Ahhhh! My friend just emailed me for the first time in months to tell me he's interviewing Joan Didion on stage next week at the theatre where he works. [link]
I am half-crazed with jealousy and want to invite myself down. I've read pretty much everything she's written.
A couple quotes from Bradbury - this first one is him on
Something Wicked This Way Comes;
I found the quote in Stephen King's
Danse Macabre,
so I'm not sure where it's from:
Along the way I said all and everything, just about, that I would ever want to say about my younger self and how I felt about that terrifying thing: Life, and that other terror: Death, and the exhilaration of both. But above all, I did a loving thing without realizing it. I wrote a paean to my father. I didn't realize it until one night in 1965, a few years after the novel had been published. Sleepless, I got up and prowled my library, found the novel, reread certain passages, and burst into tears. My father was locked into the novel, forever, as the father in the book! I wish he had lived to read himself there, and be proud of his bravery on behalf of his loving son.
And one exchange from the end of
The Halloween Tree:
Tom: Oh, Mr Moundshroud, will we EVER stop being afraid of nights and death?
Moundshroud: When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.
And a pretty good review of Discount Armageddon.
The mice seem to be universally popular. As long as they aren't real and living with you, I guess.
I think I saw one reviewer who said they were annoying. HEATHEN.
OK, I like Discount Armageddon, and love the mice (#hail), but what is the title supposed to mean?
I think she said it was because it was like Armageddon-lite, like it wasn't really the end of the world, but something less catastrophic. I'll see if I can find the IM when I go home. A later book is called
Half-Off Ragnarok,
so the real answer is probably just...it's a fun title.
OK, as long as I am not missing out on secret significance.