Fast forward to Dr Sexson's Oceans of Stories more years later that I want to discuss. So here we are and he is telling us the assignment is to strip down a fairy tale. We must take out all the romantic wording, names, places, etc. We can not tell the story with a mermaid, because they do not exist. I suppose if they have to live in the sea I will agree with that, but if having fused legs is all that counts, look up Shiloh Pepin.She was a beautiful little mermaid who passed at the tragic age of 10.) Yes, I am meandering again-okay, task at hand. What good could possibly come from stripping down a story?! That's the good part! Then it hit me-what is left over after the good stuff has been taken out? THE LIST! I did the "shouldda hadda V-8" head slap as I realized that this was how I was memorizing the creation stories of different cultures. After everything is stripped away, it's easy to remember the events; simply go from room to room and see who is there. Once you have their name and descriptions, throw in the details and the grand embellishments and you have the story again.
https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSu2tqy15uqjmwUL61ehvEpIlMDfg9ns1E1bxGJtwdZeB5rBV9i7A
Back to the rumor game. The exact words which were whispered from one to another lost their meaning. What if instead we had the skills of the oral tradition and we could have put it all in memory palaces? How did stories travel way back when as they point out in the beginning of Jim Henson's "The Storyteller" series, "people told themselves their past with stories, explained their present with stories, foretold their future with stories, the best place by the fire was kept for the Storyteller." Okay, so as these storytellers passed along their stories, they had to change a bit. Not as quickly as the message in the rumor game, but a bit. Why else would we have so many versions of "Little Red Riding Hood"? The parts that matter the most remain in every version. (Unless you have some sanitized cleaned up for children's ears Disneyfied version of course. Even then, some bits remain I suppose. At least it's not Barney.) So, take the parts of a story you don't know, go ahead, grab one, I'll wait. Read it while I sip some iced tea. While you do, create a memory palace or at least a list of characters. Put them in a memory palace that fits the story a bit. Now, retell the story. Add the romantic wordings and such as you see fit and keep your audience's attention. Here is the big question Dr Lynda Sexon would likely ask you, "Were you true to the story?" (Please read The Blank Page for more info on this). I think that if you keep all the pieces and parts straight, and keep the feel of the story, one word here or there is not such a big deal in the oral tradition. Sure, we can remember every detail and each word of a work, but we don't need to if we are one of the ancients warming ourselves by the fire. We only need to get the message and details across.
https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRQ2Q1gJb5MjQEfBNEcpcCxmJFcY7eREY7pGJFg5HSCa_oZXR0xiw
So we don't need to memorize poetry right? Wrong. Poetry is too delicate. We cannot be true to a poem if we change even one word. A poem is a powerful piece of art. To change it could unravel everything. We would not be true to the story. As the old woman at the gate in "The Blank Page" by Isak Dinesen tells us, "Be eternally and unswervingly loyal to the story".
http://www.whiterabbit.net/@port03/Dinesen/BlankPage/blank_page.htm So what about the internet? The internet is preserving and destroying and tangling our stories. How? Why? Angel, are you just one of those old people who don't know how it works so you complain about it? Actually, I'm pretty good with the internet. I wasted ten years of my life digging up information for banks with it. I have noticed that even though the net gives voice to all who care to use it, this is a double edged sword. Look up something from The Bible and it's not hard to see there is confusion. There are a lot of people who do not care about the story. I have even seen things quoted from the Bible with textual citations that are not in any Bible. What does this have to do with The Rumor Game and Stripping Down Stories? Well, we have to be careful when we strip down the story that we don't skin and gut the story basically. We are not going to make jerky out of it and hang the antlers on the wall. (No, I could never bring myself to hang deceased animal parts on my wall so don't send me hate mail. Don't send any if you do either. If that's your thing so be it.) Back to the internet. I think it proves that having a written language in which you keep your stories does not guarantee accuracy. It no more preserves the original than the oral tradition, in fact, in some cases such as certain internet sites, it can just get lost in the internet noise. When I do a search on the internet there are times when I swear I still hear the old squealing noises of the phone line connecting to the net. This is the sound of confusion and endless chatter of millions of voices saying very little. Since I am getting dangerously close to being one of them right now, I'm going to walk away from my computer. I hope you are all doing well. I hope to see you tomorrow.
In case you have never heard the dial up connection sound here it is:
http://www.lazylaces.com/56Kmodem/
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