Assignment America; 104; Ray Bradbury: The Fantasy Maker

[ambient sound] [tone] [ambient sound] [beeping] [music] [Ray Bradbury]: Romance that that wonderful moment when you go to bed at night when you're 9, 10, 12, 16, 18 whatever, and in the moment before sleep you name yourself for the future. You give the dream to yourself. And so this goes back into the seedbed of the literature you're writing, so I named myself John Carter warlord of Mars, went out on the lawns of summer and asked to

be taken into space. And that's how I shaped my career. [music playing] [music playing] [Maya Angelou]: Ray Bradbury is called the greatest living science fiction writer. Author of the Illustrated Man, Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, and hundreds of other stories. He thinks of himself as a storyteller. He has written every day since high school, but says if he hadn't become a writer he would have been a magician.

Where is the line between fantasy and creativity, between fantasy and science fiction? What is the difference between fantasy and magic? I am here in Hollywood at the Magic Castle. It's a private club for professional and amateur magicians. Since Ray Bradbury is a magic enthusiast, he's asked me to meet him here where he will answer those and other questions. I am Maya Angelou. Hello. [Bradbury]: Maya what a pleasure. [Angelou]: Thank you. [Bradbury]: Welcome. [Angelou]: Thank you, thank you for having me here. [Bradbury]: How do you like this mysterious place? [Angelou]: It's mysterious. [Bradbury]: Do you get all the vibrations, do you? [Angelou]:Yes, I feel quite shakey. [Bradbury]: Do you wonder what's going to happen next? [Angelou]: Yes, I do. [Bradbury]: Let me take you in. Uhm. [Angelou]: Take me in, where? [Bradbury]: Right here. [laughter] [Angelou]: Ah, that's marverlous. Goodness. [Bradbury]: Do you like this, huh? [Angelou]: I love it. [Bradbury]: Well up this way we have the Houdini room. [laughter] We have

pictures over here that roll their eyeballs at you. [Angelou]: Yeah. [Bradbury]: And straight ahead a statue of Blackstone the magician. [Angelou]: My gosh. [Bradbury]: And right around in through here a piano that will actually talk back to you. [Angelou]: In here? [Bradbury]: Yes go right on ahead now. [Angelou]: Ah. [Bradbury]: How do you like this? [Angelou]: I love it. Oh, I like the little skeleton.[Bradbury]: Sit down please, Maya. [Angelou]: Oh thank you. [laughter] There are so many fabulous things. [Bradbury]: Yes, it's a great place. I'm glad they took it over. [Angelou]: Uhh. How long has it been here? [Bradbury]: I think about 14 years altogether. Uh hum. [Angelou]: Wow. [Bradbury]: And the greatest magicians have been here at one time or another. Blackstone, I, uh, went on the stage with him when I was a kid. I used to run up on the stage and help with illusions, and finally saw him here about 11 years ago shortly before he died. So to close the circle. [Angelou]: Yes, isn't it nice to do that? [Bradbury]: Yeah. [Angelou]: Uh, Ray Bradbury, you have taken people in time beyond falling stars and bursting suns. And we have loved it. At suppose this very moment I said that I had the power

to send you back in time; and you were 12 years old again here in the Magic Castle, and you could realize your boyhood dream of being a magician. Would you cut women in half? [laughter] [Bradbury]: There are a few lady critics I wouldn't mind doing that to. [laughter] But yeah, I'd think that it would be, in fact I've often thought that when I got to be a very old man indeed I would like to go on a a tour of the world as a magician. And with the best illusions that Blackstone had, but, of course, his son has beat me to it. He's out touring the world right now with all of these glorious things that I saw when I was a child. [Angelou]: And you actually went up on the stage, ah, when you were around 10, 9 or 10. [Bradbury]: Yeah, 9 or 10. [Angelou]: Blackstone asked for, uh, a child. [Bradbury]: Volunteers, yes, yes. [laughter] Got my first rabbit, took him home, had more rabbits. [Angelou]: Did you? [Bradbury]: Yes. [laughter] [Bradbury]: Started my own magic show. [Angelou]: But there, you do some magic. [Bradbury]: A little, yeah. [Angelou]: Ah, you used to

