Monday, June 17, 2002

Battle Orders

We saw Starwars Episode II at the weekend. I am sure you can guess the verdict; jaw-dropping effects and cringeworthy dialogue. A colleauge has just pointed out some of Yoda's stilted words - "To the forward command post take me now". Maybe it was the heat of battle but this reminded me of a couple of lines in Henry IV Part 1. vis :-

KING HENRY IV
I will do so.
My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.

WESTMORELAND
Come, my lord, I'll lead you to your tent.


So, criticise George Lucas if you like but there is a precedent.

This makes me sound like a Shakespeare nut but the turth is I only know Henry IV Part 1 and a Midsummer Night's Dream in any details as I did those for school and it was lucky that the latter was for the exam as I enjoyed it far more. I have seen a lot of the other plays right through and enjoyed them but these are the only two I know in any detail. I went to see Macbeth at Stratford when I was about 8. My Mum took me and my dad told me not to say that any of it was "trick photography". The ironic thing about this is that some of the play did involve some stage equivalent of trick photography; the scenry was shifted under cover of the shadows of a great party which was quite breath-taking.

I have just had an idea. In common with lots of people I remember many individual lines of various Shakespeare plays. Maybe we should get a random group of people, list all the lines they know from any Shakespeare (Including the sonnets I suppose)and then use all of those lines to create a new (probably very short) play. I suspect something akin to this has already been proposed as some sort of Dadaist project.

There is more I want to write about Starwars. Is the droid factory scene a nod towards "Modern Times" where Charlie Chaplin falls into the machinery at the Factory where he works? Remember where he goes around the wheels trying to tighten any nuts he can find. I am probably reading too much into this. My mind has siezed up despite drinking lots of water which is supposed to help with concentration AND pigging out on Smoked Salmon yesterday. Maybe it is just that I am bored with the actual work I am doing. I don't actually see the point of even completing it but complete it I must. Everyone else here is watching football (Soccer) again. There is a chorous of mobile phones going off so loads of things I hate are all concentrated into one place.

A book to end boredom.
Encarta comes close but after a while there only so many US Colleges you can read about. The Web is good in concept but so much of it it simply dross (Is this self-reference again?). The Hitch-Hikers guide is close but does not really exist. What you need is a book which displays exactly the image and text which will satisfy your brain at the one particular moment you are reading it. Maybe this will reduce our attention span. Maybe you could switch it off except when you think you need it. Text and Images and music and smells all produced in one place - dropped directly into your senses until you don't know where you are.

I have a poem circulating - the product of my boredom and a walk we took on Friday night. Nothing is written down yet but it will be posted when it is if Blogger.com still exists then. It is a poem with no words except a few fragments and only a very sketchy plan. Does it exist as a poem yet or is it just a slightly more organised bit of my memory? What is the sum total of everything I have ever produced? Not all of the information I will ever know exists yet a bit like my "proto-poem". Oh well! Love and Life; Love and Life.

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