Aural Intimacy

Audio is the most intimate medium there is.

The Lock by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, c. 1777 (public domain - Wikipedia)

“I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any intimacy.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925

“Daddy, tell me a story.”

It’s a refrain repeated in many languages all over the world—a timeless routine that signals the winding down of the bedtime routine. It happens in our house, even after our kids have been old enough to read on their own.

What’s the first story you remember?

Odds are it’s a fairy tale or a nursery rhyme, or perhaps a Dr. Seuss book.

Whatever personal reminiscence springs to the forefront of your brain (“mileage will vary,” as we used to say in the auto business), I’ll guarantee you one thing: it’s a story you heard.

That is, it’s a story that someone once told you or read to you.

And it may not have been relegated to bedtime, either. Perhaps it was around a campfire, over a Sunday …