“I Think The Only Way We Can Grow And Get On In This World Is To Accept The Fact We’re Not Perfect

“If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: “It’s gonna go wrong.” Or “She’s going to hurt me.” Or, “I’ve had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore …” Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

—

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist

the rocket man

“Doug,” he said, about five in the afternoon, as we were picking up our towels and heading back along the beach near the surf. “I want you to promise me something.

“Don’t ever be a rocket man.”

I stopped.

“I mean it,” he said, “because when you’re out there you want to be here, and when you’re here you want to be out there. Don’t start that. Don’t let it get hold of you.

“You don’t know what it is. Every time I’m out there I think, if I ever get back to Earth I’ll stay there, I’ll never go out again. But I go out and I guess I’ll always go out.”

“I’ve thought about being a Rocket Man for a long time,” I said.

He didn’t hear me. “I try to stay here. Last Saturday when I got home I started trying so damned hard to stay here.”

I remembered him in the garden, sweating, and all the traveling and doing and listening, and I knew that he did this to convince himself that the sea and the towns and the land and his family were the only real things and the good things. But I knew where he would be tonight: looking at the jewelry in Orion from our front porch.

“Promise me you won’t be like me,” he said.

ray bradbury, maclean's magazine, march 1, 1951

Black & white illustrations by Moebius‬. Reference for some of these: doorofperception.com

In 1987, the first manned spaceship, under the command of the US Navy, landed on Mars. To their surprise they found homes from various periods in Earth history and what appeared to be the crew’s relatives that have passed on. ("Mars is Heaven", X-Minus One, radio)

*Originally published under the title "The Naming of Names"

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury, photos around my hometown

ray bradbury was right: "September. In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason" etc

2 unusual editions of Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’.

“Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time...”

-Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes