Time's up!
When I was attending Carapace before I moved to Chapel Hill, storytellers were warned that their time was up with a shaker. I asked Cris what was up with the bike light that Carapace uses now.
when the audience hears the shaker they’re
“oh! It’s gone too long!”
Whereas the light,
unless you are,
if you do it from behind,
everybody’s looking at the storyteller.
So they don’t,
you don’t even notice the light.
But the storyteller sees it and they’re like
“oh, I should wrap up soon.”
So it’s just a little,
I think it’s just a little less intrusive.
I think this is so interesting. The time limit is one of the few restrictions imposed on the storyteller - although it is very gently imposed. I’ve never seen nor heard of anyone being forced off stage. Moving to the light makes the “enforcement” of this restriction even more gentle. It somewhat protects the storyteller from the audience’s judgement regarding their story going over time.
Less intrusive is why I chose this method. Also a light, especially a bike light with the strobe red, is hard to deny seeing, unlike a sound like the rattle (which also is intrusive and can jar the story off course). Really, though, the timing is not something we've had to worry about for a while, except for a very few chronic over-tellers. Not sure why. It could be that not policing it so rigorously led tellers to find their own limits, discipline. The event has evolved in other ways. Maybe that also.
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