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Welcome to Freshwater Seas!Coming out soon--stay tuned!We're taking some time until the end of the year to catch up on lots of those nagging little things that need attention - website updates, new software, new hardware, new skills to be learned - it never stops! Once the new year begins, so do new projects. Here's some of what we're mulling over: Francis Gribble, a 19th century literary journalist, wrote a wonderfully entertaining and yet journalistically respectable book called The Love Affairs of Lord Byron. Yes, even back then, dishing the dirt People Magazine style was popular, and it's still a fun and interesting take on the man who as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." For some reason we cannot fathom, the poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson isn't out there in audiobook form. It was, but it's out of print and hard to find. We intend to do something about that. Alexandre Dumas, the father, wrote a remarkable series of books called Celebrated Crimes. It's all about what happens when things get nasty among the rich and powerful. Sound familiar to our times? Perhaps it is! And there's more. And we do reserve the right to change our minds and go running of in entirely different directions - as varied as Napoleon and George Washington! Out in the wide, wide worldA brave high school drama teacher, Pamela LeFave of Great Mills High School in Great Mills, Maryland, has selected my adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone as the spring production for her drama students. I'm very appreciative that they chose my work, and kudos to them for taking on a great classic! I'm very pleased to say that my translation of The Mistress of the Inn is being used at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia as a text in an Italian literature class taught by Dr. Alessandra Capperdoni. This is the third time the text has been used at the university level. Recently it was used at Penn State, and some years ago was used in a course in the UK; unfortunately, I've lost the details on that one.
Penn State University recently selected my translation of Mistress of the Inn for coursework in their Italian department. I understand their students responded very well to this version of the text, which, after all, I tried to make as approachable as possible. More recently, Simon Fraser University of Vancouver, British Columbia also selected my translation of Mistress of the Inn as an assigned text. Feedback from the professor was also very positive. What's new?We can't give our listeners all these titles by Carl Jung without giving good old Sigmund a chance. So, here we go, with Sigmund Freud's famous book, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Slips of the tongue? He's got you covered. Suddenly doing things you never intended to? He can tell you all about it. Wondering where you put that thing that's giving you so much trouble? He may not know where it is, but he knows all about why you put it where you can't find it. The book is personal; many of the incidents he analyzes come directly from his own life and behavor. In many cases, the book is really a kind of wry autobiography, a psychoanalyst's analysis of himself. Few will finish this book without starting to take a fresh look at their own behavior, their own small slips of the tongue and faulty actions - perhaps with the same wry smile Freud seems to wear! Carl Jung is one of the fundamental thinkers of our time, and it's a shame his work isn't available in downloadable audiobook form. So we've done something about that! His early work, Theory of Psychoanalysis, is live. It's "young Jung" as it were. He's just starting to follow his own thought after his break wth Freud. And we've also released his Psychology of the Unconscious, originally published in German as Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido. This is the book in which he takes off on his own, relating the microcosm of the individual unconscious to the macrocosm of the world of mythology, religion, and cultural symbolism. Our collection of Jung's seminal works culminates with his Collected Papers in Analytical Psychology, which includes his famous study of a trance medium, a study on number-symbolism, his lectures on the word-association test, applications to child psychology, the role of the father-figure in psychic life, the letters between Jung and Loy on the practice of psychoanalysis, his presentation of extraversion and introversion, his opinions on the psychology of dreams, a long essay on analysis of psychotic conditions, and a very intriguing exploration of what the future of psychoanalysis looked like a century ago - an analysis with startling relationships to modern neuroscience. Mary Louisa Molesworth was one of the best-loved writers of the Victorian period. Best known for her books for children, she also wrote interesting and unusual ghost stories--no so much written to frighten as to explore how human feelings and relationships might affect people even after they died, and how that might affect the living as well. The first in our series of three titles, Mrs. Molesworth's Ghost Stories: Four Uncanny Tales includes "Lady Farquhar's Old Lady," "Witnessed by Two," "Unexplained," and "The Rippling Train." The second in the series, Mrs. Molesworth's Ghost Stories: More Uncanny Tales, includes four more stories by Mary Louisa Molesworth: "The Man with the Cough," "Halfway Between the Stiles," "Will Not Take Place," and "The Clock That Struck Thirteen." She has a wonderful knack of using the form of a ghost story to give you a shiver