Had an "away" Storytellers meeting last night, in my old stomping grounds at Fenmere.
Well,
mostly my old stomping grounds. Lots of missing or newly-appeared buildings since I was regularly there. I particularly miss Ford Hall, site of many happy nights playing Nethack :-). The new Student Center (roughly where Ford used to be) is certainly pretty, but suffers from the ubiquitous problem of modern architecture, that the prettiness seems to come atthe expence of functionality. They have a *huge* open air well in the middle of the building. Yes, it gives an "airy" feeling, but they have to *heat* all that air, and it's a lot of unused cubic. But I digress.
I got a ride there with
new_man and Morwenna, but we got there early (which is why we ended up hanging out in the new Student Center). Did a lot of Shakespeare-geeking, mostly about Lear and Hamlet. When Kali arrived, he told a few Lear anecdote before we got properly started with the meeting. Apparently, you can get an entertaining rant out of any of the Lear cast by asking, "So, tell me about the Paul Scofield version."
Kali started off the evening by starting to tell the story of The Quest for the Holy Grail, which he intends ot serialize. Was cool. Would have been cooler if Kali hadn't broken
Rule Nine, and apologized ahead of time for his lack of preparation. I look forward to the rest of it, as I've never actually gotten around to reading any of the original sources (having bounced off Malory at least twice).
I segued from his "Matter of Britain" to the "Matter of France", and told an Orlando episode I've been re-working lately. It's a condensed version of Falerina's Garden (AKA "The one with the Magic War Donkey"). It was well-received. There was a young girl present who seemed particularly thrilled by the gory bits :-) I didn't quite have enough practice time to memorize it, but I had large enough chunks that I was able to use eye contact and gestures through most of it, only occasionally resorting to the page.
new_man finished up by moving to "The Matter of the Greenwood" and telling a Robin Hood story. I suspect he was doing a lot of vamping to make time while trying to remember details, but I don't think the non-storytelling audience noticed (or would care).