Final thoughts on Bradbury...

Ray Bradbury, 86 years young, was incredibly gracious and dare I say charming tonight, armed with amusing anecdotes about his life and career. I sat in the back with 3 rows of empty chairs in front of me next to the window where I could look outside at the parking lot hiding my laptop behind the chair in front trying not to be disrespectful I guess. I really couldn't see the man, lest I turned my head hard to the left, but I could hear him clearly.

For those unfamiliar with his work, can check out his official site (raybradbury.com) or wikipedia's bio/works page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury.

Bradbury spoke for over an hour (with a short q&a at the end), spoke mostly about his love for cinema--his long history with in the film industry (writing screenplays, etc.), his love for theater...his love for the library--how he never couldn't' go to college, instead spent a couple days a week reading at Central Library downtown and at his local branch library. Spoke about how all the women in his life were either librarians, school teachers (English of course), or book sellers. He spoke of being broke, with his first wife and writing his first novel, which was a collection of his short stories about Martians (compiled as The Martian Chronicles) after getting a break from some publisher or something...I began staring outside at a woman driving backwards with her lights off for some reason...I wondered why...

The night ended in conversation about humans colonizing space, with someone in the crowd asking him if he had heard about the discovery of water on Mars today (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061207/ap_on_sc/mars_water), which seemed to excite Mr. Bradbury (he is after all, a sci-fi geek at heart), he spoke of setting up a permanent base on the Moon, leaving the earth and its problems behind to colonize space, a new world free of conflict and confusion...when someone challenged him on how he was certain that man would not make the same mistakes in space that he makes on earth, Bradbury replied, "I guarantee it!"

All in all, I'm glad I stayed behind after work (the event took place after closing the branch for the day), it was definitely worth seeing/hearing a legendary figure like Ray Bradbury...this was the sixth time he has spoken at our branch (first time for me).

Ray's new book, entitled--Farewell Summer published on October 17, 2006. It is a sequel to his 1957 novel Dandelion Wine.

Now if we can just get Gore Vidal to show up, I' d be willing to pick him up...he lives nearby I've heard ;)