Robert Fripp

Author

Producing programs for CBC-TV’s This Land took Robert Fripp to tiny places on Canada’s vast map to tell interesting tales. Country Canada brought him to the prairies, then to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland for fishing stories. After that, 360 episodes of The Fifth Estate over 11 years: variety beyond belief.

From the south of England, Robert; from New York City, Carol Burtin Fripp. We entered Canada as newly-weds on November 5, 1965. Over the next thirty years we both produced television independently for CBC, TVO and NHK.

Books came out. In the sciences: Spirit in Health; The Becoming (UK); Let There Be Life (US/CA); a commercial magazine IBM Visions series, two volumes of Wessex Tales (40 stories), Power of a Woman (Eleanor of Aquitaine dictates her memoirs). And more. You’ll find them here.

I was nine when I won a place in Salisbury Cathedral’s choir, chanting, singing and reading Elizabethan English for the next five years. I remembered it well enough to learn it better, and to write a script for a play or film – Dark Sovereign – decades later. That’s here, too, ready to compete with Shakespeare in his own tongue.


Latest News

Dark Sovereign Reading – November 13, 2024

Presented by the Friends of Victoria University Library  Please join us for a reading: Guest Speaker: Robert Fripp In person and online Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, 2 p.m.Old Vic Building, Alumni Hall, VC112 Dark SovereignA New Version for the Stage The Tragedy of King Richard the Third that William Shakespeare should have written Crafted in … Read more

“For Real, For Realm: Excellent Eleanor”

By Winnie Czulinski, Writer, Editor and Publishing-Promo Pro. Easter Day, April Fool’s Day — and Eleanor of Aquitaine Day. Today, April 1, marks the passing in 1204 of a royal woman who didn’t believe in hiding behind her skirts. So, why not Eleanor of Aquitaine Day? You will find her starring in lists like “the … Read more

‘Power of a Woman’: the turbulent life of Eleanor of Aquitaine

‘Power of a Woman …’ ~ Melissa Snell reviews ‘a monumental challenge’: Mr. Fripp has taken on a monumental challenge. Not only does he handle the delicate balancing act of telling a good story while maintaining accurate historical detail, but he does so by getting inside the head of someone who actually lived more than … Read more

The Intelligence of Microbes …

 ‘Science’ (25 November 2017) published a story I thought both weird, wonderful —’Seeing the Beautiful Intelligence of Microbes …’ — and strangely familiar. [1] The story begins: “Bacterial biofilm and slime molds are more than crude patches of goo. Detailed time-lapse microscopy reveals how they sense and explore their surroundings, communicate with their neighbors and … Read more

Channeling Aphrodite

A Perilous Venture: Channeling Aphrodite Welcome to Aphrodite, more recently known as the Venus de Milo. I’m writing her fantasy. Writing serious stuff is like farming. It does not pay. I used to write television scripts, technical stories and features about advanced software. That paid well. Now I write to keep my brain in shape. … Read more

The Beginning

Excerpted from ‘Let There Be Life’ (published by Paulist Press, 2002) By Robert Fripp Verse 1. In the beginning was darkness and the silence of the void. And the spirit of God looked out upon the void, and was alone within it. Verse 1, commentary ~ For the authors of Genesis the moment of Creation … Read more

Wildfires, wildflowers

Out of the ashes Carol Kaesuk Yoon wrote much of the story below in 1999, from which this is adapted — giving credit, of course. Her story was beautiful. I merged text from my ‘Let There Be Life’ (2002) . Here is Wildfires, wildflowers … ¶ ‘Ninety million years ago, on what [was, in 1999] an … Read more

Quantum mechanics, life’s motive force?

Nature isn’t classical ‘Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly, it’s a wonderful problem, because it doesn’t look so easy.’ ~ Richard P. Feynman, Ph.D. Well, all right, Professor Feynman. Quantum it shall be. As you say, it’s not so … Read more

The Red Shoes, Catharsis or Trauma?

It’s the summer of 1949. I’m approaching my sixth birthday. Mother and I are watching a movie, The Red Shoes, in the cinema on the Cunard Line’s Queen Elizabeth. This is my second trip to Mother’s family in New York. (I say ‘Mother’. I should explain that Hazel Lisle Batson Fripp became my stepmother at … Read more

Of Potter’s Clay and DNA

  ¶   “A POTTER CREATES his or her most original work using virgin clay. A creator does so using virgin DNA. No! That’s true for the potter—It’s not true for the Creator. ‘Old’ DNA is as good as new “Life-plans use genes over and over again, assigning DNA secondary tasks within a species even while … Read more

Wessex Tales Vol 1 by Robert Fripp
Wessex Tales Vol 2 by Robert Fripp
Spirit in Health by Robert Fripp
Dark Sovereign 3rd Ed. by Robert Fripp
Power of a Woman by Robert Fripp
Design and Science, the Life and Times of Will Burton by Robert Fripp

Photo: Marilyn Peddle, North Dorset, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons