A Combo Post

This post combines two ideas.

First, I love watching interviews with actors. They are among the most insightful people. Since I took a drama class at the mighty COCA (circa 2004), I've paid more attention to the craft of acting and its practitioners.

Here are two quick insights:

• In real life, those with dementia will (quickly) lose the ability to detect sarcasm.
• Many actors overplay being drunk: staggering around and being loud. Many people, when drunk, try to hide it from others.

A third insight pertains to this post:

• Guys converse and socialize by telling stories, in series. We rarely interrupt or respond. We respond with another story.

Tonight, I had dinner with my confidant JimO (not Jim G). He is getting older now (near retirement) and a bit hard of hearing, but other wise doing well.

Back and forth over dinner, we told stories. The initial ones were recent stories used to catch up on the news. As the evening progressed, we told classic stories. Jim would ask me if I had heard the one about X. I had indeed, but I denied it: it was time for it again. And it was a dandy.

We told stories for 2 hours. Many of mine were about back home, on PEI. e.g. I retold my famous motorbike crash when I was 12. Jim followed up with one of his crashes.

It was a fine evening. We never embrace, but shook hands at the end of the evening. I haven't seen him since February but he is a close friend.

CC

ps. Speaking of stories, The Island is no stranger to the art of a good tale. Most of my visits during the last trip, and the last evening with my family, were filled with good tales.