McClure - "Pat Was 'Forninst the Government' " - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

This election week has led to some calling us the United States of Anxiety.  In looking at how divided the U.S. has been, only two other times seem comparable, when our Colonial ancestors revolted from England and during the election of Abraham Lincoln leading to a war that went by several names.  In the North it was the War of Rebellion and in the South it was called the War of Northern Aggression.  Obviously it was a matter of viewpoint.  Only later did it become called the Civil War.

I do a lot of programs about that war with many names, telling it from the viewpoint of a Michigan family that ran an Underground Railroad Station and the two young men of that family who fought in Michigan infantries.  My next scheduled presentation as Liberetta Lerich Green will be at the Oxford Public Library on January 29 at 2 p.m. to a limited audience with it streamed to the community.  It's an interesting location as Liberetta and several of her family are buried in the Oxford Cemetery.

Because I was thinking about Lincoln and his own election, I went to a book of Lincoln's Own Yarns and Stories.  Alexander McClure is only listed as the editor (referring to himself as Colonel A.K. McClure), but he obviously put in a lot of work to preserve Lincoln's "yarns and stories."  McClure has a town in Pennsylvania named after him.  He was a journalist, adjutant general in the War, lawyer, and, at times a politician.  His life had ups, downs (including being wiped out financially in the stock market), and twists and turns, but Lincoln and the war fascinated him enough that he wrote about them several times.  

Today's story goes back to Lincoln's second election and brings a touch of humor to the idea of elections.

I trust my Canadian and Irish friends managed to laugh at Lincoln's knitting together that yarn.

While prowling McClure's book I came across a birthday card from a few years back from fellow library staff at White Lake Township Library which I saved and used as a bookmark.  It does put the tension of the past week into, if not perspective, at least provides a further bit of humor.

 

 

 

Grab your humor wherever you can.  Since my birthday was also this past week, it seems appropriate that I found and again enjoyed that card including all the comments from the staff.  

Until next week's blog, stay well and find at least one reason to smile each day.

           *************************

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

Other Public Domain story resources I recommend-

• There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I have long recommended it and continue to do so.  He has loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

• You may have noticed I'm no longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking specific types of stories.  There's another site, FairyTalez claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales, folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
  
  Between those two sites, there is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait, there's more!"

The email list for storytellers, Storytell, discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional suggestions:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ .  It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for October 22 2016  and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for finding new books and stories to love and tell.

     
You're going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT go to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to find some of these old links.  Tim's site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a full-time job.  In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she could no longer maintain it.  Possibly searches maintained it.  Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library (something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine.  It took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally in December of 2006 it appears!

Somebody as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.  I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that becomes the only way to find them.

You can see why I recommend these to you. Have fun discovering even more stories!

Hale - Peterkins' Christmas-Tree - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Never think the Victorian era was humorless!  Now that the chaos of Christmas is winding down, it's time to see how silly it could be.  Once before, I posted a Noodlehead tale, and Lucretia Hale's Peterkin stories are prime examples of people doing the silliest things due to flawed thinking, proving common sense isn't.

As one reviewer of The Peterkin Papers said, "Before Amelia Bedelia and the Stupids there were the Peterkins."  Even a relatively simple thing like a Christmas tree shows their incredible lack of sense sure to be the "masterpiece" praised by the New York Times and why Harper's Bazaar said, "The years pass them along to every new generation, with the hint that human nature is about the same everywhere and all the time."

The Peterkin stories began in 1867 and appeared in magazines for nearly a decade, breaking ground by providing amusement for the young rather than the usual uplifting or instructional writing.  The subtitle, The Return of the Lady from Philadelphia, mentions a recurring character throughout the stories.  The book's title sometimes is given as The Complete Peterkin Papers, but The Last of the Peterkins, offers further tales and has a subtitle of With Others of Their Kin showing how they manage without their Philadelphia friend.

YouTube even has a LibriVox recording of The Peterkin Papers.

It was all I could do to keep information about Lucretia Peabody Hale and her family until after giving the story.  Her father, Nathan Hale, was named after his uncle, yes, the Revolutionary hero who reportedly said, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" before being hanged by the British.  Lucretia was one of eleven children in a literary family that continued to be important.  Her father was a lawyer and editor/owner of the Boston Daily Advertiser, while her mother, also an author, was a sister of Edward Everett, a Unitarian minister and politician. That uncle was both a United States senator and later a president of Harvard.  Lucretia's brother, Edward Everett Hale, was yet another Unitarian minister as well as a prominent abolitionist, and prolific author in his own right.  She was able to support herself with her own writing and additionally was active in charity and politics.  To be elected as the first woman member of the Boston School Committee Lucretia overcame fierce opposition from many including her brother, Charles, yet another literary Hale, who was a journalist and author. As the article in Encyclopaedia Britannica (the first hotlink in this paragraph) notes, she also produced a great many books, but her major reputation was gained from the Peterkin stories.

from http://susanpowersbourne.net/2015/09/02/born-02-sep-1820/02-sep-1820-lucretia-peabody-hale/

May the rest of 2015 be filled with fun and with your own family.  Come back in 2016 for more storytelling research and stories that help with Keeping the Public in Public Domain.
******************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories.  


