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Upcoming Events, Shows & Performances:

SUNDAY JULY 19TH at 7 PM: Odds Bodkin’s FALL OF THE TITANS

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From Odds Bodkin’s cave of magic comes a ZOOM performance that translates 100%: FALL OF THE TITANS.

Where did the Greek gods come from? Who were the Titans? Who was Gaia? Why did Cronus the Titan swallow his Olympian children? How did only Zeus survive?

Find out in a feature-length adult storytelling on Sunday, July 19th at 7 pm. Buy your ticket, get your ZOOM invitation and password, then sit back and watch elemental characters come to life. Greek lore explained with Celtic harp music, then a tale told with 12-string guitar.

Every seat is a front row seat.

A performance for adults. No young children please.

Sponsored by Grendel’s Den in Cambridge MA.

Tickets are $15.

One Grandmother’s Quest to Send an Odyssey Recording to her Grandchildren

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An email to Odds Bodkin’s Shop from this morning, April 24th:

Hope you can help me. I ordered The Odyssey Collection as a gift for my grandchildren but did not realize I had no way to send them the link and think somehow it is now in my email only. At this point I don’t remember my original password since I forwarded the email from you acknowledging my order to my daughter who could not download the stories because I did not have the password. When I went to password reset I was also unable to change the password.

So, if it is possible to send this gift to my daughter who can then set up whatever password she wants to use so these darling 9 and 10 year old grandchildren who are at the moment captivated by Homer can hear your wonderful music and voice, I would be grateful.

Please advise.
M*** C*** P*****

Odds Bodkin’s Shop replies:

Dear M***

If you can send us your daughter’s email address, we will send her a digital gift card
usable at our shop for $49.95. She can visit the shop, follow the directions and download
The Odyssey using her own email. She pays at checkout using the code on the
gift card.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks for your order, too, of course.

Best regards,

ODDS BODKIN CUSTOMER SERVICE

 

M*** C*** P***** replies:

You have given me a success in my Stay-At-Home week for which I am very appreciative. Thank you. Know this little family will be ever so happy listening together and hope they will continue to be Odds Bodkin fans for their lifetimes. The power of great literature well read and good music well played are a rare but winning combination.

My daughter, M*** C**** E********’s email address is *************@bellsouth.net

Hope you have a good day today and stay healthy.
M*** C*** P*****

 

GIFT CARD SENT. QUEST OVER.

Journey to the Ends of the Earth: 4 hours of The Odyssey

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A hero’s journey like no other.

Narrated with live music on Celtic harp and 12-string guitar featuring 37 character voices.

Odds Bodkin’s 4-hour epic audio story, The Odyssey: An Epic Telling.

Odysseus. The Cyclops. Circe. The Sirens. Troy. Ithaca. The Underworld. The Isle of Cannibals. The Whirlpool. The Hall of Suitors. 42 episodes in all. 4 hours 8 minutes.

“a tour de force“–Dartmouth Department of Classics

“a consummate storyteller”–The New York Times

Download it here for $49.95

 

Educational and Fun Stories from Cultures Around the World

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Tales from ancient Greece, England, Denmark, South Africa, Russia, China, Native America, India, France, Japan, the good old USA and more. Told with characters, fun vocal effects and live acoustic music.

Award-Winning Odds Bodkin Stories.

Just because your body’s locked down, doesn’t mean your mind should be.

DOWNLOADS DELIVERED INSTANTLY.

 

 

 

Story Flash Drives Tomorrow Night At Grendel’s Den: A Chance to Buy All Four Hours of Odds Bodkin’s THE ODYSSEY

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18 full-length storytelling albums on a single flash drive.

TICKETS: $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

ILIADMATIC: ODDS BODKIN BRINGS BARDIC STORYTELLING TO A TRANSFORMED GRENDEL’S DEN

 

No Man Did It! No Man Killed Me!

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So howls Polyphemus the Cyclops to the other cyclopses outside his stone door. He’s been blinded by a giant spear in his one eye as he slept, a spear carved from a tree by Odysseus and his men. Now thrashing in agony in the darkness, the monster has attracted the other monsters with his howls.

“I’m blinded! I am killed!” he screams.

“Who did this to you, Polyphemus?” calls one outside.

“No Man did it! No Man killed me!”

“Well, if it is no man, then it is the work of the gods. Good bye!”

Polyphemus has been cruelly fooled, doubly so. For as Odysseus has poured brandy into the monster’s bowl and fooled him into drunkenness, and the monster has asked him his name, Odysseus has replied, “My name is No Man,” fooling him again.

Come hear this and other adventures from Odds Bodkin’s adult storytelling, THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST, this coming Sunday in Cambridge, MA.

“a consummate storyteller” — The New York Times

“a modern-day Orpheus” —  Billboard

 

Grendel’s Den on Harvard Square

Feb. 9 at 5:30 p.m.

Doors open at 5 p.m. for dinner.

Tickets $20 in advance, $25 at the door

Odds Bodkin performs THE ODYSSEY on Harvard Square Sunday Feb. 9

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Grendel’s Den hosts Odds Bodkin for the second show in his winter adult storytelling series, THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST. Eat Greek specialty menu items, drink, and then settle in for hypnotic music on 12-string guitar as Bodkin spins mythic magic with vocal effects, character voices and narration.

