Activated Stories

He thought he was the cock of the walk, but this overly vain fowl cries foul when he truly turns vane--i.e. becomes a weathervane. It's "Half-A-Chick", the curious Portuguese fable about the consequences of arrogance. One of the curious things about this story is that the main character is an oddball. Okay, nothing unusual about that; plenty of stories have leading characters who are misfits. (Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling, Harry Potter, etc. etc.) But you'll notice that such characters almost always turn out to be noble and virtuous despite the way other people ridicule and mistreat them. In this case, just the opposite happens -- Half-A-Chick has a double-sized ego, and meets his downfall because of it.

This week, we come to you from the heart of the bustling resort town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. (Technically, it's called Hot Springs National Park -- the entire city of 35,000 residents plus hordes of tourists is a national park!) We recorded next to the Visitors' Center, beside one of the many fountains where you can fill up jugs with 143 degree mineral water that's been brewing for 4000 years before spouting from the 47 springs around here. We were right there on "Bathhouse Row" which at one time sported several trendy bath houses and health spas that were frequented by such notable visitors as Al Capone. Today, these structures are preserved as historic buildings, but only one remains in operation as a bath house-- although other bath houses can be found at some of the hotels in town. We mourn the Libbey Memorial Physical Club, the truly unique establishment we luxuriated in on out last trip here. Nothing else like it in Hot Springs or anywhere. (Read about our previous visit to the Bath House)

At our performance at the Garland County Library, we met another boy named Zephyr! Moreover, his parents are performers too. That night, we watched their hilarious oom-pah rendition of various American pop songs and originals at the Brauhaus German restaurant. Zach and Cheryl, who moved here from Seattle, call themselves The Itinerant Locals, and they have quite a memorable sound!

After Hot Springs, we wrapped up our tour of Arkansas with an experience that can be duplicated nownere else in the world: we went digging for diamonds in the diamond fields near Murfreesboro. We didn't find any of the precious gems (an average of about 2 per day are found there - infact a big one was found by a 13 year old not too long ago) but we had a great time playing in the mud!

Happy Listening,
Dennis (the Spark), Kimberly (the Water) and Zephyr (Half-A-Chick) Goza

Row, row, row, your boat... well actually we were paddling canoes and kayaks, but we did go gently downstream for the most part--except for Zephyr, who had a kayak crackup. We were canoeing on the beautiful Buffalo River in northern Arkansas, with vessels and gear provided by Dillard's Ozark Outfitters, a family operation near the town of Yellville, where we opened our summer season.

The Dillard Family is quite a presence in this region, and the Dillard name crops up everywhere. And it's been that way at least since the 1920's, when two Dillard Brothers opened up the now-defunct Dillard's Ferry, the site of which was the endpoint of our excursion. It was a 10.5 mile jaunt, which took us about 5 hours, a gallon of water and several ounces of sunscreen. And we figured 5 hours was just barely enough to get into the "zen" of the experience. How we envied the scout troop we encountered who were spending an entire week on the river!

Our story this week is "The Greedy Brothers" from India, a fable about family relations and the wisdom of fathers - just in time for Father's Day!

Happy Listening,
Dennis (Father), Kimberly (brother) and Zephyr (Napoleon Dynamite brother) Goza

In the spirit of family businesses, which we have been celebrating lately (and one of which we've been operating for years) we present some family monkey business: "The Three Brothers", a nonsense tale from Italy. If you look really hard for the point of this story, then you're really missing the point of this story. Celebrity voices have been impersonated, though not necessarily imitated.

