Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury.

[beam me up scottie]

I'd like to use this opportunity to express my love and eternal gratitude to this great man who opened my eyes when I was a child.

Biography

Ray Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.

His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden. In an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian state. Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. His short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum "recommended reading" anthologies. Mr. Bradbury's eagerly awaited new novel, From the Dust Returned, will be published by William Morrow at Halloween 2001. Morrow will release One More For the Road, a new collection Bradbury stories, at Christmas 2001.

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On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you''ll come along."
Much more at: http://www.raybradbury.com/

For a listing of his books, collections and poems, see the Internet Book List website: http://www.iblist.com/author87.htm

And if you haven't seen them before, don't miss the videos of a 2000 interview with Ray Bradbury in this series called "At Home With Ray": http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html#

[Orsino]

1. He may be a cranky old man...

...given some possibly out-of-context quotes from him on Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, but Dandelion Wine is one of the finest things I've ever read.

For a college Spanish project, I translated the "Calling Mexico" chapter. That story makes me tear up.

[beam me up scottie]

2. I give him a pass on the Fahrenheit 9/11 thing.

If I had written that book, it would be like my baby and I would probably have reacted the same way.

Something Wicked This Way Comes blew my pre-adolescent mind.

[Orsino]

3. But Mr. "Golden Apples of the Sun" had no business...

...complaining about anyone else "stealing titles." If he was indeed being serious.

[beam me up scottie]

4. Sure he did.

He didn't want his brainchild to be forever associated with Michael Moore's film.

[Orsino]

5. That's not stealing...

...as Mr. "Golden Apples" knew quite well.

[beam me up scottie]

6. And?

I long for the day when I can hear or read the title of that book without associating it with Michael Moore.
I imagine if I had given birth to it, I would be more than a little upset.

[Orsino]

7. An author published as widely as Bradbury should know better...

...than to grouse about "stealing" that's actually a common and accepted practice.