virtualDavis

ˈvər-chə-wəlˈdā-vəs Serial storyteller, poetry pusher, digital doodler, flâneur.

Storytelling at the Monti


Jeff Polish storytelling at The Monti

Laurels and hugs and lots of chin-chin toasting to Lisa Pepin (@lisa_pepin) for her poignant video “Storyteller” about north Carolina’s storytelling organization, The Monti including director Jeff Polish’s backstory. I’m fascinated with storytelling unplugged and with The Monti in particular, and I suspect you will be too after enjoying Pepin’s moving pictures and talking heads.

“As a storyteller it gave me validation for all those years that I was quiet… the stage is the best expression of myself… I’m bulletproof. It’s amazing. It’s probably the most amazing place that I live.” ~ Jeff Polish

I’m reminded of Michael Ondaatje‘s In the Skin of a Lion.

“It is a novel about the wearing and the removal of masks; the shedding of skin, the transformations and translations of identity.” (Contemporary Writers)

Perhaps you should read it. Especially if you enjoyed The English Patient. You’ll recognize Hana and Caravaggio, for instance… And you’ll recognize why Pepin’s tidy storytelling about storytelling at The Monti reminds me of Ondaatje’s storytelling in In the Skin of a Lion. Are you starting to catch my drift?

I’ve excerpted Polish’s comment, substituting an ellipsis before “I’m bulletproof.” Those two phrases which I removed — two phrases which are reemphasized dramatically in “I’m bulletproof” — speak to the puissance of storytelling that fascinates Ondaatje. That fascinates me. Drawing the storyteller’s mantle over our quotidian garb, pulling the cavernous hood low over our eyes, obscuring our familiar face, we become our stories. We are bulletproof. For while. And it is indeed an amazing place to live.

The Monti and The Moth

The Monti is my kind of place. Well, almost. They’re all about live storytelling and they’re all about community. So why almost? Because they aren’t a short walk away. They aren’t even in my community…

The Monti is an organization that invites people from the community to tell personal stories without the use of notes.  It’s just simple storytelling.  Each month, events are held around the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and as far away as Greensboro.  The goal is to create an intimate, open, and fun atmosphere where people can relate their personal experiences to one another through narrative… by inviting interesting people with amazing stories that amuse and compel.

And for two and a half years they’ve been selling out their shows. In fact, they’ve grown so popular that they’ve launched The Monti StorySLAM during which audience members are invited to tell 5 minute stories on a specific theme.

Each night promises an unexpected and refreshing night of provocative entertainment.

This sounds like The Moth, another storytelling institution that intrigues me. I discovered both via NPR and have wiled away way too much time on their websites plotting participation… and imitation!

The Moth… is an acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling… The Moth has presented more than three thousand stories, told live and without notes, by people from all walks of life to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Each show features simple, old-fashioned storytelling on thoroughly modern themes by wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors.

I believe that storytelling is the glue of community. No, not just the glue. Storytelling is the lubrication of community. No, not just that either. Glue and lube? And lately I’ve been wondering if Essex, if the Champlain Valley is ready to plunge into our collective narratives. I believe (and hope) so!

Update: I’ve created a related oral storytelling mashup called Storytelling Unplugged for further information, and I’ve received a few notable additions from @TheMonti that I’d like to pass along (first four), and in the process of exploring these, I’ve stumbled on to some others. What am I missing? Please contact me via Twitter (@virtualDavis) or use the contact form on the the virtualDavis website. Thanks!

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Alison Norrington on Transmedia Storytelling

What exactly is transmedia storytelling? What are “rabbit holes”? Cheese holes? In Liz Thomson’s interview Alison Norrington, CEO of storycentralDIGITAL, tackles all three while considering the ongoing impact of transmedia storytelling on the publishing industry. “I would like to think… The book might not be the primary platform…” But she’s not optimistic. And she sees the future of transmedia storytelling as platform agnostic. Once again, I’m reminded that gaming is a driving force in this transition.

Jeff Gomez on the Power of Transmedia Storytelling

Ceilings In Cartuja

Transmedia storytelling, often referred to as crossmedia or multiplatform storytelling takes the elements of a character’s narrative and applies them uniquely to each medium while extending the story… Under the traditional model, when a big movie comes out, for example, we are offered the novelization, the adaptation in comics, and the videogame version for our Xboxes. It’s the same story over and over again, so the property is essentially milked until it’s dead. The transmedia approach to this kind of narrative would give us different pieces of the narrative on different media platforms, so that we can see the movie and then explore different aspects of the characters and the world in other media. Taken as a whole, it’s a richer, deeper experience that gives us more of what we really want. But most of all, transmedia narrative by definition has a number of what we call “invitational” components, where audience members are welcomed to participate by commenting on the narrative, by playing established or original characters, or even by contributing creatively to the world and the storyline… We are watching a generation rise to power that is plugged in and expects to be heard. They are learning to use these amazing tools and are becoming enormously savvy. They interface with gadgetry and any number of screens intuitively—but right now, most of the entertainment and brand messaging does not do that! The principles of transmedia storytelling address this, which makes transmedia narrative the most powerful in existence today. (SmartPlanet)

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Projeqt Your Story

 Introducing ProjeqtIt looks like the newest entry to the online storytelling bonanza, projeqt, is sexier than Intersect and Storify, but less useful. Minimalist can be good, especially from a design perspective. But as a storytelling tool, projeqt appears to be pretty limited. (Check out the video introduction here.) And waaayyy too linear. Web enabled digital storytelling should open up whole new realms of non-linear narrative. Time to leap-frog past hum-drum slideshows, even when they look pretty and allow video, etc. It’s worth noting that I haven’t been under projeqt‘s hood, so I judge prematurely. And since they’re still in beta, I probably won’t get a more ample perspective any time soon. (I did sign up to beta test. Maybe I’ll be able to share a surprising, exciting update soon?)

