Week 9 Famous Last Words: Taily-Po!

One of my goals for my Storybook was to tell the Taily-Po story in time for Halloween... and I ended up telling that story this weekend already! I did the research on Saturday (and that was awesome; I looked at the original publication in the Metropolitan magazine, and there were more A. B. Frost illustrations there. Why didn't they put those illustrations in the book version? Anyway, that was really cool, and I think it helped me with my story too. I had to really reduce the story (Harris's version was 2500 words long!), and it helped me focus to have these other illustrations. I was especially glad to have one of the Taily-Po critter poking around in the fireplace! Here's the story: Taily-Po.

I also wrote a Brer Rabbit story for the storytelling this week; I wasn't sure I would have time to do that or not, but there I was at the Austin airport, and they have such a nice set of tables where you can sit in the new Delta part of the terminal, so I was actually able to sit there and write. I wrote the whole story right there at the airport! This is one of my favorite chain tales, and it was so much fun to tell it about Brer Rabbit. This was my first experiment with re-telling an Anansi story with Brer Rabbit, and I definitely think it was a good experiment: Brer Rabbit Has Ham Hocks for Supper. 

Plus, I did a Google Hangout with Aaron Blackwelder's high school mythology course this week, and that was really fun; I made a Google Site as the digital handout: Aesop on Olympus.

And............ I got my Can*Innovate presentation ready for this coming Friday. Here's a link to the full-screen view.

So, I was seriously busy. No wonder I'm pooped, ha ha. Luckily, this was all super-fun, creative stuff. And if that were all my life consisted of, oh man, I would be so happy. Unfortunately, life consists of other things too. But having creative tasks like these is the best antidote to the rest of life that I can think of.