Storylab Chicago: Keeping Us Human through Storytelling

Last week at the prompting of a performer-of-many-trades friend, I had the delight of attending Storylab Chicago. The Black Rock Pub & Kitchen hosted the event and apparently welcomes Storylab every third Wednesday of the month.

Six storytellers provided fuel for laughs, reflections to ponder and even some sighs of sadness. The night provided a great opportunity for them to get up in front of the crowd to either have fun performing or challenging themselves with something new. At least one of the story tellers got up there because she challenged herself to do something new everyday in the year before her thirtieth birthday. Another story teller got up there as yet another avenue for creative expression.

I have the feeling my friend did it for a variety of reasons. She wanted to challenge herself. She wanted to share in the experience after spending time in the audience. She wanted to share with friends and strangers. She wanted to practice what she had learned in a class.

They have an egalitarian and populist method to get people signed up for performance at future Storylab events. I would have thought someone would have to take the Storylab Chicago's Storytelling for Everyone class, know someone who organizes Storylab or have some kind of reputation as a storyteller to get up there. After all, the place was packed and there is only so much time.

Anyone can get up there and tell their story. Well, there is a process to get up there, but essentially anyone can. You just sign up for the mailing list and put a star by your name. They probably won't let you get up there right away or at the next storytelling event. As I said, the place was packed and there's only so much time. Indicate you want to get up there and tell a story, though, and the organizers will get you scheduled to get up there at one of the future events. Bunch of people I was with wanted to try reserving a night just for their stories.

I like seeing the organizers of Storylab keeping up an oral tradition that we could see fall by the wayside otherwise. We all spend a lot of time on the Internet, doing the whole social networking thing. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Four Square, name your poison. We can easily spend hour on top of hours on these social network sites, sharing our stories, quips and opinions. A lot of our storytelling has transferred onto the Internet.

Suffice to say, Social Networking and the Internet provides an opportunity for people who don't have access to other people. It even provides an avenue of expression for people who may not care for verbal communication. We have seen great advances in society, science, the arts and a number of things because of the Internet and Social Networking. It has helped the human race evolve faster and more robustly than before. A lot of good has come out of the Internet and Social Networking.

But we can become dependent on these tools and maybe even addicted to them. Just look at people who REALLY get into World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. Others love to spend tons of time on Facebook and other social networking sites. I can easily spend my time doing research, reading the news, following the stock market.

Heck, I'll admit it, I'd rather communicate through e-mail or chat than talk on the phone. I have no idea why other than I spend too much time on the phone at work already. For many of us, we find a lot of enjoyment while using the Internet and sometimes just plain prefer it over the material world.

I have no grand argument as to why keeping up this kind of oral tradition strikes me as so important. Maybe I will one day. I just think keeping up this type of tradition, even if it has to be done intentionally rather than organically, helps us to hold onto an aspect of what makes us human on a live basis. We share in real time, sometimes without as much of a conscious thought, we're present and we come closer to feeling like there's some sense in the world, even if just for a few hours or even a couple minutes. It's an important feeling and activity.

It's something that makes us, I believe, more human.

QUOTES OF NOTE: Storylab Chicago, The Black Rock Pub & Kitchen, Storytelling for Everyone, storytelling, oral tradition, World of Warcraft

Using My Life Arc as an Example of a Good Character Arc

A compelling thought just entered my brain that has plagued me for years and has a personal touch to it but touches upon narrative somewhat. It has to do with me. . .and partially with the arguments I've had lately and over the last few years. It also gets me thinking about getting into the heads of characters I write.

The idea feels almost too pretentious, too Russian. . .it reminds me of a poem or short story I read for college by, I think, Leo Tolstoy. I can't think of the play's name, and I don't think it directly relates. If I brought up, people would probably just go, "huh?" I bring up thoughts and ideas like that. . ..

But, in essence, this thought of mine has to do with how I use to think more rationally and supportive than I do now and didn't really let go to my passions or emotions. Another thought has to do with throwing away my intelligence, education, good sense and so on and so forth to have more success socially, have more friends and more girlfriends. Nowadays, I kind of miss that cool-headed me and feel happy with my fate.

Despite making more peace with the cool-headed me from the past, though, I appreciate that I allow myself to let go of my good sense to the passions. I kind of miss the rationally supportive connections I've had in the past with people from my cool head, even though I don't miss the loneliness that came from a less natural and more anxious presenation of myself.

Nowadays, I act both more spontaneously in some ways and more determined and deliberate in other ways than I have in the past. My relations sometimes meet tension from my self in the present, but you know what? Even with that tension, I feel more sincere connections with people than I did during my cool-headed days. I could stay out of trouble and led a prudent life, but I felt isolated and unhappy.

Deep down, I have the feeling that I will return to a more cool-headed, contemplative and prudent version of myself. When that sense of being comes again, though, I believe that I won't feel the isolation that I had felt before. They will reconcile each other when that time comes again, the prudence and the natural emotional connection with the people and the world around me. I find it hard to get back to the cool-headed version because I enjoy the connection so much, but I also remember the value that cool-headed me had for myself and the people around me.

This starting at one point, experiencing a fall from grace for the passionate flesh then reconciling feels like a great character arc. The really great part comes from the fact that the fall from grace has to happen. Before, I didn't FEEL the connections with the world, even if the prudence had value and people appreciated me and my emotional support. For real grace beyond the cool-headed prudence of my youth, however, I need to go through a time of exposing and losing myself in the passions and emotions of humanity. It will bring me the wisdom of experience, defeat and victory that will help me more sincerely connect rather than acting out some kind of wisdom without true understanding and knowledge.

