Notes from the Field (IX)

A CHAIN OF STORYTELLERS

“Run and run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!!” Those words, and the story that they come from, are familiar to a great many people. But what isn’t as well known, is that “The Gingerbread Man” is a type of story called a chain tale. In these simplest of stories, there is a brief opening sequence that, once set, keeps repeating – adding on additional characters like links on a chain.

The Gingerbread Man runs away from the Old Woman who created him, then escapes from a series of animals who each ask the exact same question (can I eat you?), and each receive the exact same reply (you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man). The “chain” finally ends with the fox, who makes a meal out of the sprinting cookie.

I love telling this kind of story! The repetition of the situations makes for a delicious rhythm that small children adore; and, as the “chain” grows longer, there is a natural escalation that brings the excitement level to a fever pitch. Kids love that they can begin to predict what the various characters will do or say, and quite often, these stories give me a chance to do something I love – to me unabashedly physically silly!!

But as much as I cherish these stories for these qualities, this month I found yet another reason to love them. I realized that as a storyteller, I was dab smack in the middle of a real life chain tale. I discovered that I am a link in a very long and hopefully growing chain.

About twelve years ago, following my relentless creativity seeking nose, I attended a storytelling performance at the newly opened New Victory Theatre on 42^nd Street. This wonderful theatre’s mission is to provide quality, affordable theatrical events for family audiences (and they do – brilliantly. If you’ve never gone there – go immediately, and check out their website). I had never really seen a storyteller, and knew nothing about the oral tradition, but I said, as I always say, “Hey, it it’s an art form, I’ve got to check it out!”

Well, all I’ve got to say about what I experienced is – Wow! No, that’s wrong, I mean WOW!!!! Onto that stage walked Carmen Deedy, a Cuban American storyteller from Atlanta. She told an hour’s length story called, “The Peanut Man”, and as I sat there awestruck, I remembered the words of Bette Midler, one of my personal heroes. I read once, that the Divine Miss M said that when she saw Janis Joplin onstage she was blown away by her talent, of course, but also, that something inside her said, “I can do that.”

And that is what I heard, after I stopped clapping and cheering for Carmen, that is. I knew I had found IT. The way I could use my dancing, acting, clowning, energy, love of imaginative “out of the box” theatre. I had stumbled onto a wealth of tales that could take me around the world without me ever packing a single bag. I wanted to do to an audience, what Carmen Deedy had done to me – move them, and without fancy sets, lights, or costumes. And in that instant, I reached up and grabbed on to the storytelling “chain”. Carmen Deedy is my link to the enormous line of storytellers who have held audiences captive with their tales for years.

Now, I hadn’t really thought of things that way until this month, when, for the first time in twelve years or so, I saw Carmen perform again. Prior to her show, I told EVERYONE I knew about her affect on me, and that she was the reason I became a storyteller.

I was both nervous, and excited to see her perform. Suppose she wasn’t as amazing as I remembered? What if, when I went up to speak with her, she was a DIVA? Well, she was (as great as I remembered) and she wasn’t (a DIVA). I felt a bit like a groupie finally getting to go backstage with THE BAND!!! I told her of how she had inspired me, and how I was grateful to have a chance to tell her what seeing her had led me to – in short, I thanked her for being the link that had “hooked” me. And as I stood there, grinning like the proverbial kid in the candy shop, a teacher/storyteller I know, Ken Karnas came up to both Carmen and I.

“I wasn’t originally planning on coming today,” Ken said. “But from the way Julie talked about you, I just knew I had to see you.”

Now, at this point, I’d have to say that I was at a pretty high level of happy – what with actually meeting Carmen (who had grown rather mythical in my mind), and having other people I know get turned on to her, but then Ken said something that I may never forget. “Julie’s the first person I ever saw really tell a story – I mean REALLY tell it!!”

I looked at him, and I thought of the wonderful stories I had heard him tell at the New Jersey Storytelling Festival last summer, when we shared a time slot. I felt a sense of pride that teachers must be oh, so familiar with, and I realized that I was the “chain” that Ken had “hooked” onto. Standing between Carmen and Ken, is when I realized that I was living a chain tale that I was part of something that was at once ancient, and ongoing. I am, like every storyteller before me, and hopefully all the storytellers that are to come - a link in a very long, long chain.