The Dutton Family
One family business we encountered this week was the Dutton Family operation in Branson, MO. When you think Branson, you probably think country music, and if so you'd be partially correct, but certainly not entirely. There are plenty of hillbilly song and comedy revues in town, but there are also many other types of entertainment as well. This little city of about 6000 people also features a Ripley's museum (What tourist town doesn't?) and an extensive exhibit of Titanic artifacts housed in their own building-- a reduced scale, half-segment ship-shaped (and presumably ship-shape) building colliding with an ersatz iceberg. There's a troupe of Chinese acrobats appearing in town, and at the Dutton show we attended, there was a preview of a Samoan fire-dancing performance.
Even the musical acts themselves are richly varied. There's a rock'n'roll revue, a Beatles tribute, and one of the countless knock-offs of "Riverdance". Many famous singers have opened their own theatres here, including Bobby Vinton (Oh, how Kimberly's late grandma adored Bobby, a fellow Pole) and Andy Williams -- yep, he's still kicking, and his Moon River Theatre, it appears, is still full and flowing.
Which brings us back to the Duttons. We went to their show expecting essentially bluegrass or something along those lines, but we were very pleasantly surprised. There was some country music, of course (it's hard to leave it out in Branson) but the songs they performed were classics like "Wabash Cannonball", rather than the over-commercialized ear candy that often passes for country these days. We were also delighted by their rendition of the tongue-twisting Hank Snow staple "I've Been Everywhere", which very well could be our theme song. But the program also included classical music (which actually is what they cut their teeth on), pop, ethnic, a touching tribute to veterans, and even Broadway, including a suite from "Mary Poppins" with rather elaborate set and costumes. Toss in some jaw-dropping razzle-dazzle musicianship (it seems to be in their genes to be able to play just about any instrument behind their backs) and some side-splitting humor, and you have a show guaranteed to please even Oscar the Grouch.
And the theatre isn't the only thing the Duttons (all three generations of them) have going for themselves; their inn is right behind the theatre, and their cafe is right next door. Oh yes, and if you appreciate homemade fudge, you've found paradise.
 
Happy Listening,
Dennis (Larry), Kimberly (Curly) and Zephyr (Moe)

"The Drummer Boy" is our story this week, and no, it's not a Christmas Story. It's a possibly true tale from The Civil War about a young man who receives a valuable lesson in tolerance and forgiveness. And by the way, the drummer on our soundtrack gets an assist from Daniel Wilcox, the drummer in the rock band to which Zephyr belongs.

We recount not only our experiences with many significant Civil War sites over the years, but also our recent visit to Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa. This complex sprawling over many acres features both indoor and outdoor exhibits and demonstrations, including an Ioway Indian Farm from around 1700; an 1850 settlers' homestead; a farmhouse from 1900; a farming museum; and an entire recreated village from around 1875. The latter includes an elaborately detailed bank, newspaper office, milliner's shop, and other businesses. And since we were visiting the facility on Memorial Day, we also witnessed a procession down the center of town to the cemetery, where a ceremony was held honoring veterans in general and particularly those of the Civil War. And this was followed by a baseball game, played with rules and uniforms from a bygone era when there were no gloves, no multimillion dollar contracts, no unsportsmanlike behavior, and no bloated egos.

Strolling about Living History Farms (well, you're transported part of the time by a dusty tractor-drawn trolley), you get to ask questions of guides in period costume, and see how our ancestors lived up close. You can see their tools, their livestock, their buildings, and when we were there we had plenty of opportunities to witness how lunch was cooked on an open fire by various pioneers from several different eras. Zephyr even had a chance to help out on the farm, dumping a bucket of corn into a one-horse-power grinder. Somehow, we don't think he was persuaded to make a career of it.

And speaking of Zephyr, he figures prominently in another tale we spin this week. And this one, unfortunately, is quite true. Or perhaps fortunately, since it ended well--namely with everyone getting a good laugh.

Happy Listening
Dennis (Narrator, General Lyon), Kimberly (Mother, soldier) and Zephyr (Drummer Boy, rest stop attendant)

P.S. We found another podcast by another family you might enjoy "Dancing with Elephants"

"The Snow Maiden" is a tale from Russia that symbolizes the determination to find hope and cheer in the long harsh winters. In some versions, there is an additional motif about the importance of trust and the dire consequences of not trusting - somewhat similar to the German legend of "Lohengrin", among others. It was such a version of this story that we included in one of our productions 16 years ago, when we were just touring the San Francisco Bay Area. Zephyr, of course, was a baby at the time, and we hired other performers to round out the cast. For this production, our additonal performer was 8-year-old Megan Cohen, the first homeschooled child we ever met.

Well, for this podcast, we are fortunate enough to have another very talented youngster fill the role: Devon Wood, a 10-year-old Iowan whom we met last year when we did a residency at her school. She and her mother and aunt drove many miles to see us perform this week at a school in Altoona, Iowa. We wanted so much to use Devon's talents on our podcast that we recorded it ahead of schedule, before we'd even outlined a script. No problem: she can improvise with the best of us, and everything you hear her say just came off the top of her head. 

