2020 08 30 20 RayBradbury100 II

today i'm katie our presents we're celebrating one hundred years of ray bradbury i'm kate mcintyre august twenty second was no one hundredth anniversary of the birth of this remarkable writer the occasion is being marked in numerous ways the ray bradbury foundation and ray bradbury literary works sponsored or read a thon of his most influential book fahrenheit four five one featuring art there as actors librarians and students you can watch the reader on in its entirety ray bradbury read up on dot com podcast bradbury one hundred has just been launched featuring authors inspired by bradbury's the library of congress' honoring bradbury at their twentieth annual book festival september twenty fifth through twenty seven the festival will feature a panel discussion on bradbury's life and his lasting influence on literature science and space exploration you can find out more about all these and other ways to mark ray bradbury

centennial that ray bradbury dot com here at pierre presents we're celebrating the life and legacy of ray bradbury with an encore presentation from two thousand seven that's when i was honored to interview bradbury remotely at a big read an event hosted by the to peek at shawnee county public library when asked at that event what kind of books he enjoyed reading bradbury talked about some of his old favorite over art two fourth march all of the plate than three ball only been renewed for you and i read the writing the marmara beirut and the thought or your birthday back the iron curtain that we got there four years ago and you were all of these books with it oh no the north korean of elemental

and avoid that from that brilliant writer of american poetry not surprisingly some of those old favorites are the ones ray bradbury says he would hide in his house if books were forbidden like they are in fahrenheit four five one and i think i think a book by hugh well when a new book about the future of oil are really thinking and you'll learn to play that shakespeare and vote for it and there are i think there in question where you get ideas where you did your idea of a company they go to me things happen and in the end of her happening i rather the typewriter and i write them oh my a couple weeks earlier that day after day and realizing that we're going to see a move or i got over the blackboard in

mourning as the private good pop and the moon i thought it was completely moon and i knew rather the typewriter and wrote a column about the revelation of the filly i were the people wonder where i get ideas i am a relatively they collide with me all the time and i you're listening to an encore presentation of k pr presents from two thousand seven i'm kate mcintyre and now a remembrance for bradbury john tibbets associate professor of film and media studies at the university of kansas a ten year old boy still lives inside ray bradbury impatiently scuffling running teasing provoking and challenging the man he has become similarly ray's own literary children including some of the first stories he ever wrote

still cry out to him and demand to be recognized now half a century later they're not through with him yet and he is not through with them either memory and meth are like that shape changing with augustus and eddies of history's cross weapons i wrote those words in nineteen ninety seven as i prepared an interview article and ray bradbury's newest book publication from just returned at the time ray and i were driving to the plaza in kansas city missouri our way west to the university of kansas we had just visited the thomas hart benton murals at the nelson atkins museum he had expressly wanted to see them now fifteen years later and just a few days after his death at age ninety one i remember moments like that and still find myself applauding the present tense re always lived in the present tense in the more than forty years of our friendship which saw his visits to my home in

kansas city my many visits to his home in los angeles are sharing the podium together at several science fiction conventions during his work on spaceship earth at disney's deadly e d facility in burbank many interviews a continuing correspondent he was never less than present always in the moment until the next and the next even today i still believe in that present that presence but what is there to say about him that hasn't been remembered expounded celebrated analyze critiqued and talk to death all this time well i can merely offer up some thoughts of my own about some of the things i learned about him perhaps not so well now but to begin with in a half century of writing fantasy science fiction and satire ray bradbury has taken us on a safari to have to run a source rex crouch among the mummies in the catacombs beneath mexico city

chase demons in a midwestern carnival midway resurrect ghosts in the hollywood back lots sprint through dublin streets and colonize mars we met firemen burned books vampires who worked in mortuary as robots look like grandmother's and space men who trailed the son of god from plan to plan ray bradbury is his own macrocosm and microcosm i turned touching the sun and probing at his own bones is more than thirty books including dar carnival the martian chronicles fahrenheit four five one the illustrated man dandelion wine something wicked this way comes and more recently from dust returned along with dozens of plays and screenplays hundreds of poems and many consultancies a city planner and disney epcot designer well they are all known to millions all over the world so we're like a man ray bradbury had many good companions in his lifetime kindred spirits beckoning muses

i'm not referring to his contemporaries necessarily the friends and relatives like his beloved aunt in the va back in waukegan illinois or cartoonist charles addams are illustrated joseph mainly about all of whom i've written elsewhere and i don't necessarily cite the great catalog of literary references which is celebrated so frequently and enthusiastic from the john carter adventurism on cheney's movie grotesques during his youth to the weird tales coterie of robert e howard and hp love craft during his apprentice days and to while disney louis mumford and his later years a public celebrity know i speak here of three other men the filmmaker a writer composer who he certainly never met but who are no less noted in the bradbury pantheon of heroes we sometimes know ourselves by knowing our heroes and inciting them i believe i'm further defining bradbury himself to begin

