Recently in storytelling Category

Before I get to anything else today I would like to take this opportunity to recognize a little something special for us here at memeticians. We are celebrating our one year anniversary today! I speak for all of us when I say thank you, a million times over thank you, to our tiny little world of readers out there. I'd like to thank Joe and Tim for all their time and hard work into what we do here and the support they have given me. And to Hank, our life saver and site admin. There are absolutely no words that could be used to express just what Hank means to this little world. Simply put, without him we would absolutely, positively, NOT be here today. He is our MVP. So to those of you reading along at home, thank you from all of us here at memeticians.

~ Joe, Gerard, Tim and Hank

Lucy van Pelt: Charlie Brown! Oh, Charlie Brown!

Charlie Brown: I can't believe it. She must think I'm the most stupid person alive.

LVP: Come on Charlie Brown. I'll hold the ball and you kick it.

CB: Hold it? Ha! You'll pull it away and I'll land flat on my back and kill myself!

LVP: But Charlie Brown, it's Thanksgiving!

CB: What's that got to do with anything?

LVP: Well one of the greatest traditions we have is the Thanksgiving Day Football Game. And the biggest, most important tradition of all is the kicking off of the football.

CB: Is that right?

LVP: Absolutely! Come on Charlie Brown it's a big honor for you.

CB: Well if it's that important a person should never turn down a big honor. Maybe I should do it. Besides, she wouldn't try to trick me on a traditional holiday. This time I'm gonna kick that football clear to the moon! AAUGH!

LVP: Isn't it peculiar Charlie Brown how some traditions just slowly fade away?

And so begins A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. This year Lucy doesn't know just how right she is, some traditions just slowly fade away. This year, for the first time in as long as I can remember, there will be no annual Thanksgiving Day Football Game. It has slowly faded away.

The yearly circumstances may not always be the same, but the annual game is a highlight of the holiday season for thousands to millions across the country. The details of your particular game may change from year to year but any steady (read: yearly) participant can trace the evolution of his game from the years spent playing neighborhood kids in the biggest yard amongst you in grade school to its move to the local football field and expansion to include high school friends from surrounding areas. Then your 20's hit and only a select group could be counted on so cross town games would merge into a super game pitting 11 v 11 full field battles of tackle football with accompanying subs. The soreness would last for days and one person would always end up with some sort of quasi serious injury but it was the best of times.

After a couple of years though, the numbers would begin to dwindle. At first it's mostly laziness that comes with age. Partying on Thanksgiving Eve gives way to sleeping in and missing games. Some get married and head to the in-laws or have children and can't escape for 3 hours on such a hectic morning. While others plain and simply can't risk the potential injury that comes with playing pad-less tackle football with grown men. Whatever the reason the game begins to show signs of weakness, chinks in its armor.
The younger neighborhood kids show up early and get the good field. Instead of 25 willing and able bodied participants your group shrinks to 15 and those who do make it show up later and later. Once the game does start you are repeatedly calling your buddy, the one guy you would have never thought would miss a game, wondering where he is. 2 hours later he finally arrives but the writing is on the wall. Your game is not the same.

The next year plans change. In lieu of tackle you switch to flag football. A less violent option hoping to entice some no shows from the previous years and hold on to those you've got left. But alas, disaster strikes. Only 8 men show up. It's a horribly depressing moment. You may even start to feel embarrassed. You can hardly field one team. The younger neighborhood kids show up 50 strong, an army larger then anything you've seen, and immediately break into TWO full fledged 11 v 11 games. And a sinking feeling begins to wash over you. This is it. The magical days of Thanksgiving Day Football games are over. You join the army of 50 and play anyway but it's not the same. The familiar faces are gone. The yearly grudge matches and fights have been replaced with disputes between unrecognizable foes and over unknown commodities. The trash talk and banter takes a back seat to silently trying to do your best, to show the younger and faster opponents that your experience in these yearly battles has given you that intangible something that keeps you competitive. When a memorable moment does happen you give a slight nod to your friend, momentarily remembering years gone by perhaps harkening back to that time years ago when skulls collided with a crack loud enough for all to hear or the infamous 'wishbone drive'. But while that intangible something that keeps you competitive still breathes, it's that intangible something which you get from battling with your friends that has burned out. It is the worst of times indeed.

