A Lockdown Pause: Images in Ray Bradbury Stories

Something a little different today, as I take a brief pause from my Lockdown Choices series...

Some years ago, I presented a paper on images in Bradbury's fiction, at a conference in France. Note the term "images", rather than "imagery". The point being: I talked about how characters within Bradbury stories experience images such as photographs, paintings and tattoos.

As is my wont, I made a Powerpoint slide show to illustrate my talk. And now, these many years later, I've glued the slide show to a recording of me reading the paper. Here it is, for your delectation and delight. (Click the little square in the corner to make it fill the screen.)

By the way, my pronunciation of "Peirce" is correct. I say this to forestall a load of comments from those who assume it is pronounced the same as "pierce"...

If you'd prefer to read the paper, you can find it on my Academia page, here.

In a Season of Calm Weather...

In January 1957, Playboy magazine premiered Ray Bradbury's short story "In a Season of Calm Weather". The narrator wanders on a beach and sees a man drawing patterns in the sand with a stick. It turns out to be Pablo Picasso. The tide comes in, and Picasso's masterpiece of sand art is washed away, as if it had never been there.

Some years later, Bradbury wrote a screenplay version of the story under the title The Picasso Summer - and under the pseudonym "Douglas Spaulding". He withdrew his name from the project because of the mess the film-makers had made of his simple tale. The only redeeming feature of the bizarre international co-production is a short sequence of animation inspired by Picasso (who was not involved with the film at all).

Today you can find the original short story in a couple of Bradbury books: A Medicine for Melancholy, The Day it Rained Forever and Twice 22 collect it under its original title; while The Stories of Ray Bradbury reprints it as "The Picasso Summer". 
 
The reason I am blogging about "In a Season of Calm Weather" today is the remarkable sand art of Andres Amador. Below is just one of his pieces of ephemera - and there is plenty more, including videos and discussion of his techniques and collaborations on Andres' own blog, here.