Telling American Stories is something of a side project, but it seems like the kind of thing people who are viewing this site would be interested in, so here goes.

I’ve been working on this project for the past several years, creating a workshop, an essay, and now a web site to talk about how traditional American narratives inform the frames people have about the work that many of us do, and how progressive values intersect with what many call traditional American values. I started working on Telling American Stories because I was frustrated that so many organizations and issues that I cared deeply about were being defined as somehow outside of what’s really “American.” I didn’t see anyone making the argument that I wanted to make about how progressive causes have just as much (and probably even more) right to frame their struggle in terms of our shared history as conservative ones. So I created a workshop. Then wrote it up.

If that sounds interesting, why not check it out? And then leave a comment, because I’d love to know what you think of it.

I was in Chicago last week for the annual Communications Network Conference, and I had the good fortune to attend the keynote, given by Ira Glass of This American Life fame. In addition to making all the ladies of a certain age swoon just by being his charming self, Glass gave a really interesting talk on the building blocks of effective storytelling, illustrated with sound clips from the show and music that he played off a couple CD players. It was like sitting in on a live version of This American Life and getting an ongoing meta-analysis of what made the stories compelling.

I’m a geek for this kind of stuff, of course, but man it was fun.

And this gives me a chance to link to a Youtube clip from Current TV that I’ve been meaning to share for a while– Glass covers a lot of the same ground he went over last night in it, though without the cool sound effects.

More of these short segments can be found here.

Oh, and if the phrase “Squirrel Cop” means nothing to you, you must, must stop what you’re doing and listen right now. It starts about 20 minutes in.

a couple highlights on the internal conversations (conflicts?) i see a lot of designers, artists and communicators facing these days.

1.
a talk given by the well known designer Philippe Stark at TED in 2007 on the evolution, mutation and purpose(?) of design in the world today, and opening up possibilities for the future.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/197

2.
“Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”

this article, just published in the Atlantic Weekly, discusses the way our interaction with the internet is altering not only what we think about, but HOW we think. buy it or not, matters not. social network internet hopping junkie or long-hand writing library stack lover, matters less. this has incredible implications for all of us, and esp. for those of us involved in communications. (and mcluhan smiles.)

http://www.theatlantic.com:80/doc/200807/google