The Memory Palace continues to be one of my favorite storytelling podcasts with its unique way of bringing forth historical landscapes of people, places and events that traverse the arc of time, deftly infused with an insightful sense of relevance that speaks to current affairs.
With the struggle for racial equality front and center we have an opportunity to take a step back and revisit other struggles which continue to compromise millions of lives. Within the time frame of 8 ½ minutes Nate DiMeo compresses decades of oppression against the LGBTQ community, painting with both broad and fine strokes alike, calling out moments that crushed the dreams of countless lives. Yet love, relentlessly, pushed back the waves of oppression.
On the surface this story may seem dissimilar from the current storyline playing out in city streets, but that one phrase, “to be who they were”, binds these two struggles at the wrist. It’s difficult for me to fully comprehend, to grasp beyond the intellectual, to feel the emotions at a cellular level, to walk the streets and feel compelled, as a matter of survival, to be someone else in order to safely navigate society.
Beyond the topic laid poetically bare, pay close attention to how Nate weaves the history of one physical place and the souls who passed through its front doors to the national narrative, now his pacing gives us space to assimilate each word and phrase.
Transcript
This is the Memory Palace, I’m Nate DiMeo
The White Horse Inn on Telegraph in Oakland opened in 1933, or thereabouts. No one’s been able to nail down the date. Historians have tried, as have some of its various owners it seems over the years, but if you’re not an academic, or if you don’t have a personal financial stake in solidifying its claim as the oldest gay bar in the United States to operate continuously in one location.
It doesn’t really matter when the White Horse first opened its doors, just that it was soon enough, for a man to walk in on just the right night in 1936 or 46 or 54, and see the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his life, and just be done for.
Soon enough for another man, who had heard of this place, heard of places like it, whispered about, or mocked by the fellows in the assembly line, or in the office, or in his usual joint across town, heard the cracks about pansies and perverts and queers, and feared what they might mean.
Feared why the words seemed to cut right through, sit strange in his belly, and tightened his throat, but who fought through that fear to make his way there to the White Horse. Who may have circled the block all butterflies, before working up the courage to park. Who may have walked right past it, rather than be seen walking in by some stranger. Or maybe he pulled his collar up, and tipped his fedora low, and pushed through the door as fast as he could.
And who may have learned that night, in that bar, where men talked to men by the fireplace in the back, where women flirted with women in the light of the jukebox, men held hands by the pool table like it was nothing, like it wasn’t everything, knew that night for sure, that this was the place he belonged, that this might be the only place he belonged.
Like it was for other women and men. Those who were identified correctly as such at birth, and those who weren’t, people who needed their lives to change, to make sense, to be less lonely, to be less scary, to be more fun, to be safe.
In the forties and fifties, and later, men and women, friends from the neighborhood at the bus, and church, friends who knew the truth about each other, would walk arm and arm up Telegraph Road to the White Horse, would play at being people they were not, and then walk through the door, into that windowless room, and become who they were.
They’d go their separate ways, he to a boyfriend, and she to a girlfriend, and they’d spend a few hours in a place where so much of what they’d been taught all their lives about what life was supposed to be, but who they had to be to be happy, or responsible, or good, or saved, just fell apart, just put the lie to the whole thing.
Laws of the universe themselves, just torn up and tossed like confetti to swirl in the bar light, and flit in the laughter and the dance songs, a light on the eyelashes of some pretty man, or float on the surface of martini glass.
And then they’d say good night to their boyfriend and girlfriend, to the people there who understood, who helped them understand, and they’d link arms and go back out into the world.
Have no illusions about the world. The world did not want that man and that woman to be who they were. Gay sex was a felony. Cross-dressing was a crime. People risked imprisonment, forced sterilization, institutionalization, lobotomization, for acting on who they were.
If the cops, armed with laws that let them raid bars if they suspected women were dancing with women, or men were holding hands, or speaking in high-pitched voices in some cities. If the cops came and threw you into the patty wagon, if not threw you up against a wall, your name would wind up in the paper along with your address. You could be fired, kicked out of your apartment, lose your car loan, get beat up, or worse, by people in your own home, or by people who now knew where your home was.
The laws would change. Attitudes would change, sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. The war seemed to change everything for awhile, especially there in the Bay area. All these soldiers and sailors and nurses flooding in, away from home for the first time, discovering who they were for the first time, discovering whole worlds in windowless rooms like the White Horse.
