I've posted this a couple of times in the past, but it seems appropriate again now.

Plaque in Ray Bradbury Park, Waukegan, Illinois. I took the photo c.2008, but the plaque has been there since the park was dedicated in 1990.

The Lake County History blog has a tribute to Ray, with old photos and postcards:

http://lakecountyhistory.blogs...dbury-1920-2012.html

ROSEBUD MAGAZINE, The Magazine for People Who Enjoy Good Writing, wishes to express our condolences to the family friends and fans of the late great Ray Bradbury. Ray has been a good friend to independent, nonprofit ROSEBUD over the last twelve years or so. We have had the honor of printing two stories and two poems by Ray, along with a variety of letters, generally congrtulating us for passing some watershed or anniversary. He has also steered a number of talented writers to our pagee. His frined and associates have told us ROSEBUD was his favorite American literary magazine, and we have no reason to doubt it. This has been a blow in particular for Editor Roderick Clark, who was regularly encouraged by Bradbury over the years as he struggled to keep ROSEBUD in print. He treasures the correspondence, and the signed copy of ROSEBUD on his bookshelf. We hope and trust that he has now made his way to that great library in the sky.

The logophile is hurting beyond words.

But I needed to post my respects anyway.

It's a tad difficult to see through tears in the library. (Or anywhere else, I suppose; where one is is irrelevant, heh.)

quote:

Originally posted by Sophie:
He changed my life because of this production:

http://www.lastagetimes.com/20...ding-from-the-heart/


Thank you, Ray.

Mine, too. Thank you for being there with me, Sophie darling. It was the beginning of forever.

Last night, I was talking on the phone to one of my sisters. She was outside walking her infant son, trying to get him wound down for the day, and just as I was talking to her about the news of Mr. Bradbury, she saw a falling star. Her son, Skylar, didn't see it, but last year I put his name in with the collection CalTech/NASA made for the Mars rover landing this August.

"Mr. Ray Bradbury Lives Forever"
Doug and Tom will always run and play and discover the joys of summer in Green Town, Illinois.
Guy Montag will continue to find his way through the books he once burned and escape to the forest where Hope awaits him.
Will and Jim surely must call to one another, again and again, from window to window, hearing the mysterious arrival, to soon, of the train that carries a Dark Carnival.
Summer rockets to the red planet Mars, not dreams, but realities soon to come, endlessly inspiring boys and girls, until the day "Bradbury Mountain" is climbed by a twelve year old child from the beautiful blue Earth.
Each illustration will retell its story of imagination, fear, possibility, and wonder, as youthful readers awaken to discover the meaning of metaphors.
A group of unique friends' Ice Cream Suit brilliant forever. A Pedestrian seen walking at night, you and I will smile and remember Leonard Mead. Dinosaurs from sixty million years ago heard screeching even tonight in this the 21st Century as a little boy's bedroom light glows late.
Witches, pumpkins, banshees, lost spacemen, tricks, treats, marbles, ravines, licorice, sneakers, old ladies dressed so fine, dust here and there, fire everywhere, yet children playing as old time music plays sweetly. A forgotten glass of lemonade. This is just the surface...
Futures yet to come, dogs running in fields, cannons soon to roar - but, for now, a drum's soft "rustle and tap" of peach blossoms!
Authors from across the centuries honored on Mars, aboard traveling trains, in Irish pubs, and, oh, yes, in poems time and again.
So! Dandelions have bloomed. Summer just about here. Kids getting out of school. A marbled notebook and two yellow Ticonderoga pencils sit patiently on the desk....
But where to start? Someone more skilled than I, a mere fan, should try to say it just right.

***************
Since hearing of Mr. Bradbury's passing, friends, family, and former students who knew of the countless kindnesses Mr. Bradbury had share with us over the years have called to express their sadness. Imagine?! How very thoughtful of them all

How amazingly fortunate those on this Board have been to have Celebrated his life and works with one another. Please know my family and I are thinking of each of the "RB regulars" and sending our sincerest condolences to one and all. Each of you has been an important part of my appreciation of Mr. Bradbury's wonderful legacy. Thank you.

His love of life and generous spirit allowed that "mere fan" to feel like a true friend. How could a teacher in a small town in the middle of nowhere be allowed to share in the life of one of the greatest writers in the history of literary tales!?
"He was a magician and simply made it happen!!!"

May God Bless Mr. Ray Bradbury with Eternal Peace and Love.

fp

quote:

Originally posted by fjp451:
...Someone more skilled than I, a mere fan, should try to say it just right...

Frank, you DID say it just right. Thanks.

Sam Weller and SF critic Gary K. Wolfe (who, among many other things, wrote a classic essay on the "frontier myth" in Bradbury's writing) discuss how Ray changed the world, in this radio show:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/06/08/how-ray-bradbury

Thanks for posting the photo, Phil.

Mr Drucker.

Another young kid gone.

Posted this on the Facebook page of A Prairie Home Companion:

You managed to really disappoint this time, Garrison! When you got to the part about the 15-minute metaphor at the commencement speech, I was sure you would segue into mentioning Ray Bradbury, not only the master of metaphor and the master of science fiction, but the greatest writer of American small town life! Much as I am devoted to Lake Wobegon, it will never have a patch on Green Town!

Forever friend of Ray Bradbury,
William F. Nolan, posted this on June 7th:
http://www.horror.org/blog/?p=2722

From Jeff Nilsson of The Saturday Evening Post:
http://www.saturdayeveningpost...0%285%29&utm_content

From William Kowinski of The Soul Of Star Trek Blogspot:
http://soulofstartrek.blogspot...ip-ray-bradbury.html

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

Somewhere a door closed quietly.

“That's better.” Alone, he snuggled luxuriously down through the warm snowbank of linen and wool, sheet and cover, and the colors of the patchwork quilt were bright as the circus banners of old time. Lying there, he felt as small and secret as on those mornings ninety-some-odd years ago when, wakening, he comforted his tender bones in bed.

A long time back, he thought, I dreamed a dream, and was enjoying it so much when someone wakened me, and that was the day when I was born. And now? Now, let me see.... He cast his mind back. Where was I? he thought. Ninety years...how to take up the thread and the pattern of that lost dream again? He put out a small hand. There...Yes, that was it. He smiled. Deeper in the warm snow hill he turned his head upon his pillow. That was better.

Now, yes, now he saw it shaping in his mind quietly, and with a serenity like a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore. Now he let the old dream touch and lift him from the snow and drift him above the scarce-remembered bed.

Downstairs, he thought, they are polishing the silver, and rummaging the cellar, and dusting in the halls. He could hear them living all through the house. “It's all right,” he whispered, as the dream floated him. “Like everything else in this life, it's fitting.”

And the sea moved him back down the shore.

---------------------------------------------------
(I have posted this with the highest respect and admiration, of course. It's just that the many posts coming in from countless first time visitors have been really quite "moving!" So many years ago, Dandelion Wine, from which this passage is taken, was the first work of Mr. Bradbury's that I taught. Hundreds of other RB stories would follow; however, this scene was one I always took time to read orally to my students. Ironically, upon the passing of my father, also at the age of 91 years young, I sent a note and picture of him to Mr. Bradbury. I included a copy of these final expressions from "The Leave Taking" and told Mr. Bradbury how it had helped me with my loss, for my Dad had also always been my best friend ever!)

So, Mr. William Nolan's words (as shared in Linnl's post) indicate this may be a very appropriate way for all of us who loved Mr. Ray Bradbury to remember and hold him close as the days and years speed by....
fp

Nora Ephron

http://abcnews.go.com/US/write...71/story?id=16656032