the front desk to get our room changed. We were met with the manager from Hades.
"How do you know there are fleas?"
"Well, it jumped on my hand. Matt just killed one over there. I left them in the toilet in the room if you want to see them"
"Well, you have to understand that I'm really busy right now."
"Umm...ok?"
But she handed us our new keys. And although we discovered that the wireless internet was secluded to the lobby, only open until 11pm, and it was already 10:30pm, we passed the night rather comfortably.
As did our second night of our stay, although we did pass the cleaning ladies in the morning smoking cigarettes at the same time pushing their cleaning carts.
The third night in Jonesborough we were out late at the festival, attending the midnight cabaret. We got back to our room around 12:30am. Matt went to use the bathroom and came out, "The toilet isn't flushing". I went in to look at it. It sounded like the chain had disconnected inside the toilet, something that happened frequently at the res halls in Webster University. We tried to lift the lid of the toilet in order to fix the problem, but the countertop extended over the toilet seat and we could only lift the lid about half an inch. Matt disappeared downstairs again to speak with the manager from Hades. He returned, agitated, with a key in his hand. "We can use a bathroom in another room, but we can't change rooms. There isn't anyone here to be able to fix it tonight. She'll have maintenance in the morning."
We went to the room, but I couldn't get the door open. I went to get some more help. The woman met me at the night check in window, and started to talk to me with the window closed. I asked her to open it so that I could hear her better. She looked at me, and I said, "The key won't open the door"
"So what, you think I can call mainetnance now?"
"No, I don't. I just can't get the door to open"
"Is your toilet still broken?"
"Yes"
"How do you know it's broken"
"It doesn't flush"
"It doesn't work?"
"No. We even tried to fix it ourselves but we couldn't because the counter is in the way."
"You guys need to stop coming down here and complaining."
"I can't get the door open."
"Lift the door handle, not push it down."
"Oh."
"But don't touch the bed. If you touch the bed, I charge you $80 to your credit card. Don't make it look like you've used the room at all. I charge you."
And so I left, running, fuming up the stairs. It worked. There was a protective sanitary strip on the toilet holding the toilet seats together. I lifted them both, squatted and used the bathroom. Didn't want to get charged for taking the sanitary wrap off.
When we left the next morning there was a woman's purse floating in the pool outside. Matt told a worker, she said maintenance would take care of it. She was sitting right next to the pool.
Anyway, now that that is over we are at my sister and her husband's in Nashville. We went to the first day of the Southern Festival of Books today. I got to see two long lost friends, Linda Ragsdale and her daughter Jessie. Linda was there with her books she's just published, and her daughter went to a session of an author of a book she was just reading.
Can we have more information on the documentaries that anonymous said are out? We'd like to look at them to ensure that what we creat isn't what has been created.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Cowboys and Musicians
Today was a productive day. We had an interview with Chris Jones, a grad student who's teaching a course on Myth and Life for the anthropology department at Tulane University. I was a bit trepidatious about this particular interview, specifically because we didn't get much of a chance to talk to Chris before we began the interview and so I didn't know much about the class he taught before we started.
The more it went on, though, the more it became evident that this class is searching for the exact same sort of thing we're searching for. Specifically, the course examines the influence of mythology in our daily life. Chris said that many people think of "myth" as a story about a god or a great hero, but this isn't always true. Myths can be more commonly seen as stories (and, within these stories, situations or archetypes) that are embedded in our subconscious rather than our conscious. Let me give you the brilliant example that he gave.
There's the myth of the American cowboy; how many times have you seen this in Westerns? A lone gunslinger riding through
the desert comes across a poor town of common folk who are being terrorized by a sinister "baddie," usually an escaped convict or a notorious gang leader. The sheriff of the town, a well meaning, likeable kind of guy, is nonetheless completely ineffectual at bringing said evil to justice. Lo and behold, the stirrup-laden hero, after deciding that this is one fight he'll have to tough out alone, charges in on wherever the bad men are, guns blazing, and after a thrilling fight, stands triumphant. Once justice is delivered and peace is restored to the town, the hero rides off into the proverbial sunset, awaiting the next time he may be called on to intervene.