In the sixties a straight couple bought the bar, and they were so worried about raids, it seems, and some speculate so skeeved out by their own clientele, that they instated a strict no touching policy.
No more slow dances, no kissing, no nothing. It was like that for years. And still people came to the White Horse because it was their place. But then the late sixties came, and the hippies came, and the radicals came. Berkeley was just down the road. The black Panthers was around patrol right there in Oakland, and gay men and lesbians, and transgender started staking more radical claims, started living more radical lives, and the White Horse embraced gay liberation.
And by then it was just one of the many gay bars in the area where people could find each other, could find out who they were and who they want it to be, where they figured out what was possible to ask from this life, where they asked for it together, as they’d done in the White Horse since 1933, or thereabouts.
The White Horse Inn was open the night in 1966 when transgender women fought back against police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria across the Bay in San Francisco.
It was still open two years later when the Stonewall Inn was raided across the country, and people protested for three days, and never really stopped.
It was open on the night in 1973 when an arsonist set fire to a gay bar in New Orleans, locked the door, and killed 32 people. The White Horse was there for people who used it to mourn.
It was open for people who wanted to celebrate 1962, when Illinois became the first state to decriminalize homosexuality, and 13 years later when California joined it, and 28 years later when the Supreme court forced 14 States to do the same.
It was opened in 1977 when San Francisco elected Harvey milk to its board of city supervisors, and in 78 when he was assassinated.
It was opened in 1979 when 75,000 people marched in Washington for their civil rights.
And it was open all throughout the 1980s, when its customers started dying, when its employees started dying. In one year alone, eight bartenders, eight, died of AIDS related illnesses.
And the White Horse had stayed open, as it has been, again and again, when men and women, boys and girls, transgendered people were murdered for who they were.
So many since 1933 or thereabouts, mourned by what people now call the LGBTQ community. The community built year by year, night by night, in windowless rooms like the White Horse.
It was open when Vermont passed its civil unions law, when Massachusetts passed its marriage law, when San Francisco’s mayor issued marriage licenses, and when the California Supreme court annulled those unions. Annulled the marriage of the manager of the White Horse too.
It was open when the California voters rejected gay marriage, and it was open for dancing when the Supreme court threw that vote out.
It was open on a Saturday in June when someone killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida, in a place like the White Horse, where people came to be who they were.
And it was open on Sunday, and it’s open tonight. It will be open tomorrow.
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The Successful Pitch with John Livesay
/in Brand Storytelling, Entrepreneurs, Podcast, Speaker Adventure, TEDx/by Mark LovettI had the pleasure of meeting John Livesay when he joined the Speaker Adventure storytelling program that I hosted with hall-of-fame speaker Jeff Salz, and we’ve been friends ever since. John’s podcast, The Successful Pitch, which is a must listen for entrepreneurs and business leaders, focuses on how to make your pitch compelling, clear and concise.
John is a renowned keynote speaker who shares the lessons learned from his award-winning sales career while at Conde Nast. In his keynote Better Selling Through Storytelling he shows companies’ sales teams how to become irresistible so they are magnetic to their ideal clients.
It was such an honor to work with John on his TEDx Talk – Be The Lifeguard of Your Own Life! from TEDxWilmington that has over a million views. We reconnected for a conversation on his podcast – Storytelling With Impact: The Secrets To Giving A TEDx Talk With Mark Lovett – and it was fun to share a few storytelling insights. Give a listen and let me know your thoughts.
A Decades Long Struggle for Justice as told on The Memory Palace
/in Discrimination, History, Humanity, Identity, LGBTQ/by Mark LovettThe Memory Palace continues to be one of my favorite storytelling podcasts with its unique way of bringing forth historical landscapes of people, places and events that traverse the arc of time, deftly infused with an insightful sense of relevance that speaks to current affairs.
With the struggle for racial equality front and center we have an opportunity to take a step back and revisit other struggles which continue to compromise millions of lives. Within the time frame of 8 ½ minutes Nate DiMeo compresses decades of oppression against the LGBTQ community, painting with both broad and fine strokes alike, calling out moments that crushed the dreams of countless lives. Yet love, relentlessly, pushed back the waves of oppression.
On the surface this story may seem dissimilar from the current storyline playing out in city streets, but that one phrase, “to be who they were”, binds these two struggles at the wrist. It’s difficult for me to fully comprehend, to grasp beyond the intellectual, to feel the emotions at a cellular level, to walk the streets and feel compelled, as a matter of survival, to be someone else in order to safely navigate society.
