Campin' out with the Nineteenth

Okay, before we start, just to make sure we are on the same page: in Hungary, in high school, American history was discussed in about 40 minutes or less. The only thing we heard about the Civil War was Gettysburg (that's how it's possible that when I "went down South" some of my friends thought I was in South America. Go figure.) So my first (and most complete) source of information about the war was Gone with the wind (and you can guess the rest). Ever since I came here, I was kinda picking up the pieces of American history and putting them together to get the bigger picture - I had a lot of help from nice people like Carolyn Stearns (who tells wonderful civil war stories) and Marilyn Kinsella (my fairy godmother during the St. Louis Festival who introduced me to the Museum of Westward Expansion and the whole Lois and Clark story) and so forth.
Now that I'm in the South, and I have Civil War soldiers camping out under my very window, I saw an opportunity no decent storyteller is allowed to miss. Go behind the scenes of historical reenactment.
("Civil War soldiers under your window? Wow! Which side?" "Whaddaya mean which side?! I'm in the South for heaven's sake, do you honestly think they would let a bunch of Yankees camp out there?!")
So this evening, after the "public" went home, and I got back from another mind-blowing evening of contra dancing (no need to explain - someone please marry me already!!!), I just walked into the camp, so ruining my reputation as a decent lady forever and ever (and I couldn't care less, really). The soldiers were a bit surprised at first; they were just getting ready for dinner and they were starting the campfire and I bet they were glad all the people went home with their questions, and then here is that weird young lady with the strange accents, marching into the camp and she doesn't look like she is planning on leaving anytime soon. Well, the Southerners are all gentlemen of course, so they offered me a seat and they kinda gathered around, and I started asking them about the war and stuff, and no matter how silly my questions were, they kept answering, and they told me the story of their regiment, and it was just THE perfect history lesson. The ice broke, we started talking, night settled in, and we continued talking among the firebugs and the candles; I told a Hungarian story to the soldiers, and it was a blast, I had so much fun (I told them about the siege of Eger, a story every kid in my country grows up with - I never thought one day I'd tell it in a Confederate camp and the soldiers would go "woooow" over it... talk about the right story at the right place. Another precious moment I'll never forget)
And we kept on talking into the night until I felt like I was gonna pass out (and, well, walking into a camp as a lady is one thing and passing out in a camp as a lady is another thing...) so I said goodnight to the soldiers, promised to visit them again tomorrow, and walked back to the 21th century side of the creek.
The North might have won the war - the South has won my heart.
(All my Yankee friends will just have to deal with it. I still love them too, though;)

Beware of the Hungarian story stalker

Yeah, that kinda covers what I am doing right now. I'm diggin' deep, deeeep into the archives of the Storytelling Center, pulling out one ancient, dust-covered festival program after another, and listing all the tellers in a database who performed on the Jonesborough stage. Ever.
Right now, I'm back to 1988 (told ya, deeeeeep - I was 2 years old!), and I got to the juicy stuff: I'm starting to find photos of tellers whom I know (and who still are performing on the same stage!), and some of those photos are actual blackmail material... Sounds like a story, "Back in the ooold, old days, when Connie Regan-Blake had long black hair and Ed Stivender had a mustache and Donald Davis had dark beard and David Novak looked like a shiny eyed schoolboy and Heather Forest looked... pretty much the same..." ack I forgot this is my English blog. Bummer, I'm only allowed to write impertinent stuff like that on the Hungarian one. Babelfish still has serious issues with my language. Thank God. XD)
(Just kidding ;)
Seriously, this is so much fun :) I probably read a lot more than I need for the research (Name. Country. Year. Done.) but c'mon, it's like a candy store for a kid. I love every minute of it! I read about tellers I've met and tellers I've heard and tellers I've heard about, and even legends like Ray Hicks and J. J. Reneaux who are not with us anymore (and yes, I firmly believe there are lots of good things in modern technology, one of them being the ability to hear the voice of a storyteller who is not with us anymore). And the history of the Festival is bigger and more colorful and more legend-like than I have ever imagined...
Uh-oh, Civil War troops are camping out under my window. Gotta go pull up the Confederation flag. XD
(Gettin' ready for Jboro Days...)
Fun fun fun.

Resident Trickster

T.I.R. - Teller-in-Residence. Right?
Wrong.
This week, it's Trickster-in-Residence.
Andy Offutt Irwin in da house.

Andy appears, Andy smiles, Andy runs up and down, Andy gets lost, Andy is found, Andy chats with the ladies at the front desk, Andy scares the kids at the front desk, Andy is in the way in the box office, Andy is ushered out of the box office, Andy gets lost again, Andy joins a school group, Andy greets the audience, Andy drives the emcee up the wall, Andy comes in, Andy whistles, Andy plays, Andy bangs on kids' heads with a plastic hammer, Andy threatens the crowd into laughing loud enough, Andy plays the guitar, Andy hops off stage, Andy visits with the audience at the gift shop, Andy randomly changes personalities. Andy is fun.
Somebody care to come up with a definition for 'trickster'?

(Yep, back in Jboro, being "office trained" at the ISC - my inner child enjoys playing with the cash register and the credit card batch, my outer child deals with the ticket office. I'm here for this week and the next week, er... working on my summer research project, which includes observing the professional storytellers' behavior in their natural environment... And I watch every single afternoon matinée. No pressure.
Jboro is getting ready for the big 4th of July weekend. Fun fun fun.)