{"id":15978,"date":"2012-06-06T15:34:42","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T22:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=15978"},"modified":"2012-06-06T15:34:42","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T22:34:42","slug":"ray-bradbury-in-sum-do-not-insult-me-with-the-beheadings-finger-choppings-or-the-lung-defiations-you-plan-for-my-works-i-need-my-head-to-shake-or-nod-my-hand-to-wave-or-make-into-a-fist-my-lun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15978\/ray-bradbury-in-sum-do-not-insult-me-with-the-beheadings-finger-choppings-or-the-lung-defiations-you-plan-for-my-works-i-need-my-head-to-shake-or-nod-my-hand-to-wave-or-make-into-a-fist-my-lun\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury: “In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-defiations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whis\u00adper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lately I’ve been pondering where the spice in our culture has gone? Perhaps, as a woman of a certain age, I’m unable to see it, but I don’t think so. My deviant detector is fairly well-tuned and I’m drawn to the outsiders of the world because, well, I am one, but it’s very milquetoast out there these days. We wouldn’t want to offend anyone or their delicate sensibilities.<\/p>\n

Somehow I missed reading Ray Bradbury. Well, no, not somehow. That was pretty much a planned avoidance of the sci-fi genre in general because it tends to spawn cult-like followers. True story. And I’m not much into cults however clever they are. But today David Boaz at the CATO Institute posted the\u00a0Coda to the 1979 Del Rey edition of\u00a0Fahrenheit 451<\/em>, written by Ray Bradbury<\/a>. And while I’ve been pondering our collective love of the plain vanilla, I’ve concluded that it seems to have begun around the year this Coda was written. Either it was the death of disco or the election of Ronald Reagan but something went terribly wrong around that time.\u00a0I never read Bradbury, but this is quite lovely and also funny and has enough biting social commentary to make me appreciate the man’s sensibilities and shared appreciation of digressions. There are indeed many ways to burn a book.<\/p>\n

About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology,\u00a0The Martian Chronicles<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But, she added, wouldn\u2019t it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women\u2019s characters and roles?<\/p>\n

A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn\u2019t I \u201cdo them over\u201d?<\/p>\n

Along about then came a note from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor of the blacks and the entire story should be dropped.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago my mountain of mail delivered forth a pipsqueak mouse of a letter from a well-known publishing house that wanted to reprint my story \u201cThe Fog Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately I’ve been pondering where the spice in our culture has gone? Perhaps, as a woman of a certain age, I’m unable to see it, but I don’t think so. My deviant detector is fairly well-tuned and I’m drawn to the outsiders of the world because, well, I am one, but it’s very milquetoast out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[251,13,24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-casual-friday","8":"category-egoism-in-action","9":"category-flourishing","10":"category-group-therapy","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17213,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17213\/overnight-news-real-estate-media-amazed-to-discover-riot-panicked-buyers-are-different-somehow\/","url_meta":{"origin":15978,"position":0},"title":"Overnight News: Real estate media amazed to discover riot-panicked buyers are different, somehow…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The lockdown on acknowledging the riots continues, as does the riot-spawned real estate panic. You now know who you cannot depend on to tell you the truth \u2013 none of them. Housing Wire: Pending home sales at an all-time high! Now what? CTRL-F 'riot'; not found. CNBC: August pending home\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14022,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14022\/heads-up-america-slavery-is-not-somehow-virtuous-when-you-enslave-each-other-if-you-want-freedom-you-must-demand-freedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":15978,"position":1},"title":"Heads up, America: Slavery is not somehow virtuous when you enslave each other. If you want freedom, you must demand freedom.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the political issue that matters: Government is crime. When your local City Hall tells you which trees you must plant in your yard, that's a crime against you. When your state taxes your income in order to give your money to people who did not earn it, that's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3365,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3365\/why-arent-the-dinosaurs-extinct-already\/","url_meta":{"origin":15978,"position":2},"title":"Why aren’t the Dinosaurs extinct already?","author":"John Rowles","date":"July 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In my last post, I made the case that many of today's old school brokers are Dead Dinosaurs Walking. In the last couple of days, two things have happened that have me questioning that theory and its keeping me up at night: I learned that a intelligent guy I know,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carnival of Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Carnival of Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/carnival-of-real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16997,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16997\/unchained-melody-stumblin-onto-the-heart-of-saturday-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":15978,"position":3},"title":"Unchained Melody: Stumblin\u2019 onto \u201cThe Heart of Saturday\u00a0Night.\u201d","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Cathleen and I went on a great big outing today. Big for the Coronavirus-infested world, anyway: We went to the Home Depot in Laveen \u2013 30 treacherous miles from our home, along a fairly new freeway spur. In other words, duck soup in January but somehow a fairly big deal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/f7UHd7NVegE\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12236,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12236\/reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-0-5-sleeping-giants-cant-sleep-forever\/","url_meta":{"origin":15978,"position":4},"title":"Reasons to be cheerful, part 0.5: Sleeping giants can’t sleep forever.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Do you want something to cheer about? Hayek's The Road to Serfdom is the number one best-seller at Amazon.com right now: It gets better. The Federalist Papers is at number fourteen. I think a lot of people are annoyed that the free country they still remember clearly has somehow vanished\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14306,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14306\/sane-people-dont-comment-on-real-estate-blogs-you-dont-need-1000-facebook-friends-other-valuable-lessons-learned-from-3-years-slinging-stuff-online\/","url_meta":{"origin":15978,"position":5},"title":"Sane People Don’t Comment on Real Estate Blogs, You Don’t Need 1,000 Facebook Friends & Other Valuable Lessons Learned From 3 Years Slinging Stuff Online","author":"Chris Johnson","date":"March 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The real thing that pissed me off about the well intentioned jackals at Agent ReBoot was not what was explicitly taught: it was what was implied. \u00a0Somehow you need oodles of traffic to be successful. \u00a0Somehow, you need oodles of Facebook Likes. \u00a0That somehow all being able to be at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Inmanically Incorrect"","block_context":{"text":"Inmanically Incorrect","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/inmanically-incorrect\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15978"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15981,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions\/15981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}