quote:

Originally posted by jkt:
I Never use tea bags.

All the better for divining!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Braling II:
We get boxes of PG Tips from her mum, but it's getting harder for her to find.QUOTE]

Lucky for me, I can find loose PG Tips, Lipton's Yellow or Green Label and Taylors of Harrogate and Twinings only a block from my home.

To keep this on topic, Mr. B is not a tea drinker but did partake when asked to tea with Aldous Huxley.

Ah, PG Tips, my favorite tea, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) likely produces the best teas. I visit a British shop in San Clemente that stocks all things from the Kingdom and I love the PG Tips the best. I have friends who are from Sri Lanka and have brought back tea samplers and they are a wonder of flavor, like different wines, all with their own distinctive characters. If it wasn't for theat crazy King George III we would all be tea drinkers over here as well.

Dad, do you know the piano's on my foot?
You hum it, son, and I'll play it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzEBLa3PPk

I had been looking for a DVD of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit for a while now, and I checked Amazon and there three for sale. I now own one of those.

My wife and I watched The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit last night and enjoyed it all over again, this time on DVD. The production is full of metaphores, some that move, and the utter niceness of the dialog, though placed in what would have been a very rough area to live in, tell the audience that these are nice people looking for a way to make their dreams come true. The message that their collective futures lie just across the river, (LA River - dry most of the year - really a flood control system) that separates them from the successful, people who have made it and have money, and that they can get across too, is very poignant and timely in light of today's spanish speaking population that has acummualted since this story was written. Ray's hand is all over the production and it made for a thoughly enjoyable evening and gave us many laughs. If you can buy the DVD, it is a masterpiece of story telling and shows very well on flat screen TV.

Does Ray Bradbury continue to have some sort of relationship, business or otherwise, with decadent Hugh Hefner, perhaps the biggest purveyor of porn before the internet? I know our culture has slipped wildly down the slippery slope especially in the last generation, and Mr. Bradbury would have kept a widening distance between Hefner. Or has Bradbury been entrenched into that slippery slope as well so late in life? Picking up a copy of Sam Weller's biography on the life of Ray Bradbury recently, I was more than surprised at the photograph of Ray Bradbury and Hugh Hefner. Can anyone explain?

FIRE, read the book - Weller explains it very well!

philnic, I read it. It gives me no indication why Ray Bradbury would perpetuate such a friendship. For instance, Hefner has blessed his daughter's efforts to help save the company by her leaning to the lowest limbs of moral decadence to keep the company afloat. Does Bradbury worry about paper burning, but not much about the corrupt moral tone spewed forth from the Hefner presses?

Hugh Hefner and Playboy published Ray's stories over the years and helped to establish him, in addition to his solid "science fiction" works, as an author of fantasy/horror/etc. Years back when I read Playboy (I purchased it only for the stories) I remember The Man in the Rorschach Shirt and a couple of other stories that were not science fiction per se.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: biplane1,

biplane1, I appreciate your comment, but I am aware of what you refer to.

quote:

Originally posted by FIRE:
Does Ray Bradbury continue to have some sort of relationship with Hugh Hefner?

Yes, they are still friends. I believe Ray visited Hugh at his home in the not-too-distant past.

quote:

Originally posted by FIRE:
Does Ray Bradbury continue to have some sort of relationship, business or otherwise, with decadent Hugh Hefner, perhaps the biggest purveyor of porn before the internet? I know our culture has slipped wildly down the slippery slope especially in the last generation, and Mr. Bradbury would have kept a widening distance between Hefner. Or has Bradbury been entrenched into that slippery slope as well so late in life? Picking up a copy of Sam Weller's biography on the life of Ray Bradbury recently, I was more than surprised at the photograph of Ray Bradbury and Hugh Hefner. Can anyone explain?

Yes, pornography was virtually non-existent before this last generation.

Ha!

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

Originally posted by FIRE:
Does Ray Bradbury continue to have some sort of relationship with Hugh Hefner?

Yes, they are still friends. I believe Ray visited Hugh at his home in the not-too-distant past.

Yuk!

FIRE, I think you just have to accept that your view of Hefner is not shared by RB. To RB, Hefner was a publisher interested in (among other things) publishing quality short fiction. And Playboy certainly has a great track record for quality short stories, starting in an era when short story markets were beginning to decline.

Of course, it helped that Playboy's rates of payment were high.