At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.    

There are many online resources for Public Domain stories, none for folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's database, Yashpeh, the International Folktales Collection.  I recommended it earlier and want to continue to do so.  He has just loaded Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so one can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression he likes by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm

He also loaded to his server the doctorate thesis of Prof. Dov Noy (Neunan) "Motif-index of Talmudic-Midrahic literature" Indiana University, 1954, as a PDF file.

http://folkmasa.org/motiv/NOY_%20Dov_%20Motif-Index_of_Talmudic-Midrashic_Literature.pdf

in the hope that some of you would make use of it.

You can see why that is a site I recommend to you.

Have fun discovering even more stories!

Now for something just for fun!

Remember the old "How many ... does it take to change a lightbulb?" jokes? 

I wrote this in reply to a challenge on the international email list for storytellers, Storytell , about taking storytellers changing the lightbulb and turning it into a story.  This uses many a time-honored folktale element and also looks ahead to Halloween.

,

This is LoiS with her international storyteller sisters, including Csenge Zalka from Hungary.  (Left to right: Erika Todd of MI; LoiS; Csenge Zalka; Nicole Hofeldt of MN; Danielle Todd of MI -- taken at Northlands in WI, 2008)
Storytellers are a family no matter where we are.

Enjoy the tale!

Once upon a time, long ago, but not so long ago that there wasn't electricity, there was a lightbulb.  A lightbulb that all agreed needed changing, but ALAS! nobody felt like changing it.  A summons was sent out throughout the land of stories about changing this lightbulb promising riches & fame to whomever would dare to change this lightbulb.  Many, oh so many considered it, but gave it up as unworthy of their time and effort. Would this lightbulb ever be changed?

In a distant and far away corner the challenge was heard by a storyteller, the youngest in a family of storytellers.  "I'll go!", volunteered the youngest child, but everybody else in the family laughed for they knew this young storyteller had barely learned to tell a fable, much less change a lightbulb through the power of storytelling.

Despite the derision of brother and sister storytellers, the youngest storyteller set out on the long journey with barely a crust of bread & a bottle of water for sustenance.  Along the way the young storyteller came upon an old woman, who asked, "Could you spare me some of your food?"

"Yes, certainly," agreed the young storyteller, "but while you eat it you must promise to listen to my tale about the changing of the lightbulb."

Hours later the old woman begged to have the story stop and, when the young storyteller insisted there was still more to the story, she gave a magic potion that she promised would bring success if drunk upon seeing the lightbulb.  Remembering that the gifts of elders often made all the difference in stories, the young storyteller stopped to thank the old woman. The instant the young storyteller stopped to get a breath and thank the old woman, she vanished.  (Obviously grateful to have escaped!)

On the young storyteller travelled until at last the lightbulb was in view. A crowd had gathered nearby, telling ghost stories in the dark, convinced that light would never return.  The young storyteller felt the attraction of the ghost stories and was about to weaken, already planning to tell some stories that were only told at home in the far away land from which the young teller had come.  The audience turned and looked at the youngest storyteller.  How often they had wished for new stories and young storytellers!

Just then the young storyteller remembered the potion the old woman had so generously provided.  A sip, a gulp and it was drained.  Instantly the fog cleared in the brain of the young storyteller.  The mission to change the lightbulb was recalled and quickly the bulb was grasped.  A few twists and the bulb was unscrewed.  The replacement bulb was laying there and just as quickly screwed in.  The young storyteller bowed to the crowd, but they all started to go away, muttering about the futility of telling ghost stories in such bright light.

Fame and riches might go to someone bold enough to remember that their mission was to change a lightbulb, but ALAS! if that person hopes to become a storyteller, it is hard to gain an audience for ghost stories that end unhappily ever after.  Ah, but of course, "That's another story..."

Happy telling to you, too!

Let Puppets Tell Your Story

O.k., knowing how puppet personalities can take over, let's change this post title to:
Let Puppets HELP Tell Your Story.

er, PUPPET-INSISTED UPDATE:  
Puppets Are People, Too!

