{"id":21250,"date":"2019-07-12T06:26:15","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T10:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=21250"},"modified":"2019-07-12T06:26:15","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T10:26:15","slug":"stories-all-around-us-stories-inside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/stories-all-around-us-stories-inside\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories All Around Us, Stories Inside"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KGCD1XR0WPk\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[The <a title=\"StoryCorps home page\" href=\"https:\/\/storycorps.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">StoryCorps<\/a> project takes as its mission simply to record people&#8217;s personal stories, via interviews, and make them available to anyone who wants to listen to them. The organization has won numerous awards for its work &#8212; one of those &#8220;simple&#8221; ideas (like the similar one behind the <a title=\"Humans of New York: home page\" href=\"https:\/\/www.humansofnewyork.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Humans of New York<\/a> photo project) which it&#8217;s great to see rewarded with praise.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: Stuart Dybek, on spontaneous neighborhood choruses\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2019\/07\/in-summer-waiting-for-night-wed-pose.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In summer, waiting for night, we&#8217;d pose against the afterglow on corners, watching traffic cruise through the neighborhood. Sometimes, a car would go by without its headlights on and we&#8217;d all yell, &#8220;Lights!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lights!&#8221; we&#8217;d keep on yelling until the beams flashed on. It was usually immediate&#8212;the driver honking back thanks, or flinching embarrassed behind the steering wheel, or gunning past, and we&#8217;d see his red taillights blink on.<\/p>\n<p>But there were times&#8212;who knows why?&#8212;when drunk or high, stubborn, or simply lost in that glide to somewhere else, the driver just kept driving in the dark, and all down the block we&#8217;d hear yelling from doorways and storefronts, front steps, and other corners, voices winking on like fireflies: &#8220;Lights! Your lights! Hey, lights!&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Stuart Dybek [<a title=\"Google Books: 'In Short: A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction,' edited by Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones ('Lights,' by Stuart Dybek)\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=goVB8U5ruwoC&amp;pg=PA31#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'The End of Science Fiction,' by Lisel Mueller\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2019\/07\/the-end-of-science-fiction-this-is-not.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The End of Science Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is not fantasy, this is our life.<br \/>\nWe are the characters<br \/>\nwho have invaded the moon,<br \/>\nwho cannot stop their computers.<br \/>\nWe are the gods who can unmake<br \/>\nthe world in seven days.<\/p>\n<p>Both hands are stopped at noon.<br \/>\nWe are beginning to live forever,<br \/>\nin lightweight, aluminum bodies<br \/>\nwith numbers stamped on our backs.<br \/>\nWe dial our words like Muzak.<br \/>\nWe hear each other through water.<\/p>\n<p>The genre is dead. Invent something new.<br \/>\nInvent a man and a woman<br \/>\nnaked in a garden,<br \/>\ninvent a child that will save the world,<br \/>\na man who carries his father<br \/>\nout of a burning city.<br \/>\nInvent a spool of thread<br \/>\nthat leads a hero to safety,<br \/>\ninvent an island on which he abandons<br \/>\nthe woman who saved his life<br \/>\nwith no loss of sleep over his betrayal.<\/p>\n<p>Invent us as we were<br \/>\nbefore our bodies glittered<br \/>\nand we stopped bleeding:<br \/>\ninvent a shepherd who kills a giant,<br \/>\na girl who grows into a tree,<br \/>\na woman who refuses to turn<br \/>\nher back on the past and is changed to salt,<br \/>\na boy who steals his brother&#8217;s birthright<br \/>\nand becomes the head of a nation.<br \/>\nInvent real tears, hard love,<br \/>\nslow-spoken, ancient words,<br \/>\ndifficult as a child&#8217;s<br \/>\nfirst steps across a room.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Lisel Mueller [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Need to Hold Still: Poems,' by Lisel Mueller\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=lItBzvG7OYIC&amp;pg=PA60#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>A Story<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some will call the suicide bomber<br \/>\na coward but seeing him<\/p>\n<p>you think only, <em>Hungry<\/em>,<br \/>\nstumbling as he is toward you,<\/p>\n<p>to the tent where pilgrims<br \/>\nstop to eat and drink.<\/p>\n<p>Behind you a woman in a black robe<br \/>\nscoops rice with her fingers.<\/p>\n<p>Beside her a girl, restless, runs out<br \/>\nonto the dusty two-lane road<\/p>\n<p>that the bomber now crosses.<br \/>\nThis is happening<\/p>\n<p>at the end<br \/>\nof forty days of mourning,<\/p>\n<p>the anniversary a martyrdom.<br \/>\nThe girl returns breathless<\/p>\n<p>and the mother gives her<br \/>\na glass of clean water.<\/p>\n<p>You watch the ripple down<br \/>\nher throat, and out of sunlight<\/p>\n<p>the man approaches\u2014<br \/>\nhis eyes, like yours, are brown.<\/p>\n<p>Now you hear someone say, Sit, sit.<br \/>\nIt is the mother talking to the daughter.<\/p>\n<p>And now someone is shouting,<br \/>\nand now there is the terrible noise.<\/p>\n<p>Every person is a story.