Slightly Less New...

What’s
New for The Holidays!

Oddsbodkin.com
is pleased to announce Fresh
Squeezed Music, original mp3 downloads of Odds Bodkin’s new
instrumental music and the advent of an
ongoing online musical journal. Home-crafted in Odds’
studio, the selections include Mice in the Walls, a duo piece
for two 12-string guitars, A Swim Through the Trees, a rousing adventure
theme for digital strings, and Highlands, a haunting bolero for Celtic
harp and
strings.

Where
else on the web can you follow a creative musical journey, month
after month? And don’t miss Odds’ latest creation,
a driving rock anthem with blistering guitar riffs, The Road
to Baghdad.

Also,
Gavin Bodkin’s debut mini-album, Rooftop Cartographer is
available at Odds’ store. Gavin, a talented emerging singer-songwriter, is
Bodkin’s middle son of college age. Rooftop Cartographer features
six songs with multi-layered harmonies, blistering guitar riffs
and great lyrics. Sunday
Morning Rain, Broken By Your Song, Jackie Paper and other
tunes make for great listening. Be among the first listeners to discover Gavin Bodkin’s
fresh and vibrant music!

Click
here to explore Fresh Squeezed Music!

An Epic
for the Digital Age

Also,
twenty years in the making, Odds’ epic adventure in verse, The
Rowan Canticles, will be available as an e-book this December. The
379 page epic poem features not only an adventure story but also
numerological and versification games, built into the text itself! Available
as a PDF download, this literary edifice will keep adult readers
challenged and fascinated. Free for the reading are ninety
Fanfares drawn from the epic to give readers a taste of the rhyme
schemes and Bodkin’s poetic style.

Click here to to visit The
Rowan Canticles: A Tale Told in the Ancient Manner work in
progress, to be completed and available very soon....

FRESH
SQUEEZED MUSIC SOON ONLINE

"I know I've been promising to do this," says Odds, "and
now it's nearly ready.
Fresh Squeezed Music should be up online by November 1st." Bodkin's
long-promised
new product line, Fresh Squeezed Music, is indeed nearly ready.
A genuine departure
from his classic storytelling work, FSM is a new area of oddsbodkin.com's
download
store that features original compositions, hand-crafted in Bodkin's
home studio.
To hear a sample of Soft
Sombrero, an easy jazz piece using 12-string
guitars and electric
bass, click on the link. Other compositions range from slow, contemplative
boleros to
shimmering jigs on harp, digital strings and other instruments.
Bodkin will add new pieces
to the collection, much like a musical journal. You'll hear many
of the musical themes
from his tales re-imagined in new settings.

Odds is also proud to announce ROOFTOP CARTOGRAPHER, a mini-album
by Bodkin's middle
son, Gavin. Gavin Bodkin is nineteen, a sophomore at Wesleyan University,
and a prolific
singer-songwriter. Like Odds, Gavin is a multi-instrumentalist
and plays all the instruments
on the album--drums, guitars, bass, and vocals. You'll be able
to listen to samples, like
Sunday
Morning Rain, buy songs individually at the download store,
or purchase the entire
mini-album at download prices.

Watch for Fresh Squeezed Music's debut on November 1st!

SPECIAL
NEW ENGLAND SCHOOLS PRICING

With school budgets crimped as they are, Odds Bodkin has decided
to offer a NEW
ENGLAND SCHOOLS 2006-2007 PRICING SPECIAL. Fees for his performances,
including K-3, 4-6, middle and high school shows, even The Odyssey
and The Iliad: Book I
are significantly reduced this year. Call Mil Bodkin at (603) 938-5120
or email her
at mil@oddsbodkin.com for details!

This special offer applies to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New
Hampshire, Vermont
and Maine schools only. Book now to enjoy these special performance
fees.

BODKIN'S
ILIAD BOOK I PERFORMANCE

A COLLEGE-AGE HIT

Attention high schools and colleges! Turn the tackling of Homer's
The Iliad into an academic coup, rather than a mind-numbing siege.
Odds
Bodkin's 1-hour presentation of the first of twenty-four books
in Homer's
epic is compelling, adult and inspiring. It sets the stage for
the entire
poem. Read below.

