RIP
― George Peppard Steak (snoball), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:15 (twelve years ago) link
rip. his writing was one of my first great literature loves. i read so much stuff by him, of course all the short story collections, but also something wicked this way comes and a graveyard for lunatics. illustrated man, dandelion wine, fahrenheit 451, martian chronicles, i think the last thing i read by him was the short story collection Quicker Than The Eye - which i remember buying in hardcover when i was idk, around 12. one of the first grownup lit purchases i made on my own.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:16 (twelve years ago) link
met him once at a booksigning when I was a kid. awesome dude. RIP
― retro-shittified (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:19 (twelve years ago) link
RIP, my first favorite author. i should revisit this stuff, haven't read it in forever.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
I dunno if it's just me, but his writing always felt very intimate....like he was pulling you in to tell you a secret. There was always a sense that I was reading something that no-one else had ever read, despite his fame etc. I can't really explain it...
RIP. Thanks for the journeys!
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
91 years old! RIP
― poxen, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:26 (twelve years ago) link
I love his books so much, and I've read them so many times over the years, that they feel like part of where I'm from. Going back to The October Country or Martian Chronicles now is like returning home. And a place that was passed down to me, too -- my father was the one who gave me my first copies of The Illustrated Man and The October Country. I will do my best to pass them along to my own kids. I'd love to be there the first time they read "The Veldt" or "The Crowd." (Actually, I might keep a safe distance when they read "The Veldt"...)
R.I.P. Thanks for the stories.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:33 (twelve years ago) link
I need to read a ton more things by him.
I'd heard a Caedmon Records reading of this story by Leonard Nimoy in the '70s, but YT only has Burgess Meredith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXKT7QQsVx0
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:34 (twelve years ago) link
one of my first big loves too. i have the big red book of short stories, it is great for dipping even when a story turns out to be thin and hysterical. something wicked and "the veldt" both total masterpieces.
― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:35 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1IxOS4VzKM
RIP dude. I love that EC documentary where you do an extended interview as a bonus feature and couldn't be bothered getting dressed for it.
― Desire is withered away from the sons of men! (aldo), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:36 (twelve years ago) link
my father also introduced me to bradbury xxxp
― Mordy, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
His writing got more ornate and would-be poetic as he went along, not to its benefit. But pretty much everything through S Is for Space is essential, imo.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:39 (twelve years ago) link
My favourite short story writer. I too was fortunate enough to get some Bradbury fed to me at school. "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" and "The Veldt" made such an impression aged 13.
― Jeff W, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:40 (twelve years ago) link
did all you people who loved 'the veldt' have terrible parents?
― Jesu swept (ledge), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:41 (twelve years ago) link
does everyone who loved the little assassin have terrible babbies?
― Mordy, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:43 (twelve years ago) link
haha. it's funny, even though I was probably eight or nine when I read the martian chronicles, i remember *getting* that the stories weren't supposed to be some kind of truly speculative version of what Mars might be, but more of this imaginative fantasia kinda thing that was more about humanity than it was about spaceships or whatever. not saying i was a super-precocious reader or anything, just that Bradbury was able to get that across to a nine-year-old.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
I'll have to read The Veldt at lunch to figure out if I've read it before.
http://www.veddma.com/veddma/Veldt.htm
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
Ha, I have a brother 12 yrs younger than me who was a baby at the time I read "Small Assassin." I had a nightmare where he was walking around holding a scalpel. One of two specifically Bradbury-inspired nightmares I can remember, though there were probably more.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
there's a great moment in Fallout 3 where you step into a bombed out house where all the humans are dead but a robot keeps up the maintenance and reads 'there will come soft rains' to the children's skeletons
― Mordy, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
re-read the October Country recently and The Scythe creeped me out something proper.
― koogs, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
ha, i thought i was the only one who was really effected by The Veldt as a kid
― Nhex, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
― Steve Youngblood (dan m), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
This is a sad day. I read Something Wicked... just a few months ago, having managed never to read it before, and it really is a masterpiece. The short stories, and the work approach of the man himself, such huge influences on me in so many ways, right down to autumn in Minnesota automatically being BRADBURY'S TIME.
― but he go's to a resturang and then die in a toilet (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
This dude GOT IT DONE.
We should do a rundown of the various film/TV/radio adaptations. Here's The Electric Grandmother aka a version of "I Sing the Body Electric!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvUWvifigLs
And of course I presume we all know about Something Wicked This Way Comes.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
he was awesome. i remember reading an old book of his stories when i was a pre-teen and just loving it so much, total young-mind-shaping times.
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:16 (twelve years ago) link
xp ha, just found out my friend's dad did the screenplay for that w/ bradbury!
― tylerw, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:16 (twelve years ago) link
and the cat pic is perfect.RIP
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
how is the film of Something Wicked? He wrote the script. It got p good reviews in '83 but did no business, I think.
