FALL OF THE TITANS this coming Sunday in Nashua, NH begins at 7 pm at the Riverwalk Cafe and Music Bar. Adult Greek mythology told with voices and 12-string guitar music. One of Odds Bodkin’s newest epic evenings of storytelling.
Eat, drink and imagine, all in one evening.
Get your tickets now for Odds Bodkin’s FAMILY STORIES EXTRAVAGANZA for this coming Friday night, August 11th! Hosted by The Livery at Sunapee Harbor , Odds’ fingers will fly across his Celtic harp, 12-string guitars and other instruments as he tells his best, family friendly tales. Wild character voices, uncannily real vocal effects and narrative combine to create imagination entertainments parents and kids always love.
Called “a consummate storyteller” by The New York Times and “one of the great voices in American storytelling” by Wired, Odds invites you not only to listen, but to sing along if you like, create rhythms and simply have fun. Stories from all around the world with music to match!
Tickets are $10 adult, $5 children, $25 for family of 4 here.
DISNEY IS GREAT, BUT WHERE’S THE IMAGINATION? (EXCEPT, OF COURSE, AT DISNEY)
ODDS BODKIN STORIES WITH CHARACTERS, SOUNDS AND MUSIC INVITE FAMILIES TO IMAGINE TOGETHER.
Little Proto’s T-Rex Adventure Listening Sample:
GET ALL THE AWARD-WINNING AUDIOS BELOW FOR ONLY $99.
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DOWNLOAD THEM ANY TIME…
ADVENTURES FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
The Evergreens: Gentle Tales of Nature (3 & up)
The Teacup Fairy Collection (Very Old Tales for Very Young Children)
The Little Proto Trilogy (3 exciting dinosaur adventures with songs!)
Funny Folktales from Everywhere Collection
The Wise Girl Collection (stories for strong, smart girls)
Paul Bunyan Tall Tales Collection (hilarious American folklore)
The Winter Cherries Holiday Tales Collection (family Holidays favorites)
The Blossom Tree Collection: Tales from the Far East
AUDIO ADVENTURES FOR OLDER KIDS, TEENS AND ADULTS
David and Goliath: The Harper and the King (the great Bible story)
The Odyssey: An Epic Telling (4 hours!)
Giant’s Cauldron: Viking Myths of Adventure Collection
The Myth of Hercules (teens)
The Hidden Grail: Sir Percival and the Fisher King (a knights in armor adventure for teens)
Stories of Love Collection (teens and adults)
I’m looking forward to it. This coming Friday I’ll drive down to the Dana Center at St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH. This is the hall used for presidential primary debates and other performances, and I’ve been onstage there many times, sometimes for the college itself, but this time to perform The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast for the New Hampshire Classical Association’s hundreds of high school Latin students for Classics Day. They come in buses from all over the state. I guess this is my 8th time doing this. Maybe more times than that, I’m not sure.
The stage has a thrust. Like a ship’s bow, it sticks out into the waves of seats that slope upward into the eight hundred seat space. Way up there is the balcony. And it will be filled with kids who’ll be asked to turn off their cellphones as I wait backstage, taking the last few passes at tuning the 12-string before I step out, walk to my chair there at the bow, and hit the summoning motif, which I’ll play for a few seconds before saying anything. Two elemental bass notes at the bottom with harmonic sparkles at the top. This motif is meant to launch my listeners into a receptive level of consciousness, heroic and somewhat dark as it is. The promise of things to come.
Briefly I’ll describe how in 700 B.C. in ancient Greece, not many people could read, books had yet to be invented, and people either told stories themselves or relied upon professional “Singers of Tales,” the most famous of whom was Homer. I’ll mention how in Homer’s time, when he was performing his Odyssey and Iliad poems with character voices and a lyre, his stories weren’t myths, but were more like forms of religious worship. How he and his listeners believed in the gods and goddesses of Olympus as surely as we believe whatever we do today. And how like William Shakespeare, writing about Julius Caesar long after the fact, the Trojan War was already five hundred years in the past in Homer’s time.
And then the story will begin. I’ll enter the dream, which lasts about an hour, become all sorts of characters, play the 12-string guitar like a bat out of hell and emerge at the end ready for something new this year. A Q&A. In the past I’ve just stepped offstage, but Flora Sapsin, she who arranges for my performances, has asked me to take questions from the kids and teachers this year. Usually high school audiences have all kinds of good questions. How do I remember all that? Did I make up that music? How do I change my voice? Do I have a favorite color? Do I own a dog? Why did I become a storyteller? On and on they’ll go until we run out of time, since I’ve done this sort of thing with lots of young audiences. It’s always fun and rewarding and I’ll try to crack a few jokes along the way.
And then I’ll pack up and drive home, too exhausted to do much else for the rest of the day. As I said, I’m looking forward to it.
You can purchase an mp3 of the entire four hours of The Odyssey here at my shop, if you’re interested.
“Oh, Hercules, I find your story so exciting!” effuses Persephone, Hades’ unhappy wife. Hercules has landed in the Underworld, a place he didn’t expect to be.
“Do you?” he asks, disgusted at the situation. He’s been telling his life story in order to get out of here and go to Olympus. Persephone, Hades’ unwilling wife, longs for news of the living, which until a moment ago Hercules was. But now he’s dead.
Hades doesn’t like his wife’s tone. “Oh, hold your heart back, Persephone,” he says jealously, wondering if this confession business was a good idea. He tries to make Persephone happy, but considering that he’s raped, abducted and imprisoned her here in the Land of the Dead, it’s a hard sell. She hates him. “He won’t be here long.”
Hercules has lived a hard, terrifying life. The last thing he wants to do is remember it for these two. “Let me go now and I’ll stop right here,” he growls sarcastically.
“Calm yourself,” Hades demands.
“Calm myself,” he retorts, getting angry. “Do you think it makes me calm to sit here and tell all this to you two dreary souls?” His voice has risen.
“Hades, he is rude!” she complains.
“Uh, yes,” Hades responds, “Hercules, shades like you typically do not speak here. If you’d like me to remove your voice…”
“No, no, no, I’ll calm myself,” the dead hero replies. “Oh, yes. I learned to do it. Took a long time…”
This is the fictional setting I use to tell the myth of Hercules. Only the characters speak. There is no narration from me. Just Hercules, Hades, Persephone and a host of other voices from Hercules’ sad, shattered life. That and a full, ongoing score on 12-string guitar with an introduction on Celtic harp. The tale is a long one, but it’s filled with humor, tragedy, adventure and in the end, hope. And I hope you’ll join me this coming Sunday evening, April 23rd at 8 p.m. in Cambridge, MA to hear it and imagine along with me. The venue is Grendel’s Den. Enjoy a mythic Greek meal, good drinks and some adult storytelling!
Tickets are here.
A few tickets remain,
I make this claim,
For this evening’s show,
Just so you know.
Wily Odysseus, on his journey west,
Lost on the sea, doing his best
To hold things together
In all sorts of weather,
Missing his wife
And missing his boy,
Not having seen them in ten years at Troy,
Faces a beast with a glowering eye
And watches again as his best friends die.
But oh, he is wily, which gives him his fame.
Now journeys are odysseys, based on his name.
The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast, an adult storytelling event with live music on harp and 12-string guitar is tonight at Grendel’s Den in Cambridge, MA. 8 pm, April 2. A few tickets remain.