And here we have George W. Bush; quintessential cowboy trope with the Texas swagger, and Iraq, the poor town of depressed citizens being terrorized by the big, bad Saddam Hussein. Obviously the protectors of Iraq, whatever they may be, are rather ineffectual at their job and so Bush, deciding it's his heroic duty to go in alone without the help or approval of the U.N. (or for that matter any other country), charges in, guns blazing, captures the bad guy, and is now working on setting up peace and prosperity in Iraq (i.e., democracy) so that he can ride off into the sunset and leave the country to its own government. But always, America will be there, riding around the desert somewhere, ready to be called on again to save the day whenever need be.
Now, regardless of your political affilliations or how you feel about Bush or the war or even America, you'll have to admit that there are some very obvious parallels going on here. People who support Bush and the war are honing in on this very American myth of our country as great protector and any other country as damsel in distress. How many other times throughout history has this happened? And aside from any political underpinnings of this particular example, this motif is common in many other kinds of stories.
After I recognized this "myth" is also chracterized in the comic books of Batman, Chris humored me. Here we have Gotham City as an urban jungle taking place of the desert town, and Joker, The Penguin, or Catwoman as the threat that needs to be
dealt with. Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham City Police are the enforcers who more than have their hands full, and so Batman, as the lone dark vigilante who acts outside of the ranges of the local law enforcement, takes matters into his own hands.
Obviously, Chris pointed out, we would hesitate to recognize that there is something like a "Batman myth," but certainly the stories of this costumed hero are very mythic archetypes in their telling. So then we get to delve into the influence of characters like John Wayne and Batman on the public conscious, and specifically the imaginations adolescent boys. How many times do boys want to see themselves as the lone hero who can stand up to the bully, using force only when necessary, and make the playground safe once and for all? I know I did. The fact that it never actually got around to happening didn't matter, the possibility was always there. And still there are certain things that come up in life that seem I'll have to handle alone, and I need only to call on mythic archetypes or heroes to remind myself that it can be done. This, Joseph Campbell would say, is the "Power of Myth."
We are going to a coffee house tomorrow night to hear some free live music (what else is New Orleans known for, right?) and then hopefully we'll score an interview with the band who I suppose uses music to tell stories. At least the man I spoke with on the phone told me "that's where you need be" to find what we're looking for.
So, like I said before, today was a productive day.
The more it went on, though, the more it became evident that this class is searching for the exact same sort of thing we're searching for. Specifically, the course examines the influence of mythology in our daily life. Chris said that many people think of "myth" as a story about a god or a great hero, but this isn't always true. Myths can be more commonly seen as stories (and, within these stories, situations or archetypes) that are embedded in our subconscious rather than our conscious. Let me give you the brilliant example that he gave.
There's the myth of the American cowboy; how many times have you seen this in Westerns? A lone gunslinger riding through
the desert comes across a poor town of common folk who are being terrorized by a sinister "baddie," usually an escaped convict or a notorious gang leader. The sheriff of the town, a well meaning, likeable kind of guy, is nonetheless completely ineffectual at bringing said evil to justice. Lo and behold, the stirrup-laden hero, after deciding that this is one fight he'll have to tough out alone, charges in on wherever the bad men are, guns blazing, and after a thrilling fight, stands triumphant. Once justice is delivered and peace is restored to the town, the hero rides off into the proverbial sunset, awaiting the next time he may be called on to intervene. And here we have George W. Bush; quintessential cowboy trope with the Texas swagger, and Iraq, the poor town of depressed citizens being terrorized by the big, bad Saddam Hussein. Obviously the protectors of Iraq, whatever they may be, are rather ineffectual at their job and so Bush, deciding it's his heroic duty to go in alone without the help or approval of the U.N. (or for that matter any other country), charges in, guns blazing, captures the bad guy, and is now working on setting up peace and prosperity in Iraq (i.e., democracy) so that he can ride off into the sunset and leave the country to its own government. But always, America will be there, riding around the desert somewhere, ready to be called on again to save the day whenever need be.
