"Steel Reflections" | Tyler DunningEssay originally published by the North American Review (https://northamericanreview.org/open-space/steel-reflections). Mo...
"Little Red Riding Hood" | Tyler DunningShort Story originally published in Grim Love (purchase the fairy tale collection here: https://www.tylerdunning.com/...
Depression #Writing #StorytellingEssay originally published by Nervous Ghost Press ("Writing for Life" Anthology, 2020). Read on June 28, 2020. Written Nove...
Writing #fairytale #folkloreStory originally published in The Molotov Cocktail (Vol. 4, 2019). Read on June 28, 2020.Story: https://themolotovcocktail.com/a...
Writing #Nature #NationalparkIntroduction originally published in A Field Guide to Losing Your Friends (May 2017). Read on June 28, 2020.Subscribe to my new...
Writing #Storytelling #ProwrestlingEssay currently unpublished. Read on May 10, 2020.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.tylerdunning.com/contact-1Websi...
Writing #Storytelling #TaylorswiftEssay originally published in the "I'M FUCK*D: stories about the environment" zine (series 1 | episode 1 | water, 2015). R...
Writing #Storytelling #DepressionEssay originally published in Open Minds Quarterly (Vol. 21 | Issue 1 | Spring 2019). Read on April 24, 2020.Subscribe to m...
Writing #Storytelling #ReadingEssay originally published in "The Walls Between Us" anthology (Juncture, 2018). Read on April 13, 2020.Subscribe to my newsle...
Recorded October 10, 2017 at a Grand Rapids, Michigan, house show.
Read by Tyler Dunning from the fairy tale collection Grim Love: https://www.tylerdunning.com/shop/grim-love-fairy-tale-zine
Brian Mulder, guitar: https://www.muldermakes.com/
Jeffrey Niemeier, violin: https://borosilicatepurl.bandcamp.com/
Filmed by DJ Viernes: https://vimeo.com/symmetryfilm
Story Lyrics:
Every hour, on the hour, a ghost train dissects my village. The tracks tell no tale of the passing monster, just cold steel laid to transport our coal-mining ambitions out of this rural prison: mountains the weathered walls, winter our warden. Every hour, on the hour, that whistle blows and I am torn asunder—whiskey my warm conductor.
I drink to the moon, I drink to the stars, and each night I sleep like a tie and have ambitions to die—two cold beams running along the crook of my neck and the bend in my knee. Each night I pray the humming is real, something more than this apparition, this hollow holy ghost.
The train stops once a year, the doom and gloom of a visiting darkness. The whistle still howls—every hour, on the hour—calling the saints to ready their day. And on this day, when the train stops, the township ambles to the tracks, like the promise of a parade, to see the haunting horrors. As the ambassador, I crawl off my bed to welcome our guests, the traveling circus of goblins and ghouls, banshees and abominations. The demons though, they belong to us.
I drink. I drink like my father before me and his father before him, ambassadors just the same. The whiskey warms as the fires start, of house and home, of fur and of feather. The watchers wail to the plunder and curse, tears accompanying an occasional cough. The coal mine will kill us all, like our fathers before us and their fathers before them. But suffering works slow; tonight we watch the devils dance.
Everyone looks to me, the man who sleeps with the trains, as if I could stop the charades. But this isn’t my mess, this isn’t my fight. I only go there, to the tracks, to die—if only in my dreams.
I look to the faces: the gluttons, the greedy, the ones who touch where there hands do not belong. These are the neighbors, the councilmen, the ones who watch our children. These are the faces that strip the land, rape the resources, and take without tribute. These are the faces that have forgotten animals still kick and scream when we slit their throats and drain their blood. I drink to forget, I drink to forgive; I cough with them, but I do not sleep with them. They do not know I choose these tracks because I have more to fear than goblins and ghouls, banshees and abominations.
The train only stops once a year, but every hour, on the hour, it tears through me. I go to sleep at night, alone and asunder, the nape of my neck on the cold of the beam, knowing fully well there are far worse things in this world to have nightmares about.
Author Florence Williams traveled the world to research claims that nature is salubrious for her book The Nature Fix. Film subject and author Tyler Dunning (A Field Guide To Losing Your Friends) experienced nature's healing firsthand when visiting every national park helped him recover from the loss of his best friend.
Filmed and Edited by Rachel Ashley
Buy The Book: https://www.tylerdunning.com/shop/field-guide
Nate Henn was full of humor, generosity and spirit. He was so alive. But then, in 2010, a series of terror-related bombings devastated Kampala, Uganda, leaving 74 people dead, including Henn. The news was a devastating blow for his best friend Tyler Dunning, who plunged into darkness, grief, anger and self-medication. His only solace? Exploring Rocky Mountain National Park, where the cliff faces, pine forests and wildlife softened his raw emotions. It was a failed attempt to climb Longs Peak that really changed him: The humbling experience sent him on a quest to visit all 59 U.S. national parks. From Glacier to Bryce, Saguaro to Kenai, the Everglades to Yellowstone, he roamed. And through the adventures that unfolded, he pieced his life back together. He started to let others in. And, finally, he was able to say goodbye.
It's ok to die. Here's why. TEDxTeen opening music by Madijuwon. People often tell Tyler they're jealous of his adventures-how he first left Belgrade; how he lived out of a van for months at a time; how he spent a summer in Israel as an archaeologist; and his ongoing goal to visit all the U.S.
During the fall of 2015, Tom Hymn and Tyler Dunning set out on a storytelling tour across the Midwest, sharing their crafts of song and prose—of music matched with the spoken narrative. This occurred in people's homes because we live in a society hungry for authenticity. Because, amongst all the hollow content clogging our cultural bandwidth, we are searching for a genuine connection, for an intimacy; for someone to step into our homes—into our living rooms—and say, if you’ve got the time I’d like to tell you a story.
Words by Tyler Dunning (www.tylerdunning.com)
Song "Don't Wait on Witches" by Tom Hymn (https://tomhymn.bandcamp.com/)
Video by Phillip Harder (http://www.phillipharder.com/)
Thank you to everyone who made this tour possible, hosting and feeding us along the way, including Michael and Claire Warne, Nikki Fischer, the Houseman family, the Harder family, Emily House, Heidi Baker and the Good Thief folks, Javi for being a dinosaur, Darin Waid, Chris Guy, Paige Smith, Meredith Kane, Caleb Groh, Bert and Alex for the late-night whopper, Shannon Constable, Joel and Jeffrey DeBlaay, Z.G. Tomaszewski, Hayley Hungerford, the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters, and a very special thanks to Brian Mulder.
A video by DJ Viernes showcasing a Western Europe house show tour including Tom Hymn, Brian Mulder, Jeffrey Niemeier, and Tyler Dunning. The song performed is called "Santa Cynthia."