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Welcome to The Moth podcast. I'm Alex Roman Peters, associate producer at The Moth, and your host for this episode.

There's something special about the moment right before somebody tells a story.

They step on stage, take a breath, and the audience is on the edge of their seat waiting for the tale to begin.

In that moment, the story could be anything. It's all possibility.

The only thing more magical is when the story actually starts, and it knocks the audience's socks off.

These remarkable moments happen at our live shows all over the world, from Miami to Melbourne, from London to Louisville.

This episode will be visiting Louisville, host to so many magical moth moments and playing two stories from that city's

story slam. I was lucky enough to visit Louisville a few weeks back. My fresh off of an early

flight, admittedly, somewhat grumpy self, immediately fell in love with the people that I met

in Louisville. One storyteller, Alan, goofed around a bit during our soundtrack.

He had fun at the mic and helped shake off some of that pre-show energy.

Alan later found me before the show to apologize for his biting sense of humor and hoped

that I didn't take it personally.

I immediately thought of Alan's playful, benign jokes at the mic and thought,

Alan, I think you're the nicest person I know?

And it wasn't just Alan. I could see and feel this entire group rooting for each other,

joyful, truly delighting in one another's success throughout the evening. And there were successes

...