From: Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Date: Sat Nov 27 1999 - 00:36:17 MST
Lee Daniel wrote:
>I didn't recognize the poem when I heard it, but I remember that the line
>"...wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief..."
stuck in my mind very
>clearly. Alda's character did say it was Blake; either a writer's mistake
or a sharp writer trying
>to see how many Blake and/or Berry fans would catch the character's mistake.
Spike wrote:
>So did the ER writers intentionally misattribute that quote to emphasize the
>quirky selective nature of mental degeneration with Alzhiemers? Or did
they just not know?
I checked an ER website and tracked down the name of the writer for the
episode in question, November 11th, entitled "The Peace of Wild Things".
The writer was John Wells, who has major responsability for the series, he
writes and directs episodes in addition to other "executive" duties. He
also happens to be the President of the Writer's Guild of America. Their
website can be found at:
and, John Wells, as their president can easily be contacted, or at least
it's easy to phone his office. (There's an 800 number.)
(800) 548-4532
I made the call and asked for the source of the poem. Of course, you guys
have already tracked that down by now, but these other questions--an
accidental misattribution or a mistake by the character to emphasize the
effects of Alzhiemers?--I didn't ask about. Also, I didn't get a reply to
my original question about the poem.
Obviously, since at the time I didn't know the title of the poem, I didn't
recognize that the title of the episode WAS the title of the poem. At this
point I would venture a guess that the "misattribution" by the character
was no mistake by the writer.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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