Word: callahans
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...Callahan has revived the ancient art of storytelling...
...tale from the good old days? In a way. The boy, Jay O'Callahan, is now 39 and makes his living in a fashion that surely would have stumped the panelists of What's My Line? He is a spellbinding spinner of stories of his own devising, the practitioner of a craft older than Homer, as old as mankind, that has largely been lost in modern times. Whether he tells about two fatuous bears who are forever pinning medals made of leaves on each other or about the voyages of Magellan, his stories captivate young and old alike...
Becoming a bard in 20th century America was not easy. O'Callahan started out as dean of a Boston secretarial school founded by his father. Eight years ago, a group of children at a camp asked him to tell them a story. He wove a druidic spell for 35 minutes, making up the story as he went along. It was about a creature in Russia that set upon other animals. "The impact was tremendous," he recalls. "Then and there I decided to give up my job and write novels." He and his wife Linda moved to rural Marshfield, Mass...
Bespectacled and bearded, O'Callahan uses no scenery, no costumes, no props. But he gestures his way through each story, giving his voice dramatic colors, using body language to suggest character and attitude. As a blacksmith, his voice is deep and strong. As a little old lady, he totters and quavers through his lines. Most of his tales are studded with songs, and they run to once-upon-a-time plot lines as simple-and profound-as fairy tales. One story, "Raspberries," is about a kind, honest baker named Simon who is hurt and ridiculed, runs away from...
When O'Callahan told this story to a group of seventh-graders in a tough Boston school, three unruly boys kept roaming around the room. O'Callahan thought he had failed to capture his audience. But a week later he got a call from the school's principal. One of the roamers kept singing over and over the song from "Raspberries." When he was asked to retell the story to students who had been absent, the boy went on for about 45 minutes, scarcely missing a detail...