BELIVE IT OR NOT...

FIFTY-ONE days to Christmas! How do I know? The first of the big store Christmas commercials have debut! For example, in a year when – to be fair – there has been so much about which to be doubtful, Lidl have come up the slogan:    

                    LIDL, A CHRISTMAS YOU CAN BELIEVE IN!

I wonder what sort of a Christmas you can't believe in?

Maybe one featuring the story of a young, heavilly pregnant girl and her husband, finding themselves homeless in a strange city on a night in the bleak mid-winter...?

[Illustration: Lesley Fotherby; Sibley/Weeks Collection]

STICKS AND STONES...

What the hell is happening to our language? 

Why are we allowing our communities, society, country, world to be divided not just over our ideologies but in the manner we express our distaste, antipathy, detestation for one another. 

Maybe it is a symptom of our willfully and irrevocably fractured twenty-first century human relationships, but as the UK’s Home Secretary hysterically – and disgracefully – refers to the arrival of immigrants as ‘an invasion’ and perpetuates the dangerous fiction that all immigrants are 'illegal', those who respond to the stench of smouldering hatred are driven to join in the same name-calling language of a playground for grown-up children.

Suella Braverman shouts across the chamber of the House of Commons that her opponents are ‘Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’ and when, a few days later, she weaponsises the ever-present fear of ‘the stranger’, ‘the outsider’, those who are ‘not like us’ as being comparable to a hostile army, the opposition – by which I don’t just mean ‘His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition’, but everyone who doesn’t buy into her grotesque rhetoric – are seemingly left with no adequate response but reciprocal, equally meaningless, label-sticking.

One of our British broadcasters whom I most admire (and whose political stance I admit to sharing) is now referring to those who stamp and cheer at Braverman’s rabble-rousing as the nothing more than response of the ‘gammon and pineapple’ brigade, while one of his colleagues (with whom I am also, more often than not, in agreement) dismisses the fulminations of the Braverman rant as a crowd-pleaser for the grey-haired oldies in the Home Counties’ golf-clubs.

I don’t play golf (although I have putted around a seaside crazy-golf course a couple of times); I do read the Guardian; I’m not quite sure how often I’ve eaten tofu and I certainly haven’t eaten gammon and pineapple for a good few years, although I happily would because I think it’s a tasty combination – just as I enjoy pork-and-applesauce or chicken-and-redcurrant-jelly – but these idiotic disparagements are a poor, simplistic reaction to the current degeneration of our social discourse. ‘Your mum’s an ugly old cow!’ or ‘Your dad’s a stinky old poof!’ are but the prologue to the post-2016 yells of ‘Brexiter’ and ‘Remoaner’ and enthusiastically set the stage for red-faced, factioneers screaming ‘Communist’, ‘Fascist’ and any other incendiary invective that will arm and empower people against other people.

When and how can those of us who want to resist society’s Gadarene stampede to the cliff-edge stop ourselves from embracing this grotesque communal hostility that aids no one other than those who seek further division for their own self-enhancing ends?

What language do we have left with which to speak reason to ignorance and truth to power? Whatever it is we need, we’d better find it and start using it pretty damn soon.

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TIME TO GATHER AROUND THE HALLOWEEN TREE

 In only a few years, Halloween in Britain has gone from being a totally American and utterly un-British (and therefore inexplicable) holiday to being up there in the UK marketing and merchandising league with Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s Day.
 

Even though our stores are now annually full of Halloween paraphernalia, there is precious little cultural knowledge in Britain about the Catholic feasts of All Hallows (or All Saints) and All Souls celebrated on 1st and 2nd November,  or of the European traditions, superstitions and amusements that preceded them on October 31, known as All Hallows’ Eve – or Hallowe'en…

Those who would like to understand more about the origins and multi-faceted accretions that comprise the dark festival of the turning year can look them up in on-line or on-shelf encyclopedias...

But, if you'll take my advice, you'll, instead, hitch a ride with the mysterious Mr Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud in The Halloween Tree.

First published in 1972, this is an autumnal conjuring trick by that literary magician, the late Ray Bradbury, with haunting tombstone-black-and-white illustrations by Joe Mugnaini.

The cadaverous Moundshroud leads a group of youngsters on a frantic time-travelling jaunt through the “deep, dark, long, wild history of Halloween,” beginning within the shadow of the Halloween Tree…

The pumpkins on the Tree were not mere pumpkins. Each had a face sliced in it. Each face was different. Every eye was a stranger eye. Every nose was a weirder nose. Every mouth smiled hideously in some new way.

