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Mar. 25th, 2005 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogBite-sized nuggets for your pleasure.
This is astoundingly boring. It's a Ford Holiday but not a techteam one so, though most of the people we support aren't at work, we are. Or at least the half or so of us who didn't take vacation days or something. Usually there are about 40 people on the phones at this time of day; today the banner board shows 21. There've been all of four calls to my phone in the last 5 hours, two of them taken by the person I'm mentoring,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pricelesspoetry (yes, I found out that she has a livejournal). Grah!
So I've spent my time reading this that I, disregarding current money worries, bought at Green Brain Comics a couple days ago. I'm so glad I did.
I'm half way through the book. The introduction by Bradbury himself wherein he talks about his life as a series of metaphors almost made me cry. If I have any chance to meet him him after we move I want to take it. The book mentions Andre Norton too as one of his friends and influences and thinking about her being dead really saddened me too. Some of her children's books were among the first fantasy I remember reading (things like Star Ka'ats and Steel Magic), and I still haven't read the Mercedes Lackey/Andre Norton books that Andrea bought me for Christmas. (I was so excited when I saw those in the book store: one of the only combinations I can think of that might get me more excited would be Mercedes Lackey teaming up with Barbara Hambly. Wow.) I never met her and now I'll never have the chance.
I had a chance once to meet Mr. Bradbury. He was at a book fair in Chicago several years ago but I was too nervous to go down there by myself to talk to him. I deeply regret that. If I have a chance to meet Mr. Bradbury I want to leap on it. He has long been one of my favorite authors. My dad is a huge fan of his too. He grew up very near where my dad did and some of the places in his books are places my dad knows and has been to. I think it was reading Something Wicked This Way Comes that cemented it for me, ten years or so ago. His writing is so vivid, so poetic, so incredibly alive! I just want a chance to tell him how much his work means to me.
There is one particular story of his that I've read in a collection of works by several authors that I cannot remember the name of. I've been trying to find or remember the title for a couple years, looking through the several exclusively Bradbury collections that I have, but I can't seem to locate it. I should probably have asked a fan group on Usenet or something, and I probably will. I just haven't gotten around to it. But I wonder if one of my readers might know it.
It's the story of a couple of small time con-men who stumble onto a magical city that can be seen off the side of a highway from a certain special place. They begin charging passers-by to see the city, and each of them sees a different, equally beautiful and fantastic place. A guy who's been following the two around and stealing their money-making ideas from them shows up and kicks them out of the spot and begins gouging people on prices but suddenly no one can see anything. The usurper leaves and again the city appears and the original couple realizes that it is not their place to control this bit of magic and begin drawing people's attention to it, but not charging. Just sharing this bit of magic with other travellers.
I would dearly love to find this story of his again. I thought the title had Xanadu in it, but perhaps not. I know there was a reference to the Samuel Coleridge poem in it (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree...) I keep telling Andrea about it and how much it means to me; how it reflects some of my deep beliefs about life. I would love to find it and, if I ever do have a chance to meet the author, ask him to sign a copy for her...
On that subject, tell me my friends and readers: had you the choice of a few authors to have a chance to meet and talk to for a few minutes, who would they be and what makes them stand out to you? I would love to know.
This is astoundingly boring. It's a Ford Holiday but not a techteam one so, though most of the people we support aren't at work, we are. Or at least the half or so of us who didn't take vacation days or something. Usually there are about 40 people on the phones at this time of day; today the banner board shows 21. There've been all of four calls to my phone in the last 5 hours, two of them taken by the person I'm mentoring,
pricelesspoetry (yes, I found out that she has a livejournal). Grah! So I've spent my time reading this that I, disregarding current money worries, bought at Green Brain Comics a couple days ago. I'm so glad I did.
I'm half way through the book. The introduction by Bradbury himself wherein he talks about his life as a series of metaphors almost made me cry. If I have any chance to meet him him after we move I want to take it. The book mentions Andre Norton too as one of his friends and influences and thinking about her being dead really saddened me too. Some of her children's books were among the first fantasy I remember reading (things like Star Ka'ats and Steel Magic), and I still haven't read the Mercedes Lackey/Andre Norton books that Andrea bought me for Christmas. (I was so excited when I saw those in the book store: one of the only combinations I can think of that might get me more excited would be Mercedes Lackey teaming up with Barbara Hambly. Wow.) I never met her and now I'll never have the chance.
I had a chance once to meet Mr. Bradbury. He was at a book fair in Chicago several years ago but I was too nervous to go down there by myself to talk to him. I deeply regret that. If I have a chance to meet Mr. Bradbury I want to leap on it. He has long been one of my favorite authors. My dad is a huge fan of his too. He grew up very near where my dad did and some of the places in his books are places my dad knows and has been to. I think it was reading Something Wicked This Way Comes that cemented it for me, ten years or so ago. His writing is so vivid, so poetic, so incredibly alive! I just want a chance to tell him how much his work means to me.
There is one particular story of his that I've read in a collection of works by several authors that I cannot remember the name of. I've been trying to find or remember the title for a couple years, looking through the several exclusively Bradbury collections that I have, but I can't seem to locate it. I should probably have asked a fan group on Usenet or something, and I probably will. I just haven't gotten around to it. But I wonder if one of my readers might know it.
It's the story of a couple of small time con-men who stumble onto a magical city that can be seen off the side of a highway from a certain special place. They begin charging passers-by to see the city, and each of them sees a different, equally beautiful and fantastic place. A guy who's been following the two around and stealing their money-making ideas from them shows up and kicks them out of the spot and begins gouging people on prices but suddenly no one can see anything. The usurper leaves and again the city appears and the original couple realizes that it is not their place to control this bit of magic and begin drawing people's attention to it, but not charging. Just sharing this bit of magic with other travellers.
I would dearly love to find this story of his again. I thought the title had Xanadu in it, but perhaps not. I know there was a reference to the Samuel Coleridge poem in it (In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree...) I keep telling Andrea about it and how much it means to me; how it reflects some of my deep beliefs about life. I would love to find it and, if I ever do have a chance to meet the author, ask him to sign a copy for her...
On that subject, tell me my friends and readers: had you the choice of a few authors to have a chance to meet and talk to for a few minutes, who would they be and what makes them stand out to you? I would love to know.
