Those Snowy Nights You Read to Me, They'll Never Be Forgotten

An ex-athlete reminisces fondly about his years in a half-forgotten, strictly mid-tier baseball league, recalling the characters, the laughter, and all the other tiny pleasures of a long chapter in his fortunate life. Written and performed by Soren Narnia. Music: “All There Is” by Mateja Kojadinovic, all rights reserved. Narrator: Linda Wojtowick. Photo by Hitoaki Koishikawa, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.

In this love story set in a small American town in the late 19th century, a wanderer seeking shelter from troubling memories is changed forever by the women who befriend him there. Additional narration by Amy Paonessa. Music: ‘Wooden Starlight’ by Dear Gravity ‘Better Now’ and ‘Liquid Mirror - Piano Version’ by Philip Daniel Zach ‘Landscape with Airplanes in the Rain’ by REW<< ‘Three’ by Neon Ridge

Five movie parodies for those times when you get wistful about the closure of that discount theater you used to go to with your weird friend Sidney. The movies: Eyes Wide Shut - Aguirre, the Wrath of God - Solaris - Winter Light - Heat With Amy Paonessa, Jason Hill, Linda Wojtowick, Josh Hillinger, Cal Butera, Rich Albert, Les Lentz, and Soren Narnia. Written by Soren Narnia. Music by Kevin MacLeod, incompetech.com, as follows: "Night In Venice"  Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5763-night-in-venice License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Dhaka” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3646-dhaka License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Send for the Horses” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4335-send-for-the-horses-by-kevin-macleod License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Danse of Questionable Tuning” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3603-danse-of-questionable-tuning License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Dark Walk” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3612-dark-walk License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Gregorian Chant” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3825-gregorian-chant License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Scheming Weasel (Faster Version)” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4326-scheming-weasel-faster-version License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4612-we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Airport Lounge” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3347-airport-lounge License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “’Dreams Become Real” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3678-dreams-become-real License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Hiding Your Reality” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3875-hiding-your-reality License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Minima” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4054-minima License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Prelude and Action” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4236-prelude-and-action License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Satiate (Only Percussion)” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4320-satiate---only-percussion- License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Tiny Fugue” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4531-tiny-fugue License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Canon in D Major” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3473-canon-in-d-major License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Easy Jam” Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3694-easy-jam License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A cryptic family album hiding a mystery 170 years old; a lonely cemetery revealing disturbing patterns no one will acknowledge; a dreaded knock at the door on a night of deserted streets, hushed voices, and villagers cowering by candlelight. These are a few of the elements of this tale of slowly mounting dread, in which an anguished mystery writer explores the secrets of a strange and ominous town beckoning her from the past. Abridged from the novel.  Additional narration by Amy Paonessa of The Bloodlust podcast. Music: “The Sea of Nothing” by Aquartos and “The Loner” by Pete Kneser, Getty Music.

The year was 2007, and conditions in Bello Gardens, one of the most squalid and dangerous housing projects in America, were at their worst. Decimated by poverty, tortured by crime, and suffocated by neglect, the slum known cynically as the Joke faced a lonely, unnoticed death. When tensions in the community rose to a breaking point, the last remaining inhabitants of Bello Gardens--desperate gang members turned remorseless freedom fighters--vowed not to give up its deserted streets without a battle to the death. Tyrant, Draw Thy Sword is the fictional history of the tactical siege of the Joke, the tale of one December night when this country's troubled divide between cultures erupted in chaotic house-to-house warfare. Cast, in order of appearance: Soren Narnia - narrator Jason Hill - narrator Brian Lillie - narrator Seythe McCoy - Charles Le Beth Teddy Ray Bullard - Steven Dunkirk Sasha-Ann Simons - narrator Amy Paonessa - narrator Tausha Marshall - narrator Marcus Anderson - Herbert Le Beth Damon Alums - narrator Cherisse Rivera - narrator Savion Hays - Rod Baker Antonio King - Kojo Kendi MUSIC: Lee Rosevere, from “10 Minute Meditations,” licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere

For diehard romantics only, these are the letters of a reckless stargazer who turned his back on reality to lose himself in a love story whose ending seemed foretold from the beginning. Narrated by Soren Narnia and Justy Gee of the Starless podcast. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

What do you mean, you don't remember my podcast Joke Meets Ground? Here's the entire run (I would have gone much farther, but I seem to recall the audience had other ideas). Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Music: “Feather Waltz” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Bride, Groom, Sunday, Forever depicts the unusual on-stage wedding of Stanley and Muriel, a ceremony filled with stunningly honest testimonials and reenactments which reveal the couple’s deepest secrets. In the space of ninety minutes they experience hilarity, embarrassment, wonder, and sadness, all with the goal of emerging from a tiny small town theater cleansed and determined enough to face the uncertain but boundless future. Narrated by Soren Narnia, with Angela Mae Johnson. Produced onstage by Counterweight Theatre Lab in Colorado Springs in 2021. https://www.counterweighttheatre.com/productions Music: “Touching Story” and “Reminiscing” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ “Barcarolle, Op. 60” by Francis Kleynjans Performed by Petter Albertsson  YouTube channel: 550ia Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, FreeMusicArchive.org Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 United States— CC BY 3.0 US  

