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= R-A-Y
B-R-A-D-B-U-R-Y =

ANSWERS
YOUR
QUESTIONS

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______________ RAY BRADBURY ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS THAT YOU POSTED ______________


from rocket:
[1] Mr. Bradbury, do you have a favorite musical group or genre? Do you have a favorite song? What Rolling Stone song is your favorite?

The Mamas and the Papas. Of course they're not around anymore. And she died 20 years ago! Hmmm. A favorite song? (long pause) Nope! Can't think of anything.

from ravenswake:
[2] Mr. Bradbury, what do you think it is about you and your writing that affects such a broad base of people in such a profound and positive way?

Because I am in love with life and I prove it everytime I sit down. I have never had a sad melancholy day in my life except the day my relatives or friends die. But everyday I get out of bed and I celebrate life. That's why I'm popular.

from embroiderer:
[3] Mr. Bradbury, did you give up riding a bicycle for good? If so, when? And did you have a favorite model bicycle?

Oh sure, because of my stroke. I have two bicycles out in Palm Springs right now waiting for me. And the Raleigh was my favorite bicycle.

from Braling II:
[4] Ray, do you still like deviled ham and pickle sandwiches with orange pop? If you could climb a tree, which one? Do you still watch Laurel and Hardy movies?

No, not the pop. But the sandwiches are good, yeah. Ray is asked: You don't like Orange pop? Oh, sure, here it is right here. The can Ray held up that he was sipping during this interview was a can of Orange pop, but Diet pop. He may have meant he doesn't drink the old sweet stuff anymore, or doesn't care much for mixing the sandwiches and pop together anymore. As to climbing a tree, Ray said, "No!" But then I may not have been clear and may have inclined him to think the question had to do with him climbing a tree nowadays. And as to Laurel and Hardy movies: I've got 'em all here. I've got all their films here, yes.

from philnic:
[5] Which BBC Radio adaptation(s) of your stories did you enjoy the most?

Leviathan '99.

from grasstains:
[6] Ray, what science-fiction novels are your personal favorites? Do you have a specific favorite one? Also, which of the current batch of SF writers have impressed him most?

'The Invisible Man and 'The Man Who Could Work Miracles, both by H.G. Wells. ' Further asking Ray as to specific favorite ones, he answered: '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'. As to a favorite batch of science-fiction writers impressing Ray the most, he answered: I don't know any. They're all dead! The one that impressed me the most was Robert Heinlein. And he was my friend and agent. He sold my first short story for me when I was 19 years old that...he sent to a magazine for me. So he was a good friend. And he sold me to a magazine before anyone else.

from Phil Knox:
[7] Ray, what special memories do you have of your Mother and your Father?

Well, the important thing is that I remember being born. And I lay in the crib looking at my mother and father in their bed when I was three days old. And I remember that because I had nightmares in my crib of being born. See, so I had total recall of my parents from day one and all thru my early years and they respected me and when I arrived in Tucson, Arizona, they knew I wanted to be a writer so they brought me a toy typewriter, which was my first one.

from WildGravity
[8] Is it true that you did not care for Tennessee Williams work? How do you feel about it?

No, that's not true! Because I saw an evening of his plays years and years ago in Hollywood. He did a play called, 'The Last of My Solid Gold Watches'; it starred Vincent Price. And he did a play about an old maid being sent off to an insane asylum and it turned into 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. So I saw that. I liked his one-act plays. Better than his long plays.

from Chapter 31
[9] Which author of the past would you have most liked to have eaten a meal with and had a conversation?

George Bernard Shaw

from Robert M. Blevins:
[10] Which of your books do you think has the best chance of being read by people a hundred years from now?

All of them! I'm going to be around here a hundred years from now. With at least 6 books. God created me this way! Thank God! And people don't just pick one book, but lots of them say that 'Something Wicked This Way Comes', some of them say, 'Dandelion Wine', some of them say 'The Martian Chronicles'. So I'm going to be around!

from Pavel Gubarev:
[11] Mr. Bradbury, do you think it is possible to fully translate your books faithfully into another language? Or should the reader learn English to enjoy your books most deeply? And do you consider that some stories are meaningful, and some not?