with there is the great swashbuckling or douglas fairbanks sr he was raised eternal youth his peter pan douglas was raise middle name bradbury boasted about the kinect china not only signed all three names to my own biography affair banks but he always did the same in the more than forty years of our correspondents maybe that was because he knew of my own lifelong research into for banks or maybe it was his own code for the fleet boyd spirit he followed in the fee for baghdad and robin hood and there with gilbert keith chesterton gilbert was raise every man his job grappling with an elusive got an immense and curious apostle of logic and lunacy who haunted british letters until his death in nineteen thirty seven chesterton turned the world upside down and space inside out with his paradox now i had no inkling of ray's enthusiasm for him until one day i

spot on his book shelves a number of gestures in volumes the moment was like a stroke of lightning of course how could these men not be bound to him many happy conversations followed exchanges back and forth about the poetry of both a particular love chesterton's ballad of the white horse the father brad detective stories and questions about those famous paradoxes just who or what was the character of somebody's been the man who was thursday third was the great french composer hector berlioz another bolt from the blue mighty hector was raised barbarian at the gate breathing fire and brimstone race chance reference one day to the great romantic firebrand pricked my attention in every x plus jewish in an exclamation point raid matched their wails his volcanic outbursts cannon fire explosive rhetoric of the simply fantastic and harold in italy brave new barely else's forays into science fiction to in particular that

strange story of a mechanized the city of the future you see in some their baseline project trees were those of ray's flights to mars the sun npr they sang together their parents to almost pagan youth and nurtured the spirit of the boy a man who would never grow old at least onscreen and on the page chesterton sturdy optimism was the smile with which will halloway defeated <unk> dark and leo asked mom built his happiness mixing but when the smile turned upside down we had chested and gargoyles and bradbury's often people significantly they growled and a grand almost interchangeable moreover chesterton search for god on earth was like race search for christ on the planet mars they shared the divine paradox of divinity and spirituality imminent in the dust of men indeed i like to think that

because of chesterton's topsy turvy insights and spiritual quest he knew bradbury better than reagan himself now if you insist quite rightly that they never met then read chesterton's nineteen eleven novel man alive and you will see in print the best portrait anyone ever did or ever will execute a bragger as for barely else's bursts of energy well just try to avoid one of ray's big bear hugs like the blare of barely us is brash trombones those hugs come at you from everywhere once was your daily dose of mr bradbury shouted loved and hated at the tops of their voices together they plunged into the hell of the damnation of faust and wrote the infernal merry go round of something wicked this way comes indeed they were the children of faust outsiders ever roper's damned and exalted i have no doubt that raising early story the homecoming is his own damnation offense evoking a yearning for a dark sublime that would

never be satisfied writers filmmakers composers all they were not in the business of shrinking from life or from themselves i have sometimes wondered how it was that a man like ray with little formal education managed to acquire his experience in love with a seemingly remote influences like these so apart from the more familiar fantasy worlds of weird tales or the hard realities of space travel maybe it's because douglas and gilbert and hector we're like ray also died that it's deployed they're equal opportunity enthusiasms and the never ending search for youth god and the devil and some conclusion when i bid farewell to the earthly remains of my friend i want to say simply by ray me and katie are present with this final passage

from fahrenheit four five one has seen a pothole as diamond head and the exile began their journey back to society today was breaking all about them as a pink leopard and given where there was a long morning's walk into an end if the men were silent it was because there was everything to think about it much remember perhaps later in the morning when the sums up and warned them they would begin to talk with say the things they remembered to be sure they were there to be absolutely certain that things were safer what i felt a slow server it's a slow some and when it came his turn quickly say quickly off on a day like this to make the trip a little easier to everything there is a season yes time to break down and the time to build yes a time to keep silence and time speaking yes all that but what else and on either side of the river with their tree of life which they're twelve men are fruits and you had her from everyone in the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the

nations yes that's the one a remark that the kind of work you're doing and a deeply appreciative and a lot of you that we love that we're working you've been listening to kate pr presents the degree of fahrenheit four five one by ray bradbury the degree that is a joint program of the national endowment for the arts and the tpp as shawnee county public library ray bradbury's spoke via telephone to a live audience at the library on june seventeen two thousand seven additional source material was provided by the national endowment for the arts the recording engineer was jason slow i'm kate mcintyre at our present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of

kansas presentation of haiti are present in celebration of the one hundred anniversary of ray bradbury's birth numerous organizations are marking the centennial you can hear or read a thon of fahrenheit four five one with author neil gay men actor william shatner and numerous other as actors librarians and students it's available this week at ray bradbury read a thon dot com the library of congress's honoring bradbury september twenty fifth through twenty seven and fear in your book festival the festival will feature a panel discussion bradbury's life and legacy find out more at ray bradbury dot com if you enjoy todays keep your presents drop us a line leave your comments and keep yours facebook page or email them to us at contact at kansas public radio dot org and j

mcintyre thanks for listening