Bradbury Was Right

The photo above is a still from a lovely film , a 25 minute profile of Ray Bradbury from the 1960s. A blog commenter I know only as Dingbat sent me a link to this film yesterday. It's a wonderful movie and you can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/XESDRP82png

Xeni at BoingBoing also pointed out 4 minutes of great Bradbury footage that the people at JPL posted, Bradbury making some funny, self-deprecating remarks and reading his poem "If Only We Had Taller Been".

http://boingboing.net/2012/06/06/ray-bradbury-at-nasa-jpl-1971.html

If you ever doubt that Love is stronger than Death, look only to the work of Ray Bradbury or to the outpouring of love manifested at his passing. Death, Ray noted, is a lonely business. Anyone who writes will tell you that the actual writing is as well. But when you write, as Ray did, you find that you have shut yourself away not to be apart but to be a part. Part of this grand, wonderful, amazing world.

Some build rockets to take others to the Moon or Mars and some build cities with words, cities on Mars, cities populated with Martians, dark they were and golden-eyed. And those words, built on dreams are the electricity in the body, the signal in the circuit, the ghost in the machine. These actions make the actors act. Some may say that Ray got the details wrong, that there are no canals, no dark skinned, golden-eyed citizens. We can't be bullied by such kids. When we go to Mars, or our robots do, and look around, we'll see the Martians in the mirror. Ray knows that will happen. I know it too. Ray dreamed that men and women were dreamers and doers and that doing makes the dreams. Ray made his dreams happen and showed us the way to make dreams happen.

Ray hoped that when the dust cleared we'd see the Martians, holding a sign that saying "Bradbury Was Right."

Ray was right. Mars is Heaven. So is Earth, when you hold your dream and get up every morning to build your rocket or type your story or do whatever it is you do in your race against Death.

Ray taught us this.

Bradbury was right.