There must have been a thousand pumpkins on this tree, hung high and on every branch. A thousand smiles. A thousand grimaces. And twice-times-a-thousand glares and winks and blinks and leerings of fresh-cut eyes…

By wing and kite and broomstick they fly on the winds of lost centuries from the darkness of the cave before the discovery of fire, via the rituals of Druid England with its scythe-wielding October God of the Dead, to the gargoyle-encrusted towers of Notre Dame; from the bone-and-mummy-dust tombs of Ancient Egypt through the Grecian Isles to the City of Rome and away to South America and the candles and sugar skeletons of El Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead...

It is a journey that memorably explains how light and darkness, faith and fear have shaped a festival now more widely celebrated than understood…

So, maybe when the little terrors come around knocking our knockers tonight, we should slip a copy of Mr Bradbury's classic into their Trick or Treat bags – then they might know why they were doing what they were doing and, if nothing else, at least it wouldn't rot their teeth!

Re-reading The Halloween Tree is an annual invitation to allow a bony finger to stir and prod among the leaf-mould and mummy-dust of my memories...

I travel back in time thirty-seven years...

It is 1980 and, after six years of corresponding with Ray Bradbury, we meet for the very first time when I interview him at the offices of his London publishers.

The book that I take with me on that occasion to ask him to inscribe is the first UK edition of The Halloween Tree...

Six years later, I am in Los Angeles and we meet for lunch in a restaurant on Rodeo Drive. Ray is there first and has has a Halloween treat awaiting me.

Under the napkin by my plate is a book...

It is an American edition of the The Halloween Tree with a new, macabre cover design It is inscribed with a golden Halloween Tree drawing by the author, studded with grinning pumpkin lantern stickers!


No wonder this book has always been special to me...

In 2006 came another gift from Ray Bradbury: an e-mail in which he recounted a short history of how the Halloween Tree came to be planted and how it grew and put forth its unique autumnal fruits...

The Halloween Tree came about because I had lunch with [legendary Bugs Bunny animator] Chuck Jones forty years ago; he had just become a new friend.

The night before, an animated [Peanuts] film - The Great Pumpkin - had been on TV. My children disliked it so much that they ran over and kicked the TV set, along with me, because the whole idea of the Great Pumpkin supposedly arriving and then not arriving was incorrect to me. It was like shooting Santa Claus on the way down the chimney!

Chuck Jones and I agreed that we didn't like The Great Pumpkin, though we did admire Charlie Schultz, the cartoonist, very much. Then Chuck said, "Why don't we do a really good film on Halloween?" I said, "I think we could. Let me go home and bring something."

So I went home and brought Chuck a large painting of a Halloween Tree that I had painted down in the basement with my daughters a few years before.

Chuck took one look at it and said, "My God, that's the genealogy of the holiday. Will you write a screenplay on this?" I said, "Yes, hire me!" So Chuck Jones and MGM hired me to write a TV script called The Halloween Tree.

Several months down the road, MGM decided to turn its back on animation, so they closed their unit and fired Chuck and me. I had nothing to do then so I took the script and wrote the novel of The Halloween Tree.

Later I wrote a second script for the final animated film, which was done by Hanna-Barbera a few years later, for which I received an Emmy Award for the script.

About three years ago I produced Something Wicked This Way Comes at a theater in Santa Monica and on Halloween night my biographer, Sam Weller, drove me to the play and then home again at around 10:30 at night and on the way, in four different yards we saw that people had placed pumpkins, real ones or papier mache, lit with candles in trees in their front yards.

Now, there are Halloween Trees beginning to appear all over the United States and I realized that with my story and that picture that I painted down in the basement with my daughters more than forty years ago, I've changed the history of Halloween in the entire country.

I've discussed this with the Disney people and suggested that they invite me to Disneyland on Halloween night and put up a tree full of papier mache pumpkins and have me there to turn on the whole thing. They would make themselves and me part of the future history of Halloween because no trees existed forty years ago – they began to appear only after my book and my film.

The Disney people haven't reacted so far because, I believe, the notice is very short. If we don't do it this year I'm hoping that Disney will invite me out next Halloween and initiate the birth of the Halloween Tree and the history of the holiday.

It's been an interesting experience for me and it thrills me to think that 100 years from now there will be Halloween trees all across our world...

Happily, from 2007 onward, Disney have honoured Ray and his Halloween Tree in Disneyland.

