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LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
Audio versions of poems, short stories, novels, and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
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a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Episodes
Thursday Sep 29, 2011
Thursday Sep 29, 2011
Crossed Wires
by Dane Allred
When I miss a step
And you miss one, too.
Our wires are crossed.
The best news is our paths are also crossed.
It takes some time
And a little unraveling
Then when the knots
And misunderstandings are untied
We usually find ourselves
Back on the same path
Hoping we don’t get our wires crossed again.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
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Wednesday Sep 28, 2011
Wednesday Sep 28, 2011
Bright Space
Sharing
by Dane Allred
It takes a decision
To do something unselfish.
Giving of ourselves is a choice.
We are choosing to do something
For someone else when we could do something else.
Life is all about the choice.
We make one decision or another.
We don’t always know where the path will lead.
But helping someone else is almost never a bad decision.
One of the most sublime moments is when we can lose ourselves in the service of others.
When we get the chance to help others on their journey here
It’s part of our work as well as theirs.
We were once together in that Bright Space
Wondering what this place would be like
And if we would cross paths again.
We wanted to come here to experience our own life,
While all the world experiences their own reality.
But when we were together before,
We knew all there was to know
Sharing all knowledge and eternity.
But there came a time when we knew we would have to leave the Bright Space
And learn in the only way we could.
Apart and alone
Distant from those we once shared all with,
Wondering what that nagging familiarity really was,
When we see each other by chance.
Or is it by chance?
As the smallest particles of the universe spin
Influencing another small particle somewhere else
It is the same with us as we circle in the spheres
of human interaction
All around us.
My world intersects with yours
And your path crosses another.
Something you need to hear from someone else
May be waiting for you just around the next corner.
When we wander in this wonderful world.
Is it any coincidence we find those who
Think like us.
Act like we do.
Wonder like we do at the connection we feel from the first time we meet.
The first time we meet again for another time.
The next time that momentary recognition happens to you
Stop and help those we were with before.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
all 154 poems $3.99 DVD with FREE shipping
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Monday Sep 26, 2011
Monday Sep 26, 2011
Debbie and I decided one weekend to go to Wendover and just relax for the weekend. I think it may have been some weekend where we had some extra days off during the school year.
I had been running several races during the summer, and when we got to Wendover I decided I should keep in shape by running to that rock off in the distance and back. I said goodbye to Debbie and jogged off into the desert.
The rock off in the distance was a bit farther off than it looked. I jogged and jogged; endless miles jogging for hours seems like only minutes. You really don't notice the passage of time and you don't really pay attention to the distance.
By the time I got to the rocky crag, I’d been jogging quite a while. I climbed to the top of the rocks and discovered the small bones. I put them in my pocket and started to jog back.
It took quite a while to get back, and when I finally arrived at the motel, Debbie was sitting on the hood of the car with the bags packed. I was hoping for a shower, but she had to check us out, since I had been gone jogging for about four hours.
She said she had planned my funeral and decided on a list of speakers. She had gone from furious to worried to panicked and back to furious when she saw me jogging up.
She stayed furious for the three hours it took to get back home, and it didn’t help I had to measure just how far I had gone by driving the car out and back. I can't remember if it was 12 or 15 miles, but it was a lot further than it looked.
I wish I had learned my lesson, but I didn’t. The last marathon I ran was a disaster. I was anemic, but didn’t find that out until later. But when you get to be an old coot like me, you may be able to finish a marathon just out of pure stubbornness.
At mile twenty, I stopped under a bridge to rest in the sun for a moment. I had worn a sleeveless shirt that day, forgetting I hadn’t been wearing one all summer. I was pretty sunburned after running in the hot sun for hours.
It was then that my knee decided I was done running. It kind of locked up and refused to do anything but walk. The few times I tried to run again it protested long and loud.
Needless to say, not only had the first twenty miles taken longer than I liked, the last six took much longer than I wanted. But I saved a bit to run at the finish line, even though the marathon crew had started to dismantle the course. It is also needless to tell you how long it took me to run, walk and crawl the twenty-six point two miles.
You know you are running very slowly when the police direct you to run on the sidewalk instead of the road, which had previously been cleared for the run.
My wife had decided to come along this time to the marathon, but I had told her I would be a couple of hours faster than I actually was.
It was the Wendover incident all over again. She was watching the news to see if some old man had been hit during the race and taken to the hospital.
She flipped from channel to channel to see if her husband had suffered a heart-attack on the course.
She probably planned my funeral again.
Since I like to shower and rest after a marathon, she had planned on shopping after I got back. I know she was more worried about me than about missing shopping, but when I dragged my sorry butt into the room two hours late, she told me she had been frantic. After she calmed down, I convinced her to go shopping and buy herself something nice.
I cleaned up and collapsed on the bed. After resting for about an hour, I twisted my leg and my knee popped back into place.