Beyond the topic laid poetically bare, pay close attention to how Nate weaves the history of one physical place and the souls who passed through its front doors to the national narrative, now his pacing gives us space to assimilate each word and phrase.
Transcript
This is the Memory Palace, I’m Nate DiMeo
The White Horse Inn on Telegraph in Oakland opened in 1933, or thereabouts. No one’s been able to nail down the date. Historians have tried, as have some of its various owners it seems over the years, but if you’re not an academic, or if you don’t have a personal financial stake in solidifying its claim as the oldest gay bar in the United States to operate continuously in one location.
It doesn’t really matter when the White Horse first opened its doors, just that it was soon enough, for a man to walk in on just the right night in 1936 or 46 or 54, and see the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his life, and just be done for.
Soon enough for another man, who had heard of this place, heard of places like it, whispered about, or mocked by the fellows in the assembly line, or in the office, or in his usual joint across town, heard the cracks about pansies and perverts and queers, and feared what they might mean.
Feared why the words seemed to cut right through, sit strange in his belly, and tightened his throat, but who fought through that fear to make his way there to the White Horse. Who may have circled the block all butterflies, before working up the courage to park. Who may have walked right past it, rather than be seen walking in by some stranger. Or maybe he pulled his collar up, and tipped his fedora low, and pushed through the door as fast as he could.
And who may have learned that night, in that bar, where men talked to men by the fireplace in the back, where women flirted with women in the light of the jukebox, men held hands by the pool table like it was nothing, like it wasn’t everything, knew that night for sure, that this was the place he belonged, that this might be the only place he belonged.
Like it was for other women and men. Those who were identified correctly as such at birth, and those who weren’t, people who needed their lives to change, to make sense, to be less lonely, to be less scary, to be more fun, to be safe.
In the forties and fifties, and later, men and women, friends from the neighborhood at the bus, and church, friends who knew the truth about each other, would walk arm and arm up Telegraph Road to the White Horse, would play at being people they were not, and then walk through the door, into that windowless room, and become who they were.
They’d go their separate ways, he to a boyfriend, and she to a girlfriend, and they’d spend a few hours in a place where so much of what they’d been taught all their lives about what life was supposed to be, but who they had to be to be happy, or responsible, or good, or saved, just fell apart, just put the lie to the whole thing.
Laws of the universe themselves, just torn up and tossed like confetti to swirl in the bar light, and flit in the laughter and the dance songs, a light on the eyelashes of some pretty man, or float on the surface of martini glass.
And then they’d say good night to their boyfriend and girlfriend, to the people there who understood, who helped them understand, and they’d link arms and go back out into the world.
Have no illusions about the world. The world did not want that man and that woman to be who they were. Gay sex was a felony. Cross-dressing was a crime. People risked imprisonment, forced sterilization, institutionalization, lobotomization, for acting on who they were.
If the cops, armed with laws that let them raid bars if they suspected women were dancing with women, or men were holding hands, or speaking in high-pitched voices in some cities. If the cops came and threw you into the patty wagon, if not threw you up against a wall, your name would wind up in the paper along with your address. You could be fired, kicked out of your apartment, lose your car loan, get beat up, or worse, by people in your own home, or by people who now knew where your home was.
The laws would change. Attitudes would change, sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. The war seemed to change everything for awhile, especially there in the Bay area. All these soldiers and sailors and nurses flooding in, away from home for the first time, discovering who they were for the first time, discovering whole worlds in windowless rooms like the White Horse.
In the sixties a straight couple bought the bar, and they were so worried about raids, it seems, and some speculate so skeeved out by their own clientele, that they instated a strict no touching policy.
No more slow dances, no kissing, no nothing. It was like that for years. And still people came to the White Horse because it was their place. But then the late sixties came, and the hippies came, and the radicals came. Berkeley was just down the road. The black Panthers was around patrol right there in Oakland, and gay men and lesbians, and transgender started staking more radical claims, started living more radical lives, and the White Horse embraced gay liberation.
And by then it was just one of the many gay bars in the area where people could find each other, could find out who they were and who they want it to be, where they figured out what was possible to ask from this life, where they asked for it together, as they’d done in the White Horse since 1933, or thereabouts.
The White Horse Inn was open the night in 1966 when transgender women fought back against police harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria across the Bay in San Francisco.
It was still open two years later when the Stonewall Inn was raided across the country, and people protested for three days, and never really stopped.
It was open on the night in 1973 when an arsonist set fire to a gay bar in New Orleans, locked the door, and killed 32 people. The White Horse was there for people who used it to mourn.