And here's what it looks like...

A few Halloweens ago, I acquired a new reminder of Ray and his Halloween Tree: a signed artist's print by Joe Mugnaini, bought in 2015 from the sale of Ray's estate.

I love the stunning design: the sweep of Moundshroud's great bat wings, the cadaverous features, the way in which he powers his way across the inky crosshatched night sky blistered with stars...

Devotees of the book may be surprised to notice that Moundshroud is flying from right to left, when in the published book, he flies in the opposite direction.

Alas, too late now to ask either Joe or Ray why the orientation of the picture was altered, although one answer might be that, in the book, having him fly towards the right-hand page-turning made more sense as it carried the reader towards the next part of the story...

Well, that, at any rate, is my theory!

Inevitably then, tonight, my thoughts will turn to my late, dear friend.

'Trick or Treat, Ray? ––– What do you say?'


You can read more about Ray Bradbury and his books in my profile of him The Bradbury Machine.

You will also find many pages of information about the author and his work on the excellent internet site, Bradbury Media.

And, if you haven't heard it already, here's a radio programme I made in 1998 featuring an interview with Ray – Encountering the Illustrated Man...

Some parts of this post first appeared on blogs from a few years ago.

STILL LIFE: ALL HALLOWS' EVE

 

TIME TRAVAILS

I know many people loath our twice-yearly clock-changes, but for me it is simply frustration at the fact that, right now – TODAY – I have absolutely no clear idea what the time actually is! 

 

Our flat has quite a few clocks (there's at least one in every room – except the loo!): but whilst some, for example those on computers and phones, change automatically, others do not: the clocks on the oven and the central-heating thermostat; the glass fish-shaped clock from Venice in the bathroom; my Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs clock in my office area (signed, I might add, by Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Snow White); the grandfather clock in the dining room that, at this turning-back-time of the year, either has to be stopped for an hour or moved forward eleven hours (with all those hourly bell-chimes!) plus several other time-pieces in various locations. 

 

As a result, the day after the clock change, I find myself wandering from room to room as if from one time-zone to another time-zone. In fact, right now, passing though any door in the flat is like repeatedly going in and out of the TARDIS!

 

 

[Image]

A THOUGHT FOR OUR TIMES...

On the eve of the first ballot to elect the third leader of the Conservative Party (and, by default, Prime Minister) in just over three months, I offer you a remarkable and decidedly uncomfortable poem by Rudyard Kipling.

 

Published in the London newspaper, Sunday Pictorial, 103 years ago – almost to the very day – on October 26th, 1919, it contained the following startling, but strangely apposite, lines:

 

"...the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire..."

 

Maybe we should remember that prediction as the coming week unfolds...

 

***

 

Kipling titled his poem ‘The Gods of the Copybook Headings’, referencing a the type of moral and improving catch-phrases – old saws, proverbs and quotations from The Bible (such as the ones in the lines above) and Shakespeare – that were often printed across the top of pages in British schoolchildren’s copybooks in the 19th century, and which students were required to copy-out repeatedly in order to improve their handwriting and to instill the received 'wisdom' of those maxims.

 

Here, in full, is Kipling’s bitter, invective-laden warning…

 

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

 

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

 

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

 

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

 

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

 

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

 

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

 

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

 

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

 

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

***

Readers interested in the origin of Kipling’s sources for the ‘copybook headings’ (sometimes here – as elsewhere – popularly misquoted) and an analysis and appreciation of the poem, should visit this informative page on the website of The Kipling Society.

A MEMORY OF EPCOT – FORTY YEARS ON...

 

This is the story of something memorable that happened 40 years ago, today…

The invitation was rather grand…

It was also unexpected.

Of course, I knew the event was happening and I also knew that my friend, the science fantasy writer Ray Bradbury, was going to be there…

Incidentally, I love the proprietorial way in which Ray refers to Spaceship Earth as his building! With justification, of course, for he had helped create the journey through a history of communications that was recounted to guests riding its interior.

I was in Florida, making a BBC radio documentary about the soon-to-opened EPCOT Center. Earlier in 1982, I had spent a couple of weeks filming in both Florida and Los Angeles for another EPCOT-centric documentary – this time for BBC TV's 'Everyman' series.

The plan had been that I and my producer, Norman Stone, would return with a crew to film the finished project when the park debuted in the October. In the intervening months, however, the BBC ran out of programme funding and were unable to send us all back to Orlando to capture the opening ceremony and the necessary wrap-up interviews with our contributors.

