Hitherto Overlooked

Although I systematically scour the web for Bradbury related material, some items slip under the radar. For instance, I just discovered a podcast from 2010 reporting on Bradbury's 90th birthday party and Ray Bradbury Week. It comes from the Cinefantastique Post-Mortem series, and features Lawrence French talking about Bradbury, the celebrations, Rachel Bloom, Fahrenheit 451 and William F. Nolan.

And from around the same time comes this terrific report by Betsy Lee on a celebration screening of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit.

Sketches of Bradbury

Back in August of last year, I attended Ray Bradbury's 90th birthday party in the Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, California. While crowds packed the front of the shop trying to get a glimpse of Ray, in a quiet corner stood a fellow with a pencil and paper, sketching Bradbury from memory. Said fellow, it turns out, was Bill Goodwin.

Bill doesn't know exactly what became of that sketch, but he has more - such as the one below, which I can't help seeing as Ray-as-steam-locomotive.

(click on image to enlarge)

Although Bill can't locate his bookshop sketch, I happened to snatch a few seconds of video of him sketching. So, for your delectation and delight, here it is. To get the best view of the sketch, you may need to pick up your computer screen and rotate it through 90 degrees...

Seasons Greetings - and recalling Bradbury's 90th

Merry Christmas!

It may be snowing and cold outside, but I like to think back to warmer days.

So here - at last! - are my photos from my 2010 trip to California to attend Ray Bradbury's 90th birthday.


Click on the picture to start the slide show



Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay in LA for the other events of Ray Bradbury Week, so I was quite pleased that the official proclamation of Ray Bradbury Week by the City Council was captured on video:

Part one --- Part two

In the interests of democracy, the LA City Council have the record of voting on the proclamation online, as well as the official resolution.






And finally... although Bradbury is more associated with Halloween than he is with Christmas, Sue Granquist on Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature reminds us of Bradbury's great Christmas short story "The Wish".

Where's Phil?

This blog has been a little quiet of late, due to a combination of foreseen and unforeseen circumstances. The foreseen was my trip to the US, combining a stay in Las Vegas with attending Ray Bradbury's 90th birthday party in Glendale, California. The unforeseen, a matter of days before the trip, was a pair of deaths in the family.

My free time is quite limited at present, so it is unlikely that I will be posting anything substantial for the next week or so. I have, however, found time to upload some photos from the Glendale events - not my own photos, but some taken by Cornelia Shields, who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time. (My own photos will appear at some unspecified future time...)

Click here for Cori's photos!


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