entertain your daughters. Or not only entertain them but practice on them I understand when they were, your four daughters when they were small. [Bradbury]: That's right, yeah. [Angelou]: What kind of tricks did you do? [Bradbury]: Oh, a few card tricks, and ah, ah, vanishing by boxes and handkerchiefs and that sort of thing, you know. [Angelou]: And tell me, do you have one trick you might do for me? [Bradbury]: Yes, uh, uh, [laughter] one very simple and... [Angelou]: But not a scary one.[Bradbury]: Not a scary one. [Angelou]: Okay. [Bradbury]: It's just a matter of taking the hand like this and going like that. That's it. [laughter] My one trick. [Angelou]: Where did you.. [Bradbury]: I'm serious. [Angelou]: Do you mean you had that all the while? [Bradbury]: Of course. [laughter] [Angelou]: Okay, I have some magic for you later on [Bradbury]: All right. [Angelou]: myself. It's not voodoo, you see. [Bradbury]: Uh. [Angelou]: God, it's, you know every child, and there is, of course, a child in all of us hopefully. Uh. Every child is fascinated by magic. And oftimes terrified by it, by magic. Why do you think there is that paradox of being fascinated and, and terrified at the same time?

[Bradbury]: Why I think we all want to control our surroundings, and, uh, it starts at a very young age. We want to control everything. And so we begin to magic ourselves into things. I think every Christian boy for instance, uh, imagines that he is Christ returned to the world. You know if you grow up within the Christian religion, and you hear that there's going to be a second coming. So you as a child then say oh wouldn't it be great if I... [Angelou]: If I was it. [Bradbury]: If I'm it, you know. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: At some magical moment in the near future it's going to be revealed, even I'm going to find out I'm really Christ return. And then wait till I get up [Angelou]: Oh boy. [Bradbury]: some money and work the first miracle of the day. [laughter] My mother and father are going, their jaws are going to drop, and then ...[Angelou]: When I turn water into wine. [laughter] [Bradbury]: And then, then, then you get to be 10, 11, 12; and you try to work magic, because you've seen it on the stage or you've heard of the miracles of Christ. And they it doesn't work, you know. So therefore it's a combination of wanting to do a thing and being afraid

that it might work. You know [Angelou]: Yes, I understand. [Bradbury]: What if you tried it, and, and it worked? And or else fear of people who have more control [Angelou]: That's it. [Bradbury]: over the environment than you have. [Angelou]: You know, uh, black children in the south particularly uh grow up listening to ghost stories. I mean especially when I was growing up. That was the entertainment. There was the church and the songs in the church. And then uh especially wintry nights when the older people would sit around and say, "Do you remember sister so-and-so who died last year? I think she walks." [laughter] Oh, my [inaudible]. [Bradbury]: Yeah, that's great. [Angelou]: Oh, it was just, it was so terrible. I mean one at, one at, one in the same time wanted to flee, [Bradbury]: Uh, hum. [Angelou]: but couldn't pick up one foot to go because he was so fascinated. You know? And I wonder about children and that child in all of us that, uh, that gets caught in the

magic. [Bradbury]: Well children are on a much more comfortable level with these realities than older intellectual old foggies [Angelou]: Um [Bradbury]: get to be, and that's where they, uh, lose contact with life and the fun of death, too. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: And there is fun in death. And children recognize this, and they see the, the immense split here, and the threat, and the deliciousness of this people going away suddenly. And uh, and they go with it and enjoy it. I remember when I was 6 the first thing I remember drawing was a picture of a skeleton to show to one of my girl cousins to see if I could scare her. [laughter] But it didn't work. But nevertheless, it's interesting that, that young age one gets interested in, in darkness and the mystery of death. So, uh, the when a film like The Exorcist comes out a lot of older people are nonplussed and say, "Well what is all this about? We don't understand this." But

