several years ago i went to clowes hall to hear ray bradbury & the late douglas adams speak. adams was disappointing; he mostly just read excerpts from the hitchhiker's trilogy... it was nice to hear the passages read by the author, but come on. bradbury was a much better speaker, telling fun anecdotes about the day back when he was writing fahrenheit 451. he was a charming old coot.
well apparently bradbury thinks michael moore is a "horrible human being" for naming his new film fahrenheit 9/11:
In an English translation of an interview Ray Bradbury did with the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, published last week, the Web site World Net Daily reported the author of the classic fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451" called Moore a "screwed a------" because he "stole" the title.
"He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission," the 83-year-old Bradbury reportedly said in the interview.
"He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission," the 83-year-old Bradbury reportedly said in the interview.
well, some people would call that an homage or tribute... some would say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. but bradbury's just pissed off.
he's also totally delusional about how the media works these days:
In the interview with the Swedish paper, Bradbury reportedly predicted a dim forecast for "9/11" at the box office. "Who cares? Nobody will see his movie," Bradbury told the paper. "It is almost dead already. Never mind, nobody cares."
if by "nobody will see his movie" he means it will be the biggest documentary ever in the history of ever then he's right. because fahrenheit 9/11 is virtually guaranteed to be more successful than bowling for columbine.
but okay, we can forgive the old man for a little bit of naivete about how things work nowadays. after all, he really just made a stand about principle, right? how dare moore appropriate his title from bradbury? i mean, ray bradbury thunk up all those titles in his own head, never appropriating from anyone, right? (well, except for something wicked this way comes which he took from shakespeare... & i sing the body electric, taken from walt whitman.)
oh well, he might be a total hypocrite, but he's a charming old hypocrite, so at least he has that going for him. but by my logic, if moore is a horrible human being for his appropriation, then so is bradbury (& so is just about every artist everywhere).
