fjp451
Well, it's changing in Russia. Check this out.

http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/03/oh-good-grief.html

Embroiderer: You made my day! I am starting a week long spring break. It has been a long winter, and I am looking forward to some games of catch and maybe getting the garden ready for summer!

But, in reference to your post ~ ~
Seeing is believing. WOW! (That Red Army Choir really rocks! Metaphoric. "Make music, not war!!)


Here: Live Skynyrd http://youtube.com/watch?v=RHsDa9_HSlA

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fjp451,

Thank you, philnic!

I was totally shocked to see at bradburymedia that Ray Bradbury did script work for Moby Dick! And there is a publication to boot! Archive one of those for sure!

If I remember correctly, Moby Dick is the very first book used by statisticians competing after 1994 to try to disprove Bible codes. As in "Look, they're here too" and "they're just not really that significant statistically." But now there have been long phrases found, significant beyond chance in the universe.

Since I used to proofread legal cases, I'm pretty sure God knows all the jots and tittles, and not just in the Hebrew language. But that's all yet to be completely proven mathematically.

Who wrote the Moby Dick Welles pulpit sermon, I wonder? I don't know specifically, but sometimes it's said that Welles wrote some of his own lines. (That would seem to be character, at the very least.) But now to hear that there was Bradbury involvement in the original script. That's astonishing! I suspect that Welles' Moby Dick sermon is playing on heavenly screens somewhere. I only saw it recently.

Loved reading Bradburymedia!

Because text coding sometimes functions in layers, it's like a giant multiplex puzzle for engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, cryptographers, literary academic folk, language academic folk and others. I find it's not easy at all.

fjp451 -- that's interesting. Maybe I'll read The Good Earth sometime (!) -- I'm sort of of the generation after it, so I didn't pick up on it early. I wonder if, as a cultural reference, when the astronauts went around the moon and viewed the earth and said on national tv after reading from the bible on Christmas ... (I'm paraphrasing) God bless all of you, all of you on "the good earth," if that was a cultural reference to P. Buck's book or a plain biblical reference. Do you know? It's a cultural timing, and I can't really put a finger on the fact of the matter.

Sorry about that long post (and at the end of the thread interrupting another topic).

I'm clearly an amateur, hope you'll forgive it. (I probably should have pulled quotes and broken it up in a few posts.)

anne1755, we're all amateurs here! (dandelion has special powers on the board, but even she (I assume!) is unpaid.

I'm pleased to hear you enjoyed reading my website. It's a bit chaotic, but hours of fun for all the family...

I expect the forthcoming publication of the Moby Dick screenplay will clear up a few mysteries about the film. Prof Jon Eller has done a study of Bradbury's drafts, and when this is read alongside the screenplay it should illuminate how much of the finished film is really down to Huston and how much to Bradbury. It might also show whether Welles was telling the truth when he claimed to have written the Mapple sermon. (Mr W was not averse to modifying the truth in order to make his interviews more interesting. I am a fan of Welles, too, by the way.)

As for Apollo 8: somewhere I have a book all about the Apollo 8 mission, which explains that famous Christmas speech. If I can find it, I'll see if it reveals precisely what was being referenced in the "good earth" line.

Here's one link about that. It suggests Biblical, rather than Buckian (?) inspiration:

http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/god...u-on-the-good-earth/

oPs. Must . . . clarify . . .

By my writing above, wondering about Welles possibly having written "some" of his lines, I meant generally and sporadically . . . I've read it a few times and heard it a few times . . . But I've only heard it in relation to Welles' OTHER movies -- like The Third Man.

I'm very new to Moby Dick and, personally, I've never heard it about Moby Dick. So unless you, yourself, know something more specific, please don't pick it up from little ol' me and the proximity of my sentences on "this here internet thing." I was really just wondering from Welles' characteristic pattern.

Now that there will be a book, that's good news.

Braling II -- Thank you. I see "the good earth" reads right along logically from the text at that link you gave. I think I read somewhere that Pearl Buck's missionary father would only deal with the Bible and never would read her popular book -- he was translating the Hebrew and Greek of the Bible into Chinese as a missionary to China. Curiouser and curiouser.

anne1755,

don't worry, it is an established fact that Welles claims to have written the Mapple sermon. Charles Higham's biography of Welles reports it, as do a couple of other Welles biogs that I have read. And it was certainly in his character to re-write his parts when he appeared in other people's movies.

However, Welles also had a tendency to exaggerate things in his interviews. The BBC did an excellent extended interview with him once, which was more detailed and in-depth than any TV interview he had ever done. He told some fascinating stories - but many of the details are flatly contradicted by the findings of biographer and film historians. So it remains to be seen whether Bradbury's Mapple sermon resembles the one in the film (if it does, then Welles' version of events is just another piece of hyperbole).

Hyperbole is a good word.

Thanks so much, philnic.

I just didn't want to cause Ray Bradbury or raybradburyites any undue consternation! I spent some time at NYU film history 101 and almost went into scriptwriting. Mr. Bradbury must be extremely patient with people, dealing with all the crediting complications over the years.

Just like I found, much to my surprise, that my mother had spent time in post-war Vienna (of the film The Third Man) and actually saw the ferris wheel and the musician in Vienna who did the soundtrack music and experienced the divided city, Welles and Bradbury were in media at such a unique and irreplacable time in history.

But I guess y'all know that.

anne1755, I have some new info on the Welles/Bradbury business. So it doesn't get lost forever in this "miscellany" topic, I've taken the discussion over to this existing "Moby Dick screenplay" thread - take a look!

Just curious and too lazy to search out that old wizened thread. What happened to the latest "Ask Ray Bradbury A Question" round. I guess I am directing this to Nard. Is it still going to happen or has it already happened. Been out of the loop for a while.

rocket~

Ah, I was waiting for someone to ask that question. The couple times I've been at Ray's this year I haven't found the opportunity to garner a half hour of his time. The last time at Ray's, 2 or 3 weeks ago, was with Ray's editor Donn Albright and Jason Marchi, an East coast crime reporter for a bunch of newspapers. It was more casual conversation of a number of items rather than a list of questions. I'll have to get to it somehow...

Thanks Nard. He is so busy which is good I suppose. Don't knock yourself out or press the issue. It'll happen naturally in time I am sure. Was just wondering and lost track of that thread. By the way, thanks for all you do around here. It's appreciated. Hope you are doing well.

rocket ~
In the meanwhile, if anyone is interested in our going off and keeping humans going on forever (as I hear particular author's' expound)...then hear this:

The somewhat latest from NASA scientists is that our galaxy, 'The Milky Way' is heading 'headlong' towards the galaxy 'Andromeda' at approximately ...1/2 million miles an hour. (Actually, they both are heading towards each other.) After which both galaxies will collide and 'Andromeda', being the larger, will consume our noble neighborhood called the 'Milky Way' and obliterate it with it's super large Black Hole near the center. Time left to get out of the entire area to some quieter place in the universe?? One and a half to 2 billion years!! That's if the scientist know what they are talking about.

Otherwise, in at twinkling of an eye it can all change...that's in a nano-second instead of 2 billion years!

If we make it two billion years, why, we'll certainly have solved that problem.