It’s Like a Movie, Seen from Inside the Hero’s Mind

It’s like a movie, seen from inside the hero’s mind. In this case, he’s Odysseus of Ithaca, a father and fighter, far from home. The Greek poet Homer’s great metaphor for how soldiers come home after war is what The Odyssey is all about.

Almost making it home, but then being swept away again by forces beyond your control. The lure of drugs to calm the mind. And being forced to fight an inhuman monster because you made a bad decision.

This coming Sunday, Jan. 16 at 7 pm EST, Master Talesman Odds Bodkin will appear on YouTube Live to tell this timeless story. He’ll accompany himself throughout on thunderous 12-string guitar.

Get your tickets today.

 

The Odyssey: Belly of the Beast

Jan. 16, 2022 at 7 pm EST, 4 pm PT.

An hour+ performance live on YouTube.

Tickets: $25-$30

 

Presented by Claire Hennessy and Six Feet Apart Productions.

 

Coming to YouTube Live: Odds Bodkin Performs THE ODYSSEY January 16th at 7 pm EST

Coming to YouTube Live on January 16th at 7 pm. Get tickets now for Odds Bodkin’s epic, THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST.

Soaring, exciting music on 12-string guitar. A host of character voices, including Odysseus and the Cyclops. Amazing vocal effects of storm winds, sea birds and crashing stones.

Hosted by Six Feet Apart Productions, master talesman Odds Bodkin will spellbind you with his vivid storytelling during this Sunday performance.

Tickets: $25-$30. Assemble your family and friends for this “tour de force” (Dartmouth Classics Dept.) live performance by a “consummate storyteller” (The New York Times.).

TICKETS

What Can You Buy For An Entire Family?

What can you buy for an entire family? A gift that has intellectual and artistic gifts for your three-year-old all the way through your teens, and even for you adults?

Odds Bodkin’s MASTER DRIVE. It’s a 4-gig flash drive that contains the “consummate storyteller’s” (The New York Times) complete works, including his 550-page epic poem and original music. Every story is age-coded, so you’ll know which stories work for your kids. Over an almost 40-year career, this master storyteller has crafted a collection of audio tales which transport young listeners into their imaginations, and into mythic lore from around the world.

Buy it, plug it in to your USB port, and share the tales with your family. Send the mp3s to friends. If your computer has no USB capability, then download this bundle of tales. They’re the same stories.

Give the gift of imagination.

Odds Bodkin’s MASTER DRIVE. Or, for just for his award-winning audio tales, Odds Bodkin’s EPIC DRIVE.

 

 

 

 

11 Days Left in MASTER DRIVE Sale! Ends July 30th!

11 days remain in Odds Bodkin’s MASTER DRIVE sale at the storyteller’s online shop.

Get $50 off the price of his MASTER DRIVE this July. This flash drive features his complete audio stories, his epic poem The Water Mage’s Daughter (550 pages pdf), a live performance video plus original musical compositions.

Just plug it in and distribute the stories to your family’s devices! All mp3 audios.

 

Regular price: $199.95. Now $149.95!

Perfect for Family Travel!

 

Age-Coded Stories Include:

The Adventures of Little Proto (audio)

Little Proto’s T-Rex Adventure (audio)

Little Proto and the Volcano’s Fire (audio)

The Teacup Fairy: Very Old Tales for Very Young Children (audio)

The Evergreens: Gentle Tales of Nature (audio)

With Twinkle in your Eye: Funny Folktales from Everywhere (audio)

Rip Roarin’ Paul Bunyan Tales (audio)

The Winter Cherries: Holiday Tales from Around the World (audio)

The Blossom Tree: Tales from the Far East (audio)

The Wise Little Girl: Tales of the Feminine (audio)

Earthstone: The Eco-Musical (2 hour audio)

The Odyssey: An Epic Telling (4 hour audio)

Giant’s Cauldron: Viking Myths of Adventure (audio)

Hidden Grail: Sir Percival and the Fisher King (90 minute audio)

Stories of Love (audio)

David and Goliath: The Harper and the King (audio)

The Myth of Hercules (audio)

 

Plus Rare Works:

Beowulf: The Only One (live audio recording)

The Iliad: Book I (50-minute video)

The Water Mage’s Daughter: a 13,000-line epic poem. (PDF e-book)

 

Plus Odds Bodkin’s Original Musical Compositions on Acoustic Instruments and Kurzweil synthesizer:

Rapunzel’s Window

At Beauty’s Door

Black Irish

Soft-Hearted Men in the Good Old USA

Little Paws

Christmas Morning

The Great Irish Elk

 

Order yours today!