Now, regardless of your political affilliations or how you feel about Bush or the war or even America, you'll have to admit that there are some very obvious parallels going on here. People who support Bush and the war are honing in on this very American myth of our country as great protector and any other country as damsel in distress. How many other times throughout history has this happened? And aside from any political underpinnings of this particular example, this motif is common in many other kinds of stories.
After I recognized this "myth" is also chracterized in the comic books of Batman, Chris humored me. Here we have Gotham City as an urban jungle taking place of the desert town, and Joker, The Penguin, or Catwoman as the threat that needs to be
dealt with. Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham City Police are the enforcers who more than have their hands full, and so Batman, as the lone dark vigilante who acts outside of the ranges of the local law enforcement, takes matters into his own hands.Obviously, Chris pointed out, we would hesitate to recognize that there is something like a "Batman myth," but certainly the stories of this costumed hero are very mythic archetypes in their telling. So then we get to delve into the influence of characters like John Wayne and Batman on the public conscious, and specifically the imaginations adolescent boys. How many times do boys want to see themselves as the lone hero who can stand up to the bully, using force only when necessary, and make the playground safe once and for all? I know I did. The fact that it never actually got around to happening didn't matter, the possibility was always there. And still there are certain things that come up in life that seem I'll have to handle alone, and I need only to call on mythic archetypes or heroes to remind myself that it can be done. This, Joseph Campbell would say, is the "Power of Myth."
We are going to a coffee house tomorrow night to hear some free live music (what else is New Orleans known for, right?) and then hopefully we'll score an interview with the band who I suppose uses music to tell stories. At least the man I spoke with on the phone told me "that's where you need be" to find what we're looking for.
So, like I said before, today was a productive day.
Friday, September 28, 2007
not so spunky blog
Matt likes to write long scholarly blogs, and I prefer to write more random, short...let's say spunky blogs.
Mostly because my computer time is when I'm half asleep typing, forming words in my head and only hoping that I hit the right keys. Through half-slit eyes I try to spell check, but here's for hoping.
We made it to New Orleans in a fantastic feat of 15 1/2 driving hours. It shouldn't have taken that long, but we stopped to eat twice this time and we got stuck in Houston traffic. That was a nightmare, getting stuck about 10 miles outside the city in traffic that wasn't even city traffic, then getting into the city and coming to yet another standstill.
New Orleans is a city I've never been to before, like most of the places Matt and I have traveled so far. I'm stuck by the sense of community every where we turn. And we're face to face with fascinating history. Architecture. Culture. People. Lauren and Alan (sorry, Alan, if you spell your name someway different than this, but I'm too embarrassed to poke my head in the other room and ask you how you spell your name) are great hosts and it's been neat for me to get to meet people Matt mentions so frequently.
We're setting up our interviews, which has proved more challenging than we expected. Although we were in contact with people from Tulane before we got here, we had no replies and were not able to set anything up then. I'm a little frustrated, but I think it is because I'm still tired and trying to catch up on sleep from having driven and sat in the car for so long.
Alan took us around town today while Lauren was at work, and we got to see a house fire. Two hosues over 100 years old went up in smoke. We saw the smoke plumes and took our nosy selves to discover the cause. I felt insensitive as I stood watching the flames literally eat the houses, as ash poured down all around us, as we felt the water misting from the hoses. It was nerve-wracking for me to watch. I wondered about the families who belonged inside those walls. I wondered how much of their life was inside. How they would go on...would they want to? After all they had been through with Katrina...and now a fire. Once, as has happened many times on this trip, I felt an immense appreciation for the life that I have...and fear to realize how fragile it really is. We build an illusion of safety and control. It's a defense mechanism, an instinct for survival.
But it can all be taken away.
I hadn't meant to end on a sour note or a sad note, but I am.
I do like New Orleans though.
Mostly because my computer time is when I'm half asleep typing, forming words in my head and only hoping that I hit the right keys. Through half-slit eyes I try to spell check, but here's for hoping.
We made it to New Orleans in a fantastic feat of 15 1/2 driving hours. It shouldn't have taken that long, but we stopped to eat twice this time and we got stuck in Houston traffic. That was a nightmare, getting stuck about 10 miles outside the city in traffic that wasn't even city traffic, then getting into the city and coming to yet another standstill.