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

The following list includes my public performances only. No school or private performances are listed here. Things change from time to time, so do be sure to check the schedule.

May 2008

5/17: Afro-American Historical Society Museum Jersey City, NJ 12PM

5/7: Kips Bay Branch New York Public Library (NYPL) 3:30PM

5/9: West Farms Branch (NYPL) 4PM

5/10: Rector Park in Battery Park City, NYC 11AM

5/13: Wakefield Branch (NYPL) 4PM

June 2008

6/1: New Jersey Storytelling Guild (workshop on using American Sign Language in stories), Montclair, NJ 7PM

July 2008

7/11: New York Public Library (NYPL) Hamilton Fish Branch 3PM

7/15: Brooklyn Public Library Kings Bay Branch 3PM

7/15: Summit Library, NJ 7PM

7/17: Toms River Library, Toms River, NJ 7PM

7/18: Tottenville Branch, NYPL 3PM

7/19: Fort Washington Branch, NYPL 3PM

7/20: Monmouth County Library (in Shrewsbury) 1PM

7/30: Madison Library, NJ 10:30AM

August 2008

8/4: Glen Rock Library, NJ 7PM

8/5: Warren Township Library. NJ 10AM

8/8: National Storytelling Network Conference, Gatlinsburg, TN 8PM

8/18: New York Public Library (NYPL) Epiphany Branch 3PM

8/25: Keansburg Library 3:30PM

Notes from the Field (VIII)

An Unexpected Gift

Up until the last year or so, there was a tabloid called, “Weekly World News”. It was the type of paper that made the “The National Enquirer” look like a Tolstoy novel. Front cover news was frequently the exploits of Bat Boy – who was, of course, half man, half bat. Giant babies, tap dancing aliens, and a host of other unbelievable events graced it’s black and white pages. Waiting in the check out line at the Pathmark, I would flip through this “fine” publication, giggling and thinking, “How do they come up with this stuff?”

Oh, how I wish “Weekly World News” still existed – because, boy, do I ever have a story for them! A scoop more stupefyingly unbelievable than the capture and imprisonment of Bat Boy: Julie Pasqual and her sister, Valerie, go to a storytelling performance – TOGETHER! AMAZING!!!!

Now, you may think a visit from our brothers and sisters from the red planet to be an event unlikely to happen – but let me assure you, that next to what happened this month with my sister and I, having an alien over for lunch, is down right ordinary.

My family is large, especially for NYC standards. Six kids: three boys, three girls, with yours truly bringing up the rear. My mother pumped us out at fairly regular intervals, but even still, there is a considerable age gap between both my sisters (kids #1 and #2) and me. One of my few baby pictures show my two sisters, Pat (#1) and Valerie (#2) at ages twelve and ten, holding me with more than just a suggestion of disgust on their faces. One can almost see their thoughts floating above their heads in a cartoon bubble, “Oh God!!! Another one we have to look after!”

Because of the years between us, my sister, Pat, was off to grad school in Michigan before I was even in high school, and we haven’t lived in the same city since I was eleven or so. Valerie, though, was around more, and was, to her younger sister, “THE GLAMOROUS ONE”. Thin, pretty, and with an interest in shopping, makeup, and Cosmo, she made my friends gawk and say, “Oooh!” She had lots of boyfriends - frequently at the same time - and my youngest brother and I would often creep to the top of the stairs to hear her try to talk my mother out of going ballistic when she came in late.

But something seemed to happen as I entered my teen years, and she her twenties. She buckled down in college, and became a teacher. I fell in love with the thing that would define the rest of my life- dance, theatre, and performing. I won’t go into the MANY and EPIC battles I had with my parents over my choosing an arts high school over a Catholic School, or my electing to begin touring in musical theatre shows instead of going to college, or my moving out of my parent’s house, when they wanted me to stay at home. Let’s just say, a suomo wrestler in a tutu would have been prettier, and easier to watch.

Keeping my distance from my parents, though, came with an unforeseen side effect – loosing contact with my siblings as well. They were already older, so soon they were fully engrossed in their adult lives, as I was in mine. During this time, Valerie became a respected teacher, a wife, a mother, an author, and someone I didn’t know at all. Christmases, and the occasional Easter or Thanksgiving, was the extent of our communication.

