Ray Bradbury Centennial post August 6, 2020

Photograph by Usuf Karsh.

Daily Ray Bradbury Centennial Post. Kurt Vonnegut wrote to Ray Bradbury in 1959 to tell him that he wanted to move to southern California and be near Disneyland. Bradbury and Walt Disney were friends, and Bradbury offered to show Vonnegut around and introduce him to all the right people. "It's warm all the time out here," he told Vonnegut. Vonnegut could not imagine it, nor did he follow through on his plans -- his icy cynicism remained unmelted in the eastern US. His professional regard for Bradbury was steadfast (he was two years younger and died five years before him, both writers from the Midwest, remember). In his letter he addressed him as "Mr. Bradbury," which Ray quickly broke down. More than any other writers -- and blazing a trail for Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler -- Bradbury and Vonnegut demolished the artificial commercial walls between science fiction and so-called literary fiction.