Our stories and our environment spin
each other reflexively. Both change endlessly in an intimate dance of
culture. I have been reminded of this fact by a recent notification
from Twitter about a storyteller with a banjo.
When I was a teenager, I the good
fortune to be able to hear live music on a regular basis. I lived
outside of Washington, DC so attending concerts by the Beatles,
Rolling Stones, Andres Segovia, Arthur Rubenstein, Steve Goodman, the
Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, and Peter, Paul and Mary was as
simple as buying tickets. I thought I was just hearing good music,
impressing my dates and tending to my libido. It never occurred to me
that interacting with culture was shaping me as a storyteller or that
I had the ability to alter my culture and environment.
 |
| Photo by Anthony Pepitone - 2007 |
One of the concerts I remember had me
sitting in the Lisner Auditorium on the campus at George Washington
University listening to Pete Seeger. He went through an amazing array
of songs, instruments and languages continuously accompanied by his
toe tapping that could be heard through out the hall. Of course, it
was the 60's and Pete Seeger, so the number of times that the
audience was called on to sing harmony was quite high, but with Pete,
that seemed natural and it was easy to join in.
The amazing part of listening to his
music was the joy he felt in telling the stories he had collected and
written. His love of life and people lifted his music beyond
performance into sublime flights into hopes for tomorrow and people
he had not had the chance to meet. When I heard him that first time,
he was still suffering the effects of “blacklisting” on radio and
television. For nearly 20 years, the paranoia of the House UnAmerican
Activities Committee severely limited his career. At the same time,
his story became a model for courageous aspirations.
The First Amendment battles following
WWII form the shading for the tapestry of my stories. I cannot remove
Pete Seeger's story from mine as it is a part of the culture, the
environment we both share. He said, “Technology will save us if it
doesn't wipe us out first.” Story Chip is a project that springs
from this environment. We are all storytellers and we all have
stories to share using the technology to save our stories.
Seventy years ago, Pete Seeger began
singing stories of activism. Fifty years ago, I brought that
environment into my story. One day ago, Pete Seeger started following
Story Chip on Twitter. The environment and the story spin each other
reflexively. I am humbled.
No comments:
Post a Comment