Episode 12: Story story

Check out the film version of Story story HERE

And the book version HERE

Transcript

In the beginning there was a word, the word, a word, I don’t know but that word doing its best o state afloat at the confluence of time and space spinning at the hot center of the minds-eye vortex had no choice but to go forth and multiply and…beget a Story 

These are the first few lines of a prose poem called Story story, which will be shared in full later in this podcast. It comes from the soundtrack of a film of the same name that explores the evolution of "story" as an essential aspect of human development and history. In this episode I will share the story of Story story, what prompted it and how it evolved. Along the way we examine some threshold questions: Where do stories come from; what is their function, and most importantly, what is their power for good or ill?

From the Center for the Study of Art & Community, this is Change the Story / Change the World. I’m Bill Cleveland.

Part 1: Art and Upheaval

In the early spring of 2005, my wife Carla and I found ourselves unpacking in a small, well-appointed room in a 15th-century Italian palazzo named Villa Serbelloni, overlooking the blue expanses of Lake Como. We had traveled to northern Italy at the Rockefeller Foundation’s invitation to spend a month as residents of the Bellagio Retreat and Conference Center. I had come to write, and Carla, to paint. My book project, called Art and Upheaval, would tell the stories of artists working on what I was characterizing as the world’s frontlines, which translates literally as eleven communities across the globe facing extreme conflict and disruption. 

During our time there, we shared meals and good cheer with the dozen or so artists and scholars who were our fellow residents. Many mornings Carla and I started our day across the breakfast table from a poet from Maine named Wesley McNair and his wife, Diane. Wesley’s poems, which I came to admire a great deal, were powerful, intense, and often very personal. 

One morning, he shared a work in progress describing an abusive encounter between a New York couple and a clerk in a roadside store near Wesley’s home in rural Maine. Like most of his work, it was short and unsparing. By the time he looked up from the page, there was no mistaking the deep sense of violation he felt when fair weather and fancy cars heralded the annual migration of a particular species of callous interloper to his beloved rural refuge. 

Over the next day or so, I pondered the story — particularly the blithely self-absorbed couple whose fast-accelerating BMW concluded the poem. No doubt, the clerk had been mistreated, and by extension, the community sullied. But I also felt an intense curiosity about what those two were talking about as they continued up the coast. Did they have any idea what they had left in their wake? Were they oblivious, or sorry? Did they argue? I guess you could say I was interested in the “other story” revealed in that disturbing scene in the store. Who were these people, and why did they act that way? 

These questions led me to reflect on my work at the Villa. I was spending my days exploring the lives of artists working to heal and provoke change amid appalling conflict and trauma in places like Northern Ireland, Watts, California, Milosevic-ruled Serbia, and post Keymer Rouge Cambodia. My efforts to animate these harrowing and inspiring stories respectfully and compassionately had been humbling. In the process, I found myself caught up in, no, actually overwhelmed by the infinitely faceted, interconnected nature of these human narratives. I had convinced myself that my job was to make sense and meaning of all these threads. But the weave of people, places, and history I was trying to represent, the layer on layer, shifting, bubbling, boiling nature of the lives and events I was encountering; was seriously fogging my lenses. 

I pressed on, but in the spaces between my book and time with Bellagio colleagues, a side-saga appeared. What emerged was my first attempt to acknowledge and understand the nature and power of human story-making. Indeed, the landscape I was exploring was immense -- the ubiquitous, indelible presence of stories; the fragility and mutable nature of stories; the powerful connections between the story and the imagination, story and belief, story and history, story and learning, story and the human struggle with power and difference – and on and on. Was I tilting at windmills? Likely so, but I had a head of steam, so I spent a day writing whatever came to mind and filed it --- working title: Story, Story. Maybe it was a safety valve because the foggy skies over Art and Upheaval soon cleared.

There are hundreds of dead-end writing threads scattered across my hard drive that will never see the light of day. For some reason, though, I found myself being drawn back to Story story to poke and prod. At some point, I started including excerpts into talks I was giving to artists and organizers working for social change. I did this because I had come to believe that the care and feeding of stories are central to all change work. If you challenge and change the dominant narrative of a place, for good or ill, you will have taken a potent step towards community change. The shorthand version is --- Change the Story, Change the World.

