28 Comments

"Now, I’m working to tell stories in my art as though they were bits of gossip with greater intentionality."

I've tucked this little gem into my pocket.

Thanks Jason!

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Sep 13Liked by Jason McBride

a good storyteller will always put what is best in his heart, which is his own story mixed to tell something that communicates deeply

and the gossiper himself needs to be imbued with a great lack of empathy, in most cases, completely distorting what he received in order to gossip well without "heaviness in his heart"

I stayed here reflecting on this

I have a pleasure to have as friends a few good story tellers my country. I love they work

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Or are gossipers just frustrated storytellers? Beats me where the line between story and gossip lives.

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It's so interesting. I really do try to keep WAIT (Why Am I Talking?) in mind, but sometimes you still say things that are a little gossipy. I always feel regret later. So maybe it's more conditioning? Fascinating stuff here.

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“Weaponized gossip,” might as well, as everything has been “weaponized.” Doff!

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Isn't gossip the reason why junior high school exists?

Great thoughts here. I think gossip and storytelling are intertwined at a basic level. Maybe authors are just people who gossip about fictional characters rather than their neighbors.

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Sep 13·edited Sep 13Liked by Jason McBride

Storytelling has been the huminoid go-to to pass history, genealogy, and mythology/religion down through the generations for eons. I doubt very much if non-homo sapiens lacked the art of story. If they used language at all, they were telling stories. And Neaderthals were more advanced than given credit for. They interacted and interbred with homo sapiens for thousands of years before a massive volcano eruption smothered their population, reducing them to unsurvivable levels

. But their genes and information in still within our own species.

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Sep 13Liked by Jason McBride

It honestly is amazing how quickly and effectively gossip travels around – just think about how quickly people learned who was dating whom in high school, even if you weren't the gossipy type. It's like electricity in saltwater. I love Yuval Noah Harari's idea that we're the "Storytelling Species" rather than the wise species or the tool-building species. Gossip seems to be a critical part of filling in our collective story

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Sep 13Liked by Jason McBride

Jason, that is so not true. . . wait, someone's at the water cooler. 😅🚰

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Two references come to mind. 1. Kathleen Norris’s book, Dakota, where she explores small town life and Benedictine monasticism, and riffs on the etymological connection between “gossip” and “gospel.” 2. Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the global village.

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Ontological definitions of gossip and storytelling are fine and all, but are we talking enough about these adorable birds in Jason's panels?

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yeah do it. wtf. we are a mosh pitt. nowdays. share here dont think of as gossip. not really. maybe what hi does on insta is but I also play hide and seek there and push the sill ables to even more obnoxious concoction of go sip at fountain (as a conundrum of love). tinkling with the inklings with others who bear same burden of owing to the wordness. I see as open to seeing it as a factory? tick tock too is a kind of factory for mischief. there is mischief at roots in poetry, just ask bukowski! gossip is a mischief until it gets so dire its cruel... then tongue of snake with actuary of the evil ? nice to share who what where am working with on a lit level as pur dur store and stir here with yall, for sure

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