RIP, Ray Bradbury

[Lazybones]

http://boingboing.net/2012/06/06/rip-ray-bradbury.html

He wrote ?Fahrenheit 451? at the UCLA library, on typewriters that rented for 10 cents a half hour. He said he carried a sack full of dimes to the library and completed the book in nine days, at a cost of $9.80.

[Mr. Analog]

The man was a legend and wrote some seriously far reaching works.

Ray will be missed by this Sci-Fi fan.

[Darren Dirt]

"I vividly recall reading Bradbury the same way I read Cordwainer Smith, Norman Spinrad, and especially Philip K. Dick?with the uneasy sense that something?s happening here, what it is ain?t exactly clear..."

[Lazybones]

Thought of this old link today
http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php/topic,7509.msg49272.html#msg49272

[Darren Dirt]

Time to re-read a classic that surprised me the first time when I discovered a story about burning books is not really about censorship at all...



92* years of life, lived.
http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html

"at home with Ray" in case you never checked out these video clips: http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home.html

(I wonder if he would "find it amusing" how many "internet" netizens are blogging about him today -- "TOO MANY TOYS ... MEN WASTING THEIR TIME" lol so timeless his wisdom)





*technically he died @ 91, but in like 9 weeks he woulda been 92.

[Mr. Analog]

I don't see why this is a surprise actually, it was very obviously Ray's view of a big trend he saw developing in the early 50s and what might happen if that trend continued unabated; television.

[Darren Dirt]

92* years of life, lived.
http://www.raybradbury.com/bio.html

From Wikipedia:
Bradbury suffered a stroke in 1999 that left him partially dependent on a wheelchair for mobility. Despite this Bradbury continued to write, and had even written an essay on his inspiration for writing for the New Yorker published only a week prior to his death. Bradbury made regular appearances at science fiction conventions until 2009, when he retired from the circuit.


dammit I feel like such a lazy bugger now... what's my excuse for not being very "active"...

[Darren Dirt]

Thought of this old link today
http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php/topic,7509.msg49272.html#msg49272

lol @ YT comment:
Wait... Maybe he saw this video then had a heart attack... HOLY $#1% SHE KILLED HIM!!!!
FalseProphet501 1 hour ago


btw you're not the only one who thought of that vid -- http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/rachel-bloom
(wow there's a whole after-the-video-was-posted sequence of events too: non-geek news coverage/interview, Ray's reaction... )

[Darren Dirt]

"Stop Thinking! Do! Don?t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. You can?t try to do things. You simply must do things."
- http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/08/24/b-is-for-bradbury/


"Ray Bradbury wrote three great novels and three hundred great stories. One of the latter was called 'A Sound of Thunder.' The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty."
- Stephen King

[Mr. Analog]

"Stop Thinking! Do! Don?t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. You can?t try to do things. You simply must do things."

That sums up post modernism to me, right there.

It's also why I hate post modernism.

[Thorin]

If you replace the word "think" with the word "waffle", that quote makes more sense.  But if you're building a bridge you _better damn well think_!  In context, though, he was just telling the guy to spend less time planning a book and more time putting actual words on paper - to let it just flow out.

Then again, that's where the concept of stream-of-consciousness posting came from, which can be horrible to read.

[Darren Dirt]

he was just telling the guy to spend less time planning a book and more time putting actual words on paper - to let it just flow out.

With the proper amount (and TYPE!) of planning, the "flow" is a great balance of coherent and creative -- too much planning and your creativity shuts off, not enough and you get [insert name of TV series or book "saga" that you personally hate for being too "so obviously not planned up front", whether BSG or 24 or whatever ]

[Darren Dirt]

"I was not predicting the future, I was trying to prevent it" <-- that sums up F451


"Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down."
"Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row" <-- these clarify "DON'T THINK, JUST DO IT"


more @ http://theweek.com/article/index/228878/remembering-ray-bradbury-his-most-affecting-quotes

[Darren Dirt]

What Makes Ray Bradbury?s Science Fiction So Distinct And Wonderful

http://www.avclub.com/articles/why-the-essential-collection-bradbury-stories-expl,97923/

article is lengthy, but I think pretty interesting stuff -- because it got me thinking about the nature of memory (and the reality of each of our temporal/mortal limitations). "Cliffs"/key thought:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/why-the-essential-collection-bradbury-stories-expl,97923/

The carnival had come to his little Midwestern town of Waukegan, Illinois, and he'd been there one night to see a performer named Mr. Electrico. In his blog account of the incident, written nearly 70 years after it occurred, Bradbury situates what happened in the midst of the clamor surrounding the funeral of a "favorite uncle," which makes the fervor with which the event gripped Bradbury's mind all the more understandable. The night before his uncle's funeral, the boy went to see Mr. Electrico in his carnival tent.

Mr. Electrico aimed to perform wonders, mostly by manipulating electricity. For one central part of his show, he sat in an electric chair and electrocuted himself, then passed that power out to the audience via a metal sword. On the night Bradbury attended, Mr. Electrico chose him, pressing the sword to the young Bradbury's skin. His hair standing on end, the boy gazed up at Mr. Electrico, who passed along a two-word directive for a life that would become one of the largest in American letters: "Live forever."

...To write is to preserve. It is to take that thing you hope most to convey and solidify it so you and others can look at it. ...Memory doesn't have to be a prison, as long as you hold on until it's time to pass it on and let it live forever, no longer as a part of yourself, but as a part of something larger, something collective.

[Mr. Analog]

I love that story, it's so ... Bradbury-esque.

No wonder I guess heh