The excerpt “A Road Traveled” follows Lambert from his youth in Texas through his live on the road as a digital storyteller and leader in the new story telling community. His story reminded me a little of Jack Kerouac’s novel “On The Road” except Lambert had much more vision. The carefree nature and opened mindedness of Lambert was so refreshing, his honest portrayal of his difficulties and successes drew me into his story.
He talks a lot about his political beliefs and he is definitely a progressive character, he does not hide that fact from his criticism of Texas Culture to his dismay of George Bush 2 being elected president in 2001. I feel like his up brining with his beatnik parents and his exposure of leftist radicals and folk singers impacted his life view of authorship and digital storytelling. The thesis of this piece is believe can be summed up by this quote in his writing:
Digital storytelling is rooted fundamentally in the notion of the democratized culture that was the hallmark of folk music, reclaimed folk culture and cultural activist traditions of the 1960s. Women and people of color began writing with citizen-centered authorship.
Growing up in the 60s be tool that progressive attitude with him throughout his life and ended up in on of the most progressive enclaves in the country the San Francisco Bay Area and UC Berkeley. He was like the Johnny Apple Seed of digital story telling Lambert had a profound believe that permeated through all aspects of his life including job, ethos, music, politics and storytelling and all people should have a voice and often time be most worthy voices and those that are unfiltered and human based not academically based.
I loved that in the end he felt that he had exhausted his ablity to impact the medium within the academic setting and moved to more community outreach and began work with domestic violence and veteran storytelling. Lambert is a true pioneer of the digital storytelling format but the very idea digital stories and ever changing and evolving nature of the medium have overtaken his influence. I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to learn about Lambert and his influence in this field. His life story is one that I too aspire to live; he lived with a vision and brought that vision to life through much hardship and sacrifice.