NPR has been playing around lately with a poetic form of short-short story, capturing a life story in “six words.”
Stephen Colbert for example, offers these six: “Well, I thought it was funny!”
Reading the transcript of last night’s CNN debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I found one and I claim authorship! (Favorite Daughter wrote something last year about “found poetry” and when I find it, I’ll link that too. It all connects, don’t you think?) A natural gem of six facets telling a sparkly, self-contained, true, funny and tragic story of this bizarre campaign season, at least to my peculiar eyes –
“It’s time we said no more.”
(That’s verbatim from the transcript, I swear, although I admit to taking a bit of poetic license, because that’s not how she meant it — and those six words were in her opening statement! She went on to say more, quite a bit more and much of it pretty desperate and destructive imo, too bad. Her power of story was stronger stopping right there.)
If you want to play too, go here.
I thought she did great, but will admit this has been a weird political year in terms of campaigning.
Hi Shawna — that line that got her booed made quite an impression on me, I guess, ruined her whole performance. Hey, I should count that, maybe it was six words? —
It’s
change
you
can
Xerox
No, that’s only five words, unless we take the poetic license of spelling out the contraction.
And here’s some video — shall we count her words compared to the guys she cribbed em from, or just dis-count them as not counting?
He wasn’t all that impressive either. Kind of low-key, from what I saw. Watching someone try not to make any mistakes just isn’t that exciting.
Nance
Fair point. Nothing to lose looks different than everything to lose.
I’ll see if there’s a good six-word story in that transcript in his words (and I use the term “his” loosely!)
Let’s see –
“Politics have changed a little bit”
“That’s a consequence of bad judgment”
“Start doing something about that suffering”
“Imposed upon a huge strategic blunder”
“We start getting into silly season”
A local homeschool mom of four (unknowingly of course) made me laugh today by posting this six-word life story as an ad:
For Sale:
Homeschool
Kids
Home Decor
p.s. – I mean she unknowingly made me laugh and was just really posting an ad, not that she is unknowingly the mom of four, or that the four didn’t know she was their mom, or — oh, bother!
Well, well. What a reversal in less than 48 hours!
Thursday night: “I am honored. I am honored to be here with Barack Obama,” Clinton said. “I am absolutely honored.”
Saturday afternoon: (comparing Obama to Karl Rove)
“So
shame
on
you,
Barack
Obama!”
. . . That is not the new politics that the speeches are about,” she said.
. . .”Meet me in Ohio and let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.”
If there really were to be a debate about :
“behavior
and
tactics
in
this
campaign”
I have to say I think it would make:
a
pretty
gory
six
word
story –
If you like the six word thing you may also enjoy http://www.onesentence.org/ – which was created by a friend of mine.
I did enjoy it. I voted for my favorites too, made me feel like I was contributing something even though I didn’t have a pithy line to add.
(Have you got one you’d consider offering up to the intertubes?)
Yesterday while riding the exercise bike with uncommon vigor, I watched CNN broadcasting Obama’s rally and mused about why I’ve come to feel and think about his candidacy the way America itself is starting to feel and think. Suddenly the power of story hit me and it was even in six words! — and not just his life story but mine (from homeschooling to hurricanes, finance to fascism) and maybe the whole nation’s, and not just about the change of this election but maybe the change that will be this whole century.
Because
I’m
Tired
of Being
Afraid
Well, they’ve been arguing about how much “words” matter for weeks now and the candidate who keeps saying words don’t matter enough, made a big deal about them in last night’s debate redux.
“Denounce” and “reject” – she insisted they were two different things, one stronger than the other and therefore challenging him as not strong enough, so he obligingly “conceded the point” and added rejection to his denouncement. Lawyers! Is this all we have to look forward to, then, years and years of this?
All of which REALLY makes me wish she would stick to her original six-word story as posted above: “It’s time we said no more.”
LOL – also from last night’s debate, as I’m watching the recording we set, another story in six words from Hillary Clinton (about not releasing her tax return) -
I’m
a
Little
Busy
Right
Now
In honor of Mr. Buckley’s passing today, here are (more than six) interesting words HE chose to write earlier this month, about the words chosen by Clinton and Obama as they debate each other:
And proving that none of this is “just words” and life stories are life itself, from “Power of Story Rules”:
NEW YORK TIMES
May 22, 2007
This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It)
By Benedict Carey
. . .“When we first started studying life stories, people thought it was just idle curiosity — stories, isn’t that cool?” said Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and author of the 2006 book, “The Redemptive Self.” “Well, we find that these narratives guide behavior in every moment, and frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future.”
Researchers have found that the human brain has a natural affinity for narrative construction. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story rather than in a list, studies find; and they rate legal arguments as more convincing when built into narrative tales rather than on legal precedent. . .
Aspiring English major Favorite Daughter writes her story in six words:
“Never
could
use
just
six
words.”
A fun one from our local (and yet international) theatre/opera list today:
“It is
Delicacy
in
my
country!”
[...] So up his. (SLEEVE, I said!) I’m laughing up mine back at him, because I know I can do this, piece of cake. Why am I so smug? Because he forgot, I guess, that I already did it! [...]