General

Before each of his military campaigns, Napoleon always made a point of passing through Épernay, stopping at the cellars of his friend Jean-Rémy Moët [a French vintner who brought the champagne producers Moët & Chandon to fame] to pick up a supply of champagne.  “In victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it,” he said. [… After Napoleon abdicated and Paris fell during the “War of the Sixth Coalition”] Cellars throughout Champagne were plundered, the worst being those of Moët, which saw six hundred thousand bottles emptied …

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In every story told, there lies meaning-making and believe-making. We catch imagery in words and worlds because we alter or construct our reality, shaping how we perceive and interact with everything around us. Storytelling began with simple forms. In his study of narrative development, Arthur Ransome identified two primary types in the dawn of storytelling: the ‘Warning Example’ and the ‘Embroidered Exploit.’  But in the beginning storytelling was not an affair of pen and ink. It began with the Warning Examples naturally told by …

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