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Speak Up Storytelling #70: Live from Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health (Part 1)

On episode #70 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, special guest Jeni Bonaldo and I talk storytelling! This week’s episode features the first half of a storytelling show at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts as part of a weekend of storytelling instruction. Following the stories, Jeni and I discuss each one.…

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Live from Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health (Part 1)

On episode #70 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, special guest Jeni Bonaldo and I talk storytelling! This week’s episode features the first half of a storytelling show at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts as part of a weekend of storytelling instruction. Following the stories, Jeni and I discuss each one.…

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Can starting your day with a smile really change your mood and improve your heath?

I read that smiling when you wake up can be very beneficial. Supposed health benefits include: When you smile your body releases the feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine and endorphins. This means that by smiling first thing when you wake up you’ll be starting your day in a better mood. In addition, when you smile your mood…

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Quarry thoughts

I found these declarations of love carved into rock at a quarry in Dorsett, Vermont. Being a person in a constant state of existential crisis, I couldn’t help but wonder with some degree of desperation, “Does JM still love DB?” I know that love can be tragically fleeting, and I also know that based upon…

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I could run a turn on 10:1, and it was unbelievable

Back in the day, I could run a turn on 10:1 by myself. 10:1 is the meat used in a McDonald’s hamburger and cheeseburger, so named because there are ten beef patties to a pound. To cook a McDonald’s cheeseburger back in the day, you laid up to 12 patties on the grill and seared…

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Trump ruins everything

As Elysha so rightly pointed out, Donald Trump find a way to ruin a lot of things, including some unintentionally. This placemat of the President of the United States is an excellent example. We spotted it in a gift shop in Vermont at the ancestral home of Robert Todd Lincoln. We though it would be…

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Matthew Dicks: “Noah Webster House Improv”

On episode #69 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, Elysha Dicks and I talk storytelling! In our follow up segment, we discuss my recent forays to Moth StorySLAM in New York and Boston. We also acknowledge several listeners, and Elysha and I make a bet that is soon resolved, much to the despair of the…

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This is a hell of a schedule…

Think you’re busy? Think your daily grind is too much of a grind? Check out the daily schedule of the Carthusian monks of Mount Equinox in Vermont. It’s the last line that I love: “Such a day passes with extraordinary rapidity.” I certainly hope so because this day looks awful. And they do it everyday.

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Direct but funny is the perfect combination

I spotted this sign at the wedding of my former student, sitting atop the bar. I love it so much. Designed by the same couple who advised guests to respond to their wedding invitation by a certain date or plan to bring a chair and a sandwich, this is the perfect demonstration of sending a…

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Speak Up Storytelling #69: Marko Ivanov

On episode #69 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, Elysha Dicks and I talk storytelling! In our follow up segment, we discuss my recent forays to Moth StorySLAM in New York and Boston. We also acknowledge several listeners, and Elysha and I make a bet that is soon resolved, much to the despair of the…

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