Take the Rolls Royce to the car wash and join in the fun of the official book launch for We'll Always Have Paris, 90210 style.

http://www.beverlyhills.org/services/library/calendar.asp

Take the Rolls? Surely the chauffeur washes it. Every day.

Am I missing something? I'm not seeing the book launch on the calendar?

Fast forward to February, then click where obvious.

quote:

Originally posted by Sasha1:
Am I missing something? I'm not seeing the book launch on the calendar?

Friday the 13th. It appears that the website rolls back to the current month. Sorry about that.

quote:

Originally posted by jkt:
It appears that the website rolls back to the current month.

Kind of like Barack is going to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans?

Pandemonium Press
An Irregular Publication of
RAY BRADBURY’S
PANDEMONIUM THEATRE COMPANY
Celebrating its
46th ANNIVERSARY YEAR!

Issue No. 47 February 2009

THE PLAY’S THE THING

The Fremont Centre Theatre hosts the
LA Premiere of The Illustrated Bradbury on February 21.

In 1952, Ray Bradbury wrote The Illustrated Man, in which the title character possessed tattoos which came to animated life and depicted stories of the past and future. Oregon-based actor Tobias Andersen uses that character as an inspiration for this non-tattooed solo performance piece, The Illustrated Bradbury, in which he depicts nine tales derived from different volumes by the fantasy master, Ray Bradbury.

The story lines include: a man who seeks to destroy every machine that intrudes upon his life; men of the present day encountering a prehistoric monster from the ocean depths; a woman who stubbornly faces down Death himself; a chicken with a remarkable gift foretelling the future; and more.

Tobias Andersen began his association with Bradbury when he originated the role of Fire Chief Beatty in the 1979 Colony Theatre production of Fahrenheit 451 in Los Angeles. He is the Artistic Director of Mount Hood Repertory Theatre Company, where he both acts and directs. He has also appeared in a number of movies-for-television and the recent feature film, Feast for Love.

Director David Smith-English is the Artistic Director of Clackamas Repertory Theatre and has directed professionally at a number of theatres in the Portland, Oregon, area for several decades. Produced by Ray Bradbury and Racquel Lehrman, Theatre Planners; Associate Producer is Marie Turcotte; Set and Lighting Design by Christopher D. Whitten; Composer/Sound Design by Rodolfo Ortega; and Stage Manager, Autumn Lawrence.

This show had its World Premiere at Clackamas Repertory Theatre in September 2007. It premiered in Southern California in a one-weekend engagement at the Rubicon in Ventura in October 2007. The new production at the Fremont Centre Theatre marks its Los Angeles Premiere.

Fremont Centre Theatre
1000 Fremont Ave. (at El Centro)
South Pasadena, CA 91030
Preview: Friday, February 20 at 8 pm
Opening Night: Saturday, February 21 at 8 pm
Performances: Friday and Saturday at 8 pm; Sunday at 3 pm
Closing Performance: Sunday, March 8 at 3 pm
Admission: $20 Seniors: $15 Students: $10
Reservations and information: (323) 960-4451
Online ticketing: www.Plays411.com/raybradbury

. . . excerpted from the Press Releases by Philip Sokoloff (showbizphil@sbcglobal.net)


REMINDER!!

Falling Upward
A Comedic Irish Fable

Pat Harrington, star of Broadway, movies, TV and regional theatre will lead the cast in this revival of Falling Upward at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.

El Portal Theatre
(on the main stage)
5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601
Previews: Tues., Feb. 26 and Wed., Feb. 27 at 8 pm
Opening Night: Saturday, Feb. 28 at 8 pm
Performances: Thurs. thru Sat. at 8 pm; Sun. at 3 pm
(Pre-show entertainment commences 20 minutes prior to official curtain time.)
Admission: Gala Opening Night: $40-$50. All other performances: $30-$40.
Reservations and Information: (818)508-4200
Online Ticketing: www.elportaltheatre.com/events or www.Plays411.com
Website: www.raybradburysfallingupward.com


PHOTOS FROM:
The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit


RAY AROUND TOWN

Sunday, February 1st at 2:00 to 4:00 pm

Book signing (Fahrenheit 451) at Simi Valley Public Library, 2969 Tapo Canyon, Simi Valley, CA 93063. Phone: 310-551-1735 (ticket information). No admittance without a ticket. Go to the Simi Valley Public Library website for additional information and to print out a ticket request form. (Seating & Raffle begin at 1:00 pm)

Saturday, February 7 at 6:00pm

As part of One Book, One City, The Sierra Madre Public Library is sponsoring a lecture and book signing by Ray Bradbury celebrating Fahrenheit 451. The Library is located at 131 W. Highland, Sierra Madre, CA 91024. Phone: 626-355-7186 for additional information or visit the Library’s website: www.cityofsierramadre.org. The event is free and open to the public.