The following year it's suggested, "let us do something different this year" and the apathy with which the suggestion is presented to, let alone received by, the masses is appalling to you. The suggestion itself is not even a 'group' oriented event that would keep all participants together as football did. What's worse is that at the mere suggestion of another attempt at football you are meet with derision and scorn by some. It's a twist of fate that your younger self would never see coming and that your older self struggles to deal with.

As I'm sure you can tell by now, this isn't a tale of fiction. Unfortunately it is a turn of events that is all too real. But I'm not ready for alternatives just yet. So if you need me on Thanksgiving morning you can find me at the local field trying to keep up with the 22 year olds and hopefully avoiding serious injury. In the words of Lucy van Pelt, "One of the greatest traditions we have is the Thanksgiving Day Football Game." It's a big honor.

The Internet really is a beautiful thing. It truly is one stop shopping. No, not that kind of shopping, but one stop shopping in the sense that any little thing that catches your eye or interest can be investigated. From particle colliders studying the smallest scales of science we've only begun to discover to cameras with the ability to photograph the far off in outer space and bring it into the palm of your hand like never before, and everything imaginable in between. It truly is the first fully comprehensive encyclopedic record of all that constitutes knowledgeable life as we know it, perhaps even that which is as yet unknown, try to wrap your mind around that. I know, your mind has just been blown, take a minute, I'll wait. In all seriousness though, it really is approaching "everything proportions".

This is a "friend of a friend of a friend" story that my wife told me last week. I told it this weekend and was requested to write it down for the site. (It apparently has been told before - see Comments.) So without further ado:

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.

Ira_, Nukes, and Britney Spears

Reading the news can be quite discouraging. It's not that it's all bad, but not much of it is good. It's hard to find good news.

This website, at its core, is a place to find good news. It is a place to find entertainment or information, but more importantly it should be a place to find inspiration. Not from the authors here, per se, but from our subjects. We talk about TED often on this site and here, for my part, is why: inspiration.

Spread out among different disciplines and engaged in various endeavors across the world, the people who fight the good fight are outnumbered. Or at least it seems so. For every two pieces of bad news, you might find one good one. But not at TED.

Read The Art of Storytelling (Part 1): How Movies Have Revolutionized Performance Art.

The Turning of the Tides

By the 1920s, motion pictures were taking America by storm. Movie stars were just that, and the modern celebrity was born. The great American novel became an underground art, and the theatre and opera were reserved for high society. With this new medium, filmmakers began looking for new stories to tell, ultimately turning to books for inspiration. The first film adaptation came in 1924 with Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed, a literal adaptation of Frank Morris’s novel, McTeague. Due to Von Stroheim’s meticulous nature, the resulting film was an overwhelming 16 hours. When it was finally cut down to two hours, the result was an incoherent nightmare. The processes of adapting novels and plays began to grow as an art, ultimately leading to screenwriters consistently looking to adapt both books and theatre for the big screen. This of course, includes television, but that's another story.

Roots

Since the advent of language, people have been creating their own venues in order to tell their stories, whether the stories have a specific purpose or are strictly for entertainment value. Every ancient civilization has their legends, myths, and stories, just as every culture has their renowned storytellers. Primarily, storytelling was conducted in the oral tradition in combination with expressions and gestures. Another primitive form of storytelling was through art, as seen in cave drawings. In the oral tradition, the storyteller provides the audience with mental images through words, songs, and movements to get his message across. Audience would then, in turn, interpret the story through their own personal experiences. No two stories were ever told in the same manner, nor were the audiences’ interpretations of the story. The experiences of both the storyteller and the audience, and how they interact are what make storytelling special. Storytelling is, indeed, the first true art form.