Bradbury "Ice Cream Suit" Event in California

If you are near Pomona, California, in mid-October, here's a unique event: a screening of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, with a panel on the making of the film. It's to support Pomona Public Library.

The film was scripted by Ray Bradbury, based on his short story and play, and was directed for Disney by Stuart Gordon - a director better known for his work in the horror genre. Gordon will be on the discussion panel, along with two of the film's stars: Joe Mantegna and Edward James Olmos.

And if that weren't enough, the panel will be joined by Bradbury's authorised biographer Sam Weller, and chaired by organiser of Los Angeles' Ray Bradbury Week, Steven Paul Leiva.

Full details of the 12th October event are here.

Ray Bradbury Square

The dedication of Ray Bradbury Square has been confirmed for Thursday 6th December at 2pm, and a list of speakers has been published.

Ray Bradbury Square is in Los Angeles, located at the intersection of Fifth St and Flower St. This very urban crossroads doesn't look like the sort of place Bradbury would identify with, but to one side of the  intersection is a small park adjacent to the Los Angeles Public Library. It is in this park that the dedicatory sign will be mounted... and now it all begins to make sense, since Bradbury is strongly identified with libraries.

The speakers at the dedication ceremony will include the actor Joe Mantegna, whose credits include the Bradbury-scripted The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. Others of note include the City's Librarian, John Szabo; the SF writer David Brin; Bradbury's daughter Sue Bradbury Nixon; Bradbury's biographer Sam Weller; and the co-ordinator of Ray Bradbury Week 2010, Steven Paul Leiva.

The event is open to the public. For more information, click on the flyer below.

Flyer - click to embiggen

Live Forever Trailer

Michael O'Kelly's documentary Live Forever: the Ray Bradbury Odyssey moves closer to completion, with an intended release due at the end of 2012. Here's the latest trailer, featuring Joe Mantegna (who hosts and narrates) and Edward James Olmos (interviewee).

Why Mantegna and Olmos? They were, of course, key cast members in Stuart Gordon's film version of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, which Bradbury scripted based on his own short story.

Bradbury News

Stuart Gordon is a film director best known for Re-Animator and other horrors of a Lovercraftian variety. Somewhat incongruously, he was also responsible for a Los Angeles stage production of Ray Bradbury's play The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, and he subsquently directed the Disney feature film from a screenplay by Bradbury himself.

Gordon answers questions about his work and life in relation to his adopted home of Los Angeles on the website of KCET.



Bradbury's hometown of Waukegan is once again celebrating the Ray Bradbury Dandelion Wine Fine Arts Festival. Now in its thirteenth year, it involves a day of creative activities in the city's Bowen Park. Details can be found here.

Website iPulpFiction.com is running a summer reading celebration on the theme of 90 stories in 90 days. Stories can be read online for a small fee (typically 50 US cents each). Two rare Ray Bradbury tales are included:

The1944 short story "The Silence"  - an uncollected story which has rarely seen print since its debut in Super Science Stories in October 1944.

The 1949 short story "The Changeling" - more familiar, this one is available in Bradbury Stories, but made its debute in Super Science Stories in July 1949.

There is a press release about this event here, and you can access the stories here.

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.

When Ray Passed Hedy on the May's Escalator

I stumbled on an account of how Ray Bradbury came to get a suitable ending for his play The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. It involves the late Charles Rome Smith, Bradbury's long-time theatrical director...and Hedy Lamarr.

I have no idea whether it's strictly true, marginally embellished, or wholly imagined. But it's quite interesting. Read Steve Hauk's account of the events here.



Coming soon to a DVD store near you: Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis. Print ads for the DVD have started to appear, and the DVD is officially released on 27 July. More information can be found on the Chrysalis movie blog.