Monday night I told a story in San Francisco at Porchlight‘s newest venture, the casual Open Door Storytelling.  The structure is similar to a slam but not so judgmental.  Similar to an open mic but someone wins $50.  A nice mix of the two.

The back room of the Hemlock Tavern has a small stage, lights and a few mics, all you really need.  As people came in they could sign up to tell a five-minute personal story.  Out of approximately 60 people attending, 10 volunteered to get on stage and tell on the theme “The Old Me”.

Hosts Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick chose a random audience member to be the judge and the parade of stories began.

They’ve only been using this format for a few months and the audience is growing.  Open Door on the last Monday of the month is an addition to the regularly curated Porchlight shows on the third Monday of the month at the historic Verdi Club.

P.S.  I didn’t win the fifty bucks.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is celebrating it’s 75th anniversary on January 18th .  They are presenting a series of exhibits (I saw the amazing retrospective from their collection yesterday!) and events to celebrate.  Many of the events involve telling stories – by artists, collectors, cultural visionaries and community leaders.

According to their website,

The exhibition will be complemented by two related projects featuring visitors’ perspectives, the Oral History Project and Phone Booth. Since 2005, SFMOMA has been collaborating with the Regional Oral History Office at the Bancroft Library to create a record of its own history through video and audio interviews with individuals whose contributions have shaped the institution. Historical interview clips from the museum’s Oral History Project will be shown alongside recently collected commentary from SFMOMA visitors and community members. The Phone Booth captures visitors’ voices through an interactive phone installation; visitors are invited to pick up the phone and record responses to questions about the museum’s collection.

Arts organizations, non-profits and corporations are finding the most effective way to share information about their projects, products and  history is to tell stories.  They’ve discovered that it’s better to enlist people who have benefitted from the organization and have them tell about their relationship to the product or service than it is to have a company spokesperson trying to convince you of the same thing.

So, instead of the mining company coming out and saying how much you depend on their product, their ad tells the story of how many trees they planted to reclaim the land that they devastated all to convince you that they are responsible global citizens.

The idea isn’t new but the slant is.  Stories are hot.

It’s up to us as creative consumers to hear the stories we want to listen to.  I choose to enjoy the SFMOMA stories and to ignore (as much as I can) the noise of obvious propaganda.

If you Google “holiday stories” you will have some choices – funny, inspirational, classic, or for kids.  I chose the funny link and found these stories at City-Data.com.

“My aunt once served pheasant with the buckshot still in it”.

“I inadvertently grabbed the breast milk when I was ordered to fetch the cream!”

And this one that cracked me up:

Okay, 25 years ago, my brother is an actor, and he’s up in Anchorage, Alaska, for Christmas.

He sends down a big UPS box that arrives at my mother’s house when my sister, my brother-in-law, and my brother happen to be there. My mother is off running errands.

So we unpack the box, which is filled with presents, each nicely wrapped. And at the bottom is a small Glad bag filled with an herb that looks suspiciously like….well, you can guess. There’s a tag attached that says, “A little extra Christmas cheer.”

Well, my sister, bro-in-law, and bro all look at each other, and my brother produces some rolling papers. A few minutes later, they’re smoking a doobie on my mother’s back deck (I don’t partake). My buddy Keith shows up, and he decides he wants a hit. They’re all sitting around toking, speculating on how good the joint is.

Christmas afternoon, my brother calls from Anchorage and asks how we liked our gifts. After the usual Christmas chitchat, he asks, “Well, how did the cat like hers?” My sister asks, “What are you talking about?”

“Well, the catnip I sent her for Christmas.” We all started howling.

So the catnip story comes up every Christmas now.

One of my family stories is about the time I decided to spark up the Thanksgiving menu by serving a very exotic and delicious smoked pheasant. It was met with little enthusiasm by my very traditional eaters.  So the next year I outdid myself with a shrimp stuffed filet of sole to see if I could inspire them to creative holidays meals.  No go, they demanded their turkey. What is it with people’s insistence on repetitive rituals?

What are your holiday stories?