The vigor of memoir
Tips, tricks, inspiration, and encouragement for storytellers of all stripes
Greetings from Ybor City—
I’ve worn tracks in I-75 this week, going back and forth from the HCC Performing Arts Building. Tech rehearsals and world premiere performances for 11 DAYS!
You have until Saturday to check out this limited run! Scroll down for info.
This play is all about turning memory and lived experience into potent storytelling.
Here’s the thing about memory… it’s messy. Curated. Spotty. Self-serving. Malleable.
Therein lies both the joy and the trap of memoir-based stories.
I came across another fascinating “memory is messy” story this week.
Burt Bacharach, as a teenager, would use a fake ID to finagle his way into jazz clubs in Manhattan. He recalls seeing Dizzy Gillespie playing his bent trumpet, and how one time he saw Sonny Payne on drums with the Count Basie band at the famous Birdland club.
“They were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before. What I heard in those clubs really turned my head around—it was like a big breath of fresh air when somebody throws open a window. That was when I knew for the first time how much I loved music and wanted to be connected to it in some way.”
But check it out…
Burt Bacharach was born in 1928. Birdland opened in 1949. That would make Burt—stand by for math—at least twenty-one, not a teenager.
And when good ol’ Burt was twenty-one, he was stationed in—stand by for geography—Germany. Tough for a fella in the Army on the other side of the Atlantic to hit up a club in Manhattan, yeah?
Oh and Sonny Payne didn’t team up with Count Basie until 1954, by which time Burt was already working as a professional musician.
And Dizzy’s horn? Stand by for bending of spacetime… Got bent in 1953.
So, is our good buddy Bacharach lying? Nope. He’s simply conflating memories. Most assuredly he frequented Manhattan jazz clubs with a fake ID and saw any number of other great players who were around in his teens. But there’s no way—as a teen—that he saw Dizzy, Count Basie, and Sonny Payne until later in his life, career, and musical development.
Burt Bacharach, though—emotionally speaking—is telling the truth. His life was changed by certain experiences. His sense of himself isn’t an equation or a formula. It is shaped by the stories he tells about himself to himself (and to us) and those stories are built out of memories.
Story is not WHAT we remember; it’s HOW we remember at all.
I am not speaking of biography or journalism or history. Those undertakings have different goals and promise different outcomes and must utilize investigation and fact-checking and peer review in different, more vigorous ways.
The vigor of memoir is to exercise insatiable curiosity about yourself. And since our brains are unreliable recorders, we turn to story to make meaning.
Storytelling is also a two-way street. It matters very much not only what stories you tell, but which stories you listen to. The stories you ingest shape your view of the world. The stories you tell reveal everything about your intention toward the world.
Our intention with 11 DAYS?
To testify.
To heal a moral injury.
To honor those who have fallen, and those who work to this day—five years after the fall of Kabul—to get our allies safely out.
To insatiably examine what it means to honor a promise.
What stories do you find yourself telling again and again?
Why those stories?
Are they true?
More importantly… are they honest?
And even more importantly… do they emerge from self-interest, or from insatiable curiosity about yourself?
TICKETS
I’m gonna make it even easier for you to track down info and tickets. Just mash this purple button—
SCRIPT
And heck, if you’re one of those folks who like to read, the script has been published by Ibis Books. Time for another mashable purple button—
BLURB
How about a blurb? Everybody loves a good blurb—
ONE LAST MISSION. 1000 LIVES SAVED. A PROMISE KEPT.
When America withdrew from Afghanistan, the world watched chaos unfold. Active duty and retired special operators watched something else: brothers and sisters in danger.
In April 2021, a plea for help came from Nezam—a legendary Afghan commando trained alongside U.S. Special Forces—now marked for death by the Taliban. His former commander, Lt. Col. Scott Mann, rallied a volunteer team of special operations veterans who refused to leave an ally behind.
What began as a desperate attempt to save one man became a covert, round-the-clock effort to shepherd 1000 Afghans through Taliban checkpoints and into the Kabul airport before the gates slammed shut.
11 DAYS is a gripping one-man stage performance by retired Green Beret Lt. Col. Scott Mann, based on his New York Times bestseller, Operation Pineapple Express. This true story of courage, duty, and the unshakeable bonds forged in war takes audiences inside the harrowing story of the Pineapple Express mission during the fall of Kabul.
The Page&Stage Podcast: PREDICTOR
In case you missed it last week, here’s the most recent episode!
You know what’s really cool? This is another play built out of memories and lived experience. The first reviews are in, and they are GREAT. If you’re in Florida, check out 11 DAYS. If you’re in New York, check out PREDICTOR!
In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Blackmer and Meg Crane to discuss the fascinating story behind the invention of the home pregnancy test. Meg shares her journey from working as a graphic designer and illustrator to developing a prototype that would empower women with the ability to test for pregnancy at home. Despite initial resistance and skepticism from (all male) executives, Meg’s determination and innovative thinking led to a groundbreaking product that changed the landscape of women’s health. Jennifer, the playwright of PREDICTOR, adds depth to the conversation by exploring how she adapted Meg’s story into a stage production, highlighting the intersection of art and science.
You can listen on the Substack App, and all episodes are also available on Apple or Spotify.
And if you want to put faces with voices, the video version is available over on YouTube.
Be sure to comment or hit me up with any questions/comments/complaints, thanks as always for reading, and have a great weekend—
Jason “Insatiably Curious” Cannon