Bicycling Capital
We also discuss our recent visit to Sparta, Wisconsin, which bills itself the Bicycling Capital of America. In addition to being the home of the world's largest bicycle, the town is the site of the intriguing Deke Slayton Memorial Space and Bike Museum. Space and bicycles in the same facility?? Hey, why not. Weren't Wilbur and Orville bicycle mechanics?

Deke Slayton, one of the Mercury 7 astronauts, grew up in Sparta and attended Sparta High School. Alongside memorabilia of his distingusihed career, you can view some really incredible speicmens of bicycle design from the entire history of the critter, including some about which very little is known. See an ice skating bike with a blade insted of a front wheel, a lawnmower bike with mower blades up front (the Huffy), a velocipede, a Draisine, and other contraptions too numerous to mention. (And this is only half the museum's collection--the others are in storage!)

Oh yes, and there's a delightfully dreadful bike safety film from 1963 called "One Got Fat", which has kids riding bikes wearing hokey monkey masks and tails, and meeting their demise one by one when they ignore various safety rules. (The tenth rider in the group, the only human, follows the rules and survives, and is therefore able to gorge on the lunches of everyone else--thus the title.) It's amazing to think this film - narrated by the superannuated Edward Everett Horton, who among other things narrated the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons - was actually shown to school students, some of whom it may have traumatized for life. But as a kitschy relic, it alone is worth a visit to the museum.

And we mustn't forget the gift shop, in which you can purchase bicycle-shaped pasta. How could we possibly pass that up!

Happy Listening!
Dennis (the narrator), Kimberly (Marfa) and Zephyr (Vasili) Goza
with Devon Wood as the Snow Maiden

P.S. You can now find us at

Odeo (odeo/24cd4db7aea23f13)

Wisconsin Dells

Wisconsin Dells is officially the water park capital of the world, and we took advantage of one of the indoor water parks, as those outdoors are not yet open for the season. We also played a couple of rounds at some of the town's numerous miniature golf courses.

Watch the FOTR Superhero Video.
(best to turn your sound off)

Come Play IN the Folktales!

friend the Water Spirit. But beware! Evil forces are at work, and

you're stuck between the ultimate battle of good and evil! Will you

survive when the battle sends you over the edge of a 121-foot drop to

the frigid waters below?

"The Proof in the Painting" is a tale that originated somewhere in Europe--we haven't been able to trace its exact origin, so if you have any information on that point, please let us know. The title is our own creation, and it is of course a play on the old saying, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating", because the story illustrates how the best way of judging success may not be the most obvious.

We're coming to you from Fox Lake, Illinois, where Kimberly rejoins us after returning from two weeks in Reno. Dennis and Zephyr, meanwhile, have returned to the Chicago area from the Detroit area, where Dennis took a little trip to Windsor, Ontario, and Zephyr

spent three packed days (and nights) at HauntCon 2007.

Haunted Attraction Convention

HauntCon is the annual convention and tradeshow for the haunted attraction industry, of which Zephyr is an enthusiastic

accomplice. He's worked at a number of noted (or notorious) haunted houses, even dragging mom and dad into the act a couple of years ago in Salem, MA; he also designs his own haunts, of course.

This event featured an exhibition of the latest props and

gizmos, movie screenings, seminars and a costume ball that featured vampires, ghouls and demons milling about in the hotel lobby among the (hopefully) amused business travelers. Zephyr also participated in a tour of the world's largest (and possibly other

kinds of -est) haunted house, the four-story Erebus in Pontiac.

Happy

Listening,

Dennis

(the rich man), Kimberly (Agnatha) and Zephyr (Theocles)

"The Baker and the Judge" is a story that has been told many times, perhaps most notably by the great French writer Francois Rabelais in his epic masterpiece of satire "Gargantua and Pantagruel". But it may have originated in Israel, and in one version of the tale, the judge in question is the legendary King Solomon, who also is reported to have offered an unusual solution to the problem of two mothers quarreling over the same child.

We bring it to you from Chicago, where we've been holed up for the entire month of April--well, except for Kimberly, who's spent the past week visiting her parents and grandmother in Nevada. This is the first podcast that Dennis and Zephyr have done on their own.

