Commenting on earlier stories

I’m noticing that the storytellers sometimes open with comments on other stories. Two of the stories in July took place in the same city, which the second storyteller mentioned. There were also some follow up comments on the “senior citizen sex aids” by two subsequent storytellers. When I have told stories in the past, I have not opened with comments, even if they came to mind, because I’m usually already cutting it too close on my time without adding in extra words. However, at the August Carapace, I was tempted to make a brief comment or two. If my name was called after David’s I should acknowledge that we are both telling stories about working as librarians. If my name was called after my mom’s I should admit that, yeah that was me in that story she just told. (My name wasn’t drawn in August, so I never had to decide whether to make my comments or not.) Storytellers are in a unique position to respond to earlier stories. Other audience members have to wait until after the show if they want to say something to a storyteller or talk to other audience members about something a storyteller reminded them of. These later storytellers also get to make the comments to the whole room and the earlier storyteller can’t immediately respond back to them.