STATE OF MIND : L.A. Stories

As technology and culture conspire to reduce the spoken story to nothing more than books on tape for consumption in traffic jams, storytellers, professional and amateur, are fighting back.

There are at least seven local pockets of resistance with a thousand scattered troops, but the oldest and largest single cadre is the West L.A.-based Community Storytellers. Once a month, members band together at a West L.A. synagogue in groups of 25 to 40 to swap stories--stories about anything at all, from the personal to the mythological.

Founded in 1981 by storytellers Peggy Prentice and Kathleen Zundell, the group has no official membership--”We would rather be an organism than an organization,” Zundell says--but there are 390 people on its mailing list.

On one recent evening, a meek-looking woman tells of her light-rail ride into Watts. An elderly man relates a stumbling but evocative story about being a role model for a delinquent youth. He is followed by a younger man whose long hair and black leather jacket complement his story about the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. Another person begins a tale about a leprechaun and by the end he’s almost perfected his brogue. Finally, an artist’s story about the death of his best friend, his dog, inspires a purple-haired woman to describe the multigenerational journey of her grandfather’s ashes, finally buried last month.

Storytelling, clearly, is no longer just for kids, though, as Zundell notes, “For many years, storytelling was kept alive by librarians during children’s story hours.” Sure, Zundell spins yarns for plenty of children’s groups, but she also recounts goddess myths for women’s groups.

The ancient art, she says, fills a basic need. “The more technological we become, the more we need storytelling--to create something real, a tangible community.”