I have a new addiction. Oh, and it’s so delicious. I just can’t seem to get enough. Each fix is only temporary and leaves me wanting more. But thankfully this addiction is free and doesn’t harm my body in any way. And it’s so simple, you’d never guess: The Moth podcasts. See, I spend a lot of time on trains. And while I am a voracious reader, I had the misfortune of inheriting severe motion sickness from my grandmother. Just like Granny, if I try to read more than a page or two while on a moving vehicle I break out in a cold sweat and feel like I’m about to hurl. So I’m left with hours and hours on trains with nothing to do but to listen to my iPod. Well, recently a dear friend of mine recommended that I download The Moth podcasts. And this dear friend opened me up to a whole new world of awesomeness. The Moth is kind of like a drug. Storytelling crack. Yes, The Moth is storytelling crack. And I urge you to partake.
The Moth is a series of stories told by random individuals. These individuals have no notes – they just sit on stage with a microphone in front of an audience and tell a story about their lives. These individuals come from all walks of life; some are performers and writers, but many are not. These stories are recorded and made available for FREE online as podcasts (you can download them off of The Moth website or iTunes).
The Moth was founded in New York in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green. When he moved to New York, Green missed the intimate and exciting evenings of storytelling hosted on his friend Wanda’s porch in Georgia. In an attempt to recreate those sessions, he started hosting storytelling evenings in his apartment in New York. The Moth (named in honor of the moths that would sneak into Wanda’s porch, drawn in by the light) grew rapidly by word-of-mouth. Today, it is a highly successful not-for-profit organization that hosts storytelling events all over the country.
After my dear friend pointed me in the direction of The Moth, I found it on iTunes and downloaded about 8 episodes. My commute into Manhattan for my day job takes over an hour each way. Normally it’s a fairly miserable commute, especially on the way home (people seem angrier at the end of the day). The day that I started listening to The Moth on my trip home, I couldn’t stop smiling. And crying. And laughing. I was mesmerized by the power and simplicity of it all. I was instantly drawn into the lives of these random people I had never met, and I was so moved by their stories that I didn’t care how I looked to the random construction worker dude standing in front of me, watching me cry.
In particular, check out the story of Ed Gavagan. One night Ed was heading down the wrong street at the wrong time and walked straight into a gang initiation. The gang initiates had every intention of murdering Ed, and the story of his survival and the aftermath is inspiring, heartbreaking, and fascinating. In the follow-up story, “Victims’ Impact” (available to download on iTunes), Ed talks about later confronting one of his attackers face-to-face in a courtroom. Ed’s honesty (and humor) is riveting.
My Moth awakening was similar to my experience at Visible Theatre’s True Story Project. I wasn’t just entertained…it reaffirmed my love for humanity. We are all fragile, quirky, complex human beings with a story to tell, and if we are able to recognize this in every person we encounter then the divides that separate us cease to be as vast. The Moth also reaffirmed my faith in the power of storytelling. A good story is timeless and transformative, and needs no bells and whistles or special effects and marketing to be effective.
My recent experience with The Moth has inspired me to revisit the basics of good storytelling. What elements does a story need to have in order to move someone emotionally? Well, the basic Aristotelian structure of beginning-middle-end feels satisfying and always seem to work. But for me, I really have to care about the people in the story before I can become emotionally invested in the outcome. What makes us care about characters in a story? Well, I think moments of vulnerability help. Humor. Compassion. Tragic, very human flaws. But most importantly, we are drawn into a character’s life when we can see glimpses of ourselves embodied in that character…when we see someone trying and failing and we can relate to their struggle.
I have only just recently started listening to The Moth, and I can already tell that it’s helping my writing. There’s something about listening to these stories without any sort of visual stimuli that gives my brain a different workout than I get watching a good film or play. It reminds me of lying on the floor in Mrs. Reynolds’ 3rd grade class, listening to her read Roald Dahl books. Mrs. Reynolds was the first (and only) teacher I had who refused to show us the illustrations in books. The other kids whined and complained about it, but I loved it. I would lie on my back and close my eyes and envision all of the action happening inside the playground of my mind. To me, listening to a story is so much more active and engaging than just seeing a story (i.e. as a film, play, tv show, etc). The experience becomes a dialectic; I am not being presented another person’s interpretation of the events, but rather being asked to interpret them for myself. And when listening to The Moth, I am actually listening to the source of this story. This experience actually happened to the person whose voice is coming through my earplugs and spilling directly into my brain. Because they are not giving a practiced performance or reading from a pile of notes, I can connect with their vulnerability and hear the cracks in their voice when they get to the part of the story that changed their life and affected them deeply. They give something of themselves to me through the telling of their story, and their gift will undoubtedly show up in the telling of my stories.
I highly encourage you to check out The Moth. And since it is in fact storytelling crack, I apologize in advance if you are never able to kick the habit.
