B-Sides #6: Bill Oberst Jr. on Ray Bradbury

Happy Halloween, everyone! All month long, we've been celebrating #thisishalloween by making our way through Ray Bradbury's classic novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. As a coda to those discussions, friend of the show and award-winning actor Bill Oberst Jr. stopped by to chat with Reed about the work of Ray Bradbury and the one-man stage show about the legendary author which Bill crafted and performs.

Bill, surrounded by Bradbury's work and memorabilia, unpacks what the author's work has meant to him and to countless others, as well as what happens to our culture and our inner life when we lose our poetic spirit, and how we can possibly chart a path to rediscovering it. In shaping and performing a stage show about Ray's life, Bill brings his unique insight to the legacy and interpretation of Bradbury's work, as well as passion for the self-motivation and gratifying work that comes when we learn that "Doing is Being".

It's a conversation of vibrant fandom, about the necessity to do what you love and surround yourself with it, and how to clutch a thread of fragile hope amidst troublesome times as examined through the poignant and inspiring fantastical work of Ray Bradbury.

We hope you enjoy it and we hope you have a very Happy Halloween!