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Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, and images, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation, and instilling moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters, and narrative point of view.

Storytelling predates writing, with the earliest forms of storytelling usually oral combined with gestures and expressions. In addition to being part of religious ritual, rock art may[original research?] have served as a form of storytelling for many ancient cultures. The Australian aboriginal people painted symbols from stories on cave walls as a means of helping the storyteller remember the story. The story was then told using a combination of oral narrative, music, rock art, and dance, which bring understanding and meaning of human existence through remembrance and enactment of stories.[1] People have used the carved trunks of living trees and ephemeral media (such as sand and leaves) to record stories in pictures or with writing. Complex forms of tattooing may also represent stories, with information about genealogy, affiliation, and social status.

With the advent of writing and the use of stable, portable media, stories were recorded, transcribed, and shared over wide regions of the world. Stories have been carved, scratched, painted, printed or inked onto wood or bamboo, ivory and other bones, pottery, clay tablets, stone, palm-leaf books, skins (parchment), bark cloth, paper, silk, canvas, and other textiles, recorded on film, and stored electronically in digital form. Oral stories continue to be committed to memory and passed from generation to generation, despite the increasing popularity of written and televised media in much of the world.

Modern storytelling has a broad purview. In addition to its traditional forms (fairytales, folktales, mythology, legends, fables etc.), it has extended itself to representing history, personal narrative, political commentary, and evolving cultural norms. Contemporary storytelling is also widely used to address educational objectives.[2] New forms of media are creating new ways for people to record, express, and consume stories. Tools for asynchronous group communication can provide an environment for individuals to reframe or recast individual stories into group stories.[3] Games and other digital platforms, such as those used in interactive fiction or interactive storytelling, may be used to position the user as a character within a bigger world. Documentaries, including interactive web documentaries, employ storytelling narrative techniques to communicate information about their topic.

Albert Bates Lord examined oral narratives from field transcripts of Yugoslav oral bards collected by Milman Parry in the 1930s, and the texts of epics such as the Odyssey and Beowulf.[4] Lord found that a large part of the stories consisted of text which was improvised during the telling process.

Lord identified two types of story vocabulary. The first he called "formulas": "rosy-fingered dawn", "the wine-dark sea", and other specific set phrases had long been known of in Homer and other oral epics. Lord, however, discovered that across many story traditions, fully 90% of an oral epic is assembled from lines which are repeated verbatim or which use one-for-one word substitutions. In other words, oral stories are built out of set phrases which have been stockpiled from a lifetime of hearing and telling stories.

The other type of story vocabulary is theme, a set sequence of story actions that structure a tale. Just as the teller of tales proceeds line-by-line using formulas, so he proceeds from event-to-event using themes. One near-universal theme is repetition, as evidenced in Western folklore with the "rule of three": three brothers set out, three attempts are made, three riddles are asked. A theme can be as simple as a specific set sequence describing the arming of a hero, starting with shirt and trousers and ending with headdress and weapons. A theme can be large enough to be a plot component. For example: a hero proposes a journey to a dangerous place / he disguises himself / his disguise fools everybody / except for a common person of little account (a crone, a tavern maid or a woodcutter) / who immediately recognizes him / the commoner becomes the hero's ally, showing unexpected resources of skill or initiative. A theme does not belong to a specific story, but may be found with minor variation in many different stories. Themes may be no more than handy prefabricated parts for constructing a tale, or they may represent universal truths ritual-based, religious truths, as James Frazer saw in The Golden Bough, or archetypal, psychological truths, as Joseph Campbell describes in The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

The story was described by Reynolds Price, when he wrote:

A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day's events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.[5]

Folklorists sometimes divide oral tales into two main groups: Mrchen and Sagen.[6] These are German terms for which there are no exact English equivalents, however we have approximations:

