Friday, April 18, 2014

Storytelling in 2014

Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in the end part of the 14th century. The stories (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at an inn on their return.

Storytelling is a way of sharing and interpreting experiences and are universal, insofar as they involve the sames basic tenets - hero + goal - baddie = story.



English: The Boyhood of Raleigh, 1871
English: The Boyhood of Raleigh, 1871 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sketch of "The Story of the Bunyip",...
Sketch of "The Story of the Bunyip", an Aborigine telling the story to two European children (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to Wikipedia;
Human knowledge is based on stories and the human brain consists of cognitive machinery necessary to understand, remember, and tell stories. Humans are storytelling organisms that both individually and socially, lead storied lives. Stories mirror human thought as humans think in narrative structures and most often remember facts in story form. Facts can be understood as smaller versions of a larger story, thus storytelling can supplement analytical thinking. Because storytelling requires auditory and visual senses from listeners, one can learn to organize their mental representation of a story, recognize structure of language, and express his or her thoughts.
So there you go. Man was made for stories, and stories were made for man.

But where does this leave us in 2014 when technology means that we can be told stories 24/7? Well, StoryCorps has come up with a great way of combining oral storytelling and video imaging. And I think it hits the nail right on the head;



Why there have only been 370,000 views at the time of this going live, I do not know, but what a story and what a great vehicle for telling it.

kthanxbai!

Jumblerant
Enhanced by Zemanta

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Playing Catch Up

Since I last blogged a few fun things have happened:

Pomplamoose released their interpretation of James Brown's 'I Feel Good', which is pretty awesome, with an even more stunning video.



My favourite April Fool's joke did the rounds - and with 26 million views, I guess I'm not alone in liking it!





kthanxbai!

 Jumblerant
Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

The 1st of April, part 3

So far we have seen Airbnb create an offshoot - Aibrb, seen the Queen rock-climbing the White Cliffs of Dover, and we have 'The Others', what else is happening today, the 1st of April:


1. What happens if Scotland secedes from the UK


2. As a result of regulatory pressure, the Choir of King's College Cambridge is to stop using boy trebles, it was announced today.

The high voices in the choir have been provided by boys for more than five centuries. In future, high vocal parts will be performed by altos breathing helium.





3. Who will replace The Queen on the pound coin if Scotland secedes?

4.  Tech site Pocket-lint have clearly given some thought to the biggest problem with Google Glass - it just makes you look daft. With merely a tinge of creepiness, they announce the Google Glass Solo, all the fun of Google Glass, but in a monocle.



5.Piers Morgan is to take up a media-consulting role for the Liberal Democrats ahead of the next general election, according to a senior party figure.


6. Huffington Post UK's 2014 April Fools' joke is an apocalyptic, frighteningly possible vision of the Lib Dems' future.

7. Square eggs being laid in Suffolk



8. Golden eggs laid in Devon


9. And Amazon, oh Amazon, when it turned out that the drone delivery dream had died, you came up with this, the newer, older Kindle.



kthanxbai!

Jumblerant
Enhanced by Zemanta