A collection of biographical stories and poems about fascinating people in history whose real dreams made a real difference. Developed in performance, these stories bring old tales to life for contemporary readers in a way that is both entertaining and informative.
Martha Cinader, a published writer and recording artist, has shared stories and poetry with audiences in libraries, schools and nightclubs and at jazz and theatre festivals in America and Europe.
Currently living in Greenville SC, with her husband and three sons, she blogs about being a virgin homesteader, among other things. Her forthcoming novel, Marvelina, is a fairytale for grown women.
I've always thought that the point of talking is to communicate, to understand and be understood. Correctness has nothing to do with anything. What's correct is what works in the situation you are in with the people you are in it with.
If you tell a story that communicates an idea from the point of view of someone who might have a different vantage point on life from your own, then you have the chance to cross a bridge into another person't experience that will widen your own understanding of the world.
I have fun telling this story, and recommend reading it aloud or trying it out at a storytelling open mic! It is definitely heavy on the Lord Buckley influence...
Book Excerpt
Dreamscape
Now Edison, he already had his light bulbs burning on what you call direct current electricity. The problem was that everyone had to have their own generator, so only people like Big Daddy Morgan and Vanderbilt and them guys could afford to have it. And it was dangerous too. He had trolley cars running in Brooklyn was so dangerous they called the Brooklynites trolley dodgers. That’s how they come up with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But that’s another story.
“See, Tesla went straight to Edison as soon as he arrived. Edison’s phones are ringing off the hook. People calling him want electricity put in, they want it fixed, they want it taken out, he owes a cat some money, gotta run around the corner to get it, he goes and comes straight back and that’s when Tesla walks in with a letter from a mutual friend saying ‘This cat’s as bad a mother as you.’
“Only problem was Edison didn’t like to hear that anyone was as bad as he was, and on top of that, Tesla was talking about changing? From direct to alternating currents. Well Edison almost flipped his wig, talking about ‘you must be crazy coming here talking about changing just when I’m going into the black.’
“Well Tesla just tells him ‘it’s the way of the future,’ and he wasn’t lying, but Edison was blind to the truth.
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