Disney offered to fly us out and take care of us, but since such a gesture might be thought to compromise the independent editorial voice of the BBC, the Corporation declined. Norman, it was decreed, would have to make the trip alone and work with a US film crew.

Then, while in Florida during EPCOT's preview weeks, making my radio programme (separate division, separate funding), Disney in true fairy-godmotherly fashion waved a magic wand by telling me that I was going to be invited to the opening events as their guest and the BBC, with an example of dubious (but gratefully accepted) reasoning, argued that whilst it would have been unacceptable for Disney to fly me out to cover the opening, if – 'as a guest' who just happened to be there anyway – I chanced to meet up with Norman and his US film crew and was able to record a few interviews (unpaid, of course!) then honour would be satisfied.

And that is what happened.

Which is why, on 22 October 1982 – against all expectations – Ray and I found ourselves chatting in the shadow of his wonderful, iridescent Spaceship Earth and I came away with a now treasured souvenir of the occasion...

Later that evening EPCOT was closed to the public for the black-tie Spaceship Earth Gala Party. The press contingent (of which we were, nominally, a part) were not invited to this posh bash, but were, instead, bused off to enjoy an evening at the well-known Orlando night-spot, Rosie O'Grady's Good Time Emporium –– except, that is, for Norman and I…

Through the generosity of the friendships we had made with the folks at Disney Imagineering, we were handed that posh invitation at the top of this blog…

There was champagne and food and there was music from some of the all-time greatest American dance-bands: all of which meant that the celebrity guests had more than enough to occupy them during the evening without actually riding Spaceship Earth which, for most of the evening, had empty cars spiraling up through its geodesic structure. That was when Norman and I bumped into Ray and his daughter, the late Bettina Bradbury.

Two meetings in one day –– wonderful!

"Have you been on Spaceship Earth?" Ray asked excitedly.

Well, yes, of course we had – a couple of times, in fact.

Ray looked totally crestfallen.

"Damn!" he said, "I was going to ask you to ride it with me."

There wasn't a moment's hesitation from Norman and I!

"Of course we'd love to ride it with YOU!" we exclaimed.

And we did. No one else. Just us. Ray and Bettina in the front seats, Norman and I, in our hired tuxedos, behind.

There was Walter Cronkite's narration coming out of car's speaker system, while Ray provided his own unique commentary over the top – adding detail and explanation about why he had chosen this or that moment in the history of communication to be part of the Spaceship Earth story.

Unforgettable!

When a few days later, while waiting at Orlando airport for my flight home, I picked up a copy of Time magazine and was astonished to see a photo of Ray sitting in an airplane. How could this possibly be? Everybody knew that Ray never flew: the man who had envisioned the age of space travel, the man who had written The Martian Chronicles was afraid of flying! And yet, there he was – on a plane!

What had happened was that his cross-country train had been cancelled. Needing desperately to return home to work, he acquiesced to his aviophobia, telling his Disney hosts to buy him an air ticket, give him three double martinis and “pour him on the plane.”

Which they did, as witnessed to in Time magazine with its photo of an air-hostess helping Ray buckle his seat belt and the witty accompanying story:

TIME Monday November 8, 1982

People by E Graydon Carter 

Flushed of face, a little white in the knuckles and after a send-off of what appeared to be one tee many martoonies, Science Fiction Novelist Ray Bradbury, 62 (Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles), nervously strapped himself into his seat.

The master of intergalactic fiction was embarking on his first airplane flight. (He doesn't even drive, a rare feat for someone from Los Angeles.) Bradbury, who set out by train and limousine, was returning home from Orlando, Fla., where he had taken part in the opening ceremonies of Disney's new Epcot Center.

After over 40 years of earth-bound travel, how did he like it aloft? "The stewardesses petted and smoothed my feathers," he said happily. Will he go up again? "No, not often." 

Fast forward to last year’s sale of Ray’s estate at auction. There, among the myriad lots, was a piece of cartoon art commemorating that memorable event with a depiction of Ray enjoying one of those "tee many martoonis" in company with Mickey Mouse!

The auctioneers were unable to give more than the briefest of descriptions. The artist’s signature was, they noted, indecipherable… But not to anyone who knew their Disney names!

The signature reads: ‘X Atencio’.

