AMBIENT ARCANA

“Rashōmon” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

 In this episode we contemplate whether it is better to accept death with your morals intact or to survive by any means necessary.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s “Rashōmon”.
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by Jim Billbrough
 
Some sound effects in this episode were licensed from
Pro Sound Effects
240 Kent Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11249
licensing@prosoundeffects.com

Three Stories by Jorge Luis Borges

 A trio of strange and beautiful fever dreams by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges-“The Rejected Sorcerer,” “The Circular Ruins,” and “The Two Kings and The Two Labyrinths.”
All Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by Jim Billbrough
We’d like to express our thanks to Jon Fredette of “The Oddcast” podcast for his advice and encouragement on this episode. If you like Ambient Arcana there’s a good chance you’ll like ”The Oddcast.”
Here’s a link to Jon’s homepage featuring his podcasts, music, and more: https://www.jonfredette.com/
 
Some other useful links:
 
https://bobfamiliar.bandcamp.com/
 
https://www.facebook.com/ambientarcana
 
ambientarcana@gmail.com
 
 

“Gods Of The North” A Conan The Cimmerian Story

In this episode we chase away the winter blues with a bloody sword in Robert E. Howard’s coldest Conan story - “Gods of The North” (aka. “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”).
All Music and Music & Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narration by Rick Weidner, Danielle Barry, Matt Gruenberg, Mandy Familiar, Bob Familiar, and Jim Billbrough
 
Some useful links:
 
https://bobfamiliar.bandcamp.com/
 
https://www.facebook.com/ambientarcana
 
ambientarcana@gmail.com
 

“Mother Sauvage” by Guy de Maupassant

Bonne année! Joyeux 2024!
We start our Third Season with a fiery French tale of one woman’s burning need to find balance in a hostile universe. It’s Guy de Maupassant’s torrid tale of red hot revenge! -
“Mother Sauvage.”
All Music and Music & Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by Veronica and Joey Pesce, Bob Familiar, and Jim Billbrough
Recorded by Joey Pesce and Bob Familiar
If you think we judged Robert W. Chambers a bit harshly on his anti-German attitudes here’s a link to his WWI novel “In Secret” at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5748
Not to be confused with a recommendation.
 
Some useful links:
 
https://youtube.com/@bobfamiliarmusic
 
https://bobfamiliar.bandcamp.com/
 
https://www.facebook.com/ambientarcana
 

More Tibetan Folk Tales by A.L. Shelton

 Once again we travel to the magical land of Tibet for the Holiday Season.
 In this year’s Yuletide offerings a painter and a carpenter commit supernatural postal fraud, a donkey and a rock get arrested for assaulting a jar of oil, a pair of crippled birds dispense great wealth and harsh justice, a sociopathic rabbit distributes stolen goods with murderous intent, and a goiter at a ghost party is about as welcome as a fruitcake. It’s Albert Leroy Shelton’s posthumously publish page turner - “Tibetan Folk Tales”
All Music and Music&Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by Bob Familiar and Jim Billbrough
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

“The She-Wolf” by Saki (H.H. Munro)

 In this episode of Ambient Arcana we explore the mysteries of ‘Siberian Magic’ and the unexpected social challenges that having one’s hostess turned into a wolf can put upon a party guest - It’s “The She-Wolf” by Saki (H.H. Munro)
Music and Music&Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by: Jace Wilson, Shannon Wilson, Mandy Familiar, Bob Familiar, and Jim Billbrough
“The She-Wolf” was published in the short story collection “Beasts and Super-Beasts” by Saki back in 1914. While searching for this month’s story we came across an excellent audio version of this book on LibriVox narrated by Justin Brett.
Here’s a link to that book on LibriVox:
https://librivox.org/beasts-and-super-beasts-by-saki/
 
And here’s a link to the Project Gutenberg version of the book:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/269/pg269-images.html

The Statement of Randolph Carter

Nothing says Halloween quite like Trick or Treating in an ancient swampy cemetery in shadow haunted Florida!
It’s H.P.Lovecraft’s grim tale of grave robbing gone wrong -  “The Statement of Randolph Carter.”
 
All Music and Music & Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by Bob Familiar and Jim Billbrough
Recorded Almost Live at Sounds Familiar Studios

From Beyond

 In this episode we dust off our vestigial sense organs and fire up our Pineal Glands to take a mind bending peak beneath the thin veil of our reality in H.P. Lovecraft’s psychedelic mad scientist revenge romp - “From Beyond!”
 
Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narrated by Bob Familiar and Jim Billbrough

Three Stories by H.P. Lovecraft

This month we take a trio of trips into the Infinite Unknown with weird fiction icon Howard Phillips Lovecraft-
“Ex Oblivione,” “Nyarlathotep,” and “The Book.”
All Music & Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narration by Jim Billbrough
 
For further exploration of Lovecraft and his works we suggest checking out these websites:
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
https://www.hplhs.org/
And
Strange Studies of Strange Stories
(Formally The HP Podcraft Literary Podcast)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strange-studies-of-strange-stories/id1638947147
Or the older, more Lovecraft-centric version of the podcast, which is still active at this time:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-h-p-lovecraft-literary-podcast/id369757090
And there’s even a YouTube Channel:
https://youtube.com/@witchhousemedia?feature=shared

Cool Arctic Stories for Hot Summer Nights

A small sampling of Inuit, Yup’ik, and Unangax folktales collected by American and European Scholar-Explorers in the late 19th and early 20th century. Even in this muted form, sometimes translated through two or three languages, these stories still retain the power, beauty, and humor of the original folktales.
The word Eskimo has long been known to be a misnomer, even as far back as the mid 19th century. Since most of the material used here came from Ethnological surveys that sought to be as specific as possible the term occurs rarely in the collected stories and is mainly used in the titles of the works. 
All Music & Music and Audio Production by Bob Familiar
Narration by Jim Billbrough