New Orleans is a city I've never been to before, like most of the places Matt and I have traveled so far. I'm stuck by the sense of community every where we turn. And we're face to face with fascinating history. Architecture. Culture. People. Lauren and Alan (sorry, Alan, if you spell your name someway different than this, but I'm too embarrassed to poke my head in the other room and ask you how you spell your name) are great hosts and it's been neat for me to get to meet people Matt mentions so frequently.
We're setting up our interviews, which has proved more challenging than we expected. Although we were in contact with people from Tulane before we got here, we had no replies and were not able to set anything up then. I'm a little frustrated, but I think it is because I'm still tired and trying to catch up on sleep from having driven and sat in the car for so long.
Alan took us around town today while Lauren was at work, and we got to see a house fire. Two hosues over 100 years old went up in smoke. We saw the smoke plumes and took our nosy selves to discover the cause. I felt insensitive as I stood watching the flames literally eat the houses, as ash poured down all around us, as we felt the water misting from the hoses. It was nerve-wracking for me to watch. I wondered about the families who belonged inside those walls. I wondered how much of their life was inside. How they would go on...would they want to? After all they had been through with Katrina...and now a fire. Once, as has happened many times on this trip, I felt an immense appreciation for the life that I have...and fear to realize how fragile it really is. We build an illusion of safety and control. It's a defense mechanism, an instinct for survival.
But it can all be taken away.
I hadn't meant to end on a sour note or a sad note, but I am.
I do like New Orleans though.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Road Fever
So here's some things I've learned today:
1). Most of Texas is actually in the central time zone.
2). When sitting in a car for long periods of time, you can acquire something I like to call "car fever."
And, perhaps most importantly,
3). Everyone on the interstate tailgates. Everyone.
Today we attempted the longest stretch of driving in one day for us so far: from Show Low, Arizona to Austin, Texas. Despite leaving at 7:30am and not even stopping to eat (I ate in the car while Katelyn drove, then she ate while I did), the two-hour time change is finally what did us in. We realized that we wouldn't make it to Austin until 11:30pm our time, which would really be 1:30am for our gracious host, the sister of a good friend of ours from Webster. Needless to say, we didn't feel comfortable arriving that late at anyone's home, even if we did think we could manage to drive that far without sleeping, which we didn't.
Which is why I'm sitting in the laundry room of a KOA campground (or kampground, as they infuriatingly choose to spell it - I guess because it's "cute") which just happens to have free wireless internet in Fort Stockton, Texas. I wish we could stay and see some of the Lone Star State, but we have to get on to New Orleans, where a good friend of mine from high school is waiting for us, and where we'll hopefully have about a week to interview some of Tulane University's faculty in the anthropology, history and psychology departments about their take on the importance of stories, myths, and folktales.
This next phase of our research and filming I'm getting more and more excited about, because we'll be exploring a more "scholarly" approach to the uses of story. The storytellers we talked to were wonderful about clueing us in to the idea that stories can entrance and transport their listeners; now I hope to really tackle the question of why the human mind is made that way.
A few books have been helping us out in this search so far: "The Power of Myth," by Bill Moyers and renowned myth scholar Joseph Campbell, "The Uses of Enchantment" by Bruno Bettelheim, and of course, the book that started it all (for us anyway) "The Seven Basic Plots" by Christopher Booker.
"Plots" is a nearly 800-page tome that apparently took Booker more than 30 years of his adult life to put together. In it, he makes the case that there are only seven basic stories that keep getting re-told in some fashion or another, in every story ever told, in any medium, in any culture, throughout all of time. They are: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy and Rebirth.
Many of the storytellers we have talked to have already had many interesting opinions on this idea (although only one has actually heard of and began to read this particular book). The motif that they all seem to come back to is that of Cinderella; how there are literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella rags-to-riches story in every culture in the world. This obviously begs the question: what is it that we see in the Cinderella story that makes us re-tell it over and over, in all sorts of different forms and mediums throughout history? There is something very elementally human in that story, of the underdog finally coming out on top, that makes us root for these poor characters time and time again. Interesting concept, but we'll have to see how well Booker's theory holds up all the way to the end.
