Orlando

Every time I despair for my country, it's America's storytellers — gifts we don't deserve, every one of them — who restore my hope. Trump and his bigots pound their chests — and are swept into the gutters where they belong, as the rainbow of America dances down the streets singing "I am not throwin' away my shot!"

Nate DiMeo is the creator of a podcast I like called The Memory Palace. In each episode, he offers up a brief story — an incident, a sketch, a life — in the best tradition of storytellers around the hearth since time immemorial. Tiny, compelling stories about people you'd most likely never otherwise have heard of, that always illuminate something far bigger.

Last week, he totally hit it out of the park. In nine-and-a-half minutes The White Horse pulled me into the story of the country's oldest gay bar. And left tears streaming down my face.

I don't know, but I assume he'd already been working on a story about The White Horse for some time before Orlando. If not, he can't possibly have slept in the four days between the attack and his posting the story. Either way, he extracted transcendence from horror.

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I am painfully aware that some of my friends don't share my love of audio storytelling. Rather than try to persuade you that this one is special — you have to try it! — I've started transcribing it. I'm not done. But I didn't want to delay this post. I'll finish transcribing it and post the rest later. Meanwhile....

( Transcript of the first three minutes behind the cut. )