Friday, February 13 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Book launch event for Ray’s new book, We’ll Always Have Paris at the Beverly Hills Library. There will be readings from several stories in this new collection and Ray will give a brief talk and will sign copies of this book. The Library is located at 444 N. Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Phone: 310-288- 2220 for additional information. Reservations are required – Call 323-662-7099 for reservations.

Saturday, February 21 at 3:00 pm

Ray will be lecturing and signing books at Palms Rancho Park Library’s Ray Bradbury Room (where else?). The Library is located at 2920 Overland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90064. Phone 310-840-2142 for additional information.

Saturday, February 28 at noon

Ray will be signing We’ll Always Have Paris at Mystery and Imagination Book Store, 238 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91203. Phone 818-545-0206 for additional information or go to www.mysteryandimagination.com.
RAY IN PRINT

Ray has written a foreword, “My Mars,” to a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC special collectors’ edition, SPACE: THE ONCE AND FUTURE FRONTIER (2008). It went on sale at newsstands in November.

“The Ardent Blasphemers,” Ray’s introduction to a 1962 edition of Jules Verne’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, has been reprinted in a new edition of that book, adapted as a graphic novel and illustrated by Gary Gianni (Flesk Publications, Santa Cruz, CA, 2009).


Ray Bradbury's Pandemonium Theatre Company
Established 1963
Ray Bradbury, Co-Founder, Producer and Playwright
The late Charles Rome Smith, Co-Founder and Director

Clackamas is a good word.

quote:

Originally posted by scotty:
I would like to know when Mr. Bradbury will be doing any appearances/booksings in the Los Angeles/Orange County areas? Will he be doing a book tour to promote his new books?

Any input would greatly be appreciated as I would like to meet him and have my book signed!

Regarding the coming event in the City of Sierra Madre, CA:
Evening With Ray Bradbury, 2-7-09

http://cityofsierramadre.com/index.php?mod=event_detail&id=688

They also have a creative writing contest based on Fahrenheit 451 as a theme:
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_11547324

Below is the entry that I am submitting - hope it inspires others to join in!
==========================================================


A House of Shining Words


For a long time, McPherson found himself looking outside the ample window, his empty eyes gazing into the vast nothingness. Sixteen years next month, he mumbled to himself. Lengthiest mission ever. Like so many evenings lately, his thoughts had wandered again to a certain hot day, the Fourth of July picnic, aeons ago. And while the exact year would not fail to escape him every time, the warm smell of Mrs. Denton's freshly baked apple pie was always there in his memory, deliciously real, like the perfect raspberry lips of sweet Miss Lynn C., who once had wanted him to marry her. Whatever became of her? Married, two children, maybe three or even four. Sixteen years in this rocket! What for, again? It was much too long to bear.

“Where is Allen?” asked the harsh, decrepit familiar voice from the speaker, addressing no one in particular. “I bet a thousand dollars he is sighing again by the main dock, like a woman in love. Had I known about these melancholy moods, I would have ordered a rocket without windows. Boy! ”

Like the stars blinking softly out there, the toughness of the old man had become a permanent fixture in their quotidian life.

From the depths of a nearby armchair, Parker decided it was about his time to speak up and intervene.

“Don’t have to be so hard on the kid, Julius. You know darn well there is nothing else to do in this wretched ship. If only there were some books, at least...”

“Books! My grandmother despised them. Said they only brought superstition and lies, and we might as well live without those two. Prohibited materials - who needs them? Never read one in my life!”

Suddenly McPherson woke up from his lethargy, ready to join the discussion and to challenge the old man.

“C’mon, Stevens... are you saying you never read a single book in your entire life? I find that hard to believe.”

“Ha! So you do. Never once read one, never saw the need for it. Rubbish!”

“I,” said Samuel Hathaway quietly from his bench, “have books.”

There was a pause. In the background, the rocket groins kept humming steadily their endless mechanical mantra.

“Impossible!” said the voice on the speaker from the room next door, stressed with an inequivocal tone of irritation. “They would have been detected by the Censors before we left.”

“Oh, but I do have them. Tons of them, in fact. All of them, to be precise.”

McPherson smiled.

“Is this true?”

Hathaway looked at him squarely in the eye, triumphant.

“Hell, yeah.”

“How did you manage to smuggle them in? How come we’ve never seen you reading any of them?”

