We’ve had a change of members over the past couple of years and many of our current members have never been subjected to my earlier challenges -- it’s time to change that. Back in October, 2010, I posted a challenge that had a very good response but many of our current members never saw it so it’s time for you to face that challenge. Below is my original post with a few edits to bring it up to date.
* * *
Eighty-seven years ago a radical group formed a new “hood” trying to say that there was no difference between any of us.
We’re fighting a turf war right now trying to figure out whether those old guys were right or not. We’re on one of the many battlefields marking the area where a bunch of them are buried having died trying to enforce the formation of that “hood.” It’s about all we can do for them anymore.
* * *
In case you don’t recognize this famous piece, here’s the original:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Yep, that’s just one interpretation of the Gettysburg Address. Do you have another?
I hope you’ve figured out where I’m going with this week’s challenge -- I want you to rewrite some famous passage.
I’m not limiting you to the written word (prose or poetry) and you’re welcome to rewrite a song, an operatic aria, a political document, or even the inscription on some monument.
This Week’s Challenge:
Rewrite some famous piece of literature, poetry, opera, or song. Not the whole thing, obviously, just a sampling of a few paragraphs, stanzas, or verses. Make it your work. (Include the original text so readers can compare them.)
Ideas:
Rewrite the first few paragraphs of A Tale of Two Cities. (I’d really like to see one or more submissions based on this.)
Can you think of a song in which you always felt that something was just out of place? Here’s your chance to make it right.
Rewrite William Bradford’s transcription of the Mayflower Compact.
Rewrite two or three sections of the Homestead Act of 1862.
Rewrite some of the lyrics of “When I Was a Lad” from the H.M.S. Pinafore.
More in the same vein? Rewrite some of the lyrics of “I Enjoy Being a Girl” from Flower Drum Song.
I make no bones about the fact that I don’t consider rap as music mainly because I rarely understand more than a few words of what I hear. If you’re into that style of “music,” how about rewriting a current hit so I can understand what the “artist” is saying.
Watch Out For:
Not a lot; just rewrite something in your own way and include the original so we can compare them.
Recap:
I might have missed some submissions and I certainly hope so because, when I receive only four responses, you’re sure to see this challenge again.
SatWE - The good Samaratin by subroto s s.
No good deed...satwe by karen vaughan
Helping (Saturday Writing Essential) by Len Maxwell
Fred, (My Typical Freestyle Challenge (Saturday Writing Essential)) by Pam Brittain
Submission from a Previous Week:
Snow Returned (Saturday Writing Essentials) by Sandy Moore
Weekly reminder: Don't forget to recommend an article that you like (to learn why, read Ann Marcaida's article Attract More Writers and Artists to Gather!). Also, try to place a comment on at least one article and say more than you liked the piece. Tell the author what worked and what needs work.
The Rules:
- Put this challenge statement at the beginning or end of your submission so readers will know what you’re supposed to do.
Challenge: Rewrite some famous piece of literature, poetry, opera, or song. Not the whole thing, obviously, just a sampling of a few paragraphs, stanzas, or verses. Make it your work. (Include the original text so readers can compare them.)
- There is a limit of three submissions from each member per day. If you’re extremely prolific, spread out your work and post only three submissions per day.
- Post to Gather Writing Essential.
- Tag your submission with SatWE.
- Include (Saturday Writing Essential) as part of your title.
- I ask that you make your submission(s) by next Friday afternoon.
Good Writing!
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Comments: 47
This usually works for me: I sign in two windows for Gather and go to the same site. Then after I get one slow poke going, I switch to the other and start working on it. Between the two of them by switching back and forth I can go a bit faster.
I look forward to your postings, whatever which way.
I believe strongly in life balance in almost every aspect except hair styles.
When I was younger, I practiced playing my own creations 10x more than any known tune. My stroke made playing the guitar no longer professional, so writing has been a needed fix for my daily creative want in output. It's like breathing to me. Gather's disgraceful slowness, after false promises, is making it impossible for me to write and respond. I'm sorry, but I simply will no longer tolerate a second rate site falsely claiming its mission. It's simply shameful in my ZEN view. I'm not quitting Gather, but I'm no longer going to wait more than a minute for a page to open. I have other things that do reduce my stress, instead of putting up with Gather's words of False. If the Gather administrators every get their heads out of an act and keep their word, I will be a doubting Thomas. Gather has given me no reason to believe they have any sincerity.
I have never met a woman who does not talk about hair. I'm a man and I don't get the hair fascination. Thank you.
Featured in My Way in the Triple Name Club.
Now Featured on Surreal Circus
Okay. Got the gist.
Here goes:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the time when all good men were called to their makers and all bad men were called down below. It was a time of discontent in our midst, a time when winter lay fallow our fruits and when our seeds ne'er planted bore fruit. It was a time when innocence was ravaged and deeds went unpunished. It was when heaven and hell merged and when rulers went wild.
In the US, there was a ruler with a plain countenance and an honest demeanor, and in the countries abroad the rulers had an honest countenance and a plain demeanor, but when innocence was ravaged, and heaven and hell merged into one, the rulers with an honest countenance swarmed the towers and tore them down with a fiery inferno, proving their honest countenance to be a bald-faced lie, leaving nothing but an unholy, godless mess on the streets, where howling gases spoke the miseries of those fleeing the center, the center of it all. Nothing would ever be the same.
Thank you submitting to Gathers Luminous Writers and Artists.
For Honeysuckle Rose he sings, Honey, suck my nose.
:)
At our house, it was never Walking in our Winter Wonderland.
No, we were Walking in our Winter Underwear. But then, we're Minnesotans.
Thank you for submitting to: Not Gathering Dust!
as I have been there and done that already
to Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities
I'm definitely going 'low-brow' this time around. ANY IDEAS FOR SOME UTTERLY SHOCKING FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT[no more michigan thumbs please]???
I am proud that my silhouette is curvy,
That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait
With my hips kind of swivelly and swervy.
Singing this to my wife after a supper of pink slime choice cuts, I looked deeply in my wife's eyes and said, 'If I shaved my legs, beard and underarms, would I look like the woman of these song lyric charms?" My wife looked rather concerned.
I'm with you there, except that many times with those "Songs" I don't want to know what they're saying...
the singer/shouter/screamer Yep. I would include all of those except maybe the first one. I don't even classify that as singing. ;p