Professor Comment:

"To those unfamiliar with the poem, The
Iliad can be intimidating
and bewildering.
To help jump start the imaginations of the freshmen, and make their
reading of the poem
more profitable, Saint Anselm College invited master storyteller
Odds Bodkin to tell the
story of Book I of The Iliad. Students overwhelmingly thought that
the performance was
worthwhile and made their encounter with the text more fruitful
and more enjoyable.
How's that for an education success story?"

Tom Larson, Assistant Professor Department of Philosopy Saint Anselm College

Student Comment:

"I read the first book shortly before going to see this wonderful
performance.
Going into the performance, I had no idea what I had read; it felt
like it went in one
ear and out the other. Thanks to Odds Bodkin, I finally understood
the whole concept,
and was able to understand the rest of the reading that had to
be done. He not only
made me understand it better, but he also made it humorous with
his amazing
sound effects and storytelling."

Amanda Provencher '10 Saint Anselm College

---

THE
ROWAN CANTICLES

BODKIN'S EPIC POEM, NOW COMPLETE,

TO RETURN TO ODDSBODKIN.COM

"Like Dickens' Pickwick Papers, I serialized it originally,
here at the site. Every month

I added a new canto," says Odds. "I kept it current
for many years. As I approached the poem's

end, however, I took it offline."

Eighteen years in the writing, Bodkin's original epic adventure
story in verse, THE ROWAN

CANTICLES: A TALE TOLD IN THE ANCIENT MANNER is now finished. At
12,555 lines,

the high-fantasy adventure and love story will soon be published
here at oddsbodkin.com,

available in a number of formats.

"I wrote it in journals for years," says Odds, "leaning
on the hood of my truck, in hotel

rooms, on vacations (much to my wife's annoyance), on airplanes,
everywhere I went. It took

on a life of its own. There are ninety-three cantos in all, and
three large canticles, all with

varying rhyme schemes. It is filled with hidden literary games
to play as well."

The poem is for high school through adult readers. Watch for your
chance to download and

read Odds Bodkin's THE ROWAN CANTICLES in its entirety, coming
soon!

---

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Classic
Tales in a New Era

The Old Masters, Odds' beloved vintage recordings from
his early years, uncut, performed live in the studio, are now in
MP3 format for listeners!

Odds' vintage recordings, The Teacup Fairy, The Wise Little
Girl, With a Twinkle in Your Eye, Giant's Cauldron, The
Blossom Tree, The Winter Cherries, as well as all his later
CD titles, including The Evergreens, The Odyssey, The Little
Proto Trilogy, The Harper and The King, The Hidden Grail, The
Rage of Hercules and other storytellings, are now available
at Odds' Download Store for direct, secure web purchase.

Treat your child--and yourself--to pure bardic art, on your computer
or media player at great savings!

Click
here to visit Odds’ Download Store.

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THE
NATIONAL STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

October 7th, 8th and 9th Odds appears at TheNational
Storytelling Festival in

Jonesborough, Tennessee. The worlds largest storytelling festival,
it is hosted by

The International Storytelling Center. As a Featured Teller,
Odds will perform numerous times over the weekend. For information
visit www.storytellingcenter.org.

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STORYTELLING
RETREAT FOR DECEMBER

This coming December 9th, 10th and 11th Odds will
conduct a THREE DAY STORYTELLING RETREAT at Rowe Camp in the
Berkshires of Massachusetts. This full version of THE DOOR TO
IMAGINATION: HOW TO AWAKEN YOUR INNER STORYTELLER is for adults.
No experience is necessary.

To receive an eflyer, email odds@oddsbodkin.com and request one, or visit
www.rowecenter.org and click on Calendar of Events to locate
Odds' page.

---

The
Old Masters:

Bodkin Downloads Available this Fall

Odds Bodkin's early generation of recordings, now
available only on cassette, will soon be available on the web
for digital download.

Here at oddsbodkin.com you'll be able to purchase
sound files, load them onto your Ipod or media player, even create
your own Odds Bodkin storytelling CD's.

Says Bodkin, "These are early performances
of some of my favorite stories to tell. Someday I'll re-record
them, as they have all grown musically over the years. In the
meantime, listeners still tell me they listen to them often,
even on cassette, although CD's are best nowadays. So here they
are, from the archives."