It was one of those pains that really hurt at the moment, but it felt better after it was back where it should be.
Is there a moral to the story?
If you ever get tempted to jog off into the desert, choose a landmark closer to the city. Or tell your wife you jog a marathon slower than you think you can.
Then you may be spared the details of your very own funeral.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
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Saturday Sep 24, 2011
Saturday Sep 24, 2011
This is the complete episode of Abundance called Teamwork from September 18th.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
all 154 poems $3.99 DVD with FREE shipping
Essential Oils -- create your own business -- click on the logo to begin
Saturday Sep 24, 2011
Saturday Sep 24, 2011
Click here for a complete INDEX
Sonnet XXXV
by William Shakespeare
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
Thy adverse party is thy advocate--
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an accessory needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
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Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Saturday Sep 24, 2011
Saturday Sep 24, 2011
Click here for a complete INDEX
Sonnet XXXIV
by William Shakespeare
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
Ah! But those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Friday Sep 23, 2011
Friday Sep 23, 2011
Click here for a complete INDEX
Sonnet XXXIII
by William Shakespeare
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack! He was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Thursday Sep 22, 2011
Thursday Sep 22, 2011
Click here for a complete INDEX
Sonnet XXXII
by William Shakespeare
If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time,
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Wednesday Sep 21, 2011
Wednesday Sep 21, 2011
Click here for a complete INDEX
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Tuesday Sep 20, 2011
Tuesday Sep 20, 2011
In my junior year at Jordan High School I trained myself to be a yell leader - a male cheerleader. We were supposed to do acrobatics and gymnastics, but I had never had any training. So I practiced by jumping off inner tubes. Trying to do back flips meant landing on my head several times. There never seemed to be any damage, except I felt the strange desire after that to write radio episodes.
I've even fallen backward down stairs in front of an entire cast of one of my musicals. Backing up on the stage one foot too far, I tumbled backwards doing a reverse somersault and then quickly jumping to my feet and proclaiming, "I'm all right!" Then we went back to rehearsing.
Trying to combine both of these events into one disaster, I took the cast to the stage during an intermission of a Shakespeare production. One of my students did a back flip on the stage and I confidently proclaimed, "I can do that!" Taking off my glasses and removing my cell phone from my belt (don't want those things to get damaged!), I ran and did my round-off into a back handspring. Failing to gain much height and having little muscle tone anymore, my head made it all the way around from the floor to the floor. My face thumped first onto the stage, followed by my crumpling body. I had actually hit my right cheekbone first - and in front of all the students. I slowly stood and put my hand to my cheek, which immediately began swelling up.
I declared "Intermission's over," and we went back to the performance. I was running the lights and stopped on the way to buy a cold drink in an aluminum can. The swelling on my cheekbone was now the size of a golf ball, but rolling the cold aluminum can on the swollen flesh seemed to help. I left later that night looking like Quasimodo's brother.
I've had other incidents at my high school which involve inflicting pain on others. I seem to have a charmed life when it comes to injuries, and so at times I'm not as careful as I should be.
Scott was helping me in my Technical Theatre class. We were trying to staple a side curtain up as a leg to block sightlines backstage. Up on the ladder I was confidently stapling away 17 feet off the ground, as most of the students have enough brains to be afraid of heights.
I have even had my technical theatre classes raise me up the entire 40 feet to the top of the fly system so I could replace lights on the ceiling. I don't know what I would have done if they had decided not to let me back down.
But on this day Scott was attentively waiting for the stapler. I decided to toss it down to him so he could take it to the other side of the stage for use there. As Scott was looking up I told him to get ready for the stapler. He was looking right at me, and so I tossed it down.
This was a Stanley Stapler, the solid metal kind which must have reached terminal velocity by the time it reached him. He chose at this particular moment to be distracted by one of his classmates, and as he looked away at them, the stapler hit him right on top of his head and made a huge gash.
I hurried down the ladder and we went to the office and filed an accident report. I haven't thrown down a stapler since. Scott went off to the hospital to have stitches put in his head, and I resolved not to endanger any other students just because I seem to have a charmed existence. I am a danger to other people.
I’m also dangerous to my own cars. Once when I had a television repaired for three hundred dollars, I plopped it down on the front seat and didn’t think what would happen with a quick stop -- which cracked the windshield -- which added another one hundred dollars to the repair bill.
When that same television went on the fritz again later, I drove it to the local charity and dumped it off.
Imagine my surprise, after I had bought a new television for several hundred dollars, when I went to the shop at the charity store and saw my old television back in working order and priced at only one hundred dollars.
It made me want to bash my windshield. But I had already learned that lesson.
Learning is one of the greatest things about getting to live longer. I can’t wait to find out what I will be blessed to learn next.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
all 154 poems $3.99 DVD with FREE shipping
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