| Author |
Message |
    
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 1182
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 31, 2003 - 9:24 pm: | 
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After more than two years of tedious work, William T Stead and I, his humble assistant, have at last completed our greatest task. With all eternity to work in, the greatest dramatist of them all has applied his genius to the Titanic story.
By special permission, a sample of the resulting drama will be made available to members of the Encyclopedia Titanica forum for just 24 hours. The extract consists of the final pages of the play and is set in Lord Mersey's court.
This unique and inventive text will be online from 0000hrs UTC on Tuesday. It will be withdrawn 24 hours later. |
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 1183
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 12:41 am: |
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The Digital Playhouse opens at 0000hrs UTC at http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/Drama.html |
Martin Owen Cahill
Member
Username: martin
Post Number: 169
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 1:14 am: |
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such wit!
bring us more if you please good sir.
[apologies to Oscar Wilde, ;) ]
Martin |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 5842
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 7:30 am: |
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Withdrawn? Keep it!
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Kyrila Scully
Member
Username: childstar413
Post Number: 1107
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 1:42 pm: |
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Yes! Don't remove it. It's too funny and clever, and not everyone will see it in 24 hours.
Kyrila |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 238
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 2:25 pm: |
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A hit, a very palpable hit. |
Don Tweed
Member
Username: smokestack
Post Number: 443
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 2:46 pm: |
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Bravo! Well done!
Think i'll run off to the pub for a pint!!!
-Don |
Jason D. Tiller
Member
Username: jtiller
Post Number: 1356
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 6:38 pm: |
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I agree with the above posts, this should be kept! Brilliant!
Best regards,
Jason 
"to be happy is to be contented in your own mind"...Harold Godfrey Lowe
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Lee Gilliland
Member
Username: teamtunafish
Post Number: 99
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 - 7:46 pm: |
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Encore! Encore! That is wonderful, keep it up so people see it! |
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 1191
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 2:14 am: |
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In view of the support for my ratbaggery, I have placed on my website two examples of Titanic literature from the Great Beyond. Maybe I'll dream up some more one day but don't hold your breath.
I've also added an extract from the world's worst Titanic poem. This is a perfectly genuine piece from 1912. I regret to say that I have been unable to find out anything about the culprit, except that he may have been some kind of cleric. He was active in South Australia in the first quarter of the 20th century.
Go to http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/Verse.html |
Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 5895
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 6:26 am: |
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Dave, the culprit who penned that verse probably had to leave town in mufti and under an assumed name. Hey...it beat being hanged from the nearest lamp post! Frankly, I like yours much better!
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Charmaine Sia
Member
Username: valiowk
Post Number: 131
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 10:22 am: |
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I have to agree with Michael on that note. Ack! I barely made my way through the first stanza of Mr Nixon's "poem" before I decided that it was too much of a torture.
Dave, yours is lovely. Indeed, a well done parody. If only Shakespeare had truly been around to pen something...
Regards,
Charmaine |
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 1193
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 11:28 am: |
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Our State Library has other examples of Nixon's work but they are unavailable, due to renovations. One day I'll see if they are all as awful. Maybe some of them will contain hints on who he was. Nothing will happen until about September, if you can wait that long.
To compensate for Nixon's work, Australia did produce one of the greatest of all poems about death by water. It commemorates one Joe Lynch, who died like a true Australian when he fell off a Sydney Harbout ferry, probably while drunk. From this unpromising start, Slessor creates a meditation on the great questions of life and death. It's still copyright, so I can't post it, but look for Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor. Oddly enough, Titanic sank just before five bells, so it's quite appropriate. |
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 1194
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 11:35 am: |
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I see that some naughty person has put Five Bells on line at http://www.geocities.com/kingsideau/PoemFiveBells.html
Take time to read this quite complex poem, with its haunting conclusion. It's one to live with. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 247
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Monday, April 7, 2003 - 11:46 am: |
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Another triumph, Dave. Your latest effort is easily the finest and most moving poetic description of a sea disaster since 'There was a young man from Cathay' by Spike Milligan and friends. I'm sure you know that one, but if not:
http://www.apathy.demon.co.uk/goon/gatnd.htm |
Donna Grizzle
Member
Username: awesomedawson
Post Number: 55
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 3:29 am: |
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Dave(Gittins)-
Just checked out the link you posted above for the first time. Bravo on both passages! A jolly good time to read those. I'd like to quote a favorite verse of mine:
"And though brave Captain Rostron came, regardless of cost,
More than fifteen hundred souls were lost,
And articles of commerce, both humble and rare,
As well as numerous pieces of kitchen ware"
My roommate had to come out to investigate what I kept chuckling about. I love it! |
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 2708
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 10:59 am: |
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G'day, Donna!
I'm glad you liked my bit of fun. The passage you like is the sort of thing McGonagall wrote. Into the story of a great disaster, he'd inject a remark about the loss of something trivial. There's plenty of his work online. The setting of The Famous Tay Whale I mentioned is available on CD with lots of other musical fun.
If you love great poetry, go to the link further up this thread and read Five Bells. It's a complex poem but a very deep one. Curiously, Titanic hit the bottom at about five bells, the time at which the poet thought of his dead friend.
Dave Gittins
Titanic: Monument and Warning.
http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/Book.html
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Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 2709
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 11:29 am: |
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As promised, I looked up some more of Christopher Nixon's perishable verse and found a mug shot of him.
His 1913 work, The Lay of Austral' is simpler than The Passing of the Titanic, but nonetheless awful.
Australia is speaking.
"Call me "Fourth Hiving Place" of the sea-lording race:
Brave Columbus' New World ranks prior;
Also Afric' and Ind' were my seniors, you'll find
Austral last - Yet does any rank higher?
Would you measure my skirts? Think! - your survey begirts
All of three-thousand-leagued-ragging line;
My flung acres count billions, square miles tally millions -
Level-height-vale-and-peak grand combine."
I think he's trying to say that Australia is big place, with varied topography. "Ragging" is not a typo!
Dave Gittins
Titanic: Monument and Warning.
http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/Book.html
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Donna Grizzle
Member
Username: awesomedawson
Post Number: 56
Registered: 3-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 4:07 pm: |
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Thanks Dave....will go check that out now.
Whew, the "Lay of Austral" is a brainful but I get the gist of it. Any information as to the popularity of this guy? |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 2899
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 4:10 pm: |
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Dave, this just came through on the ouija:
Aye, The man's guid, that I'll grant ye. But he's nae as guid as me. |
Robert H. Gibbons
Member
Username: hhardleyat
Post Number: 231
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 7:33 pm: |
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Believe it or not, there is a real book that claims to be a message from W.T.Stead beyond the grave, communicated to a medium and Stead's daughter. It is called "The Blue Island". Take a look. Robert H. Gibbons
http://www.squarecircles.com/scbooks/onlinebooks/otherworlds/blueisland/blueisland.htm |
Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 2710
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006 - 11:25 pm: |
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William Stead became rather batty with age. In 1909 he published How I Know the Dead Return. It's a shame the great journalist is remembered for this sort of stuff, rather than for his contributions to the press and to social reforms.
As far as I can tell, Christopher Nixon's fame was all in his mind. His verse was published locally in very small books which would never have competed with the popular Australian writers of the day, such as Patterson, Lawson and Dennis. When I can, I'll look for an obituary but I'm not hopeful. I think I can find his grave but I live quite a long way from it and petrol is up to $1-40 per litre.
Dave Gittins
Titanic: Monument and Warning.
http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/Book.html
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