Why did we choose this particular story? Well, if we must have a reason, let's say we did it because Rabelais gave us the word "gargantuan", and that describes the Sears Tower in Chicago, which we visited this past week. It's the tallest building in North America, and for 25 years it was the tallest in the entire world. The 110-story titan stands 1450 feet tall, with the antennae on top adding another 275 feet for a total of 1725. The structure is actually a cluster of nine towers of various heights, with only two going the distance (The base is laid out like a tic-tac-toe board!) One of the designers allegedly illustrated the concept to a colleague by pulling cigarettes out of a pack at different lengths. And you thought those things were utterly worthless!

We also saw another famous tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Well, not exactly. We saw its twin, the Leaning Tower of Niles. Well, okay, so it's only a half-size twin. It still is a close enough copy to save us airfare to Italy. Standing 94 feet tall with a tilt of 7 feet off center (as opposed to the original's 177-ft. height and 15 and a half ft. tilt), the Leaning Tower of Niles was completed in 1934, only 700 years after its famous lookalike.

And we visited another building in Chicago, the Old Post Office. Normally, there's not much interesting about it, but this week it was the location for the shooting of a scene from the new Batman movie. We didn't arrive in time to to see any filming, but we were able to get a glimpse of the set, which represented Gotham National Bank.

Happy Listening!

Dennis (Narrator and Sniffer), Zephyr (Baker and Judge) and Kimberly (mime)

"Acqua alle funi!". It's Italian for "water to the ropes", and it's taken from a story about taking a courageous stand and speaking up when everyone else is afraid. It's a tale rather similar to The Emperor's New Clothes, but this one is true.

It happened in the Sixteenth Century in Rome, when Pope Sixtus the Fifth decided to have an enormous obelisk moved to a new location in St. Peter's Square, under the direction of architect Domenico Fontana. A worker named Bresca di Bordighera exhibited a great deal of courage and perhaps saved many lives. His descendants are still honored today.

We learned of this story while visiting Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., just outside Chicago. Founded in 1967, Fermilab (named after Nobel Prize winning Italian physicist Enrico Fermi) is a huge research complex dedicated to studying the composition of matter with the aid of "particle accelerators", which smash subatomic particles so scientists can get a look at their innards.

Fermilab occupies 10 square miles formerly occupied by farms, and by the defunct village of Weston. Some of the barns and other buildings have been preserved to use for storage and social events.

Also in Chicagoland, we visited Ahlgrim Acres, a funeral home in Palatine. Wait a minute? Why on earth would we go to a funeral home? Why, to play miniature golf, of course. No joking; for the past 42 years, the basement of this establishment has featured a 9-hole miniature golf course, as well as shuffleboard, ping pong, pinball and other amusements. All open to the public, free of charge! And it's a very challenging and fun golf course, designed in a haunted house motif, complete with spooky sound effects.

Happy Listening!
Dennis (Domenico Fontana), Zephyr (Bresca) and Pope Kimberly the First and Last. 

We bring you the story of Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, about whom many legends have been handed down. Pele is identified with Mauna Loa, the biggest volcano in the world and one of the most active.

According to tradition, Pele is accompanied by a white dog, which she sends out to warn people that Mauna Loa is about to erupt. Supposedly, rangers spotted such a dog before the eruption of 1959, but were unable to locate it afterward. (No word on anyone seeing the canine before the volcano's most recent eruption in 1984.)

It's been said that anyone removing volcanic rock from Mauna Loa (a violation of law) will be cursed with bad luck. This is one reason we thought the tale of Pele would be suitable for Earth Day, an event designed to remind us that we all must respect nature or bring misfortune upon ourselves.

The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, and was the result of years of effort, spearheaded by Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, who first proposed the idea in 1962, getting a favorable response from President Kennedy. While the first year's event was observed by 20 million people, it is now observed each year by about 500 million worldwide. The date, April 22, may have been chosen in part because it is the birthday of Julius Sterling Morton, founder of Arbor Day.

The legend about lava theft from Mauna Loa, rather than being an ancient tradition, is actually of modern origin: it appears to have been invented by a park ranger. Which is appropriate, since we're also commemorating National Park Week (April 16-22). Accordingly, we discuss some of our favorite national parks and some of the memorable experiences we've had exploring them.

 Happy Listening,
Dennis "Namakao", Kimberly "Pele" and Zephyr "Kamohoali'i"