Purists were upset with the Truffaut version on F451, but I thought it came off reasonably well, esp the last scene. (and considering the director hadn't mastered English)
And he adapted Moby-Dick for John Huston, which I haven't seen either.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
He was involved on some level with the big Harryhausen/Schneer fantasies too right?
― but he go's to a resturang and then die in a toilet (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
Jesus Morbs, see Huston's Moby! It slays.
i remember meeting ray bradbury as a teenager. i asked him to sign a book for me and i said a bunch of well-meaning but inane teenage hero worship shit about his books. maybe it was because his books were the first adult books i'd read where i grasped a certain level of thematic subtlety.i mean i had read adult books and i had read stuff like heinlein and stephen king and whatnot and i'd "got the message" and i had read philip k dick and understood the plot (if not necessarily the message), but i remember the nihilism of things like the martian chronicles and fahrenheit 451 and the way he undercut his heroes. maybe it was the first time i really grasped the feeling of a pyrrhic victory?
anyway, i met him and had him sign the small pile of paperbacks that i'd gradually nicked from the school library and he said something back that was kind and diplomatic but at the same time somehow also made me keenly aware that what i'd say was a bunch of inane teenage shit. i think this was maybe the first time an adult other than my parents had really done that to me and i sort of remember it as the beginning of a long decline into the self-loathing, frustration and isolation most of his best characters (guy, spender, etc) seem to embody. it was years before i went back to ray bradbury - maybe not even until after college - and i never really
thanks a lot big guy.
― the late great, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
This is spectacularly sad to me; Bradbury saw me through puberty. I'm genuinely choked up. Love this guy, RIP.
― “Argh!” I cry. But I really don’t care. (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
I've read that the Something Wicked production was rather fraught. Shit got changed a lot from RB's draft, some Disney interference, the score which Georges Delerue wrote and fully recorded was thrown out, etc.
(the rejected Delerue score is one of the best film scores of all time BTW)
― but he go's to a resturang and then die in a toilet (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:29 (twelve years ago) link
There's also the animated movie The Halloween Tree which looks kinda bad but I wanna see it someday...
― but he go's to a resturang and then die in a toilet (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:30 (twelve years ago) link
Of course he's a hero of mine:
Ray Bradbury had a lifetime of amazing accomplishments but perhaps most notable was living 50+ years in LA without ever learning to drive.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:33 (twelve years ago) link
JL, I have to read Moby-Dick first.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:35 (twelve years ago) link
I remember the film version of Something Wicked really freaking me the fuck out and thinking it was awesome but y'know I was like 13 and haven't seen it since.
― retro-shittified (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:39 (twelve years ago) link
At around age 15, The October Country changed the way I read, the way Hitchcock changed the way I watch movies.
I will never forget you, Mr. Bradbury.
― cue "White Rabbit" (kenan), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:41 (twelve years ago) link
RIP, ray. my first favorite author, not since displaced.
― spextor vs bextor (contenderizer), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:41 (twelve years ago) link
(xp to morbius)http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/12/21/1324481045307/Zelig-1983---starring-Woo-007.jpg
― I don't know what to read so I am reading it here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:41 (twelve years ago) link
Martian Chronicles is probably my favorite book of all time.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
Great line I just stumbled across in that Electric Grandmother adaptation I linked earlier, from near the end of the film:
"I forget the difference between loving people and paying attention to them. There is a difference."
Hate to say one line sums up a life's work, but it sums up a large part of it, so well.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:46 (twelve years ago) link
No-one else liked the TV miniseries of The Martian Chronicles, but I loved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEMWtyAKRhQ
RIP, the Golden Age writers are almost all gone now aren't they?
― A++++++ would deal to again (Matt #2), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:49 (twelve years ago) link
I think a bunch of people around here DID like it.
Pohl is still around.
― I don't know what to read so I am reading it here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:52 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/
― I don't know what to read so I am reading it here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:53 (twelve years ago) link
ha i remember watching that martian chronicles miniseries as a kid and being ... disappointed. but maybe it's good!
― tylerw, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:54 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah I remember the miniseries was shown just a few months after the fourth-grade reading I mentioned and I was very, very hyped for it; my parents let me stay up to watch it all. One of the first times I was ever disappointed that they didn't 'film the book,' but you have to learn at some point. I'm sure it comes across as clunky in parts now but I'm glad they did it, hell, I'm still surprised they did it!
I found it very interesting, when I got around to reading Rock Hudson's official biography/autobiography years later, that there's absolutely no mention of it at all in there.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:55 (twelve years ago) link
in that still, it just looks like a Martian guested on an episode of McMillan and Wife.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 16:58 (twelve years ago) link
Here was a recent mention: The 1970's Science Fiction Movie Poll
― I don't know what to read so I am reading it here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 June 2012 17:00 (twelve years ago) link
This is great: "I have three rules to live by. One, get your work done. If that doesn’t work, shut up and drink your gin. And when all else fails, run like hell!"