"The Power of Myth" is a fascinating read. It's a television interview between Moyers and Campbell transcribed into book form, and I'm constantly highlighting things on every page that Campbell has to say. He is the man who pretty much "wrote the book" on the idea that certain stories are re-told in different forms across many cultures in his "Hero of a Thousand Faces" which I unfortunately have not been able to track down. Campbell was apparently cited as a major inspiration for the character of Luke Skywalker. No wonder Star Wars works so well: it's a myth many of us have already heard, just told in a highly original, exciting new way.
Since it's getting late and we have to be up early to finish our jaunt into NOLA tomorrow, I'll have to leave it there for now. But don't worry, there'll be more of my excited ramblings on what I'm learning as we go along...after all, when it consumes pretty much 75% of your life, what else is there to write about?
Good night!
1). Most of Texas is actually in the central time zone.
2). When sitting in a car for long periods of time, you can acquire something I like to call "car fever."
And, perhaps most importantly,
3). Everyone on the interstate tailgates. Everyone.
Today we attempted the longest stretch of driving in one day for us so far: from Show Low, Arizona to Austin, Texas. Despite leaving at 7:30am and not even stopping to eat (I ate in the car while Katelyn drove, then she ate while I did), the two-hour time change is finally what did us in. We realized that we wouldn't make it to Austin until 11:30pm our time, which would really be 1:30am for our gracious host, the sister of a good friend of ours from Webster. Needless to say, we didn't feel comfortable arriving that late at anyone's home, even if we did think we could manage to drive that far without sleeping, which we didn't.
Which is why I'm sitting in the laundry room of a KOA campground (or kampground, as they infuriatingly choose to spell it - I guess because it's "cute") which just happens to have free wireless internet in Fort Stockton, Texas. I wish we could stay and see some of the Lone Star State, but we have to get on to New Orleans, where a good friend of mine from high school is waiting for us, and where we'll hopefully have about a week to interview some of Tulane University's faculty in the anthropology, history and psychology departments about their take on the importance of stories, myths, and folktales.
This next phase of our research and filming I'm getting more and more excited about, because we'll be exploring a more "scholarly" approach to the uses of story. The storytellers we talked to were wonderful about clueing us in to the idea that stories can entrance and transport their listeners; now I hope to really tackle the question of why the human mind is made that way.
A few books have been helping us out in this search so far: "The Power of Myth," by Bill Moyers and renowned myth scholar Joseph Campbell, "The Uses of Enchantment" by Bruno Bettelheim, and of course, the book that started it all (for us anyway) "The Seven Basic Plots" by Christopher Booker.
"Plots" is a nearly 800-page tome that apparently took Booker more than 30 years of his adult life to put together. In it, he makes the case that there are only seven basic stories that keep getting re-told in some fashion or another, in every story ever told, in any medium, in any culture, throughout all of time. They are: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy and Rebirth.
Many of the storytellers we have talked to have already had many interesting opinions on this idea (although only one has actually heard of and began to read this particular book). The motif that they all seem to come back to is that of Cinderella; how there are literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella rags-to-riches story in every culture in the world. This obviously begs the question: what is it that we see in the Cinderella story that makes us re-tell it over and over, in all sorts of different forms and mediums throughout history? There is something very elementally human in that story, of the underdog finally coming out on top, that makes us root for these poor characters time and time again. Interesting concept, but we'll have to see how well Booker's theory holds up all the way to the end.
"The Power of Myth" is a fascinating read. It's a television interview between Moyers and Campbell transcribed into book form, and I'm constantly highlighting things on every page that Campbell has to say. He is the man who pretty much "wrote the book" on the idea that certain stories are re-told in different forms across many cultures in his "Hero of a Thousand Faces" which I unfortunately have not been able to track down. Campbell was apparently cited as a major inspiration for the character of Luke Skywalker. No wonder Star Wars works so well: it's a myth many of us have already heard, just told in a highly original, exciting new way.
Since it's getting late and we have to be up early to finish our jaunt into NOLA tomorrow, I'll have to leave it there for now. But don't worry, there'll be more of my excited ramblings on what I'm learning as we go along...after all, when it consumes pretty much 75% of your life, what else is there to write about?
