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An Afternoon With Ray Bradbury
.250Savage
Member Posts: 812 ✭✭✭✭
Today I got to see Ray Bradbury for a few hours. They rolled him in in a wheelchair (what is he, in his eighties now?), so I was a little concerned that he might be too enfeebled with age to give a good showing anymore.
I needn't have worried. While he did use a few more "earthy" words than I might like, he still put on a very good talk. It is obvious that, even at his advanced age, the "fire" still burns just as hotly as it ever did in his soul. Would that we never had to get old.
He talked easily for an hour, then a break, then another hour. His thrust, as might be imagined, was love, in that you should do what you love, which mirrors my own long-held philosophy. I have also heard it said, "Do what you love, and the money will follow", which I hope is right, so I won't always be a failure! Too, he talked of all the many different loves he has, for sci-fi, for architecture, food, France, Ireland, films, and all the other things that make up his remarkable life. Apparently, he laid out the blueprint for Horton Plaza, among many others, right here in San Diego! He said, "You should be able to look over to it from the U.S. Grant hotel, and think, `That looks like someplace I could get lost in.' ", which he characterizes as being one of the great pleasures of traveling. He contends that is one of the great pleasures of Paris - that you can go there, have a marvelous time, and have no idea where the h-e-double-toothpicks you are.
He says that his work is all pure metaphor, and that it is nothing intellectual, but all passion, all feeling. He has been stuffing himself for years with reading novels, plays, essays, to the point where he has so many ideas bouncing around in his head that things are bound to come out (the faces of his Martians are the golden mask of King Tut). He also claims he is only a conduit for the stories, that the characters tell him the stories and he just writes them down, which mirrors my own experiences with writing. When the Muse is upon you, you MUST write, write until your hand cramps, and then you write some more.
And he certainly made clear right from the outset that you would never be rich being a writer! He wrote "Fahrenheit 451" in the basement of the UCLA library on the $0.10/half-hour typewriters, so the whole book was written for $9.80 in dimes. He then sold that story for $400 to a young man starting a magazine who needed good material, so the story was split up over the first three editions of "Playboy" (See? I do read it for the articles!). He got into it, he said, so that some day, he might see his books leaning up against the books of L. Frank Baum (the "Oz" books) or Edgar Rice Burroughs or any of the other writers he so admired (I'd say he made it!).
And on top of everything else, he likes Regan, and credited him and Pope John Paul with ridding the world of the scourge of Communism (tho we still have Hitlery and her crew of jokers.) and said that in cleaning up a city, "To hell with the homeless!". I love this man! I shook his hand and had him sign a copy of "The Illustrated Man", which I confess I don't believe I have ever read, even though I have read nearly everything else he has ever written, but I'll fix that in short order.
But he likes oreos. Well, no one is perfect.
I'm sure I've not told it all here as well as I might, but I thot y'all might like a report about a few hours with a remarkable man. I count myself as lucky that I got to meet him, and talk with him, and shake his hand. I consider him a living legend. Would that I could have met Heinlein or a dozen other authors I so revere.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.--Voltaire~Secret Select Society Of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~
I needn't have worried. While he did use a few more "earthy" words than I might like, he still put on a very good talk. It is obvious that, even at his advanced age, the "fire" still burns just as hotly as it ever did in his soul. Would that we never had to get old.
He talked easily for an hour, then a break, then another hour. His thrust, as might be imagined, was love, in that you should do what you love, which mirrors my own long-held philosophy. I have also heard it said, "Do what you love, and the money will follow", which I hope is right, so I won't always be a failure! Too, he talked of all the many different loves he has, for sci-fi, for architecture, food, France, Ireland, films, and all the other things that make up his remarkable life. Apparently, he laid out the blueprint for Horton Plaza, among many others, right here in San Diego! He said, "You should be able to look over to it from the U.S. Grant hotel, and think, `That looks like someplace I could get lost in.' ", which he characterizes as being one of the great pleasures of traveling. He contends that is one of the great pleasures of Paris - that you can go there, have a marvelous time, and have no idea where the h-e-double-toothpicks you are.
He says that his work is all pure metaphor, and that it is nothing intellectual, but all passion, all feeling. He has been stuffing himself for years with reading novels, plays, essays, to the point where he has so many ideas bouncing around in his head that things are bound to come out (the faces of his Martians are the golden mask of King Tut). He also claims he is only a conduit for the stories, that the characters tell him the stories and he just writes them down, which mirrors my own experiences with writing. When the Muse is upon you, you MUST write, write until your hand cramps, and then you write some more.
And he certainly made clear right from the outset that you would never be rich being a writer! He wrote "Fahrenheit 451" in the basement of the UCLA library on the $0.10/half-hour typewriters, so the whole book was written for $9.80 in dimes. He then sold that story for $400 to a young man starting a magazine who needed good material, so the story was split up over the first three editions of "Playboy" (See? I do read it for the articles!). He got into it, he said, so that some day, he might see his books leaning up against the books of L. Frank Baum (the "Oz" books) or Edgar Rice Burroughs or any of the other writers he so admired (I'd say he made it!).
And on top of everything else, he likes Regan, and credited him and Pope John Paul with ridding the world of the scourge of Communism (tho we still have Hitlery and her crew of jokers.) and said that in cleaning up a city, "To hell with the homeless!". I love this man! I shook his hand and had him sign a copy of "The Illustrated Man", which I confess I don't believe I have ever read, even though I have read nearly everything else he has ever written, but I'll fix that in short order.
But he likes oreos. Well, no one is perfect.
I'm sure I've not told it all here as well as I might, but I thot y'all might like a report about a few hours with a remarkable man. I count myself as lucky that I got to meet him, and talk with him, and shake his hand. I consider him a living legend. Would that I could have met Heinlein or a dozen other authors I so revere.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.--Voltaire~Secret Select Society Of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~
Comments
- Life NRA Member
If dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
As to doing what you love and the money will follow: I have done what I love and the money did not follow (not as much as I would have liked anyway), But, doing what you love and being poor is way better than hating what you do and being poor. I think doing what you love and being rich would be the best, and have never been sure about hating what you do and being rich. I might be willing to try it for a couple of years.
Think I will go re-read Dandelion Wine, Thanks!
Lord Lowrider the LoquaciousMember:Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets She was only a fisherman's daughter,But when she saw my rod she reeled.