My Love Affair with Telling THE ODYSSEY
“I can tell the whole thing,” I lied rather boldly, and a week later, I got the job. Strange but true. The only problem was, I had to deliver a 3-hour storyteller’s version of Homer’s epic in 90 days. At a school in Vermont.
Another problem was, I didn’t yet know the story. And so I read the Fitzgerald translation and wrote down all my favorite characters and scenes.
Suffice it to say that here, decades later, I’ve performed this story with my 12-string guitar at least a thousand times, if not more. Festivals. Universities. Private and public schools. Across America and abroad. And I still love it.
I love playing the haunting score I created so long ago. I love doing the voice of Odysseus, wishing I were a guy like him. I love becoming the giant cannibal Cyclops, relieved that I’m not a guy like him. I love entering the visual dream of this tale, one that is always a little different each time I go inside and peer around my version of an ancient world.
It’s a curious alchemy of music and the narrative muse.
You can witness this alchemy live. My performance is coming up:
Sunday March 10
Doors open at 5 pm
Grendel’s Den, Harvard Square
Odds Bodkin
THE ODYSSEY: Belly of the Beast
A full evening’s entertainment.
Tickets: $35