Ray Bradbury had a cool way of coming up with story ideas. He would surround himself with knickknacks, collectibles, junk, stuff, gimcrack, paraphernalia, chattels, and things, and then he would come up with a memory he had of his own life and somehow try to plug one of the objects in the room around that memory. Then he wrote. I always think about that when I go to Van Kleef's in Downtown Oakland, because it's covered in stuff like boxing gloves, taxidermy, weird paintings, dust, skeletons, a coat of arms, and trophies, all bathed in an amber light with a... More >>>