https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOdU8FX6J1M

Too much of nothing
Can make a man abuse a king
He can walk the streets and boast like most
But he wouldn’t know a thing
Now, it’s all been done before
It’s all been written in the book
But when there’s too much of nothing
Nobody should look

--Bob Dylan, "Too Much of Nothing"

Thom Mayne's next project. He'll do it, folks!

Not only has he died, which was bad enough, although natural and inevitable, now his memory is being murdered. First possessions, then the house, then the words, story by story at first, then whole books, until at last all is gone, the stories as well as the concepts they once embodied. Even their memory will be gone. Only the space where it all used to be, that people don't realize is even a space as it's entirely filled with junk....

But, by all means, it's nothing to get upset about! While anyone still remembers to whom this refers, let's all take a page out of Millie Montag's book (to use a term inappropriate to those of her ilk), go watch a reality show and forget it!

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Not really, but I dreamed I was at Ray Bradbury's house. It was being demolished and I was picking through the rubble trying to find keepsakes while keeping an eye out for anyone who might confront me about being there. I found part of the house still standing, with Ray and Maggie living in it surrounded by stuff. We discussed what was happening and they said I could choose something to take, but they had to approve it was all right to take what I chose. I started looking around, finding so much to choose from and trying to narrow it down to one or two small things I could carry. Then they said they were going out. They didn't know when they'd be back and we all knew I couldn't wait alone in their house indefinitely for them to come back and tell me what was okay to take. So I either had to choose something to take immediately before we all left, or come back. Only they couldn't tell me when to come back as they didn't know when they'd be back and it might all be gone by then. In the dream I was mostly dealing with Ray, who was gracious and cordial enough, but obviously in a hurry to be gone. Such a feeling of chaos and indecision!

Currently I'm being sporadically attacked over at Internet Movie Database--they lack the initiative for a proper flaming. I'll tell you there is no satisfaction in being right. There is no satisfaction in anything! I'm ready to pull the plug any time. Just found and posted the following in the thread about the house:

Guys, we are being beaten, with only 30% saying it should have been saved, 46% in favor of demolition and 24% indifferent! http://www.neatorama.com/2015/...rys-Home-Demolished/

William Butler Yeats wrote the following just after World War I:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Here's the whole thing if you want it: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html

Now, here is the end of "Dover Beach," by Matthew Arnold. In the original novel of Fahrenheit 451, this was the poem Montag read making his infamous wife Millie (Linda in the movie) cry. In the movie it was changed to a passage from David Copperfield, just as in the movie of Gone with the Wind, Les Misérables was changed to David Copperfield. Go figure.

I always thought "Dover Beach" was written by some poor guy depressed over the bombing of Britain in WWII. It absolutely blew me away when I learned years later it was written well before WWI!

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Here's the whole thing for those who want it: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172844

Facebook post by me in reply to a man saying this was no accident but planned from beginning to end:

Jack, you have hit the nail dead on! You are exactly right in one of those situations in which there is no satisfaction in being right. (Like a message board member of my acquaintance who said some numbskull would try to emulate Fifty Shades of Grey thinking it was cool. The next day some jerk was arrested and held on half a million dollars bail for having done that very thing. She took no satisfaction in having correctly called this.)

Unlike the would-be 50-shader, Thom Mayne acted within the law, but he is no better than any common criminal. I have the same gut reaction to him as to kidnappers, rapists, murderers, child molesters, and animal abusers, although his most basic character type is that of an assassin and as far as I am concerned he should be treated accordingly. He is no better than any of them, barely better than evil dictators, and yet he tries to set himself up as being better than anyone living or the cherished memory of anyone dead. I fully expect a wave of one-upsmanship as such vandals compete to see how much of civilization they can destroy. Look at the Taliban and Islamic State who videotape themselves committing such atrocities. At least they have the "excuse" that "their God told them to." Thom Mayne has no god but himself. He recognizes no authority nor does he possess any sense of decency or compassion. He has no essence recognizable as a human soul. He is a sick, twisted, perverted, deranged sociopath merely mimicking human characteristics while possessing none himself.

Try looking up the list of presidential assassination attempts and factor in assassinations of other well-known figures, political or otherwise. I could find only three cases where the president escaped and someone else was killed, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was unharmed but the mayor of Chicago was killed, Harry S. Truman, who was unharmed but a secret service agent was killed, and Ronald Reagan, who was wounded but recovered while his press secretary, James Brady, took over thirty years to suffer and die from wounds inflicted in the attempt. In most other attempts, successful or otherwise, sometimes bystanders or people who try to intervene are wounded but they are not the intended target. The chief, leader, or head person is the intended target and usually the worst casualty.

