{"id":1421,"date":"2008-08-22T06:42:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-22T06:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury\/"},"modified":"2011-11-01T15:12:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T19:12:53","slug":"ray-bradbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SK6bnCDh2zI\/AAAAAAAABK4\/4GD8v6f2gbM\/s1600-h\/raybradbury.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;float: right;cursor: pointer\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SK6bnCDh2zI\/AAAAAAAABK4\/4GD8v6f2gbM\/s400\/raybradbury.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In my youth as I devoured science fiction my tastes ran to what in those days was called \u201chard\u201d science fiction, written by people with engineering backgrounds, or if not certainly who should have\u2026\n<p>But one author I found as I explored the range of the genre who didn\u2019t convey that particular and frankly limiting sensibility was <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ray_Bradbury\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ray Bradbury<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bradbury was the first author I encountered who might be termed \u201cwriterly.\u201d His love of language and use of it immediately caught me and my imagination\u2026<\/p>\n<p>As a child of a father who kicked around the country following an insatiable itch in his wounded soul, and therefore never attending school anywhere two years running, my education shaky as it was, came mostly through reading; and my love of books and gratitude for the printed word was such that I was especially taken with his dystopian reflection <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Fahrenheit 451<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>It seeped into my dreams.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019ve never forgotten the collection <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Martian Chronicles<\/span>, as much for how it was written as for its haunting subject matter. There is no doubt that man could write. And I began to savor the writing of what I would read nearly as much as the story. Actually he was probably the reason my taste for science fiction would eventually run its course. Too much bad writing. At least in those days\u2026<\/p>\n<p>As I think of the recent studies suggesting how closely connected we actually are in that six degrees of separation sense, I was especially taken with learning his first real success happened out of an encounter with Christopher Isherwood (about whom I\u2019ve written in the past) who brought the<span style=\"font-style: italic\"> Chronicles<\/span> to the attention of a \u201cserious\u201d reviewer. This helped him become one of the few science fiction authors of his day to break out of the ghetto and find a readership in the larger community. Something he richly deserved\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Today, author, teacher (and I\u2019m happy to report, Unitarian Universalist) Ray Bradbury is 88.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Birthday, Ray!<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/33904114-7596461774977712738?l=monkeymindonline.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my youth as I devoured science fiction my tastes ran to what in those days was called \u201chard\u201d science fiction, written by people with engineering backgrounds, or if not certainly who should have\u2026 But one author I found as I explored the range of the genre who didn\u2019t convey that particular and frankly limiting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ray Bradbury<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In my youth as I devoured science fiction my tastes ran to what in those days was called &quot;hard&quot; science fiction, written by people with engineering\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ray Bradbury\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In my youth as I devoured science fiction my tastes ran to what in those days was called &quot;hard&quot; science fiction, written by people with engineering\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Monkey Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/james.ford.1029\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-22T06:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-01T19:12:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SK6bnCDh2zI\/AAAAAAAABK4\/4GD8v6f2gbM\/s400\/raybradbury.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James Ford\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James Ford\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html\",\"name\":\"Ray Bradbury\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-08-22T06:42:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-11-01T19:12:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb\"},\"description\":\"In my youth as I devoured science fiction my tastes ran to what in those days was called \\\"hard\\\" science fiction, written by people with engineering\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2008\/08\/ray-bradbury.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Ray Bradbury\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/\",\"name\":\"Monkey Mind\",\"description\":\"Easily distracted...\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/3f37f475fb5078d1e7faa93a63a0fddb\",\"name\":\"James Ford\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa18971b225a3bb79f0c4c381a5fae20?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James Ford\"},\"description\":\"James Ishmael Ford is a writer and spiritual director. He has been authorized as a teacher within two traditional Zen lineages. James has washed dishes, assisted a crab fisherman on the Florida keys, worked in bookstores up and down the California coast, and served as a Unitarian Universalist parish minister. He currently lives with his spouse Jan and her mother in Los Angeles. 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