That’s mostly likely how things would have remained, had my sister and her family not experienced a crisis. Maybe there is something to that “blood is thicker than water” stuff, because during this sad time, we began to talk. At first it was just about the situation at hand, and then it began to be about our parents, our family, and our lives. For the first time since I was about thirteen years old, I was actually telling someone in my family about myself. I was letting my sister in.

And this is where storytelling comes in. As I mentioned, my sister is a teacher, first grade to be exact. You’d think that with the amount of time I spend performing in schools, I would have visited Valerie’s class for a tale or two. Nope. I was too curled up in my self protective bunker to even entertain the idea. But one Christmas, two years ago, it came to me. Why not give my sister the thing that I had held back from every member of my family for decades - why not give her Me – well, for a forty five minute show, that is.

My performance, and our subsequent conversations about storytelling, gave my sister and I some common ground. I must admit, it was nice to know that someone who shared my DNA actually understood what the heck I did for a living. I came to learn that my sister had seen, and adored, the storyteller, Heather Forest, who’s books I owned, but had never seen perform. Imagine talking “shop” to a relative – MIND BLOWING!!!!!

When I saw that Heather Forest would be performing at the Provincetown Playhouse Storytelling Series (a great place to see some top shelf tellers, by the way) I marked it on my calendar, and I called my sister. Only my husband knows how huge a step that was for me. To freely, and willingly invite a family member into a part of my life that I hold extremely dear, namely storytelling, was previously a risk I wouldn’t have dared to take. But now, with the connection that storytelling had helped to forge, it felt like the only thing to do.

Heather Forest was wonderful, of course, and the audience, which was a mix of all ages of story lovers, was great to see. But the real gift that day, was sitting besides my sister. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

I have often said that I began my storytelling career as a way to combine all my artistic skills, work for myself, and have more control over my schedule, as well as my creative fate. I have gotten all that, and much, much more from the smiles, laughter of my audiences, and the deep lessons in some of the tales I tell. But, just this month, I do believe I got the best gift storytelling has yet to give me – a relationship with my sister.

Upcoming Performances

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

The following list includes my public performances only. No school or private performances are listed here. Things change from time to time, so do be sure to check the schedule.

April 2008

4/13: The Morristown and Morris Township Library, NJ 2PM

4/15: Ocean Township Library, NJ 4:30PM

4/16: Eatontown Library, NJ 4PM

4/23: Fort Lee Library, NJ 3:45 PM

May 2008

5/17: Afro-American Historical Society Museum Jersey City, NJ 12PM

5/7: New York Public Library (location pending) 3:30PM

5/9: New York Public Library (location pending) 4PM

5/10: Rector Park in Battery Park City, NYC 11AM

June 2008

6/1: New Jersey Storytelling Guild (workshop on using American Sign Language in stories), Montclair, NJ 7PM

July 2008

7/11: New York Public Library (NYPL) Hamilton Fish Branch 3PM

7/15: Summit Library, NJ 7PM

7/17: Toms River Library, Toms River, NJ 7PM

7/18: Tottenville Branch, NYPL 3PM

7/19: Fort Washington Branch, NYPL 3PM

7/20: Monmouth County Library (in Shrewsbury) 1PM

7/30: Madison Library, NJ 10:30AM

August 2008

8/18: New York Public Library (NYPL) Epiphany Branch 3PM

8/25: Keansburg Library 3:30PM

Upcoming Performances

March 2008

3/8: Cotsen Library, Princeton, NJ: 9AM-12PM (workshop)

3/11: Eastchester Branch, New York Public Library (NYPL) 4PM

3/12: Melrose Branch, NYPL 4PM

3/19: Stapleton Branch, NYPL 4PM

3/25: Kingsbridge Branch, NYPL 4PM

April 2008

4/13: The Morristown and Morris Township Library, NJ 2PM

4/15: Ocean Township Library, NJ 4:30PM

4/16: Eatontown Library, NJ 4PM

4/22: New Utrecht Branch, Brooklyn Library 2PM

4/23: Fort Lee Library, NJ 3:45 PM

May 2008

5/17: Afro-American Historical Society Museum Jersey City, NJ 12PM

5/7: New York Public Library (location pending) 3:30PM

5/9: New York Public Library (location pending) 4PM

5/10: Rector Park in Battery Park City, NYC 11AM

July 2008

7/15: Summit Library, NJ 7PM

7/23: Madison Library, NJ 10:30AM

Notes from the Field (VII)