― o. nate, Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:26 (twelve years ago) link
ray otm
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:29 (twelve years ago) link
what is wrong w/ cranky oddballism?
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:32 (twelve years ago) link
I started reading "The Better Part of Wisdom" at lunch. Is this a story with gay characters...?
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:34 (twelve years ago) link
Nothing! People up-thread alluded to some of his Tea-Party-esque political views - but perhaps those are rather normal for someone of his generation, and not examples of oddballism.
― o. nate, Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:36 (twelve years ago) link
loveable cranks are cool
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:42 (twelve years ago) link
I just like the idea of priveleging how reading material smells
I actually do! Bradbury totally nails why I prefer to read from books over screens. I just get a kick out of the "damn kids get off my lawn" aspects of bibliophilia.
― Convert simple JEEZ to BDSMcode (Austerity Ponies), Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:50 (twelve years ago) link
If cherishing printed and bound paper is now considered bibliophilia, then I'm an old crank as well. I don't want or need every book that I will ever read in that format, but some books require it. My giant hardback edition of the complete works of e.e. cummings. That same shitty paperback of Catcher in the Rye that everyone has, with the inexplicable 45-degree rainbow in the top corner, like a generic brand from Aldi. Emily Dickinson with a broken spine. James Burke with huge pages, an illustration on literally almost every one of them. Some books require texture, and their own specific gravity.
― cue "White Rabbit" (kenan), Friday, 8 June 2012 06:36 (twelve years ago) link
I got the e.e. cummings book used from Powell's. It's unstained, unread, and very likely unopened. There is writing on the inside front title page:
Jill,May you find inspiration and comfort in this book. You have been and continue to be a truly wonderful friend! ((The exclamation point has a heart where the dot should be.)) Thank you for teaching me to be "mindful." Love, Alex.
May you find inspiration and comfort in this book. You have been and continue to be a truly wonderful friend! ((The exclamation point has a heart where the dot should be.)) Thank you for teaching me to be "mindful." Love, Alex.
Either Jill didn't much care for the book and still hasn't told Alex, or Jill and Alex aren't speaking anymore. Either way, there's a story in this book. Just this one book.
― cue "White Rabbit" (kenan), Friday, 8 June 2012 06:48 (twelve years ago) link
Re: The Better Part of Wisdom, yes, it is. I remember it being a little bit awkward, as if Bradbury was pushing himself to write about something he wasn't really that familiar or comfortable with. But it's a sweet story.
Reread "The Jar." God, what a creepy little bit of ugliness. "Tom Carmody, who would never smile again..."
― JoeStork, Friday, 8 June 2012 06:58 (twelve years ago) link
The whole damn book is like that! And god I love it.
― cue "White Rabbit" (kenan), Friday, 8 June 2012 07:03 (twelve years ago) link
warning: video
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/414933/june-06-2012/sign-off---ray-bradbury-tribute
― koogs, Friday, 8 June 2012 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
The section of the grandpa's monologue reminiscing in the most lyrical terms his golden friendship with the boy comes as close to authentic poetic prose as I've ever read. I'm astounded Bradbury could write this well. As a result, I tore through about nine stories in one sitting.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 June 2012 16:01 (twelve years ago) link
btw my first awareness of RAY BRADBURY as an eminence came when Epcot, then known as EPCOT Center, announced that he'd contributed to the development and script for the Spaceship Earth ride.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
And funny you should say that!
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/06/honoring-ray-bradburys-contribution-to-epcot/
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
'Make sure when you wake up in the morning that you know you accomplished everything you possibly could the previous day. And then do it again!’
There are two kinds of people in this world....
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:45 (twelve years ago) link
Mr. Bradbury and Dr. Morbius
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2012 17:46 (twelve years ago) link
"Doctor" if you're feeling nasty
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 June 2012 17:48 (twelve years ago) link
As with R A Heinlein, I prefer his earlier work to his old coot pronouncements.
― F is for Fule (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
oh I dunno: Morbs still writes excellent reviews.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:20 (twelve years ago) link
I saw that coming from miles away like the last Martian astronomers saw the rockets leaving the surface of the Earth
― F is for Fule (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 8 June 2012 18:32 (twelve years ago) link
I knew Colbert was a fan (thus the link above) but how had I missed the existence of this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSoigRHHNLM
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 03:50 (eleven years ago) link
Such a great story.
― Nate Carson, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 03:52 (eleven years ago) link
could not turn that off (meta!)
― a permanent mental health break (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 03:58 (eleven years ago) link
i think that was the first short story i ever read
it was kind of all downhill after that
― a permanent mental health break (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 03:59 (eleven years ago) link
And now his house is gone.
http://file770.com/?p=20397
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 04:41 (nine years ago) link
There came soft rains?
― Zings of Oblivion (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 07:37 (nine years ago) link