{"id":695,"date":"2012-01-02T11:15:12","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T19:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoddsmustbecrazy.com\/?p=695"},"modified":"2012-01-02T11:15:12","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T19:15:12","slug":"the-bradbury-befuddlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/2012\/01\/02\/the-bradbury-befuddlement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bradbury Befuddlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Today’s<\/strong> article is cross-posted with Mark Edward’s permission with SkepticBlog<\/a>. If you’re unfamiliar, please go check them out.]<\/em><\/p>\n

This<\/strong> last weekend was Christmas, a time when I usually sit around\u00a0doing nothing but feeling blue. This time was different. My girl Susan\u00a0was coming to visit and the only real plans we had were to go and see\u00a0\u201cThe Artist.\u201d That being planned, the rest of the days off were\u00a0set for winging it and hanging out when and where we felt like going.<\/p>\n

On<\/strong> Thursday morning, I mentioned to Susan that I wanted to remember to\u00a0call my friend Ray Bradbury and wish him a happy holiday. Next day on\u00a0Friday, we drove into downtown L.A. to see the Weegee exhibition at\u00a0MOCA. Leaving at around noon, we made our way downtown and began the\u00a0process of looking for a cheap place to park. We finally randomly\u00a0settled on a spot across the street from Grand Central Market on Hill\u00a0Street.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mark Edward<\/p><\/div>\n

This<\/strong> classic melting pot of L.A. has always been one of my favorite\u00a0places to wander around and watch the bustling activity, grab a quick\u00a0bite and best of all; it lies conveniently a few blocks around the\u00a0corner from the more expensive MOCA district where it has been since\u00a01917. Being a photographer by profession, Susan snaps away at anything\u00a0that sparks her fertile creative mind and after partaking of a latte\u00a0and croissant, we found ourselves outside on the busy east side of\u00a0South Broadway. I chanced to glance across the street and remembered\u00a0(for the first time in twenty or thirty years) the wonderfully bizarre\u00a0interior of The Bradbury Building. I had been there a few times in my\u00a0past and had a connection with the place. Being a fan of the ’60s\u00a0television series The Outer Limits<\/em>\u00a0and having had the privilege\u00a0of a friendship with the series\u2019 producer Joseph Stefano, I knew a\u00a0bit about the strange workings of science fiction writers and how they\u00a0had used the building as a location not only in the seminal black and\u00a0white episode of The Outer Limits: The Demon with the Glass\u00a0Hand<\/em>, (1964) but also countless other productions including D.O.A.<\/em> (1950),Blade Runner<\/em>(1982) and Wolf<\/em>\u00a0(1994).<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> building has an odd background. Some might even call it a\u00a0\u201cparanormal\u201d one. Wiki says:<\/p>\n

\u201cA local architect, Sumner Hunt, was first hired to complete a\u00a0design for the building, but (the originally commissioned Lewis\u00a0L.)Bradbury dismissed Hunt’s plans as inadequate to the grandeur of\u00a0his vision. He then hired George Wyman, one of Hunt’s draftsmen, to\u00a0design the building. Wyman at first refused the offer, but then\u00a0supposedly had a ghostly talk with his brother Mark Wyman (who had\u00a0died six years previously), while using a planchette board (Ouija)\u00a0with his wife. The ghost’s message supposedly said “Mark Wyman \/ take\u00a0the \/ Bradbury building \/ and you will be \/ successful” with the word\u00a0“successful” written upside down. After the episode, Wyman took the\u00a0job, and is now regarded as the architect of the Bradbury Building.\u00a0Wyman’s grandson, the science fiction publisher Forrest J. Ackerman,\u00a0owned the original document containing the message until his death.\u00a0Coincidentally, Ackerman was a close friend of science fiction author\u00a0Ray Bradbury.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Suffice<\/strong> it to say that this building, its history and general noir<\/em>\u00a0demeanor are to say the least: bizarre. I hadn\u2019t made any conscious\u00a0linking between Ray Bradbury and the Bradbury building as we crossed\u00a0the street and entered the cavernous lobby. That could have been\u00a0interpreted by some as a coincidence, albeit a rather weak one. No,\u00a0hang on \u2013 it gets weirder.<\/p>\n

We<\/strong> lingered for a half hour or so and\u00a0took some nice shadowy photos, particularly shooting from one stairway\u00a0landing that overlooks the lobby from the second floor. We left the\u00a0building enchanted with the visual charm of the beautiful wrought iron\u00a0and stone work and quite invigorated by the experience.<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> next day was Saturday, Christmas Eve. We decided we would go and\u00a0see a matinee of \u201cThe Artist.\u201d The film itself is a silent film\u00a0and shot in black-and-white that captures the era when silent films\u00a0began to morph into \u201ctalkies\u201d (1927-1932) and how the main\u00a0characters deal with the rocky transition.<\/p>\n

In<\/strong> stunned amazement, we both sat in awe as a five minute scene\u00a0unfolded in front of our eyes shot virtually on the exact spot we had\u00a0been standing on the second floor landing in the Bradbury Building\u00a0just 24 hours before. What are the odds? Spooky\u2026<\/p>\n

Mark Edward is a professional mentalist who specializes in magic of the mind. He continues to be consulted by the media for his knowledge of spiritualism, psychic fraud and ghost lore.<\/em><\/p>\n

More from Mark can be found at\u00a0<\/em>SkepticBlog<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>TheMarkEdward.com<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This last weekend was Christmas, a time when I usually sit around doing nothing but feeling blue. This time was different. My girl Susan was coming to visit and the only real plans we had were to go and see \u201cThe Artist.\u201d That being planned, the rest of the days off were set for winging it and hanging out when and where we felt like going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,68],"tags":[1430,1431,1432,1433,1434,1435,28,1436,650,1437,1438,1439,1440,1441],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials","category-guest-editorials","tag-blade-runner","tag-bradbury-building","tag-d-o-a","tag-forrest-j-ackerman","tag-george-wyman","tag-grand-central-market","tag-los-angeles","tag-moca","tag-ouija","tag-outer-limits","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-sumner-hunt","tag-the-artist","tag-wolf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}