Odds Bodkin’s THE ODYSSEY 4-hour storytelling audio on sale for two weeks! Usually $49.95, now $34.95!

Usually $49.95, you can now grab Odds Bodkin’s classic telling of Homer’s Odyssey for $34.95! Download all 42 episodes today! This sale lasts two weeks, until June 21, 2021!

From the Belly of the Trojan Horse to the Return to Ithaca ten years later, go inside the mind of Odysseus, the original epic hero of Greek mythology. This classic tale is over 4 hours long and great for vacation car travel. Kids love it, and listen intently. Includes a full musical score on 12-string guitar and Celtic harp.

Winner of the Oppenheim Platinum Award for Best Vacation Product.

WHO WAS HOMER?

Some say Homer was a sightless genius like John Milton. Milton dictated his three massive poems—The Divine Comedy—to an amanuensis who wrote them down. Homer, however, performed his poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, aloud and before live audiences. Scholars guess that Homer used character voices and lyre music during his shows to bring his tales to life. He lived in Ancient Greece circa 700 B.C.

While The Iliad is filled with horrifyingly vivid descriptions of battlefield carnage and details about what swords and spears can do to a human body, The Odyssey is more of a fantastical adventure. It features monsters, cannibals, enchantresses, drugged out Lotus Eaters and many-headed dragons. Much of it takes place out on the open sea as Odysseus wanders from island to island across the Mediterranean. Here, as his fleet is slowly destroyed and all his friends are killed, he becomes the last man standing after ten years of woe. Only he returns to his island of Ithaca alive.

Even then, things aren’t easy. He’s been gone twenty years and the sons of Ithaca have grown into rowdy, fatherless men.

It must have taken Homer many nights to recite his monumental works in their entirety. At some point scribes set down his famous words and what was until that point oral literature held in one man’s mind became written literature for the ages. The two epics have been translated into English, and I used Robert Fitzgerald’s version to map out the best of Odysseus’s adventures for modern listeners.

I’ll be performing my intro to the tale, THE ODYSSEY: BELLY OF THE BEAST in about a month, on ZOOM. The 70-minute show is sponsored by Grendel’s Den in Cambridge, MA. Tickets are $15. The date is Sunday, Sept. 20th at 7 pm EST.

Years ago, when I performed it at Dartmouth College, a professor wrote that my version is the closest thing we have to a Homeric performance.

This is the second in my three-part Greek myths for adults series on ZOOM. If you want to see what a Greek myth like this looks and sounds like, you’re welcome to listen to FALL OF THE TITANS, here on YouTube. I told this tale a couple of weeks ago.

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

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

 

A REVIEW FROM NORMAN CHIANG: Odds Bodkin Audios

All Collections + Bundle reviewed by norman.chiang

Odds’ storytelling – including sound effects, voice, music, pacing, wit and style – is both versatile and relevant. It is a talent that needs witnessing and preservation. All the stories I’ve so far listened to have been precise and polished, a cut above anything else I’ve seen from others at live shows and readings. Odds is a true artist, who understands the weight of virtue and fiction. A true role model for the ages. This is one of the best (if not the best purchases/investments) I’ve made all year. I’m excited to share it with my family. At $99, this is really quite a steal … given The Odyssey alone is worth as much. (Not to mention, other such amazing series in this collection – Hercules, The Hidden Grail, etc…)

NOW ON SALE FOR $74.95! GET YOURS TODAY!

No Man Did It! No Man Killed Me!

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

STELLAR REVIEWS for ODDS BODKIN’S EPIC DRIVE STORY COLLECTION

Norman Chiang writes: “This is one of the best (if not the best purchases/investments) I’ve made all year. I’m excited to share it with my family. At $99, this is really quite a steal … given The Odyssey alone is worth as much. (Not to mention, other such amazing series in this collection – Hercules, The Hidden Grail, etc…)

Odds’ storytelling – including sound effects, voice, music, pacing, wit and style – is both versatile and relevant. It is a talent that needs witnessing and preservation.

All the stories I’ve so far listened to have been precise and polished, a cut above anything else I’ve seen from others at live shows and readings. Odds is a true artist, who understands the weight of virtue and fiction. A true role model for the ages.”

Amilolomy writes: “This is the version that made me absolutely fall in love with the Beowulf story, and really understand why it has become such a classic piece of literature. There is such life and emotion in the way Bodkin tells it, that you just can’t get from reading it alone. He takes it from being a dry, unsentimental piece of curriculum and spins it into a deeply moving journey, I always find myself crying by the end of it.”

 

Visit Odds Bodkin’s Shop Now

THE ODYSSEY this Saturday Night/Odds Bodkin

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.

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

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