Ray Bradbury's appearance ignites Temecula Reads program

By: NICOLE SACK - Staff Writer | Thursday, February 22, 2007 10:38 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA ---- Ray Bradbury made his entrance Thursday into the Temecula Public Library blowing kisses to an overflow audience of about 300 book lovers who had come to listen to the renowned author speak about his writings.

Almost immediately, it became clear that the discussion was not solely on books, but of love.

"What you have in front of you is the world's greatest lover," Bradbury, 86, said. "I am in love with so many things in this world, including life."

The man loves movies, Martians, drama, dinosaurs, Walt Disney, world fairs and all things weird and beautiful.

It turns out, Bradbury has quite a long memory. He said he remembers the day of his birth and the week that followed. He remembers seeing movies when he was 3 and a magician when he was 6.

He also remembers the day of his favorite uncle's funeral. On the way to his uncle's wake, a 12-year-old Bradbury told his father to stop the car and let him out. From there, Bradbury headed to the site of a carnival. He sought out Mr. Electrical, a carnival performer, who the night before sat in an electric chair and as the current ran through his body, picked up a sword and pointed it to Bradbury's nose. As the current jumped off the tip of the blade and into Bradbury's body, Mr. Electrical cried out, "Live forever!"

The young Bradbury, on that funeral day, needed to know answers on how he could live forever. He sought those answers inside a dark carnival tent filled with bearded ladies and a tattooed man. It would be years later that Bradbury would write and publish "The Illustrated Man" and "The Dark Carnival," which stemmed from the strange day of his youth.

While this was a slower realization, it became clear that Bradbury's works were all shaped one way or another out of the things he loved in life.

The Bradbury lecture was the crown jewel in the inaugural Temecula Reads program, which aimed to have the entire community read the same book during the same period of time. Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" was chosen for the citywide read.

"Colleges and universities cannot teach you how to write," said Bradbury, who's formal education ended after high school. "Why do you think I'm here tonight? Because I learned how to write in a library."

It was in a library where "Fahrenheit 451" was born. Bradbury began to seriously ponder the subject of book-burning in the early 1950s when McCarthyism was sweeping the nation, and fear was abundant. The title of the book is the temperature at which paper burns.

Bradbury, who had two young daughters at home, needed an office in which to work. He found refuge in the UCLA library, where there was a typewriter room. There was a 10 cent charge for each half hour spent on the typing machines.

"I got a bag of dimes, and $9.80 later, I had written the first version of 'Fahrenheit 451,'" Bradbury said. "It was so exciting to write in a library, in a place where the spirits of great authors impinged my soul."

While "Fahrenheit 451" is generally classified as science fiction, the book is first and foremost a warning against the danger of censorship. Grace Mellman, president of the Friends of the Temecula Library, said "Fahrenheit 451" was a perfect way for the community to celebrate its unfettered right to read.

Sandy Dodson, the owner of the now closed Little Professor Book Store, recalled three times that Bradbury came to his Temecula book shop between the years 1996-2002. The first time Bradbury came to the store to do a signing, the author only gave one day's notice.

"We were just very lucky," Dodson said of those visits. "He always drew a crowd, but nothing like tonight."

Chris Shore, who teaches math at Great Oak High School, has waited 23 years to thank Bradbury for a typed passage from "Fahrenheit 451." The memento came after Shore, in 1982, helped a fellow college friend understand Socrates by using Bradbury's words.

Prior to the lecture, Jerry Regier, one of the Friends of the Temecula Library, had a surprising request of those sitting inside the library's community room: "Does anyone have a wine bottle opener? Corkscrew? Pocket knife?"

Somehow the troublesome bottle was opened and Bradbury sipped on the red wine as he spoke to the audience for the next hour and a half.

"I don't think anyone imagined the turnout like this," Regier said of the standing-room-only crowd inside the community room and the hundreds of others who watched the event through a live video feed inside the library, Community Recreation Center, at City Hall and on the city's television station.

Bradbury left the crowd the same way he came in: blowing kisses and drinking his wine.

"These are the bookends of my life: Everything is love," Bradbury said in parting. "You must prove yourself again and again and again. If you're not doing what you love, you're not doing the right thing. All the things I've done is because I wanted to do them. Money never entered into it."

Contact staff writer Nicole Sack at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or nsack@californian.com.

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