Searching for Ray Bradbury
Received an interesting note from my Michael: "RE: drunknightsonbikes. I LOVE the title. Have you read Ray Bradbury's essay "Drunk and in charge of a bicycle" about the creative writing process?"It would be a logical explanation for my title, but not only have I not read Bradbury's essay, I haven't even heard of it. Until today, the only thing I knew about Ray Bradbury was that he wrote "Fahrenheit 451" (which I loved when I read it, way back when. There may be a direct link between the reading of that book and my book buying/collecting obsession).
Some quick research revealed that Bradbury has, in fact, published over 50 works. His first, "Dark Carnival" was published in 1947; "Fahrenheit" came six years later. "Drunk ..." was first published in "The Stories of Ray Bradbury" (1980) and again in "Zen in the Art of Writing" (1989). It has also been adapted for a stage production of the same name. I found this passage:
"There are one hundred stories from almost forty years of my life contained in my collected stories. They contain half the damning truths I suspected at midnight, and half of the saving truths I re-found at noon. If anything is taught here, it is simply the charting of the life of someone who started out to somewhere - and went. I have not so much thought my way through life as done things and found what it was and who I was after the doing. Each tale was a way of finding selves. Each self found each day slightly different from the one found twenty-four hours earlier."
Are Ray Bradbury and I cosmically connected? Or is this a text-book example of serendipity? I've often wondered if we find art or books or music or if they find us? I may never know ...
As for my blog title, it is a homage to my favorite summer pastime, one Michael described better than I ever could: "I loved drunk biking this summer and I will always remember (among so many other things) you biking up to Greg and I drunk. Sigh ... those were the days ... the sweet summer days when the sun was shining, it was so warm and everything was blooming."
He ends: "I swear to god I will live on a tropical island someday (and leave for hurricane season)."
Mikey, perhaps Ray and I will join you.
posted by JJN @ 08:27
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