<br \/>\nYou are the man who walked out<\/p>\n<p>as he walked in, the bomb went off,<br \/>\nand you lived to tell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Hayan Charara [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'A Story,' by Hayan Charara\" href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/91512\/a-story-583db2aad9ed2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That\u2019s the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Gabriel Marcia Marquez [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Paris Review Interviews, II,' by the Paris Review\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=478IMQI1aMkC&amp;pg=PA182#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>I Could Not Tell<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I could not tell I had jumped off that bus,<br \/>\nthat bus in motion, with my child in my arms,<br \/>\nbecause I did not know it. I believed my own story:<br \/>\nI had fallen, or the bus had started up<br \/>\nwhen I had one foot in the air.<\/p>\n<p>I would not remember the tightening of my jaw,<br \/>\nthe irk that I\u2019d missed my stop, the step out<br \/>\ninto the air, the clear child<br \/>\ngazing about her in the air as I plunged<br \/>\nto one knee on the street, scraped it, twisted it,<br \/>\nthe bus skidding to a stop, the driver<br \/>\njumping out, my daughter laughing<br \/>\n<em>Do it again<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 6em;\">I have never done it<\/span><br \/>\nagain, I have been very careful.<br \/>\nI have kept an eye on that nice young mother<br \/>\nwho lightly leapt<br \/>\noff the moving vehicle<br \/>\nonto the stopped street, her life<br \/>\nin her hands, her life\u2019s life in her hands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Sharon Olds [<a title=\"Gooogle Books: 'Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002,' by Sharon Olds\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=WdZ7AAAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA11#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Write what you know. Are you an expert in the Norse weather-and-fertility gods? Or in elementary-school crossing guards? I am, and I hope you\u2019ll consider for representation &#8220;Larry and Freyr: A Novel in Letters.&#8221; In it, Larry Patowski, a genial crossing guard at John F. Kennedy Elementary who&#8217;s known for his quick, albeit repetitive, wit, commences an epistolary friendship with the Norse god Freyr. In the course of their letters, e-mails, text messages, and Gchats, we learn more about this seemingly mismatched duo&#8212;one a fifty-six-year-old bratwurst-loving mortal from a Chicago suburb, the other a supernatural deity out of Scandinavian paganism&#8212;who are more alike than they think. By the novel&#8217;s powerful conclusion, when Freyr has become a beer-guzzling Cubs fan and Larry, with the help of a stolen iPhone, intervenes in mythological history to destroy the frost giant Surtr during the great battle of Ragnar\u00f8kkr, these two unforgettable characters will have carved a place into your heart as surely as Freyr rides the boar Gullinbursti to Baldr\u2019s funeral!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Teddy Wayne [<a title=\"The New Yorker (June 6, 2013, 'Daily Shouts'): 'Eight Rules for Writing Fiction,' by Teddy Wayne\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/daily-shouts\/eight-rules-for-writing-fiction\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For writers of fiction, notoriously, utter satisfaction with their work always slips away from the present to hide in some imagined future draft. They hang a painting on the living-room wall where one didn&#8217;t exist before, and they later move the painting to the master bedroom; drench the garden outside with rainwater, snow, or sunshine, then decide there&#8217;s no garden at all; lure their characters into dark places and disastrous relationships, rename them, only afterwards installing a convenient lantern on the cave wall and completely swapping in a different character whom the love suits better. Why? They do it because &#8212; as writers will tell you quite happily, sometimes murking up the explanation with baroque language like <em>denouement<\/em> and <em>dialogue<\/em> and <em>character arc<\/em> &#8212; because it makes a better story.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of us do this, too, all the time; we differ only in laboring for an audience of one: ourselves. And we do it for the same reason: <em>it makes a better story<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(JES, <em>Maxims for Nostalgists<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[The StoryCorps project takes as its mission simply to record people&#8217;s personal stories, via interviews, and make them available to anyone who wants to listen to them. The organization has won numerous awards for its work &#8212; one of those &#8220;simple&#8221; ideas (like the similar one behind the Humans of New York photo project) which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Stories as fact, facts as story: 'Stories All Around Us, Stories Inside'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,247,1393,274,5,4878,251,713,4159],"tags":[61,1497,3285,4075,4368,4937,4938,4939,4940],"class_list":{"0":"post-21250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-cartoons","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-fiction","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-humor-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-memory","16":"tag-sharon-olds","17":"tag-maxims-for-nostalgists","18":"tag-gabriel-garcia-marquez","19":"tag-stuart-dybek","20":"tag-lisell-mueller","21":"tag-hayan-charara","22":"tag-teddy-wayne","23":"tag-storycorps","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5wK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21250"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21259,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250\/revisions\/21259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}