Storia

For years I’ve been mildly obsessed with this idea, that “history” and “story” are related, they’re siblings if not actually the same creature. And that the relation lies in human cultures that didn’t read, didn’t write, communicated only by talking. I’m not sure why that seems so absurd and fascinating, history and story being the same thing because they began with people who didn’t read. I wrote this May 29, 2015; a couple years later I had further thoughts and went so far as to ask some experts. I’m still thinking about it. One time, a long time ago, friends were over, everybody talking, and one of the little kids got antsy so I picked up a book and started reading, very quietly so as not to disturb conversation. But pretty soon nobody was talking any more, everybody was quiet and listening to Winnie the Pooh and Piglet track the Heffalump. I’ll bet you can sit in any small coffee shop, open a book, start reading aloud “Once upon a time,” and by the third paragraph, the whole…