Ray Bradbury

I love his stories that have nothing to do with Mars, or magic, or time travel, but his creepy 'adult' stories. "Heavy-Set" is a really weird, dark story that I've never forgotten; the one about the couple vacationing in Mexico (from the early 70's) is another. Like super-freaky Chekov, or Carver even; they end up being the stories that stick with me the strongest.

Be prepared; I understand he's in pretty rough shape. Ask him about The Halloween Tree.

ask him about the inspiration for the Wonderful Ice-Cream Suit

ask him about Death Is a Lonely Business and whether any of that Los Angeles still exists

I'd say ask him about America and politics and such, but I don't think that's really his thing

Heheheh. A nice bedtime story. For parents. Who want nightmares.

poems and prose of gerard manley hopkins

headlong hall, nightmare abbey, & crotchet castle - thomas love peacock

the opium of the intellectuals - raymond aron

selected correspondence of bernard shaw & h.g. wells

the cabala - thornton wilder

the screwtape letters - c.s. lewis

the goncourt journals 1851-1870

the complete short stories of w.somerset maugham

darwin's century - loren eisely

alexander pope (all of it? i don't know. maybe just a little.)

without marx or jesus - jean-francois revel

from bauhaus to our house & the painted word - tom wolfe

the collected stories of edith wharton

a passage to india - e.m. forster

slouching towards bethlehem - joan didion

the maltese falcon - dashiell hammett

plus commentary, but i'm not gonna type all that out cuz that would be nuts.

I DO like this bit though on edith wharton: "Wharton, the first lady of American letters, wrote highfalutin tales about society women before willa cather and katherine anne porter came to nail them down." Ouch! I get a violent picture in my head of willa and katherine wielding hammers.

sorry, o/t

I went to jail when I was 21 and read a collection of his short stories from the dismal prison library and was less than impressed.

Of course it could have been because I was in, you know, prison.

Bradbury's alright in my book.

the BRADBURY CHRONICLES is a v.v.v.feeble title

his list of titles seems to be big on AHA I SEE THROUGH THE CHARLATANS type nonsense

Read it here:

http://www.sba.muohio.edu/snavely/415/thunder.htm

the director, peter hyams, does not really have the best track record. (timecop! the presidio! end of days!)

Yes! It was inspired by a worried visit to the orthopedist, who ended the visit with "congratulations, Mr. Bradbury, you've discovered your collarbone."

For Tim -

Because you like science fiction. You read some of Ray Bradbury's stories before - This book is pretty scary but you are tough and brave about those things I think.
Love, Mommy

I think as much as any other single writer, Ray Bradbury shaped me as a writer. When he dies, which is unfortunately bound to be not too far off, it will be a sad, sad day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU

What a wonderful old codger.

88 today!

88Boadbury

and many mooooooooooooore.

Bradbury has a down to earth midwestern personality. It tones down his brilliance.

Ah, give me a little bit of space on those eighty-eights!

And to quote:

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago,” he said, voice rising. “They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’ ”

“I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story on my life.”

That's 1/3 of the story at best.

The rest surely has to do with being a piss-filled young asshole, and then later a pig-headed old coot. Isn't that the story of anyone who ends up doing what they really want to be doing? It doesn't take "dedication" and it doesn't take "persistence" -- it takes flat, obstinate, arrogant, and even angry refusing to do anything else. This does not make you popular, and you're lucky if it puts food in your mouth. But no one really great has done any different.

A celebration.

I was thinking about "The Haunting of the New" the other night, such a great title, and creepy in a very understated sort of way. The doors opening in the night to gently push the guests out of the house.

Did we ever get any answers to the questions at the top of the thread from the videophone conference party?

He makes a funny cameo appearance in the recent book about the vocoder How To Wreck A Nice Beach

my favorite is 'the foghorn,' where two guys in a lighthouse hear a distant echo of the foghorn and whimsically imagine that it must be a dinosaur calling out to its mate. and then the dinosaur comes and tears down the lighthouse.

Bunch of stuff for a dollar ninety-nine on kindle. Bought The October Country, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Today only

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJj-y73fdQ

Really wish Miyazaki would come back and do an incredible adaptation of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'. I see his work in my mind's eye all the way through this book. Imagine Mr Dark or the hall of mirrors or the Dust Witch rendered in a Howl's Moving Castle style. Who do I lobby about this?

that would be cool but Miyazaki's history of staying faithful to the source text isn't very good.

did we know about this? HBO in May.

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2018/2/26/michael-b-jordan-hbo-book-burner.html