LoiS here and trying to return a bit of order: 
Puppets can be so lively and crazier than we might otherwise let ourselves be.  If you want to grab attention, let a puppet carry your story or message.  Just expect, as in the battle of titles above, they will try to take over.

There are so many ways puppets can be used beyond a puppet stage and puppet plays.  Find my earlier article on this, "An Alphabet of Puppets and Storytelling", at my website, http://LoiS-sez.com/Puppets.  The ideas there are arranged alphabetically for easy browsing.  It also forms part of a puppetry workshop I offer.  While at my website, go to the Specialized Resources page for a few internet puppetry sites I recommend.  Now it’s time to look at specific methods in more depth. 

LoiS with Sheerluck

• Puppets can become characters in a story.  Examples of this are tales of Anansi, Br’er Rabbit, or Coyote.  The character may be used for a single story or over several stories.  If you repeatedly tell over a period of time different stories using a specific character, it is easy to build up enough stories to create eventually an entire program with that character.

• Puppets can be the funny character, letting you be the "straight man" often found in comedy acts.  Humor always helps.  If you want learning, research shows humor actually helps people remember more.  There's even a great word for it, Edutainment!  An easy way to do this is by using your puppet for a running gag taking place 3 or more times.  Exaggeration is another comedy method.  Your puppet can be the exaggeration personified or may express the exaggeration physically or verbally for humor.  Another way for your puppet to be funny is let it get things wrong.  An example of this is a puppet incorrectly tells a well-known fairy tale, but you let the audience correct the mistakes.  You may have to ask at first "Is that right?", but they'll soon be calling out the right answers.  Just be sure it all stays friendly and positive.  Even puppets should be treated with respect -- model good treatment of others.  Don't be afraid, when playing to children, to include material more likely to make adults laugh.  Dr. Seuss's work was an example of this kind of writing.  It keeps the adults involved from a grown-up perspective at the same the children enjoy its zany nature.  Physical humor may make the children laugh while adults stay alert for the verbal humor.

• Get over the idea that you must become a ventriloquist.  If you focus upon your puppet as if it was a real person, your audience will, too.  Your puppet’s movement and voice create its character.  Sometimes a puppet mimes a story while you tell it.  You may also let it “whisper information” for you to relay.  Props can add to the fun of a puppet, too.

LoiS and Buzz about Bees

• Another option is just using a character for a single special segment.  The Shel Silverstein poem “I’m Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor” is an example of a single segment worth using as a filler in a program.  An additional hint on that specific poem: wear slacks and not a skirt, unless you want the segment “R” rated!

What word did each of those ideas above include?

Answer: Character.

LoiS and Nina

• The more you develop the character of your puppet, the stronger it will be a part of what you present.  This can take time to develop.  It's also easiest to test on individual children of the same age as your intended audience.  Possibly when testing, even before you try specific voice and movements, you could ask what the child thinks the puppet's character will be.  Then it's up to you to decide if you will develop that appearance of personality even further.  Possibly you will go with the opposite for humor so a big tough looking puppet acts shy and delicate or the petite young thing sounds like a lumberjack.  Is the baby dragon fierce or does it flop at fire-breathing?  I don't have a photo of my Biblioteca Dragon, but will never forget when he tried to turn Santa into Krisp Kringle!

LoiS with her puppy puppet, Buzz, as a lifeguard.  He provides riddles for her Storytelling Cruise Around the World if the audience is smaller than a gym filled with students.

• Puppets are great for Fillers, those small transitional parts of a program which bring variety to a program.  A puppet can create audience involvement by selecting children for jokes and riddles.  Puppets can also sing, yes, even if you aren’t a great singer.  Just remember what Kermit sang: It's not easy being green.  Kermit's voice wasn't that of a great singer, but he had . . . CHARACTER!

I also have a puppet that lets me use my own hands for signing.  Here Ivan the Siberian Tiger signs "Friend."

• When your puppet isn’t part of what you are telling, it can be placed in a position where it sits and listens to you, serving as a role model for your audience.  You could also let it “go to sleep.”  If you don’t want the puppet visible at all times, plan for its entrance and exit.  A large bag can be a perfect spot to let the puppet hide or possibly put it behind a stack of books.  Just be sure the puppet enters and exits as itself.  Don’t destroy its reality.

• After your program is over, the children may want to meet and touch the puppet.  Timid children should be able to pass, if they don’t want contact. Villains may be hit, so those puppets should be kept away from young listeners or your puppet may become damaged.  The fact that children react emotionally to a puppet just shows how real they can be in conveying your story.