I decided to look back into the old forums(Oct. 2001),and I saw amazing posts!
Intelligent were they........more interested in Ray than we are now.We probably could learn alot from these (maybe)older people.

Isn't it amazing?

I don't know if they were more interested in Ray then - it's more likely that we're running out of new things to say!

Instead of adding to new discussions, I find myself just posting links to threads where we already talked about that.

What we need is a brisk discussion on Fahrenheit 9/11. Anyone? Anyone?

(Sound of crickets chirping.)

Pete,

I have been meaning to rent the movie, but you know how that goes. What is happening with Michael Moore these days? I am surprised that he hasn't been all over Bush for the Gulf Coast debacle.

Come to think of it, you never hear anything about Elton John either!

I almost expectorated my coffee on the monitor when I read pterran’s posting above. Well then, hows about a list of the topics that haven’t been discussed. “Anyone? Anyone?”

(The sound of cicadas chirping.)

I wouldn't miss ever again hearing about either of those guys. Lotsa other folks I'd rather hear about. Perhaps in another post I'll list some of my favourites...

(sound of summer running.)

Chapter 31,

Glad I could, er, brighten your day.

biplane1,

I've heard Mr. Moore has been to New Orleans expressly for the purpose of a new documentary but I believe my sources on that rumor are from the whacko right-wing sites I visit and, thus, the information is suspect. I'm with you and Braling II, though, in that there are plenty of other topics we could talk about.

As I recall, what got us going in the early days were usually questions from students as they discovered this site. We haven't heard from too many of them as of yet, except for a brief spurt a few weeks ago, but I suspect things'll pick up. Personally, and despite evidence to the contrary, I've made a concious effort to pull back a bit and let others have a run with things. Sometimes we get a little repetitive around here and that's fine; what seems like old stuff to me is entirely fresh and new to the newcomers.

Still, considering all of the new Bradbury stuff that's out there to talk about - Sam Weller's biography, Bradbury's new collection of essays, the release of A Sound of Thunder - I think you all have done a pretty good job keeping things going. There's usually a new post or posts every day on this board, not to mention on the old board.

Best,

Pete

Are these postings starting to sound like those posts on the old abandoned Bradbury website?

Is it just an unconscious notion that we really do miss the old site?



•••••

To add whatever zip there is to all this,
here are a couple ''print-bites'' from an interview I did with Ray way back in 1981! Never been published, and in fact, only recently came across the original tape:


Nard: Have you ever had an identity problem?

Ray: An identity problem? Never! Because I fell in love with so many things. See, identification comes from your identifying with certain objects in life: being a magician, being a writer...

Nard: What do you think are some of the barriers to creative things...?

Ray: Other people getting in your way. Other people doubting you. If you have friends who don't believe in you, you must go stay away from those people...

Nard: Ray, you're a creative person. So many people, creative people, go nuts. How have you kept your own sanity? Many famous people have somehow gone off, Edgar Allen Poe, Hemingway, as well...

Ray: Well no, that...well no! Wait a minute! We gotta be careful here. Poe was a different kind of person. Hemingway was destroyed by that airplane accident. Had nothing to do with a writing process. So, his body was destroyed by the airplane. And he should have died in that crash in Africa. The second one. There were two in two days. So, ah, you cannot exist in a sick body. And the mind gets sick then. And he finally destroyed himself because his body was destroyed. So the history of the world is not insanity among creative people. It's creative people staying sane by being creative. Very few people have gone crazy that were creative.

Nard: You once said your father was the original sad man. What made him sad and what would you have done to make him happy, in retrospect?

Ray: Oh, I don't know. That must have been part of "Something Wicked This Way Comes," huh?

Nard: I heard you say that in an interview years ago...

Ray: Ooooohh! Little bit. But I think that was an overstatement. What you say in one year is not what you think in another. You have time to think about your parents. I think that he was unfullfilled in many ways. He was at one time I think he would have enjoyed being some sort of vaudevillian, huh? He took tap dances, dancing at one time when he was a young man. It's very hard to figure out your father. Has any of us ever figured out our parents? So, um, I don't think he was any sadder than anybody else. I think he took a heckuva lot of pleasure in my own success, which was kinda wonderful for both of us.
_____

Wonderful stuff, Nard. I had never heard (or read) Ray being asked many of the questions in other interviews, and had never heard Ray's thoughts about some of these matters. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us!

Richard:

Here's one more print-bite from that interview.
Has to do with Ray's autobiography. Yes...Ray Bradbury has written an autobiography. It is titled, "Dogs Eat Sweet Grass". But never been published! However,some two dozen plus + illegal Xerox copies were made and each handsomely leather-bound.

•••• 

Nard: Ray, someone once had your autobiography that UCLA had. And I glanced thru it one time. And one of the things you said in there that "...if you were to cure an insane man you had to become equally insane with him." Ah, I was wondering did you have any thoughts on what you were speaking of...?

Ray: (laughter) I don't know what I was talking about!! I suppose you have to identify in order to help him! You know. Try to put yourself in their position and try to look out thru their eyes. But...

Nard: My curious thing about that statement when I read it.. I think Bill Nolan was reading that night, and he had most of the time, couple hours, but...the thing was what would have...if you were to become totally insane like that man was, what power, where would you have gotten that power to draw that man out of his--?

Ray: Well, you wouldn't. No, you... I was talking about the problem of identification. You have to be able to identify and try to put yourself in a position of looking out thru his eyes. You can't become as insane. You must try to simulate that in you own head. Try to imagine what it would be like and it's a pretty hard thing to do.

____

Nard,

As you may recall, "The Dogs That Eat Sweet Grass" (note correct title!) has been mentioned here before ( this thread contains details of where the original copy/copies are located - UCLA Library).

I would like to clarify something: it's not an autobiography (although it has been described that way in many places on many occasions), it's a transcript of a 21-hour oral history interview.

The ripped-off book version may have been edited to look like an autobiography (I don't know, I've never seen it), but the original version in UCLA is clearly the transcript of an interview, with interviewer's questions interspersed with Ray's responses. This has been confirmed by Jon Eller, co-author of Ray Bradbury: The Life of Fiction.

philnic:
I should recall. I wrote some of those replies on that thread you point to.

Back then it was referred to by some close to him as his autobiography. As far as I know there may be 2 or 3 copies still out there somewhere. Also, from what I understand...all copies were exact reproduction copies of the original manuscript. And I may be wrong, but I heard Ray early on had pulled the original manuscript from UCLA because of the copying fiasco.

"It's very hard to figure out your father. Has any of us ever figured out our parents?" (Ray Bradbury, from Nard's interview transcript, above.)

This reminds me of the closing narration at the end of a truly great movie: "Smoke Signals", where the narrator tries to reflect on the relationships of sons and fathers. A truly moving and thought-provoking conclusion. The relationship of Will and his father in "Something Wicked This Way Comes" is one of the great stories of a relationship between a father and a son.

Went into Best Buy the other day (when finally in a town that had one) to get "Ray Bradbury Theater," and saw a DVD of "Fahrenheit 9/11."

(Sound of my feet running opposite way.)