Veteran Disney artist and Imagineer, Francis Xavier Atencio (left) had designed the ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ nursery sequence in Mary Poppins with its cavorting toys, clothes and furniture; had animated on Fantasia and the acclaimed 3D cartoon, Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom; was one of those responsible for Disney’s brief dalliance with stop-motion animation in the experimental short, Noah’s Ark, and title sequences for, among other movies, The Parent Trap and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones.

Atencio, whose company ID badge simply read ‘X’, went on to do legendary theme-park work for Disney Imagineering: helping to design the Disneyland Railroad's Primeval World diorama and writing the scripts for two famed attractions: Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, for which he also penned the lyrics to their respective theme songs, 'Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)' and 'Grim Grinning Ghosts'.

The surrounding mount is inscribed and signed by some of the senior members of Imagineering team responsible for the creation of EPCOT Center, including Marty Sklar, John Hench, Randy Bright and Pat Scanlon – all of whom had appeared in my BBC documentary and all now, sadly, passed on to the great theme park in the sky...

It was Marty Sklar who had given me the title for my programme – ‘Waltopia’, which had been Marty's playful suggestion to Walt Disney as an alternative name for Walt Disney World.

With so many personal associations, I decided I really ought to give Ray and Mickey a new permanent home! So I did...

[A version of this story was first posted on this blog on 22 October 2015]

GOODBYE, MRS LOVETT AND MRS POTTS

The death of Dame Angela Lansbury is sad news, albeit at the grand old age of 96. Vibrant, elegant, funny, magnetic, impeccably stylish and superbly talented, she was the very epitome of what it means to be a 'Star'. 

On stage, film and television, she created unforgettable characterisations: from the devious maid, Nancy Oliver in Gaslight, her debut role, aged 19, that earned her an Oscar nomination) and Sibyl Vane (The Picture of Dorian Gray) to Mrs. Eleanor Iselin (The Manchurian Candidate, perhaps her finest film roles) and Miss Jane Marple (The Mirror Crack'd); on stage she starred in Jerry Herman's Mame playing Patrick Dennis' wildly unorthodox aunt, an exuberant Mother Rose in Gypsy and the first – and surely the greatest – of the many Mrs Lovetts who have aided and abetted the Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

She gave stand-out supporting roles in dozens of films – musicals, comedies and epics – including The Harvey Girls, Till the Clouds Roll By, The Court Jester and Samson and Delilah and, years later, created the long-running TV sleuth, Jessica Fletcher. 

For Disney she was both the amateur witch, Eglantine Price, in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and the voice of the cosy-comfy Mrs Potts, the talking (and singing) tea-pot in the original animated Beauty and the Beast. 

Angela enjoyed a huge late success when she returned to Broadway and the West End as Madame Arcarti in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit and she made (as it turned out) a farewell cameo as the Balloon Woman in the film Mary Poppins Returns.    

I met and interviewed Angela many years ago now for radio series on Disney and the history of cinema and I hugely enjoyed the encounter, finding her charming, witty, smart and, unsurprisingly, razor-sharp. When I was reckless enough to ask whether the Cockney Mrs Lovett had, perhaps, a kinship with Mrs Potts, she looked momentarily aghast and replied very decisively (even severely): "I really don't think Mrs Potts has anything in common with the accomplice to a serial killer!" Happily, she then laughed and we moved on...

I can also testify that Angela Lansbury was the perfect hostess at dispensing the most English tea-and-biscuits I've ever enjoyed in Hollywood!

 

 

After our interview she signed a cinema lobby-card from Bedknobs featuring Miss Price intoning her magical incantation beginning "Treguna Mekoides...".

As you can see, she inscribed the image: "For Brian, I said What? Love, Angela Lansbury". 

The world is very much the poorer for her departure, but our entertainment heritage is hugely the richer for her having passed among us. 

[Photo of Angela Lansbury and BS by Malcolm Prince]

 

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

Still-life at 03:20 a.m.

A BRADBURYIAN BIRTHDAY

 

Remembering the 102nd anniversary of the birth of this great conjuror of words and imagery without whom we might never have tasted Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy or The Golden Apples of the Sun; might never have been drenched on The Day It Rained Forever; might never have ridden The Toynbee Convector or met The Illustrated Man; might never have witnessed the launching of The Silver Locusts, learned of the dangers of Fahrenheit 451 or been warned that Something Wicked This Way Comes...

 

[Portrait of Ray Bradbury (from the BS&DW collection) by Barnaby Conrad, Jr. (1922 – 2013) was an American artist, author, nightclub proprietor, bullfighter and boxer!]