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The 155-room Hyatt Place hotel, being constructed by Pittsburgh-based FFC Capital through its Meadows Hotel Associates subsidiary, is on track to open in March, the developer said recently. Christopher Dixon, FFC vice president of asset management, said a topping-off ceremony was held recently. The hotel will be connected from its fourth floor to the second floor of The Meadows (casino) through a skywalk expected to be installed after Thanksgiving, said Fred Branovan, president. Other features include 1,800 square feet of flexible meeting and conference space, a full-service bar, a Parlay bar which serves Sushi with an outdoor patio and fire pit, indoor swimming pool, 24-hour exercise room, plus the 24-hour Gallery restaurant in the lobby. A 100-space parking lot is in front of the building and a 150-car facility, under cover, on the second floor behind.

Some of Downtown's office buildings are filling up following the completion of 68,000 square feet of new, expanded and extended leases. The #4 Smithfield Street and 100 Ross St. buildings are more than 95 percent occupied, while the Law & Finance Building has increased its occupancy by 10 percent this year. The activity has been accomplished by JD&D Enterprises who owns and manages more than 300,000 square feet of Downtown buildings, along with Tim McCarthy, associate and Jeremy Kronman, executive vice president, both with CBRE. McCarthy said more than 25 leases and renewals have been negotiated so far in 2014.

Sota Construction Services Inc. will seek the approval Thursday from the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment to build a three-story 23-unit residential building, owned by Pointe Vista Lofts LLC at 2139 Wharton St., South Side Flats. Synergy Capital Inc. will seek approval to build 25 three-story single-family attached dwellings, each with integral two-car garages, including a 5,035-square-foot parking area with four spaces and outdoor recreation area, at center of the Villas at Winter Park development on property owned by Timothy J. Sakmar on Pius and Gregory streets, South Side Slopes. Lot reconfigurations will be sought by Chan Real Estate LP at two sites. It wants to build two two-story single-family attached dwellings at 5409 Keystone St., Upper Lawrenceville, and at 4412 Plummer St., two three-story single-family attached dwellings while continuing use of an existing single-family dwelling at 152 45th St., all in Lawrenceville. Baum Blvd. Investors LP seeks to expand an office within an existing three-four-five story building at 5607 Baum Blvd., Friendship.

Joseph Sherick, representing Gaudenzia Foundation Inc., will seek the approval Monday of the Wilkinsburg Borough Zoning Hearing Board on operating a Group Care facility at 501-03 and 505-07 South Ave. The public hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m., second-floor Council Chambers, borough building, 605 Ross Ave.

Daniel Robb of DSR Management LLC wants to consolidate three lots at 603 Rodi Road to allow expansion of an existing Moore Self Storage facility. The Planning Commission of Penn Hills will view the request starting at 7 p.m. Thursday in council chambers, municipal building, 12245 Frankstown Road, Penn Hills.

Mall manager Lisa Earl reports new additions at Ross Park Mall include Eddie Bauer set to open in late November on the upper level; Hallmark an original retailer in the mall returned in October; House of Hoops is in its newly remodeled location on the lower level; Champs Sports is in its newly remodeled location on the upper level; Primadonna Italy's high-fashioned shoes, handbags and accessories will open in mid-November on the upper level; and Pittsburgh Popcorn also will open in mid-November.

On the move: St. Brendan's Crossing relocated from Station Square to Fifth Avenue Place, Downtown. LongHorn Steakhouse is at 377 Washington Road, near the Old Mill Shopping Center in Washington County. The 6,196-square-foot restaurant will seat 240 guests and is employing 80 to 100 with Heather Graytok as managing director. Dollar General has opened at 5800 Buttermilk Hollow Road in the Lincoln Place area of Pittsburgh. Gateway Rehab opened at Robinson Plaza Three, Suite 430, 6600 Steubenville Pike, Robinson, with an adult-only program. C. Harper Auto Group's new Honda Showroom has opened on Route 51, north of Interstate 70, Belle Vernon, adjacent to the Ford and Kia showrooms. Daniel C. Baker Associates Inc., a Larson Design Group Co., has a new home at 300 S. Walnut Lane, Suite 202, Beaver, and with its second office in Cranberry, has 27 employees locally.