“Smuggling them was easy. I knew the Censors would have no control on our system after we took off. So I set up a small clandestine stealth link to a repository key I have kept for years, uh, and memorized them both, key and link. I waited so patiently all this time... amazingly, after sixteen years, all it took were a few hours to patch to ride the signal yesterday as we approached the satellite - finally - from the wireless link via the outer system microwave router and presto, have them all safely delivered on board in electronic form.”

“But how did you pass the mental test?”

“I didn’t take it.”

“There’s a rebel!” said Parker, cheekily, almost celebrating.

McPherson’s smile got even wider.

“You didn’t take it? How did they let you go? You were lucky to escape Reclusion; they could have thrown you in for years.”

“I had a good friend pull some strings for me. That’s all it took, you see. I guess he owed me a big favor. And now we have saved them, a whole Ark of Noah full of books, rows of dusty, yellow manuscripts covered with the glory and wisdom of Appulleius and Ptolemy, the poems of Burns and Shelley, the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw! Three million parchments, digitally preserved for life, ten times the volumes kept at the Library of Alexandria! All in High Definition! And all the classics and modern books, in several versions. Think of it, the wisdom of the ages. I resurrected Finnegan’s Wake, and Crime and Punishment and Alice in Wonderland. I also saved Kafka and Lord Dunsany and Freud and Becquer, and de Montaigne and Unamuno from certain death. And the beautiful Annabel Lee, in her Kingdom by the Sea! All saved! You can see it was most certainly worth risking Reclusion.”

"A most noble effort," acknowledged McPherson, joking a little.

“What do you intend to do with them?” asked Parker.

“I have thought of reading them, some of them anyway, but in due time I will broadcast them, too. To the colonists, you know. They will be happy to have libraries, those who still remember how to read. It will bring back the golden sand beaches for them, the desert, Robin Hood, the Hound of the Baskervilles! Yes, I think I will set up one of those pirate radio stations high up in the caves of the Cyclopean Mountains and entertain myself reading them aloud for a while.”

The old man had been listening to all this, his mouth barely open, his eyes full of surprise. Swiftly, he entered the room and approaching Hathaway, spoke accusatorily in his grave, raspy voice:

“Hathaway, if you have smuggled prohibited materials into my ship, I swear to God I will have you arrested.”

“They are just books!”

“What’s the difference? They are all wrong, all of them. Superstition and lies, superstition and lies!”

For the past few minutes, the old man had been busy pressing buttons, a certain sadistic madness in his eyes gleaming at last with satisfaction.

“Here, Hathaway - I have forced myself into your files and have deleted all your logs. Your magnificent library is now gone, razed, never to return, erased forever. There!”

There was a long moment of sad silence. McPherson sat down, overwhelmed.

Hathaway began reciting softly, and the words treacled down to ears of the crew like drops of fresh, crystalline water:

FROM my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From my hopes that turned to sand
Sifting through my close-clenched hand,
From my own fault's slavery,
If I can sing, I still am free.

For with my singing I can make
A refuge for my spirit's sake,
A house of shining words, to be
My fragile immortality.(*)
---------------------
* From Sara Teasdale’s poem Refuge.

“Just what on Earth do you think you are doing?”

Hathaway now concentrated in adjusting his watch, and for a while, ignored Stevens. Eventually, he responded in a tired voice while staring at the sea of stars, a million floating fireflies glimmering out there:

“See Stevens, I really should be mourning the loss of so many of my friends... Thomas Jefferson, Dickens, Poe, Melville, Neruda, Bradbury, all great ones, all gone now. So sad, indeed. But somehow, deep inside, I imagined only you in your little world of bitterness would be capable of attempting something like this. So I took the time and effort to carefully memorize some of them, line by line, with my splendid best gift from the Lord, my photographic memory. Oh, it was so hard to choose which one to save. Two dozen authors and titles, at least. Heavens! I have them all here, in my head. And they are safe, yes. All safe and sound, in their own house of shining words! I will have to write them down, of course, many times, to make them immortal again. And I shall mourn for those that are irreparably gone though, those I were unable to save, no thanks to you, you know. I suppose you will have to kill me now.”

“But the Censors, “ reproached Stevens, “all of them knew what they were doing! All the filth, the lies... you can’t deny that!”

“Ah, but like you, they never read anything, did they? Like you, they wouldn’t know better. Have you ever been in love?”

The old man took in the big hurtful question like a boa constrictor and then snapped back furious, almost hissing.

“Now listen to me, Hathaway. I’ve had enough of your foolishness! What you have done, in your irresponsibility” said Stevens, his voice suddenly slow and deliberate, “is intolerable, sheer evil. Pure and simply. Book smuggling! I will see that you pay for it.”.

He was holding an open bowie knife in his right hand, his fingers clutching it and twitching nervously at the same time.

Hathaway repeated his question.

The men stood up, frozen.