A slightly longer version is embodied in what follows in this podcast, namely a reading of Story story with an accompanying soundscape crafted beautifully by composer Judy Munson. But that’s not all. As we indicated in the intro what you will be hearing is the soundtrack of the film version of Story story based on an extraordinary suite of 30 photo collages created by artist Barry Marcus. And truth be told, one reason for sharing Story story here is to entice you to check out both the film, and the newly completed book version. Links to both can be found in the show notes accompanying this episode. 

Part 2: Story story

In the beginning 

there was a Word

The Word, a word,

I don’t know…,

but that Word

doing its best to stay afloat at the confluence of time and space

spinning at the hot center 

of the minds-eye vortex

had no choice 

but to go forth

and multiply 

and…beget a Story 

In no time at all 

that Story was whispered, and sung,

and gestured, and shouted

until it gave birth to another story---

and another and another

that, well, given the fruitful nature

of humans and stories,

grew to become a family, a village, 

a whole land of stories

all alive in time

to the pulsing rhythm 

of all the story hearts 

and story souls

beating then, and now

and forever in the 

always emerging meta mother-story of the world

Now, if you, my friend

here and now

can feel that rhythm 

If you can move your feet and sing

and lay yourself down 

in the groove 

of that tall tale dust and music

If you can swim in the roiling roux 

of all that telling, and listening, 

you are tapped into in the crucible of the signifying, sanctifying transmogrifying power of stories 

Yes, if you are plugged into that 

You are holding a beaded parasol in the second line 

of all those story births and passing’s

If you are tapped into that

Well it may just be that you are 

on your way to taking your place

as a link in the chain, of makers and tellers 

And if that’s true, 

Then you better listen up:

Where do I start

Well, I’ll begin with a warning

We all know about stories, right? 

Stories are fun, stories frolic, stories amuse, 

YEA

But stories are also nimble, tricky, malevolent,

And, and … 

well, you can fill in the blank. 

Some say if you own 

“the story” 

Then you’ve got the power, 

--the juice 

But Others declare, stories are free- can’t be owned. 

Then there’s those who say if you are creating the story then you are making the future

 and that stifling the story is killing the future

and the past. 

What we do know is that every person, every family, every community 

is formed and shaped

by their stories.  

And, if we don’t know.. our story

If we can’t shout out

the story of who we are, where we came from, 

where we are going 

we lose our dignity, 

our humanity,

our souls

as in East Germany,

as in Chile, 

as in Cambodia,

As in Sharpeville, Tulsa, and Wounded Knee

as in Attica, Solovetsky, Parchman, Soledad, 

 as in Toul Seng, and Dachau

These particular stories teach us that 

Tyranny is story subjugation driven by fear. 

Here’s how it works:

One-- Keep them from telling the story.

Two-- Ignore the story.

Three-- Control the story by altering or editing it.

Four-- Romanticize the story

Five-- Simplify the story, 

Six-- Trivialize the story

Seven- - Twist that story with a lie

Eight- Buy, then smother the story

Nine—Steal, then lose the story

Ten— YEA If all else fails, just kill the sucker

But, we all know

stories do not die

After the smoke settles

those fugitive seeds,

Those Neruda, Malcolm, Biko spores 

murdered, buried, forgotten 

FORGOTEN until they wake 

yea, the rain and the sun

Tug on memory’s twitchy trigger

and they rouse… Yea, those seeds 

remember, once again 

 to sprout and flower,

growing with a vengeance

that will not abate. 

Just like the kudzu vines and blackberry canes that 

crowd our lanes and clog our fences

And of course, you all know the story about neighbors and fences, right?

good fences ---make good neighbors and…

well, I don’t know 

is that true? 

