Saturday the thirtieth of January · Presidio Museum · Tucson

Tales of JimmyYour host, Jeff Clashman · Four until seven, then indoors at Brandylion · Free at the gate

A man will tell you a story and refuse to finish it.

He will stop. He will sit down. He will leave the thing standing open in the middle of a courtyard in January, and he will not apologize for it. His name is Jeff Clashman. He has done this before.

The order of events

Four things happen, in this order, without exception.

01

The opening

A story begins. It does not end. This is deliberate, it is the entire point, and no amount of looking at him will change it.

02

The list, then the hat

Ten tellers. Sign up beforehand and one of the ten is yours. Whatever is left over is drawn from a hat on the night, which is a worse way to get a slot but a better story.

03

The telling

Ten minutes each. You stand up, you tell one, inside the frame he left open. Nobody is graded and nobody is paid.

04

The close

He comes back. He finishes what he started, in front of people who spent three hours wondering. You were there for it.

You may also simply come and listen, which is permitted, and which is what most people do.

Admission

It costs nothing, which is the least interesting thing about it.

Admission is free. Tell us you are coming and we will put out a chair for you. There is an outdoor bar in the courtyard run by Brandylion, the museum’s bar, and food for sale from Reservation Sensation and Heart of Africa Kitchen. Both take every form of money yet devised. There are chairs and there are heaters. A January afternoon in Tucson is a pleasant thing and the sun goes down at six, after which the courtyard is a different place entirely. Wear a coat.

If the weather makes it impossible we cancel and pick another night, and everybody who told us they were coming gets an email. That is the second reason to tell us you are coming.

RSVP

Opening shortly. The list is not live yet; put your name down for the monthly notice below and you will hear the moment it is.

Take part

Put your name in.

There are ten slots and this is how you get one. Sign up and it is yours, until the tenth is gone, at which point the list becomes a waitlist and people do drop out. We write back immediately either way, and again when the host settles on a theme. Turn up without doing any of this and your name goes in the hat with everyone else’s, which is a fine way to spend an evening and a poor way to secure ten minutes.

Checking the list… live

Ten slots, first come. The rest go in the hat on the night.

Storyteller sign up

Ten slots, first come. Claim one and it is yours; after that the list becomes a waitlist. Either way you hear back straight away.

The monthly notice

One letter a month. The date, the teller, the theme. Nothing else, and we will not remind you twice.

Leave whenever you like. Your address goes to nobody, including the bar and the museum.

Afterwards

Then everybody walks to the bar.

When the last story is done there is a reception at Brandylion, who produce this thing, and whose room is warm, indoors, and large enough to hold every argument about what the ending should have been. You are not obliged to come. You will want to.