LOVERS' LEGENDS UNBOUND by Andrew Calimach, Agnes Lev. Timothy Carter and Steve Gorn
Audio-CD 52min+96 pages, 5.5" x 8.5"; $25.00 cloth. Theatrical revival of the “secret” Greek myths of male love.
Gift set includes Audio-CD + color-illustrated Clothbound Book containing the texts of the stories.
Greek myth has captivated readers since ages past, shedding light on the superhuman lives of our forefathers and their glorious civilization. But while modern texts have popularized many of the heroes and narratives, one of the central themes of these stories has been consistently suppressed.
In Lovers' Legends Unbound (Haiduk Press, December 2003), we are treated to a theatrical rendition of nine newly uncensored tales, restoring to us the stolen crown jewels of Greek mythology. Assembled from primary sources, the tales – unashamed and dignified – illuminate the tradition of Greek male love enshrined in the sacred stories of 2500 years ago. Accompanied by a cloth-bound text lavishly illustrated with color photographs of ancient art, Lovers' Legends Unbound is the second in a series of homoerotic myth and folklore from Haiduk Press. The gift set of audio CD and book, an eyeful as well as an earful, sets the raw power and emotional truth of ancient myth free.
The myths integrate the full scope of human desire with profound spiritual and moral teachings. Here are Zeus and Ganymede and Hera, the jealous wife; love found and lost in Apollo and Hyacinth; the shamanic story of Tantalus and the Olympians; Pelops in Pisa, who loses a lover and gains a wife; crime and punishment in Laius and Chrysippus; Narcissus and his “secret” lovers; the weakness of the strongest man on Earth in Hercules and Hylas; the gay side of the Trojan war in Achilles and Patroclus; and finally, Orpheus as the prophet of male love in Orpheus and the Thracians.
By rendering these myths in their original medium, the spoken word, Lovers' Legends Unbound transports us back to ancient Greece and sits us knee to knee with an ancient bard recounting timeless tales of love, honor, betrayal and revenge. Through Timothy Carter's rich dramatic renditions and Steve Gorn's haunting music, we encounter first-hand the depth of meaning of these classic Greek tales, newly fresh and alive after their millennial sleep. The masterful direction of Agnes Lev, the noted Israeli theater director, brings into vivid relief their subtle and unpredictable nuances, evoking a world alien in the details but intimately familiar in its all-too-human passions.
Author Andrew Calimach, an independent scholar and the first and only modern writer to have collected and restored these tales, assembled the suppressed Greek myths as part of his ongoing research in homoerotic mythology and folklore. In this theatrical rendition of the myths he has aimed to make the stories available even those too busy or impatient to wade through heavy prose.
Calimach is the author of the acclaimed Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths— the first publication in Haiduk Press' homoerotic myth and folklore series, a Lambda Book Award finalist in Children / Young Adults and Spirituality categories. The book was also a Ben Franklin Award finalist and a ForeWord Magazine finalist in Education, and Gay & Lesbian Non-Fiction, receiving the Silver Book-of-the-Year Award in the latter category.
Our view of ancient Greek culture as well as human nature is not complete without an understanding of the way homoerotic sensibilities permeated every aspect of life: war, religion, work and education. Lovers' Legends Unbound allows us to experience first-hand our ancestors' world and their myths, which proclaim that self-indulgence, betrayal, and violence are to be despised and that love is the highest good.
ISBN Hardbound: 0-9714686-1-3
Distributed to the trade by Biblio Distribution — a division of NBN
(800) 462-6420