while also giving you insight into the workings of character, especially of women and children, along with a fascinating view of her times. The third book, Mrs. Molesworth's Ghost Stories: The Last Four Uncanny Tales, includes not only three more stories by Mary Louisa herself, but also one by her son, Bevil. "The Shadow in the Moonlight", is one of her scariest. "At The Dip In The Road", is classic Molesworth - a sudden, mysterious encounter that leaves us with unanswerable questions of life and death. "Old Gervais", we encounter a different sort of ghost - one that cares very much about work left unfinished. The story by her son, Bevil, captures a wonderfully uncanny moment and a rare glimpse of life in Patagonia a century ago. When Lytton Strachey published Eminent Victorians, he took the general perception of the Victorian age among English-speaking readers and turned it upside-down. Four of the most eminent and idealized heroic figures of the Victorian age came under his witty and unsparing gaze and emerged, astonishingly enough, as human beings. The Times recognized the qualities of the book immediately: ""A brilliant and extraordinarily witty book. Mr. Strachey's method of presenting his characters is both masterly and subtle. His purpose is to penetrate into the most hidden depths of his sitters' characters. There is something almost uncanny in the author's detachment." His study of one of the most revered prelates in England, Cardinal Manning, reveals a profound and courageous religious mind combined with the conniving and ruthless soul of a born politician. His dissection of the life of Florence Nightingale shows her both as the Lady of the Lamp and as a woman of steely backbone and adamantine determination, who not only cared for wounded and sick soldiers with complete dedication and solicitude, but who wreaked holy hell on any bureaucrat or governmental office that tried to get in her way. When Strachey is finished with Dr. Arnold, we understand him as a revolutionary reformer of English education and as a first-rate prig. And when Strachey finishes leading us through the life of General George Gordon, we come away having known him both as a man of extraordinary courage and as a near-lunatic. Fascinating, witty, insightful and provoking, these four biographical studies single-handedly revived the art of biography in the English language. When William Morris wrote The Wood Beyond The World, he created a genre that has lasted to this day: the fantasy story set in a world of magic and sorcery, where bravery and love must struggle to survive against dark forces that work in mysterious ways. The Early Poetry of Conrad Aiken: Earth Triumphant, is his first major book of poetry. He took on a significant subject: What is the ultimate source of the human spirit? When the young human spirit loves, rages, strives, plays, where does that energy come from? When the old human spirit sees that time has passed and death is coming, where does that spirit find rest? Aiken's answer is unequivocal: in the ancient, ageless, inhuman, nurturing, commanding, accepting Earth. Where many poets might fly off in high abstraction with such a theme, Aiken does not; he keeps his feet on his good earth and connects to everyday reality in ways that have not dated in nearly 100 years. His verse is sophisticated, musically structured, and reads very well. The Early Poetry of Conrad Aiken: Turns and Movies is Conrad Aiken's second book of poetry. He gives us portraits from a fascinating world: the world of small-time, nitty-gritty vaudeville a bit after the beginning of the 20th centry. Each poem is a portrait of a person from that world; as Edgar Lee Masters does in Spoon River Anthology, Conrad Aiken does in this book. He also gives us a set of four longer poems, all on a subject that strikes home today: what happens to love when the flame of romance flickers, or even goes out? The Early Poetry of Conrad Aiken: Nocturne of Remembered Spring is Conrad Aiken's third book of poetry. He continues his major themes, exploring love, passion, and the yearning for tempestous freedom, along with a shockingly dry-eyed vision of the realities of war in the trenches of World War I and his constant great sensitivity to nature in all her forms. The Early Poetry of Conrad Aiken: Charnel Rose is Conrad Aiken's fourth book of poetry. He takes the plunge into a deeply metaphysical and surrealistic world, capturing the essence of one aspect of quintessential humanity: how we create and pursue a deeply personal, intensely idealistic, physically and emotionally draining search for love, and how some of us turn away from real love when we do find it. The Curfew Tolls the Knell of Parting Day: Poems by Mr. Gray, is a recording of the 1768 Dodsley edition, the primary publication of his poetry that he published during his lifetime. It consists of only 10 poems, written mostly during the 1740s. Although he continued to write after 1768, it does seem as though he regarded this collection as the definitive body of the work he most valued. These poems are remarkably varied. From the solemn philosophy of the "Elegy", he moves to dramatic portrayals of history and even some rather humorous verse, though always with a moral tone. I invite the reader to enjoy this small collection of Gray, in which one can get a sense of the man behind the verse, the man who wrote the immortal lines of the "Elegy". Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac offers us, as he himself put it, "moral Sentences, prudent Maxims, and wise Sayings, many of them containing much good Sense in very few Words, and therefore apt to leave strong and lasting Impressions on the Memory of young Persons, whereby they may receive Benefit as long as they live, when both Almanack and Almanac-maker have been long thrown by and forgotten." It is my particular pleasure to bring you the complete Almanac, not just the jokes and proverbs, but the complete work - minus, of course, the astronomical tables - that give such a fascinating picture of Franklin's mind and times. Susie has continued her beautiful voicing of Sara Teasdale's poetry in our second Teasdale title, Love Songs. Sara Teasdale believed passionately in the power and beauty of love. Teasdale's poetry ranges from utter joy to deep loneliness. She expresses herself with utter simplicity. |
