The Illustrated Man - Podcast episode

 I always enjoy joining the gang from the podcast series Take Me To Your Reader - and today my latest appearance goes live. The discussion this time centres around Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man.

The Illustrated Man has a complex history. Bradbury first published a short story with that title, and shortly afterwards he published a short story collection with the same title... but the collection didn't include the short story! Instead, he took his tattoed-man character out for another stroll, and used him to provide a framing device for the other short stories in the book, using the conceit that each story dramatises one of the man's tattoos.


Many years later, the short story was incorporated into the book, but only in some editions.

In the early 1960s, Bradbury wanted to turn The Illustrated Man into a film, and wrote a full screenplay. Unfortunately, it became another of Bradbury's "lost films". But later in the decade, a completely different script was used for the film that was made. Starring Rod Steiger and his then wife Claire Bloom, the movie is a portmanteau film which adapts three of the short stories from the book - with Steiger and Bloom inexplicably playing different characters in each story.

You can find out what I think of the film by listening to the podcast:

http://pavementpodcast.com/podcast/tmtyr-episode-81-lighter-than-the-movie-the-illustrated-man-feat-dr-phil-nichols/

Rain!

This is England, and so rain is hardly unexpected. Especially in April, the month traditionally associated with showers.

However, we haven't had very much rain - statistically and historically speaking - in the last two years, and so the Authorities (with a capital A) have declared an official drought. This must be laughable to those who live in, say, Ethiopia. All it means is that the UK water table is at a low level for the time of year, and if the dry spell keeps on we will faced with water shortages very soon. Several areas of the UK are under a hosepipe ban right now, meaning it is against the law to use a hosepipe or sprinkler to water that front lawn.

And, right on cue, it started raining about a week ago and has barely stopped. Today especially there has been an almost endless torrent where I am. It reminds me, of course, of the Bradbury story "The Long Rain".

"The Long Rain" first appeared in Planet Stories magazine in1950. Today you can find it in Bradbury's collections R is for Rocket and The Illustrated Man. It's set on the planet Venus, and is built on the science fiction conception of Venus as some kind of lush rain forest. The story deals with an astronaut who has to travel through the endless rains of Venus to reach the safe haven of a Sun Dome.

If you are stuck indoors, staring out at the rain and wondering what to do, you could always try a bit of homework. Here's a lesson-plan found online which should prompt you to start writing your own story in the style of Bradbury!