Re: Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?

[voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Combs, Richard
<richard -dot- combs -at- polycom -dot- com>wrote:

> Leonard C. Porrello wrote:
>
> > Along similar lines, I wonder how many of things in Heinlein list he
> > himself could do. Program a computer? I doubt it. Plan an invasion?
> Yea
> > right. And while I enjoyed his science fiction, I'm not sure he could
> > have written a decent Sonnet had his life depended on it. I've read
> just
> > about everything he's written, and nothing comes to mind.
>
> I'm pretty certain Heinlein dabbled in programming (in fact, I vaguely
> recall a picture of him with his Altair computer). And he attended the
> Naval Academy, so he certainly learned enough about military strategy
> and tactics to plan an invasion (and in fact, planned some fictional
> ones in his novels).
>
> As for poetry, his first known work (unpublished) was a poem written
> while at Annapolis, and I believe some other unpublished poems of his
> have been published since his death. I don't know if any of them are in
> sonnet form, but at least one is a love poem, so it's likely.
>
> Heinlein incorporated poetry (OK, some would call it doggerel) into a
> number of his novels and short stories. Sometimes it was just a stanza
> or two, as in _Ordeal in Space_, where he added a new verse to the Navy
> Hymn. But sometimes it was more, as in _The Green Hills of Earth_,


Have you tried singing that to the theme from Gilligan's Island? It scans.

(A friend pointed this out to me after I had set it to some of my own music)

-Wendy
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