Dear Moth Producers,
I’m a lover of stories, and as such, am an enthusiastic admirer of The Moth. I think that if we dig down to the roots of our humanity, we collectively share this affinity for stories, because story itself is so intricately woven into the very tapestry of our lives.
As Moth audience constituent, my experience January 4, 2012, at the Santa Monica venue was one that I’ll always remember.
Despite the fact Zanzibar is only walking distance from where I live and work, I had never been to the Santa Monica edition of The Moth. I had, however, frequented the other Moth venues further away. Due to prejudices against the ‘Mo, I assumed that the crowd would be more Santa Monica than the other Moth patron assemblies, which in my mind equated to more Hollywood than the actual Hollywood locale. That belief created apprehension on my part, but all that dissolved the moment I saw the eclectic crowd.
The evening turned out even better than I could have anticipated, as the way everything unfolded seemed guided by divine providence. No storyteller came across as merely seeking attention for their story, there was not one bad tale, and even further, many relayed accounts that seemed fated towards an exasperating cliché, but took sudden turns towards introspection. Nothing sparks my soul more than a sudden twist towards introspection.
The judges, for the most part, did an adequate job. There were a couple of scores that came from one judging team that seemed like they might just be thrown in from left field. A great story did get one anomalously low number. However, even with the inconsistencies, the better stories trended towards the top, earning their place on good merit. However, none of the judging faults could ultimately affect the final outcome of the evening.
Towards the end of the night, and thank Zeus it was towards the end of the night or it may have fallen with the others, there was one story that was destined to absolutely knock it out of the park. A sweet-looking girl with an international name was called up and timidly approached the microphone. I’d like to think that her shyness made everyone secretly root for her. She was a very cute, bookish girl that looked like she could be a medical student at UCLA. She identified herself as having familial roots in a more traditional culture and appeared to be of South Asian heritage. She spoke crisp and pristine English that bordered on a British accent, but slightly melded with American schooling. From the first sentence, she began to twist the audience’s perceptions. First, she unexpectedly launched into descriptions of the punk scene that she engaged in as a youth in Florida. She professed her adolescent love for Iggy Pop, and contrasted that with her A-student school activities. Her story was a phenomenal tale of circumstance and misunderstanding where a rebellious high school nerd’s life intertwined with a rockstar on the rebound. She had the audience absolutely charmed. There was such masterful, pure storytelling at work. The other storytellers that evening had mastered their crafts and had fascinated the audience with, perhaps, a touch more technique and polish. She, on the other hand, allowed herself to be completely spellbound by the story itself, and like iron to a lodestone, we were all completely magnetized along with her for the ride. She even revealed various postcards and letters that she had received from Mr. Pop as though we wouldn’t believe her without proof. It was playing out like an innocent show-and-tell of sorts, all the while contrasting with the subject matter. There was no way the judges could ignore this yarn. The charming and hysterical story won her the title of champion for the evening.
Would Amira have won, if she had been one of the first names drawn? Probably not. Why should that matter? It was extra satisfying that the best story won, so maybe we should try our best to make the best story win every night. What do you notice about the description of last Wednesday night? That’s right. It’s a story. Maybe a rather simple story, but a story, nonetheless. One thing that is left out of the judging mechanics is that there is always this “story” to the evening. People can’t help but get lost in the meta-arc of the evening. The judges are no exception.
First off, I would like to state that I realize the purpose of The Moth Slam is pure storytelling. I’m not so fixated on the judging aspect that I let the judging defects negatively affect my experience. I merely think that if there is going to be a judging element to the evening, then we should try to make it as just and in harmony with the intentions of The Moth as possible or abandon it altogether.
Not taking the story of the night itself into account has consequences on the judging.
Everyone notices the extreme disadvantage for the stories going first. I have yet to see a story that goes first win, even if it is the best. One way to give the earlier stories a little better chance to participate in the story arc of the evening is to simplify the judging to decide whether the new story is better than the last. If the new story is better, then the challenger becomes the defender, and so on. The challenger taking the belt away from the multiple-time defender is a good story, but the defender defending the belt is also a good story. It’s not nearly as lopsided as the story of numbers that don’t get any higher for a whole night than the inescapable mediocre score the first story gets since the judges feel they have to leave themselves some room for better and worse stories that could come later. Inevitably, the judges feel a subtle social pressure that they are expected to give higher numbers as the night goes on. That’s all part of the meta-arc. A simple defender or challenger vote also takes the drunken wackiness out of it. No one vote can mess up the whole night with one overweighted vote, it is simply a majority wins. When one judging team makes one irrational move with the number system, the other judges have to change their view of how they vote for things so they can try to keep their idea of how the story of the night is to go along. One vote scoring too high can nullify a whole evening of sound judging and move the whole bar for what it will take to win or lose. There is no international gymnastics judging panel that comes and polices the judges, so there is no need for such an uber-precise professional grade point system that breaks down nearly every single night. Just remind the judges of the story that holds the belt, and ask if the new story is better in the same trusted criterion of Time, Topic, Story, and True. It is just giving your drunken judges a simpler puzzle to solve than the one that so often leads to embarrassment for everyone involved. Put the judges and the storytellers in a better position to succeed. They will help weave slams more harmoniously with justice so we can all tell more stories about how the best story won.
For more from D. Johannes…
Past work on FlipCollective.com.
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