“Julius Stevens, for the love of God, drop the knife and stop this nonsense right now!” commanded Parker. Although the old man owned the rocket and the mission, Parker had been the officer in charge since the captain had died peacefully in his sleep, only four years this Spring.

“Yes, for the love of God, Montresor,” chuckled Sam Hathaway, paraphrasing his favorite Poe line, as if in amusement at the old man’s determination. He saw the small blade smiling its brief silver smile at him, but it did not make him afraid of it. Samuel Hathaway was no coward, no sir.

“Have you ever had dreams, Stevens?”

“Huh?”

“That’s what books are for - they preserve dreams. Unless dreams are written in, they have a tendency to die with the person that dreams them up. See?”

The men saw the hatred from ignorance shining bright inside the old man’s pupil, thirsty and vile. Stevens remembered the old days, when piles and piles of books burned for days and months on end in large blazing stacks, in towers of smoke all across the Midwest, Texas, California. New England! All this madness, someone had told him once, all must go for the greater good of mankind! It was true that Stevens had never really loved anyone. It could be that his cranky bitterness sprung from that fact, or maybe he had never been able to love because the acidity in his heart wouldn't allow for it. What came fist, the chicken or the egg? Either way, he had never had dreams of any kind, for that matter. Except for the mission, perhaps.

“Old Man, wake up ~ you’ve been blind for too long!”, said Hathaway, intent on pressing further his provocation. “Listen ~ last night I browsed the whole catalog and finally found a small jewel I was going to share with you on our sixteenth anniversary on board - a ‘Genealogy and Family History of the Stevens Branch’, by E.R. Stevens. Your grandfather, no less! He even published his love letters to your grandmother! And now it is all gone, buried in the sands of oblivion, forever. You have burned your own roots, Stevens old fool, and now you will never get to know them. Is that not a big irony?”

And then, having said it all, Hathaway started to sing.

Okay, McPherson thought quickly, this will surely be the end of Hathaway.

The strange song of freedom that was the poem, which sounded like a Spiritual, had triggered it. In merely a matter of seconds, the old man had charged and approached him roaring, his face a red tribal mask of anger and violence, a massive tsunami of rage, but all McPherson saw was the fast, lightning strike from Allen, who had come from the side, out of the blue. He was a good boy, that Allen.

It took only one sharp blow to the head, the strike of a cobra, and the old man now laid there limp and flat, half conscious yet anihilated, defeated, a small stream of blood and humiliation running down his ear.

The men looked silently at the sorry horizontal lump that was Stevens, barely trembling on the floor, then raised their eyes to see the boy. Nobody lent out a hand to help the old man. No one moved.

Gently rubbing his sore fist, the young man then turned to Hathaway with a kind expression in his face:

“Sir, I think earlier on you had just started to tell us about the tale of Bartleby the Scrivener. Shall we get back to our story?”

And wiping the dust from his hands, he reached out and grabbed a chair.

* * *

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Captain Wilder,

Ray Bradbury Presents: The Illustrated Bradbury
Fremont Centre Theatre, South Pasadena
Opening Night Gala, Saturday the 21st of February

Tobias Anderson, who played Captain Beatty in F451, thirty some odd years ago presents 9 one-man-plays based on Mr. B's stories. July before last this was performed in Ventura at the Ray Bradbury Film Festival.

Tickets and info: https://www.plays411.net/newsite/show/play_info.asp

This Saturday, San Marino Cromwell Library from 1-3

http://events.pe.com/san-marino-ca/events/show/85905711-ray-bradbury

The Mission Hills Paperback Book Show, March 29, 2009. Others scheduled to appear include William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson, Frederik Pohl, Dennis Etchison and Larry Niven:

http://www.blackace.net/show-30.htm

quote:

Originally posted by Richard:
The Mission Hills Paperback Book Show, March 29, 2009. Others scheduled to appear include William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson, Frederik Pohl, Dennis Etchison and Larry Niven:

http://www.blackace.net/show-30.htm

This year's show will have a special tribute to Forrest J. Ackerman.

This is the idea show to get the missing issue of Amazing or Weird Tales you need...not to mention that same back issue of Playboy you used to found when you were 12.

quote:

Originally posted by jkt:
...not to mention that same back issue of Playboy you used to found when you were 12.

How coincidental that you say that - Saturday morning I'm driving to Upland, California to meet a collector from whom I'm purchasing four sixties-era issues of the gentleman's magazine featuring a writer we all know and love.

Then I'll drive to a lecture at San Marino by the same writer to have them signed.

In days past, I would have taken them by 4E's for his "perusal", God rest him.

Doug, do you know which stories are in the magazines you will be buying? If the stories are illustrated, any chance of you uploading a scan?