Something different, or not so given the past couple of weeks, with the boy, we're going to take in the Story Slam at the Library.
I'm under the mistaken impression that it's a youth slam, poetry, referred by a website that mentioned "Youth Poetry Slam" in it's title, but I'm mistaken.
We're early. The stories have yet to begin.
And I joke with the boy about taking him to see his peers, because so much of what I take him to - theatre, film, the books I recommend, is for adults or more mature audiences, and it's got to sting a bit to suddenly do something that might be "age appropriate".
He rolls with the punches.
Eventually the box office opens, we buy our tickets, find our seats. 5 contestants today, 2 girls, 3 guys, vying for a prize of $25.00.
Ouch.
I like stories, like the spoken word, listen and watch the moth podcasts, poetry slams, but I'm seeing the best of the best, I've failed to process this, I take it for granted that the stories I've heard will be the standard of all stories.
This is not the case.
A perhaps 16 year old, slamming some poem he's written about the innocent victims and perpetrators of war.
Uh-huh.
Polished, well done, rehearsed, he's in a performing arts program somewhere, that's for sure.
Next up a girl, again polished, rehearsed, talking about her imaginary childhood friends and adventures. She was very imaginative. Again, polished, rehearsed, actions and gestures and expressions to the words, less a story than a monologue or a performance art piece, somehow I'm missing something, this isn't it, I'm annoyed. She's dressed in a bright red skirt with oversized buttons, blue shirt, stockings, I don't get it at first but then I realize: It's like she's the host of a children's program, and the story she's telling, her overly dramatic gestures and mannerisms, it's as if she's projecting herself through the camera to a host of unseen children...
An older hippy, craggy, good looking in that let-himself-go sort of way, talking about the glory days of drugs and some hotel in Toronto and a police raid and a gay pride parade outside and he's as unrehearsed as the girl before him was polished, he's a natural raconteur and is doing this to meet the girls, the story, it doesn't wrap up, as chaotic as the events he's describing...
Another woman, again overly polished, talking of fairy tales and Iceland and fairies and speaking in an appalling Celtic brogue, singing what you guess are Icelandic songs, no explanation provided or required, she's the woman you shouldn't have taken home from the bar, the penultimate in bad dates, a "natural storyteller" she'll assure you, but despite her reassurances and practiced rhetoric you somehow just feel embarrassed for her...
Finally, another unrehearsed, unpolished contestant, I like him, the lack of polish reveals a certain vulnerability, sensitivity, but his story doesn't wrap up as well.
There's supposed to be an elimination but the audience hasn't the heart, all the contestants go again.
Different stories, there's no chance to leave or sneak out and I'm gradually feeling more and more soiled. It's not the stories you see on YouTube, more just the suspended judgement and disbelief you employ when you see somebody embarrassing themselves in a major way in public. It's testing the limits of my empathy.
Give them credit, it takes a lot to put yourself out there. And the audience - myself included, tries to be supportive with their clapping, not too judgmental, but I've made my notes.
I hadn't considered how many ways things could go wrong. This story slam, it's the visceral illustration of possibilities I hadn't considered.
The winner's decided, the female children's host, then the MC tells his story.
And he wins hands down. He wasn't competing, but he's got the proper blend of polish and impromptu, silly gestures and expressions, irrelevant but the audience likes, he wins but he didn't need the $25.00 so bad and so chose to MC the proceedings, if anyone should have won it would have to be him, but he wasn't in the running and so the afternoon ends.
Another event starts in an hour at the Auburn, invite the boy but he's done as well, oddly this was exhausting, draining, the well of empathy has been emptied and we both need to recharge our batteries.