I understand it very well, because that young thing in me, which loved the deliciousness of discovering Edgar Allan Poe when I was eight, and, uh, being in The Premature Burial and The Cask of Amontillado, all those great things which children latch onto immediately [Angelou]: Immediately and understand it. [Bradbury]: Yeah. [Angelou]: I know. [Bradbury]: If I were In charge of reading for schools, I would put Edgar Allan Poe into the lower grades much sooner. [Angelou]: Quite right. I agree. [Bradbury]: Scare the hell out of everyone and have a grand time. [Angelou]: Uh, Ray, you and I share a reverence for books. It's said that you'd written about libraries and books more than any other writer. That, uh. [Bradbury]: I think that's true. Ah, almost every one of my books has something in it about a library; and I've written an entire novel, of course, Fahrenheit 451 about a man who discovers that he is in love not with a woman but with a book [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: and then with a series of books. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: So it's a very unusual kind of novel to

write, isn't it? [Angelou]: Yes, it is. It was, it is a great book, too. [Bradbury]: Well it was turned into a very nice film by Mr. Truffaut [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury] which I thought was immensely brave of him to, to make a film about a man falling in love with reading. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: Uh, hum. [Angelou]: Well I, I would like to know who your heroes were when you were young, uh, in literature and how and if they've qualtitatively changed as you've [Bradbury]: Well a lot of my heroes have remained. I started on the fairy tales, of course, when I was a child, which I love. And then the Greek and Roman myths were a huge influence on the Norse myths, [Angelou]: Uhm. [Bradbury]: so that you grow up with super images and super metaphors. [Angelou]: Uhm. [Bradbury]: And then Edgar Allan Poe very early when I was 8, and the Oz books. And then when I was 9, Buck Rogers came into my life, and the whole space age opened before me. And I, I was a hysteric from that point on. I just couldn't wait for the space age to be born. That's a long time ago. It was nowhere in sight. And Edgar Rice Burroughs that same year when I was 9 with Tarzan, [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: John Carter warlord of Mars. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: And I've

often said, and I truly believe, that we are on the moon today because of one man and only one man. That's Edgar Rice Burroughs. Who with John Carter warlord of Mars romanced a whole generation of boys [Angelou]: That's true. [Bradbury]: into going out and building the equipment [Angelou]: That's true. [Bradbury]: to go to the moon with and then, then to go to Mars with. So [Angelou]: That's very, very good. [Bradbury]: there you go. So but, yo- Romance has to be the, the seedbed for all of us regardless of whether we're men or women, boys or girls. Ah regardless of what country we come from, ah what religion or racial background. Romance - that, that wonderful moment when you go to bed at night when you're 9, 10, 12, 16, 18 whatever. And in the moment before sleep, you name yourself for the future. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: You give the dream to yourself. And so this goes back into the seedbed of the literature you're writing. So I named myself John Carter warlord of Mars, went out on the lawns of summer, and asked to be taken into space.

And that's how I shaped my career. [Angelou]: If you were told we were ready as a species to evacuate the planet. Ah, and, and there was room for us on another planet, Ah, would you say that we are ready inside ourselves, in our minds now? [Bradbury]: As ready as we ever will be. Because I truly accept the paradox of mankind. And I've tried to teach this to people. And I truly believe that once we understand it, we can be better people. In other words, if we understand our capacity for evil, we will be less evil. [Angelou]: Ah. [Bradbury]: And it was Hitler's problem you see that he never understood his capacity for evil. [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: He never believed he was wrong. [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: So we have to raise our children and ourselves continually as blacks and whites and communists and, and businessmen and old and young [Angelou]: Artists. [Bradbury]: to accept, yes, [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: the, the strangeness of another person, to forgive them, and to forgive ourselves. Because if we

don't forgive ourselves, we'll go on making the same mistakes over and over again and live in hatred. So if we just take that huge paradox that mankind is, and say we take this into space. I've never contended that space is going to perfect man. But I say that the excellence that we are can be taken into space along with those things in us which are less than perfect. But there isn't time to waste to perfect ourselves, because we're never going to achieve that perfection. So we take the whole thing. [Angelou]: We take all the baggage. [Bardbury]: All the baggage. [Angelou]: All the racial prejudices, sexism. [Bradbury]: Yeah and hope to work on 'em as we go, you know. Because again that's like uh saying to me the night before I get married, "Gee aren't you afraid?" Of course I'm afraid. "Oh well what about your wife? What, what about how does your wife feel about you as a possible husband?" If we thought of that the night before our marriage, none of us would ever get married, you see. [Angelou]: Yeah. [Bradbury]: So space travel is like marriage. You, you make the journey, and you hope to learn along the way with your wife's prejudices, with yours, with a difference in the sexes, which