Everyday Magic

It’s pretty clear to any and all that meet me, that I am a city girl – cement, not grass is my walking surface. Subways and the PATH train, are my preferred ride. But, urban animal that I am, I do spend a lot of time somewhere else – the land of make believe and fantasy.

I love entering the world of the folktales and fairytales I tell – places where animals talk, fairies fly, and virtually anything can happen. And while I freely admit to coveting the closet space that no doubt comes with the fabulous palaces in certain folktales, the thing that I most envy about the inhabitants of stories, is the magic!!

The way that – POOF – out of nowhere, there appears the very thing they need - not only the solution to their problem, but usually something that brings good fortune as well. The folktale type known as the “Hero’s Journey” contains my favorite type of magic – the magical object. In these tales a young lad, or maiden, sets out on a quest, with nothing more than the clothes on their back. Along the way they find, or are given, something that at face value seems ordinary, if not down right useless: an old whistle, a napkin, or a rusty key. But in the end, it is these objects that, somehow, magically help our hero or heroine succeed.

When I first began working with folktales, I would sigh with longing over how combs, cooking pans, or even twigs brought success to their handlers. But one day, on my way to a performance that was several hours from my home, I realized I needn’t be jealous of folktale characters. I had my own magical objects! Sure they were different from the ones in the stories I tell, but that didn’t make them any less magical to me.

Take, for instance, my laptop computer. Snow White’s stepmother may have been able to ask the mirror if she was the fairest one of all – but that’s only one question. I can ask my computer anything – and it replies – big time!! From finding tales to tell, to navigating my way to schools, libraries, and towns I never even heard of – this object, no bigger than my favorite folktale anthology, supplies me with information a lot more useful than who’s the fairest of them all!

Another little trinket I couldn’t get through the day without is my cell phone. All those cobblers, shop keepers, and even farmers in folktales are lucky, in that they have a stationary place of business. Not me. As a storyteller, I am always on the move, and that little, ringing, vibrating device helps me conduct business from my car, school auditoriums between assemblies, and in library bathrooms (seriously – I’ve booked plenty of shows returning phone calls from the loo). Yes, I freely admit to loving my cell phone, it has helped AAA find me when I had a flat returning home from a show, and just recently it helped calm the nerves of a principal (and my own) when the most TERRIBLE TRAFFIC EVER turned my 45 minute trip, into a 90 minute one. Cinderella’s fairy godmother can keep her magic wand – I prefer packing my Verizon network.

And then there’s the thing I really couldn’t do without. The reason I can live a life so marvelously unpredictable, so thoroughly fueled by my passions – my husband!!!! He is magical object, handsome prince, and fairy godfather all rolled into one.

More times than I can record, it is he who has figured out directions for me to get from school A to library B. “Help!” I have been known to scream into my cell phone, when I have pulled the car over on a highway shoulder, helplessly lost. With the calm of a Buddha, Jim, my MUCH better half, has guided me back on track, all the while not missing a beat at his own job.

Navigating that cell phone, computer, and now, thanks to him, of course, my GPS system, would have been impossible for me, without his guidance, and mind boggling patience. There must be a trench in our apartment floor running from the couch to the computer, marking the many times he has put down the NY Times, and strolled over to save his hyper ventilating wife from throwing up on the keyboard.

But all technical assistance aside, it is his magical “never stops listening” ears, that are my biggest ally. I mean, how many times could one man possibly really want to hear how a library show went? And yet, there he is, always asking, “How’d it go?” And honestly listening to my response. Always ready to have my back – no matter what. Laughing with me when things went great, gripping with me when things kind of sucked. He is my co-pilot, my safety net, my support system, my biggest fan.

When I think of him, I realize that a person doesn’t need a magic wand, or a fairy to live “happily ever after”. All this girl needs is her laptop, cell phone, GPS system, and the love from one REALLY, REALLY GREAT GUY!!!!!

