Friday Bradbury Information

1. I didn't want to steal my dad's thunder, but Wednesday also would have been Ray Bradbury's 92nd birthday. In honor of that, did you see that the Curiosity rover named its landing site after him? 

2. The video in the post linked to above is really, really great--Ray talking to a roomful of JPL and Caltech engineers in 1971 on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit around Mars and then reading one of his poems.

So don't let the politicians of the world get you down. There's engineers and the next Ray out there too.

Goodbye, Ray

You've probably heard by now that Ray Bradbury, one of my very favorite authors forever and ever, died yesterday at the age of 91. 

From raybradbury.com: 

He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of marriage.

Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.

Summer? Are You Here? Will You Stay?

I quoted from Dandelion Wine at the beginning of June last year, and I will do it again this year if that will make this weather stick around. (I was outside a lot this weekend and I think the whole world was doing yard work.)

Once each year, he woke this way and lay waiting for the sound which meant that summer had officially begun. And it began on a morning such as this when a boarder, a nephew, a cousin, a son or a grandson came out on the lawn below and moved in consecutively smaller quadrangles north and east and south and west with a clatter of rotating metal through the sweet summer grass. Clover blossoms, the few unharvested dandelions fires, ants, sticks, pebbles, remnants of last year's July Fourth squibs and punks, but predominantly clear green, a fount leaped up from the chattering mower.

I Agree, Ray

I think Ray Bradbury dislikes rain as much as I do--he wrote the wrenching "All Summer in a Day," about missing out on the only clear weather in a decade, and last night while listening to the rain I remembered "The Long Rain," about a group of Venus explorers who get lost, go crazy from the constant rain, and die.

I'm not saying that that will happen to me, of course. I'm just saying that if I wanted it to be cold and rainy a week before Memorial Day, I'd live in the Northwest.

(PS, the opera last night was really, really good.)

Happy Birthday, J.S. Bach!

Today the composer I'd listen to if I couldn't listen to anything else was born. Bach was also my favorite composer to play, back when I was playing (especially this). I'd always think of a Bradbury quote from The Martian Chronicles when I was practicing:

He built an architecture of Bach, stone by exquisite stone, raising a music cathedral so vast that its farthest chancels were in Ninevah, its farthest dome at St. Peter's left hand. The music stayed and did not crash in ruin when it was over, but partook of a series of white clouds and was carried away among other lands.

Writers Born Yesterday

Yesterday, it was the birthday of both Dorothy Parker and Ray Bradbury. (Ray turned 90! Way to go, sir.)

Here's a list of 10 Things You Didn't Know About Ray Bradbury (actually, you might know them, but it's still fun to read).

And here's one of my favorite quotes ever from Mrs. Parker:
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

Hot

I don't know why the heat is bothering me so much this year--maybe because it's hotter than it ever got last year? Because it hasn't been cooling down at night? Anyway, here's something from Dandelion Wine about the heat in Greentown:

Air ran like hot spring waters nowhere, with no sound...Tar was poured licorice in the streets, red bricks were brass and gold, roof tops were paved with gold. The high-tension wires were lightning held forever, a threat above the unslept houses.

Can We Say It's Almost Summer?

I am going to say it, even though there was snow ten days ago. This is the opening of Dandelion Wine, my summer book:

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over in darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.