Odds Bodkin: The Profound Creative and Cognitive Benefits of Storytelling

 
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How do ancient myths and legends shape our virtues?

What are the cognitive benefits of listening to and telling stories?

And what’s the danger of outsourcing our creativity to artificial intelligence?

Today I’m honored to be here with the one and only Odds Bodkin, Master Storyteller in the Bardic Tradition, published author, educator, and award-winning recording artist who has been mesmerizing audiences since 1982.

I first saw Odds Bodkin perform more than 30 years ago in New Hampshire when I was about 7 or 8 years old, and I have never seen a better storyteller in my life. In fact, Odds was a big part of inspiring me to write and perform music as my first career. And to this day, Odds’ storytelling continues to captivate us on long road trips and we’ll often listen to his stories before bed, which is a wonderful way to spark vivid dreams, and far better for your brain than a Netflix binge.

Odds is a world-class performer, deep thinker, and incredible person. He even brought his 12-string-guitar along for a live demonstration of storytelling and musical techniques. You’re going to love this one.

On this show with the wonderful Odds Bodkin, were chatting about:

• The creative and cognitive benefits of listening to and telling stories
• The value of contemplating virtues in ancient myths for kids and adults
• Why modern superhero movies usually completely miss the point
• Why we shouldn’t outsource our creative minds to non-human tools, like ChatGPT and AI
• The dangers of the transhumanist movement to the future of humanity
• And tons more…

Where To Find Odds Bodkin

If you’d like to learn more about the world-class storytelling of Odds Bodkin, please explore his work at OddsBodkin.net, where you can watch live video recordings, listen to free stories, get a USB drive with his complete works, read the blog, find upcoming shows, and tons more.

'Authorship is a kind of sacred state.' — Odds Bodkin @OddsBodkinStory Share on X

If you’re interested in listening to Odds perform epic legends, including The Odyssey, Beowulf (my personal favorite), The Rage of Hercules, and many more, Odds generously offered listeners like you a 20% off discount code so you can save big time on his entire collection of works.

Head over to the Shop on OddsBodkin.net and enter the coupon code WILD20 at checkout to claim your 20% discount.

'I tell you stories that have been around for 1000s of years and have come to us because they've been retold by people all the way down through time, so there has to be something in them that is worth thinking about.' — Odds Bodkin… Share on X

You can also explore more of Odds’ work for free, including The Rowan Canticles, his 13,000 line epic fantasy written in doggerel tetrameter, and hear a deep-dive into the Art of Storytelling on the Odds Bodkin’s Substack.

You can also follow Odds Bodkin on Twitter and Facebook.

Subscribe and watch a few stories tonight for free on Odds Bodkin’s YouTube channel, including Odin and Thor, Battle of the Frost Giants, Beowulf, The Rage of Hercules and much more.

Odds Bodkin: I’m still doing live shows on occasion. I’ve got a few coming up down in Cambridge, Massachusetts at a place called Grendel’s Den where I’ve been performing for about 10 years. These are big epic stories, Beowulf, the Odyssey, Viking myths, and they’re adult entertainment and they’re really fun. And then people just come in and sit down, you know, they order a drink and they sit back and are entertained in a manner that is an ancient thing.

I’ve got album length storytelling things that are available as MP3 at OddsBodkin.net. You just click on Shop, there’s the whole thing—some for kids, some for teens, some for adults in their collections. 

Odds Bodkin: And coming up, I’ve got another wild thing. It’s called the Voyage of the Waistgold. And it’s a pirate adventure that we’re remastering and re-recording, cleaning up and adding music to. It’s manageable, a couple of hours long, you know, it’s not days long. And we’ll be publishing it up on Substack sometime around the New Year. And it’s wild.

Now, usually I tell very PG stories, for lack of a better word. But this is definitely not PG. Very, for grownups only. And it’s hilarious. It’s about a pirate in a mythical world is trying to kill a beast, and he steals a ship and the queen who made the ship ends up looking for it and coming after him. And it has a very interesting character voice who narrates the whole thing. 

Go to Odds’ Substack to catch the introduction to the Voyage Of The Waistgold, listen to the The Rowan Canticles and much more.

And one more time, explore more from Odds Bodkin at OddsBodkin.net as well as on his Substack.

Quick note before you go…

Do you like music made by real people instead of AI bots?

Go to AbelJames.com for music, VR adventures, as well as my album of original tunes called Swamp Thing on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you listen to music.

And make sure to subscribe to the Abel James music channel on YouTube and Rumble.

I’ve just posted more than 100 music videos and live performances of original and cover songs, new and old, with many more experiences to come in 360 Virtual Reality with spatial audio.

What did you think of this conversation with Odds Bodkin?

What are your favorite legends and myths? Have you heard a performance by Odds yet? Do you tell your kids stories before bed? Drop a comment below!

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