Despite my reservations, there’s tons of potential for this project. And their vision is spot on!

Your story is who you are and how your story gets told is just as important as the story itself. Great stories keep us riveted to the page. Or the screen (whatever shape or size it happens to come in.) Great stories get shared and are retold time after time after time. Great stories always leave us wanting more. Projeqt gives you the tools and technology to tell your story. It provides a robust architecture, with unprecedented flexibility and possibilities. Projeqt is about giving you the power to projeqt your story to the world.

My hopes are high. And my enthusiasm for the current proliferation of storytelling apps and websites is legendary!

Update:

The year is a-waning (scarcely a week left in 2010), but still no word fromprojeqt. Hmmm… Beta boy is offering to bust a move, but so far no beta invitation. So, I still can’t comment on the underbelly of the beast. Nor does much new content seem to be emerging. If you’re looking for a quirky tour of what can be generated with this platform, meander through the Brain Pickings projeqt.

Brain Pickings

 

I’m not sure that this example (or any of the other currently published examples) demonstrate projeqt’s gotta-have-it awesomeness, but it did introduce me to Brain Pickings, and now I’m hooked!

Brain Pickings is about curating interestingness — picking culture’s collective brain for tidbits of stuff that inspires, revolutionizes, or simply makes us think. It’s about innovation and authenticity and all those other things that have become fluff phrases but don’t have to be.

The site is slooowww, at least lately, but it’s well worth the wait. Fascinating and fun and packed full of provocative ideas, links, videos, etc. Check out Maria Popova’s How To Be Alone for a refresher in (introduction to?) solitary contentment. Here’s the I-bet-you-can’t-resist-watching-the-whole-thing video:

Ferdinand the Bull

[Ferdinand the bull]… doesn’t fit the typical mold of other young male bulls: he doesn’t like to fight or butt heads. All he wants to do is enjoy the meadow and smell the flowers… “Ferdinand’ is a perfectly absurd story which will make everybody laugh and chuckle. Smell the Ink

Absurd, perhaps, and sublime to boot! My favorite book as a boy; and today, my favorite boy as a book. The Story of Ferdinand. Or as I always remember and reference it, “Ferdinand the bull”. Some childhood habits die hard!

This simple but poignant children’s book written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson has never lost its sparkle for me. It’s still inside, still beside my bedside, still my favorite gift for chilluns and olduns alike. The story, the pictures, the corks in the trees, the flowers in the ladies’ hair, the dazed look of confusion/euphoria on Ferdinand the bull’s handsome mug, his mother’s look of concern, the bee-stings-bull’s-@$$ action sequence, the long ride home. The Story of Ferdinand is a must own, read, re-read for the child in all of us. And the adult in every child.

Ferdinand the Bull Updates:

[January 24, 2012] I’ve come across the video version of Ferdinand the bull quite by accident. I never knew it existed. Raised without television I overlooked the obvious: most good children’s books were at some point Disnified!

A quirky little video, certainly no more compelling than the story. Perhaps less so? I am intrigued to see Lawson’s illustrations animated, as if — after so many years — Ferdinand the bull had wiggled off the page. However Ferd’s mother, especially her goofy walk and her grating voice, are a little far from the mark.

The rather dated flavor or this Walt Disney short and the almost literal translation of the story to film does provoke my curiosity what a modern digital version of Ferdinand the bull would look like. I imagine that the potential of today’s digital storytelling is much more compelling than Disney’s short film. Perhaps it already exists? Perhaps we should add it to the great “To Do” list in the sky?

Ferdinand Tattoo

Ferdinand the bull tattoo (Credit: TheNinth)

[March 26, 2013] It’s always fun to discover old posts that continue to be read. A lot. Like this goofy glimpse at Ferdinand the bull, a truly “evergreen” story! While it’s a pleasant surprise to be reminded how many folks stumble onto this post, I am even more delighted by the number of people I meet who remember Ferdinand the bull with fondness, who reference his story to help clarify real life situations, and often enough who tell me that I’m a real world Ferdinand the bull. I know that sometimes they’re gently (or not so gently!) mocking me, but the gibe always flatters me. Silly? Perhaps.

But there is something more I’d like to pass along, a more peculiar and wonderful update that I couldn’t possibly allow to languish in the distant reaches of the web: a Ferdinand the bull tattoo! No, I haven’t overcome my phobia of needles to commemorate my favorite flower smelling bull. But the magic of the interwebs have brought this illustrated arm (or leg?) to my joyful attention. Enjoy!

A Passion for Hookworms

Dickson Despommier tells us the story of how the insatiable millionaire John D. Rockefeller turned an eye to the untapped market of the American South and ended up eradicating the hookworm (and, in the process, a number of other awful afflictions) with an ingenious contraption. Then Patrick Walters introduces us to Jasper Lawrence, a modern-day entrepreneur whose passion for hookworms stems from lifelong battles with allergies and asthma. But unlike Rockefeller, Jasper sees this parasite as friend, not foe.

Photo: flickr/grumpies 
A bit of background on Mr. Rockefeller 
1920 educational silent film about hookworm

 

via wnyc.org

Ah, “a passion for hookworms…” This interesting tidbit via Mark Hall!

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