interview with David Suchet

David (Hercule Poirot) Suchet speaks to radio host Charles Morris about why he chose to read The Jesus Storybook Bible for audio, how he selects his roles, what his faith means to him, and more... in this fabulous conversation which you can listen to here.

Week 4 storytime video: A New Beginning

A New Beginning from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

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visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on  or amazon

happy ny marathon!

hope all those runners remembered to fall back this morning...

Interesting Marathon Factoid: 

At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the marathon distance was changed from 25 to 26 miles to cover the ground from Windsor Castle to White City stadium, with 385 yards added on so the race could finish in front of King Edward VII's royal box. 

After 16 years of extremely heated discussion, this 26.2 mile distance was established at the 1924 Olympics in Paris as the official marathon distance. -Paul Ostapuk

Makes you proud to be British...

little monkey

a friend's little boy...

Week 3 storytime video: The Terrible Lie

The Terrible Lie from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.

(no need for a code, just click ENTER)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on  or amazon

Some Strange Satie Facts

The French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) gave his piano pieces some odd titles. For instance: "Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)" (1912) and "Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear" (1903).

 His scores also contain instructions to the performers like "Light as an egg," "With astonishment," or "Work it out yourself." Here some others:

• In the morning, on an empty stomach 
• Hypocritically Crabbed and cantankerous 
• Moderate and very restless 
• Pianissimo, short of breath 
• With a lot of difficulty Run! 

 More? Here are some other Strange Satie Facts:

• he carried a gun in his pocket for protection 
• he wore grey velvet suits and became known as "the velvet gentleman." 
• he detested the sun, and tried to go outside only during bleak days
• he washed only with pumice stone, never soap 
• he "never spoke while eating, for fear of strangling himself," 
• and only ate white foods. His list? Eggs, sugar, shredded bones, animal fat, salt, coconuts, rice, turnips, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish

(which one's not true (the first: it was a hammer not a gun)

At the very least this gives us all a free pass today to be as odd as we like (or even odder than usual).

Norman Foster & Dr Seuss: Constraints and Inspiration

Interesting article about Norman Foster and the tiny sliver of a building he is designing in the Bowery. He has come up with an ingenius use of an elevator to do it. Foster said he had managed not to be daunted by the notion of stacking galleries with such a circumscribed footprint on top of one another; instead, Mr. Foster said, “it’s a case of the constraints finally becoming the inspiration."

The constraints that limit you can actually lead to the inspiration. Freedom isn't always about having no boundaries, it's more about being able to run free because you have them... Like sheep on a cliff... without the fence they aren't free. (Or they're free to leap off the cliff and die I suppose.) But with the fence they can be move about freely without fear... even run. Anyway all that rambling on about sheep and fences and fear to say... limits sometime make you cleverer.

Take Dr Seuss for example. The Cat In The Hat came about because his publisher challenged him to write a beginning reading book with only a limited vocabulary. It has only 223 different words. (The word cloud shows the words he used, minus "the", "and" and "I".) With a tiny pile of short words he created a classic.

Seuss found the limited vocabulary challenging and, after a period of frustration, simply chose the first two words on the word list that rhymed: "Cat" and "Hat".

Week 2 storytime video: The Beginning

The Beginning: A Perfect Home from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.
(no need for a code, just click ENTER)

visit the The Jesus Storybook Bible site to learn more
buy the book: here
download audio on or amazon