Story Telling, and the Art of Telling Stories

Originally published 2010

Stories are how we communicate (profound, yes?). Look at the first paragraphs of so many news articles and you’ll find anecdotes to pull you in. We like to connect the facts of our lives to the stories of our lives. I had intended my next posting to be about the debate over health care (or, as my doctor reminded me, over health insurance). That’s certainly a story worth telling.

But first I want to tell a better story, one I first told in 1988.

On Jan. 16, 1988, at the opening of “Six Bronx Folk Artists” at the Bronx River Art Center and Gallery, I presented a “play.” Noah Jemison, one of the curators of the exhibition and an amazing artist who had been donating his time to pass on his love of art to the kids in the Bronx, had arranged a small commission, which I decided to spend by hiring two actors and two musicians to help me out. I cast two actors, Holly Hawkins and Jonathan Miller, and two musicians, Richard Paradise and Lindbergh Allen. 

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