The Saunterer

Arthur Miller on the importance of politics

    Besides the dirty side of politics, there is, as Arthur Miller saw, a clean, necessary side:

“Politics” need not be a soiled word. Without politics you are consigning yourself to no-politics, and that is exactly what a dictatorship means, a society where the people are barred from having a say in their own fate. If there is to be democracy there must be a political life, which means a process of bargaining, one interest against another. . . . With no-politics nothing moves or can move. We must deal, we must negotiate, we must be prepared to lose a few in order to win a few. “Politics” can and should mean hope and intelligence at work in the human situation of our time. (Quoted from page 51 of Stone Tower: The political theater of Arthur Miller, by Jeffrey D. Mason. The University of Michigan Press. 2008.)

    For a brief biography of Arthur Miller, click here. For a brief biography of Jeffrey D. Mason, click here.

Ray Bradbury on the value of grandparents

    Ray Bradbury wrote this about Samuel H. Bradbury, his grandfather:

    When I was two years old I sat on his knee and he had me tickle a crystal with a feathery needle and I heard music from thousands of miles away. I was right then and there introduced to the birth of radio.
    The following year he had me gather dandelions and put them into the winepress in the basement and I helped him make dandelion wine.
    When I was four he sat me on the floor of the parlor with dozens of three-dimensional photographs of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and the 1920 Chicago World’s Fair. So, you see, I fell in love with World’s Fairs and that helped my future.
    When I was five I helped him light a fire balloon and send it up into the sky. We stood out on the Fourth of July summer lawn and I wept at the image of this beauty going away in the sky.
    My grandfather was a big part of my life and he helped shape my future with the gifts that he gave me.
    (Quoted from the first page of the inaugural issue of The New Ray Bradbury Review, Number 1, 2008. Published by The Kent State University Press.)
    For a brief biography of Ray Bradbury, click here. For Ray Bradbury’s official site, click here. For more about The New Ray Bradbury Review, click here.