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1976-02-17 Ray Bradbury to Speak at USD February 26 Office of Publicnfor I mation

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Digital USD Citation Office of Public Information, "Ray Bradbury to Speak at USD February 26" (1976). News Releases. 1415. http://digital.sandiego.edu/newsreleases/1415

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OFFICE OF PUBLIC INFORMATION

jj CONTACT: SARAS. FINN TELEPHONE : 714-291 -6480 / EXT. 354 SD ADDRESS: RM. 266 DE SALES HALL, ALCALA PARK, SAN DIEGO, CA 92110

RAY BRADBURY TO S~EAK AT USO FEBR UARY 26

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ray Bradbury, noted science fiction and fantasy author, will spea k at the University of San Diego Thursd ay, February 26. His talk is set at 8 p.m. in Camino Theatre. Genera l admission is $2. 00; students $1.00, with tickets avail able at the door only. Bradbury has published over 500 articl es, stories , poems, plays, screenplays and novels. His sto ri es have appeare d in s cience fiction and fanta sy magazines, as well as su ch peri odicals as t he Saturday Eve ning Po st and t he New Yorker. Some of Bradbury's most popular books include Dande li on Wine, Fahrenh eit 451, The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicl es , and I Sing the Body Electric. Br adbury's talk is sponsored by the USO Assoc iated Students

sr eukers Bure au . # # #

2/ 17/76

( NEWS RELEASE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO

OFFICE OF PUBLIC INFORMATION jj CONTACT: SARAS. FINN TELEPHONE : 714-291 -6480 / EXT. 354 SD ADDRESS: RM. 266 DE SALES HALL, ALCALA PARK, SAN DIEGO, CA 92110

NEWS CONFERENCE

FOR: RAY BRADBURY, science fict i on author

DATE: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26

TI ME: 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

PLACE: ROOM 218 DE SALES HALL, UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO

2/18/76 Biograph~ News• September/October 1q7; BRADBURY

tennis shorts. shoes and jacket (which on themselves. The new liberalism has he y,ears throughout the day "because to be radical conservatism, which it's most comfortable and easiest to means grabbing back power from a work in" ), Bradbury tries to grasp the 1984-type government. which our bu­ significance of his new acclaim. reaucracies have become.·· Bradbury contends that the only Plato's Science fiction &ospel he tries to spread is the gospel "One line well-written, well­ of individualism. " Everywhere I go I spoken. is worth 1,000 pictures," he tell students: ' Don' t complain that comments. "A new idea comes into your society is not handing you some­ the world, and the science fiction thing. Build something yourself,· " he writer looks at it, and tries to guess notes. "It drives me wild that people what to do with it, and how it will af­ want to be told what to do, or they fect mankind as a people or man as a want to be hired, or given money to do single individual. And that's where it. the fun comes in. Plato was writing " You are your own self-starter. science fiction in 'The Republic' when You make your own foundation . I'll he asks questions like: What is a man? never forget when radio was very big What is a woman? What is a slave? around 1950, at a party in New York What is wealth? City I met a producer who came up to ' 'Shakespeare invented Freud. He me and said: ' Ray, I love you -ha te wrote about visitations from ghosts you.' To which I offered my cong111tu­ inside the head, end then Freud bor­ lations, but asked: ' What's your proh rowed the metaphor and began his lcm?' And he said, 'Well. you 're doing investigations of the subconscious all the things I want to do.