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TheaterTranslations and adaptations of classic plays and literature for the stage: Aeschylus, Goldoni, Marivaux, Strindberg, Sophocles, Stoker, .Lessing. |
Audio booksAudio performancess of poetry, short stories, novels and plays for your listening pleasure. Our audio productions are all available on Audible.com! Click here to jump to them there! Many of our audio productions can be streamed from Audiobooks.com! Click here to jump to them there! Our downloadable audiobooks are also available from Audiobookstore.com. Click here! |
PhotographyThe Katagrafika project
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VideoVideo productions from the world of the freshwater seas of North America--better known as the Great Lakes! Celebrating the tour through the Great Lakes of the Picton Castle. Click here to go to the Amazon page for this video! |
MusicThe Tintinnabulum Project Click here (if you have iTunes) and go straight to this album.
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And a few more words:Thank you for visiting! I'd like to take a moment, since you've been so kind to scroll down this far, to introduce myself, what I do, and what this website is all about. I'm an independent artist. I work in many kinds of digital media, creating works for theater, audio books, photography, video and music that I hope many people will enjoy. TheaterI do translations and adaptations for the stage from the classic literature of the world, including authors such as Pierre Marivaux (The Game of Love and Chance,) Gotthold Lessing (Minna von Barnhelm,) Carlo Goldoni (The Mistress of the Inn,) August Strindberg (Miss Julie and The Stronger,) Federico Garcia Lorca (The House of Bernarda Alba,) and Bram Stoker (Dracula.). I'm currently working on a full translation from the ancient Greek of the Oresteia of Aeschylus. AudiobooksI work with Susie Berneis. We've done a over 40 titles by a whole bookshelf of authors. ImageryI'm working on what I call The Katagraphica Project. I start with a normal photograph, and then I play with it until it starts changing in some interesting way. I then follow the changes and find more changes, until finally I have an image that might resemble a work of art in traditional media such as watercolor, acrylics or oils, or might look like something done in some medium that hasn't quite been invented yet. In this area, my next project is to apply this approach to theatrical photography, so there will be some interesting crossover there. VideoI am an independent film producer. I offer DVD versions of several plays I have translated for the stage, including The Game of Love and Chance, The Mistress of the Inn, Minna von Barnhelm, and Miss Julie & The Stronger. I also offer a documentary on the tall ship Picton Castle, taking the viewer on her travels through the Great Lakes. MusicI am fascinated by harmonic percussion, and the strange and amazing, or amusing, or appalling things that happen when you run classical music through a harmonic percussion ensemble. I call this The Tintinnabulum Project, and I will soon be posting some of the results here. If you'd like to hear Khachaturian done by a steel band, or Bach done by a team of maddened vibes players, this is the place--stay tuned! How and why I do what I doI make things, and I can't help but go on making things; it's easier to do it than not to do it, and besides, the work is there, like Everest was for Edmund Hillary. So I do it! And I have one cast-iron rule: the work must please and provoke me while pleasing and provoking others. If it does that, I'm happy, and I go on to try to do it again! |
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Click here to visit the Ann Arbor Auditions website: a free service of Freshwater Seas. |
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Please note: all images on this website are copyright 2001-the present by Robert Bethune, copyright registered with the US Copyright Office, all rights reserved. Anyone may view these images and pages or make copies of them for their own personal use as is allowed under US copyright law. However, I reserve all rights to reproduce or redisplay these images in any medium and by any means. In particular, I do not permit any re-display of these pages or pictures, whether by copying the image to another server, by framing these pages using pages on another server, or by linking to the images on this server in such a way that images or pages from this server appear at the same time or on the same screen as pages or images from any other server. Any such re-display or re-use of these pages or pictures will be treated as a violation of my copyright and I will pursue all remedies available to me under the law to ensure that any such practice ends promptly. Credits for materials created by people other than me appear here. My pages about bullpups. |
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