Ray, you were the first guy to come along and tell me what I knew already, and still know - sneakers die every year and when they are dead, you know it. I just went and got a new pair of running shoes this week. Now when I walk I am ten feet high, leaping across streets. Yes me, at fifty five!

I have read your books forever. I first read them in high school. Dandelion Wine was a total flood of joy. I well remember my response to it - goosebumps, laughter, and running immediately into the kitchen to smell...CLOVES.

Your words drift about me like smoke through my days. I, too, have been lost in libraries. No green lamps anymore, but plenty of shelves. Plenty of old paper to sniff at.

I don't let anybody else mow my lawn, because I enjoy it so much, just like Grandma did, and wisely told Doug. I enjoy the smell of cut grass too much to let it go. I don't let anybody take out the trash because they won't look at the stars like I do, or smell the night breezes on the way back inside.

I am humbled to be able to write this letter. I hope you get to read it. I wish I could meet you, I know that many of us wish that. I feel like I know you, though. I know your soul. It resides between the pages of those books.

I have heard you singing with the Junk Man in the evening shadows. I have seen you walking on a hot afternoon in Mexico wearing an Ice Cream Suit. I have crouched with you behind the carnival tent as the Dust Witch searched for us. You and I, young again, have played and yelled and run up a sweat in the Ravine at dusk.

Thank you. Thank you for everything. Most of all, thank you for 'From The Dust Returned'. I love Uncle Einar. I always have. I cry for Doug, but he will be ok. As I will. As you will.

Snow:
Yes, simply stated for all who can relate to this timeless scene, "Antelopes!" "Gazelles!"

To Snow:
A finer tribute I could never write myself. You captured the essence of his wide-eyed wonder and love of the metaphor more beautifully than I could imagine. Thanks for your profound thoughts....

"Moving out of the blazing sun, walking softly, lightly, slowly, he headed back toward civilization."

Which bring up the question of the ages (concerning RB's works), why has this Novel never been made into a major movie? Every chapter has a great moment and marvelous characters!

To me DW appears to be a nugget some film company just needs to lean over and snatch up!

Someone aught to whisper in Opies' ear I think he could pull it off. He could have the sensitivity of the period, with the possible nostalgia, but he might be just fed up to the eyes with that genre.

Although Ron Howard I think could sure breath life into Greentown.

We all could use a nip of Dandelion wine about now in these times.

Thank you for your comments, guapodevil. One of my wishes is to be able to someday publish something of my own that will be composit of the magic of others who have influenced me.

I had read the novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella and last evening (again) watched Field of Dreams. I was struck time and again throughout the story how the feel was Bradburyesque in twists and images.

The movie, I thought, was produced well and paid close attention to detail in replicating the characters of the old time ballplayers, their mannerisms, and even inflections in their speech. Those who worked on this movie could do real justice to a number of RB stories that come to mind and have been discussed here (DW, MC, IM, etc).

The question posed at the end of the movie, "Is this heaven?" Reply - "No, this is Iowa!" Not unlike, "Mars is Heaven!"

Is anyone familiar with the crew included @ http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0097351/

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 11-19-2003).]

Hopefully, you have also read Ray's wonderful baseball short story, "The Big Black and White Game." It appeared in THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN. For me at least, it is one of the first stories I recall reading that dealt with the issue of racial prejudice, and had a significant impact on me as a 12-year-old.

Richard: I read the Big Black and White Game again just last week! I had first read it when I discovered (my 1st, too!) RB as a freshman in HS - more than a few years! I was initially drawn to the brown covered pb on the school library's rotating rack (with the Golden Apple design filled with the T-Rex, rocketship, space, a terrifying no-man's land background, and the lost world setting spotted with volcanoes - classic stuff)! As I write of it now, I am back in the library and the moment is palpable - strange?

Then I opened the book and experienced the likes of Fog Horn, Pedestrian, Sound of Thunder, Golden Apples, Flying Machine, April Witch, and so many more. For a 14 year old boy, "it sure didn't get any better than that." No hyperbole (then or now)!

Today as a HS English teacher, I read from all spectrums, loving most. But no form is more consistently enjoyable to sit down to uninterrupted than - new or old - a work of Ray Bradbury. Why is that!?

