John Wyndham, the author of Day of the Triffids (one of my favorite sci-fi stories), was born November 18, 1903. He was a diverse creative genius whose life was not without controversy. The internet is teeming with articles about him, one of which describes his work as being in the genre of "speculative fiction," rather than sci-fi, the difference being that there is little science involved--Wyndham merely sets new conditions on earth. It's a nice term. Another interesting fact is that Wyndham began to go blind in 1949 and Day of the Triffids, published in 1951, begins with a catastrophic blast of light that blinds almost the entire population of the earth. The Stupid Story of William Tell November
18, 1307, is supposedly the date that William Tell shot the apple
off his son's head at the command of the evil Austrian governor of
his province in Switzerland. Though the incident, and Tell himself,
may both have been completely fictitious, the legend appears to have
contributed to Switzerland's winning independence from Austria.
Now
there are more holes in this story than in the apple. First, a really
good daddy would have just said, "OK then kill me," when
first given the choice of risking his child or dying. Second, assuming
he was a good daddy but didn't think real fast, once they gave him
the crossbow, and since he was such a terrific archer, why didn't
he quickly swing it over and shoot the Governor? It doesn't make sense.
It is a stupid story and I am not surprised that I forgot it, assuming
I ever knew it in the first place. I must be in the minority on this
assessment of the legend, though, since it spawned an opera, a movie,
several songs, and lots of artwork.
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