Well, the Russians seem to have done it. I have a fan club in Moscow. Bigger fan club than anything in America. And they sent me a tape for my birthday 10 years ago and they all gathered and sang on the tape, 'Happy Birthday to You!' And they came to see me on my next birthday. And they brought me a samovar to serve tea in it. And Russian people come to me at booksignings and they are ecstatic. Also asked Ray about if he considered some of his stories meaningful and others not. This is how he answered that: They all have meaning. You take the meaning out yourself. It's what you bring to a story. Not necessarily what I give to it.

from embroiderer:
[12] What do you miss, Mr. Bradbury, that you find lost and irreplaceable from Western culture as you have grown up?

What's missing is proper education and we got to revise our entire educational system. And it's time we paid attention to 3, 4 and 5 year olds. And by the time they go into first grade, they should know how to read and write. So, that's missing. We need that.

from fjp451
[13] What is the latest on a possible remake of 'Fahrenheit 451'?

Well, Darabont has done a script. And it's very good. There are 17 scripts. One by Darabont. And one by me. And there are 15 other... lousy scripts! And how they got written I don't understand. The studio should have realized that the book is a screenplay. All of my books are screenplays. I'm a hybrid author. I'm one half screenwriter and one half novelist. And that's apparent in all of my novels.

from Gwilym:
[14] I notice you depict Arthur Machen in your story, The Exiles, and mention him in Pillar of Fire. Did Machen have much influence on you and your work? How would you compare him to other writers like Poe and Lovecraft?

Machen did not. Not a bit of influence in my work. I have not read enough of Machen to do a comparison with the likes of Poe or Lovecraft. I only mentioned his name because I wanted to put him among the other writers when I did the short story. But I felt abliged to mention him ...

from Captain Duvall:
[15] How do you discipline yourself to write everyday? Furthermore, how do you have the discipline to finish something?

You don't discipline yourself. Life disciplines you. I get out of bed automatically and explode at the typewriter. So that's no discipline. Question: How do you have the discipline to finish something? No, you don't have the discipline! The passion is everything! Passion is your discipline!

from WildGravity:
[16] Was the short story, 'April Witch' character Cecy, based on someone you knew?

It's my Aunt Neva.

from embroiderer:
[17] You were 25 years old when the first Atom bomb was dropped on a good size city full of people. How much do you remember of that specific event and how it affected you at the time? And is your short story, 'Embroidery' the only story you ever wrote dealing with the dropping of the Atom bomb? additional questions: How about 'Flying Machine' ( fjp451), and 'There Will Come Soft Rains'? ( philnic)

I was on a bus, crossing Los Angeles going for treatment of my eyes and someone got on the bus with a newspaper and the headline read, "BOMB DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA". And I said, "I knew it! I knew it was going to happen!" So I predicted the future in my head and when I saw the headline, I knew I was existing with a dream that became a reality. And, Yes! 'Embroidery' is the only story I wrote dealing with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. It's the only one. How about 'Flying Machine?' No, no, that's a real story about a real man. Had nothing to do with atom power. It's a real man that was burned 500 years ago in China. How about, 'There Will Come Soft Rains?' No, no ... it incidentally has a little bit about a photograph I saw in the paper of people's silhouette burned on the side of a building... by the atom flash.

from fanboy:
[18] If you could change one thing about mankind for the better, what would it be?

I could teach everyone to ... to get out of bed someday and look, as I looked when I was 12, on the fuzz on the back of my hand, and I said, I'm alive! Why didn't someone tell me?! So I would tell every person to really know you're alive, as a gift ... that would really be the most important thing... in my life or anyone elses.

from LordShen
[19] How do you deal with the long periods where you don't sell anything? I am consumed by writing and it fills a vast majority of my time, but the drought of response can be nerve-racking. As an art school grad, I feel I can give and take criticism fairly well, so it's not rejection I'm dealing with. It's the long wait times in between and the feelings of a lack of progress I'm dealing with. How would you suggest to best cope with such feelings?

You don't think about it! I haven't sold anything in a long time. The field of short stories today is very small. My biggest market over 30 years has been 'Playboy' because most of the other markets are dead!

from rocket:
[20] Do you still read books? What do you enjoy reading nowadays? Have any contemporary authors influenced you or your writings? If so, who?

I go back and re-read George Bernard Shaw, and I re-read...'The Cabala' by Thorton Wilder. I've read it 8 or 9 times. It's the finest novels that came out 70 years ago. I re-read Bernard Shaw. So I re-read that. And I re-read W. Somerset Maugham, like 'The Painted Veil.' I corresponded with him briefly 40 years ago. I re-read Christopher Morley's 'Thunder on the Left.' Because I read that when I was 20 years old. I think that influenced the writing of 'Dandelion Wine.'

from Konas:
[21] Do you think there will be a great war in your lifetime that will, for all intents and purposes, cripple our standard of living in the western world? How serious a threat against America do you see things today against, say, the way you saw things back during the second World War?

