Last night, my friend and I went out for Korean food then hit The Moth GrandSLAM Championship XXIII: Day of Reckoning! event at Highline Ballroom. I’d been watching Edgar Oliver (stage/film actor/performance artist) tell stories online to get in the mood. The ten or so storytellers at the Grandslam took the stage to share 5 minute stories on the theme “day of reckoning” and were then judged by a handful of teams. The audience was invited to write and share, on a tiny slip of paper, a time when they were “tested, tried, or finally shown the light.” Oddly, many of the write-ins involved tasting tomatoes for the first time after resisting for many years.
This morning, I thought of a time when I was tested, tried, and finally shown the light. I’m thinking about the time I was falsely accused of something at work. It was a test of my relationship with my employer where I was tried casually and informally behind closed doors. The light that I was ultimately shown was the fragility of work relationships and the thankful lack of consequences of the alleged incident. There’s a 5 minute story in there somewhere.
The winning story at the Grandslam was about being arrested and realizing too late that, in an effort to protect himself, the storyteller made another man who was similarly situated feel frightened and vulnerable. It’s not funny when I describe it but I’m not that funny.
Working where I do, I listen to hundreds of stories a day while typically limiting each conversation to 5 minutes. I have a wealth of minimal knowledge of hundreds of different legal scenarios that could befall someone living in New York. Those aren’t my stories but I am often moved when hearing them.
Footnote: 4 drinks at Highline ran us $51.55, 2 tix to the show $40, a scallion pancake and shrimp tempura roll at Kang Suh $35, and the cab home $23 (including tips). I rarely go out like this. How had I forgotten!?