Good night!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Actual Factual
Fact: We are in Show Low, AZ
Fact: We've been slightly lazy...BUT getting things straightened out for the last half of our trip
Fact: We're running out of money
Fact: We wouldn't be where we are now if our extended family and friends hadn't been supporting us
Fact: Thank you
Fact: We are going to the festival in Jonesbourough, TN
Fact: Then we are going to the Southern Festival of books in Nashville, TN
Fact: My older sister and her husband still live in Nashville
Fact: Fall is upon us and I can't wait for brown, red and orange leaves
Fact: Driving to New Orleans will take us over 20 hours
Fact: We are staying with Matt's friend Lauren in New Orleans and she's cool
Fact: I'm going to go eat M&Ms and dream about how much weight I need to lose before returning to school
Fact: We've been slightly lazy...BUT getting things straightened out for the last half of our trip
Fact: We're running out of money
Fact: We wouldn't be where we are now if our extended family and friends hadn't been supporting us
Fact: Thank you
Fact: We are going to the festival in Jonesbourough, TN
Fact: Then we are going to the Southern Festival of books in Nashville, TN
Fact: My older sister and her husband still live in Nashville
Fact: Fall is upon us and I can't wait for brown, red and orange leaves
Fact: Driving to New Orleans will take us over 20 hours
Fact: We are staying with Matt's friend Lauren in New Orleans and she's cool
Fact: I'm going to go eat M&Ms and dream about how much weight I need to lose before returning to school
Thursday, September 20, 2007
This new journey
So it's kind of ridiculous, isn't it, that nearly halfway into a new semester, with our project half-finished, we finally get around to putting up a new blog and such to keep you all updated on what we're doing. Ah well, such is life. At least I can say our excuse is that we've actually been so busy working on our project that marketing ourselves has become less important, a fact which I can say I'm actually pretty proud of. But we're just now coming to that place, I guess, in which we actually know what we're doing and where we're going and we have enough to share that it might make for some interesting reading, so those of you who aren't our parents can know where we are a bit more often than once in a blue moon, as the saying goes.
Anyway. It's true that our new film is still a documentary, and that it is a documentary about story. Although whenever we try to explain it quickly to people it still feels a bit awkward rolling off of our tongues. Hopefully what follows will put it in a more coherent context for you all.
I don't know if you've happened to notice, but story is everywhere. Every time we pick up a book, turn on the T.V., go to a movie or a play or a dance recital, some kind of story of one sort of another is being told. It may be a true story, or a made-up story; a story about good vs. evil, or a story about what happened to the man whose car was stolen last week. Whenever we tell someone how our day went or what happened to us over lunch, we are telling a story. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, stories are the fundamental unit of cognitive experience that shape all of human existence, everywhere. Something in us just gets stories, recognizes them and relates to them as easy as our lungs take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
So, okay, we like to tell stories. We entertain and communicate with each other. Most people tend to get that far into story and leave it at that. But I still believe that there is something so fascinating in the why we choose to tell stories - why we need to tell them and hear them - and that question is the basic force that drives this documentary. Why are we wired that way? Why do we find stories so compelling? What is it in our stories that tell us who we are? There are deep, universal answers in the stories we tell, and the more Katelyn and I look into this idea the more convinced of that I become.
Much more than just a "storytelling documentary," (which, granted, would be a fascinating piece of work in and of itself) we hope to go beyond storytelling and talk to people who work with all facets of story: historians, anthropologists, psychologists, religious leaders, artists, actors, filmmakers, and whoever else we can get a hold of before our time (and our money, but that's a different issue) run out. So far we have talked to a wide variety of storytellers in four West Coast states about their passion and profession and gotten some great interviews and footage. After September our journey takes us Eastward and we'll try to find more people who don't necessarily work in storytelling to talk to.
As Katelyn said, this blog is for us to tell our story, and we hope that you'll have as much fun reading about it as we have making it.
Anyway. It's true that our new film is still a documentary, and that it is a documentary about story. Although whenever we try to explain it quickly to people it still feels a bit awkward rolling off of our tongues. Hopefully what follows will put it in a more coherent context for you all.
