Pegana Press Story Cast: The Bee-Man of Orn

In this #StoryCast we do a reading from the Bee Man of Orn, by Frank R. Stockton and we discuss briefly, other works by this author.

We hope you enjoy it.  Feed back is welcome.

It's a lot of fun for us to record these story readings, and we'd love to hear from you.  If you have a favorite author or story to suggest we read, please share with us.

We took longer than expected to get this one out partly due to the holidays and partly due to the fact that Mike has been working at the press almost non stop.  We hope to have a new Pegana Press Story Cast to share next month.

Here's the link.  Enjoy!   Pegana Press Story Cast # 2

We're using a WAV file this time to preserve the integrity of the recording.  We used a compressed file before.  We hope it makes a difference in how it come through.

As an afterthought:  Mike was a music producer and studio sound engineer before the thought of Pegana Press was ever conceived, and so he likes to create theme songs for the recordings.  I think it's a tribute to his talent in that respect that he can take tracks recorded on a tarnished flute with sticky keys by someone (OK, me) who hasn't played in 30 years and make it sound pretty good.

While recording the flute, he expressed his desire that I should play a "little riff".  I looked at him blankly and said "Oh, you want a REAL flute player".  I wasn't "riffing", but hopefully the Bee Man's theme song, conveys the simple, joyful, meandering dance through life, which we picture for Frank Stockton's Bee-Man.

The reading in the theme song, Out Of Time is from Lost Tales Volume 1 written by Lord Dunsany and published at Pegana Press


Pegana Press Story Cast theme song: Out Of Time © Rita and Mike Tortorello
Bee Man theme song:  Buzzing Along © Rita and Mike Tortorello
We use Cascade Microphones  :)

Embracing Elfland by Mike Tortorello

Mike has been hounding me to get a blog post up, and I must admit, I was really at a loss until I ran across something he wrote for another organization.  I thought I would share part of it here.

Embracing Elfland

The twilight coming down over the fields we know, the iridescent shimmer of Elfland  just beyond; the flash of sunlight on Spanish steel.  All these he gave us.

The horrors of war and the hopes of a charwoman etched in shadow. 

So many images…

With the printing and publication of "Lost Tales Volume I"  by Lord Dunsany,  Pegana Press Books brings new unseen images from the Master's quill pen to amaze and delight us all.

My path to this beginning started some 25 years ago when I first held a limited edition of "Don Rodriguez" in my hands and saw it as a work of art and beauty.

The long and winding journey to printing uncollected Dunsany is a tale in itself.

I  began by printing Dunsany's first published poem " Rhymes From A Suburb" as a limited broadside poster.

I then stumbled upon a lost work called "Paris" from Hope Mirrlees, the author of the wonderful fantasy novel Lud-In-The-Mist.   

I determined to reproduce "Paris" by hand  and bring it back to the world of literature, thus the second release from Pegana Press,  a limited handbound edition  spanning a year in production.

Throughout this time I continued to ponder my desire to print more Dunsany. 

Hours of research eventually led to lists of uncollected  stories with references to their original publication and my search began.  After collecting enough stories to begin work I contacted Lady Dunsany who very graciously gave permission and support of the project. Thus "Lost Tales Volume I " was born.

The fascinating part for me in printing Dunsany as a work as opposed to reading Dunsany was how the stories gradually brought their meaning to me letter by letter.   The charm and pathos buried in these stories were as powerful as anything Dunsany had ever done.

In these stories, Dunsany gives voice to the hopes, dreams and fears of mankind.  The universality of this language is undeniable.  The messages are timeless though framed in the past.

To teach and remind the reader of their humanity, to connect them with the mystical and magical we all begin and end our lives with.  To embrace it in the space between.  This is the magic of Lord Dunsany.

Lord Dunsany wrote much of his work using a quill pen, holding and treating his writing as a living thing.

Pegana Press prints in the same fashion.  Setting each letter to create the word then locking the page in a press,  applying ink and pressure by hand to capture the thought in a slice of time called paper.  Everything is done by hand here, as in the old days,  and in homage to  masters like William Morris.

Where does Pegana Press go from here? There are many uncollected and forgotten pieces of Dunsany's art and genius hidden away but anxious to be revealed.  I will help as best I can with that noble project.

Written by Mike Tortorello of Pegana Press on September 27, 2012

Heart Felt Greetings

I just wanted to take a minute to express how very grateful we are for the wonderful friends we have met this past year.  We appreciate you so much and consider ourselves blessed that you take time out of your busy day to communicate with us.  We love those conversations.

I will write more later about what's going on at the press.  But for now we just want to Wish for you this...

That you enjoy great Love and deep Peace this Holiday Season.

May 2014 bring to you and to your loved ones

Joy and Abundance

& the Wisdom to see it in action all around you.

♥

--Mike and Rita at Pegana Press--



What's New at Pegana Press (December 2013)

To begin, we want to Thank Michael Swanwick for writing some very kind words on Flogging Babel about The Emperor's Crystal & Other Lost Tales volume 2 by Lord Dunsany.  It positively warmed the cockles of our hearts to read it, and we are gratified that he enjoyed it.

Mike is progressing with  The Age of Malygris by Clark Ashton Smith.

And for the Holidays we are offering FREE Priority Shipping on our Holiday Card Collection through the month of December.  These Letter Press Greeting Cards were designed and type set by hand by Mike on Crane's Lettra Paper.  If you're not familiar with this paper, it is made from cotton, and has a very nice feel to it.  (I kept remarking to Mike that it felt like cloth, when I was folding them.) 

He used Reflex Blue and Green inks, and there is a touch of sparkle to them.  They are available in packages of 4 with envelopes.  Old fashioned themes and traditional holiday carols were the inspiration--the photos really don't do them justice especially the cards with text as the design.  The colors and sparkle make them glow when viewed in person.