Sam Spatter is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7843 or sspatter@tribweb.com.

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Real estate notes: New Meadows hotel to open in March, links to casino

Conservative news outlets News Corp and Fairfax Media tend to control the message

Australia is entering what meteorologists are predicting will be another sweltering summer, with October already experiencing its hottest day on record.

But coverage of the record temperatures, which scientists agree can be traced to global warming, isnt always covered as such here. Australias concentrated media landscape, dominated by two owners that skew toward climate-change skepticism, has led to coverage that denies or minimizes the warming weather. Some media watchers hope that a host of new digital additions to the media scene will diversify rhetoric.

According to the United Nations, there is strong scientific consensus that the global climate is changing and that human activity contributes significantly to this trend. But last year, the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism found that a third of Australian newspapers rejected or cast doubt on climate change over a three-month period in both 2011 and 2012. In its analysis of 602 articles on climate change across 10 mastheads, the ACIJ found that 32 percent of the articles did not accept the scientific consensus. The report also found that most of the skepticism came from Rupert Murdochs News Corp.

All of which Adelaide Universitys Simon Divecha, who writes on climate change and Australian media for academic and research site The Conversation, sees as a failing of the Australian media industry.

At the time of the high heatwaves, it just wasnt getting reported, he said. The articles talking about the heat didnt connect it to climate change.

Part of the homogeneity lies with how concentrated print media is in Australia. According to The Conversation, among most influential metropolitan and national dailies, News Corp accounted for 65 percent of the circulation in 2011, while Fairfax Media, the second biggest publisher, which owns The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbournes The Age, controlled only 25 percent.

Murdochs Australian arm of News Corp controls 59 percent of all daily newspapers, with sales of 17.3 million papers a week, making it easily Australias most influential publisher.

Murdoch himself has often been critical of climate change, and earlier this year told Sky News Australia, which he partially owns, that we should approach climate change with great skepticism. News Corp likewise showed a similar tendency to cast doubt on whether humans are actually affecting the climate and whether climate change is happening.

Investigative journalist Wendy Bacon was the author behind the ACIJ report, titled, Sceptical Climate: Climate Science in Australian Newspapers. Bacon explored how climate change is covered through the amount of words dedicated to the topic and whether those pieces were news features or commentary.

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Climate change coverage at a crossroads in Australia

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TAMPA It happened so quickly for everyone involved, for Joe Maddon and the Rays front office, for the players and the fans, that three weeks later it seems everything is still swirling, that the flakes in the snow globe that is Rays Baseball have yet to settle.

One day Maddon is talking about extending his contract with the Rays, then hes exercising his opt-out clause, then hes basking in front of TV lights in Chicago wearing a Cubs jersey and talking about ending a century-long World Series drought on the citys north side.

To use one of Maddons stock words, Poom.

What happened?

It was a unique moment, Maddon said Friday. The window opened. Ive been looking out this window constantly and the window is always closed, and all of a sudden the window was open for two weeks, and all this had to be accelerated.

The window, of course, is the now infamous opt-out clause in Maddons contract that kicked in when executive vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman left the organization. Maddon had two weeks to negotiate a new deal or opt out of the remainder of his contact, which expired after next season.

It took Maddon one week to opt out.

He left behind a stunned fan base and a front office unhappy with the quick turn of events. The commissioners office is looking into whether the Cubs tampered with Maddon while he was still under contract with the Rays a charge Maddon and his agent, Alan Nero, deny.

I can understand that based on rapidity of how all this came down, Maddon said.

He can also understand the frustration in Tampa Bay. But, Maddon said, things would have been worse if he and the Rays did not reach an agreement on a new contract and he remained for his final year. Rumors of where Maddon would end up in 2016 would have hung over the Rays until the final out of the season.

