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.

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!

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.

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!

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

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.