The Great Black and White Game, I must admit, made complete sense this time through. Ironically, I had not read it again until days ago. I am also a real baseball fan from my childhood. The stories of old-timers, the traditions, the high and inside purpose pitches, spitballs, the lost stars of the old Negro League, cleats flying toward an opponent covering a base, the sweet smell of the grass on a late spring afternoon, or the dew glistening under the lights on a mid-summer night - all play like Bradbury for me. I share these interests with my boys as my father shared them with me from as far back as my memory goes.

So, to again coincidentally read RB's B & W Game (while I was in the middle of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird) and then to watch FofD the other night, well, too much of a good thing is really a treat, don't you think?

By the way, Mr. Bradbury catches all of the nuances exactly. The player leading off the bag, the interchanges and chatter of the position players, the slides, the plays in the field, and Big Poe throwing the ball and catching that so and so Jimmie Cosner in the back of the head. RB frames all of this from the perspective of a young boy watching the action from the stands. Timeless!

(Yes, another irony, Kevin "Cosner" starred in the FofD movie.....)

going back to the Dandelion Wine thing...
"Dandelion" is the most beautiful peice of writing I have come across. It inspires me and reminds me of the simple, beautiful gift of living that is ours for the taking. I would be most distressed if someone tried to capture the essence of "Dandelion's" word pictures and feelings in a film. It cannot be done and should not be attempted.
READ the books!

I have read the books and the stories, most many times over! I thought The Ray Bradbury Theater did a good job of capturing the feel of RB works. Those episodes are now nearly twenty years old, but the likelihood of Mr. Bradbury getting involved in any redux for the sake of technological updates is less than remote as the author approaches his 84th b.d. next summer.

I have commented before that the collection of these episodes should be initiated by some tv group, as TZ has been. Much red-tape, no doubt!

I was watching the MC video collection this weekend. Though filled with flaws and shortcomings as cinematography goes, there are moments that come right out of the book, images and characters alike. It is a Hurculean task to do justice to any classic story from off the printed page. However, with today's cameras, computer programs, and special effects what they are - wouldn't some of RB's works be great fun to sit watching in "surround sound" and with that huge movie screen. After all, RB gives credit to the early sci-fi-fantasy-horror flicks as some of his greatest inspirations in setting free his incredible imagination. (An imagination I kept thinking about as I was watching "The Martians" portion of the MC) These stories were fifty years ahead of their time, in view of where space explorations is today. What wonderful vision he always seems to have!

Yes, a book and an hour or two of uninterrupted reading is grand. Nothing better, figuratively and literally! But an RB movie done accurately and with care (think of L of R productions)? It may even rekindle a whole new generation of followers that could pick up the torch and pass it on!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 11-24-2003).]

I would also enjoy Bradbury film adaptations that had the quality, power and ability to capture the original spirit as represented in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies.

I thoroughly enjoyed the SWTWC movie adaptation. But I was less than thrilled with the F451 (I thought it was boring and culturally irrelevant, although it had its moments).

I'm nervous about the A Sound of Thunder adaptation being worked on, but I believe Bradbury himself has had input, so I have hopes for it. I don't know the level of input he's had, but am hoping it will keep to his spirit.

I almost believe that any Bradbury movie that will capture the spirit and language of Bradbury is going have to use narration, so his wonderful use of the language can set the tone. I enjoyed the Cannery Row movie (Debra Winger and Nick Nolte) in part because the narration was straight out of the two adapted novels (Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday). Such narration would help maintain the Bradbury spirit of language in film. This was used successfully in SWTWC.

The classic movie of Harper Lee's
"Mockingbird" also gets it done in most aspects. Mr. Peck, Huston and Bradbury's Ahab!, was impeccable as Atticus.

It takes a setting aside of egos and a placing of the work on a silver platter to serve up something very special. Not often done these days with super-stars in every chair. It still happens, however, with the right chemistry. Other examples?

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 11-24-2003).]

I don't think I can top your example, fjpalumbo. The narration in Mockingbird is so outstanding, it gives me goosebumps. That is my favorite book of all time, and one of my favorite movies. In fact, does anyone out there know who does the narration? I would love to find out. You're right, though--good narration could bring Ray's books to life where acting alone, even good acting, might not suffice. On a sillier note, how about the narration in "A Christmas Story?" It too adds volumes to that movie, silly (and fun) as it is.

If you're interested, Jean Shepherd wrote the novel upon which "A Christmas Story" was based, and also does the narration.

I attempted to read the novel last year, however the movie is based on only a small portion of the novel, and I didn't find the rest of the work all that appealing.