The Old Masters include:

• 
  
  The Teacup Fairy: Very Old Tales for Very Young
  Children
  
  
• 
  
  The Wise Little Girl: Tales of the Feminine
  
  
• 
  
  Giant's Cauldron: Viking Myths of Adventure
  
  
• 
  
  With a Twinkle in Your Eye: Funny Folktales from
  Everywhere
  
  
• 
  
  The Blossom Tree: Tales from the Far East
  
  
• 
  
  Rip Roarin'
  Paul Bunyan Tale
  
  
• 
  
  Dark Tales of the Supernatural
  
  

Of course, all Odds Bodkin's titles, including his CD releases,
will be available for digital purchase at Odds' Store, at significant
savings off the cassette or CD price.

---

Fresh
Squeezed Music

"Over the years," says Odds, "people
have asked me countless times, 'Do you have any recordings
of just your music?' Themes and improvisations on 12-string
guitar. All the compositions on Celtic harp. Piano. Sitar.
Well, I'm working on it."

During 2005-06, in Bodkin's digital download
store, something new will begin to appear.

Just music.

Bodkin's instrumental accompaniments to his tales
carry the emotions of his bardic stories. Soon, simply recorded
in Fresh Squeezed style, downloadable music will make its debut
at oddsbodkin.com.

"Well, there will be sitar," says the
artist. "And suites built around the themes from some
of my larger tales--The Harper and The King, The Hidden Grail,
The Dame Ragnell and others. I'll multitrack some of them here
and there for duo guitar, harp and guitar, synth and guitar,
and other combinations. They'll be long, almost album-length
compositions, with a few song-length ones, too."

What is Fresh Squeezed style?

"Oh, they're informal," says Odds. "Recorded
as I sit on my music couch. The labor of autumn and winter
nights."

Watch Odds' digital download store for this new
set of products!

---

RIVERTREE
PRODUCTIONS

SIGNS WITH MEDIABAY

MediaBay.com, digital wholesaler to MSN, Sony,
AT&T and other internet music download sites, is preparing
to launch its new children's storytelling area on the web.

They contacted Odds Bodkin and now all his titles,
including The Old Masters cassette recordings, will soon be
available to listeners worldwide.

To learn more, visit MediaBay.com.

---

Summer
Workshops with Odds Bodkin

Join Odds for a five-hour day of intensive creativity
exploration this summer! Work closely with Odds and
learn the secrets of a master storyteller, up close and personal.

The Door to Imagination: How to Awaken Your
Inner Storyteller includes a complimentary workbook, fascinating instruction and
a day's worth of music on Celtic harp, twelve-string guitars
and other instruments.

Learn how to tell stories in your own words. Great for parents,
teachers, writers, artists, clergy--anyone interested in the
art of storytelling.

Call 1-800-554-1333 to register!

- or -

click here
for a printable registration form

Door to Imagination Workshop Schedule
Summer 2005

Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, VT

Sunday, June 26th, 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.

$75

Peterborough Public Library, Peterborough, NH

Sunday, July 10th, 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.

$75

Unitarian Church of Concord, Concord, NH

Tuesday, July 12th, 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.

$75

The Harris Center, Hancock, NH

Sunday, July 24th, 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.

$75

Holderness Free Library, Holderness, NH

Friday, July 29th, 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m.

$75

---

HERCULES
PROCESS

PHASE II

Manasquan, NJ--March 11, 2005

Five hundred and thirty-five students from seventeen New Jersey
schools descended on the Algonquin Theater in Manasquan, New
Jersey March 11th to conclude The Hercules Process: A Rage
Awareness Program for Youth.

Graduates of the five-day multidisciplinary school unit, the
students arrived with their teachers--all of whom had been through
teacher training workshops for the Process--and expressed their
thoughts and feelings about the problem of rage, and how to solve
it in their lives.

Having heard Odds Bodkin's 100-minute tale, The
Rage of Hercules in class, they were treated to a live 35-minute excerpt of Hercules by the storyteller himself, onstage at the Algonquin.

