The General Babblings of Chris Wild
Writing
O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.
G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
While fixing the Space Bastards Models this poem came to mind…
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe ShelleyI met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Might, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe ShelleyWithout You
It’s nearly 1am
as I drink salted frozen margaritas
in the bar
on the 39th floor
of the Fourth Street Marriott
in San Francisco
I search the live cityscape
for the Bay Area stars
lost in the sparkle of lights
through thousands of windows
And although I know that
the morning plane
will bring me thousands of miles back home
I can’t help thinking that
this beautiful moment
Means nothing
without you.Chris Wild
(March 2001)
PoetryHere is a poem that my daughter wrote the other day. She just sat down with her little pad and wrote her “April Poem”. She was so focused – I was really impressed as she’s only 5!
April Poem
Rebekah Wild – Aged 5April is in spring time
Easter is in April
Easter Bunnies come and give us eggs
Spring is in April
and we love eggs
Baby lambs are born
and we see them
and we see deer
and foals.
Poetry, April, Spring, Easter
Just finished reading H G Wells, The War of the Worlds. One thing that I found very interesting whil reading, was my memory of the script written by Doreen Wayne for Jeff Wayne’s musical version, or more to the point the brilliant narration by Richard Burton.
If we consider the opening of the book, it takes the first 200 or so words to say what Doreen says so eloquently in about 80.
No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets and yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.
 I really enjoyed the book, but it does re-enforce my general belief that older is not necessarily better. As a general rule I don’t enjoy watching old “classic” films, and a number of “classic” books I have read – I didn’t enjoy. It think something that Doreen did in her adaptation of the book was to cut out much of the waffle, like when you buy world of warcraft mounts. Not just as a bridged version, but as a good condensing of meandering narrative. You can read the text of Doreen Wayne’s Adaptation here.
The more I thought about it, the more I considered that Jeff Wayne’s musical is actually a better adaptation of the book that the films. The two films made so far have transported the action to another place and time. Wouldn’t it be much better to have a film set in the time and place that the original story was covering? So am I so glad that I read in a press release…
In addition, earlier this year Jeff commissioned a large team of UK animators to begin production of a feature length CGI-animated film based on his Musical Work which is intended to be released in cinemas in 2007 – and the team are making unbelievable progress. The film will sty true to
the HG Well’s novel, being set in Victorian England and will of course make good use of Jeff’s music!
See Also:
You can read the eText version here.Â
Official Website for Musical Version.
H G Wells, The War of the Worlds, Jeff Wayne, Richard Burton, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
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H G Wells, The War of the Worlds, Jeff Wayne, Richard Burton