bilingual | zweisprachig

So here is the second installment of my Moth story presentations. I hope you enjoyed the first two by Elna and Malcolm. This will also be a double feature but of two entirely different accounts.

Up first is New-York-based zoologist Alan Rabinowitz. He tells of his encounter with a jaguar in the jungle of Central America, how he got there, and where he has gone since. Unlike most Moth stories, this is not a funny one. I would rather call it “realistic” and nevertheless just as good.

Alan Rabinowitz, “Man and Beast” (17:44)

Second today is Dan Kennedy with his aptly titled story “I Am Paid to Write Love Notes to Phil Collins.” Kenndy is a writer and, if we believe his story, failed rock musician. His musings are about arriving just a little too late in Seattle for the Grunge revolution, how he made it “big” in the City, and being able to stay true to rock music and its values while still living the “normal” white-America lifestyle. This is again a funny one.

Dan Kennedy, “I Am Paid to Write Love Notes to Phil Collins” (17:55)

Enjoy these two. Up next are crime novelist Richard Price and columnist Dan Savage.

Having failed miserably to keep up with my poetry project after only ten days (cf. previous posts), I would like to take on another—less laborious but, to my mind, more rewarding—project. Just read on…

Everything is possible in New York City, even such an amazing undertaking as The Moth. The Moth is a platform for storytelling in front of a live audience. It is somewhat like stand-up comedy, only different. People do get up on a stage but they do not necessarily talk about funny things, though often they do. (That sentence didn’t make a whole lot of sense just now…) It is always only one person on stage who tells a story for about fifteen minutes. In fact, quite a number of these stories can be considered jokes, only with very elaborate setups. Many storytellers are of the more or less famous kind.

I came across The Moth about six weeks ago through Malcolm Gladwell’s blog, and fell in love with it immediately. Gladwell told a story there once about the early stages of his career at the Washington Post. NPR’s show “This American Life” picked it up recently and he reacted to people’s reactions to that story (part of this reminded me of Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” stunt from 1938). His rather short and scarce remarks naturally attracted my attention and I ended up listening to it.

Let me tell you, it was one of the better decisions of my life. Gladwell, who is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, is a genius on the page. I grant him that. But he is even more of a genius when it comes to the stage. His voice, his intonation, the subject matter were perfect; not to mention his timing for the numerous punch lines. I can really picture this crazy-looking man (“crazy” in a good way) (see photo) on stage, wildly gesticulating, all the while drawing his audience more and more into his obnoxious story. He did quite a number on me, and I only listened him. I do not want to think about my reactions had I actually been there.

So I was hooked to this Moth thing right away and was rather pleased when I found out that they also offer a podcast with one new and unabridged story per week (subscribe to podcast via iTunes or via alternative feed readers).

What is most intriguing about each story is that one never knows for sure whether it is a tall tale or the rendition of actual events which the storyteller has encountered. Well, most of the time it is not clear. Sometimes it is painfully obvious, actually. And at other times, one dearly hopes that it never really happened. Additionally and to my delight, many of these stories are quite explicit in their use of language, but very effectively so.

So from now on, I want to post about these amazing little stories and also offer audio streams of them, so you can listen to them right here without necessarily having to download the MP3s. As is my compulsion, I will do this chronologically and offer one or two stories every (other) day until we are caught up, and then talk about the most recent story each week.

Elna Baker will hit it off and the Malcolm Gladwell story will follow right away. After having just talked about it, I feel I cannot leave you hanging like this until tomorrow.

Elna Baker, “Yes Means Yes?”

Elna Baker is a twenty-something mormon living in 21^st-century New York City, which has got to be the one place you do not want to live in when you are a mormon, except for Las Vegas maybe. She tells the story of how she met a really great guy with whom she wanted to have sex but could not. How he reacted to that. How they both coped with her being mormon. (She starts to say “Yes” to literally everything.) And so on. During the first few minutes, she seems to be somewhat annoying, especially with the religiousness looming above. But she gets the hang of it, wins over the audience, and delivers a very solid and diverse story in the end.

Is this a true story or a tall tale? What do you think?

Malcolm Gladwell, “Perverse and Often Baffling”

As I have said before, this one is about Gladwell’s adventures as a freshman reporter at the Washington Post. First and foremost it is about a contest he established with one of his colleagues. They competed about who could put certain phrases into the paper most often (“perverse and often baffling” was one of them). This is ridiculously funny, worth every second of it, and to date the best story I have heard coming from The Moth’s stage.

According to Gladwell himself, this is “just” a tall tale (none of the articles that he claims to have published in the Post have ever appeared in there). But I would still like to consider the idea that it is true and how fact and fiction might change the way you look at this story (and of course all the others), and vice versa.

Discuss away in the comments.

Gestern Abend war ich, wie angekündigt, bei der Lesung von Thomas Hettche, in der er seinen neuesten Roman, Woraus wir gemacht sind, vorgestellt hat. Verglichen mit der Veranstaltung von Christoph Ransmayr im November war es gestern allerdings sehr klein, beschaulich und überschaubar. Es saßen allerhöchstens zwanzig Leute im Publikum und Herr Hettche war recht gut aufgelegt.

Daily Cartoon

Heute Abend hatte ich das große Glück, bei einem Auftritt von Roger Willemsen im Basler Fauteuil in der ersten Reihe zu sitzen. Es war ein wirklich einmaliges Erlebnis, das ich jedem nur wärmstens empfehlen kann. Annähernd niemand im Publikum ist aus dem Lachen herausgekommen, angesichts der doch sehr ungewöhnlichen Erlebnisse Herrn Willemsens und auch seiner Gabe, diese mit seiner unvergleichlichen Wortgewandheit zu garnieren. Er ist ein wahres Vokabelgenie, das in der deutschen Sprache seinesgleichen sucht.

Nebst des Redners gab es auf der Bühne noch einen Tisch, einen Stuhl und ein Glas Wasser. Die beiden letzteren würdigte er mit keiner einzigen Berührung und auf dem Tisch nahm er in gewissen Abständen platz, um verständlicherweise seine Beine vom vielen Stehen auszuruhen. Allerdings hielt er es dort nicht lange aus, denn wenn sich die Beine bewegen, dann bewegt sich die Zunge auch besser.

Glücklich kann ich mich auch in Anbetracht der Tatsache schätzen, ihm als einziger im ganzen Saal ein Autogramm entlockt zu haben.