is the challenge [Angelou]: Of course. [Bradbury]: and the beauty and the glory, as well as being the despair of mankind. We'll never, we're never going to understand women; women are never going to understand us. But we go and get married anyway. And we go and fall in love again and again and again in our lives. And we make do and strangely lead some very nice lives. [Angelou]: Ah Ray, so many of the predictions you, you've made have come true. Ah, say 20 years ago things that you suggested would happen. Is there any excitement left in writing science fiction? [Bradbury]: Well yes, because still we're on the threshold. We're only in, in the mouth of the cave ?inaudible?. And I'm still trying to measure the distance between the right ear and the left. And we'll go on measuring that for the next billion years trying to figure out the mystery of, of mankind. Uh, George Bernard Shaw put it well for all of us. He said the, something about the life for- force being the miracle of, of matter and force

changing itself over into imagination and will. [Angelou]: Ah. [Bradbury]: Well that is so great. The blind universe wakening itself. We are the, the God force that examines itself and says, "Hey, look at this. [Angelou, speaking over Bradbury]: Ah. [Bradbury]: This is miraculous. [Angelou, speaking over Bradbury]: This is grand. [Bradbury]: This is wonderful. I'm alive." And every child does this, and we have to keep that sense of the miraculous going into a, a late time of our life. And thank God it's, it's still working in me. [Angelou]: Well, I'm glad that you have raised or allowed me to ask a question. And that is how religious are you? [Bradbury]: I think intensely so, because it's irresistible. We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. So, I, I [Angelou]: And yet here we are. [Bradbury]: Yeah, and here we are. No one's explained it. Theologians have tried to give us a faith to go with on various levels. Scientists are equally ignorant. A really good scientist will tell you everything he knows is theory. [Angelou]: Right. [Bradbury]: That's all. [Angelou]: That's right. [Bradbury]: And theory is like faith. The two

halves of the same [inaudible]. [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: So there really is no dichotomy. There is no split really between science and religion. It's the same business. [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bardbury]: We're all trying to help each other survive. One way or the other. [Angelou]: To make it through the night [inaudible] [Bradbury]: And then through the days. [Angelou, speaking over Bradbury]: Yes, of course. Some days are rough, right. [Bradbury]: Some days are pretty bad, too. So uh the mystery is constant. Our examination of the mystery is constant. And so that's religious, and it's scientific at the same moment. And whatever science can give us with facts to help us to survive [Angelou]: Right. [Bradbury]: through this day and to make it to the moon and Mars and beyond. And live for a billion years. [Angelou]: Uhm. [Bradbury]: Great we'll take it. And along the way when those facts stop, faith has to take over. So we need the two things on any single day or any single evening. [Angelou]: Ah, usually when poets, I speak of you, I speak of myself, when we speak of immortality uh, uh we're talking about projecting ourselves into the future. Not our physical selves necessarily. But I wonder are you interested in living very, very

long physically, you that very Ray Bradbury? [Bradbury]: I would like to if I could do it in good health, uh because I have so much that I want to do. I think most of us as writers plan a long way ahead, and we have many books in our minds that we would like to finish. But I've already done so much that I am happy with. I'm not smugly happy, but I am contented in a certain kind of wonderful way that if I should have to leave the earth tomorrow, I feel these children of mine would still be around. Plus my real children, [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: which makes for immortality. I have often said, "I am my father's older self, and he is my younger self. [Angelou]: ?inaudible? [Bradbury]: And my children are further extensions of that." So I'm very comfortable with that sense of immortality. [Angelou]: I want to ask you another thing. Um, now we know that you travel in time or at any rate you send us in time and in great rocket ships just hurtling through universes and all that. And you never learned to

