I am a city girl. I’ve
known for quite some time now, and I have traveled to countless US cities
since. I enjoy the way cities are all
different yet have similar elements, and this is something I’d like to document
for my storytelling project. The
sidewalks in New York City are very different than in Pittsburgh. The people in San Francisco have a different
aura then the people in Chicago. The
architecture in Dallas contrasts so heavily from the architecture in Detroit,
and the weather in Seattle vs. Miami the same.
My plan is to vividly, and somewhat poetically, contrast these
environments.
Eileen Myles has influenced my storytelling plan by the way
she reads her work. She is able to create all kinds of emotion by the speed,
emphasis, and tone of her voice, and I feel like it is an effective strategy to
convey her feelings to her listeners.
Specifically, I enjoyed her piece Aunt Anne for this reason. What starts out as a fairly straight forward
story picks up speed around 3:00 minutes in.
Myles’s sentences get shorter, her speed picks up, and she adds emphasis
to certain words. It makes the listener
feel like something in her story is building, and as a listener I start to gain
interest in her story even more. I like
this strategy because it seems like an effective way to show emotion without
being able to see or read a piece of Myles’s work.
Hello Elyse,
ReplyDeleteI really love this idea, as I am interested in the vast differences among US cities as well. In order to make your story more engaging and vivid, start the story off by describing in detail what each city is like. Describe the scents, the sights, the people; describe the smallest aspects of each city such as the old, dried gum on the sidewalks of New York City and how it makes New York distinct.
How will you incorporate emotion into your storytelling, as Myles did? I suggest picking small moments that happened in each of the cities that you visited and poetically describing how you felt in those moments. Possibly include how the people in those cities often feel; try to relate to them and bring that emotion into your storytelling piece.
I'm really interested to see how this turns out as well. If you have been to all these places then I would recommend using some sort of imagery of how fascinated you would have been with the landscape or something along those lines to paint a picture in the reader's head. Myles does a great job of incorporating this into her readings like you said. I think if you tried to recall some of your fascination with these cities when you were a child, and helped the reader to imagine your child-like sense of wonder, they would feel plenty of emotion.
ReplyDeleteI really like your whole concept as a whole. As something that I, and I am sure many other people, can relate to in some way, it is destined to be an attention-drawing piece. Additionally, by using a pacing and speaking style similar to that of Eileen Myles, I think that you will be able to convey suspense and keep the listener engaged all the way to the very end. Just a thought that I feel like sharing: as soon as I started thinking about the various pacings a story can have, I also started thinking about the various pacings that a city can have (ie. the fast-paced lifestyle of New York City). It would be cool too see if you could tie that in somehow. Anyway, I am interested to see what you come up with! Good luck!
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