An evening of New Yorkers and their hair.

Stemming from the pod cast recommendation of a friend, I attended a Moth StorySLAM last night. The storytelling evening was hosted at the Nuyorican Poets Café on East 3rd Street in the East Village; a gem of a venue tucked away between avenues B and C.

A Moth StorySLAM is centered on a general topic and provides ten people the chance to tell their theme-related stories. Names are pulled out of a hat and the lucky winners get five minutes to entertain the crowd. Three panels of judges (I’m still confused as to how they’re selected) rate each storyteller and the winner moves on to a future GrandSLAM, which are the source for many of the pod casts. In between the stories and score tallying a hysterically sharp hostess kept the crowd full of laughs and drinking into the night.

Hair was tonight’s theme, and there was certainly no shortage of compelling storytellers. A Louisianan recounted his successful yard sale bargaining for a chest of wigs. A young woman with daddy issues fell for her bald rock climbing partner. There were tales of waxing gone bad and breaking up with and moving on from a childhood 1950’s-style barber. The storytellers brought their experiences alive (or not so much) with vividly entertaining recounts of times won and lost, all for the sake of hair. Negative points for the hipster how dissed the Astor Hair shop I devotedly frequent.

It was my first Moth evening but certainly not my last. If you’re in NYC or plan to be in the near future I highly recommend sitting in one evening. It was fantastic entertainment in the simplest, purest sense of the idea.