Author Archives: Editor

Podcast Novel: A Princess of Mars (Chapter 3)

by Editor

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A Princess of Mars

This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.

Chapter 3: John Carter finds himself on the red planet.  He finds that he can leap with superhuman ability.  His first encounter with deadly and peculiar martians gives him a surprise.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

Duration: 00:15:15
Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

A Wolf Loves Pork: Stop Motion Photo Animation

by Editor | 1 Comment

Takeuchi Jaijin made this film by photographing the action in stop motion then photographing the photos again in his room.  He makes the action seem to take place all along his walls, countertops and floors.  I love the way the boy dives into the filled sink and swims across!  The photo animation technique reminds me of the photo collages of artist David Hockney.

Thanks to David Pescovitz at BoingBoing for posting this.

Audio Poem by Walt Whitman: I Sing the Body Electric

by Editor | 2 Comments

471px-whitmaneakinsI Sing the Body Electric is a poem that celebrates the life of the body and its equal status with the soul.  Walt Whitman is probably the greatest poet in the English language since William Shakespeare.  Some might argue with this but there is no other poet who so muscularly tore the page to shreds with his wild, raging, soaring, lunatic language.  I think Shakespeare would have liked and admired this man because it is only he who is a match for Shakespeare’s fearless destruction and rebuilding of language.  I think that great poets always destroy before they create.  To read Whitman’s massive lifelong work, Leaves of Grass, is to wake up and realize that poetry is like blood exploding through your body and spraying its meanings and music out all over the city.  You cannot read Whitman and be the same as you were before reading him.  He is a shock to the system.

He lived from 1819 to 1892 and is often called the father of free verse.  His discovery of the loose free form of poetry is an astounding development that is still being worked out.  The problem for today is that Whitman still has the hardest punch and could do terrible damage to most poets alive and writing today.  It would not be a fair fight.

Here is the great I Sing the Body Electric, from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass book.

Download the MP3

Remember to enter a poem in our Little Poetry Contest.

Book Lovers in Paris with Piles of Books

by Editor

Here’s an excellent CBS Sunday Morning report about French book collectors in Paris. I love the piles of books in the apartments. The skinny book finder guy is a very amusing character. He reminds me of the character Johnny Depp played in the Roman Polanski movie, The Ninth Gate. That character is a shady and extremely skilled book finder who goes after rare books for wealthy collectors. The movie is fascinating for all its investigation of ancient texts and satanic illustrations.  One of the collectors in the video mentions how when a collector finds a book they like, then they must also acquire every other edition that they can find.  I totally understand this, having gone through something similar with various editions of Don Quixote.  That’s a really good book to collect because there are so many beautiful editions of it that include the work of great illustrators.  Not to mention the fact that Don Quixote himself is a maniacal book lover.

A Little Poetry Contest

by Editor | 8 Comments

Write a poem for National Poetry Month!  Just let your mind wander and write a poem of any kind in the comments area for this post.

Get your poem done by 12:00 am PST Friday April 24, 2009.

Your poem can be any length.  It can rhyme or not.  Just make a poem and let me read it.

I’ll pick my 3 favorites and do audio versions of them to post right here in the blog.

This painting is of a poor old poet trying to come up with his next poem.  Be exactly like him.

Amazon Appears to Censor Books Related to Homosexuality

by Editor | 2 Comments

In what appears to be one of the worst cases of literary censorship in modern United States history, Amazon.com has listed a wide range of books as what the company calls ‘adult material.’  It would appear that they have included any title that contains any material related in any way to homosexuality.  By being placed on this ‘adult material list’, the books were essentially stripped away from any search results and made very difficult to find by browsing.

The following is from Amazon:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Candlelight Stories thinks that this represents one of the single most moronic statements ever delivered to the public by a prominent book seller.

The company has announced that this was due to a ‘technical glitch’ but there are very few bloggers who seem to believe that explanation.  It would seem that plenty of ‘adult material’ was left available and that this effort was focused largely on non-heterosexual material.   This is a terrible thing for a major bookseller to do.  It’s a form of book banning.  It reeks of ultra-conservative fear of ideas or differing lifestyles.   Amazon says it was engaged in an initiative to protect its wide customer base by listing certain books as ‘adult material’ so that they would not appear at the top of search results and possibly offend someone.   The complaints of someone who is offended by a book for adults showing up in a list of search results should not be listened to for even a moment.  It is a very short step from this kind of censorship to a book burning.  This is truly indicative of the danger in primarily relying upon a single online source for books.

It would be advisable to immediately move away from Amazon as a source for books.  This kind of behavior, though given a flimsy explanation by the company, tends to indicate a general direction or pattern of behavior in a company.  Candlelight Stories is looking into fully disengaging from our relationship with Amazon and will not be offering their products through our site.  This blog stands fully opposed to discrimination, censorship or book banning of any kind whatsoever.