Actually, Mr. Frost didn’t seem to think so---neither did Mr. Aesop

But, both knew that a good story 

Could set powerful, unpredictable things in motion 

Like an altered chromosome 

or the floating spill of a new idea 

caught in the hot updraft of a Santa Anna wind

And as those incipient stories swoop and swirl

Some fall 

Some collide 

And a few join together

At the hip

At the shoulder

At the third eye intersection 

of self-interest and common ground

And those tall tale partners

Become democracy zygotes

Youre THINKIN’ WHAT?

but, it’s true,

Democracy is the art of collective story making.

Democracy says: 

LISTEN UP! “Here is the story to this point—Let’s decide together what’s next… and make it real… together!”-

Now, this making thing 

That it appears

We’ve always done

that we call art

These are the tools we 

use to nudge our stories 

out into the world

But it’s important to remember

The artists hands 

made that animal thing 

that bison on the wall

that became the words 

that begat the first story!

That gave birth to the 

First tale tale

The first myth 

The first joke

The first rumor

The first vexing, no-easy-answer question

And Hey,

if you’ve got a mystery messing with you

You’ve got to use that story making hand

to help you paste it fast into the rest 

of your world defining window 

Do it quick, cause, you know, 

unanswered questions 

don’t sit well with us humans 

If you don’t, that fugitive cipher, 

ignored, and out of context, 

IT will suffocate you in its shadow

I know, I know you’re thinking, 

well, that sounds kind of melodramatic

But, you can’t ignore 

the trickster’s spin

Cause disrespected stories

ARE nascent shadows. 

You can’t close your eyes to them

because the shadow GROWS with neglect

Out of sight and out of mind

They just bubble and ferment,

And mark my word

Those untold stories,

Those unpeeled stories, 

Those stifled stories,

left to fester---

are very, very dangerous

Bottom line, 

If you hold your ears,

if you only pay attention 

to your own ECHO 

its hard to listen,

its hard to CONNECT TO the rest of the stories

Hovering all around

And you need that…

WE need that…

to survive together.

This is because 

Everything out there is translated for us, 

to us, by us, through us

by story. 

For good and for ill

Everything we see, hear, touch, taste …feel 

is just pregnant with story 

ready to give birth to another 

and another 

helping us make sense and meaning 

in this confounding jumble of a world

Sense and meaning?

WELL, That’s just story breath and story fire

Feeding the future in the 

mind’s eye furnace of 

Imagining What’s next

And You know, that imagination thing 

It’s just a muscle up in there

Working overtime 

generating more power than it consumes 

as it chugs along raising the temperature 

in the hot house of stories.

Talk about power. Change the Story, change the world

Man, but you know, it goes both ways. That privilege thing. 

Privilege is imagining your story, is THE story

   AND THEN If you are rich

you can buy all the stories you think you need regardless of where they came from. 

Not only is that corrupt, Its just plain undignified. 

  And that’s no small thing. Cause you see Dignity is the unfettered imagination, the untethered voice, the unleashed story. 

And Wealth be damned, If that story holds great meaning you can touch a million hearts 

Or just a precious one 

 Empathy happens when 

I tell you my story 

and you tell my story back to me --and I nod my head.

Art well the art holds the story, but only just--- 

for a while 

The artist says, “This is how the story goes at this time and this place.”

Sometimes that story sticks around

Sometimes it mutates or migrates. 

Sometimes it escapes

What we call Improvisation is fishing for those fugitive stories 

New stories get born 

when improvisation and imagination converge

bending time and space wide enough 

for story sperms and the story eggs 

to find each other and join. 

But of course, 

there are no new stories

And all stories are new

Some people say

Look, Have a seat while I tell my story

Some say

Have a seat 

while I tell someone else’s story

Some folks say

Have a seat while I tell your story

Some artists say

Stand up 

we have a story to tell

I say,

Once upon a time…

Thank you for being here, for tuning in. Please join us for our next episode. Change the Story / Change the World is a production of the Art and Community. It’s written and directed by Bill Cleveland. Its theme and soundscape are by Judy Munsen. 

And please if you have been provoked or inspired, join the continuing conversation, and check out our show notes at the Center’s website at www.artandcommunity.com. Please know that subscribing to Change the Story / Change the world is a great, no cost way of supporting out work.