· I replied mind. The greatest works of Verne incredulously. ' What's your income and Melville grew out of their fear and every year?' He said, ' Eighty thou­ fascination with the scientific princi­ sand dollars.' I said 'Right now my in­ ple- one side being paranoid and de­ comt is $ I 00 a week .' It probably was structive, the other being positive and less-about $80. plugging into the energy. Years ago 'You Have free Wllr they envisioned the moral choices we "I said, · Don· t muck me up with face today es a nation and a planet." this talk . You've got more money Turning to his own works, Brad­ than I can even imagine having . bury comments, "My stories are in­ You' ve got freer choices. Quit your tended as much to instruct how to pre­ job. Take that $80,000 and go to vent dooms, as to predict them. The Florida. Lie on the beach and write· Brodoury \ ., ,, Moqgi e was on Engli sh last 10 years have been great because your novel. Don't tell me you love me­ instruc tor. 1 he y n, Iin o bookstor,,.e'---­ we have gotten more accustomed to hate me, and I 'm doing all the things Blorr•ph:,, democracy and its powers. Do you you want to do. I 'm doing them be­ N•w• realize that in the last 20 years we BRADBURY. Ray cause I want to do them. You do them have forced three presidents out of of­ because you want to do them . No fice. Don't forget that Truman had one's making you do anything in this PITTSBURGH a chance to run for president end world. You have free will .' " PRESS couldn't take it, because his policies According to Bradbury, being able (Pittsburgh, Penn .) Oct. 5, 1975 were unpopular. to do your own thing successfully re­ Nixon Hod Chane• quires a lot of courage and a certain "Then Johnson came along, and I amount of intelligence. " When I was RAY founded a group to oppose him run­ 12." he recalls, " I could see that I was ning for office six or seven years ago. an orange monkey. and everyone else All of my liberal friends said: · It's no was a brown monkey, and if I wasn' t BRADBURY use. he's in there. He's a megalomaniac. careful I 'd be destroyed . And that He'll never step down.' But l insisted. kind of instructive paranoia can be In Orb it With Ray Bradbury "He stepped down and then Nixon very helpful to a child. Take protec­ had a chance to really make it, but tive coloration. Pretend that you 're By Sandra Shevey didn't believe in himself, which is a dumb, and then let other people dis­ O R approximately two d~ades, great shame. Because his foreign poli­ cover that you arc bright. Remember, Ray Bradbury has been a cy was much more liberal than John­ people don't like bright people. Boys F household name to science fic­ son's or Kennedy's strangely enough. in school who speak up and get good tion readers. Lately, the 55-year-old We've been talking tor years, but we grades arc beat up after school. author (whose 24 novels include know now it's time to act to change "It's been my contention for y ears ''Illustrated Man," " Fahrenheit 451," the policies. and we're doing it. A lot that each of us makes his or her own "Martian Chronicles" and Dandelion of money is flowing back to the states, foundation . I've always been a t Man") has been surprised to find him­ back into the cities (or rapid transit. school although I never had much self beatified by large numbers of Nader's group has come along, and formal education. The library has youths as guru of a new creed. John Gardner's group, and there have been my foundation . My career has The m a in ideas which the younger been a lot or citizens' suits against provided me with a foundation-the generation has latched onto center on major corporations. experimentation possible within the Bradbury's oft-written warnings "We've grabbed back a lot of loosely knit, quasi-cultish community against becoming overly dependent on power, and we're grabbing back more of California-based writers. science and technology at the expense with a policy of radical conservatism, "For the past 27 years I've been of moral and aesthetic values. which is really what the mood of the part of a group who mttt on and off In the living room of his 10-room time is. The new liberals ,are out or every two weeks--such craftspersons house in Cheviot Hills, Calif., clad in step. They have to put another label as Charles Beaumont (since deceas- • 947 l' I BRADBURY Biograph~ News• September/October 1.q7;