Dr. Nefretete Rasheed, co-designer with Bodkin of the Hercules
Process curriculum, then took the stage to talk with the students
to elicit their impressions. Funders, educators, superintendents
of New Jersey schools and others listened intently as students
shared how the Process had given them insight into what rage
was, what triggered anger in their lives, and how to control
it.

Phase II, with rubrics and milestones evaluated by Dr. Rasheed,
is now complete. The Hercules Process, tested and found to have
a significant impact on angry youth, is now poised to become
a nationally available educational product for late elementary,
middle and high schools, as well as at juvenile detention centers
and other organizations working with at-risk populations.

Significantly, Neptune School in New Jersey has decided to
implement The Hercules Process and launch a three-year longitudinal
study on its effectiveness in dealing with youth violence, bullying,
delinquency and other behavioral issues.

Says Bodkin, who joined Dr. Rasheed onstage to talk with the
students himself, "We have created a media product that
uses a story older kids will actually listen to in class and
learn from. With workbooks, query cards, and a host of activities
to choose from, any school in America can use it as a way to
significantly lower the rage thresholds of young people."

The product, co-developed in association with Algonquin Arts
Director Fran Drew, will be available soon, conforming to national
learning standards for use in all fifty states.

---

BODKIN
PERFORMS

THE ILIAD BOOK I

AT PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY

Before a capacity crowd of students, faculty and
members of the public, Odds Bodkin performed his latest tour
de force version of a Greek myth, The Iliad: Book I.

Performing on a Taylor 12-string guitar, Bodkin included characterizations
for Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite
and many other characters to bring the tale to life.

Bodkin has performed his The Odyssey: Belly
of the Beast often
over the last few years at Phillips Exeter, but this appearance
marked his first performance of The Iliad at the renowned school.

---

THE
NATIONAL STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

Mark your calendar for October 7th, 8th and 9th
2005 for a journey to Jonesborough, Tennessee and the National
Storytelling Center's National Storytelling Festival. Odds Bodkin
will appear numerous times as a Featured Teller, performing beneath
the big tents.

The Festival, which attracts over 25,000 visitors
each year, is the premier storytelling event in America.

For tickets and reservations, call the National
Storytelling Center at 1(800) 952-8392 or visit online at www.storytellingcenter.net.

---

THREE
APPLES STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

Another opportunity to see Odds Bodkin live will
arrive September 23rd, 24th and 25th 2005 in Harvard, Massachusetts,
when he will appear for numerous shows at The Three Apples
Storytelling Festival. For information call Joy Clark-LaChapelle at 1 (800)
367-3729 ext. 211.

---

WHAT
PEOPLE SAY

FALL RETROSPECTIVE

After Odds' 30-performance tour in Michigan this
past October-November, Bryan Zocher, playwright and Associate
Executive at KRESA writes:

"Odds is not simply a storyteller, he is a
medium through which audiences create vivid visual images. Odds'
voice, sound effects, and musical interludes and exclamation
points created multiple layers of meaning and infinite opportunities
for imagination through the telling of cultural folktales with
seemingly simple plots.

Odds does not pander to his audience or merely
entertain. He challenges them to unleash their imagination and
stretch their attention spans through twenty-plus minute tales
for lower elementary students. Students are so taken by the creative
platform that Odds evokes that a child does not even need to
watch him to be under his spell. In fact, Odds invites students
to go with their own "personal motion picture" rather
than sit in rigid attention--eyes straight front, arms at the
side. With this invitation and his mastery of story and song,
students can be seen swaying to their own inner story and painting
pictures in the air as they listen.

Odds' command of his stories and trust in his abilities
allows students to interact with the stories in unique and challenging
ways. One minute the audience can be stomping up a storm and
the next utterly silent simply through Odds' performance of the
story's arc. Odds doesn't need to tell his audience when to start
and stop their interaction; his audience become co-conspirators
and go with the ebb and flow of the plot.

All of the cultural, educational and fiduciary
partners that came together to bring Odds to Kalamazoo are beaming.
We look forward to having him as our honored guest in the near
future."

