The Mother of All Moths

As writers, the two men could not be more different. One, a midwesterner whose charming Prairie Home Companion tales have earned him millions of fans. The other, a Bombay-born novelist whose most famous work sent him under cover for nearly ten years, ducking assassination. And yet, there they were at Capitale last night, Garrison Keillor and Salman Rushdie, spilling their guts about post-adolescent road trips gone awry. The strange coming together could only have been pulled off by George Dawes Green and his team at The Moth, an organization whose mission is to promote the art of storytelling. The room was filled with raconteurs--both seated and on stage, not least of whom were the finalists in a Left Coast vs. Right Coast story slam that pitted Angeleno Josh Matthew Cereghino against New Yorker Jim O'Grady. Celebrity judges Jonathan Adler, Mike Birbiglia, Simon Doonan, Nathan Englander, Adam Gopnik, George Dawes Green, Lucy Hawking and A.J. Jacobs handed the prize to Cereghino, a writer whose other career hats have included Zamboni driver and cook. Also in the house was host John Turturro. With the theme of La Dolce Vita, the event was indeed a sweet affair, one about which many memorable stories can—and will—continue to be told.

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