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Maddon says opt-out was 'unique window' he had to open

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CHOOSING THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT Apartment complexes to office buildings, churches to schools. Hillestad can handle any size job. We specialize in heating and cooling rooftop systems and boiler replacement. HIllestad heating and cooling sells only products manufactured by the most trusted names in the industry. Products proven to be energy efficient, cost efficient and environmentally safe. Brands such as Bryant, Burnham, Carrier, Triangle Tube and Buderus.

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In a recent column on the University of Illinois' progress toward goals articulated in its Climate Action Plan, I noted that Ben McCall, the associate director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, had called special attention to the role of a team at Facilities and Services known as the Retrocommissioning Group.

Since then, through conversations on campus and elsewhere, I've been reminded that few people know much about the group or the work they do. Given our long-term interests of conserving resources and saving money, that's too bad, because the UI personnel who do retrocommissioning are champions of both.

So let me bring you up to speed.

In a nutshell, retrocommissioning refers to a process of analyzing the energy-dependent systems in a building HVAC and lighting and then doing what's necessary to get those systems operating as efficiently as possible.

Facilities and Services first formed a team dedicated exclusively to retrocommissioning in 2007. It was composed of five people and was led by Karl Helmink, an engineer with long experience in HVAC. Their tongue-in-cheek slogan then was "Saving the planet one building at a time." Since then, the group has grown to 20 people, and it now operates in two teams, so they've updated their slogan to "Saving the planet two buildings at a time." Both teams include engineers, field technicians, tradesmen and student interns.

The teams typically spend about two months on a building, and they employ a highly systematic approach. Their work entails a thorough analysis of available documentation on mechanical systems by engineers and a comprehensive investigation of operating conditions, equipment and more by field technicians and tradesmen.

Members of the team also confer with representatives from the facilities where they work throughout the process to make sure their needs are met. "When our work is finished," said Helmink, "they've got to be happy with the building."

One straightforward thing the retrocommissioning teams do is identify maintenance issues that tend to multiply in overlooked places as facilities age things like clogged ducts, stuck dampers, damaged coils and worn out sensors.

Beyond attending to such issues, they also focus on ensuring that lights and heating and cooling are on only as they are needed, rather than around the clock. Toward this end, they install occupancy sensors wherever they can.

Such tuneups can have really amazing impacts.

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Environmental Almanac: Group 'saving planet two buildings at a time'

Kitchen remodeling pictures of Kraftmaid cabinets with tumbled marble
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Bob Kelly of Fox Chapel says he knew he was tired of the juggling game as soon as he had his first double oven.

It was no big decision for him to add another one when he and his wife, Gretchen, remodeled their kitchen earlier this year. He is one of the many homeowners who are moving to a double-oven kitchen for reasons that are more practical than extravagant.

Mark Uchida, owner of A ReMARKable Kitchen in Blawnox, says two-thirds of his kitchen-remodeling customers bring up double ovens when they start talking about their plans.

It can be a status thing, he says. But a lot of these people are amateur chefs, and they are getting into it for practicality.

Paul Bristow, product manager for Built-in Cooking at GE Appliances, agrees. He says double-oven users tend to be cooking enthusiasts who find the appliance helpful or aspirers who are growing into that role.

He says 35 percent of GE oven sales involve a double oven in one way or another. That number includes traditional double ovens, two smaller ovens in the space of one and appliances such as the GE Advantium.

The latter is equipped with a traditional oven and what he calls four oven in one that acts as a microwave, a speed cooker, a convection oven and a warming device.

Julie Ann Metz, a designer in the kitchen and bath center at Plumbers Equipment in Plum, agrees to the popularity.

There's a whole lot of Texas going on out there, she says about customers who are happy to be dealing with kitchens that get bigger all the time.

While she jokes about their installation often being a matter of show, she says most of her customers are people 45 and older, who like to entertain or cook a great deal and are looking for more convenience.

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Homeowners warm to double-ovens practicality