Quizzical Quests with Act!vated Storytellers

The House of Glee had a good time at the Act!vated Storytellers program yesterday. It turned out that this show was seventeen-year-old Zephyr's final public performance with the company. He's got plenty of projects of his own: his band, theme park projects, film projects-- fun stuff like that. Act!vated performed two stories yesterday. The first was Simple Ivan, a folktale from Russia that had a lot of similiarities to Lazy Jack (of which I tell a slightly modern version) Epossumondas, and other stories in which the main character is so foolish that he takes the instruction for one situation and applies it to the next.


In "Simple Ivan," Zephyr pours water on Dennis and Kimberly, who are trying to cook a chicken over a fire.


The second story, The Golden Pitcher, was a Mongolian tale about vanity, foolishness, and the wisdom of people with grey hair. Kimberly is shown here fitting her body through an opening in a cave the size of a tennis racquet:

If you try this at home, be sure that (1) The racquet's strings are removed (2) You bring your leg up over your head with your foot toward your ear (3) You have someone on hand with a saw to cut the racquet in the unlikely event you get stuck.

Afterward, Lucia requested that we get a photo with Kimberly:


A number of Kimberly's internet friends attended the show, and I got to meet some of them. Hello to Neelie! I also sat next to another "librarian-in-semi-retirement" who left her job to raise her daughter and got to chat with her a bit, too.