--Bryan Zocher

------------------------

A 75-minute Odyssey: Belly of the Beast performance
at Woodstock Union High School in Woodstock, Vermont, elicited
this article (excerpted) printed in The Vermont Standard, December
9, 2004, written by Harriet Worrell:

"My now adult children saw the storyteller
perform here in the early years of our taking up residence in
Vermont. They were so enchanted that we bought a pair of tapes
of his ancient tales to listen to in the car as we traveled as
far away as the Badlands or back to Tejas. Some parts of the
stories were so loved they were known by memory. Odds Bodkin
struck the imaginations of my children like a lightning bolt
flung by one of the gods he tells abut in his Homeric epics.

He began his remarkable time with us by talking
about allowing our imaginations to fill out the story. As he
told of the Lotus Eaters and Odysseus being in the belly of the
horse and finally about the battle with the great Cyclops--as
he strummed, plucked, and punctuated with his fingers flying
over the guitar--a seamless story emerged that joined man, passion,
great voices, great language, and heroic stories with running
stringed sounds. Amazing it was. Exciting. Fiery and tender.
From second to second, changing rapidly, he spit out the sounds
of waves and wind and the motion of the intruding gods--and we
were there.

Student after student that I quizzed about their
take on the performance began with the word "Amazing." The
next most common comment was about the many voices he created.
Vicki Garcia was aware of the contrast of his stories that began
with more introspective and personal awareness of the character
of Odysseus before moving on to the high action of the Cyclops
tale.

Colby Hatt and Kevin Gieske both spoke at length
about the work on the guitar. They explained that Bodkin's playing
was nothing short of terrific. Kevin knew that singing and playing
was a good trick, but talking and playing was another thing entirely
different. "Really hard," he described it.

In the cafeteria line, the ladies behind the counter
were talking about the performance, and in the faculty room,
teachers were talking about it. Students in the hall chatted
about one story or the other--they were quite smitten with the
wild escape from the cave of the Cyclops. Madame Hawkes, however,
spoke about the warrior Odysseus in the belly of the Trojan horse
when his thoughts vacillated between the physical tension of
being alert to the imminent danger he and his men were in and
the emotional tension of imagining his son on a faraway ocean's
edge practicing spear hurls into the waves without a father there
to help him. Such was the explosive and tender word performance
given by Mr. Bodkin.

I was watching not from the audience, but from
the stairwell beside the orchestra pit. I could see every breath,
the adjustment of his shoulder, the tap of his foot, the twisted
mouth or clenched jaw for one voice, the perched mouth and soft
lidded eye for the next. With every character and transition
in the narrative there were subtle physical adjustments and tempo
changes. He flipped in and out of voices, characters, and led
us to places we had never been. He spoke of bloody actions, storming
horses, wars, monsters, and men with honor and life. His guitar-loving
fingers matched facial and body tension as a story soared toward
a climax. A beautiful silence would happen while we waited with
awe and anticipation for what would come next. Ah yes, a master
at work. He held us in the pleasant life of his--and our--imaginations
mixing them together with words and sounds and nothing more.

I was watching not from the audience, but from
the stairwell beside the orchestra pit. I could see every breath,
the adjustment of his shoulder, the tap of his foot, the twisted
mouth or clenched jaw for one voice, the perched mouth and soft
lidded eye for the next. With every character and transition
in the narrative there were subtle physical adjustments and tempo
changes. He flipped in and out of voices, characters, and led
us to places we had never been. He spoke of bloody actions, storming
horses, wars, monsters, and men with honor and life. His guitar-loving
fingers matched facial and body tension as a story soared toward
a climax. A beautiful silence would happen while we waited with
awe and anticipation for what would come next. Ah yes, a master
at work. He held us in the pleasant life of his--and our--imaginations
mixing them together with words and sounds and nothing more.

--Harriet Worrell

---

YOUNG
AND VIOLENT

This January, Odds returns to Stanislaus County
Juvenile Hall in Modesto, California for a repeat performance
of The Rage of Hercules. Last January, for the first time ever,
all inmates, girls and boys, were allowed into the same room
to listen (see Odds' Blog/Juvenile Hall). This year, Kathy Walke,
Superintendent, intends to include even maximum security inmates
in the experience.

Odds plans to leave a copy of The Hercules
Process: A Rage Awareness Program for Youth, at the facility for follow-up
learning. The kit, complete with a full-length CD set, Query
Cards and Teacher Guidebook, provides a self-examination into
anger and strategies to control it.

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Old What's New