Once again, we cannot over-emphasize the importance of moving away from Amazon for book purchases.  This is a very serious problem and the company’s explanation is insultingly false.

Here are links to several of the best book sellers on the internet:

Powells.com
Indiebound.org
Barnes & Noble
Borders

Storybook: Hannah Banana

by Editor | 13 Comments

By Joshua Ingram

In the deepest jungle of Africa, there lived a family of monkeys. There was a Mama Monkey, and a Papa Monkey, and they had a young daughter named Hannah.
The monkey family lived very happily swinging and playing in the trees and vines. But unfortunately, it wasn’t all play. Papa Monkey had to make sure their home in the canopy was warm and protected.

Mama was responsible for the sewing and cooking of the family’s meals. Hannah helped with the cleaning, but her main chore was to collect all the bananas and other fruit for the monkey family’s meals.

Continue reading …

Storybook: Gentian’s Grumpy Day

by Editor | 2 Comments

by Kristen Collier (USA)
illustration by Kevin Scott Collier
There is also a Joy the Jellyfish web site.

Gentian the Great White Shark was grumpy. Nobody wanted to approach him today! Fish fled from his path. Joy the Jellyfish saw the commotion. She gulped and then approached the out of sorts shark.

Continue reading …

Storybook: Fairy of the Dawn – An Epic Fairy Tale

by Editor

This is an epic fairy tale  that reworks the classic Grimm’s story, ‘The Water of Life,’ into a grand Nordic tale of magic, goddesses, fairies and heroes. Go on an epic quest with the young son of an emperor to find the magic of the Fairy of the Dawn.

Fairy of the Dawn
By John Brookes

There was once an emperor, very great and mighty, and he ruled over an empire so large that no one knew where it began and where it ended. But if nobody could tell the exact extent of his Sovereignty everybody was aware that the emperor’s right eye laughed, while his left eye wept. One or two men of valour had the courage to go and ask him the reason of this strange fact, but he only laughed and said nothing; and the reason of the deadly enmity between his two eyes was a secret only known to the Monarch himself.

Continue reading …

The Pothole: Audio Horror Story from Well Told Tales

by Editor

Mature Content

The Pothole is the latest offering from Well Told Tales, a blog specializing in the production of pulp fiction podcasts.  They have recently transitioned from offering only their own audio productions to allowing users to upload their own audio stories, films and written stories.  It’s an excellent idea.

I had a blast listening to The Pothole a few evenings ago.  It’s genuinely disturbing and offers a unique perspective on its genre.  I won’t tell you which genre it is because I don’t want to spoil the suspense for you.  The writing by Kris Ashton hooks you immediately.  His characters are vivid.  The story is pulp fiction at its best.  The narrator is John Wooley, actor, author, film teacher and columnist.  His reading is superb, with a relaxed and gravelly voice that lets the story unwind with just the right touch of dread.

These guys are very accomplished and are making some of the best audio stories I’ve heard anywhere.  Give Well Told Tales a visit.

Los Angeles Times Newspaper Died on Thursday

by Editor

On Thursday, April 9, 2009, The Los Angeles Times newspaper placed an advertisement disguised as a column of news on its front page!  A major American newspaper cannot do this.  It is totally unacceptable.  The cheapening of the LA Times over the past year due to financial problems and poor management has gradually gutted the paper.  It’s once high-quality book review section on Sundays is now part of another section and has become a smattering of generalized culture articles.

As soon as I found out about the disguised ad on Thursday I ran to the phone and cancelled my 12-year subscription to the paper.  The woman on the phone asked what my reason was and I told her I was disgusted by the ad placement.  Perhaps someone in the paper’s management will realize that the end has arrived and save us all some trees by shutting down the presses and letting the reporters go work for an internet news organization.

Newspapers are in trouble.  It’s imbeciles like the ones running the LA Times that make a recovery impossible for them.

Rest in peace, Los Angeles Times.

Doña Josefina Counsels Doña Concepción Before Entering Sears

by Editor

Our roll of poetry for National Poetry Month continues with an animated poem by Maurice Kilwein Guevara.  His poem has two Spanish-speaking women planning to speak only English as they enter a Sears store.  It’s funny on the surface but it’s also a serious look at how people try to avoid being themselves in order to convince others that they are not stereotypes to be feared.

Tornado Child: A Kwame Dawes Poem

by Editor | 2 Comments

Here’s another animated poem. This one is by Kwame Dawes who grew up in Jamaica and now lives in South Carolina. I like the way the poet is unafraid to show pleasure in the language of the poem. This seems to be a happy poet.