Do you know the story of rabbit, rabbit day? Neither does anyone else according to Wikipedia, yet millions say some variation of “rabbit, rabbit” on the first day of every month. I never knew about this tradition until I married my husband, in whose family of origin the habit is well-entrenched. Here’s what Wikipedia says about “rabbit, rabbit day:”

“Rabbit rabbit white rabbit” is a common superstition. The most common modern version states that a person should say “rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit” or simply “rabbit, rabbit” upon waking on the first day of each new month, and on doing so will receive good luck for the duration of that month. … The exact origin of the superstition is unknown, though it has appeared in print at least as early as 1954 in Bromley, Kent, where it is most commonly said to have originated, though some reports place its origins even earlier, into the 1800s. Today it has spread to most of the English-speaking countries of the world, although like all folklore, determining its exact area of distribution is difficult. This superstition is related to the broader belief in the rabbit or hare being a “lucky” animal, as exhibited in the practice of carrying a rabbit’s foot for luck. Some have also believed it is representing a jumping into the future and moving ahead with life and happiness.

A friend of one of my Facebook friends told this story today:

I had a 4th grade teacher that would march us into her teacher friend’s classroom on the first day of every month to jump up and down and shout “rabbit day!” three times, and then turn and march out.

Anyhoo … it’s a good day to report on which items related to storytelling have attained the most buzz on Twitter since my last report about six weeks ago:

• I wrote about Waterlife before in connection with “database storytelling” (which is still a mystery); this presentation got lots of buzz on Twitter.
• A video that previews a Nov. 19 conference in London called Creativity and Technology is titled CaT Video: The Storytelling Throwdown: Is technology changing brand storytelling? and was much-retweeted. [Disclaimer: Because it’s more than 20 minutes long, I haven’t yet had the chance to watch it.]
• Much buzz focused on Adam Westbrook’s blog post on 6×6 storytelling for freelance journalists, the third in a series of six blog posts, each with six tips for the next generation of freelance multimedia journalists, in which Westbrook wrote:

  A lot of the focus for multimedia journalists and digital journalists has been on new technology: using Twitter, learning Flash. But there’s a danger that in the rush to learn new skills, we forgot (or never learn) the oldest ones. And there is no skill older, or more important, than storytelling.

• Every month in the Twitterverse, it seems at least one movie is cited for excellent storytelling. Since my last compilation, three films have enjoyed storytelling accolades — two with “9” in the title, 9 and District 9, along with Inglorious Basterds. One movie, Extract, was cited for weak storytelling.

• Following the death of Ted Kennedy, The Boston Globe’s tribute was cited as a great example of multimedia storytelling.
• This same kind of storytelling — for magazines — attained much traction based on the article, Magazines Need to Embrace Multimedia Storytelling in Digital Age, an interview by Mark Glaser on Mediashift with Jim Gaines of Flyp Media, “an online publisher of magazine-style content that combines video, audio, Flash animations and interactive features.”

• A new collaborative storytelling tool, Storybird, got lots of buzz. The tool targets narrative artists, families, writers, and educators. “Storybirds are short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share.”
• I helped promote Cathie Dodds’ Labor Day Twitterthon, designed to “see if it was possible to tell your story with Twitter,” and the results were significantly retweeted.
• I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about transmedia storytelling recently, in part because this story form has garnered so much attention, such as in the article, The revolutionary power of transmedia storytelling.
• And finally, my friend Tom Clifford enjoyed well-deserved retweets of his Three Keys to Good Storytelling, a guest post from Bluedot Productions, the filmmakers behind the documentary, The Quantum Activist.

Make it a good Rabbit Rabbit day!