Someday, it will make a great story, maybe even a very enjoyable memoir. I would like to embody this tale more often in my narrative stories, though, along with many other forms of narration. Such a variety that I can imagine, and I have to go through a process of experimentation similar to my life arc to make each of the stories great in a way that will connect with the reader. So exciting, yet so frustrating. . ..

Review of Children of Men

Not completely sure where to start on this one, except don't watch this movie if you want to have fun. I mean that last statement positively, too.

If I taught a class in movies having social commentary or a class in utopianism, I would make Children of Men a mandatory view. It does a good job at making social commentary on today's world, allusions to shameful times in history and creates a believable world. In the midst of accomplishing those things, it also doesn't feel pedantic, patronizing or like a piece that sacrifices entertainment for the sake of saying something. In other words, it makes for a movie that draws you in while exploring plenty of issues.

(For one thing, it makes one of Orson Scott Card's points without getting heavy handed. The theme pretty much goes along the lines of why do all these people have to make trouble and war? There's more important and nice things that can happen, like having kids and keeping together a family that makes meaning for the people involved).

This movie has plenty of graphic scenes that grab you in the jugular. A fair amount of people die and get shot quite senselessly, especially in comparison to the central plot and themes. Those parts don't really make for the dramatic parts that grip you and make the social commentary. Essentially a list of allusions: terrorist bombings of civilian buildings, roadside ambushes by insurgents, street fighting in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the Holocaust and ther rounding up of prisoners around the UK in alienating, inhumane and embarassing ways. But again, as much as these scenes strike at the audience, they don't come off as a message. . .except as a visceral thrusting in your face of what humanity can do, when pushed to the edge or given too much power.

Can't forget all the random mob violence, also. Can't say that necessarily alludes to anything that I've seen or heard too much about, but I can imagine it happening in the near future. I may even have to use the image in my novel at some point and try not to make the use derivative.

But the movie also provides at least one aspect as counterpoint to the doom, gloom and sadness. Children of Men has hope and an example of an idealistic hero played by Clive Owen and the birth of a child (of course you know that one. . .it's in every movie description you've read). Even though they stick out postively with many other things, the makers of this film did a remarkable job of having some heartwarming parts of character development, well fashioned sentimentality (like you would have with an old friend from childhood) and humor before the climax.

And looking back on it, I remember plenty of instances where I felt the urge to laugh simply and from the depths of my soul because even amongst the gloom, the movie acted to re-affirm life and those things that remind you of it. The portrayal of live animals and most reactions to the baby had a lot to do with the re-affirmation of life.

The interactions between Theo (Clive Owen) and two characters closest to him, Julian (Julianne Moore) and Jasper (Michael Caine), help to create connection, development and yes, even humor. Jasper really does the most for creating the humor.

Michael Caine does an amazing job playing an eccentric old hippie. Even during his most tragic moment, or maybe especially then, you see his goofiness as a heroic ideal that you knew he always had. The tragicness just makes it even more striking, the lovableness of this old man. And, of course, it's Michael Caine. What else can you say?

Julianne Moore does a good job playing her part. Even she had a few moments of human goofiness and warmth that pushed her to the next level, but those didn't happen so often. Nonetheless, those parts did some of the best to draw out Theo's humanity. She definitely acts as a driving force for him. And as made apparent in the movie, Julian provides a motivating force for a lot of characters.

And please notice the interchange between the character's and the actor's names. Except for maybe Owen for most of the film, all the actors did a good job of becoming their character. They made it easy to forget they were actors playing characters. Even Owen did a great job becoming Theo. It just turned out that except during those moments where the other characters brought out Theo's humanity, except while he emoted and except when he made a sarcastic, cynical quip or two, the character felt like typical Clive Owen.

Two other characters deserve some mention, though: Miriam (Pam Ferris) and Kee (Claire-Hope Ashtey). Neither of the actresses necessarily put on amazing performances, unless the simpleness (meant postively!) of Miriam took acting. As characters, however, they both helped the story and the character of Theo a lot.

In large part, Miriam represented the past and acted as a personalized dramatization of losing the good past, the joy of it. She brings out different emotional reactions, but how much blame can get projected onto her. As much as she represents the loss of a good past, she also seems to represent the ambivalent causes of the present narrative.

Kee acts as another character that brings out humanity in Theo. Unlike the characters close to him who bring out the identifiable and compelling humanity in him, Kee brings out the ideal, the hero, the archetype in him. As an archetype, herself, and also as a form of redemption for Theo, she draws out the man in him that would make the world great. . .if it weren't for those who want to become heroes but through the wrong means.

The cinematography and directing also helped me get into the movie. It had that grainy, gritty analog tinge to it unlike the digital cleanness that we see in so many movies. The style reminds me of 28 Days Later. . ., which I haven't seen but would like to now after getting into Christopher Eccleston on Doctor Who (and soon Heroes!!!!! But I'm getting ahead of myself). Now, thinking about it, maybe I'm wrong because maybe 28 Days Later. . . had that clean digital thing going. Nonetheless, Children of Men reminded me of the directing and cinematography of 28 Days Later. . .. Maybe because they're both British and dystopian.

In the end, though, I think everyone should see this movie. It will get you thinking and feeling. Just don't go if you want to have fun and come out of the theater feeling happy. Maybe you'll feel hopeful after the movie, but in a mournful hoping kind of way. Just go!

PS The ending was kind of tacky. Tomorrow. . .? Ugh.