Monday, August 22, 2005

Isn't it the Cat's Pajamas?










In my discovery of Parker's birthday I noticed another author I find rather interesting was born on this day... Ray Bradbury (1920-). His novel, Fahrenheit 451 is taught in schools, and his views on reading and censorship have always been passionate.
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"There is more than one way to burn a book."

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

"...I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from [Fahrenheit 451]. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony." ("Coda" 1979)
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Recently I stumbled upon a new collection of essays by him at Barnes and Noble, Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars and I thought it looked interesting enough to add to my reading list. Last Spring, I learned about the upcoming release (Sept. 2) of a film entitled A Sound of Thunder, based on the short story, of the same name, by Bradbury. (a highly anthologized short story read by today's youth) [Here's a little update.... just read in Entertainment Weekly that they gave this movie an "F" and I am not sure I recall ever seeing a movie get an "F." Not sure --I- even want to see it now.] Because I love short stories and I'm always searching for more, I considered buying his newest book of them, a year ago, (then decided to wait for the library or a used copy...I'm cheap like that!). This book is called The Cat's Pajamas.

That title actually reminds me of what I spent much of my weekend doing. I was holed up all day Saturday poised over my scanner as I was fed photo after photo from a photo album that belonged to my Great Aunt Ida. My mother and her sister enlisted my services in creating digital copies of these for all the siblings. It was pretty fun to see all the old pictures and to learn about one branch on my family tree or would it be a root? Well, the story goes... My Grandpa and Grandma were in a community play (a rather non-pc dramatic production....check out the "Norwegian Indians") back in 1955, and my aunt remembers this whole event rather clearly because it was out of character for Grandpa. I guess he had only one line and he was very worried he'd screw it up. He was supposed to say "Isn't it the berries? Isn't it the cat's meow?" Well, sure enough, his fears were realized when he slipped up and said, "Isn't it the cat's berries?" (It's a bit like "the dog's danglies" as they are wont to say Down Under!) I thought that was just a riot. Now I realize I've departed from my earlier post topic, but I thought that story was worth it. I like to think of my grandparents in their little community play. I wonder what it was called.

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