{"id":1702,"date":"2009-06-20T09:04:38","date_gmt":"2009-06-20T16:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/06\/go-bradbury-go\/"},"modified":"2009-06-20T13:27:18","modified_gmt":"2009-06-20T20:27:18","slug":"go-bradbury-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/20\/go-bradbury-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Bradbury Bo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library<\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

Ethan Pines for The New York Times<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in colleges and universities,\u201d Ray Bradbury, 88, said. \u201cI believe in libraries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/nyt_byline><\/span><\/p>\n

By\u00a0JENNIFER STEINHAUER<\/a><\/p>\n

VENTURA, Calif. \u2014 When you are pushing 90, have written scores of famous novels, short stories and screenplays, and have fulfilled the goal of taking a simulated ride to Mars, what\u2019s left?<\/p>\n

\u201cBo Derek<\/a>\u00a0is a really good friend of mine and I\u2019d like to spend more time with her,\u201d said\u00a0Ray Bradbury<\/a>, peering up from behind an old television tray in his den.<\/p>\n

Fiscal threats to libraries deeply unnerve Mr. Bradbury, who spends as much time as he can talking to children in libraries and encouraging them to read.<\/p>\n

The Internet? Don\u2019t get him started. \u201cThe Internet is a big distraction,\u201d Mr. Bradbury barked from his perch in his house in Los Angeles, which is jammed with enormous stuffed animals, videos, DVDs, wooden toys, photographs and books, with things like the National Medal of Arts sort of tossed on a table.<\/p>\n

\u201cYahoo called me eight weeks ago,\u201d he said, voice rising. \u201cThey wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? \u2018To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s distracting,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s meaningless; it\u2019s not real. It\u2019s in the air somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Yahoo spokeswoman said it was impossible to verify Mr. Bradbury\u2019s account without more details.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bradbury has long been known for his clear memory of some of life\u2019s events, and that remains the case, he said. \u201cI have total recall,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.”<\/p>\n

He also recalled watching the film \u201cPumping Iron,\u201d which features Gov.\u00a0Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a>\u00a0in his body-building days, and how his personal recommendation of the film for an Academy Award helped spark Mr. Schwarzenegger\u2019s Hollywood career. He remembers lining his four daughters\u2019 cribs with Golden Books when they were tiny. And he remembers meeting Ms. Derek on a train in France years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, \u2018Mr. Bradbury.\u2019 I said, \u2018Yes.\u2019 She said: \u2018I love you! My name is Bo Derek.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Derek\u2019s spokeswoman, Rona Menashe, said the story was true. She said her client would like to see some more of Mr. Bradbury, too.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bradbury\u2019s wife, Maggie, to whom he was married for over five decades, died in 2003. He turns 89 in August.<\/p>\n

He can still be found regularly at the Los Angeles Public Library branch in Koreatown, which he visited often as a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe children ask me, \u2018How can I live forever, too?\u2019\u00a0\u201d he said. \u201cI tell them do what you love and love what you do. That\u2019s the story on my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times A Literary Legend Fights for a Local Library Ethan Pines for The New York Times \u201cI don\u2019t believe in colleges and universities,\u201d Ray Bradbury, 88, said. \u201cI believe in libraries.\u201d By\u00a0JENNIFER STEINHAUER VENTURA, Calif. \u2014 When you are pushing 90, have written scores of famous novels, short stories and screenplays, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}