We've already had it! It was the Second World War. Other part of Question had to do with the serious threat TODAY against America. Ray's answer: No, the sad thing is the United Nations doesn't work. We've put them together because they're supposed to make sure we treat each other beautifully. When Rwanda came up in Africa a few years ago, the United Nations didn't do a thing And a million people were hacked to death. A million people killed there. And they didn't do anything about it. And if we do, we get criticized. And we gave democracy to Iraq and we don't get any credit for that. They say that we are doing a terrible thing. But I think we gave them democracy! And they had a vote.

from atroposmar:

[22] Have you ever thought of using prose as lyrics for music? Or has anyone approached you on this?
It's been done many times. There are 7 musicals based on my plays and my stories. 'Dandelion Wine' had 3 different composers and had 3 different musicals. 'The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit' had Jose Feliciano doing the music. I've done the lyrics for music in 'Dandelion Wine.

from greenray:
[23] Technologically speaking, at what age do you feel elementary school children should be using computers in the classroom, if at all. Also, are there any plans for a third re-issuing of Dark Carnival?

I think they should learn to read and write first. And then, have machines later. It should be different for every family. Like my brother was an athlete, and he never used a typewriter or read a book. You see? We slept in the same bed! But I was a writer and he wasn't. So in the family, decisions like that have to be made. As to a 3rd issue of Dark Carnival, Ray had this to say: October Country is Dark Carnival, and that has been reprinted!

from tempebrennan659:
[24] Is there ever a time when certain books should be banned? What's your general view on book banning?

No, no book should be banned, including 'Mein Kampf'. Sure, you can learn from it. Ray, what do you do with all the junk that's being done today? Nothing is happening. No, they blow away. I get letters from libraries- Yeah, but the internet is full of both good and stuff that really is...just horrible. That's different. I don't have a computer so I don't see the internet. Now you can download the stuff and you can print it out as a book in your own house. I can't comment. It's up to people, that's true on the internet, they can censor it themselves. They turn off the computer. So that's the censor. Yeah, but no one has that kind of smarts no more. We got a new generation that's doesn't know any better. Well, that's their problem. Not mine! Big problem, tho. Yeah, but I can't do anything about it.

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_________ ________ Questions that may have been missed, will be posted later this weekend

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nard Kordell,

Wow. What a wonderful answer!

Thanks again Nard, for your generosity and consideration in doing this--and, of course, thanks to Mr. Bradbury.

Best V-Day wishes to all!

Nard, can you type a little faster.....



....just kiddin buddy. Seriously, thanks for this, tis awesome to the millionth power!!!! And please turn your cloaking device off!

Some pictires of samovars...

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&safe=off&q=samovar&btnG=Search

Braling!, this is pure magic....

number 18 brought tears to my eyes!

The child in all of us ~ loves, fears, hopes, wonders, kindness, cruelties, prides, shortcomings, and purpose in each day...
Mr. Bradbury has always touched to the core!

You got it, Rocket, #18 is the essence of all of the questions and answers. Thanks so much, Nard.

And to Mr. Bradbury, our Love!

f

When will the next batch of questions be put together? Thanks!

Wow, that was VERY cool!

_______________________________________________
Somena:
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How can you pose a question?
Perhaps we'll try this again soon.

In that case...

...time to put a lot of thought
into the upcoming questions.
No simple stuff. Instead, stuff
to genuinely surprise the master
with questions that are very
revealing of the insightful quality
of his readers.

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nard Kordell,

quote:

Ray Bradbury said:
No, no ... it incidentally has a little bit about a photograph I saw in the paper of people's silhouette burned on the side of a building... by the atom flash.

Here is a link to one of those photos, which I believe is displayed in a Hiroshima museum:

http://www.ecolo.org/photos/visite/hiroshima_02/hiro.human.shadow.jpg

Forgot to say: great work, Nard. I hope we can do more of this in the future.

quote:

'Embroidery' is the only story I wrote dealing with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. It's the only one.

What about F-451?

rocket:

Hey, good question. 'Embroidery', the story that Ray says was the only atomic bomb story, strictly deals with the detonated bomb while several ladies are embroidering. Like to hear how Ray describes 'Fahrenheit'. Perhaps he'll say it's an important, but not central, part to the ending of the novel.