The wonderful thing about a story is that it can send each listener spiraling out into their own private imagination, filling in all the details exactly as they wish….
Susan says, “A sign like this is just so Portland. We are cool, right? And fabulous and awesome and ‘nise’ (sic). A few responses are provocative and hold great story potential. My favorites: my neighbors are twins, and my neighbors are accordion players. The wonderful thing about story is how easily, with just the smallest of suggestions, a story springs to life. About those twins. My first thought is that they are an elderly couple, brother and sister twins, who’ve lived together forever in the same slightly dilapidated home and squabble politely about the proper trimming of the rose bushes. Or maybe they are wild and crazy six year olds, indistinguishable to everyone but their mother, who underscores their “twinliness” with matching outfits and haircuts. Do they raise a ruckus from dawn to dark? Is it possible that maybe their ruckus bothers those neighborly accordion players who are practicing for their debut concert at the Schnitz? Or maybe the accordion players are the twins. Someone better stop me now!”
Lucia says, “Ok, I’ll stop Susan. Somebody’s got to do it. But she’ right about the short stories these comments evoke. All it takes is one word and you have an image in your mind. And the composite of these words paints a picture of the neighborhood. Let’s pull back and look at the whole scene. We see a hodge-podge of hand-written fonts and colors that finish the sentence in funny, creative, interesting ways. It gives us a sense of the make-up of the community, which is, as Susan said, is ‘fabulous, awesome, cool, and nise’.”