(Continued from preceding page) them didn't work. and I complained to his honor by a bookseller who worked ed) , Richard Matheson. George Clay­ Mr. Electrico. He gave me another, at Pickwick. There were around 20 ton Johnson, Sidney Stebe), Henry and asked me to walk. along the shore people there, and we were all waiting. Kuttner, Leigh Brackett and Richard with him. He began to tell me about When Heard came in the door, he Bach, who enjoyed such phenomenal himself: that he was a devout Pres­ looked around and said, "Where's success with 'Jonathan Livingston byterian minister, who was traveling Ray Bradbury?' It was so beautiful. I Seagull,· for which he admits his debt with a carnival now. He was a great almost wept. l said, 'Here I am.' And to our group . Since I was 10, I 've believer in reincarnation, and revealed he said, 'You're bright.' And I answer­ formed my own community theater to me that he had met me before when ed , 'Gee, am I?' And I didn't really be­ groups, which meet once, twice or four I had inhabited another body. I said, lieve it until then, because I had so times ·a week for a year in someone's 'Oh. gee, where was this?' And he said, carefully hidden it from myself in livmg room. You don 't need money lo 'You died in my arms at the battle of order to hide it from others .. run a theater. Ten years ago without a the Argonne in World War I in 1917. Mrs. Bradbury, t a ll. than, with ash cent, I began the Pandemonium Yoor soul was in my friend's body, blonde hair. comes down the stairs Theater." and here you arc again.' Who le.nows if and into the kitchen. She opens the re­ he was pulling my leg, or having his frigerator, takes out a container of Inspired By Father little joke. Or if he re.ally believed this. milk and pours herself a glass. Without But to me at 12, he was the center of saying a word, she winks at Ray and Bradbury credits his father for in­ the universe." exits. Bradbury reveals he fell in love spiring most of his beliefs. He used his Recognition as a writer came slowly with the former Marguerite Susan father as the model for the hero in the for Bradbury, and it was not until he McClure, an Englis h instructor at work, "Something Wicked This Way was well into his J0s--a married man UCLA, after seeing her in a bookstore Comes," who stands up against death with a family-that heavyweights in where she worked part-time. They and lime and age and proclaims, ·· I the field began to take notice. "When were married in 194 7. They have four will die for my son." my first books were published, I had a daughters: Susan. 26, Ramona, 23, The author recalls his youth. "Dur­ hard time getting a bookstore to carry Bettina, 20, and Alexa ndra, 17, as well ing the Depression, because he them. I wrote a lot of weird stories in as eight cats (all fem le). " At holiday thought he'd have better luck getting 'Dark Carnival, ' but the book only time I was so overwht:ln,t·d by the fe ­ a job on the west coast, my father, sold 3,000 copies over a period of 10 m a le compan1onsh1p thdt 1 <: ailed my who was a power company wo'rkcr, years. I'd drop in on local bookstores pal Stan Freberg lo break the spell," moved us from Waukegan, Ill., lo Los the author jokes. Bioerophy Angeles. He'd walk for miles every N,w, Through his children. Bradbury day looking for work, and the only says he's managed to stay in touch two times I ever remember seeing him with younger generations or writers, cry were when my sister died and BRADBURY, Ray musicians and rock artists. Along with when he couldn't find a job. Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov, he's " We were so poor that we were on PITTSBURGH considered by the youngsters to be a relief the day I graduated from Los PRESS prophet in his time. Cat Stevens, Elton John and Peter and Gordon Angeles High School. My parents (Pittsburgh, Penn.) couldn't even afford to buy me a have been to his house. and later talk­ graduation suit, so I wore the suit an ed about the impact tha t Bradbury's uncle or mine had been killed in. He Oct. 5, 1975 futuristic visions hav e had on their had been shot by a holdup man, and music. the bullet hole went through the front Over the years a close rela tionship bas evolved between B radbury and and out the back or the suit. We didn't to check out sales, thus earning a have enough money to have the bullet reputation for being 'Crazy Ray.' space experts. He has been at NASA's h ole rtcpaired." space center in Houston during all of "My lucky break came .from acci­ Bradbury notes that after moving the major flights. dentally meeting Christopher Isher­ lo Southern California, the lifestyle he wood in a bookstore in Santa Monica He consults periodic-ally with the found there provided escape from his during the summer of 1950, after 'The ataH and students at Cal Tech. "Peo­ strict Baptist upbringing. He was the ple ask. 'What's the point or crapping Martian Chronicles' had been releas­ only boy in his high school class to up Mars and the moon when we can't ed. Recognizing him, I promptly went read Bu~k Rogers comic books, the Oz work things out on earth?' I reply, over and said, 'Hey, let me sign a copy series, Jules Verne, H . G . Wells and 'But we' re not going to stay here or my book and give it to you.· And I Edga r Rice Burroughs. "Fantasies, forever. We can't . This is our seedbed. could see him thinking, 'One more fa ntasies, fantasies. I was a sucker for This is where we started.· book to read that I don't want to he , beautiful, fabulous lies, which in­ ··As I put in one of my plays. this is read.' But he took it, and was very st ru ct us to better our lives as a result. where God ' first turned in his sleep. gracious. Then three or four days later bu t which don't tell the truth. We' re aw.1kc now. And we intend to he called me on the phone and said " I was madly in love with carnivals excitedly, ' Do you know what you've stay awake. But we won· l if we stay and circuses, anything to do with illu­ done? You've written the most beauti­ here. We' ,1 die her t> . a nd we don' t want that.' sio n . Mr. Electrico used to sit in an ful book and I'm going to review it for electric chair every night, whereupon Tomorrow magazine.· I had the lead "I, we-all of us. lo ve the gift of when they turned on the power. 10 review and it was the first time I ever life. That' s why we ca rp so much . That's why we criticize, because we billion volts went through his body had been accepted by an intellectual and made his white hair stand up on or our time. love being alive and we hate anything end. Then he would hold up a sword that smothers it. Maybe a million and knight those boys standing in the years from tonight we'll be the perfect ( front row-including myself. And Hidden BrlUlance thing that we want to be. We'll find those sizzling sparks would drip orr ways along the way to live longer and the sword onto our brows and tingle "Later that year, it happened be more forgiving and examine the our bodies. again. The noted English intellectual, wellsprings of p assion and envy and " When I could afford it. I'd buy Gerald Heard. came to town to lec­ find ways to distri bute these 1n our some magic tricks. One time one or ture. and I was invited to brunch in arts so we can make do with them • 948