drive a car. [Bradbury]: Not yet. [Angelou]: [laughing] [Bradbury]: Well. [Angelou]: And nor do you take planes. [Bradbury]: Well it's, it's, it's all of a piece. [Angelou]: Um. [Bradbury]: It's, you always write about the things that you don't do. [Angelou]: I see. [Bradbury]: So therefore since I've never been to great heights, I must write about them. So in a way it's benefited me as a poet never having flown, because then I can imagine the flights. [Angelou]: As something exciting. [Bradbury]: So I don't know if I ever do go up in a plane if it's going to be the same. What it will do to my writing, we can't predict that right now. We'll just have to wait and see. [Angelou]: All right, now suppose NASA said we are ready now. We have the ship. We have the crew. We have the navigation all worked out. And all we need is the singer. All we need is the poet, and we want Ray Bradbury. And we are on our way to Mars tomorrow. What would you say? [Bradbury]: It would be terribly [Angelou]: [laughing over Bradbury] [Bradbury]: tempting to go along and nag everybody, which I've been doing for a good number of years now.

But it would be especially great to, to be buried on Mars, you see. And then when Mars rises in the sky [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: at night people would look up and say, "My God, there he is again. We can't get rid of him." [Angelou, laughing and speaking over Bradbury]: Can't get rid of him. [Bradbury]: Can't get rid of him. I would like that. [Angelou]: That's great. [Bradbury]: Yes, I would. [Angelou]: Now, I tell you I have a little sleight of hand. That's a crystal ball, and that's the thing it sits on. And since you know more about the future than most people, I would like you to look into that magic crystal ball and tell me what will we be doing. I don't mean you and I. But what will we, what will Los Angeles be like in 2000, 25 years from today? [Bradbury]: I would like to believe we would be sensible [Angelou]: [laughter] [Bradbury]: and ah build a rapid transit system [Angelou, laughing]: I knew you were [Bradbury]: and eliminate the motor car or a good part of it;

because I've been fighting for this for... I have my own citizen's rapid transit group for the last 10 years, and I belong to a lot of groups now, nonprofit groups to get this done. On other levels, I hope we will continue being a non-intellectual, non-hierarchical society. In other words, with no presidents. We should all be chiefs together, [Angelou]: Hah. [Bradbury]: and ah so that we won't put upon each other here in Los Angeles. And I would wish that for most of the other large cities of the world, too. That we would stop smothering ourselves. Get out away from the cities. Make sure that the big cities become smaller. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: And so that the democracy then does pass into the hands of the individual again. [Angelou]: Right. Well, uhm, I think that this is another very interesting paradox that, that you the, the creative genius and imaginer of great fantasy also have your feet rooted very solidly in

practical things. And that, that, the area of you working with, with the rapid transit. I mean I find it in works of yours, you know in the future. But to work for it now and here in Los Angeles is really very wise. I also want to ask you about architecture. What do you see in there? Ah, is our, are we going to really do away with the instant looking motel houses look that, that uh? [Bradbury]: I hope so, and that's the great thing about a lot of things that are being built right now. We can tear them down easily. [Angelou, laughing]: Probably. [Bradbury]: And that's not true about the older buildings, which is a great shame, but Ah, we're going to have to do all the cities over, aren't we? And uh [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: We're going to have to do New York City over, because it's a monstrosity. And that's true for 8 or 9 major cities in the world. [Angelou]: Uh, huh. [Bradbury]: And then begin to build cities where we can grow up as beautiful people. Where full of fountains and

green grass that will encourage us to behave well. What we're talking about here is manners, isn't it? [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: How we behave toward one another. A black, white, old, young, whatever it is. So that looking at a fountain or looking at a piece of green grass, having a decent job in the midst of this [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: green area. So that we have respect for ourselves and therefore respect for others. [Angelou]: ?Sure? [Bradbury]: Then we can begin to humanize ourselves. And our cities right now are not about the business of humanizing us and [Angelou]: No. [Bradbury]: making us behave well. [Angelou]: Well, do you think that technology, now while at what point, I was really on the same question, but at what point does technology stop being, ah, providing us with convenience and becomes a master of our movements, a master of our morals and our manners? [Bradbury]: Well it depends on what technology you're speaking of, because we have many terrible devices like cars which teach us to behave as murderers. Bad behavior, bad manners. And then we have other empathy