That's exactly what happened here. Ray was the intended target--since he was already dead and could not very well be killed--and digging him up and driving a stake through his heart would constitute at least one actual crime and probably several--and burning his books would be not only difficult and criminal but way too obvious--Mayne went for the next best thing. Every unwilling witness was pretty much placed in the position of members of society following a major assassination. They cannot say they personally lost a family member, but everyone suffered a loss. Society was NEVER the same, particularly following the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and John Lennon. We can never listen to Lennon's music again without a sense of sadness and tragically will be unable to enjoy the works of Bradbury without the sickening skewer of outrageous injustice eternally torturing our entrails. In the doubtful circumstance that Thom Mayne is capable of having any feelings whatsoever he likely revels in the suffering and destruction he has caused.

For over 30 years I corresponded with Ray. For 19 of those years I tried to get to that house, finally got an invite, and spent a cherished hour there in 2003. Ray seated me right beside him, as close as possible to his good ear, and often didn't have to say anything, just looking at each other we were bonding. Periodically I sent him things he liked and once he wrote, "You know me very well!" which thrilled me to the core. I was misunderstood from birth, which became worse starting at age 10, and most of my family among others assumed the worst. I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at age 45, by which time I'd had the opportunity to grow good and paranoid due to a lifetime of being treated as some sort of defective. Ray was my lifeline! He would have known me even had I made no attempt to connect or explain! He was utterly gracious, grateful, and welcoming to all my attempts at approach. I also found his generation to be more polite and trusting in general. It's heartbreaking to see them all passing away. Their like will not be seen again!

Regarding the house...long before it was destroyed (like about 30 years before) I was a little surprised to learn how recognized Ray was and how his popularity continued to grow because I assumed the more I liked something, the less everyone else would, and since I loved him the best it stood to reason practically no one else should like him at all, so it somewhat blew me away how many people liked him as much as they did. I always maintained that I would love him completely no matter whether anyone else did or not regardless of how many readers there might be or how much they might like him. I kept to this for 40 years...until 2015 when the maniac Mayne blew a huge hole in my reality! Yes, Ray preached love which we all appreciate, but I learned the world belongs to the haters. The Sam Parkhills are in charge and they have their finger on the trigger. If I admit to loving anything a) I am going to be devastated when it is trashed as it will inevitably be, and b) I will make myself a target as, wishing to wipe out all memory of what they destroy, they will go after those most familiar with it! As with the killing fields in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Cambodia, etc., everyone who disagrees with the regime is exiled, shot, or sent to Siberia never to be seen again. I may not be in the top 5 or 10 of Ray's fans but I would lay money on being in the top 15 and knowing the names of those who outrank me! WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. THEY WILL COME AFTER EVERY ONE OF US AND NOT STOP UNTIL WE PERISH OR ARE SILENCED. (Yeah, yeah, so we can live in exile as "book people" in the woods, if there are any woods left and we can figure out how to survive there.) IT IS DANGEROUS TO LOVE ANYTHING, PARTICULARLY ANYTHING MEANINGFUL.

When I graduated college, my dad offered me any gift I wanted and I asked for a ticket to Waukegan, Illinois! Who DOES that? I made a side trip to visit Donn Albright and see his Bradbury collection! Spent 40 years reading every word of Ray's I could get hold of, 32 corresponding with him, 19 trying to get to his house. The destroyers are bound to have my number! How to you rate my chances of survival at this point? I place them at somewhere between zero and none!

Er... you go a bit far there, dandelion. You may not approve of what Mayne did, but he is the lawful owner of the house he demolished. Comparison with Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Cambodia is excessive.

Godwin's law proves itself?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Yeah...I heard of some group who made a game of watching heated online discussions waiting for Nazis to come up and whoever brought them up first automatically lost. It was a rule with this group to never let the people in the discussions know they were watching.

I have a feeling this world is not big enough for both Thom Mayne and I to exist at the same time, and if one must be eliminated I am sure I will be chosen. Now tell me the name of this law, which has existed for centuries: whoever makes the most money deserves to live the most! Just one example of this law was visibly demonstrated with considerable loss of life during Hurricane Katrina. In fact, certain survivors at the time were sure they were being deliberately trapped and contained in a certain area so floodgates could be opened, drowning them all. This did not happen, just a lot of individuals expired of various causes. (Something similar was done with bombing the dams and dykes to bring about a quicker end to the Korean war, and was tried in the Vietnam war but did not work as conventional bombs failed to do anything but weaken the structures and nuclear bombs were decided against.)

So you don't think they're coming for us all?

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
...So you don't think they're coming for us all?

Nah.

Maybe not, but I have this terrible dilemma!

Where is Thom Mayne when you need him? Not doing anything beneficial to humanity! http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/...Lived-297417181.html

No Cheviot Hills alas: http://www.dailybreeze.com/gov...ssed-by-city-council

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
...So you don't think they're coming for us all?

Nah.

Extremely vague hope: do you think if there was enough fuss over Ray's home being torn down, people would get pissed off enough at the vandals to maybe read his work out of spite? The way people saw The Interview although it was a terrible movie? (I had every intention of seeing it myself until a friend posted a description of how and why she walked out.) In this case, though, people reading Ray's work might actually do themselves some good? (Probably not, but one can hope)? It might be a better incentive than having the work assigned in school anyway--you know, read this stuff that these thugs don't want you to see!