I don't know if you've happened to notice, but story is everywhere. Every time we pick up a book, turn on the T.V., go to a movie or a play or a dance recital, some kind of story of one sort of another is being told. It may be a true story, or a made-up story; a story about good vs. evil, or a story about what happened to the man whose car was stolen last week. Whenever we tell someone how our day went or what happened to us over lunch, we are telling a story. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, stories are the fundamental unit of cognitive experience that shape all of human existence, everywhere. Something in us just gets stories, recognizes them and relates to them as easy as our lungs take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
So, okay, we like to tell stories. We entertain and communicate with each other. Most people tend to get that far into story and leave it at that. But I still believe that there is something so fascinating in the why we choose to tell stories - why we need to tell them and hear them - and that question is the basic force that drives this documentary. Why are we wired that way? Why do we find stories so compelling? What is it in our stories that tell us who we are? There are deep, universal answers in the stories we tell, and the more Katelyn and I look into this idea the more convinced of that I become.
Much more than just a "storytelling documentary," (which, granted, would be a fascinating piece of work in and of itself) we hope to go beyond storytelling and talk to people who work with all facets of story: historians, anthropologists, psychologists, religious leaders, artists, actors, filmmakers, and whoever else we can get a hold of before our time (and our money, but that's a different issue) run out. So far we have talked to a wide variety of storytellers in four West Coast states about their passion and profession and gotten some great interviews and footage. After September our journey takes us Eastward and we'll try to find more people who don't necessarily work in storytelling to talk to.
As Katelyn said, this blog is for us to tell our story, and we hope that you'll have as much fun reading about it as we have making it.
Friday, September 14, 2007
I woke up this morning
Woke up this morning
With this feeling inside me that I can't explain
Like a weight that I've carried
Has been carried away, away
But I know something is coming
I don't know what it is
But I know it's amazing, you save me
My time is coming
And I'll find my way out of this longest drought
It feels like today I know it feels like today I'm sure
Its the one thing that's missin'
The one thing I'm wishin'
Life's sacred blessin'
It feels like today
Feels like today
-Rascal Flatts
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We're in Phoenix, AZ. By way of LA, San Francisco, Eugene, Seattle, Boise....by way of Oregon and St. Louis. By way of Tennesse and Illinois.
By way of Rosie, our red KIA Spectra. Faithful, lovable companion that troops along as we push her to travel across the country.
Oh the sights she's seen. Oh the things she has carries us to.
This blog is a place that we can dump our memories. To order our thoughts and organize them into readable and tellable stories. That's what we're searching for, stories, so why not share ours at the same time? Not to mention all the adventures we have. The awkward moments we create. The tears as we say goodbye to people we meet and come to love as our own.
Check in on us and Rosie. Read our stories. Write your own.
It feels like today, I'm sure. It feels like today, I know. The one thing we're missing, the one thing we're wishing....
It feels like today.
With this feeling inside me that I can't explain
Like a weight that I've carried
Has been carried away, away
But I know something is coming
I don't know what it is
But I know it's amazing, you save me
My time is coming
And I'll find my way out of this longest drought
It feels like today I know it feels like today I'm sure
Its the one thing that's missin'
The one thing I'm wishin'
Life's sacred blessin'
It feels like today
Feels like today
-Rascal Flatts
---------------------------------------
We're in Phoenix, AZ. By way of LA, San Francisco, Eugene, Seattle, Boise....by way of Oregon and St. Louis. By way of Tennesse and Illinois.
By way of Rosie, our red KIA Spectra. Faithful, lovable companion that troops along as we push her to travel across the country.
Oh the sights she's seen. Oh the things she has carries us to.
This blog is a place that we can dump our memories. To order our thoughts and organize them into readable and tellable stories. That's what we're searching for, stories, so why not share ours at the same time? Not to mention all the adventures we have. The awkward moments we create. The tears as we say goodbye to people we meet and come to love as our own.
Check in on us and Rosie. Read our stories. Write your own.
It feels like today, I'm sure. It feels like today, I know. The one thing we're missing, the one thing we're wishing....
It feels like today.
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