devices, empathy machines like motion picture cameras and projectors [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: which teach us to behave as humans to one another; so that when we send we send our films off to Russia, and they look at them and they say, "Hey, those Americans are not so bad after all." [Angelou]: Okay. [Bradbury]: And then we bring in War and Peace, the whole eight hours of it, and we look at that and we say, "Hey, [Angelou]: I'm going to sleep. [Bradbury]: they're not just political creatures. Ha ha. They're not just political creatures. Uh, they are human beings with the same problems that we have. [Angelou]: When you say that uh the, the medium, the film medium helps us to, I mean, gives us manners. And one sees the cruelty and the violence, and really superfluous violence, in so many of the films today. I, I think those manners uh we might well do without. [Bradbury]: We have to learn in our artforms how to handle the principles of gentility in ourselves along with those principles that murder. And our arts can exorcise

the will to murder and act it out for us in our films, in our television, and in our radio, and in in our plays, so that we don't have to do the real thing. Now finding the right balance [Angelou]: Yeah. [Bradbury]: is the delicate thing. Quite often you may have noticed when you pick up the newspapers that certain kinds of murders are committed by very quiet people - the, the good scholar, [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: the nice boy. [Angelou]: The A student. [Bradbury]: [inaudible] And of course I think that's a good example of what we're discussing here. The person that represses completely doesn't admit again his capacity for [Angelou]: [inaudible] [Bradbury]: evil, [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: capacity to be a monster. [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [Bradbury]: Who goes around with his wonderful mask. [Angelou]: Uh, hum. [inaudible] [Bradbury]: And be wary of that. It's much better to swear on occasion, to burst forth on occasion. [Angelou]: Yes. [Bradbury]: And we Americans tend to keep in too much. That's why I believe we are a violence race of people. That we repress. We do not acknowledge that there is evil in the world. We pretend that it isn't there. We pretend death is not there. We pretend a lot of things, and then too late the whole thing blows up. [Angelou, speaking over Bradbury]: It does that. [inaudible] [Bradbury]: And we're surprised by it. So, therefore, I would like to teach

people to be more at ease. And that's why I've written my horror stories and my weird tales. And that's why kids like me. Because we all savor the, the bloody gum where the tooth was pulled out. [Angelou]: Yes [inaudible] [Bradbury]: Well a lot of people don't want to pull a tooth, [Angelou]: I know. [Bradbury]: huh, and, and taste the blood. And you have to do that [Angelou, speaking over Bradbury]: And yet [Bradbury]: in order to, to survive. [Angelou]: And yet none of us can keep our togue tips out those, uh, [Bradbury, speaking over Angelou]: It keeps going back. [Angelou]: cavities. [Bradbury]: Doesn't it? [inaudible] [Angelou]: Yes, yes, it's something about the human being. [Bradbury]: Yes. [Angelou]: We are a wonderful species, wouldn't you say? [Bradbury]: I love us. [Angelou]: I do, too. [Bradbury]: I'm afraid of us, but I love it. [music] [Narrator]: Growing old is a terrible experience for many people. For one person I know it's a challenge. Her name is Maggie Kuhn. She leads the grey Panthers and calls herself a wrinkled radical. [Kuhn]: Old age ought to be the flowering of life. A time of tremendous fulfillment and freedom, uh, to attain

new personhood and a new identity. Uh, if you've been fairly standard in your operation in younger days, you can be a real rousing radical in your old age. [laughter] You know, you can be a real revolutionary, because you have nothing to lose. [laughter] Nobody's going to take your pension away from you. [laughter] Nobody's going to swipe your Social Security, uh, check. You know it's not worth much, and with the present galloping inflation it's going to be worth nothing at all by the year 2000. But at any rate for the moment it's mine, and I'm going to hold onto it. [music] [music]