It is our desire to offer cards that will be a special keepsake for anyone receiving them.  We hope you will enjoy them.

Lastly, we are half way finished with our next Story-cast.  We are having a lot of fun with this.  And I think we'll just continue to post it through drop box, with a link to the public file, since we discovered that our media player was only working intermittently for some people.

It's a real honor for our small press to receive acknowledgement from those of you who have purchased books from us.  We enjoy the conversations we've had via email with new friends who share our passion for a story well told.  We hope to continue for many years to come.

And now to end with a quote from our favorite author, whom inspired the name of Pegana Press.  This is from The Curse Of The Wise Woman.

What a change snow brings to any land that it visits: rather enchantment than change.  It is as though the mountains came down to speak to the fields, almost as though overnight another planet had called for us and taken us over from Earth.  Even the inside of the house was changed, a bright light dwelt in the pictures, making the work of men long dead more vivid and merrier; and on the north side of the house all the rooms seemed as though they were still curtained, and all their blinds were drawn down, for the snow was clinging to the window-panes where the wind had so violently hurled it; and yet even in those dim rooms, through the grey snow, there seemed to shine gleams from the light of a strangely triumphant morning.  
--Lord Dunsany

'Tis The Season

We're having a lot of fun at Pegana Press right now making holiday cards.  Mike designs and prints the cards, and I apply the sparkle.

For the last three days, we've been cranking up the festive tunes while we crank out the festive cards.

We now have five designs to choose from and this year we're offering the cards for sale on our website.

They will be available to purchase
starting on Tuesday, November 19.


As with everything we make here at the press, we have limited quantities of each design, so if you'd like to have a few hand made letter press cards to give to the very special people in your life, then we invite you to take a look at what we have to offer at Pegana Press.

We will leave you with a quote (as we like to do).




May Love & Joy be yours this season.

Happy Holidays

from Pegana Press.

Pegana Press Blogcast Episode 1

We have been working on a blogcast and now we're ready to post our first episode.

Today's story feature is Truth And Her Companions,  from The Twilight Of The Gods by Richard Garnett (1835–1906).

This illustration of Jupiter and Truth is the work of Henry Keen (1871–1935).

We initially planned to do a simple reading, but when we found this story (the only one that appears in the book as a short play) we decided to do it as a dramatization.

In this program we do a reading of Truth And Her Companions, and we chat a bit about Richard Garnett and The Twilight Of The Gods.  We wanted to keep it brief, so the blogcast is approximately 25 minutes in length, otherwise I would have wanted to read more stories.  It was a hard choice to make, as it was.  But Truth And Her Companions seemed to carry a very timely message.  And knowing human kind, it probably always will.

We had a lot of fun making this episode, and we hope you will enjoy listening.  We welcome any discussion on this topic or if you have any input for other shows. 

We would love to include you in the conversation so if you send us an email please let us know if we may add your comments to a future show, and if we may use your name, or if you prefer to remain anonymous.

We are using Cascade Microphones for our recording.  If you need Microphones we urge you to check out the link.

The opening melody entitled Out Of Time was written and played on piano by Rita Tortorello (me).  Mike Tortorello added all the layers and parts with some vocalization by me.  I might add that I am not a piano player, but Mike made it all sound pretty good.  Before he started up Pegana Press he had a career in the Music Business as an Audio Engineer/Producer.  While Mike is still doing recording, Pegana Press now takes up the bulk of his time.  (The short reading over the top of our opening melody is from Lost Tales Vol. 1 by Lord Dunsany--published by Pegana Press.)

I have removed the media player embedded on the page, please try this link   Pegana Press StoryCast episode 1

Out Of Time © Rita and Mike Tortorello

This Week at Pegana Press

Mike and I started reading books together back in 1990. 

We let television go out of our lives about 20 years ago.  We didn't really miss it, because always --we have read books. 

And often times sharing a book --with me reading aloud.

We've read almost all of the works of PG Wodehouse out loud during our humor phase.  Then we switched to mysteries written in the 1920s through the '40s, (Craig Rice ghost wrote a murder mystery for actor George Sanders in 1944 called Crime On My Hands).

We've read aloud, Ernest Bramah and H Rider Haggard, GK Chesterton and George MacDonald, Lord Dunsany and Hope Mirrlees...and so many more.

Right now we're reading what else? The Gods Of Pegāna because we've never read it aloud before, though I would venture to guess that Mike has probably read it at least a dozen times or more without me.

I have to admit, that I'm having a blast saying the names of the all various gods out loud. 

And it is truly a pleasure

to speak aloud

the words

written on the page

 by a master of his art.

So one of the other things we're working on right now is --I guess you could call it a podcast.  Where we hope to read little excerpts from authors.  Either very short stories, or just tasty little samples from a larger work.

We are nearly finished recording the first one.  It's taking a back seat right now as we scramble to get another book finished and try to line up future projects. 

And because Mike has also spent many years working in the recording industry, there is no slapping this project together. 

We even wrote a song for the opening.  Yes, I think we're probably having too much fun with this project.

So now I'll leave you as I like to do, with a quote.  This one is from the book we are currently reading aloud, which is The Gods of Pegāna by Lord Dunsany.

"Some say that the Worlds and the Suns are but the echoes of the drumming of Skarl, and others say that they be dreams that arise in the mind of Māna because of the drumming of Skarl, as one may dream whose rest is troubled by sound of song, but none knoweth, for who hath heard the voice of Māna-Yood-Sushāī, or who hath seen his drummer?"

The Dreams Of Māna-Yood-Sushāī by Sidney H. Sime