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101 stories in 101 days. No edits.
On June 8th I began telling a story a day and then releasing it through my Crane Bag podcast. I have resolved not to edit these recordings in any way. My aspiration is to continue telling stories until September 16th, when 101 days will have passed. My goal in doing this is to honor the flowing, mysterious nature of the stories I tell, opening myself to inspirations beyond anything I could plan in advance. No doubt there will be mistakes and wrong turns, but I am looking forward to the journey. You can follow this project through the recordings below. |
a few thoughts
I've come to realize that this project could be seen as a test of some basic ideas about storytelling. Ideas such as the following:
1. A story can be told anywhere at any time.
2. Each telling of a story is a unique event, and has value as such. A given "performance" expresses the conditions in which it is told: the time of day, the mood of the storyteller, the weather, etc. To work this way is to see a story not so much as an expression of the storyteller but of the world.
3. It is possible to begin without knowing what story you are going to tell. To do this repeatedly is to develop the skill of receiving a story from the moment. This puts you in deeper dialogue with the world around you.
4. Like songs, stories can be arranged in an infinite number of ways.
5. A drum can accompany a story, and so can a guitar. Yet ordinary sounds such as those of traffic, the wind, and birds can be accompaniment as well. To cultivate this skill is to put both story and storyteller, once again, in deeper dialogue with the world-- where "world" means a specific time and place, a room, a stretch of sand, a tree by the river.
