This is not addressing the fate of the house but its effect. I replied with the following to someone who posted "I love you" on seeing my petition to the president regarding The Interview on an Internet Movie Database message board. Some of it you guys will have seen before and some not.

Thank you so much! I totally needed that! First there was this whole North Korea terrorist threat episode and only a lousy 15 people (including only one relative as far as I know) signing my film premiere petition--driving the final nail into the coffin of the realization that I'm never going to come up with any concept of any kind that anyone can embrace with enthusiasm or support, (which has to some extent been going on for the last 11 years). I was barely calmed down from that, and I wasn't even calm, I was resigned, when Muslim extremist terrorists committed that horrible massacre in France. That in itself was bad enough, but then our president humiliated himself and our entire country by turning a blind eye to the atrocity after taking a firm stand against the North Koreans! The message was clear enough--shame on troublesome Asian godless commies, but if Muslim bruthas massacre a few whiteys and even another Muslim, bully for them! And what the hell were his advisors, the Vice President, the attorney general, and the Secretary of State smoking to go along with boycotting the largest event in French history...which, if no one noticed, is a hell of a lot longer than American history...so maybe the message was simply more that Europe doesn't matter--visions of the crying Frenchman from 1940, anyone? (Obama is also the only president, in all the years since D-Day, to ditch the D-Day memorial commemoration--which he did twice!) I felt like a chump for supporting him, certainly not blindly but as much as possible for seven years!

I thought I'd been thoroughly abased and maybe that was as far as it would go, but then someone in charge of the estate of my favorite author and greatest writer of all time, Ray Bradbury, let his house go on the market. A fan heard about it immediately and posted on his official message board, of which I am chief moderator. We were concerned and had some discussion as to how to possibly preserve it but no one came up with anything. Then some "famous" architect slithered forth whose name I don't like to mention...as I make a policy of not mentioning names such as those of the life forms which (uh, notice I don't say "who") chose to shoot John Lennon and Ronald Reagan...I don't think such creatures deserve the dignity of their names being acknowledged. Let's just say none of us (fans) had ever heard of this creep till now--paid bloody 1.765 million dollars for the property to flaunt in our faces that he would tear the house down because he could! We later learned he doesn't plan to construct for two years, but this crime had to be accomplished quickly as Los Angeles is passing a law making it illegal to secretly tear down any building older than 45 years (1970--the house was built in 1937 and Ray lived there for more than 50 years, over half his life). Both this screwy jerk and Obama have made motions to stick some sort of Band-Aid on the damage but whatever it is I'm having none of it.

At this point, I began to cast about for some way to totally resign from the human race. Someone on a book forum mentioned Heidi and I thought of the grandfather. I don't have the inclination or survival skills to move to a high mountain and BLOODY TALK TO NOBODY except animals, and maybe the kid who looks after the animals. In the end, that didn't even work for him. So, still here...but if it were possible for a person to die of rage, grief, indignation, outrage, frustration, and discouragement, I would be dead! OH, MY GOD, I AM STILL HERE, WHY? So I can stick around to witness the end of all I hold dear in the form of both ideals and material reminders?

More later.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Then some "famous" architect slithered forth whose name I don't like to mention...as I make a policy of not mentioning names such as those of the life forms which...

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I imagine if Voldemayne had matriculated at Hogwarts School he would have been in Slytherin House. As it is, it's simply how he moves from place to place. And like Voldemort, he leaves destruction in his wake.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Then some "famous" architect slithered forth whose name I don't like to mention...as I make a policy of not mentioning names such as those of the life forms which...

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I imagine if Voldemayne had matriculated at Hogwarts School he would have been in Slytherin House. As it is, it's simply how he moves from place to place. And like Voldemort, he leaves destruction in his wake.

Terms for John Lennon's assassin: a Newsweek article about the reunion of the surviving three Beatles said, "one of the singer's old friends refers to [him] with a shiver, as the Man Whose Name We Must Never Mention." The song they reunited to record, "All Those Years Ago," referred to him "The Devil's Best Friend." At some time following this, and particularly after the latest statement by the perpetrator that he did it for attention, plain and simple, I just decided I never need to say his name!