Notes from the Field (VII)

A Storyteller Trying NOT to Tell Stories

Even though I’ve been a professional storyteller for only the last ten years or so, I have always loved stories. As a kid, I would check out the BIGGEST books I could find in the library, just so I was certain the story would last a good long time. I remember my dad once commenting on my love of writing tales by saying, “If there’s even the tiniest scrap of paper – she’ll write on it!” Even as a dancer, plot lines are important to me. I LOVE that a flick of the wrist, or an arched back, can paint a vivid scene.

But all the stories I read, write, dance, and now tell for others, pale in comparison to what I call “the movies in my mind”. Oh, what a show!! For as long as I can remember, the “Cinema of Julie’s Brain” has been open 24/7, 365 days a year.

Now, I know other people daydream, and visualize moments of their lives, but for me, it’s more than an occasional “flight of fancy”, it is a full contact Olympic sport. From the moment my eyes open in the morning, until they blink shut for the last time at night, my brain is cranking out stories both large and small.

Sometimes, they are rewrites of situations that happened that day. The “What I Should Have Said or Done” scenario is one of my favorites, as is the “Reliving the Best Moment of the Day” show (which plays in a loop – the event growing more and more fabulous and grandiose at each viewing).

There’s the “Path to Success” tale that begins with a chance phone call or email about a gig that will eventually lead me to great happiness, financial security, and amazing creative endeavors.

And then there’s the “VENGENCE IS MINE” rant! Now, this is one I know everybody has had at least once – even if they don’t want to admit it. This is where (in your brain, of course) you encounter an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, while looking sexy and confident, with the prefect verbal retort rolling effortlessly off your tongue, putting them in their rightful, lowly place. Or, it’s you striding back into the office of a boss who terminally overlooked you, to inform them that you had just bought the company, and that, by the way – they’ve been “let go”.

Because I take all my genres of storytelling seriously, these daydreams are always Academy Award worthy. There is not a detail I do not attend to. Sets – check, costumes – check, lights and music – double check. The voices, facial ticks, and mannerisms of every character are completely realized, and it all becomes so amazingly absorbing, that I have missed subway stops, burnt dinners, and tumbled off treadmills. This, to me, is HEAVEN!!!

Or at least it was, before I got into yoga. At first, yoga was absolutely no threat to my “movies”. Becoming an Eagle, Cobra, Happy Baby, or any of the other yoga poses seemed to have little to do with my brain games. But then, out of the blue, it happened. Just as I had fallen in love with storytelling, dance, clowning, Diet Peach Snapple, and, of course, my amazing husband – yoga began to woo me, too. At first it was just the physical aspects of it. I began to attempt the more difficult postures, attend multiple classes each week, and practice at home. But as all this was going on, I became aware of the fact that the yoga asanas (the physical poses) were only one aspect of what yoga actually is. I came to learn that moving the body was simply a way to get the human mind to be quiet. Cool – a quiet mind! Wait a second – A QUIET MIND?? Did that mean what I thought it did?

You betcha. In fact, the more I read, the more I saw the words “let your stories go”. Not my stories!!! Please not my stories!!!

Apparently, spending valuable brain activity spinning revenge fantasies keeps a person in a place where they are frenzied, grasping, and basically not at peace. DARN! I tried not to believe what I was reading, and more often, feeling. I fought to deny that one of the reasons I loved my yoga practice so much, was that while I was moving and breathing, that’s all I was doing – moving and breathing, and being there, right in that moment. And that instance of time was a beautiful place to be. I wasn’t mired in regret about what I hadn’t said, done, or accomplished. I wasn’t clawing desperately at a future I didn’t know would come. I was just there. And not in a “zombie, spaced out way”. I was actually more awake than before – really seeing the subway platform I was on, smelling the dinner I was cooking, feeling the pounding of my feet on the treadmill, instead of falling off of it.

Maybe, I began to think, my stories were best left to performances. The place for all my dramatics, and creativity was the stage, or even the page, but definitely not my mind.

So, that’s what I’m up to. Strangely I’m a storyteller trying not to tell tales; at least in the privacy of my own brain. In public – well, that as they say is a whole other story!