It was open for people who wanted to celebrate 1962, when Illinois became the first state to decriminalize homosexuality, and 13 years later when California joined it, and 28 years later when the Supreme court forced 14 States to do the same.
It was opened in 1977 when San Francisco elected Harvey milk to its board of city supervisors, and in 78 when he was assassinated.
It was opened in 1979 when 75,000 people marched in Washington for their civil rights.
And it was open all throughout the 1980s, when its customers started dying, when its employees started dying. In one year alone, eight bartenders, eight, died of AIDS related illnesses.
And the White Horse had stayed open, as it has been, again and again, when men and women, boys and girls, transgendered people were murdered for who they were.
So many since 1933 or thereabouts, mourned by what people now call the LGBTQ community. The community built year by year, night by night, in windowless rooms like the White Horse.
It was open when Vermont passed its civil unions law, when Massachusetts passed its marriage law, when San Francisco’s mayor issued marriage licenses, and when the California Supreme court annulled those unions. Annulled the marriage of the manager of the White Horse too.
It was open when the California voters rejected gay marriage, and it was open for dancing when the Supreme court threw that vote out.
It was open on a Saturday in June when someone killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida, in a place like the White Horse, where people came to be who they were.
And it was open on Sunday, and it’s open tonight. It will be open tomorrow.
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!
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Creating a Vivid and Continuous Dream
/in Audience, Fiction, Narrative, Nonfiction, Writing/by Mark LovettJohn Gardner was an accomplished author, literary critic and university professor – a rather rare combination. He was one of the best teachers of fiction writing, and his two books on the topic, The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist, have helped thousands learn the craft.
If you read my previous blog posted titled The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but?, you’ll know that my approach to personal storytelling is to stick to what’s true and not delve into the world of fiction. That said, we can still learn much from the methods used to write fiction, which is why I’m sharing a few quotes from Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist that apply equally to nonfiction.
We’ve all been there. Reading a book that you can’t set down or watching a movie that has you leaning forward, barely breathing. When you get lost in a compelling story, the ‘real’ world has a way of disappearing, replaced by the narrative at hand. It’s a common experience with great fiction, but is also happens when we see a speaker live on stage that has everyone in the theater spellbound. While there are many factors at work in such situations, word choice and an eye for detail are key elements.
As with most talents, this comes naturally to some, but most of us have to work at developing this illusive skill. The good news is we can learn it with practice. Noticing cliche words and phrases, or those lacking imagination or specificity. Our story’s first pass often contains a lot of safe language. Words that easily come to mind, and work okay, but we can do better.
Writing and revising is tedious, but it’s the only way to move from just okay to excellent, from a general to a more specific meaning. If the goal is to give a speech, as opposed to writing an essay, then the process will involve rehearsing and editing so that the words don’t just read beautifully, but sound superb. How do we do that?
Challenge every word. Does it convey the meaning you intend? Is it ‘beautiful’, or ‘superb’, or ‘elegant’? And how will your audience react to the use of a particular word or phrase? One technique I recommend is to record your talk, then play it back as though it was a podcast. Your ears will pick up issues with word choice (as well as tone, volume and cadence) that your eyes frequently miss. We hear differently than we read.
Choosing the most appropriate words is, to a large degree, dependent upon the vision that the writer is trying to convey, and this is where John Gardner brings in the concepts of sharp, vivid, and accurate. How you describe a person, place, thing or event affects the listener’s ability to create the same image in their mind.
Sometimes it helps to think like a movie director who creates a visual story that surrounds the character’s words. In memorable cinema, everything in a scene is intentional and conveys an intended meaning. When done well it transports us into a vivid and continuous dream.
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!
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The Country Doctor on Snap Judgement
/in Discrimination, Health, Podcast, Storylistening, Truth/by Mark LovettAmerica has had problems with discrimination from day one. Look no further than the death toll of Native Americans, often deemed to be heathens, as settlers pushed onward from sea to shining sea. And with the invention of the cotton gin, wealthy landowners sanctified an increase in slavery, economically justifying the practice of kidnapping, shackling, and selling Africans to the highest bidder.
Then we have the egregious treatment of Mexican citizens. You know, the folks who owned a significant chunk of the Western U.S. until they exited south at gunpoint. And let’s not forget about the treatment of immigrants from China, South America and the Middle East. These are not simple histories. In fact, quite the opposite, as there have always been Americans who were welcoming to people of any country, ethnicity or religion. But discrimination has been, and continues to be, a shameful truth in the land of freedom and justice for all.