This is a bleak, brutish tale of dark suspense related by a narrator condemned to Hell's wintry plain. The Grip, the Speaking Stones, the Far Mountains, the Perimeter, the Lie: In describing Hell's harsh geography and customs, Nicholas Strait also describes the events and people that brought him to damnation. His search for a way out must navigate madness, addiction, and the immutable hand of death. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Whatever You Find Within You is a romantic comedy of both solemn longing and bumbling confusion, and the rather fine line between the two. When an unread love story by the great nineteenth century Icelandic playwright Dari Stanislad is discovered in 2011 by the brain trust of an educational institution of dubious reputation, numerous obsessed parties squabble like overstimulated chickens over its vast financial and intellectual significance. Just one problem: The play is incredibly awful, and promises benign ruin on all who dare turn its lousy pages. In no time, The Cobbleswoddler's Tale becomes a magnet for literary chaos--but on the plus side, it does bring together a pair of lonely and frustrated academics with fading dreams, wildly different opinions of romance, and a strong desire to get as far away as possible from Dick's Notch Community College.  Adapted from the novel by Soren Narnia Read by Julian McLaren Poulter Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It's funny, the little theories you develop over the years, so random and rarely spoken. One of mine is that if any true, irrevocable harm can come to a single innocent creature on this earth, then maybe, just maybe, life itself should never have existed--nothing has ever been worth that pain, none of it, going back to the beginning of time. I suppose that from such thoughts must occasionally come stories like this one.

Over the course of one long day on a seemingly endless country road, a hitchhiker listens to the sad, desperate circumstances that her driver has found himself in--and becomes witness to his determined effort to free himself from a terrible trap of isolation and regret. The only weapon he has is a truly powerful one: his ever-wandering mind and its awesome ability to show him worlds no one else can see. Narration by Heidi Kole, thesubwaydiaries.com Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A short and simple fable, written years ago, and one I think about whenever I feel the first chill of the season in the air. 

You never know which one of those temporary jobs you take in your twenties on your way to a real career will provide you with the greatest memories. For the narrator of this novella, it was unexpectedly working for the Pittsburgh Design Agreement, a board game company populated by dreamers with endlessly creative designs--all brought to the world through the recklessness of a CEO who understood ambition and adventure far more than dice and cards. Those familiar with the modern board game hobby will likely get the most out of this story, but it’s a tale of friendship, laughter, and fond reminiscence for even the most anti-Monopoly of us all.

The zombies rose and walked, the country went mad, and then the zombies laid down again--all without committing a single act of violence. Traveling randomly across the east with a group of close friends, the restless dreamer Lionel Gathers witnesses first-hand the nightmarish confusion that the living dead bring upon the land in this tale that is both satire and elegy. It's a story of one man's despair over his country's inability to unite in crisis, a tale of sudden, random violence and illusions of America's greatness gone askew. When the zombies rise a second time and become anything but docile, the tale becomes darker, as Lionel struggles to understand the design of a universe lost in the realm of B-horror movies--and more vivid real-life tragedies. Adapted from the novel by Soren Narnia, originally published in 2003. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This novella follows young Tobin Millane, lonely outcast and reluctant gunslinger, on his run for survival across the Kansas prairie in 1881. His desperate travels lead him and his silent partner into violent conflict with the bandits he stole from, the law enforcers who see him as nothing more than a lowly thief, and the wrath of a brutal Midwestern winter. Yet in the midst of his hopeless situation, a single ray of beauty unexpectedly touches his life. Created by a genius more famous than he will ever be and pursued by a murderer more infamous than he could ever imagine, a coveted artwork becomes Tobin's final reason to fight on. Sketch of a Bird in Flight is a fable about the nature of courage, an ode to the immortal longing within men to reach for greatness at a cost that often cannot be endured.  read by Ron Herczig Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It is 3:13 a.m., and now the human imagination reaches out to places and yearnings that it shies away from during life's daylight hours of quiet desperation. The brief parables, random episodes, and emotional wanderings presented here act as a repository of all that can be felt and dreamed when the night is dark, the soul is alone, and our thoughts become uncaged until the first blue of dawn ends the spell. Read by Soren Narnia End music: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

For seven years around the turn of the 21st century, America was enthralled by one of the most intense sporting competitions ever invented. The game of Loft demanded extraordinary precision, athleticism, and daring, rewarding only those who made a total physical and intellectual commitment. This is the story of Loft's rise, glory, and controversial disappearance from the sports landscape. Its history was defined by the efforts of two men: its enigmatic creator and its indomitable, single-minded superstar. When their dreams came into conflict, Loft took on greater meaning, reminding the world of both the heartbreak and beauty of being unable to hold onto great things forever. Read by Olivia Berry Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist David Montano created the lovely thumbnail image for this episode. http://davidmontano.com/home.html  

When data analyst and closet comedian Calvin Tarby enrolled in depression treatment at a facility in the middle of nowhere, he was prepared to slog through six long weeks of isolation. But then he was tipped off to an unexpected perk of the program, and suddenly the barren winter fields all around him no longer held him completely captive. This is a story of unscripted travel via the kindness of strangers, and facing tough odds with a lightness of heart and a fierce spirit of adventure. Based on the book by Soren Narnia. Read by Heidi Kole, thesubwaydiaries.com Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Thumbnail sketch by Kimber Petersen