Voldemayne is a good word. Until I come up with a better one I've settled on Jerkitect.

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For Ray...in honor of someone whose name deserves to be stricken from the earth!





“The next afternoon Parkhill did some target practice in one of the dead cities, shooting out the crystal windows and blowing the tops off the fragile towers. The captain caught Parkhill and knocked his teeth out.”

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles



Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; John 4:44

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
The song they reunited to record, "All Those Years Ago," referred to him "The Devil's Best Friend."

George's tribute song, from the album Somewhere in England also refers to him as "someone who offended all".

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
The song they reunited to record, "All Those Years Ago," referred to him "The Devil's Best Friend."

George's tribute song, from the album Somewhere in England also refers to him as "someone who offended all".

Oh, is that what the lyric says? Thanks, I always misheard it as, "someone with no friend(?) at all."

I've run into "Ozymandias" a few times in recent weeks, and it's become a favorite poem.

The above text is not correct, though.

See http://www.poetryfoundation.or...ng/guide/238972#poem

quote:

Originally posted by douglasSP:
I've run into "Ozymandias" a few times in recent weeks, and it's become a favorite poem.

The above text is not correct, though.

See http://www.poetryfoundation.or...ng/guide/238972#poem

Thanks for pointing that out. I grabbed that one mainly because the picture was the most Bradburyesque. I'll try for another.

Near the end of the 1990 movie "Avalon," written by Barry Levinson, an elderly Sam Krichinsky says to his adult grandson Michael, "A couple years, I went to see the house on Avalon. It was gone. Not just the house but the whole neighborhood. I went to see the ballroom where me and my brothers used to play. The whole place gone. Not just that. But the grocery store where we used to shop. Gone. All gone. Gone. I went to see where Eva lived on Poplar Street. It isn't there. Not even the street. It isn't there, not even the street. And then I went to see the nightclub I used to have!" (chuckles to himself) "And thank God, it was there! Because for a moment, I thought I never was.... If I knew things would no longer be here, I would have died to have remembered better."

For Ray Bradbury, who helped us remember!

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"In other words, if your boy is a poet, horse manure can only mean flowers to him; which is, of course, what horse manure has always been about."

Ray Bradbury, Foreword to Dandelion Wine, Summer, 1974

Opposite forces have certainly been hard at work within the last few weeks! If your boy is a sociopathic narcissist with terrorist tendencies, he will see a field of flowers as being a pile of horse manure, proceed to destroy it, and then replace the destruction he has wrought with something vastly more offensive than horse manure!

Read Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, or see the excellent 1963 film, people...not only do the "Jacks" of this world outnumber the "Ralphs," they run everything...and ruin everything!

Stated before Los Angeles and Hollywood were a "thing." Almost as good a prophet as Ray Bradbury!

Regarding respect for Ray and Forum Decorum, I hesitated on posting these, but what the heck. Here goes:



DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

I have been reading these recent posts and many mixed thoughts have arisen. Though helpful, deep breaths don't always settle one's mind. So -

I remember the day I first received knowledge of the that magical address of 10265 Cheviot Drive, Los Angeles California 90064. It was May 14th, 1996, around noon.

After having forwarded a collection of essays, "Thank you" notes, and drawings, completed by ninth grade English students, I waited patiently for more than two months for some reply. None came. I simply moved on, realizing that an author of Mr. Bradbury's fame and involvements had more important things to do than to return a correspondence to a group of teens and some HS teacher located in a small town school in the middle of nowhere! I was wrong on all accounts.

While collecting my mid-day mail, I was informed a package had arrived. It was to be found on a delivery desk on the other side of the office. Bright yellow, displaying a wonderful Martian graphic (of Joseph Magnaini), its appearance alone was quite intriguing: http://natedsanders.com/ItemIm...00031/47859j_lg.jpeg


I was not familiar with the artist JM at that time for, though I had read M. Chronicles, my focus in the classroom was Dandelion Wine with this cover: http://media.tumblr.com/d182e7...y108yoX5N1qzy03p.jpg
...and many short stories that we all know.