It was encouraging to see America make progress on this front during the late 60s into the 70s and 80s, but backsliding on the ideal of equality was evident from the 1990s onward. Slowly at first, but rapidly accelerating over the past 3+ years with public displays of hate and prejudice seen in many parts of the country. Displays without remorse of apology.
But all is not lost. Hearts can soften and open with grace whenever people resist stereotyping and instead rely on the power of human connection to speak truth to hate. Whenever we remove the wall of discrimination long enough to forge meaningful relationships, a space for the miraculous appears. A space where healing and justice coexist alongside internal struggle.
Snap Judgement recently broadcast a story that I highly recommend listening to. It was one of those rare podcast episodes that stopped me in my tracks, as I needed to hear the story of Dr. Ayaz Virji until the very end. Give it a listen.
Artwork by Teo Ducot | Snap Judgment | WNYC Studios
Dr. Ayaz Virji was aware of the positive impact he could have on a small rural town serving as a clinic medical director and chief of staff. And while the community embraced his family upon their arrival, and he enjoyed working with his patients, an abrupt change in the national political climate upset his view of the world, and his place in it.
The narrative follows Dr. Virji’s journey of self-discovery and reflection, of confrontation and conversation within the town after the 2016 election. As you listen to his story, think about the decisions made along the way, by all parties, but especially by Dr. Virji. How did each decision alter the plot of the story? How would you have reacted?
With my white, middle class background, living a life free from discrimination, it’s hard for me to wear his shoes (or anyone else in similar circumstances), to understand his decisions, to feel the pain and frustration that I clearly hear in his voice. What would I have done?
I continue to struggle with recognizing and dealing with the rifts of hate and discrimination in society, but as all impactful stories do, this podcast has altered my frame of reference, and I now view my own story through a new lens. And hopefully it will also make me a better storylistener.
Image credit: Snap Judgment | WNYC Studios
Nancy López is a senior producer at Snap Judgment. She started in radio in 2006 when she joined Soul Rebel Radio, a collective of novice storytellers in Los Angeles. Since then, she’s worked as a producer for Radio Ambulante and Making Contact. Her stories have been featured on PRI’s The World, KALW in San Francisco, and Radio Bilingue.
The Country Doctor – Season 11 – Episode 18 – Produced by Nancy Lopez, Original score by Renzo Gorrio, Artwork by Teo Ducot – Snap Judgement founded by Glynn Washington.
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Behind the Scenes of The Memory Palace
/in Art, History, Humanity, Narrative, Podcast/by Mark LovettI’ve been a podcast listener for many years, and at the beginning of my daily walk I’ll open the PocketCasts app on my phone to find an episode that will indulge my storytelling addiction. There are podcasts which live there temporarily – I’ll add and delete as my desires change – but several of them have a permanent slot in my listening rotation.
The Moth, This American Life, 99% Invisible, Radio Diaries, Ear Hustle, The Kitchen Sisters, Longform Podcast and Unfictional are on a brief list of shows that have become long-time audio companions, friends I can trust to expand and challenge my perceptions. Another member of that illustrious list is The Memory Palace, a podcast I fell in love with day one.
Created by storytelling genius Nate DiMeo in 2008, you could say it’s been around the digital block a few times. Nate’s no stranger to audio, having spent a decade plus in public radio and heard on landmark shows such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Marketplace.
The Memory Palace is not unusual in one sense, as it simply presents historical vignettes about people, places and past events. Its uniqueness comes from DiMeo’s ability to pull a single thread from a complex tapestry of facts and feelings, then offer it to us as a bespoke narrative. Like a wandering medieval minstrel, he takes his audience on a magical exposition of the past, somehow condensing hours of exposition into mere minutes.
As much as I love the well-polished episodes that he produces, it was a special treat to hear this behind-the-scenes conversation with Radiolab’s Robert Krulwich on storytelling and life. It’s a conversation that revealed pivotal moments early in his career, alongside his passion for, and approach to, crafting stories that can touch people.
Whether you’re a professional storyteller or just aspire to gain a greater mastery of the art, DiMeo’s journey from nearly clueless to consummate creator will change your perspective on telling stories in the digital age.
A Conversation About the Memory Palace with Robert Krulwich
Learn more about Nate DiMeo in this beautiful article by Sarah Larson in The New Yorker, and this insightful piece by Joshua Barone in the New York Times.
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!
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