Introduction to Homer and Greek mythology on Celtic harp.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

 

 

THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST Adult Storytelling at Grendel’s Den

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It’s when instead of attacking them immediately, the cyclops rolls the giant stone to block the cave door, that Odysseus senses doom. It just hasn’t happened yet, but will. As the monster tears two men apart in a shower of blood and devours them, Odysseus realizes that this is no peaceful shepherd as he assumed. No, this one-eyed giant who stands as tall as thirteen men is a cannibal. And soon they will all be in its belly. Unless they escape somehow. But the giant stone weights many tons, and there’s no other way out.

For one of the most famous scenes from Homer’s The Odyssey, Odds Bodkin takes on the giant voice and deadly gestures of Polyphemus the Cyclops. Vocal effects explode in the scene: popping heads and crunching bones, roaring flames and a giant hissing eyeball–while his 12-string guitar burns with rapid notes–all to render a vivid and yes, horrifying imaginative experience.

It’s really fun.

Of this performance Professor James Tatum of the Dartmouth Department of Classics wrote, “Odds Bodkin’s performance is the closest thing we have to a Homeric experience.”

His first show of the season, Beowulf, was sold out, so get your Odyssey tickets today.

Come feast and drink like a Greek, then settle in for the show. VIP ticket packages available for great seating and special foods.

 

The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast

February 9, 2020 at 5:30 pm

Grendel’s Den Restaurant, Cambridge MA

Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2020 Season at Grendel’s Den Begins with BEOWULF

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It’s been four years now since Kari’s husband built the stage for me. Kari’s restaurant on Harvard Square, Grendel’s Den, had never hosted a performer before, and since I was to be the first, I needed a stage in order to be seen by folks at the tables. This had all come about when Gavin, my son, who, since I perform Beowulf–and Grendel the monster figures prominently in it–pitched the idea to Kari: dine on Scandinavian food and drink, and then hear a classic monster myth from Viking times. Just for adults. No kids.

It worked. Since then I’ve done lots of adult shows in the heated intimacy of Grendel’s Den, and I’ll be back for a fresh season starting on Sunday January 12th at the usual 5 p.m. start time. This year, we open with Beowulf: The Only One, a favorite tale to tell, despite the hard work involved. Hard guitar playing. Hard voice work, especially Grendel, who roars out his emotions, and his mother, who screeches out her vengeful, but intelligible words.

Next, on February 9th, I’ll perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast.

 

Then, on March 8th, it’s Odin and Thor Battle the Frost Giants.

 

Lastly, on March 29th, I don’t know what I’ll be performing because Kari’s holding an “audience’s choice” contest over winter where ticket buyers for other shows get to vote on the final show. Choices are FALL OF THE TITANS: THE MYTH OF GAIA, INDIA’S ANCIENTS: TALES FROM THE MAHABHARATA AND BEYOND, HEARTPOUNDERS: HORROR TALES or HERCULES IN HELL.

I like them all.

Meanwhile, first up is:

Beowulf: The Only One

Sunday, January 12, 2020 at 5 pm

Get Your Tickets for Good Seats: $20

 

 

THE ODYSSEY this Saturday Night/Odds Bodkin

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THE ODYSSEY: A Storytelling Evening with Odds Bodkin. Show starts at 8 pm at the Riverwalk Music Bar in Nashua, NH. Older kids and teens welcome. Enjoy an immersion into Greek mythology you’ll never forget!

TICKETS are $13 in advance, $15 at the door.

THE WORLD’S FIRST WEATHER MACHINE

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Aeolus is the King of the Winds and lives in luxury on Aeolia, his island in the middle of the Mediterranean. One day twelve Greek triremes sail into his harbor, crewed by thirsty, starving men. It turns out they’re lost soldiers from the war at Troy, led by a fellow named Odysseus. Utterly entertained by this warrior captain’s tales, Aeolus hosts the hungry Greeks for a month. They rest, grow strong again, and he lavishly provisions their fleet for the journey home.

Before they leave, Aeolus secretly hands Odysseus a leather bag tied with a silver wire. “In this bag,” he says, “are all the storm winds of the sea. Keep the bag closed, and you’ll have good winds at your stern all the way to Ithaca.”

Sadly, it turns out, as they approach Ithaca, jealous sailors open the bag, thinking there’s gold inside, and release the winds. Sudden storms blow the fleet all the way back to Aeolia, where this time the king curses them.

Hapless again, the fleet next comes upon an island swarming with giant cannibals.

——–

I’ll be telling this episode, and many others, this Saturday night at 8 pm at the Riverwalk Music Bar in Nashua, NH, when I perform The Odyssey: An Epic Telling.

Music on 12-string guitar and Celtic harp. Vivid character voices. Sounds of winds and sea.

Grab some friends and enjoy a different kind of night on the town.

 

Tickets are $13 in advance, $15 at the door.

A WEEK FROM TODAY: Odds Bodkin performs The Odyssey in NH

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Grab your tickets today to see Odds Bodkin perform his epic version of Homer’s THE ODYSSEY next Saturday night, July 27th, in Nashua, NH. The show starts at 8 pm at the Riverwalk Music Bar. Tickets are $13 in advance, $15 at the door.

TICKETS