LIST #3 STORIES FROM OTHERS

LIST #3  STORIES FROM OTHERS

These are stories that you probably have to tell in the third person. These are stories, or scenes, or anecdotes, or events that someone has told you. Or they are from movies, or books, or television shows. If the primary source is not you, and you like it, than you should put it on this list.

Again, try to be specific. Don’t write the name of a movie. Write briefly about the scene. You are still the primary audience for this list. Include enough details so that you know what story you are referring to.

Here’s an example of a LIST#3:

1. Scene in Rocky 2 in Apollo Creed’s office “But he kept on coming…”

2. Anne Lamott’s “best story on giving that I know”  (siblings in hospital)

3. Grandpa’s Cadillac hubcaps

4. dynamite, dog, trailer, tail

5. Scene in Castaway with lighter and king crab leg

6. Lewis & Clark – the Dismal Nitch

7. 101st hit….of the stonecutter Jacob Riis via Zen Pencils

8. Feynman’s Father questioning his son about questions after school

9. “I wonder what the Russians are doing?”

10. Gary Larson: “What, again?”

11. Death Valley after it rains…flowers (via Ken Robinson)

12. “But nobody knows what God looks like….” (via Ken Robinson)

13. How and where David Douglas died

14. Grandma’s green bananas

15. John Cage’s first performance of 4’33

16. months in hot room writing Constitution

17. Don Rickles and Frank Sinatra

18. The union dispute regarding who should plug in the radios in John Cage’s performance of “Water Walk” on the show I’ve Got a Secret

19. Tom’s advice for beating Las Vegas

20. TAL: weightlifting snowman

21. Van Halen’s Brown M&M’s

22. Neil Young introducing his Harvest album in the middle of a boat and yelling “More barn!”

23. TAL: long walk on a short pier

24. Anne Lamott telling her son about cursing, and his comment about the car keys

25. Brian Doyle’s description of watching people watch Herman the Sturgeon

Note: These are by no means the best 25, but they are the ones I could come up with in one sitting. One thing doing this does is simulates what you are doing in your brain. We consciously or unconsciously do this. We remember. We collect. Sometimes we remember the source, sometimes we don’t. None of these stories originated with me, but they have all been used in my writing or speaking in some way.