Then, as I was walking down the hallway to my next class, I read the return address and saw the sender's name, Ray Bradbury! "Amazed" is a very good word!

The long and the short of it: We had sent our original communications and items to Chicago, a publishing office of Mr. B's at the time. His letter included very gracious "Thanks" for our having written to him, info on Mel Gibson trying to get a new F451 movie going, appreciation for the artwork and the interesting Q's sent to him. He commented on how difficult it was at times to promptly respond, due to the "hundreds of letters" he received from fans in a week's time! Also this: "Sorry for the delay, but I just got your package from my publishers. 'LET ME HEAR FROM YOU!' " (Mr. B's final handwritten notes added at the very bottom of his type-written message.)
An autographed poster was also in his gifts to us: http://www.cedmagic.com/v-titl...mething-wicked-1.jpg Treasured!

We did as he requested for nearly seventeen years (!) and actually received a heart-felt letter from him (via his daughter) a day or so before 6/5/12. . .

For me, the days of running through the fields, and sitting on porches, and getting into just-enough-trouble to stay out of real-trouble, and eating late-summer ripening apples, and listening to grandparents' stories, and even going into the cellar with Grandpa to sip some homemade wine were not fictional occurrences. So, when I read and taught Dandelion Wine (later with the cover Dandelion has posted above - a truly wonderful piece of artwork!), I was sharing the author's tales and (in a special way) those of my childhood as well. How nice!

. . . and then, the fabric of our culture changed!

I had moved on from those days. As an adult, I had found a town further north, much like Green Town, to raise our scruffs (college and college bound now)! But, upon re-visiting the old neighborhoods while catching up on family affairs, the houses were no longer filled with people I knew. My childhood hometown was no longer.

The trees were being cut down. The narrow streets - in which we played ball until after dark or jumped wooden bike ramps - were now wider, smoothed out, and commercial. The family grocery stores and shoe stores - gone. Everything had become a "quick stop" or mall. Of the thousands of paths we had all known so well, I could not find one! Imagine?! Paths that led us home just in time for dinner, but that scared the heck out of us when it was evening and our only real security was the family dog jogging along with us, ...gone!?

Now, Mr. Bradbury's Home, where the "Magic of a Century" was created - for Millions of readers in big universities and in small school in the middle of nowhere - is gone, too! It should have become a Holy Place of Letters, a symbol of American possibility. For in this home a boy from the small town of Waukegan, Ill., who grew up in the depression, had revealed the power of imagination, books, and love!

(Someone is rubbing his fingers together, but not to feel the pollen from the dandelions.)

Mr. Bradbury's trees were cut down, too. They figured the streets needed straightening and the lamps along the sidewalks had to be replaced with LED's. The fabric has changed. Sad.

Our hope (and Mr. B "always" had this!) is that his boyhood library in Waukegan will be made into a Holy Place of RB Memories, or maybe Indiana U will do it right.

Shucks! We all need some paths to stroll along on bright summer days or to move briskly upon at night, with that best pal dog leading the way!

f

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I'll go you one better! You don't even have to get people to stop reading! Just dumb down their tiny little minds so they don't understand what little they are able to read! I'll say again what I said before: I'm not so much bothered by kids coming to the Ray Bradbury board who obviously haven't done their homework--I can understand that, if not approve--it's the ones who say they read every word of the assignment and still didn't understand it! Now, that bothers me!

Not a warning! This is happening NOW!!! Wake up and check it out, people!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ4lDJs8skg

Now, in this scene from The Time Machine (1960) George Wells (played by Rod Taylor) is pissed, for pretty much the same reason George Taylor (played by Charlton Heston) is pissed at the end of Planet of the Apes. Anyone who understands why they are pissed, go to the head of the class! Others obviously don't get it!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,